Work Text:
"Now remember everyone, this is an exercise in relaxation. Don't worry about what it looks like, just paint your passion," the instructor repeats for the umpteenth time, but Hercules doesn't dare move his eyes from the blank canvas in front of him.
Almost a full hour had passed since the session started and he hasn't been able to come up with a single thing to put down on that damn canvas. "Paint your passion," echoes in his head, mocking him relentlessly. As if he knows what he's passionate about.
No, Hercules hadn't even bothered to pick up a brush or open a single tube of paint. As soon as he learned they would be painting today, what was supposed to be an uplifting support group for depressed and suicidal New Yorkers had quickly turned into the most agonizing hour of his life.
Against his better judgment, Hercules finally looks away from the blinding white canvas and sneaks a peek at the actual paintings in the room. A few seats down, a young war veteran who he recognizes from past meetings seemingly paints a patch of wildflowers. As Hercules looks on, the man begins to apply dark red paint to the pale petals and he decides he's probably seen enough. A bit closer to him, an older woman who had lost her husband from a hit and run a few years back seems to paint what Hercules initially thinks is a cat. However, on closer inspection, it looks like a dog... or maybe a hamster? If he squints and tilts his head just a bit, he thinks it could even be a--
"And how are we doing over here?" he hears to his left, and Hercules whips around to face the guest painting instructor staring down at him expectantly. "Having a bit of trouble, are we?"
"Oh, uh... No, I'm good," Hercules mumbles, scrambling to pick up a paint-stained brush. He may as well try to seem busy. He wouldn't want to waste any of the instructor's donated time, after all.
"Don't worry, don't worry," the instructor says with a smile that strikes Hercules as a bit too forced for his liking. "Just pick a color, any color, and let your brush flow across the canvas. And after that, pick another color, and let it flow all over again. Don't worry, just put something down. Anything at all!"
"Will do," Hercules says with a forced smile of his own, grabbing a half-full tube of paint labeled "cobalt blue." As he begins to untwist the cap, forcing bits of dried paint around it begin to flake off in his hands, but he only focuses on the sounds of the instructor's footsteps trailing away. With a sigh of relief, he quickly twists the cap back onto the paint and puts it back with the others and replaces the paintbrush in its cup. No point in wasting paint for nothing, after all.
Hercules glances over his left shoulder to make sure the instructor is really gone when his eye is caught by a gorgeous mixture of colors.
In the chair just next to him, a young man paints away at his canvas with a brush far thinner than Hercules knew existed. The stranger dots an odd mix of pale yellow paint onto a green field, leaning so close to his canvas that Hercules is surprised his nose isn't covered in paint by now. He leans back in his chair to get a better look at the man's painting, allowing his eyes to trail as they please.
An ominous cloud of gray smoke pours out from an old train passing by what appears to be the shambled stone ruins of a town left to rot among a field of wildflowers. Even on a still canvas, Hercules swears the train is in motion, and he can't help but wonder where it's going. He wonders where this old town is, with its abandoned stone fountain visible between what's left of the buildings. Near the bottom of the painting, a dry riverbed with grass and orchids sprouting from the earth sits still and Hercules imagines the river that used to flow over the pale stones. Was that why the town was left to rot? Was there no more clean water? As his eyes follow the same path the river once took, he once again meets the train, which he now notices is crossing over a bridge built to cross the river that no longer exists. Did the passengers of that train see the river before it disappeared? Do they know he's thinking of them?
"Wow..." Hercules whispers, catching the attention of the stranger sitting next to him. "Y-Your painting, I mean... It's, uh... really nice."
"You think so?" the stranger says, his voice cracking as if often unused, leaning back in his own chair to get a wider view of it. After a moment, he simply frowns at it. "I guess you could say that."
Hercules furrows his eyebrows. "What? You mean you don't like it?"
"Not really," the man replies in a nonchalant tone, returning his brush to the canvas to continue dotting at what Hercules now sees are the patches of wildflowers he admired before. "It's not really my best work." With an amused huff, Hercules shakes his head.
"If that's not your best work, then you must be a real Picasso," he says with a cheeky smile, but the stranger's mouth doesn't even twitch. Slowly, Hercules' smile fades.
"I wouldn't say that," the stranger mumbles, removing his brush from the canvas to rinse it in the mason jar of water provided by the guest instructor. Finally, he looks over to Hercules, his dark brown eyes locking the man in his place. Silently, he looks from Hercules to his blank canvas, and then back to Hercules. "Can't think of anything?"
"Painting's... not really my thing," Hercules mumbles, averting his gaze to the floor to get some respite from the stranger's gaze. "I'm not really cut out for anything like this."
"Me neither," the stranger says. Looking up, Hercules expects to see a joking smile from the man, but he's stunned to find the man is completely serious.
"But... you're an artist..." Hercules frowns, gesturing to the man's artwork, "... aren't you?"
At this, the stranger takes on a pensive frown of his own, and Hercules begins to worry that he may have overstepped a boundary. After all, he hardly knows this man. Sure, he recognizes him from previous sessions here at the support group, but the man never actually spoke. He never stays around long enough to chat afterwards and he surely never talks about his feelings during the actual meeting. He's always been another man who just blends into the crowd, and here Hercules was, stripping that part away from him.
Silence hangs over the two for an uncomfortably long time before the stranger eventually resumes painting. Dejected, Hercules retreats his attention from the stranger and returns to his own blank canvas, ruminating on his social blunder. Stupid, stupid. Of course, this is why he doesn't have friends. He should have minded his business. He shouldn't have said anything. Stupid, stupid...
"What's your name?"
Hercules' heart skips a beat as he looks back over at the stranger, but the man doesn't look away from his painting. For a moment, Hercules wonders if he was hearing things--auditory hallucinations are a common side effect of his medication, after all--but the stranger finally turns to look at him. "What's your name?" he repeats a little louder, and Hercules realizes he wasn't hallucinating.
"Hercules," he replies after a beat. "What about you?"
"My name's John," the man says, holding out his paint-covered hand to Hercules. Once he sees all the paint on his hand, John recoils a bit. "Ah shit, sorry. I think it's prolly dried?" Hercules smiles a bit and shakes the man's hand anyway, finding it surprisingly soft despite the dry paint dotting it.
"Nice to meet you," he says with a smile, and John nods his head slowly.
"Hercules, huh... That's a cool name. Wish I had a name like that. I'd be, like, a local legend or something," John says, dabbing his brush into some paint and mixing it around on messy palette.
"Yeah?" Hercules says with a smile. "What would you be known for?"
"I 'unno," John shrugs, using light blue on the top edges of the dark train, which confuses Hercules until he realizes it's the metal reflecting the blue sky above. Clever guy. "Prolly for painting some giant mural or something."
"You could be known for that without a cool name though," Hercules says, watching the paint build the scene.
"Yeah sure, but who really cares about some guy named John who painted a mural once? Which name's got the cooler signature at the bottom of the brick wall: some guy named John, or Hercules, God of... whatever he was the god of."
Hercules laughs a bit, shaking his head. "I guess you got me there. But what's stopping you from changing your name, or using a pseudonym for your art? You could sign your work as anything in world, anything you want."
"I guess," John shrugs as he cleans his brush off again, swirling the muddled gray water around in the jar. "But it'd never really feel mine unless it was my name on that painting, not some fake one... I guess that's why I don't finish paintings anymore."
With a solemn look, Hercules nods silently, watching him drag the brush against a damp paper towel covered in paint. "That painting looks pretty finished to me." John lets out a dry laugh that sends Hercules' heart leaping in his chest. Shit, did he offend the man?
"Yeah, I guess so... Still, it's kinda shitty. I think if this was my last painting, I'd be pretty pissed at myself," he says, leaning back in his chair with a frown. His eyes scan the painting, landing on each and every little mistake and imperfection. How he wished he had Hercules' innocent, unknowing eyes to look at his painting with.
"Your last painting... you mean, like... if you died?" Hercules says quietly, almost praying he hadn't been heard over the sounds of the other conversations in the room. Of course, by his luck, John turns to give him a side smile in response.
"Yeah," he says with a nod, looking down to the filthy tile floor of the recreational center. "I think about it a lot... If I died tonight, how many of my paintings would never be finished? How many would my dad throw out, only destined to be enjoyed by the rats at the dump?" Slowly, John's eyes trail up to Hercules' blank canvas and begin to stare into the pure white surface beaming back at him. "How many of the ideas rattling around in my head would never see the light of day on a canvas? If I died tonight, would I be happy with what I've created?"
Hercules stays completely silent as he watches the man think it over. John blinks and is returned to reality, where he suddenly dons a faux smile, but Hercules sees the empty pain in his deep brown eyes. "Eh, but what do I care? I'm not an artist."
"I think you are," Hercules says, but John only shrugs. "I don't think you would care that much about the art you create if you weren't an artist."
At this, John shakes his head and adjusts himself in his seat. "No, no. I'm not an artist. I'm just a plain guy who makes art sometimes. Nothing more to it than that... but hey, enough about my baggage. Tell me yours." Hercules' heart leaps at that, but John seems to recognize the question he's just asked. "Sorry, you don't have to--"
"N-No, it's alright," Hercules says, bringing his hands together to fumble with nervously. "I, uh... Well, I'm studying to be a tailor. It's not really as cool of a skill as art or anything, but... when I'm at my sewing machine, all my problems just seem to disappear. It makes me feel okay... even just for a little bit." John nods slowly at this, leaving Hercules quivering in his seat. He shouldn't have said anything. Stupid, stupid...
"I get that," John says, dabbing his brush into a glob of green paint and beginning to mix it with some yellow on his palette. Then, some blue, then orange, and back to green. "I used to feel like that with painting, but not so much anymore." He lifts his brush up to the canvas and begins to look for a spot to put his paint. Finally, he decides on the base of the town's fountain.
"Not anymore?" Hercules asks, watching him paint brand new shapes in front of the fountain. What is he doing?
"Nah," John says, gradually building an odd-looking figure. "It's kinda hard to enjoy the things you like when you're made to be concerned about how you'll make money from them, y'know?"
With a heavy sigh, Hercules nods his head. "Trust me, I know."
"I just think things would be better if I didn't have to worry about surviving all the time. If I could just... live and be happy, y'know?" John says, returning his brush to the palette to gather more paint. "But that's never gonna happen, so there's no point in wishing for it. Things aren't gonna change."
The room's conversations come to a lull just long enough for Hercules to notice the faint, rhythmic tapping on the roof above them, and he turns his attention to the window to see the sky has gone gray. Thank goodness he brought his umbrella. Rain dribbles down the windows of the recreational center, but John continues to paint, entirely unconcerned with the weather outside.
"So... is that why you come here? To these support meetings, I mean," Hercules asks in a hushed tone, knowing full well he's breaking the number one taboo of their little group. If someone wants to talk about what brings them here, you let them, but you never, ever, ever ask them to share that part of themself.
"I guess," John says, a hint of discontent crossing his freckled face. "My dad said it was either this or the streets. The latter's looking better by the day," he says with a grin to himself, but Hercules doesn't reciprocate.
"Geez, and I thought I had it hard," he mumbles to himself, shaking his head. John shrugs his shoulder.
"It's not so bad. No matter what I do, all roads lead to hell anyway, so that's reassuring," he says, grabbing the brown paint tube and unraveling the cap to put some more paint on his palette. "Just depends on how fast I get there." Hercules furrows his eyebrows at that. What is he talking about? At once, an unpleasant idea appears in his mind and begins to gnaw at him like another familiar emotion.
"John..." he says quietly, glancing around the room to see if anyone may be watching. "I'm sorry for asking, I know it isn't my place, but... earlier, when you said if you'll die tonight, did you mean--"
"Oh, look at the time! Ladies and gentlemen, I believe we're out of time!" the instructor suddenly announces, and the other support group members begin to pack up their belongings. "We're all done for today, but feel free to take the paints with you and finish those paintings! I'll be back next week so we can see what awesome progress you've made on these pieces!"
Hercules feels his heart begin to pound in his chest as he turns and sees John packing up his own art supplies to leave. "John, wait--"
"Oh, and be careful, folks! I think it's raining outside, don't let the water ruin your hard work!"
"Hey, wait a minute," Hercules says, standing from his seat to grab John's arm. Silently, the man looks up at Hercules with a blank expression. "John, what did you mean when you were saying if you died tonight?"
"It was just a thought," John says with a smile that doesn't reflect through his eyes. "Nothing more. I gotta get home. It's been nice chatting, though." Hercules' heart leaps in his chest again as John pulls his arm free and stands from his own seat, grabbing his bag from the ground to put the paint tubes into.
"W-Wait. John, I have to know, did you mean you're going to do something tonight?" Hercules asks, stepping forward to try to stop him. "Are you safe at home?"
"Geez, you act like I'm going to kill myself or something," John mumbles, tossing the paint brushes and palette into his bag without any regard for the paint spilling on his belongings.
"I need to know that you won't," Hercules says, putting his hand on John's.
With a heavy sigh, the man shakes his head and zips up his bag anyway, lifting it up onto his back. "Look, it's been nice chatting, but I gotta go." John grabs his painting off of the easel and turns on his heel, beginning to head for the door. In a panic, Hercules begins to look around at something, anything, to stop the man. He stumbles forward to pursue him when his foot suddenly kicks something next to his chair, and looking down, he spots it: his black umbrella. An idea appears in his mind.
"Hey, wait!" Hercules shouts, and scrambles to grab the umbrella. He chases after John and only barely makes it to the door before he does, effectively blocking the man inside the rec center.
"What are you doing?" John says, stumbling backwards in surprise and looking around the room to see all the eyes watching him. His cheeks and the tips of his ears heat up in embarrassment at the sensation.
"It's raining outside," Hercules says, pushing the umbrella forward toward him.
"Yeah, and?" John frowns, trying to ignore the audience watching them.
"And you've got a masterpiece in your hands," Hercules says with a smile, looking down at the painting. John's gaze follows, looking down at the disgrace the man before him just called a masterpiece. "If you go out in the rain, you'll ruin it. Take my umbrella."
John's heart begins to pound in his chest, and he shakes his head a bit. "N-No, I can't. It's just a painting, it's not worth all that trouble and--"
"Please," Hercules begs, and the silence of the room hits John's ears so hard he fears it may deafen him. He stares up at Hercules, utterly baffled, trying to understand the man's motivation. "Please take it. And promise me you'll return it at next week's meeting." Suddenly, John understands the secret plea, and he begins to regret being so vulnerable with a man he had only just met. No, this isn't about the painting at all. John finds he has no choice but to take the umbrella.
"Yeah..." John mumbles, refusing to break eye contact with Hercules. "I'll give it back next week."
"Promise?" Hercules asks, to which John only nods, his throat suddenly feeling too tight to speak. He feels the familiar pressure welling up in his eyes and decides the only option he has is to leave.
So he passes his new companion and pulls open the door to the recreational center, pushing open the borrowed umbrella and disappearing into the rain, leaving Hercules and the rest of the support group members behind to watch him go.
--
The following week, Hercules is the first to arrive at the recreation center, arriving so early he catches the tail end of a previous support meeting for war veterans. However, as he's finally allowed to enter the center and set his easel and canvas up, the only thing he can think about is John. Never before has he been so eager to attend one of these meetings, but as more and more people who are not John begin to gather in the room around him, and as the clock rolls over to signify the start of the meeting, his eagerness turns to dread.
John isn't here.
Hercules' heart pounds in his chest as he turns to the empty seat next to him. What if he sat somewhere else today? Looking closely at the faces around the room once, twice, and even three times, he knows that can't be. Is he hiding? No, don't be stupid. Why would he do that?
Endless possibilities flood through Hercules' mind like a tsunami, crashing and devastating him with each and every new wave of thought. What if his car broke down? Or his dad prevented him from coming? What if he overslept, or was on his way but forgot his painting at home? What if he had to work today, or forgot where the rec center is and can't find his way here? Explanations and excuses come to Hercules faster than he can process them. He absolutely must not consider the possibility of John falling through on his promise.
"He promised," Hercules whispers to himself, letting out a shaky breath to try to calm himself. There's no way he would actually... Hercules shakes his head quickly, trying to rid himself of the thought. No, he promised. He wouldn't break his promise, he wouldn't--
"Hey," Hercules hears to his left, and he whips around to face the source of the voice. Just next to him, John stands next to his chair, setting his painting up on the easel casually, with the handle of the umbrella hooked around his forearm.
"Y-You're here..." Hercules sputters, feeling immense relief washing over him. John merely shrugs his shoulder.
"Yeah. I don't really like breaking promises, y'know?" he says with a side smile before taking his seat. He unhooks the umbrella from his arm and offers it up to Hercules. "Thanks for letting me use it."
"No problem..." Hercules mumbles, reluctantly taking the umbrella back. "I, um... was kinda worried about you..."
"Oh, yeah," John says, shrugging his bag off of his shoulders and letting it fall to the floor. "Well, I kinda got carried away with working on my painting and lost track of the time." At this, Hercules turns his attention to the man's painting and feels his heart skip at what he sees.
Right there, sitting on the wall of the cracked fountain, sits a man. No, not just any man. It's Hercules. Right there, on the painting, his miniature self looks up to regard the train passing by over the dry river bed. He doesn't wave, he merely sits on the fountain, holding a black flower out to... a turtle?
"You painted me," Hercules breathes, his heart skipping in his chest.
"Yeah, you kinda inspired me or whatever," John says dismissively, beginning to pull his painting supplies out of his bag.
"That's so cool, thank you... But, uh," Hercules pauses for a moment, leaning over in his chair to point at the turtle. "What's up with that little guy?"
"I like turtles," John shrugs with a smile.
"So... you painted me feeding it a black flower?" Hercules smiles, staring at the painting. "It fits in well with the dark clouds and the train going over the bridge."
John scoffs at that. "Well first of all, when it's a bridge made for trains, it's called a trestle, so write that down." Hercules can't help but laugh at that, and it nearly startles him at how unusually easy it comes to him. "And second of all, you're not feeding the flower to it. You're giving it to him. It's a promise."
With a heavy pause, Hercules stops to consider the implications. "A promise..." he echoes quietly.
"Yeah, that's what I'm calling this piece." John shrugs his shoulder dismissively. "I 'unno. I thought it was fitting. Just one last thing I gotta do."
Hercules watches on in silence as John grabs the tube of white paint and pours some out onto his palette. He grabs a thin brush, dabs it into the white paint, and lifts it up to the bottom right corner of his canvas, delicately painting long strokes along. After what feels like forever of waiting, he removes his hand from the canvas and drops his brush into the empty mason jar.
There, at the bottom of the painting, the artist leaves his signature: John & Hercules