Quinn wasn't one to agree with James usually, but maybe this time he'd be willing to see the error in his ways. Three hours of sleep had certainly not been enough, and a cold shower may have gotten rid of the alcoholic smell and dried blood stuck in his curled bangs, but it hadn't quite woken him up as much as he would've liked.

So, instead of spending the three hour car ride looking out the window watching the world around him change, he just- slept through it.

And when Quinn woke up, a dry taste in his mouth, his head spinning slightly, it seemed as though he'd entered a whole new dimension. Dirty crowded streets had turned into one long, wide road, framed by hawthorn and old timey street lights.

He blinked a few times, squinted, his vision gradually turning clearer again. At the end of this road, something almost magical came into view. Gates overgrown by ivy, and a gigantic building behind that. That was Oakwell Abbey. And though it came closer by the second, it still felt far from real.

"Fix your hair, we're almost there." James didn't look at Quinn when he spoke, kept his focus on the road. The bitterness was written in his face when the car approached the ornate gate, his lips pressed together, his eyes almost sorrowful.

Quinn shuffled in his seat, straightening his back, then pulled out his phone to check the front camera. He just looked a little tired, the worst shadows underneath his eyes covered with pale concealer, but no trace of blood left underneath his freckled nose. Fine enough, probably.

His hair was messy, a light blonde birdsnest, though it wasn't like there was much he could do to change that. He pushed a hand through it regardless, pretended to lay each strand of hair into a newer, better, more proper looking position. He rubbed his eyes, then straightened his back a little more, placing his hands in his lap.

"And you better behave." James' voice had dropped at least an octave. "If you fuck this up-"

"Have a little faith in me." Quinn shook his head, ruining his oh so carefully styled hair once again. "They already accepted me. And I can't possibly think of a way to fuck it up so badly that they kick me out again."

"I can." James' thin lips almost completely disappeared when he pressed them together again, a stress response Quinn had witnessed too many times his whole life, but especially since the acceptance letter had come. Quinn rolled his eyes. This was supposed to be his fairytale moment and James' ugly jealous pessimism wasn't going to ruin this. Not this time.

The woods cleared when the car passed through the gate, huge, ornate, of stone and metal and the golden emblem of the school engraved in it, and Oakwell Abbey School laid in front of him in all of its glory, dark stone and colourful glass and even darker wood.

A church tower had now come into sight as well, behind peaks of old oaks, reaching into the sky to pierce the still rising sun. Something in Quinn's chest moved, heavy, full of awe.

A place worth almost six hundred years of history, which really was nothing compared to the rest of the universe, but was too much compared to Quinn's sixteen years of existence.

James parked the car on the gravel parking lot in front of the school, and Quinn jumped out. His head fell back as he looked up at the church spire on the left next to the main building, the stone dark and dirty and a greyish brown, broken up by an arched window of green and blue glass.

Oakwell's main building, the one James was walking up to with no regards for his brother or the frankly stunning environment, wasn't nearly as old as its church, nor was it as tall. Stone walls, maybe granite, were covered in ivy snakes, a short flight of stairs led up to a wooden door, intricately decorated, and above it, letters carved into stone: Per aspera ad astra.

The gravel underneath Quinn's feet crunched with every slow step he took towards the entrance. James pushed the heavy doors open, then turned towards his brother, his brows furrowed.

"Are you coming or not?"

"I'm having a moment."

"Have your moment when we're done, you don't wanna run late."

Quinn sighed, and he sped up as he caught up with James, slipping through the door into the main building. The air inside was cold, his steps on the black and white tiled marble floor echoing off of the high walls of the entrance hall. Hallways branched out left and right of him, two flights of stone stairs lead up to the second level, between them laid a massive wooden door, closed shut.

The way James walked forwards into the centre of the hall, then turned on his heel to face Quinn, made him look so very dramatic. Like he was the one that belonged here, tall and slender, neat red hair slicked back, black shirt tucked into tailored pants. The face of dark academia.

But it wasn't him. James had never been anything more than average. Good looking, ambitious, strong willed, but average. And Oakwell didn't take average. Instead they took a messy loser with an extraordinarily large interest in physics and nothing else going for him.

And the way James stared at Quinn now, the way his eyes gleamed, his back straightened, told him that James had realised that exact same thing as well.

"The office is that way." His voice echoed, its emptiness lingering in the air. He turned, followed one of the hallways, and Quinn quickly caught up with him.

The hallways, just like the main hall, were black and white chequered, white walls with wooden panels on the lower half, littered with photographs and certificates, arched ceilings, large arched windows.

More so, this one seemed impossibly long. They'd passed door after door, and none of them was the right one. Not that Quinn actually knew which one was the right in the first place, but he trusted James to know where he was supposed to go.

Next to every door hung a small sign, metal, with a name engraved in it. Quinn tried to read a couple as he passed them. Patrick Richardson, Narin Ganem, Darius Hoffmann, Michael Owens... James stopped. Gunther James Osborne, Headmaster, the sign said, this one golden with black writing on it.

"So?" Quinn asked, his voice lowered.

"So what? Get in there. We're just on time, don't leave him waiting." James stepped back, gesturing towards the door. It was wider than the others they'd passed, looked heavier.

Quinn took a deep breath, then knocked. The wood made his knuckles hurt, yet he wasn't sure if it had been audible from the inside in the first place. His fist hovered over the door for a second until a low voice called from the inside.

"You may enter."

Another deep breath, and Quinn twisted the golden door knob, sticking his head in first before opening the door enough for his entire body to fit through. Inside the office, right in the middle of the room, was a desk, deep dark wood, like everything in this place. Behind it, an old man with an impressive moustache that was otherwise pretty much hairless smiled at Quinn like Santa at the mall.

"Quinton Harvey, I assume? Welcome." He stood up from his leather chair, tugging on his velvet green suit jacket, then extended his hand. Quinn stepped closer, quickly shaking his boney hand, bowing his head a little.

"Yes. Hello." His voice cracked after two measly words, and he cleared his throat. "Sir. Mister Osborne."

"Sit down, please." Mister Orborne gestured at the chairs in front of his desk, then looked at James. "You as well, Mister...?"

"James Harvey, Sir. Thank you for having us." James shook the old man's hand as well, then sat down much more gracefully than Quinn, whose legs had started to turn into pudding already.

For the first time ever, in his whole damn life, Quinn actually felt like his opposite having a good impression of him mattered. He'd lived out of pure fucking spite for sixteen years, just to be intimidated by a bald man today.

Because despite Mister Osborne's scrawny short stature, kind smile and almost comical moustache, his eyes, ice blue, enlarged by his thick framed glasses, stared directly into Quinn's soul, and judged it so very deeply. Like he knew what had happened last night. And that smile that didn't quite reach his eyes was condemning Quinn so hard, he might as well have turned around and left.

"You're his-"

"Brother," James answered the headmaster's question, crossing his legs and straightening his back. Quinn quickly copied his posture. "But I am his legal guardian."

James loved that term a little too much. Whenever Quinn or Grace did things he didn't like, he pulled the stupid fucking legal guardian card. The word 'guardian' always, to Quinn at least, held some kind of dignity. Something admirable. It was the title of someone who chose to protect those in need. James never chose this.

He was forced to move back in with his siblings he fought so hard to escape, he was forced to leave behind relationships and independence, he was forced to spend the little money he was earning not just on himself but on two children as well.

Of course, he always could've declined to care for them. He could've just sent them to their aunt somewhere back in Poland and lived the life of his dreams by himself. So perhaps there was a little bit of selflessness that had moved him to become their guardian. Or maybe it was a ghostly call of his father telling him to not disappoint him. James' most irrational fear. Their father never could've been disappointed in his favourite child. He had the twins for that purpose after all.

"But not to dwell on the past," Mister Osborne said, and Quinn snapped out of his thoughts. What past exactly had the man dwelled on? Quinn nodded in agreement regardless. "We are here to celebrate your future here at Oakwell."

The headmaster talked like he was reading off a script. His words came out so carefully selected, almost fake. It was the way of the rich, who knew they could say whatever they wanted with no repercussions but chose to pretend like they were well spoken regardless.

"As you know, our school aims to nurture young men into artists, scientists and leaders. Oakwell Abbey is split into two departments that determine the class schedule as well as the dormitory you'll be staying in. Being part of our STEM department, you'll be staying in Penrose house."

Quinn hadn't really known that houses were an actual real thing until he'd started looking more into Oakwell, and truthfully, he still didn't completely understand their purpose. Because Oakwell had those so called departments, but the departments also determined the house, and the houses were just the dorms.

Essentially they ended up having three different words for one and the same thing. But department sounded like it was more important and distinctive than it actually was, and house sounded fancier and more academic and meaningful.

Mister Osborne had stopped talking about departments and houses long ago and moved on to a different topic, the transition to which Quinn had completely missed. His eyes refocused on the headmaster and he slowly slid back into reality when Mister Osborne's voice turned audible and clear again.

"And I'll let you know, we've had many, many scholarship applications this year. We did last year as well. None of them had met our expectations."

Not once had Mister Osborne seemed to have realised that Quinn hadn't really said a single word yet, nor seemed to have listened to him at all. Perhaps he was just used to that, having students sit in silence while he could go on and on about things that don't really matter.

His eyes had seemed to pierce Quinn at first, staring into him, his mind, his past, but now they just looked right through him. A sort of intimidation tactic he didn't even put any effort into, knowing that as long as he'd stare at a student, they'd listen to him.

Quinn was different, though. Quinn wasn't very good at listening, and even worse at being intimidated by old people. But mostly he was just really bad at listening, and paying attention, and staying focused, and all the other things listed in the DSM-5 under ADHD.

Which had already caused him some trouble at his regular public high school. Thankfully his reputation as the gifted physics kid outweighed the idiot that can't listen to a teacher for longer than three minutes thing. Until one day Quinn wasn't known for either anymore, and was instead left with just the title of orphan.

He probably should've tried to get on meds before getting shipped off to England's fanciest boarding school. He'd just, well, forgotten about it. As one does, without medication that makes you stop forgetting things.

"Which would lead me to the second important rule." Quinn blinked a couple of times. Shit, wait, what was the first important rule? "Our school has a dress code as it is very important for us to create equality and unity among our students. We will provide you with a uniform, but you'll be free to wear your personal clothing on the evenings and weekends."

'Creating equality and unity' was grown up language for 'stripping teens of their individuality'. Not that Quinn wouldn't find ways around the dress code anyways. His hair, for starters-

"Which would bring me to your hair." Okay, cool. Great. "We do not permit hair to touch the shoulders, so you won't be able to let your hair grow much longer than it currently is. And then-" Quinn knew what was coming. "That... colour, will it wash out until the school year begins?"

Mister Osborne was no longer staring right through Quinn, but actually scanned him thoroughly, a glint of scepticism and that old-people disappointment in his eyes. Quinn's hand reached up towards his bangs almost automatically, brushing his pink streak at the front out of his face.

His beloved pink hair streak. That was his little thing. He'd dyed it three years ago, and it had stayed pink ever since. Shane had gone through every colour of the rainbow with his hair but Quinn was loyal to baby pink. And it wasn't washing out. Even if Quinn wanted it to wash out, that shit was stuck.

"Uh, no. It doesn't really."

"Because we only permit natural hair colours, as you might've read in our school policy." Which Quinn had totally read, absolutely. "Were you planning to remove the dye in other ways? Bleach it, perhaps?"

Try bleaching over red pigment. Try getting rid of it in any way without just throwing something stronger on it. Pink stuck. Pink resisted. Pink fought for its place in the world, or in this case, on Quinn's head.

"If not, you're going to have to dye it over."

"I mean, it's just the front, the rest is my natural hair, right? So surely I can keep-"

"Quinton, rules are rules and will not be bent, even for a scholarship student like you. You're going to have to find a way to remove the pink. Natural hair colours only."

Rules are rules. Well, among the many things that Quinn disliked, rules were pretty high up on his list. And individuality and looking cool was basically first on the list of things Quinn did like. So something was clashing here.

Normally he'd just stand his ground. Pink resisted, after all. But pink was nothing against Mister Osborne's cold eyes expectantly staring down Quinn into submission, and the added bonus of James drilling holes into him with his mere presence.

"I'll get rid of it somehow."

"That is much appreciated. Now, going on, our school has a very rich history that I believe to be important for any student to be aware of. Oakwell Abbey was established in 1473-"

☆-☆-☆-☆

WC: 2713

wahoo! for some reason this chapter took the longest to edit out of all i've written so far, it's also gone through the most change of all of them.

well, here we are, watching Quinn's new life begin. But, in order for the new one to start, his old one has to end properly.....

song of the chapter:

Welcome To The Machine by Pink Floyd