Author: The tangled web we weave

Archive: if you want, just tell me, please!

Review: Yes!

Warnings: Yes! There's some heavy language, as well as child abuse, drinking, and drugs. Damn, that makes it sound bad when it's all written out…sorry!

Hey, this is the tangled web we weave, back (finally! It's summer…) for your reading pleasure! Okay, so this is gonna start out completely Bender-centered, and then in later chapters it will move around a little. By the way, I may be making changes to this chapter (likewise for any successive chapters that I write) so if something seems out of place, it may be b/c I changed it. But I'll give you some warning, don't worry. So, continue! (Sorry if this is pretty bleak at first…I've written the next few chapters, and I think they're a little better…Btw, this is Sunday, the day after the Breakfast Club detention)

The Breakfast Club-A True Bond?

Chapter one: "What does not kill us, only makes us stronger..." Nietszche

"John Bender! What the fuck do you think you're doing! Get your sorry ass down here! No one, and I mean, NO ONE, touches my case of beer. Clear? It's my fucking case of beer!"

John Bender couldn't be bothered to determine where his father's voice was coming from. His speech was slurred, he'd been drinking, and he was even more pissed than usual. 'Great,' thought Bender. 'Fucking great. Too bad I don't give a fuck. He's too damn drunk to do anything anyway.' Safe in his judgment, John Bender took another swig of beer from the half empty bottle, crossing his right leg over his left on what passed for his bed. He was sitting in his black cargoes, and a baggy, unbuttoned t-shirt; at home he had no need to hide the scars from anyone. They weren't all very large, but that hadn't stopped them from hurting like hell when they were inflicted. The burns, the cuts from his father's ring (the most expensive piece of jewelry in the house until Claire gave John her diamond earring), and the occasional welt from the odd piece of furniture which had been closest to hand. John slowly traced each of the twelve scars with his index finger, noting their paleness against his natural dark skin.

"Hey! Get your sorry ass down here, ya no good whelp!" Unfortunately, John's father had not yet passed out, and was leaning crookedly against the wall at the bottom of the stairs. His voice seemingly went right through the walls, and Bender suddenly sat up straighter in the old wooden chair. If his father hadn't passed out yet, then he wasn't going to any time soon…and his anger could only lead to abuse. He mulled over this for a minute, and then made a decision that had been hounding him for most of his life. "Not this time" John said to no one in particular. 'Not here, not now. I'm leaving. There's nothing else for it.' He quickly jumped up, hands shaking slightly as he patted his pockets with nervous, sweaty palms. Now that it came to it, he wasn't sure what to do. 'Well, I can't go outside like this,' John realized, looking over himself. He quickly shrugged out of his unbuttoned t-shirt, and pulled a clean gray long-sleeved shirt on. He grabbed the t-shirt again and his gloved fingers fumbled with the buttons. 'Go through the window? Nah, there's no ledge. Two floors up and the driveway beneath. I don't want to end up with a broken back. Then I couldn't move if the old man wanted to hurt me…' John was now searching through his stuff, trying to decide what to take with him. If he ever got out of the house, what would he really need to remind him of his old home? So much for a different life after Saturday. He distractedly pushed his fingers through his long hair.

'Angelica's room. That'll have to do. There's a drainpipe I can climb down on outside of her room.' That was the only way that John Bender referred to his mother: by name. She was no better than his father, even if he hit her too. Since he was little, his mother never really cared for him. Why bother with a child when she could have sex? So she was just there in the background, another face, another name. She slept around at people's houses (to escape from the responsibility of her house; both its occupants and its appearance, although this only made John's father even more infuriated), and wouldn't be here at this time of night. 'Great. Think I got everything. Jean jacket, shirts, socks, knife, yeah. Everything's here…' However, as John was ticking off items on his mental checklist, he suddenly remembered something: money. "Shit! I don't have any fucking money!" Not to mention that he had no way to get any, and that he hadn't eaten anything since yesterday during their lunch break. "Aw, fuck. This Sunday is really shitty. I'll just have to scrounge some. Shake some off someone around here. Roll a drunk. Whatever." Bender simply muttered to himself, trying to keep his mind alert. Maybe that beer didn't go so well with the weed he'd blazed up and smoked earlier. "Aw, shit!" His drugs! This wasn't exactly going as smoothly as he had planned. "God, I don't have any fucking time left now!" he berated himself. And yet, as he inched his door wider, he realized that he would need them. Going cold turkey when he had nowhere to crash and sleep off the cravings until he could obtain more weed wasn't the best idea. So he turned back into his room, and walked swiftly to his bed. He picked up a ratty corner of the now off-white and partially un-stuffed mattress, but dropped it just as quickly. In the hallway, there were footsteps. Ones that he knew were falling with the heaviness of alcohol and anger. It was all he could do to not scream in frustration and fear.

This was the John Bender that no one saw; shaking slightly in the anticipation of anger, loathing, and pain. His palms seemed to be pouring out sweat all of a sudden, and he sat down heavily on the creaking springs of his bed. He felt fear creep into his very bloodstream, spreading through his tense body. John remembered that Vernon had made him feel like this in that damn storage closet. Good ole Dick had acted like Bender Sr., and he was gonna pay for it someday. But right now, all John could focus on was the man lurking in the hallway.

The footsteps were outside his door now, and the twin shadows of legs were backlit by the dying light in the hallway. 'Fuck it all. Lost my chance, because of my stupid dope. My damn fucking dope. Dick's right. If it were on fire, what would I do? I would die for it. Hell, I'm about to now.' He had a few last seconds to steel himself before the door swung back with a shattering crack to the wall. Now was no time to be afraid. John's father was standing in the doorframe fuming.

"What the fuck are you doing in my room? Piss off." John stood up facing his father, effectively masking his fear.

"What? Excuse me? No you don't! No One, NO ONE, talks to me like that. Ya hear? Get over here boy! Get the fuck over here, ya half-wit!" He was pissed, in both senses of the word. His face was a bright, angry, red as well as puffy, and he was clutching an empty beer bottle in one hand. He began to motion harshly with his other hand, stabbing downwards at the floor, his ring glinting ominously in the light. "Get over here, NOW!" John couldn't contain himself, and his façade, which surfaced to hide his distress so naturally now, popped up, making a rather inopportune appearance.

"And what if I don't?" Bender spat the last word out as though he could punch his slob of a father with it alone. His father sneered in response, and began in a calm tone, which gradually increased in intensity and harshness.

"Trouble, John. That's all you ever were. That's all you've ever caused, and you know what? That's all you'll ever be. But I'm gonna give you some of your own trouble tonight, ya little bastard." John's anger left him for a moment. Trouble. It was all he ever was. And it appeared that it was true. Vernon thought it, all the teachers thought it, and so did all the students. Even after the slightly liberating Saturday detention he'd had, it still seemed right. He was trouble, and he asked for it. Deep down inside, there was some hope that he could be different struggling to come up for air, but his father was quashing most of it. And the fact that one word could be used to describe him - all his pain, suffering, desires, hopes, feelings; everything that made up the true essence of John Bender - made him feel sick. Despite The Breakfast Club- Andy, Claire, Allison, and Brian, and all their thoughts, epiphanies, and emotional outpourings- at the end of the day, John Bender was still trouble. 'Or at least I'm in trouble. Really fuckin' deep trouble, at that,' he thought as his father's voice broke through his musings.

"I'm gonna give you a night to remember. Maybe then you'll learn to avoid trouble when you see it coming." And with that, his father took three long strides into the room, balled up his fist, and before John had any time to react, he was on the ripped knees of his jeans, gasping for breath, and clutching desperately at a broken nose.

"Fuckin' 'ell! That was my NOSE dammit!" John barely had time to turn his face away as the fist came swinging back in his direction, clipping his head with the large ring his father always wore. 'Another scar for my collection,' he thought sourly. He had been knocked onto the floor from the last blow, and was scrunching his eyes tight in an effort to block out the pain from the cut on his temple and his broken nose. Blood was running down his chin, neck, and the side of his face, not to mention the fact that one gloved hand was coated in it as well. All he could feel was pain, and the sticky blood that poured through his fingers. His father was yelling at him again, but he was a little preoccupied with keeping at least some of his blood inside his body.

With his eyelids sealed tightly, he didn't see the kick coming, which rammed into several of his lower ribs. There was a sickening crunch, and Bender's eyes shot open as at least three of his ribs cracked. John couldn't tell, but he thought he heard someone scream. 'The infamous Bender, criminal of the school, screaming?' was the only thought that he could manage. Nothing he had ever felt compared to what his mind registered now. His lower chest seemingly exploded in fierce, fiery pain, and with the added trauma of his broken nose and the concussion he had gained from the hit to his head, spots jumped into his vision, and his head lolled to the side as he passed out cold. His dive into unconsciousness was fortunate (probably the luckiest thing that had happened to him that day), as he couldn't feel the last few kicks that his father swiftly delivered to his midriff, a few times stabbing into John's already damaged rib cage.

John's father was panting by the end, and he looked satisfied at what he had accomplished. Then, he moved towards his son for what he really wanted: that earring. The fact that John had taken a beer was trivial compared to that diamond earring. It had been glinting there, taunting him, for the past day, and in his drunken stupor all he could think of was whether his no-good son had stolen it, and how much money he could get for it at the pawn shop. He reached down, and pulled John's blood-matted hair back, grasping onto the earring and its back with dirty, bloodied fingers. Finally, he had his prize clenched in his fist, and as he stormed out, he threw his beer bottle across the room, letting it shatter into pointed and ragged shards by his son's head. He gave one last satisfying sneer to the unconscious teenager on the floor, and stormed back downstairs to visit the local rowdy tavern.

Okay, that's the first chapter. Please tell me if it's been well done, or if it needs to be revamped and fixed in any way. Is this a good version of Bender? I think so…but if you don't, tell me! And about the title - this is the true quote, right? Please let me know... Thank you for reading, and once again, pardon the language, etc, but I felt it was necessary to give it feeling. Come back soon!

the tangled web we weave