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Trigger Warnings: Suicide mentions, self-harm, depression

Tyler Joseph was pronounced dead March 13, 2018, at 4:13am.

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Tyler was gone. Tyler was gone, and it was all Josh's fault. All my fault...

If he could have just fucking waited to go to the grocery store, to get some fucking cereal. He was selfish. He was stupid, and selfish, and now Tyler was dead and all he could do was lay in his bed and cry. He hadn't even managed to get up and go to the funeral - Josh simply couldn't stomach it. He'd tried to stand and pull on his suit that morning, and he immediately threw up and layed on the ground sobbing for hours until he fell asleep. It'd been a month since then, but nothing had changed.

His best friend was dead. His boyfriend was dead. The man he wanted to marry, to have a life with, was lying cold and stiff six feet under. And it was all his fucking fault.

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Tyler's mom brought Josh soup today. She opened his door with the spare key under the mat, shuffled herself inside and dragged Josh out of his bed. He hadn't eaten in nearly a week now - he was pale and discolored, and his eyes were sunken in, face hollowed out and distant. Tyler's mother hardly seemed better in that regard, but she was functioning at least. Josh was glad she was healing. He felt he didn't deserve to - it was his fault, after all.

But she made him eat nonetheless, tidying random bits and pieces of the once shared apartment before gently kissing him on the forehead and giving kind regards as she left, locking the door behind her. Josh broke down again as soon as he heard the door make that click sound - she kissed his forehead. Just as Josh had done to Tyler all those nights he hadn't felt real, and just as he had right before he left for the grocery store to buy more cereal. The day Tyler killed himself.

Josh managed to slowly will himself up and back into his bedroom, lying back down under the mass of unwashed blankets and sheets, curling in on himself and drifting off into sleep.

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Josh hadn't used the bathroom connected to his bedroom since that day he found Tyler in their bathtub. The blood had been stubborn, refusing to fully come off of the porcelain no matter how hard Josh had scrubbed. He could still see the slight pink tinge if he squinted hard enough. Josh used the hallway bathroom now. It didn't have a shower.

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Josh never told Tyler just how much he understood. Not that he ever questioned his own reality in the same way Tyler had, but... he still understood well enough. Seeing Tyler sitting on the floor of the bathroom with red streaming down his arms and a look of pure terror on his gorgeous face reminded Josh of himself. Tyler never noticed - Josh was good at hiding things that way. And he got tattoos to cover the scars - he hated being reminded of the dirty things he'd done, the hurt he'd caused others. It was his fault. Everything is.

He thought about doing it again. He almost did, and it came to a point where he would drag himself out of bed only to stand in front of the piece of metal sitting on his dresser. Maybe he just wanted to see if he could do it again. So Josh fell into a cycle - wake up, stand, watch that blade, think, cry, crawl back into bed, sleep, repeat.