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enjoythesilentworld · 5 months ago

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wilmon + paint me 👀

hello my dear! oh, you wanted a drabble? too bad. instead you get nearly 2k of unnecessary world building and musings about Simon's beauty.

(and surprisingly little spice, but i'll give this an M rating for nudity)

send me a prompt and i'll write a 'drabble'! (it will not be a drabble)

Wilhelm, looking to separate himself from his peers and secure a place in Florence’s Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, decides to find a new muse in the commonfolk. He finds Simon, a lowly leatherworker, in a bar in the slums.

Wilhelm surely looked out of place. Though he tried to dress down and muss up his hair a bit, there was something more that set apart the rich from the poor. Something about his paler skin, his lighter hair and smooth hands. The evidence he spent most days inside, well fed. Not working in the fields or a stuffy forge. They may call it high times, a renaissance for art and culture, but the divide was clear in this bar.

It was dark and drab and the wine tasted like shit, but Wilhelm was not there for that. He was there for the type of regulars that frequented this establishment.

All day every day Wilhelm was surrounded by pompous assholes, dressed immaculately in imported silks and feathered hats. The art that followed was all the same. Soft, aristocratic women draped over chaise lounges and round, pale men posed with their swords. It was a depiction of 17th century Florence, sure, but it did not show the rest. The underbelly. The real people who lived and worked and sweat and bled and died in the city, slaving away for the profit of the rich. Babies in buckets and shit on the streets. Wilhelm was tired of the glimmering image. People needed to see the real thing. He would be the one to show them all, to show the damned Accademia in particular. They would all see. Commonfolk could be beautiful, too, he was sure of it.

As he scanned the bar, hiding his grimace at the wine, his point was quickly proven. Across the way, there was a man bent over a goblet, pinching the bridge of his nose. Ever the artist, Wilhelm noted the way the light from the nearby lantern lit his tan skin in a warm glow, how it highlighted the frizz around his deep brown curls. The shadow from the man’s face, cast across the wood of the bar, outlined his beautiful profile, the sloped nose and pursed lips. His shirt had nearly no sleeves and was ripped in some places, stained in others, though he wore a nice, simple leather vest over it. He looked distraught, if not a little pissed off, and when he lifted the goblet to drink, his throat bobbed with the motion, muscles shifting as he swallowed. He also was the most exquisite human Wilhelm had ever seen.

He found his feet carrying him over before the man could even lower his cup.

“Hello,” Wilhelm said calmly, placing his own cup on the bar and staring down at the man, who, looking startled that anyone was talking to him, glared right back.

“What do you want?” His voice was like summer rain, and an array of light purples and blues swirled through Wilhelm’s mind as he spoke, though the tone was fiery.

“I’d like to offer you a job.”

The man glanced around the bar, almost looking nervous.

“I can tell you're not from around here,” he murmured in a low voice, “but this is not that type of establishment.”

“Oh, I—” Wilhelm stuttered, swallowing his blush at the insinuation, “No. Not like— A real job. I am a painter. I would like you to pose for me.”

A rough chuckle bubbled from the man’s chest, and he lifted an eyebrow, tentative eyes roaming over Wilhelm. He scoffed, “You want to paint me?”

“Yes. I can pay.”

“How much?”

“Twenty per sitting.”

“Thirty.”

Wilhelm paused. Now closer, he admired the man’s slim fingers and calloused palms, the cut muscles off his arms and the tilt of his eyes. His lips were perfectly symmetrical though there was a scar on his cheek and a grit about his demeanor that said everything Wilhelm needed to know. All inspections necessary before truly employing someone as a model. He was like nothing and no one he'd ever seen before.

“Deal.”

The man, Simon, as Wilhelm had learned, showed up to his apartment on the north side of the river one week later.

They had talked late into the night and agreed on a tentative business partnership. Simon would pose for Wilhelm for their agreed upon payment per sitting at least once a month, more often if needed for a larger painting. There would be sets and props and Simon assured Wilhelm he would have no issue holding one pose for many hours. Wilhelm was sure he would not either, based on the state of his arms and legs and the sliver of chest he had had seen.

At the door, he greeted Simon warmly, offering food and wine, both of which Simon declined, slipping past him. He smelled of leather and oil, his skin was just as smooth when it brushed against Wilhelm’s bare arm as it had the night before when, slightly deep in his cups, Wilhelm had forgotten himself and placed a hand on Simon’s arm. Simon had met his eye then glanced out towards the bar, a warning. Not a denial.

Wilhelm busied himself setting up while Simon roamed his home, which was really one large room. It was a warm morning for spring, so Wilhelm had tied back the curtains and opened the windows, flooding the room with light and the soft sounds of the city below. There were more painting supplies and easels than pieces of real furniture, but Wilhelm was quite content with it all. His lone mattress, piled with blankets and pillows, was plenty for him. All he longed to do was paint, the one thing that worked well enough to quiet his mind for some time.

He arranged his stool and easel just so, then checked his paints again. On the canvas, there was a loose sketch. This one was a commission for some noble lord, supposedly a friend of the Medici Family. Wilhelm had been sure to charge him extra for claiming that friendship, as he had never heard of the man before, nor had he seen him at any of the Medici’s dinner parties. Still, the man would surely faint if he knew Wilhelm was using a commoner as a model for this painting. That pleased him.

Wilhelm cleared his throat. “Shall we?”

Simon turned from where he had been appraising a pile of Wilhelm’s works in the back corner and nodded once. With a careful hand, he accepted the clothing Wilhelm offered and began to undo the loops on his vest.

As more skin was revealed, he felt unable to turn away, and Simon’s eyes locked on him even as he slowly undressed. Wilhelm spoke quickly, “Would you be okay if we tried something different today?”

Fingers froze on leather and Wilhelm tore his eyes away from Simon’s chest, meeting his intense gaze.

“What’s that?”

Wilhelm glanced back at his easel, at the sketched-out commission. He had plenty of time to work on it, really. Simon could come back next week and sit for it then.

“I was thinking,” Wilhelm began slowly, knowing he was toeing a delicate line. “If this agreement is to my understanding, you may very well be posing for me for a good while.”

Simon nodded, hands still hesitating halfway through undoing his vest. Wilhelm swallowed dryly and prayed this was not a mistake.

“Perhaps,” he continued, “I should spend some time getting to know your body first. As I will need to get comfortable with all its forms and curves for future works.”

When something crossed Simon’s face, it became evident that Wilhelm was going to have to be state it out clearly. There was a challenge in that open, innocent look.

“Perhaps, you may like to pose nude for me, so I may… familiarize myself.”

“Familiarize yourself,” Simon said flatly, though the corner of his mouth quirked up. “Very well.”

Unable to believe it, and not wanting to break whatever spell had allowed this, Wilhelm spun away and began tearing down the background he had originally set for the comission. Thankfully, he had a new, blank canvas already prepared and set to the side.

Every day in the late morning, a beam of warm sunlight slipped through the windows to cast across his bed. Though it would be a pain to find the right timing each day, he knew that would be the place. He kept is back to Simon as he fiddled with the sheets and fluffed pillows, creating a small nest of luxurious fabrics.

When he turned, he found Simon standing in full nude, casually leaning against the wall, watching Wilhelm with careful eyes.

“How do you want me?” Simon asked, uncrossing his arms and pushing off the wall, then taking a step forward.

Wilhelm would not let himself look, not really, not yet.

He gestured to the bed, “Right here.”

Over the next bit of time, Wilhelm, in a great feat of personal strength and restraint, carefully arranged Simon on the sheets. At first he tried to explain with his words only, mimicking the gestures himself, but then Simon said, softly, “It’s okay, you can move me if you need,” and suddenly Wilhelm had hands on warm skin. A hand on his thigh to bend at the knee, on his wrist to prop up his head, on his waist to slightly tilt the hips.

By the time Wilhelm made it behind his easel, he felt as if he had lost his breath. Once he sat on his stool, he allowed himself to look.

In the back of his mind, he noted the colors he would need, which to mix to match the color of Simon’s skin where the sun hit it, compared to where it did not. The color of his lips, now redder than they were when he had first arrived. The flush on his chest was new, too. From this distance—too far for Wilhelm’s liking but just far enough to have the full body in frame — Wilhelm could not really see Simon’s eyes, though he knew the hundred colors that swirled there and would likely never forget them.

In the front of his mind, like seeing the sun for the first time after a long, long winter, he gazed at Simon’s body. His eyes tracked over the line of his neck, across his shoulder, the defined pectoral and ribs and toned stomach. The slight curve of his hip, muscled thigh, bony knee, all the way down to his ankle, then back up across every other piece of skin. Wilhelm could paint for three hundred years and never truly capture the dip of Simon’s collarbone and the jut of his jaw, how his core muscles twitched as he adjusted under Wilhelm’s stare.

“Do I look okay?”

Simon’s voice pulled him from his musings. Wilhelm smiled at the smirk on Simon’s face, the confidence to cover the insecurity, marked by the way his cheeks blushed lightly.

“Yes. You are perfect,” he said.

Perhaps he would never be able to truly capture Simon’s beauty with a brush and paint. But, he would be honored to spend his entire life trying.

#dont ask why we're in 17th century florence i dont know #this one clearly got away from me #anyway i hope u like it lol #i had to restrain myself from writing more bc this is already stupid long and im embarassed #and yes this is a love letter to the painter au #yr ficlet #wilmon #blank me

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