Warnings: Minor angst, but otherwise complete and total fluff

Word Count: 2637

Authors' Note: We hope you enjoy this chapter! :)

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August 2017 - The Hiatus

You knew this was your fault. You had said the kiss was a bad idea. You had avoided bringing up the topic since it happened. And you were the reason that your relationship with Josh hadn't gone past best friend slash roommate slash boss for the last month.

You grabbed your phone from where it was sitting next to you on the bed and decided to see what Josh was up to. He had been spending most of his days working, meaning that more often than not you were left to your own devices for entertainment. Given the current situation between the two of you, this was both a blessing and a curse.

"Hey, mind if I join you?" you asked as you wandered into the living room. Josh was on his laptop, as per usual, with the TV running in the background. He grabbed the remote and turned the volume down a little before gesturing to the empty space next to him.

"How are you doing?" he asked. His eyebrows furrowed as he looked at the screen.

"I'm doing ok. How's your work going?"

He rolled his eyes, "Tyler wants help figuring out a color scheme for this next era. We have the yellow, obviously, but he can't decide what he wants to put with it. Look at this."

Josh turned his laptop screen towards you, revealing a mosaic of different shades. Your eyes hurt just looking at it for a few seconds.

"Looks like exciting work."

"Yeah, right," he scoffed. "Actually, now that you're here, I think I might take a break from all of this before I get a headache."

"That's probably not a bad idea."

Josh reached over and grabbed his water bottle from the side table and took a long drink. You watched as he did so, trying your hardest not to just shamelessly stare at his lips. It didn't take long for you to start thinking about when they were just centimeters from yours, close enough to feel his breath on your...

"Y/N/N?"

"Huh?"

"Are you ok? You're staring at the ground pretty intensely."

"Yeah, sorry, I was just zoning out."

You wanted to bring up the almost kiss again, but just like every other time you had tried to, your mind went blank and you had no idea where to even start. Part of you was hoping one of these days, Josh would just up and kiss you, but you knew that was unlikely. As long as he thought you still needed time, he was going to wait until you gave him the ok to make a move.

Was it possible for someone to be too nice?

"Hey, do you remember the night of the Grammys?"

You weren't entirely sure where the thought came from or why you had decided to vocalize it, but it was out in the open now. A confused expression crossed Josh's face for a moment before it returned to normal.

"Barely. I was pretty plastered."

"So you don't remember me spending the night?"

Josh turned to you, confusion now evidently written all over his face.

"You spent the night?"

You began to pick at your jeans, realizing how weird this must all sound out of context. It had always been your assumption that Josh was too embarrassed to talk about what happened that night, especially after he heard about the fight with Beau. That was the reason you had always avoided bringing it up, anyway.

"Not on purpose. Do you really not remember?"

"Everything from the after party to the next morning is fuzzy, if I even remember at all. I didn't realize you were even at my house."

You nodded. "You asked me to bring you home because you didn't feel good, so I did. Then when we got to your house you asked me to sit in bed with you and watch some TV and you gave me some of your clothes - which I still have, by the way - so that I could be comfortable and, um." You began to pick at your jeans more aggressively. "You wanted to cuddle with me because it would make you feel better, so I did, and I accidentally fell asleep in your arms. I panicked the next morning and rushed home without telling you, and then everything happened with Beau and he accused me of cheating and I swore that I never wanted to think about that night again. That is, until you told me that everything Beau said was a lie and I realized that night was actually exactly what I needed."

"Why didn't you tell me that happened?"

"I wasn't sure what you remembered and I didn't want to make things awkward by bringing it up. Plus, when Beau told me all that stuff about you using me, it made me feel embarrassed that I would put myself in a situation like that. I just thought it would be better if it was never spoken of again."

"I wish I remembered that night," Josh sighed, rubbing at his temple.

"I used to wish that I didn't," you said softly.

"But not anymore?"

"Not anymore."

Josh reached out and put a hand on your thigh. You slowly looked up at him, studying the features that you had grown to love over the last six years. His arms, dotted with colorful tattoos that hadn't yet existed when you first met, that had held you close on so many occasions. Those chocolate brown eyes with the crinkles at the edges when he smiled that you swore you could stare at for hours. His curly brown hair that you had seen be nearly every color of the rainbow at one point or another.

You were completely, totally, hopelessly in love with Joshua Dun.

"Kiss me," you whispered.

You didn't have to say it twice. Josh's lips crashed into yours, fitting perfectly against your own. Your hands tangled themselves in his dark curls, reveling in being this close to him. His hands wandered from your legs up to your waist, digging slightly into your skin as they pulled you closer. Warmth spread through your body as you kissed him.

It was better than you ever could have imagined.

"I thought you didn't want to rush into this yet," Josh smiled when he finally pulled away. His nose was still pressed against yours, neither of you wanting to be apart from one another.

"You know I run my mouth when I'm embarrassed," you smiled. "Besides, I think six years is more than enough time to wait to rush into something."

"Me too."

Josh kissed you again. It was hard to keep yourself from smiling out of sheer happiness. You no longer had to worry about Josh's feelings. Or your stupid boyfriend back home. Or what anyone thought of your shared interactions.

You had Josh and that was all that mattered.

* * *

You and Josh had spent most of the afternoon making up for lost time, wrapped up in one another as you laid on the couch together. Netflix was playing in the background, but it was just noise to fill the silence as your focuses were only on each other. Cuddling into him, just as you had the night of the Grammys, you looked up into his eyes as he seemingly admired your face. There was no harshness behind it, no ulterior motive, just a gentleness that had always been there. You blushed a bit which caused a gentle laugh to escape his lips, using his hand to brush along the side of your face. He leaned down to kiss you softly once again, humming into it in contentment, before leaning back to return to looking at you.

"Remember when we first met and I said that you had pretty eyes? That was the very moment that I knew I was going to fall in love with you."

Your jaw almost dropped at his confession. "Y-You love me?"

Blinking a few times after hearing your question, as if he were in a trance, he turned pale as a ghost for a few moments and chuckled.

"Well, I wasn't planning on saying it so soon. But... yeah. I love you, Y/N. I mean, I waited for you this whole time, even if there wasn't any hope for me back then. I've loved you from the moment my eyes looked into yours."

Smiling to him as tears brimmed in your eyes, you rested a hand on the side of his neck and pressed your foreheads together to watch him.

"And I love you, Josh. More than I've ever loved someone before."

With that, your declarations were sealed with a passionate kiss that had to have been the best one you've ever received. You mentally kicked yourself in that moment for not leaving Beau sooner and for depriving yourself of Joshua Dun's love for such a long time. This man waited for you. Supported you. Cared about you. Loved you.

Now was your time to make it up to him.

After a bit more time of just gentle touches, kisses, and shared thoughts of adoration, you both decided that you were starving and needed to eat. You got up off of the couch with him and held his hand as the both of you walked into the kitchen together, figuring out what sounded good. The both of you had decided on just ordering in some pizza so that you wouldn't need to make another mess to clean up. Once the food arrived, the both of you were sitting on the couch and watching a documentary about aliens... just for Josh. Biting into the crust of your pizza slice, you looked over to him and saw that he had finished his food as he leaned over and set the plate on the coffee table.

Taking in a deep breath, he leaned back into the cushions and looked over to you with a smile on his face.

"I know that this is random, but do you... have any allergies to dogs?"

A curious eyebrow raised, you slowly shook your head. "Nooooo. Why do you ask, Dun?"

"Well, I've recently been thinking about getting a puppy. Maybe training it to become a sort of emotional support dog for me?"

"I think that's an excellent idea and would be perfect for you! Any idea what kind of dog you want?" you smiled widely.

"Hm... I have no idea. I haven't thought that far ahead. Maybe you and I could go together and find a dog?"

"I would love to, Josh. Anytime."

You nodded to him and set your plate beside his as you finished your food. The both of you may have just started this relationship - if it was even considered that yet - and yet you had absolutely no problem doing activities that were usually set aside for couples living together. You were in deep. You had fallen hard.

"Great! Maybe we can go tomorrow and just look around to see. I want to make sure that I click with the dog before jumping in... as weird as that sounds," he smirked.

With a laugh, you shook your head and looked over his face, pulling your legs in under yourself to get more comfortable.

"No, it doesn't sound weird at all. You're going to have this dog for a long time, so you need to make sure that he or she is the right one for you. I completely get it. When I was a little girl, I had a dog and it's one of the most special relationships you'll ever have. You'll find the right one, I promise."

He watched you for a few moments as you tried to reassure him and smiled lovingly, grabbing hold of your hand. He then brought it up to his lips and kissed the back of it softly, his eyes not leaving yours. Entranced, you felt your heart skip a beat as he did this and then smiled back to him, instantly letting him know that you loved how he treated you. He had already beat out Beau in half of a day.

Pulling away from the kiss, you turned to move and laid your head down on his shoulder as the both of your looked back to the television to watch the documentary.

"Did you have any ideas for a name yet? Maybe something pertaining to Twenty One Pilots or something?"

"Nah, I think that would be a bit too obvious. I kind of wanted to give him more of a human name. I really want a boy, so I've been wracking my brain to think of a good name that was fitting for an E.S.D."

"And?" You lifted your head up to look at him out of curiosity.

"I really like 'Jim'."

"Jim," you thought over the name for a moment. "I like that."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. He'll be our little boy."

"Exactly," Josh grinned.

Slowly, he maneuvered your legs so that they were slung casually across his lap and rested one of his arms against them. The other was wound around you, keeping you close to him.

"Is that comfortable?" he asked.

You nodded against him, moving your arms to wrap around his torso. His body heat was radiating through the thin material of his t-shirt.

"I like that we get to do this now," he said. "Like, cuddling and stuff."

"As if we didn't cuddle before," you giggled.

"Yeah, but now we don't have to think about how wrong it is the whole time."

"That is a nice benefit."

You looked around the room while you leaned against Josh, taking in all the decorations and pictures he had. It was hard not to think about how different it had all seemed at Christmas just a few short months ago. It didn't feel like home, then. Not like it did now, anyway.

"Did you ever think things would be like this?" you asked quietly.

"Like what?"

"Like us, together."

Josh paused for a moment and took a deep breath. You began to run your fingers idly against his side, hoping it would provide some form of comfort.

"I think I always hoped it would be, especially in the beginning. It was harder to envision it happening as time went on, but we had moments here and there that gave me just enough hope to think that maybe, one day, we would have this."

"And we do."

"Yeah," Josh smiled. "We do."

"Why didn't you ever give up on me? I mean, six years is a long time."

"How could I? I knew that I was never going to find someone else like you, Y/N/N. I couldn't even if I tried."

"Thank you for waiting for me," you said, running a hand along Josh's cheek. "I know it wasn't easy for you - or either of us, for that matter - but it means a lot to me to know that I'll always have you by my side, no matter what. I love you so much."

"I love you too."

Josh hooked a finger under your chin and tilted your head up so that he could kiss you again. It only lasted a few moments before he suddenly pulled away, but kept his fingers where they were.

"I just realized," he said softly. "We haven't made anything official yet."

"What? Like you want to make this public?"

"No, no, no," Josh smiled. "Not that I could even if I wanted to. Just, well, would you be my girlfriend?"

"Of course, Josh," you grinned. "I'm your girl."

He kissed you deeply before pressing his forehead against yours. His lips nearly brushed up against your own as he spoke, saying the words you had been dying to hear nearly since the day you met.

"You're my girl."