Empathy [Josh Dun - Twenty One Pilots]

SIXTEEN

"You need to chill!" Debby interrupted him, raising the tone of her voice to surpass that of Josh. 

"I thought you guys were friends?" Tyler yelled to be heard, and both of his friends seemed to calm down a bit. This was one of Tyler's many surprising skills. He hadn't told Josh about it, and about everything else he could do for that matter, but he knew everything would fall into place eventually. He knew his best friend would find out sooner or later. "Now will you please let me talk so we can get this over with?" He waited a few seconds, making sure none of them would protest, before laying back on the chair comfortably. Then he started.

Josh watched intently as his best friend told Debby about what they thought they knew. They had previously agreed to leave that to him, because Josh had deemed him to be the most articulate of the two. The boy could always find the words, no matter how weird or unbelievable the story, and this one was quite unimaginable. Josh guessed that the only reason Tyler had agreed so fast was because he had sensed the relationship between him and Debby wouldn't go as smoothly as expected; Josh assumed this to be another layer of Tyler's many powers, and he wasn't that wrong. But everyone else could have predicted that too, including Josh himself. 

It's not that he hated Debby. That was far from the truth. They had sorted things out thanks to Tyler, and in all honesty, Josh was glad they did. But something still felt off. He didn't see her as a friend, at least not yet. He couldn't see her as just an acquaintance, because obviously they had a history, and they knew each other more than people who would just say hi when bumping into each other at school. Josh guessed that his inability to name their relationship was part of the problem. But once again, what were they?

"Wait," Debby snapped him out of his thoughts, "so you're basically saying Mark was kidnapped but you don't know by who, and he's in danger but you don't know where?" She raised an eyebrow skeptically.

"Well," Tyler replied, "that's a brief recap."

Josh thought that, indeed, they didn't have much proof to show Debby, and this clearly sounded like a joke. He wouldn't have believed it if it was said to him either. But he wouldn't have thought he would grow up to be some sort of psychic either.

Debby was silent for a minute, gauging the boys one by one like she was making up her mind. "But how do you know that?"

Tyler glanced at Josh briefly, making sure they still had an agreement on that. The boy nodded without conviction. He trusted Tyler with all his heart, especially after the two had bonded over their shared hyperempathy, and he knew he couldn't possibly trust anyone more than him. But telling other people about their Gift still made him uncomfortable. He hadn't had years to come to terms with what he still referred to in private as an abnormality, and sharing such an intimate thing with the girl he used to date felt like a violation of his mind. It still felt like the right thing to do, though. For the sake of Mark.

"You see, Debby," Tyler started slowly, weighing each of his word carefully. "People in life have different things they're good at, right?" Tyler waited for Debby's brief nod to continue. "It can be anything. Maths, art, music, anything. Truly anything. Including things you might have never heard of, like, say, iceberg moving or snake milking."

Josh chuckled at the words and shook his head, unable to erase the smile on his face. Tyler was definitely the best at explaining the unexplainable, and Debby was curiously getting hooked on his speech, like a girl being hypnotized. She had opened her mouth the slightest bit, waiting for the words that would follow. "Are these things real?" she asked, unfazed.

"Yeah," Tyler grinned, "and I was right. You had never heard of them." He winked when Debby nodded again calmly, awaiting for the outcome. "What if I told you that Josh and I had that kind of ability you had never heard of?"

"You can milk snakes?" Debby frowned. "That's disgusting, but what does that have to do with anyth--"

"No, we can't milk snakes," Tyler giggled, "although that would be kinda cool. I meant, another kind of ability. Like, what if we could feel things no one knew about?"

"What do you mean, feel?" She asked, shifting uncomfortably on the bed. 

"I mean... Let's work with an example. Think of something, anything. Okay?" 

Debby nodded, unsure, but Tyler shook his head energetically. "No, not your grandmother, that's too easy."

The girl's eyebrows shot up with surprise. "Wh-" she started, yet unable to finish the word as Tyler was begging her to dig deeper. Unsettled, the girl nodded again. Tyler smiled and glanced at Josh.

"You ready?" he asked, and Josh nodded in response because he was, indeed, ready. He knew what Debby was thinking about. The thing had appeared so clearly in his mind, like it had never had before, and Josh was surprised of his own skills. The constant training with Tyler seemed to had paid off. He started counting to three, so Tyler and him could blurt out their answers to an obviously deeply perturbed Debby, and then...

"A rubber duck with a Marine hat!" the boys yelled in unison before bursting out laughing at the improbable impromptu. 

The beginning of a smile appeared on Debby's lips before soon dying down, leaving place for a much more frightened look on her beautiful face. "Is this a prank?" she asked, her hands shaking, "because it's not funny at all."

"It's not a prank, Debby," Josh finally stepped in. He could feel the distress in her voice, in her mind. She wasn't believing any of this, and she needed trust to get her through acceptance. Josh knew that, so he left Tyler's spinning chair to crouch down in front of her and get his eyes to her level. He hesitated, then took her hands in his. He didn't really know what took him, and would the situation have been different, he would probably not have done it this way. But Josh felt like it was necessary this time, and he followed the instructions unfolding in his soul. "I promise you it's not a prank. Please don't be scared. Think of it as just an uncommon ability, like Tyler said."

They all went silent for a while, the boys letting Debby decide if she wanted to trust them or not. Eventually, after probing Josh's eyes for some kind of answer she was probably unable to find, she let out a few shaky words. "So you're serious..." And it was more of a statement than a question, to which Tyler and Josh nodded quietly. "And you think Ethan has something to do with it?" she asked, a bit more determined now. "Okay," she added after another nod from the boys, "I'm not sure I know what's going on here but... How can I help?"

Josh glanced briefly at Tyler, wanting so hard to hug him because he always seemed to manage to make the impossible, well, possible. Relieved, the boy sat down on the floor at Debby's feet, turning just a little bit to lay his shoulder against the bed frame. Debby and him were at the same level now, and he patiently waited to hear and immerse himself in Tyler's plan, which he still had no clue about. 

"Here's what I was thinking..."

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Made some small changes to the cover. I like it better that way.

Quick question for those of you who read my two ongoing stories: which one do you like best?