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—1993—
It’s a hot summer night in San Diego. The relatively quiet ambiance of suburbia should’ve been the only noise in the neighborhood, but inside the DeLonge household, Tom is busy listening to his parents fight from the other side of the wall.
Although it’s a common occurrence, this time they argue about Tom misbehaving… again. Staying out past curfew and drinking with his friends. He hears them discussing how sick of him they are, and he thinks to himself that the feeling is mutual.
It’s only every other time he gets caught that they actually bother to try to ground him. Try to set boundaries and expect him to follow their rules—but they always wind up forgetting about them anyway, so what did it matter?
It’s out of anger, resentment and disappointment, that Tom sneaks out of his house.
As he walks down the empty sidewalk, he stares up at the vastness of space. The stars, the galaxies, the planets just out of his reach. He knows in his heart that there has to be more to life than this. But how would he find it? He wants to leave—leave behind everything and just start a new life. He’d travel the world over if he could and maybe somewhere out there he wouldn’t feel so unwanted.
For now though, Mark’s front porch light is the only beacon he can see.
“I fucking hate it here.” Tom says, now an age old complaint that Mark has heard only a few hundred times before. He hardly bothers to entertain it anymore, but this time he counters back.
“Where do you want to be?” Mark questions him.
“Anywhere else.” Tom says.
The room is almost completely dark as they both lay in Mark’s bed, staring at the ceiling with that feeling of longing for something more.
“Are you scared of the future?” Mark asks apprehensively, and Tom shakes his head.
“Not really.” Tom says rather confidently, knowing Mark is constantly concerned about fucking up his life in one way or another. It’s a feeling that Tom never really felt—after all, if you start at the bottom, you can only go up. Still, he wants to comfort him. “But you don’t have to be worried,” he says, “you’ve got the whole college thing going on if the music doesn’t work out.”
Mark hums in his throat, taking in Tom’s attempt to soothe his nerves. “What about you?”
Tom smirks, “Well, I was going to be a firefighter.”
Mark turns to look at him, “No shit?”
“Yeah, firefighting is pretty badass.” Tom says, sparing him the details about his time in the San Diego Cadet Program. “But fuck that, I want to be a punk-rock star.” His eyes widening with excitement, “You’re rich and you get to do drugs and bang all the chicks you want.”
He watches as Mark’s face lights up with a bright smile, echoing his own enthusiasm.
Then, just for a second, he feels the hurt in his stomach dissipate. It isn’t the same as leaving forever, but it is a reprieve.
The same way music was a reprieve. The way drugs and alcohol were a reprieve. The way Mark felt like one too.
Mark’s eyes fell slightly, “It’ll all work out, right? We’ve got each other’s backs?”
“Yeah.” Tom says without hesitation.
A silence between them hangs in the air. Neither of them know what else to say or do. It isn’t awkward or heavy, but there is just a hint of sexual tension Tom couldn’t quite explain.
Mark smirks, “This feels like the part of the movie where we’re supposed to kiss.”
Tom laughs and playfully pushes him. “Nice try. But I’m not going to kiss you.”
“Why not?” Mark asks back with the same playful inflection. Tom pauses, looking down at Mark’s lips, watching them briefly before smiling again.
“We’ve got to wait for the right moment.” Tom tells him, and Mark nods, pretending to understand.
But Tom pauses in his own head, thinking of his joke and whether or not he really would kiss Mark. If he dug down deep enough, he had thought about the idea of being more than friends with him, but he always had something else going on that seemed more important to worry about.
Plus, Mark would always be there. There was time for him to figure it out.
So maybe he would kiss him—when the moment was right.
—1994—
Tom breathes a long held sigh of relief as he finally opens the door to his new apartment in Encinitas. It’s the first time since he can remember that he feels free. He can actually sleep peacefully without the sounds of his parents fighting with each other or yelling at him. The tension is gone and he has his own space now.
The first night is almost scary. He isn’t used to the quiet. He sits up in bed and thinks about how hard it’s been to get to this point and he knows he has so much further to go.
He looks out the window to the stars twinkling just out of his reach, but somehow they feel just a little closer now, and he wonders what else is in store for him.
—1995—
It’s a late night, playing in a shitty club to a bunch of drunk and drugged up kids while the toilets in the bathroom overflow and it smells like shit. But his crappy punk rock band is playing as loud as they can to give themselves something else to think about.
It’s after the show that Mark comes to Tom in a panic, telling him he thinks he took something he shouldn’t have and he’s freaking out. He says he’s going to float away from Earth if he doesn’t hold on. Tom envies the thought, but sees his eyes are wide with terror and he takes him home with him.
Mark refuses to let go of him and Tom brings him with him to sleep in his bed.
“Tom?” Mark speaks to him, and Tom is doing his best to fall asleep.
“Yeah?”
“Am I going to die?”
Tom considers telling him that everyone dies eventually, but he knows that would terrify him so he just reassures him.
“No, you’re not going to die.”
“Okay.” He says, sounding only half convinced.
Tom sighs and tries to go back to sleep before he hears him again.
“Tom?”
“What?”
“Hold my hand.”
Tom furrows his brow, “Why?”
“Because I don’t want to fall off the planet.”
Tom sighs again, grabbing his hand but Mark takes it a step further and turns his whole body so he’s hugging him. Tom can feel Mark’s heart is racing and his breathing is quick, but after a few minutes it settles and he thinks he’s finally fallen asleep until he speaks again.
“Tom?”
“Hm?”
Mark pauses, nuzzling into his neck and collar before he mumbles softly, “I love you.”
Tom feels a pang of guilt through him. He assumes he means it platonically… because he doesn’t know what he’d do if he meant it any other way.
Tom places his hand on Mark’s back, “I love you, too.”
—
While it seemed like a one time occurrence, it wasn’t the last time Mark needed Tom with him after he got too drunk or too high.
Tom has a date planned one night. He takes a shower and spends too long looking at himself in the mirror, anxious but hopeful that it will go well.
The doorbell rings and his heart jumps into his throat at the thought she arrived about 3 hours early, but he sees Mark standing there instead.
Tom doesn’t know what to do other than let him in to hang out for a while. Maybe he’ll help settle his nerves.
Mark asks him if he wants to pregame the date a little and Tom, growing more nervous as the clock ticks, agrees.
It doesn’t take long for them to both get more wasted than they had planned and Tom has to call his date and cancel because he’s too drunk to drive.
They order pizza and Tom is irritated, regretting the fact he let Mark fuck up his night.
“Dude, I didn’t mean to ruin it for you.” Mark half-heartedly apologizes, but there’s something about the way he says it that makes Tom wonder if he did it on purpose.
—1996—
The next time it happens, they’re on tour in Canada. Tom had just fallen in love with a girl back in San Diego and Mark has a girlfriend now too.
They spent the whole day driving through a winter storm as they trekked across the Great White North. It’s one of the worst storms to hit the country in 40 years.
When they finally get to their hotel, the show they’re supposed to play that night is canceled and they’re stuck in a cold hotel room in the middle of Quebec City with nothing to do. Scott leaves out of boredom, while Mark and Tom try to figure out how to buy porn on the TV—only to find the cable is out.
“This fucking sucks.” Tom says defeated, tossing the remote across the room.
Mark is huddled up in the bed with blankets around him.
“Come into the igloo.” He says jokingly, “It needs more body heat.”
Tom smirks, kicking off his shoes and getting in the ridiculous amount of blankets Mark has buried himself under. They both cuddle up to each other for warmth as the sun goes down outside and the sound of the heater kicking on every 5 minutes fills the air.
“How do people live here?” Tom thinks aloud, but Mark just shrugs.
Tom wonders if they’re far enough north to see the Aurora Borealis, but he’d be the first to admit he didn’t want to venture outside and look.
He thinks about how San Diego is the opposite of this place, hot and sunny and inviting. He thinks about his girlfriend and how he hasn’t spoken with her in days. He misses being with her, but at least he’s with Mark, if you could compare the two—a conundrum he was struggling with day by day.
He’d gotten the feeling that Mark was unhappy that he was seeing someone, and Mark had just found a girl out of spite. But he couldn’t call him out on it, because it was really just a feeling he had.
That was until they’d been cuddled up with each other for almost 30 minutes and Mark and he were more or less on top of each other, trying to stay warm when Mark buried his face into Tom’s neck like he had a year ago. Only this time they weren’t high or drunk—there was nothing Mark could blame his actions on other than his own devices as he pulled Tom closer and started kissing his neck.
Tom froze initially, unsure what to do at the sudden intimacy between them. He had had confusing thoughts about Mark for a while now, and he knew Mark had had them about him too. He tried to ignore it, but his intuition knew better.
After a minute, he realized he hadn’t stopped him or said anything and the intimacy between them continued below their waists.
Somehow the relationship between him and Mark seemed like its own entity. Like it wouldn’t affect either of their romantic lives outside of it, so it didn’t even cross his mind that they were both seeing other people when it happened… it just sort of came to be.
When it was over, neither of them knew what to say or do, so they both were quiet, yet they stayed right beside each other under those warm, cozy blankets.
—1998—
Tom doesn’t know what to think about his and Mark’s relationship as the years go by. Sometimes it’s intense and sometimes it’s not. Sometimes they’re too busy and sometimes they’re too drunk. Tom doesn’t know if Mark is gay—but he doesn’t really care. Mark’s a cool dude. What Tom does know is that Mark isn’t comfortable being out or whatever, so he keeps it quiet and just between the two of them.
Things only get more complicated as they date women and the lines get blurrier between them. Eventually Tom meets his future wife and Mark is alone.
Mark writes Adam’s song and the second Tom hears it, he knows he fucked up. He doesn’t know how to make it better. He wonders if there’s too much damage done between them and the emotions inside of him are boiling.
It feels a lot more like love than it ever did before.
He knows he loves him—wholly and completely. He wants to make things better, but he’s never been able to fix anything before… and it feels like all he’s ever done is make things worse. But what are you supposed to do when the guy who is in love with you, writes a song about wanting to kill himself because he feels alone?
Tom looks up at the stars and asks them the questions that are burning the tip of his tongue. Can you love two people at once? Or are you not fully in love with either? Is it all or nothing?
But the sky is quiet.
And before he knows it, Mark is at the door.
Mark is on top of him.
After they’re through, though he’s not completely certain, when Tom wraps his arms around him and Mark buries his face in his neck, he’s pretty sure he hears him crying.
—2001—
It never goes away. The urge to leave when things get too tough. He messes up so fucking much—just like he’s messing up now, staring at the bottle of painkillers in his hand. He’s about to mix them with weed and alcohol because he doesn’t know what else to do.
None of them are inherently evil. They all serve their purpose. The painkillers for his post-surgical back pain, so he can not be in miserable physical agony. The weed so he can relax his mind from all the troubling thoughts he’s having. The alcohol so he can just forget when it gets to be too much. However, it’s when he combines them that things start to get murky. For once in his life there is silence where there was always hurt.
He knows better. He knows. But it’s in that fog that smothers the hurt inside of him that he is finally able to rest.
For 4-6 hours.
Because it never goes away forever.
And even in that fog, he sees himself as a the fireman he almost was, rushing into a burning house, searching everywhere for something until he finds himself—a little boy crying in his childhood bedroom while the room is filled with smoke.
—2004—
All they do is fight anymore. So much so that there are times he hears his own dad’s voice coming out of him.
He hears what Mark is saying.
He hears the songs Mark is writing.
Another night with her, but I’m always wanting you.
Mark wants to be with him, but they’re both too wrapped up in their own separate lives that it gets too complicated and they’re both away for too long and things go to shit all around them.
He finds out Jen cheated on him, because he’s never around. He wants to be hurt by it—and he is, but he feels he deserves it for what he’s been doing for years. But isn’t he justified then? To do whatever it is he wants if all trust is lost anyway?
There are no stars in the sky on that rainy night in Paris when he finds a reprieve in Mark. The same reprieve he found so many years ago when he was running to Mark’s house to get away from his parents.
But by then, it’s already over; and whatever it is they had is gone. He knows he has to leave and be with his family. He has a wife and a kid and he made a vow to be with them.
Even as he is the one making the biggest decision in his life to leave behind everything he worked for, he feels just as alone as the people he’s abandoning under that empty sky.
—2006—
When he hears how badly his absence affected Mark, he realizes how he fucked up again. At the same time, his own marriage emulates the break up and somewhere along the way he gets too used to taking too much.
He never was a firefighter, but maybe he should’ve been, because then he would’ve died a hero instead of a pathetic drug addicted musician who ruined his own career for nothing.
And after realizing how bad things are around him, he tries to get sober. Maybe that’ll fix it. And for a while it helps, but at the heart of the problem is still that same little boy in a burning house.
Even though he’s fucked up again and again, maybe there’s a reason he’s still here? Maybe he actually does have some greater purpose.
—2009—
It’s after Travis’ near-death experience that Tom comes back. Maybe everything will be okay this time. Wrongs will be righted and he can fix it.
In a grander scheme, he thinks about time. And maybe he is doing some kind of mental gymnastics to save himself. But he wonders if time isn’t linear—it’s parallel. And everything is happening at once and it’s infinite. He’s starting to believe this is true, but is this a purpose? He’s not even sure.
He thinks about how he’s back where he started. Things are supposed to be the same as they were before… but they’re not. And maybe time isn’t parallel, because he feels each and every minute before it and each one is more painful than the last as he and Mark argue—just like the good old days.
He wants it to be the way it was—the way things used to be. But it’s not the same. When Tom comes to Mark’s hotel room late one night, drunk off his ass looking for things he could only find yesterday, he finds Mark is rough and angry. Mark knows what he wants—he knows what he likes and he uses it against him, and at some point Tom has to admit that his actions have repercussions too.
This is his fault.
Mark, who was once tender and sensitive, is now angry and bitter.
And in a dream, Tom sees himself with a book of matches and a can of kerosene outside of Mark’s old house years ago.
—2016—
Eventually, Tom leaves again because it gets to be too much.
Things aren’t the same. It’s too hard to stay sober while on tour and his brain got too fucked up again.
“Tom DeLonge fucks up again” the headline would read—and this time it hurts in the way his childhood trauma used to, but now it’s his own doing.
But it’s not entirely true.
He has other things going on, he can justify. He’s actually doing something important beyond soothing the mental anguish of millennial youths through crappy punk rock. He discovered the potential for life in other universes. That’s pretty fucking important, and it occupies his mind for most of his days…
But it’s at night when it’s coldest and he’s sleeping a room away from his, now separated, wife, that he remembers a cold night in Canada with Mark and he’s craving his touch like he hasn’t felt in years.
He is able to make a few phone calls and gets to see Mark on the release day of the new single he wrote with Matt Skiba. His replacement. Tom would say he was jealous, but he knew what going back to all of it meant. Matt didn’t have the history Mark and he did.
When Tom sees Mark’s eyes, they’re bluer than he remembers. His heart sees him as a piece of him that’s been missing. He hopes his own eyes convey his emotions accurately, and with a softness Tom hadn’t seen in years, Mark looks back and echoes his sentiment.
This time it’s softer and a little clumsy, but Mark holds Tom like he never forgot.
He could never forget.
But Tom wakes up alone in the bed the next morning as he hears the door to the hotel room latch as it closes, and he can’t help but notice the chill up his spine, reminding him that it’s cold again.
—2019—
More years pass and Tom stares at his phone.
The words “I miss you'' are typed with a flashing cursor proceeding them as Mark’s name and number sit at the top of the screen.
With a glide of his thumb, he backspaces and sets his phone down on his chest, exhaling with disappointment.
He gets up and walks across the room, looking out the window at the moon and takes a breath. They’re both under the same sky.
Somehow Tom finds that comforting.
—2021—
When Tom finds out Mark is sick, his whole world comes crashing down around him.
In a nightmare, the roles between them are reversed and Tom is in Mark’s shoes. Tom yells at Mark for leaving him. He’s angry and furious with him for replacing him with other projects. New bands. New bandmates. His family… his wife.
He’s yelling at him from the empty hole in his heart.
But Mark won’t talk.
He won’t speak.
“Say something!” Tom yells at the top of his lungs on a foggy hillside, “Anything!” He begs.
But a gravestone is all that stands in Mark’s place.
Falling to his knees, Tom is broken and sobbing. The hurt inside him is the worst it’s ever been.
He’s mad at him for doing to him what he did first.
—
It never goes away—wanting to leave when things get tough. But this time is different. Mark is sick and Tom has something to prove. This time he’s determined to stay when it’s hardest.
So when Mark calls him the next day and Tom is still living in the shiver of his epiphany, Tom tells Mark he’ll do anything for him. Anything at all. Because he wants to fix it and now, after everything, he thinks maybe he can.
He knows he needs to run into the fire this time.
He needs to be with him.
And it’s a late night in the studio in Mark’s house when they’re finally alone together again. Tom is lost in his thoughts as Mark approaches him. He wraps his hand around the neck of Tom’s guitar and lifts it off his lap, setting it aside.
Tom doesn’t understand at first, but he sees Mark’s eyes are glossy. He sees the reflection of the stars in his tears.
He stands to meet him.
His hands trail up Mark’s arms and remembers back to that hot summer night in San Diego where he laid in Mark’s bed when he was 17. He remembers what he told himself about waiting for the right moment.
And even though kisses between them in the past were both confusing and cold, when he presses his lips to his now, there is warmth and certainty. The kind of kiss he should’ve given him 30 years before.
This time the stars were right there in front of him and he would never let them go.
And for the first time in his whole life, Tom didn’t want to run away. He’d finally found a purpose and a place where he was wanted.