Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of The Breakfast Club

"Go ahead. Laugh at me." Allison said after all but one of her friends had left. Her breakdown had ended and after sitting in silence for almost an hour, Clair stated that her parents were going to be mad if she out too late. Or at least one of them would be. The other one would say that she was just being a teenager, just to smite whichever parent decided to be the strict one of the day.

Andrew, of course, had to drive Clair home. Though she was old enough to have a license, and certainly had the parents who would supply her with a car, her mother demanded that she worked to earn the money and the privilege of being able to drive, while her father insisted that it was a common right for a teenager to be able to operate a vehicle. The fight that broke out every time her license was mentioned was simply unbearable, so she decided to live as a non-driver until she was eighteen.

John, on the other hand, had no reason to leave. After all, the sooner he got to his own home, the sooner the chance of his still freshly cracked skull coming into high impact with one of the numerous blunt objects in his house. Staying to comfort Allison was a much better option. Even if she was fucking nuts.

"Am I laughing?" he asked, his head against the door and his eyes closed. He slowly rotated his head to get a look at Allison, who was in shock. Like it was so unbelievable to conceive the thought that John Bender could take a delicate situation seriously. Granted he was an ass most of his life, he also had a few delicate situations of his own. He understood.

"I don't get you. You're so weird." Allison said, making John laugh. Allison didn't find it funny. He made fun of anyone any opportunity he got. It was like his life's mission to piss off mass amounts of people at a time, and she had just had the mother of all breakdowns. She'd ran out of the room like a madwoman. She'd locked her door and then threw a chair in front of it as if there were some axe murderer on the other side. She pushed his girlfriend, or whatever Clair currently was to him. At that moment, there were over seventy one liners he could throw. Probably more.

"Oh I'm weird? Did your shrink tell you that?" He asked upon noting the cocked eyebrow Allison had thrown at him. He was right. She was weird. Her current display of insanity had proved that, but he was weird for not making fun of her for being even weirder, like he was expected to do. They sat in silence for another fifteen minutes.

"So what'd she do to you?" John asked, surprising Allison by his bizarre behavior once again. He had remained uninterested when she had told her about her father, who had done the most inappropriate act a parent could do to a child, yet he was actually initiating conversation about her mother, who looked as innocent as fucking Mother Teresa.

"She didn't do anything, Bender." She said, suddenly putting up a front. For whatever reason John was suddenly so curious about her maternal life, it annoyed her. She had the tendency to bring things that she didn't want to talk about with people up, and then she'd be stuck with their damn curiosity. She blamed her shrink for that. He was always forcing her to open up, now she couldn't keep things closed.

"Now, she had to have done something," Bender insisted, matter of factly. He raised his eyebrows, challenging her to tell him the truth with his eyes. He was so damn good at it that it killed Allison. With one look, John could make a million thoughts run through someone's mind. For a wastoid, he was incredibly good at manipulation, among a large variety of other abilities.

"She left me," Allison answered, prepared to leave it at that, but John's eyes didn't leave her, "when I was nine. She just left. She said she wanted to be a model. You can't be a model with kids. She just erased me from her life like an unwanted pencil mark, and if she hadn't, maybe my dad would have left me alone…" Allison trailed off before looking to the ground, "maybe we'd still be a family."

There was another moment of silence. Good, Allison thought, you got what you wanted, now shut up. She considered telling him to leave. She'd told him too much. Just a couple days ago, she was talking to him like she was all over this family shit, like she knew the hurdle he was going through, and was so much wiser because she had already made it through, but she hadn't completely finished the marathon. And now he knew that.

"What makes you think her staying would have stopped the deterioration of your family?" He asked, not bothering to look her in the eyes. By this point, his head was back against the door and his eyes were closed shut. When he was younger, every time his mother up and left he'd blame her for everything. He'd think, maybe if she was a better wife, his father wouldn't be so pissed all the time. He was a fucking idiot when he was younger.

"Have you seen my mother? She's gorgeous. She'd probably be model right now, except she's too old. If my father had her around, he wouldn't have needed anyone else. He never would have stopped being my father, and I never would have lost my mother. It'd be a family." She answered, looking at him for any kind of facial expression to show he understood, to show that she was right. His face remained unchanged, and it drove her mad.

John, of course, realized this. He didn't even have to look at her to know she was going insane with his silence and sudden lack of interest in her family life. He was able to predict what she was feeling and when since that detention. Many people didn't realize this, but John Bender did listen to people. He listened and observed, and he used both actions when it came time to get under their skin. He did this all too naturally.

But Allison was more than some victim of his antics. She pissed him off to no end, when, of course, he wasn't perturbed by her. Her life hit too close to home for him. An asshole father who did un-fatherly things to break her down, and a mother who wanted no part of raising a child, and played mind games by leaving and then coming back, as if nothing had changed. And she realized they had similar lives, and in her own psychotic way, haunted John with it. That day at the diner, when she expressed her feelings through trying to diagnose his life, he could have strangled her. But Allison was more than a victim to him, she was a friend. She pissed him off, but at the end of the day, she cared.

"Well, I really hate to break it to you sweets, but your old man wouldn't have been father of the year just because he had some bitch around." John explained, sharing with her the knowledge he had gained long ago. All he had to do was look into his dad's uncaring eyes; really look, when he was kicking his only son in the ribs, before it clicked. His father didn't give a shit if he hurt him. Joe Bender had lost the ability to think of John as his son, if he ever even had such a trait, long ago, and nothing that John or anyone else did would ever make him come back to realization that John was his own flesh and blood; a product of himself. Just like Mr. Reynolds would never see Allison as his spawn, no matter what she or her mother did.

In exchange for his cold but truthful words, Allison gave him a big doe eyed stare. It was one part angry, one part upset, and one part confused. How could he tell her what her father would do in which predicaments? He didn't know him. She did. She knew him too well. How could he so confidently tell her that in case of her mother's presence, her life wouldn't have been happy?

John rolled his eyes. Did he really have to give the school basketcase some huge speech on bad parents? On how some people just had rotten folks, and nothing would change that? How the world was an unfair place, and while some people got parents who worshiped the ground their children walked on, other's used their kids as nothing more than objects to make them feel better?

"Look, Allison, your old man's a dick. He could have had a million bitches in his life, and that wouldn't have kept him away from you. Assholes don't become fucked up over night, they're born that way. Have you ever seen my basement? We have to have about four punching bags and a brick wall that could take any form of abuse and be left practically fucking untouched, yet my old man chooses my face as a stress suppressor, and my mom's been around just as many times as she's been gone. No bitch would have given you a happy family, everything that happened was bound to happen since you were born." He explained, not bothering to look at her once through his whole speech. It wasn't often that John brought up his own shitty life as an example to someone else's problems. Taking something so seriously was uncomfortable for him.

"Do you forgive her? Your mom, when she comes back? Do you just pretend she never left until she does it again, or do you hate her?" Allison asked, leaning closer to John so she wouldn't miss a word of his answer. She needed to know how he handled it. How a normal person acted when they wanted to hate their mother, when they should, when their mother just left them like it was no big deal, but couldn't.

"No, Allison," John said with a sigh, becoming annoyed with the conversation, "I don't hate her, just like you don't hate yours. Are you going to tell me, that even though she came back, meaning you actually crossed her mind, even though she actually wants you to be in her life right now, you're not going to go? As long as that bitch keeps coming back, I'm not going to hate her, just like you're not going to hate yours, so stop wasting her time before she changes her mind and leaves. Unless, you want to stay with your asshole foster parents." John added, looking at her with his challenging eyes.

"Thanks John." Allison said, a smile on her ashen, rosy face. She still had a few more hurdles to leap before she had left her old problems behind, but with a friend leaping the hurdles next to her, the marathon didn't seem so long.


John had skipped school that morning to go to work. His little redman-boss didn't care about any laws concerning minors in the workplace, just that the cars were finished on time, and this was just fine with John. After all, it opened the door for more hours, and he needed work more than he needed school. School wasn't going to pay for his ticket out of the Bender hellhole.

John wasn't, however, against going in after school hours to make up for the shop class he'd missed to finish his project. Shop was, after all, the only class he could skip almost every day of and still get a near perfect score, and working on a project as apposed to heading home wasn't exactly a huge trade off.

He was surprised, and yet, not so surprised, to see Brian in the shop room, doing yet another extra credit project in hopes of bringing up his F. His shit ass shelf must have been too unstable to earn him much of anything. This time he worked on a clock, something that if done right, would be complex enough to bring his F up to a low C. He figured if he took a deep breath, and carefully measured everything and scanned every inch of the directions, he would undoubtedly succeed.

John tried his best to ignore the dweeb. He'd opened up and allowed three new people into his life; that was enough. He didn't need anyone else, and he definitely didn't need someone like Brian. The kid had almost fucking killed himself over a fucking bad grade. He could easily deal with everyone else's home drama, but Brian's case was asking too much. He was just too unstable, and John had no intentions of inviting that into his life, especially when he had never meant to invite any of the others. They had just happened to find their way.

"Fuck!" Brian shouted, full frustration exploding in his voice, as he threw the beginnings of a failed extra credit project to the ground. It was already uneven. How the fuck could that have happened? He measured everything three fucking times, and now he was running out of time. His shop instructor wasn't going to keep throwing projects at him. He had to beg for days just to get the clock project, and somehow, he had already fucked it up.

"See, I always thought the key to shop success was to trash your assignment, but I'd never actually seen anyone do it," John sarcastically noted, breaking his rule of ignoring the dweeb and blowing the dust off his finished project. Brian liked being better than everyone else at everything he did, but when it came to shop, John excelled while the brianiac couldn't even handle a simple square clock.

"You know Bender, you could probably do this project in less than twenty minutes. I mean it's just a square box with the parts thrown inside." Brian hinted, his green eyes filled with enough envy and hope to make it so John couldn't decide whether he was pleased with the statement, or just annoyed.

"Yeah, so?" He asked, already knowing what Brian was getting at. He took Bender's sarcastic remark as an invitation to reinitiate whatever fucked up acquaintance they had made during detention, and being familiar with each other, he assumed John would have no problem helping him get out of his slump. Like hell he would. Nobody helped John out of his fucking problems, why should he help someone else? Unless…

"So you could help me with my clock, right? I mean since you're not doing anything, and since we're friends. We're friends…right?" He asked, suddenly nervous. He squirmed around in his discomfort. Sure, John had ignored him everyday since they were forced to be in that detention together, and only talked to him when he wanted to tease him, but that didn't mean that he couldn't lay a helping hand at something he was naturally good at anyways, did it?

"No homeboy, we're not friends. I've got enough friends I don't want, but tell you what, you help me on a little project for Vernon, and I'll make your clock." John offered, coming up with exactly the kind of field a brianiac such as Brian would come in handy, and it would take him no longer to help John with his revenge than it would for Bender to make a simple clock.

"Uhm, well, you can't just do the project for me, but, uh, you could help. I'm supposed to do this clock myself." Brian insisted, reminding John of yet another reason he didn't want to be his friend. He had a fucking stick up his ass. It was like he couldn't break one fucking rule, even if it meant he'd get out of an F for the quarter. It amazed John that he'd somehow unknowingly convinced the same kid to get high, a fluke incident that would probably never happen again.

"Look, homeboy, I don't particularly like being at school all fucking evening, so you have two options. I do your clock while you get my project done, or I go home now, and you're fucked. It's completely up to you." John explained, waiting a small moment for Brian to answer before deciding that the kiss ass would never stray from the rules book. He started putting his coat on and making his exit, before Brian called him back.

"Just, uh, just don't make it too good. I mean, don't make it shitty, but don't make it so he'll know I didn't do it, you know? What exactly did you want me to do for you?" Brian asked, slightly frightened by John's cunning smile.


"Hey, homeboy," John called from the door of the computer lab, a B+ clock ticking in his hands, "you almost done?" he asked, ready to head back to his place and crash. He'd had a whole day of putting cars together and fixing up shop projects by hand, and if he didn't make it to his bed soon, he was going to pass out on a desk.

"Yeah, it's finished. Are you sure I'm not going to get caught for this? This is a bad idea. I can't believe I did this. I'm going to get caught." Brian panicked, watching as an unconcerned John made his way to the computer to look at the handiwork of a dweeb. He laughed a genuinely amused laugh. When he came up with the prank, he never imagined it'd be that good.

"This is on every computer in the school?" John asked, pointing to the computer screen. All functions on the computer had been blocked, and all that was displayed was a black screen with an image of Vernon, a photo of his mug on a cartoon animation of a body that was half the size of his head with its pants down, taking it up the hoo-hoo from a similar animation of Barry Manilow.

"It's on every computer, including the teacher's and Mr. Vernon's. It'll take the at least a day to crack the code to get it off. Are you sure they can't trace it back to me?" Brian asked again, knowing full well they'd never suspect that someone like John Bender had constructed such an elaborate plan and had the know how to put it together by himself. He needed a hacker, and Brian was the only one available to him.

"Dork, you're clear. They're not going to think you helped me unless I threatened your life or something. Are you sure Dick can't just get one of your computer buddies to fix them?" he asked, knowing full well that Brian wasn't the only dweeb in the school. If he was going to exact his revenge on Vernon for dating his sister, he was going to make sure it was good. Not something he could get rid of before third period.

"I'm sure. None of them will have any idea what to do. He's going to have to hire someone to take care of it, and even the best hacker's going to need a full day and a heavy pay to get the job done. The whole school will know about this little prank before Mr. Vernon can do anything about it. He'll have to transfer school's to get kids to stop laughing at him." Brian explained, not being able to hide the pride he had in his handiwork. He loved being the best computer nerd in the whole school, even if it did repel women.

"Brian, I could fucking kiss you right now." John said, leaning down to get a closer look at what could possibly be the greatest prank to ever be pulled on the principal of Shermer High School. He couldn't shake the feeling, however, that Brian was starring at him. He slowly turned his head to stare back at him, intimidating him until he dared to stop.

Upon this action, Brian hurriedly pressed his lips sloppily against John's and gave him the quickest peck in the history of time. He knew it was a mistake, but he couldn't help it. John had called him Brian. Not dweeb, or homeboy, or dork, but by his real name, and he had to admit, John Bender was fucking hot. He was naturally tan, had a strong jaw line, and was a bad boy without fear of any consequences. Not to mention he was cocky as hell, and confidence was a huge turn on.

John jumped back so fast that he fell on his ass. He scooted back a little, before giving Brian the same confused and nervous stare he'd given Vernon in that fucking closet. He wiped his mouth with the palm of his leather glove, hoping to rub away the memory like he could rub away lipstick. What the fuck was that?

"What the fuck man!" John shouted, looking back at Brian, whose face was now as red as blood. He'd fucking kissed him! Full on, non-accidental, puckered up kiss. Him, a fucking guy, had prepped his lips and threw them against John's, another guys, no, not just a guy, a fucking guy who was going to rip his head off, hang it from the ceiling, then punch it in the fucking nose until his face really turned as red as blood.

"John…I'm gay." Brian admitted after a short pause, confiding something he had not told anyone. If his parents found out that their straight A, Latin speaking investment in what was supposed to eventually be an Ivey league graduate who was supposed to be something for Mr. Johnson to brag about to everyone in the teacher's staff room would never get married to a woman, but instead go after other men, they'd be livid. He'd be an embarrassment to them, even if he graduated from fucking Yale. He'd kept his sexual preferences a secret from even the kids in the math league, and he was pretty tight with them.

"Yeah, well I'm fucking not! You can't just fucking do that! What the fuck man!" John repeated before scrubbing his tongue with the sleeve of his leather jacket, even though Brian had simply given him a quick peck on the lips, and thus never actually making contact with his tongue.

"Sorry," Brian said softly before suddenly becoming concerned with the predicament, "you're not going to tell anyone are you?" he asked, knowing full well that if he wanted to, Bender could have the whole school knowing that the school dweeb was simultaneously the school queer, just to make him miserable. After all, he and John weren't friends. John had enough friends that he didn't want, and when John didn't see someone as a friend, he saw them simply as randoms that were there only for him to get a rise out of.

"Could you just, like, not fucking talk for two minutes?" John asked, trying to sort things out in his head. A guy had just kissed him. Not like a joking kiss on the cheek, like he'd done to Vernon to make him uncomfortable, but a full on kiss on the lips. One that was meant to produce enjoyment for Brian. A fucking guy, had fucking kissed him. He could handle his father beating his head against a wall, or his mother leaving him every time he was gaining any kind of hope that she'd pursue responsibility of raising her child, and he was even learning to handle Nina going after the Dick of his school, but a kiss from another fucking guy? No. Now the big man upstairs was trying to piss him off.

"Alright, look, this never fucking happened, understand? If you want to be queer, that's fucking fine with me, but I'm not. Nobody fucking finds out that happened, because as far as you and I are concerned, it didn't. Suppress the fucking memory, and never even think about it again, do I make myself clear?" John asked, finally feeling as if he'd rubbed all psychological and physical evidence of Brian's coming out of the closet from his lips.

"Crystal." Brian said as he picked up his clock and offered John a hand off the ground, which was denied. The rejection of his offering, however, was more or less expected to Brian from the start. He'd done it anyways simply to be polite, and because it was completely his fault that Bender was on his ass on the ground anyways.

"Oh and dweeb, I've been purposely ignoring you because I really don't like you, but Andrew said he'd like to keep his promise to you. He's all over some new personal growth shit." John offered as he picked himself off the ground and started his leave from the computer lab, which he would probably never be able to enter again.

"Really? You know, I've been going through some personal growth too, kind of," Brian said, before he was cut off by John calling out "dweeb" again, fully earning his silence and attention.

"A hard-on doesn't count as personal growth. Are you gonna give him a call or not?" John asked, sincerely hoping Andrew wasn't just saying shit when he said that he really would keep his promise to Brian and be his pal if he had the opportunity of seeing him. If not, his neighbor was going to be one pissed off jock when he got a phone call from the nerd.

"Yeah, sure. What's his number?" Brian asked, searching in his pants pocket for one of the several pens he had among his pencils. He was actually shocked that someone as popular as Andrew, the wrestling state champ, wanted to be his friend. After all, people looked up to Andy.

"How the hell should I know? Use a fucking phonebook dweebie." John said before he left the room. Brian smiled to himself. He'd noticed that Andrew wasn't the only Breakfast Club member he'd lost touch with that had gone through personal growth. Even if John did still play it off as the asshole rude boy, he'd somehow become more than that.


a/n:

missing sock23: haha thanks, i'm really glad you like the refurbished version. thank you so much for your review, and the alert and fav adds on my story and my profile!