✧･ﾟGlitter･ﾟ✧ Elder Mark x Reader (Craig of the Creek cotc)

(Preview of) Chapter 3

Uuuhhhh I have like a hundred reasons why I haven't updated. I can talk about it later. Thanks for your patience. Here's a preview.

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Barry's thoughts were distractingly loud.

He struggled to pay attention to a single word that anyone had said all afternoon, every voice blurred into a low mumble of nonsense that the boy didn't care to understand.

As Barry's mind replayed moments and memories that should have clued him in, he felt incredibly stupid. The scene of two of his closest friends was seared behind his eyelids: Mark actually listening and smiling for a change.

How could he have missed something so obvious?

Every second between lunch period and the end of the school day felt like an eternity to Barry, who kept checking the time: this only made math seem more boring than usual. It was as if the face of the classroom's clock were laughing as he squirmed in his chair, desperately itching to leave.

As soon as the bell rang, Barry shot out of his seat and bolted out of the classroom, bumping into desks and other students. He gripped the doorframe by his fingertips, using momentum to swing his body out of the room, and broke into a sprint. With every slam of his sneakers against the linoleum floor, concerned faces turned to look at what could be causing the hallway to tremble.

The hallway, flanked on either side by pink lockers, was quickly filling up with teens sluggishly making their way out of classrooms and blocking the clearest path to the exit.

Barry did not let students standing in his way slow him down or deter him from reaching the doors. He collided with anyone in his way, many of them dropping their belongings or yelping in shock.

Barry shouted apologies over his shoulder.

"Watch it!"

"Sorry!"

"Dude! What the f–"

The hallway had become a chaos of angry, shaken students. A teacher had dropped their coffee in the excitement, only for unknowing freshmen to step in the puddle, slipping and creating a trail of wet footsteps behind them. Loose leaf paper had somehow scattered into the air and had started to drift slowly downward.

Barry couldn't hear anything over the sound of his own racing heartbeat and the deafening thoughts that had plagued him all afternoon: if anyone had called out to him, he would not have heard them.

He burst out of the doors and did not stop running.

The trek to the creek felt unusually short – whether it was because of his speed or because his mind was otherwise occupied, Barry couldn't be sure. His shoes kicked up the pebbles and dirt on the path to Elder Rock before he even realized that he had passed the Trading Tree.
Without slowing down, Barry slid feet first into the opening of Elder Rock, landing on the ground below with a groan of pain.

David squeaked in surprise when Barry unceremoniously dropped into Elder Rock, instinctively covering his bare chest with his hands.

Then he remembered that he rarely ever wore a shirt to begin with and let his arms drop loosely to his sides.

David had already changed from his uniform pants into his more comfortable sweats, from his shiny black dress shoes and matching socks into his slides that were held together with copious amounts of Duck-Mart tape. His white collared shirt and tie hung from a hook that had somehow been attached to a wall of Elder Rock – the hooks had been there for as long as anyone could remember, and no one cared to ask how they had gotten there.

On shaky legs, Barry stood and braced his hands on his knees, desperately trying to catch his breath. He opened his mouth to say something, but found that his tongue was too dry to be able to utter even a single word.

David quickly shuffled over to his friend, panicked, "Woah, Barry, are you okay? What's going on? Breathe!" David gestured with his arms, moving them toward himself then away, and made a wheezy breathing sound, "Hoo! Hee! Hoo! Hee!"

Barry, panting heavily, raised his head to look at David. Incredulous, Barry lifted his hands from his knees, his palms upward, before dropping them back onto his thighs as if to say, "What does it look like I'm doing?"

"Mark," He inhaled quickly before speaking again, "It's Mark!"

"Something happened to Mark?!" David looked like he was about to spring out from under Elder Rock to find a potentially injured Mark.

Barry grabbed David by the shoulder, and looked his friend in the eye, deathly serious. He spoke lowly, his throat still dry from his run, "No, no. Mark has a secret crush."

"Oh? Oh yeah! I knew that."