Alice Tyler never thought she would have a crush on a teacher. A teacher! Wasn't that some kind of taboo? Absolutely forbidden? Also...really cheesy and cliche?

...But there was just something about her art teacher. For one, he wasn't some crabby old fart with a cat obsession. He was young and (blush) kinda' handsome and incredibly kind. And he was an actual artist, meaning he actually knew what he was doing. And weren't artists those charming, brooding romantics with mysterious pasts? How could she not have a crush on him?

Sigh. It all started on her first day of class...

~One week earlier~

Alice sprinted across the mansion in search of her art class, her left hand clutching her schedule, her right clinging to her slipping backpack strap. She felt like an absolute fool as she rounded every corner on the first floor, coming across the kitchen twice by accident and earning the snickers of the students there. Every student she asked for help gave her a different set of directions, compounding her confusion and leading her astray more than once. (She had an inkling some of them were messing with her.) But where on earth was Room 1605?! She nervously checked her watch as she maneuvered around irritatingly slow students, panicking when she realized she had only fifteen seconds left.

Three minutes and two kitchen visits later, she burst into the—fingers crossed—correct classroom, clutching her burning sides and gasping like a landlocked fish for air.

"Is this," wheezegasp, "Intro to Art?"

A bunch of wide eyes met her, heads swiveled in surprise. "Uh...yeah," one student replied, prompting the others to slowly return to their conversations and activities. Pink-cheeked with physical exhaustion, Alice shuffled over to an empty desk in the back of the room and took a much-awaited seat. Somehow, she had made it before the teacher had...

...Oh! Where was the teacher? Why was he not in class? Why had she tried so hard to get to class on time if he was not even going to do the same?! Head, meet desk. She slumped over the table, not even caring anymore.

Nate was busy enjoying his breakfast in the teacher's lounge and reading the paper, which was enough of a distraction to keep him from noticing the clock until it was basically time for class to start. Well, it was exactly time for class to start because he could hear the bell chiming to signal the beginning of the period.

As a new teacher, he would have hurried back to his classroom, but over the months, he was able to quickly pick up that no one seemed to mind if a teacher was a few minutes late; not the administration, not the teachers, and certainly not the students.

Nate folded up his paper and tossed away his empty cup of yogurt before leisurely talking the walk through the halls to his classroom.

He was only about two minutes late when he opened the door to see the majority of the class conversing, not paying his arrival any mind. He approached his desk and took advantage of the controlled distraction to check his memos. It was a habit he got in the practice of after the Kaitlyn incident.

It was a good thing Nate learned from his lessons, since there was indeed a new mutant girl in the class. The teacher looked up and surveyed the room, noticing the unfamiliar face as a young girl slouching in her chair.

"Alice Tyler?" he asked, to get confirmation that the girl was indeed new and not just someone he failed to recognize.

He called out to the rest of the class. "Alright, cut the noise, kids! You have your projects, so find your partners!" He brought his voice back down to speak with the individual girl. "Um, you sorta came in the middle of a partner-project, so I can either just have you work on something else on your own." He could always assign her one of the semester's earlier one-day solo projects.

Then again, it was a simple enough project, so the other students would not need him all that much, and it would be more convenient to get Alice caught up with the current class activity. "Or I could always work with you on this current project, if you'd like," he offered with a welcoming smile. He wanted his new students to feel as comfortable in his class as his original students.

Alice nearly jumped out of her chair when her name was called. Her head whipped up and her back immediately straightened, sending her swaying in her seat. She almost fell off again, when she noticed that the teacher was standing only a couple of feet away from her. A few surrounding peers giggled at her reaction, recognizing an overwhelmed new student when they saw one. They knew she would get the hang of things eventually, but it was amusing to see someone go through what they all had once gone through. Xavier's Sister School was an odd, perhaps even difficult, adjustment for most.

"Here!" she responded automatically, regathering her bearings as the art instructor (Mister...Holloway?) proceeded to get the students to settle down and pay attention. After announcing the activity for the day, he turned back to the fourteen-year-old, addressing her directly.

"Um, you sorta came in the middle of a partner-project, so I can either just have you work on something else on your own."

"Oh! I don't min--"

"Or I could always work with you on this current project, if you'd like."

He accompanied his words with a smile so charming, she felt her cheeks grow warm with sudden bashfulness. She felt like a twitterpated meld of Flower and Thumper. "Um...well..." she cleared her throat, "I wouldn't mind that...uh, sir." She cautiously made eye contact with her ever-smiling teacher, and found herself grinning too. She pulled her chair in a little closer to Mr. Holloway and glanced around the room to see what the other students were doing, to get some clue about the assignment.

"What exactly is the project? I'd like to get started as soon as possible."

>> "Um...well... I wouldn't mind that...uh, sir."

It was nice to hear that Alice would not mind if Nate just worked with her for the sake of integrating her into the class. He was not sure if she would be a fan of the idea, since it was possible that she would feel embarrassed to be working with the teacher, since he was an old guy as opposed to one of her peers.

Nate double-checked his paperwork and was pleased to see that there were no surprises in his memos besides Miss Alice Tyler. With that sorted away, Nate left his desk and grabbed a small desk near Alice. He turned the desk and chair to face her.

>> "What exactly is the project? I'd like to get started as soon as possible."

Apparently Nate's new student was a go-getter, which would balance out one or two of the young slackers in the class. "It's a simple assignment. The first step is to sketch out the other person's face." Admittedly, he was lazily adopting that portion of the assignment from a younger class.

"When the sketches are done, you'll draw some patterns on the portrait in crayon." And now for the unique aspect of the assignment that he had started planning months earlier after meeting a transparent-skinned girl. "Once that's done, the partners will take turns facepainting the patterns on one another."

Admittedly, he had not planned on getting involved in the assignment since it felt awkward taking part in the activity, but he was sure the girl would handle it. Still, it did not hurt to ask while he was taking some paper out for himself. "Does that sound okay with you?"

Alice paid close attention to her teacher as he explained the assignment to her. A brief glance around the room confirmed that the other students were drawing patterns and shapes onto sketches of their partner’s faces. Some were even beginning the painting phase, giggling as they applied a multitude of colors to their classmate’s faces. The girl blushed a little. She had to paint his face? Didn’t that entail touching his face? Blush.

Even so, the project was simple enough. She wasn’t the best artist, but she figured she could pull it off alright. And she would certainly work extra hard with Mr. Holloway watching...

“Does that sound okay with you?"

“Of course!” she chirped, her smile ever present. She watched as Mr. Holloway pulled out the necessary materials for the assignment, fidgeting with her sleeves as she waited to begin. Alice didn’t like being behind everyone else and wanted to catch up as quickly as possible. Yes...that was why she was so eager to get started... It wasn’t because she was excited to work with her new teacher or anything.

"Great. I'll start first, to give you a better idea of what you're doing." He chose a sharpened pencil and set his paper up so she could sneak peaks without moving too much.

Looking up from the paper, he pointed at Alice's eyes and gestured to his eyes. "Alright, eyes up here. I'm gonna need you to look straight to me so I can draw it right." The exercise would be pointless if he was sketching her face at an angle.

He would draw her quick since the assignment just called for a basic outlining. "First you'll just draw out the basic shapes of the head. You can look down, but keep your head facing me the best you can, hun." Nate started with a circle for the top of Alice's head. From there, he drew two lines sloping inward, (with a small curve outward for her cheeks,) and meeting underneath the circle in a rounded point for Alice's chin.

While he was drawing a line down the center of the face as a guideline, Nate figured it best to get to know the new girl, since the last time he forgot to, his classroom lost a desk. Even still, it would be a nice welcoming touch to a girl who was probably still feeling out of place. "So Alice, what gift do you have that brings you to mutant school?"

He looked back up and smirked. "And make sure to keep smiling. No sense in a smile-less portrait," he joked.

"Alright, eyes up here. I'm gonna need you to look straight to me so I can draw it right."

Eep! Alice blushed once more. She had been staring timidly at her lap, unable to look at her teacher without, well, growing red. Ah...she had to look at him the whole time. She coughed awkwardly and tried to focus her eyes on her teacher's, hoping he wouldn't pick up on her embarrassing behavior. It was a relief when he said she could look down at the paper he was using, to sneak peeks of his sketch. She would be doing that a lot.

She watched as he masterfully sketched her face out, impressed by how easily he could do it. Sure, it was just a simple drawing, but he did it infinitely better than she could, or would. Her sketch would probably take twice as long and look not nearly half as good.

For a few moments, they were quiet, Mr. Holloway focused on drawing, and Alice stealing a few seconds to glance at him again. He was just so...different from any teacher she had ever had. While most of the mansion teachers she had met were cool, he just seemed to transcend that "coolness" and take it to a whole other level. Weird.

"So Alice, what gift do you have that brings you to mutant school?"[/color]

His words snapped her out of her mental wandering, and she blushed as she realized they were making direct eye contact. She immediately looked back down at the sketch, though managing to keep her head up as he requested. "Well...I..." she faltered for a moment, unsure of how to answer the question. Her mutation was not something she was proud of or happy about, and the way Mr. Holloway had posed the question was awkward for her to answer. She did not consider her power a "gift" as he had called it. She frowned, unsure of how to respond.

"And make sure to keep smiling. No sense in a smile-less portrait."

She tried her best to turn the corners of her mouth upward, showing as much teeth as she could without getting creepy. The result was a very awkward, very forced smile, but a smile it was indeed. That was all she could muster in the face of a difficult question.

"I poison people sometimes," she said quietly, letting the blunt statement hang in the air for a second, "When I breathe, I mean. Not now...since I haven't turned it on or anything, so you don't have to worry about it...but um, yeah. Sometimes I breathe out chlorine." By the end she was rambling and struggling to catch her breath, her voice quivering with nervousness.

"Um...what do you do?"

>> "Well...I..."

Before she could explain, Alice took his request to heart and smiled. It was a bit too... smiley, like how someone would smile for a photo if they were unsure of how to smile naturally. It was more of a suggestion than a command, so he wanted her to feel more relaxed. He chuckled and shook his head. "Sweetheart, relax that smile a bit. Think of a funny joke or smile like someone complimented you."

Now that he was paying attention to it, Alice's face was rather red. He hoped she was not feeling too warm or worse, ill. The room was at a fair temperature, but as a Southerner, he was admittedly more immune to the heat.

>> "I poison people sometimes."

There was a small hesitation in Nate's pencil hand, causing a skip on the nose. Nate flipped over to the eraser to fix the error, remembering to be nice and not give Alice a reason to think her mutation made her "weird."

Or rather, "extremely dangerous."

>> "When I breathe, I mean. Not now...since I haven't turned it on or anything, so you don't have to worry about it...but um, yeah. Sometimes I breathe out chlorine."

Well, that made more sense. There were plenty of ways a mutant could poison someone, like the bug girl with the hand-stingers who graduated in the spring. Having poison breath she could control was not so bad as long as she had a good degree of control.

He chuckled, now more at ease with the idea. "That's definitely interesting. Putting poison in a sweet kid like you is like finding a buttercup that breathes fire." Well, it was an analogy that made sense in his head, at least.

When asked about his mutation, he replied with the same basic speech he opened the school year with. "Well, since I was a kid, I could use my shadow to make shapes and stuff. And more recently, I've learned... well, I've been able to turn myself into a shadow." Saying he "learned" it would have implied that he knew how to turn it on and off.

After adding Alice's rather narrow eyes to the picture, he added her swooping bangs to the forehead, and her wavy hair framing the face. "See? Just a nice quick sketch; doesn't have to be perfect. Just needs to give you an example of what you're working with."

He handed her his pencil and with a grin added, "Now you give it a shot."

"Sweetheart, relax that smile a bit. Think of a funny joke or smile like someone complimented you."[/color]

Oh…right. Alice tried to shift her expression into one a little more natural, realizing how plastic her smile probably looked. She did a lot of laughing and smiling in her daily life, but it was never something she could do on cue. Hm… She wrinkled her brow as she searched her memory for something that fit the criteria. She settled for the image of a puppy, which was neither funny nor complimentary, but made her smile nonetheless. D’aww.

She caught Mr. Holloway’s mistake, but did not realize why he had made it…fortunately.

"That's definitely interesting. Putting poison in a sweet kid like you is like finding a buttercup that breathes fire."

The girl cocked her head in confusion, unsure of what to make of the figure of speech, if indeed it was a figure of speech. Of course, she had caught the part where he called her sweet…blush, and if she remembered correctly, a buttercup was a flower? (She knew it was the name of a Power Puff Girl, but she doubted her art teacher would be referencing that.) So…was he complimenting her? Her sanguine cheeks grew even pinker.

“Um…thanks.” She coughed and resumed staring at the nearly finished drawing.

Alice lightly swung her legs as she listened to Mr. Holloway explain his mutation, watching him as he spoke and sketched. He was a manipulator of shadows, an ability that contrasted with his kindly demeanor. It definitely added to his image of a cool guy, though, and the teenager found herself in awe of his mutation. A power like that was fantastic and mysterious and alluring. A power like hers was…not.

Before she knew it, her teacher was finished with the penciled portrait, pointing the utensil in her direction. While he told her that the sketch did not have to be “perfect,” his completed drawing was quite well done, completely blowing whatever she produced out of the water. She did not want to disappoint Mr. Holloway with her mediocre art ability…

“Um, okay. Eyes up here,” she said with a grin, echoing his earlier words. If she could not impress him with her sketch, she could at least make some jokes, right? Make him laugh? (Oh dear, she hoped he would laugh.) “And please make sure to smile.”

She sharpened the pencil, grabbed a fresh slice of paper, and got to work, sketching out the basic outline of her teacher’s face. Square jawline, high nosebridge, facial hair…her eyes squinted in concentration as she tried to imitate the steps Mr. Holloway had taken earlier. As expected, it was not turning out so well...

As Nate was putting the finishing touches on his sketch of the young girl's face, her cheeks were showing more color. It was not enough for concern; he was sure she was not feeling too ill because she was still behaving healthy and moderately energetic. Before she started her drawing, he offered, "It's not too warm in here for you, is it?" If it was, he could always ask the class if the thermostat was up too high; he had been accused of it before.

>> “Um, okay. Eyes up here. And please make sure to smile.”

The comment was a funny one, as even in sitting position, he still sat tall enough to look down just to meet the girl at eye level. Her joke got him to smile, which was convenient since he could just remain in that natural smile as she worked on the sketch.

The drawing was a beginner's drawing, but more or less predictable for her age group. Before she could get to his eyes, he removed his glasses. "Here, that should help. You're doing a pretty good job, hun," he assured her. It was not superb work, but there was nothing to bother correcting for an assignment that was focused more on face paint patterns. The sketch was truly just a frame.

"It's not too warm in here for you, is it?"

Warm? Alice blinked, unsure of what he meant. "I don't think so?" she tentatively replied, finishing the outline of his face and hair. She was growing frustrated with her lines, which were too thick and dark. Subsequently, they were a pain to erase when she made mistakes, of which she made plenty, or at least she thought she did.

She was pleased, however, when she noticed Mr. Holloway smile goodnaturedly at her joke. Success! He maintained the smile as she drew his eyes (the trickiest part), marveling at their unique gray hue, and faintly connected his eyebrows to his nose bridge, trying to create shadows. It ended up looking like he had a bruise on one side of his nose. One of his eyes was also markedly larger than the other. She sighed.

"You're doing a pretty good job, hun."[/i]

The teenager knew her teacher was probably complimenting her for the sake of pity or kindness, but she couldn't help but inflate a little at his words. It at least made her feel a tad better about her questionable proportions and failure to create realistic-looking hair. And the drawing wasn't the point of the project anyway.

Eventually, Alice added the final touches to the sketch and turned to Mr. Holloway, ready to embark on the next step of the assignment. "Ah...it doesn't really look like you..." she realized, lips curled in disappointment. "Well, I guess if I...tilt my head and squint a little," she said, doing so, "it kind of looks like you." She gave a slight grin, trying to draw attention away from her abysmal attempt.

"It's time to color in patterns now, right?" she asked, getting up to gather the necessary materials despite having no idea where they were.

The girl finished up her drawing and her disappointment was visibly apparent as she set her pencil down.

>> "Ah...it doesn't really look like you... Well, I guess if I...tilt my head and squint a little it kind of looks like you."

Nate chuckled, glad she could make light of herself. The picture was not terrible really. It was beginner, which was expected from a beginner. It would have probably looked less sloppy if Alice had not spent so much time leaving eraser smudges of doubt around the image. "Nah. You got the gist," he assured her, teasingly adding, "though any more of those smudges and it would like like I was in shadowform."

>> "It's time to color in patterns now, right?"

As Nate was replying with a, "Yep," Alice was already out of her seat and on her way to pick up materials.

Or at least Nate assumed that was the young girl's intention, even if she was aimlessly moving in the wrong direction. Trying not to draw too much attention to her, he made sure to speak at a volume just under the general chatter of the room. "Um, Alice dear, the supply drawers are on the far wall, so um, turn around."

There was no reason for the girl to feel embarrassed considering it was her first day and there was no reason beyond luck that she would have known where to look. "Just grab a case of crayons and a box of the face paints." They were technically multi-purpose body paints, but it sounded less weird to tell the kids they were working with face paint.

Alice gave a sheepish grin at her teacher’s teasing, perhaps even a small giggle. Based on the description of his mutation, however, she had a feeling she would not like to see him in his “shadow form.” She wasn’t a big fan of the dark, as childish as her fear was, and seeing a person, even a nice guy like Mr. Holloway, turn into a being made wholly of of shadows...well, the Boogeyman certainly came to mind. Not that she should ever consider her art teacher a nightmarish monster.

Geez, her mind could really go places sometimes. And not in a good way.

As the young girl’s brain travelled at light speed, she started taking physical steps toward...well, she didn’t quite know. She did not know where the art supplies, specifically the crayons and face paint, were at all. That was the first time she had ever even been in that classroom. So why she had decided to get up and start moving towards nothing, Alice did not know. She was actually pretty exasperated at herself about it.

”Um, Alice dear, the supply drawers are on the far wall, so um, turn around.”

Crud, she froze, eyes as wide as a deer’s, You are such an idiot. She coughed and turned around slowly, cheeks practically scarlet. ”O-of course they are! I, um, will just...go get them now.” She had never walked faster in her life. Thankfully, Mr. Holloway saved embarrassing her in front of the whole class. He kept his voice low enough for only her, and the set of partners working at the desk next to theirs, to hear. She could swear she heard the two students giggling.

She studied the box labels carefully before locating the one she was told to grab, and hurriedly returned to their work area, dark brown eyes trained on her shoes and not her teacher’s gaze.

Alice was embarrassed, but she was being a good sport about accepting his direction. It was either that or she was so mortified for some reason, she was being super-polite to make up for her folly.

The young girl returned to her seat, giving Nate the chance to calm her jitters. "It happens, especially when you are in a room you've never been in. Alice, do yourself a favor?" He patted the girl's shoulder from across the desk. "Relax. It's your first day and you'll get the hang of things. Everyone takes time to adjust, but you're gonna be fine." He flashed a reassuring smile before withdrawing his hand and picking out a few crayons from the box.

"So yeah, go with whatever idea pops into your head. Color, pattern, symmetrical or not, it's all up to you." He understood that it could be intimidating for the girl to be entrusted with her teacher's face painting, so he wanted her to know that he was not going to judge her for it. "I'm sure whatever you do to this face'll be an improvement," he joked. It was a silly assignment, so he had no trouble looking silly.

"Relax. It's your first day and you'll get the hang of things. Everyone takes time to adjust, but you're gonna be fine."

His kind words were accompanied with a reassuring pat on the shoulder, and Alice perked up a little bit. It was kind of embarrassing that her teacher had to even say something like that (indicating what an awkward new kid she was), but she decided to forgo that notion and feel encouraged. And something about his touch made her insides go all...wiggly and warm. As cliche as it sounded, she thought her heart might have even fluttered a tiny bit.

Weird.

Ignoring such strange, anomalous thoughts for the moment, she returned the smile, in a smaller version, and listened as she was instructed to let loose and create whatever she wanted on the sketch. She followed Mr. Holloway’s lead and grabbed a few pretty crayons, ones of the violet, seafoam green, and cerulean varieties. Oh yes, his face was going to be so lovely and colorful when she was done.

"I'm sure whatever you do to this face'll be an improvement.”

The teenager giggled at the joke but also shook her head in denial. “Don’t sell yourself too short, Mr. Holloway. But don’t worry, you are in very capable hands. I’ll make sure to make you look beautiful.” Sharing banter loosened Alice up a bit, allowing her to relax and forget her recent flubs. She picked up the first crayon and began drawing swirled patterns on his left cheek, allowing them to fade onto his nose. She sneaked a covert glance at her teacher’s paper, trying to get a preview of what he was doing to her face.