if you look at him, he'll kill you!

10: you're gonna regret that, dun

a few weeks had passed and it was mid october now.

josh hadn't made any other attempts to talk to tyler since that night. tyler would be doing his school work, or walking home(well, crutching technically because his father broke one of his knees with the baseball bat) and he'd see josh turning to look over at him every twenty minutes but he hadn't tried to talk to him.

tyler kind of wishes that he hadn't shoved joshua away. maybe the boy did have the right intentions, he just got mixed up with the wrong crowd at school.

but it was too late now because tyler wasn't going to attempt to mingle with the boy. after all, that kid was the reason he'd received the beating when he got home after walking out of class.

★

josh's friends had followed tyler home again after school one day.

he was using his crutches, wincing with his every move when he felt hands on his arms, pulling the crutches out from underneath them.

"hey!" he cried, hopping on one foot to keep his cast from touching the ground(we're just going to pretend that tyler's parents took him to the hospital and told the doctors he fell off of the roof or something idk). "give those back." his voice cracked, defeated.

"why should we?" seth said, a proud smile on his face.

tyler looked around at all of the boys seeing alex, seth, kian, logan, jack, and... josh.

goddammit.

the boy was stood at the very back of the group, his eyes cast directly down.

"please." tyler whispered, looking directly at josh as he did. the boy looked up for a fraction of a second before meeting tyler's eyes and looking down again.

help me. please, josh. i'm dying here, man. please. do the right thing joshua.

"oh my god! dude, are you crying?" logan yelled, the boys all erupting into a fit of laughter. but yet josh, still stood with his head down.

tyler saw as he opened and closed his mouth a few times, as if trying to say something but not quite being able to get the words out.

say something. do it, joshua. come on. you can do it. i know you can. please say someth-

"stop."

the laughter amongst the boys immediately ceased and tyler saw josh's hands balled up in shaking fists at his sides.

"what did you just say, dun?"

"i said: stop. why can't we just leave him alone? he's obviously already going through some shit. just," he paused, looking tyler directly in the eyes. "just leave him be. he's got a broken leg for christ's sake."

the boys all stared at josh for about twenty seconds before bursting into laughter again.

"you- you can't be serious, josh!" seth cried out through a fit of laughter, throwing tyler's crutch back at the boy, hitting him directly in the stomach with it.

tyler groaned in pain, sinking down to the ground, not even caring about his cast at that point. alex slammed the arm rest part of the crutch down onto tyler's unbroken leg causing tears to stream faster down the boy's face.

"leave him alone!" josh yelled, walking towards alex and raising one of his shaky fists. he sent it directly into alex's nose causing the boy to yell out in shock and pain.

tyler's eyes widened as the boy began to fight all five boys at one time, actually doing a fairly good job at not getting completely pummeled.

he punched kian hard in the nose causing it to bleed and the boy walked off, kicking tyler's stomach once before heading towards his house.

then he kicked seth in his groin causing the kid to yell and fall to the ground. "dude, what the fuck!"

and josh continued to fight until the four remaining boys were either walking off or laying on the ground.

"you're gonna regret that shit, dun," logan yelled as him and the other boys started walking off.

tyler's eyes went wide as he processed what just happened.

"you-you just fought off five dudes by yourself. how the fuck?" tyler looked up at josh as he tried to stand up once all of the boys were gone and out of sight, but he ended up falling back down as both of his legs were a bit out of order right now.

"i-i did. holy shit. what the fuck. i can't believe that just happened." josh held his hands out in front of him, as if admiring the fact that they were actually there.

"thank you," tyler said quietly, staring directly into josh's eyes. josh stopped his rambling, looking back at the injured boy.

"no problem. i'm sorry i didn't do it sooner."

tyler smiled, a really tiny smile at that, but a smile nonetheless. he tried standing up again, but he failed once more before just giving up.

and then he felt josh's arms around his body, pulling him up off of the ground.

-

842 words

published august 10, 2019

this is a really shitty chapter but i didn't know how else to make the transition from josh being in that group to being tyler's friend. so sorry