Work Text:
To Keith, there’s no other feeling like painting on the walls. It’s this infinite canvas. There’s no need for tiny brushes, just normal brushes or big brushes, or his hands for the details. He loves having his art encompass him. He loves being surrounded by his work.
He loves being able to stand among his creations, loves to feel his painted landscapes loom over him.
Keith painted a rotunda once, with a domed ceiling. Standing in that room was the happiest he had ever been. He was surrounded by everything he loved, everything he painted. He was surrounded by his constellations, the starry sky, the grass he painted under his feet, the fireflies in the sky.
Keith loves the feeling of paint on his fingers, on his jeans. He remembers the time he used body-paint to paint his arm. Keith feels at home among the paint. It makes him feel like he’s the masterpiece, not his canvases.
Of course, he still does paint on actual canvases. He just hates easels. He always takes the canvas off of the wooden frame and lays it on the floor. It’s better for him that way.
He can see the whole thing, without anything blocking his way. He can sprawl on the floor, make weird positions, not worry about anything falling. He doesn’t have to worry about ruining his walls or other artwork he has. He can do crazy things too, like step on the canvas.
People have said that Keith is weird with his painting, but he doesn’t care. Sure, sometimes he doesn’t do a sketch first of his art, but sketches don’t get the same dimensions and brushstrokes that he wants. They don’t get the big strokes that he wants to be there. So, Keith doesn’t do that.
Except when it comes to one thing.
Keith sometimes goes to this one coffee shop for inspiration. It’s got many tourists, and it’s got these glass walls that overlook a plaza, filled with greenery. It’s open every day, at all hours. Keith used to just go there rarely, to look out the windows and observe the world.
Keith goes almost every day now. See, there’s this guy. And Keith doesn’t usually sketch, but he can’t help but sketch him. He’s entrancing. He captures Keith’s attention with his smile, the sparkle in his eyes. And then there’s the sound of his laugh, Keith can not help but smile when he hears it.
His name is Lance. He’s got these bright blue eyes and he loves talking about coffee and what his favorite drink is to make. And whenever he sees Keith, he says hi.
Now, most people don’t recognize artists anyway. They just recognize the art. So, Keith doesn’t get many people coming up to him, saying that they admire his work. And that’s with good reason with Keith. There’s a reason he signs his work as “Akira” and not as himself, that he displays his work in his own gallery so no one has to know it is him. Keith likes privacy just as much as he likes painting.
Keith really realized how much this worked in his favor when Lance told him that his favorite painter was Akira. Apparently, he’s majoring in digital art at college. Lance went into college a bit late, since he couldn’t find his passion, but he’s there now. And Lance is fascinated by Akira because apparently, they’re the same age.
Keith likes it when Lance sits down during his break to talk to him, to tell him about this stuff. Keith is told that he’s quite unsociable, but Lance never seems to care. Never really cared for social bubbles in the first place.
Keith remembers the time when he was sitting in the coffee shop, by himself, just doing his own usual thing. Keith was looking at his portfolio on his laptop, seeing what art he’s done to make sure any new ideas aren’t something he’s done before. And then, Lance just popped up behind him.
“Is that Akira?” he had said.
Keith’s head had turned around just to see the guy from the counter looking at his screen. At his art.
“It is Akira, I love their art! They make everything feel so emotional, even if it’s just a simple landscape! Like it just punches you in the heart!”
“Uh, yeah.” Keith still cringes at what he said to Lance. The cute guy was gushing about his art and Keith replied with “Yeah.” He’s a mess to this day.
But the next thing he knew, Lance was sitting down and talking with him instead of busing the tables.
Keith liked Lance. Loved to hear about the details that Lance liked in his artwork. He liked that Lance didn’t mind when he didn’t understand something, or when he didn’t reply right.
There is something about Lance that can’t be contained, and Keith just wants to know it. He needs to. Keith can’t help but sketch Lance, again and again, trying to portray the way Lance’s personality is, the way Lance makes him feel, and all of the colors that just burst out of him.
Keith remembers when Lance was gushing to him about one of his paintings. Keith remembers when he painted that painting. Keith painted it when he was in the closet. He hadn’t told his friends or his brother about him being gay. And everything around him was so overwhelming. It felt like everything was against him. Everyone around him expecting him to be straight, asking him about getting a girlfriend, about how pretty this girl was, and Keith just didn’t understand any of it. And it just seemed like if he told them he was gay, then they would be disappointed.
And Lance said the painting made him feel scared, overwhelmed, like he was hiding away. Like he was hiding who he truly was.
And Lance told him about when he was in the closet, and how he still kind of is among his family. How he’s bi. He told Keith about how his parents don’t know that he’s bi, but his siblings do. Lance tells him how he’s sure his parents would love and accept him, but there’s just this small bit of him that’s still scared. Lance tells him that his friends know, that he’s open about it now. But he’s not open about it around family.
And Keith is just in awe of how his art made someone feel that way, how it made someone open up, how he gave someone the same experience he crafted it about.
Keith just wants to express all of that. All of the emotions Lance makes him feel, all of the things that make Lance who he is. He wants to know and he wants to paint it.
But he still is never satisfied. He sketches and sketches Lance day after day, whenever he’s in the shop. He draws roses and watercolor splashes and fireworks and thorns and sunflowers and lights and fireflies and tidal waves, all surround Lance’s head, and it’s still never enough. It’s not Lance yet. Keith can’t seem to express it.
Keith sketches Lance with roller coasters and stars and the sun and constellations and spilled coffee and a sandcastle and cotton candy. He sketches seashells and moons and the foam of a wave, and it’s still never enough. Keith feels like he can never express Lance fully.
And every time he thinks he got it, that he’s gotten down Lance, he just goes and does this thing that surprises him and makes him realize that maybe he doesn’t have it at all. He tries to change out a sunset with some cotton candy clouds, and it’s still not enough. Lance shines too brightly.
Keith draws a city shining brightly at night, but it’s not elegant or regal enough. He draws vines and plants and foliage and statues and gold and ambrosia, but Lance is too casual for that. He sketches bubbles of carbonation from soda, lightbulbs and forget-me-nots and lightning and a warm fire and a burnt marshmallow in the middle of a s’more, draws teddy bears and cats and a needle with thread, but he just can’t get it.
It frustrates Keith to no end. He’s been able to express things before, why can’t he express this!
One day, Keith decides not to go to the coffee shop. He knows Lance is working today, but he can’t see Lance right now. If he sees Lance, he’ll put more and more things and he still won’t be able to figure this out.
Keith sits in his studio, unsure of what to do. A canvas doesn’t seem big enough for Lance, it can’t fit who Lance is in such a small frame. But Keith also doesn’t think he could paint it in a rotund with a domed roof even if he could find one. He doesn’t want to paint it on a wall in his house since that seems kind of creepy, but nothing feels right to him.
Keith should paint it on a wall in his gallery. Yes, that’s it! Keith should paint it on the wall of his gallery and tell everyone that Akira painted it for him. It was the perfect place!
So, Keith packs his paint and brings it to the gallery. He hides it in the back and closes the blinds, locks the door. No one can see inside or get inside at all. He sets out a cloth, grabs his step stool from the backroom. He grabs his sketches of Lance from his bag.
Keith can get the face right in his sketches easily, but it’s what comes after it that always gets him. So, Keith sketches Lance’s face out on the wall. Lance’s hair is fluffy, he’s smiling wide, he’s looking slightly up at the sky, his head is angled slightly to Keith’s left.
And Keith starts to paint. He paints Lance’s face and his smile and his hair and Keith just thinks that it must be soft. He paints Lance’s eyes and his neck and his eyebrows and he paints stars in Lance’s eyes.
And once he is done with that, once all the paint has dried, Keith uses tape to make sure he can’t ruin Lance. Because he needs to figure out what to do on the top.
Keith knows he has all these ideas, but instead, he just decides he’s going to just do it. Just start painting impulsively like he always does. He has the ideas in his head after all, so they aren’t going away. But Keith just needs to express something.
His phone vibrates. Keith’s hands have paint on them, but he tries to look to see what it is. Lance texted him. Keith forgot he gave his number to Lance a while ago. Lance had never used it, and neither had Keith. But Lance, he’s asking where Keith is. If he’s coming in today.
Keith’s fingers aren’t letting him open the phone with all that paint on them, so he doesn’t respond. But it’s nice that Lance is thinking of him. Lance is just... everything. Keith can’t describe it but he’ll try his best to paint it.
Keith starts with a base of a lighter red, not quite a pink. Like a cloud coming from Lance’s head. Keith wants to make it cotton candy. So he does.
And Keith just keeps going. He paints with the colors of seashells, of seafoam, of sand on the beach. He paints with the colors of the evening sky, with the color from Lance’s eyes, with the color of the stars in his eyes. He paints with the color of the sunshine, the colors of a sunset, the color of rain. He paints with the colors of a s’more with a burnt marshmallow on the inside, the colors of the campfire in the middle of the night, the color of the lantern that glows so bright right beside him.
There are some things that Keith paints that he doesn’t quite understand at first, but something in him just tells him to paint it. He paints with deep purple hues, like a storm cloud or an amethyst. He splatters blue paint and white paint like stars littering a sky. He paints with navy blues, as dark as the deep ocean.
Keith paints with pinks and reds and oranges and everything in between. He paints red roses and pink roses. He paints purple and magenta lilacs. He paints white carnations. He paints blue irises, the flowers reminding him of Lance’s eyes. He doesn’t know why he paints these, but they feel right. It feels like the emotion Lance gives him.
And finally, after his frenzy, Keith steps away. He’s covered with paint. It’s on his hands, on his shirt, on his pants, in his hair, on his face, but Keith doesn’t care at all. He just looks at everything. And Keith, he thinks he finally understands it.
Keith is in love with Lance. That’s why he couldn’t express the emotion, that’s why he always wanted to know Lance. He loves him. The reds and pinks, the flowers, the purples, he should’ve known. But Keith has always been bad with emotions, so how could he?
Keith is washing his hands. He wants a fresh start on his fingers for any of the touch-ups for the painting on the wall. He doesn’t want any contamination of the colors, and he wants to have better control.
His phone rings. He looks over. It’s a call. It’s a call from Lance. Lance has never called Keith before, but it must be something important or big if he’s calling him. Keith quickly dries his hands, walks back to the paint, and puts his phone on his stool as he looks out at the painting.
“Hey Keith! I didn’t see you at the shop today, are you okay?” Lance’s voice rings through the phone. Keith’s heart pounds.
“I’m okay. Just was busy.” Keith really can’t speak too much with Lance right now. He just figured out he’s in love with the dude, of course, he can’t say much! Keith looks at his mural. He forgot to sign it.
“Are you at your gallery? Did new art come in?”
“You could say that,” Keith says as he kneels down, and signs his mural ‘Akira.’
“Well, I’m lucky that I guessed correctly because I’m outside of your gallery right now. I can hear my voice through the walls. Speaker, Keith? Really?”
Lance is outside. Lance is outside and Keith hasn’t told him he’s Akira and he’s gonna see this giant painting of himself on the wall. And Lance has always been good at reading emotions in paintings, he’s going to know what this one means.
Keith doesn’t know if he can tell Lance he loves him yet.
“Keith? Buddy? Are you okay? You stopped talking. It’s like really cold out here though, can you please let me in? I can help with whatever you’re doing.”
Keith’s heart is hammering. He can hear it in his ears. There’s no way he’s going to be able to hide this. Lance knows Akira’s art style, and Keith already signed it. Keith can’t get around telling Lance that he is Akira.
So Keith walks over to the door, unlocks it, and cracks it open. He sticks his head out.
Lance is standing there, his phone up to his ear. He’s wearing a thick trench-coat-looking jacket. He does look a bit cold. He turns to Keith and smiles. He hangs up the call from his phone.
“Thanks, dude. I was starting to get worried.”
“Just... come in quick. Don’t open the door too widely. Lock it behind you,” Keith says, turning away. Lance is really cute in that jacket, and his smile is killing Keith. His ears feel like they’re burning.
Keith walks away from the door. He walks towards the wall, towards the cloth on the floor, towards the step stool with his phone on it, towards the paint on the ground.
He hears Lance come in, close the door behind him. He hears Lance lock the door. He hears Lance’s footsteps behind him.
“Keith, why are you covered in—” The footsteps behind Keith stop. Keith turns around.
Lance is looking at the painting. His eyes have widened, his cheeks are turning red. And now he’s looking at Keith. Keith’s face is burning hot right now. His heart is pounding so hard. Lance is looking at him and he saw the painting and he has to know that the painting was done by Akira.
“Oh. Oh.” Lance looks Keith in the eyes. Lance tries to smile at him. It’s not his usual smile. It’s got to be a fake smile.
“Lance, I’m—”
“Did— Did you get Akira to come in and paint this? It’s great! That person really does look like me!” Lance says. His voice is shaking. Keith’s heart is shattering.
“No, I’m— I’m Akira, Lance.” Keith’s voice is quiet, but it’s the only sound in the gallery.
“So, you lied to me? You just— You heard me gushing about you every day and just didn’t even tell me? Was I just your next art piece? What the fuck was our friendship supposed to even be? ” Lance’s eyes are tearing up, his lip is trembling, his hands are trembling, Keith doesn’t know what to do.
“I didn’t want to tell you, Lance, I’m sorry. I didn’t even mean for you to find out, no one is supposed to know I’m Akira. No one else does. Hearing you talk about my art made me happy and I’m so sorry, I just—”
Keith takes a deep breath in. “I love you, Lance.”
It’s silent.
“What?” Lance whispers.
“I love you. I just— I came to the coffee shop for inspiration in nature and instead I found you. And you were just this infinite amount of emotions and I kept trying to sketch you and kept trying to express you because that’s all I could think about but nothing was right. And I just— I came here today because I had to do something about it. And I just let myself paint and this is what happened and I love you and I’m sorry.”
It’s silent again. Lance isn’t talking. His hands are over his mouth. Keith is scared. Keith is scared. Keith is scared. Lance probably thinks he’s creepy and he hates Keith and Keith understands that and Lance probably doesn’t want to be friends anymore and—
“Keith, you dumb idiot, what kind of confession is this! I had this whole plan of writing ‘I love you’ in the art for your coffee today and then you didn’t even show up and I find you with this? ”
What?
“How am I supposed to live up to this kind of confession? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m still fucking mad that you lied to me and didn’t even tell me you were Akira. I mean, you just let me embarrass myself like that. But Keith, I’m—”
Keith isn’t really sure what’s happening right now.
“I love you too, Keith,” Lance says. Oh, that’s what's happening.
Lance loves him.
Lance loves him.
And Keith feels like he could paint anything now. He feels like cotton candy clouds and Ferris wheels and angels flying in the sky and snow falling from the sky and bubbles in champagne and stars in the night.
“Okay, so I can see that you need to process this, but like, I really want to kiss you right now, so, uh, can I do that?”
Keith nods. He can’t really do anything else.
And Lance walks over to him, and grabs Keith’s hand. He holds it in his own. And Lance uses his other hand to hold Keith’s face and then suddenly they’re kissing.
And Keith is kissing him back.
It’s been a hectic few months. Keith touched up his painting of Lance, with Lance’s help, and he revealed it to the public. Lance was at the reveal, right by his side. Keith didn’t really like doing reveals, but he knew that if this just popped up at his gallery without anyone knowing, something would seem up.
He didn’t reveal he was Akira though. That secret was for him and Lance. But everyone seems to recognize Lance at the reveal as the subject of the painting.
Keith and Lance did kiss at the reveal party though, so if anyone figured out that he was Akira, he couldn’t blame them. Luckily, there were no posts online about it or anything.
Keith invited Lance to live with him. Keith had tons of money after all, and he could help Lance with college. He even offered to support him so he didn’t have to work at the shop anymore, so he could focus on his art in his free time.
Lance outright refused any offer of Keith paying for him. Keith loves him. Lance wanted to do it himself, wanted to earn his way there, wanted to contribute.
So, Keith lets him contribute to rent. He watches Lance leave to go to work, leave to head to his classes, and Keith stays home and goes to his studio. Keith loves Lance and his stubborn attitude.
Keith surprises Lance with a new computer and a drawing tablet for his art. He says it’s a gift, of course. He gets Lance Clip Studio Pro. Lance doesn’t let Keith plug his art at the gallery though.
Lance wants to work his way up himself. Keith loves that about him.
Keith loves Lance, and Lance loves him.
Keith is in his studio one day, painting with shades of gold, using gold flakes. He’s painting circles, of gold and silver. He’s painting rings or a halo. He doesn’t really know, but something just... clicks.
He drops everything and runs to the sink. He washes his hands in a frenzy and grabs his phone. He calls Shiro.
“Shiro, how much are engagement rings?”