Fic: You're a Regular Decorated Emergency - Chapter 1
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Ryan/Brendon
POV: First (Brendon's)
Summary: They were the outcasts of their school. The list started out as something innocent. Then Ryan wanted to get revenge in the only way he knew possible and he's dragging Brendon along for the ride.
Author's Note: Loosely based on the book Hate List by Jennifer Brown. (By loosely, I do mean very loosely. Also going to include a trigger warning in general right now (Self harm, alcoholism, bullying, violence, and several other things that may arise.)) Basically, don't read if you're going to be easily affected.
Disclaimer: Complete work of fiction. I don't own the characters. I'm only responsible for the plot line.
“Bren.” I look up from my phone to the sound of my name and see Ryan walking towards me. I smile, pocketing my phone and shove away from the wall to walk towards him. As soon as I reach him, he wraps his arms around my waist and presses his lips chastely against my own. I smile, pressing back against his. I feel him smile as he pulls away. “Ready for class?” He asks.
I sigh and nod as he unwraps his arms from around me and grabs my hand leading me towards the school. We fight our way through the throng of people in the hall attempting to get to our lockers, our hands clutched tightly. Just as I finally catch a glimpse of my locker though, I feel a rough shove against my shoulders and I’m forced to the ground, consequently pulling Ryan with me.
“What the actual fuck?” I hear Ryan yell, jumping to his feet having dropped my hand. I looked in the direction he was and saw Gabe laughing hysterically.
“You should probably watch you’re going, fags,” he laughs out before walking away in the opposite direction.
Ryan sticks his hand out in front of me and helps me to my feet. I brush myself off quickly and glance at Ryan. He’s pissed, I can tell. He hates when Gabe, or anyone for that matter, targets me and him.
“Another for the list,” He says quietly, and I nod walking the remaining feet to my locker. I open it and pull out our shared green notebook and my own math book. Turning around, I see that Ryan is already standing next to me with his own math book. He grabs my hand without saying anything and leads us to our class.
“Great,” I think, “Just what I need: Ryan in a pissy mood. As if things aren’t bad enough as it is lately… Now it’ll be even worse when we finally do start this shit….” I shake my head clearing the thought from my mind as we enter the room and make our way to the back of the class. As soon as I sit down Ryan leans over and grabs the green notebook from me and flips it open to the next empty page.
I see him scribble down Gabe’s name in his flawless handwriting that stands out from my own chicken scratch. He tosses the notebook back to me and I can’t help noticing how our “little” list has grown. It’s got to be at least 8 pages now, if not more. And that wasn’t including the fact that the pages were double sided and every line was filled…. If we were going to go through with all of this, that was going to be a lot of work.
Flipping back to the beginning, I read through some of the first few lines. They were all jokes.
-People who ask 15 questions at the end of a class.
-People who complain about the typo on question 34 on a test.
-Garbage truck drivers who decided it was a great idea to pick up the trash at 5am on a Monday.
Then things got serious towards the end of the first page.
Mr. Miller.
I remember the day Ryan decided he needed to be added. That’s the day the meaning of the notebook changed entirely. At first it was a joke. A quick way to vent; just by writing down something someone did that annoyed you and you wished it could go away.
It was during our freshman year. Ryan had been late to class for English and Mr. M had called him out on it when he walked in. It was typical, until someone decided to shout out “That fag is always late!” The whole class started laughing, including Mr. Miller. Well, he didn’t outright laugh, but he definitely had to hide a smile and fake a coughing fit to cover up his own chuckle.
Ryan immediately had written down Mr. Miller’s name, along with Pete Wentz’s (as he had been the one to shout out the comment in the first place.) He explained later that now the notebook was gonna be used for something other than venting - or more of an extreme venting, if you will.
“We’re going to make them pay for everything they do,” He said hushed over lunch, “We’ll show them, Brendon. We’ll show them it was a mistake to ever fuck with us. To ever make us feel like shit. People will learn not to step on us. That we’re better than them.”
I sigh and continue staring at the list until I hear Ryan cough and I know that means Mrs. Phillips is coming. I flip the notebook closed and pull out my homework to make it look like I am actually doing something.
When class ends, Ryan and I walk to our lockers and I see Spencer and Jon standing in front of them waiting for us. I smile at them, and they both return it. I chance a glance at Ryan and see that he at least seems to have a ghost of a smile on his face. Good. His mood seems to be improving slightly. Thank God for Spencer. I know it’s because of him.
Ryan and Spencer have been best friends since they were little. Whenever I can’t cheer him up, I know at least Spencer can. And whatever Spencer can’t fix… well that’s a lost cause.
“So are you two up for movies tonight at my place?” Jon asks when we’re close enough that he doesn’t have to shout. I look at Ryan and he shrugs.
“Fine with me,” he says, “My dad’s probably gonna be drunk as fuck again, so I doubt he’ll care where I am. How about you, Bren?”
I try to remember if my family has any plans at first but nothing springs to mind so I shrug. “Sure, sounds find to me. What time?”
Jon and Spencer smile and Spencer speaks up, “Around 5. Jon and I have some errands to run right after school.” They both wink and I can wager a guess as to what errands is meant to mean.
Ryan laughs a little and wraps an arm around my waist. “That’s okay,” he offers, his chin leaning on my shoulder. “We have our own errands to take care of as well.” I feel the blood rush to my cheeks. I mean, Spencer and Jon are two of my best friends, but talking about mine and Ryan’s sex life in front of them was still extremely awkward for me even if we had been together for three years. I still hated when he’d bring it up.
Jon laughs and rolls his eyes, “Okay, well 5 o’clock. My house. I’ll provide the movies and snacks and party favors, you guys just have to actually show up.”
Me and Ryan agree and grab our biology books for second period. How we lucked out to have 90% of the same schedule, I’ll never know, but it’s extremely convenient considering we don’t exactly get to spend much time outside of school together.
As we’re about to walk into the class room, Ryan pulls my hand and stops me, pulling me towards an unused side hallway. I follow him confused for a second before realizing what he’s doing. He wants us to skip. Not that it matters to me at all, I don’t really care for biology anyways.
Ryan pushes the door at the end of the hallway open and pulls me outside after him. Before the door can shut, he stuffs his bandana in the bottom corner of the door so we don’t get locked out. He plops down on the ground and pats the area next to him for me to sit down.
I slide down the wall and sit cross legged next to him, my knee touching his. I watch as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. He hands me one knowingly and holds out his lighter so I can light it.
Leaning my head back against the rough brick wall, I inhale deeply and listen to Ryan light his own cigarette. He inhales before saying, “I think we need to edit our list a bit. We should go through and organize it by importance. Like, on who we wanna get first. I really wanna start by next Friday, at the football game. It’ll be homecoming so no one can really expect it was us who did it.”
He has a point. No one would suspect us. No one would ever think that two senior outcasts would actually go to a football game to a school they hated. In fact, I don’t think I had ever even been to a high school football game. Sports weren’t my thing exactly.
Ryan seems to be watching me to gauge my reaction so I nod my head slowly. “Yeah, that’ll work,” I say finally. “Um, how are we gonna do this exactly?”
Ryan shrugs and gives me a look. I know that look. It means he knows, but he doesn’t want to tell me yet, in case I freak out.
I sigh, snuffing my cigarette out and stare out over the edge of the school grounds and the trees that line it. I nod my head in the direction of them. “That would be a good area to make it look like an accident or like a mugging gone wrong.” Ryan follows my gaze and I can see him nod his head in approval out of the corner of my eye.
“Good thinking, babe. That’ll be perfect,” he says smiling a little and leaning over and kissing my jaw. I close my eyes and he nips at it gently before pulling away and grabbing my hand off my lap. I watch him play with my fingers for a while before he pulls out his phone. “Shit,” he says. “We better get inside, class is almost over.”
I stand up and groan as my bones crack a little. Ryan laughs, springing to his own feet lightly. “You sound and act like an old man sometimes,” he chuckles, squeezing my hand before dropping it to open the door up for me. I shake my head and smile a little, following him back into our own, personal prison.
Chapter 2