Work Text:
Cazador’s hands are stained, paint worked deep into the creases, darker residue in his nail beds.
The first washes have dried on the stretched paper exactly as he intended – clean edges, soft blooms where the pigment has been allowed to wander through the water.
And Vellioth is coming alive.
He studies the face he is painting under the candlelight, half-built in layered washes. The structure of his bones beneath his skin is already there, locked beneath the colour. He can see it through the paint so clearly in his mind. Every wash of paint wraps around his bones, reinforcing shadow, lifting pigment where the planes turn towards light. The illusion works.
And he is unbearably beautiful, even like this; unfinished, thin and unreal. Beautiful beyond words.
Which is why he hasn’t touched the eyes. When he tries to picture them, the image won’t settle. The rest of the face is clear to him. But the eyes? In his mind, they fade into black caverns. He rinses his brush anyway, and turns back to the palette, working the colours together. A clear, high red first, then a deeper, cooler note to give it weight. He tests the mix on a scrap, watches it dry lighter, adjusts again.
The thought of erring makes his stomach turn. Unforgivable.
When he finally lays the colour down, he is so careful. So precise. Breathes to steady himself, and passes over the paper as though haste would be some kind of insult. Soft, as though a single misstep will invoke the figure’s wrath, as though the paper might tear him to shreds, or worse, tear itself.
It’s not right.
Not perfect.
Cazador exhales sharply and lifts the pigment with water, dabbing it away. The paper begins to roughen, and suddenly he’s petrified; petrified he’ll damage the surface, ruin everything.
He pulls in a breath to ground himself. Tries again. Adjusts the mix. More red. Tries to coax the eyes to life.
The brush slips. A single streak marrs the work, cutting across the throat like a careless blade. He squeezes the brush until the wood creaks. For a moment, he imagines snapping it and burying the splinters in the canvas.
“Cazador.”
The sound of his name on his lips snaps him out of himself so violently he nearly drops the brush. Vellioth. He hadn’t heard him enter, hadn’t heard him kneel beside him – has he been here the whole time?
Candlelight gathers along the pale curls of his hair, catching white and silver.
His gaze goes straight to the painting.
“Look at it. Look at what you’ve done.”
His spine locks as the air seems to narrow around his throat. His mind empties itself of everything except readiness; readiness to be corrected, readiness to be torn apart.
“This is extraordinary,” Vellioth says.
This is… What?
“But… I’ve made mistakes,” he tremors, unable to look at him.
“It’s beautiful.”
The words don’t make sense, but he feels their strange weight, their warmth.
“Radiant. Like you,” he murmurs, calm and comforting, “You can fix it, just by lifting the paint away. Do not worry.”
He tries to let the words settle in his heart, that forbidden place inside him. They make him dizzy. Weak, as though a single glance could wash him away.
“So talented,” Vellioth continues. “You always were. I am proud of you, Cazador. I think this will be your best yet.” Vellioth’s hand lifts, motioning to the room. Cazador follows it, and the room opens around him. There are portraits everywhere. Stacked against the walls. Leaning in corners. Some half-covered with cloth.
Him. Vellioth. Again and again and again, Vellioth smiling, stern; looking away, looking straight through him. Vellioth in shadow. Vellioth in light. Vellioth in grand clothes, fit for a queen, fit for a king; Vellioth in armour, in simple linens, in his skin; everything in-between.
A gallery of his devotion.
“See? You have never been alone, my love.”
Cazador’s mouth opens and closes, stupidly, as his stomach dips in shame, though he is unsure why.
Vellioth turns Cazador towards him with the lightest touch at his elbow. Close enough that he can see the pale veins beneath his temples. He does not dare look into those eyes, afraid of what he will see there.
Then he lifts both hands to his face. Caresses his cheeks, thumbs brushing tenderly under his eyes.
“I love you,” Vellioth says, like it is the simplest thing in the world. “I always have.” Cazador pauses, frozen in the weight of those words. They feel incomprehensible. Like nourishing light pouring into the starving darkness of his soul for the first time, voice wrapping him in a warmth that felt as perfect as the setting summer sun. “You are the only one I have ever loved.”
He wants to shout. Wants to scream I love you, too, but somehow his throat is frozen.
He lifts his hands to Vellioth’s face, paint still damp on his fingertips, crimson staining his pale skin.
Vellioth’s brow creases faintly. His thumbs pause against his cheeks. “You are shaking,” he whispers.
I’m fine, Cazador thinks automatically, but the words never quite reach his mouth.
The tremor isn’t only in his hands. His whole body tremors as if his bones are trying to shake themselves free.
And then their eyes finally meet. Not a sidelong glance, not a softened gaze into his face. Their eyes lock, and his gaze, it’s so bright it hurts, like nothing in this world. That red. A red that does not belong to pigment or paper; or anything that could be held on a brush. Red like something lit from within, like coals fresh from the eighth circle of hell, pulling him down, down into him.
When Vellioth speaks again, his voice is cold, and he cannot quite see his lips moving.
“What did he do to you?”
He doesn’t understand. The voice doesn’t seem to be coming from Vellioth. He? Who is he? There is only Vellioth.
“What–”
The edges of his form blur, just slightly, like paint disturbed before it has dried. His fingers tighten around Vellioth’s face, rippling as though painted underwater. “No–”
“What did he do to you?” the voice repeats, Vellioth’s voice, but his lips don’t move, he hears them in his head, echoing twice, thrice, louder and louder like storm clouds gathering overhead.
Cazador feels something wet and warm against his abdomen.
He looks down.
Blood is spreading through his blouse in a dark, blooming stain. Pouring out of him as though something has been punched right through him and torn him open. Soaking the ivory linen, pouring down his thighs, painting him in deep, thick shades of crimson.
Vellioth’s warm smile falters. “Cazador…”
The sound of his name is warped, syllables stretched out.
Cazador tries to hold on. He tightens his red-smeared hands on Vellioth’s cheeks, but they feel brittle and dry, whatever warmth there was is draining away, the light leaving his eyes–
“Don’t.” he says, voice trembling, thumbs pressing into Vellioth’s cheekbones. Don’t leave me here. Please. Don’t–
Vellioth’s eyes go empty.
I can be better, I can do anything you want, be anything…
There is no colour left in his skin. It’s not even there.
Bones. Bones in his cold hands.
He clutches the skull tighter, desperate, as if holding it hard enough might coax flesh back onto bone, might make warmth return.
Yellowed, bare, jaw loose. Empty sockets staring back at him.
Stone presses against his knees. The air is damp and sour and familiar.
For a moment, his mind refuses to move forward. This cannot be the end of it. This cannot be all there is. He has not finished yet, he was in the middle of something, he was–
Something gives way inside him. Something violent, folding him inward.
He curls over the skull as if it’s the only thing keeping him in this world.
The grief swells, overpowering and trapped, slamming against him again and again and again, searching for a way out – through his throat, his ribs, his skin – and finding none. All that escapes is the shaking, his body convulsing around a pain it cannot expel.
I’m sorry
The words never reach the air. He doesn’t know who they’re meant for. He only knows they are insufficient.
Tears fall anyway, hot and useless, pooling briefly in the hollows of his lovers’ eye sockets before running down and disappearing into the stone.
He weeps until the last colour lifts from the world – and even then, he does not let go.