14 - may your rules and wisdom choke you

The Physics classroom was cold and bright and too full, and the threat of a predator stalking the front of the classroom was ever present.

The letters on the board smeared in front of Quinn's eyes despite Mister Richardson's perfectly neat rounded writing, clear white strokes on dark green background, none of which made sense to Quinn anymore.

The emptiness of the worksheet he was supposed to have filled until today stared at him, laughed at him, and his pencil hovered above the blank spaces with no chance of ever being lowered. He didn't know what question they'd been discussing anymore.

A long time ago, physics was Quinn's favourite subject. Then, it'd become boring. Then, uncomfortable. Now, it was almost too heavy to bear. It was a weight pressing on Quinn's chest twice a week, a looming danger with two time slots in his class schedule. It was a feeling he was supposed to be over with, something he thought he'd defeated long ago when he had decided to no longer care about school and teachers and work and expectations.

Mister Richardson scanned the class, and Quinn's eyes flickered from the board to some part of his teacher, preferably not the eyes, back to the board in hopes that he wouldn't notice his empty stare. But that man was a wolf, and he smelled fear.

"Harvey," Richardson called out for him, immediately taking up eye contact with him. His expression didn't change, but something satisfied gleamed in his eyes. "Are you currently present?"

Mister Richardson's eyes weren't the only ones on him.

"Yes."

"Your homework. Question six."

"I-" Quinn cleared his throat, but something was stuck, a lump the size of the moon. "I forgot."

Mister Richardson hummed, nodding as though he'd never expected something different.

"Again." His voice was loud. Heavy. He wasn't speaking to Quinn, he was speaking to the class. "As you did last lesson. How come you always forget?"

"Well." Quinn sat up straight, forced his facial muscles to relax. How many times had he been asked this? Enough to remain calm. Enough to know how to answer. His fingers held onto his pencil for dear life as he began to draw small spirals at the side of his paper. Less pressure. "I actually happen to have a life outside this class, and there's a lot of things I still have to do, so surprisingly, I sometimes forget things."

His voice didn't sound as confident as it was supposed to. Not as practiced. Not as it used to.

"If it's so hard to remember to do your assignments, Mister Harvey, why are you the only one struggling to remember them, then? I count sixteen students in this class, and-" Mister Richardson now walked through rows of students, taking a quick glance at each of the tables. "Fifteen assignments. Or does everyone else here not have a life outside of class? Are you perhaps the only important one?"

Quinn opened his mouth to say something, but he wasn't given the chance.

"Now, I know you might've been given the impression that you are. Scholarship student and all. But that's just a title. You still need to do the work. Which you seem to be too lazy to do."

Lazy. Oh, he was always fucking lazy, wasn't he? He didn't want to do anything, he didn't want to study, didn't want to clean, didn't want to call, it was laziness, always had been laziness.

"You have to prove that you deserve to be here, Quinton Harvey. And from what I'm seeing now, I don't think-"

"Because you're the one to judge that, Mister Richardson?" Quinn's voice trembled and a buzz of whispers filled his ears. "If you have such a big problem with me being here, why don't you go to Mister Osborne and complain there?"

"You don't think I have? Surely you're aware that he is asking for feedback on you, as you're supposed to work through it with a tutor, yes? It's certainly a shame that doesn't seem to work, but in my opinion, that only proves that perhaps, you weren't the correct choice."

Quinn opened his mouth, inhaled, words laying at the tip of his tongue. The faces of students looking at him darkened, until they disappeared, and only Mister Richardson was left in the room, illuminated by an invisible headlight.

"And before you accuse me of being unfair, be assured that I'm not the only one that has doubts. I know how many complaints your teachers have about you, and unless there is a way to fix this-" Unless someone fucking lobotomised Quinn. "-I do not believe that you can make it here."

Whispers. Faint giggles. The foreboding sound of bells announcing the end of times. Mister Richardson's eyes did not move away from Quinn.

"Oakwell Abbey is no place for the stupid," he called through the shuffling and moving of chairs and paper and students leaving the classroom, loud and clear like thunder that only Quinn could hear. The moon-sized lump in Quinn's throat expanded like a dying star, and he jumped from his seat to follow the swarm of other students leaving the classroom without another word.

Not that he would've been able to speak at all. His legs carried him god knows where, pushing through groups of students walking the hallways while black hole in his chest increased its gravity. Lazy, stupid, bullshit, bullshit.

This piece of shit didn't know Quinn, didn't know what he was and who he was and what he knew and- what did he know? What had he ever known? Who the fuck did he think he was, walking through this stupid fucking school like he knew a single damn thing?

Quinn didn't belong here, he knew that, he fucking knew, but he'd believed that to be because he was a poor gay orphan with nothing but an obsession with things too far for any human to ever touch. Was that it?

Was that really what made him different, and not the fact that he couldn't even write a single fucking sentence without misspelling half of it, that he somehow had managed to forget his homework every time- no, he didn't forget, it'd always been in the back of his mind every god damn day, had just been unreachable, had seemed like the hardest fucking thing to do. He couldn't. And he didn't even know why it was so hard to fucking sit down and do something, anything.

He couldn't. Never could. And Mister Osborne was foolish to believe that maybe here, at Oakwell, he'd be any different.

For a couple of years, people had actually made him believe that he was the smart one. That he had potential, was important, was destined for great things. For a couple of short years, Quinn was among the others, the great ones, the planets, until now. Now he'd been outed as a fraud, now they had actually observed him, now he was stripped of his title, now he was just another rock floating in space without aim. He'd never been a planet after all.

It'd become dark outside, until Quinn stopped walking, fleeing, and the sun shone back onto the Oakwell Abbey grounds, a silence engulfing him. He blinked, moved each of his fingers one by one to draw his mind and body back into reality.

He stood in front of the greenhouse, attempting to catch his breath. It was empty, and Quinn was alone.

The pencil lead broke under the pressure Quinn was putting on it when he traced the millionth circle of the lesson, the tip of it leaving a mark on the paper as it flew across the table and landed in front of Dev. Quinn's eyes followed it as it rolled away, and Dev picked it up, raising his eyebrows at Quinn.

"What did I tell you about the pressure?"

"Fuck off," Quinn spat out, using the now blunt tip of his pencil to continue his stupid fucking kindergarten art class of tracing over shapes as though that would change anything in his life for the better. The paper tore, and Quinn pressed his lips together.

"Quinton-"

"What the fuck am I doing this for?" He should've stayed in the greenhouse. Should've stayed there the entire fucking day. But now he was here in the library with Dev out of all people as if he would make it easier to feel any of these crushing emotions when all he did was tell him to draw a bunch of fucking shapes.

He should've gone and hid from everyone, waited for the storm in his chest to be over. As always. Hiding until the worst was done, until he'd gotten over it, until he'd calmed down. He didn't. Foolishly so.

"Again, they're for warming up and helping improve basic hand eye coordination. Try a more relaxed grip on your pencil. We're moving on to lettering in a bit, but I want you to just get a feel for more mindful writing and drawing."

"This is bullshit."

"It might be to you, Quinton, and I'm working on a better way to work on this, but-"

"No, it is bullshit." Quinn dropped the pencil, pushed it over to Dev along with his paper. "You have a list of things I suck at and you decide to make me draw fucking shapes all day long? Is this funny to you? This is fucking useless, how about you make me do something that actually helps?"

Dev furrowed his brows, pulled the worksheet towards him to look at it. "It's not just drawing shapes, though. As I said, we are also working on hand eye coordination and a less straining grip on your pencil. And you are getting better at-"

"Come on, this is a fucking joke!" Too loud. Too much, Quinn, too much. Why did he always get so much in front of Dev? "It's a joke! Why is everyone treating me like a goddamn joke? Why am I sitting here at Oakwell with a full fucking scholarship and all you're doing with me is draw shapes like I'm five? Isn't there other shit you should fix about me?"

Dev, for a second, seemed taken aback, his mouth standing open, his eyes scanning Quinn's face as though they were searching for something.

"Fix you? I've already told you enough that I can't fix you, no? Sorry I can't heal your dyslexia or whatever else you got, believe me, Osborne would love it if I could. And I can't fix your god damn attitude either, I can't make you shut the fuck up, I can't crawl into your brain, all I can do is teach you the things I know, which, right now, happens to be penmanship. And maybe we could've already moved on to something different if you could just-"

"If I could've done what, Dev, be less lazy? Focus more?"

"That is not at all what I wanted to say, please stop raising your voice like this. I don't get why you're suddenly so angry at me?"

"I'm not-" Not angry at you, is what Quinn wanted to say, but maybe he was. Maybe Dev was everything he was angry at combined into one person, a judgy asshole, the school's little golden boy, the perfect little example of how to behave, while Quinn was the opposite, the warning to not be like him.

Dev was Oakwell's finest little doll, and Quinn's new idol. He was what James used to be- Still was. So Quinn was allowed to be angry at him. Quinn was allowed to be angry at everything Dev stood for.

"You know what, if you just want someone to be mean to, fine, be mean to me, whatever, I don't give a shit. I can't stand you and you can't stand me, it's fine, but literally all I've been trying to do here is help you."

"Maybe I don't need- I don't want your help, ever thought about that?"

"O-Of course, that was pretty much established the first time we met up here? I don't want to be here either, but-"

"But you think I need you. You think you're doing good by helping the weird new kid."

"Stop putting words in my mouth, I don't-"

"Because you, Dev, think I'm a fucking idiot like everyone else, don't you?" Quinn had never been good at controlling the volume of his voice. He'd gotten so much worse now. "Because you think I'm too dumb to get anywhere without you, because you think I'm too fucking stupid, right? You think-"

"Shut the fuck up, Quinton!" Dev's voice, thundering and echoing in Quinn's head, sliced through the air, then he lowered his tone to a dangerous whisper that hurt even more to listen to. He leaned over the table so far that this face felt like a hair's breadth away from Quinn's, his brows furrowed not into an expression of anger despite what his tone might've tried to convey, but something painfully desperate.

"You're not dumb, you're not stupid, what is wrong with you? You're here for a fucking reason, alright, so stop pretending like you have no place to be here. Do you understand how difficult it is to get a scholarship for this fuckass place? Do you know how much some people have worked their asses off for that? You think they're giving that to just any random idiot that asks nicely? You think they didn't have anyone else applying for a scholarship? They chose you for a fucking reason, so you better shut up and stop pretending like this was a mistake, because you aren't, and anyone who says that you are is disrespecting Oakwell's standards and Mister Osborne himself. Now get your shit together, Quinton, you're not stupid."

Dev stayed in his position for a few more seconds, staring at Quinn like he could see his innermost workings through his eyes, an exasperated exhale brushing past Quinn's skin for a second. Then, he fell back on his chair, and Quinn felt like he could breathe again.

The knot in his throat had begun to loosen a bit. Not for any reason in particular.

Dev now looked at the table, gaze fixed at the half finished and kind of torn worksheet, not once looking back up at Quinn, who just... sat there. Not sure what else he was supposed to do. That wasn't the answer he had expected. And honestly, Dev's words were nowhere near comforting. Not that they were supposed to be, anyway. Yet, Quinn wanted to hear them again.

"Anyway," Dev mumbled towards the table, "you're obviously- You don't seem to do well. You're not gonna learn anything like that, so you're fine to leave. I don't need to be yelled at by you for any longer."

Quinn inhaled, held his breath and his tongue, then exhaled again without another word. Whatever had just happened, it wasn't him. This had never been him. He couldn't say that, though. So he didn't say anything, waited out the silence, until Dev would realise it by himself.

Dev didn't realise anything, of course, how would he? He didn't know Quinn. He didn't know how much Quinn hated yelling at someone, hated breaking like this. How rarely he did it, how often he hid and waited for it to be over before he could do any damage to others.

"It was a shit day for me today," Quinn decided to say, his voice small like that of a little boy that wanted to apologize but hadn't learned how to just yet, so insecure it was almost shaky.

"Yeah," Dev answered, still not looking at him. "I could tell. Go. Rest, you've pissed me off enough."

Quinn got up. Slowly, though, as if he was waiting for something else. Nothing came. Dev began packing up the papers he had so carefully laid out, stuffing them into his folder with less care, never breaking his eye contact with the wooden table.

Quinn had already turned around when Dev did speak up another time, unexpectedly. "And- Stop acting like I'm the root of all your problems, please."

"Aren't you the right person to say that..."

This time, Quinn didn't wait for an answer, making his way out of the library. By the entrance, the librarian cleared his throat as loudly as he could to catch Quinn's attention, waving him over.

"Could you tone down the screaming next time, please?"

"Oh-" Quinn exhaled, tilted his head a bit and tried his very best to force a grin onto his lips, but it wouldn't quite work. "Uhm, Dev was the one yelling, though. So if anyone complains, you're free to report him. Especially to Mister Osborne. Dev Ansari."

The librarian raised an eyebrow before going back to staring at his Windows XP desktop, and Quinn finally made it out.

That was horrible. But somehow, the black hole inside of Quinn's chest had lost just a bit of its pull. Perhaps Dev was allowed to see Quinn in this out of character state after all, deserved it even. He may not have been the root of all of Quinn's problems, but he sure was the personification. Did that mean that Quinn could take all his anger out on him? No.

Did it feel freeing regardless? Yes.

And did Dev screaming back at him help his situation in any way? It shouldn't have. But maybe it did anyway.

☆-☆-☆-☆

WC: 2911

happy valentines day :) romance isnt dead, i guess

song of the chapter:

Running In Circles by Dead Poet Society