Joshler Fluff

too good for heaven

//subject matter is very morbid and death-related here. No triggers but just a fair warning//

Everything felt automatic.

It would've been a scary feeling, if Josh had been bothered to think about it.

But thinking about anything, much less his feelings was exhausting and hard now.

He straightened his tie and smoothed his black jacket, all without really registering what he was doing.

Automatic.

He started at his reflection in the grimy bathroom mirror. He looked like a stranger. Pale and thin, with dark grey smears under his red, tired looking eyes. Josh dragged a hang over his jaw. His light stubble was giving away into a half-formed beard.

Not that Josh cared.

He didn't care at all.

He had no interest in what he looked like. He had no interest in the day or time or place or anything. He didn't care what people were saying on the internet, that Josh Dun, the remaining member of Twenty One Pilots, was really letting himself go. He didn't care about the obituary in the paper. He didn't care about the corporation losses or the fan's grief or even Tyler's parents.

The only thing he really cared about was lying in a coffin outside.

Slowly, still feeling detached from his body, Josh exited the bathroom. He walked down the hall and into the courtyard where the ceremony was. He lowered himself inyo a plastic chair next to Jay Joseph. He sat through the ceremony, the burial, the speeches, the afterparty, all in a complete daze. And when it was time to go, Josh called a cab, still not really thinking.

Sitting in the musty cab, surrounded by the smell of cigarettes and stale beer, Josh pulled himself out of his stupor. He needed to feel grief, to remind hinself that he was still alive.

Even if Tyler was not.

Josh felt his hands shake as that thought rushed through him.

Tyler was dead.

Dead.

Dead.

He wasn't going to make another song, or eat another chipotle, or spend another night with Josh.

He was dead and gone and buried in a casket six feet under the ground.

He wasn't coming back.

Josh blinked and was suprised to fjnd tears rolling down his face. He hadn't cried, not even when Josh got the call from the highway patrol saying that Tyler had been involved in an accident, not even when he had identified the battered and lifeless body as that of his best friend.

His best friend.

Now the tears came easily, dripping onto Josh's leg as his shoulders shook. His best friend was dead.

"Oh my God...." Josh sobbed.

Because this wasn't easy.

This was agony. Physical agony tore through his chest as he gasped in tbe backseat, sobbing silently. The loss, it felt like someone had ripped a vital organ out and left him bleeding on the ground.

He was dead

Tyler was dead and Josh was sitting in a cab crying because, fuck, his best friend was dead and Josh hadn't even said goodbye.

He hadn't expected Tyler to never come back.

He hadn't hugged him, or said "I love you." He had told him not to forget the fucking milk and to hurry up with dinner because he was hungry.

And Tyler was dead because Josh had told him to fucking hurry up.

How shitty was that?

"Turn around," Josh said suddenly, an idea forming.

"Sorry?" The cab driver asked in confusion, slowing slightly.

"Back- back to tbe graveyard. I...go back, please."

The driver shot him a concerned look but turned around nonetheless.

Josh needed to say goodbye, he just had to see the grave one more time before he went home. He didn't know what he was hoping for, a miracle, maybe. All Josh knew was that he needed to go back, he had to. 

**

Josh knelt down, ignoring the water that seeped through his pants. He stared dully at the headstone with the name emblazoned on it. Fuck, he hated that name. He hated how it was here, carved into a fucking rock in a fucking cemetery.

Tyler deserved more than a rock. More than a block of granite. He deserved a fucking memorial, an eternal flame.

But he got a rock in a cemetery and a shitty boyfirend who hadn't even said goodbye.

"H-h-hey," Josh croaked out. He steadied himself, breathijg deeply. "Hey," he tried again. "It-it's me, Josh. I don't know if you can hear me, wherever you are now. Heaven, probably. I know you were always so scared of going to hell or something. Not that...well, I never understood why. You were always destined for heaven. Someone- someone like you doesn't go to hell, you're too good and kind and sweet and amazing and-"

Josh broke off. Even aloud the words sounded empty. How could he describe how terrible he felt? Like the bottom had fallen out of his world. Like he was freefalling a hundred miles per hour, with nothing to hold on to.

Like he was the one in the casket, not Tyler.

"I wish it was me," he laughed. "Me down there. You were too important to too many people, too important to me and now you're fucking gone and I can't see anything getting good or being easier and its only beenna day but, fuck l, Tyler I need you more than you know...more than I ever told you. I never told you that you lit up my eorld and made life worth living. I never said you were the most special, wonderful, funny, kind, caring person in the whole goddamn world. I fucking loved you, still do, in fact. I wish....."

What did he wish?

That it had been him? That the bastard hadn't crashed into the love of his life? That he could have five damn minutes to tell Tyler just how soecial he was?

"I wish this hadn't happened."

The words were empty. He was empty. Everything was empty and colourless and cold. He placed a hand on the grave and bowed his head, grief ripping through him.

Alone in the silence of the courtyard.

Tears streamed down his cheeks as he gasped, sobbing so hard he could barely breathe. His thoughts were disintegrating into nothingness, falling into an endless black hole and all Josh could do was grip the grave- the fucking grave- harder.

"I'm so sorry..." he choked out. "I never told you how much I loved you and now you're dead and I never said once that you were special and now....."

Josh sobbed. The noise sounded animalistic.

"You're dead and scared you're gonna go to hell. Fuck, Tyler, you're too good for hell. You're too good for heaven. You're too good for anything, anyone, me...you were more than I deserved and I didn't fucking tell you that- I didn't- FUCKING-!"

Josh smashed his fist on the headstone, his sobs giving way to screams.

"I SHOULD'VE SAID I LOVED YOU!"

His fist hurt as he pounded, screaming and crying.

"IT SHOULD'VE BEEN ME!"

But it wasn't.

That was the terrible tragedy, it wasn't Josh. It was Tyler.

He lowered his fist, sobs shaking his body as he melted into the ground, closer towards Tyler, just for a moment 

"You were too good for heaven....too good for heaven....."

//k gonna leave this here and cry for five hours scuse me//