Fear Will Lose // twenty one pilots // Joshler

Chapter 21

Over the next three days, Josh visited Tyler in hospital every evening and went to work every day.

On the Wednesday he arrived an hour late to the office as he dropped Tyler's bag of clothes and other bits and pieces off for him then stayed and talked to Ryan for a while. Ryan explained all the different therapies and activities Tyler would do, and told him about the meeting.
Once Josh arrived at work, Mr Parker welcomed him dryly, but Josh made sure to work particularly hard and it didn't take long for his boss to forgive him.

Josh kept that high standard of work up for the rest of the week, and made extra effort to prove that he was a valid member of the team.

Tyler went through good and bad patches, but Josh was happy to hear that he'd been attending almost all of his sessions. He was having panic attacks daily, and OCD was making things particularly hard for him at times, but thankfully he hadn't had any hallucinations, or as least any that the staff knew about.

By the Saturday morning, his supervision had been changed from constant to getting checked every 15 minutes.

Josh arrived at the hospital at 10am and stayed in Tyler's room with him. Usually when he visited they would do something to keep Tyler's mind and hands busy, such as play chess, but that morning they simply laid on his bed and talked.

"Do you think Zack knows?"
"That you're back in hospital?" Josh checked.
"Yeah,"
"I should think so. I mean your mom and dad have been to visit, and they're still living with Zack and Tatum to help out with Ben, so I imagine they've told him yeah."
"Yeah you're probably right,"

"Why do you ask sweetie?"
"It's probably nothing, but usually when he finds out that I'm in he tries to visit all the time, and this time he hasn't. Or if he has then they haven't told me."
"Well last admission you told the doctors that you didn't want to see him, so maybe he remembered that and wanted to give you some space." Josh reminded him.

"Maybe. I'll ask him tomorrow," Tyler said, playing with Josh's fingers affectionately.
"Tomorrow?"
"Yeah, at Jay's basketball game."
"Sweetheart I know you want to go, but we'll work up to it eventually, yeah? I promise we'll go to one soon, but not tomorrow."
"I'm ready, please,"
"I'm sorry Ty, and even if I decided to take you, I don't think the hospital would let me,"
"No it's fine with them, I already checked."

"Sweetheart, you feeling okay?" Josh asked sadly.
"Josh I'm not sick, well, I mean I know that I definitely asked Ryan and he definitely said he'd talk to my consultant about getting a few hours of leave. And he came in before you this morning to tell me that they're going to let me, as long as I stay with you."
"Okay sweetie," Josh said, unsure of whether Tyler had hallucinated or not.

"You don't believe me do you," Tyler said sadly, dropping Josh's hand.
"Ty,"
"Josh I'm telling the truth." He defensively said, sitting up so that Josh could only see his hunched back.

"I'm not saying you're lying Ty, I'm really not, just sometimes things get jumbled and confused and I want to make sure that this isn't one of those times." Josh told him, sitting up so they were next to each other again.
"Should trust me." Tyler said under his breath as he moved himself off the bed and walked towards his bedroom door.

"Where are you going?" Josh called after him, but he had already walked out into the corridor.

"Tyler," he called again as he got off the bed and followed after him.

Josh caught up with Tyler as he knocked four times on the staff room door. "Tyler talk to me,"

"Hi, can you get Ryan please?" Tyler said as another nurse opened the door.