#bc it makes you beautiful and unattainable which is perfect for an artist's muse

[antisocialxconstruct]

I was gonna add to this but then my routine got fucked up today and my brain's not working so it's just this like ~800 words. That one post yesterday about OCs and their triggers got me Thinking™ about Maksim's early life (he's 22 here) and how several things all came together to make it incredibly hard for him to connect with people even when he really wanted to :/ (light CW for brief mention of self harm impulses)

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"I know you're disappointed."

There was a momentary silence, then a heavy sigh off to his left that made Danila flinch. "You know how I feel about you doing that," Klym said, and his tone was soft but it still made Danila feel like he was going to be sick. But the atmosphere in the little apartment had been off since he got there a couple hours ago, and it had taken him that long to convince himself that anything would be better than letting that silent storm keep brewing between them.

He clenched his fists in his lap, stared down at them, loosened one to nervously touch his face, pressed the hand against his mouth, screwed his eyes shut-anything except turn around. He was modeling after all, he told himself, he was supposed to be holding a pose, even as he was acutely aware that the soft scratching of pencil on paper had stopped. Klym had just started to say something else when he finally blurted out "you're not denying it."

Thick paper rustled briefly, then soft fabrics slid against each other, telling him Klym had gotten up and was coming around to face him, but he kept his eyes cast firmly downward. No illusions now about why. "Danila," Klym breathed, and that name on his lips was a knife between the ribs. It had only been five months but they had already established a pattern–he was always Danya, right up until they were having one of these conversations. "There are some things people think but don't say for a reason," Klym continued, "it's not your place to just hear them anyway. I know you know that."

“I’m sorry.” Danila nearly choked on the words, and wrapped his arms around himself like that was going to stop the panic. Stop the bleeding. Or just drive the knife deeper. “I know. I’m sorry.”

Klym stepped close enough to place a reassuring hand on his shoulder, but no more than that. It would have been a caress yesterday, he would have leaned in for a kiss. “Look, I’m not angry with you,” he said, and the thing he thought but didn’t say was I just want you to calm down, I don’t know how to talk to you when you get like this. It didn’t make Danila calm. It made his breath hitch like that knife in his chest had just punctured a lung. It made him imagine sewing his own mouth shut, dislocating his fingers to give himself something else to focus on, driving one of Klym’s nice expensive pens through his temple just to break himself of this stupid habit, keep him out of other people’s heads. It made him wonder if he could just erase this exchange from Klym’s memory and pretend he never said anything, maybe erase everything up to the visit the day before that had started it all. They could do it again, he wouldn’t wince this time when he felt Klym’s fingers wander up under the hem of his shirt, he wouldn’t make that face and he wouldn’t get so tense, and Klym would have no reason to tell him we don’t have to do this now if you’re not ready and he would have the good sense not to say I don’t think I want to do this at all. It would be fine actually, it wouldn’t really be an invasion if he was doing it to fix everything.

He must have gone too long without saying anything because Klym pulled his hand away and stepped back, and this time he said nothing at all but he thought I wish I knew what you wanted me to say, and before Danila could think through it he responded, “I wish you wouldn’t lie to me.”

“What am I lying about?” Klym volleyed back, and now that cautious I don’t want to spook you tone was starting to erode, because it was true that he was disappointed. It was true that he was frustrated. It was true that he was lying.

Even as his body was collapsing in around the constricting in his chest Danila still managed to get out “you’re punishing me.”

“I’m not-”

“You’re upset about yesterday so now you don’t want to touch me or look at me the same until I change my mind.”

“I just thought I made you uncomfortable, I-” Klym sighed again, this time with an obvious edge of exasperation. “I don’t understand how you can’t seem to keep yourself from reading my thoughts and you’re still this wrong.”

“I don’t understand why you’re still lying!” Danila spat, and at last he finally looked up to meet Klym’s eyes, finding enough defiant anger of his own not to wither under the other man’s glare. “I have to check because you won’t just say what you’re thinking!”

Klym exhaled sharply through his nose and rolled his eyes. “Right now I’m thinking maybe you should go home.” Danila had nearly gotten used to the knife between his ribs when it was yanked out, and whatever meager breath he’d been able to draw along with it.

He stared up, transfixed now by the stare he thought he’d been challenging, and shook his head, wheezed out a single “no.” No defiance now, no anger. Not a refusal so much as a desperate plea.

“Just give me a few days, Danila… You need to cool down and I’m not exactly feeling inspired right now.”