twenty one pilots one shots

He Died Happy

A/N: I apologize in advance. Also s/o to Diana bc without her this would be about 80x worse than it already is. Also check out her book "Tear in my Heart"

People Involved: Josh, mentions of Tyler

Warning(s): Suicide mentions

I sat in front of a blank Word document, glaring at the incessant, flashing bar.

It was begging me to drag it across the digital page, leaving only strings of letters in the form of words and sentence in its wake.

Like that flashing bar, I wanted to leave a trail of words to honor my best friend. My fingers twitched as they waited for me to put them to use.

Thing was, making your own path was much harder than following one that was already made for you.

You have to make the pathway clear. You have to make sure all the people who will hike down the path you're making will feel safe, protected, guided.

But I wasn't sure how to do that here.

I'm supposed to be writing a eulogy, something meant to inspire solace and closure for the mourners, but how can I when I keep going back to my despair and grief?

"I can't do this, Mrs. Joseph," My distant voice echoed from my memory. "I'm not as good with words as Tyler was. If I had killed myself, and he wrote my eulogy, it would be amazing. I can't do that."

"Try, Josh," His mother begged. "For Tyler."

"I'll try."

Yet, here I am now; trying and still coming up with nothing.

There was so much I could say about Tyler Joseph, if not too much. But there was nothing I could physically say. I didn't feel like it would be good enough.

Tyler was my best friend. He's probably already up in heaven, watching me try and write something in honor of his life. Is he upset I can't write anything? Does he feel bad at my inability to write something in his remembrance?

Then write something, yeah, it might be worthless...

I sighed, burying my face in my hands.

I couldn't count how many times Tyler showed me some lyrics and said that they weren't that good or he was unsure about them.

How did he write them at all? How did he have that inspiration and expressed it, even if he hated it?

How could he have written so much to fill that need to pour out his heart out and still hate it? The things he wrote were the things that he felt, the things that he thought.

How do you hate your own thoughts and feelings when you try to make them beautiful and meaningful?

Oh, how I wish Tyler was here.

But he isn't. That's why I'm writing this. I'm writing this because he's gone. I'm writing this because he killed himself.

Tyler killed himself.

I felt fresh tears stab my eyelashes, bleeding from the wounds they created.

How am I supposed to comfort others with my eulogy when I'm not comforted myself?

Tyler didn't even say good-bye. Not to anyone. Not to me. Not his family. No one.

The only thing he said good-bye to was his life.

Was it because it was too hard for him to say good-bye to us? Or was the desire to die too strong to stop and write a note? Honestly, I don't know which is worse.