Work Text:
The arches of Sevika’s back are like stretches of fields, Mel decides. If she were to paint this scene, it would be this: broad swaths of warm browns and golds, a woman made planet. Her brawn the slope of the earth, shifting and shuddering and expanding out in front of Mel for endless miles.
She’s painted her before, of course. Most of the work she’s completed in the past few months she can never send to be exhibited – not that Sevika’s ever seen them, either. Painting so many portraits of a woman you’re simply sleeping with – very few strings attached – might be considered something of a faux pas.
Now that Sevika is practically living out of her apartment, Mel muses, the few strings that are there might have become a little tangled.
“What is it?” Sevika’s voice is always rough in the comedown. She only has one eye cracked open, resting on her arm, tucked under her head like a pillow. Lying on her stomach, her legs disappear under Mel’s dark sheets.
From her position against the headboard, Mel leans down to press the lightest kiss along her shoulder blade. “Nothing,” she says, and it convinces neither of them. “I’m admiring you like one would a sculpture.”
Slowly, Sevika uncurls a finger from the fist underneath her cheek. Mel is close enough that she can run a nail along her thigh. “A sculpture couldn’t do this.”
“I meant that as a compliment, not a challenge,” Mel says, but she doesn’t bat her hand away. Sevika snorts and settles back. Mel can feel her gaze as she untangles herself from the sheets, standing up and shrugging her silk robe over her shoulders, abandoned at the feet of her easel right next to the bed.
Her most recent work in progress is dull. The colors aren’t right, no matter how many times she mixes them, and the shapes she’s spread across the canvas are still just outlines of the real thing. The city skyline, even with all its rises and falls, is flat.
The moment she picks it up, the brush feels clumsy in between her fingers. The sketch under strips of paint is too dark, too defined – scribbles she can feel under her fingertips and bristles alike – and she still doesn’t know how to continue.
“You’re thinking too much,” Sevika says.
“Not enough, more like.” Mel doesn’t turn away from her canvas, but she can hear the press of springs, the shifting of the sheets as Sevika rolls over and sits up. She bites the flesh of her cheek between her molars.
“When has your head ever helped your hands?”
She’s grown to appreciate Sevika’s practical perspective. While her mother’s outlook is cutthroat, Sevika simply looks every problem in the eyes. “When my fingers were inside you, perhaps,” Mel offers, and gets another snort of laughter in return. “I just don’t know… how to shape this one. How to get it where I want it to be.”
“Just paint it,” Sevika says. It’s not impatient, it’s just blunt. “You’ll see the shape as you go. And if it’s terrible, we’ll burn it.”
“I’d rather not get the fire department involved.”
“I’ll put it out myself. Medarda.” Mel turns, like she always does, at the sound of her name in between Sevika’s teeth. “If you don’t want to paint it, don’t. But you’ll never get anywhere just staring at it.”
“Maybe,” Mel says, only it comes out more a whisper. She feels it in her throat. She blinks, but the dried hues don’t blink back, and neither does Sevika. “Did I…tell you my mother sprung a visit on me?”
They both know this is the first she’s mentioned it. Sevika shakes her head.
“She’ll be here on Thursday. In the city.”
“I’ll clear out,” Sevika says, and Mel sucks in air. They’ve never really talked about Sevika staying at her place for so long – a few weeks back, she simply stopped slipping her boots back on. It wasn’t awkward, it wasn’t pushy – it simply was, like they had shifted into another world entirely, one where Sevika’s motorcycle had its own parking space and she brewed Mel’s morning tea perfectly after just a few bitter missteps. A world where the air was still, and the bed was warm.
“You don’t have to.” Mel swallows around her own words. “I – I was rather hoping you’d join us for dinner, actually.”
She turns back to her canvas to avoid examining the way Sevika’s eyes widen. She doesn’t say anything, or maybe Mel just can’t hear her over her own pulse. “I think you two are somewhat similar,” she continues, just for the sake of it. She squeezes a little bit of gold oil paint onto her palette. “I don’t think I should consider that too closely, actually. But you might get along. Or you wouldn’t be able to stand each other - that always seems to be how it goes, with my mother.”
“Alright,” Sevika says.
“Don’t feel like you have to. I know it’s – sudden –“
“I said what I said.” There’s a hand at Mel’s shoulder, callouses at the palm and the fingertips. The touch is warm and bright and sudden, like a sparkler. “Just tell me where and when.”
Mel leans back into Sevika’s broad chest and lets an arm wrap around her, collarbone to collarbone. Her mouth is dry. “Okay,” she says, softly, “I will.”
When she closes her eyes and breathes shallow, Mel swears she can feel both their heartbeats.
Sevika pulls away, eventually, and disappears to scrounge up lunch. Mel is left with her head and the painting. It could be beautiful, she considers. It could be grand and vulnerable. It could be metamorphic.
She holds a brush in her fingers and thinks, maybe it already is.