Title: Because I Can't Make A Lamp

Author: PirateRina717

Summary: Brian's backstory. WARNING: contains suicide themes.

Disclaimer: I do not own John Hughes or The Breakfast Club. Purely for fun and entertainment.

A/N: I just got around to watching The Breakfast Club and felt overwhelmed by how much I could relate to Brian. The circumstances of Brian's depression relate loosely to events in real life.

Brian stared at the piece of paper handed to him. The number written on the top of the page – in red ink, no less – smirked at him and almost laughed. Forty-seven. What was written on the rubric didn't matter, and Brian couldn't care less about the teachers' comments (although, when he skimmed the paper, he knew he saw the word "disappointing"). Forty-seven.

It was supposed to be simple, Brian remembered: an easy boost for his grade point average, and an art class to make himself appear to be well rounded to colleges. But now, the forty-seven looked deep into Brian's soul and saw helplessness. Brian knew he couldn't change the grade; it was the final project and worth a large a percentage of the term.

Gradually, Brian felt himself become sick. There was a nauseating feeling that seemed to transcend just his stomach and ached his chest and head. Everything hurt and he needed to hide.

The bell for lunch reverberated loudly in Brian's ears. He stuffed the rubric into his backpack and decided he wasn't hungry anymore. He made his way passed the usual hall drifters, through the bathroom's suddenly heavy swinging door and forcefully opened up a stall. He dropped his bag and sat on the toilet, head in his hands.

Forty-seven.

Brian had failed a class. Failed. Not even a C plus – a failing grade. His parents' words abruptly flooded into his head like a tsunami: "We understand that sometimes you can have a bad day, Brian, but the end result is what matters most! We consider anything less than an A as failure. Colleges will see your weaknesses and not give you money for them! Remember, we don't have much to give you financially. Our knowledge of the education system is all we have. We worked hard for our PhD's," Brian cringed at the memory of the repeated speech, "and it would be sheer laziness that would stop you from doing the same thing!"

No one else knows this feeling, Brian thought to himself. The pressure. His thoughts immediately returned to the one thing he had tried to mentally avoid since receiving the grade: what would his parents say when he got home? His cheeks turned warm with the tears that began to fall from his eyes. Brian covered his mouth with his hand, fearful of the other boys in the restroom hearing his sobs. The last thing he needed was to give them another excuse to humiliate him. And so Brian sat, curled up on the toilet seat, silently crying into his hand. He spent the remainder of the lunch period there, until he found the courage to stand. He thoroughly wiped his cheeks, nose, and the spot under his chin where his tears accumulated.

Brian looked at himself in the dirty mirror above the sink. Thankfully, no one else was in the room to see him. Brian's face always got splotchy when he was sad, but this time his face looked like the victim of poison ivy. He hated it. He hated the way he had just cried – not a very macho thing to do. He hated that girls didn't look at him except as a way to ace a group project. He hated his braces that made his round face and fair hair look even more like a baby's.

At once, Brian hated himself for having those thoughts. After all, there were plenty of kids in worse situations than him. What right did he have to complain? People would kill for his grades. Well, that is, before shop. Before the shame of forty-seven.

Brian's parents were, thankfully, not inquisitive when it come to his social life. Boarding himself up in his room didn't bother them at all. They thought that he was studying, and most of the time, he was. But not this time.

Brian sat on his bed and gazed into his dresser mirror. He dared to ask the question that he never truly thought about until now: What do you want to be when you grow up? Brian knew what his parents wanted him to be: a famous astrophysicist, or a heart surgeon. They wanted something that would make him a lot of money, so he could repay his parents for all the "training" they had given him. Brian knew that they wanted him to buy them a new house, or expensive cars.

How was he to do that with a failing grade on his transcript?

Over dinner, Brian cleverly avoided the subject of grades. He blamed his lack of appetite on bullying, something that his parents knew occurred, but didn't deem concerning. After finishing his homework with surprising (and overcompensating) zeal, Brian could not sleep. Hours went by, and he glared into the nothingness that spread before him. Eleven o' clock, midnight, one rolled by, and the more time passed, the more pressure built up in Brian's chest. He realized the he was now in a deeper hole than he was before, because now he had lied to his parents.

Brian never lied to his parents. Period. The crime of the forty-seven now escalated to a capital offense when combined with omitting the truth, which was just as bad as lying. Brian despaired, thinking of his parent's reactions.

They thought they could trust you, he told himself. And what did you do? You failed them AND lied to them! What kind of son would do that?

Brian squeezed his eyes shut.

It'd be better if you weren't there at all!

That night, Brian dreamed himself into a world like It's a Wonderful Life, one of his mother's favorite movies. This time, however, he saw what people would feel when he was gone. Everyone loved Brian more in his absence, and seemed to appreciate his memory. Brian made the discovery that it would be better that he would go down a hero before graduation, than live with the shame.

Brian knew for a fact that his parents would hang this grade over him and twist it into something diabolical. Like the one B plus he got on an English paper - his parents used that as an excuse to not go to homecoming.

Not this time.

It was Friday. On Monday, report cards would be sent home to everyone's parents. Brian decided that that was the day he would do something about his situation. He happened upon the gun by accident, really. He was looking for his jacket in his coat closet, when he came upon a box of his father's old stuff. It was just laying there, metallic and shiny. Brian noticed how easily the gun fit into his hand, and how easily he could bring it up to his head –

"Brian! Let's go! We're going to be late!"

Startled, Brian shoved it into his backpack and decided it could wait until later. What was one more day?

One more day turned into the day everything went wrong. Brian thought he was ready to do it; he had prepared himself mentally for days after he had gotten his final project back. He didn't know that what he had picked up in his father's box was a flare gun, or that the jostling of the locker door was something that could set it off. Brian tried explaining to the principal that someone must have planted it there, but he had always been a terrible liar.

And a coward.

Brian accepted his punishment and tuned out the insults flung at him by his parents. He didn't think that detention the next day was going to make him feel any different about himself.

"See you after Physics Club," Brian's mother said coldly, before driving away in a huff. Brian sighed. It would be a while before she would forgive him, but Brian managed to pull a smile when he walked up the steps and into the front door. He passed the remains of his locker in the hall, and his heart sank. He had no idea where he was going to put his books.

There was suddenly a nudge at his shoulder. It was Allison. "Hello," she sated.

"Um," Brian replied with shock, "hi."

Allison glanced at Brian's locker. "Is that where you… you know, put it?" Brian nodded. Allison smiled softly, and pulled Brian into a one-arm hug. Then she tugged him across the hall. "You can have my locker," she announced.

"What?" Brian was taken aback.

"Well, the bottom part, anyway," she continued nonchalantly. "I need the top shelf for my sketchbooks. Do you want it?"

Brian beamed at her. "Yeah! I mean, yes. Thank you!"

Allison smiled and shrugged. "No problem."

Soon the other three people who had shared detention with Brian and Allison on Saturday came out of their respective crowds. Each of them greeted Brian, which made him feel more popular than ever before. After promising to meet up after school, Claire went back to her friends, and Andrew and Allison went to first period together. Only Bender remained to speak with Brian. Bender put his hands in his pockets and shifted uncomfortably on his feet.

"Do you need me to hide more weed in my underwear?" Brian finally joked.

Bender's head snapped up. "Look!" he cried, and Brian flinched. Bender recoiled immediately and said softly, "Promise me you won't do anything stupid, alright?"

Brian looked quizzically at Bender. "You know!" Bender yelled, miming a gun with his hand and putting it up to his head. Brian turned away and put textbooks into he and Allison's joint locker. Bender grabbed his arm. "Hey, I know life really sucks. I do! But let me tell you something: it gets better. And if you don't believe that, then know that if you do something to yourself, they win! The bullies, the teachers, the hard classes, your parents, all of them win! So, next time you're on the edge, look me up, alright? I don't care when it is."

Brian could only ask, "Why do you want to help me?"

"Cause," Bender scoffed, "why wouldn't I save the ass of someone in the Breakfast Club?"

FIN