The Sea Prince And The Shark Knight
Aka: The cherik kid!fic I had always wanted to write!
My contribution to the @cherikzine .
For a healthy dose of the physician prescribed cherik-y goodness, please order your copy of the zine here!
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Erik scowls as a gang of his classmates breeze past him. He skirts around the group and stands a little off to one side. Unfortunately, Erik cannot avoid them in the narrow tunnel of the aquarium like he avoids them in class– where he sits alone on the last bench and glares at everybody with his height advantage.
He’d suspected that coming on this field trip would be a bad idea, but now, he’s completely sure of it. It doesn’t matter what he feels, anyway, because Mama wouldn’t have heard any of his pleas. She had been adamant on Erik being on the trip. “It’s the perfect opportunity to make new friends,“ she had said.
The venue of the picnic isn’t so much of an issue as the company is. Really, Erik has absolutely no reason to like his third grade classmates. There’s that stupid Scott with his stupid face and stupid plasma glasses. Kitty would have been nice if she didn’t tattle everything he did or said in class back to his Mama. Then there’s Sean, who treats Erik like he’s some villain. He might have pushed Sean off the basketball court once. Once! Accidents happen. Angel would have made a good friend if she would stop smirking every time she passed him– like she knew the ending of Jurassic Park, and he didn’t. Hank is scared of him; though, Erik doesn’t know what for.
Then there’s Charles. Mr. Janos says that Charles was supposed to be in the second grade, but because he’s so smart, he’s in the third grade instead. Considering how Charles is smaller than everyone else in the class– the top of his head only reaches Erik’s shoulder– and extremely intelligent, it might be true.
Charles is… nice. He’s never been unkind to Erik, he always smiles at Erik whenever he looks his way, he doesn’t mock Erik’s accent like everyone else does (Charles, too, has an accent, but nobody seems to be mocking him for it. Not that Erik wishes for it. He doesn’t like the idea of Charles being mocked– for his accent or anything else. Then again, Erik likes Charles’ accent, so he can’t complain, he supposes). Charles even shared his spare pencil once when Erik’s had been broken. Erik can easily imagine Charles as his friend- eating lunch during recess and solving division problems together in class. Erik could show Charles his Hot Wheels collection and build tracks around his room. Or he could ask his father to build them a tree-house and go diving in the lake.
Yes, Erik decides he would like that very much.
Erik wants to walk over to Charles and talk to him, but Charles is surrounded by their classmates, where he’s explaining something with his hands. Erik wants to listen, too. He wants to know what Charles is saying; but that would mean mingling with the rest of his classmates, and that simply cannot happen. So Erik sticks to the glass he’s leaning against and pokes at it to distract himself. A grey shark glides in front of him in the water; like a sentinel in grey armour, like it guards the waters of the entire aquarium. Maybe it does.
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