Twisted Spiral

Desmond dropped his bag onto the bench and promptly flopped down after it, letting his head fall onto his arms with a groan. Next to him, Rebecca started to repeatedly poke his shoulder, and he could only bear ten seconds of it before he mumbled an indistinct "Fuck off" that he was sure she could translate on her own. He heard her smirk, but at least the poking stopped.

"What's wrong Desmond?" Lucy asked from across the table.

Wearily, he picked up his head to talk to her. "Vidic has gone and given us two days to write a full report of an experiment we did last week. I can barely remember yesterday, never mind seven days back!" he complained.

"Well you are in a pickle then," Shaun said. "What would really be useful is if you had some notes or something. You know, so that you could remind yourself of how badly it went?"

Desmond glared at him. "Yeah, thanks Shaun. I wonder where they are."

"I gave them back to you, Desmond. It's not my fault you've lost them again."

"Of all the days you could have chosen to go to a science fayre - why that one? Why Shaun?"

"At the time I thought it would be rather entertaining to hear about how you floundered your way through biology without me. Now I realise it's just resulted in me being marked down for your stupidity."

"The bottle lables were switched, I swear -!"

"Guys, knock it off!" Rebecca interrupted. "Desmond, just borrow someone else's notes from that class. Shaun, it would do you good to get an average grade for once. Vidic will think you're cheating otherwise." Shaun opened his mouth to protest again but a raised eyebrow from Rebecca made him quickly close it.

"So besides Vidic mentally torturing you as per usual, have you had a good day?" Lucy asked.

"Not bad I suppose. How 'bout you guys?"

Rebecca nodded. "Yeah, been pretty good."

"I was having a fine day, until I realised I was going to fail a biology report." Rebecca flicked Shaun's ear - hard. "Ow! Rebecca! That was uncalled for!"

"Shut up Grumpy."

"I've had a good day, thanks," Lucy said through her laughter. Desmond smiled at her, then turned to Clay expectantly.

Clay was drawing again, brow furrowed slightly in concentration as he worked the pencil over the paper precisely. "Uh, Clay?" Desmond called. Still he continued to draw. "Clay!"

Clay jumped, jerking the pencil slightly as he finally registered Desmond's voice. "Sorry, what?"

"I just asked if you'd had a good day?"

"Oh." Clay shrugged. "Yeah, it was alright I suppose." That seemed to be all they were getting - Clay straight away went back to his drawing, scowling at the out-of-place line from when he'd been startled. "Sorry, okay?" he mumbled, then resumed sketching.

Confused, the others exchanged glances and raised eyebrows, mainly directed at Lucy. Lucy and Clay had been dating for two years. They had a good relationship, leaving Desmond slightly jealous; Clay was good with wit, which amused Lucy to no end, and Desmond recalled a day when everything he'd said had made her laugh (intentionally, of course). They both shared an interest in ancient history, namely civilisations like the Greeks and Egyptians, and had similar family troubles they both tried to help the other out with. That, and Rebecca declared they were cute together. Desmond and Shaun weren't so sure about that. As it was, though, today Lucy just shrugged - she was as clueless as the rest of them about Clay's random apology.

A short while later, Lucy leaned against Clay's shoulder. "What are you drawing?" she asked. In fact, it was a question on all of their minds; his doodle looked like a triangle with strange eyes inside it, and he was just starting to draw something on the top as well.

"It's..." Clay paused. "I don't know really," he admitted. "I just felt like I should draw it."

"You could put some colour to it," Rebecca suggested cheekily.

Clay threw a wry smile back at her. "It's a doodle, Becca. Nobody cares if it's in colour or not."

"Sure they do! I reckon one day that'll be a famous piece of art, and it would be so cool if I could tell people that I made you do it in colour!"

He rolled his eyes. "Well I only have red in my bag. I dropped my stuff off in art already."

Rebecca let him off. "I still want to see it in colour one day though Kaczmarek," she warned. Clay chuckled, closing his sketchbook and picking up his food. They ate in silence for a moment, each with their own thoughts, until Clay suddenly broke the silence. "What did you say?" he asked Lucy.

Confused, Lucy blinked. "I didn't say anything." Everyone looked at Clay, who frowned at the table as if it had pulled a prank on him.

"Huh," he said eventually. "Guess I heard someone else's conversation. Sorry Luce."

"It's all those eyes," Desmond joked. "They're messing with your head."

"Go swan dive off a cliff, Desmond," he shot back, and the usual banter stared up again. It followed a routine: Clay and Desmond would take turns at throwing casual insults at each other, eventually involving Rebecca, who in turn would somehow bring Lucy into the fray, until one of them made a joke involving Shaun, at which point it turned into a Shaun-teasing session. Shaun would just sit in stony silence, glaring daggers at anyone who was too insulting. Lunch over, they would all split for class, sometimes not seeing each other again until the end of the day, two hours later. Unless they were too busy, they would agree to go somewhere chilled, like the park, and act like any other group of care-free adolescents for the remainder of the day. It was good - it was fun. It was one of those things that would never change before it had to, and for now, that time was a long, long way away.

A couple of weeks later Desmond was at their usual spot in the park, taking over the jungle gym as per usual. They each had their own spots: Shaun would sit at the mouth of the slide, back straight against the sideboard; Clay and Lucy would lie beside him, pressed together in a low-key PDA way that they were all used to by now; Desmond would sometimes lie at the other end of the platform, if he wasn't sitting up against the back of the climbing wall down that end; and Rebecca would take up position on a platform just above Desmond, watching them all from where she lay (and, if she could, throwing small things like acorns at them). It was comfortable, it was familiar, and on this occasion it was just Clay and Desmond lying on their backs, watching the flat grey sky.

"Hope he doesn't give her a hard time," Clay said, referring to Lucy's father, who'd just called her home.

Desmond shrugged. "Lucy's tough. She'll be fine."

"Yeah..."

Hearing the uncertainty in his friend's tone, Desmond twisted onto his front to reassure him. Catching sight of his expression, though, he stopped. It was a troubled look, and one they'd seen a lot recently. Ever since the lunchtime incident, Clay had been... different. He had always doodled, that was nothing new - it was more that now he doodled much more frequently, and on anything - books, tables, the back of his hand, even in the toilets one time. And his designs were utterly random. Of course, doodles were traditionally random, but these were far too precise to be as meaningless as abstract swirls drawn down the margin of a page. They were often eyes, shapes, or groups of letters and numbers, and every time they asked him why he did it or what they meant Clay answered with the same "I don't know, I just felt like it." They didn't pry, not even Lucy. But it was the muttering that worried them.

"Clay?" Desmond asked. "You okay?"

Clay tipped his head to look at him. "Yeah. Why?"

Sitting up, he wondered how to phrase the question. "It's just that... these doodles. What's up with them? I know you say you do it 'cause you feel like it, but you've never doodled like that before, Clay. What's going on?"

He waited as his friend pushed himself up so that he was also sitting. "I really don't know, Des," he said. "I mean, I guess they're all, like, symbols or something. But I always doodle random stuff when I'm bored. You know that."

"Yeah, when you're bored. Normally you doodle in class until we have to work again or someone talks to you, and the same at lunch. Now we practically have to shout at you to get your attention, or to make you stop."

"So I get into it. Big deal."

"Nobody gets that engrossed in doodling, Clay," Desmond said seriously. "Now what about the muttering?"

Clay tensed, shooting him a wary look. "The what?"

"The muttering," he repeated. "That first time you randomly said 'sorry', and then a few days after that you kept saying 'alright'. And the other day you said 'just hold on'." Desmond tried to hold his eye, but Clay wouldn't look at him. "Clay, seriously. Tell us what's -"

"Tell you what?" Clay snapped. "I don't know anything Desmond! So I'm drawing weird stuff. I always draw weird stuff! And the muttering? I don't remember saying any of that."

Desmond blinked. "Whoa, calm down man! We're just worried, that's -"

"Then stop interrogating me!" Clay retaliated. "Don't you trust me or something?" Before Desmond could answer, he scooted to the edge of the platform and hopped down, shoving his hands in his pockets as he stormed off.

"Clay wait!" Desmond called. "Where are you going?" There was no answer. Sighing, and left reeling at how suddenly that had turned ugly, Desmond climbed down himself and headed home, assuming that Clay wouldn't want to be followed. He decided to check in with Lucy later, just on the offchance that that was where his friend was going, but until then he'd give him some time to cool off. Obviously this was now a sensitive subject, and Desmond hoped it was just a phase Clay was going through.