He Who Controls the Flame (001 fanfic)

Chapter Nineteen- Champagne Problems

I drew my brush across the canvas, my eyes straining against the dusk light. I could always get up and turn on the light switch, but I was too far into the zone. I feared if I'd get up, I'd lose the momentum.

ABBA was playing on my walkman which was hanging around my neck, not over my ears in case Peter called me. The last thing I wanted was for him to walk in and see what I was painting, which was why I was facing the door, in case that did happen.

And of course, this was all because I was painting the man in question. I started it when I first got the painting supplies. I hadn't meant to, I had just started randomly painting, trying to formulate something on the canvas when the next thing I knew I had a set of blue eyes and low-set brows staring back at me.

But I couldn't get him out of my mind. If I wasn't painting him, I was with him; and if I wasn't with him, I was thinking about him; and if I wasn't thinking about him, I was dreaming of him.

So really, could I blame myself?

Painting Peter stared back at me, fashioned with his usual pensive glare.

I pointed my paintbrush at him. "Don't judge me." Okay, maybe I was going stir crazy. It had been fun with Peter and we bounced from the cabin, to the lake, then sometimes the river in the forest, but we had been in the same place for weeks. Maybe I needed a change of scenery.

The door suddenly swang open and I flinched, the paint from my brush splattering onto my face, and then into my mouth.

I groaned, the bitterness already assaulting my tastebuds.

"What was that for?" I asked, picking up the hem of my shirt and dabbing it onto my tongue, it was disgusting, but it got the job done. Peter grimaced and I pointed a finger at him, feeling an awful lot like I had when I talked to Painting Peter. "You don't judge. You did this to me."

"I just opened a door."

"Paint's in my hair now too, isn't it?" I looked down at my braid, seeing spots of blue there too. I groaned again. "This is going to take forever to get out."

"Well I hope it goes well with this," Peter said. I looked up, confused, when I saw what he was holding. It was some kind of hangar, and hanging from it was some kind of clothing zipped up in a garment bag. A black garment bag. A black garment bag that meant it contained something expensive.

"What," I started, getting off of my barstool, "is that?"

"A new car," he said flatly. When I glared at him he chuckled. "You wear it, love, I thought you were smarter than this." He placed it on the small couch against the wall. "Be ready in an hour. Makeup's in the vanity, and jewelry, if you want it." He smiled at me and then he was gone.

I blinked, staring at the place he had been standing and then at the garment bag now laying on the couch.

"What," I whispered, "the fuck." I glanced at Painting Peter, but he offered no help. "You confuse the hell out of me."

I got up, reaching for the bag, but then stilled, not wanting to get paint all over it because, yes, even the bag looked expensive.

In a daze, I walked to the bedroom and washed my hands of all the paint, looking up at myself in the mirror. I looked...good. Sure pieces of hair were falling out of my braid, and I was wearing the oversized button down Peter had given me as a paint smock...but I had looked a lot better than I had when I first got here.

My face felt fuller, my cheekbones not so hollow. The dark circles and veins at my temples had all but vanished. I looked tanner now, my cheeks a healthy shade of pink. I had also gained weight, a little less sharp angles and bones now.