Johnny Kavanagh.

New Year's Eve is potentially the worst night of the year. Instead of having a big dinner for New Years, we do it the night before, mostly because my parents work full time and it's easier to get the night before off.

I don't have siblings, my parents aren't exactly on the best terms with their parents, and neither of them have siblings. So it's pretty lonely. But Mam makes sure to invite all her friends, and Dad invites his. So naturally, I invite my Gibsie.

We make it a total of ten minutes into the meal before Mam simply can't resist bringing up St Stephen's Day.

"Johnny burst his stitches." She announces, they all make dramatic noises of sympathy and surprise whilst I groan and sink into my shoulders.

"He was watching porn whilst exploring himself and boom, his testicles just exploded." She explains, sipping her wine. Everyone gapes in shock, which is a natural reaction to hearing someone's balls exploded.

"Mam!" I yelp, whilst Gibsie hunches over in stitches laughing manically at me. "What? It's what happened isn't it." She shrugs, not seeing why I wouldn't want to share the status of my balls with a table of family friends.

"It isn't! I had a wank and when I came the stitches tore and I had to go to A&E. No balls were exploded in the process." I defend. Typically I wouldn't tell anyone about my wanks, especially not family friends that I've known since my birth.

"Tell them what happened in A&E." Dad tells me with interest. I'm well aware of my face being redder than its natural hue, growing even more so as the conversation progresses.

"Yeah! Tell us Kav!" Gibsie guffaws, absolutely delighted that it's embarrass-Johnny time. 

"Poor soul was getting his check up from a student nurse and he got an erection again." Mam pouts sympathetically, reaching out to stroke my hair sadly. 

Gibsie lets out what can only be described as a howl of laughter. "You got a boner!" He squeals, pointing and laughing. "Alright Gibsie. My poor baby couldn't help it." Mam tuts at my friend, his whole life mission to humiliate me.

"Hope you're alright Johnny, lad." Dad's friend says, a few others chime in with their echoes of sympathy.

"I sent flowers to the hospital yesterday, by the way." She turns to me. I blink at her. "Why?" 

She gracefully places a carrot in her mouth, and then chews and swallows it before answering. "For that poor lass. Only seventeen, so she was, and she had to see that." She shakes her head with disbelief. 

"Well she didn't really have to.. it was Dr Kimberly that told her to and made her grab it." Dad objects with a delicate shrug.

"She grabbed it?!" Gibsie bangs on the table with delight, still cackling.

I let out a mortified groan as I slide down my chair. "She didn't make her grab it. She reached for the scissors with her eyes closed and just to happened to shake its hand." I grumble out.

"It just keeps getting better!" Gibsie manages between gasps and laughter.

"Sounds like you've been through the wars, Johnny." Mam's friend frowns.

"Alright. Very well. We all get it. My dick is broken. Can we talk about something different?!" I groan.

There's a moment of silence, everyone waiting for someone to reply.

"These potatoes are bloody magical." Gibsie tells my Mam. I silently thank him for changing the topic, but then I realise the distraction wasn't deliberate, that was just Gibsie being Gibsie. 

My parents are lovely and polite people for the most part. But they sometimes lack a filter. They believe in honesty, but they sometimes confuse honesty with giving out way too much information. 

Their friends are thankfully all the same though, so they don't even bat an eye at the story.

As dinner progresses I grow more and more pained. Ever since my infamous stitches incident, I've been in excruciating pain. I can't explain it, I just still feel the agony I had back on the day of the accident initially, but it's consistent. It's likely the healing process, thats what my doctor told me anyway. 

I end up heading upstairs the second we finish up with dessert to just lay there and pity myself. Meanwhile Gibsie circled my bedroom, playing with every item he can find.

I switch between cold compresses and hot ones, trying to find a balance that doesn't just make it burn.

Sleep is getting harder and harder, but when I do reach the sweet paralysis I appreciate more than ever before.

A/N:

Slightly early update, trying to get the book to sync with real life time so I'm like 6 days behind rn, i might double update, maybe next two chapters tmr because they're around NYE from Ais' perspective and after that I'm roughly back on track. Thanks for reading, good night y'all.