home alone ☆ tyrus

it's hard to be liked when you're a smug asshole

trigger warning:
single use of lgbtq+ slurs.
be safe, and i love you all!
also, sorry for not updating.
i had some bad writer's block
with this story, but i'm
trying my best to work
out the kinks.
hope this is something to
fuel your angst cravings.

｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

revenge.

that's what he liked to call it.

he's been waiting for the right moment, but it had taken so long to come to him that he almost lost sight of what this was all about: getting back at tj.
oh, boy, did he want to get revenge on tj.

look at him over there with his boyfriend. his perfect hair, his sparkling eyes, the way he smiles, he thinks to himself, twiddling the ends of his hoodie strings together as he stares from across the cafeteria. his precious little boyfriend seems a little down, now, doesn't he?

cyrus was visibly upset. he wasn't joining into the conversation at all, only watching as his friends threw fake insults back and forth like bombs, laughing often and making too much noise for his liking. he sat beside tj silently, staring into his lap with a sullied expression.

he hates the way cyrus gets to sit next to him.

that should be me. it was me, once. it should still be me.

he stands up from his empty table and shoved his phone into the pocket of his hoodie aggressively, wiping the corners of his mouth with the pads of his fingers before scampering through the crowd and landing on the tile beside the lunch table where tj and cyrus sat with buffy and jonah.
tj looked up and met eyes with him, and he felt the bile rising in his throat at a very unsafe rate.

"hey, guys. what's up?"

"reed, what are you doing here?"

"it's my lunch," reed brushed a greasy string of blonde hair out of his eye before leaning forward a little and squinting his eyes, dampening the mood with a grumbly, "hey, cyrus."

"reed, please leave."

"leave? i'm just being friendly! after all, if you weren't going to introduce me to your new boy toy, i might as well do it myself."

tj's fists clenched as reed spoke, his voice growing more sick and twisted with every word. tj knows why he's here, and he knows he should be above the situation, but there's no worse feeling than when you can't stoop to a level low enough where breaking a jaw is warranted.

"hey, bud, don't be an ass, alright? he told you to leave, so beat it."

reed laughed, his eyes wide with mockery as jonah rose from his seat, clapping his hands together and shrugging unapologetically.
tj opened his mouth to say, "jonah, don't," but it never came out, because jonah had somehow beat him there.

"listen, reed, you're not the worst guy. you can be nice. in fact, if you want to be, i'll help you! first, you're gonna wanna walk away. then, you're not gonna come back." jonah suggested, his tone firm, and his face smiling so sweetly it was almost sinister.

"you've got a mouth on you, jonah. what's gonna happen if i don't?"

"you know," jonah stepped away from the table and came around the side to size reed up in person, "i may like to play ultimate frisbee, but i'm also into football, soccer, p90x... all that good stuff. i even got multiple krav maga belts."

"is that a threat?"

"oh, no, my friend! no, that's a promise. so, i think it's time to walk away. bye-bye now."

reed scoffed and gave jonah a sufficient shove, stepping back and smirking with the confidence of a man who is too oblivious to see the doom that stands only three feet away.

"don't touch him, man. i'm serious." tj stood up, his fingernails painting red crescents in the meat of his palms as he clenches his hands.

"oopsie. already did."

jonah rolled his shoulders back and reached up to crack his knuckles, and the tension was taught like a wire; cyrus couldn't bring himself to look. once reed spoke to him, he heard his voice and remembered what it had said earlier that morning. if cyrus wasn't okay before, he definitely wasn't okay now.

in all the commotion, though, buffy had seen enough. she thinks this personally took too long, to be honest- guys spend too much time talking.

"alright, now, this is where we stop! hope you've had your fun, reed, but i regret to inform you that business hours for traumatizing my friends are now over and if you don't leave i will be forced to remove you from the premises." buffy piped up, moving jonah aside and giving tj a firm look that ordered him to sit down.

"the hell are you talking about?"

buffy glared deep into reed eyes, dishing her competitive little grin before replies softly, "did you not hear me? you're done here. if you don't leave, i'll get teachers involved. touch any of them again and you'll be expelled. we don't wanna damage that terrible little reputation any more than we already have, do we, reed?"

reed felt all the eyes of the table on him, and he suddenly felt the realization that he can't take on an entire table of people by himself.

"fine. i'll go. i don't wanna hang around with fags like you guys anyway."

reed felt himself lurch at his own words, but kept the grimace. he was here, he had to finish it. 

then, it was all very fast.

not one person at that table could specify when or how, but tj's fist was melded with reed's mouth, and now reed was on the floor, yelping out as tj beat the living shit out of him.

nobody treats his friends like that, and certainly nobody treats cyrus like that.

not on his watch.