200 Hours ✗ Misfits [Nathan Young]

Welcome Wagon

A/N: Annnnnd here it is again. Another rewrite of a rewrite because I've been having an ongoing existential crisis about my writing and ability to write. Here is the newest version of chapter 1 of 200 Hours, published in February 2021. I can't promise that this will be updated/rewritten with any sense of regularity because work and life have proved particularly exhausting in 2020, but I am trying to rediscover things I loved and regain the confidence in posting I used to have. It's not gonna be perfect, but hopefully it's good! Much love to everybody who has read this fic, those who have commented and encouraged me. I'm out here trying to do you (and myself) proud! 2021 goals: make that existential crisis a little less continual.

Disclaimer: I do not own Misfits. Any similarity in content and dialogue originated with the show and Howard Overman.

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Chapter One - Welcome Wagon

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Why they called the building a 'community center' was far beyond her comprehension. As one was typically given to understand from such reliable sources as Wikipedia and after-school specials, community centers were charged with promoting such ideals as 'cooperation' and 'togetherness'. As abstract concepts, she had no idea what 'cooperation' and 'togetherness' were meant to look like. Probably brightly colored murals with sunflowers and children holding hands and shit. This place did have a mural, but the paint had streaked, replacing those cheerful kids with the manic grins of nightmare demon creatures and any sunflowers melted into a Salvador Dali-esque surrealist hellscape. No, the so-called 'community center' looked much like the rest of the Estate—a dirty, dingy sort of grey that no angle of sunlight could improve upon.

For those optimistic enough to think the interior would be any better, disappointment was in order. Laminate tiles peeled up at the corners, the 'mental institution white' walls were gouged and scuffed, and any furniture bore stains that could only belong to vomit, blood, or various other biohazard materials. Each light lining the hallways was just as likely to flicker ominously as it was to work, never mind the higher than average chance of getting stuck in a storage locker and left to mummify under the constant onslaught of a mildew-tainted draft. It wasn't like anyone else was around to hear the cries for help. Society had made a judgement call and abandoned ship. All in all, this building was dedicated to the community much in the same way that she was. Reluctantly and against its will.

Two hundred hours. Time to do the maths. That was twenty shifts of ten hours, twenty-five shifts of eight hours, forty shifts of five hours. No matter which way you sliced it, it all added up to a giant pile of shit. And she would rather shave off her own eyebrows than spend a minute, let alone six weeks, staring at this godforsaken building. Yet here she was, sun at her back, community center to her front, lined against a railing alongside six other disappointments to society, all basking in the shadow of their own poor life choices. A fucking buffet of petty crime.

Welcome to community service.

In her opinion, Isabelle McCallum did not belong on that railing in the first place. But in this, as in most things, society valued her opinion as jack shit. Was what she had done illegal? In the technical sense, yes. Yes, it was. But it bloody well had to be done, no? Her case was of the variety that built the term 'extenuating circumstances'. And had she turned on the waterworks, shown some cleavage, or simply, for a refreshing change of pace, opted to act like a moderately functional human being, she might have even gotten away with it. Sadly, this was not the case. Crying on command didn't rank among her mastered skills, her cleavage was not impressive enough to merit special treatment, and, surprising exactly nobody, when the cops picked her up her first instinct had been to run her mouth. Constable Reggie did not take kindly to being told to 'go home to his inflatable girlfriend'. Her social worker had always told her she had a problem with authority. Shockingly, this did not serve her well when interacting with the authorities.