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Flame frowned as he picked up the little green egg that was nestled between the weedy grass and the railings that bordered some building on the school campus that Flame had never bothered to care to learn about.
He couldn't help but think that he was a bit too old for this sort of thing. His own parents stopped the whole Easter Egg Hunt crap when he was ten, instead delegating it to his little cousins to focus on while he just got a lame gift basket and some chocolate. Now, he was seventeen and doing it at school when he really should be inside and practicing his paradiddles.
This was so stupid, Flame repeated not for the first time in his thoughts, I'm getting too old for this. This is just so-
"Flame! Flame!" Spoke called out from behind him. Flame mentally prepared himself before turning around and seeing the familiar figure of his friend ambling toward him with his shirt pulled out in front of him with what looked to be at least fifteen or so eggs. "Look how many I got!"
Then, as if every aspect of Spoke's life was a comedy, Spoke tripped over his own two feet and went sprawling into the grass with a shriek of terror. The sound of plastic breaking under the weight of a human could also be heard; no doubt being the Easter Eggs being crushed into oblivion.
And all Flame could really do was just...stare at Spoke's unmoving figure in the incredibly awkward position the teen found himself in. Face fully in the dirt, arms out on the ground and above his head, a singular leg in the air with the laces on his shoes totally loose and swaying in the wind...just...seriously a cartoonish sight.
Flame looked around, really unsure on what to do. Maybe there was a more put together band member around that could handle this. Like Parrot. Or Mane. Hell, he'd probably take Clown at this moment.
It seemed like just his luck, though, that the only person nearby was Spongs who was a bit too busy trying to get a bright pink egg out of a tree that Ash definitely put up there to be a jerk. And knowing Spongs, he would just give Flame some stupid answer and be more of a hindrance than a help.
So, Flame tentatively walked up to Spoke and crouched down. "Uhhh. You good, bro?" he asked, debating on the merits of grabbing a stick and poking Spoke with it. The only thing that properly stopped him was the idea of getting laughed at for treating Spoke like a dead body.
Spoke let out a pained whine before lifting his head up. For a moment, he looked a bit like a cat doused in water, but the dirt on his face, leaves in his hair, and the blood coming out of his nose gave a more earthier vibe.
...
Oh shit. Spoke's nose is bleeding.
"Yo. Uh. Your nose is kinda bleedin' there, bro," Flame said slowly as he sort of vaguely motioned to his own nose, even more out of his depth than before. Flame has seemed blood before; he's fought people before and he was a particularly rough-housey kid with Mane, so he's no real stranger to it. But this was Spoke and it wasn't like he was on Flame's shit list.
Spoke dropped his head back down in a moment of defeat. "Nooooo, broooo. I've been doing so good on not getting into situations," he complained with his voice muffled from the dirt. "And my eggs....I crushed my eggs...."
Flame sort of-kinda of-really thought that Spoke should be more concerned with the bloody nose. But this was Spoke. So Flame just had to take it as it was.
“We should probably get you to the nurse, dude,” Flame responded. He didn’t really wanna touch on the subject of Spoke’s crushed plastic eggs because, for one, he didn’t exactly care, and two, Spoke seemed like a mention and a half about them away from bursting out into tears. Flame can handle an injury. He cannot handle crying. Much less a crying Spoke.
He reached out and wrapped a hand around Spoke’s arm, slowly pulling him up while Flame stood up. Spoke made a sort of sniffle noise, but it was clear that the action was aborted halfway through because of the weird feeling it probably caused. Spoke, thankfully, didn’t stay dead weight and started to get up with Flame’s help.
Spoke was quick to pinch the bridge of his nose and keep leaning forward to keep the blood from dripping down and staining his clothes. “This sucks, dude,” Spoke complained.
“At least it isn’t broken,” Flame amended in an attempt to make Spoke feel a little better. Spoke, in return, just nodded sagely before looking down at his crushed eggs again. There were about twenty of them in various colors–bright blue, emerald green, sunshine yellow–but most had succumbed to the fate of being flattened and cracked due to Spoke’s entire weight being put on them. There were several slips of paper amongst the wreckage too, seeing as Ash had decided that written prizes would be better than putting candy in them and letting the ants get to the eggs first.
Flame huffed before crouching down again and scooped what he could into his own basket, making sure to get each piece of paper so that Spoke could accurately get his rewards for doing a decent amount of work. Flame knew that he would be pissed if he had to leave his prizes somewhere because of an emergency and then someone just took them all.
He dusted off his pants as he stood up and looked at Spoke who had an odd sort of look on his face. “C’mon,” Flame said, patting Spoke’s back to kick start him into moving, “lets get you checked out, bro.”
Flame had flagged down the first adult that he had seen to let them know he was taking Spoke to the school nurse. Flame was glad that it had been Redd that he had seen first and told, because he was sent on his way with a wave and promised to tell Ash about where they went. Thankfully, Redd had produced a thing of pocket napkins for Spoke so he didn’t drip blood all over the school corridors. So, they took them and went on their way.
Unfortunately, both Flame and Spoke didn’t really know where the nurse’s office was, so they almost got a little lost, but they made it there in the end.
Spoke had elected to not have his parents be called, waving off the school nurse with a quick, “they’re both working, I don’t want to bother them right now,” and settled into one of the chairs with his legs bouncing on the tile floor as they waited for the bleeding to stop. Apparently, the nurse just wanted to make sure that Spoke wasn’t going to end up bleeding too much to actually need a visit to the doctors.
Flame was right next to Spoke, scrolling through Twitter as a way to pass the time. A notification banner popped down from the top of Flame’s screen and he tapped on it without really reading the message. In the end, it was just a message from Wemmbu in their group chat.
yoooo everything good flame?? i saw you and spoke going into the school and it looked like spoke was bleeding?? (｡•́︿•̀｡)
Flame was quick to answer back.
just a nosebleed. he fell headfirst into the dirt and cause it lol
He felt Spoke shift next to him, obviously reading the messages over Flame’s shoulder. “Tell them I say hi but with five i’s,” Spoke said.
Flame turned to look at Spoke. “Don’t you have your phone on you?” he questioned. “Do it yourself.”
“Pleaseeeee? Are you really going to deny the injured?” Spoke complained. It was obvious that he wanted to slump against Flame dramatically, but didn’t want to risk getting blood on his jacket. Which was great, because cleaning leather was rough.
Flame just let out a defeated sigh. When he had joined this friend group, he hadn’t really understood how Wemmbu and Parrot could cave easily to Spoke, much less people like Minute and Mapicc. But, here he was, caving almost immediately.
spoke says hiiiii btw
Wemmbu was quick to respond with a, hiiiiiiiii ٩(^ᗜ^ )و ´- dont die we need u ^^
oh btw parrot is wondering if we need to bring u guys ur stuff or wtv
he’s busy wrangling jaden and mane cause theyre tryna sword fight w sticks rn so im asking for him
Spoke shook his head next to Flame. “Say no, say no. We’ll be back. Trust.”
Flame snickered. spoke says we’ll b back soon, theres no need :thumbs up:
Wemmbu reacted to that with the iMessage !! reaction and left it there. Flame, in turn, exited out the app and looked back to Spoke. “You’re good, right? I, like, forgot to ask.”
Spoke blinked at Flame before he nodded slightly. “Yeah. Why? Just a fall, dude,” Spoke responded with a laugh, shrugging as he continued. “It isn’t my first bloody nose, anyways.” Flame…didn’t really have anything to say after that. He wasn’t much of a comfort person, no matter how much Lomedy tried to coach him to be when Flame asked him how the hell he should navigate his relationship with Wemmbu after a particularly nasty argument.
He looked down to the basket he still had. It was still full of the crushed eggs, but Flame’s own collection of seven laid under them. He realized he hadn’t even grabbed the green one he was about to before Spoke took his tumble. Spongs probably took it. Ugh.
The nurses office was silent for a minute, only the sound of Spoke’s heel occasionally squeaking against the tile floor from his bouncing leg and the clock ticking in the corner. Flame wasn’t sure if it felt awkward because silence was actually awkward or if Flame was making himself believe it was.
Because of this, he couldn’t stop himself from speaking. “Do you want the eggs I collected?”
Spoke looked at him weirdly. “Huh?”
“The eggs, bro. I don’t, like, really want them. I was just participating cause it felt like I had to.” Flame cleared his throat before looking anywhere but Spoke. “So, uh. want them?”
“Duh. Of course!” Spoke answered, a grin evident in his voice even though Flame couldn’t see it. “Everyone is gonna be soooooo jealous of the cool stuff we get.” Flame turned his gaze to look back at Spoke and saw that familiar, smiling expression that had been missing since Spoke fell flat on his face fifteen minutes ago.
“Yeah, of course they will, bro.”
Flame’s sure that Spoke’s attitude was infectious, because he suddenly felt as if maybe he could still enjoy another year or so of Easter if it meant hanging out with people like this, lame chocolate and all.