Diamonds In The Dark

Puppy Love

Skeppy frowned as he shifted the instrument in his lap. His fingers gently plucking the strings in a familiar pattern. He had picked up guitar moving here to Hawkford, and now, with the past week of Christmas George and Bad, had apparently saved and bought him his own. He smiled a little as he held it, gently playing along the strings thinking back to Christmas morning.

He still distinctly remembered unwrapping the box, both Bad and George had looked so giddy and excited. Before he could even unwrap the Christmas gift, Bad blurted out.

“Everyone pitched in here, mostly Dream and I, but we all wanted to get you this!” He was beaming and his tail excitedly wagged behind him, thumping against the dorm floor.

He laughed as George grinned at his friend’s enthusiasm, “We’ve been planning this for like, a month.”

“No Bad has planned this for a month, we just helped.” George laughed.

A month? For planning something so simple as a gift for him? Did he really matter that much to his friends? The thought made his heart flutter, and a happy grin spread across his face. So he gingerly pulled at the wrapping, he could barely remember the last time he had properly had a real Christmas. One like the cheesy movies on tv where family and friends got together, and gave one another gifts. No shouting matches, broken bottles, or bruises. He wiped at his eye realizing a few tears had threatened to spill. Finally he began unwrapping the box.

It was unusually large, and rectangular. He hadn’t even seen it last night when they all gave one another matching pajamas. Well his and Bad’s matched at least. Apparently Skeppy had missed the memo when getting George’s. So the pair must’ve been hiding it and placed it under their tiny tree early this morning before he awoke. He gently lifted the lid of the box. The words FRAGILE were plastered everywhere on the light cardboard.

It had been a beautiful wooden guitar. It was sleek and dark oak in colors, to say he had been speechless was an understatement. He had sat there gaping like a grinning idiot as Bad threw his arms around Skeppy giggling happily with him.

“Do you like it?” He asked as he let go of the tackle hug, looking expectantly at Skeppy.

“I love it.” He had replied barely trusting his voice as he hugged both his best friends tightly.

He smiled at the memory from a week ago. He had worked hard to start learning music, and despite his efforts he kept finding himself wanting to learn one song in particular. He had found the music in one of the teachers' excess bins of stacks of sheet music. He was still very much a beginner, and this song wouldn’t be easy, but he couldn’t help but be drawn to it. He hummed as he played the first few measures of the song.

His mind wandered to Bad despite him trying to focus on the music and he found himself humming the lyrics under his breath as he sang. He was alone in the classroom thankfully, otherwise he wouldn’t ever be caught dead singing. Let alone this cheesy of a love song.

“Hello, how are you, my darling, today?” His cheeks burned a bit as he sang, his traitorous mind imagining singing this to the dark little hybrid, “I fall into a pile on the floor. Puppy love. . . is hard to ignore. When every little thing you do, I do adore. ~”  He stopped himself, his cheeks burning pink making the small diamonds stand out even more so against his pale skin.