Bloody Lip

01: TROY: POISED TO PERFECTION

[a/n]: guts and glory is hands down my favourite thing i've ever written, and it's amazing that i got to share it with you guys. i remember when someone asked me about two years ago how to create great characters, and my response was to make them flawed, make them real--which is how i hope you all see piper, who is my favourite creation but an awful person. g&g is where i got to experiment with character's i'd never done so before, and that's why this is a thing. i was initially planning to do this with all of the characters, but it's taken me four months to do this part and i feel like piper had the largest impact on troy. i'm not going to put here what i think about him so you can all form your own opinions, but i feel like there definitely isn't enough on wattpad, personally, about toxic friendships and equally, how damaging they can be. there's also tones of hypermasculinity and alcoholism in here, which i feel are why troy is troy. also, before someone calls me all out on interactions here not being exact to how they were i g&g, i know this, and both troy and piper are unreliable narrators who have allowed emotions to cloud how they think things went. this is 14.5k words, and you won't see me again until at least next year lol, but i'd love to know how you guys feel about troy now, post(but also pre) g&g. - imo XX

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BLOODY LIP: ONE
TROY MADDEN: POISED TO PERFECTION

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"I think Troy was the black sheep in the family, actually. He wasn't very ambitious. I remember in school he'd just skate-by and do the bare minimum but . . ."

***

Troy is eleven years old and unafraid of monsters.

He's no longer a child—he's a man, pushed out of a childhood that left little to be desired, the weight of a family he barely likes on his shoulders, told that men don't cry, men aren't allowed to fear—a growth spurt resulting in an awkward cut off to his brand new blazer, tallest in his year, voice rich and deep and everything that a real man's should be. Monsters are nothing to be afraid of, he's learnt that the face his Mum makes when the alcohols hidden away from her is much scarier.

Troy knows what monsters are—true, wrenching caricatures of dreams that have been wasted, of a fear curling tight in his gut, of having to pacify Noah into believing that mornings will bring with it a brighter day—he knows how to spot them on sight, the twisted things that hide in the bodies of people who know how to smile and say all of the right words.

Piper's a monster, too.

She's an eleven year old who steps on the bus after school, an Asian girl standing at her shoulder, sniffing in disdain as she gets herself a seat at the back of the bus. She's an eleven year old girl—for all intents and purposes, Troy spots her crooked bottom teeth and chapped lips as she introduces herself to him—but she moves like an animal, like a predator staking out her prey, like a forty something year old woman who's lived twenty other lifetimes before this chance meeting on public transport.

"I'm Piper," she says, striking out a hand for him to shake—and Troy wants to believe that he's unafraid of monsters, that he's now in the graduating class of finally becoming a man, of becoming something that his Mum will be proud of, but Troy isn't an idiot and knows that Piper isn't a monster now, but she will be one—she'll be ferocious and callous and everything that reminds Troy of his mother, of nights spent recoiling in fear and becoming a boy once more.

***

Troy is unimpressed when he meets Felix.

It's been a month since he met Piper on the bus—and he's only just gotten used to the idea of sharing her attention with Annie, whom he doesn't particularly like, because she's rabid and far too over protective of Piper for only having known her since September. Troy doesn't enjoy vying for attention, he's always commanded it, but everything that he's ever known means nothing when Piper is involved—because it's Piper, or so he believes, too caught up in the specialty of being included in this group, of being special enough for Piper that he hasn't really thought about it—things happen on her say-so, and no amount of pouting or protesting makes a difference.