"I want to draw you," Dallon decides, words as abrupt in the Nevada streets as I've ever heard them, a certain determination that not even I can degrade.

"You already did," I remind Dallon, swinging my arms in synchronization with him. "Back at the coffee shop."

"Those were just your hands. No one could've known they were yours."

I'm urged to say that he doesn't have to do anything for me, that his art is his and his alone and doesn't involve me, even if I wish it would, that his masterpieces are just that, ripe as a fruit and wonderful just the same. However, Dallon is confident with his desires and will probably draw me nonetheless, and I suppose that's not such a bad thing. He draws me like I have some sort of soul or heart, like I'm a spectacle, like I'm worthy of art form. When he draws me, he knows more about me than I do, and it's like forgetting myself for his own version of who I am, much more beautiful than I could ever be.

"What makes me special enough to draw?"

"Everything," Dallon assures, piercing his step with a small and optimistic bounce. "Everyone has something special about them in my opinion, and if they don't see it at first, I bring it out through art so that they can."

A dry laugh. "A bit pretentious, don't you think?"

"Pretentiousness is just a style of expression."

"An annoying one," I scoff.

Dallon spins to approach me, crueler than what he usually does but not cruel still, his docile nature winning over the rest. "Would you rather me cleanse myself of pretentiousness or draw you with the same beauty you have but won't admit?"

I don't answer, fearing that more challenges are to flood in and deny me the little verity I have for yet another instance where Dallon is right but doesn't make a scene out of it, even if he should, because that's human, and he understands what humans are like.

The buildings split into an alleyway where an abandoned can of spray paint lies derelict on a ground damp with the excess deluge of the gutter systems circumscribing each edge of the structures, and Dallon is immediately pulled to it with a strange sort of fascination twinkling in his eyes.

"You know, it's illegal to vandalize property, and it's even worse if you get caught by the ruthless suburban moms. I don't know if you had that rule in "everything is better" France, but here we are now — in "thirteen bald eagles for each original colony" America."

"The wall has already been vandalized." Dismissing my sly comment about our countries, Dallon points to the convoluted layer of bricks stacked against each other as if old friends and becoming older still, and he wraps the spray paint in his cupped palm for use.

I know how dangerous this is if we get caught, how dangerous this is if someone sees us and reports our activities to the police later without a warning, how dangerous this is if Dallon finds himself deported from the country by effect of the flexible American laws, but my companion is already flecking the wall with crimson streaks over and over again until he's made a winning start at something new, and stopping is the least of his priorities.

So I stand back and marvel at what he's doing, each second hoisting fresh connotations onto the piece and killing the air in my lungs solely out of sheer astonishment. Dallon seems to know what he's doing, with every stroke onto the bricks calculated briefly before it's cut through the dense material of the wall, and he's searching for something to grasp in it.

Dallon starts with what he's given: a hastened mark in the lower terrain of the wall, jutting out like a bruise on vampiric skin. However, what was previously scanty is now smoldering in artistry and every breath of a miracle through the nozzle of a spray paint bottle, and the masterpiece has claimed beauty for its own, all guided by the astuteness of Dallon's gentle hands.

Just imagine what he could do for the world — giving away his work for Christmas presents and everything festive, volunteering to paint the rooms of children in the hospital, sparking melancholy out of nothing and making people like the way the sadness feels in their bones, like lead and rope squeezing at each other, everything that anyone could ask for delivered to them in a wordless expression of what's going on.

I could know Dallon Weekes. I could know him inside out, could know him blind, could know him as a whisper with only his art to guide me to a conclusion, and I could know what struggles he's endured and what joy he's witnessed within the secretive folds of his scarves. I could know it all.

And maybe I could help him through what he's dealing with, because I'd comprehend that perhaps his hardships are not so different from mine, lurking in the depths of things in which he thinks he's alone but are actually as common as the flu. Everyone knows that artists are never happy. Everyone knows that if they don't die young in body, they die young in spirit, and nothing can save them.

But if I knew everything about Dallon, I could know if he's on his way to the grave, where the rest of his kind lie, and though he may wish to fit in with his crowd, this isn't the way to go. I should hope that he at least considers me before the pitfalls of his artistic nature swallow him whole.

Dallon is jubilant, as far as I can tell, and he's persevering with that bottle of spray paint in his hand as it swipes across the wall in one color that can do more than I could with all of the colors, and even what he's painting signals that he's all right for now.

The cheeky "for now" is, I presume, a troubling loophole, but the apple that Dallon's painting washes it all away, having mesmerized me completely. What kind of dying person crafts an apple out of the last embers of a spray paint can? What kind of dying person is grinning wildly throughout the manufacturing process of his art? What kind of dying person is poking me to join him to either admire his piece or assist him in shaping it?

None that I've seen, and I've encountered death before. Dallon is not a part of it. He will be buoyant for as long as I'm around, and I will make sure of that.

"Brendon." Dallon tugs me towards him fervidly, a beam scaling his complexion in scarlet. "Do you like it?" He watches me optimistically, gaze fixed only on me as mine is fixed on the wall in complete and utter adulation.

"How could I not?" I gasp, fumbling for Dallon's arm to feel like I can hold onto something while the rest of the world is slipping away, the rest of what I thought I knew. "How did you do this with only one color?"

My companion grins. "I just left some space blank for a replication of light on the fruit and utilized a bit of the water for my advantage." He says it so matter of factly, like it's an obvious concept, yet it's not bitter and condescending, rather proud that he could teach me something about art.

I love it that he whirls this way, that he can inform me of things without belittling me and making me think that I don't deserve to understand amazing creations such as his, and perhaps that's viable, but Dallon never hints at anything of the sort. I guess he figures that anyone can learn art, that anyone can bask in the dim sunlight that's been stained black with the depression that's laced into creativity, but Dallon never offers that depression. He's offering the highlights of art, the beauty, the pulchritude, not once the anger and devastation.

I've had enough of that.

"You should go to art school," I suggest, still awestruck by what Dallon has painted.

"It's too expensive, and I don't want to chain myself to a life like that. Art is more of a hobby, really. I want to be a psychologist instead."

My brow yawns in surprise. "A psychologist?"

"Isn't it exciting?" Dallon curls into himself, elated by the mere thought of this science. "The brain is a complex organ, and I find it interesting to study it."

A shrug lilts into my shoulders, a bit skeptical. "I mean, I guess it is, but I can't imagine being tethered to working through people's problems all day."

"I'd like to try it out, just for a week or two." Dallon claps me over the shoulder and leads me away from the alley, back into the light of the street and away from the anxiety of wondering if we would be spotted.

We weren't caught by the hatred of vandalism, though, and now there's a masterpiece stitched into the wall to prove it, but I'll admit the real masterpiece is the fact that Dallon is doing just fine. But there's still that cheeky "for now".

~~~~~

A/N: Dal Pal is my smol chil''d' :)))))

Queinie: do you like breb or dal more in this fic?

Answeeinie: DALLON jaMES WEEKES< FATHER< LVOer of MEMES aND FuN!)) THA 1 TRU GODDESS MY FAtNGTHER!!!!1111!!!!!

~Dallonota (i see u fuckin cunt u can't claim to be dalpal but u tried shit u tried,,,,)