Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Simon woke up extra early and dug around in his backpack, retrieving a gun that his rich friend Grace had given to him a month ago. He set it out on his bedroom end table and picked up his phone to message her with, "R u awake?"

Grace had begun typing before he had even sent it. "Couldn't sleep. Go ahead and do it, like we talked about." Simon nodded to himself and sent an affirmative thumbs up. Then he set the phone aside and took up the gun again. Mechanically, he loaded the pistol and took the safety off. Then he put it in his pocket and left the bedroom. His mother was still asleep when he came into her room. Simon steadied his resolve one final time and walked over to the bed. He grabbed her extra pillow and shoved it over her head. She woke up, but not quickly enough. Simon pressed the barrel of the gun into the pillow and pulled the trigger. The sound was barely muted, snapping throughout the home. The pillow instantly became stained red. Some small regret tugged at Simon, and he felt vaguely sick.

It wasn't like when the two of them had put cats into sacks and swung them into walls, or took the head off a stray dog together, or even when they tricked younger kids into joining them only to threaten or blackmail the ones who changed their minds. This was something that changed Simon, who was infamously unwilling to accept change. Now there was no going back. Simon pulled the covers up over his mother's corpse and retreated to his room. His heart thundered in his chest as he saw that the phone was blinking with a notification. Only one person regularly contacted him.

He turned on the screen to see that Grace had gone on to write:
"Tbh
I did it already
Come over when you're done."
Then she had sent a string of nose and snowflake emojis that was punctuated with a silly face.

Simon shot off a quick, "Cool" and then packed up his things for the day and set out. The walk from his house to hers took a fairly long time (in fact, he had to walk past the school to get there from his house) which was why they had started their special day so early. Simon was used to the trek because he looked forward to being called upon.

En route, Simon entertained himself with the usual maladaptive daydreams full of bloody revenge. The mental images came clearer than ever before, his whole body tingling in anticipation now that he was going to do the things he always thought about. He barely noticed the time that had passed before he was walking up to the gates of the community Grace lived in, fenced off from the rest of the city. During his approach, Simon sent a message to tell Grace, "I'm here" and moments later the door to the side opened. Grace ushered him into the door and they followed the familiar trail to her home.

Grace was wearing a loose-sleeved top and shorts. The shirt she'd chosen today dipped especially low, exposing cleavage. She wasn't wearing gloves for once, but Simon noticed a smear of red on the inside of her arm, up near her pit. It was blood, and she wasn't hurt herself. For some reason, the realization made Simon feel flushed.

"Do you wanna see them?" was the first thing Grace said to him when they got to her house. Morbid curiosity drove Simon to nod and Grace led him through the foyer. He expected her to lead him down some halls but instead, she brought him to the main dining hall that was often the first room guests were taken to. "Ta-da!" Grace announced with a flourish as she threw the doors open. Simon immediately recoiled in shock at the sight.

Grace had used her father's fishing line and hooks to string their flayed bodies open along the long table, so their feet dangled off at opposing ends. She had rolled up their shirts and slit each of them up the belly, wrenched the skin aside to expose their organs. Simon recognized the handiwork from their days of experimenting on the frogs they caught in Simon's backyard.

He couldn't help but catch sight of her gloves, coated in gore and dangling over the edge of the sink. Grace led him over to her mother's body, which was closer to the door. She showed him, with giddy girlish enthusiasm, how she had first attacked them each from behind with a knife, severed their spines. She was proud to explain that she'd done it that way so that they could be vivisected while still alive, even if only for a minute or so. Then she had dragged them into here and set up the display.

Simon felt dizzy when the scent of blood hit his nose, a hot metallic smell that quickly became overwhelming, but it also excited him. Grace then dragged him out of there and upstairs to her parent's room. "I finally found my mom's stash, too," she told him, and then pulled a jewelry box from the shelf and slid open a compartment. She showed Simon the little baggies full of white powder.

"Do you wanna?" Simon asked, but he already knew the answer. Grace grinned and then revealed how in the next drawer there was a mirror and razor. They sat on her parent's bed while Grace cut them two thin lines. She snorted up one of the lines and then passed it to Simon, who copied her motions flawlessly. He got so wound up off the first hit that he had to slap himself a few times to stay in the moment. Grace slapped him too, which helped. "I can't believe we're really doing this!" he shouted.

"I know! We should get everything ready. Are you ready?" she asked, giving him a searching stare. Simon settled back into his skin and gave her a firm nod. Grace then led them into her parent's walk-in closet. In the back was a compartment that had once been locked, but now the latch was empty. She opened it and showed Simon that it was a rather large gun case. "Here's what my dad had. I didn't even know about some of this! No wonder he was so big on the second amendment," and then she laughed fondly, like her dad's corpse wasn't cooling off in the other room, dead by her own hands.

"Ohhh," Simon swooned at the sight of assault rifles, and he immediately picked one out. Grace grabbed one too, and then they each took an extra handgun as well. They also each packed away a grenade, in case they got cornered. They had both promised not to give in or give up on today. They spent the next few minutes loading all the weapons.

After that was done, Grace mentioned that she wanted to do something before they died. It seemed serious. Even then, it still caught Simon off guard when he nodded, only for Grace to throw herself at him. They made out for a while, surrounded by drugs and guns. But when she cupped her hand around his groin, Simon started to freeze up just like always. Grace laughed at him, which broke the mood. She then pulled away and suggested they just keep getting ready.

To hide the bigger guns, they decided to use matching trench coats. Grace also put on a mask she had made just for the occasion, then smeared lipstick across Simon's face in a facsimile of the design she'd drawn on her mask. No reason not to spruce up for their last day. They set out for school later in the day, aiming to arrive right around the beginning of lunch when everybody would be in either the cafeteria or the hallways so that they could catch as many people off guard as possible.

Chapter Text

On their way to the school, Grace revealed that she'd also found her parent's credit card. So she flipped up her mask so that they could stop at a gas station along the way. There, they bought some snacks and soda, along with two small gas cans that they filled with gas. They claimed that Grace's parents had run out of gas at home and sent them to get more when the cashier briefly questioned the strange purchases. He also commented on their attire, quipping sarcastically that it wasn't Halloween yet. On their way out the door, Grace turned back momentarily to flip the cashier off.

They ate and drank while walking, both of them quietly mulling over the plan today. Whenever they caught one another's eyes, they would smile excitedly. There was no doubt in either of their minds. Years of self-inflicted desensitization and reprogramming had built up to this moment, which had made it start to feel vaguely magical and predestined once the topic had finally come up.

Grace started to become reminiscent about the moment she knew Simon belonged to her, in body, mind, and soul. He had asked her out to prom, the romantic little nerd. She agreed, but only on the condition that they were going to crash the party, not participate in it. Simon's enthusiasm and consent had never wavered that whole week, even when she revealed what she had planned for them to do.

That night, they had managed to sneak in through a backdoor that some of the stoner kids had left ajar for their smoke breaks, so as not to be seen entering by any faculty members, then they set fire to the crepe garland that had been thrown about rather haphazardly. The school, of course, hadn't bothered to splurge on the fire-resistant kind. They'd nearly killed a kid that day, who had fallen beneath a torrent of falling embers and suffered third-degree burns over a majority of his body. Even better was the fact that in the chaos, Grace and Simon had managed to slip away, and had ultimately gotten away with their arson attempt.

When they got to the parking lot of their high school, their blood began to run hot. They had matching wild grins on their faces by the time they were coming through the front entrance, though Grace pulled her mask back down to hide hers behind the neutral and complacent expression of the mask. Simon grasped at her hand as they walked past the window of the administrative offices near the main hall of the front entrance. As they passed, there was a tap on the glass. They both turned to see that the superintendent Mrs. Hughes was in today, she had spotted them, and she was frowning and motioning for them to come into her office. Her grey-brown hair was in its usual braid, and her dour expression brought out the wrinkles around her mouth.

Grace and Simon glanced at one another knowingly. This was part of the plan. Amelia had been onto them for a while, and today she would find out just how right her assumptions were. They diverted their path to go into her office. Simon had a nasty smirk on his face as he asked, "Can we help you?"

"I've told you before, you can't come into school just for lunch! Furthermore, what you're wearing is unacc-eeh??" her scolding halted when she saw that Grace had paused right in the middle of her doorway as if to block it up, while Simon was coming up to and then around her desk, approaching her directly and with a certain rapid intent. The way they moved together reminded her distinctly of predators that had cornered their prey. She screamed when she finally noticed that Simon had a gas can in hand; at her reaction, he moved into action and began upending it all over her and her desk.

She knocked the can out of Simon's hand and it bounced off the wall to the floor where it spilled out further. Simon snarled viciously, shouted at her, "Old bitch!" and then punched her right in the face. Amelia stumbled back, knocking over her computer monitor as she flailed to the floor. Meanwhile, Grace had started to splash her gas around into Amelia's office entrance and out into the hall.

"Fall back!" Grace commanded. Simon gave Amelia one final parting kick and then ran out of her office and back to Grace's side. Grace pulled out a zippo lighter that had belonged to her parents and flicked it open, the flame illuminating the golden mask.

"Don't you fucking dare, you-!!" Amelia's last words were cut off when Grace lightly tossed the lighter into the room and it was immediately filled with flames. Instead, she began screaming and the two crazy teens could see her silhouette, half engulfed in flame, flailing about the smoky room. The fire alarm was triggered and the sprinklers came on, but the gas kept the fire alive despite that.

"It's go time," Grace said to Simon.

"Right. Let's hurry to the cafeteria," answered Simon. As planned, they split from one another at this point, to launch flanking maneuvers on the cafeteria, which had two entrances. Grace would take the front entrance, while Simon would take the back. Grace's path was shorter, but more packed with students who were starting to walk quicker. A bunch of them were heading out already, gathering at the front door tightly enough that some people were stuck moving with the crowd. Grace walked to the end of the hall calmly, put her back to the corner next to the large cafeteria entryway, and then revealed the automatic weapon she had under her coat.

"What the fuck?" an unfamiliar boy asked when he noticed the fact that there was a gun. That was the person Grace pointed her weapon at before she pulled the trigger and started to sweep the spray of bullets down the hall. The groups of students all began screaming at once as the activity level sharply increased. Bodies started to drop to the floor, some wailed more loudly at the sight of their friends going down. It all happened so fast that the feeling rushed through Grace like the most powerful and wondrous drug she'd ever tried. She laughed as she emptied the first clip. By then everybody had either escaped in the first few moments or had fallen to the floor and likely been shot more than once, for as much ammo she'd just used. No matter, because Simon had come up with the idea to bring multiple pre-loaded clips. She dropped the empty one and clicked in a fresh clip, then turned into the cafeteria. While the cafeteria appeared empty when she first entered, she crouched and saw that the tables had students cowering under them. A few bursts of gunfire towards each table caused screams to erupt as the bullets effortlessly ripped through the tabletops and into the bodies below. Some of the students began to flee, but Grace had noticed someone in particular.

She saw Shayna crawling out from under a table nearby, her leg had already been shot clean through and so she couldn't stand. Grace cackled and stood over her. "Hey, Shayna~," she said teasingly.

"Grace? Oh God, oh god-" Shayna started to panic immediately when she realized who it was. Shayna had been mildly dismissive of her once- ONCE, back in elementary school, when they were little kids. Ever since then, Grace had made her life a living hell. Admittedly, sometimes she made attempts to get back at Grace, though that had only been after multiple offered truces were declined. In short, she knew what was coming. Grace placed the barrel of her gun to Shayna's forehead and Shayna began to sob aloud.

"Remember what I said, when you asked if I was planning to shoot up the school?" Grace wondered. She knew that Shayna did remember. She'd tried to report Grace for the response, but the school hadn't been able to do much for 'just words.' Grace had calmly explained that, if she were to, she would most certainly make sure to shoot her for being such a bitch.

"Please don't kill me!" Shayna wailed.

"Wrong answer," Grace said and pulled the trigger.

Simon heard the commotion of course, along with everyone around him. He glanced vaguely in the direction that the shots were coming from, but then blew it off and kept heading down the hall in the opposite direction of the crowd now. It wasn't until Simon saw one of the football boys who bullied him that he pulled out his assault rifle and began shooting, though after that he continued shooting at the backs of fleeing kids indiscriminately until the hall had been cleared. He was near the athletic area where both the pool and gym were, side-by-side, and decided to let himself in so he could do a few quick specific cullings. The door hadn't been blocked or locked yet. Simon let his assault rifle hang at his side and pulled out a pistol instead. He started to walk up one of the bleachers, which was a likely hiding spot. His hunch proved correct, as he found and walked up to several students who had taken refuge behind them. At first, each encounter began with teary pleas and ended with a resounding bang as Simon placed shots into each of their heads.

After four such executions, one of the larger jocks emerged from his hiding place and charged at Simon. He was loud about it, which meant that Simon had plenty of forewarning. He used it to plug lead into the larger boy's chest. A few more got up to escape during that, but Simon managed to hit all but one of them, who slipped out the door. "Damn it," Simon muttered under his breath with frustration and started to head towards the door. Just before he had opened it again, he heard a splash from the pool. Simon whipped around to see who it was. He saw that a younger boy with tanned skin and brown hair had emerged from the surface of the pool and was gasping for air like he'd been trying to hide underwater. Simon recognized him and chuckled. "Jesse," he called out.

"Simon!? Please, I've never done anything to you, let me go-" Jesse immediately began pleading.

"Hmm, yeah. You're one of the only nice ones out of these jerks," Simon approached as he motioned casually to the carnage in the bleachers around them. Jesse started to backpedal away, so Simon aimed his gun at him and warned, "If you try to run, I'll shoot. Come here."

After pausing and hesitating, Jesse swam back to Simon. Simon used the gun to motion Jesse upward, so he lifted himself out of the water and stood before Simon in just his swimming trunks and a hair cap. Then Simon told him to, "Get on your knees and shuffle closer."

The thrill of killing had stirred up other passions for Simon. Though he'd been trying to let Grace take his virginity, her aggressive sexual approaches often made him stiffen up, and not in the way intended. He had long fantasized about being the one to initiate and control the act, but for just as long he had given up on the idea that powerful, forceful Grace would ever deign to grant him something closer to that.

The way he figured, Jesse had been one of the few to have ever stood up for him, besides Grace of course. He remembered how the younger boy was the only one out of his whole friend group who seemed to even have a little bit of decency. He exposed himself to the sophomore once Jesse had shuffled right up to him and said, "I think you know what I want. You do it or I'll kill you." To prove his point, Simon pressed the barrel of the pistol against Jesse's temple.

Jesse started to tear up, but he leaned forward and started to suck on the tip. Simon was briefly dizzied by how hard he got and how quickly it happened. He kept the gun pressed to Jesse's head but kept his finger off the trigger so that he wouldn't get too excited and accidentally blow off Jesse's head. Or worse yet, blow off his dick as he thrust forward, sheathing his cock in forcefully enough that the tip made Jesse choke up around it. Simon groaned out deeply. His cock started to pulse, and by the third throb, he had started to cum down Jesse's throat. Simon whined when he came, grabbing at the back of Jesse's head with his other hand so that the younger boy couldn't pull off. His spasming throat was milking at Simon, prolonging the shooter's climax.

Simon let go only once he started to feel overstimulated, and when Jesse reared back his eyes were foggy like he had almost passed out while crying. Jesse slowly glanced up, hoping to see mercy, but instead found himself staring into the barrel of the gun. This time Simon had his finger on the trigger, which he pulled. Jesse's body fell back and slipped off the edge into the pool he'd emerged from. Once that was done with, Simon put his dick away and fixed up his pants, before leaving the gym entirely. He continued into the cafeteria, only to see that Grace had just caught the red-headed and freckled twins, Lake and Tulip. They must have tried sneaking out of the bathrooms after Grace had stopped shooting for a few seconds.

She had them frozen up against one of the walls. They knew they weren't faster than bullets, so both had remained still. Simon walked over to join his friend, who was eyeing them ravenously. "What are you waiting for?" he asked.

Instead of answering him directly, she briefly looked at him. Then she turned her mask back to the junior high students. "Simon, you're here! Alright girls, now take off your shirts."

"What the fuck? No," Lake said, outraged, so Grace shot her in the chest. Tulip screamed and then started to cry as Lake dropped. Lake, unfortunately, wasn't instantly slain, though the wound was most certainly mortal. She writhed in pain as she began to quickly bleed out.

"Take off your damn shirt!" Grace roared at Tulip, who jumped and then quickly complied. She barely had any tits to speak of, and Simon wondered where Grace was going with this. "Now jump up and down!" Grace ordered next. Tulip was still crying when she did, and what little chest she had jiggled. Grace laughed mockingly and then shot her in the chest as well. "A couple of real boards, completely flat and easy to nail," she then quipped before she turned away from them to go check the bathrooms. Simon followed along.

"You take the girl's, and I'll take the boy's," Grace quickly explained. Simon gave her a confused look, which she shrugged at. "Just trying to break some more rules," she declared. At that, Simon gave in with a shrug, and then they each went into the bathroom of their opposite gender.

Simon didn't find much, the stalls were all flung open and if anybody was hiding, they were good enough to evade a quick sweep of the room.

Grace had chosen the bathroom she did because she figured that the other bathroom had already been fled by the twins. So when she came in and all the stall doors were closed up tight, it put her on edge. A glance to the floor didn't reveal anybody's feet or legs. "Come out, come out, wherever you are~" Grace sang aloud as she came further into the room. She stopped at the first door and put a few rounds through it, aiming about where the toilet was in case someone was sitting on the back of it to hide their presence.

The door to the second door flew open and suddenly two asian boys were rushing at her. The shorter one with reddish-brown hair managed to hit her arm in a way to make her drop her gun, and then the stockier one with shorter hair in a blue jacket swung at her, knocking her into the door she'd just shot up. Grace growled and cried out, "You motherfuckers!"

She reached for her second sidearm, but they both lunged for her arms and together successfully thwarted her attempt. For just a moment, Grace got scared as she saw the shorter one reaching for her gun with his free hand. Just before he could grasp it, though, a shot came from the bathroom entrance and ripped through the Japanese boy's skull.

The other asian let go of Grace to back away, his eyes growing wide. "R-Ryan, no!" he cried, and then screamed and turned to charge at Simon, who had come running once he heard the initial scuffle next door. Simon shot him down before he could cross the distance between them.

"You okay?" Simon asked Grace after the excitement started to wane, as the two bodies bled out from the gaping bullet wounds in their heads. Ryan in particular had gotten half his head blown off entirely. Grace found herself smitten by his swift and heroic response, but luckily the mask hid the unwittingly enamored smile she was giving him.

She did laugh, but that was to hide the vulnerability she was allowing him to see when she admitted, "I am now, thanks to you."

"Did I finally manage to save you back?" he weaseled. Grace scoffed and rolled her eyes, knowing what he was talking about.

The first time they met had been at a funeral- a funeral for Simon's dad. When the two were 10, Simon's father was killed in combat overseas. His mother, in her grief, had invited Simon's whole class and their guardians to the military funeral. Grace's parents decided to go, as it would make them look goodly and charitable among their elite peers.

She'd never really noticed him before, but that day she did. Simon hadn't looked particularly upset during the entire process. He'd looked mostly like he was bored, and maybe vaguely annoyed at just how long it was taking to put his dad in the ground. Over the next few days, other kids decided to tease Simon about it, as he had never been particularly popular. Mostly he was always quiet and a little weird, which attracted bullies.

Grace noticed that usually, Simon could ignore them fairly easily. It was like he didn't realize what the intent was when students spoke loudly in his presence about soldiers who killed innocents and committed other war crimes. Even when they insinuated that this applied to most if not all of them. This didn't dissuade them to leave him alone. Instead, it escalated to physical threats, with bigger and older kids going out of their way to shove him into lockers and knock things out of his hands.

At that point, Grace stepped in to defend him. She was already known to be a cruel and domineering girl, if not as a 'fuckin psycho,' and so they finally backed away. This, Simon did notice. After that, he began following her around and started to also do her bidding when she gave him an order. They started to talk, which led to Simon confessing that he'd never known his father except through Christmas letters and gifts of money. The money was the main thing he missed. That was why the whole situation had only been inconvenient and mildly annoying to him at best.

More recently, Simon had gone on further to claim that he was, in fact, happy that his dad had died. In a way, it had led him to meet Grace, which was way better than a 5 dollar bill sent to him every other week or less. He claimed that Grace had 'saved him' from 'being wasted,' whatever that meant. What she knew was that together, they made an unstoppable team.

"Grace, do you hear that?" Simon asked, breaking her out of her recollections. Grace snapped to attention and listened. The sound came again, closer and clearer than before.

"Come out with your hands up! We have you surrounded!" was being shouted over a megaphone by the voice of an unfamiliar adult man. Simon and Grace glanced at one another, possibly for the last time. Side by side and with weapons drawn, they walked out of the bathroom hall and back into the cafeteria.

Two cops had already made it that far, and the two duos initially caught one another off guard. They were all already armed, which ensued a brief firefight. It lasted only seconds before there was only one gun firing. Grace lowered her weapon and let the dust and smoke clear to see that they had managed to kill both of the bald cops. The detective hat of one had flown off his head after his face had been blown off, and the other was rapidly perishing from a gaping tear in the side of his neck, making sick gurgling noises with his last labored breaths.

Then she glanced over and her heart sank. Simon laid on the floor at her side and was staring blankly at the bullet wound in his upper abdomen. He'd already turned even paler than usual, and his weak breaths sounded watery. His gaze turned upward to Grace, his pupils constricted in abject pain and fear.

"Oh no... No..." Grace intoned sadly, defeatedly. She crouched down next to Simon and threw aside her mask. She looked at where the shot was and knew in the pit of her stomach that he wouldn't survive for long. Simon heaved shallowly when she accidentally touched the edge of it, and blood began to run from his mouth and nose.

"I think I'm dying," Simon barely managed to whisper. Grace frowned intently and gave out a loud, stressed sigh, knowing he was right.

"It's okay. I'm sure we got the numbers we need, the high school high score. Let's get out of here," Grace murmured softer, more lovingly, than she'd ever spoken to him before, and then drew her grenade. Instead of trying to answer her verbally, Simon managed to withdraw his grenade and tapped it to hers, as if he was making a toast. Even through the pain, he managed to give her a soft smile.

Grace took them both and pulled both pins by holding down the release in her hands and pulling them with her teeth. One she tossed to the far end of the cafeteria behind them, and the other one she kept in hand. Simon reached up and wrapped his hand around the grenade as well, holding onto both it and Grace's hand. Just before both explosives went off, Grace leaned down and sealed her lips to Simon's, so that as they were blown up they were passionately kissing.

The other end of the large room blew up at the same time. The destroyed walls meant that enough support was lost that the ceiling overhead came down, ensuring further death and destruction as anybody still bleeding out was buried in the rubble. A chain reaction of further lost support occurred, which caused a quarter of the whole building to eventually crumble apart over the next half a minute.

Emergency services of all sorts had arrived in force, and when the explosion occurred they decided to launch into search and rescue mode immediately, especially when no further gunshots were occurring as they approached the area.

Over the next hours, the rubble was looked through. Uninjured survivors were reunited with family, and the few that had been injured but not killed were taken to hospitals. Eventually, the search turned up evidence of the perpetrators, mostly in the form of their weapon components and bits of bloodied trench coat found in a blast-shaped radius around where they'd been.

Funerals were arranged for by the families who had survived them, but the school agreed to pay for them, as small of a comfort as that was. The day it happened was forever marred in their community. Most wanted to forget it, but couldn't. People went to therapy, learned how to work around the lingering issues. Someday, the people would recover, but it would take a very long time.