Chapter Text
“And when things get ugly, don’t expect me to be there to help you.” Jimmy’s voice echoed in the walls. The door slammed shut with an aggressive wave of his arm, and the whole room trembled.
You didn’t hesitate to run after him, confused by his words and absolutely not done with the conversation. You expected the corridor to be crowded and for Bullworth’s trouble to greet you face-first, but instead a wave of vertigo stopped you in your tracks as soon as you opened the door.
It made your throat tighten and caused your body to curl in on itself, searching for protection as though someone had punched you in the guts. When you looked up, your eyes were foggy, but you were able to make out the figures of known members from each clique laughing stridently.
You moved towards the crowd, and in an attempt to focus, you realized they were circling around something you couldn’t quite see. The previous fear escalated into panic just from the bad feeling in your gut, and you started to shiver, causing you to fall and not allowing you to move further than a weak crawl into the ominous hallway. Your hands dug into the carpet floor, covered in something slimy you couldn’t quite make out; it slid under your nail beds, and its strong smell made you nauseous.
The laughs had turned into a chant, calling out for Jimmy’s name: “JIMMY, JIMMY, JIMMY!”
Finally, upon hearing your stepbrother's name something in you snapped to stand and push past with all your force against the first person in the closed circle, unmovable in their hypnotized state, and slowly pushed your way into a sea of people. Shoulder to shoulder and chest to back, your breath heaved; it was a never-ending, claustrophobic hell in the search for your stepbrother.
“Jimmy!” Your voice scratched your throat like a thousand knives, piercing and desperate to put an end to your suffering. The vibrations of your yell got the bodies to scatter away like rats, and the cold absence of their bodies and the impact of the image in front of you made you wonder whether you preferred for them to come back or face the truth:
Jimmy’s legs were broken, bone jutting from the knee, blood pooling down and sliding towards your bare feet. His hands bruised purple and red, useless against the snake that curled slowly around his neck and choked him to take his last breath.
His eyes screamed for you, hazel turning red and spilling a tear you had never seen him shed before. You couldn’t move or scream or cry; you were glued to the floor, destined to watch Jimmy die when you could’ve done something about it.
Instead, you turned towards Gary’s hand on your shoulder: he was shrieking, eyes wide with panic, yet the corners of his lips suggested he was smiling. He was in pain, and yet he was smiling.
Your heart couldn’t take the pace; it thumped against your ribcage, unable to hold the fear that shook you back into reality like waves crashing against shore.
Waking up nauseous, your lips parted with a quiet cry escaping as your first breath, your head pounding as your thoughts scattered everywhere at once; it didn’t know where your nightmare ended and the darkness of the room started.
You sat up, feeling your sheets cling to you in cold sweat like the emotions that followed you to the waking world, hands trembling as they gripped the fabric in hopes to find something real.
You felt like crying. Everything had been so vivid that it took you a long while to settle down from the scare. Jimmy’s eyes didn’t leave your mind just yet; wide and teary, it felt as though they were ingrained in your cornea nevermind where you looked. To your relief, you found Christy still asleep, breathing and talking in that soft way you got used to when these nightmares had started a month ago.
Ever since you fought, he and Gary kept haunting your dreams; for some reason, Jimmy always ended up dying or beaten up to unrecognizable extremes, and Gary touched you in a way only you knew you desired, tempting you to leave your brother to his own fate for the warm graze of a hand easing your guilt away.
This time was different. Gary was screaming too, hurt and paranoid.
These nightmares have caused your sleeping hours to reduce considerably. The first couple of times, when you woke up, your first instinct was always to look for Jimmy, yet you always stopped yourself at the reminder that you hadn’t forgiven each other just yet; the loose ends after that fight still lingered in your subconscious. The hope of seeing him at Bullworth would’ve helped you settle down if he actually had been around, but he wasn’t showing up to class at all.
When you started anticipating the nightmares and waking in panic, the urge to find him disappeared, and with it you shoved your issues aside for it to be dealt with later on, when homework got lighter and you had the energy to.
But perhaps this worry you felt seeped more on the outside than you thought, as Gary once showed you.
A couple of weeks after the fight took place and Jimmy still hadn't shown up yet, you and Gary were hanging by the field, making fun of the Roid Monkeys training there to pass the time and maybe get you to clear your mind by getting some air.
The sun was too bright for the upcoming snow of winter, and you sat enjoying the warmth of your chest in Gary’s close company when suddenly a flash of that night’s dream reminded you why you had been so upset in the first place. Your expression fell before you could stop it, and Gary noticed.
“What’s up? Cat got your tongue?” He nudged you with his shoulder to call out your sudden silence.
“Nothing,” you shook your head, forcing the clouds of thought to scatter. You definitely couldn’t tell him you knew he lied and set up Jimmy and Russel’s fight, or that Jimmy warned you about Gary in the first place and you were getting eaten by the guilt. Bringing it up wouldn’t do more than cause more trouble. “There’s just… some homework I need to do.”
“C'mon don't lie to me” He scoffed, feigning offense, “what I, Gary Smith, have possibly done to upset little Miss Hopkins?” “It's not you”, you sighed quickly, maybe too quickly, to not let him escalate further, and hopefully to stop prying. He was the main subject of your dreams, but not only because of what your body felt after waking up.
“What, who was it then? Was that Pete, stealing your panties?” That got an embarrassed laugh out of you, as ridiculous as it sounded, and he seemed to enjoy it too for his eyes beamed when you looked over before they settled down again into that previous ‘concern’. “... Was it Jimmy?,” He asked this time, voice quiet in the small distance between you two. “C’mon, you can tell me. It’s not like I’m going to tell the entire campus about it.”
You took a breath and looked away, doubting about what would be moral to tell. “We had a fight.”
“So it was Mr. Hopkins!” Gary said, making sure to make his surprise as sarcastic as his tone allowed. You ignored it and continued.
“I told him he hadn’t been present recently, and he just - took out some things on me too. We said shit I didn’t like and I just -,” Your hands fidgeted with each other, trying to conceal the warmth and rage. “I- I don’t know Gary, he’s driving me insane, and I think he’s ignoring me on purpose. We… we haven’t talked since. But he did tell me not to expect him anymore, so… I don’t know what to do.”
Gary remained silent for moments, knees jumping up and down in thought. You started getting nervous and thought about filling the space. It worried you he realized he was the reason for it all.
“I would expect that from him,” he shrugged, leaning back on his hands as if you were talking about the weather instead of the core of everything going wrong in your life, and the reason you hadn’t heard about your stepbrother in weeks. “I’ve noticed he tends to… explode, when things don’t go his way. And he abandoned you first, left you all alone to fend for yourself in this scary place.” He waved around towards the building at your right, Bullworth looming right back at you.
You could tell he thought more than that. If Gary didn’t care about Jimmy at all he wouldn’t have lied to him, or you for that matter, about what he told Russell. But, what could you do? Run back to Jimmy, now that he was busy enough doing God knows what? What would you tell him, anyway? “I’m sorry for making out with someone before you did! No, I don’t care if you don’t like him!” It’s not like you did anything wrong!
“... Yeah,” You sighed, letting the anger fog for the moment to settle into introspection. “...I guess he is like that.”
“That’s the spirit,” Gary’s grin took over your eyes again, making you smile yourself. “Come on,” He stood suddenly. When you didn’t move immediately, he offered you his hand with the snarky gleam in his eyes you lived for these days. “Let’s go back inside, I’m getting cold here.”
His hand remained on yours the way down the bleachers, rough palms against your softer fingers, firm and grounding you back into the present.
That conversation with Gary helped you let your troubles aside so you could finally focus on what really mattered; work got lighter and so did your mind. Little by little you regained your energy, and your body didn’t weigh down your shoulders every time you tried to get up from bed anymore.
For the upcoming winter, Pete, who was now your lunch companion most of the time, showed you he was a great listener and a neutral field for Bullworth’s chaos. He still got along with Jimmy even if he barely spent any more time inside the campus anymore. For that reason you found a break in Petey’s company as a voice of reason when the floors started to freeze and hide in the light snow.
What he made you see, too, was how Jimmy’s reputation did affect your life after all, blood-related or not.
“I see the Greasers smoke behind the field all the time,” you muttered once over your juice straw, biting it casually as you observed Johnny Vincent exhaling the smoke from his lungs. “They stink up the entire classroom when they decide to show up.”
“Yeah…” Pete laughed quietly, staring down at his sandwich with desire before biting down, yet before he could finish his action, a Bully snatched the food from his hands.
“Hey!” You called out, standing up straight and facing the guy who stared right back at you. “Give that back!”
“What you gonna do about it, dollface?” He huffed, a smirk widening as he stood close enough for you to see his prominent acne.
“Davis!” Someone behind him called, a wide black eye spreading across his face. “What now, Tom!” Davis groaned, clearly getting frustrated at his failed attempt of appearing menacing at all. “Don’t you see I’m busy?!”
“She’s Hopkins’ sister,” the guy came closer, looking both at Pete and you apologetically. “She’s alright, man.”
Your eyebrows furrowed and you looked down at Pete for answers he didn’t have, since he shrugged back at you. The first guy huffed and returned the sandwich slowly, yet not without a muttered insult before leaving. “You’re lucky Russell’s cool with your brother, darling.”
“Stepbrother,” You corrected under your breath, watching them both move away.
As the guys moved on to another freshman, you couldn’t help but shake the small tug in your gut, and given his expression Pete couldn’t either; it was of disgust, though, because the dirt left from Davis’ hands on his lunch.
“What was that?” You finally spoke up, surprised by the intermission.
“After Jimmy f-fought Russell, he apologized,” Petey explained, still trying to find pieces of bread with no gunk. “The guy’s like a caveman, it’s better to have him by your side.” He finally gave up with his food and sighed. “I guess they took you in too, since you’re… related and all.” His words were careful, as if your anger towards Jimmy would explode back again if he mentioned your fraternity to you.
“...I really haven’t seen him lately,” you confessed in a sigh, not really knowing if you were ready to hear about why or not. Pete told you, anyway. “H-He’s up in town with the Preppies at some boxing club, I heard. Derby invited him, he says he has potential!” His smile was wide to try and cheer you up, but it wasn’t strong enough to do more than make you think about what else was on your stepbrother’s mind that you didn’t know and for how long that would go on, now that you and Gary were closer than ever.
“...Thanks, Petey.”
Pete, and the events that afternoon settled down the suspicions that had been lingering for the past month and a half; Jimmy wasn’t giving up on gaining everyone’s respect and changing the school. His savior complex hadn’t changed after all, yet somehow that respect trickled down on you; wanted it or not, you didn’t have to use your defense skills just yet, whether it was because of Gary, or indirectly from Jimmy’s reputation. But for now, you were just safe whoever it was that you were with, and that was enough for you—even if it wasn’t true.