"OK everyone. We're going to try some art therapy today. I want you to pick which ever medium speaks to you and tell me a story though your art."

Spider borderline stomps to the front of the class and grabs the first jar he sees.

"Miss! Spiders gone with mental illness gray" Missy teases, grabbing a jar for herself and walking back to her seat.

Spider just sticks his tounge out at her and stomps back to his seat, muttering under his breath. He grumpily sits down next to Harper, still muttering.

Meanwhile, Quinni is sinking further into her seat. She glances around the room, taking note of all her possible escape routes.

"Hey" Cash says, gently nudging her. "You good?"

Quinni just nods and starts to draw on the paper. Cash gives her another concerned glance before giving the class a quick once over.

He does a double take when he sees spider scribbling on his piece of paper and silent tears streaming down his cheek.

Cash elbows Harper rather harshly to get her attention, not wanting to scare Quinni.

"Ow! What?" Harper hisses, rubbing her side where Cash elbowed her. She goes very quiet, with a small, "oh" when she's sees the tears slowly dripping off of spiders face.

"Spider? Hun?" Harper asks softly before placing a hand on his shoulder, trying not to spook him.

As she gets closer, she can hear what he's been muttering under his breath. "This is so cringe. Why are we even doing this?"

"Oi. Cut it out." Harper says sternly. It's mostly to tell him off but it's also to test his mental age and to assess whether or not he's regressed.

"Why are we doing this?" Spider says louder, meeting her eyes in a very clear challenge. His eyes flicker over to quinni and his expression softens for a moment when she covers her ears at his noise. But then he glances over at Darren and it's like a fires been lit in his chest.

"Why is this a more valid way of expressing my emotions then just telling you that this class sucks? How is this crayon going to fix it? How is this crayon going to fix me?" He's standing now, facing the class as he rants.

His voice breaks into a sob on the last word and he raises his hand to his face, alarmed when it comes back wet. When did he start crying?

Harper doesn't even say anything to him, she just stands up and drags him out of the class by his shirt.

It's only once their out of SLT's and she's sat him down in an empty classroom that she turns to look at him. He flinches, expecting yelling and hitting and anger.

She surprises him instead by kneeling down at his level and just holding eye contact. Her face tells him that she's not impressed and he physically feels his heart break in two at the thought of disappointing her.

"What's going on Spec?" Harper asks gently, still holding eye contact.

He goes to talk but all that comes out is a garbled sob. He stammers as he tries to find a way to express the complicated mix of anger, hurt, upset and overwhelm that's swirling around inside him.

Oh. He's regressed. That's why he lashed out and why everything was too much all of a sudden.

"Too loud. Lights too bright. Dusty gone. Ant hurt" he stammers, breaking eye contact to look at the floor, tears still flowing freely down his cheek. "I'm sorry" he says, barely above a whisper.

"Hey. Spider. Can you look at me for a sec?" Harper says, gently lifting his chin to meet his gaze. "You never ever have to apologise for being small. You're allowed to be overwhelmed but you are not allowed to take that out on other people. Especially Ms Obea"

Spider just nods and drops his gaze again. "I don't feel as little as normal. I kinda feel like a pre-teen? If that makes sense? Like I feel all stompy and grumpy" He says after a moment of figuring out how to articulate what he is feeling.

"Oh, that's all good. Tell you what? How about we meet up with Quinni and Cash and we go back to the apartment and we play some video games?" Harper offers, making sure to lower her voice to a more appropriate level.

In the room directly next to them, Quinni was happily telling Cash all about the different types of ducks and what makes them different.

Quinni was on the verge of a meltdown but Cash, knowing Quinni and her regression, pulled her out of the class and into an empty classroom not long after spider and Harper left.

They did some deep breaths, then Cash pulled out a colouring book from his backpack and they decided to colour together until the period was over, then they'd go back to the apartment.

A ping on Cash's phone grabs his attention and he glances down at it. It's a text from Harper reading "Spiders middle regressed. Going to apartment. Wanna grab others and come and turn it into a gathero?"

He quickly texts her back "Quinnis regressed too. I reckon we just bring the two and chill there. Less chance of meltdowns."

Ms Obia is talking at the front of the class about healthy stress relief and unhealthy stress relief.

Quinni is glancing around, not paying much attention to Ms Obia and instead she's observing the class. A frown quickly settles on her face when she notices spider squirming in his seat and his eyes darting around the room as if looking for an escape.

When his eyes land on her watchful ones, they instantly fill with silent tears. He buries his head in his arms and curls up into a ball as best he can on the desk.

Darren nudges her, pulling her out of her thoughts.

"Quinni?" Ms Obia questions, looking at her with a confused look.

"I um... I need to take spi- spencer to the office" quinni stutters. She doesn't give anyone a chance to question her, instead grabbing spider and pulling him out of the room.

She keeps walking to the drama room because she knows for a fact that noone will be there. Only once she has locked the door does she release her hold on spiders arm and look him in the eye.

Spider just shivers under her stare and sinks to the floor, chewing on his sleeve. Silent tears still stream freely down his face, making his eyes red and puffy. He rocks gently back and forth while he taps his chest with his free hand.

"Hey, kiddo, that's gross. Here, you can use that" Quinni says, quickly pulling out the spare paci she keeps in her bag.

"Dats for baby's" spiders says around his sleeve, glaring at the offending piece of plastic.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Quinni says, frown forming on her face as she realises this must be his first time regressing out of home. "You're still crying though Spider. What's wrong?"

Spider frowns at her but slowly takes his sleeve out of his mouth. "Was loud" he whimpers gesturing towards the classroom.

"Oh I see. Did the noise make you feel funny? Kind of fuzzy?" Quinni asks, while rooting through her bag

Spider just nods. He hasn't moved from his position on the floor but his tears are slowing and stopped chewing on his sleeve, glancing at the paci on the floor.

Quinni cries out with glee when she finally pulls a pair of headphones out of her bag, cringing when spider whimpers and draws further into himself.

"Sorry Spider, that was loud huh?" Quinni says, careful to lower her volume. Spider again just nods, letting out a low whine.

"You know how I'm autistic?" Quinni asks. Again, spider just nods. Quinni just notes the fact that he's non-speaking when regressed in the back of her mind and pulls out a set of communication cards with her small pile of gear.

"Well that means that I can struggle with input sometimes, like loud noises. I've got some stuff here that might help, do you want to try it?" She asks. In front of her she's pulled out a set of communication cards, noise cancelling headphones, a fidget cube, a weighted blanket, a marble fidget, a paci, a teether and a stuffed animal.

Spider glances at her and she nods encouragingly. He grins at her and wipes his eyes dry.

He crawls forward a little and grabs the noise cancelling headphones, the weighted blanket, the paci and the marble fidget.

Quinni smiles gently and helps him put the noise cancelling headphones on his head. As soon as the noise disappears, Spider lets a big sigh and some of the tension in his shoulders disappears.

They sort out the rest of the gear and sit together for some time. Quinni doesn't talk either for most of the time, choosing instead to play alongside him.

After a half hour, quinni grabs spiders attention by tapping him on the shoulder. He pulls the headphones aside slightly to listen to her. "We have to head back to class now bubs. I'll talk to the teacher and all you have to do is sit in the class. I'll make sure she doesn't call on you."

Spider looks up at her with wide scared eyes. Quinni just lets out a fond chuckle. "I've got you sweet boy, let go"

They gather the gear up together, putting the paci in the bag but keeping the headphones on, and walk back to class. Quinni opens the door and ushers Spider over to sit next to her.

"Quinni? What's going on? Why is the di-" Darren is quickly cut off by a piercing glare from Quinni. "Nevermind, I'll ask later" they say, turning back to Ms Obia.

Ater quinni makes sure that spider is situated, she turns to Ms Obia.

"Hi Ms, sorry for running out. Spider needed help. Please don't call on him, I think he had a sensory overload" quinni says, her tone matter-of-fact.