Disclaimer: I do not own the Breakfast Club or any of its characters. That honor goes to John Hughes.
A/N: Sorry, had to put fanfiction on hold for NaNoWriMo. But I'm baaaack! And while Across the Universe is under major reconstruction, I thought I would write a little something else to hold myself over. The Breakfast Club is my absolute favorite movie of all time, and I had a lot of ideas that I wanted to write down. So, here is my little three-chapter ficlet, and maybe, if it gets a good enough reception, I'll continue on to what I thank happens on Monday. But for now, here you go.
John Bender
Around and around and around, cold metal and precious stone, hard edges digging lightly into the tips of bare fingers on gloved hands, leaving imprints for a moment that disappeared as the pressure was released. Ripped gloves, rough, dirty hands twirling an earring made of fucking diamond, diamond, a stud that he never would be able to afford and never would have accepted under any other circumstances. But this instance had called for a bit of unorthodox behavior on his part, and besides, he didn't think he would ever be able to refuse Claire Standish anything, especially a gift that she was giving as a token of remembrance and perhaps a little bit of promise, too. Maybe not the sure, certain, cut-and-dried finality of a guarantee, but a spark of hope.
Such things were paid for with hard-earned money, an honest job, or at least a little work put in, some effort spared, even if not invested in the most ethical of occupations. He had, after all, screamed at Claire for taking everything that was given to her, and maybe he shouldn't have taken it, but he had. He'd decided for once in his life not to be an ass and just receive it graciously; if only because it meant maybe getting to talk to her come Monday. He supposed this particular gift was different; it was supposed to mean something, to hold some significance that was relevant to both the giver and the recipient. Not a carton of cigarettes given by a man who couldn't be bothered to give a damn, who was losing nothing through the presentation of the gift, but a diamond earring from a girl who wanted to show him that he was worth something, worth her time, worth a priceless gem. That he deserved to receive such a thing from her. That he was more important to her than that piece of expensive jewelry, and she would rather give something to him, something that held worlds of significance that neither of them could even fully comprehend, than keep it for herself. Because, to her, he was worth it, worth more than the diamond and more than the wealth and privileged life it stood for. The most important aspect of her life, more important than the cash that had been spent on the earring and more important than the popularity she received for her ability to afford such a thing. And that knowledge was more priceless to him than the gem in his ear.
Around and around and around went the diamond, twirling through rough fingers. Small, delicate, with a sort of fragile beauty, like glass that would shatter at the slightest provocation, and it is deceptive. Metallica's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" in the background, strains of loud music, turned up to a deafening pitch as chords reverberated through the room, pounding and thrashing and ever so angry, shouting at the world, thrumming through the air with strong, pulsing vibrations with a power that could shatter glass in an instant, leaving behind nothing but crystalline fragments of something beautiful. And the diamond ought to have broken under the strain, but it didn't, for its delicateness was misleading, and it had a sort of quiet, resolute and unbreakable strength that was part of its beauty, perhaps.
And it should not have fit with the throbbing music in the background, should have appeared out of place as the foreground with a backdrop of savage, untamed anger, pain, rebellion, all those negative emotions, but it seemed to belong, and that was strange but at the same time oddly easy to comprehend, not predictable but understandable. The two very different kinds of strength complimented each other, so very different and yet simultaneously the same. Stiffened wounds test their pride. Men of five, still alive through the raging glow.
Gone insane from the pain that they surely know. He did know pain. He did know that his scars not only showed that he'd been through a lot, but also that he was not invincible, and that did indeed hurt his pride; and so he always hurt others, because he wanted to prove that he was not the only one who could be hurt, not the only one who was weak, that it wasn't a weakness in him alone, but in everyone. And he knew he was flawed, imperfect, and it was not just his scars that made him so, but also his pride.
He had yelled and screamed at Claire for her assurance that they would not be friends come Monday because he knew that he himself believed the same thing, that he would not have tried to keep the friendships alive, either. And in his inability to expose himself, to lose his dignity by admitting weakness, he had laid into her, letting his anger at himself ravage her, the one who had been brave, who had dared to tell the truth when he could not. And he had to admit he'd felt guilty after every insult he threw at her, but he couldn't help it, really, even though that was no excuse, and he knew it; when he had called her fat, when he had ridiculed her for keeping mum about the status of her sex life, when he had mocked her for being a virgin once she finally did reveal the truth. Hell, he had even made fun of her for her lunch. But some of the things she had said hurt him, too, and even some of the things she did; when they were talking about the party he would never have been invited to, as though he wasn't sitting right there, in hearing range of every word, when she had announced that the day had meant nothing, that by tomorrow everything would be forgotten and he would once again be no better than the dirt clinging to the soles of her boots. But at least they had both hurt each other in equal measures. So it was fair, even if it wasn't good or right.
He had lived through so many years of pain, both received and inflicted, and here he lay now, twirling a diamond earring between his fingers as brutal waves of intense, deafening music crashed into him from all sides.And the diamond seemed to absorb the destructive emotions, taking them out of the air but not into itself, rather obliterating them, and they disappeared from existence, gone without a trace, relieving the air of that bitter tension. And when the wall of anger and pain had been torn down brick by brick, all that was left was the air, silent and still and empty, yet at the same time full. Just like the diamond, cold but not unfeeling. It didn't make sense, but he didn't care.
He stood from his bed and stretched, his hands balling into fists above his head as he stood slightly on his toes and extended the muscles of his back to relieve some of the tension, a large yawn escaping his mouth as his jaw gapped down. He scratched his head and rubbed a hand across the stubble of his chin, noting the necessity of a clean shave but not caring enough to do anything about it. He pulled off the slightly rumpled clothes he had slept in, lifting the shirts up over his head, both the long-sleeved white and the lopped-off red plaid rising in one motion. He slid out of his pants as well before hanging the array of layered garments upon the back of a lone, rickety wooden chair which served as the room's only furniture aside from the old, rusty metal-framed cot with its creaky springs, thin blanket and lumpy mattress. He pulled on some old, ratty sweats and a baggy t-shirt, knowing that he wouldn't be going out anywhere that day; he had too much to think about, and didn't want his vivid thoughts and memories of the day before muted by the fuzzy high he usually favored over quality time spent in his father's house. Or rather, as he liked to think of it, the house of his late mother's husband.
He felt inexplicably different today. His body was thrumming and buzzing just beneath the skin, a mixture of the music that seemed to be pounding through his veins alongside his blood and something else that seemed to be pounding within his heart and spreading out to the tips of his fingers and toes. It was like a radiation of warmth, a sort of fluttering that was both nervousness and contentment at once. Rotating, he turned off the radio which sat on the seat of the chair and the noise was gone, leaving behind nothing but quiet, motionless air whose stagnancy was only disrupted by the movement and breathing of a teenage boy. The pumping of the music was absent, but the strange humming of tiny, warm and electric vibrations did not cease, but almost seemed to intensify now that they were not interspersed with the thrum of the music.
It was well past noon as he made his way down the hall to the kitchen, a fact of which he was quite aware but rather indifferent to. He knew his father would be pissed, in more ways than one, but he couldn't really bring himself to care; besides, it was one less meal's worth of food wasted on a worthless, no-good, goddamn freeloading son of a bitch such as himself, so the old man really had no reason to complain. Although, he always seemed to find something to bitch about, mostly the shortcomings of his only son and the self-afflicted effects of the generous helpings of alcohol he consumed on what seemed to be an hourly basis. John Bender had long ago discovered that he liked his dad best passed out cold on the living room floor.
He swore under his breath as he raided the cabinets, finding them devoid of anything edible and filled with empty, broken bottles; and even in this state, these bottles were much less harmful than those that were whole and filled. Finally, after rooting around at the very back of the cupboard and narrowly avoiding splitting the skin of his arm on a sharp shard of jagged glass which was all that was left of the neck of a beer bottle, he came out triumphant with a packet of potato-powder. Carefully following the instructions on back of the package, he added water to the powder and put it on the heat before hoisting himself up to sit atop the counter while waiting for the potatoes to cook. He wondered at the fact that his old man was not standing there bitching at him for something or another, probably his lateness in rising being this morning's topic, but decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth as he looked fleetingly at the pile of bills stacked up beside him, not bothering with so much as a second glance at the envelopes or a second thought as to their contents. It would be, as he well knew, the same as always; they were in massive debt. Nothing new there.
He crossed his legs at the ankles and bobbed his foot up and down in time with the ticking of the timer set atop the stove as it counted out the minutes while the potatoes cooked. He wished there were a radio in the kitchen, because the silence of the house around him was oppressive and unnerving in the fact that it was not permeated by his father's shouts or burps or snores. That seemed to be his daily routine: holler, drink, sleep; yell, swig, slumber, over and over and over again, like an endless sick cycle broken only by the rather frequent sound of a fist against flesh or the sizzle of a cigar against skin, noises which inserted themselves so often into the routine that they became a part of it, only slightly fewer and farther in between. There was something wrong with it, John had enough knowledge of the home lives of others to understand that his was not normal, and it was strange in a bad way. His dad was a bad father, not a good father, and it was not normal or right, the things to which he subjected his son, the beatings and shouting and ordering around, as though it was not an extension of his own flesh and blood but a personal servant, there to do his bidding and act upon his every whim, like a sort of perverse slave owner. Then there was Vernon, and the way he threatened, and John had been so scared, though he would never admit it, when he had taken him into the closet, alone, and faked a punch, because he really had thought old Dick would hit it home. He seemed to hate John enough. And then Dick had insulted John, just like his father, and he had nodded, because he'd begun to think that maybe they were right. And it was wrong, fucked up, and John was well aware of this fact, but what was there to do? Life was not fair, and that was that.
Without his conscious decision to do so, his hand seemed to automatically and instinctively lift itself up to his ear and begin twisting the diamond stud, a stone that seemed so pristine and untouchable handled gently by a hand that appeared so incapable of such a tender touch. But things were rarely ever as they appeared; he knew that now, and he hadn't before. He hadn't realized it because he hadn't been looking for it, had taken the world at face value without bothering or even thinking to question the things that he saw or to contradict outward appearances. And he felt like a fucking girl, obsessing over a piece of goddamn jewelry for Chrissake, but he found that he couldn't really bring himself to give a shit, anyway. Which was surprising, but in a good way. Unlikely and unexpected yet satisfying. Just like the realization he had come to the day before that there was more to him, more to everyone, than he had ever anticipated. More to her. And that was the very best part.
And then there was a clunking on the staircase, and John took a moment to curse his father, curse himself, and curse the world as he quickly let his hand fall away from his ear, shaking his head so that his hair swung forward to cover the stud. For he knew that, if his father saw the earring, he would take it, even if that meant ripping it clean out of his ear, for John would surely not give it up without a fight. He would take it and sell it and use the money to buy booze that he would drink and upon which become intoxicated, at which point he would begin to shout, and then things would get physical and start on the fast track to becoming ugly, as they always managed to do. And he couldn't bear to think of Claire's gift, so generous and special to him (God fuck him and his girliness) being used as the catalyst to another turn of the cycle that caused him so much pain, inciting all the negative emotions that filled him on a regular basis.
He could not bring her, or anything associated with her, into that, for he couldn't bear to connect her in any way to his own sordid, tragic home life, because she was so pure and beautiful and sweet and innocent (Jesus Christ, he was an embarrassment to men everywhere) and he could not taint her with such darkness. And he couldn't take it if she was in any way associated with things that brought him so much pain, because he knew she had the power to hurt him, and he didn't want her to cause him pain, because she meant too much to him, and fuck manliness to hell. He didn't know how he had managed to grow so attached to a girl after knowing her for such a very short time and without having so much as felt her up as of yet, but there was something there between them that had never been there with anyone else, and he knew it, could feel it in the happy vibrations that tingled through his veins and across his skin, even if he was loathe to acknowledge it. He had to resign himself to the fact that this relationship and the attraction he felt were not solely on a physical level, as they normally were, but went much deeper, touching his heart more than his dick. He felt it in his chest as well as and maybe even more than in his crotch, which was a nice change of pace.
Not that he didn't want her in a physical sense, of course, and not that he wasn't aroused by her, because he definitely was. At the beginning, it had been just that, just the things on the surface, but out of everything else that day, everything that had changed and all the things that were now so very different, that was the most noticeable for him. He had allowed her in under his armor, for she had stripped his defenses away and he was now at her mercy, but he found that he liked this. He found that, sometimes, it was good to lose control, to hand it over to someone else and just let himself go, he himself and not the façade he showed to the rest of the world. And she had somehow found her way into his heart, and he knew it wasn't love, but he felt like it could become love. And he didn't even believe in love, really, but he found that, with Claire, he could believe. She made him feel safe and appreciated in ways he never had before. Oh, he really was turning into a girl now, with all these thought of feelings and love and bullshit like that, things he didn't even believe in, or at least, he hadn't before. Something had changed now, since Friday, and it seemed like years ago that he pulled the fire alarm that got him stuck in detention in the first place. And he couldn't help but feel that that one stunt was his finest moment, for it was what brought him to detention that Saturday, and without it he would still be the same as he had been two days before, his eyes not open fully to the world and the world not as fully open to him as both were now.
All he knew was that if on Monday everything reverted back to the way it had been before that detention, he would be unable to bear it. And then if, in a day, or a week, or a month, or a year, he saw Claire walking around school on the arm of some snot-nosed, rich-ass brat of a boy who was a perfect "gentleman" and everything that John knew he would and could never, ever be, he just might die. He would kick and scream and smoke himself into oblivion, just to wake up from unconsciousness to do it all over again until he died or killed every one of the already pitifully depleted number of brain cells he possessed within his head. And it was stupid, to think that he would die of a broken heart, and it only made him feel more girly and hate himself all the more. Because even if he wasn't in love, his heart was somehow still irrevocably invested in Claire in a strange, wonderful new way that it had never devoted itself to anyone before.
Although, to redeem himself in the eyes of the adolescent male within himself, he really was extremely turned on by her. He had learned, along with all of those new and strange and wonderful things about himself, that a virgin really could be all kinds of sexy. The way that she had always been the first to follow him, even when she knew she really, really shouldn't, as though she simply couldn't help but follow his example, follow him out the door, down the hall, to the closet. How she had defended him without fail, even when he stuck his head up her skirt. When she was high, the way she got all flirty and giggly and girly and so damn sexy that he had felt his mouth getting dry just looking at her in such a state. The way that she had come to him in that closet, risked her own neck for him, just for him, just so that she could find some way to somehow show him that not everyone thought him worthless, that someone was willing to do something for him, because they thought he was worth it. The way she had leant down toward him, slowly, ever so slowly, so curious and innocent and the tiniest bit awkward, unsure of herself, and it had been sexy; in fact it made his list for perhaps the number one most sexy thing he had ever seen in his entire miserable life. Which really was saying something.
And he had been completely disarmed in that moment, with nothing to break or tear apart or scream about, with no way and no reason to use the defenses he had honed so well over the years. And her ability to lower his voice from its normal loud, rambunctious volume to a bare whisper with just one innocent little kiss; that was the sexiest part, really. The hold she had over him, the way she saw the real him, his soul beneath all of his carefully constructed walls and his flawless façade, the persona he had fallen into. She had been able to soften his calluses, smoothing out his rough edges to reveal the truth behind the mask. And then, when they had kissed goodbye, and her tongue had slipped out to slide against his for only the barest of instants, the briefest of touches, the promise that it entailed, and it was so sexy, with meaning so profound and mind-blowing; he'd been so wrapped up in the significance that he hadn't even thought to feel the rush of victorious pride at having been the first guy to put his tongue in her mouth. One thing was for sure. John Bender was royally fucked. For life. And another thing was certain, too; the things John Bender thought and felt were nowhere near compatible with his actions.
But he didn't have to worry about betraying his manhood for much longer as the clopping of footsteps on the stairs culminated in the appearance of a scruffy, bleary-eyed man with a largely protruding beer belly. His defenses popped back up immediately, his mind constructing its walls as his body took on a posture of practiced indifference and his I-don't-give-a-fuck attitude kicked into gear, hiding the thoughts and emotions that were raging through his head in a dark, near-forgotten corner at the very back of his brain. His father's tired eyes roved over John and then he said, in a deep, hoarse voice roughened from the cigar smoke's effect on his throat, "You're a fucking idiot, Johnny. Waking me up at ten o' fucking clock in the goddamn morning with blasting your shit music. Disrespectful asshole, wakin' me up with that fuckin' noise so goddamn early. Stupid jerk. No-good, worthless prick, faggot, whore, bitch." And then he was off on a ramble, just a jumble of muttered insults that rose every once in a while to reach a crescendo before falling back under his breath and rising again before he seemed to run out of available names to use and began to start his barrage of grumbling verbal abuse all over again. He lumbered over into the kitchen with a kind of lurching unevenness to his steps, wincing every once in a while as a noise or sudden movement shot pain through his hangover-addled brain.
John rolled his eyes and hopped off the counter as his father approached, grimacing internally at the noise he made and the string of curses with which his father responded to the sound. And then, with a startling suddenness that caused John to jump near out of his skin, the ringing of the timer flared to life, harsh, shrill, sharp sound rending the still air that hung with a scent of stale beer and general body odor that always accompanied the presence of his father, and no doubt tearing through his father's eardrums as well, especially in his half-drunken, half-hungover state. And its effect on the pot-bellied man was easily discernable through his muffled shout of pain, and John couldn't help the slight widening of his eyes in fear of what he knew was to come. Even though it was expected and not at all unusual, John still found himself terrified as a fist came barreling toward his face, convoyed with the roar of, "FUCK YOU!" And as contact was made, fist against face, John was send stumbling backward, barely managing to keep his balance at the force of the blow to his cheekbone as he felt his left eye already beginning to swell, the stinging nearly unbearable.
An amalgam of pain, anger, resentment and shock coursed through John's mind, and yet even that was not enough to knock the thoughts of Claire Standish form his head. He marveled at this fact even as he began his internal mantra of Oh Jesus fuck, oh Jesus fuck, oh Jesus fuck that always echoed through his head after such an incident as this. The incantation in his brain blocked out the negative emotions that stirred within him which would no doubt lead him to act rashly if acknowledged or acted upon, just as the recitation was meant to do, but it could not fully mute the tingling sensation he still felt radiating across his entire body from that one spot the skin of his neck where Claire had pressed her lips the day before. And that tingle set off a replay of events, bringing him away from the smelly, dirty kitchen with its peeling wallpaper and empty cabinets and back to a janitor's closet that the queen of the whole fucking school had gone to, risking the punishment of getting caught just to come and see him. To her, he was not worthless, he was not helpless, and in her presence, when he stood alone with her, he was in no danger of being hurt, because underneath all of her disdain born of popularity, she really didn't want to hurt anyone; especially not him.
As his father lumbered up the stairs and back to bed and the beer bottles stashed beneath it, still muttering obscenities under his breath the whole way up and carrying with him on a paper plate the potatoes John had made for himself, John finally managed to pull himself out of the chanting and memories into which he had immersed himself as a way of protection from his father and himself and his emotions. And he sunk to the floor, his back against a cupboard door, and resigned himself to the fact that it looked like this would be another day spent going hungry, absorbed once again it thoughts of Claire to distract him from the mounting ache of emptiness in his grumbling stomach.