#this might die a languid death in my docs

[delirious-and-slightly-murderous]

For the WIP ask game: please tell us something about Procrastinating Painter and exasperated but horny manager?

Hi Anon!😊 So glad you asked about this one.

So this is, at its core, a character study. 

A little tidbit of information about me: I am a master procrastinator. And not only when it comes to writing but in all aspects of my life too. I am lazy. If I can do it later, I will do it later. And I'll keep pushing it back as much as I can until I can't anymore. Thanks to this I've become a master at finishing projects with very little time and a deadline hanging like a sword of Damocles over my head. I work best under pressure. That's why I sometimes lose interest in my fics so easily. If I don't have a deadline it's very hard for me to get stuff done.

Soooooo, all this to say that one day, while I was despairing over my WIPs I started thinking about the different ways an artist or creator can deal with procrastination. And then, because every idea I get now mostly concerns or can be applied to Berlermo, I said to myself: But what if Andrés was a master procrastinator like me?

And BAM!

This thing was born. (Also I find it kinda ironic and hilarious that a character study in procrastination ended up as a WIP, don't you agree?).

So the basic idea is that Andrés is a moderately known and successful painter. He's not as successful as he could be because he's very particular and picky with his work and who he works for. So he only paints when he wants to and what he wants to. Which would be fine except that he is a procrastinator so his work is scarce.

Enter Martín, who is Andrés' best friend/agent and kinda friend with benefits. He is the one in charge of making sure Andrés gets stuff done even if the man in question does not want to. This means that Martín lives in a constant state of awe at Andrés' genius and talent, and also exasperation because of his laziness and inability to do what he's told. Also he is very much in love with Andrés and hates himself because of it.

So the fic in itself would cover the span of a month while Martín tries to get Andrés to work on an important commision for a famous gallery. From him we would see his struggle with perceived unrequited feelings for a man he feels he cannot fully come to understand. Andrés would procrastinate and we would see all his process and struggle with it. Until a couple days before the exhibition when Martín is about to kill Andrés, his genius strikes and he goes and produces a masterpiece (a masterpiece that may or may not be inspired by Martín).

So mostly it would focus on the art, the feels, the procrastination, and then the mad rush to get things done in time. (And I'd like to think I'd write it with a very oniric feel to it. Oh and also smut, so very like soulful and poetic smut. But well I don't think that's gonna happen.)

(Oh and also a happy ending where they end up confessing their feelings because I'm weak like that😁.)

So here have a snippet:

Martín started pacing and swore as he narrowly avoided walking into a bucket of bright red paint. 

The room was positively tiny and he still couldn't understand why Andrés insisted on spending all his time in it like some kind of recluse. The monastery was big enough to accommodate docens of people at one time but Andrés was happy to cram himself in the tiniest, most uncomfortable room he could find.  

He wondered how Andrés could live like that. The room was cramped, cluttered with books, canvases, sculptures and various bits of artistic trash. It looked like a museum's warehouse, if museums threw invaluable works in a warehouse without thought or care to what became of them. As he walked he deftly avoided discarded pieces of paper, empty paint tubes and old brushes. It was dirty, paint and dust covered every surface. The space not taken up by art supplies was used by a mattress on the ground shoved unceremoniously into a corner, a small coffee table and an enormous oak work table that seemed to be the centerpiece of the place.

Amongst all this chaos there stood Andrés, serene and unperturbed, unaware of his surroundings. With a brush on each hand and one clenched between his teeth. Before him a half painted canvas stretched like a vision of doom. The colors bleak and depressing. A mirage of untold horrors that sucked the life out of the area around it. The air seeming to grow heavier, dense and charged, stilted and dead. 

Martín could feel it in his bones, the emotions Andrés put into his work always expanding and resonating within him, turning him into a vessel for what Andrés couldn't say.

He was choking on an invisible weight and fought against it to unfurl his tongue from the dry cavern of his mouth and produce a sound. He knew the other man wasn't happy and that his intervention would only make things worse. But he had to shatter the looming tension before it swallowed him whole.

"Why don't you find another place. Maybe an apartment closer to the city."

Andrés didn't stop in his work but his shoulders tensed imperceptibly and the fingers of his left hand started drumming against the brush he wasn't currently using. He shook his head softly, his motions fluid and liquid. A delicate movement of silk floating in water.

"I'm not moving in with you Martín."

Martín closed his eyes, the bright hot pang in his heart a familiar caress at this point. He was like an addict, his feelings for Andrés a raging force that ravages his body and leaves him empty and aching. And still he willingly comes back for more, each time climbing higher with the knowledge that when he hits the ground it'll be more violent than before, the pieces impossible to pick up.

"That's not what I'm asking, you know it's not."

Andrés dipped his brush in a mug near his hand, washing out the dark paint, flicking the brush and creating a splatter of black bottomless dots, giving birth to a galaxy in the space that separates them.

"Don't ask things for which you know you won't like the answer."

Andrés' strokes become forceful then, the brush colliding against the canvas in an uncontrolled manner. The anger and frustration behind the movement captures Martín. He feels like a chick standing at the precipice. He can jump and take flight, taste the freedom and exhilaration of the wind rushing through his wings. Closing his eyes and diving not knowing if he's ready to fly the possibility of the deadly agonising crash a dark shadow at his back.

He was saved from having to make the choice by Andrés humming lowly in his throat.

"I love you Martín, but I'm not going to give up my life for you."

That familiar caress is back and the little chick is safely back in it's nest. The precipice dissolving and the unforgivable ground surging up to meet him, ripping him away in a manner more painful than any death. He shrugs, hunching in on himself, knowing the matter is closed and forgotten.

"Pass me my coffee." He demands, plastering a fake plastic smile on his face. While Andrés chooses to ignore the burning heat of things left unsaid that slowly melt the plastic away. Leaving behind a partially uncovered picture of a grotesque truth.

"I'm painting." Came the absent minded reply, the willful ignorance of man with a staggering lucidity of all the consequences of his actions.

Martín got up stretching legs that felt numb, forced to carry the weight of an unfathomable burden. He slowly walked towards Andrés, his steps the slow and lifeless cadence of the condemned, prolonging the inevitable in their approach to the gallows. 

He took his mug and took a long and deep sip of the liquid inside. He became aware of his mistake when Andrés turned to him with a steaming mug in his hand and a confused frown wrinkling his brow. 

Martín immediately opened his mouth, the dark paint water running down his chin like vomit, maring his shirt and staining skin and teeth. In the sickly pale light of the naked bulb, with the shadows under his eyes and the lingering hurt in his being, it made him look like a corpse throwing up thick and rotten blood.

Andrés laughed, the sound had a hysterically joyful quality to it, a discordant note in the gloominess of the room. It immediately invaded them, running through every crevice, every nook and cranny, injecting light and giving back the life that had been sucked out by the oppressing darkness.

The room changed completely, becoming bright and warm without suffering any real physical changes. It was infectious, contaging Martín and changing him from the inside out without his notice.

The rest of the afternoon was spent in a comfortable silence. And the next time Martín stopped for a visit the room felt warm and homely, cosy and welcoming. He also found that the mugs had marker scribbles on them. One read 'Martín' the other 'Paint Water'.

It put a small smile on his face.

Well Anon, it's really shitty right now and needs a lot of polishing and editing, but I hope you enjoy this and that it doesn't disappoint.☺