Tried & Untied.
an excerpt

A/N: The italics didn't translate from WordPad to this little field, and I can't be arsed to go through and add all the tags. There should be emphasis on things in there that isn't. I imagine it won't completely ruin it, but you know. It's just kind of annoying. So that's all.

It was late when he reached Winnipeg, nearly midnight, and he searched briefly for a hotel. In fact, he would probably settle for a motel, because he wasn’t interested in spending a lot of money on a room he would only use for one night’s sleep. He found one after less than twenty minutes of looking that seemed suitable—not too seedy, but no frills either. It would do fine. The benefit of a staying in a less-than-5-star establishment was that it had generally proven pretty easy to bribe the clerk to let him bring the dog in with him. A perk, he suspected, of late night travelling and the general air of not caring that went along with such average accommodations. And so it went: he paid off the night clerk and he brought Archie into the room with him, and the two spent a restless night (at least on Josh’s part) in a slightly grimy, very smoke-stained motel room.

His thoughts wandered from place to place, rarely stopping for more than a few moments and rarely making logical turns. The one thought that recurred over and over again was that he was alone. He had nobody left, save for the dog that slept loyally at his feet. He knew all too well, though, that even Archie could be taken away from him. It had almost happened, in the mess of things. The dog was strong though, and determined, and faithful. He had survived—and so had Josh. It was a small comfort, however, when he considered what he had lost.

He didn’t toss and turn, he lay on his back in the bed and he stared at the ceiling and thought of things that made his heart hurt until he was too tired to keep going and he drifted into fitful sleep.

***skip a while ahead***

There must have been a blizzard overnight, because the snow on the ground had easily reached four feet high and was still falling. In a moment of painful realization, something occurred to Josh-- in order for him to get the car out of the drive he was going to need a shovel, and in order for him to get a shovel he was going to need to head into the city. He was stuck. He was snowed in. The snow wouldn't melt for a while, if it would melt at all before the spring. More likely it would stay on the ground and get higher and higher and eventually eat his car whole, and then he would never make it into the city. Although realistically that would never happen, it seemed terrifyingly plausible at the time. The fact of the matter was that the snow was high and he knew that he would run out of food before the first thaw came. Pacing at the window, he thought of his options-- well, he hadn't needed to drive in nearly two weeks anyways, so it shouldn't be a big deal. But being trapped was not good. Being trapped did not bode well with him. It's doubtful that entrapment is a pleasant feeling for anyone, but for Josh in particular it brought forth all kinds of thoughts and memories and feelings. Flashes of what happened. Flashes behind his eyes, and in front of them, and then he was running blindly to the back door and throwing it open (and thank God the deck was high enough above the snow that he could open the door at all). Then he was running out and into the snow, wearing nothing but his flannel pants and a t-shirt and a pair of socks. But right away-- right away, it was instant-- his breathing slowed and his vision cleared and he saw the pines and the morning light that peeked through them. Then he was able to breathe deeply and put his hands in his hair and laugh a little, and wonder how this place had such a hold on him-- how it took simply a few breaths of the air here to clear his head; to slow his heart. A few deep breaths later, he shivered as the snow melted under his feet and seeped into his socks, and headed back toward the cabin. The cabin-- which was now refuge, where three minutes ago it had been prison. He laughed softly again at his own instability, even though he knew it was only funny in a very deranged sort of way.

***skips very very very far ahead***

"What?" said Josh. "It's not... okay?" His face was flushed even from what couldn't have been much more than a minute-long kiss, but that also could have something to do with the sinking feeling in his stomach that was intensifying with every second that Alex looked at him like that.

Alex wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked at the floor for seconds that dragged on and on and on. "Sleep on the couch," he mumbled, and then turned and walked down the hallway to his bedroom.

Josh stared after him, confusion puddling in the front of his brain. He sighed and sat back down on the couch. He held his own face in his hands, ran his fingers through his own hair, but it didn't help. Because now he'd had a taste of him-- and not in a metaphorical sense; he'd had a real genuine taste of Alex, and he wanted more. Should he not have kissed him? It was obviously what Alex had been aiming for, and he'd certainly reciprocated, but then he'd pulled away. And then he'd left the room without an explanation, and the guilt of potentially having pressured Alex into something that he may not have actually wanted started to set in. Because Alex was decidedly straight, and even if Josh had had his moments where he'd thought it might not be all so one-sided, that didn't mean he was right, because Christ, when had he ever had to make a decision about a relationship like this? He always just sat back and let things take their course. Things didn't seem to be running themselves this time at all though, and it was in that moment, in that burst of intense bravery that he stood and stormed across the hallway to Alex's room and threw the door open. Alex was sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at the floor again, and his head jerked up as the door flew open.

"You can't just do that. You can't just... You can't... You kissed me back you asshole, you didn't even... I can't..." Josh trailed off, and wondered vaguely why he hadn't actually thought of something to say in his mad rage to the door.

"Fuck, you can't even form a sentence, you know that?" Alex echoed his thoughts.

"YES! Yes, I know that, that's the whole fucking point, don't you see? I can't speak around you! I stammer, and I drop things, and you know that I like you, and you just, you brush my hand and you sit too close and you kiss me back. What the hell?!" He was livid, and talking with his hands, and seeing stars and five other metaphors that he couldn't even think of. He thought he might pass out from the pent-up emotion and frustration that was leaking out of his heart and working it's way up to his mouth and forming real live words and saying them in such a proper sequence that they were almost coherent.

"Alright, just listen to me. Can you try and understand how terrifying this is for me? I'm straight for the first 24 years of my life and now all of a sudden there's this kid who shows up and we're friends and then I start getting these more than friendly ideas... Just, it's terrifying, so shut up. Well no, don't shut up, but just... you kissed me. And then I kissed you back. Can you see how it's terrifying?"

Josh laughed. He laughed because he thought it was more than that-- that there was something to worry about. But there wasn't.

"I don't really know what the shit you're laughing at, because I really don't think there's anything funny." Oh, and how Alex was pissed. Josh walked to the bed and sat down on the edge next to Alex, who chose again to stare at the floor. He said quietly, "I feel like I'm thirteen years old. Except I was never this awkward when I was thirteen. I was very... bold. And brave. And... intrepid."

"I had to go through it too, you know. When I was thirteen, actually, so don't expect me to throw you a pity party or anything," he laughed. Alex didn't. "Alright, listen. You are still the brave, macho man you were when you were thirteen. You're much more so, because... I don't know, because you've already established yourself and your life and it's all going the way you wanted it to, and this kind of throws you off track. So for you to face it head on like that... that takes a lot. So don't question your... intrepid-ness. You did say intrepid, didn't you? Where the hell did that even come from? All I can picture is you driving a really bad car." And then Alex did laugh, and Josh felt the proverbial tension lifting from the space between them as he turned and smiled. "And I feel awkward too. It's never going to stop feeling awkward. And I don't imagine that it's any different whether it's with a girl or a guy, you'll always question yourself and wonder. Isn't it like that with everyone? Isn't every first kiss like that?"