medicine ~fransykes~

Chapter 9

Song of the chapter: brand new by you me at six

Today was Oliver's birthday. To him it was just like any other day, except for the voice at the back of his head reminding him that he was another year older. A couple of years from now he would be out on his own in the big wide world without the financial support of his mother. The though of growing older scared him as it brought uncertainty and danger.

Oliver had never been the kind of person to celebrate their birthday, it was hard to celebrate when you had to rely on yourself to buy you presents and a cake. Since his dad went to prison, his mother hadn't bothered to make an attempt to celebrate either of her sons birthdays, although Oli always took it upon himself to make Tom's special day at least half decent. He felt bad for Tom, instead of having a big party with presents and and games, Tom spent every birthday eating shitty store bought cake with his even shittier brother.

Oliver arrived at school extra early. He hadn't been able to get back to sleep this morning after he was awoken by his daily nightmare, so he decided to just get dressed slowly and go to school early. Hardly anyone was at school. It was peacefully empty, just like Oli liked it. He decided to sit at the back of the library and read until school actually started. The schools library was completely dead, with rows of high stacked books and a couple of cheap plastic tables at the back of the room. Literally no one ever came in her before school because they would rather sleep for an extra 10 minutes then hang out at the back of a silent, lame library. But to Oli, this was the only decent time of the day to even set foot in the library. He couldn't imagine coming at lunch time and having to put up with all the annoying little year 7's running around like it was a playground.

He pulled out his headphones and rested his head on the table. The room was only half lit due to the multiple broken lightbulbs that the school couldn't afford to fix. He kept his eyes closed until the first bell rang and then he stayed in the library for a couple more minutes until he could hear the hallways quieting down.

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Break came even slower then usual. He honestly wanted to go sit by himself right now and forget that he even existed. Oli was currently sat on the ground by the teacher parking lot. He knew that no one came round here in fear that one of the teachers would come to get something out of their car and see them. But Oli had been coming to this particular spot for years and so far he hadn't been caught once. Oliver lit up one of his cheap cigarettes and leaned his head back against the wall, watching the smoke elegantly dance in the air.

"Happy Birthday!" Josh's voice startled Oli and caused him to almost bang his head against the wall behind him.

"How the hell do you know it's my birthday?" Oli decided not to comment on the fact that Josh had somehow found his secret smoking spot and instead focused on the bigger question.

"I do office duty on Thursday mornings and a list of everyone's birthdays comes up when you open the school calendar on the office computer. Sorry I didn't get you a present or anything."

"You know what would be the best gift I could receive right now? The ability to be alone for more than 30 seconds without a nosy blue-eyed boy invading my alone time."

"Hmm well maybe you should ask for a more realistic gift next year?" Oli snorted, which caused Josh to smile widely at him and sit down on the floor next to him.

"Besides you know you love me keeping you company." Josh continued.

"As you wish to believe." Josh laughed at Oli's words and shuffled a little closer. Oliver took another drag from him cigarette, turning his head to the side to avoid blowing the smoke in Josh's hair.

"Cigarettes are bad for you y'know?" Josh said, irritating Oli slightly.

"I'm letting you sit with me, please don't lecture me Joshua. If you were anyone else I would have beaten you up by now."

"We both know that you wouldn't beat anyone up. You're way too nice of a person to do that."

"That's what you choose to believe, it's like you need to think of me as a good person otherwise your stupid little crush on me would be unjustified." Oli countered.

"First of all, I know that you are a nice person deep down because you look after Tom and judging by how much Tom likes you I would say that you are a pretty good big brother." Josh started, becoming slightly irritated himself at Oli's constant state of denial. "Second of all, I don't have a stupid little crush on you." Josh finished his mini rant with a huff, leaning further back against the wall.

"If you don't have a crush on me then why are we holding hands?"

Josh looked down to see that he was in fact holding Oli's left hand. Their fingers were intertwined loosely. Josh didn't remember grabbing Oli's hand but he guess he somehow did.

Oli laughed at Josh's confusion but didn't pull his hand away, instead giving it a reassuring squeeze.

"Force of habit I guess." Josh shrugged, not wanting Oli to think any further into it.

"Bullshit Franceschi. It's pretty obvious you like me." Josh blushed at this and Oli laughed before fever kissing Josh's cheek teasingly. The motion caused Josh to blush even harder, making Oli laugh more. Josh playfully tried to push Oli away, laughing hard himself as Oli continued to ticket his cheek with quick kisses. By the time the bell rang they were both wheezing with laughter.

"I'll see you tomorrow yeah mate?" Oli questioned. He really wanted to spend lunch time and after school alone.

"Yeah." Josh smiled.

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The moon was high in the sky and the streets were wet with rain. Tom and Oli were sat watching some random cartoons that Tom had put on. Suddenly, there was a loud knock at the door, cutting through the sharp sound of rain hitting the windows.

Tom eagerly ran to the door and flung it open to see who it was. He was probably hoping it was their mum, she hadn't been home since she went to a work party a couple of nights ago.

"Josh!" Oli heard his bother exclaim, he got up and headed to the door as Tom leant out the door to hug Josh's waist.

"Jesus fucking Christ Josh it's pouring out there." Oliver grabbed Josh's wrist and pulled the wet boy inside of the house. "What are you doing here?"

"Well I felt bad that I hadn't got you anything for your birthday and I didn't know what you liked so I got you some movies and food that you might enjoy and yeah." Josh rambled, looking at Oliver shyly before smiling. He handed Oliver a plastic bag that contained all kinds of sweet treats and a couple of film cases.

"Josh you really shouldn't have-" Oli smiled in shock and looked at Josh to see him smiling back. The lecture that Oli was about to give Josh died the second he opened his mouth so he decided to simply smile instead, a faint blush burning into his cheeks.

"Yeah well it se-" Josh was cut off by Oliver hugging him tightly. Josh sighed into Oli's chest and closed his eyes as Oli leaned his chin against Josh's head.

"Thank you Josh."