Chapter Text
The mattress hit your knees as you stepped backward, the cushions something you barely had the chance to register the comfort of before you were tripping over your own two feet and falling backward. The form on top of you doing little to help. Rather, it was only making it worse as Welt fell on top of you with an over exaggerated oof! Hair askew and glasses nearly falling off his nose from the game of tag you two were playing only minutes before around his room.
Having ducked around the desk, the trashcan full of crumpled up paper, a giant stuffy March gifted him as a thank you for helping her on their last shared Trailblaze mission, and lastly workout equipment.
All over one pencil.
His favorite, or so, Welt claimed. Apparently, it had the perfect grip, so it sat comfortably in his hand. To draw, it proved the best one was familiar with the materials they used. Like how every painter has a favorite medium as either watercolor, gouache, ect, seeped into the bristles of their brush.
Graphite covered the side of his hand, staining it a metallic gray you had grown accustomed to seeing in him when he slipped the gloves off and sat before the sketchbook he kept. One that was nearly falling apart now, bindings getting looser with every time he pried it open to add another drawing to the collection. If not that, to slip pages of your own horrendous attempts at doodling him away for safekeeping.
Despite your protests to simply crumple the paper up and toss it away as the garbage you saw it as, Welt insisted otherwise. Said it was something precious to keep, memories embedded in the scribbles that could barely resemble a human face. Nothing like his art. Not from what you've seen, at least.
You had seen him make circles and lines into something more than what you could see them as. A circle turned into a head, a box into a ribcage, a line, and another line paired together to make tweezers. It was only when that item was added did it click in your mind he was drawing the picture he took of you earlier that day plucking your eyebrows. For some reason.
“I believe this means you owe me my own materials back.”
“Now why would I do that?” You asked, trying to hold out your arm even further so Welt couldn't slip it out of your hold. To pluck it from your hand like one would a loose string on a shirt. Or, as is the case with the two of you, his scarf. Though, it's not like your effort could do much against the man who could, quite literally, make the item float out of your hand and back into his own.
Surely that had to be classified as cheating.
“Are you going back on your word from before, honey? I distinctly recall you saying you could wait for me to finish what I was working on.”
Yet here you are, still trying to play keep away.
“Yeah, but then I got bored.”
A sigh. One that brushed against your skin from how close he was. Like this, you could even make out the sparkle in his eyes. Or it could just be a speck of lint on his lenses. One of the two. “I suppose that's fair.”
“Exactly. So….” You trailed off. Honestly, you weren't expecting to get this far, so it wasn't a surprise you found your own words to be suddenly falling flat. “Well, if you are so intent on focusing on art, why don't you teach me something?”
There, interactive. An olive branch offered to his outstretched hand, grasping something you can do together.
“Teach you?” Welt repeated, mulling over the words as they rolled over his tongue. “I can work with that.”
The pencil was pulled from your hand before you could even whine in protest as he pulled away. Leaving you to place it on his sketchbook only to return shortly after. Mattress creaking once again as hands, now free to do as they pleased, slid along your cheek. Thumb right under your eye.
“You're a hands-on student, aren't you? If I remember correctly…”
“I am.”
Welt muttered an “excellent” as his thumb brushed through your lashes. Your eye squeezed shut on instinct, but this didn't seem to deter him at all. “Then we can start with our first lesson now.”
“That being, professor?” You didn't miss his eyebrows burrowing ever so slightly at the nickname, but still you smiled up at him like nothing was wrong.
“Basic shapes. We can start through profiles as an example.” His touch moved to the eyebags you had been sporting that morning, running along the colored hue of the skin that gave away your bad sleeping habits. Again. “The head is not perfectly rounded, but the shape that resembles the dome of the skull the best is still a circle. Eyes are round under the lid, also best drawn using a circle first.”
“I'm getting some real creepy imagery here, teach.”
“I can understand that. It might have been easier to pull up images instead to give you something to see. To lead by example.”
“But?” You asked, head tilting ever so slightly as you watched Welt silently mouth words.
“But first, let me ask you something. When I ask you to pick something round, specifically on the human body, what do you think of first?”
Well, your first thought was balls, but you were going to keep that one under a tight lid. Maybe even in a trash can. Though that does risk the chance of Stelle rummaging through and finding your secrets.
Second? Well, that was easy.
“The callous on your finger.”
Accrued from hours, days, years even of leaning over pen and paper and letting the images in his mind come to life. Something that's not perfectly round, but it always caught your attention nonetheless. Your own fingers ran over the bump anytime you hold hands.
“I think of a ring.” Before you could question him on that, Welt slid his thumb over your lips. It was second nature to press a kiss to it, just like it was second nature for him to smile at the gesture. “Or that earring you always lose and I have to find for you.”
“No need to call me out like that.”
“Ah, I apologize.” The look in Welt's eyes was enough to tell you that even if he was sorry, he still knew he had a point.
“Yeah, yeah, what else? I can't learn to draw from circles alone, professor.”
“This 'professor’ is beginning to think the student is in a rush. Now that's no good way to get A’s in my,” He took a moment to look around the room again, taking in the place you two shared and made your own on the express, “class.”
“Oh, I'm terribly sorry.”
“Your tone tells me otherwise.”
You bit your lip, trying to stop the smirk that was hoping to overcome you.
“As for more lessons, there are topics we can focus on.”
As he spoke, Welt's hand slid down your neck, tracing the hollow where the skin met your collarbone. Your shirt shifted ever so slightly out of the way, brushing against your skin the same way he was as his lips fell to meet yours.
“Anatomy, for example.”
“Now that's a big step from shapes.”
A giant leap, actually. You couldn't even draw a perfect circle, but here he is suggesting something that you've seen even him struggle with. Reference photos had been pulled up countless times as he drew. It was that, or, you'd find Welt standing before the mirror to see how his body shifts in this new pose. He's even asked you to indulge him once or twice and move along with how he places you, pen in his mouth as he chews on it to help him think. Or so he claims.
“No need to worry, we can start small. Besides, did you not just say you can't learn to draw from circles alone?”
Ahh, your own words. What a great way to turn them around and shove them back in your mouth. Something to choke on for fun.
“And what is this something small, professor?”
Fingers toyed with your shirt, unbuttoning it as Welt looked up at you, making sure this was okay. Just like he always did. With your nod, he continued, undoing the top three until the tank top you were underneath was peaking out.
“It's simple. Simple enough that I can show you.” Welt said. His lips met your chest, heart thrumming under him, beating wildly in an attempt to escape and give him what has already been his since the moment you first saw his smile at a stupid dad joke. Of all things.
“But something tells me this will be easier to do without these clothes in the way. Do you mind, honey?”
And of course you didn't mind at all.