A/N: Hey all!

Yeah, yeah, I know I'm late... you people don't deserve me as an author... I hope the length and plot developments make up for it! ^.^

Your name is John Egbert and you are at your limit.

You stare straight ahead of you, not even pretending to pay attention to the teacher, not paying attention to the students who are finally quiet, finally quiet. You are completely absorbed with the silence. Your mind is numb, relief washing over you. Your conscious mind is drifting, ever so slowly, through your skull. You are a fluid, you are relaxed, you won't let drama cloud your thoughts. The remarks will not break the wall, no shattering, no chipping; your wall will remain intact. You drift on and on and on, your brain fully checked out. You don't quite know what you're feeling, but you know that it isn't pain, not anymore. But you know that it won't last; you know that the inevitable bell will ring and-

No. You will not think about that. Not right now. You are at peace. That one time of day where you actually feel like you can breathe. You aren't worrying about their stares, their reproachful attitudes when they weren't hurting you, emotionally or otherwise. The sound of rustling papers and backpacks being zipped closed fills the room and you mindlessly begin to pack your things feeling the world rush back to you as you slip your unopened binder into your bag and zip it closed. The bell rings and as you look up, you see that the classroom is essentially vacant except for the teacher, Mr. Nitram.

"Hey, John," he calls out to you as you are about to leave, "can I, uh, talk to you for a second?" Not wanting to disobey the timid teacher, you walk over to where he is seated behind his desk and stand before him. He looks up at you and sighs at the slowly fading bruise on your jaw that you had desperately tried to cover up. You had failed miserably, "Well, John," he says as he rolls his wheelchair out from behind his desk and folding his arms in his lap. You lean up against the nearest desk to you, feeling awkward about the significant height difference. You two examine each other for a moment, sizing each other up. You feel that this is the first time that you've actually gotten a good look at your history teacher, he is not all that imposing, attitude or otherwise, so it's easy to discount him. He is wearing an opened plaid button up shirt, underneath is a black t-shirt with the taurus zodiac symbol on it. This style is nowhere near uncommon for the man; in fact, it goes with his mohawk and single earring nicely.

"I'm... concerned about you."

"And why's that, sir?" you ask, trying your hardest to not panic in front of the man. Why was he worried about you?

"Shall I start with your grades?" he asks, setting the brake on his chair. He looks at you for a moment before continuing, "You have a D in my class, John. Now, I've looked at your records and you are not a D student. You've had straight A's all year. What happened?" you stare at the ground, not willing to look into his eyes. You had always thought Mr. Nitram was a good teacher, he was always kind, never singled anyone out, and made sure that everyone was learning. You wish you could handle yourself as well as him.

"I don't know, sir."

"You don't know?"

"No, I don't," he looks at you for another moment. You can feel his eyes prying at your lie and you squirm a little in discomfort with your eyes still glued to the floor.

"You know you can talk to me right, John? And that I'd listen?" he sounds oddly confident, so you know what he is saying isn't a lie.

"Yes, sir," you mumble lightly. He sighs.

"Well, I guess I can't keep you," you look up at him and he's gesturing toward the door, "Do you mind propping it open on the way out? It gets really stuffy in here."

"No problem," you say over your shoulder as you walk toward the exit. You can feel his eyes on you as you prop open his door and leave the wheelchair bound history teacher sitting by his desk with scrunched eyebrows. You can't help but entertain the possibility that he cares about you.

You brush the thought away immediately. Who actually cares about you? Not your peers, not your family, and certainly not your teachers. You rush down the hall with the full intention of walking home.

The walk to your locker had been a fast paced one. You heard you peers call you names as you ran by, "shit head," "douche bag," "faggot," they all pounded their way into your skull as you were walking down the hall, just minding your own business. You had done your best not to let their insults get to you, but you knew that you had holes in your mental wall, and there were always a few comments that managed to worm their way into your mind. You had pulled your bag up over your shoulder again and finished the walk to your locker.

As quickly as you could, feeling the stares of your peers, you had yanked your locker open, threw in what you didn't need and grabbed the books that you did. You looked at the freshly wrapped box that was sitting in your locker, this had been the second one you had received today. V seemed to want you to take the box really badly. You reached for the box for a moment, but you hesitated for a moment.

Why didn't you take them? Why shouldn't you? You couldn't even seem to remember why you systematically threw them away each day. Why you grabbed the note and stuffed it in your bag. Why you grabbed the box and threw it in the nearest trash can you could find. It all seemed pointless now. It's not like you were doing anything better to yourself. You purposefully kept yourself awake at night, drinking highly caffeinated beverages before bed and waking yourself up as you fell asleep, making yourself wallow in your own pathetic self-pity. You had also begun to wear wrist braces on both of your arms because you were sure you were suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome. From that first day of grabbing your wrists and holding them so tightly that you had lost circulation, relishing in the pain, you would systematically tie a shoe lace around your wrist as tightly as you could. You felt strangely better when you forced yourself to make your arms throb with the pressure of your blood trying to force its way through your veins. And the ache it gave you afterward made it all the more effective. Not to mention all the letters that V ever sent you were sitting in a shoe box hidden under your bed right below where your head would lie. You could swear that you could hear their whispers in the early hours of the morning. Their gentle reminder empowered the brooding that you hated yourself for.

So what made taking the box home any worse?

It's not like you were planning on doing anything with the box. You didn't even want to open it. You just thought that maybe it would calm you if you were having a fit or something. You seemed to get those a lot and that's typically when the braces came off. You had made up your mind.

You had stuffed the letter into your bag like usual, but instead of taking the box to the trash can like you had always done without a second thought, you stuffed it into your already full backpack and slammed your locker with a thud. The hallway, you noticed, had grown unsettlingly quiet. You glanced over your shoulder and saw that there was hardly anyone left in the hallway and whoever was there was deathly quiet. So they had seen then. Good, maybe V would stop sending you packages.

You had turned immediately on your heel and started walking off campus when you heard footsteps behind you. You looked back and all you could think was Shit shit shit shit shit shit. It was that guy. They first guy who punched you. He was looking right at you with a face that was definitely did not say, "Hey, John. I was completely in the wrong, do you wanna be friends?" No, definitely not that. You had also noticed that he was also gaining on you a little. You whip your head back around and pick up your pace a little, doing your best not to draw attention to yourself. You had glanced back and noticed that he was now keeping pace with you, simply following, not chasing. It was slightly more unnerving, you had no idea what his thoughts were.

It's okay, John, you told yourself, he's probably going to catch the bus or something. Right? Right.

Except you knew for a fact that he drove a black Ford Fusion. You were screwed.

You had kept up a brisk pace all throughout the front parking lot of the school, dodging kids who were bustling about trying to get on their respective buses. You successfully made it through the swarm of students and looked back over you shoulder, slowing down slightly. You didn't see him. Good.

You released the breath you hadn't realized you had been holding and continued on down the road, trying to calm your racing heart.

That was a few minutes ago. You are finally calm from the escapade earlier and your breathing is normal. Although you are extremely confident that he isn't, and will probably never be, there, you make it a habit to throw glances over your shoulder to see if he or any of his posse are following you. You realize that this is probably a stupid and paranoid notion after a few moments because after another quick glance over your shoulder, you look back ahead of you and see a person standing along the side of the road. They are wearing a black coat and a dark hat, items that you know he hadn't been wearing, and you could see that they were facing you. That could mean anything, you tell yourself, just because they're looking this way doesn't mean that he's looking at you specifically. They're probably just waiting for someone. Yeah, waiting.

Sufficiently comforted, you feel the slight confidence you've managed to maintain show itself in your stride as you try to pass the person as quickly as humanly possible without running. As you draw nearer, you see that jacket he's wearing is signature for the varsity basketball players at your school. You also notice that he is in fact looking at you. You stop dead in your tracks about a hundred feet away from him. You look at him, not daring to move, and he looks at you with a smug grin on his face. It seems to contort his features slightly so that they become more grotesque than you would say they originally had been. You can feel yourself locking up as your body tries to think of a clever way to make itself look less threatening. Your head would probably be doing the same thing if it weren't for the flurry of various emotions rushing through your brain all at once. You initial reaction, much like earlier that day, had been: oh shit oh shit oh shit. But then you managed to partially talk yourself out of that flurry to replace it with thoughts like: you knew this was going to happen! Why didn't you take the bus you worthless piece of shit? You deserve everything that going to come at you now.

The two of you appear to be in a dead lock. You have no idea what in the world the other boy is waiting for. You obviously aren't going anywhere and he would probably be able to outrun you anyways even if you tried. But he hasn't moved a muscle since you first saw him. You hate this so much. It's one thing if you know what's going to happen. A completely different one if you don't.

You hear the faint sound of footsteps behind you and you turn your head without thinking to see who's coming. This was a very bad idea because as soon as you turned your head, you felt the blunt, yet sharp, impact of a fist on your cheek bone. The impact throws your head to the side and you have to work to regain your balance before you fall to the pavement and possibly hurting yourself even more than you were sure receive as it was. You have no intention of attempting to hide more damage than you have to.

You try to scramble to your feet, trying in vain to get in a more defensive position, but you are held on the cold ground as the sole of a sneaker presses into your back with more force than was necessary. You try to look over your shoulder, to see who your attacker is, although you have a pretty good idea, but his foot leaves your back for a moment and lightly presses your cheek back down to the pavement. Your head is now being held there by the shoe and you think you'd like it better if you attacker would just move his foot back to your spine. This give you a rare opportunity to gather your surroundings, however, and you look around, not at all pleased by what you see.

You are literally in the middle of nowhere in the middle of nowhere, as you're sure Dave would have put it... essentially, you are all alone and there is no one around who you can call for help.

You also see the other foot of the guy holding you down as well as other members of a posse. You recognize some of them from the first guy's group as well as his girlfriend. Shit.

"Hey there, faggot," the guy above you greets with an uncomfortably perky voice. He presses your face a little harder, squishing your cheeks together, and twists his foot with each word as he says, "Long. Time. No. See." You hear his posse chuckle. You try to say something to him, but your lips are smashed together and it comes out as a mumble. He lifts his foot up a little, "What was that, faggot?"

"Stop messing around and get this over with, I have homework," you actually didn't but you wanted to play it cool. You have no idea why. You just wanted to curl up under his boot and let him squash you, but some basic instinct inside of you wanted to fight back, no matter how small.

"Excuse me," pressing your face painfully hard again, "You don't get to tell me what to do. And to think I was going to give you a present," he gives a slightly maniacal laugh and a shiver runs down your spine with the sound of it. He laughs again at your obvious displeasure and his cronies join him. Except his girlfriend. His girlfriend is just smirking at you, completely aware that you have noticed her.

"Hey, Vriska, babe," he says, addressing the girl who didn't laugh, "Show him his present, would ya?" you can practically hear the smile in his voice.

Vriska opens up her shoulder bag and smiles at her boyfriend, "Sure thing," she is also grinning. You loath the thought of seeing what horrible thing they have in store for you. She reaches in the bag and pulls out a simple, blue t-shirt. From what you can see, it is well worn, well loved and maybe just a tad dirty, probably from Vriska's bag, and it looked strangely familiar... She unfolds the shirt and you see why you recognized it. It is one of yours.

It is the shirt that you had brought to school at the beginning of the year for gym class. It was a favorite of yours but it was beginning to wear thin with use. You couldn't really bear the thought of giving it up because of the... memories attached to it, and the only way your dad would let you keep it is if you used it for gym, so you had taken it to school the first opportunity you had. You can remember almost every detail of that shirt, the little tears, the faded lettering, the stains...

And now it was hanging here before you, the little wear holes ripped to more than three times their normal size and the letters crossed out with sharpee. The stains were still mostly there, though, although some of them were severed by the tears. The sight of your beloved shirt brings tears to your eyes and you strain to keep them behind your lids, trying to erase the image from your mind as you read the words that these horrible people had written all over the fabric.

I'm a faggot

I'm a faggot

I'm a faggot. I'm a faggot. I'm a faggot. I'm a faggot.

Over and over and over again. Big letters, small letters, different colored letters. It didn't matter, it was there, all over. Written in sharpee and, you noticed, fabric paint. You hadn't known they had taken your shirt, you hadn't known that they would do this to the shirt you found your-

He interrupts your thoughts, "What I don't understand is why the fuck you were using a shirt with blood stains on it," you can feel his eyes on you and he shifts his foot a little so that he can look into your eyes, "huh, faggot? You going to tell us what that's about?" You can't hold the tears back anymore and they fall out of your eyes in streams, though you aren't really crying; sobs don't even wrack your body. You just lay there, staring at your shirt in horror and listening to the harsh words coming from your torturer.

"Well, tell us," you hear another voice say from a distance away. The change in voice startles you a little and you look up into the harsh eyes of Vriska, a wide smirk on her face and a demolished treasure in her hands.

You look back at your shirt and speak slowly and quietly, your voice hoarse, "It's the shirt I found my mom in." There is a dead silence from the cronies; Vriska is still smirking at you.

He starts laughing harshly, "Really? And you still have it after all this time? That is creepy as fuck! What are you, some sort of emo faggot?" he lets out large guffaws and since their leader is laughing, the cronies join in. More tears slide down your face. He calls for silence, "What do you all think we should do now?" he pauses as he waits for an answer, he receives none but ravenous chuckling, "well, I don't know what you all think, but I believe we should give the boy his gift!" his posse gives a short cheer and you feel the foot being lifted from your face. You automatically lift your head in response to this new found freedom and regret it instantly as the foot comes crashing back down into your cheek, making your head hit the ground again with a thud that rattles your skull and blurs your vision slightly. You then feel a set of hand roughly grab your shoulders and hoist you to your feet. You unsteadily get your feet under you and the two boys on either side of you, who you assume dragged you up, got you into some sort of hold that you assume they used for wrestling. You are unable to move your arms in any way, let alone your body. The best you could do was squirm a little and that does nothing but make you more vulnerable.

He walks in front of you with Vriska under his arm and smirks at your position. You notice that Vriska is still holding your shirt so that you can see it, "So, my dear," he says, looking down at her, "should we give it to him?"

She places her hand under her chin as though in deep thought and eventually answers, "I don't know, he doesn't seem very appreciative of the improvements we've made to it," she gives you an evil grin, "I don't think he's ready to receive such a marvelous gift yet."

He looks back at you, "How do you propose he earn his gift?" he asks with an almost innocent tone, but there was no hiding that malice completely. Not now, not ever.

"Well," Vriska responds, walking toward you, "the meat on him seems to be a bit to tough for something like this," she prods your bruised shoulder and you flinch, "He needs to be a bit softer to earn such a gift," she saunters back over to her boyfriend, who takes her back under his arm.

"You heard the lady," he says, "Hop to it."

And that was all she wrote.

Out of no where, you feel a foot make contact with your kidneys and you are knocked from the two posse members' hold. You sprawl to the ground and try to get up. Try to get away, a feral instinct is taking over you. It is telling you to fly. You stumble to your feet only to be kicked in the ribs by Vriska's boyfriend, "Don't let him get away, idiots!" he laughs down at you. You groan at the pain in your ribs and again when you feel someone roughly lay you on your back. You feel someone sit on your chest and then the feel of fists pounding into your skull. Your head turns from side to side with the blows.

Left, right, left, right, left, right, left. You can feel the blood on your face, you don't know where it came from, but you know that it's bad.

Right, left, right, left, right. The blows are slowing down slightly.

Left, right, left. Mucus, tears and blood splatter on the pavement like rain as you take the brutality.

Right. You can start to actually feel the pain now, it is sharp yet throbbing, slick and warm, and soft, just like Vriska had asked for.

Left. You were beginning to slip under. Not quite feeling anything anymore. They could have been kicking you, biting you, making you suffer unspeakable horrors. You couldn't bring yourself to care anymore, at least you weren't going to feel pain anymore.

"That's enough," you hear from somewhere above you. The blows cease and you blink a few times, pain and blood racing through your veins and settling somewhere around your nose. Great...

You feel more hands on your shoulders and you are jolted to your feet again, a flash of pain flares through your system and eventually settles to a dull throb. You stand before Vriska and her boyfriend again, your left eye blinded by the blood that was filling it. They both have large, sadistic smiles on their faces, "Do you think he is tender enough?"

"Plenty."

With that word, you shirt is torn from your shoulders and all the bruises you have suffered are placed under the metaphorical microscope, "You look pretty fucked up, don't you faggot." You can't find the strength or energy to respond in any way, whether it be with a vocal answer or a movement of the head, "Well, is there anything else you'd like us to do to him before you give him his gift then?"

"Well... there is one thing that I'd like," she leans in and the way she holds herself, you'd think she'd be saying something with a... different connotation. Her boyfriend's eyes widen considerably as she talks to him.

"That can be arranged," he says, and is about to address his cronies when Vriska places a hand on his arm.

"I don't want him to get confused about whose stains are whose on the shirt," she says to him. You barely catch it due to the throbbing in your ears. You feel more tears stream down your face and sting the open wounds around your nose.

He glances back at her for a moment before returning his eyes to you. They almost seem disappointed, "Ah well, maybe next time, then. Go ahead, Vriska." She walks over to you and presents the shirt to you. You don't move to take it. You don't move to blink. You barely move to breath.

After she realizes you aren't going to do anything, she finds the neck hole of the shirt with her hands and slips the fabric over your head, not really paying any mind to your damaged nose. Pain splinters through your face again and it is enough to make you go numb for a moment as Vriska shimmies the shirt over your shoulders and slides your arms through the appropriate holes. As it slides over your navel, you are shocked back to reality as it grazes over an overly sensitive bruise. You find it in you to wince and look down at the rag of a shirt that now covers you. The stains that used to calm you on lonely nights now causes you more pain than any and all the beatings you had ever received.

You feel soft hands on your chin and your face is raised to the eyes of Vriska. You look at her as she inspects your face. There's something about her eyes that makes you feel... scared. A cold, chilling fear. Not that fiery, adrenaline fear that your other classmates inflict upon you. Her's is calculating, and intelligent.

"Yeah, I think he's had enough."

You are immediately dropped to the ground and you barely get your arms out in front of you in time to stop your fall before your face hits the ground again. You scuff up your fore arms pretty good and you moan lightly. When you lift your head up, the gang is walking down the road with their leader and his girlfriend. You can hear them laughing, but now it only sounds like a whisper.

You fall over on your side and curl in on yourself. You look ahead of you with your non swollen eye and see your backpack. You reach over, slowly, painfully, your arm shaking, and place your hand over the pocket that holds the box. You fumble for a minute with the zipper, but when it's open, you reach for it inside and grab what you're looking for with a touch of desperation. Once you have it in your hands, you hold it to your chest tightly and try to feel the comfort that so many people receive from the damned things. You hold it tighter. Why isn't it working? you wonder What is wrong with me?

You curl in on yourself even tighter, the sobs finally wrack your body. What is wrong with me?