Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The lesson was over. They'd learned about plants the day, if you could call it learning. Harry had already known everything the teacher talked about, and Robin was preoccupied with whether or not he could eat the plants in question. David hummed along with the educational music video's babyish song and occasionally said something along the lines of "Wow! Plants!", but for the most part, the boys didn't talk.

Eventually the teacher, who was one of many teachers taking turns on this class, left them alone. For a while, the only sound in the room was the obnoxious ticking of the clock on the wall, which David insisted was named 'Tony'. Even so, the room was loud. Everything was eye-straining bright colors and 'good listening' posters and things with faces that shouldn't have faces.

"Well then! We've got the rest of the day to ourselves, what do you suppose we should do?" Robin asked, looking back and forth at the others at either side of him.

Their seats weren't technically assigned, but they always ended up sitting in the same configuration.

"Well we could sit here," Harry said, then gestured to the other side of the classroom. "Or we could go sit over there."

"Maybe we could look at the- out- out the windows and see if we see something!" David suggested.

"We could try to kill that pesky bee." Robin pointed at a black fly that had just landed on the desk. He tried to smash it, but it flew away. "Or not."

"Augh!" Harry's head hit his desk with a loud thud. "I hate this bloody school so much."

"I like being at school," David said, fiddling with his crayon.

"What?!" Harry shouted quite by accident. "How could you ever like being at this god-awful school? The teachers spend half the day teaching us things we already know and treating us like bloody babies, then they just leave us here for hours! We sit in this garish room with nothing to do, and if we try to go outside like all the other kids- we get punished! Every day is exactly the same! It's terrible!"

He stopped talking, breathing heavily. He hadn't realized how loud he was till now. The room was quiet for a long moment."

"I like it here cause you guys are here." David's voice was tiny. "I haven't got any other friends."

"Huh? We're not your friends. Are we?" Robin questioned.

"We're… classmates. If you can call this a class." Harry sighed. Looking back at David, he added, "I suppose we're not not friends."

"Hooray! You're the best not-not-friends ever!" David cheered.

David hugged Robin, who made a little 'eugh' sound but didn't resist, then he pretended to hug Harry. There was another silence, this one much less heavy.

Eventually Robin suggested, "So, do you guys want to try out the computer again? Maybe we can find pictures of skeletons."

Later, after Robin had finished talking about bones, Harry pulled David aside.

"I'm sorry if I yelled earlier. I don't really realize when I do that."

"That's okay. My mum yells at me all the time, so it's not even weird!" David smiled.

Harry sighed and considered asking more about that, but decided to continue with his original point.

"You know, this isn't what school is supposed to be like."

"Huh? What else would it be?" David's head tilted like that of a confused puppy.

"Well it's supposed to be… different. It's supposed to be a sort of community, with lots and lots of students, not the same three every day. And you get to go outside and eat your lunch out there, and you can play sports and go on field trips…"

"That's not real, silly! Only school on TV has that stuff."

"No, it's real. It's what the other kids get. We're the only ones they keep in here."

"And why do you suppose that is?" Robin butted in.

Harry was surprised he didn't know. "We're the- the 'bad kids', or something like that. We're 'special'. They think we're too stupid to be with the others."

"Well I'm not!" Robin asserted. "I'm not stupid. I might be the smartest one here."

"Didn't you bite someone once?" David asked.

"More than once, actually. They deserved it," Robin corrected proudly.

"I bet that's why you're here then," Harry decided. "And I'm here because I'm 'difficult'. And David is… David."

"Yeah! I am David!" David said.

It was then that David and Robin began a very long and utterly pointless conversation about David's David-ness, and so Harry was left alone with his thoughts for a bit. This he was well used to. One day, he would get out of here, go to a real school, talk to kids his own age, and feel the freedom of recess again. But for now, he was in a tacky plasticy prison of primary colors and brownie points given for so-called good behavior.

It could be worse, he decided then and there. At least he was here with his friends.

Chapter Text

"Why are you staring at me?" Harry asked.

David immediately turned away, back to the paper on his desk. He muttered, "I had to look at you really good so I could draw you really good."

"You're drawing me?"

"I'm drawing all three of us!" 

David held up the paper. On it were three colored blobs: red, green, and yellow. They were only vaguely person-shaped.

"That doesn't look anything like us!" Robin butted in. "Which one is me? And make the one that's me handsomer!"

"The green one is you. I don't know how to draw handsome, but I'll add your hat." He drew the yellow brim of Robin's baseball cap, but it looked frustratingly like the beak of some crow-like thing.

"I suppose the red one is me, then? I guess it's sort of got my hair." Harry said. "Why did you use these of all colors?"

"I've only got six crayons, and none of them are people-y colors." David turned back to working on his drawing. 

He added his own hair in blue, and made sure to give everyone eyes.

"What kind of a loser only has six crayons?" Robin interjected. "When I was your age I had hundreds of crayons!"

"My dad says we don't have the money for more, because the computer took it all." David frowned.

There was a long pause. Harry thought over what that might actually mean and became even more concerned while Robin imagined a computer with a face skillfully pickpocketing someone, and David added the finishing touches to his drawing.

"There!" he shouted triumphantly. "It's finished!"

"Alright, what now? We could put it in the shredder," Robin suggested. 

"No, it's a nice drawing. Or, it's a drawing at least." Harry took the drawing from David. "How about we pin it on the wall to cover up one of those dreadful posters?"

"Yeah! On the wall like a museum!" David cheered.

Being the only one tall enough, and the only one he trusted to use thumbtacks without injury, Harry pinned up the drawing right overtop of the 'quiet listening' poster that had always tormented him. The drawing was awfully colorful, but Harry decided he liked it better than the rest of the classroom's decor purely for the fact that it was messy and real, not made of straight lines and hard edges and annoying phrases like everything else was.

"Will the teachers be mad?" David asked.

"I doubt they'll even notice," Robin said.

And they didn't.