Kieran made a vague noise of protest in the back of his throat but Jude was already on his way to the kitchen, and it didn't seem worth the fight. He set up his paints while he listened to the tea kettle whistle, putting the appropriate globs of paint onto the pallet and weighing the canvass corners down with some of the paperback books he had stacked underneath his coffee table. He'd rather paint on his knees on the floor than drag the easel out, it would be fine this way — this whole thing was already weird enough.

Reds, he was going to need red. Gold, obviously; gold and one of the lighter browns so that he could shade Jude's hair. A light, skin tone color. He took the opportunity to mix the skin tone with the light brown so he had the option of shading again. Black for some of Jude's clothes. He mixed a few extra shades with his brushes of the reds and the golds, and could almost pretend this was normal. (No he couldn't.)

The tea kettle whistled and Jude came back, and Kieran sat back on his heels and considered. "You can sit on the couch," he said, "If that's alright, and you can sit however you'd like. There's books under the coffee table if you get bored, too." He smiled wryly at Jude. The sunlight coming in through the windows would catch Jude's hair there in a way that was really pleasing. The thought of painting Jude on Kieran's shitty couch near Kieran's general mess — it made his heart rate pick up, although he wished it didn't.

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