The Only Bruise On Your Heart

Birthday

[A/N: I'm fully aware that this is a bit of a random timeline, but it is an AU, so it's basically an alternate timeline as well. I wanted Luke Illingworth in it as well as the rest of them, so according to this they all live in Beccles and the birthdays are a bit random too. Sorry!] 

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On the morning of their birthday, both Shane and Drew woke up with a strange, mixed sensation of happiness and dread. Their soul tattoos were complete! 

Shane was up early, around 6am - he was oddly awake and perky considering the lack of sleep he'd gotten, and he wanted to get over to Kier's as soon as possible. Their group, the five of them, were spending the Timids' birthday at Kier's house; they were going to go over to Drew's but the kitchen was being redone, so they were celebrating together there and then Drew and Shane were staying over at Shane's house for the night. It was a pretty average social gathering for them. 

A couple of hours later, Shane checked his appearance in the bathroom mirror one last time before calling his goodbyes to his parents and heading out. His mum had given him a huge upgrade on all his art supplies, and his dad had given him the bloody Washburn: that guitar was beautiful in Shane's eyes, and he'd down his gratitude as much as one could at ridiculous o'clock. 

It was a relatively short walk to Kier's house, since they all lived in Beccles. It was around nine in the morning when he arrived there - still pretty early, really - but Shane was welcome with open arms and a huge stack of Iron Maiden CDs. 

'I knew you liked 'em, and I figured they'd be a great present when I saw them, so there you go,' Kier explained with a huge grin, hugging Shane again. The older boy smiled and gave his thanks, looking appreciatively through the selection of disks. Coincidentally, he'd put on his favourite Maiden shirt that day, and Kier smirked knowingly when he pointed this out. 

After a short while of chatting with Kier and his mum, Shane's pocket vibrated. He jumped a little, then realised that it was his phone; he reached into the back of his skinny jeans and pulled the mobile out, flipping up the screen to read the text. 

Be there soon, birthday twin. Feeling soultacular! It was from Drew. Chuckling to himself, Shane only then realised that he hadn't checked to see if his markings had changed at all. He assumed they had, but it wasn't like you could feel them developing or anything, and he didn't really want to look at them until he was on his own and not distracted by anything else. 

Soon came a frantic barrage of knocks on the front door, a rapid-fire gun of excitement and hyperactivity. Fully aware that this was going to be his best friend arriving, Shane stood up with Kier to answer the door, responding to his red-haired friend's raised eyebrow with a small smile. 

'OI SHANE!' came Drew's shout as the front door swung open, revealing a jumpy Wooly and a grinning Beveridge, Luke trailing behind looking somewhat lost. 'Happy birthday, twinsie!' Kier and Laurence both rolled their eyes, Luke finally looking in the right direction and waving happily; Shane pulled his best friend in for a hug, his smile splitting his face in two. 

'You too, Woolsifer,' the taller of the two replied, quieter and calmer than Drew, but the rest of them knew their friend well enough to know that he was just as happy to see the other. 

'Come on Timids, stop being gay so we can get inside,' Luke piped up from behind Laurence, and all five of them laughed to themselves as they made their way inside Kier's house. 

It didn't take long after the full round of presents - all of the gifts being awesome, of course - for Drew to start stripping. This wasn't as strange as it sounds: he was just extremely eager to show off his completed soul markings to the other guys.