Rewritten- Let Love Flow

Chapter 21: Tragic Incident

Chapter Summary: Gym class is always 'fun' with its dumb standardized tests... But when there's an attack on Thatch everyone is one edge.

Thatch, Slither, and Casper barely made it into gym class right as the bell rang. The teacher could only look at them disapprovingly as they rushed over to the bulk of the class. But of course, he never seemed to approve of anything short of the best. It was like his brain couldn't see the gray area, only black and white. It was annoying but who were they to speak out against their dimwitted gym teacher. "Now that we're all here, we'll be doing our physical today." His voice boomed in the large room, louder than necessary to talk to the class of children before him. Many of the students groaned, knowing exactly what that would entail. Thatch seemed really annoyed by it, adjusting the tightness on his cloak by his father's bat clasp so it was firmly held to his shoulders. Casper weakly smiled, rubbing the back of his neck. Geez, today was certainly a day.

The first thing they had to do was chase that dumb stuffed fleshie around the track and keep up with it, and so they did. Casper always hated this task because wouldn't he just float after something if he really wanted to catch up? But in this exercise, he was forced to run like everyone else. As they did every lap their teacher made notes on the clipboard, timing and judging everyone. Casper just wanted to keep pace with Thatch more than anything, though Thatch was being a try-hard so Casper actually had to put in a good bit of effort to stay at the front of the pack of students. As they ran Casper kept looking over to the vampire, and he swore every time he did he was going to trip himself up.

Thatch's eyes were so focused on the stuffed fleshie always out of reach. The way his cloak blew behind him, so smooth and hiding his quick movements as he ran. Honestly, it was enchanting to watch, though not as soothing as when Casper would watch the vampire write. Something about the calm elegance suited Thatch much more, even if Thatch seemed amazing in any situation, at least in Casper's eyes.

After the normal 5 minute run, they were instructed to climb up a rope. Again, Casper found it dumb. He could fly, and so could Thatch. Why would they be required to do such a thing? The ghost rolled his eyes, watching one by one as the students tried to climb. A few could, some couldn't. Honestly, it was like trying to make a monkey and a goldfish climb a tree, it wasn't a fair test to judge them all. But this was Scare School and things were bound to be unfair, so he just sucked it up.

When it was Thatch's turn Casper admittedly watched closer, seeing the vampire huff and start to climb up the rope. He did find it odd how Thatch climbed. Most people just tried to go up and down it like a pole, but when Thatch climbed he made the bottom of the rope wrap around his right ankle, and as he went up he was able to use his right leg to push down against the wrapped rope, pushing him up more. It seemed pretty effective, this way Thatch never lost any ground as he climbed- like some students did when they accidentally slipped up.

"Hey Mantha, what is Thatch doing?" Casper whispered to his zombie friend. Casper hoped the zombie knew more than he like always, and so it was only natural to turn to his friend whenever he had a question. He knew he was going to be doing that a lot with Thatch, after all, it had been Ra and Mantha he turned to when he felt his emotions get all jumbled up in the first place. Mantha pushed her purple hair back and shrugged lazily as she stared up, watching the vampire climb.

"I dunno really, I've seen fleshies do the same thing when climbing. Apparently, it's how they climb a lot of the time."

"Really, when did you learn this?"

"At Jimmy's school- that day we were sent in to see if we could scare his whole gym class." She noted simply, her arms crossed over her chest. The ghost knew Mantha hated this test, and for good reasons. Casper nodded and continued to watch the vampire as he reached the top. Thatch tapped the ceiling beam, then as he loosened the wrap on his ankle he easily slid back down, softly landing with a gentle thud on the padded mattress below the rope. Thatch dusted his hands off and grinned proudly as he walked over to Casper, the class thoroughly impressed with the vampire's skills- as was perusal. At times like these such things of whose side you were on were often casted out of mind, instead of more focused on grades and more important things- which was a relief to the new couple. For the first time in a long time, things actually felt normal, the way it should be.