Disclaimer: Don't own School of Rock, Jack Black or the loads and loads of musicians mentioned.

Rating: PG-13 (For a good load of cursing)

Summary: "Dewey man, prep school is the playground of oppression." "Yeah dude, but playgrounds have swings."

AN: I do apologize for the good load of cursing, I'm not at all accustomed to it. This was supposed to have been a prologue but half way through it morphed into a chapter. Weird. Oh, no offense to Helen Keller, Clint Eastwood or Good Charlotte fans. I have no ill will against Good Charlotte (I don't think I've ever heard them) but they are constantly being made fun of in this story, I had to chose a band to belittle it was either Good Charlotte or Dashboard Confessional. Once again, I apologize.

I

Symbiosis

"All I can say is that my life is pretty plain,

I like watching the puddles gather rain,"

"No Rain" Blind Melon

Zachary Moonyham honestly had no idea how Freddy Jones managed avoid getting in to fights. He stomped around Horace Prep with his chest puffed out like Clint Eastwood on crack just looking for a fight. He would mouth off to the older kids, and shove people in line for lunch and generally piss people off, and he managed to avoid getting his face shoved in by angry la cross players and distempered fans of the bands he dissed.

"What are you talking about Moonyham, Good Charlotte sucks!"

And then, oy with the shoving and the name-calling and Zack would have flashbacks to first and second grade with the lunch stealing and the name-calling and the rock throwing. But nothing would ever happen. Sure the lacrosse dudes would move into Freddy's personal space, their sour murderous expressions betraying their nervous movement and yeah they would pace threateningly in front of each other for a bit, like pumas sizing up a sick wildebeest but other than that nothing.

It was Zack who got called names and shoved into lockers and glared at.

Which was strange because where Freddy ran around searching for a good brouhaha, Moonyham did the exact opposite it had been his first instinct since he was very small to camouflage himself, somehow become invisible because god knew everything was easier that way. Only it was kind of difficult to be invisible when you were in this band that had already developed somewhat of a strange cult following at Horace and the janitors were singing songs you wrote and girls in your Bio class were asking you to sign their t-shirts.

He'd been able to deal, because they didn't make resistance like Zack Moonyham, he'd rolled with the punches like Dewey had said, and dedicated everyday to rocking hard, fighting the man and not getting his ass kicked. Because for some reason, the la cross players, and the upper class men, and the resident Good Charlotte fan's found musical genius thoroughly offensive and sought to remind young Moonyham that while face melting guitar solos were awesome, a very much needed skill, so was the ability to run fast.

And that he did. When he wasn't camouflaged, when he wasn't neatly squeezed up against the sea foam green lockers, hiding neatly behind Freddy and Lawrence and the eighteenth round of their "Courtney killed Kurt' discussion. When he wasn't at practice, or at the record store on 35th street or holed up in his room counting his calluses. The minuet the corridor would empty and he would find himself alone a small voice in his prefrontal cortex told him something was going to happen sooner or later. It was Murphy's law, which he had a very stormy past with, jumping up to kick him in the face when it was most convenient, a part of him was sure this couldn't be helped. It was all a part of living outside the bubble.

So yeah, he was pretty much okay with it, and the small part of him that wasn't, that was tired and more than a little pissed off that the man could take so many forms thrashed and kicked and beat the hell from his flying V, and played so vigorously that Dewey had to sit down, grasping at his heart and call for a Cherry Coke break. ("Dude! You seriously went all Marylyn Manson on that solo man, nice!") It was what he had been fed for years, it was simply different people holding the spoon and trading off when they got tired. Somewhere along the thin lining of his pristine adolescence he'd resigned himself to the fact that he wasn't the kind of person to just lash out against what some would perceive as gross injustice. It just didn't happen to him. Freddy yeah, but not him.

Nearly every encounter was the same, beginning with a vague threat, usually in the form of a rhetorical question like:

"Hey you wanna die?"

Or a more direct promise such as:

"I'm gonna take you to school sucker."

To which Moonyham would reply: "Not especially." Or "It's Saturday." Both answers would lead in to the second step, usually the making of a fist followed by a pounding motion, which was supposed to have made him wet himself. Then there was shoving and the whisper of more intimate threats along with the promise of pain and repetition of the act tomorrow, then swirling violence that seemed abrupt and stark in the quiet corridor of such an established institution, a short hazy beginning of a Quentin Tarintino film he could never quite stay awake for that ended quickly with Zack sprawled out on the ground with his head feeling as though it was filled with strawberry foam. Afterward, he would lie on the cold floor, measuring his breath and wondering if one could ever shake Murphy's law.

It was pretty normal, and he wondered how on Earth Freddy could shove people around and talk about their mom's without getting punched in the jaw. Zack avoided confrontation like the plague, he hit the floor when a car backfired and whenever anyone came at him it was instant stop, drop and roll into the fetal position. So he wondered why all the la cross players and Good Charlotte fans, and seniors had made it their first extra ciricular activity to attempt to make him extinct when he never said or did anything that would even suggest any malice or dislike. But then he figured trying to apply logic to these things was like lulling an infant asleep to "Thriller" not so smart.

And it stayed normal, until the Friday afternoon. August was dying, the lawn of Horace High was drowning in a sea of red and yellow leaves, the sky swelled with the hallucinogenic heat of the sun and students were tearing from the grounds in a frenzy, drunk with the beauty of upstate New York and thoughts of the weekend. Zack was shoving his Lit book into his locker, some Smiths song slamming around in his head when he heard the stomping of boots and the dribbling of a basketball, the slam of a lacross stick against some lockers

"Hey it's Moonyham!"

Zack rolled his eyes.

"Oh yeah, guitar boy, haven't seen you in a while fag."

It had been about two hours. The boy sighed and closed his locker slowly; the names were really becoming irritating.

"Going home already retard, special Ed close early today?"

He held in his breath and put one hand on his locker. He knew not to turn around until the footsteps stopped, it was like a play, and he was back stage waiting for his cue.

"What's with the silent treatment you little queer, you have a bad day?"

A really great play.

"Little fag probably missed a question in Bio, haven't been kissing Severson's ass like usual huh Moonyham?" It was always the same, hey you get good grades, you're a freak. God, all he wanted was a little variety.

There were five of them at least, usually there were only two or three but everyone made a special effort to show up on Friday. Okay yeah, he had superior science skills the likes of which no one had ever seen, for this he was expecting a blue ribbon not death threats.

"Thought you'd be good at kissing ass Moonyham, you do it to every teacher in the place, every guy anyway."

He heard the sneakers pause and sucked in hesitant breath. He turned around, feeling like Mr. Pink at the beginning of "Reservoir Dogs". He'd been wrong, there were six, standing around lynch mob style, knocking their fists together impatiently. And he would have a been afraid, like always, the ghost of apprehension would have gripped his shoulder and shaken the sense from him, and he would have commenced with the backing away and the shaking and the protective arm motions. But not that day. He waited for it, and it didn't come, the fear and the panic and the PTSD afterward. He waited and it didn't come.

Because that day wasn't like the others.

Maybe it was the fact that it was Friday, and he'd taken a buttload of notes in European History, and gotten creamed corn all over his tie at lunch and was tired and hungry and still had to get to practice before he could collapse in his bed and sleep. Maybe it was because he'd stayed up half the night before working on a song that had come to him in the middle of the night. Maybe he realized that he was alone in this and would stay alone in it. Whatever the reason that Friday his brain malfunctioned.

"Impressive."

The word echoed in the silence of the corridor like the fire of a starter pistol. It was a moment until Zack realized the word had come from his mouth. They just stood there looking at each other, then:

"What the hell?"

It occurred to him vaguely that they probably thought he was a mute or something. He couldn't tell who had asked because he didn't see faces or distinguish voices. He didn't want to. It was better when everything was a haze.

"I didn't know idiocy of your caliber occurred naturally." He said calmly "It's impressive, it's usually the result of in breeding."

Dead silence.

"I'm just saying, I thought terminal stupidity messed with your speech or something but your motor skills are fine. Go you." Somewhere, he was only dimly aware that he was speaking, but he couldn't hear the words over the dull white roar that was rising in his ears.

"Oh, and the reason I've got a good grade in Bio is because I'm literate, it's a new thing all the cool kids are into you should check it out man."

"What the hell did you just say to me?"

There was a guttural growl, that sounded like Elmer Fudd with a hangover.

"What did you say you little queer?"

"I was just plugging reading dude, no big deal, I know that books on tape are cool and I won't ruin the ending of "Charlotte's Web" for you because oh man it's a downer-"

Then pain. He was shoved into the lockers, but he was grinning. Finally variety! He felt blood on his lower lip as he leaned on those lockers clutching his arm grinning like a drunken fool. He kept talking; his voice getting higher and higher, fog in his brain getting thicker and thicker, intensified by the ashes of his dumb speech.

"Plus with the books on tape you can sound stuff out which is helpful."

"If you don't shut your goddamned mouth Moonyham-"

"Congratulations, the levels of retardation you guys can transcend in minuets is astounding," When the hell did he ever sound so smug. "I'd give you a medal if I thought you could read the inscription but."

He didn't know which one hit him, but it made a sound against his head like a rain stick, and he felt his brain rattle around in his cranium.

"I guess it's the inbreeding that makes you guys so antisocial, its all good though if my parents were cousins I think I'd be a little touchy about it too." He shrugged, touching his cheek.

More pain shoved into the lockers again feeling blood foam up against his teeth like the Red Sea, talking and grinning but he couldn't stop. He felt like Helen Keller in a mineshaft.

"Come on dudes, really let's just forget the whole thing, you." He pointed to a hazy mass, the one dribbling the basketball. "Let's forget it, we can put all our differences in tiny little boxes under our beds, you wanna play horse? I can be the front end, and you, well you can just be yourself."

The fist came out of nowhere. It didn't seem to be attached to anything, it just sort of floated down slowly, like a carnivorous bird until it met his face and exploded. It reflected in his eyes before things went the blackest shade of black, tinted with hues of purple and bronze round the edges, like a sunset and an eclipse pressed together in his palms and running in messy dribbles like runny eggs down his hands. His eyes felt like electric fences that had been set on fire, vision burning as if acupuncture needles, screws of hot pain were being pushed under his eyelids. He made a sound, a dumb, girly little yelp that sounded like a three-legged dog being hit over the head with a bag of hammers and then he was on the ground and everything was damp pain soaked in ache.

Blood spilled out of his mouth, like acrylic paint being pushed out of its little tube, the dull white roar got louder and louder consuming the yelling and scrape of the shoes on tile as they kicked at his ribs. His vision swayed drunkenly in front of him, coronas trembling intensely, he lay his head down as watched the blood course down his arms.

The white hall shone with silence when they were finished. Rays of scorching sunlight ran through the windows chasing their footsteps as they hurried to get away, yelling and laughing as they went. Light bounced off the lockers and onto the floor, it filled the display case loaded with trophies and medals and mingled with the glass chandelier, spreading rainbows across the corridor. Daylight flooded the hall, filled it up to the ceiling and warmed the worn walls, coating everything in a jarring brightness that shone like cellophane.

Zack lay in a crumpled heap next to the row of lockers.

Blood and pale skin, dark hair and curled fingers. Spread on the floor like a dirty sweater, barely breathing. The white ceiling glowed at his injuries; his cheeks were purple and pink as were his hands. They searched round till they found his ribs and recoiled when their touch met with incredible pain.

His vision swam slowly, watery streams of beautiful Technicolor painted across his eyes in long strokes, green and gold and yellow and white with bits of blood in them, he twisted his head to catch the light, and his sight bled on to his collar mixed with tears and filth. His eyes shook; mouth gurgled with foam, broken brain split in two halves still humming audibly.

All the colors, they swam to him and embraced him with their soft hands, light through the window, branches of apple blossoms scratching at the glass, and at the end of the corridor, his eyes, bleeding and filthy, were caught on the sharp edges of a foamy form.. He lifted his head, blood spilled from his mouth, he strained to make the colors into shapes so he could see. White and yellow and gold swirling round in a haze, making the head and the face and the lips and the eyes and the arms. Yes a creature, dim and distant, a shadow. Near the door, a dark haired creature screaming, hair flying out in drunken waves of color that sent trembling gusts of sound to press against his bruised face. Long cool fingers enveloped his hot cheeks, he could see across the water now, color and dirt and sound and ache and pain and pulse and big brown eyes.

A grin stretched across his face painfully, wide and drunk it spread across his mouth like an arrow tearing through the plastic pain molded to his face, catching the brightness that fell through the glass and strangled the room with broken sunlight.

Summer.

The light met the color and his vision exploded. Black stars and white birds pressed themselves against his eyelids and in a breath Zack was gone.

AN: That's going to do it for the first chapter, more will come as soon as it is thought up. Thank-you