"This is my life now. I have climbed this hill and now I will die upon it."

"Shut up. We've only been hiking for twenty minutes."

Tyler groaned in displeasure and put on a fake cry as he reluctantly continued slogging his way towards the distant opening where the two of you planned to camp out.

You turned to the boy behind you with a pinched expression. "Let's not forget; this was your idea."

"When I said that we should camp out, I was thinking more along the lines of in the backyard; not the top of a mountain!"

"It's not a mountain. It's barely even a hill," you corrected. "And I used to come to this place all the time when I was younger. You'll love it, trust me."

Tyler let out an overly dramatic sigh and followed behind you as you led your way to the clearing.

After another twenty minutes, which consisted of several complaints and constant nagging from Tyler, you arrived at your destination. Even though you hadn't visited the site in years, it still looked precisely how you remembered it; the location brought back fond memories, and sent a wave of nostalgia through you, making you smile as you reminisced about the good times you'd spent there with your family.

"Finally," Tyler huffed, sighing in relief as he tossed his backpack onto the dirt ground beside him.

"You're such a weakling," you taunted, resting your hands on your hips as you watched Tyler, who was thirstily slurping at a bottle of water while trying to regain his breath. "That wasn't even a proper hike."

"(Y/N), my body isn't equipped for such things. You know this."

"Oh, but you can scale a twenty-foot structure without a problem?"

"Vertical twenty-foot structures."

You rolled your eyes and returned to reminiscing. A familiar tree caught your eye and you gave a small smile as you approached it, running your fingers along the letters that were carved into its bark.

"(Y/N) (Y/L/N)," Tyler read aloud as he appeared next to you, wincing a bit as he rubbed a stitch that had formed in his side. "When did you do this?"

"When I was eight," you chuckled, thinking back to that night. "It was the fifth time, I think, that my parents brought my brothers and I up here. And at that point, we kinda felt like it belonged to us. So (Y/B/N) thought we should make sure everyone knew." You pointed at the other side of the tree, where two other sets of names were – your brothers'.

"Wow," Tyler said in amazement. "I didn't know that being territorial ran in the family." He gave you a sly smirk, and you knew that he was referring to the hickeys you'd regularly leave on his skin.

"Shut up," you muttered under your breath as you punched him lightly in the shoulder, avoiding his gaze out of embarrassment. "Sun's gonna set soon, we should get the tent set up."

Tyler sniggered at your clear embarrassment and turned to follow you back to where your bags were, helping you remove the tent poles from its holder.

Ten minutes later, the sun had almost disappeared on the horizon. Tyler was relaxing in a camping chair, taking occasional sips from a can of soda he held in his hand, the other draped casually over the arm rest.

"Perfect," you beamed happily, brushing the dirt from your clothes as you stood up and took a step back to admire your handiwork.

"It looks great, angel!" Tyler yelled out.

"Yeah, no thanks to you," you scoffed. "You were no help at all."

"Hey, I told you, I'm no good when it comes to this sorta things," he said defensively.

"You could've helped at least a little bit."

"I tried! But then you told me to... I'm not gonna repeat what you said because it wasn't very nice," he pouted, moving to an upright position.

"You almost impaled me with a tent pole!"

"Which is why I'm better off over here!"

"Ugh, whatever," you groaned. "Grab a jacket and a flashlight, we're going exploring."

~

The sun had long set, and the moon had taken its place, casting an eerie glow around the surrounding trees as you and Tyler strolled through the forest.

Tyler was distinctively on edge, not at all a fan of this particular activity, afraid that a wild animal might emerge from the proximate darkness and attack, or, even worse, a supernatural being would appear.

"It's kinda creepy out here..." Tyler whimpered, scooting closer to you.

"Aw, are you scared?" you teased. "Does baby wanna go home?"

"Screw you," he hissed.

"At least I'm not a coward," you retorted.

The two of you walked in silence for a little more, the only sounds coming from crickets and from Tyler's laboured breathing.

"BOO!"

Tyler screamed like a five-year old girl and dropped his flashlight, sprinting back towards the campsite, screaming all the way as you doubled over in laughter.

It took you significantly longer than it should have to get back to the campsite, considering that you carried on laughing all the way back, the picture of your boyfriend's terrified face still fresh in your memory.

When you did eventually saunter into the clearing, Tyler sat huddled near the fire, evidently unimpressed with you. "You're a world-class jerk, you know that?"

You attempted to cease your laughter as best you could, but seeing Tyler sitting on the ground, glaring up at you with narrow eyes, you couldn't help but let out another string of giggles, which made him even angrier.

"I'm sorry, Ty," you cooed, reaching out to hug him, but he rejected you by swatting your hands away. "But you're just too easy."

Tyler didn't respond, and instead shot glares your way every two seconds.

"Would some s'mores cheer you up?" you asked, holding up bags of marshmallows and chocolate.

You giggled as his eyes lit up and he scrambled to his feet, running to find some sticks you could use. You opened the bag of marshmallows, chocolate slab and packet of crackers and began decanting them into containers as Tyler returned, two long sticks in one hand and his ukulele in the other; the prospect of him playing a couple songs by the campfire brought a huge smile to your face.

Three hours, ten s'mores and lots of ukulele playing later, your eyes started to droop as you leaned on Tyler's shoulder, arms linked as you huddled against him while he continued strumming and humming along softly.

"That's a nice tune, Ty," you purred, nuzzling against him.

"Thank you, (Y/N)."

"Is it for the new album?" you yawned, fighting to keep your eyes open.

He shrugged. "Maybe. It's just something I'm messing around with. I like it a lot, but there's something that's wrong. Or missing. I don't know. But I'm hoping that the more that I manipulate it, it'll eventually click. And then-" he stopped when he looked down at you and saw that you had drifted off during his ramble. It didn't bother him, though. You were his number one supporter – well, behind Josh, of course – and he knew that you would've listened and showed interest like you normally would, if you were able to stay awake.

He chuckled and leaned down to place a kiss on your forehead before going back to strumming.

"Sleep well, angel."

~

"Got everything, angel?" Tyler called out to you as you stood examining the carved tree with narrowed eyes.

"Yeah, everything's packed," you responded, taking a step closer to the tree and running your hand over the engraving. "Tyler?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you do this?"

"Do what?" he asked innocently.

You pointed at the tree.

"Nope. Wasn't me," he said casually, gathering all the bags and starting down the path back to the car. "You coming or not?"

You scoffed incredulously as you watched your boyfriend disappear down the hill. Turning to the tree again, you ran your fingers over the bark one last time as a smile played on your lips before turning to catch up with Tyler, the image of the words carved into your mind.

(Y/N)(Y/L/N)

loves

TYLER JOSEPH

_______________________________

Thank you for reading x