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Some Pills For Me

Summary:

In a world where nobody is able to have feelings on their own people try to fill in their blank days by swallowing pills that provoke different emotions depending on their colour. Red pills are for rage, blue for sadness, pink for love, yellow for happiness and so on. Obviously, pharmaceutic companies sell pills that trigger good emotions at a higher price than those which provoke negative ones, consequently condemning most of the population to a constant state of sadness or anger.

Oliver is nothing different than any other person on Earth. He lives his life day after day in a cycle of a constant numbness or sadness, working in a fashion studio and hoping, one day, to save enough money to buy a yellow pill. However, on the train directed to work, he meets by chance a young boy with bright blue eyes, a boy who makes him feel something for the first time without any type of pill.

In the meantime, Andy Biersack is at the head of the biggest pharmaceutic company in existence. His right-arm-man, Ben, just informed him that a person able to feel emotions on their own had been discovered. Two mercenaries, Kellin and Victor, are therefore sent to kill the boy in order to save the company.

Notes:

The story outline is very clear in my head. This is just the prologue and action will start from the next chapter on. Hope you're gonna enjoy this.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: Prologue

Chapter Text

The weather was so shitty that it could even have upset Oliver, if he had any emotions. 

Monday was one of those days with the sky being always grey and dark clouds moving lazily in the air, threatening to rain but never letting out a single water drop. They just stood up there, flying around, looking down at the man and impeding him to see not even one of those few rays of sun, condemning him to another blank morning, another blank day. 

The station where he was waiting was crowded as always. He could hear the mix of different tones and voices sounding around him like a wave, overwhelming and suffocating, absolutely unbearable.

He tried to cast away that chaos through some headphones and loud music, but the yells of the kids and the exasperated sighs of the workers were literally filling up his mind, leaving no space for any sort of thought. Oliver didn’t like the impossibility of thinking clearly but this was still better than simply listening to his colourless brain repeating every time the list of things he had to do, like a broken CD replaying itself over and over. 

He glanced around, shrugging to himself from time to time as he waited patiently the train to arrive and bring him to his awful job. The backpack on his shoulders was heavy due to the books he was taking to the studio, but thank God he was strong enough to carry them without problems. His slender body was hidden in his coat and hoodie, his hands were shoved deep down in his pockets and a beanie was covering his hair. The young man couldn’t help but keep looking at the sky, searching for no apparent reason something that could indicate the presence of the sun behind those clouds. 

A man next to him started grunting, cursing loudly while stomping the floor, clenched fists and gritted teeth. He seemed extremely angry for some reasons, glaring at any person who got too close to him, his face just a mask of fury. Oliver slowly moved away from there, looking at the stranger and searching for something in particular, something that he very well knew was there. Few seconds later, the young man smiled to himself noticing the container tightly clenched in the man’s right hand, some tablets falling down and rolling away on the rails. 

Red pills.                                   

Oliver rolled his eyes and tried to move away further away from the intoxicated man who, obviously, had taken an excessive amount of the drugs.  

How could it even be possible that someone was so stupid? Emotions were not something to play with and taking too many of them could cause severe reactions in the brain, possibly even killing the person.  

Deaths due to pill intoxication were thousands every year, this was a matter of fact, to the point that the corporation producing them had taken desperate measures to fight the drug mortality. Nevertheless, the amount of people dying due to pills ingestion was increasing every year. Oliver couldn’t believe that there were still some idiots like the man in front of him, people that couldn’t help but eat too many drugs in once. Goddamn, there was even a paper with the right dose and the allowed combinations of pills, how could someone be so dumb? 

The man started screeching and yelling furious, shoving people away and kicking every object he could find, froth covering his mouth. Oliver looked away, slightly annoyed of the inconvenient but still pretty calm, waiting for his train. 

He heard the scream of a young girl who was probably hit by the stranger, but he didn’t turn around, shrugging again to himself as he kept hearing the music, his headphones protecting his ears. He didn’t care, nothing of what was happening was none his business, not even when the madman grabbed one lady by the arm and started beating her so violently that some splatters of blood hit the pavement in front of the boy. 

A group of people moved away from the intoxicated person, leaving him alone with his victim as he kept hitting her on the face, nose bleeding profusely and skin torn apart. 

Jesus Christ, how long Oliver had to wait for that goddamn train? He should have been at work in twenty, he couldn’t be late again. 

He ignored the yells of the woman and focused more on repeating to himself what he had to do today. His job was simple: helping as an apprentice for a fashion studio, meaning that he had to order the books, clean the floors, organize the canvas, the sketches, the files. Every day seemed exactly the same as the previous one, with Oliver going back and forth from the studio to the library to the studio to home. Books were mainly what he had to deal with, since they contained all the catalogs and collections of the past years, fundamental for the fashion designers he worked for. 

However, it happened sometimes that one chief designer would ask Oliver to help him with the artistic process by choosing between colours or materials. This was pretty unusual because artistic and creative skills were often a product of pills, so those who couldn’t afford them were absolutely not involved in these duties. However, even without pills, Oliver liked that task more than the others and always did it with great care and attention, often even praised for it. 

He shook his head, scolding himself for digressing again. God, he had to focus.

So, today was Monday…he had to take the new books to the studio, then clean the floors, order the files of the new sketches depending on their field of belonging and then clean again the restroom and the bathrooms. At the end of the day, if he was lucky, maybe the chief designer would have rewarded him with one or two green pills: not his favourite ones, but at least better than the drugs he usually bought. 

Oliver wasn’t really poor, but neither rich. He had enough money for rent and food, but usually he couldn’t afford the most expensive pills available, being forced to buy the blue ones, the cheapest.  

He didn’t really dislike those pills but he couldn’t even say that he liked them.  

Sadness was one of the few emotions he had experienced, and even if it was awful, it was always better than being simply a blank corpse walking around. It was true, there were some days in which he didn’t take drugs at all because he knew they were bad, but sometimes Oliver couldn’t stand the numbness anymore and decided to swallow two or three blue pills, just to feel something for once.  

Anyway, usually after that the effect ceased he wasn’t able to remember clearly how he felt. This was probably one of the main reasons that pushed him to buy pills again and take them for a second time. 

The creaks of the train woke him up from his thoughts, the young man blinking his eyes a few times. Oliver looked around and noticed that the angry stranger of before had now disappeared, leaving the woman in a puddle of dark blood with his head almost cracked up and smashed down, people running near her but surpassing the dead body to enter the train. He shook his head and did the same, walking up the three steps and finding himself in one of the compartments, probably the third one, he couldn’t care less. He took off the backpack and put it on the ground, looking around to find a free bar to grab in order not to fall down when the train would have stopped. The doors of the train creaked again and closed right in front of him, creating a barrier between the boy and the corpse on the pavement, still visible through the dirty windows. 

Oliver shrugged to himself for the hundredth time as the train moved, surpassing the dead woman and finally leaving the station. 

He looked down at the time on his phone, noticing in that moment that he wasn’t late yet. In ten minutes he would have been at the studio, so no need to think about it: his job was safe. 

Oliver took advantage of the moment and changed the song on his phone, a new one filling his senseless ears and casting away all the other noises of the outside. It was a quick melody, with some guitars and basses, the drums deciding the rhythm. He couldn’t say that he liked it because he wasn’t able to fully understand it, but hearing to the music was a good way to isolate himself from what was happening around, especially on the train filled with people.  

The train was something he didn’t appreciate at all, this was for sure. He knew it because some time ago he had taken a blue pill before going to work and he hated being surrounded by people.  

The emotion had been so strong that he was even able to remember it.  

Or well…part of it. 

“And the new generation of Sempiternal Pills can be purchased in every drugstore at the simple price of 1500$. The collection comprehends two red pills, one green pill and a yellow pill. Do not let the occasion slip away, buy the new set of emotional pills, the right solution to all your needs” 

Oliver rolled his eyes as he listened involuntary to the audio advertisement, changing song another time and now hearing to some music that he thought was called rock. He wasn’t pretty sure, he still had problems in recognizing every genre. Nevertheless, he was trying to learn as much as possible, curious about the features of every single type of music. 

Few minutes passed. The train was still moving and stopping from time to time to let the passengers hop off or enter the compartment. Monday had always been a crowded day, yeah and the sky was usually… 

Wait, he already thought that.  

Oliver shook his head and checked that the backpack was still ok, returning hearing to music and looking expressionless outside. 

A series of fields and warehouses was occupying most of the space. The train stopped again into a new station characterized by a half canceled sign, the name written over it almost completely disappeared. The doors opened and closed without Oliver really realizing it, headphones isolating him from the outside.

Then, it happened. 

It started with a click in his head, as if someone had just shifted a part of his brain and put it back where it belonged. 

No, wait. It wasn’t exactly a click. It was more like a new sound echoing in his brain.  

Maybe the noise of a spring being released? No, no, something different. Think, Oliver, think, what was that sound? A noise coming from outside? A noise coming from inside?  

What was that sound? 

Wait, it wasn’t a noise.

It was a note.  

Yes, a note! 

No, this wasn’t correct again. 

Oliver looked around to see if anybody else had heard the sound. He immediately noticed that he was the only one with that problem, the other passengers hearing to the music or staring down expressionless at their screens.  

He shoved his hands deeper in his pockets and returned gazing at the train floor. 

He was sure of that: he heard a note! A note in his brain? No, this was wrong again.

It wasn’t a note, it was something more, like a sequence of notes. A melody?  

Was that a melody? It could be possible. It would have made sense.

He tried to describe it, a new urgency pressing him. It was a melody, okay, but what type of melody? It was…a guitar? Yeah, surely a guitar. It was the high pitched notes of a guitar. And what else? 

C’mon, Oliver, you can do better than this, he thought. 

Okay, it was a guitar and the sounds seemed…blue. No, how can be a sound blue? Blue it is a colour, not a noise, he shouldn’t have been that silly. 

But it was true, there was something strange in it, like if the guitar was screaming dark blue. But not screams like the ones of the girl he was before, these ones were…more intense?  

Yeah, the right word was that. Intense. And blue. 

He frowned, eyes still fixed on the ground. 

What was happening? Why was he thinking such things? And that guitar? 

Oliver widened his eyes when he understood that the notes he was hearing were not in his head, but in his ears. They were coming out from the headphones! He was hearing the music. No, wait, he was wrong. Hearing was not the right word, wasn’t it? What was the fitting one? 

He was listening to music. 

Oliver’s hands trembled. There was something strange happening, something new that slightly scared him. He had never experienced something like this before, it was as if he was…feeling.  

No, this couldn’t be possible. Without pills, no human being could feel emotions. It was a fact; he couldn’t ignore facts. 

Oliver frowned as he looked out the window.

There was something going on inside him, people didn’t suddenly start listening to music out of the blue as if it was normal.  

Yeah, he was surely feeling an emotion. The realization hit him harder than expected. He couldn’t believe it but at the same time he felt the need to describe what was occurring inside his mind and body. 

It was as if his heart had just become larger, he thought.  

Okay, this was fitting. And…he didn’t know why he had widened his eyes, it was an instinct, he didn’t do that on purpose. And his fingers were trembling, shivering.  

Why was he doing that? 

No, there was more. It was something in his chest. His lungs and heart seemed larger, filled with air. His head was lighter than usual, his guts were tensed up and his muscles were slowly relaxing after a quick spasm. 

Did he like it? Probably yes, Oliver couldn’t tell exactly.  

However, he was sure that he had felt something. Nobody could say otherwise, his body doing strange things was a proof. 

The notes, he listened to music. It seemed so surreal. He heard that someone was able to listen to music only when he took the yellow pill: but he didn’t, he couldn’t even afford those tablets…so what was going on? 

Oliver looked out of the dirty window, noticing in that moment that he had surpassed his destination. He shook his head and looked around again, trying to find someone that could help him. He needed to know which train he had to take in order to return to his station, but he was still…feeling strange.

Suddenly, the boy became very aware that some of the passengers had lifted their heads and were now staring at him. Green, brown, black eyes, were looking at him from different angles, blank or sad expressions gazing at him completely empty.

But among all those irises there was a pair that seemed different, unusual. Light blue eyes shining bright like sapphires, hypnotic and precious. Oliver couldn’t help but stare back at them, all different shades of blue mixing up in those two big irises. 

Oh shit, what was going on in his mind? 

“Sorry!” he called, lowering at the same time the volume of the music. 

Those eyes belonged to a man, a boy to be honest. He could have been just a few years younger than Oliver, with long black straight hair and an oval face, chubby cheeks and flat lips, a short beard of two days. Yeah, it was him, those eyes were his and only his. 

The light blue irises looked back at him and Oliver felt another time the notes in his head, the guitar still screaming blue and filling his ears. 

Oliver stuttered for some seconds, the boy confusingly staring back at him. 

“Aye?” 

The young man opened his mouth to say something but he couldn’t think logically. Those notes, they were filling again his lungs and heart of air, his head spinning slowly around as if it had just become a balloon. 

Oh god, what was this? 

The train stopped and Oliver slightly stumbled back, hitting his own backpack and cursing softly to himself. The other man, however, grabbed his wrist in time and helped him not to fall, the passengers around them immediately pushing and hurrying outside, hitting the men without mercy in order to find their way to the exit. 

Oliver managed to grasp at a bar near him and he supported both himself and the other boy while the crowd surpassed them and flowed out of the train, few new passengers entering it. 

“Wow, that was rude” exclaimed the light blue-eyed boy. 

And then he smiled. 

Oliver widened his eyes another time and he couldn’t understand why. That boy was smiling, so he probably took some yellow pill, no? Only people who had eaten a yellow pill could smile, those or the ones who took the pink one, but nobody ever saw a pink pill in their whole life. 

But he was smiling. How could it be possible? 

Oliver stared at him, his lungs and chest full and enlarged, his heart bumping against his bones. It was so strange to see someone smiling, he looked…he looked really yellow, yes. Like the pill. 

And before he could even understand, Oliver’s face did something weird. His mouth moved to the angles and showed his white teeth, his eyes becoming smaller and his cheeks becoming higher. 

What…what was he doing? This was not normal. Not at all. He had to stop. 

He tried to make his face go back to normal, but he couldn’t and he didn’t like it at all. The sensation in his chest grew stronger, his heart now being a ball of nerves pulsing fast, hitting the lungs and making his blood rapidly flow. He couldn’t understand how but it was as if a thousand flashes of electricity were jumping on his skin and electrocuting it, his muscles unable to stay motionless, craving for movements. 

The blue-eyed boy stopped smiling and helped him to stand up, the train’s doors closing again and the crowd now returning hypnotized by music and phones, careless about them. 

Oliver face finally started returning to normal, the muscles relaxing and giving him again his common expressionless look. 

However even if his face was ok, his body was still completely crazy. His heart was pumping like a machine and he didn’t know how to control it, how to make it stop. That sensation in his guts, the electricity on his skin, the air filling his lungs, all those things were overloading his brain with stimuli and shocks. And this boy, his eyes were so blue, so strange, so unique. Why was their colour so special? 

“Ya ok?” asked the stranger boy to him. 

No, he wasn’t ok. At all.  

“Y-Yeah” Oliver stuttered in answer. Oh god, oh god what was this? 

The young man looked down at his wrist, the other boy’s hand clenched around it. It wasn’t the first time for him to touch someone, but now his skin in that zone was literally burning hot. He could perceive clearly the heat of the other man’s hand, his long fingers and his calloused palm tight around his wrist. But that heat, that was the strange part. It couldn’t be possible that Oliver was literally feeling the hotness flowing up in his arm like a wave, hitting his nerves and making them scream like crazy. 

This was too much: the blue pills were nothing compared to what was happening now in his mind. He bet that not even an entire set of blue pills could reach this level of emotion. 

Oh, wait… 

Did he really think the word emotion? Was this…a new emotion? Was he feeling? 

His body seemed to confirm this hypothesis, but still, his brain was literally exploding due to the sensations. He couldn’t think clearly, he couldn’t even make a logical reasoning with all those electric flashes quivering in his head. 

The boy let go his hand and this was a bliss for the other man. The hotness from his wrist slowly disappeared, his head regaining fragments of its initial consciousness as seconds passed. 

Oliver, think. You are on a train. You have to take another one to go to work. You have to ask this man which train you have to take. No time for silly reasoning, just ask for the train. Nothing else. Ask for the train and run away, put more distance as possible between you and this guy. 

But why did he have to run away? He was feeling, no? It was something unique. Many people couldn’t even dream of anything similar to this. 

“If I gerroff the train at the next station, which is the line I ‘ave ta take for Manchesta’ centre?” Oliver asked quickly, his voice broken and uncertain. 

The other boy looked at him with those blue eyes of his. They were so magnificent, so bright and special. Oliver asked himself why he wanted to run away from this man, but then the frantic pulsing beat in his chest reminded him the reason. 

“Oh…uhm…line number eight I think…” the boy answered confused. Yeah, he was confused! Oliver knew that was the expression of a confused face and the boy was making it. What kind of crazy pill did he take to have such emotions? And why was Oliver feeling like that? Jesus Christ, he needed to go away. 

“C-Cheers” the boy stammered with his thick accent, one hand tightly grabbing the bar in order not to fall and the other grasping at the backpack, putting it on one of his own shoulders. Few seconds later the train stopped again and the doors flung open. Oliver glimpsed some light in the boy’s eyes but he couldn’t wait anymore. He had to flee away. Now. 

Without saying bye to the other, he literally jumped away from the train and almost collapsed on the ground, his heart fluttering in his rib cage as he started running like a madman. 

Emotions. It wasn’t possible. He didn’t take any pill that morning, he didn’t even buy them. This couldn’t be really happening. He had read the thousands of scientific studies that proved that no human on Earth could feel emotions on his or her own, so everything that now was happening to Oliver was simply against nature itself. 

He asked himself, while running along the platform, if those really were feelings, and if they are, what type they were. He didn’t recognize the symptoms of any of the emotions he knew, but the closest one he could recall was happiness. 

The word flashed through his mind but Oliver immediately cast it away. No, happiness was the highest pitch of human emotional spectrum. It was impossible he had felt it. Impossible! 

The train moved fast next to him, the young man now slowing down his running and starting walking tired. His lungs were on fire, his heart was now a bubble of blood crazily pumping, his mind a skein of shocked nerves. 

This had been too intense. Too intense, right. 

Oliver stopped running, bending in two and leaning on a column next to him, very close to the underpass. He took away the headphones, putting them around his neck as the cacophony of sounds hit his ears very loud. The creaks of the trains, the babbling of the crowd, the bells ringing, the dogs barking: all noises flowing back in his head. 

He also took away his beanie, freeing his long brown hair, his forehead sweating and drops falling down on his eyes. 

Jesus Christ. He couldn’t think of any other words that these two. 

Jesus Christ. 

He just had to calm down, take a deep breath and return to usual his blankness.

No pills, no emotions, it was so simple. 

Oliver kept repeating himself that, using the sentence like a mantra to calm himself down, to cast away those sensations and unknown things. Some people would have called what had happened to him a shock, but he wasn’t sure if that was the right word. 

Did he like it? Did he dislike it? Oliver couldn’t say and really didn’t want to know. At the moment, the only thing he had to do was to calm himself down. 

Let your heart regulate itself, your lungs breath slowly, your mind peacefully rest, he told himself. No thoughts, no moments, just stay there. Stay there and wait, wait for your body to return like before. 

The light was so overwhelming, the clouds had now disappeared, the sun shining over him warm and comforting. He closed his eyes and let air, sun and time pass through his tired body, his muscles finally starting to relax, his blood slowing down in his arteries. 

Calm, peace. 

He had to hide in his cloud of noises, let the outer world eat and swallow him, colouring him of neutral shades. 

Few minutes passed, the train now far away from the man. He made a deep sigh and lifted his head up, blankness covering him again.

He was safe. That shock had passed away and his mind now was completely numb, blank. He was relaxed, calm, white. Nothing was no more wrong, it was all okay, all normal. 

Oliver breathed in and out a couple of times more, putting back the headphones on his ears. The familiar sounds of music filled them and with relief he noticed that there were no clicking sounds in his mind, no unknown notes or melodies. 

It was all good, he kept repeating to himself as he started walking again on the platform, the backpack heavy on his shoulders. His heart was beating regularly, no need to think about it, it was all normal. 

Oliver thanked whoever was in heaven to have graced him with his peace again and walked down the stairs of the subway, searching with his eyes the line eight. 

It had been just an unfortunate event, no? Maybe it happened to other people as well and nobody spoke about it. It was surely an anomaly, just an anomaly.

While moving, the man kept reasoning on many different causes that could have provoked such reaction in him, even questioning himself if he should ask the opinion of a doctor. 

He walked up the stairs to another platform and he tried to mix himself with the crowd, returning being part of a colourless stain of people. This was normal and good, this is what he had to be. No confused and shocking emotions, just a simple worker directed to his job. 

Just a simple man needy of pills. 

This was Oliver. 

Chapter 2: Chapter 1 - Doomed

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“Mmmh, Oliver, not to bother you but...this is the wrong sketch again. I asked you the one with the blue navy skirt, this is the one with the indigo dress”
Oliver wanted to smack his head against the bookshelf. He had no idea why he kept messing up things, it had been a shitty day from the start and now it was getting progressively worse. He couldn’t stop thinking about what happened on the train, his head repeating the scene over and over again, those blue eyes haunting him every single second he was busy doing something. He had been running across the studio all day, bringing wrong books to people or mixing up sketches, making an even more chaotic mess than usual.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Bennington. Imma take the reight one just naw. I...I don’t know where I ‘ave my head today” he apologized for the hundredth time, the other man quietly nodding and handing the papers back to the boy. Oliver took them with his eyes looking down in respect, turning away without saying a word.

Those irises, that blue color was literally burned into the back his retina. He had this weird sensation of need in his guts that was distracting him all the time, pushing him to remember the moment in which the boy grabbed his wrist and that emotion flowed up his arm.

He walked back to the bookshelf and put the sketches back, moving books and folders in order to get to the material the designer asked him for.

Oliver deeply respected Mr. Bennington. His works were always excellent, he had never lost his nerves, he was always gentle and kind to every single employee: literally the perfect boss made person. The boy knew that he had been extremely lucky to get such a calm senior officer. He couldn’t say the same for Jordan and Matt, two friends of his that worked in there as well. Their boss, Mr. Moody, was up to the expectations of his surname: it was impossible to work with him due to his insane love for red pills and his really short temper.

Matt always said that the bald-head man was a bit too an asshole to be a real designer.

Oliver took the sketches off the shelf and brought them back to the other man, Mr. Bennington nodding at him and giving the boy a warm smile.
“Thank you”

The man didn’t answer, his eyes fixated on the smile in front of him as he compared it to the blue-eyed boy’s one. No, he had to focus, stop thinking about that guy. He turned around and went back to his cataloging work, mind still completely taken away by the memories of that morning regardless of his efforts.

Oliver couldn’t explain what had happened. He just kept feeling the need to get back on that train, to have those emotions back, to look again at those sky blue irises. He wanted it, he needed it like he needed water or air. He needed it like he needed to be alive.

The rest of the day went more or less in the same way. Oliver had a quick chat with Jordan about the new Sempiternal pills and managed to exchange a blue pill for a green one with Matt. Amy, another of his co-workers, was impossible to be found, and the boy avoided Mr. Moody as much as he could.

“That fooking beitch” Matt blurted out while he and Oliver were packing up their things, shoving new books inside their backpacks while having a final chat before leaving work.

“Moody ya mean?” the boy asked the friend, Matt nodding back at him.
“Yeah, that twat. ‘e made us fetch ‘ere all this shitton of books and ‘e didn’t even look at them. Such a fooking cunt”

Oliver would have normally laughed at that but he was still deep in thoughts, wondering if he would have seen the blue-eyed boy on the train ever again. He kept nodding at Matt from time to time just to make the friend content, but in reality, his mind was far away from there.

He said bye to both Jordan and Matt, he left the studio and then started walking towards the station, all wrapped up in his jacket and trying to ignore the cold. He kept his head down all the time, headphones over his ears as usual as the boy moved under the dim lights of the streetlamps. When he arrived to the platform, the place was completely desert, only a couple of desperate fuckers like him shivering in their coats and silently praying for the train to arrive.

He had to wait ten minutes for that, hugging himself in order not to get too cold, the bag on his back weirdly protective. He hated the shitty weather of January and he hated even more the long waiting before getting home.

His warm, welcoming home.

When Oliver heard the creaking noises and the first compartment appeared on the railways he took a relieved breath, preparing himself to hop on the train and get safely back to his own apartment.

There weren’t many people at that time of the evening, just a couple of lonely passengers going away and leaving plenty of space for Oliver to seat. The boy entered the train and shivered in pleasure at the warmth in there, peacefully sitting on one of the empty places next to the entrance.

The music in his ears was pretty loud, probably so loud that it was possible to hear it from outside. He gently put the backpack down on his feet, careful in not being too harsh and damaging Mr. Bennington’s books, and leaned back, trying to relax his tired muscles.

The doors closed at his right and Oliver prepared himself for a little wait, impatient to get home. He was pretty sure that Tommy would have already cooked dinner for the both of them, probably some frozen shit that was easy to shove in the oven and put on a plate. His little brother had never been a real cooker, just someone nice enough to help Oliver from time to time.

Tom. It seemed only days ago the time in which Oliver had grabbed him by the wrist and left their original home together. Those times had been the hardest, starving himself in order to put something on the table for him, fighting in order to get that little bit of food necessary to survive.

He promised himself he would have never put Tom in the same danger again, but he didn’t have to worry about that. The situation was now completely different. He was 23, his little brother had just hit his twenties, they were both too busy trying to get enough money with their jobs to really care about anything else. They had a house, had food, had a warm bed to share and even a little heater for the Winter.

The train stopped again, Oliver blinking under the neon lamps that dimly managed to illuminate the compartment. Few people entered and sat down on the seats, the sky out the windows completely turned to black.

It was a bit shady, the boy had to admit, but nothing different than the normal. He was terribly used to it.

A new song came along in his headphones, managing to silence the world around, leaving him to his lonely thoughts once again.

Oliver wondered if he would have had eggs that night, or if maybe Tom had been gentle enough to respect his vegan habits and boil some broccoli.

The thought twisted Oliver’s guts. Broccoli, really a nice thought, wasn’t it?

The lights above him flickered for a second, the train stopping again at a new station, doors opening and fresh air entering the space. Nothing happened for a couple of minutes, Oliver nodding at the music and thinking about his brother, casually looking around just because he really had no idea what to stare at.

It took few seconds for the mood to shift, a new sense of anxiousness filling the air as the boy looked around with indifference.

One of the people in front of him lifted their head up in a swift movement as if something had just caught their attention. She was a young girl, very similar to those anorexic models Oliver saw every day at work. Blonde hair, blue eyes, perfect jawline and neck. He would have probably found her attractive if he had any pink pill, but why even thinking about that? He didn’t.

No point in that thought.

He wondered what was going on with her, acting all that scared and confused. Was it a joke or something like that?

Her and another man in his fifties were the only other two passengers in there. Both of them jolted up in synchrony all of sudden, leaving Oliver even more startled than before.

The girl’s purse shined of a chromatic shade of red when the neon light hit it, the little bag falling on the floor as the woman’s eyes went wide and she left the compartment, her long slender legs rushing towards the door and leaving the train in a second. The old man decided to take another route and instead of heading towards the exit he just jumped to the door that linked the compartments, his fat belly wriggling as he ran away.

All of this happened in few seconds, leaving Oliver even more puzzled than before. The music in his ears was still too loud to allow him to hear anything, but judging from the reactions of those two people, something really bad was going on.

The boy took off the headphones and soon the noises of the outside world filled his head. There was the creak of the train, the hiss of fresh air entering from the still open door, the buzzing of the neon above his head.

And, far away, the noise of guns being shot.

They sounded like fireworks to Oliver, the boy completely disoriented as he tried to understand why the girl and the old man left only because someone was shooting a gun out there.

Maybe it was just him. Living in a poor neighborhood for all those years, a place where at night it was normal to hear shots being fired, had probably weakened his fear of guns. At the same time, he couldn’t help but wonder why they were so upset, so scared that thinking of leaving the train seemed a good idea.

He asked himself what kind of pills those two had taken to feel fear. Probably they had just messed up the doses like the man of that morning, an error that seemed to be pretty common among people. He just hoped none of them would have overdosed on the train, that would have been a real nuisance and would have probably meant some delay.

The night went silent again, no more guns sounding in the air, just the constant buzz of the neon lights above him. Oliver shrugged to himself and lifted his hands up, ready to put the headphones back. The train doors were just about to close, the creaking noise so loud and sudden that it almost freaked Oliver out, when something new happened.

Out of the blue, another sound came to his ears. It was similar to the growling and panting of a dog, someone moving quickly on the platform just outside the train, the boy turning around puzzled to see what was going on.

Few seconds. The doors were closing. The train was moving. Two people running in the black like dark bolts. Just slender silhouettes jolting under the lamps, impossible to be clearly seen.

Yeah, someone was running away from them. Limping, panting. They hit the side of the train and made Oliver jump up on his seat, the figure launching themselves against the doors and struggling against them, managing to fit inside right before they closed with a loud click, the train ready to go.

Oliver had never been really involved in gunfights or chasing, but the first thing that he thought was that there was too much red on the ground. He knew it was blood, it was coming out from a body after all, but in his head he couldn’t just fathom the idea that the thing on the ground was actually real, shiny, scarlet blood.

The boy made few steps back, the bag that mere minutes ago was at his feet was now laying down on the floor, abandoned. The train took speed but something hard hit its side again, the two shadows of before now just a black patch on the platform as the compartment left the station.

A boy. The one on the ground was a boy, laying down on his back like a dead puppet, his right hand all scarlet, his hair all ruffled up. He was heavily panting, his chest going up and down in breaths that resembled more spasms than anything else. He was also trembling, heavily shaking from head to toes, the other man all pressed up in a corner with his eyes wide open.

Something inside Oliver was wrong. His chest was all constricted and heavy, his fingers quivering, his muscles tensing up and jolting in alternate moments, head too light to think clearly.

Too much blood, it was absurd. Oliver would have thought that blood was actually denser than water but the pool at his feet demonstrated the opposite.

He couldn’t move, couldn’t think, he was frozen where he was, something cold going up his lungs and blocking them from breathing. He had never experienced this before, he had never felt so lost in all those times he had seen blood. Damn, he had witnessed a homicide that same morning without even a subtle difference, why was this now happening to him?
He didn’t know why but everything seemed so vivid, so bright, real, close and...scary.

Scary.

Was that fear? That cold blade of panic rushing down his chest and guts? Fear? Was it?

The boy on the ground twitched, his arm moving on the floor as he tried to get on his side, still panting like a running dog. Oliver backed even more in the corner where he was, mouth slightly open in shock as the other man crawled and tried to get up. The stranger whimpered and wailed in suffering, hand going over the leg where the blood was flowing out, probably in the vain attempt to put some pressure in there.

“Don’t look at me like an idiot. ‘elp me, please”

Oliver didn’t know what to do. He stood motionless for few more seconds, his limbs shaking and his legs probably not able to support him if he tried to make a step.

Slowly, the man left the corner where he was and staggered towards the other boy, the feeling of cold and panic becoming more intense the closer he got to the stranger. He offered a quivering hand to the man as he slightly leaned over, the guy lifting up his own and grabbing Oliver’s one with determination.

After few attempts the boy finally managed to roll over on his side, Oliver immediately backing up against the wall in fear, his eyes staring down at the dark black patch staining the man’s trousers.

When he saw the hole and the torn flesh he almost threw out.

“Disgusting, isn’t it? You ‘ave no idea ‘ow much it hurts” the stranger whispered with a grunting tone, breath still unsteady and chest moving in quick spasm.

Oliver looked up at his face and his mouth hanged loosely in shock.

Eyes.

Sky fucking blue eyes. The purest color of blue ever created by God himself.

Oliver had no idea what to think. His brain had just frozen for few seconds, unable to process what he was seeing.

How many probabilities were there that he would have met this guy again? One over in a million? In a billion? Manchester was a huge city after all.
“Oh...I...ya’re bleeding” was all his mouth managed to say, his tone of voice extremely weak and pitiful, stupid.

The boy on the ground snorted and made a really deep pained noise.
“Oh really? I didn’t notice” he said. He tried to get up again but a strangled cry of pain forced him down on the floor for a second time, Oliver looking at him helplessly.

“D-Do...ya need some ‘elp? Shall I call an ambulance?”

“No, fooking ‘ell, no” the stranger immediately exclaimed, the pool behind him now becoming a bit denser, the reddish color still hypnotizing Oliver. He was chained down where he was, his heart beating so fast that it seemed to explode at any moment.

“W-what I gotta do then?” he asked, glimpsing down at his own hands shaking like they never did before.

This was panic. He heard that panic fucked up your mind and that’s exactly how he was feeling right now. Completely fucked up. This was so unnatural.

“ ‘elp me ta get up. I...just need ta get out of this goddamn trean” he grunted, fingers closing over his wounded leg and leaving bloodied fingertips all around.

Oliver gulped and tried to shove back those feelings, making a step and then another closer to the man, his own hands quivering so much that he seriously doubted he would have been able to use some strength. He slowly kneeled on the ground and waited there, his chest constricted and cold.

The blue-eyed boy grabbed Oliver by the shoulder and grasped at his neck, the man almost falling down on the floor due to the sudden weight. With a huge effort, the stranger managed to finally get up, more blood flowing out of his leg as Oliver stood up together with him.

“Shit"”

Oliver thought he was going to throw out for real this time. He couldn’t understand how the other boy was able to be this calm, especially with all that fear floating around them. The shot on his leg seemed pretty bad, darker liquid streaming out and staining the already reddish jeans.

Oliver noticed only in that moment how short the other guy was. He could have been just one meter and sixty, arriving only up to his shoulder when he had finally stood up.
“What’s your name?” he asked out of the blue, a weird uneasy feeling pervading him when he noticed that the question was pretty irrelevant when the other person had a hole in the leg.

The blue-eyed boy glanced at him from sideways, biting his lower lip as he grasped a metal bar and allowed Oliver to support less of his weight.
“Riley” he answered with a weird tone that the other man couldn’t really identify. He just said that word and returned focusing on his hurt leg, head and eyes down studying the hole in the jeans, the brownish and thick patch around the cloth.

This kid was so weird. Oliver had no idea what to do or say, it never happened to him to be confused so he didn’t know how to face this state of mind. It was as if he wanted to do something but he was scared of the consequences; or as if he needed to ask a question but wasn’t sure the answer was what he had been looking for. Right now it was the same, with the train going at full speed and this guy literally standing up only because Oliver was supporting him.

He could see on Riley’s face that he was suffering a lot, sweating so much that little droplets were dripping down from his forehead. He was grimacing from now and then, whispering some curses to himself every time the train took a curve and made him lose a bit of his balance, almost shoving him to the ground again.

Oliver bit his tongue. He wasn’t sure that what he was about to do was the right thing, especially judging from the pool and the streak of darkening blood on the floor, or how weird this guy was in general. But he couldn’t help himself, he had to know, had to this wrong thing just to satiate his curiosity.

“Ya need a place ta stay?”

The blue-eyed man’s eyes snapped up to him, sharp and inquisitive like blades. The other boy would have almost be scared of them if Riley wasn’t that pale and weak looking, especially with the tremors that from time to time shook him.

 “No” was his dry answer, pulling away from Oliver as much as his legs allowed him to.

The taller man involuntarily widened his eyes as new questions crowded his mind. Did this guy have for real a place for the night or was he just shrugging Oliver off? Was he scared of him? Oliver wasn’t good at understanding emotions, he could barely manage to comprehend his own.

Was Riley scared of him?

“I...I mean, ya don’t ‘ave to be suspicious of me...I don’t want ta ‘urt ya”

Riley glared up at him, a mix of a grimace due to the pain and a smirk due to the amusement.

“Your knees are shakin’ as if you just saw a ghost, of course I’m not scared of you”

Oliver tried not to take that personally. Heck, it was his first time feeling something like this, some understanding would have been appreciated.

“Are ya sure ya don’t need a place? I...I’ve got an apartment with me brother and...I mean, it’s in Piccadilly Gardens, but it’s betta than anything else”

The blue eyes boy bit his lip and made a weird face. Oliver wasn’t sure if he was dubious or tempted but he kept talking, hoping that the other would have accepted. If he did, Oliver would have been able then to understand what was going on with this guy.

“I’m not an accomplice of...of whoever was chasing ya. I’m just...I just want ta ‘elp you. Ya seem someone who needs some ‘elp”

The train stopped at another station, Oliver knowing very well that the next one was his. He was running out of time, he had to hurry. Nobody was on the platform and when the doors closed again in front of him, the boy taking a relieved breath at that. Explaining to some strangers why his legs were shaking, why he was trying to help someone who just met and had why his jeans were covered in blood would have been a real problem.

“Ya can trust me” Oliver said one last time, scanning the other man’s face for anything that could suggest him that the guy had made up his mind.

Riley didn’t say anything for a couple of minutes, looking down at his legs where the bleeding had now stopped. He seemed lost in thoughts, eyes away from there as the next train station approached.

“Ya gotta tell me naw what ta do” Oliver pressed him, the shorter boy making a deep sigh and slightly nodding.

“Take me wherever you live”

Oliver felt his heart and lungs freeze for a second when he heard that answer. He wasn’t expecting it, he didn’t even know after all how to get this man to his own apartment without being noticed by the police or the local criminals.

He felt the idiocy and the fear bitter on his tongue.

The doors of the train opened with a really loud creak, Oliver sweating cold as he prepared himself for what seemed an impossible mission. He left Riley for a second and rushed to grab the bag on the ground, putting it back on his shoulder and immediately returning to the wounded man.

The train stopped, the doors opened in front of him.

“Listen” he said to the guy next to him, voice low and eyes pointed at the outside as he grabbed his arm and supported him better.

 “It’s not safe until we get ta me apartment. Don’t talk, don’t look aroun’, follow me, try to ‘ide behind me as much as possible and more important of all...don’t make too much noise” he quickly instructed, Riley nodding at him as the taller man started walking out of the train. Moving was extremely difficult since he had to fully support Riley and the backpack at the same time, the other boy trying to do his best but still heavily limping.

The platform was empty apart from a couple of people. The fat man of before was one of them and when he turned his head around and noticed the two men behind him, he started walking faster and soon disappeared into the waiting room without a trace.

Oliver gritted his teeth as he kept going towards the exit, secretly hoping that nobody would have followed or attacked them during the walk. Piccadilly Gardens wasn’t a good zone, all cement and concrete, few old trees and yellowish grass here and there just to give some sort of justification for the “gardens”. During the daylight it might have seemed to something similar to a business zone, with high skyscrapers and people dressed in suits walking around, but during the night it was surely one of the worst places in Manchester.

Which meant that he always had to be careful of where he put his feet.

“Me apartment is not far away from the station. Just ‘alf mile or so, you gotta endure till we’re there”
“Easy ta say. You’re not the one with a ‘ole in the leg. I’m fooking dying in ‘ere”

Oliver grunted and turned around at the station’s gates, leaving the platform as they entered a dark road, few cars passing by from now and then. The streetlamps were able to illuminate only a little portion of the street and the cold outside was sharp like a knife, cutting Oliver’s face and making him shiver.

He was putting all his efforts in not crumbling down. With the weight of the backpack, Riley barely able to walk and his tiredness in general, Tom and the apartment seemed galaxies far away. The smell of piss and the dirty on the sidewalk weren’t something that cheered him up either, to the point that the man asked himself if helping the blue-eyed boy had been a good idea at all.

They walked past a club and Oliver tried to cover Riley as much as possible with his tall figure, hoping that the crowd outside the building would have thought that the shorter boy was simply drunk. The red bright neon lights flashed on his face Oliver kept moving, breaths evaporating in the air in pink colored clouds,  their feet stomping on the concrete barely audible over the loud music.

Some shady people glared at Oliver and the man immediately looked away, the tight cold feeling of before clenching his guts again as he feared that some of those people could hurt or attack him, knowing very well the effects of drugs and pills taken together. It lasted only few seconds. One moment later they had surpassed the entrance to the club and were back in the darkness again.

He didn’t know how but they managed to walk away from the club but he was glad of it. He turned around at a corner and entering a lonely alley, Riley still staggering at his side. As always, trash cans and bags had been abandoned all over the pavement, making for the two boys harder to get through to the other side of the street.

“You live in ‘ere? Man, this place sucks”

“Ya should shut the fuck up if ya wanna have a place for tonight”

“Alrite, alrite”

It wasn’t a big problem to stay silent, they were even too tired to talk. Oliver looked up and saw with relief that the light in his apartment was on, smiling already at the perspective of hugging his brother after such a weird day.

He would have liked to tell Riley that they were almost there when he felt something suddenly falter at his right. The blue-eyed man just started heavily leaning on him and almost sent the taller man on the ground, Oliver squeaking when he tried to support the whole weight of the other boy.

Thankfully, it didn’t last long. The short man returned limping very quickly and Oliver managed to keep walking despite the sudden change of balance.

“Sorry” Riley muttered between teeth, his voice faint and trembling. The taller man glimpsed and saw how pale he was, sweat shining on his face under the lone streetlamp of the alley, his lips flattened into a suffering expression.

Oliver dragged him for few meters more, finally arriving at the door of his condo. He let go of the other man and Riley immediately leant over the plane wall of the building, his fingers twitching and his breath itching from time to time. The taller boy adjusted the backpack on his shoulder and rang at his flat, the familiar voice of his brother answering him.
“I ‘ope it’s ya dick, Oli”

“It’s me, open”

The “clack” of the door arrived immediately after, the intercom going mute while Oliver took Riley and helped him to get inside.

The smell of fouled air and mold permeated every surface, making both boys grimace and cough as they stumbled towards the stairs, Oliver grunting and gritting his teeth as he helped the other man to walk up the steps. Riley cried in pure pain or gasped suffering every time they managed to get to the next floor, his eyes blinking and trying to stay open as they kept moving.

“C’mon, almost there” Oliver whispered with the little breath he had. Riley didn’t give him signs to have heard what he said but kept walking. Oliver felt something warm his thigh when their legs touched, new fresh blood flowing out the wound and staining his jeans as well.

Thankfully, they arrived up to the third floor still alive, Riley paler than ever and barely able to keep his eyes open. Tom was waiting at the door but as soon as he saw Oliver with the stranger, the usual smile with which he welcomed the brother immediately disappeared.

“O-Oli? What the fuck?”

“’elp me ta get ‘im inside” he quickly snapped back, Tom opening his mouth but swallowing down every word he wanted to say, rushing to the two men and passing an arm under Riley’s side.

Oliver asked himself if the brother could feel it, if he could feel the fear as he was doing right now.

He wondered if he was feeling anything as they both dragged Riley inside, Tom leaving them and running to close the door.
At this point, the short man wasn’t able to walk on his own anymore, it was up to Oliver alone to carry him to the old and scruffy couch. He let him lie down on the soft cushions and finally took a deep breath, putting down the heavy backpack on the ground and leaning on the table not far away.

Tom rushed towards the brother, taking him by the arm and dragging him towards the kitchen, the smell of cooked potatoes arriving to Oliver’s nose in a second.
“Can I please know what the fuck were ya thinkin’?”

The taller boy bit his lower lip, a new warmth heating up his cheeks.

“I...can’t you feel it too?”

He saw Tom’s face falter, his eyes widening up in a way that Oliver never saw before. He could read it on his face that he was feeling the same. He also knew that since they walked away from Riley the emotions that they were feeling had become a little fainter, and he knew that Tom knew.

“Ya feel it too?”
“I do” Oliver answered back in a second, confusion washing over Tom’s face.

“They’re emotions”

“They can’t be, ya know it”

“Tom, listen...”

“It’s nonsense, Oli. They can’t be. They aren’t. People can’t feel emotions without pills, ya know that, even kids know that”

“I know, I couldn’t beleev it either at the beginnin’. But it ‘appened before too, when I was on the trean this morning. It’s ‘im the cause, I’m sure of this, it’s ‘im”

“One reason more not to bring ‘im ‘ere. What if the police comes here, Oli? What if our neighbors saw it? ‘ave you any idea ‘ow much in trouble we could get ‘cos of ‘im? And wha’ the fuck ‘appened to his leg? Was ‘e being shot?”

“Yeah, I understan’. It was two people...I mean. It ‘appened. Maybe it’s betta if you don’t know. We need to ‘elp ‘im, ‘e...’e makes me feel. ‘e makes us feel, Tommy...”

Tom put his hands up in his hair, tugging at the locks as he made an exasperated sound and turned the back to the brother. He didn’t say anything for few seconds, Oliver feeling a tight rope around his lungs as he waited for an answer. He couldn’t quite define that sensation, it was among the new ones he didn’t even know the name. It was as if he couldn’t breathe properly...as if the air inside his body had all gone out, leaving him there trembling like a leaf.
“Fine” Tom said after a while with an annoyed tone. The constriction over Oliver’s lung loosened up a bit, allowing the boy to breathe in some oxygen. Tom glared at him with doubt, biting his lower lip and surprising a bit the brother who wasn’t used to see the other man do these things.

“But it’s gonna be your responsibility. I don’t want to ‘ave anything to do with this, alrite?” he snorted, Oliver nodding at the brother with a serious face, glancing for a second over his shoulder to the living room.
“Maybe you should go and give ‘im a better look” Tom suggested, moving away from the door and walking towards the boiling pot with the potatoes, taking the wood spoon at the right and starting stirring them.

Oliver gave him an uncertain look and then silently left the room, his eyes fixed on the man on the couch as he got to the sofa.

“Hey” he whispered to the blue-eyed boy once he was there, Riley turning his head around to look at him.
“Ya ‘kay?” Oliver asked as he glimpsed the still bleeding wound on the leg.

The boy made a suffering sigh and shook his head, not moving a single centimeter from where he was.
“Thank you for bringing me ‘ere” he muttered as an answer.

Oliver simply nodded, looking with admiration at his bright blue eyes, comparing them to the dark shade of his brother’s one.
“I gotta tell you something, though” the boy kept saying, the taller man nodding for a second time almost in instinct.
“What?”
“Me name is not Riley. I told you that ‘cos I was scared you could be with those two who chased me. Me real name is Lee” he said with a smile. It was a different smile from the one of that morning, this one seemed...meeker. Like...as if he was saying sorry for something.

Lee. Well, Riley and Lee were similar names and, after all, this guy was literally being shot at by two people. Oliver could understand why he had been suspicious of him.

He would have asked him later about the whole feelings stuff. He looked too pale and weak right now.

“No problem. I’m Oliver but you can call me Oli. Any idea ‘ow to fix your leg?” he commented, the other boy nodding and briefly closing his eyes for a second.

Lee instructed Oliver how to do a quick and rough bandage, telling him multiple times not to take the bullet out and warning him to clean the wound as soon as he could. He stopped talking before Oliver could ask him if he wanted some of Tom’s potatoes, clearly passing out and staying motionless on the couch while the other man took care of his wound. Oliver had some difficulties in finding everything he needed but at the end and after several minutes of research in the bathroom’s cabinet, he managed to get everything. He got back to Lee in a matter of seconds, taking off his jeans to have a better look at the wound.

He couldn’t explain why the simple action of pulling off the other boy’s trousers provoked some weird fuzzy feeling in Oliver’s chest. He could feel a little warmth heat up his cheeks, his eyes looking down at the pale stained legs of the man and his black common boxers. He shook his head and tried to ignore those weird sensations, leaning over the wound and starting to do as Lee told him.

Tom arrived few minutes later with a smoking plate of mashed potatoes, Oliver thanking the brother as he stopped for a second doing the bandages and took a spoon of the food, his stomach rumbling loudly in hunger.

He was about to ask Tom what he thought about the whole thing when a sound froze him right where he was.

Oliver felt that sensation again, the cold pervading his chest and blocking all his movements, eyes going wide and mouth dropping open. He looked at the brother and almost jumped when he noticed the same expression on his face, the sound repeating itself again.

Someone was knocking at the door.
Nobody had ever knocked on their door before.

Tom jolted up, his hands trembling around the plate. He quickly left the dish on the table next to the sofa and rushed to the door, spying through the peephole who was at the other side.
“Shit” he muttered, Oliver’s shoulders tensing up even more.
“Who is it?”
He thought about the police, the two men shooting at Lee, the criminals and the shady people at the club, he thought about all the worst people he ever met in his entire life. He shivered at the idea, cursing himself for being so stupid to have helped someone who would have clearly brought him only but troubles.
Tom looked back at him, his eyes wide and blue.
“It’s Josh and Alex” he said with a quivering tone, his legs doing that weird thing that Oliver’s one did on the train.
Josh and Alex.

Their neighbors. They met them only once when they first arrived there two years ago.

Josh and Alex.

“Oli, they must ‘ave seen everything” Tom said, his fingers shaking as he put a hand on the door. A scaring silence fell between the two men as the knocking repeated itself, Lee still laying unconscious on the bed.

Tom froze.
“Oli, we are so fooking screwed” 

Notes:

I will try to post every Wednesday. Thank you for your comments and kudos, I deeply appreciated them.
Next chapter is gonna be about Andy, Ben, Vic and Kellin. Have fun.

Notes:

Please, leave a comment and a kudo. The more the comments, the bigger is my will to write.