𝐁𝐮𝐫𝐲 𝐔𝐬 𝐀𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞 ; ᴹᶦᵏᵉ ᵂʰᵉᵉˡᵉʳ

The Monster And The Superhero

TW for hatecriming, cringe wannabe badass fight & self harm (felt like I should put this here bc its been a minute since visiting this book and idk what im doing)

January 13th, 1986, was a bad day.

Ian had figured out about Lucas being bullied and targeted by some racist kid. He didn't blame his friend for not telling him, but the fact the kid that set a literal bomb in Lucas' friends locker was still in school angered him. The same kid, named Lee Garro-something, was a blonde kid with freckles, about 5"7, a good basketball player too. He'd set glitter bombs in Lucas' and his friend's locker.

Lucas' new friend was named Jermaine, and he was Lucas' sophomore leader. He got him interested in basketball, and they bonded over being some of the few black kids in school.

Ian didn't know much about racism from his own at all, obviously, but he was interested in what Lucas had to say all the time. He'd always listen to Lucas when Mike and Dustin, and even Max, didn't want to. He loved just listening to Lucas rant and be angry about injustice because he wanted him to be. All of middle school he just put up with it, he was happy to see that he actually wanted to do something about it.

But when Lucas admitted the whole story to Ian, the curly haired boy was storming through the halls during his lunch period, looking for this Lee kid who'd attempted to possibly murder one of Lucas' friends, possibly Lucas himself even.

The basketballer chased after the angry, depressed teen, begging him not to do anything irrational. He'd learned that Max was more of the lonely, want to be alone, unable to care type of change. Ian was more of the easily angered, irrational, although depressed changed.

"Ian, please don't beat up some random kid! He already got charged!"

"Some random kid? He could've killed Jermaine! And he's taking private classes because his rich ass parents paid the school off to not expel him!" Ian shouts, his pace picking up as he hands Mike his backpack.

Mike tries to intervene, "Ian, it's not a big deal. It's over now -"

"Shut up, Mike!" Ian remarks, "Jermaine can't even come to school anymore because he feels so unsafe! He could've been seriously hurt if he opened his locker the day before break. And that stupid freckled face bitch got away with it."

Mike and Lucas try to talk Ian out of this, but he'd already seen his target walking through the halls to the bathroom. Without a teacher at his side.

"Hey!" Ian shouts, grabbing the blonde's attention 

"Ian!" Lucas exclaims, "Don't-"

Before Lucas could finish another word, Ian had literally lunged on top of Lee, pinning him to the ground, rambling about how he's a racist who needed to be punished, how he was a faggot and he hoped he felt he wanted to kill himself. Very deep, unneeded things came from Ian's mouth as he raged with anger.

Punch after punch landed on the kid's freckled face. Blood spewed from his nose and mouth. Ian thought he'd knocked a tooth out for a moment.

"You are a piece of shit!" Ian shouts, his hands on the kid's throat. "You ever even think of hurting another kid, especially over their race, ever again I will fuck you up so bad you will never walk again."

The kid is shouting at this point. "Please stop! I won't hurt anyone! I won't! I swear!"

"Fucking faggot!" Ian shouts

Mike now pulls Ian off of the bloodied Lee, the red substance sticking to his blonde hair. Mike's shouting some profanities at Ian while Lucas just kind of absorbs the moment as his tormenter crawls away from Ian.