Memento Mori (MxM)

Chapter 8

Inspiration had come at last. It was a tremendous thing, to look at a person and be able to visualize the precise lines, curves and gradients required to transport their visage onto canvas. That man could inspire art with a mere glance in Calael's direction. He had found his muse at last, and the joy that came with such a bout of inspiration was infectious. After that first sitting in the studio, Calael was not satisfied. He was teeming with ideas and desperate to draw him again.

It soon became a regular, daily event. Sometimes Artemus would be posed in the studio where he would sit still for him, elegantly poised, and sometimes Calael found reason to draw him at at bursts around the house, where he would notice him looking particularly exquisite whilst going about his daily tasks and quickly fetch his sketchpad; attempting to capture his beauty on paper while he relaxed reading a book or sat in the grass tending the garden. He'd not yet successfully created a piece that he could say accurately reflected just how spectacular the blonde was, however. Whether that was a testament to Artemus' attractiveness, to Calael's skill level, or simply to the level of deep idolatry he seemed to have for him, he did not know.

Artemus did not seem fazed in the slightest by his newfound obsession. Rather, he reveled in it, and was almost entirely uplifted whenever he'd see a pencil in his friends hand. After all, that meant he was looking particularly pretty, and how could he be bothered by that? Calael could tell whenever the man caught him staring, he would angle himself in such a way that his body arched, and his eyes caught the light just right.

"Tilt your head a little more towards me," Calael murmured, watching the light from the spacious studio window travel across Artemus' face, eventually underlining his cheekbone. "There! There, perfect," he smiled animatedly, adjusting himself in his chair to lean over his sketchbook, drawing with feverish energy. He hadn't felt such passion for anything in months, though it had been empty time, and seemed to him to have lasted far longer.

It was the morning, and Artemus was sat lounging luxuriously across a plush red chair, in a long white shirt he had slept in. One knee was drawn up slightly, causing the fabric to ride just over his pale thigh, and Calael had to admit to himself that it was incredibly distracting whenever the material moved an inch. Artemus adored catching glimpses of Calael's focused gaze faltering downstairs.

"Have you finally figured out which pencil to use?" he inquired.

Calael shushed him softly, his eyes glancing down at the page then back at Artemus' delicate jawline, following the curve intricately. "Don't move your lips for a moment."

"What if I want to move my lips?" Artemus retorted playfully. But, the artist only had to give him a pleading look, and his subject caved, scoffing before staring off into the distance again and pursing his lips lightly.

After a few moments of careful outlining, Calael murmured, "Speak now, forever hold your peace."

"The pencil, did you find it? You seemed quite adamant that it had to be the correct H gradient last time.."

"Because the H gradient is soft. And you embody softness," Calael said matter of factly. Artemus seemed very pleased with himself at the compliment.

"Now why is that?" he breathed, tilting his head back a little more, causing his loose blonde locks to tumble back over the frame of the chair. He was grinning just a little, almost undetectably. "I'm a man, just as you are. And men aren't usually associated with.. Softness, as you put it."

"That's, I suppose, a gender based assumption that doesn't apply so much these days.. That's how my mum would put it, anyway. Men can be feminine now. Women can be masculine. A person can be beautiful no matter where they fall on the spectrum, and likewise, the qualities of, well, delicacy and softness, aren't attributed to women alone.. You learn this when you study aestheticism. Oscar Wilde certainly understood it all ahead of his time. A man can be pretty, and gentle. A girl can be rough, and strong. I understand that that's probably not something you were taught growing up," he explained, with an almost apologetic smile. "But that's how things are now. Especially when it comes to art - softness is desirable, in a male or a female. It's far more aesthetically pleasing than rough edges and scrawled colours, more pleasant to the eye. Most have to create it with watercolours and intricate blending but with you, it's like you just.. Are. And I'm struggling to capture it in the way that most artists struggle to create it."