Somewhere along the way my hopefulness turned to sadness
Somewhere along the way my sadness turned to bitterness
Somewhere along the way my bitterness turned to anger
Somewhere along the way my anger turned to vengeance

And the ones that I make pay
Are never the ones who deserve it
And the ones who deserve it they'll never understand it

Yes I know I'm going to hell in a purple basket

Least I'll be in another world while you're pissing on my casket

-Out Of The Blue, Julian Casablancas

Unable to have lunch with Bender, Brian Johnson decided to make today one of his days to have lunch in the cafeteria with his pre-detention friends.

He began to regret that idea as soon as he arrived at their regular lunch table.

As he sat his lunch down and pulled his chair out, his friends' conversation stopped. Brian looked around to find them all staring at him.

"Um, what's up, guys?" he asked, uncomfortably.

"Come on, don't keep us hanging. Tell us how you did it." Dano asked.

"Did what?" Brian asked.

"Brian. Dude. We saw you talking to Annabelle McClain and that Caroline girl. And that Claire girl, too. We just want to know how you managed to get them to talk to you." Dell asked. Adam nodded his agreement.

Brian blushed and shrugged. "Well, I met Claire in detention. We're….we're friends. But don't tell anyone, okay? I guess Annabelle and Caroline were just being nice to me because Claire was being nice to me."

"But what did they say?" Adam asked, excitedly.

"They, um…they kind of asked me to hang out with them after school."

His friends looked so shocked, Brian began to worry that they were going to choke on their food.

"Are you serious?! But why?" Dano asked.

Brian shrugged again. "I don't know."

Dell shook his head. "Brian. They were flirting with you. I saw them."

Brian turned positively red. "What? You think so?"

"Yes!" his friends practically yelled in unison.

"But…why would they be flirting with me?"

Dell wiggled his eyebrows. "I told you, it was always bound to happen. A girl goes out with enough idiotic jocks, and she's bound to appreciate guys like us eventually."

Brian laughed and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right."

"He's right, Brian," Adam chimed in. "And it's a good thing, too."

He shared a look with the others, who nodded in agreement.

"What do you mean?" Bria questioned.

"Well, to be honest, we were getting a little worried about you. Your behavior lately hasn't been exactly normal." Dell said.

"Yeah. Getting detention was one thing. And you still never told us why you got it, by the way. But you've been dressing differently, you've been moody, and you never want to talk about the things we want to talk about anymore." Dano scolded.

"There's even rumors that you've been seen hanging out with burnouts and….smoking marijuana." Adam said, as if he were saying Brian had robbed a bank.

"We were worried that girl you've been hanging out with was a bad influence on you." Dell said.

"Which is no surprise. I mean, who knows what kind of stuff they are into. Those people are nothing but trouble." Dell said, rolling his eyes.

Brian could feel himself boiling inside. " 'They'? What do you mean by 'those people'?"

"It doesn't matter. Because that phase is over. Brian, look, we all want to be a little rebellious sometimes. I mean, we're teenagers. But getting mixed up with those people, dating them, could mess things up for you. But you don't even need to think about that. You've got a shot with girls like Annabelle McClain."

"I want to know what you mean about 'those people', Dell. Are you talking about Saidie? Do…do you, by 'those people' mean 'girls who hang out with burnouts', or do you mean 'black people'? Because, when I think about it, you guys were never nice to Saidie. Is that why?"

"Why do you care? Aren't you done with her?" Adam asked.

"I- I don't know. But I care about her."

"Come on, Brian, you couldn't have honestly believed there was some future there. I mean, what would people say? What could you two possibly have in common?" Dano asked.

Brian couldn't remember the last time he'd been so filled with rage. He had spent his entire life trying to control that side of him that no one but his parents (and now Andy) knew about: the side that had a horrible temper and an even worse time keeping it in check when he got really, truly angry.

"Who said I care what other people think?"

Dell laughed at this. "So you're telling me you don't care that people have seen you in public with three of the most popular girls with school? That doesn't make you at least a little bit happy? You're telling me you'd rather be seen, in public, with some weird black girl than Caroline? You'd rather hang out with burnouts like John Bender and that Freddie kid than Annabelle McClain?"

Brian gripped his tray so hard that his knuckles turned white. He got up and walked away from the table before he could say something he'd regret.

And then he went in search of Allison.

She wasn't in the art room, and she wasn't on the football field.

As Brian spent the rest of his lunch looking for her, he had a lot of time to think.

He couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe the awful things his friends had said. How could they think he was so shallow? How could they say such prejudiced things and think that way about people when they knew what it felt like to be treated that way? They were supposed to be better than that. They were supposed to look down on people who acted that way.

It was right about then Brian realized that Allison was probably having lunch with Andrew in his car.

And that was when Brian realized the truth.

Andrew. He had been so wrong to Andrew.

Brian was a total hypocrite. He was just as shallow. Just as shallow as he'd just accused his friends of being. Just as shallow and conceited as he'd accused Claire of being. And just as caught up in the high school bullshit.

Because Brian had never once, not even while Andrew's life had been falling apart and he'd lost all his friends and lost his girlfriend, invited Andrew to have lunch with him, or made any attempt to reach out to him while they were in school. And now he knew why. He would have been ashamed to admit to Dell, Dano, and Adam that he was friends with someone like the meathead he'd thought Andrew was. His friends would have shunned him and made fun of him for "kissing the jock's ass". He had, without even realizing it or even knowing it, done exactly to Andrew what he'd berated Claire for admitting she'd do to them.

And it didn't end there. Brian had to admit to himself that he'd secretly been more thrilled than he'd care to admit when Claire and her friends acknowledged him in public. He was smart enough to know it had something to do with his new look, and he had visions of them making him cool and him getting to be one of the cool kids and sit on the top steps and sit in the center table in the cafeteria.

Brian was ashamed of himself. He was supposed to be above all of that. He was supposed to be the one who liked people for who they were and didn't care about stupid things like their social status. He claimed to be disgusted with the popular kids and their arrogant behavior on the inside, but he hadn't hesitated at the chance to hang out with them and be associated with them, even though they had belittled him and treated him like crap in the past.

No wonder Saidie didn't seem to want anything to do with him now. No wonder Claire had looked so disappointed in him. And Allison. There was no point in looking for her now. Allison would be so disappointed in him for being such a follower; for being so pathetic.

If she, or even Bender, knew what he'd been like lately, they'd be just as disgusted with him as he was with himself.

A/N Hope you guys liked this chapter! i just wanted to try something different. I've seen a lot of fanfics where Brian wants to be popular so bad, and I wanted to make mine a little different. Not that there's anything wrong with those; I actually quite love them. But my take on the movie is that for the most part, Brian is confident in being the geek and doesn't want to be popular, which is why he calls Claire out when she said what she said. Also, in some of the fanfics, Brian's friends are the only ones who accept the other members of the Club. I wanted to do something different, in which ALL of their friends, even Brian's, turn out to be awful people…EXCEPT Bender's. I thought it would be a nice twist of fate if Bender turned out to be the only one with decent friends. Because the way I see it, given his crappy home life, I think his friends would be his real family, so he'd be very careful in who he lets himself call friend and who he lets himself get close to. So while Claire's friends are intolerable airheads, Andy's are elitist meatheads with superiority complexes, and Brian's are racist, Bender's friends welcome and accept the group.

Thank you for the awesome reviews! Please keep them coming and let me know what you think!