Title: Are You the Teacher of the Heart: Chapter 2: First Love

Pairing: Evan/Pietro

Disclaimer: Not mine. Never have been, never will. Please don't sue.

Summary: Evan writes goff poetry. But he knows it's bad, so it's all right.

Warnings: There's slash and one bad word. Pretty tame story, all in all.

Notes: This was originally written for a challenge on a list I'm on.

Feedback: I'll take anything, seriously. If I don't know what was bad, it ain't ever gonna get better.

~First Love~

// Are you the teacher of the heart?
Are you the mentor of the soul?
Are you the-- //

No no, that was all wrong. Evan crumpled the sheet of loose leaf in his hand and tossed it in the direction of the trashcan. It missed, which his English teacher would probably claim was a perfect analogy for how his assignment was coming along. Feel the passion, write from the soul. But Evan wasn't in love, so how was he supposed to write love poetry?

Dr. McCoy, he'd be able to write something fitting easily. Maybe the Doc had some great romance in his past or maybe not, but words came easily to him. And he had all those random quotes stored in his brain. Pushing his chair away from his desk, Evan decided to ask Dr. McCoy for advice. No way would the Doc write his poem for him, but... Evan kind of wanted to have it be his original poem anyways.

Dr. McCoy was, surprise surprise, in his lab when Evan found him.

Evan rapped once on the open door as he entered and said, "Hey, Doc?"

Dr. McCoy turned and smiled at Evan. He didn't look surprised to see Evan, even though Evan avoided the lab as much as possible. "Yes?" he asked.

"I've got this poem I need to write for English class, and I was wondering--"

Dr. McCoy's eyes narrowed by the slightest fraction. "Now, Evan, we've talked about the importance of doing your own work...."

"No, it's not like that, man. Everything I write's crap, and I was wondering how you manage to sound so... elegant all the time."

Dr. McCoy relaxed. "A lifetime's worth of reading the classics-- the Bard especially-- and a good deal of practice."

Evan felt his body go into a dejected slump at the news. "Aw, man. I'll never be able to write a decent love poem then."

"Not so fast, my young lyricist. The content is infinitely more important than the style, and some of the best poems are written in plain language."

Evan doubted that, but he didn't want to get a ton of poetry quoted at him. "Have any other advice?"

"Aside from telling you to write what you know, on which I'm sure your teacher has already expounded, no. I'm sorry, but the muses speak differently to each person."

"Thanks, Doc."

Outside the lab, he almost ran into his Auntie O; she placed her hands on his shoulders to stop him before he did however.

It only took one look at his face for her expression to become one of concern. "Why, Evan, whatever is the matter?"

Evan sighed. "I'm supposed to write this love poem for class, and everyone's advice is to look inside for inspiration. Except I'm not in love right now, so I don't have any inspiration!"

"Did your teacher specifically tell you the poem had to be about romantic love? Because your parents, at the least, would be very upset to find out you didn't love them."

"Yes. And we have to use one of the poetry devices we learned about in class."

"Hmm... well what about that girl you mooned over back in junior high? I very much doubt your teacher is requiring you to write about a present love interest."

Evan blushed at the mention of the "girl," but his aunt was correct in her assessment. "Thanks, Auntie O. You've been a lot more help than Dr. McCoy."

Evan heard his aunt laugh as he rushed off. He ended up back in his room with a fresh sheet of paper in front of him. The incident Auntie O had mentioned had been Evan's first crush, and he'd let his parents believe Pietro was a girl. It wasn't like he'd ever gotten anywhere anyway.

So, time to choose a poetry device. Evan looked at his list of twenty vocabulary terms. Allegory, alliteration, anagram, dialect, enjambment, euphony, hyperbole, imagery, irony, jargon, metaphor, meter, paradox, pun, repetition, rhyme, rhythm, simile, sonnet, and stanza. He'd try... rhyme. And maybe hyperbole as well. He was young enough to still remember how all-encompassing every event in his life had been at that time.

And yeah, he realized that a lot of events in his present life were all-encompassing as well, but at least now he had the excuse that he was fighting to save his skin on a regular basis. And wasn't acknowledgement the first step on the road to recovery or something like that?

...Now he was just procrastinating. Evan glared at the loose leaf as if it were a personal insult that it was still blank. Carefully, Evan wrote the first line. Then scratched it out and wrote something else entirely. He continued in much the same manner for an hour, often pausing to look up something in the rhyming dictionary he'd swiped from the mansion's library. After much laboring, he'd come up with something he was proud of.

// You subtly swish your hips
And make subtle quips--
Enough to drive a person to distraction
With love's first attraction.
Beautiful and aloof,
And it's all a proof
That you're beyond my reach.
Isn't life a beach?
So I sit and gaze
And wonder and amaze,
Sad and on my own
And lovesick to the bone.
Until you take the time
To greet me like slime.
Attraction dies quickly;
Young love's prickly. //

He'd be the first to admit that it wasn't a masterpiece, but Evan didn't think it was bad either. It had real rhymes for one; no near rhymes for his poem.

Evan rewrote his poem, imaginatively titled "First Love," on a clean piece of paper to turn in. He wondered how Pietro would react if he walked into school the next day and thanked his nemesis. Probably try and insult him somehow. The thought amused Evan, and he walked out his room to join the rest of his teammates for dinner.

~End~