lyric prompt | teenagers, my chemical romance. britkids.
Wake up. Roll out of bed. Stumble to bathroom. Wash or shower. Stagger back to bedroom. Strap on the same bland uniform they’d worn for the last four days. Add a few personal touches. Grab some breakfast, if they weren’t already running late, and race for the bus to take them back to the dull torture chamber that served as an education chamber. Dull, bleary eyes, still red with sleep, the thumping of footsteps in time as they traipsed through the doors to have knowledge they never wanted funneled into their heads as the government saw fit. First thing in the morning, they were tired, passive, unwilling to ever object.
Come three thirty on a Friday afternoon, things changed.
John was always the first one out of classes, and always the first waiting on the steps of St. Trinian's, a cigarette dangling loosely from his lips as teenagers spilled out of the school doors. His eyes lingered on the flood of humanity, scanning it for a familiar face, when he felt a tap at his shoulder, knowing it would be Tommy. Sure enough, when he turned around, the ginger was falling onto the wall beside him, running a hand through tousled hair. His bag thunked to the ground, and John passed over the cigarette, taking a moment to muss up his own locks as he spotted the headteacher. For a second, there was fleeting eye contact, and John mentally dared him to say a thing about the two scruffy boys, but no action was taken. Teenagers were frightening enough to their own peers – to adults, they were abominations that were unable to be challenged, and no-one in their right mind was ever going to go up against John Smith. Another nudge at his shoulder, and Thomas passed back the cigarette, a hush falling over them as others milled around them, waiting for their own friends. Unkempt boys, with untucked shirts and loosened ties, girls with skirts hiked high and shirt buttons hanging open, they were a sight to behold according to their educators, and not in a good way.
“Heard that Adam kid challenged someone to a fair dig,” Thomas reported as he rifled through his bag for his own packet of cigarettes.
“Aye. Me, at six tonight,”
“Yeah. He was talking shit, am I supposed to let him?”
“John, are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“Would I have said yes if I didn’t?”
Thomas shook his head and grinned around the cigarette dangling from his lips as he pulled a lighter out of his pocket, cupping his hand around the flame to ensure it wouldn’t go out. A few more students flounced out past them, a few foreign exchange students from France – in the eyes of the teachers, they were the only well-dressed students at the school, but that didn’t make them any less hostile. The two sisters who had come were constantly at each other’s throats, and the blonde one, Marie Bonfamille, had been involved in a catfight with Merida DunBroch in the canteen that left her with a broken finger, and Merida needing stitches. Thomas caught her eye as she walked out, the two of them trading a smirk, and John watched, mildly bemused. He and Thomas had been friends since primary school, but even he didn’t have an awful lot of faith in him ever getting anywhere close to Marie. She’d tear him to shreds before he knew what hit him.
The familiar voice of Wendy darling reached their ears, and John raised a hand in greeting as Thomas continued to fumble with his lighter. Wendy plucked it from his grasp, clicking it on and lighting the cigarette quickly – they’d all spent one night watching Thomas try to light a cigarette for ten full minutes. He’d almost set fire to Alice’s curtains, and they’d made a pact after that that if he took more than four attempts to light a cigarette, someone else was to do it for him. Wendy seemed to be the only one who remembered.
“Well, Wendy,” John replied, throwing his own stub down and crushing it underfoot. “Seen the other two yet?”
“Alice is in detention,” she replied as she took a seat beside Thomas, fumbling in her pocket for her phone. “Threatened Ms. Hawkins with a chair today. She’ll be a while,”
“Fuck’s sake. Well, we’re going to the park at six, so text her and let her know to meet us there. I’m not waiting on her to come out again,”
“Who’s coming out? Is it Tommy?”
Jane appeared as if from nowhere, dropping into John’s lap and pressing her lips against his. Tommy’s ears started to go red as Wendy giggled to herself, but his comeback was lost to the wind; John and Jane remained glued to each other for the next five minutes, as they were every day after school. The conversation topic changed after they finally came up for air, with John informing her of their plans for this evening, and offering her a chance to get into the betting pool. Her refusal was accompanied by a demand to leave, to get ready, and they proceeded on the walk home, Jane and Wendy swapping gossip whilst John and Thomas weighed up the pros and cons of the boys who were to fight that night.
The group finally came together at five to six at the park, there to support their friend and also carry him off to the hospital if necessary. John and Jane had turned up first, the latter having commissioned the former’s leather jacket to protect her from the chill in the evening air. In all honesty, it wasn’t even that cold, considering how close to summer it was, but Jane’s own studded jacket had been ruined in an argument with a particularly snotty girl after the girl threw a smoothie on her and Jane socked her in the jaw. She hadn’t been able to get the stains out and had been borrowing her boyfriend’s jacket ever since, though John didn’t mind. He liked it when Jane wore his clothes, almost as much as he liked it when she wore nothing at all.
Thomas and Wendy showed up next, Tommy unable to get a word in edgeways as Wendy spoke of the boy she was sweet on, someone named Peter whom none of her friends knew. In all honesty, Thomas looked a little bored, shooting John and Jane a “help me” look as Wendy talked on, but neither of them did – John just slid his arm around Jane’s waist and smirked, making no effort to interrupt the conversation, and it carried on for several more minutes before Jane pointed out Alice drifting towards them. She looked terrible, as she always did these days – her recent diagnosis of insomnia was clearly affecting her, but that didn’t stop her from smiling brightly at all her friends as she spotted them and hurried her pace to catch up with them. The bags under her eyes were only emphasized by her copious amount of eyeliner, but she sounded as awake and alert as ever as she finally drew near.
“I haven’t missed anything, have I? Lorina tried to force me into a longer skirt before I left, I thought I was going to have to leap out the bathroom window again,”
“You haven’t missed anything,” Jane assured her as John passed a cigarette over to her, and they started towards the gathering crowd. Adam was already waiting at the centre of the crowd, his jacket dumped at his feet as he scanned the crowds, looking for his opponent. The crowd parted before the gang was they passed through, partly due to their reputation as being fucking insane, and partly due to their excitement over what was going to happen. Adam was on the wrestling team at the school, and hadn’t been nicknamed “the Beast” for nothing, but John also had a reputation for being a mad bastard when necessary, and everyone in the school knew about his skill with a gun. It was going to be a fun night. Neither of the boys said a word as John approached, and every eye in the crowd was on them. For a minute, there was silence – and then, as the town’s clock chimed six in the distance, Adam charged.
It was a bloodbath. Thomas shouted words of encouragement to John, whilst Jane and Wendy looked on in mild horror, hardly able to believe a broken nose could spout that much blood; Jane was yelling at the both of them, but what she said was incomprehensible and lost in the roar of the crowd. Alice had dropped onto the ground and currently sat cross legged, smoking something not quite legal as John’s fist crunched against Adam’s jaw – a second later, a tooth landed in front of her, though she hardly noticed it. The fight lasted only fifteen minutes, but it seemed like it went on for an eternity. Adam tackled John around the waist to finish it, after their trading of punches, sending them both crashing to the ground; unfortunately for John, Adam had him pinned, and the blows rained down, bone and cartilage crunching under the other boy’s fists. It was only when Jane herself stepped him and gripped Adam by the hair to get him off her boyfriend did it finally stop – Adam was declared the winner, but didn’t stick around long enough to revel in the glory. The others rushed towards where John rested, spitting out strings of saliva that painted the grass around him bright red. His nose was broken, and one of his eyes was swelling shut, not to mention the numerous bruises his face was covered with, but he struggled to his feet all the same, determined not to let it phase him. Jane repeatedly questioned him about whether or not he was alright, but he brushed her off as he began to stagger away, friends trailing after him.
“You know,” Alice mused as they traipsed after him, arms folded. “Some teenagers scare the living shit out of me,”
“Yeah,” John agreed, wiping at the blood tricking from his nose. “But he won’t be scaring the shit out of anyone once I get ahold of my gun,”
