Copyright © 2018. All Rights Reserved
The underpainting took the longest for them to get through. After the initial sketch was finished, he laid out the values in dark reds and light pinks where the stripes of light laid over Ronan's skin and caught in white lines on the sheets. Nic went wild with everything he ever wanted to try on a canvas this size. It was pure bliss, being given such a wide open range of white, blank space to fill with all the colors he saw in front of him.
He scheduled out the processes in various increments. After the underpainting was done, they took a break where Ronan sat up and the two of them ate the sandwiches pre-made in the refrigerator. Since Ronan couldn't move the sheets around his legs, he stayed put and sat with Nic by the bed.
They didn't talk much the whole time, at least until the break period. "So you and Kieran, huh? How long's that been a thing?" Ronan asked.
"Since third week of school. So around the end of September," Nic confessed. "Sometimes it doesn't even feel like we're dating. Makes the time fly I guess."
"Is that any way to date, though? If it doesn't even feel like it's official?" he asked, and when Nic merely glared at him, he reiterated, "I'm serious. I've been wondering, considering Kieran said you two haven't had sex once in the months you've been together."
Nic swallowed down the bread, and licked his teeth. "We haven't even kissed, let alone had sex. But I shouldn't be talking about this with you. Kieran would probably murder me in my sleep."
Ronan laughed, glancing towards the windows. His hair was now officially a mess, and it looked like he'd just woken up and Nic caught him in the midst of rising from bed. "Yes, well, we all know he's capable of that. You're a good man, Nic."
"Thank you."
"Don't let it get to your head," he said critically, pretending to scowl at Nic. "It's a tough world out there. God knows nothing's been easy for me, let alone you two. Your patience is almost saintly."
"I don't know about that. I'm not a very patient person in general. It's hard to just... sit around and wait for things."
"Says the man who's spent the past three hours sitting at an easel," Ronan scoffed. "I need something to drink. Could you get me some red wine? It's in the cabinet next to the refrigerator on the left."
Nic got up to fetch it, and finished in sandwich on the way. He brushed his hands off on his pants and grabbed one of the upside-down wine glasses on the counter, and then reached for the cabinet. After pouring the glass for Ronan, he brought it back to the master suite and handed it over.
"I was just thinking," Ronan said. "Have you done this before? Painting portraits for people?"
"Not really. I've painted Kieran and when I was in high school I'd paint students for projects. But never... freelance portraits or whatever," Nic confessed. "I've always wanted to, though."
"Glad I could help with that," Ronan laughed, raising his glass before taking a sip. He finished half of the small amount Nic gave him before telling him to set it on the nightstand and change the music. They put on a different genre before Nic helped arrange Ronan's hair to where it was before against the silk, and fixed up the silk to the perfect replication as what they had prior to the break.
Nic aimed to finish the actual colors in two hours, which would leave touch-ups and closer details to the remaining hour. I can do this, he told himself, breathing out shakily as he swept together a bit of blue and red and mixed it agains this palette. He drifted it through the sleek, gentle slopes of the silk caught and wrapped around Ronan's legs.
The silence of painting Ronan wasn't nearly as painful as Nic thought it was. He was so incredibly busy with the painting that he didn't even spare a glance at what Ronan must have been thinking those six hours on his bed. When Nic focused on Ronan's legs, he let Ronan play around on his phone, and painted through several phone calls that made little to no sense to Nic, considering his attention and his mind were elsewhere.
The large strokes decreased to minute paint brushes the size of Nic's pinky nail. He washed out his brush after nearly every stroke to ensure that it didn't clump on the end and screw up the fine streaks of light passing through Ronan's hair, or the shine of the window streaking over the silk. He layered the texture of Ronan's skin and hair on his arms, and the wrinkled edges of his finger knuckles, his faint pale fingernails. He laid such care to the subtle parting of Ronan's lips, and the faint hint of moisture creating a gleam on his bottom lip. His smile lines against hollowed cheeks. The shell of his ear, curving to a rounded point.
Nic gave Ronan a break as he stared at the portrait, searching for something to fix. He adjusted the background, beyond where Ronan was, and where the majority of the contrast was against Ronan's white flesh. He improved the fine line between them, and where he accidentally blurred it on Ronan's shoulder. As he fixed it, he said, "I think... it's done. You can move now."
"Are you sure? Is everything all right with my legs I don't want to fuck up the sheets."
"Yeah, it's fine," Nic reassured. "If it isn't I'll just wing it."
Nic carved in his signature initials into the corner before walking around the easel with a pen to write his full name onto the back of the canvas in small, fine handwriting along with the date.
"Seven hours. My God what a relief it is to stand," Ronan grunted out as he stretched, walking over to the easel to see the painting for himself. It was dark outside by now, so much of the light gleams were from memory or by what he leveled out in the underpainting and the photograph Nic took for reference on Ronan's phone.
Nic stood patiently off to the side, trying to gauge to look of shock on Ronan's face as something good or something terrible. He couldn't quite tell until Ronan looked over at Nic, his jaw slack until his lips pulled into a smile. "If I wasn't here to witness you drawing, I wouldn't even believe that you painted this."
"Really? That really should be an insult but I don't even care. You like it?" Nic blurted out, hurrying over to see the painting himself. He tried to put himself in the mindset of someone who hadn't just spent seven hours working with it by hand, but he couldn't. He saw each stroke as one he did several minutes before, or hours before.
"This is incredible, Nic. I am so impressed," Ronan exclaimed. "Where should I put it for the time being?"
"Oh—it still needs to dry a bit, but you could lean it up against a wall for now," Nic said, pulling it up off the easel by the back of the frame. He handed it to Ronan and started to clean up the mess he made. Honestly, with Ronan being completely nude and out in the open, Nic just sort of wanted to book it out of there—to hell with cleaning his brushes and shit. He could take care of that at Kingsley, so he stuffed them into his already messy roll of brushes, capped his paints, and wrapped his palette in the towel he had on the floor.
He followed Ronan out of the room, who grabbed his robe on the way out. As he slipped his arms into the robe and tied the sash around his middle, Ronan gestured with his chin for Nic to set it against the window of the balcony door.
He heard Ronan's bare footsteps head for the kitchen, so Nic took the opportunity to take a picture with his... nonexistent phone. Shit, he groaned internally. He looked over at where Ronan was signing another check and asked, "Hey, do you think you could email me a picture of this? I haven't gotten around to replacing my phone yet."
"Of course. Write your email on this pad here," he said, sliding a piece of paper across the counter. Nic wandered around the sectional to reach it just as Ronan passed over the check, and dropped the pen beside him on his way across the room. His hand gingerly glided over Nic's shoulder blades as he passed, casually saying, "I've always wanted a portrait of me. This is far better than I could ever imagine—and from a nineteen-year-old as well."
"Actually eighteen. Won't be nineteen until next summer," Nic confessed.
"Ah. One of the summer birthdays. You won't be able to legally drink until you're a senior—that's a bummer. Same thing happened to me. I was young for my class," he confessed with a tsk. "Graduated when I was just barely twenty-one."
"What for?"
"Just... business management-related stuff. Hate getting into the specifics with people who don't really know me," he confessed as he wandered back from checking the portrait again. Nic finished off his email and tore the page from the notepad before signing Ronan's check without even looking at the amoutn. He stuffed it into his back pocket.
Ronan appeared out of the corner of his eye, and moved in to lay his hand over Nic's, and the paper that had his email written on it. "You did an excellent job with the portrait, though. I'm entirely serious about that," he said, voice quiet considering how close he was now.
Nic practically squeaked out, "I-It was nothing," as he scooted away half an inch before Ronan pulled Nic's hand up. His grip wasn't forceful or tight—Nic could have tugged on it hard enough and gotten free, but that just seemed rude. He was always too nice, too much of a pushover. It took serious effort to say no to people. It was a miracle he was ever even able to convince Kieran to go out with him, when the guy had specifically said he wasn't interested before agreeing.
"Nic, look at me," Ronan said. His demand was light, suggestive, and prompted Nic to turn a fraction towards Ronan. They stared at one another, and Nic noted the steely texture he had seen masked in white sunlight against Ronan's irises. His pupils were constant pinholes—piercing in every sense of the word. Nothing about his facial expressions were soft or gentle. The man was lined in hard edges and hardly seemed capable of tenderness in the slightest.
Ronan's other hand came to rest on Nic's shoulder, giving him a kind squeeze. "The painting is perfect. You were perfect, Nic."
Why did Nic's mind suddenly go foggy at those words? Why did his brain seem to ooze like every other time someone complimented his work? He would never get used to it. Truth be told he lived through every critique just waiting to be called out on his bullshit—like he was never made for this. Like he was never made to be the cause of the pride and sincerity that Ronan was giving him.
All that came out was a weak, "Really?"
Their faces were so close that Ronan's laugh sent wine-tinted breath over Nic's lips. "Yes, you were so perfect," he exhaled against Nic's mouth before pressing every part of himself to Nic, and pulled the two of them together with his hands over Nic's forearms.
It had been months since Nic kissed someone, and he shouldn't have been so surprised by it. He shouldn't have been surprised that Ronan would try this, but he didn't exactly prepare for it or expected it entirely. Internally he knew he was weak; Ronan was pulling on him from all the small threads in his brain that he cared about the most—his stability as an artist, his work, his relationship with Kieran.
Ronan's lips melded against Nic's, kissing and sucking on them and eagerly trying to part Nic's mouth open with his heavy tongue. Nic pulled his head back, but Ronan just chased after him, pushing his hips into the counter and leaving open-mouthed kisses across Nic's jaw and cheeks—
"Ronan, please—" Nic panted, pressing the heel of his palm to Ronan's shoulder and pushing him away.
"What is it?" he demanded, hands still over Nic's wrists. He brought them forward, between them, and laid kisses to the blue veins and strained tendons on Nic's inner wrist. "You're beautiful, Nic—I want you to know how incredible you are and your painting—"
"Y-You don't need to tell me that like this," Nic blurted out. "I'm not interested! I'm not—"
"Then why would you come here," Ronan pressed furiously. "You're looking for validation—I can give it to you if your shitty boyfriend won't."
"He isn't—!"
"So what? Just because he's a prude doesn't mean you have to be," he seethed. Nic was so alarmed by it that the look on his face caused Ronan to drop his wrists as if burned by him.
Nic pushed off the counter, staggering away from Ronan. His eyes barely left the man even as he stumbled across the apartment to grab his things. He practically ran out of the apartment without looking back at the image of Ronan with his robe hanging from one shoulder, hand furiously trying to smooth the angry wrinkles on his forehead.