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joeck-trash · 7 years

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Fancying Caspar's friend

Josh is Caspar’s friend, he’s straight as a bloody line, christ so is he. Joe repeats this over and over again as he makes the small journey back to his apartment. He’d been at Caspar and Josh’s most if the day. Filming videos and just hanging out. That was until he felt something, something he certainly shouldn’t do when in the presents of his ginger haired friend. There was something there, a spark- Joe stops himself before he can think any further into this. He doesn’t have a crush on Josh, no way.

Unlocking his door and going inside, Joe drops himself down on the sofa letting out a loud sigh. He’s just tired, that’s it, he’d been having trouble sleeping lately. Yes, that must be what it is. Closing his eyes, Joe tries to block out his racing mind.

————————————————————————————

Joe is Caspar’s friend, he’s straight as a bloody line, christ so is he. Isn’t he? Josh’s mind is racing as he replays the last few minutes in his head. There was something there, he is sure of it. Joe had been at his and Caspar’s apartment all day, they needed to film a new video for his and Caspar’s channel and Joe had agreed to join them. It had been fun, like it always is when they’re all messing around together. Then, something happened.

Holding eye contact with someone, your friend no less, should be nothing but awkward, a weird thing that happens and you laugh about it afterwards. This-this was different. Josh had a sudden urge to do something he’d never thought of doing before. You shouldn’t feel an urge to kiss your friend. Joe had felt it too, he is sure of it. The way the older man had broke the eye contact so suddenly and removed himself from the situation so quickly, made it obvious to Joe. This left him with two reasons, Joe had felt the urge too, but though he hadn’t or Joe knew from the look in his eye what Josh was thinking. Despite himself, he hoped it was the former.

“What happened?” Caspar asks, shaking Josh from his thoughts.

“Hm?”

“Why’d Joe leave so suddenly?” Caspar looks at him questioningly.

“I don’t know. Maybe he forgot about something he had to do,” Josh answers, standing up to move the cups they’d been using to the sink.

“But something happened,” Caspar pushes, Josh has to give it to his friend, people don’t give him enough credit to how smart he is.

“Don’t know what you mean.”

“So you two didn’t stare at each other for a solid twenty seconds then Joe made his excuses and left,” Caspar says, determined.

Busted. Josh places the cups down on the work top carefully, keeping his back turned to his oldest friend.

“I don’t-”

“Don’t talk crap. I know you too well,” Caspar states, confidently and Josh mentally curses himself for his inability to lie, “and Joe doesn’t just walk out for no reason.”

“Caspar, nothing happened. You’re seeing things,” Josh tries to argue, “and Joe’s always unpredictable who knows why he needed to leave.”

“He is to people who didn’t have to live with him for however long,” Caspar says, smirking, Josh silently hates him for being so smug, “but I know when he’s hiding something.”

“What are you suggesting happened then?” Josh asks, turning around and leaning on the counter.

“I don’t know, but you know what I’m talking about,” Caspar says, pushing himself up from the sofa and walking over to his ginger haired friend.

-–————————————————————————————

That night, Joe has an even worse night sleep then he usually does. He wakes up disoriented and confused, unable to remember his dream at all. Despite it only being quarter to six, he gets up. Though he wouldn’t admit it, the only person he can think about is Josh. His ginger hair, his brown eyes. No, Joe scolds himself, he can’t think like this, he’s straight. They’re both straight. Josh is his friend. Making sure to make no noise that could wake up Byron, he walks down the stairs to his kitchen.

He needs to get his head straight before he sees Josh again, it doesn’t help things that they’re all going out tonight. Joe feels sick, his head swimming with stress. He has always been a stressed person, someone who you could guarantee would get stressed about little things. Everyone always tell him it’s because he cares too much about things and always wants them to be perfect. He could always count on his friends to distract him from mounting stress. It doesn’t help that one of said friends are the reason for most of his stress right now.

Hours later, Byron gets up, walking tiredly into the kitchen smiling a brief greeting at Joe.

“Still having trouble sleeping?”

“Yeah,” Joe says, absentmindedly.

“What’s on your mind, bro?” Byron questions.

Joe is silent for a second before asking, “can you keep a secret?”

“Sure thing,” Byron answers, turning his full attention on his friend.

“You can’t tell anyone, people could get hurt if-if this gets out,” Joe says, in the most serious tone Byron has ever heard Joe use.

“Okay, I won’t tell anyone,” Byron says, honestly.

“I-I think I wanted- I think I might have a crush on Josh,” Joe finds himself saying. For a second it throws him, he wasn’t planning on telling Byron that.

“Josh Pieters?” Byron says, shocked, “okay, alright.”

“Alright?” Joe repeats, confused.

“Yeah, alright. It’s not that bad,” Byron says, easily, “crushes come and go and if you don’t want to do anything about it then you’ll just have to wait it out.”

“I don’t think it’s that easy, Byron,” Joe disagrees, looking down at his hands, “I wanted to-to kiss him-yesterday.”

“Tell him,” Byron says, his voice is as calm as it usually is and Joe can’t help but cure the other man’s cool and calm composer in any situation, “he’s your friend, if it’s bothering you, tell him.”

“He’ll hate me, I hate myself for it,” Joe says, it is out everything he wanted to say is out.

Byron sighs, looking at Joe with sympathy, “he won’t hate you.”

————————————————————————————–

“He’ll hate me, Caspar,” Josh says, running his hand through his hair.

“Of course he won’t,” Caspar answers, shaking his head, “he’s not homophobic.”

“That doesn’t mean he won’t hate me for liking him,” Josh argues, rubbing his eyes.

In the time since Joe left their apartment, Caspar had convinced Josh of his feelings towards Joe and the next day Caspar has manage to make Josh spill everything. Caspar is adamant that he should tell Joe, telling him that it won’t help anything keeping it a secret.

“Are we both thinking about the same Joe here?” Caspar asks, “you know the small one with brown hair, blue eyes and a witty sense of humour?”

“Don’t patronise me, Caspar,” Josh says, annoyed, “I never said Joe was a bad person, it’s just-different isn’t it? Can you imagine Oli or Conor or Jack coming up to you and telling you they has a crush on you?”

“This isn’t about me, Josh,” Caspar says, sitting down, “this is about you telling Joe that-”

“I don’t want to tell him,” Josh says, firmly, “I don’t even want to see him right now, i want to pretend he doesn’t exists until whatever this is disappears.”

“We’re going out later, all of us and you can’t cancel or it’ll be too obvious,” Caspar says, simply, “you’ll just have to ignore it, conceal don’t feel, don’t let it show.”

“You didn’t just reference frozen,” Josh says, bursting out laughing.

“Don’t tell Joe, he’ll kill me,” Caspar says, joining in laughing.

“You say that like I’m going to go up to him and say, hey Joe, Caspar referenced frozen when he told me to conceal my feelings for you.”

“True,” Caspar says still laughing.

————————————————————————————–

That night the seven boys meet up at their usual pub. Joe gets there shortly after Jack and Conor, greeting his two friends cheerfully. His feelings are not going to get in the way of him having fun tonight.

“Alright, Maynards,” Joe greets, smiling at the two younger men.

“Shit, you nearly gave me a heart attack,” Conor complains, holding his chest dramatically while the other two laugh.

“How you doing, mate?” Jack asks, smiling at the older man, “you look exhausted.”

“Oh, cheers,” Joe says in fake annoyance, rolling his eyes good naturedly, “I’m fine, just a bit of trouble sleeping that’s all.”

Before Jack or Conor can say anything else the other four boys make them and probably half the rest of the pub aware of their arrival. Despite himself, Joe’s eyes go to Josh first before he forces himself to drag his eyes away before he gets caught staring.

“Evening boys,” Mickey says, much too loudly from being inside a busy pub.

“How you doing Joe?” Oli asks him, noticing how tired he looks like Jack had done.

“As good as ever,” Joe answers, evenly, “you?”

“Good, good,” Oli replies, smiling his usual Oli smile, “still having trouble sleeping?”

“Is it really that obvious?” Joe asks, sighing.

“Yeah it is a bit,” Oli says, honestly, leave it to Oli to be painfully honest all the time, “are you sure you’re up for a night out if you’re so tired?”

“Yes, Oli, stop worrying,” Joe says, smiling at his friend, “I’m good. First round on me?”

Joe stands up from the table and makes his way to the bar.

“Stop staring,” Caspar mutters to Josh, who’s eyes snap to look at him instantly, “subtlety never was your strong point.”

“Shut up,” Josh says, shaking his head.

“What are you two whispering about?” Jack asks, interested, leave it to Jack to bring all the attention on them.

“Josh was just worried about a video idea, wondered whether it would be too repetitive,” Caspar says, it seems obvious to Josh that he is lying but he hoped nobody else picked up on it.

“I’m sure it’s fine, Josh,” Oli says, “I think our viewers would rather some sort of content then no content at all.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Josh answers, nodding as though he agrees.

There drinks are brought to them but Joe lingers by the bar.

“Looks like Joe’s pulled already,” Conor says, nodding over to the older man who, sure enough is talking to a girl.

Josh feels his blood run cold as he spots them. Caspar looks at him sympathetically.

“Cor, he doesn’t mess around, does he?” Mickey says, laughing.

“Nah he doesn’t,” Josh says, under his breath, his grip tightening on his drink slightly.

“Are we moving on to a club after this or are we changing pub?” Jack asks, casually

“I say club, pubs are a waste of time if you ask me,” Conor says, the rest of them nodding in agreement.

————————————————————————————–

Joe’s mind drifts as he waits for the bar man to make his and his friends’ drinks. The makes him unaware of when someone comes to stand next to him.

“Hello,” a woman’s voice says, causing his to blink out of his day dream, “I’m Sophie”

“Oh, hi, I’m Joe. Sorry, was a bit out of it then,” Joe says, cringing inwards at how awkward he sounds.

“Not your scene?” Sophie asks, motioning at the pub around them.

“Usually is, just not feeling it tonight,” Joe answers, looking at the girl next to him.

Sophie looks like she’s in her mid-twenties, long curly brown hair, green eyes, her make up not too obvious, and she’s slightly shorter then him. He knows he’s attracted to her but something inside him is still thinking about Josh, who is sitting a few meters behind them. He mentally kicks himself for that.

“Shame,” she says, smiling, “they your friends?”

Joe glances at the table she is nodding at, making sure not to look at Josh, before turning back to her and nodding.

“The ginger guy doesn’t look very happy,” Sophie observes, subtly glancing over.

“That’s his default face,” Joe jokes, slightly confused why Josh wouldn’t be happy.

“I see that. Any reason why he keeps glancing over?” She asks and Joe half wants to tell her to stop talking about Josh.

“Beats me, anyway enough about my mates. What about you?” Joe says, stealing the conversation away.

“I’m here with my friends as well,” Sophie tells him, softly, “what’s with all the friend talk?”

“You started it,” Joe says, he can see where she wants this to go and Joe sure as hell doesn’t.

“Why don’t we get out of here?” She asks, leaning forward as if to kiss him but Joe steps back.

“I’m sorry, you’re a lovely girl, but-”

“You’re taken?” Sophie asks, sighing.

“No, I just- I’ve got to go,” without another word Joe walks as quickly as possible to the bathroom, anywhere away from that situation would have been fine.

————————————————————————————–

Back at the table, the six boys are talking carefree banter flowing as easily as it always does. Caspar and Conor are laughing about something Jack did when he was a kid, Jack, Mickey and Oli are having a debate about one thing or another, Josh isn’t really following. The ginger haired man can’t help but glance over at Joe every now and then, wishing the older man would just come back over. It isn’t a surprise then that Josh sees him walking or you could call it running out the door.

He tells Caspar he’s just heading to the bathroom before following after the smaller man, worried. He enters the boys toilets and spots Joe straight away, standing with his hands braced on one of the sinks.

“You okay?” Josh asks, his sudden voice in the silence making the smaller man jump causing a surge of guilt to go through him, “sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You didn’t,” Joe says, running his hand through his hair.

“ ‘course I didn’t,” Josh says, shaking his head, “what happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t play dumb, you pretty much legged it out of there,” Josh pushes, his voice soft, “she can’t have been that bad.”

“Nah, it wasn’t her,” it was you.

“What was it then?” Their eyes meet

Both of them can feel it, the spark, the fire. Neither of them know who kissed the other first, but before they know where they are, their lips have met in a passion filled kiss. Their height difference making Joe stand on his tip toes and Josh bend down slightly to allow their lips to meet. Joe is the first one to come to his senses, pulling away quickly, his brain yelling at him to stop.

“We-this-we can’t,” Joe stutters, catching his breathe.

“Who says we can’t?”

“It isn’t logical-”

“I don’t care if it’s logical or not. All I want is your lips against mine right now,” Josh says, firmly.

Joe, for once, throws logic out the window and kisses Josh again. This kiss was less desperate and passionate and more slow and planned. This time Josh is the one to pull away first.

“I never expected this to happen,” Josh admits, looking into Joe’s blue eyes.

“Me neither,” Joe agrees, softly.

“I told Caspar,” Josh says, quietly, “that I liked you.”

“I told Byron.”

“Is this going to stay between us or-”

“Maybe for a while, I quite enjoy the thought of sneaking around,” Joe says, grinning at Josh.

“Let’s go find the others before they get the wrong idea or rather the right idea, then,” Josh says, briefly kissing the older man again.

“Oh and Josh?”

“Yeah?”

“I think I’m going to cut your legs off.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, you’re too bloody tall.”