drown (joshler)

part seventeen

tyler's surgery had been a success. the tumor had been removed with no remnants of the cancer. tyler was to undergo five weeks of chemotherapy in order to prevent the cancer from returning.

things were looking better, it was early march and tyler didn't feel alien anymore. josh could see him without a mask now, too.
"hey ty," josh said as they sat side by side on the bed. he watched tyler write.

"when's your birthday?"
tyler didn't hesitate and kept writing as he spoke. "sometime in december i think. i don't know, we never really celebrated it."

josh furrowed his brows and thought for a while. "can we make a new one?"

tyler stopped writing and looked up at josh. "what do you mean? a new birthday?"

"yea," josh said, avoiding eye contact. "you don't have to. i'm just saying like, what if we made it next week or something?"
"
id like that, josh." tyler said and josh smiled.

"monday?"

"sounds good."
---—---—---—
tyler started his chemotherapy last week, and it was already hell. he was almost completely bald, his chocolate locks confined to a patchy buzz cut. josh said he was just as beautiful as he was before he started his chemo but tyler strongly disagreed. whichever wigs the hospital provided were of cheap quality and made tyler feel worse about himself, for some reason.

josh collected information about tyler during the time they spent together. he didn't like hard candy, he loved to read, he loved sweaters and flower crowns, which josh didn't really know about at the time but tyler really loved them. tyler talked about having this band, he thought of the name, twenty one pilots, when he was reading all my sons by arthur miller. he told josh about his old 'band mates', who would get together every thursday and play music.

they were gonna have an album together, the three of them. the other two members left, though, for college. that's when tyler stopped playing, too. he had been perfecting the ukelele when he stopped.

josh knew exactly what to get tyler for his birthday. he wandered the music shop, looking for the perfect ukelele for tyler.

an old man with kind eyes and a brown apron walked up to josh. "can i help you, sir?"

"yea actually," he said, turning around to the old man. "id like a ukelele."

the old man smiled and gestured to the back of the shop. "do you play?" he asked as the rummaged around the back.

"no," josh said, watching the old man pull out some strings from a wooden box. "its for my boyfriend. he's in the hospital, and his birthday's coming up."

"what's the boy's name?" he asked as he tuned a beautiful, dark brown wooden ukelele.

"tyler," he said as he watched the man engrave T Y L E R onto the back. "sir i don't have much money to pay for this."

"what'd you say the boy has?"

"lung cancer, he's in chemo right now." josh shuffled his feet.

the man sighed. "i lost my husband to brain cancer," he said, handing josh the ukelele, a tuner, and a book. "i know what it's like. free of charge."

"i can't thank you enough, sir. i want to pay you." josh felt guilty, the shop was in bad condition and the man could probably use some extra cash.

"if you want to repay me," he said, looking josh in the eye. "take care of that boy to his final moments, whether it's in ten days or thirty years. take good care of that boy."

"i will, sir. i do my best." josh said.

the old man waved josh to the door. "have a wonderful day, son."

"thank you sir."

a/n; i have started to double space my paragraphs so if you want to, you can leave comments per paragraph. thanks for 100 reads!