TW: ((SLIGHT? SPOILERS AHEAD))

This story discusses a case of almost-implied-child molestation, and an onlooker's experience. The story revolves around sex, but nothing is said/described at all explicitly. This story is rated T, after all. Masturbation is also mentioned, but not even by name. The word "f**got" is also used here (specifically in 4.)

Espionage in Spring

1.

Swashbucklers and men in funny voices, who all spoke in funny tongues, were the stuff (the fuel, the fire-in-the-pyre) of dreams. They were not much appreciated in a classroom, and he always felt laughed at. He also enjoyed 'manhunt', which was its best at night.

In class, he stirred a lot. So they sat him down and they offered him pills, and he refused them sometimes if he could. And everyone whispered that they had seen it coming, and they put him in a bad mood.

Anyway he learned that to get people to be nice and sympathetic, you must make them guilty and sorry in a way that meant something to them. Did their regret go with hubris or anxiety? That's how things were. One must analyze the do-badder in question. Once you told them your grievances with a severe style of pout, they would then proceed to gather around you, and spoil you so silly you'd go dizzy with unease. Even good things can shock one's system into being upset.

He, however, was not someone who would die of remorse, although he did a lot that should've made him. He was an incubus who fucked the girls who slept with spread legs with stress, not his genitalia, and he felt innocent for it. Rightly so, because he could be enjoyable. And even going old school-or outlandish school-by capturing him with the hunting net when the occasion necessitated it be sought and facilitated-was fun. But certainly, Gumball did not want to be away at a freak show forever.

With Darwin, he began a business of selling toys, knickknacks, and soaps. He smartly convinced Alan into being their business partner, each party bringing in their own items to sell under a conjoined little shop. Alan was utterly elated to entertain the idea of a friendship with Gumball, as all the children were, though they knew not why.

Alan's face attracted the girls, who then bought Gumball's products as well. His were more useful-pencils and notepads he had meticulously decorated, along with soaps he paid extra attention to testing and wrapping.

Principal Brown aimed to completely sever the operation, when he found out about it. After his business plan had been wrecked, Gumball created a ghost-hunting club after the school made the students watch "Ghost Busters" in the auditorium. They ghost-hunted and were soon shut down, because no exclusive clubs were permitted, although Gumball cried that anyone could join so long as they weren't a butthead. He wondered how anyone else knew about their club, anyway. Carrie Krueger had not even felt offended at all.

2.

It had been a long day-a day of state testing, where Gumball griped and moped along the corridors between exams. Springtime was sitting well with Elmore, though of course it was hot. It was always somewhat sultry out, except in winter, when the cold was exceptional. But one got accustomed to it eventually.

Gumball had gotten his allowance a couple of days before, and once vehemently determined to save it, was now allured by the shine of the vending machine. It was the massive one, and he could see the small packaged gumballs tease him, as Penny seemed to with her smiles and the way in which she sometimes drew her finger up his chest. All aglow by the possibility of instant gratification, he started to rummage in his backpack.

Next to him was a dark classroom that had never been his. As he folded his dollar into the slit and prepared the remaining fifty-cents, an unpleasant sneer like a whiplash of lethargy garnered his attention. He suspected it had been emitted in that unfamiliar room.

In a hurry he grabbed his candy, tensing his body as if it would make it quieter. Maybe it did, for he managed to press against the door to listen, without hearing anything but the shallowest breathing.

He heard a slow whispering man, who whispered so softly he seemed to bear all the confidence in the world. He was not afraid of being caught, even if he would not like to be caught. His words were not anxious, they were almost sounding as if practiced, and he was a bad, bad man. A bad, bad man, who may or may not have had bad yellow teeth, and some kind of queer, unsettling visage. He was probably colored softly pink, but it was an ugly pink, not like how Penny blushed or how his mother applied gloss to her lips before the mirror.

He pushed the door open with a stubby finger, and more concerned than frightened, his dark gaze wandered across the ceiling with utmost control and purpose. He saw the man, who had the sort of talent that his mouth looked barely in motion as his head lowered in a sinister bow towards a little boy. The bad man looked like the one who had come to teach their story-telling unit, where they had put together plays of fairy tales and fables. All the parents had loved Gumball's, which was a fable called "The Fox and the Grapes", and that was how he remembered.

The boy was familiar, but Gumball didn't know what he was called, only how he must feel. The boy's facial features were all curled into a sweaty grimace, as the man started to undo the clasp of his big coat. Oh, Gumball knew what rested beneath.

He screamed at them to halt.

3.

So, the steam within him relaxed. The steam in his legs and knuckles.

The body's a temple, and they were instructed on how to keep it in good condition-because worshipping grounds must be grand as some form of encouragement; a statement of significance. This was the time before the plate, the time when it was the pyramid, and Gumball screwed up his by making designs that dirtied his paper. Darwin's was a perfect white, and his penmanship was not interesting.

The body was a temple, though Gumball never prayed. Never formally, and also never with the image of God in mind. He whispered stuff in frustration, and would even clasp his hands together-but never did he pray to any deity known to man! Still, he believed in worship.

His body was his temple, and they were told in cryptic language, in the tone of plush wisdom, that no one should worship the temple who was not you, or someone you permit in yourself. Gumball decided on making a list; he included his two siblings, his mother and father, his paternal grandmother, and Penny (if she would like.) Gumball bitterly guessed that the boy in the classroom with the bad, bad man probably did not have a list, and if there were a list, that man was not have been on it. He did not glimpse anything offensive, but he sensed an inclination to umbrage dwelling in him, as he watched the larger's breath tickle the younger boy's face in the dimness. His insides were felt then; they felt damp and were as good and shapely as putty. When they saw him, the bad, bad man rushed away from the boy, and the boy turned the most awful crimson color Gumball had ever seen. He dared say that red was the ugliest color, after the pink of the white man, and the lame shades that existed of brown (only Penny's exact color was at all attractive.)

The boy's body too was a temple, and Gumball knew, from his parents' discussions-tinted with solemnity-that religious places were sometimes not respected.

4.

They asked him to speak of what he saw. He said he saw the man there, and he saw the child called Rob. Rob had looked afraid, very afraid. They were so close together, their bodies were "making eyes" at each other (right?)-one evilly, gently flirtatious, one timid with revulsion and the confusing pains of being troubled. The boy's eye read: 'you should know better!', but Gumball was a child somewhat illiterate, and better, one skilled in some denial.

Their bodies could've kissed, and maybe they would've. Gumball expressed this with some stuttering and 'like's, and panting and grasping at the air, even towards the sky. He did not quite understand it.

In the schoolyard in the afternoon, he saw the boy engrossed in a book. It was a real book. Books seemed like lonesome things, an invention of isolation. He did not feel bad taking it away, so he took it away, and the boy became upset.

"Aw, don't be a hothead! I'm doing you a favor, Roy."

The word of the day was 'faggot.' It had slithered into their social curriculum. Penny was Gumball's crush, but he did not see why a boy could not seek the affections of another boy. It was actually weird, but not a concern. The word, however, was fun to say, and so was said excessively. Fun must be preserved at all costs, sometimes.

He tried to include Rob in their game of sneaking up on the littler boys and calling them faggots, like Mr. Wilson called most other men he encountered, resulting in little Tobias' repeating and spreading the term. Rob didn't spark up at the idea of playing four square, and remained untouched by the notion of playing cops and robbers.

"What is it that you do then?" Gumball asked him. "Do you jump rope? Can you play hopscotch?"

"He's a faggot." Tobias had a creep's voice. Gumball imagined the bad, bad man stupidly boasted one just like it, even when he too was ten years old.

5.

Oh, teachers! Stupid teachers! They selected their job and then whine, whine, whine, like they did not know better! Like they had never sat in a chair just like Gumball's, among a herd royally divided: the eager and the unfazed. He flopped back and forth between the squads. Maybe he was being too hard on them. Gumball remembered an article about a young poet:

"Daddy died like a flopping fish."

It had little to do with anything.

Lustful for some change of scenery, he stared into his vibrating legs, remembering about how boys and girls were encouraged to be curious and cautious about their music boxes and keys. The baby Anais had been gifted a fancy music box, and had pushed in the winding key after it had fallen out. Having been around, he later came to his conclusion, alone on the couch.

A little lady had a music box, a little man a winding key, and together they played a lovely song. That was how Gumball saw it. Having a key could be immensely satisfying. Better than any sword or shield, not that he would profess it.

The teacher made him write an entry into his journal about how he was too much, and he looked away from his world, trying not to cry because it might be true. His humiliation unfolded until it was disbelief, indifference, and defiance. He was safe.

Rich wrote something beautiful, he heard. Gumball tried to write at least okay.

It hurt. All of this was scorching, and he formed a makeshift music box with his digits, and played the hollow afternoon away into the night. He would like to see that bad, bad man go far away, yes-but he would also be grateful to see some coquettish mermaids perched on rocks with the ambition of securing his attention. Something need be specific and special if it hoped to do that.

Once, the act had just been boredom's calling. So accidental, a fluid alteration in schedule at most-that he could not recall how he'd come across it.

And how it special it was, maybe even sourly amusing, that he was using what he was trying to outrun as protection from itself.

A/N: I really have no idea where this came from. It was unexpected. It's not much of a story, is it? I was just anxious to post lol. About half of it is just small facts of Gumball's childhood, and the rest of it is just sex looming over him, which ya mightve noticed. Hopefully I'll get more productive stuff out as the year goes on. If you have anything to say, leave a review or PM me :).

Happy 8 years, btw, guys!