Work Text:
Screams.
Thrashing.
Clicking.
Tyler Joseph was rabid.
Laughter.
Clicking.
Tyler Joseph was hilarious. They were all laughing at him.
Gunshots.
Blood.
Anguish.
Disappointment.
Boredom.
Tyler Joseph was dead. They just lost their entertainment.
Blood.
Back to routine.
Nothing changed.
Mere days before, Tyler Joseph still had hope in his world.
Josh Dun still had life in his veins.
Their group's leader only had contrast, fire and ice and blood.
Blood was a common thing, in their world. Blood was favoured and renowned, but replaceable and boring.
Sometimes blood was exciting.
The best kind of blood comes after a reverberating click, one that they all listened for, day in and night out.
The click meant fun, but fun meant seriousness. The 'fun' only comes after the bloodshed and sobriety.
Three men from their group hovered around a closed door. The handle was brass, and often warm to the touch. Definitely warmer than the skin of any person in the organisation.
Their leader was in the room, conferring with members of a neighbouring community.
They were waiting for the click. It doesn't always come, but they hoped it would. They were thirsty.
Tucked in the corner furthest from the door sat two men. One looked fragile, the other falsely intimidating. Both looked out of place, but neither had any other place to be.
They were talking animatedly, their voices hushed. The coloured hair of the smaller one bounced as he gestured in accompaniment to his words. The other looked vaguely loopy, his eyelids droopy and his mouth slanted lazily. His eyes were warmer than the brass handle, and more awake than the rest of his body. The smaller one's mouth fit the tired one's eyes. The light in the smile that the man with the coloured hair produced could blow the bulbs in stadium floodlights.
The smaller one's name is Josh, the other's name is Tyler.
Josh paused in his sentence, eyes flicking upward in an instinctive attempt to remember something. He clicked his fingers as it struck him, and he opened his mouth to speak once more, but the only sound was the simultaneous shuffle of chairs and the cocking of numerous guns, then the deafening bang of a round. The sounds of cold blood splatter followed, succeeded by distressed screaming.
Josh was dead.
Tyler was still alive.
Tyler didn't want to be alive.
The members of the group stared at Tyler, some contemplating moving to cover his mouth to stifle his wails, but none hesitated for more than a second before sitting back down. Their heartless, orderly fashion was practised. The flecks of blood that dotted the walls were pleasing. Sometimes it doesn't get washed off. They joke about it when they're off the job as if it were nothing more than a coffee shop aesthetic.
Tyler clicked his fingers helplessly, only to gain the harsh stares of eyes but no remorse or compassion. He kept trying to click, click, click, until he could take it no longer and snapped his fingers, breaking the bones in uneven fractures.
Nobody took pity on him, only laughed at his suffering and cackled when he swallowed the fire of his handgun.
Tyler and Josh had been out of place in that building after all.
Maybe they had a better chance in whatever afterlife arrived after a life of crime.