Disclaimer: I do not own The Magic School Bus; instead, I play around with the characters from time to time.
Warnings: Implied Arnold/Tim. Yes, I went there. You don't have to read if guy/guy squicks you, but don't go flipping out over it to me. You've been warned. I will delete any flames relating to pairings, because it's uncalled for and immature to do so when you've been warned!
Totally one of the first, if not outright first, MSB slashes written.
Colored Pencils
He wondered what Tim was doing all alone beneath the trees. He could see him from the swing set; he saw the yellow box of colored pencils lying right next to him in the grass. Out of all the kids in Ms. Frizzle's class, the African American always seemed quiet; he tended to keep to himself and only made comments when needed.
Arnold skidded to a stop, his shoes kicking up dust from where they dug into the ground. The sun glistened off his bright red hair, the heat of the day already oppressive even from this early. The redhead stepped carefully around the game of hopscotch Phoebe, Dorothy Ann, and Keesha were playing, paused once or twice to remove a pebble from his sneaker, and stepped on to the much cooler grass beside the playground. He paused just before reaching Tim, not wanting to cast a shadow against Tim's paper.
The other boy was currently working with the green pencils; olive green, forest green, lemon-lime, and every other green that could be found in a box of 50 Crayola pencils. Arnold held his breath while Tim built up the different shades of green, going from lightest to darkest, using the lighter tones to approximate the sun's shine on the real blades of grass.
Tim put back each and every green pencil he had out, exchanging them for more earthy tones. With as much care as Arnold had ever seen, Tim began to sketch the rough outline of the rocks sitting in front of him. He noted how the dark-skinned boy held the pencil just right in order to get the rock on the left to look sandpapery in texture. He noted how Tim paid attention to the fine, darker lines that ran perpendicular to the earth's surface in the other rock.
The red-haired boy had never seen anyone outside of GRANITE who paid that much attention to the details of a rock.
Arnold liked the rock portion of the picture the most, which Tim seemed to have added the most emphasis to.
"I like your rock picture, Tim,"
"Thanks," the boy replied, holding up the pad so both boys could take a better look at his work. "I like how the rocks just provide a lot of interesting layers and such to draw."
Twelve years later, Tim and Arnold were partnered on the college's Outdoorsman Club. Arnold had grown to be an avid hiker, with an intense love of hiking the mountains of the Adirondacks in order to observe the rocky cliffs he loved since childhood. Tim enjoyed the beauty that nature provided, and was never without his colored pencils case. By far, the pencils that showed the most wear and tear were the earthy, stony tones.
Arnold breathed in the smell of upper mountain air, looking out over the tops of the evergreens below the rocky ledge and the rich blue lakes dispersed here and there. He felt like the king of the world from this high up, with the adrenalin from his trek up the mountain fueling the rush.
He turned back to Tim, who was adding the finishing touches to the rocks he was drawing. He used a blue-green pencil to capture the right tone to the moss that grew on the surface, and Arnold stepped up behind him to watch the artist in progress. With the attention to detail Tim gave to the rocks, it was no wonder why Tim was successfully able to make a little spending money by selling his works. Though Arnold much preferred Tim's drawings of rocks and mountains to the commissions of portraits he usually stuck with. Sometimes it seemed like Arnold was the only patron of Tim's nature drawings.
His companion finally replaced the pencil inside its case and held up the work to better see. It could have easily blended into the side of the cliff due to its attention to detail. The bits of smaller stone, the moss here and there, and the shadows made it all the more realistic.
"Wonderful work, Tim, though that's just what we've all come to expect from a master artist like you."
"If I didn't know any better," Tim said, "I would swear that you're coming on to me."
"Am I?" Arnold arched a red eyebrow, eyes in a joking squint behind his square-rimmed glasses.
"Say Arnold, I wouldn't mind doing a picture of you for my own personal collection. You know, with my skill, I could properly capture your looks but I'd need a real-life model for the drawing to be most effective."
Arnold followed Tim to the pathway that would lead downward on the path they had taken a while back. "Why Tim, I feel flattered to serve as a model for your masterpiece. My place as usual, or shall we go to yours?"
Tim tilted in closer, smirking. "You know, I just got a new modelling bench I'd like to try out."
And with that, the two left behind the rocks and the artistic view.
(END)