Soap ; Joshler [AU]

one: i've got twenty dollars in my pocket

"Thank you very much." Tyler smiled softly at the elderly woman as she handed him a twenty dollar note in exchange for her dog.

It was tiny things like this that led him to the handsome few thousand he had managed to save over 19 years.

He felt the clean note in his hand and nodded triumphantly, this was surely a great exchange for walking Kenneth.

Kenneth was a fat, grey French Bulldog who lived two doors down from Tyler, he loved going for walks, playing ball, eating chicken strips and sleeping.

Tyler waved goodbye to the elderly woman and strode down the street with the twenty firm in his grip. Opening the front door with the spare key that Mrs Joseph kept under the door mat, Tyler walked into the kitchen and smiled as he passed his younger sister.

A hand on her hip and her phone in the other, she scrolled through her Instagram feed and rolled her eyes at Tyler's entrance.

"You walk Kenneth today?"

"Sure did Miss Madison."

She rolled her eyes again, this time holding back a smile at her dorky brothers attempt at trendiness. The thirteen year old turned her phone off and put it back in her pocket, letting out a big sigh as Tyler reached for the orange juice at the back of the fridge.

sigh

sigh

sigh!

Tyler poured himself a glass before noticing the loud and repetitive 'sighs' coming from Madison, he looked up from his glass to meet his younger sisters eyes staring at him from the other side of the room, if she stared any harder he was afraid she might explode.

"Is there an issue?"

"It's my birthday soon!"

"Interesting." Tyler hummed, looking at his sister from across the kitchen.

"How about a response longer than a single word, gosh."

silence.

"Simply atrocious?"

silence.

"Speaking of atrocious, my dear brother, you may want to organise your Instagram feed. You know, fix it up, pick a colour, take a selfie that isn't ugly."

"Does it matter? It's just a telephone application."

"Do your friends not call you out on this kind of stuff?"

Tyler cringed thinking of the current status of his social life. His friends from high school had taken his coming out far too negatively and left him lonely in his finals weeks of high school and he made futile attempts at friendship in his early adult life.

The only friends he truly had were his sister, Kenneth the fat French bulldog and the elderly women from his neighbourhood.

"No."

"They should call you out on it, what kind of shitty frie-"

"I'm a friendless, unemployed nineteen-year-old virgin. Why should I care about my Instagram feed?"

"I'm not dumb, Tyler. I know you aren't a virgin, don't lie to me."

"Wh-"

"Brendon Urie was selling Stacy cigarettes after school last week and he told me about your sneaky little rendezvous"

"I wouldn't believe someone who sells middle school kids drugs."

"I believe it."

"Isn't this all entirely beside the point?"

And the two stood there, yet again in another uncomfortable stare off, she knew he slept with Brendon Urie and he knew she was talking to Brendon Urie. Both had the opportunity to sprint to their mother and get the other grounded for life, but they didn't. They stood still.

"It's my birthday soon!" Madison exclaimed after the seemingly perpetual silence.

"I'll see what I can do" he groaned, stomping upstairs to his bedroom.

Tyler was extremely responsible with his money, he had a few thousand saved up, surely not a lot of money at all but he had never had a job and quite frequently spent it on important things such as: tanning lotion, a propeller hat, a small hidden tattoo of Jesus and the biweekly carton of chocolate milk.

Perhaps Madison was right, he should be a little less tight with his money, and maybe he should fix his instagram feed.