Loving from afar - JJPope

Three

JJ's house was rather different from what Pope imagined it to be. He imagined a nice, brick home with a decent front lawn and toys littered around from his siblings. But instead, an angry, cold house looks back at him, wooden and seemingly ready to fall apart. No toys were on the front lawn, and there was no fence nor any way to keep little kids away from the road. There were no front steps, so it looked as though JJ had to lift his younger siblings up to get inside, and a run down truck sits messily on the lawn, a window broken and mirror hanging over the door. It made Pope shiver.

Lifting his hand to knock on the door, Pope is shocked to find it slide open with the wind, barely catching on the latch. "Hello?" Pope calls out, stepping inside anxiously and kicking off his shoes. "JJ?"

"In here!" A voice replies.

Pope follows after it as best he can, finding JJ moving a coffee table into the centre of the living room and dropping a pillow on either side of it. "Hey, Pope," greets JJ, smiling kindly.

Pope smiles back, clearing his throat. "Hi."

"Ignore the mess," JJ says hurriedly, sitting himself down on one of the pillows and motioning for Pope to do the same. "How were you wanting to do this?"

Taking his own seat, Pope pulls out his art pad of a messy sketch he had drawn up late last night. He hands it over to JJ to have a look at and tries not to smile at the look of wonder hidden beneath JJ's wide eyes. "It's just a rough idea," Pope voices, clearing his throat. "We don't have to do it like that-"

JJ cuts him off. "No, I love it. It's so sweet. You're an amazing artist."

"Oh." Pope's eyes widened slightly. "Tha..thank you."

The drawing was shaded in a messy structure, but was as perfect as ever. A small puppy was at the very start of the paper, with a much larger dog standing behind it, mouth open slightly in a growl. At first, Pope found it babyish. He thought that JJ might want to do something different, before his mind flashed with the picture JJ had shown him of an older looking dog as his lock screen and the drawing felt perfect.

"And they're golden retrievers." Coos JJ, pouting down at the picture in his hands. "They're my favourite dog breed, how did you know?"

Pope gives a small shrug. "I just took a lucky guess and.. You showed me your lockscreen in art and it was a golden retriever."

JJ catches Pope's gaze, a slight blush on his cheeks. "Oh right. Her name was Lucy," JJ rambles, looking away in embarrassment, but Pope keeps his eyes on his face, resting his cheek in the palm of his hand. "She was the dog I grew up with, the kids didn't get to know her the way I did. She got really sick, cancer, and passed away just after my baby brother was born." JJ hands the drawing back to Pope, finally lifting up his head and widening his eyes at the sight of Pope watching him intently. "I miss her a lot."

"I'm sorry." Pope finds himself whispering, clearing his throat and sitting up straight. "Cancer is an awful thing."

"Yeah.. well.. I've got a canvas to get us started."

Pope nods. "Right, okay."

Their art styles were completely different. JJ seemed to go on the darker, deeper side whereas Pope liked to go on the brighter, happier side, using vibrant colours and highlights. But after a while, Pope found it relatively easy to mold into JJ's preferred style of sketching and painting. He definitely wasn't used to being so dark and depressing, but he was happy to do so for JJ, even if it meant going out of his comfort zone.

"Wait," JJ says suddenly, pausing his paintbrush and looking up at Pope. "Did you.. Change your style of art for me?"

Blinking rapidly, Pope smiles sheepishly, shrugging. "Uh, yeah. I didn't mind, though."