New Breakfast Club story: Higher Education

[resonant]

Because we all need a hyooge story in a semi-non-existent fandom to make our day complete.

Higher Education
Brian/Bender -- NC-17 -- 82K
John Bender gets a life


Beta thanks to cesperanza and terrio.

Comments

[sanj.livejournal.com]

God, I love you. How do you do this? I was like, "eh, Breakfast Club, but what the hell," and now I am completely frickin' blissed out, and this would be all your doing.

Perfect. Just -- wow.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm so glad you liked it. Sometimes a story just picks you up and sweeps you away, you know? Like one minute you're going, "Hm, I wonder if I could write a Breakfast Club story," and two hours later you have four thousand words.

Of course, this was in February, so it swept me away slowly.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

OH, this was very very good. Oh, yes.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Yay! Glad you liked!

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

But really, this went the way it had to go.

Yes. Yes, it did. Completely. Wow.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Aww. I'm so glad!

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

Hey, shut up! I resemble that remark! (Looks at own 130K and counting DZ story and coughs.)

[the-star-fish.livejournal.com]

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

(i just reread The Big Picture last night)

[tofty.livejournal.com]

:D! This is most excellent!

Who'd have thought that Bender'd turn out so goddamned respectable?

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I'm glad!

I wanted so badly to retain the essential Benderness, but you have to mellow him a little if you want him to stay out of jail (not to mention alive).

[aethereal-girl.livejournal.com]

That was lovely; thank you.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Glad you liked it!

[shrift.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad I refreshed my friendslist before logging off, because if I hadn't, I would have had to wait all day tomorrow to read this. And that would have been torture for me.

I think I scared the cat with my shriek of joy.

Your John is perfect. And the story -- I totally see him getting a job in a garage, and in fact, in the story haven't written, he does work at a garage -- and all that rage just sort of settling down, as it usually does when you get older and have to pay bills.

And Brian pretending to be John! And dork ass! And -- oh my god, beard burn. And Miami Vice!

And this:

If you wanted something, then somebody had the power to control you by giving it to you or taking it away; if you wanted to be free, you had to not give a shit.

That's just so John.

The license plate said BRAIN.

*dies*

And I'm just going to stop flailing around and say that I loved it, and that I desperately need to go to sleep now. You didn't write this story for me, but even so, it feels like you did. And so I am happy.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad this John worked for you! It's tricky -- he has to unBender at least a little bit, or else he'll be in jail or dead and thus unavailable for gay sex, or at least the kind of gay sex I care to write.

in fact, in the story haven't written, he does work at a garage

... does this mean you might be writing some more Breakfast Club? How about if I groveled?

[fairestcat]

This really works just so well.

I love the gradual change of Bender/John as he figures out what he wants out of life, and the way age and MIT make Brian still a dork, but a nice grown up dork of the kind we all know and love.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad they worked for you! It's always an open question, when you take young characters and age them up, whether they'll still be recognizable as themselves when they're done.

[maeglinyedi.livejournal.com]

I went to refresh my flist one last time before going to bed, and then I saw this, and I just couldn't wait to read it. Breakfast Club is my favorite tiny fandom, so seeing a new, long fic made me a very happy girl.

This was so wonderful. Your Bender was perfect, and I loved seeing him grow up and become more mature and still be Bender about it. And your Brian was adorable. And they made so much sense together in this story. It just worked like a charm. Awesome fic!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

It was a really awkward time to post it, wasn't it? I was trying to organize it in such a way that I could take advantage of my day off to sit around obsessively reloading my counter stats, the way one does ...

I loved seeing him grow up and become more mature and still be Bender about it.

the very words I've been longing to hear -- I was so hoping that grown-up Bender would still be recognizable to people!

[farwing.livejournal.com]

I should be in bed but instead I am up, having just finished this here story. Totally worth it. :)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad! (Well, I mean, not glad for your sleep deprivation, but you know.)

[ubixtiz.livejournal.com]

We do; we really, really do. Suddenly the day has been wonderful, because I can't remember anything that happened before I started reading this story.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Hee! I'm glad you liked it.

Your icon makes me want to sigh with happiness.

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

oh, I so enjoyed this. Thank you!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Very glad you liked it!

[pun.livejournal.com]

I should have been sleeping, but that was a thing of beauty. I couldn't possibly put it down. Loved it. Thank you!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm so glad! Thanks for letting me know. (And for the rec, too!)

[firesprite1105.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, I am in completely love with this story. Boundlessly, endlessly in love with it.

Brian/Bender may be my new OTP-- I love seeing how they grow up and deal with the relative mundanity of the Real World, and how they're such guys about everything, and, oh, it just thrills me to see them getting it right.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Aww! I'm so glad you liked it. Once Bender told Vernon, "I can't, sir; it's in Johnson's underwear," of course there had to be slash!

[metron-ariston.livejournal.com]

There is too much awesome in this story for it to possibly be real. *grinning like a dork*

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

[grinning right back at you] So glad you liked it!

[teneagles.livejournal.com]

Wow. Totally out of left field, but so good.

Also, remember that word, "schmorn"? 'Cause... yeah.

In conclusion: Yay!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Yes! Schmorn! One of the things that make life worth living!

Glad you liked it.

[special-trille.livejournal.com]

oh, the love I have for this fic. ::makes wavey hands at you:: That is going to be my official "what happens later" for the Breakfast Club. You do awesome Brian and you do freaking extraordinary John. John! I love him.

And it was far too hot for something I read at lunchtime in the computer lab. Far, far to hot.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Whoa. I can't read porn in public. I start mouthbreathing.

But I'm really happy you enjoyed this one. I think lots of us have the urge to cuddle Bender, but of course he'd beat us up for so much as suggesting it, so Brian gets to cuddle him instead. Eventually.

[flambeau.livejournal.com]

Yay, sweetness! This was great to wake up to. And even though I'm sad the story ended, I can now spend an entertaining hour picturing that wedding in my head. :)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it!

The way I picture the wedding, everything goes reasonably well until they slow-dance (because of course John will do anything if someone tells him he can't), and then the Bender family shit really hits the fan. Though I also think he's probably got an ancient great-great-aunt who hobbles up and says, in the room-clearing tones of the mostly deaf, "You and your little friends are just lovely! I do so wish Vivian and I had been brave enough to dance together," and silence the entire reception.

Bed full of panting turned-on megadork, glory be.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

You outta be proud of yourself. You made me read a story in a fandom that truly does not exist for me as I never watched the film, never wanted to after seeing bits, even less after hearing about it again and again.
And you had to go and make me like it. But I will not watch it, coz the faces might spoil it *resolve* It truly did work for me this time, how a drop-out pulls himself together, how the Brain has enough cool to turn homophobia into interest.
Oh yeah. Lots of interest. Oh ... yeah.
And again.
And again. I love all their first times, bitchy and real and hot and yummy.
And the dynamics and growth of the person John is just fits
The urge to break things is always there in John, until the day he tries to give Brain a dangerous Bender smile, but his mouth no longer seems to work quite right. You make me want to work in a garage again, despite rememberin the kind of assholes there.
Damn fine writer you are.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you liked it! You really don't need to see the movie, though it's quite a fun movie.

So you can do car stuff? So cool!

[fabularasa.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm so glad it's Impossibly Obscure Fandom week in someone else's journal, too! It's such a fun movie, such a guilty pleasure; your story makes it even guiltier, and way more of a pleasure.

And Brian, being the good little gay boy he was, didn't do anything just then, but afterwards he said, "You want to try it?" and John said, "I said so, didn't I?" and Brian said, "You sure? 'Cause I'm good like this," and John said, "What, scared, Johnson?" and Brian rolled his eyes and said, "And thank you for dragging everything down to the peer-pressure level," and that was the end of that conversation.

Possibly my favorite anal sex conversation ever.

Jesus, Wysocki. Some guy wanted Wysocki? Even though he was old and sweaty and shaped like an ice-cream cone with a head?

This made me giggle manically at 2 in the morning. And then I woke up wondering, an ice cream cone turned which way? And also, still giggling.

. . .in a flurry of hard clenches that hit John like punches made of pleasure.

That was the line that stayed with me, that final artful simile. Beautiful. Really, this was so unexpected and breathtaking, from first to last. And it almost makes up for being forced to watch The Breakfast Club practically every church youth group retreat of my life. If I could only go back in time and say, see guys, this is where the movie is really heading. . .

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I noticed that you and I were on the same wavelength as far as the obscure fandoms!

I don't remember having any slashy thoughts when a bunch of people in my dorm went to see it, but I sure had them when I rented it after reading kaneko's The Supper Club. (http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/archive/8/thesupper.html)

And you quoted some of my favorite lines, confirming my opinion that you are a reader of great taste and discretion.

[umbo.livejournal.com]

Okay, didn't have a chance to read this until this morning, but it sure was worth the wait. This was *fantastic*. I *loved* it. Oh, and it was wicked fucking hot, too!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you liked it! It was lots of fun to write. Wish they all came this easy.

[dzurlady.livejournal.com]

Never even *heard* of this canon, but I read it anyway, and damn. That was *hot*. *croons happily at fic* Curse you and your power to interest tease me with desire for a tiny fandom!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Hee! I'm so glad you liked it. I wish there were dozens of stories in the fandom, but I think when the movie's almost ten years old, you take what you can get ...

[raveninthewind.livejournal.com]

It was the first time in his entire life that he'd ever had as much sex as he wanted, and it was amazing the difference that made in his outlook. He was so totally relaxed that he was hardly himself, so relaxed that he couldn't believe nobody noticed, but evidently either he'd been faking it better than he'd thought or nobody paid that much attention to him.
Hee! SO true about getting some as a mood elevator.

*fans self*

You are taking me back a couple of decades with this story. I like the Bender slash, even when it makes me feel old. *g*

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Yeah, me too! I'm actually older than Bender and his crowd. (Younger than Judd Nelson, though -- he was about 25 when the movie was filmed.)

[kassrachel.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, Res -- this is fucking fantastic. The pacing is spot-on, the details are predictably perfect, and this is so hot and so right it just boggles my mind. Wow. Now I think I want to own the movie. *g*

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I'm so glad you liked it!

Have you noticed that a lot of movies get more interesting once they're subjected to a slashy interpretation?

[estrella30.livejournal.com]

uhm, this might get long *g*

My GOD, Res, you have NO IDEA how very much I love this story. Seriously, I had to stop reading halfway through and IM someone to say this:

nancysmiles28 (9:35:46 AM): tracey. resonants breakfast club story is filling me with MORE GLEE THAN I CAN EXPRESS

nancysmiles28 (9:35:59 AM): I am fucking literally BOUNCING

nancysmiles28 (9:36:07 AM): jesus fucking CHRIST

nancysmiles28 (9:36:08 AM): its LONG

nancysmiles28 (9:36:12 AM): and fucking PERFECT
nancysmiles28 (9:36:17 AM): its the most PERFECT FIC EVER
nancysmiles28 (9:36:24 AM): omg

nancysmiles28 (9:36:31 AM): I cant even TELL you how much I love it
nancysmiles28 (9:36:43 AM): *twirls*
nancysmiles28 (9:36:52 AM): ok, I have things to tell you and such! but! OMG I HAVE TO FINISH THIS

nancysmiles28 (9:37:02 AM): I had to STOP and come tell you about the level of my squee

So, ok. That's pretty much summing up how I was feeling when I was reading it *g* But just - it's LONG and PERFECT and things like this:

"Look, a full-service gas station should check your oil for you, but those guys are lazy bums who won't do anything unless you tell them, so, look, this here's your dipstick, right?"

She wrote Wysocki a letter, in which she called John a "nice young man, a breed I had thought all but extinct," and he thought, jesus, my luck -- I just rescued a goddamned English teacher.

Is just so BENDER, but like, the NEW Bender. The one you give us in this. You manage to make him a likeable, sympathetic guy, but still keeping him the asshole he was in the movie, and I think that's amazing. Because in the movie you could like, SEE, the traces of a decent guy, but it's hard to pull that out without making him completely ooc and a wussy sap. Something like this:

Like a lot of Bender poses, it had the advantage of looking totally relaxed and of being such an outrage that it put the other person at a disadvantage before a word was spoken.

Just DOES that perfectly. More perfect than the movie ever could have.

And also, like always, your porn is the absolute best.

"In the house now," he said, "unless you want me to blow you on the porch."

nrrrrrrrrrgh.

Seriously - you have NO IDEA how very much I love this story. One of my all time favorites ever, in any fandom. Thank you for this!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

[squeezes you] This made my day.

I am so very glad that this Bender worked for you. I wrote the line, "The name of the game was he had to win," and I felt like I'd found the Key To Bender, the thing that would make him remain himself even if I mellowed him out enough to keep him alive and out of jail, and even if I made him do stuff like, oh, work for a living and have sex with guys -- but I couldn't be certain that would work for people other than me.

Thanks so much.