Chapter Text
Josh's heart beat faster, causing him to hit his drums much harder than usual. He saw Tyler out of the corner of his eye, climbing the scaffolding as he usually does during Car Radio. His heart was uncontrollable tonight, because the height to which his band mate was climbing was higher than any before, since they were in their hometown, Columbus, and Tyler wanted to do a little extra for his friends and family. After a couple seconds, Josh realized that he had snapped one of his drumsticks from hitting them too hard. He quickly grabbed another, and continued to drum like never before.
A deafening scream broke Josh's concentration. It was from a fan, but it didn't sound like the everyday excited scream he usually would hear during a show. He continued to drum, but felt himself start shaking. Tyler is fine, he told himself, it was just a fan worried about how high up he is. But then he heard another scream, and a couple more soon followed. Josh took a moment to glance away from the drums, and up to where Tyler was.
The only problem was, Tyler wasn't there. Josh's heart dropped, but calmed down once he realized Tyler was simply climbing down already. That was a bit strange, because Tyler hadn't even sung the ending of the song yet. But then Josh realized—Tyler hadn't even sung anything since he'd been up at the top of the scaffolding. Maybe this is like that one time they turned off Tyler's mic, he thought, like that one time I got super pissed because no one does that to my best friend. Josh quickly glanced around again, but didn't see Tyler. That was when he got even more anxious.
That's when he saw all the security guards rushing together around an area on the stage. Josh dropped both his drumsticks, and stood up. It was nearly silent in the venue, besides the frantic sobs he heard from many fans. Not only was Josh's heart beating out of his chest, but he could feel his head pounding as well.
He approached the area where the guards had gathered. His hands flew up to his head when he saw it—he knew it was Tyler, but he didn't know how bad it was—a small body crumpled on the ground, the joints twisted in completely unnatural ways. All he wanted in that moment was to be close to him--to hold his hand, to hug him, or something. Anything.
"Tyler?" Josh uttered, seeing black spots in his vision. He could barely stand while trying to fight the wave of dizziness taking over him.
"Mr. Dun, let's get you off stage." A man firmly took Josh's arm and escorted him offstage, while Josh heard the muffled cries of the worried fans. There were so many thoughts swirling around in his head that he could barely hear. His vision was taking a toll as well, as he felt extremely dizzy. He looked one last time at Tyler's helpless body before he lost consciousness.
-
Josh opened his eyes and saw the backstage crew running around in chaos. In the distance, he heard an ambulance. Why was there a—Tyler.
He turned to the nearest crew member, a small woman who had a terribly worried look on her face. "Where is Tyler? Is he okay?"
She stopped in her tracks. "I'm not sure," she said. "From what I've heard, he's alive."
Josh nodded, swallowing. He felt a painful lump in his throat growing as the woman continued on her way, joining everyone else—who all had terrible looks on their faces. Josh decided to take matters into his own hands, since there was no security member by his side.
He stood up from where he was sitting, feeling a slight wave of dizziness rush through him—although it was nowhere close to what he had felt earlier. He grabbed the bottle of water that was on the floor next to the box he'd been sitting on. It seemed as if someone had left it for him, and then had taken off. After gulping down most of the bottle, he set it down and started walking in the direction the small woman had gone.
Josh heard the sound of the ambulance getting closer, so he knew he was going in the right direction. He was about to make his way outside when a security guard stopped him.
"You can't go out there." he said, pushing on Josh's chest to make sure he didn't move forward.
"I deserve to know what happened to my best friend." He said, flaring his nostrils.
"Someone will alert you later. For now, you have to stay inside until it's safe to leave." The man said.
"Safe? What's going on?" Josh shook his head in confusion.
"It's a madhouse out there. The fans have gone crazy trying to find Tyler. The only person leaving the building is Tyler, in that ambulance. Escorted by an abundance of security, of course." He said.
"Why can't I go with him? He's basically my brother, I deserve—oh my god, have you called his family yet? This is going to ruin Kelly..." Josh was on the verge of hyperventilating. "You need to call him, and Chris, and oh, god, Zack...you gotta call Zack..." It was a good thing that they were playing in Columbus tonight, so the family didn't have to travel far.
"I believe they've alerted the family."
"You don't understand, I'm part of that family. I need to know what's going on." Josh breathed heavily, grabbing the shoulders of the man.
The man sighed, then reached for his radio. "We need to get Dun out in one of those cars."
"That's against protocol. He's supposed to stay in the venue." A woman replied through the man's radio.
"The poor guy's freaking out. Just let him go."
A few long seconds later, the woman replied. "Fine. It's approved for him to go. Bring him out to the fourth car."
Soon enough, Josh was brought outside and quickly put into one of the security cars that were about to leave for the hospital. The ambulance wasn't in sight, which sent Josh into a panic.
"Where is Tyler? Did they take him already?" He asked the driver, who was completely unresponsive.
After what seemed like forever, the cars left the lot and started on their way to the hospital. When they arrived, two security guards met Josh at the car and escorted him inside. There were already crowds of fans at the hospital trying to find out any information they could, but Josh was so on edge that he barely even noticed they were there, shouting his name, asking questions about Tyler that he didn't even know the answer to.
They sat Josh down in the waiting room closest to where Tyler was, security keeping a very close watch on Josh. He asked everyone around what was happening and if Tyler was going to be okay, but no one had an answer for him. When Tyler's parents and siblings arrived, they were given just about the amount of information Josh was given. No one seemed to know anything about what was happening with Tyler.
It was 1:28 in the morning when a doctor finally came to update everyone. Josh, as well as Tyler's family, stood up to receive the news. Josh had never felt more anxious in his life.
"I have good news, and bad news." The doctor tried to use the cliché saying to calm everyone down. "Good news, Tyler is alive. You are all very lucky, this could've easily been fatal. It's practically a miracle that he's alive."
"And?" Zack questioned the doctor.
"Bad news. He suffered very serious injuries, both physically and mentally. We believe that eventually he will recover physically, but we are not certain what will become of his mental health. Luckily, Tyler must've covered his head with his hands, because the injuries to his head could've been fatal, and they weren't. However, he still suffered a great amount of damage."
"What do you mean, you aren't certain what'll become of his mental health?" Tyler's mother, Kelly, asked, her hands pressed to her face and Chris's, Tyler's father, arm wrapped around her.
"He could suffer many long term injuries such as memory loss, or even brain cell loss. The doctor said.
"Memory loss?" Tyler's mother gasped.
Josh sunk back into his chair. His best friend as he knew him could be lost. He tried to tune out the others as they talked to the doctor, but he kept hearing Tyler's name and couldn't. Eventually, he got up to go find something to eat. In all the chaos, he realized he hadn't eaten since before the show and was starving. After finding a vending machine and buying some sort of sandwich, he found himself wandering around the building aimlessly as he ate. Somehow, he found a sort of balcony, and stood outside for a bit.
Josh looked around the parking lot, and saw hundreds of fans gathered outside the building. Most of them seemed desperate to know something, anything, about Tyler's condition. Josh decided to pull his phone out of his pocket and do something. Most likely against the wishes of all security and management, he tweeted:
Tyler is okay for now, but he needs all the prayers we can get. Thank you for the love
He knew that was sort of a lie, because Tyler wasn't okay. He was just alive. In fact, he wasn't even living. He was just surviving, existing.
Josh stared down at the fans as they all saw Josh's tweet. He saw some hugs, and heard many of them shouting in relief, but he had no idea what was coming next. Or what he'd have to tell them next.
The door behind him burst open, one of his security guards rushing out with a furious look on his face. "You can't just run off like that, Dun. I'm supposed to keep a close eye on you and you just disappeared without any trace."
"Then do your job better," Josh said in a cold tone, then walking past the guard back into the building. He found the waiting room again, and eventually fell asleep—even with the security guards literally sitting right next to him.
-
Josh was awoken by loud conversation and someone shaking him awake. It was Zack. "Another update." He said.
"Again, good news and bad news." The doctor said. "Good news: Tyler will make a full physical recovery for sure. But the bad news is, we've had to put him in a medically induced coma because we are getting very erratic readings from his brain."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Tyler's father asked.
"His brain waves are very inconsistent, and they keep spiking."
"Which means...?" Josh asked.
"He will, most likely, once he wakes up, suffer from memory loss, or brain damage."
The room was silent. This was turning into a much more serious matter than anyone desired—everyone was a bit overwhelmed.
"I will let you know when we are going to wake him up." And with that, the doctor left again.
Hours passed, and Josh stayed awake, staring at the ceiling. He thought about what was going to happen if anything happened to Tyler's mind—was he going to think he was someone else? Was he going to completely forget about Josh, and Twenty One Pilots? Was he going to wake up and wonder who the strange man with the pink hair was? It wasn't long before Josh got lost in his own thoughts.
Josh entered Tyler's room, as nervous as ever. He looked at Tyler, who appeared completely different. He seemed even more fragile than before, and there were cuts and bruises all over his body. His eyes were sunken in, and his hair was sticking up in places it shouldn't have. But the one thing that stuck out to Josh was how tired he looked. Of course, Tyler gave off the feeling that he was tired all the time, but this was different.
"Tyler?" Josh's voice shook as he approached the bed.
Tyler slowly turned his head, evidently in pain. He looked up and down Josh, a sort of frown on his face. He raised his eyebrows, then said, "Who are you?"
"Josh!" someone shouted, pulling Josh out of his dreams. He was overcome by chills for a moment, then shook himself back to reality.
"What?" he asked Zack, who woke him.
"I was supposed to wake you up, because...they took him out of the coma. He's awake, Josh." Zack said, but there was something uncertain about his tone.
"He is? Have you seen him? Can I see him? Why am I the last to know?" Josh immediately stood up.
"Um, listen, Josh." Zack glanced down at his feet. "We've seen him, but you're not going to like what I'm going to say next."
Josh's heart sunk. Oh, no. He doesn't remember anything.
"I'm pretty sure he remembers most everything, but...." Zack said.
Josh shook his head. "What?" he said. "What's wrong with him?"
"Josh, it's bad." He said.
"How bad?"
"Tyler thinks he's Blurryface."