✔︎Ballerina Boy ❥ ot4

❥eleven❥

❥Eleven❥

            Ashton, Michael, and Calum entered Luke's room to wake the artist, only to find him humming and tapping his feet as he sat in front of a mirror, painting his face. He was sitting at a dressing table with a large mirror, but small pots of skin-safe paint filled the spaces for cosmetics. Luke was using only blue on his face, yet he had at least fifteen paint pots laid out in front of him. Ashton struggled to decipher the difference between two of them, and knew that asking Luke would turn into a two hour lecture about it. Ashton loved watching how passionate the artist got, but he also knew that Luke would run out of air if he, Calum, and Michael always sat quietly.

"Hi." Luke spoke casually, as if it was perfectly normal for him to be painting his face at five in the morning. He spun in his paint-spattered chair to face the older prodigies. The blonde artist pointed at the beautiful wave that he'd painted on his features. It curved over his nose and seemed to be crashing into the ocean on his chin as he spoke, his facial expressions animated and happy. Luke's crystalline blue eyes blended in flawlessly, his eyelashes looking like leaping clusters of fish. "Can you tell that it's a wave? Noses are annoying," the boy said, scrunching said nose. He paused, before speaking again. "Well, they're annoying for an artist who still has lots of room to improve."

"It's beautiful," Ashton whispered. "Are you wearing it to the gallery?"

"Yeah," Luke said, gently touching the paint to reassure that it was dry. "I have to sit by my paintings for three hours as people walk by," he explained simply. "Maybe the face paint will make it more interesting." Luke gasped, suddenly and excitedly. "Can I paint you guys, too? It could be water, fire, earth, and air," he said, eyes bright. "My art teacher might let you sit with me." Ashton nodded, glancing at Michael and Calum to see that they were doing the same. When Luke got excited about painting, it was hard to reject his hopeful eyes and small, optimistic smile.

            The blonde bounced with excitement, dunking his paintbrush in a special solution for cleaning brushes. "Ashy is, um...." Luke squinted, staring at his three companions. "Air," he decided. "Calum's fire, and Mikey is earth." With that, the lanky boy started painting. He playfully shoved Calum into his vacated chair, straddling the boy in order to comfortably reach his face. And because the artist liked sitting on his boyfriend's lap.

            "Did you say you have to sit by your paintings for three hours? Paintings, like, plural?" Michael asked Luke as he grabbed the paints that he needed. The ebony-haired boy sat on Luke's bed, tugging Ashton onto his lap.

            "Yeah," Luke said, biting his lip and squinting as he gently stroked a paintbrush across Calum's forehead. "I submitted three, and Madame K wanted all of them in the gallery. She said that if I won first, second, and third it would...." Luke trailed off as he started to paint Calum's nose. The artist's nose scrunched and he poked his pink tongue out of the corner of his mouth. Ashton, Michael, and Calum were used to it. They waited quietly, Calum being sure not to move his face. Luke continued speaking after a few moments. "...really irritate the other schools. They've been saying that AAG always wins because we host the gallery," he said. "The judges don't even come from our school," the artist mumbled.

"What did you paint this year that's so special that you can't show us until the gallery?" Calum asked, careful to move only his mouth and not the rest of his face. Luke still flicked his lip gently.

"You'll see," the blonde mumbled. He lightly pinched Calum's bicep as the artist put the finishing touches on his boyfriend's nose, humming tunefully even though it was a mix of a screamo and a children's song. Once the artist finished painting Calum's nose, a Blink-182 song was added to the mix. The rest of the paint job didn't take long, and Luke scooted back to reveal it after roughly half an hour. Flames bloomed from his eyes, curling across his forehead, and disappearing into his hairline and off the edges of his face. The dark brown irises looked like the wood that sparked the fire, the whites of his eyes were the white-hot heat of burning.