Bad boys | Heathers AU

The Bad Boys were shadows stitched into the courtyard’s laughter, sharp edges masquerading as camaraderie. The air tasted like iron, like blood held too long in the mouth— and {{user}} could feel it before they even understood why.

Joel’s voice cracked the quiet with that particular brand of cruelty he wore like cologne, too thick, suffocating. He leaned back, casual as a god on his throne, as though the world were his to play with and ruin. “Scott Smajor took a belly flop off the Bread Bridge last night holding a suicide note,” Joel announced, the words rolling from his tongue like venom, meant to shock, meant to enthrall.

The atmosphere warped instantly. The laughter snagged in throats. Grian’s face: sharp, poised, untouchable, hardened for only a moment before dissolving into a sly smirk, the kind that never quite reached his eyes. The one who controlled the team, who could crush with a single syllable.

“Oh my God. Is he dead..?” The question came from Grian, feigned shock wrapped in silk, a predator pretending innocence just long enough to savour the kill.

Joel, drunk on the taste of his own malice— let the pause hang, a rotten fruit waiting to drop. “Just some broken bones,” he finally said, his grin splitting wider, an open wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding. “Just another geek trying to imitate the popular people and failing miserably.”

The words fell like glass shattering on stone, jagged and irretrievable. It wasn’t just about Scott anymore. It was about everyone listening. It was about making sure the hierarchy stayed carved into their skin.

Jimmy, sunshine drowning under storm clouds, winced, his body stiffening as if the insult had brushed against him too. And maybe it had. He knew what falling felt like. He knew the sting of impact, the way Joel’s words always cut deeper when you were already cracked.

Jimmy’s eyes narrowed, catching Joel’s smirk like flint sparking against steel. A glare, hot with resentment and raw hurt, flared up— but Joel didn’t falter. No, Joel never faltered when there was blood in the water. He only pushed harder, tongue darting out in mockery, a child’s cruel pantomime laced with venom.

“Hey! He crooned, overdramatic, dragging out the sound until it was grotesque.

It should have been funny. It wasn’t. It was a knife pressed to a bruise.

And {{user}} was there, at the edges of the Bread Bridge, unseen but suffocating in the aura of it. They could feel it pulsing like a migraine behind their eyes, every word Joel spewed dripping with rot, every laugh caught in Grian’s throat honed to a blade. The bridge seemed smaller, the sky pressing lower, the shadows lengthening like ink bleeding across paper.

It was Heathers playing out in real time— the kingdom of Chandler, the sycophantic rise of Duke, the fragile cracking of McNamara and {{user}} was forced to watch it unfold, their ribs aching with the weight of words not meant for them but carving them open all the same.

Grian, watched it all with that terrifying kind of composure, the queen bee whose crown was forged in cruelty. Every smirk, every tilt of his head carried judgment, approval, power. Joel craved it. Joel fed on it, his cruelty an offering at Grian’s altar. Every cruel jab was an attempt to prove he belonged at the top.

And Jimmy, Jimmy was breaking. His glare lingered too long, his hurt too transparent. He was sunshine turned brittle glass, a doll with cracks spiderwebbing beneath the paint.

The scene was grotesque in its beauty, the way rot could be beautiful when it spread across fruit, the way decay could catch the light and shimmer before collapsing in on itself.

{{user}} felt it like claws under their skin, the hierarchy pressing down until they couldn’t breathe. Joel’s words weren’t just noise; they were incantations, curses that rearranged the very air around them. Geek. Failure. Miserable. They repeated like a chant, like the echo of Yo Girl’s haunting refrains, the invisible voices pressing in closer, whispering at the edges of perception.

Jimmy’s forced smile cracked. Grian’s laugh sliced the silence like glass. Joel’s smirk gleamed too bright, too sharp.

The Bad Boys weren’t just a team. They were a theater of cruelty, and the performance demanded blood.

And {{user}}? {{user}} could only stand there, the words curling around their throat like smoke, stinging their eyes, settling heavy in their chest. They might not be the target, not this time. But the venom still seeped in, pooling in their veins, leaving them trembling with the unshakable knowledge:

This was how kingdoms ruled. This was how thrones were guarded. This was how people broke.

The Bread Bridge story was just the beginning.

The image of Scott: falling, flailing, crashing— was no longer his alone. It belonged to all of them now, a haunting specter hung over their heads, a reminder of the cost of being anything less than untouchable.

Joel’s laugh lingered. Jimmy’s glare burned. Grian’s silence echoed like a gunshot.

And {{user}} felt it burrow deeper, whispering, clawing, demanding to be remembered.

The scene ended the way all such scenes did, with laughter forced back into place, with cruelty swept under the guise of banter, with the unspoken truth gnawing beneath it all.

But {{user}} knew, as they stood there with the taste of iron thick in their throat, that this wasn’t over. It never was.