A/N It's been a while since we've seen these kiddos, huh? Hope y'all enjoy! 😉

8.)

Small things are often overlooked.

Needles prick gently but sharply at tender flesh until they finally draw blood. A vicious stinging of pain that is easily warded off with the bite of a lip.

It's no big deal; a minor inconvenience at most. After all, a pricked finger is nothing compared to a stab wound.

But a needle plunged into the wrong place can be just as bad. Especially if the injury is constant.

Internal pain is still pain. And small things can have a large impact.

~~~~~~

The bell rings and Logan and Patton make it right on time, stepping into the classroom to be met with a mass of chattering students. Without discussing it, the two sit down next to each other among the mayhem.

"Settle down!" Mr. Flores says, his voice barely raised. He was smiling at the chaotic classroom and obviously trying to contain his amusement to exhibit some order. "Guys, c'mon we gotta start class!"

Patton looked around. He and Logan seemed to be the only ones to have heard him. All the other kids were still buzzing with the excitement of greeting their friends after a long summer.

Mr. Flores raised an eyebrow and calmly walked over to his computer, turning the volume up to max on his speakers. With two quick clicks, he plays the first two seconds of "Ignorance" by Paramore, startling all the students into silence and making them scurry to their seats after a moment of shock.

Patton recognized the song instantly after so many years hanging around Virgil. By the looks of it, Logan did too. He was sporting a fond but slightly bitter smile.

Mr. Flores had everyone's attention now. He looked up, grinning. "Well then." He said calmly, moving around his desk to lean against the front. "Now that we can hear each other, we can do introductions."

He points a thumb towards himself as he speaks and pronounces his name with a perfect Spanish accent, "I am Mr. Flores and as you know, or, at least, I hope you know, I will be your grade 12 English teacher this year." He points at a list on the whiteboard, "We'll be studying and attempting things like advanced essay writing, creative writing and poetry. Any questions?"

Nobody had any so Mr. Flores continued talking, explaining the subject in more depth. It was clear he was passionate about it with the way he bounced around excitedly as he spoke.

On the wall next to his desk, a piece of paper was taped up with duck-patterned duct tape. It read: "Frustrated Writer" and had an arrow pointing to where he sat.

A hand-made mobile with shapes cut from old CDs dangling from it hung from the ceiling and made rainbows in the florescent light. Several bookshelves packed with novels lined the walls of the classroom with all kinds of random bookends keeping them in place.

Inspirational dog posters decorated the walls and a pride flag hung proudly over the projector.

Patton observed this all and smiled. This teacher didn't seem half bad. It was clear from everything about him that Mr. Flores was a good kind of chaotic intellectual. Much like his own Uncle Emile.

Mr. Flores reached onto his desk and picked up a tiny foam basketball. "When you get the basketball tell me your name, preferred pronouns and..." he thought for a moment before giving up, "Any one thing about yourself!"

For the next few minutes, Patton listened to kids awkwardly announcing their names and pronouns. The facts are generally superficial: Favorite foods, descriptions of pets, origins of names and places students had lived in in the past.

Finally, it was Patton's turn. He took the basketball and smiled brightly. "Hello~! I'm Patton, He/Him pronouns." He put a finger to his lips in thought, "Erm, I guess one fact about me is that I've lived in this city my whole life."

He starts to hand the ball to Logan when a disgusted voice says, "I thought you were Mexican?"

Patton's hand freezes in mid air. The last word is spat like an offensive swear.

He looks over and sees a kid he recognizes from his friend group, one that he doesn't know very well. His smile shrinks a little but not much, it's a common enough misunderstanding and being called a Mexican isn't an insult. "Er, I'm actually Peruvian-Argentinian. On my dad's side."

The kid waves his response away, "Same thing."

"N-no, actually..."

"My point is," the kid continues, cutting Patton off, "If you're a sp*c then how could you have lived here your whole life?"

The slur startles Patton into silence. He grips the foam basketball tightly and tenses without noticing. The kid grins as he says it and a few of his friends snicker from their desks.

Mr. Flores looks absolutely livid. He pushes himself off his desk and starts to say something, but Logan beats him to it.

"The fact that such ignorance still exists is always shocking to me." He says icily, every word filled with controlled rage.

Patton looks over at him, eyes wide. Logan's expression is hard and serious, blue eyes so dark they look black. The grin slides off the kid's face.

He glares at the student who had spoken the slur. "First, you are idiotic enough to summarize an entire continent, no, an entire ethnicity, with the name of one country. In fact, you say the name as if being from that country makes a person lesser, which is absolutely untrue in every way possible.

Then, you act as if immigration and ancestry were nonexistent by suggesting that you can only live in the country of your culture's origin. With all the diversity in the world, you would have to be truly idiotic to not know any of this."

Logan's expression doesn't shift even the slightest bit, glaring and speaking in such a cold manner that the kid who had spoken to Patton seemed to shrink lower and lower into his seat with each word.

"And as if that weren't enough proof that you really are one of the most pitifully unintelligent creatures I have ever had the displeasure to meet, you had to use a slur built on the foundations of racism, a system fueled by the hatred of a mindless coglione!"

Logan's voice got louder until he finally shouted the final swear with so much force that, even if he didn't understand it, made the student flinch violently.

The class was completely silent as Logan fumed. Those who knew him had never known him to show any kind of emotion. Most of the time he was completely neutral, a robot with no discernable reactions.

Patton was staring at him in awe. No one had ever stood up for him before. And the fact that it was Logan who had done so...

He barely held back tears.

Mr. Flores broke the silence, still looking angry but also triumphant. "Thank you, Logan." He said genuinely, nodding at the boy in approval. Then he turned to the student with a heavy glare laced with exhaustion, like he'd been in far too many similar situations before.

"As for you; go to the main office. I will call the counselor and arrange for you to engage in community service this weekend. That will hopefully show you how little you know about the people those slurs are directed towards. And of course, I will expect a formally written apology to Patton."

The student nodded, his face bright red.

Mr. Flores directed his attention to the rest of the class, "I hope everyone is now aware that incidents like what just happened will absolutely not be tolerated in my classroom, or anywhere else if I can help it."

The class remained silent.

With a sigh, Mr. Flores walked around his desk and began to write a pass to the office.

Patton was still in shock, his fingernails digging into the foam ball. Logan looked at him, a concerned frown upon his face. To Patton's surprise, he placed a gentle hand on his arm. "Are you alright?"

A light blush settled on the Castillo boy's cheeks and he relaxed a bit. He gave Logan a shaky smile, "Yes...thanks, Lo."

Logan seemed to soften. "Of course."

His blue eyes were kind and all traces of the coldness from before were gone. Patton felt his heart skip a beat.

That day, everything began to change.

A/N Hey childers!!! Apologies for the weird ending!

Sorry my updates have been super inconsistent, life has been hard (Remus: hard?) has been bad (Remus: bad?) has been rough (Remus: KiNkY-!)

But any who's. I'll be back soon with a continuation. These next few chapters should be easier to write since they are build up to a ✨Climax✨

But in the meantime...

DON'T DIE!

~Prongs💙💙💙💙