what

More importantly, however, Simon has apparently assigned himself as the pebbles' caretaker. He's following them around like a mother hen constantly watching over her chicks, nudging them out of the water before they can go too deep and helping them pick out the best rocks from the beach. Grace is enjoying watching Simon interact with his class; it's giving Simon a chance to unknowingly show off his gentler and more caring side.

He is surprisingly very good with the kids.

And then, one of the pebbles manages to climb too far up one of the cliff sides and starts to fall. Before anyone can panic, however, Simon rushes over and manages to catch them before they hit the ground, despite the fact that the pebble has to weigh well over a couple hundred pounds and Simon only has one arm. It's awkward and the pebble crashing against him knocks him on his ass, but Simon still sets them down gently, and makes sure the pebble is okay.

Suddenly Simon is swarmed by all of the pebbles, eager to climb all over him instead. He only has a moment to squeak in surprise, and then he's buried by a gaggle of overeager Eridian kids. Grace starts to rush over in concern, but then he hears something that completely stops him in his tracks.

Laughter.

Full-bellied laughter. Simon is lying there, laughing so hard he's got tears in the corners of his eyes, as the pebbles crawl all over him. Even though they're getting way up in his face, Simon is still being so, so gentle with them. He's letting them pet his hair and poke at his scars and the stump of his arm, their curious questions coming so quickly that there's no way that Simon is keeping up. But even still, he's smiling, and he's careful of their little bodies as he tries to sit up.

And seeing Simon sitting there, surrounded by his class, his kids, Grace just has a moment of growing awe...and dread.

Dread, because he knows those butterflies that just burst to life in his stomach. He knows these sweaty palms and dry mouth and shaky knees. His heart must have just done something weird because every Eridian within five feet of him just turned to him in alarm. Grace's face is feeling flushed, his head is spinning, and he kind of wants to throw up a little bit.

He knows exactly what all these symptoms mean.

"Ah, gingersnaps," he says weakly to himself.

got inspired

edit: heres original

field trip cancelled

Based off hit tumblr post:

step 1

step 2

step 3

the woke left: young and fashionable. visible tattoos. often enjoys matcha, lavender flavoring, oat milk, and cold foam. pretty decent customers.

sweet old man: drinks very sweet iced lattes, pays in cash, puts all of his change in the tip jar. sometimes orders hot coffee and i get scared that his shaky old man hands will spill it and he'll get burned but that has not yet happened and god willing never shall.

evil old man: only wants drip coffee and declares it ridiculous that any other form of coffee exists. some variants only want americanos and these variants are even scarier. watch out.

sweet old woman: might need her daughter's help to order but is very bubbly and open to trying new things. compliments baristas freely and frequently.

evil old woman: does not want coffee and only wants sweet tea or soda. will not tip even if she spends three hours in the shop repeatedly asking baristas to fetch things for her.

errand husband: either stiltedly recites an order to you or shows you the order in their texts/notes app. needs to step out of line and make a phone call if you ask any follow-up questions.

grindset girlie: always wearing scrubs, an apron, and/or a name tag. orders the exact same thing every day and knows the exact change she'll need to pay for it. her regular order is both extremely caffeinated and extremely sweet.

#mamabear: is actively wrangling two to four children while ordering. order changes repeatedly because the children cannot decide if they want a muffin or a cookie or apple juice or chocolate milk etc. for some reason these women are always wearing an article of clothing or carrying some personalized item that says "mama" on it.

schoolchildren: band of two to eight adolescents hanging out after school. extremely indecisive but generally quite polite and tip well.

amnesiac in love: grown adult who needs their partner to tell them what they like. gets asked a question about their own preferences and turns to their partner to answer for them. generally acts like a shy child looking to their guardian for behavioral cues if you try to interact with them and only wants to talk to mommy i mean their wife.