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Shining is burning and burning is shining, if one shines too bright they'll burn out. A burn out can look like many things, a spiral into darkness or a mundane rain storm. But for Damian, it looks like a pile of ripped up paper thrown around a room with his hand clutching onto a wooden pencil.
He stared into the blank assignment with an expression of dismay. An assignment so simple yet so complicated for him. He has to somehow convey how he feels without using references, just his own emotions. Which is apparently impossible for him. He has been planning and sketching a single assignment for hours. He has drawn many animals in many forms and with a variety of altering colors.
Yet nothing can convey him correctly. No matter how many robins and bats he draws, they don't defy Damian's emotions. No matter how many splats of colors he places, it means nothing to him. All of the pencil strokes were simply marks with no true meaning.
So now he sits in a mess of failure as he ponders over. His hands began moving on their own compared to the emptiness of his brain. His hands strike the paper with sloppy lines and differing thickness. The paper is quickly stained with a messy sketch of a dog.
Damian's face became less stiff as he stared at the small dog. To him, dogs meant loyalty and reliability. A creature that would go through anything to protect the people it cares for. While dogs do not represent how he feels, they represent his attachment to the people that means the world to him. He finally found some inspiration.
A sudden tension fills the air as he balls up the piece of paper.
It would have been perfect, if Damian's classmates didn't associate being called a dog as insulting. He remembers how offensive his one classmate got when he told her that she reminded him of a dog. The girl had taken the originally made compliment into an insult of her as a person. It took awhile for Damian to explain to her that her blonde hair and ability to constantly be upbeat had just reminded him of a golden retriever. His reputation was destroyed with a false insult instantly and since he would have to share this piece with the rest of his class, he fears that they will take it as a taunt.
How does he convey himself when it seems that every single word of his gets taken the wrong way? On a normal school day, he has to explain what he meant at least ten times. His peers constantly only think about how he is saying his statement instead of what he means.
Damian brings his head up from where he stared at the ground. A rush of frustration and disappointment floods him. The quick glance he gets at his failed compositions allows him to finally understand the message, there is no way to convey. After making pieces with bright and vibrant green and blues to making pieces with dark grays, after making pieces full of coherent birds and rodents to melted bones of a rabbit and even pieces with faces from his memories.
Nothing made his emotions understandable.
His art doesn't make anything understandable. He can draw complicated and etiquette landscapes, detailed faces and a diverse set of animals. Yet climbing into his own mind to make a completely new composition was impossible. Nothing made sense. Everything was simply wrong. His thoughts spiral and spiral into everything that is wrong with his art. It felt like he had fallen down a rabbit hole full of sharp thorn bushes. He was falling and falling. The pit seemed to be bottomless but then he heard an irritating melody.
His alarm that tells him to get ready for his early execution.
In less than an hour he will be at school where he would have to present his failures in front of prying eyes. He can not allow that.He is Damian Wayne. He is Damian Al Ghul. Failure is not an option but this time he might have to finally accept the fact. There's no way he can do this assignment in a coherent fashion within less than an hour. His art is a failure. Everything he would ever create will become a failure.
He can not handle that.
He can not handle having a skill that he had chosen leave him to failure. He was never obliged to pick up art. He never should have.
In a drowning pool of emotions, Damian grabs the trash bin from the corner of the room and begins crumbling and messily throwing the pile of failed concepts in. He stuffs and stuffs until the small bin is overflowing but he isn't done. He grabs his drawing pencils, markers, and inks and shoves it into the bin with loud clangs. He began ripping the pile of unused paper up with an intense frown and hard breaths.
"Damian?" A voice cut into the tense atmosphere of the room. "Why are you cleaning this early in the morning?"
Damian tilted his head up to meet Dick's vibrant blue eyes. "Leave me alone." Damian's green eyes glared into Dick's.
Dick obviously ignored him and walked towards him. He pauses as his eyes flicker to the trash can and is able to view the content that is being thrown out. "Are you throwing out your artwork?" He questions as he bends down and picks up a ball of crumpled paper. The care that he uses to unrivaled the wrinkled paper contrasts with the paper's cruel condition. Inside the wrapping of a failure lies a small messy sketch of a small dog. "You shouldn't throw these drawings out. Your art is very important to you." Dick tries to advise him.
"Can you not hear?!" Damian suddenly yelled at him. "Leave me alone!"
Dick puts his hands up in a false surrender as he steps back a little. "All I'm trying to say is that you'll regret it." Dick tries to give his most sincere voice but to Damian it sounds like an order. An order on how to feel. An order on how to express himself. An order on how to convey.
"SHUT UP!" Damian screamed as he hit the trash can and sent it tumbling. "Leave me alone already! It's not 'important' and it's not something I'll 'regret'!" Damian emphasizes by ripping one of the sketches.
"Alright." Dick sighed as he squatted down and grabbed Damian by both of his wrists. Damian had begun yanking away but Dick's firm grip kept him still. "Something is clearly wrong." He said as he stared at Damian's face trying to think of an explanation for his breakdown. Damian's phone began to cry with bells as a message appeared across his screen, 'Turn in assignment'. "Oh I get it… An assignment gone wrong." Dick cringed. "What was it?" He asks as he looks over the ruined paper in search of any theme in common.
"An assignment where we have to show how we're feeling…" Damian scowled.
Dick could feel his muscles tensing up as his mind connected the dot on what had most likely happened. "You came up with all these ideas but you don't think anyone will understand?" He asks for clarification.
Damian didn't respond with any coherent words. Only with the click of his tongue. He didn't need words to explain himself to Dick, only expressions and soft sounds. It was easier with him.
Dick gave him a somber smile as he sat on his knees in front of Damian and began to flatten out the crinkled paper on the floor. He gazed over the content within each sheet with a fond expression. "I think I understand what you're trying to get across." He tells him with hope. "We have about twenty minutes to get this done." He hands Damian a pencil and a piece of paper.
"We?" Damian choked out in disbelief.
"Yes, we." Dick shuffles beside Damian. "I'll help you."