Work Text:
“I show restraint, I'm the patron saint
Of urban gardens in bloom
If I don't faint ingesting paint
Breathing all of these fumes”
Maybe it’s just the alcohol in her system, but she swears the monster painted on the wall of this alley is her. Even without skin she’s sure that’s her face and positive that’s her hair.
She’s cutting through the alley on the way back from a party she’d been dragged too. She drank too much beer and took everyone’s money at the poker table, but the party was otherwise uneventful. Empty, like it was missing someone important. Which, all things considered, was how her life normally felt as of late.
Digging through her backpack she pulls out some spray paint and a couple paint markers. She’s never once painted him on anything, and really, she’s not sure the boy she’s putting on brick is even him. A figure sitting in the grass, face covered by a cloak. Its small compared to her usual work, she’s always been one to paint landscape, and the style feels off, but it’s there and it’s finished.
She signs it and packs her stuff back into her bag, wondering what possessed her to paint it.
“You look like shit,” Reiner comments as she walks into the art store, grabbing a basket and wandering to the paint department, “Did you go to the bar last night?”
“House party,” she grunts in reply as she pulls cans off the shelf, “You’re out of light blue.”
Adjusting his smock he frowns, “One of my regulars came in and bought me out yesterday. Blue and my flat white, I should have more in tomorrow.”
Another grunt is the only reply from her as she skips over the mustard yellow for a lighter hue before wandering over to the acrylics.
“Do you know who has the tag Legout?” she asks suddenly.
The GPS tracking on her phone says it should be right next to her, but she’s starting to doubt it.
Reiner had sent her a link to the blog of one ‘Jean Kirstch-fine’ (she had snorted at the horrible name) which contained an insanely detailed listing of almost all know graffiti in the city, along with photos and locations.
The photos where too small on her phone for her to really judge Legout’s work, so she decided to check out the closest one, thankful that there was one within walking distance, as she was currently too broke for the bus.
Rounding the corner she spots it, a war on a wall. Soldiers with blades draw, capes flowing with a familiar crest. Her fingers run over a set of wings, the same set she had painted on the wall a few nights before. Where was it from?
She racks her memory on the walk home but comes up empty.
She’s looking herself up for curiosities sake on Kirstch-fine’s blog (she is actually rather followed and she doesn’t know how to take that) when he updates with a post on Legout’s new painting. No photos (he promises some tomorrow), but a location.
It’s almost midnight but she sneaks out of her father’s house anyway.
If she wasn’t terrified of the wall in front of her she would be more impressed by the mere size of it. Of the way he’d created a false sky and a loaming monster on the wall, the hole smashed in the bottom and the steam that poured all around.
But she is sobbing and screaming as she falls to her knees, unable to process what was in front of her. A feeling of fear and anger overwhelming her to the point she isn’t sure how she was even going to move from the spot.
“We were just kids,” she mutters through tears.
It takes half hour for her to regain herself, wandering around the back of the wall still shaken. She paints a younger version of herself, along with two others, before she calls Bert to come pick her up. She sleeps on his and Reiner’s couch and tries to forget all about it.
In her dreams he’s there but she can’t make out what he looks like. They’re star gazing and she can feel his warmth beside him, hear his voice chatter on about some book he read and taste his lips on hers.
If Ymir notices she’s upset she doesn’t say anything, instead deciding to ramble on about what ever cute thing her girlfriend had done the night before. She’s gotten used to ignoring the freckled girl, they were friends sure, but she could only stand so much at nine am in a flower shop.
“You know what you need, Annie?” The darker haired girl looked up from the bouquet she was working on, her usual smirk wide across her face.
“No, do tell,” the blonde replied sarcastically as she watered the cactus display.
“To get laid for once and stop being such a bit-,” Ymir was cut off as a pale of water was dumped over her head.
Convinced she’s a masochist she heads to another Legout tag a few nights later, ignoring her friends offer of going to some gallery opening that Reiner got free tickets to. Its way across town so she gathers up as much change as she can to make the subway fare and rides it in silence, hoping she won’t break down this time.
She doesn’t. But the blood on the blades causes her to cover her neck and leave without staying more than five minutes.
Nightmares fill her dreams, his soft voice and sunlight replaced with a burning and crumpling city beneath her feet, and blood stained hands.
She wakes with a shout and washes them for ten minutes straight.
“Annie!” Krista’s angelic voice calls out from downstairs, “Hurry up or we’ll be late!”
She’s trying to fix her hair in the mirror, not entirely sure about the dress the smaller blonde had picked out for her.
“Come the fuck on!” Ymir’s voice joins in, “It’s your stupid paintings hanging in the café, not mine!”
“That means I already know what they look like,” Annie muttered as she grabbed her purse and headed out the door.
It’s a small café, and crowded. She’s one of three artists being featured this month, so at least all the attention isn’t on her.
“He’s not responding to text messages so I guess he’s not coming,” Krista notes with a sigh as she sips her tea, “You’d like him; he’s a really good painter. Not so good at digital but everyone has flaws I guess.”
She made an attempt at a reply that wasn’t just an uninterested ‘yeah’ but failed miserably.
“So what’s this painting about?” Ymir asked, pointing at the one hanging by their table.
It’s of a small old fashioned café, wooden tables and chairs, handmade table clothes. She assumed it was their first date, he sounded nervous. But her hand was around his and his laughter warmed her entire being.
“It’s a café,” she says simply, returning to her mocha, “What’s to get?”
An update on Kirstch-fine’s blog the next week lists all the places the city has decided to paint over in the last while, and it almost hurts to see she’s on the list.
She remembers the painting when she clicks the link, a cottage in the country, surrounded by flowers. Children ran about the yard, blonde hair flowing in the wind. Unlike many of her paintings it wasn’t so much a memory from a dream, than it was hopeless wish she’d once had, maybe still had.
She considers re-painting it, grabbing her backpack and heading over to see how badly the cover up paint was, but when she gets there she’s met with a new tag.
A white dress, a wish and a lost moment. She reaches out to touch the blonde girl who’s been painted over the grey cover up paint, but stops an inch short; scared that if she does it will disappear.
It’s signed ‘sorry I missed it’ and she writes ‘me too’ in reply.
She can feel his hands on her, soft and gentle but rushed. His voice is whispering sweet nothings into her ear as the heat between them builds. It’s dark and sweaty and much too short for either of their likings but it’s all they have right now. All they’ll ever have.
Waking with a jolt she realises she’s late for work, ignoring the yearning between her legs and rushing to get ready.
“Do you believe in past lives?” she’s sweeping the storefront floor when the question pops out of her mouth, surprising even her.
“Like reincarnation?” Bert picks up another rose to add into the arrangement he’s currently working on, staring at it nervously, like he’s unsure how to place it, “I guess so, never really thought too much about it…”
“I see,” A bird lands on the windowsill and she stops to watch it.
“But I think,” he continues softly, thumbing the petals, “That important people stay with you, and you’ll always find them again.”
Comfortable silence returns to the shop, and she returns to sweeping.
This time she’s sure she’s the girl on the wall. The one laughing in the alley on Ninth Avenue. She hadn’t even used the blog to find this one, but instead stumbled on it on the way to the art store. Twisting her ring she takes off down the street and bursts into the art shop, flying past Reiner before grabbing two cans of mustard yellow. She all but throws money at him before running back out the door.
It’s still midday, but she paints him anyway, willing to take the risk. His eyes are the bluest things she’s ever seen, oceans in between sunsets. Tears are streaming down her face as she soaks the site of him in, wondering how in the world she could ever have forgotten that face.
It’s bitter sweet, she can finally see his face and for some reason all it does is hurt.
At home she can’t sleep, so she pulls out her sketchbook and draws him over and over again so that he’s ingrained on every page. His smile, his frown, that surprised look he gets whenever she made the first move and the passion that overwhelms his eyes when he’s thinking.
She gets a text message asking if she’s okay.
“Almost.” She replies.
A photo pops up on the blog and at first she mistakes the work for her own until she looks closer. The crystal painted on the train car looks so close to her own style she wonders if she has a copycat, but the girl behind it is what makes her freeze.
It’s signed as Legout again.
It takes her almost a week to make up her mind on what to do, how to break the crystal version of her free. She’s tempted to go over to the train car and tag over it, but when she wanders by it’s already been moved out of the yard.
So instead she finds the perfect most pristine wall near Broadway, where she knows it will get noticed right away. Pulling out every can of paint she owns she paints herself on the wall, crystal destroyed and crumbling around her, an arm reaching out to grab him, to finally reach him.
She leaves him enough space to finish it, smiling at her self-portrait on the wall before signing it.
She dreams of blowing snow and his rosy cheeks in the cold wind. Of snuggling beside the fire and listening to him read.
She does not actually expect him to be there the first night but there he was, in a sweater and jeans with a can of paint aimed at the wall she’d left him. She’s left entirely breathless at the sight, so much that she doesn’t even make a move towards him until he’s muttering curses about being out of yellow.
The sound of his voice, a voice that had been in her dreams for years, snaps her out of her trance, reaching in her bag for the last can of paint.
“Catch,” she tosses it at him, flinching as he catches it at the last second, his eyes (those blue eyes) full of confusion.
“Well,” her heart is racing at a million miles a minute, “You came here to finish it right?”
He smiles, and she feels all her anxiety slip away as he continues his half of their mural.
She slips over beside him when he backs away, pulling down her hood.
“Hi,” He says, and she can feel that boyish shyness in his voice that she loves.
“Hello,” she replies, happiness crashing over her to the point she’s sure it’s spilling into the streets.
Their hands slip together and she turns to look at him, taking in his eyes for a solid minute before speaking again, “I was starting to think I dreamt you up.”
“Me too,” he chuckles and her heart does a small summersault as he brushes hair away from her face, “Can I?”
“Yes,” She replies almost instantly before he leans in to kiss her, eyes closing as tears begin to trickle out.
Hands part as he wraps his arms around her waist and she twists her fingers into his hair, bodies pressed against each other in a desperate attempt to be as close as possible.
Their time tangled up in each other is cut short though, by a night watch policeman who’s cuffing them and dragging them downtown.
Booking goes amazingly smooth, and in the end they’re only held for an hour in total before Ymir and Krista come to bail them out. Armin smoothly deflects their questions about how they know each other, and how in the world they ended up in jail together, instead convincing them to drop both them off at this house.
As they drive away, him waving at the taillights in the dark, she looks up at the two story town house in confusion.
“I was just here like, a month or so ago,” she notes as he grabs her hand and leads her up the steps, “I beat this idiot at poker.”
“You’re the one who took all Eren’s rent money?” He almost drops his keys as he tries to unlock the door, looking at her in wonder.
“I spent it on paint cans and six new canvasses,” She replies informatively.
His laughter is contagious and she finds herself giggling all the way up the stairs as he leads her to his room. Their lips are back together the second he shuts the door, and she accepts the fact she’s probably going to fall asleep at work in the morning.
But she really doesn’t care, because when his hands cradle her face and his eyes are looking into hers, all she can feel is complete.
“I'm on my own, I'm Sly Stallone
I did it for you
I've outgrown my wings, and flown
Into something brand new”
-Every Subway Car ~ Barenaked Ladies