Work Text:
Josh stands up, hearing the chorus of gasps in the room, the mutters that reek of orange-green-purple. He goes up there, and looks at their faces, the sea of various expressions. C major lips opened and words flowed from him like a rushing river.
“My name’s Josh Dun, and I was Tyler’s best friend.”
Was.. That word hurt him a bit too much. Past tense.. It meant Tyler was really gone, and that Josh was all alone again.. He didn’t like that at all. No, that meant he was stuck in his blue-black home, especially since the treehouse no longer exists..
He paused as he looked directly at Tyler’s family. He knew they didn’t mean any ill intentions. He knew they had honestly thought Josh wasn’t real.. but that didn’t stop him from feeling all red-black about what happened.
He wanted to scream as loud as a siren, to have their attention on him. He wanted to say so much, but tears fell down his face like rain down a window. He feels like his throat won’t open, that his mouth is sealed closed.
He stands there, unsure of what to do. A flood of purple-green is felt, and he takes one last look at the family. Mocha eyes convey his unspoken words. That he’s flesh and blood, that they were wrong, that Tyler was telling the truth.
Footsteps sounded as he jumped down from the platform. He pushes the doors open, and kept on running until he reached the forest. Once he reached the tree that the treehouse used to inhabit, he fell to his knees.
He had refused to come here but the pull was too much. He spent so many hours in the treehouse, talking to Tyler with ease. He missed him.. He missed kissing those cotton candy lips, seeing those cinnamon eyes, weaving his fingers through walnut hair.
His heart ached, empty and hollow. Hands trembled, shaking as bad as the world does during an earthquake. Sobs were quiet, slipping from his mouth, sounding like a shattered plate.
“.. Why did you go? Why didn’t you just stay with me, Ty? We were something, I know we were!”
Hands curled into fists, pounding the ground hopelessly. He was angry, so angry.. How dare he leave him here! He left him to deal with his fucked up life all alone.. Why would he do that?
“Tyler.. God, I.. I wish you didn’t do what you did. We could had better. I could have taken you away from here! You didn’t even give me a chance to save you!”
He’s breathing unevenly, teeth piercing his lip in an attempt to keep from being too loud. His mind is filled with black, black, black. Lifting himself off the ground, he knows what he has to do.. He can’t be left behind, not here, not in this hell! He has to go away as well.. He has to do what Tyler did.
He has to take his own life.
You don’t understand! He can’t be left in this negative colored world without that ray of light in his life. It’s pointless! .. But what does he do?
Drowning! It’s slow as the traffic at 5, yet he knew that Tyler had suffered in a fire, dying as fast as molasses. It was only deserving that he’d die in a painful way as well.
That night, after a lot of pep talks given to himself, he started the bath. Warm as a day in the late summer, he slipped into the bathtub. He laid in the water, heart racing as fast as a car on a highway. He feels blue-purple as he takes his last breath.
Ducking underwater, he soon felt his body tell him to go back up, to not do this. His lungs screamed for air, and his mind was trying to reason with him.. but he refused to listen.
A light bulb that used to be so bright is now dim.. and slowly it fades away. A body in a bathroom, soon to be found by his blue-black family. A funeral, and he’s forgotten.. It’s almost as if he never existed, but we all know he did.. Right?
C major lips, mocha eyes, pink-red-orange, a voice like melted marshmallows: that was Josh.
Cotton candy lips, cinnamon eyes, walnut hair, the smell of spring, a voice like hot chocolate: that was Tyler.
And similar to cloudy skies when a storm’s passed over, this story’s ended.