Welcome To The Media (Dylmas AU)

9. Truce

TW: is fighting a trigger warning?

*3 day timeskip*

Dylan's pov

"DYLAN O'BRIEN!"

I jumped back from my laptop screen at the abrupt voice, a wide grin spreading quickly across my face. Immediately my exhaustion from the past few days faded, replaced by a familiar warmth as I met the eyes of my best friend.

"Tyler," I breathed, genuine happiness overtaking my persona. We had finally arranged to video chat, barely working in any time to talk at all with my busy schedule and his long work hours back home. After only communicating with short texts over the past three days, we finally both decided to get up early so that we could talk online. It was six in the morning, five for Tyler, I was cranky, and Tyler looked ready to fall back to sleep. Despite all of this, just seeing Tyler again for the first time in what felt like ages was enough to liven up my smile, removing a weight from my chest that I hadn't realized had existed in the first place.

"How the heck are ya?" he greeted in a goofy accent. I laughed for no real reason, feeling a million times better with each second that passed. He looked tired too, his hair disheveled and parted in the wrong direction, his usually tanned skin looking paler in the early hours of the morning.

"Good. Tired, but good," I said, sending him a lopsided grin. The happy crinkles around his eyes faded slightly, but returned so quickly I may have inagined it. "It hasn't even been a full week and I already feel like falling over in exhaustion."

"Yeah, I wasn't gonna say anything, but you look like shit," Tyler laughed, obviously pointing out the dark bags under my eyes and my sagging shoulders.

My eyes narrowed in offence. "Hey! You don't look so hot either!" I defended. He held a hand over his chest in mock hurt, opening his mouth to retort a comeback. I cut him off before he could say anything, eager to continue to an actual conversation within our little time frame. Not that I wasn't thankful for our comfortable banter, but my time was ticking away quickly, and I wanted to speak about everything I had missed in the past few days. "How's everyone doing at home?"

Tyler's hand fell back into his lap as he shifted slightly in his bed, saying, "Your mom's a mess, your sister is completely fine, and your dad is watching a lot of football."

I smiled. "So...same as usual?"

"Yup," he laughed. "Oh, and your mom told me today that your neighbor stopped by your house. Mr....Gill? I'm not sure, but apparently he gave her a cake and congratulated her for finally shipping you out."

I almost rolled my eyes, huffing out, "Typical." Mr. Gill was my cranky old neighbor, whom had taken a special dislike--no, hatred-- towards me after I accidentally broke his window with a baseball when I was nine. Ever since he was a royal dick to me, though he wasn't really nice to anyone in particular, and inevitably tried to make my childhood as much of a living hell as possible. It was no wonder he was happy I had finally moved out. To be quite honest, I was surprised (and slightly offended) that he had settled on only a cake to celebrate my moving away. Knowing him, I would have expected he would have at least thrown a party.

From there Tyler and I launched into a spiraling conversation, speaking so fast and rushed it was like we hadn't spoken in years. We filled in each other about our daily lives as though we had both been living on different planets, chattering non-stop for half an hour. I told him all about the script readings, the meetings, the inside jokes, and how much I adored my cast. In return, he chattered about his job, his family, and his college classes, somehow managing to make his ordinary life come across much more exciting than my own.