Art Therapy [Oriel]

[Oth Gillis]

As even-tempered as Oth was, no one would blame him in the least for being grumpy. He'd moved more than halfway across the country, away from his extended family and friends and the only life he'd ever known, to a tiny state in the middle of freaking nowhere in the middle of a winter that was clearly trying to prove something, living in a dorm with a bunch of barnyard animal, and of course there was the whole turning into a bear thing. God he hated that. Ninety-nine percent of the time, Oth dealt with things he didn't like by ignoring them. Not giving them any attention. Brushing them off.

There was no way in the world to use those techniques on going from a reedy 90 pound boy to a 750 pound grizzly bear. It was itchy and hot and smelled bad and hurt. Not being a bear, but getting that way, and going back to being a boy too. It was sucking all around, being a bear, the becoming, the switching back, and the stupid aches he had as a human. It was like he'd just been run over by a semi but all the time. And the 'training'? Going from person to bear over and over and over. Like they wanted to see how long he could last before he couldn't get up anymore.

Yeah, enough to make anyone grumpy.

The art teacher here was a little hyper and kind of goofy, but Oth didn't mind him. He was okay. Case in point, he was letting Oth do some watercolors while he was off in another room. The art room looked more like Fort Knox with all the padlocks on drawers and closets, but he figured any school with a bunch of super-powered kids was going to not just have goofs but goofs.

The paper he painted wasn't watercolor paper, but that was okay too. Watercolor paper was expensive, and he was just relaxing. Not doing anything serious. It was printer paper, which meant it warped a bit when it got wet. He was used to that. In the short time he'd been in the room, three papers were drying. One just had designs on it, but the other two had various experiments with the paints. Like whether he could make tree branches by just letting the brown make little rivers into the green (no), whether detailed leaves or just patches of green looked better (a toss up), and experimenting with different shades of green in the same leaf patch (not entirely terrible but he was still learning). And yes, he was painting trees. Aspens, mostly. There were some in Vermont, but they were nothing compared to the ones in Denver. Aspens were pretty trees, even if they weren't good for climbing.

Okay, this was making him homesick. Oth took a fresh sheet of paper and began painting. And frowned, disgusted, when he discovered the shape he'd blobbed onto the paper most resembled... a bear.

Oh well. He started filling it out. Not that he knew what he looked like beared-out, but he could take a good guess.

[Deleted]

Oriel really needed to go down to the art room more.  Now that he was actually trying to take things seriously(or about as serious as a boy like him could take them), he had no more excuses for avoiding doing what he needed done. He still wasn't all too happy with revealing the fact that there was actually effort being put behind his actions, but he'd at least figured out how to put that anxiety aside for the sake of the greater good.

Unfortunately for everyone else, this meant that he was just a little(a lot) more hostile in order to hide his embarrassment.  With any luck, plowing through his training plans headfirst and with a mighty scowl on his face would be enough to keep people from sticking their nose where it don't belong.  Because Oriel certainly wasn't above biting it right off their face.

The boy with the brown locks strolled through the hallway, taking this new approach fast and furious rather than sneaking around hoping nobody saw him or had evidence that he was in a part of the school he normally never went.  He kept his shirt open, a faded blue with rolled sleeves, to expose the white tank he had underneath.  While it was still cold outside, Oriel neglected to bring a jacket for winter protection.  After all, he was spending most of his day inside, a 5-minute walk to the dorms in the cold was nothing. His jeans, loose and hanging from his hips, were starting to look more faded and had developed some holes over the past few months.  Understandable, considering his confinement to campus that was only recently lifted.  He'd have to get another pair next month, when he had more money. At least his hair looked good, clean and floofy with it's voluminous curls straddling about his shoulders.

He sent a sharp glare to some girl who caught his glance as he reached for the knob of the art studio. Then he snorted and headed inside, all scowls. Oriel wasn't expecting the room to be empty, but he certainly was hoping. Though he supposed one kid doing whatever it was he was doing was fine. He could deal with ignoring one person while he mulled about the room and tried to not ruin everybody's art pieces.

With yet another scoff through his nose, Oriel turned away from the boy and started feeling up the drawings displayed on a wall.

He did happen to notice that the kid was painting with watercolors, just like the last vacant faced guy he encountered in this room. At least he wasn't painting potatoes.

[Oth Gillis]

Oth turned when the door opened, but went back to his painting when the guy who came in was all scowls and hair. He'd never seen such long curly hair on a dude before. It was kind of interesting. Oth himself was just in jeans, a plain grey t-shirt, a blue sweatshirt, and his o hat. He was a little rumpled, but that was usual. He was a kid, and not the greatest at hanging up his laundry right after drying.

Fur was easier to paint than he thought, if he used his fingers to splay the paintbrush bristles out a bit. He wished he had another brush, but the kit only came with one in the slot. Having another would be convenient to mix new browns. Well, maybe he could just work on texture right now and do color variations later. Outlining the teeth looked stupid, but... fur. Concentrating on fur. Tooth solutions later.

He didn't know what made him look up, but he did, and he saw Hair Boy sticking his fingers all over people's art. What? God, how rude! Were his hands even clean? He didn't want to get involved, the kid was obviously way older than him, but still.

"Hey," he said, expression annoyed and questioning, like 'what in heck are you doing?'

[Deleted]

Of course Oriel's hands were clean, he wasn't an idiot. He washed them religiously after every bathroom breath, before and after every kitchen adventure, and after every wank. Oriel, hygiene, and cleanliness were like a trio of best friends. He wouldn't be able to maintain his beautiful L'oreal commercial-grade hair without it.

Every time he came in here and did this exercise, Oriel though he noticed something new. The texture of the ink, how different kinds felt on different mediums, even the pigment itself in the ink. He might not be able to lift a picture made with acrylic, but he might be able to lift the ink itself from the glue-like base. Oils too, but the oil-base confused him. At least he wasn't accidentally pulling things out of the pictures anymore, like when he first arrived at Hammel.

Oriel paid no attention to the pint-sized being on the other side of the room. Or rather, Oriel merely looked over his shoulder at him and sneered. Then went back to his business.

[Oth Gillis]

If Oth had known the kid better, he would have said no, he was an idiot, just a strangely clean one. It was a weird but good quirk to have, especially in the cesspool of a school/dorm. Oth was trying to be better about it himself, now that he was sharing a common room with member of the gender who were not known for antibacterial habits. Luckily, his dad had helped disinfect his room. There was a waterproof liner on his mattress too, not to protect it from him, but him from it.

Painting a few more strokes, he added a pair of dark brown eyes, carefully leaving a tiny spot of white paper for a highlight. Then he'd been sitting a little too long. With all these stupid aches if he was in one position and mostly still for too long he started to seize up. More than annoying. Carefully setting his brush to soak in the little pan of water, he stood and bent his knees a few times, rotating his arms.

And that stupid douche was still feeling up the artwork.

Pain made his temper a bit short, and he said, "Hey Curly, keep your hands off other people's stuff."

[Deleted]

Having grown up in less than fortunate circumstances, one might think that Oriel also had developed less than perfect living habits. And that might have been true while he was in that situation, but since being brought to Hammel, he cleaned up those habits real fast. Not out of any sense of wanting to be proper and hygienic, but because of a spontaneously manifested compulsion. Everything he had now, everything they'd given him, from the room to the bed to the desk to a set of clothes that actually fit and didn't have holes, was far too nice for the orphan to touch. So if he had to, he ought to take care of it. So he could use it again. From there it developed into a notion that, if he didn't have to live that way anymore, then why would he choose to? If Oriel could have nice hair and could be clean, then by god, he was going to!

And his hair was absolutely fabulous today, if he did say so himself. Moisturizing shampoo and volumizing virgin blood. Yup.

Because he was worth it.

But apparently blatant jealousy made others poke fun at his marvelous hair. Like this kid with the trap. "If everyone did that," he snapped without thinking, "you'd've never gotten your daddy's eyes." Oriel turned and sneered at the pint sized brat. "Or did your momma actually make her ten bucks that night?" He snorted a condescending laugh and slid his hand against one of the desks as he crossed the room with intent. Kid seemed to have a thing about people touching other people's stuff. Let's see how he fared when it was his stuff being fondled. His sneer expanded and broke into a sinister grin. Oriel didn't intend on actually doing anything to his painting, but the kid didn't know that. He creeped up a hand and cackled under his breath.

[Oth Gillis]

The way the big kid acted didn't hint he was either super-clean or had grown up on the streets. It said he didn't care that other people might've worked hard on what was on the wall and maybe didn't want random people touching it. Oth didn't want to paint something nice and find out someone had been putting their hands on it.

It was not the first time an older kid had questioned his parentage in such a crude way, Oth shrugged it off. Besides, he knew for a fact he had his mother's eyes and her coloring. What he had of his dad's was his height and his analytical mind (as well as his presence and his extended family).

About to reply, Oth's eyes widened as the kid started toward him. Not quite in alarm (though that's what he felt), but in a sort of WTF way. Curly thought he had to intimidate a kid who had to be what... four or six years younger than he was? Still. If his short time in this school had taught him anything, it was that most of the kids here were a little past their expiration dates. Most of the time they were just a little quirky, but a few, like Curly, had to be watched.

Speaking of, Curly was... he wasn't stopping. Oth took an unconscious step back, and then when the kid started grinning, his unease flipped that oh-so-sensitive switch in his stomach and something flipped over. His midsection twisted and pulled, and in about thirty seconds of his boy form blurring like a chalk painting in the rain, it blew up and was replaced with a brown grizzly. Oth the bear's head was still lower than the big kid's, but he more than made up for it in weight. Oth shook his shaggy head, trying to settle his fur, and tilted his head to blink brown inkdrop eyes at the boy. Now he could smell all the shampoo and hair products, soap, detergent, and the body odor.

Oth sneezed.

It was as big and gross as could be expected.

[Deleted]

All of this play acting with Oriel was just exactly that.  Mere intimidation, big words, with little intent to actually do anything. His only intent with anyone was seeing how far he could go before the other party lost it and felt the need to do...whatever it was they felt the need to do. It was those reactions that continually encouraged the Pantene-haired boy.  While he might have touched the paintings and even this kid's work in progress, he wasn't about to ruin them. Kicking in sand-castles on the beach was definitely not his style.  Oriel was an antagonist, primarily instigating, obscene and provocative from afar.

Against kids….well, Oriel would admit that even he held back a little, but that was a very little, as shown by this most recent interaction. After all, kids were stubborn and sometimes had the more interesting and amusing reactions than your average adult.

This one in particular had an especially eye-opening reaction.

"Holy fuck~!" Oriel exclaimed with a start, taking a step back. He'd seen shifter transformations before, one into a particular animal he still was only comfortable with looking at from behind a viewing glass, so he had a bit of experience in seeing bodies mutate into their respective animal. Given this truth, one might also think he could keep his cool whenever it happened.

Nope. He definitely screamed. And took a few more steps back into the desks behind him, which effectively halted his retreat. Because fuck that was a bear. A whole fucking bear! Oriel had never seen one in real life before so it was actually kind of cool except for, Bear!! That was a bear!

"Hi…" he greeted with a nervous smile before it, of all things, sneezed on him. Oriel shut his eyes and scrunched his face as it was sprayed with animal mucous and snot. He stayed like that or a few moments before spitting away whatever might have gotten around his mouth and wiping an eye with a finger, flinging the excess muck to the floor. "Gross…"

[Oth Gillis]

Unfortunately, one of the most common reactions led to a lot of misunderstandings. Oth the bear didn't have hearing that was any sharper than a person's, but his reaction, which was a wince, showed off all his teeth and lifted his shoulders, making him look bigger and sort of attack-y. Which was totally not what he was trying to convey.

But the screaming part was over pretty quick. Living around other shifters tended to desensitize the kids who'd been around longer, but Oth could understand the reaction. Bear. He'd sort of screamed himself when he'd realized what had happened. Scream... roared. Yeah. Grandma's neighbors had freaked.

The sneeze... he hadn't meant to. The bear's nose was very sensitive and to it, the kid smelled like a perfume shop. Oth managed to look sheepish and apologetic, expression that were likely not seen on bear faces outside of a Pixar film. Backing up, he went for what he thought was the least threatening position, which was sitting on his butt, dog-like. Raising one big shaggy paw, he waved it.

[Deleted]

So bear. That was a bear. With teeth, yup those were deeeefinitely teeth. For a second, or rather several second, Oriel was afraid that he was going to get chomped on by yet another shifter he'd pissed of, though granted this one had only been through excessive teasing and thus, he determined, was vastly undeserved. At least in his professional opinion.

Oriel kept his eyes shut as the goop from the sneeze ran down his face. Even touching it to get it off was just downright nasty. Even living in the dump he'd lived in back in New York hadn't desensitized Oriel to getting snotted in the face.

Though when the bear didn't immediately bite his head off, Oriel risked that muck getting into his eye by opening it to see that Mr. Bearington had backed up into sitting like a trained dog and waved like a person in a bear suit, like it was the most normal thing in the world. "God fucking…" he started, with clear frustration in his voice. Oriel peeled his over-shirt from his shoulders and used it as a rag to wipe the rest of the mucous from his face and neck, leaving him only with his white tank to clothe his torso.

As soon as his face was clean, Oriel glared at the bear. The kid. The bear that was a kid. Whichever it was, Oriel glared at it like he was trying to win a staring contest until finally, he curled his lips into an evil grin. "So what you going to do now, Fuzzy-wuzzy? Trying to scare me, that it? Hell, I seen things that'd make you piss your little bear britches." Antagonizing the bear was not the stupidest thing Oriel had ever done, but it probably came close. What he did next, though, might be considered suicidal. "All that bear-rage over a fucking picture? Really!? Well, now I want to see what happens when you get serious." With a few steps forward, Oriel spread his hand again and reached out to the watercolor painting the boy had been working on, touching his finger delicately on the paper all the while keeping his eyes fixed on Smokey here.

[Oth Gillis]

As a bear, Oth had not actually ever eaten anything. For one, people kept thinking he wanted raw meat, which was disgusting and full of bacteria, and for two, the raw meat they tried to give him was tiny. The bear version of a chiclet. And, well, he couldn't figure out drinking. It kept going up his nose. And if there was anything grosser than a bear sneeze, it was a bear coughing up hose water after having had a piece of raw meat in his mouth.

But he was sorry about that. He hadn't meant to, and he'd volunteer to take the clothes to his Dad's to wash to make up for it when he could talk again.

One thing he had noticed, was that things that were kind of intimidating as a human were... not necessarily less so as a bear, but given a different perspective since he was something like 100 square feet of grizzly. It evened things out. Way out of proportion, but... if you chose to keep bullying a full grown male bear you kind of got what was coming to you.

Okay, he hadn't been trying to scare anyone, let alone Mr. Hair, but... it was hard not to imply that with... bear. He wasn't even mad, but Hair Boy... decided to make that choice. In a way it was impressive. The level of stupidity.

The bear's ears went flat, like an annoyed cat's. Oth the bear looked at the kid, at his hand touching his painting, and back. The look on his face was every flavor of 'seriously?', and then 'checkmate, loser'. Turns out Pixar had been pretty accurate with grizzly expressions.

A gigantic front paw came down over that hand.

[Deleted]

Oriel always wondered what it was like for these shifters, to transform into some animal and be exposed to their senses and strengths. From what he could gather, Erik just went all snake when he changed with little of himself remaining. Oriel wondered how he managed to change back if he was that un-self aware. Oriel liked to imagine that if he were to change into something cool, like a lion perhaps, then he'd be able to maintain himself and the animal's instincts all at once. But the truth of the matter was, Oriel had no idea how it worked and couldn't even imagine the complications that this kid had with bearing.

He did think it was cool though. And definitely wanted to see what happened next. That was the only thing driving him into his stupidity at this point.

But Oriel wasn't scared. Not in the least.

Well, maybe a little.

The giant paw came down on his hand. Oriel's initial response had been a clear jump, startled at Yogi's sudden "attack", along with a sharp yelp. It was heavy. The paw was. About as heavy as Oriel's breathing right then. And the swallow he took as he felt a drip of sweat trail down his face.

Oriel blinked up to look at Fozzy in the eye, his smile daring to creep back onto his lips. "…that the best you got, Mr. Pooh-bear? 'Cause I think you're just bluffing." With another deep breath, Oriel brought up his other hand and planted it down on top of the bear-paw. Two could play at this game.

[Oth Gillis]

The bear's vision wasn't the best, but it could smell the salty-sour smell of sweat just fine. Ew. Mixed with hair product, teenage boy musk, the cleaning products that had left their scents in the room, and the various art supplies, the big kid was fortunate that he wasn't getting to see what bear puke looked like.

For a second, Oth was worried he'd hurt him. He had no idea how heavy his big bear hands were, but he had been careful not to just slap it down. But if he'd bruised Clairol a little he wouldn't feel too bad.

The sweat and other scent cues the bear was picking up on, even if he didn't know what they meant, said the smile that was reappearing on the kid's face was a lie. Oth was impressed against his will. Hair Boy either had no brains or something large and heavy in his pants. Since he didn't know him well enough, Oth was thinking it was the former.

Okay, between the two of them, Oth was the one with twice the hand-shaped appendages, but he was pretty sure Tangled would find a way to get a foot up on the table if things came to that. And Oth didn't really feel like dicking around. He wanted to make his point and get on with his life. Besides, he couldn't stay shifted over for long, and he did not want Curly Sue see him naked.

The younger boy didn't know what the older one meant by 'bluffing'. What he wouldn't do. He supposed it was putting another paw down, so... okay. It was going to be gross.

Who cared.

Leaning in till they were almost nose to nose, Oth the bear stuck out his long, flat, slobbery pink tongue and gave Hair Boy a taste.

Oh blech. Hormonal teenager. Horrible flavor.

[Deleted]

Mr. Teddy Ruxpin wasn’t hurting Oriel, at least not enough for Oriel to complain about it. At least now he could boast that he knew how much a grizzly bear’s front paw weighed. And yes…Oriel was stubborn enough to continue this game with his feet. He stared down the Bear with daring eyes. As terrifying as this actually was, Oriel was getting a kick and a high off of the adrenaline. And there was no way he was going to run just because of a stupid bear with the mind of a punk kid.

This was going to make for an interesting story to tell people later. And by people, Oriel meant Phoenix.

Oriel eyes glinted with interest as Snuggles leaned in and, of course, Oriel matched him on this until their noses were nearly touching. Ewww….bear breath. Gross, what’d he eat last, a dead fish?

Oriel was not expecting to be bathed in that smelly drool. The snot had been bad enough but now…well, guess that meant another shower once this was all over.

Oriel reeled back, closing his eyes and removed his hand from atop that furry paw. “Ughh…alright Smokey, you win, fuck…” he groaned, wiping at his face. Oriel couldn’t think of any more creative names to call the ursus anyway. “Can I have my hand back now?” Because talking to bears in the middle of the classroom was clearly a normal thing people did at this school.

[Oth Gillis]

Honestly, Oth avoided eating as a bear. Nothing ever satisfied him, and he had a feeling whatever did would be really disgusting. And probably raw. So he had... well, sort of stale-ish bear-spitty breath. Better than 'just ate an animal' breath.

The lick was enough. Hair Boy seemed done, which was awesome, because Oth was not doing that again. Oh god. The bear smacked his dark lips, trying to get the taste out of his mouth. Ugh.

Still, he gave the kid a look over, and nodded, taking his big ol' paw away. Hoping the hand wasn't busted, though if it was they'd likely know.

A familiar pulling sensation gurgled around in the bear's stomach. Great, it was time. Oth couldn't keep up the shift any longer, he had to change back to kid. And in front of Pantene. Well, humiliation for humiliation. The big brown form blurred, shrinking, giving off a faint crackling sound a bit like a campfire popping... that was really Oth's bones breaking and reforming. About thirty seconds later, a naked boy was sitting on the floor, shuddering, grabbing at his shirt to cover himself.

Feeling sullen and sore, he looked up at what he could see of Hairspray. "You wanna give me a little privacy?"