Charcoal
“Booyah, baby!” Zach grinned, flexing his muscles as he posed, dramatically, in his underwear. Most of the heroes just snickered and rolled their eyes, but in one of the other corners, Will and Warren were cracking up, finding this almost desperately painfully hilarious.
It was art class. Art class. Why would a super-hero school have art class anyways, especially one that was segregated into a hero stream and a sidekick stream? So now here they sat, in hero class, supposed to draw well, the human figure. Which sort of explained why Zach was posing like a cheesy muscle man on a platform in the centre of the classroom, but really, Will and Warren were laughing too hard to actually draw him or anything.
Strolling past them, Magenta paused when she saw the completely blank pages, and crossed her arms, raising a single eyebrow.
“Well, now. That doesn’t look like the human figure.”
“Sure it is,” Will snickered, “it’s a human figure in a snow storm!”
Warren snerked, collapsing against his friend’s shoulder, laughing so hard he was almost crying. Magenta would have normally been thrilled to see their normally stoic friend so happy, but at the moment, she was having different thoughts. Eviller thoughts.
“You know, I am the TA for this class. So you know, I have to make sure you finish your work during class.” On cue, the bell rang, signally the end of the period. “And you aren’t done. This project’s worth ten percent, guys. And you have nothing.”
Will and Warren exchanged glances, sobering up a little now.
“Yeah. So I have a plan. Warren, you and I are going to stop by Will’s house tonight after school. And I’m going to make sure you two finish your assignments. And... since I’m so nice, I’ll even give you pointers.”
“Pointers,” Will sighed. “Magenta...”
She held up a hand. “Nu uh. I don’t want to have to tell Mr. Ross he should fail you! So I’m going to help, got it?”
“Yeah.” Warren shook his head, shouldering his backpack. “Got it. Let’s go, Stronghold.”
The three of them took the bus together, but when they arrived at the Stronghold household, Josie was just rushing out, Steve already gone apparently. “Oh, Will,” Josie - Jetstream, technically at that moment - paused. “You have friends over. We have an emergency... your father and I won’t be home til... late. Tomorrow night. Will you be all right?”
“Oh, yeah, sure,” Will nodded. “We’re doing homework.”
“Oh, good.” she smiled. “Have fun. See you tomorrow, Will.”
“Good,” Magenta grinned, once they’d gone. “Upstairs to your room, I think, Will.”
“Okay,” she ordered as soon as they arrived, dropping her backpack on the desk, and dragging out a large sketchbook and her charcoals. “Strip.”
“What?!” Will squeaked, and Warren just glowered at her.
“You’re drawing the human form,” Magenta reminded them. “Both of you are human. You can draw each other.”
Will was very pink by this point. “So, like Zach was this afternoon, right? Underwear?”
“No,” Magenta shook her head. “Naked.”
“That’s not what happened at school,” Warren reminded her, voice surprisingly chilly for a flame thrower.
“That was school. You guys really need to work hard to catch up, see?” Magenta crossed her arms. “All right, what are you waiting for? Strip!”
Looking away from each other and her the entire time, both very red in the face, Warren and Will reluctantly did as told, then quickly sat on the bed, as far away from each other as they could manage, legs crossed, hands in front of themselves.
“Sheesh, you’d think you’d never seen another guy naked before,” Magenta rolled her eyes, and grabbed the two extra sketchbooks she’d brought out of her backpack, tossing one and a couple pencils to Warren. “All right, you draw first. Will... pose. Somehow. Distinguished like. Like Michelangelo’s David, you know the piece?”
“Okay...” Will said, swallowing, and stood, keeping a hand in front of himself for a long moment, then finally sighing, and moving it away, setting one hand against his collarbone and the other at his side, like the David, looking away so Warren got a profile. Magenta had no idea why the boy had been covering himself so desperately, he had nothing to hide.
Warren took a deep breath, laid the sketchbook flat across his lap, then started work.
Magenta shifted, smiling a little to herself, and began to sketch her friend herself. After all, she had an art show coming up, and she was supposed to be showcasing some of her work. It never hurt to beef up her portfolio, and frankly, Will was an excellent example for sketching, because he had such great, muscular lines. Magenta had a quick and dirty style, managing to capture almost photo realism with a very few strokes - it had what had made Mr. Ross pay attention to her art in the first place, and what had gotten her the TA position. She was very soon done Will as David, and started sketchy Warren, as he sat there, hunched over his sketchpad, face furrowed in concentration, lower lip jutted out as he attempted to capture every line of his best friend’s frankly impressive body. He was beautiful this way, she decided.
At last, Warren sat up, stretching his neck and popping a number of vertebrae. “Done,” he announced.
Magenta peered over at the sketchpad, as did Will. It was a gorgeous rendition of the boy, all smooth lines and almost tender shading. It was like sex with a pencil, like Warren had made love to the paper with the portrait. A bit of a strange way to describe it, maybe, but it was something in the drawing, that Will’s static position had somehow managed to appear sexually charged, his eyes turned towards the viewer instead of to the front, sparkling mischievously, almost provocatively.
It was a sexy portrait.
“Wow,” Magenta mused. “Sexy.”
Will meeped, turning pink again. Warren shrugged.
“All right, your turn.” Magenta tossed the other sketchbook at Will, picking up her own again. “Warren?”
“What do you want me to do?” he asked, crossing his arms.
“Hmm.” Magenta mused. “Rodin’s The Thinker.”
Warren snorted, but sat on the edge of the bed as ordered, one hand crossed over his lap, the other supporting his chin.
“Hey!” Will yelped. “That’s not fair! He had to see... everything... on me! I can’t see anything on him at all!”
Magenta snorted. “You wanted to?”
“Oh no no no,” Will chuckled nervously. “I just meant... why did I have to be all... open, and he doesn’t?”
Warren rolled his eyes. “Draw the damn picture, Stronghold.”
Will stuck his tongue out, but started anyways.
Magenta smirked to herself, and started at work herself. As before, she drew both, but just as she was starting to put the finishing touches on Will, she realized that he wasn’t drawing, he was just staring, head tilted to the side, at Warren. Warren had noticed, it seemed, and would swallow awkwardly every few seconds, eyes flicking over to look at the other. Will didn’t seem to notice, he was just staring into space at Warren’s lower back. Oh. Of course. Warren’s ass.
Clearing her throat, Magenta was pleased when Will jumped, frantically turning back to the paper. “Hey guys, I wonder if you could do me a favour. I need people to pose. I’m working on my portfolio, and Mr. Ross totally marks me harder than everyone else because I’m the TA. So what I have to have are human figure studies that show motion and emotion. Can I get you to pose?”
“Pose?” Will swallowed. “How?”
“Pretend to fight. Have you ever seen The Rape of the Sabine Women? It’s a sculpture. Beautiful, all flowing lines. But one person has got the other, kind of around their waist, hauling them off the ground. Do you think you could... pose like that?”
Magenta smiled sweetly.
“Well, can we... get clothes on?” Will ventured.
“They’re naked in the statue,” Warren said dryly.
“Yeah,” Magenta nodded. “Please?”
There was much grumbling, but to her incredible glee, they agree, and soon Will was holding Warren up off the ground, chests together, both bright pink and trying to ignore the fact that their manly bits were very close to each other. Magenta grinned, and started sketching, loving the clean, smooth lines, the power evident in both boy’s limbs, the spark in their eyes.
Finishing that page, she flipped it over to a blank one, then considered them for a moment. “Do you suppose... hmm. I need you to actually move this time, so I can do gestures. I know this’ll sound odd, but... can you wrestle? Like in the old Greek Olympics? Just... grapple.”
Will swallowed. “Are you sure about this, Magenta?”
“I’ll give you ten extra percent in the class, no questions asked,” she said, pulling her trump card.
“Sounds good to me,” Warren shrugged, and decided that now was as good a time to start as any, twisting in the pose they still held, and flipping Will onto the ground.
Will let out an indignant cry, and tackled back.
Magenta started sketching, fast and furiously, but she was really waiting for the inevitable.
It didn’t take long.
It was one particularly clever move of Warren’s, using brains over Will’s superior brawn, and quite suddenly the two boys found themselves in a compromising position - Warren straddling Will’s upper thighs, Will gripping Warren’s upper arms and holding them very close to his own chest, so that their faces were mere centimetres apart, and their groins were quite literally upon each other. Magenta held her breath, waiting, hoping, wishing desperately...
And she wasn’t disappointed. Teenaged hormones and repressed desires were bubbling to the surface when Warren crushed his mouth to Will’s and Will tugged the other closer and rocked his hips up, grinding them together.
And Magenta never stopped drawing.
Two months later, the final school art show had come, the final marks were in, and all was good. Though Magenta was fairly sure Will and Warren hadn’t done anything of any sort since that night, it had happened once, and once was a step in the right direction, for sure. Besides, they’d both gotten perfect on their human figure studies, that extra ten percent, no questions asked, and Magenta, too was happy.
There was one piece that got the most attention at the show, a large four by five foot painting she’d made from her sketches, called Inevitable, and featured two very distinct young men kissing passionately, one straddling the other, the other with his fingers tangled in his lover’s black and red hair, trying to tug him closer. She’d been offered by many people to buy the painting, but Magenta refused. She planned on giving it to Will and Warren someday, hanging it above their couch in their living room, or something.
Because as far as she was concerned, those two were pure poetry in motion. Their passion was undeniable and incredibly inevitable.
They were what art was all about.
Go back to Sky High.