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rwprincess · 3 years

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Hell Week (Brian Johnson x Fem! Reader, Chapter 5)

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Synopsis: It’s one week before the show, which makes it “hell week.” It becomes even more complicated with Brian’s actions and Bender’s insight, though.

Honestly, I think this is my favorite one so far.

Word Count: 4,300 (I’m trying to make them a bit shorter and not be such a verbose person, I promise!)

CW: So much ridiculous fluff; mild sexuality; language/swearing

*~~~~*

The next week was a grueling blur. It was “tech week,” more colloquially known as “hell week,” for you Drama Geeks. The lunchtime rehearsals continued, but luckily Robby Atcheson was finally getting it together as Danny. He seemed to have some renewed force to get his lines and blocking right. Either that or he got tired of everyone groaning and berating him when he messed up. Maybe that was the kick in the ass he needed, though, because he was finally getting it right.

You thought Wednesday’s rehearsal was about to kill you, though. On that day, you had to work and rework the Prom scene. It felt like you would take one step forward, and then six steps back. One actor would utter a line, and the director would make you all freeze, commanding a technician to move the light just another two centimeters to the left. Or, as soon as you were done with the Hand Jive, you’d have to run it again. You were glad that your character was left out of a lot of the choreography, as Marty’s role during this was mostly to flock around Vince Fontaine. But, to fill out the dance numbers with more cast, you were placed in the back for several numbers.

When you got home that night, you grumbled a hello to your mother in passing, but went straight to your room and flopped onto your bed. You ignored the phone ringing a little while later, figuring your mom could get it. You refused to move your aching muscles even an inch. Your mom knocked on your door, though and stuck her head in. “The phone is for you.” She said while you groaned. You almost asked her to take a message, but she followed with “It’s Brian.” Very few people could make you get up right now, and he was definitely one of them. Your time at school had been so consumed with rehearsals and you really missed hearing that voice. You began to roll out of your bed and shambled to your desk chair, plopping down once again.

“Thanks mom, I’ve got it.” You told her, as you started to pick up the phone. She smiled almost knowingly and ducked back out of your room. “Hey, Brian.” You said, trying to hide your exhaustion but failing.

“Is now a bad time?” He asked

“No, it’s not that. Sorry.” You righted yourself to sit up more. “I’m just really tired from rehearsal. Remember how I told you that this was called ‘hell week?’”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, it feels like it’s much more than that. I’m burning in hell, Brian.” He laughed at your commentary, “No, I’m serious. I think I did the Hand Jive fifty times back-to-back. My hands are red. My thighs probably are too.” You heard him sputter a bit on the other end, but continued anyway, since you seemed to be amusing him. “Danny is finally getting his shit together, though.”

“That’s good. I know you were worried about that.”

“Oh, definitely. I mean, he’s the main character. If he dicks it up, the rest of us are going to look like idiots, too. Brings the whole show down. But he finally remembers his lines and what he’s doing, thank God! Anyway, how are you?” You inquired, leaning forward a bit, as if your conversation was taking place directly across from him, picturing him sitting next to you.

“It’s good. Nielsen’s science class was actually really interesting today.” You listened to his animated voice tell you all about the experiment they were conducting and how one of the kids in his class almost caused an explosion. He was quiet for a moment at the end of his story while you chuckled about the events. After the pause, he said, “I do miss seeing you though,” seriously and earnestly. You were sure you had died for just a moment then. Your heart had definitely stopped.

You bit your lip while you composed yourself. “I’ve missed you, too,” you admitted softly, your voice just above a whisper. There was a dead silence for a moment, and you were almost worried that the line cut out or he hadn’t heard you, but then you heard him clear his throat.

“Why don’t I walk you to English tomorrow?” He asked “I know you’ve been busy, but hey, you’ve gotta get to class, right?” You laughed at the way he put it.

“Right. Oh! Speaking of classes, when the show is all over, could you maybe help me with math again? I hate asking, and you can say no if it’s any inconvenience-” you started to ramble.

“Of course.” He replied, “Anytime.”

“Thank you. I owe you so much. I was doing pretty well for like that first week after you helped me, but I’m definitely slipping again.”

“I still maintain that you know more than you think you do. You’re really not that bad at it.”

“Thanks. But hey, if anyone understands wanting to do better academically, it’s you, right?” You had no idea why you said that. ‘Way to put your foot in your mouth, Y/N. Bring up the thing he’s most sensitive about.’ To your relief though, he just laughed.

“Yeah, I guess that’s true.”

“How’s Mary?” You asked, changing the subject. He grumbled, being reminded that he even had a sister.

“The same as always. A giant pain. I think she takes after my parents.” You laughed at that. ‘God, he’s adorable.’ You’d forgotten about your post-rehearsal discomfort completely; it was amazing how one conversation with Brian could turn everything around. “Well, I should let you go.” He finally said. ‘Please don’t.’ You silently begged from your end of the line, but he followed with, “It’s getting late and I’m sure you still have homework and stuff to do, since you just got home. I just...I just wanted to talk to you.” You felt your heart beat faster at his admission and warmth flow through you from the pit of your stomach.

“It was nice to get to talk to you, too.” You reassured him. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”

“Yeah. Wouldn’t miss it.” You could feel his smile through the phone. “Bye.”

“Bye.” You said quietly and hung up. You had a newfound energy now and could actually picture doing your homework and maybe eating something. He had been just the pick-me-up you needed.

*~~~~*

Brian was good to his word, not that you were surprised by that, and walked you to your English class the next day. You felt a little silly that just seeing him impacted you in such a way. It lifted your mood to be walking down the hall with him and to talk face-to-face after what felt like an eternity not doing so. He asked you how today’s math session had gone and what you were working on, to get some ideas on how to help you after next week. “But I’m sure all that will change by the end of next week,” you reminded him.

“Hey, it’s still good to talk about it. It helps you remember it better, if you have to verbalize it.”

“Is that so?” You arched your eyebrow, disbelieving, and gave him a sly smile.

“Oh, definitely.” He nodded with mock authority and you laughed.

“Thanks for walking with me.” You said when you got to class. “Even though you made me talk about math the whole time.” You made a face.

“Thanks for letting me walk with you. And letting me make you talk about math.” He chuckled. You stood for a moment outside of your classroom, not really sure how to end the conversation when you felt Brian’s long fingers glance the skin of your forehead as he pushed a strand of hair away from your eyes. You thought you’d collapse, and he seemed to have done it on impulse because he pulled his hand away just as quickly and started walking to his class without a word. You stared after him in wonderment for several beats before your shaking knees reminded you that you should get to class and sit down, lest you fall right there in the hallway.

*~~~~*

Brian seemed to take a page from your book and started avoiding you after that incident in the hallway. You didn’t see him at all on Friday and he didn’t call you over the weekend, either. You tried your best to just throw yourself into your work on the show or your classes, but you replayed that moment in your mind on an almost endless loop any time that you had a free moment to be alone with your thoughts. It crept up on you constantly and you couldn’t push it out of your head, even after three days. You also didn’t try to press the issue because you were sure he was embarrassed and honestly, you didn’t really know how to approach him or broach the subject either.

You had invited Bender over for dinner again on Sunday to try to hash it over with him. Since the night you had taken him to Mike’s house, the two of you had a deeper connection and he seemed to trust you more. You also weren’t as worried to talk to him about your personal issues or to get his advice or perspective. Sure, he still made fun of you from time to time, but at this point you weren’t sure he could help it. Sarcasm was so interlaced into his personality, after all. But all he really had to say on the matter was, “Man, he’s got it bad.” For once, you actually understood what he meant and didn’t ask a follow-up question. From that moment, you had started to acquiesce to what Bender had been saying all along: Brian liked you, too. But you had no idea what to do with that information. You felt like you were almost in the same position you were last year, staring at him in Freshman English.

“What do I do, John? I mean, we’re both clearly flustered by it. He hasn’t spoken to me since. Hell, he didn’t even speak to me then!” You hugged your knees up to your chest as you sat on the recliner chair in your living room. He was leaned back on your couch with his feet up on it, clearly making himself at home.

“I don’t know, grow some balls and talk to him?” He said flatly, furrowing his brow at you.

“And if he doesn’t want to talk to me? What if he just walks away? His legs are like the entire length of my body, John. I’d never catch up.” He laughed at you, as you had said it seriously.

“You’re being ridiculous.” He pointed out and you pouted. You felt like it was a logical thought to have.

“What if he doesn’t want to come to the show now?”

“Ohhh no,” Bender replied, “Hell or high water, he’s coming. I’ll drag him. Don’t you worry about that, Y/N/N.” You nodded with a small smile. You knew Bender liked to be intimidating anyway, but you thought it was nice for him to volunteer this for you, specifically.

You chewed on your lip for a minute, thinking. “Okay, well...what do I do in general? I mean, I don’t know how to talk to him about this, or even if I should.”

“Good God, you’re hopeless!” John cried back, taking a swig of soda and placing it back on the coffee table before sitting up. “Y/N, you like him. I don’t get it, but you do. He likes you, clearly. What is so fucking difficult about that?”

“I don’t know!” You hid your head against your knees for a second and then looked back up at him “I haven’t done any of this before, remember? I’m nervous as hell, and what if I’m wrong? What if I’m misreading it?”

He looked at you blankly and blinked, “How can you ‘misread’ a guy brushing your hair out of your face? That’s like, textbook Flirting 101.” He gave you a mischievous grin, “Claire brushed my hair out of the way when we made out in the closet. That’s when I knew she wanted me bad.” You rolled your eyes and made a small gagging noise. “What? You don’t want to hear it?” Bender scoffed, “Like I want to hear you pine after Johnson week after week. That’s gross.” You threw one of the recliner pillows by your feet at him. He caught it and chuckled.

“You are the one who volunteered to ‘help’ me with this, remember?” You glared at him.

“Yeah, but I thought one of you would have made a move by now. I didn’t realize how much time I’d have to invest in it.” He scoffed another laugh at your expression and continued, “But you fuckin’ nerds are hopeless.”

“C’mon, don’t you remember your first dating experience? Weren’t you a little rattled then?”

“I don’t know, maybe? But I was like ten or twelve, not sixteen.” He grinned, “We’re not all as innocent and pure as you and cherry Brian, princess.” He winked then, enjoying that he was clearly getting under your skin.

“Okay, pretend you’re ten again.” You huffed, “Don’t you remember being nervous?”

“I guess. But I think it was still like, ‘I like you. Do you like me? You do, oh cool. Let’s kiss.’ It wasn’t life-or-death like you’re making it out to be.” You were a little embarrassed at how dramatic you had been making the issue and rested your forehead against your knees again. “Now, I am by no means saying that it won’t work out, but worst-case scenario, what if it doesn’t? What if we’re both wrong and he doesn’t like you?” Your stomach churned at the thought. That’s exactly what you were worried about, obviously. You didn’t understand why John didn’t get that. “Then you move on, there’s other fish in the sea.” He waved a hand and laid back down, getting comfortable again. You lifted your head back up and looked at him a little while before responding.

“Maybe. But, I don’t know. I think you and I are on different pages, John. Not everyone gets to have a million girlfriends or people they just ‘hang out with.’” You said, making air-quotes around the phrase.

“Are you calling me a slut?” He placed a hand on his chest and acted appalled.

“No,” You said, rolling your eyes knowing he wasn’t seriously affected by your comment. “I just mean that we have different goals and feelings about the situation, I think. And besides, you’ve had your ‘plenty of fish’ since you were ten,” you teased before continuing, “This is my first time doing any of this. I don’t know how many fish you think I have but it’s not that many.” You then gave him a blunt and purposeful look.

He let you stew for a moment before making his next point. “Well, if it doesn’t work out with Johnson, there’s always Mike.” You gave him an incredulous look and he sat up again, huffing that you were making him do so for emphasis. He crossed his legs and leaned forward, looking at you with a hard stare.

“You want me to date one of your friends?” You looked at him skeptically, taking your time with your words.

“Not so much that I want to. Just making an observation.”

“What observation?”

“That you have more fish than you think you do.” He replied, pausing between some of his words to drive the point home that you clearly weren’t getting. “Man, you’re such a virgin.” He rubbed his face and ignored you yelling his name at him in response. “You really don’t get when guys like you, do you?” He looked at you with almost pity. “You’ve probably had a ton of fish you didn’t even know about.” He scoffed a laugh before muttering, “Girls!” and shaking his head.

“Here, let me lay it out for you,” He continued after a beat, “I know you don’t really know Mike, but he doesn’t just laugh at every girl’s jokes and he certainly doesn’t ask about them. He’s also not exactly going out of his way to talk to any other ones in the hallway.” His pointed look at you made you recall the handful of times Mike had caught you at your locker to say hi and ask how you were doing. “Probably why Ariel hates you. You’re taking her spotlight.” You blushed, not sure what to say. “I’ve been trying to tell you this whole time, but you’ve been too dense to get it. Remember how I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll invite Mike to come to the show, I bet he’d love to come’ and ‘he’s probably going through withdrawals not seeing you, you should come into his house’?!”

“You’ve been trying to set me up with him this whole time?!” You cried out, flustered. You were a little angry that he had been telling you he’d help you with Brian while trying to get you to date his friend instead.

“No, you get to make your own choices. I know how you feel about Johnson. But, you should know you have options, if that means anything to you.” He shrugged, “I’m also not going to tell Mike not to waste his time or that you’re not interested. That’s not my place.”

“I didn’t say it was.” You gritted your teeth. “I didn’t ask you to do that. I’m not gonna.”

“Good.” He huffed again and settled back onto the couch. You sat in silence for a bit after that. He had given you a lot to consider, even though none of it was particularly helpful.

*~~~~*

It was now “show week.” The official grind the last three days before you opened. You tried to catch Brian at his locker on Monday morning, but he didn’t show. You thought he might have figured you’d show up there and didn’t arrive so he could skirt you. You still had no idea what to say to him and your conversation with Bender the night before didn’t exactly help. You were filled with just as many doubts and lacked any idea on how to deal with them or the situation at hand. At the warning bell, you heaved a sigh and went to class, adjusting the strap of your book bag over your shoulder. The day seemed to trudge forward. You dreaded both seeing Brian and not seeing him. On top of that, you now had to worry about bumping into Mike. You got riled up again thinking about Bender throwing that wrench in your plans. ‘He didn’t have to tell me,’ you thought. ‘He would know I wouldn’t be interested.’ You guessed he was just trying to cheer you up or calm you down, but it made you even more concerned, especially since he had confirmed that Mike would be coming to the show on Friday with the rest of them.

Your luck ran out just after lunch as you were walking to class, Mike pulled up alongside you, breathless as if he were running to catch up. “Hey, Y/N, long time no see, huh?”

Your eyes widened as you looked at him. Your conversations previously had been quick and friendly, but that was back when you just thought he was trying to be the accepting member of John’s crew. Now that you knew there was more to it, you weren’t sure how to interact with him. You tried to blink your eyes back down to a less conspicuous size before you spoke. “Yeah, it has been awhile. Uh, how have you been?”

“Oh, not too bad.” He said and looked off as though he wasn’t sure what else to say. “Uh, you?”

“Just fine, thanks. Busy, but good.”

“Oh, yeah. Your show is this week. Can’t wait.” He grinned and you returned a polite smile.

“That’s really kind of you. You don’t have to come, you know.”

“Are you kidding? Grease is the word!” He declared, quoting the movie’s tagline and you couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up at the ridiculousness. “I’m sure it’ll be a lot of fun. Besides, Bender said you wanted friends there. Support system, right? We’ll cheer you on.” ‘Oh man, that is really sweet of him.’ You thought.

“Yeah, I guess so. Uh, thanks for coming, then,” you said, still unsure.

“Of course,” he gave you another goofy grin before you indicated your classroom at the end of the hall.

“I should, uh, probably get to class, though.”

“Right, right. Cool. Y’know, I forget that people actually do that sometimes.” He joked. “See you Friday.”

“Yeah, see you then.” You tried to sound kind, but you were pretty sure it came across as defeated as you felt.

*~~~~*

Brian had yet again dodged you on Tuesday, both at his locker in the morning and on the phone after rehearsal, when you got home. You were beginning to get frustrated with his avoidance. At this point, you wouldn’t even mind not bringing up the fact he had brushed your hair away just to have things go back to normal. On Wednesday, you took a note with you to school and jammed it into his locker instead of wasting your time for him not to show. In it, you tried to play dumb and acted as if he wasn’t avoiding you. You simply made it out to be “Oh, I haven’t been able to catch you for awhile, hope you’re doing okay.” You wished you knew what classes to find him in, so you could corner him like he had done to you when you were avoiding him. Unfortunately, you just had to try your luck at finding him at his locker. You almost wondered if he was just toting everything with him so he didn’t have to use his locker. He wouldn’t do that though, right? That would be too much.

Your note seemed to have inspired him, though. He approached you as you were talking to Allison in the hallway. She was about to duck away, but he waved for her to stay. “I got your note,” he told you.

“Oh, good,” You bit your lip, a little embarrassed.

“Yeah, sorry, it’s just been a hectic week and I also figured you’d be really busy with the show, so I didn’t think to call. I thought I’d be bothering you.”

“No, of course not,” you said, but he was already continuing.

“I should be going, though. Sorry to interrupt.” He nodded at Allison and walked off. Once he was out of earshot, you groaned and leaned against the wall.

“That was weird.” Allison noted

“Yeah, tell me about it.” You sighed

“No, you tell me about it,” she said, “what the hell is going on?” You still hadn’t had a very personal conversation with Allison, not focusing on you, anyway. So, you filled her in as quickly as you could and mostly skipped to the point where you hadn’t spoken to each other in almost a week. She listened quietly, intently. She didn’t really offer any insight or solutions, but it was nice to have her listen. You had wanted a friendship with her anyway, right? When you finished, she still looked at you with that intense stare and simply said, “Go to class,” with a small nod before walking off. She was a hard person to place as it is, but that left you confounded. Maybe it wasn’t as friendly as you thought.

*~~~~*

Thursday morning, you were more jittery than ever. Tonight was the opening night of your show, and of course, yesterday you had two very odd interactions with your friends...and with Mike. You were feeling both frazzled by your personal drama and buzzing from your onstage drama. Your club had a tradition of dressing up more formally on the day the show opened, much like athletes at the school did for big games. So, you were wearing a black and white collared shirt tucked into a long black velvet skirt with black flats, a far cry from your usual sneakers or boots. You had accessorized with a black velvet headband and some larger hoop earrings as well as a full-face of makeup, which you usually didn’t wear. You felt uncomfortable and awkward. Dressing up to be another character on the stage was one thing. There were a bunch of like-minded people there with you to do that, and you couldn’t see the audience judging you past the bright lights anyway. But here in the halls of Shermer High School, that was all stripped away. It was just you in a costume that wasn’t “you.” You pulled off your backpack when you reached your locker, setting it down to get ready to exchange materials within it and your locker. You entered your combination and spun the dial, clicking the locker open. There was a yellow note inside your locker. You blinked at it for a moment. It wasn’t that uncommon for you or your girl friends to exchange notes in this way, but it had been a while since you had a back-and-forth system with them. You put the textbook you no longer needed in your locker beside it and grabbed the paper. It was folded into a neat little square, maybe four times over.

“Break a leg,

Brian.”

You read the simple note and smiled. Not only did he know this would be meaningful for you anyway, but it made you feel like you were forgiven. Or, that the air was cleared between you, since you hadn’t exactly done anything wrong to actually warrant forgiveness. You didn’t have pockets on your person, so you gingerly placed the note inside the front pocket of your backpack, making sure it wouldn’t get damaged, and to bring you luck today.

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#john the sassy gal pal #seriously this is the most fun I've had writing him #john bender #bender #brian johnson #brian x reader #brian johnson x reader #fanfic #the breakfast club #breakfast club #80s #theatre #drama #greaseistheword

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