The first woman he fell in love with was three years ahead of him in art school. She was a genius and a force of nature and an addict, and he wanted to be just like her.
And eventually he was.
But before that, he was idealistic and young and eager to learn.
And so she taught him to paint. He was going to be a sculptor, lovingly bringing out the smooth organic curves from where they were hidden in jagged hunks of marble. But she convinced him to be a painter.
She started with body paint. Non-toxic, washable. And she taught him to paint on her, first by painting on herself as an example. Then he asked him to paint something on her, and he was seduced by the act of painting, seduced by the nudity and touch and intimacy and yes, the objectication, the claiming. Isaac wanted to paint her, to cover her with the strokes and splatters from his brush, to turn her every color of the rainbow.
And she encouraged him at every step. But along the way, she taught him that no matter how it seems, an artist's canvas is never passive. She taught him to pay tribute to the curves and angles of her body rather than to paint over them. She would stretch or shift as he worked, subtly guiding his movements where she wanted them to go. From her, he learned that an artist doesn't make a painting -- an artist learns to witness a painting giving birth to itself.
And then they were both painters. And lovers. And, soon enough, both users. Everything he was, he got from her.
She had eventually kicked the habit. She said her work suffered as a result, and gave up art soon after as well. She found a day job, the kind that artists aren't supposed to be able to hold down, and she started a normal life. The kind she had always said she never wanted.
But Isaac never forgot her lessons. And when the future starting tearing its way into his paintings, he remembered that he was an artist. And artists don't try to impose lies on the canvas. He remembered that she always said that art is about taking a risk, about pushing yourself to see what you are most afraid of seeing.
He remembered these lessons the night Sylar came as well. Remembered that real artists don't scream and run when a work of art takes on a life of its own. Real artists wait patiently for the painting to reveal itself. And then they look it in the eye with boldness. And they are content that they have had the greatest privilege, the privilege of the artist: that they have seen truth.
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Written for comment_fic on Livejournal, a multi-fandom prompt community called "Comment_fic: Bite Sized bits of Fic," where you can request or write fic from any fandom.
Prompt was Isaac, paint