INCANDESCENCE - (Scyde)

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ 04 - PETRICHOR

PETRICHOR

noun - the smell of the first rain after a drought

☆

When Clyde walks into school on Monday, he immediately regrets it.

"Did you have a nice d-d-date on Friday?" Jimmy asks, smiling.

He sighs, and puts his hands in his pockets. The buzzing chatter of students drowns out the squeak of Clyde's trainers and the clink of Jimmy's crutches on the laminate floor. Someone jostles past them, and Jimmy mutters something under his breath that Clyde can't catch.

"It wasn't a date, dude." he replies.

"Sure, keep telling yourself that." Tolkien chimes in, walking up beside Clyde.

Clyde yelps out of surprise, then glares at him, "It wasn't! I swear, we were just hanging out." he pauses, then adds "As friends." after seeing Tolkien's smirk.

"Seriously, you got ov-o-ov... moved on from Bebe so quickly." Jimmy looks behind them, and Clyde follows his gaze. Speak of the devil.

Bebe strings her arms around Clyde's neck from behind, "Clyde's dating someone already?!"

Tolkien laughs and Clyde grumbles, "Christ, dude. At this rate the whole school's gonna know by lunch."

"Aha! So you admit it!"

"No!!" Clyde thinks that, with anyone else, they would be deserving of a kick in the shin. Of course it has to be Jimmy that's pestering him. Instead he punches his shoulder and scowls.

Bebe lets go of him and walks in front of the boys, "It's ok, Clyde. You only have like 5 friends anyway. No one else is gonna care." her melodic voice has an unusually teasing lilt to it.

Before Clyde can protest she giggles and runs off to join Wendy and her other friends.

"Ugh. Girls, am I right?" he muses, stretching his arms above his head and yawning.

Nudging his elbow, Tolkien smirks, "You're only saying that now you like Scott Malkinson."

"Oh my god!"

The three boys separate to get their books from their lockers. Clyde is thankful for the newfound silence, he loves his friends but they can be pretty intrusive sometimes. He scrapes some scribbles off his locker and pulls out his books.

Craig sidles up to him, "Hey Clyde."

"Hey Craig." they bump fists and Craig leans back against the lockers. Clyde looks over at him, "You weren't with the rest of us earlier."

"I was just with Tweek. Why, did something happen?"

"No. Only the others bullying me." he rolls his eyes, and Craig lets out a puff of air. Practically his equivalent of a laugh, "It's not funny!"

Craig puts his hand on Clyde's shoulder, "Dude, chill."

"They think I'm dating Scott or something."

"You aren't?"

Clyde slowly looks over at Craig, silently staring at him in a way he hopes gets across his bewilderment. He thought if anyone would have his back, it would be Craig, "You can't be serious."

Craig gets up and starts following, Clyde scurrying after, "I'm not. Not much."

"Okay. Good, at least someone cares about my feelings."

"Who, Scott Malkinson?" Craig has this stupid smirk Clyde hates so much.

"Well I thought it was you but clearly not." he huffs and walks faster. To his dismay, Craig makes no effort to go follow and just stays behind. But Clyde has too much pride to fall back.