Horseshoes and Hand Grenades

Airplanes can be quite confusing for those who are riding them for the first time. Equipped with staff giving plastered-on smiles and false projections of their emotions, funny looking appliances, and tons of people huffing under their breath as they continue to ruin their sleeping schedules even more the further they travel, airplanes serve as quite an interesting environment for new fliers.

Thinking about how the cabin he was about to enter was kind of like a high school, Alex Gaskarth gave a half-hearted nod to the flight attendant that was welcoming him aboard. He took in the annoyed business people, the bored teens, and the crying babies as he looked around, as much as he did not want to. There were so many types of people aboard the plane, and it could only make Alex nervous about the school that he would be attending in the next few days. He continued scanned the environment heavily as he followed his mother, Isobel, to their seats, curious as to where everybody else was going to end up once they had reached their destinations.

The British teeanger shoved his carry on next to his mother’s without any trouble, then moving to sit down next to the woman in the window seat that she had made sure to reserve for her son. Isobel was glad to make the trip from Essex to Maryland with her son, but she could not help but to worry about his well-being during the entire flight.

As Alex looked around some more, accidentally making eye contact with the person behind him when he had turned around to look there, too, his mother nudged him.

“Alexander, sit forward. You’re almost as bad as the babies on this flight,” Isobel joked, raising an eyebrow to let Alex know that she was serious about the first part of her comment, though.

"Yeah, sorry," Alex mumbled, trying his best to actually pay attention to the instructions being given by the flight attendants. He spent the majority of the lift off looking out the window, and took out his iPod and earbuds once they were actually on their way to Baltimore. His mother tried to make small talk with him, asking him what he was looking forward to the most. Alex thought about her question, and decided that he was definitely thinking the most about the people he would meet. He was not necessarily excited, but it was all that was on his mind. Isobel waved Alex off, stating that, ‘all the boys and girls would love him,’ as he was, ‘the cutest thing in the entire world.’ Knowing his mother was just picking on him, Alex found himself surprised to be chuckling in response, because it was definitely a sentence that would usually have had him rolling his eyes. Isobel loved to get a rise out of Alex, and he knew that embarrassing him was something that she found quite adorable. For now, he decided to laugh along with her, trying to keep things positive.

About an hour later, Isobel was nudging her son awake, letting him know that she was going to the washroom. As their flight had taken off at 5:00 AM local time, Alex was quite tired. He blinked his eyes open as his mother walked away, already worried that he would have to talk to one of the ladies coming around with the carts full of food and drinks. With that in mind, Alex closed his eyes once more, dozing off to avoid any conversations.

Alex was woken up again about another hour later, still by his mother. This time, she had a tray of food in front of her, and she motioned to the backpack in front of Alex's feet. Alex looked at her gratefully, glad he had been asleep for the past hour, as well.

"You can eat whenever you want to," Isobel informed her son, taking a bite as Alex looked down at the bag.

"Maybe later."

Their flight was to take a total of about seven hours, and Alex had easily slept through the first two, and kept himself entertained with his phone for the following pair. Within the last three hours, though, Alex found himself to be quite hungry. He pulled the sandwich that his mother had priorly prepared for him out of his backpack, and ate it reluctantly. He knew he should be thankful for all his mother did for him, and he was, but sometimes he would rather avoid a situation completely as opposed to trying to duplicate it in a safer way. His dad was especially fond of that, always going out of his way to locate places and products that he knew his son would enjoy. Alex did enjoy them, but he was also a fan of keeping everything on the down low.

Overall, though, Alex was more than grateful for what his parents did for him, especially in the circumstances he was currently in. He was glad he had his mother to accompany him on the plane, and glad his father was taking a job promotion to make more money for their family. Although it meant mothering across the sea, and a month or two earlier for Alex and Isobel, as Alex had to start school, everyone was ecstatic with the news. Alex was not leaving much behind in England, and he thought a change was well over-due.

The next few hours passed for Alex in a blur of movies and games on his phone. The blond was more than relieved when their plane finally landed, as he was still exhausted. The thought of the moving trucks that were probably parked outside of his new home already did not give Alex any comfort, though. The last thing he wanted to do was stand by while people brought everything into the house. When Alex and his mother finally made their way out of the airport, he voiced his concerns to her, and she told him that he could sleep on the floor if he was going to complain about it. Alex told her that he would do exactly that, because there was no way he would be able to stay awake for more than another few hours.

Sleeping on the floor was exactly what Alex did. After arriving home via a pretty short cab ride, his mother directed the movers where to put their things, as Alex passed out on the floor, curled up in a corner. He slept for eight hours, his mother waking him up in between letting him know that she was going grocery shopping. When he finally woke up, it was at 3:00 PM, to a house full of boxes and a lunch prepared by Isobel. He thanked his mother, and they talked about the new house while they ate. It was a simple two-story house, on a quite regular-looking street. The school Alex would attend was only a few blocks away, so it would not be a problem that they did not have a car yet, since they were waiting for Peter to arrive before purchasing one. They decided to start unpacking that night, and Alex was able to unpack quite a bit of stuff in his room, with only a little bit left for tomorrow. Isobel had stated that her goal was to be finished within the next two days, as Alex would be starting school in three, on Monday.

Alex would be entering high school here as a junior, and he was not really all that nervous about it. Back in England he did have friends, but not really anyone that was special enough to put up a fuss to stay for. He wondered if it was going to be the same where he was now, or if he would actually come to fit into a group. Alex had always been fine with just hanging out with people from school because that was all everyone really had, but he did sometimes wish to be part of one of those unbreakable ‘we’re-all-in-this-together’ type groups of friends. He was definitely not a shy person, so Alex promised himself that he would not make any mistakes, and that he would actually do something about it, rather than being alone for his last two years of high school.

The evening before the first day of school, Alex decided to take a walk around his neighbourhood and check everything out. Most importantly, he wanted to go to the school and figure out which door was the main door, so he would not look like a fool trying to find it the next morning. Since it was still summer, Alex was out at eight o’clock and it was quite sunny out. There were cheers coming from the parks near the school, and the blond could see people his age playing sports all around. He hoped that the entire school was not super big on sports, because that was not really his thing. Alex did not have a thing, though. His thing was existing. He liked to pass the time, and he liked to have fun, but there was not anything that Alex really gravitated to while thinking of whatever made him feel the best. He liked music, he listened to an array of artists and played a little bit of guitar and piano, but he was not outrageously talented. As he eyed the field full of laughing teens as the sun set on the horizon, Alex hoped that he would be able to find people just like him, people that needed other people to be their thing.

Notes

hey! this is going to be a super long author's note, but i have a bunch of stuff to get out of the way, so please continue reading. i am sorry that this chapter sucks as well, but i promise it will get better soon (i am working on the next chapter, and it will probably be up early next week, and then another the week after, etc...)

first of all, i got the title/summary quote from my dad. he always says it, it gets annoying sometimes, but it's pretty cool, so i figured i'd use it. this is my second chaptered fic, and the first one that i am doing on my own that is not based off of something, so i really had no idea what to use

second, two stories that are updating right now that really really really made me want to write this are The Chocolate Cake Analogy and Hearts & Spades (both on mibba). i have wanted to write this story for a while, but both of them sort of gave me the push to do it, because of how great they are. i really like how long and spontaneous tcca is, so i really want this story to be like that. i also like how it teaches about a certain condition, and i thought it would be cool to do that to with something that i am actually experiencing. h&s inspired me too because i love sporty jack and lil alex, and there definitely needs to be more of that. new kid vibes too. there is always room for those

lastly, i want to explain that alex is kind of based off of me in this fic. originially, i wanted to make jack the one with the condition (i guess you can call it that?), but i like to make him the more dominant one i guess, but that would not be me if i was in their circumstances, so it only made sense to give it to alex. in that sense, it might seem funny that i am mentioning those two other stories when mine might seem a bit similar now, but it is all my ideas. i just want to put that out there, but it does not really matter since there are like 1000000 high school fics, and some of them are bound to be similar. speaking of that, you can also make suggestions for what should happen once this story gets in motion, because i still have no idea where i am going with it

alright, that's it. thank you so much for reading, sub/rec/check out my other fics!!! love you :^)