Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to The Breakfast Club or it's characters.
A pleasant smile spread across Andrew's face. With his arm around Allison, his friends surrounding him, and the overall brightness and optimistic atmosphere of the cafeteria, he was instantly put back into his usual groove. Things had been getting increasingly difficult for him at his new "home", but at school, things were normal, they were right. He had his team, his girl, and most appealing of all, a getaway from John and his family, and the small piece of him that they took every day.
Living at the Bender residence was like sleeping in an alley way in the city. There was always an uncertain sense of danger. Nobody greeted each other, or even talked to each other much for that matter, with the exception of John and Jake. Andrew felt alone during every moment of the day, something that he wasn't particularly used to, being the big jock at school and the apple of his own fathers eyes. He felt alienated, like the other two boys in the house were part of some secret club he'd not been accepted into, that they belonged, and he was just an outsider.
It wasn't just the lack of interaction; it was the whole atmosphere that drained the color from Andrew's personality every time he walked in that damn house. There was absolutely nothing homely or comfortable about it; no pictures on the walls, or awards on the shelf, or report cards on the refrigerator. If it wasn't for the mess everywhere, Andrew would have sworn the house wasn't even lived in, that everyone there was just hanging out in a vacant house. Andrew's life seemed to have become an episode of the twilight zone. Everything that had happened just seemed too surreal.
School was different, because it was the same. At school, it was as if nothing had changed. He'd walk into the double doors, and suddenly, everything was back to the way it was supposed to be. School seemed like the only place Andrew could run to and get away from the Bender house, the bad neighborhood right in the middle of Shermer, and the unsettling feeling that his life was never again going to be what it once had been, because at school, he got to live under the act that it was exactly what it once had been.
There was, of course, one moderately minor flaw with Andrew's high school getaway, and that was Allison's new crowd of pampered bitches. Not that Andrew had never talked to any of these girls before, they were the most popular girls in school, people would have questioned his sexuality had he never hung out with any of them. He'd even dated a few of them, but never had any of the girls he'd dated wanted him to eat lunch with her, at her friend's table, away from his team.
It wasn't just Allison's friends, who weren't exactly worth talking to for their lack of intellectual social skills that made sitting at that lunch table a flaw in an otherwise perfect getaway. It was also Allison. What Andrew liked best about her, why he followed her request to sit with her at lunch, just to make her happy, was that she was different. She looked at the world differently, and challenged him to think different, but around her Barbie impersonating friends, she changed. She became the world's best actress, and made them believe that she was just like them, not even knowing what a disservice to herself she was doing. Having had a sip of the life where she was envied, liked, and noticed, Allison was immediately addicted to its strong and rotten taste. She couldn't imagine losing it, and couldn't go back to the way things had been before. She refused to be even a fraction of her real self around them, and instead, become some made up character, even adopting the name "Ally" to differentiate herself from who she'd been before (not that anyone remembered her from before, or even knew who the old Allison was). Andrew could put up with a couple of yapping preppies for a period every day, but he couldn't deal with his girlfriend turning into someone else, who was exactly like everyone else.
"Shut up!" Kiki, Allison and Clair's more annoying friend, shouted, immediately grabbing Andrew's attention before he realized she was just using an expression, "you totally did not meet Madonna. Like, come on, as if, get real!" she squealed, remarkably excited for someone who had just told Allison that there was no way she was telling the truth.
"I totally did. It was at a diner in Paris, really late at night. She told me she loved my hair, and gave me this bracelet, right off her wrist. I always wear it." Allison said with a clever smile, holding out her wrist as Andrew rolled his eyes. The charm bracelet was from a flea market she and Andrew had gone to right before the big Monday back at school. She did not get it from Madonna, she bought it for two bucks.
"No way! Ally, you are like, the raddest person ever! I'm totally jealous! Like, I don't know, you're just so rad! Like, isn't she rad Clair?" Kiki asked, intentionally snapping Clair out of her thoughts. Kiki had noticed that, since "Ally" had "arrived" at school, Clair had been more distance, and assumed it was because she wanted Andrew for herself, and was jealous of Allison. Kiki intended to start drama from this.
"What?" Clair asked, her cheeks slightly red. It was embarrassing to be spacing out all of the time, especially when her popularity depended on her socializing with people, but since that Saturday in detention, all the usual discussions with her friends seemed kind of…redundant, and a little insignificant. She quickly got bored throughout most of their conversations, and couldn't help but drift off and think about that one detention where she'd had interesting connections with four people.
"Hello, Earth to Clair? I said isn't Ally like, the raddest?" Kiki asked, unable to hold back the menacing smirk for the drama that she anticipated she'd already started. She couldn't wait for Clair's "jealousy" to get progressively worse, for her to start talking behind Ally's back, for her to get ballsy and say something to Ally's face, and for the inevitable cat fight. It was the type of stuff she lived for.
"Oh yeah. Totally rad." Clair said half heartedly. She could only imagine what lie "Ally" had gotten them all to believe in this time. For how different Ally was to Allison, they both seemed to have the same compulsive liar trait down to an art, and both were perfect at getting people to believe the garbage that they made up on the spot, no matter how ridiculous it was.
Truthfully, Clair was getting just as sick of the school "Ally" as Andrew was, and Andrew noticed. When it was just the three of them, Allison was her old self, just without the dark and frumpy wardrobe. She was bizarre. She said and did things that Clair and Andrew could only respond to with odd stares, and she was down to Earth, even when it seemed she was ready to blast off. It was the Allison they'd met in detention, the one they enjoyed hanging out with, but she had abandoned this self just to be liked by one stupid group of girls. She was trapped by the popularity. For both Clair and Andrew, it was like watching an old VHS of their own experiences dealing with the popularity, and all they could do was watch and realize that they were no different, because both of them were still stuck in the same pit that she'd recently fallen into.
"Hi Allison." Brian Johnson said in a soft, feeble voice as he passed their lunch table. Truthfully, Brian been aching to talk to the members of the former breakfast club since that first Monday on school, but was too afraid. He'd honestly been let down when none of them had said a single word to him, when they didn't even acknowledge that he was there, even in some of their classes. Everything had been just the way it had before, and he was heartbroken over it, but Allison was different…right?
"Isn't that," Allison started, pointing to the opposite end of the cafeteria, "the general congregation area of the freaks and geeks?" She asked, instantly ashamed of herself, but too caught up in the moment to break from her façade. She was at school, and at school, she was stuck in permanent bitch mode. She'd been given something she'd never had before, and she wasn't going to lose it, not to anyone, not even to someone as sweet as Brian Johnson. Besides, he had called her by her previous name. That action was punishable by the harshest of high school treatments.
Brian didn't say another word. He got his usual dopey eyed, ready to cry expression and walked off in embarrassment, too ashamed to even notice that both Andrew and Clair's mouths were dropped wide open, and they were both looking at Allison like she was the most despicable person they'd ever come in contact with.
While neither Clair or Andrew were ready to give up their popularity for Brian's sake, they had never planned on intentionally hurting him, that is, any more than their general disinterest in him would hurt him, of course. Brian Johnson was a good kid. He was socially awkward and extraordinarily annoying at times, but all he asked for was friendship, and nothing else. Just hat one simple thing was enough to brighten his life, and it made both Andrew and Clair ashamed that one of their own recruits had treated him so badly, and that they hadn't said anything.
"I just remembered, I have to talk to a teacher." Clair said, her tone half assed, as she pushed herself up from the table and nearly stormed out of the cafeteria. She could hear her friends snickering at her from behind. She'd just sprung up from the table and practically darted away, that was anything but cool. She hadn't even waited for their response, nor did she make a single complaint about having to talk to a teacher during her lunch period. They probably thought she was coming down with a case of the weird and disturbed.
She considered turning back, correcting her bizarre behavior, but the damage was already done. To turn around and say anything else would just further dig a hole for her popularity to rest in. She'd just explain it off the next day by saying she wasn't feeling well, and in reality, she wasn't. She felt sick to her stomach that she had created the newest bitch in school out of a girl who, while somewhat vindictive at times, was overall just a nice girl. And now she'd hurt Brian, and Clair had helped by not saying a single word.
Clair didn't know where to go. She didn't really need to talk to a teacher, but she considered making up some excuse to talk to one of the faculty members, just so she wasn't wandering the halls all by herself. The problem was, she didn't know which teachers were free that period, and she didn't want to walk in on a full classroom. She'd done enough to her popularity for one day.
She could have gone into the girl's bathroom. She probably would have ran into one of her friends touching up their makeup. At that moment, however, Clair wasn't in the mood to chit chat about shoes, or clothes, or junior prom. She had real issues on her mind, and just wanted to talk to someone who was going to be true with her, who'd really talk to her, instead of going on and on about the same materialistic topic. Unfortunately, Clair didn't have any friends like that, except Andrew, who was back in the lunch room.
Clair slid her back down the wall and sat against the outside of the lunchroom. She was too disgusted to go back inside, so it was looking as if she was going to spend her lunch period by herself, hidden right outside of the cafeteria. She put her head down on her knees, and closed her eyes. How was it possible, that after what was probably the happiest, most freeing day of her life, every day that had followed after seemed lonelier and more binding than ever before?
"Hey princess, you got a smoke?"
Clair opened her eyes. A big pair of clunky combat boots stood in front of her. John Bender?
She practically snapped her neck shooting her head up, anticipating the one person who could answer her loneliness, only to find herself looking up at some punk she didn't recognize. Surprisingly disappointed, Clair just uttered a small but stern "no", while not taking her gaze off the guy, glaring at him for unintentionally getting her hopes up, and glaring just because it was what was expected of her when one of his kind spoke to her, but then her face softened.
The kid was pale, and much scrawnier than John, which was noticeable even though a couple layers of clothing and a leather jacket. He had his hair done up in a Mohawk, and had died it peroxide blonde, and his wrists were completely covered with studded arm bands. He stood a couple feet away from Clair, but she could smell the tobacco in his clothes as if he were right on top of her. He wasn't John, but he was obviously the sort of Billy Idol wannabes who hung around John.
"Whatever. I knew it was a waste of time asking you." The kid said, turning to leave. For some reason, this made Clair anxious. He probably knew where John was, and while John Bender wasn't the type of person she wanted to be seen with, he was the only person who was always one hundred percent real when he spoke to someone. He didn't candy coat things, he didn't pretend to be someone he wasn't, he didn't bite his tongue when he had something to say.
"Hey, wait," Clair called back, pulling herself up and running after him, her heels clicking against the tile floor of the empty halls, "you know John Bender right? Do you, like…know where he is?" she asked, immediately feeling awkward. What must this kid have thought, standing there, being asked by one of the most popular girls in school for the whereabouts of the school criminal, with her rosy pink cheeks and her nervous stance?
"What business do you have with Johnny boy?" he asked, sizing her up. She knew exactly what he was thinking. She was just some little priss, who was either pissed at something John had said or done, or who he'd slept with or something, and he obviously disapproved. He was doing the exact same thing she would have done if he had asked for one of her friends. No, she probably would have been ruder, expressed her disgust, and blew him off.
"Ugh, he's my science partner spazoid. I need to go over notes for a project with him." Clair said, instantly going back into queen bitch mode. She knew it was probably a mistake; if he wasn't going to tell her where he was before, he definitely wasn't now, but she couldn't help it. She'd already jeopardized so much of her reputation within less than fifteen minutes, she wasn't about to lose any more of it by admitting that she was just looking for John for the hell of it, because she missed him.
"Well, I've got news for you, priss bitch, you're going to be doing that project by yourself. Even if you did find Johnny boy, you couldn't pay the kid enough to work with someone like you. Why don't you just pay some dweeb to do it? You've got the money to spare, don't you Prissilla?" He asked, laughing at his own joke. He had one similarity to John at least; he tried making Clair feel guilty that her parents had money, and how obvious she made it, and the worst of it all, was that he had succeeded.
"Oh, yeah, I am sure. Why don't you just forget it." She said, storming down the hall to the girl's bathroom, while he sneered from behind. Clair didn't care though, and she didn't even care that he'd made her so uneasy that she'd just left before getting the answer to her question. It didn't matter anyways, if she did manage to find John, what on Earth would she even say to him? "Sorry I ignored you for the past month, but my friends are pissing me off, so how have you been"? No way. He'd done her a favor.
John took one last drag of his cigarette, before tossing it on the grass and smothering it with his foot. He leaned against one of the posts to the bleachers, and looked out at the track. Sometimes, when he'd see that damn field, he always wondered if he'd be able to run it. He certainly wasn't a bad runner, not that he did so very often. Still, that Saturday, in the halls when the five of them were running from Vernon, he'd managed to stay in the lead the whole time, even while running with Andrew. He could probably run some stupid track if he could do something like that.
John shook his head and disregarded all concerns with the track. He'd gone outside to smoke, not get any extra P.E. practice in. Besides, he'd smoked enough cigarettes in his life to fill the trunk of a decent sized car. John Bender would never accomplish anything in the running field, unless it was first kid to ever kill over on the track because of a cancerous lung.
John heard a set of footsteps, and instantly snapped his head up. His heart beat fast; he half expected to find Vernon looking back at him. That was the last thing he needed, for Vernon to find out that John had discovered that the back gym doors were left open during class for deliveries, and so Carl could take the trash out throughout the day. If Vernon found out that John knew about this, that would be the end of the doors staying open, and that would mean that John's ticket outside the school during hours would be lost.
He was relieved when he saw Mickey instead. He could tell it was him, even from a few feet away. It was hard to mistake that Mohawk.
"You know, you really look like an asshole with that thing. What are you trying to do, signal planes?" John yelled out, not even bothering to get up and meet his friend half way, as Mickey picked up his speed and sprinted towards him.
"Funny. Hey, some Richie just asked for you. Some redhead? She said she was your science partner or something? You know anything about this?" Mickey asked, suspicion hidden in his tone, but not undetected. John knew exactly what he meant by his question. Why he'd ran out into the field, why "can I have a smoke" wasn't the first thing that came out of his mouth. Mickey suspected that John was making friends with richies, and he was getting the validation he needed to laugh his ass off, completely at John's expense.
"No." John said strongly, before mentally cursing to himself and realizing he'd said it too strongly, "I mean, like the bitch said, she's my science partner. Why the hell do you care anyways?" he asked, flawlessly turning the suspicion back on Mickey. Honestly, John didn't know why the kid tried mind games with him all the time. Mickey was a fucking dumbass, he had no means of actually executing any of his half thought out "psychological tricks".
"Just forget it man. I just wanted to know what some Richie prissy bitch wanted with you, that's all. Hey, you got a smoke?" Mickey asked, immediately dropping the conversation once it was turned around on him, something that he did often. Mickey was just as spineless as he was moronic. He had enough balls to bring something up, but never stuck by his confrontations.
John sighed and handed him a cigarette from his pocket, lighting another up for himself. Still, as he sat smoking with Mickey, he couldn't help but wonder what Clair Standish wanted with him. One thing he knew, he was going to have a little fun with it, to repay her for ignoring him for a whole month.
A/N: I didn't really like this chapter. I'll probably go back and redo it when I get motivation, but right now, it's sleep time.
I'd imagine people are going to be pissed at me for taking Allison, a crowd favorite from the original characters, and turning her into a bitch. However, I wanted to try an approach where Allison does embrace the changes Clair made, and ends up getting too tied up in the popularity like Clair had. Like I said, I'll probably redo this chapter, but that's going to stay the same.