Gary had to test run Pete a couple of times before he was fully convinced that the cookie had been crumbled, but when he successfully provided Gary with the results of Algernon's election to deputy-premier to Earnest in preparation for a power transition come summer, he finally believed. Not to say he went about talking to himself in front of Petey and expecting him to give the thumbs up, but no more therapy or medication-like words were heard again, not even without Jimmy around. It did seem like he'd come around.

In fact, the only person who hadn't come around was Lola, who was seven shades of furious about Pinky and actually had the gall to get the greasers on his ass every lunch-break for a week. First he got beaten up for fucking Lola behind Johnny's back, then he got them beating him up because he wasn't doing it. Not that they realised that was why they were all so mad about him 'dishonouring' their leader, but Gary knew what was what in playground politics.

He spited her by being seen with Pinky, who did mostly bore him, but she was cute enough if he shut her up with something better to do. Apparently the tension in the girl's dorm was hot enough to burst into flames, and even Mandy grabbed him by the collar one breaktime and told him if it wasn't settled soon she was going to have Ted kick his ass black and blue because she was sick of not being able to sleep for all the shrieking arguments that kicked off late at night between "those two bitches" to use her exact phrasing.

Of course, Mandy had come into the fold recently and they didn't have a façade of friendship to keep up any more, but she did ask him for clues on how to keep her monkeys trained, and let loose any news that was deemed to be important. He enjoyed a gossip with her every now and again.

The feud even bled into the cliques proper, with Greasers and Preps fighting in the yard over petty squabbles, not really realising where the real source of conflict had come from. Neither preps nor greasers were actually fond of Gary at all – hell, the leaders outright loathed him for the obvious reasons – but any reason to fight was good enough in this school.

It only ended when Jimmy stepped in and told Gary he had to stop aggravating Lola and making her turn everyone against each other out of spite, because when she was pissed off, bad things tended to happen.

"You got yourself under her skin," Jimmy lectured him severely. "You either get yourself out, or you make up with her."

"I'm not making up," he scorned. "She's not my girlfriend." She was someone else's girlfriend, a fact everyone except him seemed to forget.

"I don't care what she is to you," Jimmy said sternly. "She's getting on my case. If you really like Pinky, take her, but if you don't, stop leading them both on. You gotta pick one."

"What if I don't want to?" he posed tritely, difficult just for the sake of it.

"Then I pick for you," he retorted. "Or if you want me to go talk to Lola, calm her down... I'm sure she'd be open to my suggestions." Gary knew what that meant right away, and violent green streaks of anger coursed through him. He knew exactly how far Lola would go to get back at him; it was a miracle that she hadn't done it already. Jimmy seemed to know it too, because he was giving Gary the crudest of looks.

"I'll talk to her," he settled with his teeth pressing together. He could imagine it too easily, and the thought of Lola and Jimmy... he didn't want to go into it. She'd do it, of course she would. It was the only thing that'd actually get to him.

"That's what I thought," Jimmy said just a little vindictively. If Gary didn't know better, Pete had given him the idea. Pete was smart enough to come up with a thing like that.

Of course, he could've refused to kowtow to Jimmy. He didn't have to, but he couldn't help a hot jealous streak when it came to Jimmy in particular. Lola was one thing for him and not for Jimmy, and he'd go to reasonable lengths to protect that. So, it was time to break the siege.

He arranged for her to meet him in the parking lot of the In-and-out motel, like they had at the very start, the beginning where things had been so entirely different. He wasn't sure if she'd come, but as he sat on a low wall and smoked tension, she turned the corner some fifteen minutes later than he'd said.

She didn't look pleased to see him. She wore rejection and venom like a bad fur coat, scowling at him from the start.

"So?" she bit.

"What a reversal," he remarked calmly. "The first time we met here, I was the angry, resentful one." He had been. So angry, so bitter about everything. He hadn't wanted Lola, not realising she was part of what he'd needed.

"You fucked this up," she said coldly, and those weren't entirely common words on her lips. So crude and uncompromising. It felt like something far from a resolution right now.

"Why are you so mad?" he asked. "We don't have anything."

"Apparently not," she delivered like a shot of window cleaner into his neck.

"You fuck other guys," he pointed out, and she shrugged. "I didn't even screw Pinky, and you're this mad." Enough to almost rip apart school stability over being second-choiced by just one of her harem. And Gary knew he was only one, but that his defection caused so much trouble was flattering. He ought to credit himself more.

"It's not that," she spat. "You could fool around, I'm not that dumb to be mad over it."

"Yet I haven't," he suggested. "I haven't slept with anyone except you, ever, but I hold the hand of one prep and you're ready to go volcanic." He liked to remind her of that, just to make the track record between her legs more notable. He'd kissed other girls, but not many. "So what the fuck's the problem?" he pressed crudely.

"I don't have to explain it to you," she said primly.

"You came, didn't you?" he put to her. "I don't get it, you won't tell me, and I've got people kicking my ass from all directions." She seemed pleased by that – that he was made to suffer on account of her whimsy.

"You'd go public for her," she accused at last. "Right in front of her boyfriend, in front of all their friends. You schemed the whole thing and did it right out in the open."

"So?" he questioned. "I wanted to ruin Derby Harrington's moment of glory."

"But I'm just some tramp for you to fuck late at night in the car park with no one around," she added sourly, and it was finally shaping up.

"Is it about publicity?" he filled in, dragging on his cigarette thoughtfully. "You're annoyed because I made a big show with Pinky?"

"One, it's her, and I can't stand her," Lola supplemented. "And two, how is it meant to make me feel?"

"It isn't," he answered. "It wasn't meant to concern you." He stood up. "You're jealous that I was 'out' with her instead of you?" She kept a poker face, but he felt like he was getting warmer. "You mean, you didn't like being my dirty little secret?"

"Before people knew about us," she hissed like the collective term meant something. She really did enjoy being the center of school gossip. "They don't even talk about it any more."

"Because it stopped happening," he rightly pointed out. "You can change that." He hadn't chosen this location entirely for nostalgia's sake.

"So you can call me cheap and use me again?" she proclaimed, and her arms were locked tightly around her chest.

"I never called you cheap," he stated softly. "I insinuated it once," he admitted, "but you were giving me crap over Pinky and it annoyed me."

"Exactly." Her cold reply.

"I don't think you're cheap," he offered, looking her in the eye. "You aren't. You've cost me plenty," he continued, and could sense her desire to hear more.

"How?" she demanded, and he sighed with an exhalation of smoke, knowing he was going to have to bear more of himself out again. It had been easier to compel people when he was insincere and had no attachments, never needing to dole out his own emotion as currency. It had also been less effective.

"You got seeing me when I was a mess," he admitted. It wasn't really easy.

"Which time?" she asked.

"Every time," he answered immediately. Turned partly over one shoulder to look at the motel. "You think I was together back then?" He wasn't, and coming clean meant they both knew it for sure.

He'd been just as much of a state the first time as he was when he came out of Happy Volts, just in different ways. Still twisted and broken and hurt. He was still those things, but he had more to keep the dark parts of himself company. He'd claimed some stability in who he was.

"Not even Jimmy has seen me like you have," he confessed, and he knew she valued these words. She wanted confirmation that she was and would be more important to him than anyone else in school. She wasn't far off.

"What about Pinky?" she said icily. Her competitor. He gave a pained smile.

"She's never even come close," he assured. "It's all an act. She doesn't know the real me." Not too many people did, but there were more than there had been. "You do." That was her payment. The power to know him – therefore, to hurt him.

"I do," she agreed. "So what?"

"So, you can keep on fighting me indirectly, or we can work it out in a better way," he posed luridly.

"What makes you think I want to do anything with you after the way you've treated me?" she declared, pride all in feathers and up to her full height.

"What makes you think you don't want to?" he suggested. "If you want me to suffer, then make me suffer," he invited. "Give me your very worst," he slurred, and the way he was talking made him think too fast.

"You don't know what my worst is, honey," she patronised, but he just took a step towards her.

"Try me," he baited, and she raised her hand like she was going to slap him. He winced, but it never came.

"You're paying," she said with a voice like a guillotine. No affection there. She meant for the room, but also everything else.

"I expected to," he replied, turning towards the reception, stamping out the cigarette. "Come on, then."

They didn't touch until well into the room, and that made it excruciating in an entirely enjoyable way. Perhaps this was what it had been like the first time for her; to sense her discontentment and know it would change.

He waited for her to stop and then walked to her. Mirrored hands reached for her face and touched lightly to each of her cheeks. He looked her in the eyes, his own half-closed; watching, evaluating. When it became too much to wait he broke the siege and kissed her, stiff against him. She didn't really kiss back, which he found frustrating.

"If you don't want to be here, you've succeeded in wasting my money and can go," he announced coldly. She responded by putting her hands flat against his shoulders and pushing him back a step. He was surprised enough he took it, an off-balance stumble.

"Get on the bed," she spoke like she was reading out sentences from a judge's seat. Like his was the death penalty. "You can take off your shirt."

He was slightly taken aback, that much was granted. She'd always had a controlling side, but this was even harder. She was angry and it made her like steel, cold and unyielding. But Gary wasn't ashamed to be inclined to do exactly what she said and see what happened.

Pulling off his sweater, he sat on the edge of the bed and loosened his shirt, button by button, feeling exposed and a little bit on edge. When he was undressed from the waist up, she slipped off her jacket and moved over him, kneeling over his lap and putting her arms around his neck. He didn't move his hands.

This time when she kissed him it was fluid and hot like it should've been before. The kind he'd wanted, the kind he'd lacked with others. Before they could get too far into it, he felt her reach down his back and then her nails came like claws up his skin as if she were shredding fabric. He stopped, making a noise at the shock of it. She'd scratched him before, but not with such intent to hurt.

But then she kissed him again, and he responded, only to get another rip of her talons up his skin like she was threading needles through him; this time he was more prepared and didn't stop, shuddering into her as the heat followed.

She pulled back and held him in place, closing her hand around the front of his throat, holding him in such a way as he felt the pressure over his windpipe.

"You made me mad," she murmured in his ear, turning his head with her controlling hand and stretching her fingers so that one crossed his mouth. "You're going to pay." It was a promise and a threat. If he parted his lips he could catch a finger between his teeth, which he did, biting only softly, tongue to the pad of her finger. With his head turned, she had easy access to return the favour tenfold, taking his earlobe and biting it hard – real pain, no playing about. He made a noise around her fingertip.

"I'm just getting started," she warned, rising up and pushing him back, laying him out on the bed which he scooted further up so he could lie flat, shoes kicked to the floor. She trailed her nails down his neck, over collarbone and all the way down his stomach, soft and then hard. His eyes fluttered closed.

He felt her weight settle back down over his lap, and she moved as if confused about something.

"You're hard," she stated as some kind of surprise on her part, and his mouth twisted to a wicked crescent.

"What can I say?" he murmured too hoarse, too husky not to give it all away. "I like the way you get even."

"You're not meant to like it," she hissed, and a skin-to-skin clap pierced the air as she slapped him over the ribs. He twitched.

"Uh-huh," he groaned, pushing his head back and his crotch up. "Try harder, then."

By the time it was over, Gary was laced in bright red scratchmarks from his neck to his thighs, some flowerlike flourishes of teeth to add to the artistry. His neck was blotchy red and purple from the sucking, and he suspected she'd broken the skin in one or two spots. Lola had a few marks to match, though nothing on the same scale.

He lay on the bed in a kind of golden comatose state of bliss, chest rising and falling as he basked in the moment. It hadn't been his intention to like it as much as he did, but feeling her fury and then arousal as she realised what she was doing to him; enjoying the self-flagellating feeling of being topped. It tapped too much into his release mechanisms. To not always be in control. To not always be dealing out the consequences. It gave him a moment to breathe, to be totally released. He still needed that, even if he couldn't go haywire-off-the-rails and attempt school domination or whatever other crazy scheme would satisfy the itch.

"You have got to be the most misleading lay I've ever had," she remarked in the aftermath, smoking one of his cigarettes and laid out on her front, ass up to the ceiling with a particular handprint on it. He'd gotten it good for laying that on her.

"Mm?" he inquired wordlessly.

"The way you go about screams control freak," she pointed out, "but you're not like that at all."

"I can be," he suggested lucidly.

"No one has ever taken it as hard as that from me," she said, and he felt like taking it as a compliment.

"Good," he stated. He liked some aspects of singularity, even if it was only being a punching bag. He'd taken worse from a skylight.

"So," she began, and was quickly sitting on top of him again, as they had finished only minutes ago, still smoking with her body all in curves above him. "No more Pinky." It wasn't a request. He slid his hands around her naked hips, squeezing and rocking her against him.

"No more Pinky," he echoed, and it wasn't really acquiescence. He wasn't giving up something he wanted, he was letting go of a thing he'd never really valued in the first place. She'd reminded him of what he liked. "And no more feud between the cliques," he added.

"All right," she conceded, and he took her wrist, pulling her to his level like reeling in a fish on a line. He put one arm heavily around her shoulders and kissed her to seal the deal, feeling her stretch against him, tasting the smoke in her mouth.

All in all, it'd been one hell of a ride. Maybe he'd do it again some time.

Returning to the dorm in a haze, he almost strolled straight past Jimmy.

"How'd it go?" he called out, Gary only realising it when Jimmy called him by name. "Gary, hey. Gary." He blinked and turned to Jimmy, half-asleep and wanting very much to go to his bed and zone out for the next couple of hours. "What the fuck happened to you?" Jimmy remarked.

"Hm?" he murmured.

"Did she try to choke you?" he asked, and Gary narrowed his eyes. He didn't think she'd done it hard enough to bruise, not so fast. "You look like you went ten rounds with Bif," he explained, and Gary couldn't see his own neck, but he assumed that even with clothes on he looked rough.

"It went fine," he said groggily. "Consider the matter settled."

"How?" Jimmy blurted. "Did she..." He must have broken off upon registering the nature of Gary's dozy smirk, because he gave a scoff and crossed his arms. "Goddam," he remarked. "You're one messed up son of a bitch, you know that?"

"I would care, Jimmy," he began vaguely, holding up a limp hand in gesture. "However, I'm in too much of a good mood, so I'll let it go this time. Goodnight, friend," he concluded with only about half an air of satire, dragging his warm carcass over to his room and rolling into bed. He had some recent memories to relive for the next few hours.

Jimmy must have told Pete, who wouldn't make eye contact with Gary the next morning, not even trying to hide the love bites all over his neck and bruising on one ear. He might've fainted had he seen the hatchwork made of his skin, even with the night to settle down again.

Instead did an un-Pete like thing and started talking to him about business. Well, their kind of business. School politics and the prefect selection – if he was Head Boy again next year, and Dr. Crabblesnitch was so far indicating he would be, as he was the first one to hold the position without massive abuses of power and/or scandal – then choosing who got to rise up would be an important aspect.

Gary paid a little attention to it, but also kept his cloud of contentment from the night before, smiling to himself without really keeping track of who was watching.

"You really are happy, aren't you?" Pete said loud enough to tune him into it, and he looked over.

"I had a good fight," he remarked obliquely, not giving anything away at this moment in time. A great fight, in fact. Sorry to Jimmy for his attempt last year, but he'd been muscled out.

"I mean, in general," he suggested. "You're actually happy."

"What makes you say that?" he questioned.

"I just don't think I really noticed until now," Pete responded. "Jimmy said something, like, whatever made you happy, and I hadn't thought about it." Perhaps that was why he'd settled, Gary considered.

"This is just so interesting," he scorned anyway. "I'm going to go ahead and close my eyes, but I'm still listening, Petey."

"Really, Gary," he insisted. "You used to be... well it was like you didn't even want to be happy."

"I didn't think I could be," he corrected. "A history of changing medication will do that to you." And Pete had wanted him to go back onit of all things.

"Yeah," he mumbled awkwardly. "I'm sorry, I guess." It felt good to have even the mighty Head Boy at his feet too, apologising for his wrongs and offering olive branches.

"Ignorance isn't always bliss," Gary commented. "But... I suppose I am."

"What?" Pete prompted.

"Happy," he replied nonchalantly. "If I think about it, I am." Give or take a wobble every now and again, but that was only natural. "Weird, huh?" he remarked, looking Pete in the eye and not feeling any of the anger or resentment or even jealousy any more. Pete had made his peace – at long last – and he accepted it.

Plus, he'd been watching all the boring crap he had to do as Head Boy and the role looked much less fulfilling compared to what he did now. He'd even had a 'meeting' with Algie the other day, the results of which had fueled a laughter-riddled conversation with Jimmy afterwards.

He knew he'd changed, but not in any ways that people had wanted him to. He still hated and didn't take medication, he still had ADD and slacked off or caused trouble in class. He even still liked making people beat each other up, but knew the lines and occasionally called something off, provided it was for the right reasons.

However, he wasn't as bitter, or angry, any more; he didn't need to get revenge on anyone because all the marks had been tallied and he was out on top. He'd brokered his alliances with Jimmy and then Pete, and it turned out having friends wasn't really all that bad. Nothing could have gone any differently, because without the fights and pain and punishment, he would've stayed where he was. He had left a self back in Happy Volts, but it was the part of him that had lived there even when he left. The crazed, caged mental patient. There wasn't a need for him any more, thankfully. Gary had outgrown him.

He hadgotten revenge, and he had gotten even, each in its own twisted way. But the cost had been no longer wanting or needing those things that had sustained him for so long.

He had the sudden impulse to try and think of a self, one of his copies to be conjured up for opinions, but he couldn't make it happen. Not by will any more. It felt like pretending to imagine something, and not at all like the reflex-response of stress and panic. He didn't doubt they'd be back next time he ran into trouble, but it was no longer the norm. Being tortured and unstable and so unbelievably angry at everything wasn't the norm any more.

He'd reached his normality – maybe it wasn't everyone's, and there would always be people pegging him as crazy, but he'd reached his state of being okay, and he'd not even had the gall to notice it. So subtle was happiness that he needed Pete of all people to spell it out for him. He let himself smile and gave Pete an uncharacteristic pat on the shoulder, a little overcome by the realisation, or maybe it was just a continuation of his post-coital coma making everything look better than it was.

He had happiness. He had power. He even had a girl, sort of.

Gary Smith had done it. He'd won – not against someone else, Jimmy, or Pete, or even the abstract concept of the school itself, but against the real villain, the real challenger. He'd won against himself.

And that was worth everything.

End

Thank you to everyone to read this story, I'm very grateful and it's been amazing to write and share it with anyone at all. Please look for my tumblr (fear3loathing tumblr) for more from Gary, Jimmy, Pete and the whole cast, as I'm not nearly through with writing for Bully, even though this story is over. Final wordcount of over 120'000 words, so go you for getting through it!

Peace and love,

Fear.