Chapter Text
The day was nothing special, Shadow Milk just kept quiet after finishing another test. He excused himself to go to Spice’s class for the rest of the day, he had a study hall and Shadow Milk had nothing better to do. He softly knocked on the door, the teacher getting the door for him.
“Hi… I have a pass. And I think I have a friend who’s in your class.” The teacher looked over his pass, verifying that it was real and not fake. She pointed her glasses down at him, he looked away from her. “The pass seems legit… who’s your friend?” He keeps himself completely still while he talks, “Burning Spice.” She opens the door, he took the time to thank her and sneaked up behind Spice, who was sleeping.
He recognized the student he’s next to, one of the track teammates. Molotov Coal, he shushes them and places himself behind Spice. He inhales a large quantity of air, “HI SPICE!!!” Spice jumps up startled, Molotov is spooked. That’s when he looks around and sees everyone looking at him, he flaps his hands lightly. “Was I too loud again?” Molotov nodded, “Dude, I’m pretty sure that floors one and three could hear you.”
He quieted instantly, Spice lightly slapped his teammate on the shoulder for the comment. They realized that they said something wrong, “Sorry bout that. You know I was joking, right?” Shadow Milk looks at them, “I know, you didn’t mean to… it’s fine.” He brings out his sketchbook and starts working on the portrait of Spice while he’s here. Burning Spice takes notice, “What’s that?” Shadow Milk looks at the sketchbook, subconsciously covering the whole page with both hands.
“It’s my sketchbook. I draw in it every day and-” Spice interrupts him. “Can I take a look? I promise I won’t judge or anything. Sugar’s been hyping your sketchbook up for a while now.” His eyes widened, blushing slightly. He didn’t know why he was so flustered and at the same time excited to show Spice. He cautiously handed the book to Spice, he found himself unable to look away as the other skimmed through the pages. He hands him back the sketchbook and Shadow Milk hugs it to his chest.
“You’re pretty good. I can see why Sugar was talking about it.” He looks away, his face flushed with pink. He doesn’t want Spice to see that. “T-thanks…” the end of day announcements begin to broadcast through the intercom. Shadow Milk was half paying attention to what was being said, suddenly he heard his classes room number. He perked his head up, looking at Spice for answers.
“What are they talking about?”
“Oh, they’re just combining the yearly freshman class field trip with the sophomore’s class trip for some reason.” School field trips, he hasn’t been on many of them. Only one, and even that was a hazy memory at best and practically nonexistent at worst. He made a mental note to return to his class to pick up the slip. The bell rings, he gets up from his desk and dashes toward his own classroom.
The teacher sighs and hands him the permission slip. He reconvenes with Burning Spice as he looks over the information. It’s going to take place the day after tomorrow, at the zoo. He never been to the zoo before, so he’s cautiously optimistic that he’ll be able to handle it.
Spice nudged his shoulder, Shadow Milk returned the gesture. The others were at the bottom of the stairs. Sugar speaks first, “So any of you going?” Mystic Flour nods, “My class has been selected for the trip, therefore I will be attending.” Spice hung his head back, “If it means that I miss the reading test on the day we go, then yes.” Shadow Milk laughed wildly at that, coughing and stopping when he felt he was making too much noise.
“And you Blueberry?”
“Have to ask my parents first… but I’m going to go anyways if they say no.”
Silent Salt gave him a thumbs up, as the group exits the school. He waved everyone goodbye and turned around to walk home. He paused, his hand hovering over the doorknob. He takes a deep breath and turns the knob, walking in his house. His mother is in the kitchen, he readies his script for talking to her.
“Hey mom?” She groans in annoyance, he winces at the sound. She always makes talking to him seem like a chore to her, he’s used to it at this point. Yet it still stings and hurts every time. “What is it now?” He takes another deep breather.
“There’s going to be a field trip at school and I want to go…” she looks at him with disgusted disappointment in her eyes, his eyes watering. He holds it together, trying desperately not to cry right here. “If it’ll get you out of my hair, then hand me the slip.” He hands her the permission slip, his hand shaking. She takes a harshly, causing a paper cut on his finger.
He hates paper cuts. He doesn’t know why? Something about the way the paper cuts through his skin makes him squirm and teary eyed. She hands him back the slip with everything signed, “Make yourself useful and get out of my sight.” He goes up the stairs with the slip in hand, closing his bedroom door and locking it. He slid down the door, hyperventilating and flapping the hand that has the paper cut on it. He grabs the landline phone he stole from downstairs and shakily calls one of his friends.
He decides on Mystic Flour, she always has a calming aura that helps him relax in times of crisis. The phone rings when it picks up, he gasps. “Hello?” He sobs and tries to talk to Flour, occasionally being cut off by his own tears. “Fl-Flour?” Her voice remains monotone and gracious. “Blue? Is everything well?”
He choked on a sob and breathed rapidly, “No.” he hears footsteps from the other line. He rocked himself back and forth, still flapping his hand. “Apologies for the silence Blue. Do you require me to arrive at your abode or someone to communicate with?” The idea of one of his friends coming over to his place sent physical shivers across his body. “No. I just need someone to talk.”
“That is acceptable. How’s everything occurring with your day?” He huffed a laugh at Flour’s response.
“Good… my mom is letting me go on the field trip.”
“Such wonderful news. Do you want me to inform everyone else?”
“Please do, Misty.”
She laughed and continued, “I will do so. Will you be alright during the trip?”
“I’ll manage.” He took full, deep breath and continued to rock himself. “Thanks for talking to me Flour.”
“You don’t need to thank me for something so simple, I was just helping you. I look forward to the day of the trip.” He smiles.
“Me too.” He hangs up after that and got into his pajamas after eating dinner with his parents. He couldn’t help but actually be excited about the trip.
—
He wakes up with a big smile on his face, then he squeaks in pain. His legs were on fire right now, the surge of pain coursing through both limbs. He can tell that the pain was going to be unbearable once it travels up to his back and neck. He just hopes that the trip will be enough to distract himself from the sheer agony he’s feeling right now. He empties his backpack and begins packing, he puts his sketchbook in the backpack and walks downstairs to get water.
He whines as he descends the stairs. Each step caused a sudden burst of pain in his legs, he almost started crying for joy when he reached the bottom of the stairs. He walks to the fridge and grabs two bottles of water, he zips up his backpack and grabs the flashlight near the door and leaves. Limping down the sidewalk to his school, once he sees the school buses he sighs in relief. He sat down on the bench, rubbing his legs with his hands and quietly whining.
He looks around for his friends, they weren’t here yet. He found that surprising, since there’s already a handful of students here. He sees a car pulling up near the buses and Silent Salt exits the vehicle. They look around and wave at him, he winces as he gets off the bench and walks to them. “Hi Salty.” They wave back and turned to see Sugar exiting her limousine with another. She hugs Salt and then Shadow Milk. The person with her hands her some stuff and leaves.
“What’s his deal?”
“That’s my chauffeur. Oh! Before I forget, I brought you some things for the bus ride up.” He stands there stunned, while she sorts through the items. “I brought you some snacks, a heated blanket, some colored pencils if you brought your sketchbook, and earmuffs for in case it gets loud.” He looks at her. “Thank you, Sweets. I don’t think I had anyone come in with an entire pack of stuff just for me.” She puts a hand on his shoulder. “It’s my pleasure, Milky.”
“I suppose me and Spice were tardy.” Mystic Flour stands poised and ready near Burning Spice, he looks at the stack of stuff that Shadow Milk is holding. He looks sheepish at him, “Oh! Sugar gave me this stuff.” Spice snickers, and turns to Sugar. “You gave him all of that?” She puts her hands behind her back and leans forward in a playful way. “It’s going to be a five hour ride to the zoo. I had to think of my friend who I’m going to be on the same bus with.”
The teachers start organizing the students to their respective buses and the three freshmen get on their bus. Shadow Milk takes his seat near the back of the bus, Salt and Sugar sit right across from him. He wraps the blanket around himself trying to find the heat part, Sugar heads over and picks up one of the corners of the blanket. A small click is heard and then the blanket begins to heat up, and Shadow Milk almost falls asleep immediately.
The warmth of the blanket soothing the pain in his legs. He sighs softly and wraps the blanket tighter around his slim frame. Sugar chuckles at him for a moment, “Feels good, right?”
“Oh yeah. That’s really nice.” She smiled at him. “Make sure you don’t waste the battery on it, you’ll need it for the ride back.” He sighed, curling himself deeper into the blanket. “How do you even turn it off?” She points to the bottom half of the blanket, “It’s on the left corner.” Shadow Milk gives her a thumbs up and turns away.
“Wake me up in three hours.” She nods and he falls asleep instantly. Faintly hearing her laugh. Sugar takes out her mini makeup kit, doing her eyeshadow and liner whenever the bus stops at a red light. She and Salt talked quietly as to not wake up their sleeping friend. Once eight am hit, she quickly switches to her friend’s seat and nudges him awake.
He groans at the movement, blearily opening his eyes. “Okay, okay, I’m up.” He grabbed the corner of the blanket and turned it off. He brings out his sketchbook, flipping to the pages with his little character drawn on. He settles on an empty page, Sugar glances at the page to see him writing something. ‘Potential shapeshifter forms.’ He looks at her, suddenly closing the book and hugging it to his chest. She approaches the topic with caution and intrigue.
“What’s that whole shapeshifter page about?” He looks at her, then to the book. Sighing softly and responding with the same amount of caution that she had when asking. “It’s just for a character I made… she’s this being with a lot of magic and I wanted to explore that and…yeah.” Sugar’s interest is piqued by the idea, she holds her hand out.
“Can I see?” He looks surprised by the question, exactly like when she asked to see his sketches for the first time. He flipped through the pages and started at one of the first few pages, then shifted closer to her. The book laid her lap, he started looking at her, opening his mouth like he wanted to tell her everything about the character he created. But hesitant to let the words out, she gives him an encouraging smile. He takes a deep breath and begins to speak.
“That right there was the first time I drew her. She started as a little creature that was fun to draw, then during the first month of school I started to actually build her character.” He flips the page, Sugar looks at the multiple crossed out words, “That’s me brainstorming a name for her. I settled on the name Fount. She sorta became a way for me to express my fashion sense.” Sugar tilts her head, he looks at the floor. “My parents don’t like me wearing clothing that is strictly feminine or lets me explore outside of the wardrobe they picked out.”
Sugar placed a hand on his knee, he looked at her. “You can try some of my skirts and dresses sometime. I’ll be happy to let you.” He sniffed and hugged her. “Thank you, thank you, thank you so much.” She hugs him back, keeping the hug gentle yet firm.
—
Burning Spice stands up along with everyone else. Mystic Flour stands in front of him as they shuffle out of the bus. He stretches out his back, as the next bus pulls up and drops off its students. Shadow Milk, Eternal Sugar, and Silent Salt are the last students to exit the bus. He waves his hand at them and the three go up to him.
Shadow Milk rocks himself on his feet, smiling brightly and clutching his sketchbook close to his chest. Spice looks at him and the book he held close to his chest. “Pipsqueak, is there any reason why you’re bringing the book?” He glances down at his sketchbook and looks away dejectedly.
“I don’t know, actually. I guess it’s like a comfort for me? Like I feel more secure and safe if I have it on my person, if that makes any sense.” He looks up at Spice, he brings his hand up. His heart breaking at the sight of the younger flinching, he brings it onto his head and ruffles his hair. “Just make sure you don’t lose it, okay?” Shadow Milk blew a raspberry and flicked his hand.
“I won’t lose my sketchbook!!! That’ll be the last thing I’d do!!!”
The teacher called out to the students to follow him. Shadow Milk sticks close to his friend group. His sketchbook still clutched to his chest tightly, he started to feel the pain in his legs again. At least the group stopped every few steps, giving him a slight reprieve from the pain. The pain eventually starts traveling up his spine, causing a tiny whine of pain to escape him.
He takes a deep breath and continues to follow the group. Internally celebrating every time the group stopped, he wasn’t even paying attention. He occasionally wrote down the names of some animals that he thought would make good forms for Fount, but it ended up him having to catch up with the rest of the group.
He’s fine with that though, he just has to hold out until lunch. Which he’s sure he can handle it till then… barely at best.