Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Dude, I’m…I’m not even sure Rollerblading is a real sport.”

He took a long drag of the cigarette, and ended up coughing and yawning at the same time,
so the end of his sentence just sounded like he was about to throw up.

He tiredly flipped the hood of his hoodie up. He coughed again. His name was Josh Dun.

“Whatever man, I-I just want to get out of here…why are we still here anyways? I want to sleep.”
said the other hooded figure, he yawned and put his arm around Josh.

His name was Tyler Joseph. And, he just wanted to leave this place.

Tyler didn’t usually want to leave places; he loved every part of this city he had grown up in.
From the elementary school with terrifying teachers, to the Burger King parking lot that he was sure those same teachers smoked pot at every night.
He loved every part of this city (also, Tyler could basically sleep anywhere).

This town is not what he’d imagine as a paradise, but he couldn't imagine being anywhere else.

“The sketchy part of the neighbor has the best pizza. What else" -cough- "can I say?” Josh managed to hack out/yawn out/exhale out.

The two black-skinny-jeaned college kids sat on the ground outside a dimly lit Little Caesars at 2 in the morning, attempting to down a Bacon Wrapped Crust Cheese Pizza and some garlic bread.
They eventually finished the greasy excuse for food, (Josh said something about what the pizza would think about Rollerblading as a sport) and the tired and seemingly pizza-and-garlic-butter-logged Tyler Joseph took a minute to stand up.

When he did, he fell back down on to the pizza box.

Josh was almost asleep, but the sound of crackling, cheap cardboard and a small groan woke him from his half-sleep.

"Tyler, I'm not sleeping in your bed tonight if your hair smells like grease."

"S-S...shutupandhelpmeup."

The half-dead pizza covered boy rubbed his eyes and let himself fall limp as the other half-dead (but not pizza covered) boy grabbed him from under his armpits.

"'Ay, you always smell like nic-nicotine, so why...should my grease offend you?"
Tyler shook his damp, bacon-flavored hair into Josh's face, and Josh gagged and continued to throw his arm around Tyler's shoulder. He began mentally preparing himself to either walk Tyler back home, or drag him.

Chapter Text

Tyler Joseph’s cell phone had fallen into the kitchen sink disposal.

This was only a minor setback, as the only contacts he had were Little Caesars and Josh Dun.

And, he only had 24 followers on Instagram.

Tyler rubbed his eyes and stood in the kitchen doorway, watching Josh sleeping on the gross couch in front of the TV. It was a gross couch because of all the food stains (mostly bacon-wrapped cheese pizza grease), aggressive cuddling/jumping, and frequent moving it around the room because it was never in the exact right place. Well, at least, according to Josh.

Tyler looked back up to the TV before turning it off, Josh had been watching an episode of Gravity Falls.
'I really hope I don’t wake him up,' he thought to himself, 'he really deserves some good sleep'.

Neither Josh, or Tyler, had been able to get much sleep lately, job interview after job interview, and then constantly waiting by the phone while doing community college work. Tyler’s Office Depot job and Josh’s mom occasionally sending money in was all they had.

Tyler worked part-time at the Office Depot about five blocks down from their house, but he usually took the bus. Especially coming home from work at 10am, it was pretty scary to walk alone.

When Tyler couldn’t afford two tickets for getting there and back, Josh would take the bus one way and walk with Tyler back.

Tyler slowly opened the door to the small bedroom right next to the kitchen. It was the only bedroom in the tiny apartment, and it only had space for a twin size bed. That was okay with both of them. What wasn’t okay with them was that the gross couch was actually more comfortable than the bed. It also didn’t have a frame.

It was just a mattress.

On the ground.

The half-awake twenty two year old pulled his skinny jeans off and sat on the side of the bed.

'Is this all there is? There’s got to be more.' Tyler picked up the alarm clock on the bedside table and stared at the glowing red 1:12am on the clock. He had a job interview in about four hours. Nice.