Notes: So, this is… not going to be a slow burn at all. You can expect it to get pretty shippy and a little smutty. There will also be somewhat heavy stuff in here, I will trigger warn appropriately at the beginning of the chapter that the potentially triggering stuff takes place.
Being in an insane asylum gave Gary a lot more of a chance to reflect than he really wanted. He really doesn't want to spend all of his time in this hell hole thinking about all of his failures and regrets – or about the fact that he has a few too many of them for being all of fifteen years old – but it seems like his wants aren't really all that important to the doctors and therapists, or his parents… or his subconscious. That's probably why he keeps having these stupid dreams.
The dreams are always pretty much the same – with a few details here and there changing around a bit – and he has them every single night. Every. Single. Night. They come to him more like glorified flashbacks than actual dreams. The worst thing about them is that they're almost always about Petey.
Because of course he has to keep obsessing over Femme-boy like that. It's the only thing that he's actually sorry about. As far as he's concerned; Jimmy, Crabblesnitch and all the idiots at Bullworth can go fuck themselves with something sharp and rusty.
He had no idea what it was about his dainty little wimp of a "Friend" (Or "Victim", more likely that was the better way to put their relationship) but he was still fixated on him. No. actually, "Fixate" wasn't the right word for what he felt – it was more like an all consuming obsession that he had fueled by lust, anger and confusion with himself.
What he felt for Petey was a total contradiction for what what he felt about Jimmy – he hated Jimmy and that was easy for him to deal with. All he wanted from the ginger haired moron was to hurt him, maim him or at the very least ruin his life beyond repair. But with Petey… he just wanted him, he wanted to own him – and not just in the way that he had before he had been committed to Happy Volts.
He grits his teeth in annoyance, and quickly reminds himself that it's just temporary, because the doctors are already talking about his release and readmission into Bullworth come September. Then he would be roomed again with Petey, because no one else had the patience to deal with Gary and Crabblesnitch didn't want the headache of dealing with whining teenagers. It was practically a guaranteed thing – especially seeing as how Petey was head boy now.
He grinned then, sliding his hand down into the front of the paper scrubs that he was forced to wear by the sycophants that ran this place. Gary guessed that he probably had about twenty minutes before one of the nurses came in to see if he was still breathing. That was more than enough time to fantasize about all of the dirty, bordering on sickening things that he was going to do to Petey.
He couldn't wait, he even had the makings of a plan in the works. But that wasn't really all that surprising, he always had a plan in the works. He wouldn't be Gary Smith if he didn't.
Gary Smith sat in Dr. Crabblesnitch's office – his fingernails digging grooves into the sides of the stiff and uncomfortable chair that he was posted to. His mother and grandparents stood behind him, doing little other than practicing their best, "We Are So Concerned For Gary's Mental Health" faces while the rat faced principal went into his tried and true, practiced speech about keeping his nose clean.
He kept his face blank and clinically disinterested – because it was the only way to keep himself from snapping out in anger at the circle of authority figures. He couldn't stand them. Any of them. They were three people he couldn't stand and here they were, circling him like vultures.
He let himself tune out for the most part until he felt like the man was done. The next thing he heard was the head's "… Do I make myself clear, boy?"
He sighed, because he couldn't really stop himself. "Crystal, sir." He said, with no small amount of sarcasm lacing his voice. "I'm assuming there will be conditions to this?" He made sure to speak in a blank, bored tone – like he was completely doped out on medications. "I'm guessing that I'm on probation or something?"
"Not something." Crabblesnitch continued, "You are on probation, Smith, and you'll be on probation until we're sure that you're not a danger." Gary knew that he'd get off of it before they were sure, he knew that this was lip service for his parents. "You have three strikes before you are expelled." he snorted at that derisively, he couldn't help that and Crabblesnitch corrected himself, "Before you are expelled again. You will take your medications every day." Yup. Makes sense. "And you will be paired with our best, most well adjusted student. Peter Kowalski, I'm sure you remember him, Smith. You were roommates before, weren't you?"
Crabblesnitch was getting up in his face as much as he was allowed to with Gary's parents standing so close to him. What a creep. He didn't know how he managed to smile and be nice to the mans' face before this. Gary managed to redirect himself, "You're rooming me with little Petey again?" He crooned, pretending to be surprised. "Are you sure that's a good idea?" he added laughingly, "I don't know if you knew but he, ah, he kind of freaking hates me! I mean…"
"Well, it doesn't matter what either of you want." The head snapped, "Kowalski has a responsibility to this school. And you? You have no choice in the matter, Smith. No choice." Every word that he spoke was condescending and full of smugness. "Bullworth Academy is taking you back out of the kindness of our hearts."
Gary snorted at that, 'And the fact that the Smith family has donated enough money for a planetarium, a new gym and more dorm buildings.' he thought, but he smiled and shrugged. "I guess you're right about that." he said, "There's nothing I can do, I'm guessing you told Fe…Petey about this already?"
"He'll just have to deal with it," Crabblesnitch said in a hand waving sort of manner. "We'll have a few prefects guide you to your room." he added, before gesturing over to one of the large blue coated giants of teens. "Make sure that Mister Smith gets to his room safely and without causing anymore trouble."
Both of the prefects nodded before hoisting him up, rougher than they really had to, and leading him off back to the dorms. He frowned and allowed them to rough him up a little – he knew that he needed to play nice for his plan to work, he couldn't let anyone at this school know that the only thing that had changed about him was that he had gotten even better at manipulating and lying to people.
He let his mind wander while he walked – always plotting, always planning and never not thinking – and before he realized it he was being pushed back into his room without even a word from the two prefects (Why did they need two of those giants to lead him back? He thought, Seems pretty unnecessary.)
He sat on his bed, his bags already in the room, and waited for Petey to come back so he could properly greet the girly boy himself.
Pete Kowalski had come to realize, after being Head Boy for at least six non-consecutive months, that it was boring…even if he was really, really, really good at it. He was a good mediator, he had decent ideas for the school and he was always desperate to help people out whether or not they really wanted it from him. He was a helper – or maybe even an enabler, judging by his very weird relationship with Gary Smith – and for once in his life it was actually working out for him.
Because of Jimmy, Bullworth was a bright, beautiful new world – the cliques were getting along, bullying was at an all time low (the prefects were bored, that's how peaceful it was.) and Bullworth was finally starting to seem like an actual, real school and not just a holding place for future felons and corporate lawyers. Ugh, corporate lawyers… disgusting.
The most important thing that he had made happen at the academy was to induct a student union of all students from all cliques, (except for the bullies, because how would they help to improve the school. Why would they want to?) so instead of just him and whoever the school president was (It had been Earnest twice now.) arguing and talking circles around each other.
He had thought it a really good idea at the time; have Pete, the class president and two members of each clique (preferably one of each gender, because that felt a little more equal) together so that they could discuss school things, like the dances and other events or even things that they wanted to start.
So he had Earnest, Beatrice, Bucky, Mandy, Ted, Lola, Vance, Pinky and Bif all in one room representing their cliques and it didn't take Pete long to realize that he had made a terrible, terrible mistake. It was one of those realizations that you could only have when you were in the middle of a screaming match about, of all the stupid things, the theme for the winter formal.
It was probably a little too early to talk about it, but Pete wasn't in the position to have any opinions about it – if Pinky and Mandy wanted to ruin their… friendship(?) over which of the two of them had more social status and who between them was the prettiest, then good for them.
Pete couldn't say much as he had then had less than no opinion about the upcoming dance and on the night of it, Pete would be in his room and on his laptop finally catching up on his homework and enjoying the peace and quiet that he rarely ever got.
He desperately needed that peace and quiet. Pete let the bickering wash over him for a few minutes before he decided to intervene himself into the chaos. "Alright," He said, straining to keep his voice and not just decide to give up on his job (like anyone would allow him to quit, ha. Funny joke.) "So, I umm, what are the options here? Because, there's so much yelling going on that I can't tell what anyone is saying." he said, using passive aggression to stop himself from actually screaming.
Pinky was the first one to speak up between the two overly popular girls, "Well, I want something regal and beautiful, yet very romantic like… like Pride And Prejudice but in the winter so it's snowy…and I get to be a princess. Or, or maybe something like-"
Pinky was cut off by Mandy grumbling under her breath, "You want some Disney princess garbage? Makes sense." After she said that, Pete could safely say that this whole thing was probably not about the upcoming dance. What it was actually about, though, he couldn't say.
"Excuse me Mandy, but this is not Disney princess 'garbage'! I am a princess!" Pinky was practically screaming and she stomped her foot on the ground for emphasis. "
"I know, I know, you deserved to be treated like one." Mandy seemed less angry and more tired of the situation. Pete could understand that – he had been in her exact situation more times than he could count – but it didn't make him any less bothered by their bickering.
"I do!" The preppy girl agreed in a loud, angry tone. She turned to where Pete sat, trying his best not to make eye contact with anyone else in the room because he felt so awkward about all of this, and spoke to him in a pleasant and calm manner. Pete thought that she was putting on her best "First Lady" vocie for him, "Peter, I just want something wholesome and romantic that everyone can enjoy. Even the poors."
Beatrice scoffed, speaking for the first time since the meeting had started. "Oh, that's so nice of you to think about the poor, unfettered impoverished students of Bullworth." She spat in a venomous tone under her breath, annoyed by all of the fighting even though this technically wasn't even her battle to fight. "What would we ever do without you?"
Pete decidedly ignored Beatrice, "But in the winter?" He inferred, looking over to where Mandy sat with her arms crossed over her chest, looking hatefully at the other girl. Both Lola and Beatrice remained at least somewhat quiet during all of this, which he expected. "Okay so like a romantic, snowy… thing for Pinky. The idea's still pretty vague. Mandy, what's your thing?"
"Literally anything other than that." She said, seemingly talking just to be mean and cruel for the sake of being mean and cruel. Pete wondered if she had been skipping meals again and that was why she had been so angry as of late. "Because that is stupid."
'This is going nowhere,' Pete realized, 'Time to end this before we have ANOTHER riot at Bullworth'
"Um, wow okay. Look at the time!" He said, "Our meeting is over, we'll have to discuss everything else on our agenda next week." Winter Formal had been the first and only thing on their twenty point agenda. Pete really wished there was a teacher in this room, someone who could mediate with a little more authority than he was really able to do.
Everyone cleared out with a sudden sort of quickness and he took a huge, cathartic breath in relief. He didn't like being in the spot light and he hated all of the responsibilities put upon him as Head Boy, but he put up with it because he was actually really good at it and he knew that it looked great on college applications.
"That was really something, huh?" Lola spoke from behind him, "Two hours wasted on talking about corsages and stupid flower arrangements." It was pretty obvious to him that she didn't care about the dance or anything like that.
"Oh… yeah. I was pretty close to texting Jimmy to pull a fire alarm." he joked with an awkward sort of laugh. Despite her less than stellar reputation, Pete generally liked Lola – she was always nice to him and even he was almost entirely sure that she was doing it to get something out of him, he liked it when people were friendlier to him…or even bothered to notice him at all. He preferred people being nice to his face instead of belittling, humiliating and committing violence upon him to his face.
Lola laughed at that, "That Jimmy, he will do pretty much anything for ten bucks."
"He will, he will…" He agreed with a nod, "Pretty much anything, I mean, he'll have sex for free."
Then Lola thought it was a perfect moment to run her fingers over the inside of Pete's arm. She didn't even have a chance to say anything to the scrawny teen before Pete giggled nervously and stepped back a bit, almost shocked that she did that. "Are-are you flirting with me?" He asked as he walked back "Seriously… Lola, I'm gay." he added, making sure to keep away from her in case she still didn't get it. "And don't say anything about sexuality being a spectrum or whatever because that's just not true. I'm gay. One hundred percent… only into guys. I thought everyone had known by now."
Lola didn't seem bothered by this in the least, "Can't blame a girl for trying, can you?" she said with a shrug. "I assumed that you were… probably gay but I didn't want to assume anything. A lot of straight men are wearing pink these days."
Pete smiled gratefully at that and nodded. "No, I guess I can't." he agreed, "Well, um, I guess that I'll see you at the next student council meeting." he began to walk off but he was pulled back by the greaser – because of course she had to be stronger than him, everyone was. He looked at her curiously, with more than a small amount of offense taken at being manhandled like that, "Do you… need something?"
"I could walk with you back to your dorm," She offered, "I'm going that way any ways and you don't need anyone stupid or new giving you trouble."
He scoffed at that, "Uh, no thanks. I'm okay." he said, "Besides, it's not a smart idea for me to look like I'm biased or anything. If we're walking together people might think you're my friend and I wouldn't wish that upon anyone." he turned around again, "But I will look into getting more funding for the garages. I saw it on the agenda and I know it's important, and not just to the greasers. Maybe a fundraiser of something? I don't know, I'll figure it out on my own."
Pete walked off on his own back to his room. He was not ready to be surprised by the sight of his psychotic ex-roommate and ex-friend standing in his room, unpacking boxes. The minute that he made eye contact with the sociopathic, scarred teen he swallowed and began to regret not letting Lola walk with him just then.
A part of Pete just wanted to run in the opposite direction – leave school and never come back, it was a helluva lot easier than dealing with the return of Gary Smith. Another part of him wanted to scream at Gary for being so awful to him for years – his new found confidence was both a blessing and a curse, it seemed – and in the end neither of his wants won out and… he froze. Gary of course, took advantage of that opportunity to corner the smaller teen.
"Femme-boy!" Gary shouted, moving over to where the smaller teen stood stock still. "You don't call, you don't write…come on, Petey! Where's the warm freaking welcome? I mean, don't tell me that you expected I wouldn't be coming back to Bullworth. Jimmy I understand, he doesn't have two brain cells to rub together but you? I didn't think you were stupid." he shrugged, "Guess I was wrong. Happens to everyone, even geniuses such as myself."
Despite himself, Pete knew that Gary was right about him coming back. He should have expected his former friend to be back – the Smiths were almost as rich as the Harrington's. In another world, where the family hadn't had a completely blackened reputation and Gary wasn't known as the school psycho he might have been hanging around the preppies every day.
Pete let himself float away consciously as he took to subconsciously allowing himself to be literally backed into a corner by Gary Smith. He wasn't at all surprised by the fact that it was so easy for him to fall back into old patterns again. Here he was, practically baring his throat to the very person that he was terrified of – it was so easy for him to become that person again that it scared him to death.
It wasn't really surprising to the sociopath that Pete stood there, unspeaking and unmoving, "So you're gonna be my keeper again," he started, moving so that both of his hands were bracing each of Pete's shoulders. Gary really noticed that Petey hadn't gotten any taller and he had, so their height difference really was noticeable. He couldn't help but get a little antagonistic then, "God, that's gotta be murder for you. Isn't that just terrible for you little Petey?"
Pete frowned at that, trying to edge away from the larger teen as he – literally – spoke down to him. He was pretty sure that Gary was going to hurt him and hurt him bad. He wouldn't be surprised if he ended up in the hospital today. "You're still so tiny." Gary commented in a crude sort of way, "Guess that you're never gonna grow up."
In that moment, Pete had made a split second decision to get away from his roommate while he still could. "S-stay the f-fuck away from me!" he snapped, before ducking under him and running out of the room again. Gary decidedly let him leave, watching him run off with a smug look on his face that Pete couldn't see. He wasn't at all worried about that less than warm welcome – nothing that Petey could do could be even half as painful as what the other students might do to him, it was gonna be hell for him not to get violent every second of every day at Bullworth – that the smaller teen gave.
Pete was stuck with him – he'd have to come back and he knew that Pete was naive enough to believe that even horrible, awful, manipulative people like Gary Smith can change. He was a staunch believer in second chances and, if nothing else, Gary knew exactly how to play "Remorseful and Changed."
It would be an eventful senior year.