#i was listening to lacy again if you couldn't tell 😔😔

[calamitoustide]

college au with art student regulus who james goes to asking him to paint him a portrait of lily and at first regulus says no he doesn't do commissions and he wants nothing less than to paint james potter's girlfriend especially since he's been in love with him since he even knew what love was but also he can't say no to james and ends up doing it

that's where his obsession starts. he just wanted to start by sketching her by all the pictures james gives of her to practice for the real thing. he doesn't intend to fill up an entire notebook just of her. he doesn't intend to start noticing her everywhere and sketching her when he should be paying attention to whatever lecture he's in. she starts poisoning his mind, and he can't stop but notice every little thing about her. to any other person he would look crazy hell if anyone saw what was in his notebook they'd probably call someone on him, but he holds it close to his chest no one can know.

james starts showing up at his studio asking for updates on how the painting is going and at some point he just decides to stay there for hours while regulus works. eventually he asks for lessons so maybe one day james could paint as beautiful as regulus can. regulus is weak and says yes, letting him practice on him as he works on his own painting.

regulus keeps delaying making progress on the painting though, and it's all blurry whether it's to keep james as company or to keep lily as his muse. it's all tangled up in his head. he just knows he loathes lily for everything that she is, for how brilliant and dazzling she is and how she has james wrapped around her finger and all regulus has is his attention for maybe a few hours a week.

one day regulus loses track of his journal and lily sees it, she thinks james was the one who had drawn them (she knew he was practicing... she just didn't know he was that good at it.) she sees herself in a way she never had before, each brushstroke reveals something about herself she never thought to look at. it's only until she walks into regulus' art studio and sees the painting that she starts to question if it even was james who made them at all... and then she finds james actual notebook and sees endless drawings of regulus... and she doesn't quite know what to think anymore