fictober 2020

the painting || day two

𝙤𝙘𝙩𝙤𝙗𝙚𝙧 𝙨𝙚𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙙
---
𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙜𝙤𝙡𝙙𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙘𝙝 - 𝙙𝙤𝙣𝙣𝙖 𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙩
𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗼 𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗯𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗮𝗰𝘁 𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗴𝗼𝗹𝗱𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗵 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗵𝗶𝗺 𝗽𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗽 𝗶𝗱𝗸 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗲

Somewhere in my tangled mind filled with thoughts going too fast for me to catch, I was relieved— almost happy— the painting wasn't in my possession anymore.

The fact I somehow managed to leave no trace to the point where they couldn't connect me to it in a way that could prove anything calmed me down. Yet to think that a masterpiece as old and beautiful as the painting was in the filthy hands of people that most likely hadn't the slightest idea how to care for it overwhelmed me.

Something so delicate and priceless being handed around carelessly for money that would later be spent on things that weren't anywhere near worth as much as the painting.

This sort of thing happened all the time, priceless works of art that were claimed to be destroyed being stolen and handed around for years until eventually someone gets caught. What made this one seem particularly horrible was, of course, that it was my painting.

My painting which I'd managed to innocently smuggle over borders between states, hidden under newspaper and tape and an old pillowcase. I'd kept it for years, I thought I had it for almost a decade just sitting trapped in the suffocating darkness that the yellow bag in the storage space provided.

The guilt of it all weighed on me so heavily every single day. It was probably for the best that I'd taken it and not someone like the art thieves who held the painting currently. What was most horrible though, the part that I never wanted to think about but ended up doing so anyway, was that it had been Boris.

It had been him who took it from me, he was probably acting without thinking as I had when I stole it first but it still felt terrible. The very person who I unfortunately trusted with my life (and still do somehow), the same person that I spent most of two years of my life with and who I thought of every day and the same person who had once kissed me to say goodbye all those years ago.

A week or so after I'd fallen out of contact with Boris, that kiss had ultimately been seen as a final goodbye, I believed I would never see him again. Now though, with everything he'd come clean about, it seemed like it had been an apology.

He knew what he had done and knew there was no stopping me from leaving so instead of confessing to it, he apologised in advance for when I would find out. The only thing was that, ironically, I never found out about it until he told me.

He clearly felt as bad about stealing the painting as I did, and though I don't think I'll ever be able to fully forgive him I feel as though I might be able to almost thank him at some point.

Maybe if everything goes okay and somehow we manage to report the painting without getting ourselves caught. Get the painting back out into the public where it will hopefully stay safe because as much as I loved feeling as though the picture was my own, I felt horrible every second it was shut away in the dark.

Even if we don't figure anything out at all and even if things go downhill and we both get caught, at least I got to see him again.

a/n

woahhh another tgf thinggg
i was really struggling with a title for this oNe-
it's easier to find inspiration for this fandom at the moment but hopefully i'll be writing other stuff soon
also i haven't written in first person for a while actually and for something like this it seems to work pretty well so that's cool
okay hopefully these things start getting longer or something but it doesn't really matter
i wrote this at three in the morning

alright
thanks for reading <3
make sure to sleep

- tcp