Work Text:
He’d finished sculpting the bust months ago. It was something of a private passion project that he kept out of public view, something he never intended for anyone to see but his own eyes.
Brassius had spent the last two years rekindling his love of the art after struggling and losing interest. In spite of the growing sales, he was dissatisfied with his creations. But ever since he met his dear friend, Hassel, the tall, blonde dragon trainer had inspired him to create again. There was just something about the man that had dug its way deep into the artist’s heart.
Too deep, in fact. He was madly in love.
But love was too risky a venture for him. Bad things always happened when he fell in love. He’d been told many times before that he was too strange, too passionate… too much.
And if there was one person in the world who he never wanted see the too much side of him, it was Hassel.
But he couldn’t stop his heart from wanting, and in that wanting he memorized every feature of his friend’s face, from the high cheekbones and narrow but defined nose to the deep-set eyes, the regal jawline and enticingly long eyelashes. The way his thick, straight hair curved neatly along his clavicle and draped neatly across his upper back. How he wanted to run his hands through that hair!
The lips, tantalizing, always curved up in the sweetest of smiles as he looked down at Brassius from his towering height.
The artist felt small next to his dearest friend. But that only made him ache more.
He lived in fear that he would, in an unhappy accident, in a moment of joy that Hassel often brought out in him, stand up on his toes, wrap his arms around his friend’s shoulders, and accidentally kiss him right on those soft lips, instead of on the cheeks as one would normally in greeting and parting.
That fear struck like a chord in his soul.
Letting his friend know just how much he wanted him was the one thing he absolutely could never do.
But he needed to release that tension, otherwise the fear of messing up their friendship would overwhelm him and he would never be able to face the man ever again.
So with his regular purchases of art supplies and sculpting materials, he had bought a large, uncut piece of alabaster. This wasn’t unusual by any means, as many of his sculptures were carved of the popular stone. He placed it in his small, rented studio, now that he had enough money to afford one. It was hidden in plain sight, amongst all his other works in progress.
And along with some of his other works that he didn’t want anyone who might have walked in to peek at, he covered it in a veil of plain linen.
He worked on it at night, when no one would dare to interrupt him, long after any prospective clients – few that there were – would ever stop by, and much later than Hassel would ever stay and play and sing and paint alongside him.
Brassius would close the windows and the blinds so no one could peer in, unveil the soft, white stone, and begin to chisel and indent and sand and smooth the stone until the features he had long memorized in his mind became clearer, sharper, more obvious.
He carved a bust – life-size, from the top of the head down to the broad, naked shoulders – of the man he openly and affectionately called his Muse.
And late in the night, when the world was silent except for the tools scraping and his feet sliding across the dusted floor, he would lift the veil on that now-sacred bust, to slowly trace the lines of the jaw with his thumb, to run his fingers along the lines of hair he knew would have been soft and light to the touch, but he could only dream of that.
And gently he would lean up, touching the top of the bare chest with the utmost admiration, and press his lips carefully upon one smooth alabaster cheek.
At first, he would wipe away the residue of his cheap lip balm, ashamed of his irrational behavior. And hastily he would re-cover the object which resembled his beloved, making sure no features were visible underneath the material, and he would close the workshop for the night and run off to his apartment, red-faced and shaking.
He knew it was crazy. He knew it was a bad idea to do this, but somehow, it made interacting with Hassel – the real one – just a little bit easier.
The longing was lessened, ever so slightly, when he could wrap his arms around alabaster shoulders. It kept him from doing so to Hassel himself. It was cold, but if he stayed long enough, the stone would warm under his touch.
But of course, the temporary fix didn’t last.
“You’ve been working on that one for a while now,” Hassel commented one day, seemingly out of the blue. He pointed to the covered ‘work in progress’ with a cute tilt of the head. “You know how hard I try not to pry, but this one has been under the tarp for quite a long time. I can’t help but be a little curious what kind of detail must be going into it…”
Brassius felt the panic rising. Of course Hassel would notice.
He had a moment of deep, deep fear that his friend had already seen it, somehow, or could tell what it was. He felt the world around him spinning before he could adequately reply.
He started to sway, lightheaded, and then fell suddenly to his knees to cradle his head in his hands. He let the vines of his long hair fall over his face, covering the sudden redness on his cheeks.
“Brassius, what’s wrong?! Ahh, stay with me. Stay with me, ok?”
The artist felt Hassel’s hands on his shoulders, then one slung around his back, holding him upright while they knelt on the floor together.
He reached a hand up to push weakly at Hassel’s chest, trying to brush him away. It was warm, and real, and so much better than the pristine stone. A lock of hair got tangled in his fingers as he scrambled – soft and clean, just as billowy as he’d imagined.
Things he committed immediately to memory, expecting to never experience them again.
“I—I’m alright, Hassel, I’m alright,” he managed to say, voice a bit tight from the sudden fear. “Sorry. I think… I haven’t eaten in a while. That’s probably why I felt so lightheaded suddenly…”
Hassel wrapped an arm around Brassius’s slender waist, and pulled him gently to his feet. The dragon tamer didn’t let go, in case Brassius fell again.
And for better or worse, the artist was shaking and weak in the knees, and grateful and horrified at the closeness all at once.
His heart ached.
“Let’s get you something to eat, then! I’m pretty famished myself,” Hassel said with a worried expression. “Do you… think you can walk? Or should I run out really quickly and grab something for us both? I think the kebab place is still open…”
When Brassius looked up, grey eyes peering out from behind his long, moss-green hair, the grip on his waist suddenly grew shaky and loosened, and Hassel turned suddenly to look away.
Brassius knew exactly where he stood. It must have been disgust, he knew it, he could tell. He felt his heart break as he reached for a nearby stool to steady himself again, while Hassel took a polite step back.
“I’m fine. I can handle a walk. It’ll do me some good, I think.”
“Are you sure you can? You haven’t taken a tumble like that in a while. I don’t want to see you overexert yourself—”
“No, I’m perfectly fine, really! Look.”
He stretched a little, and took a few steps to prove everything was fine. Right as rain.
That put a smile back on Hassel’s face.
Brassius couldn’t stop his imagination from taking the leap, wondering what it would be like to run up and hold that face in his hands. But that was never going to happen.
His stomach twisted nervously. What was wrong with him?
He needed to focus on the moment. He could deal with his feelings later.
So he buried them, and moved forward, step by step. He even managed to smile.
They came back with a bite to eat, and a bottle of wine to share. They spent the night in the usual way, Brassius working on some other project while Hassel decided to strum a little on a guitar, then turn on the CD player and make some sketches nearby, on the ground, back against the cold brick wall.
But Brassius could see the curiosity in his friend’s eyes. The blonde periodically glanced up and over at the covered statue that sat in the far corner of the room, but politely refrained from further inquiry.
Any more questions would have surely killed him on the spot.
And as usual, he declined to let Hassel walk him back to his apartment, citing the need to work on something for a client, and that he wouldn’t be “too late” – lying through his teeth.
After their standard goodbyes – which had become hugs lately, and he wasn’t sure why exactly, but he basked in the heat of being pressed up against his friend’s chest, arms tight around each other that he wished would last longer than they actually did - the door closed, and he waited a few minutes – stalling, in case he heard a knock – before rushing over to the statue in the corner.
He was shaking. The warmth from the hug goodbye was beginning to fade, but he could use it to bring the stone to life.
Brassius lifted the veil like what lay underneath were a bride, letting it fall behind the bust like tresses of hair falling loose from a hair tie. He wrapped his arms around the bust’s cold shoulders and held it close.
He pressed himself tightly to the cold alabaster, transferring what remained of the heat of the real embrace into the stone, and imagined a heartbeat coming from within.
His mind replayed the fantasy from earlier that night, the vision of holding that face between his palms – unworthy though he knew he was – and…
And what?
He stood back and stared at the thing. If ever he’d doubted his skill, this was proof he was, in fact, quite good at making sculptures. The details were perfect, down to the finely carved irises, strange without the honey and amber tones that belonged to the living, breathing man, but in his desperation, he didn’t care. His vivid imagination filled in the gaps between fantasy and reality.
And he lived his fantasy by cupping the face between his pale, sweaty palms. Before he could stop himself, he leaned in and pressed his trembling mouth to the smooth alabaster lips.
He lingered there for a few moments, either to still his racing heartbeat or to try to feel the one he swore lived within the statue, he couldn’t say. But instead of pulling back as he should have done, he did it again.
He leaned just barely off to the very edge of the mouth. Then again on the bottom lip. He left behind a pinkish sheen from his own lip balm, a tiny splash of color left in the wake of his presence.
When he came to his senses, the bitterness of shame crept up like a vine crawling up his spine and wrapping around his neck until it sank into his soul.
He didn’t even bother to wash the thing off as he had done so many times before. He hastily returned the fabric cover to its place, gathered his things, and closed up shop, glancing over his shoulder to look at the covered bust in the corner, like he couldn’t bear to leave it alone like this.
He tore his eyes off of it, and left.
In his haste, he didn’t even notice that the window was left open as he practically ran back to his apartment in the dead of night.
Late morning the next day, by the time Brassius made it back to the dingy studio, the cool breeze had uncovered the bust, leaving it naked and visible to anyone who had passed by and peeked in through the open window to see what the strange artist had been working on. It wasn’t the only thing he had covered, and some things were susceptible to the humidity, so with great annoyance he had to recover every work in process and gently wipe down everything that needed air-drying that sweat with every minute shift in barometric pressure.
But the first thing he ran to was the bust of his beloved, before he even shut the offending window. His heart was racing.
‘Who might have seen him?’ Brassius thought, tense, as he meandered through his workshop in a frenzy. ‘Who might have noticed him hidden back in the corner? He was surely in enough shadow to remain hidden even if he was exposed like this…’
He felt weak as he remembered being held so close for just a moment that night before. As he fell, and as they said their goodbyes. Suddenly the hair on the back of his neck felt sticky, and he longed to yank it up into a higher ponytail or even a small bun, just to get it off of his skin.
He could barely manage to get through the day.
And for some reason, Hassel didn’t reach out to him at all that day or even that night for their usual creative forays.
It happened on occasion.
But two nights in a row was unprecedented.
The place was far too silent without Hassel’s presence, so his mind filled in the void.
Brassius of course ran maddening scenarios through his head. That the golden-haired man he was in love with finally found someone worthy enough to have caught his interest. He fantasized darkly that Hassel was going on dates with some beautiful woman, someone becoming of the man’s nobility, walking arm-in-arm through the streets of Levincia. Kissing her wildly under the neon lights of the bright city at night.
He held a hand to his heart as it twisted in a knot.
He fantasized that Hassel was introduced to some maestro who insisted he play in his orchestra that very night, lest his dream of becoming a famous musician fall to the realm of lost ambitions. He might be lifting the bow of a violin at that very moment, caught in the overwhelming cacophony of sound, hair glowing like a halo under the stage lights and earning the applause of the entire audience.
“He wouldn’t even invite me to watch him perform?” he whispered to himself. “Of course not. I’d need to find a nice outfit, and… I don’t have one right now… Not one that’s good enough…”
He imagined that Hassel’s strange family had finally come to drag him home. Wouldn’t even give the man a chance to say goodbye. He’d seen Hassel’s face fall a few memorable times when he received a call from a strange number, only for the voicemail box to record the annoyed voice of some woman or another, sometimes speaking in another language, but usually in the common. Hassel had changed apartments enough times over the last year alone to keep them from finding his address along with his new landline numbers. Whatever kept him in Paldea, Brassius would never fully know, but he was grateful every day.
The artist clenched his hands in the wet, malleable clay he had been aimlessly playing with as his thoughts eroded his feeble emotions. The clay sputtered through his fingers, far too wet to be useful, nearly drowned in the grayish water from the bowl at his side. He was hardly paying attention to what he was doing while he spiraled.
“What if they found him after all?” he closed his eyes and tried to restrain himself from crying. “What if I never hear from him again? Never see him?”
Brassius couldn’t wipe his eyes when the tears started to fall, so he cursed under his breath and ran to the standalone sink up along the side wall. He turned the faucet on and rinsed off his muddied arms, taking an extra few minutes as he splashed some water on his face, wiping away the tears by hiding them among the rivulets flowing down from his cheeks and caught in the ends of his long, wavy hair.
He reached around for a towel, grabbing the closest one he could with his eyes closed. It was dirty, but good enough to dry his arms and his face and dab at his eyes.
The artist’s hair was still wet when he gave in and ran over to the corner where the statue remained silent under its covering. His mind was still spinning with terrifying ideas, that Hassel would never come back to him. Two nights gone was just too much.
“Was it something I said?” he proclaimed as he pulled the covering off of the statue, throwing his hands in the air as he started to pace. “Did I stand too close to you in the kebab line? Was I too obvious when you picked me up off the floor? Did I scare you away?!”
The frantic artist tugged anxiously at his dark green hair, letting large strands of it fall loose from the tie at the nape of his neck. He’d been letting it grow out too long again. It was getting to be trouble.
He turned to clasp the bust’s shoulders firmly, staring right into its concentric alabaster eyes.
“What did I do to push you away?”
Brassius felt a heaving in his chest, and he stifled a sob by wrapping his arms fully around the cold shoulders of the statue. But he couldn’t stifle it for long, eventually crying openly into the wide curl of hair that, if not for being stone, would have given way to the strong neck where he truly wanted to be.
And in the midst of his crying, the artist did not hear the door to his studio open. He had simply forgotten to lock it for the evening, a not surprising given his state of mind. But the person who had entered took great care, upon hearing the sobs, not to be heard.
Not to be a distraction.
The door was closed quietly, carefully. A few steps on the concrete floor, and then a pause.
“I miss you,” Brassius said, out loud, but low. His voice would have cracked if he’d said anything more, so he restrained himself.
The person who had entered locked the door cautiously behind himself, keeping a low profile.
“I don’t know what I would do without you,” Brassius continued his lament, leaning heavily against the cold and lifeless statue of the man he loved. “Please don’t leave me so suddenly. It’s too much… it’s just too much for me to bear!”
The man who had entered left a bag on the ground by one of the tables, and stepped cautiously forward. It’s not like Brassius noticed, in his state of mind, what was going on around him.
Not even his primordial sense of danger was triggered.
Perhaps because the trust was too strong, and he knew instinctively that he could trust this presence.
Hassel observed the commotion from a few paces back, watching Brassius sob hysterically against an alabaster bust that could have been his twin, in spite of the stern expression it bore.
The dragon trainer was stalwart in his conviction, however. If there had been a cutiefly on the wall, it would have seen the tall blonde observe, moderately concerned, then shifting to wistfully adoring, and then to resolute, as he watched the green-haired artist shed anguished tears.
Hassel had shed his own tears over the past two days as he had considered and reconsidered and reconsidered his position and his ambitions.
But after watching in uncomfortable silence for only a few moments – but felt far longer – he knew what he had to do.
“Why would I ever leave?”
His voice was soft, but somehow it echoed through the room like a bold declaration.
Brassius stiffened, then pulled back from the bust. His arms were still around the broad stone shoulders, and he stared at the face suspiciously.
“Oh Arceus, don't you start talking to me. It’s pathetic enough how badly I want to talk to you, but I can't be dealing with hallucinations, too—”
The artist suddenly, slowly felt a body press up behind him, and envelop him in a warm embrace. It was a hug, friendly, but lingered so much longer than it should have. The sensation was indescribable. He found himself unable to move on his own, shoved firmly between the statue and the man behind, out of the line of sight.
But soft golden tresses brushed up against his chin and cheek. And his mind went blank.
Hassel’s arms were around his own, chest up against his back, left hand clutching to a single long-stemmed red rose. The petals brushed up against Brassius’s right arm.
That went completely ignored.
“You’re not hallucinating, Brassius. I wanted to talk to you, too,” Hassel whispered, lips brushing against Brassius’s ear. Knowing the dragon tamer’s lack of deviousness – or so the artist had assumed, perhaps - it was probably an innocent enough gesture, not intended to generate the sparks Brassius felt travel to his gut. “I saw you the other day after I left. I apologize, I can’t lie to you, but I saw you through the window. That’s why I haven’t come by. I had to think, so… I’m sorry for making you wait. Terribly sorry.”
After a few beats, Brassius realized he was breathing heavily. He hadn’t intended to, but the physical pressure and the adrenaline from the shock of being caught – by the one person he never wanted to get caught by – was overwhelming him faster than he could have expected.
The artist’s voice came out raspy when he said –
“The window…”
Hassel released the artist from the tight embrace, giving the man the chance to turn around if he so wished. However, Brassius couldn’t bear to do it, and he heard his companion sigh.
“Yes. I… Well, I certainly didn’t mean to pry. Your privacy is paramount, and I would never intentionally intrude, but when I saw by happenstance that you were running to unveil this in private, I confess that I needed to see why.”
Brassius’s shoulders tightened at the inquiry. Words were failing him, but his emotions were flaring. He wanted to crumple up and be done, but as he felt his knees begin to buckle, he leaned heavily against the table and placed his forehead on the statue to stabilize himself.
He felt a hand press up against his back in an attempt at comfort, but he was too tense to feel anything but a sharp spark, like pain. Oh, Hassel was being far too touchy at such a time, the artist could barely stand it.
“Why? Why would I what, exactly?” Brassius finally snapped and turned around. His face was red and still wet from crying. He hated being caught like this, and tugged suddenly, maddeningly at his own hair. “I’m too ashamed… Too ashamed to talk about it, to even look at it. Please, don’t look at it. My life is ruined, I’m so sorry. I am so sorry for making something so confusing. I’m going to destroy it, yes, that’s what I’m going to do.”
Brassius looked around for some tool, a hammer or a saw or something, anything within arm’s reach, but there was nothing nearly close enough, not even if he tried to run. Not that Hassel would have let him do something so dangerous.
The dragon tamer was enamored by the artist’s impulsiveness when it was used for creativity, but not in a moment where his bouts of mania gave way to more self-destructive tendencies.
“P-please, Brassius, I don’t want you to destroy it,” Hassel said, a little shyly, but the shyness was lost on the artist in that moment of disarray. “I saw it a month or so ago – an honest mistake, really! I was walking through after that night after the concert in the park, and we were stumbling around and at some point, I… well, you were fast asleep on the floor and I was going to grab one of the clean tarps as a cover, and I just…”
Brassius covered his face with his hands, slowly. The only thing keeping him upright was leaning against the table, one shoulder against the statue, his visible shame.
“You saw it…” Brassius’s voice cracked, though it came out as a whisper. “…and it didn’t sicken you?”
Hassel shook his head, though Brassius couldn’t see it through his hands.
“No, of course not. I was impressed! I might have even… oh, I teared up a little, maybe. A—and since then, I’ve been wondering when you were going to reveal it, but that day just never came. Of course I would love to know why you have been waiting so long, if you’ll indulge my curiosity…and maybe then I can indulge yours.”
That last part came out a little hoarse. As though the man had to work up the courage to say it.
Brassius’s thoughts were so scattered and frantic that he felt a strange wave of calm come over him. Like the euphoria of nearing the top of a roller coaster, the fear of looking over the edge just before the inevitable fall, knowing that he couldn’t stop what was going to come next whether or not he even wanted to.
“Why I waited? You want to know why I waited?” Brassius said low. He thought it was kind of funny that he had to answer something that should have seemed so embarrassingly obvious. “I was never going to show it to anyone. Not even you.”
“Then why did you make it if not to show it to the world? Were you going to hide it forever? Just like everything else you make, your heart shines through it, and I think that deserves to be seen.”
“Hassel, please, this is too much—"
Brassius tried to brush aside all the unnecessary compliments. He didn’t think he deserved them, especially not for making something so personal.
Though usually polite, Hassel gently interrupted.
“Wait, please. I think this is the first time I’ve seen you sculpt a human before, not a Pokémon. I’m genuinely honored to be your model, even if I didn’t know it at the time. Even if you didn’t plan to show it to anyone else. Also…”
The tall dragon tamer pulled Brassius’s hands away from his face, and they gave way far faster than he had anticipated. Gently he placed the single long-stemmed rose in the confused artist’s hands.
If Brassius had been able to lift his eyes, he would have noticed how rosy his companion’s cheeks were, a color to rival the petals of the flower he had been given. It was a shockingly innocent gesture.
“…May I try to indulge your curiosity now?”
Brassius was certain that he didn’t know what Hassel meant by that. He had no idea. He was too focused on the flower and the meaning of it to realize the thorns were still on it, so when he finally did realize what was happening, he nearly nicked himself on the sharp, tacky edges.
Hassel cautiously but firmly cupped the artist’s cheeks, warm between the palms of his hands and thumbs brushing across the tender, tear-stained skin. He leaned in, and instinctively their eyes closed as their lips met in a kiss.
A real kiss.
The saltiness of drying tears mixed with mint chapstick and the faint breath of a shot of cheap whiskey that Hassel had downed before walking in the door. A spot of liquid courage.
Bliss.
It was Brassius who licked his lips and deepened the kiss ever so slightly, eyes closed and lost in the feeling, like it was a dream and he could do anything he wanted.
And in that moment, he probably could have, had he had the courage.
It took a great deal of deliberate effort for Hassel to pull back, even for just a moment. The blonde remained in that little space that was so close between them that it felt orbital. His voice was heady and low.
“I hope the real thing was better than stone.”
Hassel whispered this with a giddy laugh. Like it was nothing, featherlight. He curled a length of his golden hair behind an ear, a surprisingly shy action.
Brassius sighed.
“I…” he spoke slowly as his thoughts began to collect and form after having been scattered. He was still feeling scattered. Did that really just happen? “I…… I must be dreaming…”
But he held the rose upright while his fingers danced around the dangerous thorns. He brought the petals up to cover his mouth. Between the layers of his messy, tangled hair, he looked up cautiously at the man he adored.
The man who had just handed him a rose and kissed him.
The man who was glancing away suddenly, unable to meet his eyes.
That sinking feeling kicked in. Was it all a test? Was he failing?
He was so distracted by his feelings that he didn’t notice how red Hassel’s face had become between the locks of yellow-blonde hair falling down to frame his jaw.
“Did you want to try it again?” Hassel ended up saying, voice cracking slightly from nerves. “To see if you’re dreaming?”
Their eyes connected briefly, and Brassius abandoned all of his thoughts.
He nodded slightly.
Hassel gently pulled his hand down and off to the side, so the rose petals were no longer blocking the way. The dragon tamer leaned over Brassius, causing the artist to lean back hard against the bust.
It was a surreal feeling to be caught between a rock and a hard place in the most literal sense of the phrase. As his lips were captured – much more confidently this time – he felt a hand on his waist, holding him in place.
It was everything Brassius had ever dreamt of. He felt lightheaded and giddy and hot all over.
He reached up and wrapped his arms around Hassel’s shoulders, pulling him even closer.
Yes. This was what he needed.
The dragon trainer kissed along the line of his jaw, and nipped along the curve of his neck.
Hassel pushed his hips forward, trying to press flush against the smaller man. Brassius opened his legs slightly to accommodate the welcome intrusion.
He wanted to lean back, to give the blonde more access, but the alabaster statue held firm behind him. He stretched his neck at an angle, and Hassel brushed back the long, mossy curls to kiss slowly down the pale, thin neck.
It was starting to get dangerous, this dance they were performing together in the fluorescent light of the studio.
The artist moaned as the dragon tamer sucked a little too hard on the flesh of his neck just below the ear. A beginner’s mistake, but Brassius was willing to forgive him anything, as long as he kept going.
But the noise was just a little too real for Hassel, who pulled his head back up even as his hand swiveled from Brassius’s slender waist to the small of the back.
They breathed together for a second before Hassel leaned his forehead against Brassius’s.
“I think I like you…” he whispered.
Brassius blinked. It was funny enough that he started to laugh, just a little. He was giddy down to his toes.
But could he say it back? The words caught in his throat, but he nodded just a little, and struggled through it.
“Of course you already know how I feel…”
The rose he’d been given was still in his hands, arms still around Hassel’s shoulders, though loosened now. He tilted the flower so that the petals tapped against the side of Hassel’s head. The red contrasted beautifully with the man’s yellow-blonde hair, and Brassius made a note of it. He could use that…
No! Not the time for a distraction. Right now he had to focus.
Hassel shifted his weight from one foot to another, and Brassius was brought very clearly back to the moment. The tall blonde was still caught between his thighs, warm against him.
But Hassel smiled innocently. Perhaps the man really was more devious than Brassius had ever thought?
Oh, but there was no way that was true.
Bright amber and orange eyes glistened. There was some happiness there that Brassius wanted to capture forever in a bottle, like fireflies.
“Can we go back to your place?” Hassel said with the warmest smile the artist had ever seen. Even as he spoke, a tear started to fall, then another. “I thought we coulb…” he sniffled. Another tear. “…bake sobething for subber…”
Hassel only ever cried happy tears. Brassius knew, finally, with absolute certainty, that this wasn’t a dream, or a fantasy, or a fluke.
Something he’d wanted to do for a long time was finally in his grasp. And he took the opportunity.
He cupped his hands gently on the side of Hassel’s head, golden strands of hair beneath his pale fingers; he leaned up and kissed away the tears from each cheek.
His own tears were dried on his face, now. How pitiful they must have looked, if anyone had seen them.
Hassel sighed into the gentle touches and closed his eyes as he continued to try and speak.
“I know you hab things ib the pamtry we cam make,” he sniffled. “Amb I brought your faborite boddle…”
Brassius whispered back, “Porto?”
Hassel nodded.
Brassius kissed him on the lips.
He didn’t need supper. He didn’t need wine. He needed more of this intoxication.
“Let’s go back, yes.”
Finally – despairingly! – Hassel pulled Brassius away from the statue with the hand on his lower back.
Separating felt cold. The air hit their bodies like ice, so they stood close to each other, shivering slightly.
Brassius held the rose up to his lips again as he watched Hassel step slightly ahead of him, grab the bag left by a front table containing that bottle of wine and some other things, and unlock the door to leave.
He felt the ominous presence of the alabaster bust behind him, staring like an old god into the empty air.
Should he keep it? Destroy it? Paint it? He didn’t know.
Wash it, at least.
Hassel reached for his shoulder, pulling the artist out of his swamp of thoughts. After letting out the tears, he reclaimed his voice, as he always did.
“Come now, let’s go.”
Brassius shut off the lights and locked the door behind them. He wondered what the view had been like through the window – now shut – would have been like.
It was funny how much his body was tingling. His mind was unfocused, thoughts all over the place. The emotional whiplash from despair to elation was almost too much.
But the arm draped protectively around his shoulders kept him grounded.
He leaned in as they started to walk.
This was definitely better than the cold stone he’d grown accustomed to the past few months, that he swore he’d hide forever.
And now it felt like a better forever was stretched out ahead.