( closed )

[imaginate]

Characters: Kyle & various.
Date: Catch-all log for July.
Location: All around.
Situation: Various.
Warnings/Rating: War horrors, child abuse, mention of torture, physical and psychological.
Notes: [Action] or prose are all good. Ping me if you'd like a specific setup/threadstarter.

Comments

[jirk]

"Graydon Parrish not to your tastes? I'm wounded. Wounded." Jim stops at the countertop where the paint cans are sitting, and leans over them, hipshot. Giving himself a break. Lugging around a cast is harder than he'd have thought, but then he came from a world where you could regenerate bone and skin and blood without much issue.

"So, I guess this makes me a student of the arts. Teach me, sensei."

[imaginate]

He rolls his eyes. 'Princess, my favourite painting is Baroque. You watch your step now.'

He then rings up a cart and puts all the paint cans in it, gesturing to the living room where there's more space, and more light.

'What do you know about art?' he asks, over his shoulder. Both of them pretended to be less knowledgeable than they were, he'd learnt that in their very first conversation. Shakespeare, huh.

[jirk]

This time Jim's following him, and it... rankles a little, but not enough for him to actually argue. It's not like it's Kyle's fault his leg's busted up. "I know it's way too broad and varied a subject to field a question like that and not be here all day."

He folds his arms, balancing a little, cane still in one hand. "I know how artistic expression relates to, oh, a few hundred cultures across the galaxy. I could pinpoint a variety of styles and eras if I was feeling really enthusiastic. Not everything is art, but art's in every thing." He says that last bit pensively, and then shakes his head. "I'm not really artistic. I can do decent technical work, but the rest? Not really my thing."

[imaginate]

He shrugs and smiles as he pulls up a stool and studies the colours Jim's bought. 'No, really. Everything's art if you know how to look. This planet on the frontier,' he waves a hand. The stone carvings had been of Parallax. 'Anyway. Back home I was responsible for - well I called it being saddled with - helping aliens adjust to living on Earth. Barda - oh you'd love her, she can put you through a wall - we used to go to museums a lot. She liked looking at the frames.'

He frowns. 'I never figured out why.'

[jirk]

Jim shakes his head. "Frames protect art," he says, gently chiding. Maybe Kyle was too close to the issue, being an artist, but it made sense to Jim. It kept them from getting dusty or dirty or damaged or looking old. Mom had a few old photographs - actual photographs, not modern day holoscreens - of his Dad kicking around when he was young, and every one of them was framed.

[imaginate]

He stares at Jim incredulously. Something just clicks.

'Oh.' A long pause. 'That makes sense now that I think about it.'

He falls silent again. 'Only about a quarter of my work ever makes it that far, and then Gardner gave away my paintings to a museum.' He makes a fond, but exasperated noise. It didn't hurt so much, to talk about Guy, now. 'Idiot. I was going to burn half of it and he had to go and frame it.'

[jirk]

Jim juts his hip against the edge of his desk, it's better than the casual balancing act he was doing in the middle of the room, and folds his arms. He's got his head canted slightly to one side, eyebrow raised. There's a question there, why would you burn it? but on the same hand, he's pretty sure he knows.

Some things are too personal to be shared. Probably more with artists than most other things. Art's an outlet for everything other people bottle up, and Jim is suddenly completely certain he'd never want to put his heart and soul into the craft the way Kyle does.

So he shrugs. "So, painting. Teach me the basics."

[imaginate]

He doesn't ask why Jim won't sit down. Pride, Kyle supposes. The same fool pride he himself had, and he's about to just talk about the paint when he decides, fuck it and jumps without looking.

'You've seen the sketch of the worldships, what was left of them,' he says, quietly, not tense, but almost shaking. 'I have sketchbooks full of that stuff. Why shouldn't I burn it?'

[jirk]

"I'm not saying you shouldn't," Jim says carefully, reaching up to rub at the side of his neck. There's a scar there, very faint, where someone had broken a bottle in a bar fight and winged him. It'd almost cut his jugular. Funny how at seventeen that was less of a wake-up call than it should have been. He hadn't even got it fixed professionally, he just stumbled home with a wad of napkins pressed against it and spent a few weeks wearing high collared shirts. That old instinct to hide, go to ground, make sure no one else saw the marks and bruises had still been prominent then.

"But everything you've drawn is just one more thing you've survived. They're like... scars, in your--" he waves a little, in the vague direction of his skull, "mind, I guess. If that's even how art works?" He falls silent, and he drops his hand down to his shoulder, and then down his bicep. He's not really thinking about it, but it's a defensive posture, one that makes him look younger than he is. "Hell, I'd burn mine, too."

[imaginate]

The moment it's out he knows he's admitted weakness, and almost instinctively his body tenses for a fight. Nothing happens, and he slides into confusion, before remembering who's standing in front of him.

Do you even know what friendship means?

It would take time to sink in. Nobody gave back. There was an ice sculpture of him standing over a planet, and Damian hugged him but nobody gave back, not in the way Kyle needed - a crutch to lean on as the entire universe threw everything it had at him. One that never wavered or broke or left. He'd been alone out there for so long. Even Jenny hadn't been able to deal with it.

(She's leaving, too, she's turning to dust and blowing away in front of him--)

'There's one,' he says, barely audible, rubbing an equally old, faint scar on his wrist. 'It's them - everyone I've ever,' watched die. He stops, takes in a breath and grips the table so hard his knuckles turn white. 'I can't burn that one but I can't keep it either.'

Pull me back.

[jirk]

"Hey." His tone's gentle. It's the one he uses when he's talking to crew members fresh out of surgery, that tone of you're tough, we both know you'll make it, but is there anything I can do for you now? But equally as much, it's stay with me.

"Give it to me. I'll keep it for you." It's an offer and a compromise all in one. He doesn't know what needs to be done, he only knows what he can do, and it's the only thing he can think to offer. They're equals, or something like it. Might as well act like it.

[imaginate]

He responds to it (Jim's language. Meeting him halfway), finally feeling like they've reached some sort of compromise, that they're finally in sync.

'You won't look inside, yeah?' It's not a plea, or an order, it's just a simple extension of his trust, and he smiles, all worn at the edges. 'People think I'm a dumb kid. I'd rather they keep thinking that.'

They don't deserve the truth.

[jirk]

Jim gives him a Look. "I already know you aren't. I don't need proof." I won't look.

[imaginate]

He picks up the red, studies it meticulously, like it's the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

'Thanks,' he says. 'That's the last time I'm going to say that word out loud.'

[jirk]

Jim's expression turns cautious, but it's accepting, too. He nods once. "Okay. Sure."

[imaginate]

He tosses a can up in the air and catches it. 'C'mon. I'll show you to how to mix these to get most of the colours you need.'

[jirk]

And Jim just laughs, shaking his head. "Whatever you say, Angel."