Spends the afternoon...

Between your thighs

How's that for gratitude?

I apologise...

All he has left are pictures, material memories—and they mock him, they sit, bound by leather wrapping, like old letters containing dark secrets, stripping the owner of these letters of everything they are, leaving them naked in their bedrooms. He can't really bring himself to touch them, really, he's sometimes afraid, that just like before, he would cover his hand with his own, smiling softly—and he would lean in, brush his lips against his ear and whisper, "Not yet."

-x-

The camera zooms in, unfocused—blurry, zooming out a little to reveal bleak darkness—little slits of light coming through. Laughter, joyous; accusations flying about—("You silly boy! Come closer, I get so nervous when you just stand there like a—a voyeur of sorts.")—The darkness shifts, moves away, a white hand retracting and running through blonde hair before coming to rest on the boy's hips with its partner, a pink mouth pouting in false anger...

Music, music...

-x-

He has always loved that studio, the day he bought it was the day he met him after all—he was a dancer—an exhibitionist of sorts, and him? He took pictures.

-x-

He moves like a swan, arms stretching like wings, back bowing, legs moving—turn, turn, turn, the light hits him.

He is so beautiful.

Their life is shaped by pictures, pictures of the past—pictures of the moment—and pictures of a future that could have been. As he dances, his eyes shift, eyeing the camera, the most striking of eyes, and it's curious. Blue isn't an uncommon eye-colour, especially in their world, the world of fiction.

Lights, colour...

Music, Music...

-x-

He always knew he was sick, of course, it was a truth both of them accepted with little grasp on the reality of things. They always lived through art, and art doesn't have to be reality. If there ever was a place to escape, it was their human painting. As he danced in the studios, eight mirror images dancing in synch...As he watched him, always watching. His signature, the artist's signature, the light of the flash.

-x-

Legs gracefully moving up to rest against the arm of the orange couch, clad in black tights, blond hair rolling against the couch, his sunflower, blue eyes narrowing at the camera—("For the love of God, switch that thing off...")Legs moving, body shifting, he rises and comes closer, the camera moves completely, focused on a mirror; that beautiful boy wrapped around a pale, fragile, little thing, pallid and not quite as bright as the flash of the camera or the ominous, blinking red light of the recorder. ("What I don't understand, is why we never record you.") But the question is pointless, he is the exhibitionist, and what exactly is he?

Bass, beat, rhythm,

Movement,

Music, music..

-x-

He sells the orange couch, he keeps his pictures in a box, and eventually, he sells the studio, too. He is binding their life together, their story, like he bound the pictures.

-x-

(What do you call the man behind the camera?)

-x-

Sometimes, he doesn't realise...And walks by the studio, even though he means to go the other way entirely. Sometimes, he goes to furniture stores, and looks through orange couches. (He loved that couch)

-x-

(The Camera man.)

-x-

Fin.

It seems to last for hours...

It seems to last for days.

-x-

That was a short piece of nothing.

Written to Lady of the Flowers by Placebo.

Disclaimer, the first verse, and last couplet do not belong to me. Everything else does, though.