***Trigger warning for mentions of child neglect, internalized homophobia, and a bit of a panic attack.***

Start the song. It's Comedy Show by Heather Hammers.

Josh genuinely had no idea how he didn't burst into tears within the first millisecond of Skye hugging him. Hoppus hadn't even gotten the cuffs off yet, but it didn't matter because Skye was here holding him tightly, and Josh suddenly felt a million times less overwhelmed than he had before.

He hadn't lost his mom today. Not even close. She was right here, and she was reminding him in the single most reassuring voice he'd ever heard, "Everything's going to be okay. This isn't your fault. You're so easy to love, and we're so lucky to be the ones who get to love you for the rest of our lives. We really are. I can't believe I get to be your mom. It's like I get to win the lottery every day for the rest of my life. I love you so much, Josh, and I'm so proud of you."

Josh squeezed his eyes shut and buried his face in the crook of his mom's neck as he listened to her words and allowed his dad to uncuff him carefully. He hugged her back as soon as he could, feeling tears sting at his eyes when she hugged him even tighter once his arms were wrapped around her too. She just kept telling him how much she loved him and how easy it was to love him, and he sunk his teeth into every word so no one could take them away from him.

"Has Tyler been in today?" His mom asked softly, rubbing his back soothingly as she spoke.

"Yeah, he left not too long ago," Hoppus replied when Josh didn't say anything. He must've known Josh wasn't going to have the courage to ask because he added, "Josh told Tyler he doesn't want Laura on his emergency contact list anymore. The three of us decided you should take her slot."

There was no time for Josh to fear potential rejection before Skye was saying, "Can I take care of that before we go home today? I don't want to wait longer than that, especially after yesterday. I don't want Laura getting called in here before we can get everything sorted out."

"She probably wouldn't come anyway," Josh replied honestly.

His mom sighed, rubbing his back again. "Still, we should get this done today so you don't have to worry about her coming in anymore. The whole point of having emergency contacts is to make sure you feel safe during scary situations, not to add more stress. I want you to feel and be as safe as possible at all times."

Josh nodded his understanding, still not releasing Skye. He was starting to feel less overwhelmed with every passing second, especially when Skye held him tightly with one arm while she gently soothed the fingers of her free hand through the hair at the nape of his neck.

"Before I leave, I'm also going to do my duty as a mom and badger you about getting a haircut soon, but I think I've already hogged you for too long. Jack has been waiting very patiently for a very long time to have his chance to hug you, and we decided you could probably use a visit from Xavier right now too. He's very good at figuring out when people need a little extra love and making sure he gives it to them," Skye told Josh softly, her smile audible.

Josh had all but forgotten about Jack and the dog as soon as he'd seen his mom, but a mixture of anxiety and excitement shot through him at the reminder. His heart was practically bruising the inside of his ribcage when his mom released him, stepping aside to reveal a boy with light brown hair, Hoppus's eyes, and the biggest smile he'd ever seen.

Jack didn't hesitate for even a second before running over to hug Josh, smacking against his chest and wrapping his arms around his waist as he squeezed him tightly. Josh hugged him back instinctively, but he was still slowly processing the fact that this little boy already seemed to love and trust him like he was family despite never having met him before. Maybe that checked out though since Hoppus and Skye were Jack's actual parents, and they had kind of adopted Josh now too. He'd been hearing Jack be referred to as his brother for over a month now, but that had always been an abstract thought. Jack was here now as a person, and all Josh could think about was how terrified he was that he was going to let this kid down as monumentally as he had Jordan. Josh had been in the same room as Jack for maybe a minute and a half, and he already knew he didn't deserve to be this little boy's big brother.

"I've been wanting to come see you for so long!" Jack exclaimed excitedly, beaming up at Josh. "Mom and Dad kept saying I could come see you, and then something would come up that would get in the way, so I've been waiting for, like, a bajillion years. It's totally worth it though. I'm so stoked I'm finally getting to meet you."

Josh smiled back at him, hoping it wasn't obvious that he was completely doubting his ability to interact with this child without somehow fucking everything up in some way or another. "I'm stoked to meet you too. Plus you brought a dog, so that's awesome."

It would be an understatement to say that Josh was relieved when Jack released him, laughing as he reached his arms out to the chubby, elderly beagle sitting a few feet away and picked it up when it walked over to him. "His name's Xavier. He's eleven, and he mostly just likes to sleep, follow Dad around the house, bark at the TV, and steal food out of the garbage. You can hold him if you want."

The "if you want" part of that statement was benign though because Josh immediately found himself being handed the dog, who was surprisingly heavy and definitely smelled like garbage. His anxieties were calmed rapidly when Xavier sniffed his arm momentarily before beginning to lick his scarred skin gently. Josh grinned excitedly over at Hoppus as Xavier continued to give the same treatment to his other arm, earning one of the widest smiles he'd ever received from his dad in the entire time he'd known him.

"He smells terrible," Josh informed Hoppus through a half-smile, his face flushing when Skye and Jack laughed at the comment alongside Hoppus.

"He's a garbage dog. He's disgusting, but he's the most disgusting, and that is an accomplishment," Hoppus joked right back at Josh, making him feel a million times less anxious.

Josh scratched behind Xavier's ears gently, grinning when one of Xavier's hind legs thumped appreciatively against his hip in response. "Not trying to be dramatic, but I would definitely die for him without hesitation," Josh decided.

"He'd probably die for you too, but then again, we all would too," Jack replied easily, scratching Xavier's back instead of noticing how hard those words hit Josh.

Tears nipped at Josh's eyes just at the thought of having a family who was willing to sacrifice anything for him. He loved the Hoppuses so much. He needed them to know that. It was absolutely crucial that they knew they were one of the few reasons he was still here on this earth and would continue to be for the foreseeable future. He just didn't know how to tell them that without increasing his risk of losing them, so he was forced to keep it to himself.

"Did Tyler bring you another present today?" Skye asked Josh warmly.

Even if Josh would never admit it out loud, he was incredibly comforted by the way his mom's eyes lit up whenever she mentioned Tyler or his visits to the prison. She was very clearly a fan of his, and it was nice for Josh to know that both of his parents supported his friendship-or whatever this was now-with Tyler.

"No. He didn't think they'd let me keep anything while I'm on watch, which is technically true. Dad's letting me keep a pinecone in my cell right now though, so I'll be okay for a while until I can go back to my normal cell," Josh informed her as he sat down on the floor and allowed Xavier to sit on the ground in front of him.

Jack immediately sat down across from Josh, petting Xavier as well once he had very carefully adjusted his sitting position to mirror Josh's perfectly. "So Dad always says this is none of my business, but I'm just curious, is Tyler your boyfriend or just your friend?"

Somehow, it seemed like those kinds of questions would never stop feeling like a bucket of ice water had just been poured over his head. Tyler did feel like a best friend to him at this point, but sometimes he felt like more than that too. Just the thought of admitting that out loud made Josh taste blood and feel overwhelming anxiety about whether or not he was going to lose this family too.

Hoppus seemed to be anticipating such a response from Josh because he immediately told Jack, "Hey, buddy, tell Josh about your class pet."

While Jack seemed taken off guard by the abrupt change of topic, he still informed Josh, "We have a guinea pig named Chester. He's really cute. We all take turns bringing him home on the weekends, so sometimes he stays at our house. Xavier doesn't mind him, so he can run around my room sometimes. It's too bad your birthday's in the summer or else you could meet him when you get out."

When. When Josh got out. It was almost always an 'if' whenever one of the Duns brought up the idea of him being released from prison before he was too old to really have any life left to live. The possibility of Josh rotting inside of this building didn't even seem to cross Jack's mind. That meant more to him than he could really say.

Josh gently stroked the soft fur on Xavier's back as he swallowed down the lump in his throat and requested-just as he would of Abbie, "Describe him to me."

"Like, what he looks like?" Jack clarified, smiling he excitedly at the invitation.

"That too;" Josh confirmed, making Jack's smile widen.

Jack seemed to consider his response for a moment before informing Josh cheerfully, "Well, my teacher adopted him specifically for our class. He wasn't a baby when the school year started, but he was kinda small still. He's grey all over, like dark grey. We almost named him Raisin, but too many kids in our class think raisins are gross."

"Because they are," Josh confirmed, not quite sure where the confidence to joke along came from but making Jack laugh anyway.

"Exactly!" Jack agreed excitedly, looking so much like Hoppus when he smiled like that. "We named him Chester instead because he stole a Cheeto out of a kid's hand once and ate most of it before we could get it out of his mouth. He's a fast runner. He got really sick from it for a little while, but he was okay eventually."

A smile tugged at Josh's lips too. "I knew a kid in juvie who was behind bars because he had people pay him in Cheetos to hack webcams and shit. He was obviously a mega-creep, but now that I think about it, he did kind of look like a guinea pig."

All three of the Hoppuses laughed at that. Unlike his birth mother would, nobody chastised him for telling a younger person something about juvie or for swearing. They just allowed him to look back on one of the few childhood memories he had that was amusing instead of traumatizing and enjoy it instead of letting it fester until it became another source of shame and regret. Josh was safe to talk about his past here. He was safe to be himself. That blew his mind a little bit.

"Was his name Chester too?" Jack asked through a grin.

"It was Raisin actually." When Jack's jaw dropped, he snorted and told him, "Dude, I'm totally kidding. His name was Paul."

Once again, the room filled with laughter; Josh couldn't help but beam at the sound. It was so refreshing to be surrounded by people who so clearly loved and cared about him after so many years of suffering through complete isolation and discomfort. This was what he remembered family feeling like when he was really little-back when Jordan was a baby. It was disorienting to suddenly feel it again.

He hadn't even realized how much of a hole had been left behind when his parents had stopped having the time and energy to deal with the daily pains of having an anxious kid with a speech impediment. Josh was just now becoming aware of how suffocatingly painful it had been to watch his siblings thrive as he'd slipped through the cracks, entirely unable of asking for help even before it had become an emergency. For the first time, his brain could fully comprehend how desperately he'd needed parents like Hoppus and Skye, who were already treating him with equal love and genuine compassion as they were Jack. They weren't making Josh fight to earn a chance at being treated the way they treated their biological child; they'd made it very clear from the start that they had a never ending fountain of unconditional love that both of their children had equal access to, and Josh believed that wholeheartedly.

"Maybe you and me should get a guinea pig when you get out of here in June, and we can name him Paul," Jack proposed, making the corners of Josh's lips tip slightly upward.

"Yeah, maybe," Josh agreed.

He glanced at Hoppus, who was just smiling lovingly at the two of his sons as they began to bond with one another. Skye hadn't left to do paperwork, still standing beside her husband as she beamed at their children. God, Josh loved them. He was so grateful for them. He was so grateful to finally have parents who made him feel safe again. He wished Tyler could meet Skye so he could see just how good she was at being a mom. He wished she could stand in for Tyler's mom too, filling whatever holes were still left behind after Tyler's parents had neglected him and his mental health in favour of furthering their careers. If Tyler could in any way relate to how Josh felt about his own birth mom, Josh needed Skye to make that go away as quickly as possible. No amount of pain or discomfort seemed admissible when Tyler was the one who was feeling it.

Just like that, a distant hollowness started to creep up on Josh. He still felt loved and supported and unbelievably cared for in the Hoppus family's presence, but his heart ached slightly without Tyler there as well. Having a family again was more than Josh could've ever hoped for, but it still didn't feel complete without Tyler here too.

Josh did his best to hide that nagging feeling from the Hoppuses for the rest of the visit, trying to focus solely on the way Skye looked at him like he was impossible to stop loving, the way Hoppus constantly validated and encouraged him with every word that left his mouth, and how accepting Jack was despite only having known him for fifteen minutes. He hugged each of them tightly at the end of the visit (Xavier included) before allowing Hoppus to lead him back to his suicide watch cell-back to reality.

"Was that too much for one day?" Hoppus asked carefully as he waited for Josh to change back into the familiar dark blue watch uniform.

Josh shook his head as he pulled his orange shirt over his head and folded it neatly, setting it aside before replacing it with a dark blue one. "I'm okay," he replied honestly.

"You seem a little drained," Hoppus noted.

Josh shrugged. "Maybe a little," he admitted. He hesitated before telling his dad what was relentlessly slamming around inside his skull. "Tyler's mom and dad made him raise his siblings for most of his life so they could just focus on their careers without being distracted or weighed down or whatever the fuck. They ignored him when his mental health was bad like mine did, and he didn't have anybody else to help him. He turned out really good and helps other people with their mental health and shit, but I don't get why some people even have kids if they aren't going to be there for them, you know? Why do people even have kids if they're only willing to put in a certain amount of energy before the kid is just too much effort for them? They can't actually expect all of those kids to grow up and be like Tyler, right? At least some of them have to fucking lose it at some point and wind up like me. That just makes sense, right?"

Hoppus seemed momentarily stunned, and Josh couldn't really blame him. For him, this was all coming out of nowhere, but for Josh, this made complete sense. Josh was a fuckup, and when he considered his childhood and the people who'd raised him, he had every fucking right to be, but so did Tyler. How had Tyler turned out so well? What had been different that had saved Tyler from spending the rest of his life in a cell? As grateful as Josh was for whatever that was, he resented it too. He wanted that. He wanted to be a normal, functional, non-felonious adult. He wasn't though, and he never would be. His permanent record would always bear proof of that, and there were six people missing from the face of this earth who would never come back thanks to him. Why did he get to have Hoppus and Skye and Jack and Xavier when Tyler didn't?

Oh god. He knew he was spiralling, but he couldn't stop it. He couldn't even slow it down. He just had to let it hit him full force and hope he could survive the blast. He flinched when Hoppus hugged him, expecting pain and carnage rather than a hand rubbing soft circles on his back.

"I don't have all the answers, pal. I'm sorry. I wish I did. All I can really tell you is that Tyler's always welcome in our home, and you can tell him that your mom and I are always around if he needs us. I'm really sorry for his parents. I can't imagine how shameful and disappointing it would be to realize you'd missed out on a kid like that. I don't want you to be telling yourself that he's better than you or that you don't deserve to be loved as much as he does though. That isn't true, and it never will be. You two had vastly different circumstances, and you're both working hard now to be the best men you can be. That's what matters. You two get to decide who you're gonna be, and I can promise you right here and now that I'll be here to see you through to the end of that. Both of you."

Josh drew in a deep breath, burying his face against Hoppus's shoulder before quietly saying, "It feels nice-having a real family again. It feels safe."

"You are safe," Hoppus reassured him easily. He rocked Josh gently as he promised, "I'm always going to keep you safe. I'm your dad. That's my job."

Josh couldn't help but relax at the sound of those words. "Thanks for being my dad," he whispered.

Hoppus hummed. "Thanks for letting me be your dad," he countered.

A smile still tugged at Josh's lips as he left Hoppus's arms to return to his bed, where he resumed his crayon sketches of all the people he loved and missed. Hoppus didn't comment or tease Josh when he drew Tyler three times in an hour. He seemed to just understand that Josh was missing him despite having already seen him today. Josh tried not to read too much into that. He just accepted that he was using five separate shades of brown and attempting to blend crayon so he could recreate the exact chocolaty shade of Tyler's eyes on the page in this lap. There wasn't much else he could do at this point if he was going to stay sane while he waited for Tyler to come back. He couldn't wait for Tyler to come back.