Work Text:
"You'd better be holding that brush properly." Grantaire grumbled, and Jehan laughed at him, continuing to work on the other's back where he straddled Grantaire's ass. He was gentle, careful, with the brush and the pretty black paint in his hands.
"There is no proper way to hold the brush, Grantaire. Holding it as I do works most efficiently."
"Tu es un idiot." Grantaire murmured, his lips twitching with more than a little amusement.
"Je m'en fous." Jehan returned with a tone of great serenity.
"What is it you're putting on my back?"
"A canto from Don Juan. Another is a Shakespearean sonnett. Another is Keats."
"Are these poems linked, somehow?" Grantaire asked, though he didn't really care, and he would never truly mind one way or the other.
"They are beautiful, and you are beautiful, and writing them on your back, layered in this fashion, is pleasing to the eye." Jean Prouvaire used three inks on Grantaire's back, in blue, purple and black, for each poem.
The back of Grantaire's neck had flushed a bright pink, and even without seeing his face Jehan could see his cheeks were burning.
"I'm not beautiful." Grantaire said after a long while. "I'm- God, Jehan, I'm broken."
"That is not to say you are not beautiful. The parthenon is old, and crumbling, and yet it is beautiful. Cities have their blemishes, their dark streets, their shadowed alleys and broken walls, and yet they are beautiful. Grantaire has his insecurities and his scars, and yet he is beautiful."
"Jehan-" Jehan stilled his own lips in order to allow Grantaire to speak, but Grantaire said nothing more than Jehan's own name, that once. Jehan finished the last poem, and then he pulled Grantaire up to sit. The other artist settled cross legged on the bed, settling agreeably as Jehan began to paint over his collarbones and his sternum in swirling, black patterns.
"Have you ever considered getting tattoos?" Jehan asked as he worked, creating intricate patterns of ivy-like curves. Jehan himself was covered in ink, sleeves coming up to his forearms and ink covering his thighs and his calves.
"And deprive you of a blank canvas to play upon?" Grantaire asked, his lips quirking, and Jehan's own cheeks coloured a slight pink.
"Your consideration is flattering." He murmured after a time, and Grantaire reached forwards, clasping Jehan's spare hand in his own, playing over the skin there.
"Jehan."
"Hmm?"
"I love you." Jehan smiled, leaning forwards and pressing his lips to Grantaire's, remaining careful not to smudge his own work on Grantaire's chest and his shoulders.
"And I you." Jehan murmured gently before pulling back and setting to his work with new vigour.