Chapter Text
The sunlight hit his face like a warm blanket; he lay his head on his desk staring longingly at the school's gates as he fiddled with his pen. He was supposed to be studying for his midterms but instead his brain was preoccupied with day-dreaming about freedom.
It had been 5 excruciatingly long months since he, Gary Smith, found himself imprisoned at Bullworth Academy; a miserable excuse for a school with an even sadder student to prefect ratio. The truth was that Gary did not belong here…he was not a future criminal, or a future junkie, or even a future lawyer. He was Gary Smith, and if his pathetic family couldn't see his brilliance…well that was on them!
They sent him away right before his freshmen year because of his "problematic" ever-building school record. He didn't play nice with others which resulted in 2 expulsions, multiple suspensions…to many to count at this point, and an extensive rap sheet that would make even kids in juvie jealous. With limited options, his family, who at that point had been exhausted with their only son, happily sent him away as far as humanly possible, to Bullworth Academy in a shoddy town called New Coventry.
Gary couldn't say he was surprised - his mother would do just about anything to rid herself of him, who believed was following his father's footsteps right into the jail cell of a maximum-security prison. Gary pretended he didn't care - he pretended his family's ignorance and downright cruel treatment was simply the nature of humans, because he too inherited that cruelness, however his apathy at hiding that fact of himself meant he was better, better than people who hid behind a false pretense of good nature. He reveled in that apathy, because he had far bigger plans than the mundane life of a man who was beaten into submission by a family that hated different…hated better.
But deep in his heart, and deep in the depths of the night when nobody else was awake, he felt that ache. That ache of longing for somebody to care. And he despised that feeling, because it reminded Gary of his flawed human nature - he may have had apathy towards his treatment of others, but he definitely paid for the consequences of said treatment, loneliness.
But that ache only existed on bad days…the days where he was especially drowsy and depressed. So, he continued to trudge onward with the facade that nothing ever really bothered him, especially something as vulnerable as loneliness.
Gary was no failure, and he'd rather be buried alive than let Bullworth swallow him up whole like every other nobody that attended this school. So, he stared; he stared at people who looked at him wrong in the halls, he stared at the faculty who treated him like vermin, and he stared out his window from his shitty dorm room at the gates of Bullworth, fantasizing about leaving and never coming back.
As his mind was preoccupied with his fantasies of leaving Bullworth, he suddenly heard a knock on his door. It got steadily louder the more he decided to ignore it, until he physically could ignore it no more. Begrudgingly, he went to open his door to tell off whoever interrupted his unproductive study session, a frown etched on his face.
"What?" he said bitterly, quickly biting his tongue when he realized Miss. Moore, the residential advisor stood on the other side. She had a navy sheath dress on, clearly out of place for Bullworth, the area mostly resembling that of a vandalized junkyard, and yet Miss. Moore did not seem to stand out at all, at least not to Gary. Sure she wore formal dresses and bright smiles, but she was no kinder or softer to Gary than anybody else, she seemed to share that same innate fear of him that caused her to always seem on edge when he was around and thus like everyone else shared a prejudice towards anything he did; it was not the kind of fear you'd have from delinquent kids at Bullworth, it was the fear of someone truly capable of inflicting harm on you, emotionally, physically, and mentally.
There was a residential advisor for the girls and the boys' dormitories, and they were in charge of "fostering" a welcoming community and providing guidance to the students in need of dorm assistance. But unfortunately, she was not here for either of those reasons. The last thing they're in charge of is to welcome new students into the dorms, and while it was uncommon to have a student join midway through the school year, Gary knew it was coming soon anyways. He had the privilege of not having a roommate on account of him never having shown up for school, which made his quality of life at Bullworth slightly more bearable. But seeing as how this school hated the very essence of joy, his peace would never have lasted.
"H-hello Gary." Miss. Moore said firmly, she was universally known across the school as a stutter, kids would mimic her whenever she gave public announcements to the students and Gary snickered at the idea, because he may or may have not been the biggest contributor to the cruel words said behind her back. That was a given though because he could never pass up an opportunity to humiliate someone, it wasn't his fault these idiots made themselves such easy targets; or at least that was the excuse he'd given to others around him who felt he'd take a prank or punishment just a little too far.
Miss. Moore invited herself in, coughing awkwardly at Gary's indifference at her very existence and blatant disrespect. She was never one for confrontation with the students, especially Gary, who's borderline sociopathic tendencies made him stick out like a sore thumb. Violence was no stranger to Bullworth, but Gary was not your common misguided adolescent boy, he was by all default, in her opinion having studied psychology in her youth, a sadist with higher intelligence than most, and she in her hearts of hearts truly believed Gary was a future serial killer, as did most people at Bullworth.
She began by mentioning his would-be roommate that never showed up. Easing the blow by reminding him it WAS technically a privilege and not a right that he share an entire dorm by himself; Miss Moore had never told Gary this because she had zero reason to, but there was an actual even number of boys sharing dorms; it wasn't just one kid who never showed up, it was also his younger brother on account of issues back at home, but the student in question who was to be Gary's new roommate BEGGED Miss. Moore to let him just room with his friends, despite the fact that three beds in these dorms was far too cramped; and she feeling sorry for the boy allowed it, because nobody sane enough would want to room with Gary Smith.
Alas, Crabblesnitch had ordained the new students living quarters so as bad as Miss. Moore felt for the new kid, it was out of her hands. His dorm was the only empty one, and according to what she had picked up during the conversation he was having with his assistant in the teachers' lounge, he believed it'd do Gary some good to actually make connections; Miss. Moore respectfully did not share these same beliefs. The only thing she could do now was inform Gary of this ahead of time in hopes of softening the blow for whoever had the misfortune of now being his roommate, as opposed to the outrage that might've happened had he showed up unannounced.
That and technically this was her job…
The conversation was concise and straight-forward, Miss. Moore told Gary that he would no longer be inhabiting his dingy dorm-room alone, and that somebody was going to attend Bullworth Academy, despite him having missed an entire half of the academic school year. Gary felt himself grow agitated at every word as Miss. Moore explained that this mystery man's name was Pete Kowalski, and he'd be arriving in only a few days.
She left promptly, clearly not wanting to be in the same room as him for too much longer, which was fine with Gary. After her quick exit, Gary fell onto his bed, contemplating what having a new roommate would feel like, while staring at the other side of the dorm that for five long months lay untouched. He could feel himself getting angrier at the imperative nature of it all. The last thing he wanted was a roommate, and so he ultimately decided that instead of lying here miserable at his own existence, he'd take matters into his own hands.
Which meant he'd do what he always did when he needed to clear off steam, by going and torturing some of the underclassmen with vile pranks and cruel remarks.
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Pete Kowalski was beyond unenthused when his parents told him that he wouldn't be attending Springfield High school like the rest of his friends. He was even more distraught when learning the reason, his family in their complete lunacy decided that the best way to help a prepubescent, sniveling, anxious, hormonal fourteen-year-old boy was to uproot his entire life in Springfield, Oregon and move all the way to Maine, to a town called New Coventry. The reason, or at least what his parents had told him, was that his father who was an aspiring writer had gotten offered a freelance job opportunity at a library that could "really help his struggling career take off." At first they tried to bribe Pete by showering him with new gifts and listing off all the new advantages that he would have starting a new school in a new place, but when that didn't work they told him staunchly that there was nothing that could change this outcome and to stop whining; be a team player for the sake of his father.
And that was that, no more arguments at dinner or his pleads to stay - he and his parents packed up their life into small cardboard boxes, and moved away from their suburban home in the quaint small family-friendly town that he was used to, and into the dim, run-down urban hell that was to be his new home. Suffice to say, it was NO upgrade to Pete.
He was unimpressed with the town, with the options of schools, and especially with their new apartment that felt cramped, moldy, and depressing. But, just as life had seemed to utterly chew up Pete and then spit him out, it decided that it's final act of cruelty would be to further belittle Pete by the revelation of the school he'd be attending. It wasn't just the school's environment and the people who attended it that disturbed Pete, it was also the circumstance of WHY he was even attending Bullworth.
So, that was how, Pete, a nerdy, pink-loving, and short 14-year-old kid found himself at a school that dubbed itself "the most dangerous school in the country." And while poor Pete was shipped off to what was basically juvie for high school kids, forced to live out his entire high school career away from home and in a school that looked like it ate kids like him for breakfast, his father chased some delusional dream of having a best-selling novel.
It was almost too depressing to even think about, so instead Pete coped the only way he knew how, which was to continue working on his art - specifically his comics. Pete had never told anyone this, not even his father who also shared an affinity for the arts, but one of Pete's many passions in life was the comic series he had been working on. It was the one thing that brought him joy, but of course Pete never shared this in fear of it further emphasizing his difference to other boys his age.
He worked on his comics into the depth of the night, he worked on them while his parents settled into their new home, something he'd never really be able to do, and he even worked on his comics on the ride to Bullworth, as his mother kept reassuring him that he'd love it there.
They arrived midday on a Sunday, the sun was setting casting an angelic golden light across Bullworth Academy, making it almost bearable to look at…almost. Awaiting at the front entrance of the huge imposing stone gate was a woman who appeared to be in her mid-thirties. She had a curt look about her, she wore all black in formal dress wear, she had red short hair that was curled at the tips - her nose pointedly in the air as if this whole place was beneath her, and her lips smudged with red lipstick seemed to be stuck in a perpetual sneer.
His mother got out of the car quickly, unloading all of Pete's luggage from the back as he took one last look at his comic before shoving it in the crevices of his backpack. He stepped out of the car hesitantly, watching his mother pile his bags on the curb before harshly shutting the trunk, giving Pete a haste kiss on the cheek, and hopping in the car like she wanted to be anywhere else. Pete sighed, taking one last look as his mother hurriedly drove off, with not so much as a glance back, before trudging up to the pompous looking woman standing stiffly at the front gate; accepting, at least for now, that this was his new life.
"What have I gotten into…" Pete sighed under his breath as he got what he assumed was the ritualistic introduction to Bullworth Academy by the woman who Pete found out was named Miss. Danvers.
She gave Pete a short tour of the school, he could feel eyes on him as he cowardly followed her around shuffling his feet. He was sure the tour would've been much more informative and interesting had he actually looked up from the ground once, but the kids here were so much bigger, tougher, and crueler than what Pete was use to; sure he had been bullied in the past, a couple remarks thrown his way because high school kids were vicious and Pete was an easy target - but it no longer felt like the cruel remarks were going to be left to just words, he truly felt in danger here and there was nothing Pete could do - he was way out of his element.
After the tour, Miss. Danvers led him to Crabblesnitch's office, the headmaster of Bullworth Academy, where he proceeded to lay the law of the land. However, Pete noticed or at least felt like he noticed very obvious differential treatment, it was clear the type of crowd Bullworth attracted, and Pete did not fit that criteria. But the treatment Pete received was not kinder or more understanding, in fact Pete knew all too well what it was - it was that kind of treatment that adults gave him when they noticed he was different. Pete could've walked into any school and have received that very same treatment; because it was that lingering assumption that hurt his reputation, with kids and adults alike. He didn't dress like other boys his own age, he didn't behave like the other boys, he didn't walk or talk like the other boys, and he certainly didn't look like the other boys, and no amount of machismo or rugged clothes would change that factor; he felt that, at least in his own experience, it was the worst type of boy to be.
And despite his dwindling pride, it made Pete sink even deeper into that velvet chair he was sitting in, under that scrutinizing gaze of the headmaster and his assistant. Because he truly started to realize that not even the adults here were on his side. There was a deep pain in Pete's heart, that even in a school full of bullies, drug dealers, future criminals, and drop-outs, Pete was still somehow the worst type of person to them. But he decided that if he was going to make Bullworth work, he just had to ignore those accusatory looks from faculty because he already had enough on his plate with his peers - he didn't need to think about the cruelty of people who were supposed to grow out of it.
After that ridiculously long and egotistical speech from Crabblesnitch, Pete was finally allowed to leave. He hastily grabbed his bags and exited the office, wanting to be anywhere but in that velvet chair, and thankfully since there was no school, the hallways remained virtually empty - besides a few kids scattered around, all of whom were wearing neatly put together green school vests. They glanced over at Pete discreetly as he made his way to the exit of the school, before returning to whatever it was, they had been doing prior.
As insecure as it made Pete, he just kept on walking, because that was all he could do, move one foot in front of the other and pretend he was anywhere but here. He managed to make it to the dorms in one piece, despite the even crueler stares he would get from the kids who looked much rowdier, like he was a piece of fresh meat dangled over hungry lion cages, and then firmly decided before he even spent an hour in Bullworth, that he could never make himself stand out again like he did today, by walking and looking and talking the way he did.
The boys' dorms were virtually empty, much to the relief of Pete. He checked the paper Miss. Danvers handed him, "Room eight..." he muttered. He hadn't had time to really consider the fact that he was about to be sharing a room with a complete stranger, he remembered how the kids looked at him and suddenly felt a pit in his stomach, what if his roommate was a bully too? That made Pete sweat, it was bad enough that the school was crawling with assholes, but living with one too? That would be unbearable, how would one even manage to sleep knowing that at any time they could become victim to a cruel prank.
Finally, he stood in front of the imposing oak door, looking at the number eight like it held unfathomable secrets to a new life, and in some ways, it did. He didn't know why he stood there, why he didn't just knock on the door and greet whoever was on the other side, he supposed it was because he had just riled himself up with all the possibilities of what or who his roommate could be. But Pete knew that it looked extremely weird that he was just standing outside of the dorm room door, so despite his hesitancy and fear, he swallowed his nerves and timidly knocked on the door.
Two seconds, and then thirty seconds, and then a minute and still the door did not open, so he raised his hand to knock once more, this time hopefully with much more urgency, but before he could even knock, the door swung open with a loud creak.
Pete had to crane his neck up to meet the eyes of his new roommate, his particularly unimposing stature making him shorter than most boys his age, and the kid he looked up at sent shivers down his spine; whether he was good or bad Pete did not know yet, all he knew was that the person he was staring up at was not the person he was expecting.
"Uh...hi, I'm-" Pete was interrupted, "Pete. I know who you are." the stranger said, he stepped aside just enough for Pete to squeeze through the doorframe with his two hefty bags of luggage.
And the stranger leaning on the door with a sort of poised air about him, did something…something that solidified Pete's opinion of him for the rest of their complicated relationship together - he laughed. Or more accurately, he stifled a laugh, Pete turned around from where he was standing, "W-what?" He said, like he was being left out of a rather interesting joke.
"Are you serious? Look at you, who couldn't help but laugh." He said with not a scent of remorse or wariness, which made Pete's face drop. "I mean, I hear out of the blue I'm getting a new roommate" he remarked, walking towards Pete, "and I'm all riled up and curious for three whole days thinking about what kind of kid would transfer to Bullworth in the middle of the year, and - I mean…it's YOU." He exclaimed like it was life's greatest mystery, now scarily close to Pete's personal bubble.
"I mean how old even are you? I thought there was like an age limit, aren't you supposed to be upstairs with the other eleven-year old's?" Pete stood there, with his jaw practically on the floor, until the stranger stared at Pete expectantly like he was fully anticipating an answer.
Pete, who in all his constraint but mostly in his cowardice, understood he'd be living with this guy for the next 5 months, bit back his tongue, and answered with a short, "I'm not eleven, I'm fourteen." before dropping his bags on his side of the room, it being mostly untouched and relatively clean much to Pete's relief, however, that relief was short-lived with the understanding that Pete's roommate was anything but kind or considerate; he couldn't help but to pity himself even more, that with his luck, of course this would be his predicament.
But his roommate did not see this as Pete implying he wanted this conversation to end, instead he kept going, "Oh. So, you're a year younger than me. That's interesting..." he said slyly, walking over to Pete, now fully making it known he had no respect for boundaries, "So you're fourteen and look like that…I didn't know Bullworth let girls in the boy's dorm room." That made Pete visibly angry, he turned around to finally defend himself, but his roommate, who was practically towering over Pete at this point glared down at him, and embarrassingly, that glare shut him right up. He backed up, not realizing just how close they were before the stranger got up in Pete's face once more, his behavior erratically changed from that of a mean-spirited bully to a real genuine psychopath.
"I'm just joking..." he harshly grabbed Pete's shoulder, "And that's what friends DO, we joke around." He said before patting Pete's shoulder in a crude way. "I mean you're the one who waltzed in here in a fucking pink sweater, without a care in the world. I'm just trying to help you out here pal..." he said, though Pete did not really feel like he meant it when he called him a friend or a pal.
His behavior had, as quickly as it changed to anger, changed back into placidity, as he relaxed his face into an unreadable blank expression. He seemed to have a habit of thunderous mood changes, but Pete, unwilling to test his roommate's temporary tranquility, did what he always did, shrunk in stature and remained silent.
"I'm Gary by the way." His new roommate said, outstretching his hand to Pete's, as if their entire conversation prior hadn't taken place. Pete reluctantly took his hand, having no choice but to make awkward eye contact with Gary, who seemed to revel in this as he did not let go of Pete's hand, even after the period of the acceptable timeframe of holding another guy's hand had long since passed.
"You're not like the other people here…I can tell we are going to be very good friends…Pete." he said enunciating the word very, and Pete did not like the way his name sounded coming out of Gary's mouth, he did not like it one bit.
Deep in Pete's heart, he felt that this was the start of something profound. Twisted...but profound.