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Josh wishes that this weren’t true.
He should have seen it coming.
He thinks he’d known it all along, in truth. Not to the exact details of how it is possible, or how it would’ve happened, but looking back at it, Josh really thinks deep down he’d known that this was the only plausible explanation. The proof was right there, and the clues all aligned. He just chose to ignore them.
Or, rather, he was afraid of the truth. It was staring him right in the face, and he just looked away.
The thing is, Tyler’s memories didn’t match up with his.
At first it didn’t bother him too much. There are bandito pairs in their clique whose memories led them to recognize each other and reconnect, and their memories didn’t always overlap at first. They would resurface randomly, out of order and not always clear, and at different rates for everyone.
But eventually those memories would always start to coincide, and the pairs would piece the puzzles together slowly, piece by piece. It always happened, given enough time spent together. Anything they did together could trigger each other’s recollections, a touch, a phrase, a certain way they do certain things. Josh just assumed that it would happen to them, too, him and Tyler, sooner or later. Or he hoped that it would happen.
It did, in a sense. While they spent some time getting used to the newly reclaimed name (with Josh probably saying and liking it too much than he should have), Tyler shared with him several pieces of memories he’d retrieved in his dreams. Most of them sounded a lot like what he’d had himself: them as musicians, playing all sorts of shows at different venues together. Laughing together. Making up stories of how they’d met as a joke between them. Recording music videos to accompany their songs.
These all sounded like the memories Josh had had, except that they were always just slightly… off. Something would always turn out just a little different, when they tried to compare the details, when they attempted to dissect them and compare them side by side. It began to trouble Josh, as the differences became more and more evident.
Take the performances for example. Josh had only ever dreamt of them as a two-piece group, but Tyler said in some of his dreams an entire live band, complete with a trumpet player, was present. Tyler had also mentioned a bizarre scene of making a music video while everyone wore masks and stood widely apart as if they would somehow combust if they ever touched each other, but Josh had no memory of such a day.
The strangest thing was, Tyler had sometimes dreamt of the events that actually happened in Trench or in Dema, which, again, was something that no other bandito had ever experienced. He'd dreamt of the day he was taken by Nico down by the river, and how they got him out of Dema on a cloudy night. To make it even more puzzling, Tyler said he felt like he saw the events from an outsider’s view, as if he was floating in mid air, watching himself follow Nico, paralyzed and moving against his own will, or following the banditos out of the City via a secret passageway.
Josh didn't understand. Now thinking back to it, he knew that something was unique about all of these dreams. He should’ve known that there was an obvious explanation to why Tyler had all these memories that he didn’t have. He was just too afraid to think of the possibilities, and shoved it all down the back of his head, sealed them shut with a label saying Tyler is the exception, Clancy is the key, and he’s allowed to have special abilities, special memories that no others have, right? It wasn't a big deal. It wasn't anything they can't handle.
Maybe he'd always known. Maybe he’d even thought if they never said it out loud, then it would stay like that. Just a possibility, one of the many explanations. An assumption, that never had to, and never would, be true.
Until Tyler sat him down in their tent and told him that there was something they needed to talk about, Josh thought, hoped, at least, he could pretend that it would stay like that forever.
**
“You’re from the future.” Josh repeats Tyler’s final sentence hollowly when he’s finished. He should've seen it coming. He thinks he knew all along. It just feels... final, like a nail in the coffin, to actually say it aloud.
“That would be correct.” Tyler says calmly.
“That’s why you have all these memories I don’t have.” Josh says even though it can't be more obvious.
“And that’s why my memories hold the key.” Tyler nods.
It annoys Josh that he’s so poised. Silently he processes the information for a few moments. His brain won't comprehend. Or it simply doesn't want to acknowledge it.
“Josh.” Tyler calls, and Josh looks up. Tyler is so serious, he looks so sure of what he’s about to say, and no, Josh doesn’t like it one bit.
“Yes,”
“I am the key. And I can put a stop to this.”
“No.” Josh objects. How can he not?
“We’ll win but not everyone will get out.” Tyler reminds him.
“No, no.”
“Josh.”
“I’ll go with you.” Josh finds himself pleading. “They don’t have to know. You say the word, and I’ll grab my light.”
Tyler puts a hand softly on Josh’s face. “You know you can’t.”
Josh shakes his head hard.
“You are the torchbearer.” Tyler thumbs over his cheekbone, “You must stay, and tell our story to the whole world.”
“We can tell it together. You and me, after we go through this together. Please.” Josh is begging.
Tyler shakes his head and Josh wants to punch him. Tackle him to the ground. Shout at him. You said you wanted to be close to me! I don’t want you to leave again. Stay with me. I don’t want to lose you, ever again. He can’t say anything. He can't.
“You have to find your Tyler.” Tyler says gently.
“You’re my Tyler.” Tears well up in his eyes.
Tyler closes his eyes quietly. He leans in closer to Josh, hesitates a little before catching his lips. They touch and both stop, almost as if they’re both scared to move. As if time had stopped, and will stay right then and there if they manage to maintain this perfect, perfect still frame.
“I’ll be back when it’s all complete.” Tyler whispers into his lips. Their cheeks are both wet but they’ve barely moved.
Promise me. I’ll hold your word to it. Promise me right now. Josh wants to say but knows better. Any words are excessive and he knows Tyler can't. He just stays quiet.
It’s so quiet. Maybe time is still waiting for them. Maybe the tides aren’t moving, just for this moment to stretch a little longer.
**
“I’ll have to pretend to escape, so that they don’t suspect.” Tyler announces as they tread downhill. Every step they take further away from home, closer to the outer walls of the City, feels more difficult. The air seems to get thicker, making it a little hard to breathe for Josh.
“That’s probably true.” He agrees.
“Josh.” Tyler stops and turns around suddenly.
“Hm?”
“I need you to do me a favor.” Tyler says.
Josh nods. Both are expressionless.
“I need you to keep calling my name until I’m gone, so I don’t forget this time.”
Josh inhales. The air is heavy, poisoned, and his lungs sting. Or he’s just imagining it all.
“Tyler.” He says obediently. Tyler smiles, looking satisfied. “Only if you keep calling mine.” Josh adds.
“Josh Dun.” Tyler says lightly. Josh wants him to say it a million more times. He wants to record it into his brain and put it on endless repeat. He could never get tired of hearing that.
For one last time, he allows himself to wish that this weren’t real.
**
**
Clancy is gone.
Josh isn’t too surprised, or at least he could say he saw it coming.
They did it, after all.
They told the story. Across many years, multiple albums, so many songs and music videos, in Tyler's delicate, intricate way of storytelling through everything he loved and excelled at, bit by bit. All those clues they left for the audience to solve, and the overwhelming response, the overflowing love, they’d received from them. It was phenomenal.
They’d survived through a global pandemic, a disaster to the music industry. They produced a livestream show, simultaneously one of the most complex and ambitious live shows they'd ever done, and a thorough retelling of what happened with Good Day Dema. They went back on the road with a whole live band. They wrapped up the storyline and had countless fans sing all their songs back at them, word by word, city from city, across the globe. They did it.
Josh saw it coming, but it didn’t mean it didn’t tear his heart open, again. The night before the first show of Clancy the album, Tyler sat him down, exactly the same way he did years ago, years from now for him.
“I read the final letter.” He told Josh, who just nodded. Who had those letters burnt into his memories and could as well recite them backwards at this point. “You know what’s gonna happen after the tour, right?”
“I do.”
Tyler smiled and ducked his head. He was heartbreakingly beautiful, just like he had been, he would be, in Trench.
“I am Clancy after all.” Tyler looked up and smiled at him.
Josh nodded again. “I really wish you weren’t.” He confessed again.
They fell asleep in each other’s arms in a hotel in New York City. There was no howling wind, or crying wolves, or crackling fires. But Josh felt as if he was transported back to Trench.
Clancy is gone.
It’s nice to finally quiet down, take a break, after an enormous worldwide tour that was almost a year long. No more tightly-fitted schedules, no more permanent jet-lags, no more dazzling lights and deafening screams and rushing from one place to another. No endless cycles of soundcheck and rehearsals and pouring their hearts out into each gig and starting over again. It’s nice to finally rest at home, to have nothing to do for a whole day, for once. It’s refreshing, relaxing. Yet.
Tyler is gone.
Sometimes days feel too long for Josh. Sometimes the years he’d had with Tyler seemed way too short. It was all like a dream, a very sweet, very fast-paced dream. Josh was prepared for it, he’d practically been preparing himself for this for the past eight years, but it still felt like a piece of him was carved out and the space was just left there forever. There is no way he can ever get used to this.
The way Clancy looked at him for the first time, with a perfect blend of confusion and nostalgia, the way Tyler sang, danced, giggled, held him, draped himself over his back to be carried off stage after a show, the way they smiled at each other and synchronized every beat flawlessly with just a look or a breath. Josh wished he had a better way to preserve these, other than trying to discreetly film Tyler with a phone whenever he’s not noticing (and doing a terrible job at it) and writing everything down and asking the crew to film as much behind-the-scenes footage as they possibly can and annoying the hell out of them. He just wanted to save as much of what’s left of their time together as he could.
**
The weather is fine when Josh steps out. He'd figured that he’d had enough post-tour rest and should at least get back into his morning jogs, as a start. Tyler's been gone for a few weeks now, and Josh really could use some physical activity, or anything at all, to keep Tyler out of his mind for an hour or so.
He'd say he's doing alright, for someone in his situation. The space, where a piece of him was carved out, was still there, but he's getting there. He's regaining his strength little by little. He's getting there, step by step.
When he’s just a few blocks away from home, he notices a lemonade stand by the street, with several kids as well as adults lining up politely in front of it. It’s been years since he’d seen one of those, and he walks closer curiously, adjusting his breaths. As he approaches the end of the queue, the man at the very front, currently in the midst of his transaction, catches his eye. He wears a gray track jacket, has a buzz cut, and has a bag of hamburger buns in his other hand. He turns around and leaves the stand with his drink. He looks up and locks eyes with Josh.
The man blinks. Confusion. Nostalgia. Josh can’t avert his eyes. He wishes this is real, he really does, but he's kinda scared to find out if it isn’t.
Then Tyler smiles.
***