Eli Schroeder's Story

"Fucking hate Herbology," Twitch muttered under his breath, for probably the thousandth time in the last few minutes. He was moody, even despite the fact that he had a cherry flavored lollipop in his hand, which he promptly stuck back in his mouth and pouted around as his hand went to fist in the back of Eli's shirt. His glare was directed towards the ground now, watching out for fucking animals.

Normally, Twitch liked the woods. He liked the eerie green-gray glow of the sunlight, liked the twisty knobby trees that looked more like large skeletal hands reaching towards the sky, liked the dead silence, even liked the confusing dirt paths that lead to nowhere and everywhere all at the same time.

He didn't like having to be forced out there under the pretense of lessons. It was fucking cold, for one thing, and for another the goddamned animals. Usually, they stayed the fuck away from him, like they could sense he was a natural disaster just waiting to happen. But for whatever reason, on days like this, they were attracted to the students like moths to a fucking flame.

It was probably goddamned Oz's fault. Twitch jerked his gaze up in order to find said man and glare daggers into the back of his head. Not that the brat could feel them through all that fucking hair, but it was worth a shot. However, his momentary distraction costed a price. In the form of a fucking squirrel trying to climb up his leg. "Hey! Get the fuck off!" Twitch snapped under his breath, trying to kick the damned thing off himself. He tripped, only caught himself because of his grip on Eli's shirt, and sent the squirrel flying. It landed mostly unharmed, which was a pity really, and scurried away in the underbrush.

Twitch shuddered and then whined as he attempted to learn something from the stupid rodent and climb up his much taller boyfriend himself. "Baaaby," he whined, really laying it on thick in hopes that Eli would actually take sympathy on him. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get the right leverage to attach himself to Eli's back, especially while walking. Eli, as unamused as ever with his boyfriends antics, glanced over his shoulder with an arched eyebrow and what Twitch had come to call the "You're Being an Annoying Brat" look.

"I'm miserable. Ugh. You could try to care." He pouted some more as he moved his lollipop around in his mouth then returned his grasp on Eli's shirt and frowned up ahead. All eight of them were present today, trudging through the same woods, and Mr. Pagan was talking in a soothing voice - more to the plant in his hands than to the class, which wasn't unusual. Twitch decided to tune back in, see what was going on.

"So the Brazilian Spiked Bush isn't native to this land, but it still grows here. Does anyone know why?" Someone answered, Twitch didn't care why or how or what the fuck a 'spiked bush' was. He checked the ground for any more animals instead, and ran flat into Eli's back when they suddenly stopped walking. That earned him another look, and Twitch responded with his favorite finger. He got a smile that time, at least.

"There's a good gathering of the bushes here, just along the bottoms of the trees. What we need are the Spikes, which Ms. Drake can use in Potions~"

Blah blah blah blah fucking blah. And all the while Mr. Pagan was still talking down at his fucking plant and Twitch was so done with this day. His gaze snapped over to the plans in question. The bushes were no longer than the size of a small dog or something, gathered around the bases of the trees, green spikes sticking up out of them about an inch longer than the twigs. Seemed easy enough.

Mr. Pagan was still talking, Twitch didn't give a damn, so he took three steps forward and squatted down to the closest plant/bush/whatever thing, tilting his head. Then he reached back, grabbed a spike, and pulled.

And the fucking plant shot goddamned spikes at him. Three embedded in his hand, and the pain shot through him in a mere second, lighting the waves of his anger like he'd struck his own match. Twitch jumped, somewhere behind him a tree branch snapped in half, and then he was on his feet. "Motherfucking piece of shit!""

"Dyer don't-!" Mr. Pagan tried, but it was too late, Twitch had already sent his foot flying through the Spiked Bush, and made contact just in time to hear - "Move!"

The bush exploded, shooting spikes everywhere, because that was fucking normal and Twitch ran for his life. The spikes didn't go far, didn't even hit him this time, but it didn't matter because he'd finally managed to climb up his boyfriend and was now holding onto him for dear life. A few of the others had dodged out of the way, Mr. Pagan looked furious, and Twitch really just wanted to go back to the Mansion now.

It was never hard to tell when Twitch was in a bad mood. Then again, Eli would have been able to guess simply by the class they were in. But Twitch was making it perfectly obvious, and Eli was ignoring him just to further wind him up. Well, that and he actually kinda wanted to listen to the teacher. Mostly because he knew how dangerous the forest could be and really did not want to end up walking into some poisonous thorns or eating a deadly berry or something like that. Twitch was starting to verge on genuinely irritating, and Eli had to resort to shooting him a few glares. Not that any of them worked.

Was Twitch genuinely trying to climb up his back? It wasn't that Eli couldn't handle the weight- hell, if he could stay on pointe for as long as he could, carrying Twitch for the rest of the class wasn't that much of a chore. But still, having to carry him would be a pain in the ass. He just rolled his eyes at his boyfriend's complaining.

Twitch then proceeded to walk straight into Eli, which earned him another glare. Twitch's response of the finger just made him smile and roll his eyes. Any other time, Eli probably would have been clinging to Twitch like a koala bear, trying to lure the other boy out of his bad mood or even just make him smile. He'd actually made Twitch give him a piggyback to class once because Twitch had still been in a bad mood as they were leaving for class, and Eli had sworn that he wouldn't let go until Twitch had cheered up.

He barely noticed as Twitch's hand left his shirt, instead carefully eyeing the spiked plant the professor was indicating. Eli didn't trust anything with spikes, plant or animal. Especially the plants in this bloody forest. You were safer from the animals. It was only as he heard a familiar voice letting out a stream of expletives that he turned around to see where his boyfriend was- just in time to see him kick the bloody plant.

Spikes went flying in every direction, and before Eli really had time to react, Twitch had succeeded in scaling him, and was now clinging to him for dear life. Still, at least the bloody spikes had missed him. "You fu- you idiot," he said, keeping it clean in the presence of the professor. "Did the fact that it shot spikes at you not give it away that it was a bad idea?" Eli asked, managing to get a hold of Twitch. As funny as seeing Twitch make a fool of himself could be, Eli didn't actually want his boyfriend hitting the ground. The fucking idiot would probably knock himself out or something.

Bridgette trailed behind the group as per usual. She loved observing her classmates and her surroundings. Herbology was her favorite class because they got to wander about the forest and learn neat things about the plants. Aside from loving Mr. Pagan as a teacher she was particularly fond of this course because of her research. As plants offer the best medicines and cures she always gathered leaves, thorns, berries and flowers when no one was looking. She knew it wasn't forbidden to gather but she also knew that if her classmates were aware of her hunt for a cure they would heckle, bully and just make her life a living hell.

She had stopped near a tree and examined the bark, it emitted an interesting scent one she was unfamiliar with. She pulled out her pocket knife from the little backpack she carried and began carving out a chunk of the bark. She peeked around to ensure no one was watching her before she ripped off a piece and shoved it in her backpack.

Bridgette recomposed herself slightly as to not draw attention or look suspicious, it helped that she was so petite for hiding and remaining out of sight came easy to her. She stuffed her pocket knife back into her bag and took a couple strides to catch up to her peers. She arrived at a poor moment as Twitch began cursing and kicked the spiked bush. She dodged out of the way to miss the spews of spikes and rolled her eyes in slight annoyance. She wasn't very fond of her classmates. In her time at Bell Witch she had remained as isolated as possible, her temper was becoming increasingly worse lately so she figured shutting herself out was the best course of action.

When Mr. Pagan began speaking of the use of plants in potions Bridgette grabbed her little pink notebook and began jotting down some notes. Any information on potions and plants helped her research tremendously as it informed her which were of good use.

As she glanced down to put her notebook back in her bag she noticed something poking out of her left thigh. Her fire dragon tattoo that basically wrapped around her body made it difficult at times to see an injury, a bruise or in this case a thorn. She bent over awkwardly and poked the thorn. "Ouch" she mumbled. Blood began to dribble down from it as the thorn appeared to be halfway deep into her skin. "Shit". She rummaged through her bag and grabbed a tissue, the class seemed to be moving forward and oblivious to her distress. She closed her eyes and took a breath counting to three in her head. In one swift move she pulled the thorn out hard, blood began to flow from the injury. She pressed on the area with her tissue and flopped to the ground.

She could sense eyes on her at that moment but not from her peers. Nearby curious animals were poking their heads around trees and bushes examining the redhead. The animals calmed her. She took out a band-aid and placed it gently over her thigh. When she got to her feet, she glanced around for the thorn but noticed her distress had turned the ground beneath her feet to solid magma rocks. "Oops" luckily no lava was present but the rocks were very hot.

When she spotted the thorn finally, she grabbed it and examined it. The thorn reacted oddly to her blood causing somewhat of a spark that quickly dried out. She grabbed another tissue, wrapped the thorn and placed it in her backpack.

Bridgette observed her surroundings, the class was disappearing from sight. She sprinted as best as she could to catch up to them but cringed at the pain from her thigh. When she caught up, she hovered at the back of the group and refocused her attention on the lesson.

Bell Witch wasn't like most schools. Most schools had a bunch of children in them and often times you didnt' run into the same person more than once a day unless they were in your class. At Bell Witch there wasn't many students to begin with. Probably about eight to ten at most, but that's about it. Not everyone joined at the same time either, there wasn't a certain age requirement. If you weren't deemed safe in the magical society or what have you, you were sent here. Bull shit it was really, but there was nothing Charlotte could do about it.

For example Oz had been here first. He had been there for at least five years before Charlie even showed up. Others were fairly recent in showing up however, and it didn't seem likely they would get more people after that. There wasn't that many rooms to be distributed among everyone. If there was too many people eventually people would have to pair up and share a room, and to be fair Charlotte would likely murder someone if she had to share a room with them. In short it wasn't a good idea.

Being at Bell Witch was almost like prison. There was a lot of rules and for the most part you were held in confinement, which was also bull shit, so even though she was mediocre at herbology and it was in the morning, it was nice to be able to wander around a bit. They went through the grounds listening to their teacher. Charlie was walking along side Oz at the front of the line. He was silent this morning, but it was likely he hadn't had much sleep. She hasn't known him too long, but ever since she arrived two years ago she connected with him a lot quicker than most.

Some people just had a magnetic draw to each other, and after being friends for even a short amount of time, you could tell you were supposed to be friends with this person from the start and it felt like you were friends for so much longer. Those friendships don't really come around too often, but when they do you should hold on to them. Which is exactly what Charlie planned on doing.

It wasn't long before Twitch did something wrong. It wasn't surprising or amusing anymore that he did things like this. The kid was a magnet for stupid choices and danger. Charlotte still can't fathom how he is still even alive by this point. The squirrel had landed in front of Oz and Charlotte, and she could see the anger he had. At least he picked the squirrel up and helped the poor little guy. Rolling her eyes she continued to walk and half listen to the teacher.

Before she knew it she heard the little baby whining to his boyfriend. It was getting a bit old by now and she still wondered how Eli even put up with that shit sometimes. Charlie then made a point of mocking Twitch. "Baaaaby!" She said in a similar tone of voice as Twitch had to Oz, grasping his arm and shaking it a bit and just as quickly released it and smirked as she chuckled a bit.

"Watch out Charlie, this witch is dumber than we though." one of the voices spoke to her as she turned to look over that way and she watched Twitch curiously. She was going to go further, but before she could try Oz had stuck his arm out to prevent her from going any father. Sighing she withdrew from her curiosity and trusted both the voice and Oz. Standing back she watched the scene unfold and when it was finished Charlotte sent a glare his way.

"You're a special kind of stupid, aren't you Dyer? It's stupid shit like that, that will get you killed, for fucks sake." She said obviously irritated and she began to rub her forehead feeling a headache starting come along.

Twitch shot one of his full force glares at Eli in response to his question, but while a few people were still wary of that look, Eli Schroeder was probably immune. Twitch definitely wasn't harmless, but he was also quite fond of his boyfriend, and the glares were usually to show his distaste rather than hint at any kind of retaliation. "Don't act like you don't kick stuff when you're pissed, asshole."

Despite his words though, some of his mood had seemed to dissipate, and he was mostly stated now. He pouted at the sight of his lollipop - lost on the forest floor even though he couldn't remember dropping it - and sighed as he buried his face into Eli's neck. Neither boy was particularly stocky, but they both had enough strength to hold the other up, so he wasn't even bothered to drop out of his boyfriends arms. In fact, unless Eli made him, Twitch had no intention of moving whatsoever.

Until he heard Charlie. Twitch's head snapped up and his gaze jumped around until finally landing on her, his eyes narrowing. If he'd been on his feet, he undoubtedly would have jumped her, but getting free from Eli now would probably make him fall flat on his face. Stupid, prude bitch, standing safely away from where Oz had probably shielded her. If plants were going to explode, Twitch wished they would have at least hit someone. Like her.

"I'll take stupid over crazy any day. How are the voices in your head, Archibald?" He moved a little to get a more comfortable hold on Eli, and muttered another curse when it hurt. He pulled his left hand back and that was when he remembered the first three spikes that had shot out at him, getting caught in the soft flesh between his thumb and pointer finger. Which would have been annoying but fine, except the area around them was black. Like he'd colored his skin with an ink pen or something.

Twitch squeaked. It wasn't particularly a sound he was proud of, almost jerking out of Eli's hold as he used his other hand to pull the spikes out. It didn't even hurt when he dropped them to the ground, but the black color was just spreading. "Professor! Will this kill me!"

"No," Mr. Pagan answered, sounding slightly disappointed by that fact. He sat the plant he had been holding onto all morning aside, obviously more calm now that all the action had subsided. "It would if you were a White Witch, but fortunately Mr. Dyer, you don't seem to have that...problem."

After Twitch learned he wasn't going to die, he kind of stopped listening, because the black inky stuff was moving, under his skin. He jerked his hoodie sleeve up, watching it bleed into his veins before twisting up his arm. It faded somewhere around his elbow, leaving a dull but manageable thrum of numb pain in it's wake.

"As Mr. Dyer has so carelessly demonstrated for us," Mr. Pagan continued, pulling the class back into focus. "The Spiked Bush is particularly defensive. The only way to acquire its spikes is to smoke them out. Do not worry, for the bush will grow more of them in a days time. No harm done. Now, each of you need at least six spikes, how you go about getting them is up to you. Only smoke will work...fire will scare them, and they'll react violently. Headmistress Poe says I have to warn you that they're poisonous, but given that none of you have even a shred of Light Magic, I wouldn't worry too much. If at all."

In response to Twitch's glare, Eli just grinned at his boyfriend. He was more than used to getting that glare, and had stopped finding it threatening in any way a long time ago. Eli rolled his eyes a little as Twitch buried his head in his neck. Great. Now he was stuck holding him like this.

All Eli seemed to be doing was rolling his eyes, because Charlie's comment provoked yet another eye roll. For a group that lived in such close proximity, there sure was a lot of... distaste. Then again, Twitch could be an annoying little fuck at times, so perhaps it wasn't totally surprising. He stayed still as Twitch started to rearrange himself, and looked down with an arched eyebrow at Twitch's curse. He was expecting a comment about how cold Eli was, and already had a snarky reply on his tongue, when he saw the blackness on Twitch's finger. Of course the fucking plants would cause that. And of course they'd be poisonous to light magic. Ice magic had apparently traditionally been a light magic, associated with healing and peace. And then Eli had come along and fucked all that up. Well, according to his grandmother, he wasn't the only one, and his two sides represented the two sides of ice magic. Laid back, peaceful, gentle... And fucking terrifying.

"Want some ice for that?" Eli asked, raising an eyebrow teasingly. "Honestly, you complain about being cold, and then come cling to me, the human icicle," he continued, dropping his voice to a whisper as Mr. Pagan started speaking again. All Eli got was "six spikes" and "smoke them out". That was all that was really needed.

"I'm gonna have to put you down now, Twitch, because otherwise I'll end up dropping you into the plant, and hilarious as that would be, I'd also have to listen to you complaining about the spikes in your ass for the next two weeks," he said. "And besides, I'll need you to be my human zippo as well."

Twitch rolled his eyes so dramatically at Eli's ice comment that it was a wonder they didn't fly right out of his head. He huffed to himself and brought his hand up to his mouth. The spikes had hit him in a cluster against the triangle of his hand where his thumb branched off from his other fingers. The punctures were small, and hardly bleeding, but it still seemed like a good idea. Then he tugged his sleeve back down. "Cold or not, you're comforting, you asshole."

He was pretty sure he heard Charlie pop off another comment, and he completely planned on ignoring her, until he heard the word boyfriend, which pissed him off again. Calling him names was one thing, saying shit about Eli was a completely different ballpark. His head snapped around, and he was about to ask her what the fuck she'd just said, when he realized he was actually still in Eli's arms.

He chose his boyfriend over the dumb girl, laying his head down on Eli's shoulder for a moment. Eli was right, he was bloody fucking cold, but Twitch didn't care. He'd hold onto Eli even when his teeth were chattering. He was planning on staying there too, until Eli spoke again, saying he'd have to put him down.

"Fucking spikes hurt too," Twitch muttered in distaste as he squirmed his way down to the ground. He sighed, dusted his hands off on his pants, and glared at the bushes, then looked down at his palms. He had a few scattered burn scars there, mostly around his fingers, from outbursts and like things. He frowned a little and looked up at Eli. "No promises here, babe."

"Smoke, Dyer!" Pagan shouted from a few feet away, sending him a look of disdain and slight fear. "Do not burn this forest down."

"Yeah. Right. Like the forest would let me burn it down," Twitch muttered, then looked up at Eli. "Alright...let's do this."

Eli just laughed at Twitch's reply. He didn't even acknowledge Charlie's comment with an eye-roll- it wasn't worth it, and besides, Twitch did enough talking for the two of them. They were an odd pair- Eli being so laid-back, and then Twitch being the little hothead he was. But they worked- they balanced each other.

He didn't move as Twitch rather ungracefully climbed down. As Twitch frowned at his hands, Eli wrapped them in his own. Before he could say anything, Pagan shouted a warning. It was times like this that Eli wished he'd inherited water magic or something- it would be much more useful at times. But ice didn't do a thing against fire. He did have some control of water, but nowhere near enough to be of any use.

"Like you said, the forest will defend itself if you do anything. So I'll just make sure I'm in a position where I can run easily, and we'll be fine," Eli teased as he bent down to inspect the ground surrounding the bush. He was used to having to deal with minor fires, and his reflexes had really improved since starting to date Twitch.

"Here, we'll start with something where my hand will be nice and far away from it," Eli said, picking up a long, thin twig from the ground and holding it out.

Twitch looked up slowly when Eli's hands wrapped around his own. Like with everything else about them, their skintones always contrasted sharply. Twitch wasn't even all that dark, just tan, while Eli was so stark pale...he liked the difference though, it always helped distract him, gave him something else to look at.

His back had tensed at Professor Pagan's warning, but with Eli's hands on him he didn't feel the need to turn around, defend himself farther. The comment about the forest had been mostly sarcastic but...it was magical land after all. Centuries old magical land. Surely his magic couldn't effect it that bad. He was powerful, but he wasn't that powerful.

"Coward," Twitch muttered in response to Eli's comment about running. He did't blame his boyfriend though, not really. Twitch was known for starting fires randomly - usually small, ninety-nine percent of the time accidental - but regardless, flames were dangerous, and he obviously couldn't control them.

He glanced at the twig Eli returned with warily, then rubbed his pointer finger against his thumb. Just a little spark. That was all he needed. He took a deep breath, ignored all the background noise around him, and tried to focus. He'd been in lessons with Miss Poe for years, but while he had tips and tricks...he still hadn't mastered the concept. Very few of them had, actually.

Finally, the edge of the twig caught fire. It flamed for a moment, then faded out to a thin line of bright orange. Twitch took a few quick steps backwards, his eyes wide behind his glasses. He almost tripped in his haste, but the last thing he wanted to do was end up with a bigger flame, and sometimes distance helped.

He looked up at Eli a little questionably. "Did I actually do it, or did the entire forest behind me burn down and I did't notice?"

---

---

Effy had always been an incredibly complicated individual and that brief moment of awkward back and forth contact with Oz was slightly chilling and left her unnerved, she'd been fidgeting with them hems of her sleeves as she tried to calm herself down and she closed her eyes to try and bring everything into focus but she rapidly opened them in a brief flurry of madness when she felt Oz pass her the berries and a moment later when the squirrel climbed onto her shoulder. At first she looked intimidated and anxious but then a glowing smile appeared on her lips and she slowly guided the berries towards the squirrel so he or was it a she? Effy wandered. The animal seemed comfortable with Effy so she quickly grew to be content with the creature's presence and she laughed softly stroking the mammal relaxing on her arm. She gazed affectionately at the creature and hesitantly, cautiously and very slowly she moved her finger to gently brush over it's back and to her relief the animal didn't negatively react and she smiled happily. She looked at Oz with a grateful expression because it suddenly dawned on her what exactly he'd done.

She was close to Oz and understood he wasn't a people person, he couldn't calm her down so he passed her the squirrel. Effy loved animals and was protective, he might not have realised it but he'd given her something to protect and it'd almost instantly anchored her again and the increasing winds that had before been threatening and potentially consequential settled themselves and the leaves of the nature around them stopped bristling and you might have even been able to swear it'd grown warmer and she beamed gently at the animal on her arm.

"Thank you," She told Oz softly, a full explanation of her gratitude buried beneath her crystal clear blue eyes. "I really needed that," She admitted gently.

Effy herself was very hesitant to go ahead with smoking the shrubs. She didn't like the idea and having met the squirrel she still held, she felt evil to even consider polluting his home and she watched Twitch and Eli go about it with a small frown. She found herself questioning the task out loud but without clearly addressing anybody; "Do we really have to do this? It doesn't feel right, things live here..." She mumbled gently, she was running out of berries so she moved further down the path to a tree distant from where everybody would be smoking the bushes and then carefully guided the squirrel towards a reliable branch. The squirrel took the last berry and then disappeared into the tree and Effy sighed with relief at knowing it was okay and returned to it's own home.

She noticed people kind of grouped up, so to avoid being alone she walked over to Charlie quietly. "Hey," She greeted in a friendly but nervy tone but she was nice enough despite this anxiety that was every present in her behaviour.

Eli watched Twitch as he tried to light the twig without burning the forest down. he knew that watching the thing that was about to go on fire was probably for the better- but Eli much preferred to look at Twitch than a stupid twig. As the flame flared, Eli grinned at Twitch. "See? You did it. No disasters," he said, leaning over to kiss Twitch's cheek. "And no, the forest is still fine. Your control is getting better," he said, still grinning with pride. Control of his powers had never really been a problem for Eli- or, at least, not generally. Sure, things occasionally got a light coating of frost, but he hadn't actually destroyed anything or given anyone frostbite in a while now.

Eli gently blew out the flame and waved the twig under the bush. It almost seemed to retreat back in on itself, and cautiously, Eli stretched out a hand. His hand wrapped around a spike, hesitated for a second, then pulled it sharply away. The plant acted exactly like any normal plant would- which was to say, it didn't react at all. Eli glanced over at Twitch and grinned. "We did it," he said, dropping the first spike into Twitch's hand and starting to pull off a few more.