Human - phan

Thirty One

Everything changed when you walked up those stairs. Grey walls came alive with colour and the peeling plaster was transformed into the ragged bark of withered trees. Knuckles had turned the whole first floor of his house into a forest filled to bursting with animals big and small. It was intricate. I could pick out each individual vein in every tiny leaf, and the deer that frolicked in a glade were photorealistic to a jaw-dropping extent. Where Matt had created pure emotion and swirling vortexes of beauty, Knuckles had painted fine art. He must have researched the delicate anatomy of every breed of butterfly that fluttered around my head and the beetles that scurried where once there was carpet. I turned a corner and came face to face with a vast grey wolf – snarling so viciously that I jumped back in alarm. Knuckles chuckled behind my shoulder and I burned red.

"I called him Jake," he said, running a finger fondly over the crest of the paintwork. "That was how he would have liked to be remembered – strong. A lone wolf howling at the moon. Everything he wasn't really, but it's who you try to be that matters."

I nodded, a tinge of sadness welling in my throat. "Have you named them all?"

"Yes and no. It takes hours to paint each one properly and I usually do more than one coat, so while I'm working on a particular animal I'll give it a personality and a name and stuff, but I sure as hell don't remember them all. My favourites have names though. Like the lion in my room – come on, I'll show you. Quick, before the others catch up with us."

I followed him through a low doorway and into an African Savannah. Sweeping dunes of pale sand lined the walls and the sky was a shimmering blue. Pride of place above Knuckles' bed towered a lion, but he wasn't in the typical pose of a roar or a rear. He lay, resting his head on his forepaws, with an absolute and irrevocable wisdom in his giant, indicolite blue eyes.

"Phil." I whispered.

His fur was soft and so pale it was almost white. Warm, kind and loving; the shaggy mane fell over the headboard of his bed where the paws rested either side of his pillow. Knuckles slept in Phil's arms, still, after all this time.

"Always." Said Knuckles, his voice hoarse.

I stood for a moment, staring at the mighty lion with Phil's eyes.

"He is a lion," Knuckles insisted after a moment. "If you can't see that then you're not fit to be his boyfriend. He's just so fucking brave, like, he didn't think twice about breaking into Oak Tree to see Ellie because he has this utterly unquenchable need to do good – he just doesn't see another option, the coward's choice. I was fucking terrified and I know you were too. You weren't the only one clinging on to him - not physically, obviously. He was the only thing holding us together and keeping us going that night, and it's always the same with him. He's selfless and sweet and innocent but he's not. He's strong. In ways you just don't see if you only ever look with your eyes."

We were silent for another moment, still staring side by side.

"He is a lion," I agreed. "He's the real king of the jungle, because he's just better than everyone else I guess. What am I, do you think?"

Knuckles turned guiltily to me. "I actually did paint you a while back. Twice actually. Er..."

"Can I see?" I asked, surprised.

"Yeah, I guess." Knuckles said reluctantly. "You're in my mum's old room – I couldn't bear having you in here with Phil."

We backed out of the small room and past Matt and Phil – completely oblivious to us at either ends of the narrow hall, absorbed in the paintwork. This next room was a rainforest filled with lush green and deep velvet – dripping with moisture.