A/N: The Lament to Icarus by Herbert James Draper, 1898 is the photo above.
Chase's POV
"So what's your favorite painting by Herbert James Draper?" I asked Travis while we walked to a place where we could talk over our assignment.
"Hmmm probably The Lament to Icarus." He said causing me to laugh.
"Hey! What's wrong with that? It's a beautiful painting." He responded and I couldn't help but laugh louder.
To me, saying "The Lament to Icarus" was like someone saying their favorite painting by Leonardo da Vinci was "The Mona Lisa."
"No it's a beautiful piece I'm sorry." I said wiping the tears from my eyes.
"Okay so then what's yours since mine was so generic." Travis asked while I led us to my favorite spot on campus.
"That's a hard question. I like a lot of his works to just pick one...There's The Pearls of Aphrodite, The Morning Mists..." I listed out as he walked besides me closely.
"But I guess I could say my favorite was probably the one that first introduced me to him, Day and the Dawnstar." I explained while he nodded in understanding.
I loved the mythological themes from Ancient Greece that he mainly focused on. My art tended to focus on the same theme but the way he used oil to capture everything on his canvas's will always make me strive to create something as breathtaking as he did.
"The papers pretty short so we just have to do two full pages each. Do you want to do the first two pages or the last two?" I asked him once we finally reached my favorite spot.
It was just an old bench area that was hidden from the public eye but it was right by a little river that passed through the outer part of the campus. From sitting here, I could see the campus's planetarium in the distance and it gave me the opportunity to see the wildlife that lived in the river.
There were tons of different species of fish in the water and the different colors of them were always eye catching.
I've brought Mimi here once before in the past and didn't really tell anyone about it. I didn't want to gatekeep it intentionally but I don't like how some humans litter and take advantage of calm places like this one.
I only bought Travis here to get away from everyone else. If I took him to the library or somewhere else, I was pretty sure he or I was going to get approached or flirted with, which would distract us from talking about this assignment.
"This place is beautiful...I'm sorry what did you say?" Travis asked me and I smiled.
I was glad he seemed to appreciate this place just like I did when I first stumbled upon it.
The bench was old but would still be strong enough to hold both of us up perfectly fine and it was still comfortable to sit on. The water was sparkling, and reflected the sun's light off of it effortlessly.
"Which two pages did you want to do?" I repeated as I watched as his eyes lit up with amazement.
"The first two if that's ok with you but either one is fine." Travis told me as he placed his bag down on the grass and took a seat on the bench.
I sat down next to him and put my bag onto my lap.
"Okay cool, I'll do the last two then. I have a book somewhere at my place we can use as a reference. It was a biography about him so I'm pretty sure that can help us a lot." I explained to him as he watched the mosquitos glide along the river water.
"Sounds great. I'll check out some online sources and see if there's anything in the library too. Do you want to meet up to write our papers together?" Travis suggested, finally looking away from the scenery and looking at me.
We locked eyes and the look he was giving me already told me that if we ever got alone, we weren't going to be just writing papers together.
I've always known him to be the flirty type that loved the attention of others. Every class we've had together, it was like every gender flocked to him without him even trying.
The professors were no different. Someone outside the class probably thought he got great grades because of his looks but his art spoke for itself.
Not only was he attractive but he was talented.
The only down part was that he seemed like the type to get everything he wanted. And I wasn't one of those things he could just obtain.
I did like the idea of using him to get Juno upset, but I felt guilty about it at the same time. Plus I didn't want to lead him on or make him have false hopes.
"I'm okay. We can work on our papers solo then come together for the final proof read?" I suggested and he smirked.
"Scared to be alone with me? You're making it quite obvious." He smiled and I laughed amused at his way of thinking.
"So if someone doesn't want to work with you alone in the same room, they're automatically scared of you? You're probably the last guy on this earth I'd be scared of." I admitted and he groaned.
He placed his hands over his heart dramatically and groaned again like he was in pain.
"Your words hurt me Chase. Like daggers stabbing my heart." He whined and I laughed again.
He was humorous I'll give him that. But was he going to trick me into being an easy lay? Not a chance.
"Nice one. You probably can't keep your hands to yourself behind closed doors so no thank you. I did agree to partner up with you but that was because I liked your art." I told him and he hummed in response.
"Well when someone looks the way you look, it's kind of hard for me not to make a move, you know? I'm not some beast that'll jump you the second I get you alone." He responded as he looked into my eyes.
His eyes were a shade of green different than mine. I didn't even know you could have that shade of green as an eye color! They were really vibrant and I couldn't help but stare back into his eyes as I studied the color.
I saw my reflection in his eyes and almost forgot that we were talking.
"If that's true, why has it taken you so long to approach me? We've had other classes before this one. Is it because I changed the way I dressed?" I asked him curiously as my eyes continued to look and study his.
The sun was making them sparkle somehow and it was just so cool to see so close up. Mine were green too but way different than his. I was sort of jealous at how radiant his looks compared to mine but it was so cool to stare at.
"Well to be fair when we first had class together, you did capture my attention. You wore cute nerdy outfits with those big circular glasses every time I saw you. I even think you had on overalls once and I found it adorable. I just happened to be in a situation-ship at the time so I couldn't really go ask you out or anything like that. Then the next time you came to class, I saw you do like a whole 360 and you were dressed in more alternative clothing." Travis explained as I watched his eyes move down from looking at my green eyes, to looking over my body slowly.
"I have different styles. I don't like to just stick to one aesthetic but I guess I've been venturing out more this semester because I want to get a certain guy's attention." I admitted causing him to look back up at my face.
"Well no matter what clothes you wear, you're definitely eye catching. You got really beautiful features, a really nice body and not to mention you always sort of smell sweet and you have a nice pair of full lips." He rambled as he counted with his fingers, causing me to blush.
"Okay okay! I get it, thank you." I told him to get him to stop complimenting me and we both laughed.
We ended up sitting there for way longer than I expected...just talking.
We talked about his old "situation-ship" and how they finally stopped talking; and I had no idea what that word even meant before today!
Apparently it meant when people were together but not really together. Which was very confusing to hear about. So it was like a romantic relationship where the people did everything a relationship does but they weren't official or exclusive.
So Travis said the reason he didn't approach me was because his "Situation-ship" was really possessive.
He also asked me about who I was trying to impress but I didn't tell him Juno's name. I just kind of told him little things because a human wouldn't really understand.
Mates were complicated to explain even to us werewolves. And there were different mates depending on species, like a mate for a werewolf was different than a mate for a werecat. Their mating rules were different than ours entirely!