Chapter Twenty-Seven

A/N: ^look at Jesse's purple hair!!!<3

They were back in art class again and it had turned out to be Andrew's favourite lesson of the week. He was still astonishingly awful at it but he enjoyed drawing and painting, albeit terribly. And it was nice watching James painting, he was really skilled at it and he always stared at the canvas with such focus.

He was looking at it like such now, glancing up now and then at Andrew with his brows furrowed in concentration. The class had been divided into pairs to paint portraits of each other so he was sitting right opposite him.

Marie however had been forced to paint a landscape as punishment for not doing it in the earlier class. She sat sadly alone in the corner she had been sent to, looking at the blank wall for inspiration.

'I'm looking forward to seeing my portrait,' James said casually, 'I haven't got one done in ages.'

Andrew stared in disappointment at his painting. It did nothing to flatter James's appearance.

'You used to get your portrait done?' he inquired, trying to dab away what he'd painted so far so that he could start over.

'Well, there weren't camaras back then... really I don't even remember what I look like, I can't see myself in the mirror,' he added flippantly.

Andrew looked up at him flabbergasted.

'There were tons of cameras last century,' he remarked idly, 'everyone had them in phones, you know, those things that people used to communicate with.'

'Wait, wait hold up, you can't see yourself in the mirror?!' Andrew exclaimed, open-mouthed and stupefied. There hadn't been a mirror in their dorm now that he came to think of it.

'Of course not, I'm a vampyre, vampyre's can't see themselves in mirrors,' James reminded him patiently.

'You say it like I'm supposed to know of all vampyre lore,' Andrew grumbled, realizing that his horrid painting was going to be the first time James would see himself after centuries.

James just smirked in response as his skilled hand danced across his own canvas like a prima ballerina.

'Oh! A cruel and unusual Punishment!' Marie wailed from her corner, 'How can an artist be expected to gather inspiration from the wall'

She dragged her easel in front of the large windows under Mr. Branson's glare, upturning paint cans and tripping over toes, leaving a terrible mess in her wake.

'An artist must be capable of gathering inspiration from anything,' he said sternly but he let it slide as she plopped herself in front of the windows.

He probably regretted it soon after however as she immediately started disturbing Evan and Jesse sitting next to her, and even talking over them to Andrew and James who sat beside them.

She and Evan were blatantly annoying Jesse now about a girl he had started seeing recently, just during the weekend when they had been away. Evan was loudly filling in Marie on the details, embarrassing Jesse since the whole class could hear his rowdy voice.

'She's a senior and I saw him talking to her.' Evan was teasing him like they were in middle school but it was working as Jesse's face turned beet-red and looking comical against his purple hair.

'Look! His face matches her hair now. It was meant to be!' Evan pointed at an ever-reddening Jesse as he almost fell out of his chair in an excitement to be annoying.

Marie snickered at them both, her landscape already forgotten as she rocked back in her chair precariously, her paintbrush carelessly waving around and splattering herself and everyone near her.

Andrew was still unsuccessfully trying to fix his painting. Dabbing it off had somehow made it worse as the paint hadn't actually come out properly; it had just coagulated into a hideous mess.

He sneaked a peek at James who was probably painting a stunning masterpiece. He would probably paint it even better than Andrew actually looked in real life too. He leaned over in his stool, surreptitiously trying to inch it closer to get a better look at his portrait.

'You can see it if you like,' James smiled, turning the canvas towards him with crinkled eyes. The outstanding artistry was just as Andrew had expected. His own face stared back at him but it looked a hundred times better with a sweet smile and laughing eyes.

'That looks much better than me,' he exclaimed, equally flattered but also horrified as he compared it to the mess he'd made of James's handsome face.

'Really? I don't think so,' James looked down at the painting as if it were nothing compared to the boy sitting in front of him.

'My eyes aren't even that colour, they're just black,' he protested, flushing a little at the compliment.

James gazed intently into his eyes, 'I can clearly see flecks of dark grey and silvery speckles in them, and I have better eyesight than you so there,' he finished quickly, having made his point.

Andrew was a bit speechless at that and unable to argue with this faultless logic.

'I could hardly do justice to you,' James murmured absent-mindedly but his face was strangely sincere as he looked at the other boy.

'Er.. it's just the reflection of the sun,' Andrew mumbled mostly to himself, feeling embarrassed now as he made a last attempt to scratch out the hair which had somehow turned a murky green. He had carelessly used the same brush that he'd used to paint James's sparkling teal eyes, which were now also a muddy brown which streaked down his face in ghastly rivulets.

'Well let's see what you've come up with,' James said, getting up out of his chair and coming over much to Andrew's horror.

He flung his arms over the canvas as James neared, getting paint stains all the way from his wrists to his elbows, 'No! It's not done yet!'

'I'm sure it can't be that ba-'

He pried away Andrew's arms and the words died inside of his throat; his face a picture of comical horror,

'Oh, My...'

Andrew was disconcerted with his reaction, feeling now that his art didn't deserve to be held to these high standards. It really wasn't that bad for a first effort, was it??

'I suppose you just haven't aged well,' he teased, his smile lighting up the entire room

'Haha, well, if that's what you see,' James said good humoredly, sitting back down to finish his painting.

Andrew faltered a little, 'You really don't remember what you look like?'

'It's been quite a while,' James shrugged nonchalantly.

'Weell.. your hair is wavy and dark brown,' Andrew began.

'Oh? Is it not green?'

'Shut up, I'm trying to help you!'

James grinned and gestured for him to carry on.

'And your eyes are a greenish blue... no they're more of a blueish green, well they change now and then according to the lighting,' he babbled on, 'They're really sparkly though and uh... your eyebrows are straight, like that!' He shook his hand back and forth in a straight horizontal line to show how straight it was.

James burst out laughing at that.

'You have a nice laugh too, and your teeth are... er, nice,' Andrew added, not really wanting to go into detail about describing the rest of his mouth and seemingly soft lips.

'Well thank you for that vivid description.' James smiled.

The bell rang just then and they started packing up their stuff to go down to the courtyard for lunch break. Marie sauntered over with Evan and a still blushing Jesse in tow, his nose was wrinkled up in exasperation at his friend who was still too delighted in teasing him non-stop.

They ambled down the main stairway with Marie gleefully sliding down the banister alongside them and then went through the back exit to the courtyard.

'Hey! Look, she's here already,' Evan bothered Jesse as they glanced towards the gaggle of seniors at one of the stone carved tables.

He grumbled and shoved away his irritating friend as Marie peered at the large group, wondering which one it was.

'I'm just going to go talk to her. Don't stare at me,' he instructed, already knowing they wouldn't listen as he made his way to the senior table.

A girl with flowy scarlet hair turned around and offered him a friendly wave as he smiled at her.

'Wait a minute, that's Georgie!' Marie exclaimed, recognizing the red-head as soon as she saw her face, 'You didn't tell me the girl was Georgie!' She punched Evan on the arm.

~~

A/N: Damn it Georgie :p

Anyways, todays my birthday!!yayy!