Lockjaw (Joshler)

56. Zack

This is a little bit late. My bad.
***Trigger warnings for mentions of suicide and self harm.***

Start the song. It's Come Down by Sylvan Esso.

To say Tatum and Jay were surprised when Tyler practically catapulted himself through the front door on his mad dash for the stairs, calling to Tatum, "Is Zack in his office?" despite not really waiting for a response, would be a massive understatement.

"He-yeah?" She called back, clearly still in the middle of feeding P breakfast while Jay ate beside them, proving that Tyler really hadn't been gone long at all. "Is everything-"

Tyler didn't hear the rest of her question, turning the corner into Zack's office and immediately entering through the open door. His brother's eyebrows raised in surprise over the rim of the coffee mug he was currently drinking from, clearly not expecting his disheveled older brother to come barging into his office, out of breath and too anxious to sit down.

Zack set his cup down on the desk, sighing as he stood up and pushed his chair in calmly as he anticipated, "I'm guessing you'll explain in the car?"

"You're going to think I'm an idiot and that I'm doing something really dumb, but I just need you to trust me enough to listen and help before you say anything or get mad," Tyler insisted breathlessly, too anxious about going to work while Josh was unsafe to have the presence of mind to be anxious about what Zack would think when he heard what Tyler had been doing for the past couple months.

Zack studied Tyler with a diluted version of the same worry and barely concealed disapproval as his father had shown him when he'd first told him he was thinking of dropping out of law school. "Is this something I'm doing as your brother or as a lawyer?"

There was a lump forming in Tyler's throat that was difficult to swallow, but he tried his best before quietly responding, "I'm asking you as my brother to help me by being someone's lawyer. Just...just because I don't really know how else to keep him safe. Zack, you're going to kill me, but I really just need you to do this for me. If you really really don't want to, I can ask Maddy, but-"

"Whose lawyer?" Zack asked simply, blunt and to the point as always. When Tyler's face drained of colour and his tongue turned to lead, the worry and disapproval on his brother's face became more apparent. "First name and last name, or I'm not leaving this room. You can explain to me how you know them and what's going on in the car, but I'm not agreeing to this if I don't know who I'm doing this for."

Tyler felt like his chest was going to explode, and the world seemed to be moving in slow motion. He glanced anxiously at the door, wishing for only a millisecond that Tatum was in here too before he remembered that she wasn't really on his side with Tyler even just talking to Josh as friends. She wasn't going to be happy to find out that Josh was his boyfriend or that Tyler was now asking Zack to get involved. A familiar sense of helplessness washed over Tyler. Once again, he was in a position of advocating and caring for someone he had no idea how to do those things for, only this time, he'd signed himself up for it while blissfully unaware of how unprepared he was to carry out those responsibilities outside of the prison walls.

"Tyler?" Zack sounded more worried than anything now, taking a step to remove the barrier of the desk between the two of them as he anxiously prepared himself to have to figure out how to diffuse an anxiety attack if necessary.

Tears were forming in Tyler's eyes as he finally forced himself to admit, "I need you to help Josh Dun."

Zack stopped on his tracks, blinking as if he'd just misheard what Tyler had said before asking, "Josh Dun? Josh Dun? Josh Dun as in...the Josh Dun? The kid who lit the Birchwood fire, pled guilty against the counsel of his lawyer, and received a life sentence as a little kid? That Josh Dun?"