Chapter Text
It wasn’t a good morning for Tyler. He sat on the edge of his hotel bed, head hanging low and his favorite black hoodie covering most of his face. He was struggling with his darkest thoughts, he felt like he was Atlas and he had the pressure of the World on his shoulders. He battled himself. This was just another concert, just another repeat, right? Then why was he so emotional? Why was it getting harder every day to drag himself out of bed, to answer the questions the interviewers had for him? Josh had been doing a lot of talking lately, he noticed. Not necessarily because he had wanted to, but because Josh knew Tyler was struggling. He was tired. His brain was tired. His heart was tired. And his body, that was especially tired. But that, at least, could be fixed with some Redbull. They were opening for Panic! at the Disco, and he thought that maybe Dallon might be able to help him get his energy back. Sure, Brendon had been touring for longer, but he felt Dallon and he might be more in tune with what would help him to relax. He got up, feeling more fed up with himself than anything at this point, and left Josh to wake himself up and went looking for Dallon’s hotel room. 306.. 306.. he found it, and he knocked. Unfortunately, Dallon went out for a mid-morning jog, as Brendon would later explain, and so it was the singer who opened the hotel door and let the tortured Tyler inside. Brendon was hardly awake at this hour, much preferring to stay asleep as long as he could before shows, but since it looked like something was definitely troubling Tyler, he fought off the urge to continue sleeping.
“Dude, you look grim.”
Not exactly the cheering-up words that Tyler wanted to hear, honestly. He gave a small shrug and took a seat on one of the hotel beds. “Pre-concert jitters, I guess.”
Brendon took a seat beside him, inexperienced with ‘helping’ people. He usually left that sort of stuff to Dallon, but he figured that he shouldn’t just let him sit there looking all depressed and nervous, so he mentally sighed. “Everyone gets them, it’s nothing to worry about.”
Tyler gave him a look. Talking to Brendon wasn’t really helping at all. He started to get up, “I think maybe I should come back later.”
“Wait, no, my bad. Sorry.” Brendon outwardly sighed this time. “Is it something I can help with?”
Tyler knew that the other man was trying to help, but he was going about it in pretty much every wrong way. He hesitated for a moment before shrugging again and tugging the hoodie around himself a bit tighter, in the way someone would hold to a security blanket. “It’s, uh, Blurry.” Tyler felt odd speaking that aloud but it was the only way he could really communicate the emotional state he was in. Sure Blurryface was just ‘a concept’ or ‘creative marketing’ or whatever they wanted to call it, but calling his fears by a name helped him to get it under control for a while, until recently anyway.
“What about it?” Brendon didn’t really want to admit he hadn’t yet listened through the entirety of the twenty one pilots discography so he hardly understood what that meant exactly.
Tyler gave a short sigh, wishing that just saying that would make him understand and have Brendon give him a magical fix, but that, of course, could never be the case. “Getting up to perform every night, it’s, uh, getting a lot more difficult for me to do.”
“Well you enjoy performing don’t you? Isn’t that enough?” Tyler wavered again. Yes, that should be enough, but it wasn’t. There was that voice in his mind telling him about all the bad things that could happen during one concert, even one song or one transition between songs. Seeing Tyler not answering, lost in his mind, Brendon frowned in thought, what would Dallon do? After a few moments of quiet, he finally came to a decision. “I want to help.” Tyler looked at him again, a bit confused by the outburst. Isn’t that what he was trying to do from the beginning? “I can help, really!” Brendon insisted, a grin coming across his face. “I’m a demon!”
“A what?” He must be trying to screw with him or something. Make him laugh to get his mind off of his anxieties.
“A demon!” He laughed, “I can help get rid of Blurry from inside you.” Tyler gave him another look of confusion, causing Brendon to sigh again. “Really, I am. With your permission I can possess you and--”
“Wait wait, stop.” Tyler put a hand to his head, trying to work through what Brendon was saying. “If it is true, and I’m not saying that it is, why would you just come out and say that? Wouldn’t you want to keep that a secret?” Brendon just shrugged with a grin in response, causing Tyler to sigh loudly.
“I can help you look at it in a New Perspective--” Brendon paused with a sly smile, waiting to see if Tyler caught his joke. Unfortunately, it fell on deaf ears, so he frowned --Dallon would have gotten it-- and continued. “--A new perspective, and figure out a different way to ‘fight’ this thing out of you.”
Tyler gave it a long thought. This couldn’t be true, there aren’t things like demons that walk the Earth. But, at this point, what did he really have to lose? He wasn’t going to get any closer to being rid of Blurry, his fears, by not being open to suggestions, even inane ones. And if Brendon was just joking with him, he’d laugh it off and just wait until Dallon came back so he could get actual help from someone he felt understood compassion a little better. After a little while, Tyler nodded. “What does, uh, the possession involve?”
Brendon’s grin grew wider at hearing Tyler become interested in his offer. “It won’t hurt you, or at least it shouldn’t. It’s like watching from the outside or something. Well, that’s what I’ve heard someone explain it as. You’ll still be you, you’ll see what’s going on and whatever, but you just won’t be able to control yourself.”
That didn’t really sound all that appealing, honestly. Watching himself do things and say things that were beyond his physical control? Tyler supposed he could trust Brendon though. “If you help, can you, er, ‘unpossess’ me when you’re done?”
“Yeah, man, no problem. I can do that for you.” His grin stayed as if it were glued to his face. The thought of being able to have some fun like this again excited him. If Dallon weren’t otherwise occupied, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to do this, so he wanted to seize this chance as quick as he could. “So is that a yes?”
After another moment of thought, Tyler gave another nod. Brendon looked at the clock, figuring he had about twenty more minutes before Dallon returned and he had to be back to normal. That should be enough time to fight off that Blurryface thing, right? He looked back at Tyler and grabbed his shoulders, keeping him steady so he wouldn’t back out now that he’s accepted. Kind of like my own personal contract, he thought.
Tyler didn’t seem to feel or notice anything out of the ordinary. With a while of apparent nothingness, he got worried that Brendon was just screwing with him after all, but suddenly he started to see his vision changing to darkness, as if he were sedated. Before his vision went completely black, he saw a faint purple smoke surrounding Brendon, and what he swore for a moment were two very dark ram horns, barely visible, but there. A strange sensation filled him as he lost all sight. He’d passed out before, and he certainly never had this much lucidity between fainting and waking. He wasn’t asleep, he noted, he was certainly awake, definitely conscious. After a few moments, he could see. It wasn’t quite like literal vision, in fact, it was extremely difficult to describe. He was in the middle of a desert, next to a lush oasis, but it wasn’t hot. It wasn’t cold. It was actually relatively temperature-less. He looked down and he saw his body, he even felt his movements, only it was certainly in his mind’s eye. Not at all corporeal, not his real, physical body.
“Hey,” Tyler jumped at the voice from behind him. He turned around. It felt weird. In front of him stood Brendon... I think? That is, it was definitely Brendon, but it looked all wrong. His face was more chiseled, his skin ashier, and his eyes were definitely not the same color as they were before. The real difference, however, was not his golden eyes or his greyer skintone, but the two seemingly enormous ram horns protruding from either side of his head. He looked the opposite of how Tyler felt in that moment; perfectly composed, even happy. “Nice place you got here, dude.” Tyler gave him his best look of incredulousness, “Didn’t know I had anything to begin with-- am I.. dreaming? Or..?”
Brendon shook his head, giving a toothy grin. “No way, bro, this is your brain! Your mind space! That place you go to when you’ve got nowhere else to go!”
“I wasn’t aware that it was... like, real.” Tyler looked around at the sands and the water. It was beautiful, but it was off. Like a dream, indeed.
Brendon beamed. “Sure is! Anyway, have fun exploring, we don’t have a ton of time, so I’m gonna go find a way to fix you up.” He turned and started to walk away, fading into nothingness, and leaving Tyler totally alone.
Tyler noticed something in the landscape was off, but at first he couldn’t figure out what. He was a little preoccupied with the reality of the situation. He found a soft spot of sand by the water and sat in his usual way when he needed to compose himself. It seemed like he had been there for an hour and his thoughts wandered, wondering if time moved here like it does in dreams, if he’d be there for what felt like days when really it would only be a few minutes. He remembered Brendon saying that he’d see what was going on outside. If that were true, all he got was darkness. I must be sleeping, then, I suppose. At least I really hope so.
After a long while, it occurred to Tyler that.. something still wasn’t quite right. Even though he’d sat and thought for what felt like forever, he wasn’t freaking out. He wasn’t morose, melancholy, or the least bit anxious. That... wasn’t right. If Brendon had fixed all of that, wouldn’t he have come back? Tyler got up to explore, thinking maybe he’d figure out where Brendon had gone if he retraced his steps. But as he looked around, it seemed the whole oasis had shifted, that the plants and the sand dunes weren’t in quite the same places as before. Great. He looked around again for anywhere someone could go. He saw just a ways off what looked like a small hut, and he thought, might as well check there first.
The walk to the hut took a lot less time than he had estimated. Dreams, man. As he neared it, he thought he heard some rustling coming from within. He came slowly to the entrance and peered inside.
Is that... me?