Work Text:
He’d been taken aback when nobleman Takami asked for him specifically among dozens of starving artists trying to make a name for themselves in sour parts of the city.
Despite the initial tumultuousness and the slight weighted fear of a past returning to haunt him, he’d agreed to come by on a Thursday afternoon. Dabi knew in good faith that his worries were stubborn plights of paranoia and trusted the transparency of the rich; They’re never too clever after all.
Sir Takami’s eyes were glassy with greed over the quality of his pieces at such a low price. Better to make it seem you’ve emptied out your pockets when in reality, you’re not even forking over top dollar.
He can’t afford to be picky, the amount of money he’ll receive will be more than enough to buy several loaves of bread, perhaps with a healthy slather of butter if he’s keen enough.
On the morning of his departure, he listens to the customers billowing in and out from the bakery downstairs. Two wives are in an enthralling discussion about the weather over tea, giddy over such clear skies, without a cloud in sight after the onslaught of rain on the previous days. It’s enough for Dabi to forgo his peacoat and left with a pair of dark slacks, a matching waistcoat, and an unstarched white collar shirt that still had a smudge of orange paint on the cuff. He’ll have to push up the sleeves when he’s painting anyways, but that didn’t stop him from the initial fiddling of the blasted thing.
The entire ride there he’s keyed up, watching the rustic parts of the city fade as they pass by the big church, all across the riverbank, until there’s nothing but trees and the homes that proudly stand with a wealth that make old scars on his wrists itch. They stop by an impressive home with eggwhite pillars and a gated entranceway with complex designs curled into the metal. It’s not the biggest house he’s ever seen but it’s enough to make Dabi think twice before taking his suitcase and supplies and clambering out the carriage.
Sir Takami greeted him at the doorway, head adorned with a silk top hat and a patterned suit jacket with coattails that swished around his calves. He shook his hand in a firm grip, introducing him to his wife, a tired eyed woman with too much blush on and satin gloves that didn’t fit her hands properly.
They led him further into their home, a plethora of furniture and knick-knacks placed all about like those fancy boutique shops Dabi’s seen in passing. He’s taken to the main room, brightly lit by all the lengthy windows rising up against a high ceiling painted a clean beige that went well with all the gold accents. Though clean there was an intense floral and smokey that made him mildly uncomfortable.
He makes note of the spiral staircase leading up to the second floor, the large brick fireplace void of a painting above it, and two, who he guesses, are servants in uniform milling about in the kitchen. He keeps his shudder at bay when he walks across a soft rug with his old work shoes.
Finally, he drops off his supplies by their heavily cushioned sofa, flanked by two others, and furnished with ornate tiny side tables and bowls of lavender potpourri. He does another once over the room while Sir Takami continues his welcoming spiel with too much pomp and circumstance for a man that doesn’t even come up to Dabi’s neckline. His gaze stops by the corner of the room. There’s a window, curved at the top, and cracked open a tad to let the sheer curtains dance and a grand piano, untouched and glossy. He’s entranced by the precious dots of dust particles floating like stray sprinkles in the air.
“If you’d like to settle further, we could brew up a pot of our finest of teas,” Sir Takami’s voice tunes back into Dabi’s mind and he shakes his head in a polite decline.
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to waste too much of your time, sir,” he says, adjusting his easel.
Madam Takami huffs a sigh that has his gaze flickering towards her. “You wouldn’t be wasting anyone’s time, dearie,” she says, her voice an ornery and fragile thing, “the maids will do all the work.”
“It’s best to get to my work,” Dabi grumbles and tries not to startle at the man’s booming laughter and the hearty slap of his shoulder.
“I like the attitude, young man! We’ve been meaning to do another family portrait, really would brighten up the room,” he muses, “why, the last time we posed for one was years ago when our baby was— Well, still a baby!” He lets another peel of hearty laughter before clapping his hands together.
“Now, speaking of our baby, where’s that tyke gone off to now?” He asks pointedly at his wife who sighs, waving down one of the maids and flicking her wrist skywards.
“Children,” the man sighs, “you have any of your own, young man, a wife perhaps?”
Dabi studies his blank canvas and levels his voice to rid of any underlying annoyance, “no children or wife, sir. I’m married to my craft.”
He nods as if Dabi had said something insightful or charming. “A fellow your age has got plenty of time. I believe you’re around the age of my little wily one actually.
Dabi tries not to wrinkle his nose, the strange inflection of the man’s sentences suggest he’s gossiping about a horse rather than his own child. There’s also an anxiousness about him that must give him an inability to be still, if his over adjustment on his lapels are anything to go off on.
“What was your age again, dearie?” His wife speaks up as though she’s interested but her eyes are still trained on the upper level.
“Twenty-two.”
“Ah, my little one just turned eighteen,” Sir Takami chuckles, an edge to his voice that Dabi doesn’t dignify with a response.
He hums his nonchalance, hoping his disinterest comes across while digging through a pouch of charcoal sticks and pens for his nice weighted pencil. “Would you mind standing by the window over there? The light coming in is nice,” he adds with a forced afterthought.
They murmur their affirmation, shuffling their expensive shoes across but they’re interrupted by the clack of new footsteps descending from their staircase. The wife tuts a disapproving sound, at the drop of her pin her weariness transforms to agitation and mumbling about lateness and the “nerve” of her—
Oh.
Dabi can’t do much about the faint breath that escapes from his stunned lungs, nor the way his pencil slacks in his careless grip; At the very least he pulls himself together before it clatters to the floor.
Golden.
That’s the only way you can describe such a person. He floats with a warmth taken from the sun, the swirls of his dress raking up from the bottom puff of his gown all the way up to the heart-shaped neckline plastered on like a second skin. Expensive jewels drip off flushed ears and the intricate braids keep blonde wisps from his star ridden cheeks. His softness does not override the strength in those amber eyes. He’s a renaissance painting given life and it makes Dabi’s fingers itch tremendously.
His mother fusses over an unruly eyebrow, licking the back of her thumb to smooth it down to which he flinches. He says something to her that Dabi can’t hear, all he knows it sounds like a molten pot of caramel.
“There she is!” Sir Takami says, clearing his throat and waving them over, “cease your fretting both of you, we are in company.”
Their introductions are short, a breathy passage of time and two minutes worth of tedious small talk before Dabi is able to begin what he came here to do.
This he knows, the delicate drag of lead across the scratchy surface of paper and taking in all the minuscule details with a clear eye and transferring it over, it comes to him like breathing. Everything from the perspiration above one’s lip, the distant glassiness of the Madam’s eyes, and the wrinkles on each hand. He restrains barking out a complaint when Sir Takami’s hands keep repositioning from clasped to unclasped or an unsure hand on his wife’s arm.
He takes good care of young Takami, sitting up straight on a chair between his parents. The slope of his curved nose is fun to sketch, as are his collarbones that jut out in clean lines and his mouth remains permanent in a smooth, pillowy pout, lower lip bigger than the top.
His eyes are most intriguing, slanted to a sharp point but his lids are hooded, dusted with a soft glossy sheen. His gaze is faraway to an unseen surface, though his expression is a clean slate of emptiness, there’s a twinge of something loaded that makes Dabi remember sunsets and high mountains. Then their eyes meet so suddenly it makes him pause right when his pencil meets his cornea.
The other looks away and the moment is broken.
He finishes the sketch, wiping his granite stained palm with an old faded handkerchief before putting down two thin layers of paint for the background, and with the chime of a grandfather clock, he is done for the day. He pockets his earnings for the day, declines their offer for tea, and takes his leave without much fanfare.
He’ll make regular returns throughout the month, keeping himself professional when their sessions begin to break out of its silence by entering conscientious discussions about the weather and how long Dabi’s been painting. The conversations are controlled entirely by the master of the house, who never gets out of that nasty habit of ruining his pose to jostle around his disassociated wife. He’s an overbearing presence, eventually roping Dabi into tea one too many times but he can withstand the obnoxious wealth if it meant leaving with his pockets a tad heavier.
He never gets to exchange words with the young Takami; He floats off to the kitchen or back upstairs after Dabi’s packed up to leave.
Yet he feels as though he’s seen too much, with every session their eyes meet at least once and it never fails to bloom the ever growing embarrassment in his weak stomach. Eye contact is unavoidable when you stare at someone for so long. Dabi has done it with dozens of past customers and it’s always an awkward occasion that is passed by with an easy shrug, it’s bound to happen.
The difference is the way—no matter how many times they meet—the man’s eyes constantly widen like he’s been caught doing something heinous. He then turns, visibly swallows and Dabi can barely focus on his shading when he’s watching the motion of his throat bob and the redness creep onto the tips of his ears.
The last painting session comes unannounced, and Dabi is welcomed in by the maids who address him kindly and politely take his coat. There’s spices in the air and as he enters the main room, for the very first time, all three members of this lavish family are lounging with plates of half-eaten finger sandwiches and tea. It’s almost too much to look at them. Dabi could see that they wouldn’t look out of place in one of those films or the cover of a magazine, where the leading man in a bow tie and dress shoes leads his family glammed in gowns and diamonds. It’s a testament of what Dabi has lost when he can no longer fathom a life like this as his own.
He can’t help but spare a glance at the mirror hanging artfully to his left, being met with a handsome pair of blue eyes marred with bags and scar lines. His neck is a hideous thing that he attempts to cover up with high collared shirts and wool scarves, and his hair blackened with homemade dye. Next to this family, he looks… Wrong. Too long and too angry.
Sir Takami says his hellos enthusiastically with crumbs clinging onto his facial hair and remarks on how he can’t wait to have his new artwork displayed for all his future guests to see. They leave behind all their plates for others to clean up and into the poses they must be tired of.
Today are the final touches.
He’s not much of a narcissist or a romantic in regards to his own work, but even he could admire the way the oil paint blends exactly where he wants it to. Oil paint is not very forgiving, and the fumes often singe his eyes, yet there’s a pleasure in this. It’s the creaminess when it all comes together, the last bits of highlight on a cheekbone, and lining the threads of their hand-stitched clothes.
His hands are never clean by the end, and that’s what gives him the incentive to continue.
Sir Takami is thrilled, hurriedly leaving the room to fetch an amount of money that has Dabi’s stomach growling with the promise of a good meal. The madam doesn’t take too much time examining the painting, as she’s already moved on and looking for her maids to find a large enough frame. Young Takami doesn’t scuttle away so quickly this time around, in fact, he lingers and stares at the finished piece with tight lips.
They’ve never been in a room with just the two of them, and that fact makes Dabi’s skin prickle while he packs up his belongings.
“You do spectacular work, sir.”
Dabi freezes, the man’s voice was a lot lower than he anticipated and when he glances over, the sheer intensity on his face is entrancing. What’s more interesting is the slight waver of his lips, sending an… interesting spark up his spine.
“Thank you, la—”
“Stop,” he chokes out quickly and Dabi does so, confused for a moment’s breath.
“... I apologize for that… Bout of rudeness,” the man says, “just Takami is fine.”
Dabi nods slowly, “thank you… Takami,” the lack of honorific feeling strange in his mouth, “I must also thank your father for choosing me.”
“Right,” Dabi thinks that’s the end of that, trying to wipe his muddy hands as much as possible when Takami interrupts once more.
“Would you do another?” He’s smiling apprehensively, coughing when Dabi looks up at him like a deer in headlights, “I take a liking to painters and architects. ‘A lover of art’ my parents like to call me,” he laughs shyly. “If you are available, I’d pay you well. This piece is… Is truly remarkable, sir.”
Dabi chooses now to really look him up and down, raking his eyes up the golden swirls of his dress, the tight bind of his corset that accentuates his hips and most importantly, the scrunch of his nose and the furrow between his unruly eyebrows. Those eyes that are dangerous and molten and good.
“I’m quite booked,” he closes his suitcase, “... however, in a month or so, I’ll have time if you’d still be interested.”
“Yes, yes that would be wonderful,” Takami breathes like there was a sigh lodged in his throat the entire time.
“Did you have something in mind?”
There’s a flutter of emotions that pass by the blonde’s expression, lower lip jutting out in thought, “... Another portrait. Boring, I know, but I’d like one of just myself. My parents have their own so… I should have one myself. I’d reckon it’d go well over by the archway, don’t you think?” He points over an unblemished finger but Dabi never once takes his eyes off the softness of his cheeks, his waist, his hidden legs.
“Excellent choice,” Dabi says with sincerity so thick that he can see the effects it has on the other with how he looks away, an organic blush dusted over his cheeks. Beautiful.
“Right, very well,” he coughs and adjusts his already perfect dress when his father finally comes tumbling down with a handsome reward for all of Dabi's work.
He says his goodbyes and is given back his coat. The maids see him out, but Takami stops him before the door closes all the way to bid him a personal farewell. It’s nothing more than “I’ll see you next time” but it has Dabi feeling much too warm on the entire ride home. He undoes his coat, thinking about all the ways he’ll paint the freckles all collected in Takami’s nose and decides that tonight, he’ll treat himself to some wine.
He allows a private smile at the thought.