Work Text:
Grantaire surveyed up the canvas in front of him, paints lined up on one side, brushes on the other. Two cups of water for dirty brushes, and a bottle with a straw for him - he was not going to accidentally drink paint water again. The lights and stool were set in the studio, everything was ready except-
A soft rapping of knuckles on the doorframe. "Are you ready?"
There, that was the final missing piece. "Yes, come in." Grantaire replied, looking at his scrapbook-mood board-thing again. He had to get this perfect. Not only was it his capstone project, it was a combination of some of his favorite things: his friends, art, and Ancient Greece and Rome.
Enjolras was to be the latest in a series of paintings reimagining the Hellenic pantheon, with his friends serving as the models. Some of them mapped out more obviously than others, but he'd chosen to make some unconventional choices for the sake of playing with the vibes. Combeferre as Athena, Eponine as Artemis, Gavroche as a young Hermes stealing Courfeyrac-Apollo's sacred cattle, Cosette as Persephone, himself as Pan, and so on. And Enjolras as Aphrodite.
His friends were all very comfortable with themselves and each other, so asking them to pose partially or fully in the nude for a painting wasn't really that big of a deal, but this was Enjolras. Beautiful, statue-made-human, living classical god Enjolras. Of course, Grantaire couldn't make his life easier for himself, and chose to focus on a drawing he'd seen based on a particular Venus statue, where she has fat rolls around her belly. A naked one. The idea of this painting and this pairing was to humanize love, and to show love of humans. A body as a natural work of art. Sappy positivity stuff that would have made him feel seen as a teenager, would have made him cry, that others could see him as beautiful. As much as this was a love letter (painting?) to Enjolras, and to Ancient Greece, it was also to his younger self who wore baggy hoodies until it was too hot out to safely do so. So yeah. Naked Enjolras. Natural beauty. No big deal.
Grantaire showed his muse the inspiration collection for this painting. "Can you pose something like this?" he asked, pointing. "You of course don't need to hold the position perfectly the whole time, take all the breaks you need, I'm not trying to kill you, as if gods could die though, haha!" He took a deep breath and pushed down the anxious urge to ramble. Enjolras gave a single short nod of understanding, and sat himself on the stool in the center of the studio, carefully rearranging his limbs.
"This good?" he asked.
"Yep, yep, perfect, stay there, let me just adjust the lighting a bit!" Grantaire answered, fiddling with the settings of the lights until he deemed the set up satisfactory.
When he glanced over, Enjolras looked amused, a small quirk to his mouth and a slightly raised eyebrow. The contrast was perfect, Grantaire decided. The lighting wasn't too harsh, just enough to cast dramatic shadows, enhance his model's features. Enjolras' pale skin and dark hair gave the artist a lot to work with. The dichotomy of his sharp brows and nose against the softness of his belly and thighs was perfect. The dramatic swoop of the almost-black hair on his head, which Grantaire knew to contain threads of gold and auburn in the sunlight, contrasted with the lighter-colored short, curling hairs on his body, concentrated in lines as if to say, "look here!" and guide the eyes-
Okay, Grantaire, stop waxing poetic and start sketching. You can only stare so long without doing anything before it gets weird.
Physically shaking himself like a dog after a plunge in the creek, Grantaire reached for a soft-leaded pencil, and began drawing out the rough shapes of a body. His focus was form and shape language - soft and sharp, round and angular, contradictions and complexities. A chubby, hairy trans man, representing the goddess of love and lust (and also sometimes war). As the initial sketch came together on the canvas in front of him, Grantaire started considering colors. He knew he wanted to focus on contrasts for this painting, so complementary colors could be a good choice, or maybe keeping a more similar color palette and choosing a wide range of values. Chiaroscuro would be good. Enjolras' hair, veins, and scars should draw the eye first; the dramatic, beautiful, human things.
The artist had already prepped a wash for the canvas, the whole series of paintings had the same color base layer, to help visually tie them together. The neutral, but warm, pale orange was a nice starting point to build up skin tones and sunlight. Red and gold hues were perhaps a bit overdone, but it was a classic choice for a reason, and it would work well here. A cool purple to build the contrasting details, and a warm purple for shadows, to embrace soft curves and hug folds of skin. Yes, that would work.
Grantaire carefully mixed paints, eyeballing amounts to try to get the exact shades he wanted. If he got it wrong, there'd be another layer to build off of it, it would be okay. It made painting a soothing medium, for him - anything could be covered up or fixed or transformed, one way or another. Control and perfection weren't the goal, it was okay to slap down color and pull it around until it started to take on a form. Painting was meditative, almost. Grantaire liked to create in any form, but it was paint that most successfully quieted his mind, the simultaneous mental radio stations and commentary all tuned into the task at hand.
"Hey, R?" a tentative voice spoke up from in front of him. Grantaire startled a bit, having been caught up in his musings, but thankfully didn't drop anything.
"Yeah, what's up?"
"How did you decide who should be which god or goddess?"
And oh boy, if that wasn't a bit of a loaded question. Grantaire decided to start somewhere safer that "I love you".
"Well, some are kind of obvious, right? Like Cosette is a gardener and basically springtime personified, so Persephone makes sense, and Combeferre is so smart. He maxed out his intelligence and wisdom stats."
"What?"
"Nothing, it's a reference. Some of them are a little more vibes-based, or symbolic relation. Courf is warm and round and keeps everyone going, not to mention a huge flirtatious bisexual disaster, so Apollo made sense. Gavroche is a mischievous little thief, and he's also out and about a lot, a traveler, like Hermes. Hephaestus…" Grantaire trails off in his explanation, searching for the right words. "He got thrown off the mountain, right? He makes all these beautiful things, but the other gods think he's gross and ugly. I picked Joly, because he's disabled, like Hephaestus. I wanted the focus to be on the beauty of disabled people, how they're whole and complete and fully deserving of love. This whole collection is about mapping old concepts against modern ones, but also a celebration of humanity and history and all that. People have always been people, and these paintings I'm doing now are kind of the same as the renaissance artists who sculpted humans again and again, and everyone else who's ever thought that the human body is beautiful just because it exists."
A pause. Oops, that was a long explanation, Grantaire was a little out of breath, and had accidentally painted his sleeve while gesturing as he talked.
"That's… really beautiful, Grantaire." Enjolras responded, a thoughtful look on his face.
The artist blushed a bit at the unexpected praise, and gave a little shrug as he began to paint again. "Well, you know. After enough years of therapy and a strong support system, you start getting these crazy ideas about, you know, humanity and all that."
Enjolras seemed to think about that. Then he frowned a bit. "What about me?"
Grantaire peered over the easel at him. "Huh?"
"Who did you pick for me, and why?"
"Oh. Well." Grantaire fidgeted with the tie of his paint-stained apron as he tried to come up with a response. "Well. I chose Aphrodite for you. Cus like, she's the most beautiful goddess, right? But also, fuck conventional beauty standards, my Aphrodite isn't a skinny 20-something girl with impossibly smooth skin. In Sparta, her and Ares were both worshipped as war gods, and Aphrodite probably evolved from the goddess Ishtar, who was also this super badass war goddess, and like, you're a total force to reckon with when you get fired up, and you fight for who and what you love. I also thought having a trans person as specifically the goddess of beauty was important, to underline that trans is beautiful, and trans is human, and human is beautiful. And anyways, I'm pretty sure you're the most beautiful person I know." Grantaire hoped that last bit came off as casual and not the half-veiled confession he knew it to be.
"Oh." Enjolras said with a nod. "Well, that makes sense. Thank you for explaining it to me." A small smile appeared on his face, and apparently Grantaire's rambling monologue had put it there.
A while later, Grantaire was jolted out of his focused painting by the buzzing of his watch. He'd set alarms spaced four hours apart during the day for meals, and apparently it was time to eat again. The food alarm must be obeyed, so he set down his brush and untied his apron, stretching as he did so. Enjolras noticed the movement, and tilted his head questioningly.
"Lunchtime." Grantaire answered. He gave the half-finished painting a quick once over, he was satisfied with how it was turning out.
"Didn't you already have lunch?" Enjolras asked, confused.
"This is second lunch, I'm a Hobbit." Grantaire called over his shoulder as he walked out of the office-slash-library-slash-studio. "Want anything to eat?"
From the corner of his eye, Grantaire could see Enjolras stand up from the stool and stretch, baring the expanse of skin and hair that he'd been painstakingly rendering in warm, reverent tones. "I suppose I could do with a snack."
Enjolras followed him into the kitchen, not bothering to put on any clothes. All the windows were well above waist height and they were on the second floor of the communal house, anyways. Grantaire bustled around the kitchen, grabbing food items that seemed suitable. He'd settled on a grilled cheese sandwhich, since it was fast and filling. As he buttered the pan, he waved a pack of sliced cheese in Enjolras' general direction. "Do you want a sandwhich?" he asked. "I know you're lactose intolerant, but you're also a rebel, and I know there's lactaid all over this house."
"Yeah, okay, sure." Enjolras agreed, watching with interest as Grantaire pulled out slices of bread and matched them up by size.
A few minutes later, the artist handed him a plate with a still-sizzling sandwich on it. "Don’t touch yet, it's still hot." He reprimanded, pointing his spatula threateningly at the other man. "Ferre will never forgive me if I let you burn your whole… everything. You're not wearing anything to protect your beautiful self from hot cheese oil, and that would be a super embarrassing scar story. 'How'd you get that scar?' 'That one's from an overly enthusiastic cop at a protest.' 'And that one?' 'Surgery when I was little.' 'What about that one?' 'Oh, that one's from when I was an impatient little bitch and burned myself on a grilled cheese.' See? Not a good story. At least get a kitchen scar from not paying attention while cutting a bagel like the rest of us."
Enjolras pointedly put the plate down on the counter and set a two-minute timer on the microwave, a small pout to his mouth and one dark eyebrow raised in challenge.
The timer went off and Enjolras wolfed down his sandwhich while Grantaire began to clean up. "I guess I was hungry." He said sheepishly, licking the butter off his fingers.
Grantaire lightly swatted his hands away from his face. "Stop that, go wash your hands, you freak." He teased. Enjolras rolled his eyes but did as Grantaire had said, as the artist began to eat his own sandwhich, albeit at a more leisurely pace. A carriage horse to Enjolras' racing trotter.
When he'd finished eating and washed his hands, Grantaire turned to his model. "Alright, you ready to keep going, or do you want to be done for the day? Either is fine, of course. If you're tired that's totally okay, but if you're up for a few more hours of sitting and looking pretty, I think I can get this just about finished today." He told him, staring at a space past Enjolras' left ear as he calculated what was left to paint.
"Yeah, I'm good to go." Enjolras said with a small smile.
"Great!" Grantaire beamed at him. The food was starting to hit his system, and he could practically feel his blood sugar stabilizing. They walked back into the studio and Grantaire re-oriented himself with his color palette and Enjolras settled himself on the stool in the center of the room once again.
Grantaire decided to focus on Enjolras' hair for the moment, the highlights and swooping lines a change of pace from carefully shading skin in five different colors an inch at a time. Dark hair was always a fun challenge to capture, to make the waves and shapes visible without compromising the striking color. When a particular patch of loose curls started frustrating him, Grantaire switched to body hair. He studied Enjolras closely, wanting to accurately reflect where it was sparse or dense, long or short, straight or curly. On his forearms, the hair was fine with a slight wave, and it lay all facing the same direction, following the shapes of the muscles as it moved from the radial to the ulnar side. His upper arms and chest were more sparse, the hairs there thicker but overall less present. The center of his chest, on his sternum, over his heart, the hair became denser, trailing down toward his navel. Softer hairs wrapped around Enjolras' stomach, from the ribs down towards his belly button. The closer the hair got to it, the curlier and thicker it became. Grantaire carefully catalogued all of these details, and painstakingly rendered them with a fine-tipped brush.
Once he was satisfied with the hair, Grantaire took another long look for other details. He added the stretch marks around Enjolras' hips and thighs to the painting, the pale scars, the smattering of dark freckles. He added the mottled green and yellow of a fading bruise next to Enjolras' knee, and the small semi colon tattooed on his wrist. Gods, he was the most beautiful person Grantaire had ever seen.
Soon enough, he was adding the final touches to the painting and stepping back from the canvas. It looked… really good. Grantaire dragged over a box fan and pointed it towards the painting, turning it on to help speed the drying process and to hopefully relieve the smell of paint that hung in the air. He turned off the extra light sources, unplugging them for good measure.
Enjolras hopped off the stool and smiled at him as he walked over. "Can I see?" He asked, sounding curious and maybe a bit excited.
"Uh. Yeah, sure. Come around here." Grantaire replied haltingly, gesturing a path around the stacks of paint bottles and reference books.
His muse walked carefully around the scattered art supplies and who-knows-what, to stand squarely in front of the canvas and next to Grantaire. He was standing close enough that Grantaire could see hear the little gasp, see the wonder on his face. Enjolras reached out a hand like he intended to touch the painting, but drew it back before he got close enough to make Grantaire too nervous.
"I… really like it. You did a really good job." Enjolras told him, sincerity written in every line of his face, a slight blush creeping across his skin. The man still hadn't gotten dressed.
Grantaire choked out a strangled "thank you" and frantically tried to get his brain out of 'cataloguing every minuscule detail of Enjolras' mode. He could do it at a distance of at least five feet, but standing right next to him as they gazed together at a still-fresh painting of the divine muse himself? Nope, that was too much. He scrambled out of the studio as gracefully and casually as he could, only to realize that he still had his painting apron on. Grantaire turned around and walked right back in to hang it up. Enjolras was still staring at the painting.
"Hey, if you like looking at your own body so much, we do have a few full-length mirrors in this house." Grantaire joked. Enjolras startled a bit, apparently not having noticed the artist come back in. His dark hair bounced with the movement, and a traitorous lock flopped out of place and onto his forehead. Grantaire resisted the urge to put it back in place, telling himself he probably still had paint on his hands, he shouldn't get paint on Enjolras, who had been kind enough to sit and be stared at for who-knows-how-many hours. "I'm uh, gonna go clean up. Feel free to put clothes on. Or don't, we don't judge here, you can wear whatever you want, unless you're cooking or welding, and then you'd better have on some clothes. Maybe we should get one of those signs that stores have, 'no shirt, no shoes, no service' except it's 'no oven' instead." Grantaire backed out the door, still talking. He closed his mouth with an audible click, then turned and ran down the hallway.
As he scrubbed his hands clean of paint, he stared at himself in the mirror, still thinking in brushstrokes and mythology.