A/N - Oh it's true, it's damn true. I am back with a totally revamped Misfits fic. And by revamped I mean, "absolutely nothing like my original story but I really miss writing about Misfits and I still get so many messages about The Art of Abnormality that I'm trying my hand at a new story." I feel like my writing has improved significantly since I wrote TAoA. I mean, I was 16 when I wrote it, for Christ's sake. I was in the middle of my GCSEs, I didn't know next to anything about life as an adult. Okay, I still don't even at 22, but…let me live a little. I'm biting the bullet and writing this because I love the Misfits universe and feel ready to dive back in headfirst. So without further ado, welcome to Live Like We're Bulletproof…

Chapter One - Down Since Day One

Oi, shithead. You better be awake or you can find your own way to the community centre.
Sent 07:23

It hurts that you doubt me in such a way. Of course I'm awake.
Sent 07:26

Well after the amount of Jägers you downed last night while we attempted to drown our sorrows, I figured I had to check.
Sent 07:29

You say downed, I say sipped like an educated gentleman.
Sent 07:31

No, what I say is "you're a bellend" and be ready in 5 mins cuz if you're not ready when I get to yours, you are def walking.
Sent 07:35

I wasn't supposed to be here. And I know a lot of people in my situation say that, but seriously, I was not supposed to be here. My sentencing to 200 hours of community service was a very convoluted example of "wrong place, wrong time." I didn't start it, it wasn't my fault and if this was America, I would sue. No, the reason I was stood here outside the Wertham Community Centre in a baggy, hideously bright orange Community Payback jumpsuit was because of my moronic best friend of 17 years.

"I cannot believe you managed to get us into this situation," I muttered, leaning back against the metal railings with my arms crossed, eyes hidden behind sunglasses despite the fact it was a typical overcast South London morning, much chillier than June should have been.

"C'mon Blake, you know you're just as to blame for this as I am," Nathan whined, nudging me in the ribs with his bony elbow.

"Am I the one who A) stole pic n' mix, B) stapled a bowling alley manager or C) tried to crawl into the pinsetter? No," I retorted. "I'm the one who tried to pull you out of the pinsetter and nearly cracked my face open when you kicked me over!"

"No, you're not, but you are the one who started a screaming match with your psycho ex then threw a bowling bowl at him. After I'd just had a seizure, no less!" Nathan shot back smugly.

Okay so maybe "it wasn't my fault" was a bit of a stretch when it came to my community service. But in my defense, my ex-boyfriend Julian was all kinds of nasty. The kinds of nasty I don't even want to get into right now.

"After you'd faked a seizure, you mean," I snorted.

"Potato, potarto," he said with a sniff, shoving his hands in his pockets. It was just then that the front doors of the community centre opened and the other five ASBO-awarded youths we would be spending these delightful 200 hours with graced us with their presence. I was very grateful that this meant Nathan and I had to end this portion of our trip down Memory Lane, as most conversations that involved talking about Julian ended with me in tears. Even now, I still nervously scratched at the scar along my left wrist that I had covered with a tattoo of a bird on a branch.

No one in the group that had joined us in the lineup against the railings said a single word. Well, not a single to word to me or Nathan, anyway. One of the two females - a stunning mixed race girl with masses of natural, curly brown hair - was chatting away on her mobile and cackling like she was the only one here. In the space of thirty seconds I'd already learned that someone called Chloe had let someone called Jake do her up the arse because he bought her a KFC. Classic case of TMI.

The other girl…well, how do I describe her. I really didn't like using the word chav but there really was no other way to explain her. Long mousy hair scraped back into a ponytail so tight it looked like she'd tried to scalp herself, lethal-looking silver hoops dangling from her ears, smudgy cheap eye makeup smeared on her eyelids and a face like a bulldog chewing on a wasp.

Suffice to say, I was a bit scared to go near her and immediately swapped sides with Nathan to stand next to a bloke who looked like he'd just stepped out of a recording session with a bad ripoff of NWA. He had a spotless baseball cap plonked on his head at an angle, teeth that made guests on Jeremy Kyle look like the epitome of Hollywood dentistry, some Poundland bling and scuffed Adidas trainers. I wouldn't have been surprised if a switchblade was in his pocket. Hm, maybe I would have been better standing next to the girl who looked like she'd punch my lights out just for asking how she was doing.

Standing next to Not-So-Slim Shady was Wertham's very own disgraced sports star, track runner Curtis Donovan. He'd been pegged to be a huge hit at the London 2012 Olympics, but he'd absolutely fucked his career when he got busted at a rave with some drugs. There were several rumours floating around at the time that he was caught with crack, with steroids, with ket…hell, I even heard one that it was an illegal high-powered Viagra. Whatever it was, he'd been banned from athletic competition for two years. No wonder he was wearing an expression like someone had shat in his hands and forced him to clap.

The final member of this cheerful entourage was a pale, twitchy-looking guy who looked like the only crime he could ever commit was not turning in his Physics homework on time. He kept fiddling with his mobile like he thought someone was gonna nick it straight out of his hand, and he also kept nervously avoiding eye contact with anything or anyone. My God, this was some stellar company for the next 12 weeks of shifts. Literally, kill me now.

Finally, after freezing our arses off for five minutes, our big hulking probation worker decided to join us. "About fucking time," I mumbled to Nathan, who made no effort to hide the loud snort he let out. The probation worker glared at us, then went on to introduce himself as Tony and launched into a speech about why we were all here, how this shitshow would rehabilitate our criminal ways and teach us how to be upstanding members of the community.

I was getting so bored, I found myself wondering if slitting my wrist for a second time would actually kill me this time.

"This is it. This is your chance to do something positive," Tony informed us. "Give something back. You can help people, you can really make a difference to people's lives. That's what community service is all about. There are people out there who think you're scum." I blinked a few times in disbelief; harsh, much. "You have an opportunity to show them they're wrong."

"Yeah but what if they're right?" Nathan piped up, and I openly facepalmed.

"What are you doing?!" I hissed, but he ignored me and carried on.

He turned to the guy the other side of me - the gangster guy - patted him on the shoulder and said, "No offense, but I'm thinking some people are just born criminals."

"You lookin' to get stabbed?" the 'gangsta' snarled.

"You see my point there?!" Nathan said defensively, gesturing at him for a few seconds before I forcefully wrenched his arm down.

It was then that a generic phone tone blared out of Curly Girl's mobile, and she answered with a nonchalant, "Hey."

"Doesn't matter what you've done in the past," Tony tried to keep going with his speech, but Curls' incessant chatter cut over him.

"Doing my community service."

"Hey!" he attempted to interrupt her, but she blanked him entirely.

"Boring as fuck."

"Excuse me!" he said louder. "Hello, I'm still talking!"

"What, I thought you'd finished!" she snapped back, taking the phone away from her ear finally.

"Yeah, because the way his lips were moving and noise was coming out really made it look like he'd finished talking," I said derisively, rolling my eyes; I couldn't stand girls like her.

"Yeah, but Blakey, he could have been yawning…or chewing…" Nathan chipped in mock-pensively, causing me to blow out a massive sigh of defeat. When Nathan got into one of his twattish moods, it was easier for me to let him just get on with it. At least Curls thought it was funny as she let out a shrill giggle.

"End the call! Hang up!" Tony shouted at her, but still she kept on blabbering away.

"My probation worker." In the meantime, Nathan had decided to christen the pale guy at the end of the line with the charming moniker of Weird Kid before blowing a kiss at Mr Stabby, who then threatened to rip out Nathan's throat and shit down his neck, and Donovan had announced that, "I shouldn't be here, man."

Yeah, join the queue, buddy, I irately thought. Ten minutes in and I already felt like I was trapped in a bloody lunatic asylum, and growing up with Nathan made that sort of feeling quite a feat.

"We need to work as a team here." How Tony found the will to keep going, I had no idea. I actually felt quite sorry for the poor guy. He was just trying to do his job and now he had to try to keep some form of order around us seven delinquents. Good fucking luck to him. "Hey, that's enough!" Nathan and Mr Stabby had now started some kind of childish sparring fight resulting in Mr Stabby shoving past me and getting his hands fisted in the collar of Nathan's jumpsuit.

"Nathan, will you fucking knock it off!" I reprimanded him, moving to pull him away from Mr Stabby before he got shanked in the gut or something.

"Can I move to a different group?" Curtis asked over the hubbub. "This isn't gonna work for me."

"Ooh, look at the poor wittle athwete, all sad and angwy cause he wost his Owympics pass," I said in a sarcastic baby voice. "Get over yourself, man."

"Bitch," he sniffed contemptuously.

"What makes ya think that ya better than us?" Little Miss Chav demanded. Dear God, with an accent like that, I suddenly had no qualms with branding her a chav before I even got to know her.

"What is that accent?!" Nathan spluttered, our thoughts the same.

"Is that for real?" Curtis snorted.

What came out of her mouth next just sounded like a garbled mess, but I was pretty sure it was something along the lines of, "If you're trying to say something, then yeah!"

"It's- are you-" Nathan mocked, holding his ear. "That's just a noise, are we supposed to be able to understand her?"

"Yeah, can we hire like, a fucking translator for her or something?" I requested, raising my hand then swiftly lowering it when she glowered at me so violently I think my hair caught fire.

"Do ya understand that?" she spat out, flipping Nathan and I off with an outgrown acrylic.

"I think she likes me," Nathan sniggered, flinging an arm around Mr Stabby who responded by grabbing hold of Nathan by the neck again and trying to strangle him. I didn't even bother to try to help this time around since Nathan had definitely brought this on himself, and besides, Tony had managed to pry them apart…even if Mr Stabby continually lunged for Nathan who was making kung-fu gestures at him while the rest of us absolutely pissed ourselves laughing.

Okay, so maybe the next 200 hours weren't going to be as bad as I initially thought.

I was wrong. Holy fuck, I was wrong.

"Nathan, you need to take me back to the doctor or something because I literally feel like I'm ready to kill myself again," I moaned, sploshing paint down onto the seat of the bench we were both painting a lovely crisp white colour. There were only six of us out here at the moment. After just half an hour of painting, Mr Stabby had managed to cover the brim of his shitty cap in paint, thrown a massive bitch-fit about it then stalked off into the community centre to clean himself up, but not before he'd kicked over a paint can and plastered the pavement in Pure Brilliant White. That was twenty minutes ago, and he'd just never bothered to return. What. A. Shame.

"You're so fucking dramatic," Nathan retorted, dipping his own paintbrush into our shared can of paint. He then let out a low laugh. "Hey Blake, this give ya any flashbacks?" I had no time to react as he flicked the loaded paintbrush at me, splattering my jumpsuit with white.

I burst into a fit of giggles. "As much of a flashback as this'll give you!" I cupped my hands and scooped some water from my paint wash tub into them, which I quickly flung at Nathan's face, splashing him head-on and making him splutter.

This had pretty much been an exact reenactment of the day Nathan and I met, waaaay back when we were just five-year-old teeny-boppers.

Seventeen years ago, Nathan and his family moved to England from Ireland, into a house just two streets away from me and my family. This meant Nathan joined my primary school, Wertham Park Primary. When our teacher Miss Wilson introduced him to the class, I was the first person to say hello to him, but he called me a bumface then went to stand at a plastic easel in the painting area.

Undeterred, I followed him, determined to make him feel welcome even if he didn't want me to. I stood at the easel next to him and the two of us were painting in an uncomfortable silence until there was a sudden splat noise. I looked down, and saw that my favourite school pinafore dress was dripping in red paint and Nathan was in a fit of laughter holding an open red paint pot.

Letting out an angry scream, I threw my pot of dirty paint water at him which soaked him from head to toe, and the two of us ended up in an absolutely pathetic slapsie fight which resulted in Miss Wilson hauling our arses to the headteacher's - Mr Joseph's - office. Mr Joseph let loose on us, a little scary when you're five but funny enough when we could see his toupé threatening to fall off every time he shook his head. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Nathan's shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter, and when he caught my eye, I began to laugh too.

Mr Joseph noticed this and began to get even angrier, shouting more, shaking his head more and making that toupé wobble even more which of course made us laugh even harder. The next day, Nathan said hi to me in the cloakroom and I asked him if he wanted to sit with me at lunch. He said yes, and we've been inseparable ever since.

Does he do my head in? Yes. Does he wind me up in ways I can't possibly begin to explain? Yep indeedy. Do I think he's a twat? Of course. Could I be without him? Absolutely fucking not.

Nathan was my best mate, we'd been there for each other through everything, through thick and thin, as clichéd as it sounds. When Nathan's dad left his mum, my parents let him stay with us for a few weeks to get his head straight. When Julian punched me so hard in the face he broke my jaw seven months ago, Nathan was the one who got me to the hospital and called the cops on that abusive dickhead. We had other friends, of course we did, but we were each other's number one and always would be.

Ew. Now that vomit-fest of a backstory is over with, let's get back to the present.

"Do you even realise how much Vanish this is gonna take to get out?!" I complained, futilely trying to wipe the paint away to no avail. "I didn't want to do a colours wash until Thursday!"

"Don't be a baby, you know me Mum will wash it if you want her too," Nathan said dismissively. I just rolled my eyes and decided not to dignify that with an answer. Poor old Louise had cleaned up enough of our messes as kids and teenagers, she didn't need to be washing my clothes when I was a vaguely independent 22-year-old woman.

Nathan managed to be quiet for approximately two minutes before he decided it was time to grace the world with the sound of his voice again. Before I could stop him, he'd stood up and turned to face the chav girl and asked her, "So I'm guessing…shoplifting? No?"

"Don't act like ya know me cuz ya don't," she mumbled, scowling at him.

"I'm just making conversation," he said innocently. "This is a chance to network with other young offenders, we should be swapping tips! Brainstorming! Come on, what did you do?"

"A girl called me a slag so I just got into a fight," the chav admitted.

"Was this on The Jeremy Kyle Show?" Nathan questioned in the fakest sympathetic tone I'd heard in my life.

"No it was down Argos!" she retorted irately. Defending herself by getting into a fight in a public place, now that was something I could relate to. Maybe me and this girl could be good friends…if she stopped looking so goddamn fierce all the time.

"Ah, Argos." Nathan nodded sagely. "You know what you shoulda done? You should have got one of them little pens they have and jabbed it in her eye!" The chav just gawped at him.

"I apologise for him and his lack of…well, lack of anything remotely polite, really," I interjected quickly. "He fell off a jungle gym and smashed his head open when we were little…he's never been right in the brain since."

"Do yous two know each other?" she asked, sparking the first friendly conversation anyone in this group had had all morning.

"Unfortunately, yes. Best friends since we were five," I said with yet another roll of my eyes. "Blake Harper." I pointed at myself. "Nathan Young." I gestured vaguely to the Irish one.

"Kelly Bailey," she said with a nod of her head. Oh good, at least I could stop referring to her as 'the chav' now.

"Hey, what about you, Weird Kid?" Nathan suddenly called over to Pale-and-Twitchy, who was painting the bench next to us solo. "Don't take this the wrong way or anything, but you look like a panty sniffer. Ya know?" He mimed sniffing a very large - too large - pair of knickers. It kind of reminded me of that one episode of SpongeBob where Mr Krabs raids his mum's knicker drawer.

"I'm not a panty-sniffer," Pale-and-Twitchy said quietly. "I'm not a pervert!"

"Don't you dare- NATHAN!" I barked as Nathan suddenly positioned his paintbrush over his crotch and began to wank it off, making some very disturbing groans and moans.

"I tried to burn someone's house down!" Pale-and-Twitchy exploded, and the confession surprised Nathan so much that he immediately ceased his wanking and made a noise akin to the sound a bicycle's breaks made when you pulled them too tight.

I would have made a point of saying sorry to the poor kid but a clap of thunder took my attention away from him and to the skies instead. Dark grey clouds were beginning to roll over the lake and community centre, very ominous-looking. I frowned; it was early June, the weather was not supposed to be like this.

"What did you do?" Kelly asked Nathan.

"Me?" he said innocuously. "I was done for eating some pic n' mix."

"Bullshit!" I mock-coughed, covering my mouth just enough to let the word escape.

"Bullshit? Then what he really do?" Kelly directed at me, but I shook my head.

"Sorry, but that so ain't my story to tell. If he wants to say he got done for eating pic n' mix then so be it, just know he's robbing you of one hell of a tale." I shrugged.

"What about you?" Apparently Kelly was a bit of a Chatty Cathy. She was certainly relentless in her pursuit of information.

"Um…well, let's just say I don't have a very good relationship with my ex and things got outta hand in a very public way," I muttered, embarrassed. Thankfully I was saved from further explanation as yet another rumble of thunder echoed around the community area and those clouds rolled in even closer.

"What is going on with this weather?" Nathan said rhetorically as all six of us turned our heads up to the sky. Cue Tony the Probation Worker to appear out of nowhere just as it looks like all of us had been doing fuck all for the last two hours.

"How did that happen?" he demanded, pointing at the mess made by the can of paint Mr Stabby had kicked over in his tantrum about his cap. "I mean, you've been here five minutes." Slight under-exaggeration but okay. "It's painting benches. How do you screw that up?" None of us spoke. "You tell me because I've got no idea."

None of us ended up giving him an explanation because it was at that exact point that a huge - and I mean huge - fucking great hailstone fell from the sky and crushed a nearby car, utterly obliterating its roof and caving in all the windows. Everyone screamed and ducked, and I ended up leaping into Nathan's arms Scooby Doo-style. Thankfully he caught me or I'd have been looking at one broken tailbone.

By the time we all recovered from the shock, no one dared speak. We all just stared at the crushed car with our mouths agape, unsure what to do next. All I could register was the sound of the car's alarm blaring. Tony ended up being the first to find his voice. "That's my car!" he gasped.

"Haha, classic!" Nathan chuckled, but he wasn't laughing when another one of those hailstones came flying from the clouds and smashed into the ground beside us, narrowly missing Kelly. Ice exploded everywhere and showered down on us. "Okay, so I'm a little bit freaked out!"

"What is that?!" squeaked Alisha, and we all followed her gaze. The sky had been overtaken by a pitch black cloud that almost resembled a floating oil slick. Pale-and-Twitchy had flipped his mobile open and for whatever stupid reason was recording everything happening. Y'know, because that was a fucking priority at this moment in time.

Then out of nowhere smaller versions of that hailstone began to careen down from the sky. When I say 'small' I mean 'smaller than the beast that crushed Tony's car' because these fuckers were the size of fucking rounders balls. One of them crashed into a dumpster near the weird kid and knocked it clean over; the weird kid was centimetres away from having his head knocked off by the ice shards.

"Right, let's get everyone inside," Tony hastily instructed, gesturing at the community centre with his arms. "LET'S MOVE!" We didn't need to be told twice. I'd never been more grateful to be wearing my trusty sturdy Doc Martens as we sprinted towards the doors as quickly as we could, darting and dodging as we tried to avoid getting knocked out by the hailstones which were literally cracking the paving stones. I had never seen anything like this in my life, not in reality, in a horror movie, in a comic book. Nothing. What was happening? What was happening?!

This was one of those rare moments where Nathan showed consideration for someone other than himself. His hand was tightly gripping mine as he practically dragged me through the storm. To be honest, I wasn't gonna complain about the extra help as my tiny-arse 5"5 frame wasn't gonna be carrying me anywhere in a hurry.

Eventually we made it to the heavy metal front door of the community centre…only to discover that they were locked. Oh my fucking God, we needed that like a hole in the goddamn head. "Is this a fucking joke?!" I screeched as Tony began fiddling with his selection of keys, trying to find the one that fit.

"Don't be so rude!" he reprimanded in a snarl, still wrestling with the keys. We were cowered under the canopy by the doors, ice still flinging at us every time a hailstone collided with the ground. Everyone was screaming at Tony to hurry the fuck up as he took his sweet-ass time to find the correct key. My heart was thumping like a jackhammer as I tried to inch my way closer and close to the door, hoping that I'd be able to shove my way in before anyone else once they were finally open.

"Come on!" Nathan yelled. "Open the door!"

"Hurry the fuck up!" I howled.

"Open the fucking door!" the girl with the curly hair screamed.

"Don't speak to me like that!" Tony turned around and yelled at us. It was a bloody ridiculous time for him to be worried about manners, in my opinion. But then suddenly…we were flying. We sailed through the air like the seven of us had been set off from a fucking catapult, as if in slow motion. Of course, things seemed to speed up when we landed in a heap on the ground, me landing on Nathan and breaking my fall, but I still managed to crack the back of my head on the pavement.

Lightning. I had just been struck by fucking lightning. Holy Jesus, how had I not died?! Instead, I just felt really strange…like, something was off, not in a 'I'm gonna be sick' way, but more of a 'has my soul just removed itself from my body?' kinda off. My head felt completely fried, and I definitely had a bump forming where I'd smashed it against the concrete. Shit, electrocution hurt.

Car alarms were screaming in the distance. A few more of those giant hailstones fell from the sky, and then…nothing. The storm ended just as abruptly as it had began. We all lie there for a few seconds, trying to wrap our heads around what in the name of bald Jesus had just happened, then attempted to struggle into some form of sitting position.

"I feel really weird," mumbled Kelly.

"Welcome the club on that one, hun," I moaned, scrubbing a hand down my face, past caring if it smudged my Taylor Momsen-inspired eyeliner.

"That'll be the lightning," groaned Curtis.

Nathan turned to face me. "You okay?"

"If by okay you mean severely freaked out, then yeah, I am fuckin' A," I replied quietly, still trying to comprehend how any of us had survived that. Not that I wasn't grateful, mind.

"We should be dead," Pale-and-Twitchy said worriedly, echoing my exact thoughts.

"The important thing right now is that we're not," I said to him, making a show of cracking my back as I ended up being the first person to attempt to stand up.

"A little reassurance might be nice, you know," Nathan mordantly directed at Tony. "'You're fine.' 'Looking good.'"

"Wanker!" Tony spat out, the right side of his face drooped like he'd had a minor stroke.

Nathan looked appalled. "Did he just call me a wanker?!"

"It's what we're all thinking," I said sweetly, taking Nathan's outstretched hand and helping to haul him to his feet.

"Is everyone alright?" Tony finally asked, less droopy-looking and sounding a tad more concerned than thirty seconds ago.

"We could have died, you dick," Curls bit out.

"What is with you guys saying that?!" I exclaimed. "It's like you want us to be dead!"

"Are you alright?" Kelly asked him, and his response to twitch in a totally-not-creepy manner. "You're acting like a freak." Understatement of the century, but alright.

"Maybe we should call it a day," he suggested.

"Mmm, maybe we should," I said with a sarcastic smile, then immediately regretted it; now we'd have to add another day to this shitshow just to make up the hours we were gonna lose. Goddamn it, Harper, foot in mouth syndrome, much?! However, no one else had any arguments about getting three-quarters of the day off, so we were sent back into the locker room to get changed.

Naturally the boys took about 30 seconds to change out of their jumpsuits back into their day clothes, but me, Kelly and Curls - whose name I had finally learned was Alisha - took slightly longer to get ready. I'd stuffed my stained jumpsuit into my backpack to take home with me. Not only did I want to wash it, but seeing how Alisha had made hers slightly less hideous by pinning up the ankles and wrists of the jumpsuit and wrapping a waist-belt around it had given me some inspiration I needed my sewing machine for.

After I'd wriggled back into my scuffed grey skinny jeans and black tank, laced myself back into my DMs and rearranged my collection of band wristbands, I looked into the small mirror I'd put into my locker - Locker 23 - and began to brush through my long brown hair. Kelly was in the main mirror tidying up her ponytail while Alisha stood by her locker texting.

Then out of nowhere, it all began to kick off.

Kelly suddenly rounded on Alisha and demanded, "What ya say?"

"I didn't say anything," Alisha said indignantly, but the way she emphasised 'say' made me think that she'd definitely had a few opinions floating through her thoughts. Kelly stared at her in distaste for a few seconds, then moved back to the mirror to carry on sorting out her hair. It was silent for a few beats, then Kelly whirled back on Alisha and spat, "What?!"

"What?!" Alisha shot back, but she look scared.

"WHAT?!" Kelly shouted, proper getting up in Alisha's face, who promptly vacated the locker room and leaving me alone with an extremely pissed off chav. Dear God, this girl could be terrifying when she wanted to be.

It was then that I abruptly became the one at the forefront of her anger. "What, you got something to say and all?!"

"Nope! Sure don't!" I said hurriedly, slamming my locker shut, grabbing my backpack and belting it from the room like my arse had been set on fire. I literally had noped my way outta that situation.

Thankfully, the boys were waiting just outside, which made me very surprised none of them had heard Mortal Kombat starting up in the next room. Instead, Curtis was just questioning, "Do we just go, then? Where's the probation worker?"

"Probably gone to report what just happened. You know, since we're getting a half day and all," I replied, standing next to Nathan who was by the drinks vending machine. "Can't wait to have to make up these hours."

"I think there's something wrong with him," Pale-and-Twitchy - no wait, pretty sure I'd heard him tell Curtis his name was Simon - pointed out, looking at something on his phone. "It's like he was having a spasm."

"Nah, that was definitely more of a stroke than a spasm," I laughed, remembering how stupid Tony had looked with half his face collapsed. "Spasms don't make you look like a basset hound."

"He was probably faking it anyway," Nathan dismissed. "Trying to get some compensation. Cheap bastard."

"I don't think he was faking it," Simon argued in the least convincing tone I had ever heard.

"And you'd know all about being…mental," Nathan said lowly, advancing on him creepily before suddenly twitching. "W-w-wanker!"

"You complete knobhead," I said scornfully, moving to slap him upside the head. "Ignore him, Simon, I usually do."

"Are we waiting for something?" Alisha appeared from nowhere, wearing that same bored expression she had been all day.

"Probation worker," Curtis answered, and she rolled her eyes.

"I ain't waiting around for that dickhead." And with that eloquent sentence, she turned on her heel and marched from the building.

I shrugged. "When in Rome," and ended up following her, Curtis and Simon from the building, Nathan straight behind me.

"Fancy coming round for dinner?" he asked once we were outside, the skies now a light grey colour as opposed to that black from earlier. The ground was completely dry too, the only sign the storm had happened being the cracks and small craters in the pavements.

"Depends," I said as we began to walk in the direction of my parked car, a pale blue 2005 VW Polo. "What's Louise cooking up?"

"Fuck knows, but I did see a lovely joint of lamb in the fridge this morning, no doubt there to celebrate my first day in rehabilitating myself," he smirked.

"Ooh lamb. Well, it sure beats the microwaved lasagne I was gonna have. I'm in," I grinned, unlocking the car.

"SHOTGUN!" Nathan suddenly yelled, barrel-rolling in what I assume he thought was a James Bond style over the bonnet. Would have worked too, if he hadn't fallen on his arse the other side. I burst out laughing, doubled over as he let out a string of curses from the tarmac.

Sure, Nathan was an absolute prick, but he was my prick. These 200 hours definitely wouldn't be so bad with my best mate by my side. Hell, they might even end up being fun.

And that's chapter one! Gimme some loving guys, the response I had on my original fic was awesome, so I would love to get that again, maybe even more! Review, favourite, follow, anything to let me know what you think! Blake is one of my favourite characters I've ever created so I'd definitely love your opinions on her! Until next time, cheerio! Xx Gee xX

Blake Harper faceclaim: Kaya Scodelario

PS - A playlist will be going up on my YouTube, along with a trailer for the story itself. I'm a very visual writer, so I also have a collection on my Fashmates page (GigiAnne13) so check all of them out!

Chapter One Playlist
So Am I - Ava Max
Fucked Up World - The Pretty Reckless
Fucked Up Kids - Hit The Lights