(Reserved for SJ)

"Why can't I get it now?" the smaller boy taunted. "I'm sure a big boy like yourself wouldn't mind roughing me up a bit while the grudge is still fresh." Damien laughed. "You're so pathetic. Teasing others just make yourself feel good. What a coward~"

Pushing the albino's buttons even more wasn't exactly the smartest thing to do, but it sure in hell was fun. And hey, he's the one that started it.
Damien examined the look on the other's face before saying anything else. Boy, he kinda looks pissed. Not so fun on the other side of the stick, is it?

"Because it won't hurt as much now as it's going to hurt later," he answered, grinning deviously. Oh, wait until he got his jock friends after school. "Teasing others is just for letting them get themselves humiliated in front of others." It was entertaining for him, really. He wasn't a coward for teasing others. He just got cruel entertainment out of it.

Xander pulled his fist back, the hand that wasn't burned, and landed it on the side of the kid's face. With the other stunned, he kicked out his leg to trip him, sweeping it under his feet.

"That's only a taste of what's to come," he told the other, walking out of the bathroom. Show him what not to say to him, it would.

As the obnoxious punk left, Damien just sat there on the icy tiled floor, wiping the blood off his lip.

"What a jackass." he grunted as he rose up and dusted himself off. So there was more to come, eh? Why was he not surprised... Boneheads like those never give up. Now that the unpleasant encounter is over with, Damien might as well head for his next class. Though, he had to admit, it wasn't so bad. At least he showed that asshole that he's not going to be put down without a fight. In a way, he sort of looked forward to the beating yet to come.

Xander realised that upon storming out of his hiding place, he was now in the halls. If the hall monitors saw him he'd get detention for sure. Now he had to figure out where to go unless he waited for the kid to leave the bathroom. There was another bathroom around the school, but making it there without a pass to show in the event that he encountered a hall monitor was risky. Kicking himself for being a coward, as the boy in the bathroom had called him, Xander made a run for it, trying not to appear too suspicious. Once he made it without any encounters he whipped out his cell phone and texted all of his jock buddies. He had to do some asking around, but someone finally told him where the kid would be at the end of the day. Using that information he planned out the time and location for the rest of them. Holding the phone, he felt his palm sting from the injury from the cigarette burn. He'd have to treat that later.

School was finally over for the day. Damien waited outside in the front schoolyard, watching the other students get into their cars and drive home. He would often check his phone to see if his brother had texted him.

Where is he? They were supposed to have walked home together.

"Ray, you slug. You better not have gotten a detention again."

Xander stood side by side with the bigger males by the flag pole. They'd all snuck out of their last class five minutes early to gather and wait or the quiet nerd kid. The more muscular males were eager, chatting amongst themselves on what they were going to do to the loser when he walked out. Xander had been a little more tactical and had told them they couldn't beat him up in front of the school. Otherwise they'd have the staff on their hands and they'd all get detention or suspension again.

When they saw the lone male standing out with his phone, texting presumably. He looked to the group of six other males, told two of them to follow him, and walked on to the loner.

"Hey," he greeted, pulling the kid's attention away from his phone.

"Oh.... so I guess it's beating time now, huh?" the raven-headed boy chuckled as he glanced at the taller, more buff looking jocks behind the albino punk from before. "Wow, I've never seen such dumber-looking tools in my entire life."

As said before, getting these guys riled up would not be the best idea but might as well give them a real reason to hate.

Damien wasn't worried about getting badly beaten. He wasn't as weak as people assumed he was. He can take anything they can dish out. He was sure of it.

"Sure is," Xander replied, jerking his head towards the awaiting target. The two jocks moved forward to grab him, one on each side. Their firm, meaty hands grasped the stick-thin arms of the quiet kid, so Xander took the lead and led them down to the rest of the group. Never mind the comment towards the jocks. Xander already knew they were dumb, but he let the other kid rile them up. It worked better for him.

"Behind the school, by the dumpster," he told them as they approached. The crowd of them migrated over to the back of the school, occasionally getting a few looks of pity or excitement. Some kids even tagged along to watch what they expected to be coming.

Once they'd arrived to the shaded area behind the school, the two boys holding the offending nerd tossed him to the ground. The lot of bigger boys crowded around the one on the ground, waiting for someone to start. If Xander didn't give them the order to start, really none of them would have.

"Oh~, looks like you stupid-ass dogs can't do shit until your little leader gives the command. Woof woof~" Damien taunted, giving the jocks even more reason to want to kick his ass. Even after the first punch came, he just kept at it. He kept throwing insults that would surely get their blood boiling.

"My grandmother can punch harder than you!"
"Aww~, dipshits are getting pissed, aren't they??" Kicks one of them in the groin. "Well so am I!"
One deadly remark after another. So much for being the 'quiet kid'.

Xander watched like the rest of the spectators - at a distance. They stood far enough not to get in the way of the struggle, but close enough to hear the taunting that the supposed quiet kid was doing. Xander had his arms crossed as he watched with interest. Most kids just took it, cried a lot, begged, sometimes offered money. This kid, though, he fought back. He bit and much as he barked, he'd give him that. Xander couldn't help but feel admiration past all of the amusement he was getting out of it. He almost wondered who would win, but then he reminded himself that he had more people, so naturally he would.

The beating got worse with every word that came out of Damien's mouth. It eventually got to the point where he couldn't talk anymore due to someone punching him in the throat. He was lucky he could still barely breathe. Damien got his revenge though by socking one of the guys in the nose, pulling hair, scratching, biting, kicking, etc.

The raven boy may be smaller and out-numbered, but he's not as pathetic enough as to just take a beating without showing the rest of these guys that judging people by one's cover is never a good idea.
He thought he was doing a pretty decent job until another guy decided to overdo it and smash his head against the brick wall.

Xander started wondering if it was getting out of hand when the jocks began aiming for vital areas on the other. Punching or kicking in the stomach was all right, but in the throat? They didn't usually aim for that on purpose. Despite all of that, the boy getting beaten up was fighting back to the best of his ability, and he had to give it up for him when it came to strength. When they slammed him against the brick wall, Xander knew they were carrying it too far.

"All right, guys," he said, only to have to repeat it louder when they didn't hear him. "We're done here. He learned his lesson, I think."

With a few stray kicks and nudges from the guys, eventually the crowd of spectators and bullies disappeared. Xander was the last to leave as he stared at the dark haired boy on the ground. He had guts, he'd give him that. He glanced back a few times as he walked away from the scene, heading for home with a weight in his gut.

After everyone had left, Damien just knelt down, trying to keep his bleeding head up. He watched the blood drip from his lips and his forehead to the concrete ground. Once he realized everyone was gone, he perked his head up, wanting to shout and call them cowards. No use in doing so now. No body would hear him. It was humorous that the cocky preps thought that they could teach the raven haired boy some sort of lesson. The thought made him chuckle weakly as his vision grew blurry and his ability to keep himself up had been lost.

The last thing he saw before passing out was a dark figure running towards him, calling his name.

Once he had returned home, Xander ate quickly and returned to his room. Of course he didn't even bring his homework home, not that he'd do it anyway, but it would have kept his mind distracted from the thoughts of having beaten up the kid. He never regretted beating someone up. He loved counting the money at the end of the day. This beating had been different though. This one had fought back with gusto. He had had more spirit left in him than any of the others ever had, and Xander had found a surprising amount of admiration for him. He kicked back in the chair at his computer desk, looking at the blank screen. If he turned the computer on and went to Facebook, no doubt he'd see the jocks' statuses saying they had beaten up some loser.

The next day began just like any other day, except for the throbbing pains of brick-burn. Damien had some sort of feeling the jocks and that other punk from yesterday were gonna be as cocky and immature as ever. He kinda hoped at least half of them got in trouble already. If not, he was hoping to get payback anyway.

His face wasn't as much as a mess as he thought but it still looked bad. His right eye and cheek was swollen and his lip bared a small cut in the corner. The rest of the injuries were mostly bruises spread out around his torso and his arms. Of course, those were covered up by a big baggy hoodie. When he walked in class, only a few people had noticed his roughed up shape but they wouldn't dare say anything. The jocks were of course snickering at the sight of him.
"Admiring your handy-work, I see." Damien murmured to himself.

The next morning Xander woke up and showered tiredly, only to have everything come rushing back in a stream of mild guilt. Hopefully the kid wouldn't show up today. Maybe he'd stay home and nurse his wounds. Or maybe he was scared. No, not scared. Not with the way he fought back. Xander knew he'd be seeing him today looking worse for wear.

When he arrived to school, he went to class early for once. His teacher was surprised, as was a few of the other students. Some of the jocks in his class were nudging him and snickering, recounting on yesterday's event. He just nodded and went along with it. His next class had the kid in it, he wasn't sure he would go.

The next few classes went by just like the first. Some of the students stared while others tried not the notice. If any jocks were there, they would snicker and start joking about it among themselves. The teacher would glare at them, making them stop and then ask Damien if he was okay, what happened, etc.

"I'm fine. I just had a nasty pest problem is all." Is all Damien would tell them. Yes, he could have told the teachers who did it and get them suspended but that would be no fun. The seemingly quiet senior has to have his revenge too. Getting beat up was for freshmen so of course, it was humiliating but he can at least get them back. He was tempted to go over to the annoying muscle-heads and flip their desks over but the teacher was in the room so that wasn't a good idea.
Damien sat quietly at his desk, trying to think of a good plan on how to make those sorry-excuses-of-human-beings beg for mercy.

The hour that Xander actually did see the kid, he instantly felt a sense of dread crawl over him. The kid looked bad, like he shouldn't be in school if you asked him. Or like he should take a few days off from walking or something. He wasn't about to say sorry, that wasn't in him, certainly, but he wished he could apologise. Maybe just not taunting him would be a good way to convene his apologies. He looked at him a few times in the hour, only glancing his way for a second. He laughed along when the jocks who had done it had told him to check out their handiwork, but he wasn't obnoxious about it as he usually would have made it.

Damien thought long and hard about his revenge but nothing good came up. Well, he could always make things simple and risk getting beat up again. Just go up to those jackasses and start wrecking stuff. He was tempted to do so but why blow the whole 'good-boy' act in front of the other students? His head was starting to ache, anyway. The pain-reliever pills must have been wearing off since he could start feeling the swollen bruises on his face.

"Excuse me." Damien mumbled, raising his hand to the teacher. "May I use the restroom?" The bathroom was a nice private place to take his medicine... if there aren't any punks to deal with, that is.

Xander formed an idea as the quiet kid requested to use the bathroom. While it was the perfect time to maybe confront him about the slight mistake he made against the other, it was also a good time to ditch and not see the kid anymore without looking like he was actually sorry. He was torn between ditching and actually confronting the kid for a minor sort-of apology.

The next few days went by slowly. The jocks seemed to have lost interest in Damien since the incident and the swelling has gone down quite a lot so it wasn't so bad.
It was Friday, 5th period, and the gym coach thought it would be a good idea to do a few laps in the pool. Damien thought it was also a good day to ditch gym class. Maybe Damien could hide in the showers while the others were changing in the locker room or something. There was no way in hell he's gonna have his hair smell like chlorine the rest of the day.

Over the next few days Xander had tried avoiding the kid as much as he could. It was easy not showing up to class. No change in his usual schedule except for being on the lookout while going around the halls to switch hiding spots at class changing time. Unfortunately his gym teacher caught him trying to bail out and demanded he show up for this class. Sighing, he relented and went for the changing room. Swimming wasn't bad. He wasn't going to do laps. He was going to roll over in the pool and float on his back.

Once inside the locker room, Damien panicked when he realized that he wasn't early enough. His fellow gym-mates where already getting changed. Perhaps he could quickly change into his swim trunks and would still be able to hide in the showers. Nobody has seemed to notice that Damien was there yet so maybe they won't snitch on him to the gym coach.

As soon as Xander walked in he spotted the quiet kid with the healing bruises and cuts. He flinched internally but said nothing. Going to his locker, he pulled out his swim shorts and tossed them onto the bench. He sighed as he pulled his shirt over his head. Changing was so freaking awkward for him when it was around others. Most people asked if the white hair was real, so sometimes they asked to see places that hair couldn't be dyed no matter what. Of course it was real, so maybe he should try dying it a normal colour? He glanced at the dark haired boy, wondering if he was just going to stand there or get changed.

With his pool locker door now opened, Damien slowly lifted his shirt over his head and threw it inside his locker. His chest was even paler than his face. Damien thought for a second that maybe he should get out more but then he dismissed that thought as a joke and shook his head. He then unbuckled his belt, unzipped his fly, and then let his jeans drop to the floor. Before removing his plaid boxer, he reached for his swim trunks. Damien didn't mind changing in front of the other guys. They all had the same thing, right? Although, he still felt a tad bit uncomfortable if he went too long in his birthday suit in front of a viewing audience.