Chapter Text
It's quiet at night in the Bandito camp. It’s never silent, but the rustling of trees and the crackling of the torches, the quiet whispers and footsteps of those keeping watch act almost like a lullaby, soothing the Torchbearer as he sleeps.
During the day, the Torchbearer is a leader, a tactician, a guide for the Banditos to always depend on. He is barely human to them, those who struggled to part with Vialism see him as almost a replacement for it. The others see him as a figure for resistance, his light acting as a symbol for hope.
At night, in his dreams, the Torchbearer is none of these things. At night, he’s a boy in his basement playing the drums.
Most of his memories of Dema are cold, grey and miserable, filled with fear and torment. He’d never go back, never, but he does regret leaving something behind, leaving someone behind.
His name was Tyler, the boy who would come to his basement just to listen to the Torchbearer play his drums, sometimes playing the piano and singing along. His lyrics pulled from the darkest parts of his life, both in his mind and around him in the city. But when the Torchbearer remembers Tyler, he remembers a bright, joyful smile, and an unspeakable warmth that could melt even the coldest parts of Dema.
Leaving that warmth to step into the unknown, the heavy woods far out from Dema, is the only thing the Torchbearer regrets. He wishes he could’ve stolen Tyler away with him, to keep his warmth for himself on cold nights like these.
But the Torchbearer hadn’t seen Tyler in a long time. He’d left Dema as soon as he could, escaping through a rapidly closing window. There was no time to ask Tyler to join him, to convince him that they could run together. There hadn’t even been time for a goodbye.
The Torchbearer dreams of those days, the hours passed in the basement playing music and talking about everything and nothing. He dreams of the love he’d felt for Tyler, love that he never got to truly express. In his dreams, Tyler loves him back, just as strongly.
The Torchbearer is not a leader in these dreams, he is not a symbol for hope. Instead, he is Josh Dun, the boy in love with his best friend, Tyler Joseph.
—
He was not the first torchbearer; there had been a few before him. But he had lived the cycle many times, failing Clancy again and again.
This new cycle likely won’t be the last, but still the Torchbearer has hope. He has to, for the Banditos. Those who have seen the cycle repeat for longer than he has, and those for whom it’s their first cycle, still full of that hopeful fight they all came to Trench with.
The cold winter is still lingering in the air when they get the news. A new Clancy. The older Banditos, those who survived war after war, death after death, and yet still keep going, they recognise the patterns. It’s engraved in their bones by now, carved into their very beings.
They gather the supplies, new torches are made, yellow petals are plucked from newly sprouting flowers. Everything they’ll need to welcome the new Clancy, to show him that there are people who made it out, made it beyond the lifeless grey walls.
The Banditos are meant to be a symbol of hope for Clancy, the Torchbearer most of all. They are the ones who instil the fight in him, the determination. They light the fire within him, and tend to it as it’s trampled over and over again by the Bishops, or near-extinguished by the harsh, frozen winds of Dema.
The Torchbearer is at the heart of that hope. But what keeps his own fire alight is not the same fuel as most of the Banditos. He doesn’t care as deeply as the others about overthrowing the Bishops. There is only one person tending to his own fire, which only burns brighter with every new escapee.
The thought of Tyler is what keeps Josh alive, what gives him hope.
With the new Clancy, there will be new waves of escapees, and a renewed chance of seeing Tyler again. It is that thought that carries the Torchbearer as he leads the Banditos on the long height along the valley to the cliffs. There, they will see the new Clancy, and they will repeat the cycle.
—
Tyler doesn’t know how he ended up here.
He’d been driving somewhere. Away from Dema? Yes. He got out. He wasn’t just driving; he was running.
Nico was following, Tyler knew. He was somewhere further down the road, on his horse.
And then he crashed.
He doesn’t even know how he crashed, just that one minute he was driving, foot to the floor, and the next, he was scrambling out of the burning vehicle.
He should get away from the road.
If he wanted to get out of Dema, get away for longer, then he knew he had to run into the hills, towards the cliffs.
There, maybe he’d find safety, shelter, a hideout from Dema and the Bishops. Somewhere Nico wouldn’t find him.
Josh talked about it, once. They’d been lying on the floor of his parents’ basement when he first mentioned the whispers. Those of a group of people who escaped, who got out. Josh talked about the rescue missions they’d hold, bringing people from Dema to their safe haven, ‘Trench’.
Josh talked about escaping to Trench so much that it eventually became Tyler’s dream too. How could it not be? When the only person he truly loved wanted to go there, of course Tyler would follow.
Because Tyler loved Josh more than he loved life itself. Josh was the light in his life, the sun rising on a new day, the warm fire in a hearth. He was the steady beat, always there in the background to depend upon.
And then he disappeared.
Sometimes, Tyler thinks he escaped, made it to Trench, and is living and breathing and happy.
Tyler knows what actually happened, though. The Bishops love to make people disappear, particularly those sceptical of Vialism, and Josh was nothing if not a sceptic. He’d take any opportunity to denounce the religion, both in private and in public, despite Tyler’s best efforts to keep him quiet, to keep him safe.
He knows Josh only got away with his outward dissent for so long because he was Tyler’s best friend, and the Bishops, particularly Nico, had always taken a strong liking towards him. Josh called it a ‘gross obsession’, and Tyler was inclined to agree. He never said anything though. The Bishops’ favour kept him, and his best friend, alive. Tyler wouldn’t trade that for the world.
And now, here Tyler is, escaping; fulfilling Josh’s dream.
Tyler grabs his jacket from the flaming car, and he runs towards the cliffs.
He makes it further than he thought, running from Nico. All the way to a nearly dried-up river, where he slows to a walk. He’s still on edge, ready to run at a moment's notice, but he walks, still.
It’s when he makes it to the cliffs that he begins to feel watched, but as much as he keeps looking back, he cannot see the blood red of Nico’s cape, or the deathly white of his horse. He just sees harsh cliffs and jagged rocks, with patches of green life peeking through. Still, he walks.
Tyler eventually looks up, and he sees a figure. A person. They’re standing on the cliff, hood up, with… yellow tape?
He keeps walking, this time towards the person.
Then, another figure appears, and another, and another still. Tyler keeps walking forward, this time with more purpose, as the cliff edges become lined with person after person.
They’re the people of Trench, Tyler realises. Those who escaped, and who have come to see another escape. He hopes.
And then he hears hooves crashing into the shallow water, and he knows he has failed.
Tyler turns away from the people of Trench, with their yellow tape, and towards Nico, who stands in front of him, towering over him on his white horse.
Secretly, as Tyler watches Nico stride towards him, he is a little bit glad that Josh likely isn’t there to see him get smeared with black paint, as Nico wraps his hands around his neck. He is glad Josh won’t see Tyler willingly walk back, following the Bishop dutifully.
But then, Tyler thinks, his free mind fighting against the effects of the smearing, what if Josh escaped?
What if Josh is here, a person of Trench, watching him fail?
Tyler can’t let himself fail, for Josh.
—
The way it always goes, the Torchbearer is one of the last people to see Clancy. He is also the last one to watch Clancy get dragged away, staring his last failure in the face.
So the rest of the Banditos are in place when the Torchbearer finally has a chance to lay his eyes on the new Clancy, the next face of the long cycle they have yet to break, and-
It’s Tyler.
Tyler is the new Clancy.
Tyler is staring up at the Banditos lining the cliffs, wide-eyed and scared for his life.
And Josh can’t do it. He can’t live another cycle that ends with his best friend, the love of his life. He almost runs, almost turns his back on the Banditos, his people, to try and change the cycle. So that Tyler isn’t the next Clancy.
He knew that the Bishops love Tyler, and have always favoured him. He should’ve seen it coming. But instead, he lived in wilful ignorance, choosing instead to believe that it would just keep him safe inside Dema, not pull him into this doomed cycle.
And yet, here Tyler stands, his back towards the Banditos as he watches Nico approach.
Josh has to watch as Nico smears black paint around Tyler’s neck, holding his hands a little too tightly for a little bit too long. It takes all his strength to keep his composure, to not break down in tears and desperate cries for Tyler, his love.
It’s not the Torchbearer that watches the new Clancy follow Nico on his horse with forced devotion, it’s Josh watching Tyler be stripped of his freedom.
It’s Josh who signals the Banditos to release the yellow flowers, an attempt to show Clancy the life that blooms outside of Dema, and to confuse the Bishop following him, whose vision is blurred by the yellow.
It’s Josh that watches Tyler stop. The Banditos watch along with bated breath, seeing if this Clancy is stronger than the last. They watch to see if he can break through the hypnotising smears on his neck, if his will is stronger than that of the Bishops’. Then, they will see how this cycle will go. The stronger always last for longer.
Josh quietly hopes and begs and pleads that Tyler turns around and runs towards them, to prove he’s strong enough to go far in, possibly even to end the cycle.
Because Josh wants to have as much time with Tyler as possible, even if he doesn’t complete the cycle. They’ve been separated for far too long, Josh has been wasting away, slowly, as the cycle eats at every part of his hope, but he knows Tyler could restore it.
If the cycle ends how it always has, Josh doesn’t think he’d turn down the robe this time.
But, as tears well in Josh’s eyes, Tyler runs.
He sprints desperately towards the cliffs, towards the Banditos. This is the fastest he’s seen a Clancy run. For once, the Torchbearer thinks this could be it, that he could be the last Clancy, the one to make it out on the first attempt. For the first time in a long time, he feels genuine, excited hope.
And then Tyler trips, reaching, frenzied, towards them. He grabs at a yellow flower on his way down. It does nothing to soften the blow of rocks against his head.
Nico catches up, and one by one the Banditos turn and walk away as he picks Clancy up by the feet and begins to drag him back to the city.
It’s only Josh that still remains, staying longer than he has before. He watches as Nico pauses, and looks up at his old friend, who remains bearing the torch. He watches as Tyler is dragged away.
But this is not the end. Instead, it is merely the start, and the Torchbearer’s flame of hope has been refuelled, rejuvenated. Because now, it’s Tyler who Josh will guide and protect, and while he may not have today, Josh knows one thing.
They will try again.
Always.