I Think I Broke It(Devon)

[Deleted]

Oriel looked behind him to make sure there was nobody there before turning the corner and heading towards the art studio. He did it again before turning the knob. Again once his head was inside the room. And the one final time out in the hall before slinking into the empty studio.

No way was he going to be caught actually going to the art studio to practice. Nope. He was horrible at drawing, and while he wanted to get better, he wouldn't be caught dead actually practicing. That was just a recipe for pure humiliation, especially since he couldn't draw worth anything.

Not like he needed to be here to practice, but he wanted to get a good visual of what other people did and their "technique". Oriel was a visual learner. He did better when he had something to copy.

He did one more once over of the room, making sure there weren't any people hidden under the desks or whatever, before he turned his attention to the gallery wall.

Some of these were....pretty good!

But he couldn't fathom why everyone always drew an apple or a fruit basket(probably because that was the assignment, duh!) and then posted them all proud like they were the Mona Lisa or something. Especially since some of them were pure crap.

Take this one, for instance. It was bowl.

Just a bowl!

Nothing in it! No designs or anything! Just a freakin' bowl!

Ok, so it was done in stipple crow-quill ink, but still.

Oriel grumbled as he leaned in to get a better look. How the hell did people have the patience to do that!? It was insane! Look how tiny those dots are! Not a single one of them was touching the other, and yet it made a picture!

And he allowed a foolish thought to enter his mind, wondering if those non-touching itty-bitty dots made a difference?

Oriel pantomimed rolling up his sleeves and reached forward, wrapping his hand around the bowl. Guess that answers that question.

He pulled it out with both hands just as the door to the studio opened.

[Devon Wentsworth]

It had been four days since Devon had first landed in Vermont, five since he had left England, and already he was missing certain aspects of his life back home. He had quickly learned that American tea bags were certainly not the same as the ones back home, and within hours of his arrival in the fair state he was already making a list of things to get Cade to send over for him. Tea bags, jaffa cakes, jammie dodgers, jelly babies. So many things he had taken for granted and was already missing. It had been four days; how was he going to last four weeks??

Devon wasn't officially signed up to begin his new job in Hammel until Monday but he was getting bored and restless from unpacking and trying to settle into a flat apartment that just wasn't home. It was too clean, too neat and too new looking. The sooner he could find a proper place to live the better. For now he just wanted to explore, to begin to get a real grasp on the city in which he now lived, and he couldn't think of a better place to start than his new work surroundings.

The receptionist had given the future Hammel art teacher a guest pass and map of the institute, but the map had been quickly pocketed in favour of a much more impulse-guided trip around the main building. If he started off relying on the map it would take him longer to learn where everything was; this way he quickly learned which department connected to which and where the dead-end corridors were. He got lost and ended up doubling back on himself a few times, but that was part of the adventure and with each corridor traversed and classroom passed, the Brit could feel himself getting more and more excited.

Eventually trainer-clad feet led Devon towards a door whose small brass plaque labelled it as the art studio. This would no doubt be a major feature of his career in Hammel, and Devon found himself a little torn. Did he go in and explore it now, become familiar with the work and set up so he could launch straight in on Monday – or did he wait and experience the room for the first time while it was full of students and buzzing with life? After a few moments idly chewing his lower lip, Devon turned the handle and walked through the doorway.

He didn't expect to see anyone inside the room and he paused when he caught sight of the younger man, seemingly fidgeting with a rather unique and strange looking bowl near one of the paintings – which seemed to have a bowl-shaped piece missing. Slightly confused and quietly curious, Devon spoke to the stranger. “I'm sorry, am I interrupting something?”

[Deleted]

Yeah...It was kind of cool to be able to do this kind of thing. He flashed back to when his power first manifested and the look on Abuelo's face when he saw Oriel holding one of his wickedly designed daggers. Apparently that one had gone on some girl's thigh a month before. Oriel thought how awesome it was to be able to just pull a weapon out of ink from one's body. He wished he could practice more on his own...

Oriel's little flashback(which lasted less than a second) was interrupted when the door opened and a man spoke to him. Startled, Oriel jumped just enough to lose his grip on the bowl in his hands. He flailed to catch it but....to no avail.

It hit the ground and shattered like ceramic. Into (a little less than) a million pieces.

"Shit..." He looked up at the man(who was obviously a teacher, though he'd never seen him before) with wide and panicked eyes. "I mean...shoot. I mean..." He looked down at the mess on the floor. Then back up with a sheepish smile and cocky shoulder shrug. "Whoops." He chuckled nervously.

[Devon Wentsworth]

Devon hadn't intended to spook the boy, and given hindsight he would have thought of a perhaps slightly less vocal way to gently get his attention. But hindsight was not much good to him in that moment, and as the bowl tumbled from the boy's hands Devon's thought echoed that which came out of the boy's lips. Oh shit. A good start, this certainly wasn't one.

The first non-receptionist person he had spoken to in his new place of work. The first of his potential students. The first time he had ever set foot into his own classroom... and something had gotten broken. Perhaps he shouldn't have been surprised that things had gone wrong wrong pretty much instantly, but he was a believer that the best things often came out of bad situations, and in a place like this then the odd breakage was hardly a rare occurrence. So many times his own work had accidentally gotten damaged by someone back when he was a student himself in the school in Switzerland.

Still, it wasn't exactly a promising start, and Devon's eyes flicked from the shattered bowl to the student and back. For a moment Devon was quiet, trying to think of a quick-fix to the problem. Nothing came to mind. “Relax, I'm not going to shout at you.” The Brit indicated to the pieces of bowl on the floor, his voice quiet and calm. “I assume that wasn't yours to smash?”

[Deleted]

Shit shit shit.

Now he'd gone and done it. Not only had he extracted the object of someone's picture from the actual canvas, he'd gone and broke it. In his experience, those were much harder to put back(and actually he never bothered to try before).

Oriel's first instinct was to run out the door like a madman.

But there was some English dude blocking the exit.

He could try the window!

Oriel glanced over at the windows which lined the far wall of the classroom. They were the kind of complicated open-from-the-top twisty-lever kind of windows. He probably couldn't get them open all the way.

The dude didn't sound angry, or like he was going to blow his top. Hell, he even said so. But honestly, that just made Oriel more nervous. It was the calm, quiet type of adults that creeped him out the most. He never knew what to expect from them.

No choice but to go for it!

He bolted, trying for the narrow space between the door and the guy standing in it. The guy who irritatingly moved directly into Oriel's path, blocking his way even more.

He looked up at the dude, eyes full of protest, and grunted out a demand filled to the brim with false bravado. "Move it, old guy!"

[Devon Wentsworth]

As Devon saw the lad looking around, particularly at the window, he knew he was going to try to bolt. He could understand why, of course. He himself had been something of a brat at times in school too, and more than once he had fled from the scene of his mischief rather than stand and face the consequences like a grown up. He had gotten to know the lady who babysat the trouble makers in the detention hall rather well and often enquired as to the health of her six cats.

But he wasn't a reckless student any more, he was a future teacher here (okay, he was sometimes still reckless) and it was his job now to try to help instil order. He knew that if the kid tried to barge past him he probably wouldn't be able to physically stop him, Devon was hardly built like a rugby player, but he didn't want to let him flee without at least trying to work out what had happened. He was still far too curious to let that happen.

A small frown furrowed Devon's brow as the boy referred to him as old, a comment that clearly bothered him far more than the show of bravado. Devon had spent a chunk of his youth being bullied by those bigger than him, he wasn't so easily spooked any more. Yet the thought of being old always terrified him, and he had to mentally check himself and put a small smile on his lips before addressing the boy. “Hey, you're not in trouble. Mistakes happen, just one of those things. Help me clean up the mess and you can go on your way, nothing else said.”

[Deleted]

Oriel wasn't very stocky himself. In fact, there were reasons he preferred to run away rather than face anything head-on. Usually about 200lbs of them. This guy certainly didn't look like much, but he probably had power(authority) in other ways, and regardless of how nice he was trying to be, that power was still something he had in his arsenal.

Adults always had that. And in Oriel's experience, they always abused it.

Even when they promised they wouldn't.

"Liar!" He exclaimed. "I know this game. You act all nice in the beginning, send me on my way, and then a day later I find out I'm suspended or got community service for life or something." Or that they're going to send him away.

Oriel glared at the man in childish defiance.

[Devon Wentsworth]

Devon was quiet while the boy spoke, still blocking the exit but making no move to either interrupt or restrain him. He had been in that position before and he knew full well what he would have done. Running was easy until you got caught. And you always got caught in the end. Once the boy was finished speaking, Devon gave a small shrug of his shoulders.

“Look, I'm sorry about whoever it was that messed up your trust about things like this. I don't even work here. Not officially yet, anyway.” Devon flicked up his guest pass, showing that he wasn't lying.

“If you really wanna go, I'm not going to stop you. But I will have to tell someone you were in here, broke something, and ran when I tried to find out what was going on.” Devon stepped sideways slightly, making a gap in the doorway. “But if you stay and help me clean it up, I give you my word that will be the end of it. Accidents happen, and I really don't want to make this a bigger thing than it needs to be.”

[Deleted]

Urk!

And there was the classic abuse of power. Coercion.

By this time, Oriel was in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kind of situation. The kind where his only option was to "trust" this teacher that wasn't a real teacher yet and hope he lived up to his word because if Oriel ran then he was definitely going to get in trouble.

He growled as he stuffed his hands in his pockets and trudged to the corner of the room where the dustpan and hand brush was sitting on top of a trash can. Oriel picked them up and quickly, and silently, headed back to the mess, his face frozen into a sour frown. With a final glare at the "not-teacher", Oriel knelt down and started cleaning it up, brushing the faux-ceramic pieces into the metal dustpan.

When it was done, he held out the dustpan to the "not-teacher" with that same unrelenting show of contempt for authority in his eyes. "There! You happy!?"

[Devon Wentsworth]

Devon hated having to play the authority card, but he had been teaching long enough to know that there were times when it was essential to pull it out. The kids hated it obviously, but as long as he wasn't a complete tool about it the situation was usually fairly easy to calm. He could already see that this boy was a difficult one but he was confident that this didn't need all the fireworks that some teachers would have brought into play. There was really no need for the yelling and arguing and drama that some seemed to enjoy bringing into their work.

As the boy got the pan and brush Devon helped clear it up, picking up the bigger fragments of the bowl and dropping them into the trash. He still didn't know exactly what had happened, and as they cleared up in silence his eyes kept flicking from the broken bowl to the bowl-shaped blank space on the canvas.

Once they were done, Devon took the offered dustpan from the boy and gave him a genuine smile, completely ignoring the frustrated glare he had gotten. “Very, thank you so much.” Devon indicated to where the bowl had been. “I'm curious though... What did actually happen? You don't have to tell me if you don't want, of course. I'm just being nosy.”

[Deleted]

Being confronted with a guy who didn't go off his handle the instant that Oriel did something wrong was unsettling. This whole situation would be much easier to deal with if he had. At least Oriel knew how to deal with those kind of people. "I was just…" he started with a little(or a lot) more force than was necessary.

He took a frustrated breath. "I was just looking. I wasn't gonna touch anything, or wasn't supposed to, but then I….Then you." The little brat, of course, was putting the blame on someone else. "If you hadn't shown up, I wouldn't of dropped it and woulda just put it back." He pointed to the empty space in the picture. "I mean, I do it all the time. Ok, not all the time, but 's not that hard. Really….." Oriel grew quiet, looking away and down at the floor.

[Devon Wentsworth]

Devon had of course expected the kid to be defensive, he would have been the same way. At least the bolting reflex seemed to have calmed a little now, that was always a promising sign. Testy and arrogant he could deal with easily enough, but it was hard to make positive steps forward with someone when all you could see of them was the dust storm their heels were kicking up. “I know, I spooked you and I'm sorry about that. Thanks again for helping clean it up.”

The art teacher was quiet while the boy spoke, putting the dustpan away and listening intently. He was trying to understand, but what the lad was saying didn't make a whole deal of sense. That just piqued his interest even more, and Devon's head tilted to the side slightly with a deeply curious look on his face. “I don't understand... Can you demonstrate? Maybe with something a little less smashable.”

[Deleted]

And now the guy wanted a demonstration. Oriel wasn't against it, but there was still the issue that he might ruin whatever it was he touched. He didn't really want to do that. He signed and looked around the room for something simple and unbreakable to demonstrate this with.

There!

Painting. One of those stupid fruit baskets he was rolling his eyes at earlier.

Oriel stepped in front of the painting, took a deep breath, and reached inside it to pull out an apple. He juggled it between his hands then tossed it to the teacher. "That one shouldn't break." It came out like a plastic fruit. Sometimes he wished it'd come out real and edible. It be a really convenient way to get food. He smirked his sideways smirk, starting to feel a little more comfortable, but not quite taking his eyes off the teacher guy. Things could still go wrong if he played this badly.

[Devon Wentsworth]

Devon watched the boy eyeing the pieces around the room, his innate curiosity easily winning over his common sense that was screaming at him to just tell the kid to go before anything else got damaged. Devon's intrigue with how powers worked had always been strong, and it had been many years since he had last been around as many other gifted people as this. He'd be damned if he let an opportunity to learn more slip away, especially if it in some way involved arty influences.

The look on Devon's face morphed into one of amazement as the boy reached inside the painting and pulled out the fruit, though when it was thrown to him he did catch it as though he was expecting it to explode. To be fair, there was always the chance it might have done, Devon had seen stranger things over the years. Once he was certain the fruit wasn't about to detonate/ catch fire/ otherwise horrifically maim him, Devon turned it over in his hands and inspected it closely. “Kid... That is possibly the coolest thing ever...”

[Deleted]

Oriel always enjoyed seeing the look on people's faces when they saw him use his power, even in such a small way as this. He could think of more epic ways to use it, but Oriel wasn't stupid. He wasn't about ready to try stuff he wasn't sure about yet. At least not until he hadn't worked out the kinks in his ability, of which there were many, the primary one being his freaking lack of artistic talent. "Yeah, it's got it's perks." He pointed at the apple that the teacher was holding. "Don't eat that, it's not….it'd probably make you sick."

Ok, now things were getting awkward. Oriel had no idea what to say or what to this guy. And his 'fight or flight' instinct had calmed for the moment, though he still didn't trust that this guy wasn't going to snitch on him. Well, someone was going to notice the blank-bowl space in the picture anyway…. "So…what…what're you doing here? You're not the art teacher. Hell, you said yourself you're not a teacher."