Chapter Text
Octavius had only just turned 15 when his father announced that they were going to be leaving Rome to go and live in America. It wasn’t exactly a huge surprise because ever since his father had changed jobs, moving country had become a possibility. This prospect meant that his parents had tried their best to teach Octavius English for the past few years. Octavius considered himself quite good at English, but he was nowhere near fluent.
Even though he knew that the move was going to happen eventually, it didn’t stop the Italian from tearing up a little as he watched the city he grew up in become a speck from the aeroplane window.
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“Octavius, stop sulking dear,” his mother told him in Italian as they sat in the car outside of his new school. She had tried her best to speak English as often as possible to help her son get used to speaking the language, but she thought that the current situation required something familiar to help him relax.
The building was a lot smaller than Octavius was expecting, but then again they were no longer in the bustling city of Rome. They had barely been in the country a month and he was already starting school.
Really, Octavius would have preferred to have had just a bit more time to settle since everything was so new. He was still often speaking Italian when he went into shops without realising, actually now that he thought about it that would explain why the woman in the greengrocers had given him such an odd look when he asked where the spring onions were that morning.
“But mother…” Octavius began to protest but as his mother scowled at him, his words caught in his throat.
Running a hand through his short, curly hair, he sighed. There was no choice but to just get on with the day, besides how hard could it actually be. Surely going to school here couldn’t be too different from his last one. School was school no matter which country you were in.
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Later, as Octavius stood in the corner of his drama class, he cursed himself for ever thinking that he could do this.
His teacher had been talking for the past fifteen minutes, and out of all of it Octavius had only managed to understand a very small fraction of it. It had been the same in his other lessons of the day. Evidently, learning how to understand spoken English from his mother, who purposely spoke slowly and still had a thick Italian accent, was not an effective way to learn.
Along with not being able to understand what the teachers were saying, none of the students had even tried to talk to him. Whether they could tell he couldn’t understand them or whether they just didn’t want to talk to the new kid, he couldn’t decide.
The teacher then said something that caused all of the students to start moving, and since it wasn’t time for the class to end Octavius assumed that it meant that they were doing group work.
Octavius watched from the side lines as the rest of his class paired up and began chatting amongst themselves. He was too busy observing everyone else’s groups that he didn’t notice someone was trying to get his attention.
Feeling a light tap on his shoulder, Octavius turned and was met by two people. The one who appeared to have been trying to get his attention was a tall, tanned, dark haired male. The other beside him was a slightly shorter male with blond hair and the most beautiful blue eyes Octavius had ever seen. However, the tanned boy started talking to him and so he had to turn his focus quickly away from his blond companion.
“Do you speak English?” The boy asked slowly, pronouncing each word carefully. Octavius couldn’t help but notice that his accent wasn’t American. “I am Ahkmenrah, this is my friend Jedediah.”
It took a little while for the information to translate but when it did, Octavius couldn’t help but feel a bit proud of himself for being able to understand.
“Some,” Octavius replied. His accent was thick and he hoped that he didn’t make too much of a fool out of himself. “I’m still learning. My name is Octavius.”
Ahkmenrah smiled kindly. “The language is easier to pick up than you first think.”
At this, Octavius merely nodded to show that he had understood what Ahkmenrah had said.
The blond - that Octavius soon remembered was called Jedediah - laughed.
“I remember when you joined Ahk, couldn’t speak a word to nobody ‘part from to that creepy brother of yours. Ramen noodle needs to learn to quit starin’ at me as well, it’s real off puttin’.”
Jedediah spoke quickly, and although Octavius expected to not understand what he said, he somehow managed to get the gist of it all. Although he didn’t understand how noodles were part of the conversation about Ahkmenrah’s brother, he assumed it was something lost in translation.
They didn’t do anything for the remainder of the lesson, they just sat and talked. Ahkmenrah had explained how he had moved from Egypt just a few years prior and felt exactly how Octavius did, confused and homesick. Octavius only learnt a bit about Jedediah, which was that he was in nearly all of his classes. Knowing that made him feel a bit better, at least he knew one person in his classes. The Egyptian then also invited Octavius to hang around with them for a while, which he accepted gratefully.
After their drama lesson, the two had taken Octavius under their wings and they became fast friends. Despite Octavius struggling to understand him at times, he and Jedediah became inseparable. It was thanks to Jed that the Italian’s English began to rapidly improve. Octavius couldn’t help but think that if Ahk and Jed didn’t start talking to him, then he may have been stuck in a constant state of isolation and confusion.
By the end of the year, Octavius was much happier than he was when he first moved. It took a while for Octavius to get used to the new school system and the new dynamics of everything but eventually he settled in. Jedediah and Ahkmenrah had introduced him to the rest of their friends; Teddy, Sacagawea, and Larry, which helped him feel a bit more welcome. Teddy, he discovered, was a very kind person who even offered to help Octavius get up to date on the subjects that he was struggling in due to the change in curriculum.
However, as his first year in America progressed, Octavius found himself starting to fall for his new blond haired friend. He found himself intently listening to Jedediah’s tall tales about his family farm even if at the beginning he couldn’t really perceive what the story was about, Octavius just enjoyed seeing the Jedediah’s face light up as he recalled events. But more often than not, he caught himself looking into Jedediah’s stunning blue eyes. Octavius knew from a young age that he was gay and he had come out to his parents and his friends back in Rome and nobody seemed to mind, however he didn’t know how people would react here. He didn’t want to lose any of the few friends he had so he promised himself that he’d keep it to himself, at least for the moment.