High School Misfits [Gallavich]

Chapter One: First Day Blues

A/N: Just a fic I've been working on because I need to get the ideas out somehow - and who doesn't love a good high school AU?

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If you think high school was hard enough, try being an impoverished, unmotivated teenager of average intelligence trying to navigate your way through it on the mean streets of South Side Chicago. Then try adding a shit-show family, teachers who think you aren't worth shit, and for Mickey Milkovich, the complete and utter inconvenience of being gay.

It's not like he's officially 'out', but concealing it in a neighbourhood like his was just as bad. Fag-bashing was basically a sport.

So he kept it a secret, he didn't act on it any more than fantasising about guys at night when he jacked himself off.

It took a lot of effort just to get through school, it's not like his dad gave a shit if he graduated and maybe that was why he kept going. Either way, school was a bore, but in some ways it was a release.

It was the first day of his senior year and he was already out and walking towards the school. He could hear his sister Mandy calling to him as she ran to catch up but he was in too bad a mood to wait for her.

"Hey! Hey I'm talking to you asshole!" she yelled before she was grabbing his arm as she caught him. "What fucking gives, you were supposed to wait for me?"

"I'm not gonna stand around and get fucking screamed at while I wait for you to haul your ass into some skinny fucking jeans," he said.

He had his hands shoved into his pockets and his brow set in a hard line as he stared out at the path ahead.

"Dad's on your back huh?" she asked.

"It's a day that ends with a 'y' so what do you think?"

"You should really tell him to go fuck himself," she said.

"Did, he broke my fucking nose, remember?" he said, raising an eyebrow at her.

"So quit school and get a job so you can move out of his house," she said. "Then I can come live with you and―"

"What? Live happily ever after?" he asked.

"Sure, just as soon as we each find ourselves a Prince Charming."

Mickey hadn't intended to tell Mandy about his preferences, he wasn't even entirely sure he ever told her he was gay. She just picked up on things and then one day found a picture Mickey had torn out of a magazine and stashed in his room. He may never have actually told her, but he never denied it either.

"Seriously? It's the first day of fucking school, I already feel like unloading my guts on the pavement, don't make it worse," he said.

"Alright, okay, sorry," she said. "I'll come live with you and that'll be the end of it."

"Better," he muttered.

Mandy was one of only two people who knew Mickey was into guys. The other person was the third miscreant addition to their misfit army.

"Turn down here, we've got to stop at Karen's," she said.

"What? Excuse me? No, why can't she fucking meet us, her place is out of the way," Mickey complained as Mandy looped her arm through his and dragged him down the road.

"You really care about being on time for class?" she asked. "Come on, it's like five extra minutes.

Karen was probably Mandy's closest friend, and that was saying a lot considering up until her sophomore year she never really had any female friends. The two of them were so fucking similar though, made it easier for them to get along.