🌃 as you need: jackson + tyler. // @tylergparker·
the nice thing about late chicago nights was that they were still pretty, but you didn’t have to share it with so many people, like you did during the daytime. jackson was a bit selfish that way, wanting to savor the sky in all of its wonder, taking in its vastness with little distraction. the park jackson frequented during the day somehow seemed more intimate in the dark, the lampposts illuminating and kissing his skin. without the rush of cyclists or seasonal sports teams, without distractions, jackson could take in the expanse of the field, how the grass stretched out like a salt water lake. currently, he was laying on a worn out blanket, looking up at the sky with so much awe. he smiled upon the stars, and the stars smiled upon him – an endless love affair. next to him was tyler. in a sense, jackson and tyler were strung out in a galaxy of their own, light years from everyone else. they’d come together like the moon landing, a combination of something extraordinary and ambitious. when he took his eyes off of the dots in the sky to glance at tyler, he couldn’t keep the fondness out of his smile. he liked tyler. liked the way her tongue curled around her words and how she was always ready to supply a new witty remark. conversation was always so easy between them, blending and merging together and just flowing without any effort. it was so easy to go from everything to nothing, and even the silence wasn’t too bad because jackson could feel the warmth radiating from the smaller woman. she was something familiar, and welcoming, and jackson was grateful for any time they were able to scrape together. like the park’s lampposts, the sodium wash of the street signs painted tyler in a soft glow. a new light.
a heavy weight seemed to rest on jackson’s shoulders. he had so many questions he needed to ask tyler that were left unanswered, and he just wanted to know. he needed to know was probably more accurate, for the uncertainty was slowly – though definitely – feeling as if he was being eaten alive. try, jackson’s inner guide whispered to him. you said you would try. a moment passed before he sat up from the blanket, a shaky breath leaving his lips, trying desperately to rid his body of the furious butterflies and trepidations. “can i sing something for you?” he asked softly and sweetly, his voice still low for no apparent reason. it was more intimate that way, he felt. they were the only two in the park, but with a quiet tone, it was more secret, more sacred – like for once, they weren’t the collective ‘tyler and jackson’ that seemed to be observed beneath a microscope. instead, they were allowed to be themselves, cloaked in the security of the darkness and the seclusion, which perhaps what was coaxing jackson to become more brave. “i wrote this for someone i care about and i need an opinion,” he spoke quickly, calloused hands daintily placed on his thighs, “what do you say?”
There was something about night time that never failed to make Tyler feel more comfortable somehow. Like the darkness and the late hour, or the way that things were quieter, calmer sometimes, depending on where you were. The park with her best friend was currently where she was, so there was no real way that girl couldn't find a sense of ease, a sense of comfort in that. She liked to be outside, liked looking at the sky - being so far from the ocean it was the next best thing - so laying on a blanket to have a star gazing moment was a great idea. More than that, though, was how happy she was with her company. Jackson had come with a sense of warmth from the moment that Tyler had met him. It had just proven to grow as time went on, that warm feeling that she got being around him. Tonight certainly was no different. Even if things did feel a little different for Tyler in the last handful of weeks. She'd known for months just how much Jackson meant to her, just how much she really felt for him, but it seemed one thing after another in the last stretch of time was testing her ability to keep her damn mouth shut. But for what, it was a common question ringing through her brain within the last several days alone. Why are you still keeping your mouth shut? She thought she knew why, or at least she had for a long time now, but that didn't seem to feel the same kind of correct anymore.
Hearing the shift of Jackson beside her shifted Tyler's gaze from following cloud that moved over a star she'd been staring thoughtfully at. There was a curious look in her gaze as her head lulled in his direction. His question confused her slightly at first - he didn't usually ask to sing for her, it just happened, that was normal. She was about to answer, but then he continued, he said that. Somehow it felt like her stomach had dropped uncomfortable and her heart had leapt up and lodged itself in her throat at the same time. 'I wrote this for someone I care about and I need an opinion.' The words looped and circled and twisted in her brain; some kind of hurtful broken record. Fuck, you really blew it, didn't you? "Yeah, 'course, Jay." Were the quiet words that actually left her mouth, however. And despite the fact that a million things were running through her head, despite the fact that her throat felt tighter than it had seconds before, she managed to actually keep her voice level, believable. As if she was any sort of okay listening to a song he had to have written for somebody else. Tyler shifted from laying on her back to sit up to give him her full attention - whether it was going to fucking suck to do that or not, she wasn’t going to suddenly stop supporting Jackson and his talents like she’d been doing for so long. Shuffling her legs up, her arms circled around them, chin falling against the top of one of her knees as her eyebrows lifted subtly. "Let's hear it, baby."
