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Morris couldn’t remember the last time Oscar had woken up before him. For as long as they had worked for their uncle, Morris had been the first one functioning in the morning. He was pretty sure that it would upset the balance of the universe if Oscar woke up first.
He didn’t mind getting up first. It meant he could use the bathroom and get ready completely uninterrupted, not having to worry about his little brother being a shithead that early in the morning. Oscar needed his “beauty sleep” anyway.
Despite waking up as early as he did, it had taken Morris embarrassingly long to find his tie that morning (he had no idea why it was even under that shirt, okay). As he popped his collar to put the tie on, he realized Oscar was meant to be up about five minutes ago. Shit.
He walked over to where his brother lay sound asleep, reaching down to shake the teen awake. “Alright, up. C’mon, get up. We’re gonna be late.”
“Mm… no.”
Morris did a double take at Oscar, wrapped snugly in his thinning blankets. “The fuck you mean, ‘no’? C’mon, Oscar, I ain’t doin’ this today.”
The only response he got was faint grumbling. Great. Morris flicked a glance to his pocket watch, exhaling slowly when he saw the time.
“Oscar. Get up,” he said, shaking Oscar again. “I mean it, I ain’t doin’ this today.”
His brother, on the other hand, didn’t seem to care about how little Morris wanted to deal with his sleep habits. Oscar grumbled again, rolling over so that his back was to the rest of the room. Morris scrubbed a tired hand over his face, his untied tie hanging forgotten around his neck.
“So help me God, I will drag you out of this bed if you do not get up within the next minute.” The threat was halfhearted. Morris really didn’t feel like physically dragging Oscar out of bed, but he would if it was the only thing that was going to get his brother awake.
“Five more minutes?” Oscar said, his voice mostly obscured by his pillow. Morris fought the urge to smack him upside the head.
“No! We ain’t got five more minutes.” Morris reached down and began his attempt to untangle Oscar from the blankets he was wrapped in. “We gotta get goin’ soon. Work with me here.”
Morris fought with the blankets for another minute or so before he threw his hands up. He momentarily toyed with the idea of just leaving Oscar to sleep, but ended up throwing it away. The only one that would be hurting was Morris. He would be left to the newsies alone. That sounded like hell.
“Alright. Fine. Alright,” Morris said, letting out a slow breath. “Since you want to be difficult.”
Oscar wasn’t a big guy by any stretch of the imagination, and so it made dragging him out of bed far easier than Morris could have hoped. He hooked his hand underneath Oscar’s arm and began pulling the teen out of bed. Morris made good time, and soon all but Oscar’s feet resided on their bedroom floor. He dropped his brother’s arm, moving across the room to the mirror to finish getting ready.
Oscar had stayed relatively silent the entire time, seemingly accepting his fate. He only piped up once he was completely abandoned on the floor. “What the fuck?”
“Don’ get mad at me. I said I would drag you out of bed if you didn’t get up,” Morris said. He continued to tie his tie, casting a glance over at Oscar’s form on the floor. “Look what happened.”
“What the fuck.”
“Shut up, we gotta hurry,” Morris said, straightening out his tie. “Comb your hair. You look like shit.”
“You’d look like shit if you got dragged out of your bed, too!” Oscar protested, sitting up. He smoothed out his hair quickly. “Gimme a moment, I jus’ woke up.”
Morris rolled his eyes. He took two steps towards where his brother sat on the floor, offering a hand. “C’mon. Papes ain’t gonna sell themselves. Try countin’ out the right amount today, will ya?”
Oscar grabbed his hand, pulling himself up. “I hate you.”
“You’ll live. C’mon, hurry.” Morris snagged his hat off his bed, putting it on as he slid out the door. “I can only make so many excuses for you.”
Oscar sighed heavily. “Yeah, yeah. Gimme five.”
“Slowass,” Morris grinned. He all but ran the rest of the way out of the room, jogging down the stairs. He had nearly reached the bottom when he finally got a response.
“Oh, fuck you!”