Øverturning the lies (a twenty one pilots fanfiction)

~Mari~

There, in the semi-darkness, she utters the words she wishes weren't true.

"I'm a burden." 

She feels this terrible weight inside her chest, like something is clawing at her. 

And yet...

She smiles. 

She doesn't even know why, just that it feels good to finally acknowledge the darkness she's spent so long trying to ignore, the darkness that's trying to control her. 

But...

"No."

Mari sighs. 

Her smile fades away, immediately replaced by a frown, a weary frown.

"But..." she doesn't even know why she's trying to keep arguing that point, only that she does.

"Listen to me, okay? You are not a burden," Tyler says.

Mari sighs again. 

There's no way she'll be able to convince him. 

"Just...leave me alone," she says halfheartedly, barely able to even drag words out of her mouth because of how exhuasted she is. 

"Why on earth would I do that?" 

"Because...I don't know. But please. I can't-I need-" Mari stammers. 

A moment passes. 

"I'm not trying to hurt you by staying here," he says at last. "Really, I'm not. I get that you want to be left alone. But I'm scared that if I do leave-"

"I won't do anything," Mari says, wishing she could believe it. "I won't. I promise." 

"I wish I could believe you," Tyler says, and it really and truly feels like ice is melting, trickling down into her soul, making her feel cold and terrible inside. "But it's not that I don't trust you. I don't trust-" 

"Her," Mari suggests. 

"...Yeah," Tyler says. "Wait."

"What?" Mari asks. "Please don't tell me you think it's weird I think of everything that I can't control...all of those other things...as a completely different person." 

"I don't think it's wierd," Tyler says, and he shivers a little bit. 

"Are you okay?" Mari asks, knowing perfectly well he's probably not but having to ask either way-because he did stay with her, after all, when he didn't have to. 

Just so she wouldn't have to be completely alone. 

"Considering everything, actually, yes," Tyler says. "But...I was thinking-well, about..."

"You don't have to talk about it-" Mari says.

"Yeah, well-" Tyler says. "I think you know what I mean."

She does, and it's so, so easy to visualize that place in her mind.

Too easy. 

She thinks of the nine, and of the one who tried to make her life so bad. 

Who tried to convince her to-

She pushes that thought away. 

-yeah. 

She's pretty sure, no, she knows, it was the same bishop.

For both of them.

"Can I tell you something?" Tyler asks.