Pride and Joy ✓

twenty two

SATURDAY. 18. DECEMBER. 21.

"THIS one," Denver said, stopping in front of one of the paintings hung on one of the many white walls. "I like this one."

Hands shoved in the pockets of his jacket, Nate turned his head and peered at Denver, sauntering towards him from where he'd been inspecting another painting. "Okay," Nate nodded, stopping beside him and observing the painting he'd found. "How's it make you feel?"

For the first time since he'd looked at it, Denver tore his gaze away from the painting and blinked at Nate. "What?" He asked, hands at his sides as he fiddled with his fingers.

"How's it make you feel?" Nate repeated, nudging into him gently, still gazing at the painting.

Denver looked back at it and blinked again.

It was the early afternoon and the two of them had taken the train into the city together again so that Nate could take Denver to the art gallery. It was quiet and the room that they'd found themselves in was empty but for them.

Nate had been here so many times that he could probably identify the locations of various paintings and pieces of art without even thinking about it, but he still looked astonished as he walked around, stopping constantly to inspect pieces he'd probably analysed a million times already. There was something almost painfully endearing about his infinite adoration, and the vibrant intrigue in his sage eyes made Denver's heart feel funny.

Since they'd arrived, he'd instructed Denver to examine the paintings until he found one that 'spoke to him'. Of course, Denver had no idea how to identify a painting that 'spoke to him' because he wasn't exactly sure what that was supposed to feel like. When he prompted further explanation, Nate merely replied that he would know when it happened— which didn't help at all.

Admittedly, he'd been a little skeptical at first. It wasn't that he'd never deeply connected to songs or movies or characters, but he didn't know anything about art and worried that he wouldn't find anything that would spark anything inside of him.

Then he found it.

He was staring at a painting of a young man. He looked as though he was sitting down, facing the viewer, but he was cut off by the waist and there was a white blindfold covering his eyes. His hands were cupped in front of him, almost as though they were reaching out of the painting, and he was holding a galaxy in the shape of a human heart. The background behind him was a blanket of midnight, sprinkled with silver stars, and his lips were almost smiling.

He wasn't sure what it was about it but he couldn't stop staring; he was completely mesmerized by it. There was something unspoken about it that he understood; there was a feeling in it that already lived inside of him, like stardust in his veins, stars in his heart. In whatever way he seemed to understand the painting, the painting understood him.

There was something irresistibly magnetic about how it made him feel, something so terrifyingly human and visceral. It terrified him as much as it enchanted him; the enigma of it, the ambition. There was something so brutally honest about it— so direct and frank— and yet there was something intimate about it that almost made him feel like it belonged only to him. Both feelings made him nervous and he still couldn't look away.

"How does it make you feel?" Nate asked again, his voice soft as Denver tried not to let the presence of the painting engulf him.

"I don't know," he murmured.

Nate moved to stand behind him, placing his hands tenderly on either one of Denver's shoulders, his chest inches away from Denver's back. "Don't get overwhelmed," he whispered. "Look at it. Don't think; just feel."

"Nate, I—" He began, his heart leaping forward, like the heart in the painting; about to burst out.

"You're thinking," he hummed, a light humor in his words. "Don't think, Den."

There was something oddly vulnerable about it all. The way that Nate stood so closely behind him, the way that his heart accelerated and his stomach soared. When he realized, as he gazed at the painting, that Nate was looking at him, his heart began to beat so fast he worried it might kill him.

"It scares me," he managed, half-moons in his palms.

"Why?" Nate asked quietly, patiently.

"Because I think it understands me," he continued, not daring to look away from the blindfolded boy with the heart in his hands. "It overwhelms itself, but it's okay with that."

"How do you know?" Nate asked.

Denver felt his hesitation burning inside of him.

"Don't run from it," he instructed.

"Because he's smiling," Denver explained finally. "He's happy to have the heart in his hands. He's happy to have this piece of humanity and love— the heart— even if there's something uncertain about it, even if there's something about it that is unfamiliar to him. He has no idea what all of that space inside the heart means and he doesn't know what it might hold but he lets himself be consumed by it anyway."

"Why's that?" Nate prompted softly, hands still resting on Denver's shoulder.

"Because all of the space inside of the heart is just like the sky around him," Denver continued, praying that the butterflies would stop fluttering so wildly. "He's wholly engulfed by it and it's terrifying but he's okay with it. Everything he feels is a mystery to him but there's something so instinctual about it that he embraces it anyway."

Nate said nothing; he took it as a cue to keep going.

"It understands me," he repeated. "It understands my fear, and it takes my hand, and pulls me through it, and I don't feel as scared anymore. It makes me feel as safe as it does terrified. There's something wild in it, a passion and a tenderness, an intensity that lets you unravel it. It's chaos that makes sense and it makes me feel like everything is alright. I can't stop looking at it and I don't want to stop looking at it because I never want it to end. I don't even think I could ever get bored of it. I feel like it's showing me everything it has to offer but I also feel that every time I look at it I'll find something new. It's completely engulfing and I think it could swallow me whole. I wouldn't even mind."

At some point, Nate had released his grip on Denver's shoulders and was no longer standing behind him. Instead, he stood beside him once more, gazing at him like he was the beginning of the universe and the end of it.

As Denver tore his eyes away from the painting and dared to meet Nate's eye, he wondered if enough adoration in someone's gaze could kill you. His whole body felt like it was on fire and the words were tumbling out of his lips before he could even stop to think about what they meant.

"It makes me feel the way that you do."

An invisible heaviness lingered in the air between them, like the pull of the magnet that had brought Denver to the painting. There was something in the furrow of Nate's brows, the vehemence in his eyes, the almost quiver of his flushed petal lips.

Then Nate's hands were cupping his face and he was pulling Denver towards him.

Nate kissed him and he was engulfed by it.

He was falling deeper and deeper through the universe; the stars blurring around him as he fell further and further. The way his heart began to burst out of his chest petrified him and the soaring inside his stomach began to consume him completely.

But Nate's lips were soft, and smooth, and tender, and Denver began to understand. He imagined his heart in his hands— filled with stars and space and galaxies— and he smiled against Nate's lips, kissing him deeper when he felt Nate smiling back.

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originally published
Sunday. 02. Jan. 21.

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