Forest tossed his heavy backpack into the belly of the coach. Cindy’s embroidered pink Powerpuff Girls satchel followed quickly after.

“So I already promised Robert that I would be his coach buddy last term…” Cindy chewed her lip, looking worried. “But you should try to sit near us.”

“Cindy, I’ll be fine,” Forest smiled fondly. Just the fact that he would actually have friends on one of these school trips was enough to fill Forest with a happy warmth.

“You could always sit next to one of the senior chaperones,” Cindy giggled as they looked across the parking lot and saw that Tide was walking towards them.

Forest tried not to stare but Tide looked so good in the morning sun. He was wearing a plain v-necked white T-shirt that showed off his physique and light washed denim jeans with rips at the knees.

Tide's sneakers were the same ones that Forest recognised from the first day they had run into each other, purple and blue in colour with a bird emblem. The older boy was also wearing sunglasses and his hair was swept back from his face as he waved to Cindy and Forest.

“Morning,” Tide said as he drew up to them and pulled his own black pack from his shoulder. He lifted it into the coach with one hand and a bulging bicep.

“Morning Serrano,” Cindy nodded.

“Ouch, is that what I am to you? Not first name basis anymore?” Tide laughed as Cindy smirked and rolled her eyes.

“You’re lucky, normally people don’t even get names from me before 8 am,” she retorted.

“Noted,” Tide grinned, before turning to Forest. “You excited?”

“Y-yeah,” Forest replied, realising that he actually was.

Tide and Cindy walked towards the entrance of the coach when Forest felt himself being shoved roughly out of the way and into the vehicle’s dirty side.

“Watch it freak,” Trev snarled. Forest looked at the other boy in surprise. There was still the lingering bruise of a black eye on Trev’s face. He was quickly joined by his friends Jason and Scott.

“Christ I hope they don’t put us in a dorm with him,” Scott laughed nastily. “Sleep with one eye open guys!”

Forest flushed as he looked up to see Tide and Cindy up by the door chatting to one of the teachers, they hadn’t noticed anything amiss.

Trev, Jason and Scott followed Forest’s eye line before Trev let out a low chuckle. “He won’t be saving you princess. You’re fucking dreaming if you think a guy like Tide Serrano would ever actually give a shit about something like you. He just wants to keep up his ‘good guy’ image.”

Forest felt his chest constrict as Trev and the other boys walked straight up to Tide. Tide turned to Trev with a surprised expression before the other boy started chatting to him. They were far away enough that Forest couldn’t hear what was being said but he gasped a moment later when Trev held out his hand and Tide shook it with a genuine looking smile.

“Hey Forest!” Tide called out after the others had boarded the coach. “You having second thoughts or something?” Tide grinned as Forest felt himself slowly unfreeze. “Cindy told me you didn’t have a seat buddy?” Tide asked as they climbed up the steps. “I was going to ask you if you wanted to sit with me but um, I’m actually not sure if it’s such a good idea…”

Forest felt the back of his neck grow hot, his eyes were starting to sting. What had Trev said to Tide? Had he given Tide some kind of friendly warning, man to man?

“Only,” Tide gave a small, stiff laugh, “I get really travel sick and I can’t promise I’ll exactly be pleasant to be near…”

“I don’t mind!” Forest half shouted as Tide jerked his head back round with a look of surprise.

“I mean,” Forest coughed, “if that’s all you’re worried about, then I’m fine with it, I can try to help distract you.”

“Yeah,” Tide smiled and nodded, “yeah, okay that sounds great, thanks.”

__

Two hours later Tide groaned as he put his head in his hands. “Fuck I’m so sorry you got stuck with me Forest. This is so embarrassing. I swear I took tablets this morning, I always do before long journeys but unless I’m the one driving I just get so nauseous.”

“It’s no problem,” Forest reassured the older boy. “Want me to go ask the driver if you can have a go on the wheel for a while?”

Tide laughed as he drew his hands away, his eyes were crinkled up as he grinned at Forest. “Somehow I don’t think he’ll be down for that, but thanks anyway.”

So far Forest had tried everything that he had frantically Googled about managing the symptoms of travel sickness. He had torn out some paper from his sketchbook and had Tide sit on it. He had tried distracting Tide with cartoons and quick fire quizzes. They had even attempted pressure points which had resulted in Forest giving Tide an awkward hand massage.

Although, it couldn’t have been very successful, considering that Tide had spent the entire time with his jaw clenched, staring resolutely out of the window.

“I promise I won’t actually barf on you,” Tide moaned, looking at Forest like someone had kicked him in the stomach. “It’s always only internal, I just feel like shit.”

“It’s only a few more hours until we get there,” Forest said, realising that actually didn’t sound very comforting. “And Mr. Milano said we’d be stopping at a gas station at some point.”

“Yeah,” Tide grimaced, “okay, I can make that. Do you mind if I try to sleep for part of the way?”

“Of course not!” Forest exclaimed. He watched as Tide settled back in his seat and closed his eyes. After a few minutes, Forest drew out his sketchbook and a pencil, twirling it between his fingers as he flipped through the pages.

It felt like a dangerous risk doing this with Tide right beside him, considering just how many doodles and sketches he had of Tide in there. The majority of them were also clearly not from the Art class modelling session.

Instead, Forest had drawn Tide in a variety of poses and from different angles. In some of them Tide was playing basketball, his arms prone and his face tense with concentration. In others, Tide was laughing or smiling, chatting with his friends in the cafeteria.

There was one that Forest particularly liked, when he had caught sight of Tide in the library, hunched over a pile of books with his tongue stuck out the side of his mouth.

Forest squirmed as he turned the page and reached the ‘restricted’ section of his sketch book. He checked again to confirm that Tide still had his eyes closed.

After all, Forest was still a teenage boy with a healthy imagination and the ability to recreate that on the page with graphite. Plus, Forest loved the art styles of some of the mature comics that he read, the way they mastered the complicated physical poses. His latest attempt at such figure drawing had resulted in the larger body being given features that far too closely resembled Tide for it to be passed off as mere coincidence.

Forest felt guilt settle heavily in his gut. Tide would be disgusted if he knew that Forest had 'accidentally' drawn him in the style of an erotic illustration. Forest hadn’t quite possessed the guts to give a face to the body beneath Tide's, because he knew whose features he would have wanted to draw.

Forest shuddered, and pulled his glasses away from his face, closing the sketchbook with a decisive snap. This was wrong, it was like he was betraying Tide’s kindness in thinking about these things. He was just proving assholes like Trev, Jason and Scott right.

“Hey,” Tide croaked sleepily as he cracked open his eyes and gestured to the book. “Were you drawing me whilst I napped?”

“No!” Forest exclaimed urgently. “Of course not, I was just looking through some of my sketches to try and find something to use as a base for my competition entry.”

“Oh,” Tide looked more interested, “can I see some?”

“No!” Forest half yelped again, wincing as Tide looked momentarily hurt. “I mean, not yet, I’m really self conscious about my sketches before I’m finished them. Is that okay?”

“Yeah, of course,” Tide smiled with a yawn. “And I don’t mind by the way.”

“Huh?” Forest frowned.

“If you want to draw me whilst I sleep,” Tide explained, closing his eyes again and resting his head against the window. “In fact please do, it will make me feel slightly less shit about being such a terrible seat buddy.”

“A-are you sure?” Forest asked, his fingers already itching with the permission.

“Mm,” Tide nodded, shuffling himself back down and falling into silence.

Forest smiled to himself as he opened the book on a fresh page and began to sketch the gentle slope of Tide’s nose, laughing as it crinkled every time they went over a bump in the road.

Eventually, Forest’s hand grew tired and he had already filled up five more pages full of sketches. He noticed Tide shiver before realising the other boy’s arms had goose pimpled in his sleep. In the summer heat the AC had been blasted on the coach.

Forest reached up to try and turn their vent off but it didn’t seem to be individually controlled. Instead, he shucked off his own zip up and reached across to drape it over Tide’s chest and arms, tucking it snugly underneath his chin. Forest felt the slight roughness of missed stubble as his fingers grazed Tide’s face and neck.

“Gas station!” Mr. Milano announced up ahead as the coach swerved violently into a gravelled parking lot and the doors hissed open. “This is your last chance to use the bathroom kids.”

Everybody groaned and stood up, stretching themselves ready to disembark. Tide was still sleeping peacefully.

“You going to wake him?” Cindy asked as she drew up to them and hovered in the aisle with Robert.

“I don’t want to,” Forest frowned, “he might not be able to get back to sleep and he was feeling so ill.”

“Poor thing,” Cindy pulled a sympathetic face. “How about we leave him here then, you can bring him back some snacks for when he wakes up.”

“Yeah,” Forest nodded. He liked that idea, he wondered what kind of chips Tide would prefer?

The gas station was pretty much empty, save from a couple of families looking harassed with young kids stock piling bottles of sunscreen. Forest arched back and cracked his neck from side to side as he made his way into the boys’ bathroom.

He was just washing his hands when he saw Trev’s reflection in the mirror as the other boys entered the room.

“Jesus, stinks in here,” Scott laughed, “what the hell kind of chow mein you been eating Forest?”

Forest willed his face not to heat up and betray him as he flicked his hands under the dryer. Unfortunately, the machine was pretty pathetic, spitting a feeble gust of tepid air towards his damp skin.

Forest gave up and wiped his hands on his shorts before turning to walk back out of the toilets and join his friends in the store.

“Hey Effy,” Trev growled as Forest reached the door. “Watch yourself yeah?”

Forest felt his shoulders slump in resignation as he pushed out through the door. Even if the bullies at this school were just as horrible as previous ones. Even if they pushed him around and humiliated him, he could deal with it, so long as he had actual friends.

He walked into the gas station store, the little jingle of the door chiming above him.

“Yooo Forest!” Cindy hissed excitedly as she noticed him approaching. Robert’s face wasn’t visible for the mountain of candy and snacks that Cindy was piling into her friend’s arms. “They have so much variety here! I thought okay Cin, we’re out in the sticks, might be lucky to get something snackable but shit no – look at this stuff!”

Forest laughed as several potato chip packets dislodged themselves from the edible Jenga tower clutched to Robert’s chest. “I mean check it out,” Cindy continued, completely unperturbed, “they’ve got Thai Green Curry flavour corn chips, like have you ever seen that back home?”

“Nope,” Forest smiled as he snagged a bag for himself and Tide. Cindy was right, the store had a pretty wide and eclectic selection. Forest ended needing a basket for everything he selected for himself and the older boy to try.

Forest noticed heart shaped chocolate lollipops in a display on the counter as he went to pay. He glanced around quickly to check that no one was watching before snatching one of the red ones and shoving it in with his pile of food. They were an extortionate price as most things close to the cashier were, designed to draw you in at the last moment. However, Forest figured that he had saved up pretty well for this trip.