Chapter Text
"what's up mark?" she asks, flipping a page in her book. "you're quiet today."
"i'm always quiet." he replies absently, distracted by his mind and the little collection of moles on her arm. one on her outer wrist, one nestled in the crook of her elbow, and two more leading up to her shoulder. he finds them enchanting.
"yes, but not this quiet." she observes, closing her book and fixating her dark gaze on him. he loves that about her. she's always been so perceptive, even at a young age. she can always see right through him. he needs that. it's one of the many reasons why they've been friends for so long. "tell me what's up."
mark eyes her for a moment before speaking. "it's my art final."
"i thought so."
"i need to do really good on this wes. i need to get the best grade so then i can enter it into the regional competition. i can't fuck up." he stresses.
"you never do though?"
"i might this time."
"why?"
"i have to use a human model." he admits, laying his head on the table. he hates having to use a model. he can never come up with a good idea and they always claim he's difficult to work with which he kind of is. he just has a hard time articulating himself and the models always want someone to walk them through everything. mark also has a hard time with strangers but that's beside the point. he just doesn't like working with models.
"ah, i see." she sighs. "have you found one yet?"
"no." he mumbles. "all the available ones are taken and i can't ask a random person on the street."
"aw, poor baby." she coos, ruffling his hair.
"i'm serious wes!" he whines, lifting his head up to look at her.
"i know! i wasn't being condescending."
"for once." he mutters causing her to laugh, loud and bright. he glances up at her and grins. he loves it when she laughs like that. he knows it helps gets rid of all her pent up stress.
"oh be quiet." she chuckles, yanking on a strand of hair. "i mean it. you do have a hard time with models. if only you could use someone you know." she sighs, carding a hand through his hair. she was right. if only he could-
"that's it!" he gasps, looking up at her.
"what's it?"
"i could use someone i know. god wes, you're a genius!" mark gushes, a smile growing on his face. why didn't he think of that sooner? all of friends wanted him to paint them, photograph them, etc.
"i know that," she laughs, "but who are you going to use?"
mark looks at her now. he takes in her dark eyes and hair and her full lips. he takes in her honey skin and he focuses on the ink blots for freckles she possesses, sparking an idea in his head. he draws lines from each spot and smiles widely. he's got it. he's got her.
"you." her smile drops as her eyes widen.
"me?"
"yes wes! you!" mark laughs. he abruptly stands and pushes his things into his backpack. "call me. no wait--i'll call you. yeah, yeah. i'll call you!" he tells her before running away in the direction of the art building.
two days later, mark nervously checks his supplies in one of the old art rooms. wes will be arriving in a few minutes and he wants everything to be perfect. he's excited for this project and he needs everything to go well, especially for her. she claims she doesn't understand art, that it baffles her. she feels that she can't see art the way he does and interpret it. when he tries explaining, she always writes him off, saying that she doesn't understand. he wants this experience to go as smoothly as possible for her. this was totally new for her.
as he checks the backdrop one last time, the door opens. "mark?" he turns around and waves excitedly.
"hey you're here!"
"yeah, sorry i'm late. i almost got lost actually," she chuckles, "the art wing is intense."
"you're not late, i'm just early," by four hours, "and just the old rooms are confusing. the rest of it actually makes sense."
"we're in the old rooms?" she asks, dropping her bag next to his and approaching him.
"yeah."
"why?" mark takes a look around him at the dust floating in the sun's rays, the shadows of trees on the floor, the high ceilings riddled with skylights and just smiles.
"i don't know," he replies. he looks back at wes and her dark, inquisitive gaze and shrugs. "i just feel good in here."
she studies him for a moment, one eyebrow raised with an eye squinted as she tries to read him. after a few seconds both eyebrows furrow followed by a single blink. "ok." she nods. "let's get started."
mark smiles widely and beckons her towards him. "are you wearing what i asked?"
"yup. under here." she comically yanks on the oversized hoodie she's wearing like a dress.
"great." he smiles. producing two rolls of white gauze from his pockets, he hands them to her. "put this on, like, around your chest and around your shorts as well and i'll be over there. let me know if you need help."
he then goes over to his paints, sits with his back facing her for privacy, and double checks them for the fourth time. he's excited, ecstatic even. he's going to get an a on this project and win the regionals and work with her freckles at the same time. it's a triple win.
"uh mark?" she calls out. he turns around and finds himself smiling a little too wide. "is this good?" she asks
"fantastic." he blurts. her chest and shorts are covered in the gauze, completing one whole third of his vision.
"fantastic?" she wrinkles her nose, laughing nervously. "are you sure?"
"yes. this is going exactly like i want it to."
"and what way is that?"
"come here and i'll show you."
she sits beside him and he pulls a small contact case from his shorts. "can you wear these?"
"yeah."
"do you wanna put them in or me?" he asks even though he knows her answer. they have been friends for 10 years now. she was independent and hated help with simple things. he watches her now, bemused, as she slowly looks him up and down before speaking. to his surprise however, "i'll do it." aren't the words that leave her mouth.
"you do it."
he swallows his shock and complies with her command. with a contact perched on his finger, he tucks her hair behind her ear and sweeps his fingers past the mole on her temple and the one on her cheek and cups her jaw gently. they maintain eye contact as he presses each lens into her eyes, the dark brown turning into shocking white. when he's done, she blinks and tilts her head. "what's next?"
"now i paint you." he tells her, pulling her to her feet.
"what are you gonna do to me?" she asks as he dips his round brush in black paint.
"first," he brushes her hair from her face, "i'm going to paint your freckles." he tells her, pressing his brush against the first perfect blot of ink on her temple. carefully dragging his fingertips down her face, he locates the next faint freckle on her cheek and paints it.
"then what?" she questions, her breathlessness not lost upon his ear as he paints the next mark on her neck, a hand on the back of it for support. mark looks up at her and licks his lips, noting their close proximity and the shift in the atmosphere between them. it's different and new. he likes it yet it bothers him.
"you'll have to wait and see." he says wryly in an attempt to lighten the mood. instead of saying anything back, she nods and lets him devote himself completely to her freckles.
after each dot has been outlined and filled in, he steps back and checks over his work, his eyes surveying her body slowly. as he looks her, he starts to see her in a different light. she's no longer his best friend with entrancing moles and waves of hair and honey kissed skin. she's more than that. she's always been more than that. she's his muse. his motivation. his reason behind every photograph, every painting, every sculpture. from the very first doodle up to now. she was the reason. the hidden reason. how has he not realized it before?
when mark finally meets her eyes, he's almost surprised to see that her gaze is dark, intense and for once, unreadable. he usually can tell what she's thinking by looking at her eyes, but this stare is unintelligible. she's not looking through him like usual. she's doing something.
"now what?" she questions, breaking the silence.
"now," he says, dipping his flat brush in navy paint, "i paint you."
"are you turning me into an avatar?" she quips as he approaches her with the dripping brush.
"no," he bites the inside of cheek, "some-thing much more beautiful." and the small intake breath that occurs as he paints a stripe across her chest is not lost upon his ears either.
mark paints her slowly, careful to stay in the imaginary lines he's drawn for himself. he watches as the brush outlines the contours of her body that he knows so well yet doesn't. she was flat everywhere when they met, her body similar to hugging a piece of cardboard. but one day when they were 14, he hugged her and noticed how his arms wrapped around the new curve in her waist and how he felt her against chest. she was new to him then just like she's new to him now.
when it's time for the white paint for the outside of the lines, mark finds himself standing closer to her than usual. he was always close to her, something about her always caused him to gravitate towards her, but this is closer. both in proximity and actions. he finds himself pulling her hair from her neck with the touch reminiscent of a feather. and the strokes of his brush have an added note of something in them. he doesn't know what it is or why he's doing it, but he isn't going to stop. it adds to the strange atmosphere around them.
soon, she's covered in white and navy, completing two thirds of his vision. all that's left is to connect and supernova her.
he starts with orange and carefully sponges along the imaginary lines. he likes the orange. it fits her and her firecracker personality. he goes to red next and only uses a little for the small fury within her and the redness of her eyes when she cries. next is green or more specifically, turquoise. it's for the oceans she yearns to conquer and the rivers she has to cross in order to do that. then it's purple for her lavender scent, her lilac shampoo, and the wisteria meadow she loves to sit in and watch. after that is pink for the color of her blush; for the tips of her fingers; for the rawness of her soul.
mark ends with white in the center. it's for the white of her skin during the winter months; the white of her knuckles when she grips his hand especially hard; the white of her innocence that lies under her rigid surface. he paints her center white for her and for himself.
"i think i see it now." she mutters as he carefully sponges black to fill in the spaces between colors.
"see what?"
"you're turning me into a supernova, aren't you?" he freezes and looks up at her slowly from his position on his knees.
"inside, yes."
"and what about the dots over my freckles? are you going to connect them like an outline?" he shakes his head slowly.
"no, i'm connecting them like a constellation." he watches as the word registers in her mind. her brow furrows slightly followed by a silent repetition of the word. she's trying to understand it, something she has never done. he watches her with unabashed fascination.
"why?" she asks, meeting his wide gaze.
he thinks back to when they had their first sleepover. they were newly 13 and went out to watch the stars in the park. she pointed out the big dipper to him and instead of following her finger, he followed her freckles, wondering if he could find the big dipper on her instead of the sky and if would be any easier.
"it's how i see your freckles. i've always wanted to connect them and see how you would look."
"oh." she nods. she falls silent for a moment before speaking again. "how else do you see me?" she asks and mark swallows to keep the sudden onslaught of his most intimate thoughts at bay.
i see you as waves of hair that can resemble the most tumultuous ocean. i see you as honey gold skin that sun loves to love. i see you as dark eyes that peer into my very soul. i see you as pearled teeth enclosing a candied tongue surrounded by bubblegum lips. i see you as beautiful, complicated, out of this world.
mark leans his forehead against her stomach, pressing his fingers into her waist and the back of her calf. his very thoughts pain him as he tries to come to terms with them.
i see you as my muse, he thinks, i see you as mine.
"celestial." he confesses in a voice so quiet not even he can hear himself. "angry. ambitious. lovely. raw. afraid." he lists.
"my muse." mark chokes out. "my reason for everything."
if she hears his confession, she doesn't say anything. she doesn't recoil from his embrace. she doesn't push him away. she stays with him and turns his face up towards her, painted fingers holding his jaw gently.
"i see you as this. paint on your face, a wild look in your eyes, your soul in the room. i see you mark. i see you how you see." wes tells him. he now realizes what that unintelligible stare was. it was her seeing him. her looking at him, not through him.
"i get you now mark. i understand." he can't help but smile because that was the only thing he ever wanted her to do. understand.
he opens his mouth to reply, something about finally and dinner? on his lips, but she presses a white finger to his mouth. "let's just..." she stares at him for a moment, clearly wanting to say one thing but forcing out another, "finish this yeah? i'm sure you want to see it done."
and all mark can say is: "okay."
so he finishes it. he dips his round brush in black paint once more and guides it over the curves and planes between each freckle. he watches her watch him closely as he paints her lips silver and as he traces the veins of her wrist. the way she relaxes under his touch and how she leans towards him are easily noticed by him. she understands him now and she knows that he sees her entirely. she's letting down her innermost barriers and letting him in.
as he photographs her, it dawns on him that they're going to leave this room as different people. this afternoon has created something new between them. something that needs to be cultivated. something he's willing to explore. and when she kisses his cheek goodbye, lingering for a second longer than usual, he can tell that she's willing to explore it too.
as she walks from the room, mark watches her go and decides that as soon all of this is over, he'll ask her. to dinner, a movie, a walk, anything. whatever he decides on, he'll ask. he won't let himself do anything else. he wants to get to know her and he knows that she wants to do the same thing.
he takes another glance at her departing body. oh fuck it. he opens his mouth to call after her when she turns around and stops in the doorway. "hey mark?"
"yeah?" he answers, smiling. she beat him to the punch.
"when you win regionals, do you want to go out to dinner with me?"
"you know," mark replies, sensing that their new beginning is just about to start. "there's nothing else i'd rather do."