A/N: Short chapter. I've decided to make Elliott's turn into Gary's turn to. So they'll be alternating POVs. Because there hasn't been enough Gary in this story. It's terrible xDD This is just a short chapter though. Basically setting up what's going to happen later :p I hope I've got Gary more in character than I've had him so far D8
Chapter Twenty Six
Know Thyself
How long had he been on this crap now? Thirteen, maybe fourteen years? He had had a couple of slip ups, one or two occasions where he hadn't been able to make it to the pharmacy to pick up his prescription, or he had simply forgotten to pop a pill one morning. He had never intentionally stopped taking them. Even about ten years ago when he had been suffering from excruciating kidney pains because of a new brand of meds from a new, young and pretty dumb doctor he had kept taking them. He didn't want to go back to being that irrational, psychotic mess that he had been school.
Or he thought he didn't. The meds made him think he didn't.
Gary was smarter than that though. With his mind unclouded by the various medications he could see a lot clearer. The meds made him think he was normal. Yeah, being a mindless, miserable drone was so much better, wasn't it? What exactly had he done in the last fifteen years? Drifted from shitty apartment to shitty job, never really doing anything worthwhile. Never doing anything meaningful. And hadn't that always been Gary's aim in life as a kid? To do something to be remembered for? To leave his mark somewhere?
At the age of thirty he had done nothing. He was a loser who lived in a crappy apartment who chucked crates around on a fishy smelling dock. He lay on his couch at night and watched terrible TV. He had routines. He vacuumed his house, cleaned his kitchen, went grocery shopping on weekends, sat alone with TV dinners and a four pack of cheap import beer every night.
If fifteen year old Gary Smith had seen this, he would have hung himself to prevent this ever happening.
Gary wasn't sure what had possessed him to stop taking his meds. After leaving Elliott's house a few days ago after that bastard Oakley had turned up on the doorstep, he had just been sickened at the thought of them. So he flushed them. The next morning he regretted it, instantly going to the pharmacy to get a refill, but apparently they had been out. So he had gone home and turned his place upside looking for a spare bottle. He had flushed every single one. As the hours ticked by withdrawal set in. Then he started getting twitchy.
Then he started thinking. Thinking. Constantly.
Fifteen years of repressed thoughts surged up in his mind, overwhelming him almost. He panicked for a while at first, but that soon went. After this medication induced façade slipped away he became more and more like his old self. Like his real self. He was Gary Smith again. And God had he missed being Gary Smith.
Confidence was one of Gary Smith's best features. He could say anything to anyone, do anything he wanted and not give a damn about how anyone responded or what they thought about it. Loser Gary almost reminded him of Femme-Boy, which was kind of humiliating. In fifteen years he hadn't even been able to tell Elliott what he wanted from her. Why he hadn't just strolled in there and dragged her up to the bedroom he didn't know. But now he had his confidence back he could do that. And that had been exactly what he had gone around to do two nights ago.
Only she hadn't been there. She had been out with Oakley. And instead of facing her he had come face to face with Reese. Things were said, but not regretted.
The plan had come to him almost instantly, as soon as he walked away from the house in fact. He didn't know what the plan was in aid of; to get Elliott away from that slime ball lawyer, or simply to get her back for being the way she had been with him, or just to knock Oakley down a peg or two - but it came so easily it was almost scary.
Bumping into Jimmy was just the icing on the cake. Made everything come together a lot easier for him, and Jimmy being the dumb shit he always had been meant that he would probably fall for everything without even considering that it might backfire and bite him in the ass. The moron probably thought Gary had changed.
Well he had changed. For a while.
Jimmy didn't need to know much about what was going to happen. He just had to be in the right place at the right time. Ideally in the Vale on Saturday night. On reunion night. It would be nice to have Elliott there too. That would be easy to arrange; that girl practically lived for drama. She would probably end up there even if Gary didn't lead her. It was like she just materialised into the middle of it, not even knowing how she got there herself.
Now it was just the wait for Saturday. One day away. Gary Smith was back on form, and he was going to make sure everyone knew it.