Night fall comes quickly.
Their routine is the same as before, quiet polite conversation flows between them. Josh doesn't stop asking him if he's okay, if he needs something. Tyler's okay. He doesn't need anything. They eat on opposite ends of the fire and Josh's face gets hit with the smoke more than once but he doesn't move. Tyler assumes it's his pride.
He's tired, his body aches, he's mentally exhausted.
When they both start yawning and sleepily trying to stay awake, Josh decides to put out the fire. It's small at this point so he ends up using a bucket of water to put it out. Tyler stays and watches this time so they can go in the tent together.
Josh is shutting it closed once they're safely inside. There's an unspoken tension about who's sleeping where tonight but Tyler is already gravitating towards the mattress and sitting down. "I'm so tired." He yawns. "Considering we barely even did anything."
Josh nods and starts going through his things, back to Tyler. "By next week you'll probably be full of energy. You just need to get more adjusted."
"You're right." And then he relaxes completely, shutting his eyes, curling in on himself for a moment. Taking what time he needs to recollect. When he looks up Josh is pulling off his clothes, layer after layer, he doesn't notice Tyler's eyes on him, his mind is far away somewhere else, clear in the way his eyes focus on nothing.
Tyler watches, fingers twirling around a piece of his hair.
Watching Josh change isn't something he means to do but once he's looking, he can't look away.
His pants disappear first, they don't reveal skin, but a pair of tight long johns instead, Tyler stares at his crotch for a moment, he gulps. Josh throws his jeans to the side and is quick about the next 30 seconds. For Tyler it feels like 30 minutes, it's all happening in slow motion.
Josh's muscles tense when he pulls his sweater up and over his head, lean hard milky pale skin exposed to the barely there lighting of the flashlight they have pointing towards the sky. Tyler stares, watches as his abdomen contracts, stares at scar on his stomach, watches when he turns around, watches his back muscles flex and stretch. He hasn't been in such close proximity to anyone in too long, it's getting to him.
It's like a show that's only for him, except he hasn't actually been invited. He looks away when Josh turns back around with a thin long-sleeve on, it clings to him like a second skin. "Are you going to change?" He asks, an eyebrow raised, his voice raspy after a long day of talking. "You do have your own clothes now."
Tyler blinks and quickly looks away, fuckfuckfuck. "Oh, yeah. Right, right, clothes.........." He awkwardly trails off and crawls over to the end of the mattress and grabs his bag of clothes. Josh's body is engraved into his mind. His v-line, the thin line of hair trailing down from his belly button. He can only imagine what follows.
Shyly, he turns away from Josh when he changes. Turn-about is only fair but his scars, his fucking scars. even though Josh has seen them, he never wants him to see them again. It's embarrassing, weak. He doesn't want to be weak. So he hides. The fabric of his pyjamas is rough beneath his hands as he pulls them on as fast as possible. He kicks his boots off first, slides his pants down and slides his new sweatpants on.
Eventually he takes off Josh's hoodie for the second time that day and folds it, sitting on his thighs and laying it across them. Just like everything else it smells like camp fire but underneath all of that there's that clear smell of Josh.
