This is my first fan fiction, I wrote it on a sort of spur of the moment procrastination towards my University readings. It might end up being a bit heavier than humorous, unfortunately, but I hope it is liked all the same. There will be eight chapters, one for each central character, starting with the lovely, bipolar and angst driven Gray Powell. Forgive any ambiguity - I can't help it (:
Episode 1: GRAY
The alarm went. Wavering in and out of sleep, Gray Powell reached through darkness for his phone – eyes sealed shut – silencing it quickly. With a flicker of his lashes, his muted blue gaze fell into the ceiling. Grating a yawn, kicking off the blankets, he sat up in his bed. There was nothing about this day that would make it any different from the others. Holding on to his breath, he dared it to offer some prospect, some possibility. And he let it out in a sigh.
Swinging his legs over, he eyed a small, dusted line of white, poised on his bedside dresser. It was oh, so tempting. His mind salivated at the sight of it, but that was soon interrupted by a thumping sounding down the end of the hall, pounding closer.
"Shit."
Gray leaned forward, pressing his nose hard against the table surface, snorting up the powder. He stood to stretch, back faced to the door as his mother violently barged in.
"What are you doing?" she asked, peering around her son's room with a certain frustration.
He turned, walking towards a messy pile of clean – or not so – clothes, "just got up."
Glimpsing at her out of the corner of his eye, it was clear that his mother wasn't listening. Gray pulled on a shirt as she started clearing space on his floor with her suede enclosed feet, "oh good, just make sure you finish it on time," she mumbled, etching back out the door, "Lily's up, make sure you get her ready. I'll be home late."
"Okay," he said, rifling his drawers for some jeans, "love you."
The front door slammed. Gray looked up at a rather scathed and dusted mirror, into his reflection, and ruffled his hair at the back, "fuck it." Careless when it came to his appearance, he crawled for the stairs, heading down to the kitchen.
Though the sun was blinding, the wind frosted against his skin as Gray walked his little sister to school, her little hand clasped in his. Dark ringlets tied with a bow behind her head, Lily looked up at him with wide, smiling eyes, skipping along the pavement.
"… I want to go to college!"
"Still got a few years on you, Lil," he whispered, swinging her arm back and forth, a cigarette lazing in the other hand. He took a drag.
"I hate it when you smoke, you stink."
He smirked, flicking aside the butt, and leaned to her level, blowing his breath in her face. She wrinkled her nose and pushed him away, "ew, stop it Gray! Stop it, you loser!"
"You love me, kiddo, whether I stink or not."
Lily poked her tongue out at him as they came to her school. She tore her hand away and faced him, tightly grasping her fists around her backpack straps "so what are you going to do today then?"
"College, study, maybe jam with Michael later on, the usual," he grunted, hands lazing in his pockets, "I'll be here when school gets out, walk you home."
"My hero," she said with a little roll of the eye.
"Okay, give me love."
Lily hugged him around the waist and ran off into a sea of nondescript kids, looking back over her shoulder to give him a wave before blending in with the masses. Gray waited a moment, kicked a stone onto the road, and moved on.
By the time he came to college green, his legs were a wobbling mess, crisscrossing and tripping over non-existent holes in the ground. So used to this, Gray didn't take much notice. He stumbled his way toward two laughing lumps beneath a tree, sharing a smoke between them – Xander Tuck and Michael Nomura. He slammed himself on top of the porno mag they were so furiously gagging over.
"What's up, blighters?"
"Powell, where've you been mate, cutting things a bit close aren't you?"
Gray gave Xander a surreptitious smirk, pulling the magazine out from underneath him, "ay, so what's this then – sustained, silent jerking off?"
Michael snatched the pages out of his hands, folding it up and into his bag, "we were practicing our advertisement analyzing skills," the sixteen year old eyed Gray closely, flicking him between the eyes to no reaction, "Gray, you high?"
"Fuck Mick, nah, just tired."
Michael had been his best friend since they were young lads; he was practically a surrogate sibling to both him and Lily, he spent so much time at their place. Rubbing his hand against a bronzed forehead, Michael huffed out a cough. He was skin and bones, not particularly tall – thanks to his dad's genetics – and his spiked black hair sheened blue in particular lights. Lying beside him was what looked to be a child's coffin, holding his prized Fender. Gray nodded in its direction.
"Jam today, mate?"
"Pass, sorry, my mum's gone a little funny lately."
"Suppose that's your plans for the day completely cluster-fucked," said Xander, stretching his hands to rest behind his head, tipping his shades down so he could look Gray in the eyes, "got anything exciting in that head of yours, Powell?"
Gray's lips burst into a grin, face almost in glowing, "well, if we skip –"
"Ahem."
The three boys looked up to find a figure blocking out the sun, its hands clasped firmly behind its back. Displaying a perfect posture and unnaturally controlled smirk, they were met by David Blood – their college director. Slowly, he inspected each boy's face as if to find criminal evidence stained against them.
"Deeply sorry for, ah, interrupting but, Mr Powell," he glowered at Gray, "if you are not present in any of your courses today, I will formally suspend you from college grounds. Mr Tuck, Mr Nomura, you would do well not to go along with your chum's wild ideas either," he lent in slightly, as if he were to tell them a secret, "it would show poor character and arguably unrivalled stupidity."
Beaming, he clapped his hands together, "now, scurry off before I have you reprimanded, and do make Roundview proud," he sniffed the air with a certain possessed dignity, and did not move until the boys stood and headed toward the college building.
Xander cackled loudly, looking over his shoulder back at Blood, "he's such a wank."
"He's alright," said Michael.
They walked inside the college, passing through fellow sixth formers toward the student common, all three of them subtly observing a girl with incredibly short hot pants walk past. Her legs made up for her face.
"How 'bout we head to the stop tonight?" asked Gray, "have a few laughs."
"Can't mate, got a date tonight."
Both Michael and Gray peered over toward Xander, who was nonchalantly scratching his auburn head; "date" was an interesting term to come from his mouth. Coming to the common, they all crashed on a couch, slouched down, legs apart.
"Oh yeah, so who's the unlucky lass?"
"June Cheung."
Gray slipped out of paying attention, staring up at the shining white bulbs above them, eclipsing his sight with black spots. He didn't blink. Nor did he notice Michael get in a fluster over the mentioning of some chick's name. If light bulbs lived, I wonder if they'd know they were going to die, he thought, like we do.
"June's a bit hard leagued, mate, hence all this date crap. You'd need to spruce up a bit if you wanted to bone her, right," Xander's light hearted tone broke through his senseless spiral, and he looked at his friends, Michael having gone slightly red in the face.
Gray lent over to ruffle his hair, drowsily hugging his shoulder, "oh Mick, you can do way better than any bird who wants to fuck this sorry sod."
Pushing him off, Michael grimaced, dropping his tone so that only Gray could hear, "well that limits my choices by half of college..."
"Thanks Mick!" smiled Xander, overhearing anyway.
An extremely tall bundle tackled on top of them, stretching his long limbs out over the boys, "morning lads!" it said with a deep voice and lopsided smile. They shoved him off and he collapsed to the ground, where Xander fell on top of him, "Teddy boy!" they began a tickle war, pulling Michael down to join, with Gray watching until they ceased. Teddy buttoned up his shirt – having been pulled open in the fight – and sat opposite them, hands clasped in his lap as if he were trying to make himself seem smaller than he was.
"We're going to the stop tonight, Ted –"
"– Except for me –"
"– except for Xander," said Gray, "keen?"
Teddy seemed very enthusiastic about it indeed, explaining how he hadn't just chilled out in such a long time and was looking forward to it, until a blonde girl came and rested beside him, planting a kiss on his cheek. She was half the size of Teddy, with lightly lined eyes, short, straight hair and a thin body draped in a geometric print dress. She greeted the other boys with a half-hearted smile, nuzzling herself into her boyfriend. Xander scoffed at the sight, throwing Teddy a disapproving look, and made to stand – pulling Michael up with him by the scruff of his neck.
"Well we're off to biology, learning about reproduction and all that," he declared, "see you later, mates and Crystal."
They went off and Crystal shrugged, pretending not to be vexed. Gray stood, looking unnervingly between the couple, "yeah, me too, got English. Come tonight, Teds, you too Crystal. Oh, and bring Aimee, yeah?"
Crystal eyed Gray closely as he left with dragging feet, before turning accusingly toward Teddy, flicking her hair as she did, "what's this about?"
He smiled, gently stroking her cheek, "Gray's invited us all out to the stop tonight."
"Why is he so insistent on Aimee being there?" she swatted away his hand, lips pursed.
"Aimee's your best friend, hon. I don't know, maybe Gray likes her…" he reached out to hold her hand in his "… she's a nice girl."
Crystal swiftly shifted away from him, her body tensing up, "you think my best mate's nice? Don't say stuff like that, baby, you don't know what it makes us girls think, you know? I'm sick of all this insensitivity coming from you lately. You never say I'm nice."
Not once did Teddy's sweet smile falter as he gazed at her in adoration, "You are the nicest girl in the world, Crystal Hewitt."
"Yeah, well, whatever, I'm late for Photography."
Frank was drawling on about the same old, same old, as Gray was wafting in and out of paying attention to his dull teachings. Out in front of him he held his battered phone – missing a few keys, cracked screen, chunks dug out the sides – composing a message. He smirked up over to the opposite side of the room as the text sent off into the stratosphere, contemplative eyes gazing upon the intended receiver. Tenacious and tanned, Lucia looked out of place among the other girls in the class, wearing a baggy band shirt and leaving her black waves uncombed. He watched her read the text, taking a silent moment before cocking her brow at him and shaking her head, a playful smirk resting at her lips.
"Come," he mouthed back. He was eager to get her on side for the stop that night. Lucia acted as a sort of mediator; she kept the other girls in their team from teetering too close to any undesirable female discussion. So effortlessly confident, so effortlessly one of the guys, Lucia was a saviour from grace.
"Gray, may I ask what you're finding so funny about Donne?"
Relentless, Frank was staring at him, scratching his lion's mane with one hand, and his beer belly with the other, an odd look of expectancy in his expression, "we're all falling over our peanuts to know."
"I thought we were studying The Tempest, Frank," muttered Gray, slouching back in his seat, "isn't that one of Billy Shakes'?"
Frustrated, the teacher shook out a sigh and sat on his desktop, "just testing… but put you're bloody phone away, will you? I've got to… discipline you… you know. Christ." He grunted something of a predator's cry before continuing on, purposefully taking no notice to Gray's profuse paper throwing in Lucia's direction.
"Is mutt going to be there?"
After leaving class Gray followed Lucia down the corridor, trailing a couple steps behind her. He heaved out an agitated sigh, still trying to get her to go out that night, "he's got a date."
Stopping at her locker, Lucia laughed hoarsely, throwing Gray a disbelieving eye, "alright, that's a new term for it," she emptied out the contents of her bag, replacing it with a few items from the space, "I'd love to Gray, you know that, but…" his face fell as she uttered her next words "… I'm heading out for a surf soon, won't be back till tomorrow afternoon."
Slamming his head back against the locker, every second Gray became more disgruntled by his plans not falling together as easily as he thought they would. He looked at her out the corner of his eye, etching closer, pouting ever so slightly.
"Please Lucia."
"Mate, the swell…"
"Luce!"
"Sorry."
She gave him a small smile with a pitying face, gently rubbing her hand over his shoulder before stalking away. Gray watched her go, a glare in his mind – an unaffected expression on the surface. Next thing Teddy would cancel, no doubt because Crystal had turned her nose up at it or him or both, which meant Aimee wouldn't come either. It was so predictable of them all. No good sods, he thought, kicking the bottom of a string of lockers, their doors rattling against the brackets.
"Fuck it," and he stormed off down the hall.
Crystal craned her neck, peeking through glass, arms folded across her chest. She spied at Gray and Lucia, talking closely by the lockers with a curious glint in her eye, lulling her tongue against the inside of her cheeks. She flicked her eyes down at Aimee, sitting, flicking a fashion magazine between her manicured nails.
"I wonder what that's about."
Aimee held her fingers between the pages, twisting over in her seat to look out the window into the hallway, "just Gray and Luce, nothing odd," barely interested, she turned back, her many bracelets and bangles jangling along her wrists as she spread the magazine open again.
"Kind of looks like they're flirting," sniffled Crystal, placing herself alongside her, playing with a short, silver strand of hair and comparing it to Aimee's long, dark curls.
"Why should it bother you? You've got Teddy, remember?" Aimee flicked the pages, sounding somewhere near stricken, her full, glossed mouth unnaturally straight, "good, loving Teddy Neil."
Throwing her a knowing look, Crystal pulled her thin arms over Aimee's shoulders, clinging to them tightly, "oh, babes," she cooed, "I'm just a tad worried for you, is all, I mean Teddy Bear and I are just fantastic! But you have no one."
A little uncertain as to whether this was an insult or not, Aimee smiled unsurely, flashing her white teeth and hugging Crystal back. She made to say something, but the words caught in her throat and Crystal was gone – skipping towards a group of random boys in their form class, giggling loudly and twirling on the balls of her feet. Aimee looked away, down at her legs, her clothes, at her hair, and back at Crystal with a pang of jealousy. Moving her eyes back to the designer folds, she tried hard not to notice her best friend's antics.
Gray pushed through an onslaught of people, feeling like spun out shit spewed against the underside of a junkie's shoe. No exaggeration. He threw himself down on a bench, left leg restlessly ticking, and fumbled for a smoke, his lighter and phone. Michael was busy, which was fucking perfect. Times like this, he needed his best friend to bring him up again, to shout "oy, oy, Gray, let's go get us some dresses and pretend to be old ladies in the park," or "Brother, what you up to? There's a gig on in ten minutes, grab your trousers and out you come!" That gig turned out to be a feminist rally though; what a troublesome night. Somewhat maniacally, Gray laughed at the memories.
But the laughter quickly died. He spat, wiped his nose, staring unblinkingly at the ground, that leg still fiercely dancing. He didn't need the pills. He could manage without. His mind was just tricking him, making him feel all these senseless things at once. It doesn't matter, he told himself, another night, another night.
Unconsciously refocusing, his eyes adjusted as from afar he saw a girl leaning against a tree, seemingly gazing in his direction. He couldn't really tell, he wasn't wearing his contacts, but he thought he'd seen her somewhere before, perhaps around college. Too busy staring at her; he took no notice of his cigarette pressed against his jeans, burning through the denim – smoke singeing into the air.
"Young man," croaked a frog voice, belonging to an old lady beside him, "young man!"
She knocked the side of his head, pointing urgently to the smoke. He looked down, taking a moment to process the picture before cursing and flicking away the weapon. It had just scathed the flesh, wrenchingly raw nonetheless. Cupping his hands over the wound, when he looked up again the girl had gone. From his spot, he didn't move for an hour, still fixated upon the abandoned space near that tree, lost in a daydream.
"Gray?"
The sun was at its highest point in the day; it was getting late. Gray noticed this before he heard the voice, or saw the faces. Aimee and Crystal stood above him, the former wearing a look of concern, the latter one of amusement. His vision shook, and he had to blink a couple of times to correct it.
"Gray, what are you doing here?" asked Aimee again. He smirked at her, dressed in peaches, pinks and creams; she was like a little kitten, her voice a soft purr. He could just see her growing cat ears and a tail.
Clicking her fingers in front of his face, Crystal raised her eyebrows, "don't bother, Aim's. He's so totally monged out of his mind."
"I'm not," he whispered, "hey, ah, so tonight?"
"Oh yeah," sighed Crystal, seating down beside him, legs crossed and pointed in his direction, "about that, babes, not gonna happen, is it."
Gray's expression strayed blank, less angry than he thought he'd be and more stewing in a bitter disappointment, "oh."
Looking unsurely between the two of them, Aimee flashed a nervous smile, "Got coursework for design that needs to be done by Friday, we can't really afford to leave it till the last minute –"
"– Yeah so, we'll see you later, love?"
Momentarily placing her hand on his thigh, Crystal stood abruptly and started off, nodding back for a reluctant Aimee to follow. Aimee gave Gray an apologetic smile and bid him farewell, skipping after the blonde, her hair billowing behind her. Gray didn't even give them a second look, standing, stretching and wandering away to nowhere in particular. At least he'd manage to calm down.
It was a while later yet that Gray arrived home, slurping milkshake through a straw for sustenance, staring down at his feet, rather than up where he was going. When he got to the doorway he was shocked to see his mother standing in the frame, glaring him down like it was a Mexican stand-off. His eyes flickered to behind the door where he saw a tear stained Lily seated on the stairs, clutching her bag to her stomach and looking unbearably miserable. Shit.
"Do you have any idea of the time? In a meeting I get an urgent call from your sister's school asking what sort of a mother I am, that I forgot to pick up my seven year old child," Bryony Powell's face was fuming, contorted with disgust, "get inside, now."
"Mum, I –" she'd shoved him inside, slamming the door behind him, the house rattling in the aftershock.
"– I work, Gray! I work to keep us going and I ask one thing of you – one thing! Take care of your little sister. All you had to do was pick her up from school and walk her home, but you couldn't even manage that! Go tell Lily what was so much more important than her this afternoon," she snapped, eyes burning out of her sockets, "and don't you dare say you had a therapy session! I got an email from Doctor Rollins, notifying me that I was still to be billed for wasting his time. How long have you not be going to those, huh?"
Gray closed his eyes, his hands shaking, "I've just had… I've just had stuff –"
"– Stuff, that's going to be your answer? Nothing is more important than your responsibilities here, to us, to your family. Not college, not your friends, not therapy, nothing! You've wasted my time, your doctor's time, my money," she sobbed between her words, "what happened to you? You're just like your –"
"– Don't you dare. Don't you fucking dare compare me to him!"
There was silence as he glared at her, teeth clenched. It was broken only by the sound of Lily scrambling upstairs, hands pressed over her ears, her school bag clunking hard to the ground.
"Get out."
Gray gladly pulled open the door and shut it behind him, running down the street, kicking over someone's rubbish and screaming, loud and frustrated, to the setting sun. It was pitch black when Michael found him at their old, tagged bus stop, running in and out of sprinklers, a half empty bottle of vodka in his hands. He shrugged at the sight and walked through the showers towards him.
"Gray," he said.
Taking a swig of the bottle, Gray turned to see Michael, standing in the middle of the sprinklers, his hair flat, dripping wet, clothes soaked "… Gray, what's up?"
Going from smiles to sombre, Gray plonked himself away from the water's line of fire, pulling off his shirt and wringing it dry, "fuck off."
Michael took a deep breath, sitting opposite him, "you're not taking your pills anymore."
"I'm sweet without them, Mick."
"Clearly," there was a pause as their eyes tangled, both unwilling to relent to each other, "… you've got to start seeing your doctor again, man."
"What do you know?"
"Lily called me, says your mum's gone tizzy off her nut," said Michael, concerned, "they're worried."
"Gray, you forgot about Lily," he continued quietly, "you've never done that, you've always put her first."
Gray put his shirt back on, face chalk white, eyes blood red, "I know. I just… I just don't need this… shit," he stood, looking away from his friend, "I got you mate, you're all I need to get through. Fuck therapists, and fuck pills."
"Yeah but –"
"It's sorted, then."
Michael gazed at Gray's back for a little while before standing and leaving him by himself, feeling a little at a loss as to what to do for him. Gray knew Michael was right. Things had slowly built up since they'd started at Roundview a month ago; built up to this moment, to this day, to his mania. But he didn't need anyone's help to do that – all he needed was his friend's to stop being such tossers and to just stand by him. He could get himself fine without the mood stabilizers, whether they believed in him or not. He wandered over to the water, staring out over the floating harbour.
I could end it here, I could, just fuck everything up with a rock tied to my ankle, he laughed aloud at the thought, no one would ever find me, and they'd think I just ran away. His face turned straight, tears glazing over him, but then that'd be too easy, wouldn't it?
Turning back, pushing his hands into his pockets, he felt chills freeze over him, feeling an idiot for running through the sprinklers and fountains. He felt unfortunately sober. Or maybe not; metres away he saw what could have been a ghost, stark white in the sprinklers. Shivering, she was drenched, staring in his direction. Slowly, she came closer. Gray recognised her as the girl he'd seen by the tree in the park earlier on in the day, her black makeup ran down her face, smudged around her eyes and her thin, white dress had become see through in her soak. She stopped a person's width before him, gazing into his crying eyes with a dulled expression. So like a porcelain doll, he was unsure if she were real or just a figment of his imagination.
"I don't know why," he rasped pleadingly, "I just can't, fuck, just be a good brother, be a good son, a good friend. Why is it so hard for me and so easy for them? I feel them hate me, cause they can't just fucking understand, and see me. Shit, I'm such a whingeing pussy… I can hardly sleep and when I do it's … it's just fucking nightmares and horror clowns and like being raped by an entire, I don't know, you know? So I do the drugs, but then I feel weird, like I'm not me. So I take other drugs, and I feel fine high and happy, but no one's there with me. They just see… they just see it… and they leave."
He looked up at her, choking on his throat, hoping she'd either speak or disappear in an explosion of raindrops. She had kept completely still during his monologue, she might've been a statue, not even a real girl.
"You feel more than them."
Wide-eyed, he was shocked by her response, by the fact that he wasn't hallucinating, and she was really there. She tilted her head, and gazed at the ground before walking off in bare, scarred feet, "that isn't bad. That makes you real."
Gray came home before dawn, having sobered up, done some thinking and dried himself off. His gut wrenched as he approached the front door, used the key underneath the pot plant and opened it. Other than the chirp of birds, and the soft sprinkling of a hazy morning light, all was quiet. He snuck upstairs, knocking on his mother's door, to find it swing open, the bed already made and empty.
"She went to work to make up for the time she took off last night," said a tiny yawn from the door frame behind him.
Lily was in her pyjamas, hair plaited behind her head, her face a little puffy. He stepped over to her, kneeling down to be at the same eye level, "I'm –"
"Don't say you're sorry," she said, "I've already forgiven you. But only if you do something for me."
Dumbfounded, Gray's mouth slid agape, "yeah, sure Lil, anything. Name it, I'll do it."
That morning Gray made his little sister's breakfast, packed her school bag, made sure she had her sport kit and walked her out of their family home, like always. He carried her atop his shoulders, her black buckled shoes hitting against his chest as he walked uneven ground. Coming to her school, he slid her down over his head and knelt to play punch her cheek.
She smiled up at him, "you smell much better now."
"Only for you kiddo," he said, "Now give me love."
Lily wrapped her arms around his neck, and he hugged her back. She ran off into the school building, looking back only to wave. Waiting a moment, gazing after her retreating form, Gray smiled.
END
Next Chapter: LUCIA