12 - you hate everything about me (and you don't even know me)

Whoever had decided that Saturday evening was the perfect time for a mandatory tutoring session was absolutely fucking diabolical. There was one day in the week where students were given next to no restrictions on where to go, what to do, how to dress, and Quinn had to spend it in the library with Dev Ansari, who very much hated being here just as much as Quinn did. Not that this was something they could've bonded over, though.

The folder Dev carried with him to every session had only gotten thicker, with lists and worksheets and god knows what else he stored in there. He pulled something out of it, quickly scanned it with narrowed eyes, then looked at Quinn.

"Alright. First of all- sit straight." Quinn unwillingly yet automatically obeyed. "Here's more feedback the teachers have collected for you. Not too different from the first one, but with a few added points."

Quinn sighed dramatically, leaned back in his seat as he rolled his eyes, the backrest of the old wooden chair creaking. He still didn't get why Dev was getting a list of feedback on Quinn, how humiliating.

"We're mostly still facing the same problems of inattentiveness, 'inappropriate' posture and appearance, bad handwriting and, 'horrible orthography'. Their words, not mine. You have apparently improved with your lateness, though, which I guess is a small win." Dev's eyes shot up to look at Quinn, one of his thick eyebrows raised. "Finally know how to find your way around school?"

"My legs have gotten longer so I can walk faster now."

"Hilarious." He looked back down onto the page, and his expression shifted into something more... smug? Was that smugness, the way he furrowed his brows and one corner of his mouth twitched up for just a second? "And we have a big complaint here, let me quote this: 'It has been reported that Quinton has spoken in highly inappropriate and disrespectful ways to staff during an active lesson.' Who would've expected that?" Dev's dark eyes gleamed with satisfaction, and he leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms as he scanned Quinn. "Wanna explain what that's all about?"

"Don't get too excited about that, asshole. I was just trying to joke a bit, nothing more." Quinn narrowed his eyes, attempting to give Dev the same deathly stare that he usually was on the receiving end of.

"And I thought you maybe would've figured out by now that Oakwell isn't the place for jokes."

"Because it's a place for witless, prude, stuck up, pretentious little-"

"And there we go," Dev interrupted him, his voice loud enough to drown out Quinn's without disturbing the muffled peace of the library. "Your tactlessness is going to bite you in the ass, Quinton, hard. You may think that you can talk to me like this, and frankly, I don't care if you do, but if you are speaking to your teachers, you better remember that these people can decide over your god damn future. And if you are acting like a piece of shit, you can be damn sure that they can and will ruin you. And don't believe that any student here will be on your side when that happens."

Quinn froze for maybe a second, blinked at Dev, and inhaled to say something. He couldn't really- think of anything to say though.

"Well damn," Quinn eventually murmured after a couple of very uncomfortable seconds of silence. "That's actually a very insane thing to say! And it does make me wonder how far up your teachers assess you all are for you to believe that this is normal and okay!"

"It makes me wonder how god awful you must've been to be around in your old school to believe this isn't normal." Dev did that thing he'd been doing a lot, where he sighed, closed his eyes, massaged the bridge of his nose. "Quinton, you cannot be an asshole to your teachers, it's not that hard to understand."

"Does that not go both ways? He shouldn't be making fun of me either! Guess I'll act a bit immature sometimes, okay, fine! But when a whole ass adult, with a job and all, starts talking down to me, that's fine? Is he in the right then? Really?" Too much, Quinn, too much. He inhaled. Held his breath.

"Quinton-" Dev's voice held a terrifying amount of caution.

"Whatever. Y'all suck. This whole place sucks and you also suck."

Quinn crossed his arms behind his head in an attempt to look like he had never cared about anything less than Mister Richardson and his meaningless words. Something was pulling in his chest, his heart's gravitation increasing to dangerous levels, so he exhaled as though that would make anything better.

"At least try to keep your mouth shut around your teachers and do what you're told. You'll be here for a maximum of two years, get your shit together for that time." Dev's words didn't have the sharpness Quinn expected them to have.

Hadn't Ciel said something similar recently? Just nicer. Less pretentious and annoying. Why'd everyone want to tell him so badly to fit in like it was his only way of survival? Had none of them thought about breaking the stupid mold they'd been forced to squeeze into? Had none of them ever tried to be who they wanted to be? Why were they just accepting this, fucking hell, had they no free will? Where the fuck was the bravery, the breaking point, the-

"Can we start working now? I don't want to be here any longer than I have to." Dev looked back at this stupid fucking list to read through all of Quinn's flaws that apparently nobody was willing to tell Quinn about face to face. "As mentioned before, it'd probably be best to work on your handwriting first. I'd like t-"

"Do you never dream about refusing to be a cog in this machine and breaking everything down?"

"What." Dev looked up again, just for a second, so he could throw the usual you're so fucking stupid glance at Quinn. "Cut the dramatics. Are you a libra by any chance?"

"Wh- What does that have to do with anything? Yeah, but-"

"Explains a lot. Anyway, as I was saying, handwriting. Mister Osborne actually gave me one of your assignments so I can look over them myself and form my own opinion." He pulled out another piece of paper from his folder, one that looked a little too familiar to Quinn. Okay, the list of things teachers hated about Quinn was one thing, but giving whole ass assignments to Dev without even asking for permission first? Things were starting to feel very disrespectful.

"My opinion is that it's horrible." A pause that lasted for a little too long. "But fixable." He stashed the copy of the assignment back into his folder, like he really only had pulled it out to make Quinn aware of the fact that nothing he was doing was private anymore, and began rummaging for something else.

"What exactly makes them think you can fix me? I mean, fix this?"

"Well." Dev's hands froze mid search, something in his face turned slightly bitter. "I'm ambidextrous."

"Oh. Well, I'm dyslexic-"

"That means that I've wasted years of my life forcing myself to learn how to write with both hands." And he didn't seem to be particularly proud of that skill. "There's a lot of exercises I've done over the years, and I brought some of them with me. Give me a minute to find them."

Quinn exhaled, as loudly as he could to really drive home the fact of how annoying everything was, and he leaned back in his chair, which creaked again. Or maybe it wasn't the chair but his bones.

Dev never really took off his school uniform, huh? Quinn had only really noticed it now. Usually, students were allowed to wear whatever they wanted on the weekends, and Quinn couldn't wait to break out of that emerald green prison and put on something proper, which, in his case, meant oversized tees in black and purple and sometimes pink. His fashion sense had certainly already suffered here.

But Dev didn't even seem to own any clothing that wasn't uniform. While he wasn't sporting that horrible blazer that evening, he still wore that equally horrible green sweater vest with the golden trims, and a white dress shirt underneath, sleeves rolled up to expose his forearms.

Quinn had to be fair here: Dev kind of, almost, pulled off that godawful vest. Because really, as annoying and shitty and judgmental Dev was, he was also kind of pretty. Not as stunningly ethereal as Ciel, not as captivating as Nico, and far from being as handsome as Felix, but, like, pretty.

His fingers moved carefully and somehow almost gracefully as he flipped through the paper in his stupid folder, his eyes darting back and forth between words written on the pages. They were really dark, his eyes. They were brown, but his thick lashes made them look even darker. And there was a small mole underneath his eye that Quinn had never noticed- well, how was he supposed to, he'd never really looked Dev in the face for that long.

Quinn was usually quite good at looking at people's faces for long periods of time without really realising, though. He'd looked at Shane's face quite a lot when they were kids, because he didn't really have anything else to do, which little twelve year old Shane believed to be a sign of Quinn having a crush on him. Well, he eventually did, so Shane was kind of right, he supposed.

And now he was looking at Dev's face, on accident, and he probably should've stopped, so he did, looking at Dev's hair instead. Black and thick and so damn shiny, Quinn didn't want to know how much expensive product he needed to keep it that way. His hair had an awkward length though, probably would've looked nicer if it was a lot longer or a little shorter.

A bit longer to bring out the waves more. Much longer though, and he'd probably get dress coded. Wouldn't that be funny? If the golden boy got in trouble for a perfectly regular haircut. Quinn now had to imagine Dev with dyed hair. Dark red, maybe. Or emerald green like his stupid fucking sweater vest. Or blonde. No, wait, that'd probably look good. Golden hair, black roots showing, contrasting his brown skin, framing his doe eyes. Quinn told his brain to go back to green, which he imagined to look incredibly stupid.

The doe eyes now looked up, met Quinn's, before they instantly went back to that squinting narrow state they were always in whenever Dev looked at Quinn, that look of pure loathing.

"Quinton?"

Quinn blinked. He might've forgotten to do that for the past very long moments.

"Quit staring at me," Dev grumbled, and the prettiness of his face had, mostly, disappeared in favour of a more confused expression, an almost insecure one. "You're acting weird."

"When am I not?" Quinn finally averted his gaze, looking at the paper in Dev's hands instead. A sheet with lines and letters and shapes, like the ones they'd given him in fourth grade in an attempt to finally teach him how to write. This had to be a joke.

"Whatever. Just look at this. They look easy, but they're just warm up exercises for now." Dev pushed the sheet over to Quinn. "You just follow the lines, copy the patterns as neatly as you can to get into a writing flow. Then-"

"You're kidding. You want me to draw some fucking shapes? Am I ten years old or what?"

"Again, they're for warm up. It's good to do this before writing a lot and to improve your hand eye coordination. A lot of adults that want to improve their handwriting do these exercises, and I did them daily when I learned how to write with my right hand."

"Oh, you're left handed?"

"Why would this matter in this situation?"

"I don't know, just makes sense. Like you'd be the kind of person to be left handed, of course."

"That doesn't make any sense whatsoever."

"Oh, but me being a Libra does make sense then?"

"Can you shut your mouth and draw a fucking shape already, my god, Quinton." Agitation did look good on Dev's face, after all.

"Not when you say it like that. I can't work under stress."

"I cannot stand you."

"Maybe you could ask nicely? I dunno, I'm just sensing this hostile energy from you. Maybe if you stopped being an asshole, that'd be easier."

Something changed, something that was trying to desperately tell Quinn to shut up now and leave Dev alone. Something that Quinn swiftly ignored, too fuelled by the way Dev's expression twisted now. That wasn't anger. That was something different, something louder. Quinn loved it. He didn't really know why, but he loved it so damn much.

"If there was any way to shut you up, Quinton Harvey-"

"Oh, Dev, that's a little indecent, isn't it? To just outright flirt with a guy like that!"

Apparently Quinn had found the crack in Dev's facade. And now he crumbled, oh no, fell apart. He ripped the paper in front of Quinn away, stuffed it back into his folder and slammed it shut, getting up from his chair fast enough to almost topple it over.

"You know what." His voice shouldn't have sounded as calm as it did, considering that every other piece of him, his movements, his face, his eyes, were brimming with something deeper than just anger. He was desperately holding onto his composure, his little golden boy persona. "Get out. I'm not dealing with you if you think you can make stupid fucking jokes like this. It's late anyways."

'Jokes like this'? Okay. Alright. Interesting, Dev, is the idea of flirting with a guy scary to you? Quinn watched Dev scramble to pick his stuff up, a redness spreading in his face, staring at the ground, the table, anything but at Quinn.

"Get your shit together next time. I'm tired." He sounded tired. And then he was gone. Quinn exhaled.

For about a second, maybe two, but no more, something adjacent to guilt bubbled up in Quinn's chest, just to be shut down again near instantly by a sense of satisfaction. A forced one, perhaps. But satisfaction nonetheless. Quinn attempted a grin to himself, failed, then slowly got up from his squeaky chair, leaving Dev enough time to have fled the library.

Maybe that was too much-

No, well, it was Dev who'd overreacted so horribly over a joke with gay undertones. That was a problem he had to fix, that frail straight masculinity that apparently shattered way too easily. Quinn knew tons of guys like this. They usually were the most fun to provoke.

Then shouldn't this have been more fun?

No, it was fine.

Was it?

Quinn stretched, let his hands disappear in his pockets, and made his way back to Penrose house. Dev was right in one thing: It was pretty late already.

He'd barely spent twenty minutes with Dev in the library, when technically their Saturday lessons were scheduled to be an hour and a half long. So that should've been a good thing! Quinn had some more freetime, which was super great! But the way that lesson had ended left a bitter taste in his mouth. For whatever super weird, super strange reason.

The real problem was also that coming back from tutoring earlier than expected meant Ciel's me-time was getting cut short, which his roommate absolutely would not be happy about because he'd been waiting for Quinn to leave to open up a mysterious package that had arrived a day ago. And Quinn apparently was not allowed in any way to know what was inside.

Well, too bad. Quinn opened the door to his dorm room, though a bit more carefully and slower than he usually would, eyes averted towards the ground just in case, and he was met with a frightened shuffle.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Ciel's voice was startled, unusually agitated, and when Quinn looked up, his roommate had stumbled a step back, panic written into his face. Oh, fuck.

"I- I mean, this is my room, so," Quinn stammered, Ciel's wide eyes making him panic as well now.

"You're not supposed to-" Ciel's voice cracked a bit, and he covered his body with his arms. There wasn't really a reason to do so, it wasn't like he was naked. It was quite the opposite, actually, he very much was dressed, quite nicely as well. Ciel wore a pretty dark blue sun dress, little silver star embroidered at the hem of the long skirt. Oh. Wait. "Can you leave?"

"Okay, sorry, fine." Quinn held up his hands in defense, taking a step back again. "Sorry! L-looks nice on you, by the way."

Quinn didn't know if Ciel had said 'thanks' or 'fuck off', because Quinn had already closed the door behind him again, and stood in the hallway all by himself. Again. Nobody really seemed to like him today, and only half of that was really his fault.

Well, maybe just walking in despite knowing that Ciel wanted to be alone was also his fault, but there was really no reason to be that mad at him, right? It wasn't like Ciel was doing anything crazy in there, except wearing a nice dress. Which, maybe for Oakwell standards, was kind of crazy, but for Quinn standards that was a perfectly regular thing to do.

None of that mattered though, Quinn could feel guilty about all his mistakes another day, preferably when he was standing at the gates of hell waiting to be reunited with his father. Right now, though, he was standing in the hallway with no idea what to do and when to come back.

He turned on his heel and marched towards the balcony instead. He'd been so damn excited about that part of the dorms, yet barely had any time really enjoying the view from there, never mind properly setting up the telescope.

The sky was clear, not yet completely dark, but some stars had already decided to show up, twinkling weakly in the purple firmament, as though they were winking at Quinn.

He sat down on the cool stone floor, leaning against the wall and his head fell back. A beautiful sky. Looking up always cleared his brain, lowered the volume of that constant, never ending noise in his head, stopped that buzzing and restlessness in his body at least temporarily.

A moth fluttered past Quinn, landing on the bulb of the flickering wall light, and he turned the lamp off. Tonight, the quietness weighed on him.

☆-☆-☆-☆

WC: 3153

Well. Much going on. quinn and dev sure are driving each other insane, and quinn sure has very conflicting emotions of "its funny when hes mad" and "am i being an asshole"... well, whose fault is all of this really, in the end? is someone at fault at all? or is it actually really not that serious and dev is overreacting and being an asshole? whatever may be going on?

Oh Well Dev Sure Can't Take A Funny Little Joke, Am I Right Guys 😂😂🤣🤣🤣💯💯💯😎😎😎

anyway, i hope you enjoyed the chapter! thank you for reading, remember to leave a vote and a comment, and check back in next time <3