Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jake's POV

I entered the building quietly. "I have to make them listen to me." I thought with determination.

As I walked further into the school, in the halls, people's heads turned to look at me and I started noticing something different with the way others looked at me. Usually, people looked at me with admiration. But now, they were looking at me with disgust, and hatered.

'What's going on?' I thought, and felt another student bump into my shoulder. Nearly causing me to trip and fall.

"Hey, please watch where you're going." I said. That person just turned around to face me, and rolled their eyes. "Sorry." They said, obviously not meaning the apology. Before I could say anything, they turned their back and walked away.

"Asshole." I heard them mutter under their breath.

"Rude..." I turned my back against them, and walked away. What in the world is going on?

I kept walking. Feeling uneasy by the dirty looks others gave me as I walked by.

"Snake"

"Traitor"

"Backstabber"

"Asshole"

"Liar"

I heard people whisper as I walked by. Unease growing every second I walked past students. I started to get uncomfortable by the insults, and almost started tearing up due to the words.

I then saw Lia. Leaning against her locker, looking down at her phone with a horrified expression.

"Lia!" I called out, jogging up to her. Lia looked up from her phone. The horrified expression changing into pity as soon as she saw me. "Lia, what is going on? Today has been bad so far and I have no idea what's going on." I asked, and Lia looked uncomfortable, and gripped her phone tighter.

"I don't think you want to see this." Lia said, pity in her voice

"Lia, show me."

"No... you really won't like it." Lia said, gripping her phone tighter.

"C'mon Lia, just show me." I pleaded. Lia sighed and gave a a pitiful look.

"Are you sure you want to see this? it's pretty bad." I nodded reluctantly, what exactly was bad?

"If you say so..." Lia said, and gave me her phone. On it was a tweet Zoey made last night. I read the tweet, and it made my heart drop. There was an audio just below, and I pressed play. And what played was the voice recording of what I said bout the club. I looked up, and Lia gave me a sorry look.

"I'm sorry Jake..." Lia apologized, tears running down her face.

"No, no, you don't have to apologize..." I reassured her, and Lia wiped her tears of her face.

"No it is my fault. If only I hadn't sent that to the music club, then you wouldn't be in this whole mess!" Lia shouted, tearing up and running off.

People started muttering around me again, as I felt the gaze of everyone on me again. I decided not to chase after Lia, she probably needed some space, and so did I. I started walking again, planning to go to the rooftop.

I walked with my head down, feeling ashamed of myself.

I then suddenly bumped into some one, knocking me down to the ground. I looked up, and saw Zoey. "Oh hey Jake. What do you think of my tweet last night?" Zoey said tauntingly, while an evil smirk spread across her face.

I stayed silent as I stood up, dusting myself off. And walked past her.

"Oh? Cat got your tongue? Guess you're not so different from your freak friends then." I stopped in my tracks. The shame I felt earlier turned into rage. I turned around, glaring daggers at her. Zoey visibly flinched, and I punched her face with all my might. I heard something crack under my fist, as Zoey fell down to the ground, clutching her broken nose.

"Ow! What the hell Jake?" Zoey shouted in anger, sitting up as she was glaring back at me as I kicked her back down to the ground.

"Don't you DARE utter a word about them!" I shouted, anger flashing in my eyes as Zoey started to stand up.

"You-" I punched Zoey again, this time on the gut, before she even said a word. Zoe fell down to the ground, clutching her stomach.

Filled with rage, I kicked her until she was lying on her back. I then proceeded to stomp on her stomach as Zoey screamed in agony.

I then started to kick her face as hard as I could, breaking her face. Blood spilled on my shoes, and all over the ground as I continued to ruthlessly kick her as hard as I could while screaming profanities at her.

I stopped kicking her, and got down on one knee, before I started to brutally punch her over and over again. Zoey was crying, and she was covered in her own blood, but I didn't stop.

Zoey's blood covered my hands as I ruthlessly beat her up. And after what seemed like hours, I got pulled off of Zoey by a teacher. I screamed at cursed at the person holding me back. waving my hand everywhere as Zoey was carefully picked up by a few students. Zoey could barely walk and had to be brought to the hospital. The ambulance was called by someone as I was being pulled towards the guidance counsellor.

. . .

Zoey's parents walked in the door to the guidance counsellor, fuming. "Where is that brat!?" Zoey's father shouted, and say me sitting down on a chair right in front of the guidance counsellor. The angry father stomped up to me, and punched me in the gut. I curled over, clutching my stomach as Zoey's father readied another punch. But, Zoey's mother held her husband's hand, and shook her head. "We are here to talk, not beat someone up."

Zoey's father sighed and glared at me, begrudgingly taking a seat opposite of me, with his wife following after, but not before glaring at me.

"Okay, so I think we all know why were here." The guidance counsellor started off, and Zoey's father scoffed.

"Of course we know! This little brat put my daughter in the hospital." The father shouted, pointing at me. I rolled my eyes. I didn't feel any remorse for Zoey. Not one bit.

"Yes mister Adams, we are aware of that." The guidance counsellor said calmly, glancing at Jake.

"Then expel him!" The man shouted angrily.

"Unfortunately, there is not much I can do." The guidance counselor said calmly. "The most I can give him is a month of suspension, and a few weeks of in-school detention." The guidance counsellor said, and Zoey's father only got angrier.

"Then make sure that he doesn't get anywhere NEAR Zoey!" The guidance counsellor nodded. "I will make sure that there are no classes shared between the two."

"Good." And with that, Zoey's father got out of his seat and walked out of the room with his wife in tow.

The guidance counselor then turned to me. "Make sure you don't do this again, or you will get expelled." I nodded reluctantly, and got out of the room.

I walked in the halls, and felt the gaze of numerous students, their gazes felt worse than last time. It felt... unnerving, uncomfortable, and suffocating.

I walked past the other members of the music club, and made eye contact with Hailey. All of them glared at me, making me flinch.

I diverted my eyes, and looked down at the floor. Walking out of the school, and walking back home. Just wanting to get back home and cry myself to sleep.

Chapter Text

Jake's POV

I sighed softly as I finally reached my house. There's noone home, so at least it's quiet. Walking towards the front door, I noticed that the door was unlocked. 'Wait... did we get robbed?' I thought nervously. I swung the door open, and my blood ran cold.

It was a man, on the phone, with a furious expression. He was wearing what businessmen would wear. black jacket, white button up shirt, black tie, black dress pants, etc.

'No, nononono... I thought he wasn't supposed to come back until next week!' I though, panic and fear spreading throughout my body.

My family isn't exactly the best... There was me, Milo, my mom, and dad. Mom and dad got divorced when I was eleven since dad caught mom trying to steal him money. Mom was a drug addict, frequently cheated with my dad, and used up all his money buying stuff we didn't even need, and mostly for herself. While dad was a workaholic.

Dad would usually leave for business trips. And when he wasn't on business trips, he overworked himself and usually came home at 11 AM and occasionally came home extremely drunk. The days he got home sober were fine, but the days he came home at the drunk, he'd usually beat me up. Taking his anger out on me.

My dad angrily stomped over to me. I wanted to move, to run, but my body froze. Dad punched me in the face, knocking me down.

Dad then yanked me up by my hair. "I just got back home, and the next thing I know is I get called by your fucking school, telling me you beat someone up. Are you insane!? Dad shouted in my ear, making me whimper.

"I'm sor-" I get slapped in the face again, as dad continued to yell. "You seem like you just love getting in trouble huh? Then it seems like someone needs to learn a fucking lesson or two!" Dad said, punching me in the face.

"So you think you're so fucking strong huh?" dad punched me in the face again, knocking me down to the ground. "I ought to teach you a fucking lesson!" I gasped as I felt him kick me in the stomach.

I tried to stand up, but was immediately kicked back down. I landed on my butt and gasped in pain as dad delivered another harsh kick to my chest.

I coughed violently as I clutched my chest, trying to recover the air that was forced out of my lungs.

I let my body collapse back onto the floor as I continued to cough. I let out a small whimper as dad pulled me up by my hair, before punching me in the face again. Causing me to stagger backwards.

"Come on, you're strong right? Fight me." Dad punched me in the gut again, causing me to kneel over and clutch my stomach.

"Come on, fight back!" Dad said more irritatingly as he kicked me back to the ground.

I pulled my legs in closer as I covered my head with my hands as dad continued to punch me.

"Fucking weak." Dad said, delivering one final kick before he walked away.

After dad left, I weakly got back up. Clutching my stomach as I slowly walked to my room.

I closed the door to my room and walked over to my bed and collapsed from exhaustion. Only wanting to sleep after such a tiring day.<.p>

Chapter Text

Jake's POV

I walked in the building, and everyone slowly noticed me, and sent me hateful glares as I passed by them. I started getting uncomfortable.

Ignoring the looks the other students gave, I headed to the music club. Hoping to at least apologise to Hailey.

I reached the club. And saw that it was empty. I sighed softly, deciding to just head to the rooftop until I heard a voice behind me.

"Jake?" A confused voice asked, so I turned around and saw Hailey.

"Hailey..." I said softly, before taking a step towards her.

"Stay where you are Jake." Hailey said coldly, before glaring at me. "I don't know what you want with the club, but I want you to stay away." Hailey said coldly, before walking away.

"Hailey wait!" I reached a hand towards her, but she just ignored me and continued walking. My hand fell to my side, as Hailey turned the corner, not looking back at me even once.

I sighed, before I continued walking. This time, I was heading to the rooftop, to clear my mind.

I walked through the hallways, getting more and more used to the whispers around me, and saw Drew, Liam, and Henry. There were walking together, but there were two others I didn't recognize. There was another guy, with blonde hair, and ten skin, laughing together with Liam and Henry. There was also a girl with long, blown hair, and pale skin, who had her arms linked around Drew's.

I ignored the group, and just decided to walk past them. But I was then shoved to the side. My back hitting the wall.

I looked up, and saw that the person that shoved me was the new guy is Drew's group.

"Yo Drew! Isn't this the freak you were talking about last week? Seems kinda boring." The blonde boy said, looking over at Drew for confirmation. The purple haired boy just looked over at me, glared, and hummed. "Yup, that him." Drew said with a bored look on his face.

The blonde boy chuckled, gripping my hair harshly. "Yo Drew, how about beating up this little freak show?" Drew sighed and walked over to me, and gave a hard punch on my eye.

Drew then hummed. " You guys do whatever you want with him. I'm leaving." Drew said. giving me one last glare before leaving with the girl.

"Sweet!" The boy said, punching me in the face.

Flashbacks played in my mind. The time before... I met Drew. When I was alone, and a 'freak'.

'It's happening again.' 'You're the freak of the school again.' 'You're alone again.'

Negative thoughts flooded into my brain as a punch to my face was delivered by the blond.

"C'mon Henry, don't you want to give him a few punches?" Henry's looked uncomfortable by the blond boy's question. "No thank you." Henry said. The blond just tch'ed and turned over to Liam. "How about you Liam?" Liam just shook his head, looking just as uncomfortable as Henry.

"Suit yourselves." he said before kicking me on the side of the head.

Looking past the blond, I could see students leaving, or even just casually chatting with others, and not even batting an eye at the obvious beat down I was receiving.

Another hard punch to my head was delivered, and at this point, my head my bleeding.

The blond boy was about to throw another punch when Liam interjected. "Hey Matt don't you think this is enough? He's already bleeding." The blond then looked at me and walked away. With Liam and Henry looking conflicted before following after him.

After they were gone, I slowly stood back up, clutching my head, and started walking towards the nurses office, obviously not happy with my me new life.