Chapter Text
Tired after the show, Tyler's brain almost melted from the sight of Mark putting a camera in their face.
Really, man? His done expression said it all.
They needed an outro for the footage their crew shot today, and Mark insisted that it had to be fresh off the set.
Multitasking. Right. He was good at it.
So he turned in his seat to Josh and mustered the power to speak out loud. It was the most unserious thing until a question suddenly popped into his head.
"If you would to wake up in two thousand…"
"Thirty five?"
"…Eleven."
"Oh…"
Tyler smiled at Josh.
"Would you do it all over again?"
And although he asked this question, looking at the sure expression on Josh's face, just as tired and exhausted, he already knew the answer.
"Do we know the outcome?" Josh asked, smiling just the same way back.
"No, no, no, I'm asking if we do it even knowing how hard it is."
And was that a bummer of a question.
Josh looked thoughtful for a moment.
"I think knowing us…" he fumbled with his words, messy curls falling perfectly on his forehead as he looked out the window of the car. "I think there are parts of us that desire to work hard."
Tyler joked the rest of the conversation off.
It all happened quickly then. They pulled up to their hotel, trudged on to their designated rooms, not saying a word to each other.
Tyler opened the door to his hotel bedroom, stripped off his hoodie, and fell face-first into the unmade sheets. And with his head finally landing on the pillow, the Clancy World Tour was over.
Tyler dreamed of something that he hadn't thought about in a long time.
He dreamed of his first decently sized venue back in Columbus. It was a sunny, cloudless day, hot in the way Ohio never actually is. He sweated so hard that his shirt stuck uncomfortably to his back.
There were about two hundred people in the pit. Some of them haven't even paid any attention to the side stage as he jumped the adrenaline out to the very end.
And in the front row, among excited-looking college students, he spotted Josh.
Right.
Was it two thousand and… eleven at this time? Judging by the stage and the festival booming around them, it was that one time he got to share the stage with House of Heroes.
Tyler stopped at his scratched piano, breathing heavily with the end of the song, just taking this sight in.
He hadn't dreamed about two thousand and eleven in so long. In fact, most of his latest dreams were so fluid and unremarkable, he didn't even remember them in the morning.
This, though, felt just as real as a real thing.
He turned and caught the confused look on Chris' face. He was sitting at the drums. Tyler realized just how unusual it was for him to see anyone at the kit other than Josh now.
Finally, he caught his breath and observed a microphone in his hand.
It was a weighty, outdated model of a fairly shitty quality, that had to be held a certain way for the sound to be crisp and not muffled.
Tyler propped it on the stand, waiting for the cue in his earpiece, but none came.
Nick, who was holding a bass guitar, looked concerned now.
"What?" Tyler mouthed questioningly at him.
"Piano." Nick frantically mouthed back, pointing at his back.
"Oh."
Right, there was no cue back in the twenty eleven. And frankly speaking, he kind of forgot what he played back then on the stage.
Was it anathema?
He didn't think he remembered the lyrics correctly. It's been so long since the last time he sang it live.
Since it was just a dream and he didn't care less about fucking up the show, that was playing just in his head, he started playing what his mind suggested.
The first notes of the Car radio drifted in the air.
Suddenly, the memory of the conversation he had with Josh resurfaced in his head.
What a joke, he thought back at his sick and twisted subconscious, to throw him back into the show he was thinking about just this evening.
He knew Josh was watching him now, and wasn't that enough to give this performance his all?
Tyler missed the jamming around they had, exchanging ideas and rough concepts for the album. Nowadays, all these shows were taking too much from him, and his body did definitely feel it. He wasn't aging in reverse.
He tried not to think of it too much, traveling the world and touring countries on a regular Monday. All he had now was the result of the years of work they put into their brand.
But seeing what Twenty One Pilots was in its embryonic state did something to him.
Tyler watched the small crowd from behind his piano, his fingers moving with a muscle memory that spanned over a decade, even if the keys felt slightly sticky and the tuning was a bit sharp.
When the last chord drifted away, Tyler stood up and stepped toward the edge of the stage. He squinted against the sun, his eyes scanning the pit until they locked onto a familiar face.
And there he was.
Josh looked younger - his face leaner, his hair different - but that expression was unmistakable. He was looking at Tyler with a focused, mesmerized intensity, like he was witnessing something more than just a regular small band's show.
It brought back memories of Josh, looking at him with the same starry eyes, when they were off the stage, sharing whispers in the back of the silent van.
He thought he had buried all these memories in the farthest corner of his mind.
Tyler found himself unwillingly smiling back with a genuine tired thing, feeling the warmth spreading through his chest that had nothing to do with the stage lights. It felt good to remember it once in a while.
Now that he thought about it, this post-show feeling was exactly what made them a two-piece.
Nick and Chris flanked him then, breathless and grinning, moving in for their customary bow.
"We are Twenty One Pilots and so are you. Thank you for coming," Tyler said. The words came out on autopilot, a mantra he’d repeated thousands of times.
He closed his eyes for a second, waiting for the familiar static of a dream to dissolve, expecting to wake up to the muffled silence of a hotel room and the hum of an air conditioner.
Because all of the dreams come to an end. And this one was uncalled for. He wanted out.
But when he opened his eyes, he was still standing on the plywood stage. The cheers of two hundred people didn't fade; they just moved into the background as he followed Nick and Chris toward the green room, which was really just a cramped, sweltering utility space with cracked beige paint.
He listened to Nick and Chris trade excited remarks about the setlist, but their voices sounded strangely distant, like he was underwater. Eventually, Chris disappeared to settle something with the organizers, and Nick walked off to find a cooler with water.
Tyler was left alone. The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating.
This… this didn’t feel like a dream anymore.
He reached out and ran his thumb over a jagged chip of paint on the wall. It was sharp.
It hurt.
He stared at the grime under his fingernails, propped against the cold cement. If this were a lucid dream, he should be able to fly, or at least teleport himself to a beach where the only thing he had to worry about was the tide and a mocktail in his hand. Instead, he was stuck in a box that smelled like stale sweat and cheap floor cleaner.
Why am I still here?
A sharp knock at the door made him jump. He turned just as Chris walked back in, trailing someone behind him.
Josh stepped over the threshold, a hesitant smile lighting up his face.
"Hey Ty, have you packed up yet?— Why are you still wearing that?" Chris asked, stopping in his tracks and gesturing vaguely at Tyler’s soaked T-shirt.
Tyler couldn't find his voice. He just stared at Josh, and the sheer weight of reality hit him like a physical blow. To this day, Tyler believed that meeting Josh Dun was the single most pivotal moment of his life. Everything he knew, his entire existence, was divided into the "before" and "after"Josh. Seeing him here, in this lighting, in this year, was like looking at a ghost that looked more solid than he felt right now.
Chris followed Tyler's intense gaze and awkwardly cleared his throat to introduce them.
"This is—"
"Josh Dun," Tyler interrupted, the name leaving his lips before Chris could finish.
Josh blinked, his brow furrowing in genuine confusion.
"How do you know my name?" Josh asked, his head tilting the smallest bit to the side.
Tyler scrambled, his heart hammering against his ribs.
"You're the drummer for House of Heroes, right? I recognized you in the pit."
"Oh. Well. Yeah. That—that’s me," Josh said, looking a mix of impressed and awkward. He outstretched his hand for a handshake.
Tyler took it. Josh’s grip was firm and real, so unlike the hazy touch of any dream he had had before; he could feel the calluses on Josh’s palm.
"I know Josh because he works at the guitar center where I buy my sticks," Chris added, looking between them. "Didn't know you guys already knew each other."
"Oh, no, we don't," Josh said quickly. "It’s our first time meeting."
Chris shot Tyler a suspicious, sidelong look, his expression clearly asking: Then how the hell did you know his full name from across the festival grounds?
"Yeah," Tyler managed, his voice sounding thin even to his own ears. "It’s my first time. Totally."
He was freaking out. The cold sweat on the back of his neck wasn't just from the Ohio heat anymore. Was his brain just looping the last person he saw before falling asleep? It must have been why he was still dreaming.
There was no other possible explanation.
"Do you guys want to go grab some food?" Chris asked, breaking the tension. "I’m dying of hunger here."
Josh didn't look at Chris. His eyes were glued to Tyler, searching his face with a look that was far too perceptive for a stranger.
Tyler turned his whole body away, unable to maintain the eye contact.
"Yeah. Sure," he muttered, his voice strained.
He tried to act nonchalant, kneeling down to search for his bag among the cluttered piles of gear and discarded hoodies on the floor. He didn't even recognize half this stuff. This body felt wrong - too light, too nimble, too young, too much, too— wrong.
He found a random, wrinkled T-shirt and stripped off his sweaty one, feeling exposed in a way that had nothing to do with being shirtless.
Everything was wrong.
"Hey," Josh said.
His voice had that specific, careful quality to it - the tone Josh used when he was about to say something incredibly important but wasn't sure if he should.
Tyler froze, his clean shirt halfway over his head.
"Does "Clancy World Tour" mean anything to you?"
Tyler stopped breathing.
The world went silent, the distant hum of the festival outside vanishing as if someone had pulled the plug on all of the sounds around. He slowly tugged the shirt down, turning to face Josh with wide eyes.
Josh was standing there, looking just as shaken as Tyler felt.
Tyler pulled the shirt down the rest of the way, but the fabric felt like sandpaper against his skin. Every word he wanted to say, every "how" and "why" and "what the hell," was jammed in a pile-up in his throat.
He looked at Josh - really looked at him - and saw the same haunting recognition behind that gaze. It was a look that didn't belong in two thousand and eleven.
"Please tell me I'm dreaming," Tyler whispered, the words sounding more like a plea than a question. "Please tell me I'm just back in the hotel and I'm going to wake up and we're going to be old and tired again."
Josh let out a breath that was half-laugh, half-sob, his shoulders dropping as if a massive weight had just been slumped onto them. He looked around the cramped room they were currently standing in and stepped closer.
"Even if you are," Josh said, his voice cracking slightly, "I think I’m stuck here with you now."
Tyler’s heart gave a painful, familiar thud. Even in this twisted version of reality, that was the one constant.
"When were you not stuck with me?"
The words came out sharper than he intended. As soon as they left his mouth, Tyler’s mind flashed to all those days spent in his home in Ohio after Josh moved to LA. He felt a bitter tang at the back of his tongue.
There was a reason why they had rarely talked about two thousand and eleven in their private conversations. They were young and dumb, and looking back, Tyler wanted to slap his younger self on the head so many times he had lost count.
There was something he regretted the most, though.
"Sorry," Josh said softly. His face went somber, his gaze dropping to the floor. He looked so much like the Josh from the car ride only hours - or years - or whatever it was ago. The same apologetic tilt of the head, the same messy curls. "I know. I'm sorry."
Tyler dragged his hands over his face, his palms pressing hard into his eye sockets until he saw stars.
"I can't believe this is happening," he choked out. "I was just... we were just talking about this. I asked you if you'd do it again. I didn't mean literally."
The room began to spin. It was all suddenly too much - the sounds of the festival, the look on Josh's face - he felt the air thinning, his lungs refusing to expand.
"Hey," Josh was immediately at his side. He didn't hesitate, reaching out to grab Tyler’s forearms, grounding him. "Tyler. Hey. Look at me. Breathe."
Tyler could taste it then - the sharp onset of a panic attack clutching at his throat, threatening to drag him under. He looked at Josh’s hands on his arms. They were smaller, minus a few tattoos that hadn't been inked yet, but the touch was exactly the same.
Fuck.
The touch told him everything he so adamantly refused to see.
He wasn't dreaming after all.
"I can't," Tyler gasped, his vision blurring. "Josh, I can't do it all again. I don't have the strength to start over."
"Hey, hey, it’s okay," Josh said, his voice dropping into that low cadence that had pulled Tyler out of a thousand different trenches. "We don't have to do anything right now. It's okay, Tyler. Just look at me."
Tyler forced his eyes to stay locked on Josh's. The familiar honey-brown irises were the only things that didn't feel like a hallucination.
It felt as if the unliftable weight made its home on his shoulders. The phantom weight of the future pressing down on his chest - all these years of grueling tours, the pressure of a shifting industry, the sheer mental tax of being Tyler Joseph - and here he was, back in a room, where it all had started with a person that made it real.
Would you do it all over again?
He joked around at the redirected question from Josh. He didn't mean a word he said in the back of that car in 2025, on his way to the hotel.
The truth was, Tyler was a coward.
"How are you so calm?" Tyler wheezed, his fingers digging into Josh’s wrists. "My kids, Josh. My family. They aren't even possible yet."
Josh’s expression flickered, a momentary shadow of pain crossing his face at the mention of what they’d left behind, but he didn't let go.
"I know. I know it’s heavy. But we’re here now. That’s the only part that matters right now."
Tyler’s breathing began to level out, but as the panic receded, a different kind of ache took its place. He looked at the way Josh was holding him, the raw devotion in his eyes that had existed even back then, before the world knew who they were.
And that was the kicker.
With the years, their work finally paid off. They headlined a couple (hundreds) of shows, won a Grammy, got invited to the Super Bowl, got married, and earned a fortune.
And truthfully, none of his regrets were as big as the one left behind in two thousand and eleven.
It was the fact that he had dated Josh.
Tyler thought he was over it all, but it seemed like this uncalled-for push in the past was everything that took him spiraling back to his old ways.
He and Josh dated for a year, and it almost cost them all of the progress that they had made for the band.
Ever since Chris introduced them after this very show, it all happened naturally.
They shared the same faith, the same tastes, the same opinions, the same doubts, the same passion for something they believed in. It was only right that they spent most of the time together, basking in each other's perspectives and exchanging thoughts that Tyler had kept away under lock and key.
(These thoughts, eventually, had bled on his pages and made their home in his lyrics.)
But all it took was one fight to shake this closeness forever.
They had never been the same after the breakup. And no matter how much they wouldn't dance over and around the topic, no matter how carefully they wouldn't trudge past what happened, it didn't really go away.
And then Josh left him in Ohio and moved to LA.
Their band wasn't just a passion project anymore. They started making real money from their music, and it all struck them unexpectedly.
Tyler married. Josh married. Lockdown kept them apart, waiting for the world to collapse. Tyler had his firstborn child. There was no more room for the unsaid tension that had plagued them for the longest time.
But now, in front of his old ass Ford Econoline, there was no history behind their shoulders.
Would you do it all over again?
"Jeez, Tyler, are you okay?" Nick asked, passing him a bottle of water. "You've been acting strange today."
"I'm great." was his dry response. He looked at Josh, who was standing near him, observing the situation from a respectable distance of someone who supposedly didn't know these people, loading the gear into the van.
"Maybe, a little help wouldn't hurt then." Chris snapped, carrying boxes with the disassembled drum kit. "This shit is heavy."
"I'll help too." said Josh.
"No, no," intervened Nick. "You're okay, man. There's really no need."
"…Okay then."
It was their inside joke - Tyler always made Josh work some kind of manual labor on set, while he was lounging somewhere with a humidifier in hand. Fans loved it - it provided content and more engagement.
Tyler's eyes lingered on Josh, even when he picked up one of the heavier boxes.
What now?
He had no idea what to do.
"You know what?" he addressed Nick and Chris after the silence stretched between the four of them. "I think I'm going to hang out with Josh for a while. Don't wait up for me."
Chris exchanged a meaningful look with Nick.
"Whatever." Nick shrugged his shoulders.
"Don't be late for tomorrow's practice," said Chris. "At eight as usual, right?"
"…Right."
The van pulled away, a white speck disappearing into the hazy Ohio horizon. Tyler stood there watching it go, the silence between him and Josh feeling heavier than the humidity.
"I’m sorry I lashed out," Tyler said, his voice barely rising above the ambient noise. He didn't look up, instead focusing on a stray piece of gravel near his shoe.
Josh kicked at the dirt, his face carefully devoid of any emotion.
"It’s fine. You know I’m used to it."
The words hit Tyler like a physical weight, leaving a sour taste in his mouth.
"It’s not every day that we time-travel like fourteen years into the past, after all," Josh muttered, trying to smooth out the ridges in this situation.
"Okay," Tyler said, straightening his back. "Band meeting. We need to figure out what the hell is going on."
"True," Josh agreed.
They began to walk, weaving through the thick of the festival crowd. It was jarring. There were no bodyguards trailing five paces behind, no barricades to keep the clique at bay, and no Mark to shove the cameras into their faces for a tour documentation. If anything, they looked more like the fans they had just performed for than somebody who had just stepped off the stage after having more than sixty-five thousand pairs of eyes on them.
A guy strutted past them, shouting into a silver flip phone in an abnormally loud voice, gesturing wildly as he argued about meeting up at the Red Bull tent.
Tyler stopped in his tracks along with Josh, just staring at the thing in the guy's hand until he was eventually out of their sight.
"Can you imagine we actually used to carry those around?" Josh half-joked, watching the guy go.
"…This is crazy. I’m going crazy," Tyler shook his head, the surreality of the situation they had witnessed finally sinking in.
"Wait. I think I have it on me." Josh reached into his pocket and retrieved a button-covered Nokia with a tiny, glowing screen. He stared at it for a second, mesmerized by the physical buttons. "I haven't held one of these in years. The snake game is probably still the peak of technology on this thing."
Tyler reflexively searched his own pockets. His hands met empty fabric. He had no phone with him. He thought back to his own old flip phone somewhere in the bag they loaded into the van just a few minutes ago. There was no way to check his Twitter, no way to call Jenna.
The absence of the internet connection made him feel naked, a sudden spike of anxiety clawing at his chest.
"What does it say?" Tyler asked, his voice tight. "The date."
Josh squinted at the small display.
"Today is… third of August, two thousand eleven."
Tyler’s shoulders slumped. He felt the timeline snap into place. This was the summer everything had started to tilt.
"Great," Tyler breathed.
"Yeah…"
Their aimless wandering led them past a row of merch tents. Most were DIY setups with hand-painted banners. They slowed down near the stall of another local band that had opened earlier in the day. A woman with heavy eyeliner and a stack of screen-printed shirts looked up, her eyes landing on Tyler.
"Hey, you're that guy!" she said, pointing a Sharpie at him. "The one with the piano. With the emo lyrics. I really liked your last song."
Tyler forced a smile, trying to skull his expression into something more or less welcoming.
"Thanks. Glad you caught the set."
"You guys local?" she asked, leaning over the table.
"Columbus," Josh answered for them, his voice steady.
They chatted for a few minutes - the standard festival small talk about set times, the heat, and the shitty sound system on the side stages. It was a pleasant enough conversation until she jerked her thumb toward a group of guys a few stalls down.
"Better than those guys," she scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Some faggot from several stalls down has been complaining about the volume all day. Like, it's a festival, get over it."
The word hung in the air, sharp and ugly. She spoke it so casually, without a hint of malice, the way people did before the digital cameras were everywhere you go, before the world started paying better attention.
Tyler felt a cold shiver go down his spine.
It was a brutal reminder of the era they were trapped in - a time before the conversations they’d helped start, before the world changed and felt a little more considerate for people around.
He looked at Josh, who had gone remarkably still, his jaw tight.
"Right," Tyler said, his voice dropping an octave. "We should get going."
They walked away in silence, the frantic atmosphere of the festival suddenly feeling suffocating. Eventually, they found a chipped wooden bench near a greasy food stall smelling of old oil and onions.
He felt too old for this.
"So," Josh said, taking in the chaotic sight in front of them. "The question still stands."
"Huh?"
"What are we going to do?"
Tyler hid his eyes in the palms of his hands, feeling the first pinpricks of migraine coming to cloud his mind.
"I don't know," Tyler answered, his voice muffled by his hands. "I honestly don't know."
In the distance, a pop-punk song started playing, blasting from a nearby stage, the vocals dipped in this low-frequency telephone autotuned effect. The sound of a world that didn't know what was coming, and Tyler felt like he was drowning in the sheer noise of it.
"I still stand by my words," Josh said. Tyler dropped his hands just to see Josh leaning forward, elbows on his knees, staring at the scuffed toes of his sneakers. "What we had there... back there... I want to recreate it. I want to build it again."
"No changes?" Tyler asked, his voice cracking. "You want to do it all exactly the same?"
Josh finally turned his head, his gaze locking onto Tyler’s with that quiet intensity that had always grounded them.
"We both know it’s not going to work with no changes," Josh said softly.
The air between them shifted.
It felt as if Clancy World Tour was a lifetime ago. Only their steady presence was a constant in this mess. And a decade of shared history was now sitting right there on the bench with them.
"So skip the dating stage altogether?" Tyler muttered.
He felt stupid saying it, finally picking up the thing that had been lying unsaid, covered in dust and deliberate forgetfulness. It was the elephant in the room that had long since died of old age, yet here it was, resurrected and breathing down their necks.
Tyler wondered if Josh regretted it as much as he did.
He remembered the messy fights in the van, the silent treatments that threatened to derail their first big tour, the way every lyric Tyler wrote felt like a weapon or a plea. If anything, their breakup had affected Josh more; Tyler had watched him retreat into himself, watched him make a decision that was slowly manifesting in their lives in the form of packed bags and a one way ticket to LA.
Josh didn't look away. He didn't even flinch at the mention of it. He just shook his head slowly, a bitter shadow crossing his face.
"It was your decision to break up, Tyler. I'm just a message man," Josh said. There was no venom in his voice, just a tired, flat statement of fact. "I followed your lead then. I’m following it now."
"I know. I know I did."
He looked out at the festival-goers, the teenagers in neon shutter shades and band tees. He was as old as a teenager in this body, too.
"But if we don't..." Tyler started, his mind racing through the logic. "If we don't go through all that... are we even the same band? Do I even write the same songs?"
Josh let out a short, dry laugh.
"You think your talent is tied to how much you can break my heart?"
Tyler winced.
"That's not what I meant."
"Is it?" Josh stood up. "I don't even know why you're bringing this up now."
Tyler stood up too. He couldn’t handle the way Josh was towering over him. Tyler stepped onto the uneven grass until he leveled with Josh’s eye level.
"I didn't ask for this, Josh." Tyler snapped, his words sharp. "I have a life. I have my family at home. I have everything to lose!"
"I didn't ask for it either, Tyler!" Josh shot back. "I hate it just as much as you do. I’m just as terrified. So what now?"
Their arguing began to draw stares.
This stupid body with this underbaked brain. Tyler physically felt this body's age, when there was a stinging sensation in his eyes.
"We need to decide what to do," Josh said, his voice final. He looked at Tyler, and for a second, the frustration softened into something much more painful - pity. Tyler hated his pity. "It’s your band, Tyler. It’s your decision. If you want to walk away, do it. If you want to change every lyric so we don't have to hurt, then go ahead. But I think I made myself pretty clear.
Josh didn't wait for his response. He just said:
"I meant it. I'd do it all again. Even the parts that broke us."
Then he turned on his heel, his shoes crunching against the dry Ohio dirt as he disappeared into the crowd, his dark, messy curls bobbing until they were swallowed by the sea of teenagers and faded band tees.
Tyler was left alone at the bench.
"Fuck." he cursed, kicking up a stone under his foot, his frustration bleeding through.
Success was a rather complex thing.
How did he know that he was successful? For all he knew, all those privileges he achieved in his lifetime could be as well a cruel, detailed dream.
Their grueling work didn't mean anything if it wasn't acknowledged. They knew it best because they learned it the hard way.
The thing was that success was just a coincidental chain of events that led them where they sat on the top. And without this luck, they were nobody.
Tyler closed his eyes, but the silence didn't come. Only the distant, muffled thumping of a bass drum from the main stage drifted through the air, beating like a countdown.