Toxic Valentine. (Fransykes)

Josh leaned back against the fence, his hair made from chestnut strands blew further from his face than it had already been gelled into, and brushed lightly against the silver wires of the linked fencing. A cigarette was pressed between his fingers although it had been so long since he’d last put a cancer stick between his lips, but this tour was already digging up the skeletons in his closet, his imminent need for a slow and dangerous death seemed to be one of them. The cerulean orbs closed and he tried to just breathe in the toxic smoke, but every time his vision shut off from the world all he saw was the tall, thin and illustrated man that so far he’d managed to forget about.

This wasn’t fair, he’d managed so long and so well without this havoc, years of untamed silence and shady clubs and secrets well kept. Why was this coming back to him now? And why were people suddenly so interested? He had caught wind that Vic Fuentes of all people was suddenly taking interest in something that had been so long since dead, that it was almost unbelievable. Another shaky inhale, a cough, long time no see old friend. Yesterday Alex Gaskarth, after about three months of staying quiet and not speaking about the night he had broken down from a fucking text, waltzed into the You me At Six tour bus, told everyone except Josh to get out (the assumption was they were doing shots with Jack and Zack, because when they returned to the bus they were so far gone that they all collapsed in various places of the bus) and proceeded to speak at a thousand miles an hour. It turns out that he had been warning him to stay away from Oli, after all the last thing he needed was to become completely dependent on crushed up minerals in his water again.

The story was simple, one night three years ago, a whole year of silence and out of the blue Oli gets fucking engaged. Engaged. No word or otherwise for him for a couple of months, then as if nothing had ever happened the Weybridge boy gets a text from the other- ‘I’m sorry,’ But it’s far too late, at this point Josh has been through depression, anorexia, bulimia and anxiety before he’s back on his feet again, but he never trusted anyone like he trusted Oli again. He would give people his body and never his heart. For Alex, who is at this point completely and utterly the only person who knows every single detail (including the “Handcuffs thing,” which is what he insists in calling it), it was sort of heart-breaking, to know that one night and one so called lover or best friend had caused all of this distress.

But of course, someone had to know Oli’s side of the story, and someone did. But who? Only they knew. Josh was now deep in thought, leaning up off the fence and flicking the crisp, powdery ashes to the ground, knowing that he was crashing head first at a much faster pace than those little flakes were. “Thought you quit?” A small smirk drifted across his face as he held the cigarette out for Alex to take, not even looking up. “It’s bad for you, causes cancer,”
The hypocrite chuckled and inhaled steadily,practiced his hands steady and eyes closing in temporary bliss. In a way smoking was a bit like sex, it gives you a little bit of ecstasy that has your heart racing and eyes fluttering close for a minute or two, then it’s over and you crave more; even more so, if it goes wrong it could leave you scarred and hurt for life. But if they were making comparisons, Josh’s sex life was more like heroin and cocaine.

“That wouldn’t be so bad,” The British boy chuckled, looking up at the morning sky, still a little exhausted from the previous day as such. His amusement was short lived, as Alex who had both lost his brother to death and the love of his life to friendship, shoved his arm and shook his head, causing Josh too fall silent immediately. There was so many things that the American had wanted to say, and the other could almost hear him thinking, but was thankful when he decided not too speak, enjoying the silence and polluted intake into their lungs before they parted with a half-assed smile and one armed hug.

Notes