taken by sleep // joshler

twø

The halls fill with people, classes being dismissed for lunch and people rushing to their friend groups. I look around, searching for Josh in the sea of shitty teenagers. My heart pounds, my legs want to take me to the nearest unoccupied room and get away from the large crowd.

Suddenly, a hand touches my back, and I flinch. When I turn around to see it's just Josh, I relax a little, but not much.

"You don't look good Ty. What color?"

"Screaming, pylon orange." I say immediately, the color fried into my mind.

"It's okay, let's go to our lockers. The crowd will die down soon."

Josh leads us to our lockers. Somehow, we got lucky, and scored lockers right next to each other down in the science wing. Josh was right, by the time we got there, almost everyone was cleared from the halls.

"How was English?" Josh asks me as we put our books in our lockers.

"Shitty. The teacher asked me to read in class, then yelled when I wouldn't. So I had to, to make her leave me alone and not fail me. Everyone laughed at me."

"I'm sorry. Ty. I wish we had all our classes together. If it makes you feel any better, Mr. Smith was pissed at me because I couldn't get the right answers to the math book questions. He thinks I'm really stupid."

"That doesn't make me feel better. I don't like it when you're sad."

"It's okay, I hate math class anyway." He smirks, slamming both his and my locker doors closed.

We walk to the cafeteria. As we make our way around the tables of students, I keep my head down, keeping close to Josh.

"Hey look, it's the fucking freak who can't read for shit."

Josh's head snaps towards the tables, looking for the source of the voice. I groan, wanting to keep walking.

"Come on, Josh, it doesn't matter." I tug at the sleeve of his shirt.

"What the fuck Tyler, no. It's not okay. Who the fuck said that?" He says, scanning the crowd for a guilty face.

"What are you gonna do about it?" Brendon Urie stands up, smirking.

"Leave him the fuck alone, you privileged preppy douchecunt." Josh snarls, grabbing my wrist and dragging me to the back exit of the cafeteria.

"Josh, stop. Ow. Josh, you're hurting me." I wince, trying to pull my arm away from him as we get through the exit.

"God what the fuck is wrong with those people? How can they be so rude?" Josh shakes his head, pacing angrily.

"Josh, I-it happens every day. J-just relax."

"No Tyler I won't fucking relax! It's so stupid, they're so stupid." He seethes, eyes wide with rage.

I don't understand why he still gets so mad about it. Stuff like this happens every day, but he still doesn't get used to it, even though it's not even him they're talking about.  I'm used to it by now, but it bothers Josh so much for some reason.

"I need to take a walk. Just - just try not to do anything stupid, don't give them a reason to fuck with you." He shakes his head, turning away from Tyler and walking out the doors into the parking lot.

I sigh. I don't like it when Josh is red. It makes me scared, plus I hate seeing Josh anything but happy. I follow after him after a few moments, but he's already gone by the time I get outside. There's no way I'm staying here if Josh isn't here, though, so I put in my headphones and start walking home.

edit; I have nothing against Brendon or anyone who may appear in this story!! I just couldn't think of any other character name because I read too many joshler fanfics with Brendon/dallon/pete/gerard/Ryan/etc. Etc. In them😂 pls don't hate me I am a fetus!!!!