Tense // Twenty One Pilots

One

TW//Anxiety Attacks

**Unedited

Josh was a tense guy.

Ever since twenty one pilots started touring again after the Christmas break, his anxiety had been sky rocketing. Touring was never going to be an easy thing for the duo, especially when they were overseas, in new countries they had only been to once or twice. It was a very new thing to the two of them.

Josh never enjoyed the beginning of tour. Not because he didn't enjoy performing in front of hundreds of people ever night who absolutely adored him, it was the sudden change of their routine, the fact that they didn't really have any sort of set routine for most of the tour, since every day they were travelling, performing, staying overnight in hotels some nights and sleeping on the road for others. It was distressing for him.

That's why Josh was sitting in the bunk of the bus with his hood up, his legs pulled up to his chest and his arms tightly wrapped around his legs to keep them in place.

There were nights where he was absolutely rocking shows and having the time of his life, but tonight was certainly not going to be one of those nights.

He had left as soon as their sound check had finished, without as much as a word to his bandmate, who was too busy trying to tune his ukulele as the yellow haired male ran off towards their bus. With the growing anxiety making his chest tighten and his throat close in on him, he had no intentions of sticking around for any of their crew to see him in such a horrible state of mind.

He let out a choked-out sob, the sound ripping through his throat, as if somebody as ripping his throat to shreds, the noise so sudden that it genuinely scared him. He was horrified when he heard himself sounding so vulnerable and weak, because shit, this wasn't what he needed, not today.

He heard the bus door open, followed by soft footsteps, a voice clearing their throat. Tyler. How could he have guessed? The other male would always try to find him and help him relax, even when he needed his space. Tyler was persistent, but at the same time he was patient with Josh, even when Josh was crying and babbling on about something minor that happened to be on his mind. And Josh was forever grateful for Tyler, but today he was scared, because he didn't know what to tell Tyler, because he was panicking, but he had no idea what on earth he was panicking about.

"Josh? Are you in here, man?" Tyler's voice rang out through the bus, the concern and worry evident in his tone. Josh went as silent as he was physically able to at this point, in high hopes that Tyler wouldn't find him in such a vulnerable and weak state. He inhaled sharply, his now-trembling hands moving to clutch onto something, in this case, his quilts that were scrunched up beside him, in a failed attempt to help ground himself and stop the anxiety that was hammering at his ribs and pounding in his head.

Josh stopped paying attention after that, where his eyes wandered down at his trembling hands, his knuckles going white from how hard he was holding his fists together. He vaguely heard somebody say something, followed by a familiar weight dipping the mattress. And Josh's eyes went wide in realisation that Tyler had found him in his hiding place. And he had found him in one of his extremely terrible states. His eyes slowly drifted up to the brown-haired male sitting on his pillow. He let out a soft whimper, his left hand letting go of the quilts and now instead covering his mouth to stop the sobs threatening to push past his throat.

Tyler's hands gently rested in between his shoulder blades, rubbing small, comforting circles on his back and at that point, he had given up on hiding his emotions from the other male, so once the first tear had fallen down his face, he caved and let a loud, shaky sob finally break free. Because fuck, did he feel so embarrassed about this entire situation, and the fact that he was unable to stop his anxiety before Tyler found him.