Only Colours

Mikey had his mum make him extra food for lunch the next day, though he declined to tell her why. She didn't press him. She had long since learnt that if Mikey chose not to tell her something he would almost certainly stand firm in his decision. He could choose not to even hear her if he wished, though he rarely did so on purpose.

When he arrived at school Mikey kept an eager look out for Jude, but he didn't spot him. Finn found Mikey, though, and they sat together in silence outside of their home room. Well, Mikey was silent, anyway. Finn could have been shouting at the top of his lungs for all Mikey knew. It seemed unlikely, though. Somehow, he got the impression Finn was a rather quiet kind of guy.

Though Finn didn't provide conversation, he did make Mikey feel safe. At school Mikey spent most of the day feeling exposed and vulnerable, but when Finn was around he felt protected. He had only known Finn for a day — and perhaps 'known' was an exaggeration — but already he felt confident that Finn wouldn't allow any harm to come to him.

After home room Mikey had music, and he immediately vowed to drop it in grade nine when he would get to choose some of his classes. It was an utter chaos of discordant sound and Mikey had nothing to do.

Finn shared the class with him, thankfully, and at some point he brought Mikey a little hand drum and drumsticks, but Mikey didn't feel like adding to the cacophony of sound. Instead, he sat hunched in the corner and drew stick figures in his notebook. One of them was riding a bear.

Next Mikey had art, the one subject he actually enjoyed. Sadly it was another class he didn't share with Finn, but he went along happily anyway.

As many of the teachers had, the art teacher made an effort to communicate with him. From most of the teachers it had been a token effort tinged with annoyance or frustration, but the art teacher seemed to see it as a challenge they were up to. Mikey ignored them, of course, though he felt a little bad for it. The teacher even brought him various art supplies for him to mess around with, making him feel even worse for not even being able to thank them. The rules had to be followed, though. If he wasn't going to make an exception for Finn, he certainly wouldn't be making one for some teacher.

Mikey hadn't painted much in a while, not since he'd learnt that a computer could do what he wanted more effectively, so it was fun to do that again. Despite practising art in many forms on a regular basis Mikey wasn't actually terribly good at it. He only really cared when it came to trying to recreate the colours, and those skills didn't translate terribly well to anything else.

Finn was waiting outside Mikey's classroom when the bell rang for lunch time and okay, that might have been because Mikey had just happened to leave his schedule open on the desk where Finn might just happen to see it. And copy it down in his notebook.

When they reached the cafeteria, Mikey immediately spotted Jude and hurried over to where he sat.

"Oh fuck, not this shit again," Jude said after barely a glancing up from the textbook open in front of him. His attention was drawn to Finn for a moment, who must have spoken because Jude quickly shot him a dismissive, "Don't care."

"Are you hungry?" Mikey asked as he ignored Jude's attitude and sat down next to him. He hadn't needed to ask, of course. The hunger was evident in Jude's colours. "I brought some food for you."

"I have to do my homework," Jude said, but he didn't tell Mikey to go away.

Mikey took out his lunch box and handed Jude one of the plastic wrapped sandwiches. "Can't you do it at home?"

"No," Jude said firmly, and Mikey got the feeling that meant the topic was closed.

"What are you doing? Can I help?"

"You're like, twelve," Jude said, sending an annoyed glance Mikey's way. "And no, I'm doing just fine on my own. Or at least I was before you came along and started talking."

"Sorry," Mikey said. "Can I have your phone number?"

"Oh, gee, yes, that's exactly what I want; you to be able to bother me even more of the time." Jude unwrapped the plastic covering the sandwich. "You're lucky you gave me food."

"Well if you're not going to talk to me now I just thought we could talk later," Mikey explained.

"Or we could talk never," Jude said. "Never is pretty good for me."

Mikey could see in the colours and in Jude's posture and tone of voice that his temper was rising, so he shut up. For about five minutes, anyway. "Are you almost done yet?"

The anger spiked in Jude's colours so quickly and dramatically it startled Mikey. "Shut. Up."

"I was just asking a question," Mikey murmured.

Jude stood suddenly, grabbed his books, and began shoving them into his bag. "I'm going somewhere quieter so I can actually do my fucking homework. No, you can’t come with me."

Mikey considered following him anyway, but Jude's colours had gone well beyond 'grumpy'. Mikey wasn't entirely sure Jude wouldn't become violent if he was pushed further, and that might ruin their chances of friendship somewhat.

"Well," Mikey said quietly once Jude had left, ostensibly to himself but really to Finn who had sat down next to him in Jude's place. "Now I have two fruit rollups."

Luckily Mikey had the assigned reading book for English with him, which he spent the rest of the lunch break reading. He wasn't sure Jude's friends were very nice people and he thought a few times they might have been saying mean things from the way Finn's colours fluctuated. They didn't try to touch Mikey, though, and that was good enough for him. If Mikey and Jude were to be friends, they would have to get used to his presence.

Home economics was another class Mikey didn't participate in, though he felt a little bad for that since he was fairly sure he'd been partnered with Finn. At least, everyone else looked like they'd been paired off to cook, and he was the only person standing near Finn.

Mikey leant against the counter and watched toppings being added to the pizza Finn was making, presumably via Finn's hands. Finn could have been putting the toppings on the pizza with his mouth for all Mikey knew, but hands seemed more logical.

He wished he knew what Finn looked like. Imagining the two of them together made Mikey happy, even if it could never actually happen, but that would have been far easier if he could actually visualise Finn. Perhaps he could subtly take a picture of Finn, or maybe steal Finn's wallet and look at his school ID. He didn't really mind what Finn looked like — that didn't matter. He just wanted to know.

There was no Jude again at short break, and Mikey wondered if Jude was never in the cafeteria at short break or if he was specifically avoiding Mikey. Whatever the case, not being able to see him again made Mikey sad. He sat with Finn and ate the other fruit rollup.

Mikey's last class of the day was physical education, another class he didn't share with Finn. Mikey had expected to sit out as he had at his old school, but when he tried to wander off to sit on the grass he felt a hand on his arm and then one on his back, guiding him along. The teacher?

Mikey fought the urge to panic. He really didn't like people he couldn't see touching him. The teacher had big hands, clearly a man, and when Mikey got a glimpse of his colours he decided very firmly not to resist. The teacher was annoyed, but it wasn't like when Jude had been annoyed. This was a scary man. A man who enjoyed being scary.

When the teacher's hands finally left him, Mikey found himself in front of a soccer goal. He was going to be the goalie, then. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad? He couldn't see the people, but he could see the ball. He doubted he'd be terribly good at it, though. He was kind of small.

On the other side of the sports field something caught Mikey's eye, and he realised Jude was out there too. He must have had physical education at the same time as Mikey. He looked like he was running laps.

Things didn't go too badly at first. Jude was within visual range which made Mikey happy and gave him something to watch when the ball wasn't near his goal. Of the three times the ball had come in his direction Mikey had succeeded in blocking it only once, but... once wasn't too bad, was it? Considering everything?

Then the ball was coming towards him again, high and fast. The sun caught Mikey's eyes as he tried to track it through the air and he squinted them away. The ball hit him in the forehead a moment later.

Mikey, startled by the sudden impact, fell backwards onto the ground. Ouch. He was fairly sure it hadn't gone into the goal, though. That meant he'd blocked the ball twice, which was fifty percent of the time and, he thought, quite good for someone with no experience.

Just when Mikey was about to push himself up he heard scuffing of shoes in the dirt around him and looked up to a great many sets of colours in front of him. It looked like just about every student in the class had come to get a look at him laying there on the ground. It was disconcerting and with the goal penning him in on the other side, made Mikey feel trapped.

Then one of the sets of colours lurched closer to him suddenly, down lower next to him. It was the teacher, and his colours showed more annoyance than concern. Mikey shrunk back, on the edge of panicking. A hand on his arm, trying to roughly drag him up, was what pushed him over that edge.

Mikey struggled and kicked out, trying to get away, to escape that hand and the colours and everyone and he was trapped and the teacher wasn't letting go. And then he was more trapped, his arms and legs pinned down and the teacher's colours, above him now, turned to anger. Mikey screamed. Mikey screamed quite a bit. Hands were digging into his arms and it hurt.

There was a voice. Someone's voice. Jude's voice?

"Don't hold him down," Jude said, and he sounded angry. "If you restrain someone when they're panicking it just makes them panic more. Let him up!"

Mikey was pinned on his back so he couldn't see Jude. He wanted to see Jude. He whined and struggled feebly in the teacher's firm grip.

"I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to do that to any student," Jude continued. "Is that really proper procedure? I wonder if he counts as special needs. Wow, this really does look pretty bad, doesn't it?"

The teacher let Mikey go.

Mikey was on his feet and in Jude's arms in seconds, making Jude 'oomph' when Mikey's body collided with his. Mikey pressed himself against Jude and buried his head in Jude's shoulder.

"Give him some room, okay?" Jude told the people surrounding them. A couple of moments later Jude stiffened, then took a steadying breath. "I'm going to take him to the nurse's office now."

Mikey wanted to just keep on clinging to Jude, but he also really wanted to get away from there, so he reluctantly let go. He kept close by Jude's side as they started towards the nurses office.

Jude's colours were angry — very angry — but Mikey was fairly sure it was for him not at him for once. Jude had come to his rescue. Mikey had been right about him being a good guy. Mikey was still too shaken to talk, even to say thank you, so they completed the journey to the nurse's office in silence.

Jude, of course, did the talking when they got there.

"Yeah, I don't think he's hurt much," Jude said, presumably in response to something the other person there — most likely the school nurse — had asked. "Do you know his deal? Okay, well he was in PE class and I think the ball hit him or something and he fell down. Everyone crowding around freaked him out a bit and maybe someone touched him and he panicked."

Eyes on the floor, Mikey nodded along in confirmation.

"So then his PE teacher who's a complete idiot decided holding him down would be the best course of action—" Jude paused and then nodded. "Yeah, I know. I have no idea what training that guy went through. Anyway, I think I pissed the teacher off a bit, but he let him up. Thought you might like to get a look at the red marks on the kid's arms, though."

Mikey glanced at his arms and found that yes, there was a very visible mark on each where Mikey had been restrained. When Mikey touched them the area felt tender, and he wasn't entirely sure it wouldn't bruise.

"Hold out your arms," Jude said, and Mikey obeyed.

The nurse came close to look at them and Mikey inched towards Jude, but the nurse didn't touch him.

"No, I don't think he's hurt more than you can see," Jude said, again to the nurse. "He just needs to sit down somewhere quiet for the rest of the day."

"Jude, are you going to stay?" Mikey asked suddenly, desperately. He didn't want to be left alone again. What if someone came and tried to make him go back to class?

"Yeah, I'll stay," Jude said as he took a seat on the tiny sick bed. The nurse left the room, and Jude was silent for a moment before asking, "Does your mum come to pick you up after school?"

Mikey sat down next to Jude, close enough that their thighs touched. "Yeah."

"I'll wait with you for her after school."

Mikey smiled and leant his forehead against Jude's arm. "Thanks."

"Okay," Jude said, shifting his body further down the bed, away from Mikey. He held a hand out to keep Mikey from scooting closer again. "What is this? What's with all the touching?"

"It's nice to be close to people who you like," Mikey said. "Don't you think?"

"Not really," Jude was quick to admit. "I'm not..."

"Gay?" Mikey suggested when Jude didn't seem to be able to come up with a word for what he wasn't.

Jude shrugged. "Personally I'd put 'pedophile' ahead of 'gay' on the list of things I'm not that I would need to be to be into you, but sure, that works too."

"I know you're not attracted to me," Mikey said. "It's not a sex thing. I just like being close to people."

Jude frowned. "You're very weird."

"Is liking human touch really that strange?" Mikey genuinely didn't know.

"Eh..." Jude made a face. "With other dudes, in a non-sexual way? Kind of. Well, in the way you do it, anyway. Sometimes guys touch and it's not weird, but that's with people they've known for more than two days and it's for camaraderie, not comfort."

Mikey wrinkled his nose. "Those sound like stupid, pointless rules. Don't you ever just want to hug someone?"

Jude shook his head. "I really don't ever want to hug anyone."

"Not even your mum?"

It was a natural question for Mikey to ask. He was very close to his mum and she always readily indulged his need for physical contact. Mikey was beginning to get the impression that Jude didn't share a similarly close relationship with his own mother, however. At Mikey's mention of her, Jude's colours had spiked with pain, anger, and annoyance. His face was carefully neutral, though, when he answered with a simple, "No."

Mikey wondered if this all had something to do with why Jude had no lunch and had to do his homework at school. Well, if Jude needed someone to love and to care for him, Mikey could do that. He had a lot of love and attention to offer if Jude would just accept it.