forgive my mouth

I know it's not tomorrow yet, but here's the fic anyway.

Title: When You Wish Upon a Star
Author: Spikedluv
Fandom: Shelter
Rating: PG13/Slash
Pairing: Zach/Shaun
Length: 2128 words
Spoilers: Entire movie. (Even though the fic is an AU, I’ve borrowed from the movie.)
Summary: The artist’s hands faltered and his smile slipped, but then he recovered. “Portraits aren’t my specialty,” he said, making light of the subject and trying to hide his discomfort.
Notes: A complete and total AU meeting between Zach and Shaun. Written for the shelter_diner’s Halloween Fest 2010 using the theme: Sleepy Hollow (and all things horror/supernatural).
Feedback: Would be greatly appreciated.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Written: September 23, 2010

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Shaun walked up to the artist he’d been watching for the better part of a week now. Every day since he’d arrived at the beach house that was supposed to reawaken his inspiration, Shaun had walked along the sand, letting the water slide up over his bare toes. He’d noticed the artist on his second day; he’d been sitting on the rock wall, looking out over the water. He’d held a pad in one hand, a pencil in the other, and his hand had moved swiftly and surely across the paper.

Shaun had stopped and watched from a short distance away, but the young man had appeared to remain oblivious of Shaun’s presence. He’d seen the artist again the next day, set up on the grassy area drawing charcoal portraits for a fee. Each day thereafter Shaun had made a point of looking for him.

Most of the time Shaun couldn’t tell what he was drawing, though he liked to make guesses based on the direction he faced. The artist would sit hunched over his notebook, as if he didn’t want anyone to see what he was doing, otherwise Shaun might have been tempted to walk up to him and peer over his shoulder. But Shaun knew what it was like to be caught up in the creative process and not yet be ready to share it with anyone, so he squashed that urge.

The portraits, however, weren’t hidden from anyone, so Shaun could sit and watch the artist draw to his heart’s content. His work was beautiful, yet he didn’t seem as happy when he was doing the portraits, or as pleased with the results.

On this particular day Shaun was sitting nearby watching the artist when his last customer paid him, thanked him for the portrait, then left with it. He waited to see if anyone else would approach the artist, but when no one did, worked up the courage to move nearer himself.

At Shaun’s approach the artist looked up from where he was wiping charcoal off his fingers. The smile that spread across the young man’s face was polite, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Would you like me to draw your portrait?” he asked, almost as if he hoped the answer was no.

Shaun lowered himself to the grass beside the artist’s camp chair instead of sitting in the chair across from him. “You do beautiful work,” Shaun said.

The young man raised an eyebrow, but his smile became more genuine. “Thank you.”

“And yet you don’t appear to enjoy doing them.”

The artist’s hands faltered and his smile slipped, but then he recovered. “Portraits aren’t my specialty,” he said, making light of the subject and trying to hide his discomfort.

“Then why do you do them?” Shaun asked, honestly curious.

“Because I need to pay the rent just like everyone else.”

Shaun nodded and gave a ‘good point’ shrug. “What are you drawing when you’re looking out over the water?”

At the look the artist gave him, Shaun offered a sheepish smile in return. “I’m out here everyday, you’re here everyday, I noticed you.”

“What are you doing here?” the other man asked, changing the subject.

Shaun let him get away with it. For now. “I’m supposed to be writing, but my muse deserted me. A change of scenery was supposed to tempt him back again.”

The artist made a face of commiseration. “Did it work?”

“Not yet. Then again, I’ve spent most of my time watching you, rather than trying to figure out my main character’s motivation for killing his best friend.”

The young man gave Shaun a look that was part amused and part self-conscious.

“I’m Shaun.” Shaun held out his hand and waited while the artist studied it before reaching out and taking it.

“Zach.”

Zach’s hold was nice and firm (not a macho squeeze that left your hand half numb, or a weak, barely there touch that tried to get it over quickly with as little skin on skin contact as possible), and Shaun didn’t want to let go. There was a moment of silence as Zach fidgeted under Shaun’s gaze. He found that he really liked looking at Zach.

Finally Zach broke the silence. “The bridge.”

At Shaun’s questioning look Zach tilted his head towards the shoreline. “I like to draw the bridge.”

Shaun looked out at the bridge, then back at Zach. Not the seagulls, or the waves, or the skyline, but the bridge. Zach was becoming more and more interesting the longer Shaun spoke with him.

“I’d love to see it sometime,” Shaun said. “When you’re ready,” he added when Zach appeared uncomfortable at the request. “I hate it when people ask me if they can read what I’m writing before I’m ready to let anyone else see it. Even my editor.”

“No one looks at my book,” Zach said.

Shaun nodded. “Fair enough.” He reclined on the grass and put his hands behind his head, closing his eyes against the sun. “So why don’t you like to do portraits?”

Zach didn’t answer right away, but Shaun just remained silent, neither rushing him nor changing the subject. He listened as Zach organized his easel and charcoal, and let the warm breeze relax him.

Finally Zach answered, speaking so softly that Shaun had to strain to hear him. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Shaun cracked one eye open and saw that Zach was staring out over the water at nothing. “Try me.”

Zach jumped as if startled that Shaun had heard him, or perhaps he’d forgotten that Shaun was even there.

“Why do you care?” Zach asked, sounding genuinely curious rather than sarcastic.

Shaun shrugged. “You look so happy when you’re drawing in your notebook. You should always look that happy.”

Zach looked down at his fingers and Shaun thought his skin took on a pink hue.

“What do you do with your drawings?” Shaun asked, giving Zach an out. “Do you paint them?”

“Yeah,” Zach said. “I have a small studio where I paint. It’s not much.” Zach picked at the dried paint on his thumb. “I see things,” he said to his feet. “When I paint someone’s portrait,” he clarified, “I see things. It’s not all bad,” he added, “but it always feels like I’m invading their privacy. And sometimes it is. Bad, I mean.”

Zach went on, filling the air between them with words, as if afraid that if he stopped speaking Shaun would tell him that he didn’t believe him. “One time I saw this girl crying after her boyfriend broke up with her. He was standing right there while I drew her, smiling and laughing with her. Another time I drew this woman who’d lost her child. There was so much pain in that memory, or vision, that I could barely finish the portrait.”

Shaun had sat up when Zach started speaking, leaned closer. He didn’t even consider not believing him, not for an instant, no matter how farfetched it sounded, because the distress in Zach’s voice was too real for him to be lying. “I’m sorry,” Shaun said. “That must really suck.”

Zach snorted a humorless laugh. “Yeah, it does. So, that’s why portraits aren’t my favorite thing to do.”

“What about dinner?” Shaun said, almost surprising himself with the invitation. “I mean, dinner is one of my favorite things to do, and if it was one of your favorite things, maybe we could do it together. It’s one of those things that’s even better shared with someone else.”

Zach raised an eyebrow at him. “Are you asking me out?”

“You’re really cute, and I’ve been watching you for a week trying to work up the courage to talk to you, so yeah, I’m asking you out. It was either that or go home and kick myself for the rest of the night, and then have to work up the courage all over again tomorrow. This way’s easier. And less painful.”

“I don’t tell many people. About the visions. They tend to think I’m nuts when I do.”

“Not many of them end up asking you out?”

Zach smiled down at his bare toes curling in the grass before glancing over at Shaun. “You’d be the first.”

“Does that mean you’re going to say yes?” Shaun said, breathless, heart pounding as he waited for Zach’s response.

The moment was broken when a couple approached Zach and asked if he’d draw them.

“I’m sorry,” Zach said, not sounding sorry at all, “but I’m done for the day. I’ll be back tomorrow, though.”

The couple left, disappointed but still smiling, assuring Zach that they would return. Shaun went to his knees and watched as Zach packed up his charcoal and paper, and closed up the easel and folding chairs.

Zach stood next to Shaun and looked down at him. “I, uh, have to put this stuff in my car,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.

Shaun pushed to his feet. “Let me help.”

“You don’t have to . . . .”

Shaun just held out his hands and waited for Zach to hand something to him. After they loaded everything into the back of Zach’s beat up Jimmy they walked to a restaurant on the beach that didn’t mind them tracking in sand.

Shaun wanted to know everything there was to know about Zach, but he’d already revealed something very personal and unpleasant, and Shaun didn’t want him to feel like he was being interrogated, so Shaun started the conversational ball rolling by talking about himself.

He told Zach that his first book had done better than expected, but now he felt the pressure to match (or even exceed) it, and his muse was just not cooperating. He told him the bare bones of his most recent break up, which was getting easier to talk about as the distance between now and then increased, and the pain of it decreased. He told Zach about his mom’s remarriage to Larry after his father left, and that (aside from his mother’s happiness) his brother was the best thing resulting from that.

Zach eventually opened up as he grew more comfortable with Shaun (which comfort level unsurprisingly coincided with the number of beers he’d drank). He told Shaun about his nephew, and how hard it had been to leave him behind when he went to art school, how he loved to surf and skateboard, and that he still sometimes tagged a few of the buildings near his apartment when he was feeling nostalgic.

Zach also confided in Shaun some more about what he called his ‘portrait thing’. He said that sometimes he could focus on the pleasant visions when he drew people, but other times the painful ones were too strong and refused to be pushed away. He never liked the way those portraits turned out. “Something about the eyes,” he said, “they just don’t look right.”

After dinner they walked along the beach and made plans to go surfing together at the weekend. Zach let Shaun hold his hand, and when they stopped walking and just stood looking out over the water, Zach stood close enough to Shaun that their arms touched.

Zach’s voice was nearly drowned out by the surf when he finally broke the comfortable silence that had fallen between them. “I drew my mom, once,” he said. “I was 12. She looked sick, and weak. Her eyes were all dark and sunken in. Two years later they found the cancer. She died.”

“Zach,” Shaun breathed, the horror of a 12-year old boy foreseeing his mother’s death nearly incomprehensible to him. He turned Zach and pulled him into his arms. “I’m so sorry.”

“That’s,” Zach began, then had to start again. “That’s why I don’t draw anyone I know. Ever.”

“I won’t ever ask you to draw me,” Shaun promised, “so you’ll never have to say no.”

Zach nodded his head against Shaun’s shoulder.

“Although, wow, presumptuous much?” Shaun gave a little laugh. “That assumed an awful lot on your part.”

Instead of responding with words Zach slid his arms around Shaun’s waist and raised his face to Shaun. Shaun hoped he wasn’t moving too fast when he bent his head and pressed a soft kiss to Zach’s lips.

“I noticed you,” Zach said, “watching me.”

Shaun found himself turned on by the admission. He slid his hands down Zach’s back and pulled him in even closer. “Did you?”

Zach nodded. “I hoped you’d come over. Then last night there was a falling star. I made a wish.”

“What did you wish for?” Shaun asked, fighting the urge to hold his breath.

“I’ll tell you in the morning,” Zach promised, then stretched up and pressed his lips to Shaun’s.

The End