20 - truce

From what Quinn knew, there were only four places in Oakwell that Dev spent most of his time at. The greenhouse, the library, his room, and the gallery.

The greenhouse had been empty. Not that Quinn had gone there to specifically look for Dev. After all, this whole apologising thing wasn't really that important to him. But, when he'd found the glass house quiet and abandoned, he'd decided to leave again anyway.

Their usual study spot in the library was left alone as well. Not that Quinn went there either to look for Dev. He just happened to walk past it on his very usual Sunday stroll.

Dev's room- Well, he didn't know where it was, and he wasn't going to find out.

So one place was left. The gallery. It was a large addition to the Abbotts House, more modern with large windows and a ceiling of glass, technically open to any student, except nobody but the art kids were really interested in checking it out.

Quinn, however, was really interested in checking it out today in particular, for no reason whatsoever, and-

Oh for fucks sake, who was he kidding? The shit that had happened on Friday still pressed against Quinn's chest, his fingers still felt cold as though they had never stopped grasping for Dev's wrist, and his ass still fucking hurt from slipping and falling and landing in a stupid fucking puddle after his little talk with Mister Hoffmann, because he'd been convinced that taking a walk in the dark was a good idea but then got spooked by a couple of figures sneaking around the ruins.

This sucked. All of this sucked. And yes, apologising also sucked, Quinn hated it, but he had to do something. Because Dev didn't want to do anything, he'd made that pretty clear, when he didn't speak another goddamn word to Quinn on the way back from the ruins yesterday. Not a word, not even a look, not anything.

The gallery's entrance was a large glass door, way too modern for the rest of Oakwell but just right for this odd out of place addition. Quinn spied through it, attempting to find anyone of interest- That being Dev.

Taking a peek in, Quinn didn't see all that much. Just a big room, canvases and easels and little tables full of art supplies scattered between walls and boards and whatever full of even more canvases. No people though, not that he could see, so he eventually decided to push the door open, daring to step in.

The gallery was very clearly not a place for him. It smelled like paint and wood and fire for some reason, and resembled more an industrial exhibition hall for weird hipster art than the fancy elegant place for fine art that it was probably supposed to be. His steps on the grey concrete floor echoed off the high brick walls, alerting whoever was here of Quinn's presence.

So who was here? Quinn looked around a little more, and finally saw that at the very back of the hall, in a tiny little corner, Dev had set up his camp, sitting hunched on a tiny stool in front of his easel, painting something Quinn couldn't make out, the canvas being turned away from him. And Dev was, in fact, not alerted whatsoever.

He wore his headphones again, like that time in the greenhouse, using it to push the hair out of his face, his eyes completely focused on the canvas in front of him. Bound around his torso was an apron full of paint, mostly brown and yellow and grey tones.

Quinn exhaled as though to ready himself, then approached Dev with steps hopefully loud and fast enough for him to notice. He did not, in fact, notice Quinn, so there he was again. Awkwardly standing there. And staring.

"Dev," Quinn said. Dev didn't look at him, but he had absolutely heard him, the way his face soured. "Can I-"

"No," Dev answered, his voice harsh and cold.

"I just-"

"No."

Quinn sighed, pressed his lips together. God fucking damnit, he didn't even want to listen to what he had to say? Didn't even give him a fucking chance? All over one single honest mistake?

"I'm trying to-"

"Quinton, I don't give a shit, leave me alone." Dev took his headphones off, finally, and turned to face Quinn. His eyes had gone back to that usual darkness. Nothing had changed after all. Nothing about Dev had changed, at least, that smile, that laugh he'd given Quinn had just been an exception then, huh? Great, really.

It'd all stayed the same. Quinn and Dev and their eternal fights and bitching around.

"Can you just give me a fucking chance, Dev? Please. Please." He didn't mean to sound so desperate. But maybe he was. Apparently that had changed. "Just let me talk to you, you didn't let me talk-"

"I let you talk, and what the fuck did you say when I did? I'm overreacting, that's what you said. I don't need you to make fun of me and I sure as fuck don't need you to snoop around in my private life that's very much none of your fucking business."

"I didn't want to- My god!" Quinn sighed, maybe groaned, rubbing his face in frustration. Why was it so fucking impossible to talk to him? "I told you it wasn't my god damn intention! I just didn't know what else to do and I shouldn't have done that, but it wasn't to intrude on you or some shit, okay? And I'd never make fun of-"

"Like that wasn't one of the first fucking things you did when you came to this fucking school! Making fun of my interests! Like you didn't try to upstage me and belittle me in front of my friends! Like you didn't keep on making stupid fucking uncomfortable ass jokes when I tried to just do what I was told. I fucking tried and all you did was make joke after joke and you just complained and-"

"When? When the fuck did I-"

"See?" Never had Dev's voice sounded so fragile and ragged. Like shards of glass scratching against his throat when he raised his voice, his words echoing through the room, and Quinn could only pray that it was empty save for the two of them. "You don't even notice it! You're so self absorbed that you can't even fucking see what you did wrong! You're-"

"An asshole, yes, I know, my fucking god, I know that! I know that I'm an asshole, I know that I'm a bad fucking person, Dev, I know, I get it, but I don't mean to, I'm just stupid, I'm-" Quinn inhaled. "I want to stop. I don't want to be an asshole to you anymore. Please let me, though. Please."

It sounded more like a beg, like a prayer, and it shouldn't have. Nothing should've made Quinn sound this absolutely fucking pathetic. He could've just said sorry.

"I never wanted to hurt you," Quinn said, using Dev's silence, his body frozen, to finally attempt to talk. "I'm an asshole and an idiot and I always pretend like I'm right even though I know that I'm not and then when I start wondering if maybe I should stop being an asshole, I tell myself that I'm actually right to be an asshole and I say things just to get a reaction because I'm a piece of shit that thinks it's funny when people hate me because people never like me anyways but I really don't want you to hate me anymore because-"

"Breathe."

Quinn did, exhaled, inhaled again, exhaled, looked at Dev. He looked back at him, just looked at him, waiting for something.

"You started to look at me in like a really hurt way and that really hurt me too and I really like it when you don't look like that, in fact I quite like it when you can smile or, uh- When you look a little more-" Quinn stopped again to catch his breath. "Like that."

Dev blinked, the darkness had melted away from his eyes already, been replaced with something- How was Quinn supposed to describe it? Maybe as a mix of relief and sadness, and a sprinkle of confusion, and pity, gentleness, and- Whatever it was, it wasn't anger anymore. And that was all that Quinn wanted, for now, at least.

"What I'm saying is- I kind of really don't want to argue with you anymore."

There they were, the honest and truthful feelings of Quinn Harvey, laid out in one sentence, easy to understand. A world premier. He pressed his lips together, and took a step back as though he needed to leave some space for Dev to take that in.

Which he did. And then, he opened his mouth, eyes cast toward the floor.

"I'm... sorry." No, shit, wrong answer, no! Dev wasn't supposed to apologise! It was Quinn, he had to-

"No!"

"Wh- What do you mean, no?"

"Stop. Don't."

"Stop what? Quinton, this is the problem, I can never fucking tell if you're making fun of me or if you're just-"

"No, I'm just- Oh god, fuck, okay, wait." Quinn inhaled, his hands gesturing vaguely as though he was trying to catch his words out of the air. "You're not supposed to say sorry, that's not- Why did you say that?"

"I didn't know what else I'm supposed to say? Unlike you, I can't just let a million incoherent words tumble out of my mouth, you know."

"Did any of those million words make sense to you, at least?"

"Roughly."

"So will you stop being mad at me?"

"I don't know about that."

"Will you stop hating me at least?"

"I don't hate you, I never hated you."

"Then will you-"

"Can you shut the fuck up?" It wasn't an order yelled at Quinn. This was a question, asked calmly, seriously. And Quinn replied to his question by saying nothing. Which finally seemed to satisfy Dev.

He eyed Quinn, his gaze wandering from his face to his hands that had unknowingly formed into fists from nervousness, then he looked Quinn in the eyes, lingering there for a couple of seconds.

A couple of agonisingly long moments passed, the familiar static of unease spreading in Quinn's chest again, along with a different feeling, one much less familiar but equally as uncomfortable.

"Now what?" Quinn decided to ask.

"I think I'm waiting for something."

"Oh. For what?"

"For you to say something."

"Uh-" Quinn shifted slightly. "You make me want to be a better person."

"I was thinking of an apology, but this is... Well. It's something for sure." Dev's gaze finally broke away when he closed his eyes, massaging the bridge of his nose in an attempt to look annoyed as if there wasn't a smile of relief fighting its way onto his lips.

There it was again. The smile.

Dev was so stupidly, horrifyingly, gut twistingly pretty when he smiled. Oh jesus fucking christ, Quinn could not tumble down that direction. Not now, not here. Especially not when there were actual genuine serious things being discussed, Quinn was supposed to pay attention to what Dev was saying and feeling and wanting instead of getting distracted by a disgustingly stunning smile.

"I might be stupid," Dev said, which wasn't quite the serious thing Quinn expected. "But... Something makes me want to believe you when you say that. The 'better person' shit. So. Let's just... Both try?"

"So is that a truce?" Quinn held out his hand, and Dev rolled his eyes, before taking and shaking it.

"I guess."

"Does that mean we're friends now?"

"No," Dev said, though squeezing Quinn's hand just the smallest bit, sending waves of static through his entire body. Dev pulled his hand away, and yet Quinn felt like traces of him were still left on his skin-

Oh. Quite literally, actually. A bit of paint had transferred from Dev's hand into Quinn's palm.

"Shit, sorry." Dev now actually grinned, and Quinn decided to not look at him, instead focused on the small splatter of grey paint on his hand, probably acrylic, or oil, or watercolour, Quinn didn't know the difference between those anyway.

Dev took Quinn's hand into his own again, wiping off the paint with a piece of cloth hanging from his apron, slowly, and deliberately, and, he had to be doing this on purpose, right?

Dev looked back at his canvas, picking up his brushes again, continuing like nothing had ever happened. Pretending like nothing had happened, and failing. Quinn wasn't sure how he could tell, what exactly it was that made Dev's presence so drastically different, but there was something.

"What are you painting?" Quinn eventually asked, his voice now quieter than the pleas just minutes ago.

"Nothing interesting," Dev replied, "just a concept for the self portrait thing."

"Okay." Silence. "Can I look at it?"

"Well." Dev pressed his lips together, a shyness taking over his face and voice. "If you really want to, I guess. But it's just a rough concept sketch, so really not fancy, I'm not using this for the exhibition, it's just-"

"Am I stupid or is this not a sketch at all?" Quinn finally got to take a look at the canvas, painted on it was a skull on black background, shockingly realistic at that, with shadows and all that stuff. Looking more like an actual still life thingie, or maybe an anatomical sketch in Quinn's biology textbooks. "Aren't sketches like, scribbly and shit?"

"W-well, it's not like this is clean- The anatomy isn't great either, and I barely rendered it, I just want to make sure I get the rough placements of the shadows right. And-"

"That looks sick as fuck, Dev."

"It's really just a sketch of a human skull."

"Which is so fucking sick."

"P-please, Quinton, don't-"

"If you think this is rough then I'm scared to see the art you consider to be refined."

"You don't have to-" Dev sighed, lifting his hand up to his face, but instead of massaging his nose with that usual annoyance, it now almost seemed as though he was attempting to hide his expression. "There's no need to say all of this. You don't have to try to suck up to me or anything to redeem yourself, it's fine now, we're fine for now."

"That's not at all what I'm doing though?" Quinn crossed his arms, almost offended. "I'm being serious, I think your art is super cool. Even though I've only seen a bit of it. But what I've seen is super fucking cool! And that's been my opinion since before I decided to no longer be an asshole to you, I just didn't want to say it then because, well, you know, I was trying really hard to be an asshole to you."

"You are... an enigma to me, do you know that?"

"You say that when I'm expressing my feelings very honestly for like, the first time in my life? I think now is the perfect time to figure me out! Now stop distracting, I want to talk about your art. And about how good that looks."

"It really doesn't, though, this isn't even meant to be seen by anyone but me."

"Is it really not? Because I-"

"Dev?"

Never had Nico's voice sounded so grating. Quinn turned around to face the boy that had just walked in, hopefully just now, he wasn't sure if he wanted Nico to hear all that stuff between him and Dev, all that emotion shit.

"Hi?" Quinn said. "Uh, long time no s-"

"Yeah man, sure." Okay. Okay. Nico walked past Quinn, leaned down to Dev, whose expression instantly became empty and cold. "You've been hanging out here without me?" Nico lowered his voice a bit. "But with him?"

"We're not- I wanted to work on this alone. You know. I wasn't feeling well so I-" Dev wasn't allowed to finish his sentence when Nico patted his shoulder.

"So why are you painting when you're not feeling well? How are you supposed to focus on working, eh?"

Perhaps that was a sign that Quinn truly really did not understand what it meant to be an artist. He'd always considered it something emotional. With feelings and all. Feeling bad included.

"Come on, bud, work on our project with me instead of sulking and making whatever when you're not in the right mind space for it."

"I am working on our project, actually, I'm trying out a concept right now-"

"That's a skull, Dev." Nico smiled. Which somehow made Quinn unbelievably angry. "What's with you and your weird little morbid obsessions? I mean, works with the true self theme, I guess. The true Dev being a little creepy. But I was more thinking about self portraits, with the skin attached."

Nico ruffled through Dev's hair like he was a child, laughing.

"It's just a concept sketch," Dev said.

"Yeah, no, I get it, I'll let you do your weird little things, absolutely, but I guess style wise it should be coherent with my work, right? With mine and Zach's?"

Coherent, style wise? Boring, then. Uninspired. Quinn wasn't sure why he ever thought Nico was cool, but he also wasn't sure why he now felt as though Nico was the single worst person on the planet.

"I'll trust the process, Dev, you always turn your stuff around. That's why you're my friend, eh?" Nico stepped back from Dev, and now finally looked at Quinn, the very same smile on his lips that he'd given Quinn a few times before. "Don't distract him, will you? I didn't know you two were friends."

"We're not," Quinn and Dev said in unison, and Quinn wasn't too sure if he was lying right now or not.

"Sure. Well. If you wanna hang out with him," Nico faced Dev again, though shot Quinn another look, "then I'll let you do that. Show me a proper concept for the project though, once you have one, so we can do adjustments."

Nicolas gave Dev another pat on the back, then turned, and left. Quinn and Dev let a few seconds pass, silently, unmoving, before Dev exhaled as though he'd been holding his breath the entire time.

"Wow." Quinn pressed his lips together. "He's weird."

"He's my friend," Dev said. Wow. That was a fucking lie. Or maybe a very sad and very toxic truth.

Dev sighed, leaned back a little as he eyed his painting. It still looked really fucking cool, in Quinn's humble opinion, but he'd been wrong about art many times before, apparently.

"I'll have to... think about this again," Dev mumbled to himself, then he looked up to Quinn, something tired in his eyes. "Do you mind letting me work this out by myself?" Quinn pressed his lips together, then forced an encouraging smile.

"Y-yeah! Don't let it get to your head, yeah? This is cool. I'm sure whatever idea you had is a lot cooler than the stuff Nicolas came up with, so-"

"You wouldn't really understand it, I guess." It was a horrible sound, Dev's voice. Whenever it was defeated and lost in thought and tired like this. He sounded nicer when he was annoyed, or angry, or happy.

Quinn shrugged. No. He wouldn't understand. He never understood much in general, so, really, he wouldn't understand this either, and that was probably fine for now.

"I'll let you continue then? Uhm. See you at tutoring I guess."

Dev nodded, leaning back towards the canvas, continuing to paint. Only when Quinn took a couple of steps back, attempting his retreat, did Dev look up once more, clearing his throat, though his eyes couldn't quite meet Quinn's.

"And- Thanks for coming to talk to me, by the way." He turned his head away from Quinn again. "Sorry for freaking out."

"N-No problem." Quinn stood still for a couple of seconds, waiting for Dev to say something else. He didn't. Oh well. Okay. So that happened. Alright.

That was a start of something, then. Or an end. Quinn wasn't sure.

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WC: 3368

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