Work Text:
Did you know that inciting a riot is illegal?
Gary did, of course he did, because unlike most of his dumbass schoolmates he had common sense. Of course starting a riot was illegal, along with beating up one of your classmates on a rooftop and putting other kids in therapy.
He just didn’t think he’d get caught.
The emergency room was all aflutter with noise and movement. Gary wasn’t the only one who’d been carted out of Bullworth in an ambulance, and the doctors and nurses were rushing back and forth as they attended to his classmates. He watched it all in an odd haze of emotion and painkillers, handcuffed to the rail of the bed and Officer Williams standing guard nearby.
“Aren’t you gonna arrest me, officer?” Gary had asked in a slurred simper. Williams, to his credit, did not take the bait.
“Wait for it, kid. It’s coming.”
Gary chuckled until the room got blurry and his head started to feel light.
Eventually, a nurse came by and stitched up some of the uglier scratches he got from crashing through the skylight. He went in and out during that.
At one point- and Gary didn’t know how long it was after he was taken in and examined, because hot damn were those meds effective, better than his own- they began to slowly cart Luis Luna past his bed. The Jock happened to turn and look in his direction, and it was like someone set off a dozen firecrackers.
“Are you shitting me? Are you actually, fucking shitting me? He’s here? What the fuck is he doing here? I’m gonna fuck you up, Smith! COUNT ON IT!” They quickly wheeled Luis away, and Gary heard that last bit at a distance. From the sound of it, it was taking more than a couple of people to calm Luis down.
Gary laughed and laughed and laughed until his two broken ribs made him cough.
What did it matter if Luis and the Jocks and the rest of the school were going to be out to get him now? They’d always been out to get him. Everyone in that dump had it out for him before, nobody was worthy of trust. Luis’s declaration only confirmed what Gary had known all along.
He would get out of this. He always did. And he would rise to the top once again, where he could look down and see all and know all and no one could work against him. No one would pull him down a second time, not even Jimmy-freaking-Hopkins. Especially not him, the back-stabbing bastard.
Oh, he had been so innocent, hadn’t he? ‘But I didn’t do anything to you!’ ‘I don’t want to take over the school!’ Bullshit. Pure, grade-A bullshit, and he’d proven it right after he’d beaten Ted into the dirt. Jimmy was stupid, but he was smart enough to scheme, and scheme he had. Gary had been right not to trust him, right to stab him in the back before he could get stabbed himself, because it was survival of the fittest, sink or swim, and Gary could swim just fine, thank you.
God, but his head hurt.
As did everything else, but the head hurt the worst. The painkillers were starting to wear off.
And as they did wear off and the pain got sharper, so did the anxiety. If people didn’t hate him before, they definitely hated him now. Now they would really go after him, and he was handcuffed to a bed and unable to escape or fight, and something told him that his ability to lie wouldn’t be enough to deter them from whatever beating they had planned for him.
He needed to go. He needed to move. He needed to leave.
And his ribs hurt, they hurt real badly, enough to rival the pain in his skull. His leg didn’t feel so hot either, though it wasn’t as bad as the head or ribs and therefore was probably not broken. Everything hurt, and he was getting anxious. Great.
Somewhere amidst all of this, a tiny, tiny flicker of clarity flared up, and Gary began to wonder if maybe he hadn’t just made a gigantic, year-long mistake.
“All right,” The doctor returned, holding a set of x-rays in hand. “Mr. Smith, you have a… Concussion, two broken ribs, and a load of contusions, bruises and other various injuries. The ribs we can bind, the concussion will have to heal with time, you have…” He glanced up at Gary. “…already had those cuts that needed stitching stitched up.”
“Is he good to go?” Officer Williams asked.
“I’d recommend staying a little while longer to keep an eye on that concussion, but once that’s done, he’s free to go.”
Williams gave a small, wry smile. “I wouldn’t say ‘free’.” Once the doctor had gone, he turned to Gary and sighed. “Now that you’re lucid, I think it would be a good time to read you your rights.”
“Right to keep my mouth shut, I might fuck myself over if I wave that right, I have a right to some ambulance-chaser who will try to sue the school for not reining me in sooner- am I missing anything?” Gary inquired mildly.
“If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you.” Williams finished.
His first arrest, something to be remembered for years to come whenever he went to apply for a job (no, wait, that was a conviction, but let’s be real that was exactly where they were going with this).
Gary shut his eyes, hoping to sleep through the bedlam around him.
The handcuff was tight on his wrist.
-End