That one exception

Part 4

"I'm not going to lie to you Min...this is going to hurt" Delirious waited til he got a nod from Mini before sliding his hand across his ribs like he was examining them. I saw Mini turn white and the muscle in his jaw working as he tried to bare out the pain.

"Sorry Mini we didn't mean to hurt you" Nogla sighed, vocalising the guilt the others were feeling.

"Don't!" Mini hissed grunting from the prodding to the bruising he was getting.

"I think what he's trying to say is if you guys feel guilty for hugging him he'll slap you all stupid when he's done getting touched up by Delirious" I put in, looking at mini for confirmation, and got it in the form of a thumbs up.

" it doesn't feel like anything is broken but that is a hell of a lot of bruising Mini...feels like there is an old break there though...how did you learn to take a hit?" Delirious' voice made us all fall quiet and look at each other, I looked over at Evan   who was just watching Delirious with an uncomfortable sadness in his eyes.

"I was bullied at school a lot...you learn to take a beating when you got one five times a week and twice at weekends if you went outside" he looked at Delirious with an anxious expression as he put his shirt back down and made himself comfortable. "What about you?"

This peaked everyone's attention, none of us had ever thought Delirious would have been on the receiving end of a beating, I looked at Evan again who was still watching Delirious and only looked away to glance at Cartoonz, Apparently two of our group knew more than they was letting on.

"Same...I was a weak ass looking kid"

"You should of seen him" Cartoonz chuckled " he was the same height as his is now but all arms and legs and no coordination"

Delirious laughed "fuck you, you're just jealous that I'm now more beautiful than you" he looked back at Mini "I got pretty good at self-diagnosis so..."

"Should we be getting him to a Doctor?...you know...make sure" I wasn't sure I wanted to just do nothing.

"No point, for a broken rib they don't do shit but give you pain killers... unless it's sticking out" Delirious tilted his head up to look at me but spoke to Mini "Min do you need painkillers?"

"Nah I'm good...I don't feel anything till I move wrong or someone pokes me really hard" he moves to get up prompting Delirious and I to move and help him. Once on his feet he looks around the room and sighs "ok lets not do the whole awkward moment thing..."he looks at his watch and heads for the alcohol "It's only 11pm guys lets just get drunk, play some childish games and have fun"

Delirious followed him over and started pouring some very large shots out "you heard the man...line up boys...or if you're too pussy you can go to bed"

The next couple of hours were spent chatting about random things until everyone was drunker than they were. We were all sitting on the floor in what could barely pass as a circle.

"Ok so it works like this.." Nogla grinned. "you have to state what you think someone is, top or bottom and say why you think that...the person you are talking about can't comment on what you have to say...so we will go from left to right...and I will start" he took a drink and looked at Mini " I think your bottom, because you always seem to give in to the more dominant personalities in the group...now you have to label Tyler"