flower crowns and other neat stuff - joshler

part 2

the morning went by in a flash of introductions and textbooks. he'd met a couple of other people who knew pete, like some tall guy named dallon who he sat next to in biology. in art, a boy with greasy black hair (who was apparently mikey's older brother) walked up to tyler and said, "you're the new kid pete adopted, right?" which was an interesting conversation that ended in mikey's brother (gerard) sitting with him.

in no time at all it was lunch, and tyler was standing in the cafeteria with no idea of where he was going to sit. he stood by the doors looking confused for a couple minutes until pete rolled up to him (via heelie. seriously, somebody stop him) and said, "tyler! come, join the rest of the not-a-squad!" before dragging him off to a table with several other people.

he recognised most of them. brendon was draping himself all over dallon, who was ignoring him in favour of the french fries on his plate. gerard was playing with a short guy that tyler hadn't seen before's hair. mikey was talking to an even shorter guy that was wearing a fedora and somehow getting away with it without looking like a complete douchebag.

when pete got there, he cleared his throat, grabbing the attention of everyone sitting at the table. "everyone, this our newest squad member."

"it's not a squad," mikey said distractedly before resuming the conversation he'd been having with fedora guy.

pete rolled his eyes and sat down on top of the table, tapping the empty space on the bench that he should have been sitting on instead of the table (was he raised in a barn??) with his foot. "you go there. that's your assigned seat now." tyler raised an eyebrow at him.

"there are assigned seats in the cafeteria?" he asked skeptically. pete shook his head.

"nah, only at this table. we're special," brendon interjected lightly.

the short guy next to gerard coughed something into his fist that was obviously "pete's a control freak." tyler hoped he wasn't trying to be subtle. if he was, it didn't work.

pete ignored him and pointed to fedora dude. "tyler, that's patrick. he's small. patrick, that's tyler. he's new." patrick shot tyler a friendly smile. he seemed nice, like the kind of person who radiated puppies and hugs.

pete pointed to the other short guy. "tyler, that's frank. he's small like patrick. unlike patrick, he has a lot of anger pent up inside of him. frank, that's tyler. he's-" "new, got it," frank interrupted.

"also, don't believe pete. i'm adorable. right, gee?" frank asked the dark haired boy sitting next to him. gerard nodded, blushing scarlet as frank pecked him on the cheek.

tyler blinked. "is anyone at this table single other than me?" patrick raised his hand. "i am. we should start a club," he said, highfiving tyler.

dallon snickered. "you can spend your meetings writing songs about your sad singleyness and braiding each others hair while crying."

patrick rolled his eyes. "neither of us have hair long enough to braid, that obviously wouldn't work."

brendon smirked before saying, "maybe you should grow the sideburns back. then tyler could braid those."

patrick narrowed his eyes before

saying,"don't talk crap about my sideburns, beebo."

"he didn't actually say anything bad about the sideburns," gerard protested.

patrick glared at gerard for a second. "he was thinking bad thoughts about them, though. i sensed it."

dallon giggled. "his sideburn senses were tingling."

patrick nodded in agreement. "exactly."

tyler squinted at patrick, trying (and failing) to imagine him with sideburns. "you had sideburns?" he asked, still staring.

pete took out his phone and scrolled for a minute before showing the picture of patrick, fully equipped with sideburns to tyler.

tyler's jaw dropped. "wow," he said. patrick nodded. "i know."

more lighthearted conversation followed, involving frank and pete arguing about which way was better to date. ("mikey's so tall! and glasses! and mikey!" pete had argued. "gerard gives me sharpie tattoos. and he's soft. and he's gerard," frank countered.)

eventually, though, tyler began to feel like he was being watched. he turned around and saw a boy with bright red hair look away quickly. he was alone at his table, and looked like the poster child for 'rebellious teenager' with his heavy makeup, dark clothes, and the expression on his face screamed 'angst'.

tyler already liked him.

he nudged mikey, who was sitting to the right of him. "who's he," tyler asked, nodding towards the redhead.

when mikey saw who tyler was asking about, his eyes widened. "that's josh dun. you should stay away from him."

tyler's eyebrows scrunched up. "why?" he didn't really support excluding and ignoring people without good reason. he's had enough people do it to him before and it wasn't cool, so he wasn't about to go doing it to some innocent guy because someone he'd known for a couple hours said to.

pete butted in by saying, "dude, josh dun is scary as shit. he once knocked a guy out in like, three hits. and he looks like he's about to snap someone's neck at any given moment. you don't want to mess with him, trust me."

tyler rolled his eyes. "i'm not gonna mess with him. i just felt kinda bad, because he's all alone n' stuff."

"because he's scary!" pete exclaimed exasperatedly.

a heavy sigh came from gerard. "are you guys seriously going on about that josh dun guy again? i'm sure he had a perfectly good reason to give that guy a concussion. and a broken wrist."

"i heard he had a cracked rib, too!" frank chimed in.

tyler rolled his eyes. it was probably just a ton of rumours. that's the way stuff like that always went.

he knew his new friends meant well, though, so he decided to just leave it be. "whatever, man," he said.

the conversation moved on, but tyler's mind was still on the red headed boy at the empty table.