Work Text:
No one took Free for a painter. And they were right. He was terrible. He was worse than terrible. He ignored every single paintbrush and tool in favor of pressing his palm into a massive pool of paint, all the colors running together into streaks of yellow and orange and green and purple, blending together at certain edges to form a delightful shade of muddy brown.
Art class always resulted in every single student giving Free the widest bubble of space possible, all too aware of the time he got too excited and ended up spilling paint over Arachne’s designer shows and somehow ended up leaving not one, but seventeen handprints on the ceiling. Legends had been made regarding the owner of the mysterious, massive palmprints on the florescent lights overhead.
Free was a hazard to art supplies and students everywhere, earning himself his own cupboard of well stocked materials, as the small cubby that was provided for the other, less destructive students was all too small considering the tubes upon tubes of paint that the man went through.
Not to mention he always chewed on the paintbrushes, leaving the handles polka-dotted with indentations of his rather impressive canines.
It was such a day, as it was every day, that he had spilled every ounce of the orange paint as though intending to draw a mural on the walls instead of on the small, 16 by 20 inch canvas that stood, as stark white as the instant he’d walked in, before him.
Free took a step back, his arms caked to the elbow in slowly drying paint the color of cheetos. He cocked his head to the side.
“I hate orange,” he announced, and no one even turned to look at him.
The truth was that he enjoyed less bright colors, such as robin’s egg blue or lavender. He hadn’t the faintest idea why he reached for the orange. Perhaps he was only looking forward to Halloween.
It was February. But still. There was never a wrong time to look forward to Halloween.
But not in this painting. He didn’t really know what he wanted to do for it, but it was certainly nothing to have to do with orange. Without any pomp, he simply got up and stalked to the other side of the room where his cabinet stood out starkly against everyone else’s. Flecked with paint every color of the rainbow, it stood proudly amongst the clean oak wood of the other cabinets that housed cleaning supplies, none of which had been able to scrub his cupboard down properly.
He does have to give whoever attempted some credit, however, it certainly looked cleaner than before.
Regardless, it was on the other side of the room, tucked to a corner low down to the floor, which was inconvenient for a man his size, but it was no real matter. As he moseyed to the back, he managed to catch faint glimpses of the other art pieces in the room, none of which adhered to the prompt their instructor had actually put up.
Well, none save for Azusa, who was drawing the bowl of fruit in the front of the class with an enviable amount of precision.
Oh! That was why he had gotten orange. The pumpkin made far more sense, now.
When he finally got to the back of the room, he was humming, crouching down. Lavender sounded great. So did mint green, actually. As he grasped the handle to his cupboard, caking it in yet another layer of paint, considering his hands still hadn’t dried, he heard a small rustle from the inside and a squeak.
Did the room have mice?
His brows furrowed as he opened the cabinet, squinting his eyes to see a bit better.
All his paint had been shoved to the side, a hazard of tubes, some of which were caught in the space of the girl’s heels as she squeezed herself closer to the corner.
Free blinked a few times, opening his mouth, and she squeaked quietly once more, throwing her hand out and covering his mouth.
“Shhhh,” she whispered under her breath. “I’m hiding.”
Hiding?
Free blinked a few more times, somewhat amazed that anyone could fit in such a small cupboard, and he moved away slightly, looking around the room. The only people in their general vicinity was Stein and Marie, and the two of them seemed too busy making out and getting paint in each other’s hair to notice what was going on, but Free decided to stick his head into the cabinet for some privacy, anyway.
“Hiding?” he asked, a tad too loudly, muffled by her small, slim hand.
“Shhhh!” she snapped, seeming somewhat irritable in the hushed tone while she nodded quickly, her silver hair flicking over her polkadotted blouse, her blunt cut bangs getting into her eyes.
“Yeah, hiding. So, you know, be quiet, maybe?”
Free nodded, too, waiting until she took her hand off his mouth to bring himself further into the cabinet, making the girl “eep!” as his wide shoulders took up almost all the space.
“From what?” he asked in a comical stage whisper, and she scrambled to bring her bright knees closer to her chest, wrapped her hands over her white gogo boots.
“More like ‘who’,” she spat out, her mouth squishing to the side, and Free let his head fall to the side.
He knew who she was, of course. No one else save for Marie would be small enough to squeeze themselves into such a small space. Eruka was in a contest for tiniest woman he’d ever seen, as miniscule as she was witty. They’d been friends, albeit, seemingly reluctantly on her part for a few months, since she tutored him in algebra.
He knew all about her issues with Medusa Gorgon, the woman having been particularly unpleasant to everyone recently, and especially taking it out on Eruka. He’d been wondering where she went during their art classes, actually. She tended to stay out of the paint splash zone he created, but she was always in sight, sitting in the front, as far away from Medusa as possible.
Though, now that he thought about it, he realized that Medusa had been occupying the desk Eruka used to sit at, and as he looked at her face, he saw the slight frown at the corners of her lips, her eyes looking sad.
“Sit next to me, then,” he told her, grinning immediately at the thought of being by her. He liked Eruka. She smelled like tea tree oil, and she always asked him if he had any green paint, as it was her favorite color. Plus, she had great taste in hats.
“Shhhh! How many times do I have to tell you to be quiet?” she asked, her own voice the farthest thing from a whisper at this point as she sighed.
“But you can sit next to me, ‘Ruka!” he said, his eyes alight. Were he a puppy, and many times, Eruka couldn’t help but compare him to such, she was certain his tail would be wagging.
“What?” she asked. “No. What? You’re crazy! I’m not going out there. She’ll kill me.”
“Eruka-”
“Free? What’s going on back there?” they heard their instructor ask, and Eruka scrunched in closer to the corner, hiding her face in her knees. “Get back to your desk.”
Their instructor was used to a lot, but not Free talking to, seemingly, paint.
Free took a second to look at Eruka once more, and for a rare moment, his eyes went soft.
“She won’t, Eruka. You can sit next to me.”
Eruka looked up, her dark eyes taking in his sincere expression. If there was anything Free was, it was honest.
He grinned at her once more, shimmying his way out of the cabinet and looking at her expectantly, and Eruka sighed for a moment, looking to the side before she sighed once more and scootched herself out of the cabinet as well. In the light, he spotted how there was the lightest dusting of pink over her nose.
In the background, their instructor mumbled under their breath, three seconds away from quitting, talking about girls appearing in cabinets and horny teenagers making out in the corner of the room and no one listening, but Free could only look at Eruka as she primly got up, dusting off her dress and looking at him expectantly.
He glanced at her for a moment before he turned back to the cabinet, rummaging around until he found a pale pink color, as well as silver, and then, he too got up, grabbing hold of a spare easel from the corner and bounding cheerfully over to his spot, all the while dragging the canvas with an unearthly screech as Eruka shook her head.
“If you get paint on my clothes, I’ll never forgive you,” she told him, scowling slightly as she settled next to him, though anyone could see she totally would.