Chapter Text
Michael looks at the dull boring houses outside his car window. There were children outside playing hopscotch or basketball, but he didn’t care. He was too busy wallowing in depression to take interest in anything that was happening in this new town.
He missed New Jersey. He had friends there, and he didn’t want to leave them. Making new friends was just going to be an annoying hassle. It seemed a lot easier to just ignore everybody as best as he can and just pull through the upcoming school year with as minimal social interaction as possible.
But it was still the middle of summer, so luckily he has a month until he has to deal with that.
As the memories of his old school wash across his brain, he doesn’t notice that the car has parked.
They’d already had all of their furniture and belongings inside the new house, packed up in boxes and tape. Having to unpack all of his things was just another reason he was fed up with having to move.
His father was transferred here for his job, and since his mother works from home, it was easy for them to just up and move to Austin, Texas. It was easy for them. Not for their fifteen year old son.
Michael gets out of the car and stretches his legs, as he looks up at his new house. It’s simple, and the same size as all the other houses on the street. But he doesn’t care much for that. He figures he’ll be spending most of his time cooped up in there anyway.
His mother stands up next to him and throws a loving arm over his shoulder, “Isn’t it nice?” she beams as they both stare up at it.
"Yeah, sure."
The smile falls off of her face at his monotone answer, and is replaced with a look of pity. She lets out a sigh. “I know you didn’t want to move, Michael. But look at it this way, it’s like a brand new adventure!”
His mother’s optimistic attitude forces him to crack a smile. She’s always so upbeat and happy.
"Go on and explore the house a little. We can take care of this stuff." his father calls out. And they start working on getting all the extra luggage out of the trunk.
He doesn’t need to be told twice, and quickly runs up to open the front door to his new home. Helping with the unpacking isn’t something he wants to be stuck doing.
He scans the inside and tries not to be too judgmental of the house. It’s simple, but nice. Sort of empty looking, but he figures that will change when all of their boxes are unpacked and everything is cleaned.
Their old house was better.
He’s looked around for about five minutes when his parents finally make it through the door. He’s already claimed the bedroom across the hallway upstairs as his. And he’s made himself familiar with the layout of the house in that short amount of time, and now he’s just wandering around aimlessly, trying to find something interesting.
"Do you like it?" his mom asks.
"Yeah, it’s nice." he nods.
As soon as the smile graces her face he knows that he’s willing to push aside any whiny complaints he has about moving so that she’ll be happy.
"The backyard is nice too, go on and take a look."
He doesn’t want to act like a little brat about moving. Sure, he hates it and he wishes he could be back at his old house playing video games with his friends. But he doesn’t want his parents to feel guilty for making him do this.
He’s able to get to the backyard through the sliding glass door in the kitchen. It lets out to a small wooden patio, and Michael just stands there for a while, looking at the boring backyard and the trees inhabiting it.
It’s enclosed with a really tall white fence. But from where he’s standing he can see that every house has the same size backyard and the same kind of fence.
This whole town is so boringly cliche and unoriginal. It’s like something out of a lifetime movie.
He walks down the patio steps and is almost impressed by how green everything is. It seems the previous homeowners took good care of their backyard.
It is pretty big though, and he figures that he might be able to guilt his parents into buying a pool so that he’ll have something to do around here.
Then a loud crashing noise catches his ears, and his head snaps over to find the source. Even though the cracks in the fence aren’t very wide, he can see through enough to make out movement behind them.
"Oh, bollocks." he hears a voice mutter. It sounds like a boy, with a very thick British accent, but he still sounds young.
"Who’s there?" Michael calls out, and begins walking toward the fence.
"Sorry! Sorry, it’s just me. I fell over a bucket." the same voice responds to him.
By now he’s reached the fence and holds his face up to it so that he can look through the gap, and sees a young boy around his own age, sprawled in the grass, his feet somehow tangled up in a bucket.
Michael raises an eyebrow in confusion, “You tripped over a bucket?”
"Yes." the guy sees him watching through the fence, "I trip over it quite a lot."
"Wow, you’re an idiot." Michael mutters as he watches the guy successfully get up off of the ground without tripping again.
He often insults people like that. His short temper, and bad mood already isn’t matching well with this weird and awkward British guy. It seems inevitable that he’d start being rude.
But Michael cringes a little as soon as the words leave his mouth. He doesn’t want to come off as a major asshole, especially to somebody’s he’s just met, and will be living next to.
But the guy takes no offense to his insult, and just smiles at him, “My name’s Gavin, what’s yours?”
"Michael."
Gavin stands up and brushes the dirt off of his clothes, “What are you doing in the Jefferson’s back yard?”
That must be the people who lived here before. He briefly remembers his parents saying that name during the car ride, but he didn’t pay much attention due to his lack of interest in the subject.
"They don’t live here anymore. My family and I just moved in." he explains.
They’re close enough to the fence that they can both sort of see each other without risking the possibility of getting splinters in their faces.
The fence is made of wood that’s spaced from each other a little. There’s maybe a two inch gap between each piece of wood, which is pretty spacious for a fence.
Michael takes this time to study the boy and take in his appearance. His light brown hair is so messy that it almost seems like it’s never seen a brush in years. He also has a slightly big nose, but it kind of suits him. Overall he’s pretty attractive, and Michael wants to smack himself for even noticing that fact.
He also notices the large black bruise that’s coloring his forehead. Gavin’s obviously pretty clumsy considering the fact that he tripped over a simple bucket, so it doesn’t seem very unlikely that he’s fallen over and gotten hurt before.
"Really?"
Gavin seems surprised by that. It seems sort of odd that he’d know his neighbors names but not know if they were still living there.
"Yeah, you didn’t know that?"
"Nah, I’ve never actually talked to them. Sometimes whenever I’m out here I’d hear them talking to each other though. I’d noticed they hadn’t come outside in a while. They had a dog named Charlie that would lick my hand whenever I’d stick in through the fence." Gavin muses, and Michael rolls his eyes.
He obviously rambles a lot, and even though that British accent is really cute, it’s also very annoying.
"So you would just listen to your neighbors everyday like a creep?" Michael questions.
He’s sort of hesitant about talking to this kid, he seems kind of weird. But something about him is also amusing and funny, and that side makes Michael want to stay here and continue talking to him.
Gavin’s eyes widen, “No! No of course not! It’s just…Well, there’s not much to do around here. Pretty boring, if I do say so myself. I’m not really allowed to leave the house, but whenever my parents aren’t home I always sneak out and spend the day in the backyard.”
"You’re not allowed to leave the house? What the hell does that mean?" he questions, his eyebrows scrunched together in annoyance and confusion.
This kid isn’t making much sense to him, and it’s starting to piss him off.
But it also seems that he doesn’t know the answer either, his eyebrows raise in confusion, as though he’s never thought about it before.
"I’m not sure." he shrugs, and then quickly tries to change the subject, "So how old are you, Michael?"
"I’m fifteen." he answers. Gavin obviously doesn’t want to talk about it, so he’s not going to push the subject. He doesn’t really care much for making friends around here, but if he does then he’s not going to complain. Sure, Gavin’s pretty odd and slightly annoying, but he’s also pretty amusing.
"Me too!" he grins, and his eyes shine with excitement over that fact.
"Cool, maybe we’ll see more of each other then." Michael says while nodding absentmindedly.
Going to a new school will be a lot easier if he already knows somebody there. A huge weight is lifted off his shoulders at the thought of not being alone on his first day.
Gavin’s about to respond when a voice cuts them off.
"Michael!" somebody yells, and he looks over to see his mom at the door, "Come help us unpack, please!"
"One minute!" he yells back to her.
He doesn’t really want to leave his only friend yet. He’s still sort of bitter about this whole situation, but Gavin was able to take his mind off of it and make him laugh.
"Is that your mum?" Gavin asks.
"Yeah, we only just got here like fifteen minutes ago, so they’re going to need my help getting every situated." he explains briefly, not wanting to bore him.
But that doesn’t seem possible. When he sees how interested Gavin is in the small explanation, he wants to continue talking. Is Gavin really that bored that a small amount of social interaction from his new neighbor is interesting to him?
"Well, are you going to come back later?"
"If you want." he nods, then thinks about what Gavin said earlier. Maybe his parents really don’t want him leaving the house when they’re not home. He does seem pretty unreliable. The guy just tripped over a bucket and nearly killed himself. "What time do you parents come back?"
His eyes widen at that sentence, “What time is it?”
"I think around five."
"Oh crap, I’ve got to get back in before mum and dad get home or I’ll be in bigtrouble!” he says quickly, and turns away so that he can run to the house.
"Wait, dude!" Michael calls out.
Gavin turns around and looks at him, still desperate to get into his house as fast as possible. Michael wonders why if his parents would really be that mad at him for simply going outside.
"Let’s hang out again sometime!"
He doesn’t really want to lose contact with this guy. The rest of his summer is going to be super boring and dull, but if he can be friends with Gavin then it’ll make things a little more interesting at least.
A huge grin spreads across Gavin’s face, and he yells out, “Yeah! Of course!” before disappearing into his house.
Gavin seems like a cool kid. He might be kind of annoying and idiotic, but he’s still funny and nice. He doesn’t even get upset when Michael makes mean jokes about him, and he’s probably the first person to ever not take him seriously like that. He decides, right then and there, that he likes Gavin.