Take My Breath (KShaw)

Chapter 14

On the Monday before the Christmas party, Harry comes into their room to find it completely trashed. It's not like it had been that time the guys from the other team broke in and left silly string and shaving cream everywhere, though. It's a more controlled mess. There's a lumpy clay thing on JJ's dresser. There are balls of bunched up paper thrown around the room. And there's newspaper covering every inch of the floor between the ends of their beds and the door. Newspaper that's topped with about ten different bottles of paint, three different paintbrushes, a single large canvas, and a defeated-looking JJ.

"What are you doing?" Harry asks. "What did you do to our room?" JJ looks up at him with wide brown eyes. "I can't do anything," he says. "I can't. I have to have this done by tomorrow and it's going to look like a five-year-old made it." Harry shuts the door, trying not to look as surprised as he feels. "You're still working on your piece for the show tomorrow?" "Tomorrow," JJ groans. "God, I'm so fucked." "Um." Harry picks his way through the room, past JJ's mess. He drops his bag on his bed and sits on the edge of it. "What are you trying to do, exactly?" JJ sighs. He pushes a hand through his hair and gestures at his dresser. "I tried sculpting again, but that was- that's just not happening. So I tried drawing, but it's almost as bad. So now I'm on my last chance: painting. Only I was just as bad at painting as I was at everything else, if you remember." "Vividly," Harry admits. JJ glares at him. "So now what am I supposed to do? I've got to get this done so it can dry, and I only have one chance. If I screw it up, I don't have another canvas."

Harry chews the inside of his lip. His own piece for the show is in the art room, where he'd left it. It's been done for two days now, and he's sort of proud of it. Proud of the contrast he'd captured between his and JJ's sides of the room. "What are you trying to paint?" Harry asks him. JJ shrugs. "I don't know. Does it even matter? Remember when I tried to paint that bowl of fruit? It looked like I'd done it with my fingers." It had. It was a bunch of lopsided, colourful blobs, all sitting inside of one big, colourful blob. It was the worst of the class, hands down, and Harry had laughed at it until JJ flushed, and then he'd stopped because he felt like an asshole. It hadn't looked at all like the bowl of fruit that JJ had used as inspiration, though. And he has a point; it had sort of looked like a child made it.

"Maybe that's your problem," Harry says slowly. "Maybe it's because you're trying too hard to replicate something." JJ makes a face. "So what do you suggest I do, then? Just wing it?" "No." Harry shakes his head and slides off the bed to sit beside JJ on the newspaper. "I just- it doesn't have to look like something, you know? You keep trying to draw or paint or make a specific thing, but art doesn't always work that way. Sometimes you just have to feel, you know? Just do it and not worry about the end product, and it might turn out a million times better if you do." JJ looks lost. "I have no idea what you even just said." Harry rolls his eyes and reaches for a paint brush and the red paint. He dumps a bit of red paint onto the newspaper beside him, dips the brush in it, and hands it over to JJ. "Just paint with it, don't think about it." "You want me to just paint," JJ clarifies. "With nothing in mind. No guidelines." Harry nods. "Make a mess of it. Who cares. Just paint however you want. Use whatever colours you want. Use your hands, if you want. If you're trying to make it look like a mess, no one can judge you when it does because that's the point."

He has a feeling that the more he talks, the more confused JJ gets. But he watches as JJ hesitantly brings the red-tipped paintbrush to the canvas, and then he brushes a long, diagonal red swipe over it. When he's done, he looks back up at Harry. "Now what?" "Can I help?" Harry asks. JJ nods, so he uncaps the blue and the green and the yellow, too, pouring a bit of each colour onto the newspaper so they can use them, and then he grabs his own brush. "Just paint, JJ." JJ paints, and Harry helps.

Harry sticks to the darker colours, like the navy blue and the burgundy and the rusted orange. JJ sticks to the bright yellows and the grassy greens. Harry slides his brush carelessly over the canvas, colours swirling with JJ's. JJ uses careful, hesitant strokes. Until Harry grabs his paintbrush by the bristles and flicks them back, splattering bright red all over the painting. "You just-" "Yep," Harry says happily. "I told you, it doesn't matter. Just do whatever you think is going to look nice, and if it doesn't, well, who cares?" JJ looks delighted by this. He dips his brush in the yellow and sprays it everywhere, and then he uses a clean brush to swirl together different parts of the painting until the colours mix and mingle.