Gavin's brain often took the strangest of times as an opportunity to try and re-evaluate life.

Sitting in a dim apartment wearing nothing but hole-filled underwear, a vest and socks, eating garlic pizza was clearly the perfect time to reflect back on his life.

It was rather fucking shit.

He was a student that was 'going places'.

Bullshit.

Every student got fed that crap from the day education started then when it starts going downhill, teachers and parents wonder why the students get depressed.

You get told the world is your oyster then it's suddenly a rotten and inedible oyster before you can blink.

Forget it, he preferred looking back on his best parts. Which Gavin thought was most of them.

Though right now he was anything but inspiring.

Somehow managing to make a bite of grossly over-seasoned pizza seem thoughtful, he thought back on how awesome he'd been.

Totally awesome and nothing else.

Of course.

Construction class, or woodwork, whatever, he was great at that! Built a functional weapon out of the random assortment of tools, the school branded it as 'terrifying and violent' but he thought of it as proof of his 'imagination and skill'.

Got some great times in with the teachers too! 'Are we sitting comfortably?' he remembered one asking the class before he raised his hand and used his most innocent voice to say 'No miss, I got worms.' while staring at her directly in the eyes watching her face contort with shock and anger.

Oh wonderful times, the detention was worth it.

Flunked drama class, then again punching the screaming kid in the face wasn't going to help.

Stupid class anyway, heh, that gave the kid something to actually scream about.

Gavin had every confidence in his abilities, they were undeniable, it was just the School system he didn't like he guessed. The violent behaviour landed him in a therapist's office.

That became boring so quick.

The therapist himself was awful.

Spoke to Gavin in a child's voice. Damn he wasn't stupid but that asshole spoke to him as if he was. He decided that 'fuck therapists' was a good philosophy and he tried to knock some sense into the bastard. Though clearly this guy had dealt with that happening before and had a goddamn taser under his desk, Gavin didn't even know the guy was allowed to have that in an office.

Pissed his favourite pair of pants.

That asshole.

Got sent to another because it sure helped the first time. Gavin treated that guy as a joke and had some fun the first few sessions, deliberately misspoke words like said 'kilt' instead of 'killed' and watched as the man's nose scrunched up in quiet frustration from behind his glasses. Brilliant.

Another game you played was 'count how long it was until the therapist asked about your parents'.

Half an hour into the first session actually.

You told him straight, dad was an arrogant cunt your mother moved back to somewhere in Europe apparently, which you told the therapist was probably a lie, given your dad's behaviour your mum was probably just some one night stand who dumped you with him before pissing off somewhere else. The therapist noted that down and proceeded to make the next load of sessions all about them.

He did his research and looked into your medical records and found out some of your lies regarding your parents. Gavin's face scrunched up, he had picked up quickly on your reactions to hearing the truth about your parents and figured out some of the other REAL issues regarding them.

Though that's what you did most of the time now, go to therapists or anger management classes, it took up most of your time now you ceased being a street thug.

Yep.

There was something else the therapist latched onto.

What could be said about being an 'unlawful youth'? You mostly messed with some drugs and beat the shit out of whoever you felt like, you didn't care.

You still didn't care now but you feel more apathetic about it, beating people up seemed boring right now.

The attitude change could also be pinned on said drugs. It was a new thing being spread about, pretty bad shit too as a fair few people had already died from it less than three months since it hit the streets.

The media reported it as 'the latest drug craze to sweep the streets' and it earned the nickname of a 'plasma bath' due to the all-over tingling sensation it gave, like being submerged in a bath of energy, submerged in plasma.

As a former, albeit kind of brief, user Gavin could personally agree with such a description. What he meant by 'brief' was that the shit was hard as hell to come by and he got little of it, which was arguably a good thing.

Given how the ingredients had dubious origins and the concoction seemed fairly lethal given how quickly it had caused a few deaths.

Other than the rides with substance abuse it was mostly senseless violence which is what you became known for quite quickly in your home town, obviously, you weren't there anymore, with a reputation like yours, it was safer to just leave.

Said reputation had earned you the nickname of "Cheshire". You grinned like mad when you were beating someone to a bloody pulp this lead to an altercation with a street gang where they decided to take your nickname to the next level, and well you now wore just a bit of makeup every day so the scars around your mouth weren't so visible.

Gavin hated his brain.

There were some, okay, almost all of his younger life he didn't want to even think about, let alone re-evaluate.

He just wanted it gone from his mind, to be free of it.

Disgruntled murmuring brought your attention back to the dirty table, littered with food boxes and empty cups, where the now empty pizza box joined the mess.

"'Sup Lil' shit" you greeted the mangy cat that had crawled in through an open window.

It sniffed the air and looked as disgusted as a feline could be, the cat never liked the smell of the garlic. The thing wasn't even your cat he just appeared every now and then, made you wish you were a cat.

No therapists, getting to go where ever, eat whatever, shit whenever and sleep for as long as you liked.

Your aspirations right now weren't aiming high, though you once claimed to a preschool teacher you would 'rule the world'.

Gavin laughed out loud startling the cat.

He didn't even understand anything he'd just thought about, almost as if he was reading some load of senseless blabber and tossed the remnants of the crust back into the box.

He guessed he'd better get some clothes on.

Hoisting his body off the seat he glanced around his scarcely decorated domicile and located the pile of, hopefully, clean clothes in-between a few stolen street signs you refused to let go of and a stack of CDs.

Pulling on a pair of tatty denim trousers Gavin rummaged around the pile for his favourite, a black band t-shirt proudly displaying the band's name in garish colours "Unicron's head" it said above the image of the skull of a decapitated demon that seemed to be floating in space. They were an 80's-style rock band and he couldn't get enough of their music. Applying the shirt to his body Gavin grasped the only piece of clothing he truly loved. A purple turtleneck jumper.

It matched the purple colour he had dyed his hair too, hair that used to be fairly tame but now looked as if he was the victim of a particularly bad electrical shock.

Only permanent.

Not that he didn't care about his hair, he still kept the dye in, he just never bothered to do much else with it apart from brush and dye.

Gavin was dressed. Now what.

He hadn't thought that far ahead.

Again.

The cat had lost interest and was crawling back out the window again.

Yeah.

Let's just go out. A walk. Yes.

Yanking the door handle Gavin strolled out the building with all the grace of a moody shoebill bird.

Fantastic.

The day was off to a brilliant start, damn sun too bright, air too hot, birds too loud Gavin could go on with this. Kicking a can on the lawn he shuffled around back keeping his head down and away from the sunlight.

"Hello pig" he muttered to his other 'pet'.

Pig was a Cow.

It was penned in by a half-rotten wooden fence and had been there longer than he had, for all he knew it probably didn't even have an owner.

Pig lazily hung its head over the fence demanding a pat with a soft moo. It got it's pat and trotted off done with the human.

One day he might see who actually owned the land about here.

He lived in a dingy shack, that was being rented out for a phenomenally cheap price.

Probably because it looked like it was about to fall apart and was covered in specks of missing and peeled paint, it was also placed next to a field on the edge of anywhere remotely interesting.

Right okay. time to actually walk somewhere.

Gavin kept his eyes down. The sun was bright, reflections off the windows were irritating and lord knows he'd probably punch someone if they made eye contact with him.

Slinking into a local park he placed himself down onto a shady bench and stared at the leaves above him and the tiny rivulets of soft light that leaked between them.