Remember in Food Fright toward the end where Mike was talking and Duncan said "Something about your voice is kinda familiar" ? Well they didn't explain past that yet so this is my imagining of where Duncan remembers Mike from. :.) Mostly takes place a couple years before TDI.
Warning: It gets weird
*Duncan's POV*
Everyone was pretty down after we surprisingly lost the Food Fright challenge, and were stuck back in the cabins. I slept here all season 1 anyway, so it really wasn't that big a deal. Better than laying on a bench in season 3 and smelling Owen's farts all night in season2. I could get used to this team , too. They're annoyingly goody-goody and kiss-ass, but probably won't turn on me like the Vultures woulda probably done eventually.
"Oh- Mike , Duncan!" That bubble boy said as he came up to Mike and me. I'd been wondering if he was someone's younger brother or something. Wouldn't have lasted half a day in juvie, tiny little guy... "I just wanted to let you know that I'll be sleeping on the girls' side of the cabin tonight, if that's all right with you. I'm currently analyzing the onset of Sierra's hallucinations and promised her I'd help- she seems to be exhibiting signs of some sort of withdrawal, thanks to her possible diagnosis of celebrity worship syndrome, imagining everyone to be Cody and idealizing everyone to-"
That, or she's just sneaking in LSD. "All right , that's about enough nerd talk for me," I said as I walked to the guys' side of the cabin.
With Cameron "analyzing Sierra" or whatever and Sam being gone, it was just me and that MPD weirdo in the cabin.
"Hey, Duncan!"
"Huh? Oh, what's up."
Something about that guy…
"Ah, I'm all right, but, Can you believe Sam would do that? Maybe you don't know him, but he seemed like a nice guy last season, even though we weren't on the same team. He just played his games…"
Mike went on and on politely, not seeming to notice me spacing out. Ok, I know this guy from somewhere. I stared at him for another second before having a flashback…
"TO THE DINING HALL! GO ! GO! GO!" the security guard yelled through the halls of the juvenile hall, blowing his whistle, eliciting groans and curses from the inmates.
I muttered a couple interesting words under my breath about how I don't deserve to be here. Just a couple cell phones stolen from lockers (Which everyone knows you can just break the hinges off of, their faults for practically begging them to be stolen!) and some artwork on the side of a couple buildings. Just spicing things up, no biggie. But getting arrested by my own dad? Beyond humiliating. The way he yelled at me when he personally saw me off into this dump wasn't much better.
I dragged myself into the stank dining hall along with everyone else, prepared for shitty gruel. Being barely 14 years old didn't help- at least, if these guys were 14, they sure as hell didn't look it. Most of them were over 6 feet tall , with full beards. And they all looked at me , the "new guy" like they all personally wanted to kill me when I walked in.
I wouldn't doubt it.
I was a little out of it when I first got in here and I guess people could tell. (might've also got arrested for some slight charge on "possession of drug paraphernalia" or whatever.) And , like 8 different times some random guy would pull me aside and asked if I had any weed on me. Uh, no, cuz they strip searched me when I came in here! And even if I did, like they'd get any! I almost got beat up 3 times for pushing them away, and it's still my first day here. Great. This is gonna be fun.
I got my foam tray and tried not to look around me. I knew I'd have to assert myself soon. Pull a few pranks, break a few rules, so I don't get beat up on a regular basis. At my middle school, everyone knows me as the badass they just don't mess with, but here… Pretty much Duncans everywhere, only with more experience. Once I got my serving of some white slime (I heard the inmates help cook- no way in hell I'm touching that) and a chicken leg, I looked around. Don't wanna sit alone… I looked over to the corner and saw…a girl? Did they let girls in here? I was pretty sure they kept them locked up separately across the street, but she (?) was so tall and skinny, and had such long eyelashes and bright red lipstick…
When I sat across from her at the table, I noticed she also had such beautiful, shiny brown eyes. So at least there were SOME decent people in this place.
"Hey , gorgeous," I wiggled my unibrow for added effect, "What brings you to the guys' side?"
Just then I realized something and wanted to slap myself in the face. I was hitting on a tranny, wasn't I? Smart, Duncan. Now everyone will think you're gay and try to beat you up twice as much! It's not like I can't fight, I used to all the time back home, but come on! Half the guys here had to be on steroids, and they didn't even separate by age.
"Vell, Surely you know of me, I am ze Russian gymnast, SVETLANA! Being only vourteen, Svetlana has yet to compete in the Olympics officially. But in Beijing, Svetlana vill take home ze gold for motherland Russia!"
Well, this was entertaining. Keep in mind she said all this while getting up and spinning around and stretching on top of the table. A few other guys were staring open-mouthed at her, but whatever. She was the first person who didn't punch me in the face when I tried to talk to her, even if she didn't really answer my question.
"Really? That's pretty cool. I'm Duncan, and I see you're very flexible," I winked. I don't think she really got the message.
"Why, yes, Svetlana can reach her feet behind her head, perform a perfect backflip on ze balance beam, along with-"
She did all these weird flips and turns on the table, getting the attention of pretty much everyone in the dining hall.
"HEY! Calm down over there!" one of the guards yelled.
"Hmph! Not everyone appreciates ze fine art of gymnastics!"
"Well, I thought that was impressive. What are you doing here then? Do you do like martial arts also, and beat someone up?"
"Vellll… No, you'd have to ask him…"
Confused, I was about to ask who, when this giant hairy guy with an 8-pack pushed Svetlana out of his way. "Move it, fucking little freak!"
"Hey, what the hell , man?!" I probably shouldn't have been defending some delusional girl (?) I'd met a good 3 minutes ago on my first day in juvie, in retrospect. The guy immediately pushed me into the table, which my head slammed into as I fell on the ground. "AUGH!"
But I lifted my head up, to see Svetlana jump off a table and kick the guy in the face and down to floor before the guards rushed over.
"Wow…Go Svetlana! Woooooo…" I yelled before passing out from the head injury.
After I got out of the infirmary with a huge bump on my head next to my mohawk, it was time to go to the communal showers. I think I'd rather go get my tongue pierced by a plastic fork, which I've heard a couple guys will do for free for you here. Point was, even though not a lot of things scared me, I didn't like the idea of showering with a bunch of guys in juvie. What if I dropped the soap? Ok, no, I needed to learn how to survive here, and fast. I wasn't planning on ever becoming some straight-A dork who followed all the rules, and chances were I'd be seeing this place again if my luck went bad. So I grabbed a (supposedly) clean towel off the rack and walked in the bathroom…
And looked for Svetlana. Dude or chick? Dunno. But he/she seemed pretty cool. I thought I saw her from behind, wearing a towel over herself completely , so I said,
"Hey, Svetlana, what's up?" and touched her shoulder….And then all of a sudden "Svetlana" has this Italian accent and way too much hair gel, and pushed me right off her. Or him?
"Ey ey ey! If you wanna touch the Vito, you gotta make an appointment!"
"Excuse me?"
"And YOU do not have permission to touch the Vito! Vito is 100% straight, no grenades, no guys… just my sexy shore girls! Where ya at!"
"Uhhhhhh. What exactly are you here for again? Usually they keep the head cases locked up separate."
Vito/Svetlana only ignored me, squirted half a bottle of hair gel on his head , and rubbed it in before walking off.
"Dude, where did you even get hair gel in here?! Hello?!"
After showers, which went surprisingly normal, we had some free time. Sure , there were guards everywhere and the TV was busted and there were no balls for the basketball court, ping pong table, or much else at all really, you could just go to the rec room and talk. I tried to walk up to a few different people but only got intensely glared at like I had some bad past with them or was in some enemy gang or something, which of course I didn't since I just got here.
One guy I went up to and literally just said, "So what do you guys usually do around here?" casually, and he started screaming this long string of cursing about how I needed to stay out of his damn business and piss off, before picking up the busted little TV and trying to throw it at my face. I guess at this point I can assume they ran out of room in the psych ward.
Luckily I actually found a lighter behind the towel rack in the bathroom and amused myself by just watching the little flame waver and dream about burning a hole in the wall and hauling ass out. When I looked behind it for a sec, I thought I saw Svetlana again, holding her back and hunched over.
"Hey! Svetlana! You all right? I didn't think you got hurt earlier, since you kicked that huge guy down to the floor! Man, that was badass!"
Who turned around instead was a…wrinkly…? Svetlana with one eye shut and thin lips. He/she stared at my new lighter.
"Hey, your eye! So you did get hurt? I passed out after that guy pushed my into the table, so I didn't get to see what happened."
"WHAT in the sam hill are you talkin' about? Name's Chester! And why are you yellin?! Dadgum it, kids these days don't know how to respect their elders anymore, prancing around with their fancy fire machines and yellin in our ears! Why, back in my day we used sticks to build our fires and cook our food!"
"Really now. First off, you're freaking insane, Second, Where's that gymnastic goddess I met yesterday?! And What the hell are you here for?! It's driving me crazy!"
He started going on another rant in the weird old-man voice of his or hers, so I just rolled my eyes and walked away. She sure looked like a girl when I first met her, but when she acted like 'Vito' or 'Chester' she-he looked like a dude and it just felt really weird talking to her.
The next day I even saw her looking like a dude again in a hat, crawling under the tables at breakfast with a flashlight.
"You all right there, Svetlana or Vito or Chester or whoever?" I asked sarcastically as she crawled by me. Obviously nothing about this person was sane or all right. Then again, neither was anyone here really, but at she/he hasn't tried to beat me up yet. That was reassuring.
"Manitoba Smith here. Shh! Gotta be careful not to set off any booby traps . I'm on the lookout for treasure, you see, hidden deep in the realms of this cave, and I've gotta-"
"Dude. No. You're crawling under a table at juvie, and majorly creeping me out. Why are you here?!"
Just then someone decided to kick "Manitoba" under the table, setting off a chain reaction where everyone started kicking him/her.
Weird as the little freak was, I still yelled, "Hey, chill! She's a Russian gymnast master, you know, and she'll beat your ass!" It was almost just for my own amusement, but who comes jumping out from the table but the girl I'd seen on the first day. "Did somebody call for Svetlana?" She said in that Russian accent, and looked at me directly with her shiny eyes, before somersaulting across the dining hall. "Come on, come to Svetlana! She dares you!"
I couldn't even see what happened after that, cuz a huge riot mob of guys swarmed around her throwing punches, until the guards came in and got involved, blowing whistles crazily and getting out the tazers.
"What. The. Actual. Fuck."
I couldn't sleep that night, just sat on my thin bunk in the dark, took out my lighter, and wondered what the hell was up with that psychopath. Was she schizophrenic or something? I threw my lighter up and caught it. Multiple personality disorder? Bipolar? I threw the lighter up again, but this time it didn't fall back down. "Huh..?
All of a sudden, the small flame rose up, and there I saw Svetlana or whoever again, face lit up by the flame, standing right by me.
"Woah! I mean, uh, hey, I guess. What's up with your hair? Are you emo now?"
She or he just stared at me creepily.
"Or how about you answer this: Why're you here and what's your real name? Tell me already, before I report your psychotic ass!"
"Heh. You can just call me the Malevolent One. I'm probably the one who got us up in here in the first place. I control all of us , though, don't be mistaken. It is I who really rules this body."
I kinda just stared in total confusion at it for a second. For the first time, I actually somewhat regretted doing the things that got me into this place. Doesn't mean I didn't do them again, but at that moment, I was willing to climb the electric fence and risk burning my skin off to get out of here. I could've called the warden at that point, since he wasn't even supposed to be in here, but I said, like an idiot, "What'd you do to Svetlana?"
"Ha! Ha! Backtrack a little there, Duncan."
Oh god, he knows my name.
"Why am I here, you asked? You see , Duncan, I like trouble."
He leaned his face closer to me.
"I like to break things."
Closer.
"I like to…"
Ok, breathing-on-my-face-close now. "Hey, mind backing up a little, bro?" I asked him nervously.
"Burn things."
And then he started laughing really crazily like the Joker or some shit, "AH HAHAHA! HAHAHAHA!" Annnnnnnnnnnd that's when he used the lighter and set the wooden bunk on fire.
"Shit! HELP!" He was trying to kill me! Kill me!
At that point the guards walked in and had to put out the fire, and finally grabbed that pyro little freak and restrained him.
While I backed away and watched this entire insanity go down, I heard the guards,
"Told you this one should've gone to the psych ward!"
"Some of his personas looked pretty stable.."
And then the malevolent whatever yelling, "I will control this body! I will control Mike!"
"…And then Sam apparently hooked up with the mutated Dakotazoid, which was a little weird, but who am I to judge, right? I'm a little strange myself, heh. So I guess he left the game happily."
There was no way… "Mike?"
"Yeah?"
"You have MPD, right?"
"Oh, so you do know about that," he chuckled nervously, "Um, yeah, I do…But really, I think I can control them now!"
"Do you ever…remember things that, like, your other personalities do?"
"Well, I sort of have a general idea , but… Sometimes it's hard to remember specific events, especially right after. Why do you ask?"
"Oh, no reason. But, ah, I suggest you keep it that way, got it? Or you just may regret it later," I threatened. No need for HIM to have a revelation of the past here. And I needed to assert myself on this team.
"Um, fine?! I guess?" he said , confused.
"I'm gonna sleep now."
"All right, I guess I'll shut off the lights, then."
"Actually, you know, thanks, man. After what you showed me, I was pretty much prepared for anything that came my way in juvie. Nothing could really scare me after that."
He probably thought I was the weirdo at this point, but whatever.
"Um, all right , Duncan…" he sounded worried, but shut off the lights, and for some reason flipped his hair forward.
….
"Ah hahaha… I love the dark. Easiest place to create mayhem. And you know, break and burn things. Haha, right, Duncan? Ah haha…AH HAHAHAHAHA!
.
Well, that was weird. But super fun to write. Thanks for reading. :.) Can't wait to see the actual reason Duncan remembers Mike's voice on TDAS , Lol