Øverturning the lies (a twenty one pilots fanfiction)

~20~

Tyler blinks.

"Yes," Nico says softly, dangerously, drawing Tyler back into the present. "You did. But you saw the error in your ways and returned to our glorious city."

No, Tyler thinks, I came back because it was the only way for them to be free.

But he doesn't say so.

"You, child," Nico tilts Tyler's chin up so that their eyes meet and Tyler shivers, "You were shown mercy."

Tyler closes his eyes.

Mercy? a tiny, rebellious part of him thinks, angry and upset. How could they..

Then he understands. He understands, and it sends a painful jolt through his body. 

The bishops...they only left him alive so they could brainwash him, manipulate him into following their twisted religion.

He realizes right then and there that from the way things were looking, it might not even be very hard for them to do it.

That scares him. No, terrifies him. But he can't dwell on it further. Nico's voice brings him back to the present.

"There's still hope for you," the bishop says, cupping his hand around Tyler's face, a touch that revulses him and sends a shiver down his spine. 

"But this man..." Nico gestures at Clancy and shakes his head. 

Tyler sees two of the bishops make a move towards the man and is suddenly very afraid of what will happen to him. 

"He..." Nico trails off and sighs. "He must die." 

For a couple of moments there is only silence, a terrible, terrible silence.

And then it is broken by a sound Tyler never expected to hear. 

A laugh. 

Coming from Clancy. 

"You fools never learn, do you?" Clancy asks, even as the bishops come closer to him. 

Tyler is amazed he can even speak. Amazed and yet afraid at the same time. 

"I will die today," Clancy says, sounding perfectly content, perfectly at ease with that fact. "But at your hands, not my own. Even towards the end, I-" 

Tyler can't watch. He turns his head away and tries to break free of Nico's grip, fights and pulls, but is unsuccessful.

His mind is trying to deny what he just saw, screaming that there's no way he just witnessed Clancy being...being stabbed. 

No, he thinks. No! 

"I..." Clancy coughs, his voice growing weaker. "I refuse to follow vialism."

The man's eyes travel over to Tyler's, locking on them. 

Tyler can't explain it, but something about them compells him to focus, to listen to the man's next words. 

"I...I'm sorry," Clancy whispers. "Sorry you had to...to watch. Sorry..." he struggles for breath. "Sorry...you are here...in Dema. Just...remember..." 

Tyler can't help from leaning a little closer, or, at least, trying to. 

"Remember..." all of the bishops, save for Nico, begin to make a circle around the dying man, almost, Tyler thinks, almost like vultures. 

Clancy's voice is barely audible, now, but Tyler hears what he says. Just barely. 

"Remember...east is up." 

And then he lies still-dead, Tyler thinks in disbelief-and the bishops murmur to each other and Tyler feels a terrible wrenching pain and Nico is dragging him away and he thinks he can hear Josh's voice, trying to tell him something-something important but its all starting to fade and blur and he doesn't know anything else.

NO!! He killed Clancy!!!!!!! Welp. How's Tyler gonna handle it, frens? Not well, probably.