Insubordinate ( Gay ) ( BxB )

Chapter One ✓

           The cold feels colder than it has ever felt. It is biting, furious, angry. Snow falls with a gentleness the wind can not mimic, thrusting the snowfall into chaos. It covers the sidewalk, lines the roads and bridges, settles on the eyelashes of strangers, dusts their hair and their shoulders. Nothing is left untainted by the freeze, myself most impure to it. Hunched over, concentrated, a bit scary; I'm comparable to a gargoyle. 

          Cigarette cradled in my left hand, my bad habit thaws my lungs. A pencil in my right, my hobby keeps my fingers warm against the notebook in my lap. The early morning was always my favorite time of day; the people, the scenery, all of it. It always has been. My inspiration stems from it, translating from what I see to what I can create myself. Everything appears so new, when really, nothing at all has truly changed for the most of us. It is tedious and it is discouraging, but it doesn't quite feel that way as I bask in the newfound dawn. 

           Across the bridge I've perched on, a woman peers out over the icy waters, her ragged breathes leaving puffs of icy air clouding around her head. I sometimes catch glimpses of her tear streaked face whenever she raises her head, the sunlight glinting off of her cheeks. Her sadness is heartbreaking. Disheveled short brown hair, a skinny figure, her coat writhing in the wind- I can't help but draw her. From memory, I draw that little bit of her face that I can occasionally see; her slanted nose and birdlike lips, tears dripping from her chin.

            As I finish detailing her tattered boots, I notice as she wipes away her sadness and recollects. She turns in my direction, thus I can finally put a full face to this woman- her eyes are slanted and black, she's in her late twenties or early thirties. She's beautiful, really, but insurmountably sad. I watch her reach down, adjust a buckle on her boot, then leave with her arms wrapped tightly around herself. 

I finish this sketch of her, turn the page, then look for something- or, someone- else.

        "I got rejected again." A man says quietly into the phone, only a few feet away to my left. I glance, unable to ignore this mans distressed way of speaking. He doesn't seem to care if I hear him; he barely seems to notice me at all. "That makes ten publishers."  He grumbles with a sandpaper whine. "Maybe I'm just not good enough after all."

No, not him.

        I hear a woman laugh a ways down the bridge. She's a tall redhead holding the hand of a small pale girl with hair a shade darker. It must be her daughter. They exchange inaudible words, something lighthearted. They're both happy.

I look on.

        People walk past, their words jumbling together. No one is staying still long enough for me to observe them. The benches lining the bridge walls are empty as far down as I can see with only an exception of an old woman feeding pigeons, but I've already drawn her a million times before.  I search for something new, something real. I rest the fine point of my pencil against the middle of the paper, close my eyes for a moment, then open them again.

       The sky is a profoundly brilliant shade of blue now, only a shade you could admire in the earliest of hours; it reminds me of home, or the last time I'd seen it. This beautiful color grows and blooms like a flower from the sun. I drop my pencil onto the blank paper to pull out another cigarette, slipping it between my lips. I bow my head to light it, my eyes flitting up, still ever searching- then, I see it. A man with two eyes colored like they'd dripped from the sky above. I'm captured by him, entranced. I light my cigarette quickly, raising my head and plucking it from my mouth to get a full view of this person. 

        He stands on the other side of the bridge, near where the crying woman had been. He leans against the wall, head tilted down as he stares at the screen on the back of a big camera. A photographer, I figure. His face is angular, youthful, and less worn than that of my own. Very foreign, sharp facial features. He's who I've been looking for. I have to draw him. I can only hope he'll stay long enough for me to do that. 

I take a drag of my cigarette and begin to work. 

        As lines and shapes come together on the paper, he snaps pictures. He turns and crouches a bit, snaps some pictures of the horizon. Sometimes he'll turn and face longways, looking on down the bridge, and photograph something I can't put my finger on. Whenever he turns his head, I'm able to get a better look at his high cheekbones above his slightly sunken cheeks. I'm fixated by him and his unique appearance, but also by his strange familiarity- I suppose he just has one of those faces. 

       Time ticks away and I get lost in it. My hand glides, the sound of led against paper and the sound of voices blend together in a symphony of daily life. I'm unsure of how much time has passed when I'm nearing the finish. The man- or maybe boy, as he seemed unquestionably younger- now sits on a bench just a bit farther down than when I'd first noticed him. I'm on the finishing features of him, only the small details. I look up at him again as I have a million times, but this time I find that he's looking back at me. I pause, surprised by this. As soon as he realizes I'm looking back, he looks away back at his camera. 

I consider lighting another cigarette. 

        Looking back at the paper, it is almost completely together- it's of him standing across the bridge, head and body turned slightly while he stares intently at his camera. His eyes stand out among the rest of the picture, just as they did to me in real life. I begin to detail the shoulder of his coat, looking back up at him once more for reference. He's leaned down, elbows propped on his knees, camera in his hands. My hand pauses on the paper. I stare blankly with bewilderment when I realize his camera is aimed directly at me. 

          He snaps a photo, I look away. I can hear him snap another. My face feels warm. Does he know? Is this to mock me? Why would he photograph me? I try to concentrate, but I can't- I look again. He's standing, moving a strand of blonde hair away from his blue eyes, still looking directly at me without trying to mask it this time. I clench the pencil in my hand uncomfortably.

         He begins walking across the bridge toward my side- directly toward me, actually. Our eyes briefly catch. He smiles at this, at me.

           I lean back away from my sketchbook, and smile back awkwardly. I guess that this will be the part where I will be forced to explain myself, and he himself. I had always been invisible to pedestrians. Today I am not.