Chapter Text
Tyler didn’t really know where to go. He wasn’t sure if he should go up, or go down, if maybe he should step left and then right. The directions were confusing when all he did was stand in the middle of a line and look around, blinded by dark thoughts and voices he’d shoved in between the tiles of a mental hospital. There was no definition of what left was, or where it would lead, so he would look right, but again, there was no definition and no way to see.
So he simply stood and counted the number of times he blinked, the number of breaths he took. Once the light came up from behind him, he looked back, and found his definition in red hair and worried eyes.
“Tyler?” Josh breathed, voice barely above a whisper. He was wearing his pajamas; an old, ratty t shirt with MCR on it, and pants with penguins on them. The mess that was his hair was the only bright thing in the entirety of the room Tyler had entered, and so he focused on it, eyes narrow and lips drawn tight.
“Yeah?” he whispered back, voice barely audible among the shadows that drew him in nice and tight. Josh licked his lips, looking around the room before reaching for the lightswitch. Tyler frantically grabbed his wrist, yet once he felt Josh’s warm skin he drew back. His hand felt as though he had been stung, and so he stood up straighter in the middle of the room, unsure of where to go.
He could either go forward and find whatever was waiting for him in the shadows. Or he could go left and find the wall, following it until he ended up in the corner. Right was submerged in the shadows like every other way, yet it felt more cold upon his lips when he whispered its name.
Then there was stepping backwards into warm hands and hesitant lips, saying what he wanted to hear and not what needed to be said. There could be fingers in between his own, holding his hand to his chest to feel his heart’s beat instead of Blurryface prodding in his head. And Tyler wasn’t sure if his hand fitted those fingers, stretched wider and wider as he tried to hold himself together.
So he simply stood.
He couldn’t count the stars.
Tyler sat outside of his small apartment, head balanced on his hands as he looked up at the sky. The sun was setting, casting a brilliant array of warm colors across the cool sky in such a way Tyler questioned whether or not he was living within a painting. He hoped he was, because at least things were planned and ended up beautiful, mixing with the water to create beauty within strokes and lines. The lines on his wrist weren’t pretty enough to be in a painting however, so he assumed it was still reality.
But the sun taunt him with possibilities in which were impossible. It was a cruel joke Tyler had learned to laugh along to.
The sun hit the horizon, and he slowly stood up, retreating back into his ‘home’. It wasn’t very amazing, in all honesty. But considering that his dad was in rehab for his drinking issue and nearly drinking himself to death, he had nowhere to go. Josh had offered for him to live in his house with his parents, but Tyler had refused.
He couldn’t handle getting into a fight with Josh and still smelling his body wash in the bathroom where he retreated to hold his head under the water and sing his old songs. Where would he go other than the roof, its height a frightening reality upon the soles of his feet? Would he duck under the sheets that smell like his shirts, or would he hide in the closet, its stuffy walls closing in on him as he hid from his thoughts scratching at the wooden doors?
The solution was that he lived separately from Josh. He could provide for himself with his job at a local music store, a place where he felt safe under the touch of vinyls and the slowly dying CD. Its pay was good enough to get him his groceries, medicine and rent, and so he was happy. Insurance from his mom and dad helped get him weekly therapy sessions, a requirement after being discharged from Tree Pine.
And despite living by himself, having a job and a “boyfriend”, Tyler still struggled with the voices in his head. They would wake him up in the night, licking his scars with the metal of his razor and the taste of his pills. Yet he always spit them out into the toilet, laying his head against the cold tile as he prayed and prayed for forgiveness, for another chance.
He didn’t know when his chances expired, but he had a feeling it would be coming too soon.
Tyler took a seat at his piano, placing his finger along a key. It played softly, echoing throughout the walls of his apartment. He was thankful the one neighbor he had enjoyed his music, requesting it constantly. Despite Tyler’s pleas for no neighbors, his landlord had required for someone to be next to him due to his history of suicidal tendencies. The neighbor had volunteered, apparently, and had tried to become best friends with Tyler.
His name was Brendon, and he was a twenty-something college student attending the local university. He always left in the mid afternoon and returned at nine, sometimes alone and sometimes with other people. Tyler sometimes listened to him perform his own music, sitting on the couch and paying attention to the lyrics as he counted the dots on his ceiling. The songs were sometimes optimistic, reaching deep into the chest to find whatever light it could. But other ones closed they eyes among the darkness, falling deep into the net of bad thoughts.
When Tyler asked why he’d volunteered to be his neighbor who conducted ‘suicide watch’ on him, Brendon had just smiled and said, “I’ve been there, done that. Wouldn’t recommend it, kinda costs a lot.” Tyler couldn’t agree more.
There was the sound of a text coming from his phone, and so Tyler dug into his pocket, pulling out his phone. The lockscreen was blurred due to a notification, but he couldn’t help but smile at the blurry lockscreen. It was a picture of Josh stuck in a tree after attempting to climb it, face terrified and body suspended in the air. Shaking his head, Tyler unlocked his phone and clicked on messages, surprised to see a text from Josh.
Hey :)
Hey whats up?
Come outside ;)
Frowning, Tyler got to his feet, stepping out from his apartment. There were two floors to the apartment complex, and out front there was a deck that stretched from the first and last room. No one was on his area of the porch, so Tyler furrowed his eyebrows, looking around for a few moments in the slowly darkening area. Finally, he heard that soft beat of music, causing him to look over the railing of his porch, only to see Josh holding Taco Bell in one hand and a boombox in the other.
Tyler couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculous sight. Josh worked at Taco Bell part time, and he’d forgotten he was working that day. It’d become a routine for Josh to come over with Taco Bell after working, and they’d watch movies or write songs together. So it was an understatement to say Tyler was happy to see him standing out front.
“Come on,” Tyler laughed, turning around to enter his apartment once again. He could hear Josh quickly bounding up the stairs behind him, the music being switched off as Josh entered his apartment. Even though Josh stopped by multiple times, he continued to make a face at the look of Tyler’s small, barren living space. Before he could open his mouth to suggest him moving in, Tyler grabbed the Taco Bell and smiled. “Quasalupa?” he asked, and Josh laughed.
“Of course,” he answered, and Tyler looked back down in the bag with a small smile on his face. Josh constantly got him his favorites, even sometimes waiting a longer time for the employees to make his food fresh. He always got the Quasalupa, along with a Baja Blast, one of Tyler’s favorite things to drink.
“Thanks,” Tyler thanked, and Josh happily smiled at him before wandering over to Tyler’s piano. There were papers scattered around it, both on the bench and on the floor. But there were a few pieces held up for Tyler to look at for reference when both playing and singing. Josh gently took them as Tyler began to eat his Quasalupa, watching him carefully.
“Did you write more songs?” Josh asked him, and Tyler nodded as he swallowed his food.
“Yeah, just a few though.”
Josh looked interested, taking the piece of paper Tyler had used as reference and reading over it. There was silence for a few moments as Tyler simply ate and waited for a comment from the other man. Finally, Josh looked up with wonderous, glowing eyes, looking as though he had finally found God or something cheesy like that. “I love this,” Josh told him, and Tyler smiled, looking back down from embarassment. “What’s it called?”
“Forest,” Tyler told him, and Josh grinned that dumb cheeky grin of his. Tyler had to quickly look back down at his food in an attempt to hide his flushed cheeks, yet he knew Josh noticed. Josh always noticed.
“Is it about that one time we all went into the woods and had that huge bonfire?” Josh asked, and Tyler laughed loudly, recalling the memory fondly.
“Maybe,” Tyler replied quietly.
Josh didn’t say anything except a soft smile that made Tyler think of the sky outside his windows, haunting him every day and every night with stars out of his sight. Josh put the paper back down without any more words, instead picking up the next one and reading over it again.
“You’ve been writing a lot lately,” Josh observed, and Tyler nodded, putting his wrapper back into the now empty bag.
“Yeah… I’ve been feeling the clouds floating in my chest and it’s been raining. So I’ve been trying to drain away the water into my fingers and it’s been working,” Tyler told Josh, and Josh gave him a long, worried look before nodding. Tyler knew Josh was constantly afraid of coming by and finding Tyler wading in red water with a blade clogging the drain, a note damp with water and void of piano keys to play. Tyler was too, but he wouldn’t tell him that.
“We should go on a drive,” Josh suggested, and Tyler perked up at his words.
“Yeah.”
By the time they pulled onto the deserted highway, the sun was barely lifting itself above the horizon, giving into the other half of the world pulling it down. The moon had made itself known, daring to peak down at them from the other side of the sky. Tyler greeted it, missing its absence.
Besides the wind in his ears and drying his eyes, there was no sound. Sure, there was the engine and the tires rolling across the road. Yet Josh’s mouth was closed, and there was no music from his car radio. Blurryface was humming, a soft song that was barely audible under Tyler’s thoughts.
It was perfect.
“Do you ever think of it?” Josh asked on the hood of his car, sitting on the edge. The sun was dipping under the influence of the moon, once again retreating to the other side of the Earth. The colors it emitted displayed themselves proudly across the sky before ceding into a familiar darkness freckled with stars.
Tyler didn’t look at Josh from the sky, and squinted. “Of what?” he asked Josh.
“Of Tree Pine?”
Tyler scoffed, adjusting his position on Josh’s car. He was laying down beside Josh, counting whatever stars were bright enough for the sky. “When the skeleton’s bones may be healed, there are scars of where it once cracked,” Tyler replied.
He couldn't see Josh, but he knew the man nodded. Neither knew what to say as they both agreed, and Tree Pine could never leave your memories. It followed you around like you carried your scars on your arms and legs. You forget about it until you look down, until someone mentions it. And then you remember every second spent breathing under itchy blankets and strict rules meant to break you and eventually bandage your wounds.
“I hated that place,” Josh told Tyler, and Tyler laughed.
“Me too,” he said. “Me too.”
“Let’s never go back,” Josh told Tyler, and Tyler nodded.
Yet the aching from his legs begged to differ.
Tyler counted somewhere near a million stars that night, and he tucked them in his pocket before crawling under his sheets and closing his eyes.
When the nightmares of red eyes and blurry faces began to drown him with his bad habits, he reached into his pocket and showed them the stars. He described each one to his nightmares, and they shrank back into themselves at the lights.
Tyler woke up on the ground.
“I don’t see why you like me,” Tyler told Josh later that day, nursing a cup of coffee in his hands as they both sat at a Starbucks. The sun wasn’t high in the sky, anymore, yet it was in the stage where it was bright but slowly dimming as the hours wore on. Yet the sun did a spectactular job at showing the disbelief on Josh’s face, and Tyler ignored Blurryface’s humming growing louder in response to his expression.
“Really?” Josh asked, and Tyler opened his mouth, ready to apologize for whatever he had done wrong. “No, don’t apologize. I’m not mad,” Josh insisted, yet the swirling anxiety in his chest remained. “I’m just… Do you think you’re...bad?”
Tyler had to resist the urge to laugh. He was essentially insane . If he walked up to someone and told them about Blurryface, he would be sent back to Tree Pine within a few minutes. Yet Josh stuck with him despite his insanity. “I’m insane, Josh,” Tyler said, and Josh rolled his eyes.
“No, you’re not. You just have a mental illness, it doesn’t make you any more or less of a person ,” Josh told him, and Tyler shrank back in his seat, looking down at his coffee. He disagreed with Josh, but there was no way he’d pick a fight with him over this. Yet Josh noticed his discomfort, and reached across the table, fingers brushed against Tyler’s wrist. Tyler looked back up at him with wide eyes at the feeling of his fingers, and saw that dumb, reassuring smile on his face. “Tyler, you’re one of the strongest people I know. You’ve dealt with Blurryface, and you will continue to. Just cuz you have him in your head doesn’t mean you’re bad or good or insane. It just means…it’s something you’ll deal with for the rest of your life. Okay?” Josh asked him, and Tyler nodded before looking back down.
“I’m...not that great,” Tyler told him, trying to express the deep feeling in his chest. Josh sighed, and Tyler prepared himself for an argument or to be yelled at him. Instead, Josh’s fingers gently took Tyler’s, grabbing his attention. The sun played with Josh’s eyes, and Tyler ignored the fluttery jump in his chest.
“I think you are,” Josh told Tyler, and Tyler smiled.
When Tyler got him, he stared at himself in the mirror.
One hour later, he was at the hospital, getting stitches in his hand.
Josh drove him home, and when he went to take a leak, he noticed Tyler’s mirror was broken.
Tyler moved into Josh’s house one week later.