im in love – Nothing but My Aching Soul

cigarettesmokeandexyracquets:

He’s twenty one and he’s got paint on his knuckles the color of coal dust, flecks of white smudging up his wrist like tiny snowflakes, a dash of fire red splashed across the bridge of his nose where he pushed his glasses up. Neil hasn’t painted like this since he was a baby, dipping his fingers into cold acrylic and smearing it across canvas like it means something. He tilts his head to the side and squints. There’s yellow ochre dancing on the edge of his glasses lens. He’s been careless with his glasses in a way he’s not careless with the art. Blue, he decides, it needs blue. Blue and black transform into violent clouds almost indigo, splashing over reds and yellows of flowers and bushes. His paint brushes sit abandoned and lonely in their little clay holder, just out of his reach. He’s almost tempted to reach for them but he leaves them out of reach for now.

The door in front of him bumps open, his cat King worming her way around drying paintings and wet paint to walk across the canvas in front of his, tracking her paws over the surface. She looks up at him, the canvas under her vibrating with a purr.

Neil snorts, covered fingertip to elbow in paints, and blows a raspberry in her face. “That was going to be my Mona Lisa,” He says very carefully.

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