The group home was weird.
Most of the kids were eating breakfast and speaking loudly, and Grian remembers just how much he hadn't missed this. How much he prefers quiet mornings with Pearl and Timmy. How he'd escaped all of that, and that one day, these kids will too. Hopefully.
He's here early. He knows he is. He just.. Well. He didn't want to face Pearl. Pearl, with her dumb worried expression and soft words, Pearl, who'll be laughing at him the second they're at school. He doesn't quite get Pearl, and honestly thinks she should see Roier too, but.. Well. He also didn't want to face Jimmy.
Jimmy. Innocent little Jimmy. His baby brother. Pearl told him that night-- He'd still hadn't been able to sleep. Grian isn't totally sure if he slept at all that night or if he just laid there with his eyes closed. She said that he was worried and told her that he hoped that he gets better. That he hoped that he gets better.
Okay, well, maybe it wasn't fair to infantilize Jimmy like that. He was 16, had friends- good friends, like Tango and Scott, hopes and ambitions, above-average grades, and was so much more than what their parents did to them. Yet... Well. Looking at him, Grian can only remember a 7 year old little boy with headphones singing songs trying desperately to ignore reality.
Maybe it wasn't fair for Jimmy. But Grian felt pretty goddamn justified to act that way.
Pearl was a better person than him. Pearl doesn't infantilize Jimmy and she hasn't tried to murder Scar. Pearl was nice. She just... She had something about her. A mask, a facade, that turns on whenever she's in class. She becomes cold, distant, mocking.... Except when she's with Scott.
It's weird and Grian doesn't want to think about it. Scott.. Was a great guy. Met him in middle school and despite being a year younger was really charismatic and managed to get into Grian's small circle of friends that used to consist of Joel, Lizzie, Martyn and Mumbo. It's weird to think he hadn't even befriended Scar then.
Scott who he'd grown apart from but still cherishes. Scott, who sends him messages from time to time and he'd reply-- Something he doesn't do with Joel, Lizzie and Martyn. Scott who is weirdly close with Jimmy.
Scott, who is weirdly close with Jimmy... And Tango.
He doesn't want to linger on those thoughts for a while, because that wasn't for him to deal with.
...
"I haven't seen you around," A voice that comes from behind Grian says. He turns around to see a girl with soft, curly ginger hair decorated with hair grips of all colors. She was wearing on over-sized beige shirt with a saturated blue skirt underneath. She looks about his age and probably came in his system recently.
"Grian," He introduces himself because she was just another foster kid, "I'm from the apartments. Haven't been here for a while." He'd visited the group home just around 3 months ago and she hadn't been there, and no one had mentioned her. They'd mentioned other new ones that he'd met, though, so he feels safe to assume she's new. She must've gotten under CPS recently, or really messed up and changed group home, or perhaps she was a foster family kinda girl?
"I'm Gem," She introduces herself, "Changed group home 'cause I threatened the staff with a knife. Thrice." Grian could practically hear the staff nearby, 'That is not something to be proud of,' they'd say, shaking their heads as they eavesdrop on their conversation. That'll teach them to push a mentally ill kid over the edge. Thrice.
"Are you here to see Roier?" She asked and there was no denying it, so he nodded. "Shubble had an episode at 3 AM and he like, just came in and the staff literally, physically pushed her towards him. So, he won't be available for a while. Get comfy." Grian, admittedly, doesn't know a lot about Shubble. Just that she was the girl that took Pearl's place when they moved to the apartments. Caught glance of her no more than twice while visiting. He didn't know a lot. But..
"The schizophrenic girl, right?" Well, maybe it wasn't the nicest thing to refer to her as, but that was the way things were in a group home, among foster kids, respect didn't particularly exist. "Yeah, I'm roomed with her. She's really nice! But... You know how it goes, right?" God does he know. Yeah. He knows.
"That I do," Grian says with a sigh, trying to ignore the workers obnoxiously eaves dropping on their conversation. He'd try with another question, "What're you gonna do once you turn 18? I'm assuming they won't let you into the adult program," Rather let us rot the second we're adults, as if we weren't children the second before, no, because we were never children in the first place, was left unsaid.
"Probably move in with Joel and Etho," Joel and Etho. Joel. "Unless Joel moves with his girlfriend, then it'd be just me and Etho, but we'll see." Joel? Girlfriend? How much had he missed? Why didn't he miss? Miss them? Did they miss him? He hoped they did, in some weird, selfish way.
"You know Joel?" And he's scared his voice betrays his feelings, "Uh-huh. He's a really cool guy. Etho too." That he doesn't doubt-- Joel was always so nice to him. Maybe a bit egotistical, but that was fine, that was just Joel.. And then the incident happened.
"I used to know him," He doesn't exactly know why he says that, or why he then asks; "Who's his girlfriend?" But Gem sounds so joyous when she then answers: "Oh, did you! And it's Lizzie, he's with Lizzie for about, mhm.. 8 months now? Maybe 9. They're made for each other."
...Grian doesn't doubt that for a second. He's not sure why he even asked, really, he'd bet money back in middle school that Joel and Lizzie would end up together-- He's not sure why he's surprised. Maybe because he thought they'd all parted ways after he did. Maybe because in some sad, sadistic way, he hoped they were miserable too. But they weren't. Apparently.
"Yeah, yeah.. That, makes sense. Yeah." Joel and Etho, though, when had they gotten close? The group project. That.. Must be it, yeah. Great to know the thing that fucks him over is the cause of other's developing, stupid friendships. Something Grian apparently couldn't keep. Living proof being Mumbo and fucking Scar.
"But like, Lizzie's actually mentally stable, except for some sort of identity crisis," Which of course Grian kn- What did she say about an identity crisis? Why is everyone having such a fucking terrible time-- "So she actually can live with her parents and go to a semi good college, and I doubt she'll be moving out of her parents' home any time soon, so yeah. Joel and Etho."
Forget about the identity crisis, it's not like he kept contact with Lizzie anyway. He wonders if she'd actually gotten to dye her hair like she'd planned to, but he hasn't checked. Always stuck in his own head. At least Joel wasn't-
"I mean, they have good shit, too," There goes what he was gonna say about Joel. Because of course Joel of all people would've gotten into drugs, and of course the 17 year old pretty girl in front of him was into drugs-- Hadn't he learned anything from his time at the group home? Good gosh.
"That doesn't surprise me," Because it genuinely didn't. Just. He guesses he feels frustrated, angry, disappointed. For what? Not being the only fucked up person in the world? For Joel and whoever Etho was to be more fucked up than him? To realize this world wasn't his and people existed outside of himself? That was utter bullshit and he..
He missed Joel. Joel never came without Lizzie. Good thing he missed her. Scott, too. As well as Martyn. And... Well. And Mumbo.
"Nuh-huh. You wanna knock on Roier's door and disrupt his session with Shelby?" Which makes him think back on when he was 13 and first installed in the foster system, and how he'd gone around and just fucked with everything he could. Gem certainly did give off that energy, despite the fact that she'd been in the system for maybe as long as he had.
"Sure. D'you have any siblings, by the way? Thought I'd ask."
"Oh yeah, got my twin, Fwhip, he's in a foster family about 2 hours from here. We usually meet halfway," Which god doesn't help him in remembering how he'd survived without Pearl.
"Makes sense." He says and nothing more-- What else could've he said?
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Half of the dessert's rotten. || Scarian
FanfictionScar hates Grian. That was a fact everybody knew. Right. Everybody knew that Scar hated Grian, because Grian was careless and stupid and really what was there not to hate about him? Ever since an incident that gave more sense than anything to his...
