Chapter 3: The place where Gary stayed.

Italics--Flashbacks

I am SO sorry it took so long…I got uninterested in the pairing/fandom for a while… -gets shot 5000 times- X.x

(Subliminal message: review.)

THIS CHAPTER IS DEDICATED TO…Uh, YOU!! YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE! ):0

Pete was pretty vexed the next day. Mostly because of the fact Gary kept him up all night with the snoring. It was 1 o' clock when he'd finally gotten around to falling asleep. It was hardly what you'd call peaceful, too.

His eyes fluttered open as the light flooded into his view. His hands were thrown over his head and he rubbed his eyes. 'I knew I should have slept out in the lobby. I'm fricking exhausted.' Petey turned his head and looked at his clock. Just then, a shocking realization dawned on him.

"I'M LATE!!"

The sheets flew up into the air as the brunette teenage boy scattered across the room trying to throw the various books and papers into a pile on his bed before scrambling to his wardrobe and pulling out his uniform.

The clock indicated he was 15 minutes late to class.

On a block day too.

2 classes of art is usually a good thing.

"Oh, shiiiitt…"

Gary leaned back in his seat his seat in Ms. Phillips' room towards the back. The seating was pretty much grouped. The few nerds in the class of course took the front, despite their lack of interest in the arts. If they didn't get good grades in exploratories, their GPA would of course go down, and we couldn't have that, now could we?

The few move preps and greasers sat in the middle, on different sides.

Things hadn't changed that much since Hopkins came into power after all.

Most people never showed up, so the back was pretty empty.

Gary quite liked it that way.

He was immediately snapped out of his class-wide observation when he heard a door open.

Ah, he'd wondered where Petey was. Damn, he looked like hell. His hair was tousled, his sweater vest was lumped up in the side, and he was currently letting out an exasperated sigh and signing the tardy sheet. So-long perfect attendance….

Gary saw Peter's eyes dart down to his usual seat in the front row. Melvin was sitting there.

The only seats left were in the back with Gary. Before either of them knew it Pete was sliding into the desk next to Gary and hissing words to him from across the aisle way.

"Did you turn off my alarm again?"

"No."

"Really?" It didn't sound like a question.

"Yeah, really, Femmie."

Pete rolled his eyes and pretended to pay attention to their art teacher.

"So what did I miss?"

"Well,"

"Hello, children, it seems I have you for two class periods today." Ms. Phillips beamed a short-lived plastic smile and rubbed her hands together, as if to improve circulation…or to induce her maniacal plotting… Gary knew that it was probably the first choice though. Not everyone is crazy.

"As we all know, the world is falling victim to corruption and corporate delusion. People barely help each other anymore…We're falling apart. But if we stand together…"

Gary looked out the window not even bothering to listen. This was sure to be another "Save the World" project they do every year. They'd go clean up the park in the Vale, pretend they did something and go home. Gary's mind soared through his usual racing thoughts as Ms. Phillips ranted on about how as the future, the children of this class cold do something.

"…however," the class perked up a bit. "…after last year…" a couple people reminisced of what happened last year, when Johnny Vincent found Lola cheating on him once again, and chucked an empty cola can at Constantinos' eye.

"…we will not be cleaning up Old Bullworth Vale."

Everyone groaned.

"What?! But it's so easy!"

"What else would we do?"

"Aw, man!"

The young man with the pink imperfection across his right eye internally scoffed at everyone's sniveling.

"INSTEAD," they shifted in their desks and grew quiet. "Instead," the young art teacher re-gained her composure and smoothed out her knee-length skirt, "we will be teaming up into groups of two, and we will each do 15 hours of community service. You will each sign yourselves up to a specific spot, once you have your partner, on this clipboard." She held up a rectangular piece of wood with a sheet of paper (what appeared to be a chart) fastened onto it with the metal clasp at the top.

Gary raised an eyebrow. This was certainly different…

"There's an even number in this class, so don't even ask about a group of three. Got it? Go get with your partner." Many scoots of desks were heard as the whole class got up and went and sat next to their best friend, girlfriend, etc.

In under a minute everyone was sitting next to ho they were doing the project with, and Gary was left in the back, with no one.

Ms. Phillips noticed.

"Smith, where's your partner?"

He shut his eyes and scratched the back of his head. "He's not here yet…" he grumbled rather unpleasantly.

Ms. Phillips shifted her weight to her other foot and sighed. "Well, why don't you wait for him to get here then, if you're so damn sure he's not sick." She turned around on her heel.

"…Then she made me wait for you."

Petey sighed. "Well, let's go see what we're stuck with then." He said getting up out of the desk, with Gary close at his heels.

Ms. Phillips had left and told the class to have "study hall," which consisted of the preps mingling around desks, the greasers shooting spitballs at them, and the nerds studying in the corners to avoid the raining chewed up paper.

Gary slid his hands into the pockets of his slacks and took a glance at Pete. He really did look a mess.

"Peter, will you help me with the trigonometry homework?"

"Oh sure, B. hang on a second." Petey said and walked over to the desk Beatrice was sitting at. Gary looked over to discover she was blushing madly. If there was one person she was infatuated with more than Jimmy Hopkins, It was Pete Kowalski. And she'd do anything for his attention, even if it meant dumbing herself down. Petey was fortunately VERY unaware.

Gary let out a low chuckle and picked up the clipboard with his un-pocketed hand and scanned down the list.

'Let's see here…. Gord and Derby…Homeless Shelter….huh, surprising…Beatrice and Melvin…Orphanage tutoring….' His eyes finally scrolled to the bottom of the list, and landed on the one blank un-taken community service slot.

His cocky grin turned into a shocked stare. He stood there for a second, just looking down at the paper in his hand, before throwing it back down on Ms. Phillips desk and storming out the door, without even gathering his books.

Pete looked away from Beatrice's desk, to her dismay, and looked at the door. "Gary? Gary!" he shuffled over to the teachers desk and picked up the clipboard and ran his eyes down the list. "What the hell, G-"

It was then Pete laid eyes on what drove Gary to leave, walk out.

At the bottom of the list was,

": Happy Volts Insane Asylum"

A/N: You know what my favorite word is? Flabbergast. It's like "LOL wut?"

Oh yeah.

Please review??

I know you're SO used to hearing that on every story you've ever read but it makes me so happy.

DDD

Until next time, loyal readers!!

And because I feel like I can talk to you guys, We were in Florida in February, cuz we were movin' and all, and I saw this kid with Gary's haircut.

And I swear…I kid you not, his parents called him Gary.

He was like 6 though. XDDD

UPDATE: Okay, we just moved and stuff and I've had this done a while but our interenet isn't hooked up and my mom is convinced I broke her laptop when I didn't, so SO SORRY for the delay. I piggybacked someone's server so I got on like 5 seconds to upload this.

See? I care about you guys.