Empire of Vampires ✔️

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.