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Description
Redback's Weakness: Chapter 1

Summary:
A Hedone High fanfic by PunchBagBobsRevenge. The original is no longer available, so feel free to comment and fave here

Pairings: A.E.D/Izm

Warnings: Strong language, violence

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A.E.D. woke up with one of the worst headaches he’d ever had. He would know, he’d had plenty of hangovers, and gotten into enough fights that he had quite the repertoire to compare to. His eyes were too heavy to open; the thought of lifting his arm was laughable if not impossible to comprehend. He'd woken up because Marcus, of all people, had meandered into his room to inform him that he’d missed all of his classes. He’d slept in. Right now he didn’t give a flying fuck. In fact, if Marcus didn’t get the hell away from him he might find a way to lift his arm for the sole purpose of punching him in the face. Why did his head hurt so badly anyways?

".D?"

"Get out Marcus," He grumbled.

"What?"

"GET OUT!" He roared.

His young informant lackey half-breed scurried away, and of all things, slammed his door shut. The sound ricocheted around in his skull, pinging off the insides of his cranium like a ping pong ball on cement. His head throbbed in time with the ringing of the closed door and he moaned some unintelligible expletive. How he longed to strangle Marcus, he’d never before felt so much ill will towards any being; even Izm seemed saintly in comparison. Wait, Izm. .D blinked, his eyes opening sluggishly. That was why his head hurt, because of Izm. That was it. No, wait, it wasn’t. He squinted at his radio-clock on his nightstand. It was well into the afternoon. Marcus was right; he had missed all of his classes. Groaning he slid out of bed and stood, stretching. There had to be a reason he slept through his alarm for the past…seven hours? He might have woken up long enough to turn off the alarm and pass out again. For the moment he needed to get showered, and dressed. Just because he’d missed classes didn’t mean he couldn’t be out on campus handling his usual duties as prefect. With any luck Marcus had run sniveling to the nurse to tell her he’d missed classes because of a cold or from overexertion.

As A.E.D. patrolled the campus he noticed a certain trend in conversations of the teens he passed by.

"Did ya hear? Two kids got put in the hospital last night…"

"Well what did they think was gonna happen? I heard they broke Redback’s rule…"

"What is the Redback rule anyways?"

"I dunno, I think it’s supposed to protect some dude that’s got a huge price on his head…"

"…yeah, I heard they broke Redback’s rule, and no one gets away with that…"

"I heard Redback took mercy on them, dropped ‘em off at the hospital after he was done with 'em…"

"…yeah, he didn’t even break their bones or anything!"

The afternoon crawled by with only snippets of these conversations making their way to .D’s attentive ears. Memories of last night, however fragmented and vague, were slowly returning to him. He’d been checking the campus for any students that were out past curfew. He found two and they ganged up on him…and then he thought he heard Izm’s voice. Leave him alone! That was all he could remember. Now with word of two students in the hospital with severe blood loss and lacerations all over them, his interest in this ‘Redback’s rule’ was reaching great heights. It was when he ambled past Caleb and his lackeys and overheard their conversation that he finally caved. He had to know what had this rule was. Even A.E.D, the best prefect under Rire’s command wasn’t immune to curiosity.

"…Redback and his bitch, I don’t see why he keeps that rule up anyways. I’m pretty sure anyone would pay him to have the privilege of breaking it without punishment. I know I would…"

"…yeah, I would."

"Hey," .D halted in his brisk inspection of the playground to approach the red head, "What’s this all about anyways?"

"What’s it to you, prefect?"

"Nothing really, just been hearing the same conversation all afternoon about this Redback rule and I’d like to know what it is. It seems everyone knows it but me."

"There’s a reason for that you know, one of the terms about the rule is that no one can tell you about it."

.D’s eyes narrowed, "What? Why? Who is Redback anyways?"

"He’s a well known dealer in the underground that has an investment in you," Caleb smirked. His cronies laughed as if their master has made a great joke. Problem was .D didn’t find it funny; he didn’t get it at all. What dealer could possibly be interested in him…?

Izm.

"While I would just hate to get on Redback’s bad side, I don’t think he has any other side. So I don’t see a problem in telling you the rule."
.D was beginning to grow antsy. Caleb was a small time thug that liked to believe he was more important than he was. He was used to him talking big like this, and it never really bothered him before. But for some reason, this whole rule thing was getting to him. He knew now with the antagonism in Caleb’s voice that Redback was most certainly Izm’s name in the underground. They weren’t really friends, Izm liked to think they were but .D found him annoying, a pest, like everyone else. The only reason they spent any length of time together was because he couldn’t get rid of the lousy fuck. If Izm was making rules about him, what else was he saying?

"Redback’s rule states: You will not attempt to kill, maim, or badly hurt the prefect with the fang bangs."

.D’s first reaction was righteous indignation. After all, how weak did Izm think he was? He could handle himself just fine. But then he had to ask himself, why did there need to be such a rule in the first place? Izm was the one that got in all the trouble, sure. Lots of people were after him. In fact, .D remembered quite vividly leaping in front of four bullets for that idiot. But why was .D in any danger? He was a prefect, and lots of the guys here hated him, he knew it. In fact, there were some who hated him enough to beat the shit out of him, as was obvious from last night. But enough to kill him? That was a part of the rule. His silence must have been taken by Caleb as his cue to be a bastard some more as he resumed baiting him.

"See, Redback didn’t use to be such big shit in the underground, he used to be small time. Back then his friends weren’t really worth anything as he wasn’t either…but now as he’s getting more of a rep things have changed."

"We’re not friends," A.E.D. snapped, coming out of his confused daze.

"Not to you, but that idiot sure seems to think a lot of you," Caleb’s grin turned feral as he shortened the distance between them by a few threatening inches, "over the past few months he’s made it pretty clear no one’s to touch a hair on your pretty little head."

.D’s fists clenched as the urge to punch this asshole in the face grew. His anger, his indignation, and his curiosity battled for dominance in his mind. There were several things he wanted to do at the moment. First, he wanted to punch Caleb for using the word 'pretty' in relation to him, second he wanted to punch Izm for making such a reputation for the two of them, and third he wanted to hear more from Caleb. It was a painful intrigue. He didn’t want to hear anymore about Izm’s reputation or his rules or any of it, he wanted to kick the idiot in the pills, but at the same time he did want to know what had been said of him. What exactly did the scum of the underground know, or think of him?

"But while that has ensured so far that no one so much as thinks a disrespectful thought about you, it sure has made one thing blindingly apparent."
"What’s that?"

"The best way to hurt Redback, is to hurt you." .D’s fists shook as Caleb went on, “One of these days, people in the underground won’t be willing to put up with him and his shit anymore. Then they’ll come after you.”

"Something the matter girly?" Caleb cooed.

.D snarled and tackled him to the ground. As he delivered the first punch he heard the lackeys scattering, hurrying off to attract a crowd. They went for a crowd, and they got one. Soon, they were surrounded by an avid audience. Caleb rolled them over and used his greater weight to ensure .D wouldn’t try and flip them again. With his arms trapped all A.E.D. could hope to do was try and avoid his opponent’s punches. Limited movement had him at a loss; he could barely move his head back and forth and after awhile more and more punches started finding their mark.

When he started seeing stars he suddenly felt light as a feather. He realized that was because Caleb had gotten off of him. .D blinked and sat up with a groan. Izm had Caleb by the collar and a knife at the red head’s throat.

"What is it with everyone and breaking my god damn rule?"

"He started it, Izzy."

SMACK. For the nickname, no doubt, Caleb received a swift backhand to his already bruised jaw.

"I don’t care if he fucking called your mom a whore, (even though it’s probably true), you don’t break my rule."

"He threw the first punch!"

"Well you probably deserved it, so you should’ve sucked it up and taken it, you pussy."

"Izm, let him go."

.D was at his feet now, glaring at the two people he hated most in this world. Usually he only hated one a tad more than the other. But at this one moment he hated them both the same amount. He wanted to kick the shit out of them both. Izm hit Caleb one more time for good measure before dropping him and standing up. .D yanked back a fist and punched Izm in the gut. He doubled over wheezing and swearing.

"What the fuck?!"

"Redback's rule, huh? Huh, you arrogant, annoying little shit?!"

"What the hell is your problem?" Izm shouted back once he’d managed to stand up straight again.

"I just told you my problem!"

"I heard that, I want to know why my rule bothers you."

"Maybe because I don’t need your protection, I’m not some weak bitch of yours that needs a bodyguard."

"You’re not weak, but you do need someone to help you out, .D. In case you hadn’t noticed there are a lot of people that’d just love to beat the crap outta you."

"I can handle it."

"Not by yourself you can’t."

"I’m not weak, huh?"

"You’re missing the point!" Izm exclaimed in exasperation.

.D glared at his 'friend' and Izm returned to the look full force. They were interrupted from their glaring match by Caleb who was just starting to get up off the ground.

"Take your bitch inside already Iz, no one cares about your marital rows."

Izm punched him in the gut before .D could get to him, but just for good measure .D kicked him in the pills and he returned to his place on the asphalt. Thereafter their attention returned to each other.

"What point is it exactly that I’m missing?" .D retorted.

"Because you’re my friend there are people that want to do more than just mess you up a little, you do need a little protecting, so just get over it."

"But I’m not your friend!"

"You are to me, and that’s the point." Izm‘s voice grew strained and he sighed. He glared at the ring of people still surrounding them and they all hurried off without hesitation.

"Well try to stop liking me then, go find someone else to latch on to. I’m not the best friend for you to have Izm, I fucking hate you, you annoy me just like you annoy everyone else!" .D exclaimed, feeling himself to be just as exhausted as Izm now appeared.

The look on Izm’s face made .D sure that he was about to get punched again. But instead Izm shrugged his ever present goggles over his eyes with a shaky hand. .D waited, and waited, but there was no hateful retort, no punch, nothing. He was starting to regret what he'd said, and he wasn’t sure why. What was so terrible about admitting they weren't friends? Didn't Izm know that? Of course he did, .D had said it before. I hate you, I hate you too. Then they would wrestle and throw punches, and kick each other. It was always that way. After a few more silent minutes Caleb had also skulked off with the rest of the kids on the playground.

A.E.D. opened his mouth to say something, anything. Maybe even to apologize. But Izm, shaking like a leaf in the wind, turned away from him and shuffled off. Before he got too far he turned around to look at .D one more time. The late afternoon sun made his goggles seem like small flames. The light cast over him only made his shaking that much more visible.

"Don’t forget to see the nurse…about your headache. I told her you missed class today because of a cold, you’d been working too hard again…chasing me all over the place."

With that said Izm left, hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched. .D was alone on the playground feeling confused and angry. Somehow, again, he had ended up the bad guy. He didn’t even know why.

=) (Smile) — Description
Redback's Weakness: Chapter 1

Summary:
A Hedone High fanfic by PunchBagBobsRevenge. The original is no longer available, so feel free to comment and fave here

Pairings: A.E.D/Izm

Warnings: Strong language, violence

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A.E.D. woke up with one of the worst headaches he’d ever had. He would know, he’d had plenty of hangovers, and gotten into enough fights that he had quite the repertoire to compare to. His eyes were too heavy to open; the thought of lifting his arm was laughable if not impossible to comprehend. He'd woken up because Marcus, of all people, had meandered into his room to inform him that he’d missed all of his classes. He’d slept in. Right now he didn’t give a flying fuck. In fact, if Marcus didn’t get the hell away from him he might find a way to lift his arm for the sole purpose of punching him in the face. Why did his head hurt so badly anyways?

".D?"

"Get out Marcus," He grumbled.

"What?"

"GET OUT!" He roared.

His young informant lackey half-breed scurried away, and of all things, slammed his door shut. The sound ricocheted around in his skull, pinging off the insides of his cranium like a ping pong ball on cement. His head throbbed in time with the ringing of the closed door and he moaned some unintelligible expletive. How he longed to strangle Marcus, he’d never before felt so much ill will towards any being; even Izm seemed saintly in comparison. Wait, Izm. .D blinked, his eyes opening sluggishly. That was why his head hurt, because of Izm. That was it. No, wait, it wasn’t. He squinted at his radio-clock on his nightstand. It was well into the afternoon. Marcus was right; he had missed all of his classes. Groaning he slid out of bed and stood, stretching. There had to be a reason he slept through his alarm for the past…seven hours? He might have woken up long enough to turn off the alarm and pass out again. For the moment he needed to get showered, and dressed. Just because he’d missed classes didn’t mean he couldn’t be out on campus handling his usual duties as prefect. With any luck Marcus had run sniveling to the nurse to tell her he’d missed classes because of a cold or from overexertion.

As A.E.D. patrolled the campus he noticed a certain trend in conversations of the teens he passed by.

"Did ya hear? Two kids got put in the hospital last night…"

"Well what did they think was gonna happen? I heard they broke Redback’s rule…"

"What is the Redback rule anyways?"

"I dunno, I think it’s supposed to protect some dude that’s got a huge price on his head…"

"…yeah, I heard they broke Redback’s rule, and no one gets away with that…"

"I heard Redback took mercy on them, dropped ‘em off at the hospital after he was done with 'em…"

"…yeah, he didn’t even break their bones or anything!"

The afternoon crawled by with only snippets of these conversations making their way to .D’s attentive ears. Memories of last night, however fragmented and vague, were slowly returning to him. He’d been checking the campus for any students that were out past curfew. He found two and they ganged up on him…and then he thought he heard Izm’s voice. Leave him alone! That was all he could remember. Now with word of two students in the hospital with severe blood loss and lacerations all over them, his interest in this ‘Redback’s rule’ was reaching great heights. It was when he ambled past Caleb and his lackeys and overheard their conversation that he finally caved. He had to know what had this rule was. Even A.E.D, the best prefect under Rire’s command wasn’t immune to curiosity.

"…Redback and his bitch, I don’t see why he keeps that rule up anyways. I’m pretty sure anyone would pay him to have the privilege of breaking it without punishment. I know I would…"

"…yeah, I would."

"Hey," .D halted in his brisk inspection of the playground to approach the red head, "What’s this all about anyways?"

"What’s it to you, prefect?"

"Nothing really, just been hearing the same conversation all afternoon about this Redback rule and I’d like to know what it is. It seems everyone knows it but me."

"There’s a reason for that you know, one of the terms about the rule is that no one can tell you about it."

.D’s eyes narrowed, "What? Why? Who is Redback anyways?"

"He’s a well known dealer in the underground that has an investment in you," Caleb smirked. His cronies laughed as if their master has made a great joke. Problem was .D didn’t find it funny; he didn’t get it at all. What dealer could possibly be interested in him…?

Izm.

"While I would just hate to get on Redback’s bad side, I don’t think he has any other side. So I don’t see a problem in telling you the rule."
.D was beginning to grow antsy. Caleb was a small time thug that liked to believe he was more important than he was. He was used to him talking big like this, and it never really bothered him before. But for some reason, this whole rule thing was getting to him. He knew now with the antagonism in Caleb’s voice that Redback was most certainly Izm’s name in the underground. They weren’t really friends, Izm liked to think they were but .D found him annoying, a pest, like everyone else. The only reason they spent any length of time together was because he couldn’t get rid of the lousy fuck. If Izm was making rules about him, what else was he saying?

"Redback’s rule states: You will not attempt to kill, maim, or badly hurt the prefect with the fang bangs."

.D’s first reaction was righteous indignation. After all, how weak did Izm think he was? He could handle himself just fine. But then he had to ask himself, why did there need to be such a rule in the first place? Izm was the one that got in all the trouble, sure. Lots of people were after him. In fact, .D remembered quite vividly leaping in front of four bullets for that idiot. But why was .D in any danger? He was a prefect, and lots of the guys here hated him, he knew it. In fact, there were some who hated him enough to beat the shit out of him, as was obvious from last night. But enough to kill him? That was a part of the rule. His silence must have been taken by Caleb as his cue to be a bastard some more as he resumed baiting him.

"See, Redback didn’t use to be such big shit in the underground, he used to be small time. Back then his friends weren’t really worth anything as he wasn’t either…but now as he’s getting more of a rep things have changed."

"We’re not friends," A.E.D. snapped, coming out of his confused daze.

"Not to you, but that idiot sure seems to think a lot of you," Caleb’s grin turned feral as he shortened the distance between them by a few threatening inches, "over the past few months he’s made it pretty clear no one’s to touch a hair on your pretty little head."

.D’s fists clenched as the urge to punch this asshole in the face grew. His anger, his indignation, and his curiosity battled for dominance in his mind. There were several things he wanted to do at the moment. First, he wanted to punch Caleb for using the word 'pretty' in relation to him, second he wanted to punch Izm for making such a reputation for the two of them, and third he wanted to hear more from Caleb. It was a painful intrigue. He didn’t want to hear anymore about Izm’s reputation or his rules or any of it, he wanted to kick the idiot in the pills, but at the same time he did want to know what had been said of him. What exactly did the scum of the underground know, or think of him?

"But while that has ensured so far that no one so much as thinks a disrespectful thought about you, it sure has made one thing blindingly apparent."
"What’s that?"

"The best way to hurt Redback, is to hurt you." .D’s fists shook as Caleb went on, “One of these days, people in the underground won’t be willing to put up with him and his shit anymore. Then they’ll come after you.”

"Something the matter girly?" Caleb cooed.

.D snarled and tackled him to the ground. As he delivered the first punch he heard the lackeys scattering, hurrying off to attract a crowd. They went for a crowd, and they got one. Soon, they were surrounded by an avid audience. Caleb rolled them over and used his greater weight to ensure .D wouldn’t try and flip them again. With his arms trapped all A.E.D. could hope to do was try and avoid his opponent’s punches. Limited movement had him at a loss; he could barely move his head back and forth and after awhile more and more punches started finding their mark.

When he started seeing stars he suddenly felt light as a feather. He realized that was because Caleb had gotten off of him. .D blinked and sat up with a groan. Izm had Caleb by the collar and a knife at the red head’s throat.

"What is it with everyone and breaking my god damn rule?"

"He started it, Izzy."

SMACK. For the nickname, no doubt, Caleb received a swift backhand to his already bruised jaw.

"I don’t care if he fucking called your mom a whore, (even though it’s probably true), you don’t break my rule."

"He threw the first punch!"

"Well you probably deserved it, so you should’ve sucked it up and taken it, you pussy."

"Izm, let him go."

.D was at his feet now, glaring at the two people he hated most in this world. Usually he only hated one a tad more than the other. But at this one moment he hated them both the same amount. He wanted to kick the shit out of them both. Izm hit Caleb one more time for good measure before dropping him and standing up. .D yanked back a fist and punched Izm in the gut. He doubled over wheezing and swearing.

"What the fuck?!"

"Redback's rule, huh? Huh, you arrogant, annoying little shit?!"

"What the hell is your problem?" Izm shouted back once he’d managed to stand up straight again.

"I just told you my problem!"

"I heard that, I want to know why my rule bothers you."

"Maybe because I don’t need your protection, I’m not some weak bitch of yours that needs a bodyguard."

"You’re not weak, but you do need someone to help you out, .D. In case you hadn’t noticed there are a lot of people that’d just love to beat the crap outta you."

"I can handle it."

"Not by yourself you can’t."

"I’m not weak, huh?"

"You’re missing the point!" Izm exclaimed in exasperation.

.D glared at his 'friend' and Izm returned to the look full force. They were interrupted from their glaring match by Caleb who was just starting to get up off the ground.

"Take your bitch inside already Iz, no one cares about your marital rows."

Izm punched him in the gut before .D could get to him, but just for good measure .D kicked him in the pills and he returned to his place on the asphalt. Thereafter their attention returned to each other.

"What point is it exactly that I’m missing?" .D retorted.

"Because you’re my friend there are people that want to do more than just mess you up a little, you do need a little protecting, so just get over it."

"But I’m not your friend!"

"You are to me, and that’s the point." Izm‘s voice grew strained and he sighed. He glared at the ring of people still surrounding them and they all hurried off without hesitation.

"Well try to stop liking me then, go find someone else to latch on to. I’m not the best friend for you to have Izm, I fucking hate you, you annoy me just like you annoy everyone else!" .D exclaimed, feeling himself to be just as exhausted as Izm now appeared.

The look on Izm’s face made .D sure that he was about to get punched again. But instead Izm shrugged his ever present goggles over his eyes with a shaky hand. .D waited, and waited, but there was no hateful retort, no punch, nothing. He was starting to regret what he'd said, and he wasn’t sure why. What was so terrible about admitting they weren't friends? Didn't Izm know that? Of course he did, .D had said it before. I hate you, I hate you too. Then they would wrestle and throw punches, and kick each other. It was always that way. After a few more silent minutes Caleb had also skulked off with the rest of the kids on the playground.

A.E.D. opened his mouth to say something, anything. Maybe even to apologize. But Izm, shaking like a leaf in the wind, turned away from him and shuffled off. Before he got too far he turned around to look at .D one more time. The late afternoon sun made his goggles seem like small flames. The light cast over him only made his shaking that much more visible.

"Don’t forget to see the nurse…about your headache. I told her you missed class today because of a cold, you’d been working too hard again…chasing me all over the place."

With that said Izm left, hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched. .D was alone on the playground feeling confused and angry. Somehow, again, he had ended up the bad guy. He didn’t even know why.