Free & Flightless (Trench)

Chapter 21-Josh

"Look what you've done! You've scared off the most vital tool we have, Josh!" Debby snapped as the Banditos mumbled agreements, all eyes on Josh. Josh glared at them all. He didn't want to be having this conversation: he had to go find Tyler!
"Shut up, Debby. And don't call him a tool, he's a person. Who has a name, that I'm like ninety nine percent sure you don't even know." Josh spat back, using all he had to not use the phrase bitch at the end of that sentence.
"Be reasonable, Josh. You're not really going to go into that forest, are you?" Another Bandito Josh couldn't identify piped up from in the cluster of yellow and black.
"That's suicide!" Another contributed, rather uselessly, at that. Josh cinched his bag up ignorantly, his cheeks flushed in anger, and from the surprising heat of the evening. Trench wasn't normally this hot, and his hoodie and sweatpants sure didn't help anything.
"I don't care what it is, I'm going to find Tyler. So you can all either support me and let me know where camp will be set up at, or you can each individually screw off!" Josh warned, his eyebrows knit together in frustration as he looked among the crowd. A shift occurred, and Jordan surfaced. Josh rubbed his temples. He didn't have time for a lecture from his little brother.
"We were thinking of setting up nearby the abandoned Bandito Necropolis." Jordan said, after only a moment of silence. The Bandito Necropolis was from the dad where the Banditos actually buried their dead. They stopped after an incident that was a fire caused by the Bishops, they assumed. Watching his dad's neon gravestone burn was the hardest thing for Josh at the time. Josh shuddered at that, internally of course. No signs of weakness would surface for Josh in front of the Banditos. Josh stared levelly at Jordan, the brothers' eyes meeting in a stare-off of "who would crack first." Josh was relentless in his mocha eye glower, and after a moment of silence minus the sounds of the night and the crackles of the fire, Jordan cracked.
"If that's what you meant," he whispered rather emotionally. Josh opened his mouth, only to close it almost immoderately after.
"Thanks, Jordan." Josh said quietly. He didn't care if the Banditos were watching. As he had said, they could screw off. He lightly ruffled his brother's hair, flipped Debby off with a rather ruthless smirk, and ventured off into the forest. The moment he knew he was out of sight of the Banditos, Josh broke into a run of desperateness, each step and crunch from the withering leaves under his feet a warning that if Tyler was hurt, it was all his fault.
He ran until his muscles ached and there were beads of sweat dripping down his forehead. Josh paused, tossing his bag down under a tree, and peeled off his sweatshirt, which stuck to him from sweat. He was only wearing a rather tattered and ripped muscle tank, the armholes almost down to the bottom of the shirt so that all his muscles and select Bandito tattoos were seen. He didn't even bother taping up the shirt, stuffing the hoodie into his bag, and venturing off once again.
Josh called Tyler's name desperately, the empty echo of the forest the opposite of comforting to the worried friend.
It was most likely four am from the moon's position and the shift of the sky's color, and Josh was out of the forest and looking at, well..what was he looking at? It was a sort of ditch, dipping from the edge of the forest into a river that had clearly severely eroded away the ground, as it was a somewhat steep decline.
Josh slid down it, figuring it was the easiest way to go. The river was calm, only a splash of the current slapping against the dirt and rock sides of the riverbank. It was mildly deep though, and reached to Josh's waist or so.
That's when the current decided to pick up, rather aggressively, at that. It took Josh by surprise, and swept him off his feet, and before he could scream out a protest or flail his arms in hopelessness, the river had taken him as one of its own. Josh felt the current take him out by the knees and he went completely under the water, unable to get back up as he was carried downstream. The river got deeper as it carried Josh onwards, and he was beginning to be able to get less and less amounts of breaths in between the secondary calmness of the raging river. This was why Josh had trust issues.
Josh was suddenly taken completely underwater again, and he felt his bag slip out from his grasp. He cried out, breathing in the toxic and disgusting water, which caused him to seize and cough violently, still grasping for his bag. His belongings, his pictures of his family, his food, his clothes...shit shit shit. All he could manage to grab was what felt like a power bar, but was probably too wet to eat. Josh's mind started to duck out the longer he was under. He stopped struggling, opening his eyes. All he could see was a murky and unpleasant brown. He missed Tyler. He wanted Tyler to be there, holding him, hugging him, being there for him. Being Tyler. Josh felt water filling his lungs, unless it was an illusion, and felt himself drowning. He was suddenly aware that he was drowning as he could no longer see brown and saw black, just black, and the pain and the wet and the torment was ending just like that, and he could feel himself warming up like he was being held. Assuming it was an illusion, a miracle that was perhaps the death that was the river rapids.
However, it was not death, or the river.
It was Tyler Joseph, pulling an unconscious and half-dead Josh out of the river.

A/n: sorry for such a delayed chapter, I've been super sick (still am).
On another note, this chapter? More like my worst nightmare.