May 2009 Tumulus submission using the words 'painting' 'darkness' and 'chore'. Deathwish spoilers.
"No, not that one."
I gave an exasperated sigh. "What's wrong with it, specifically?"
"It's too brown."
Too brown. "I thought you said brown would be nice."
"Yeah, but not that brown. It looks like dirt. You don't want it to look like we have dirty walls, do you?"
"It hides the dirt, Cal, which I thought you would appreciate."
"Are you insinuating something?" Cal gave a grin as he said 'insinuating', as if using a big word would earn him extra points with me.
I ignored his question and replaced the chocolate brown paint swatch. "What about blue?"
"Sure, blue is good, although, you know what's better?" He moved down a hue, and I barely contained my groan.
"We are not, under any circumstances, painting the apartment purple."
"Why not? What's wrong with it, specifically?" he mimicked.
If it had been a different day, I might have swatted him for being obnoxious, but I was having a difficult time feeling anything but gratitude whenever I saw Cal. He was alive, and I couldn't fault him for doing the things that I would have missed the most if he really had….
Well. I shook my head, clearing my thoughts. "I'm going to call Robin and have him give you a lesson in decorating," I said lamely, gripping his shoulder as I passed behind him to look at the reds.
"Not red," he said before I had a chance to even look. I agreed, though, and moved on. We had enough red in our lives.
"Not orange, either, I'm assuming?"
Cal made a face. "No. Not orange. If we wanted to feel like James in the Giant Peach, then we could just leave it how it is. And not yellow, either."
"Cal, you're leaving us with very few choices."
"Purple or bust," he said, holding up three different shades, ranging from violet to really violet. "Look, this one's called Blueberry Muffin. That sounds good, right? Plus, it matches Promise's eyes. Don't you think she'd be flattered?" His eyes widened then, as he realized what he'd said. "Crap. Sorry."
It had been a week since I'd last seen Promise, and I'd spent most of that week trying not to think about her. Thinking about her led to thinking about Cherish, which led to thinking about…
No. I was not going to dwell. Cal had been doing everything he could to keep me from doing just that, and I appreciated his efforts too much to ignore them.
He touched me this time, kicking at my ankle as he reached over me to pick up a shade of green. I kicked him back, each instance of physical contact reminding me that he was not dead. Cal was alive and well, and he was shoving a dark forest green paint swatch in my face.
I took it from him and looked it at. "Green?"
"Yeah. You know, like grass and recycling and stuff."
Green didn't remind me of anything. Not blood, or vampires, or chupacabras, or dead little brothers. "Green is good," I decided. "But not that shade."
Cal took it back and picked out a cool, bottle green instead. "What about this?"
"Hmm." It was a calming color, which would be helpful, and might have been why Cal chose it. "Alright," I said. "What do you think?"
Cal shrugged. "I'll let you in on a secret, Nik," he said. "I really don't care what color we paint the damn walls."
He grinned an impish grin because he'd spent the last hour turning down every shade I suggested, just to distract me from darker thoughts.
"Fine," I said. "Then we'll get this. Go find a can of primer."
"Okay. But can I paint my room purple?"
I was almost certain that he would never actually paint his room purple, but I still shook my head. "No. Now go."
He stuck his tongue out at me, but he went down the aisle to find the primer, muttering something about bossy brothers. It wasn't until after he'd found it and had turned to come back that I realized I hadn't moved since he'd left my side. I'd meant to give the swatch to the man behind the counter who mixes the paint, but my feet hadn't moved. Neither had my eyes, instead choosing to stay glued to Cal, lest he disappear.
Cal didn't look surprised to see me still standing there, though, and he thrust the gallon of primer into my hands as soon as he was close enough. "Trade ya," he said, snatching the paint sample and marching up to the counter to give the man the swatch. "We need some of this," he said.
"A gallon," I elaborated, slapping Cal's hand away from the hula-dancing figurine that adorned the counter. His fingers were warm, still full of blood, full of life.
*
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*
Cal drove home, whining about how I never let him behind the wheel, which was true, because he was a terrible driver, but I knew that my mind was far from clear today, and I couldn't drive and check that Cal was breathing at the same time. After five minutes of constant honking and profanity yelled through the window, however, I was wishing that we'd spent the extra money for a cab. We took the stairs, Cal racing ahead of me as we reached the top so that he would be in the apartment before me, the first thing that I'd see when I walked through the door. I didn't deserve him.
*
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*
It wasn't until after Cal had succeeded in getting paint on every surface of his body, but none of it on the walls that I remembered why we never painted our apartments. Because of this, a gallon ended up being nowhere near enough, and as much as I wanted to send Cal out to do the chore of buying more, I couldn't bring myself to tell him to.
Cal, apparently having gained clairvoyance in the past few days, looked sheepish as he said, "Sorry, Nik. I thought if I…that you would be distracted from…" He shook his head. He wouldn't risk wounding my pride by saying out loud that I couldn't let him drive five blocks by himself without having a panic attack. "Well, but you really only need one wall painted, right? Like as a focal point of the room? Robin is always going on about focal points, although he's usually not talking about paint…"
He met my eyes, apology still written on his face, so I did the only thing I could. I dipped my finger in the paint that had pooled on the plastic-covered floor and swiped it across his cheek. He looked so surprised that my heart sank. Had I really let it show that much?
Cal, once again, saved me from wallowing in the darkness of self-deprecating thoughts as he pushed me lightly with paint-covered hands. I became as coated in Sea Green as he was by the end, and we were both on the floor, truce declared only for the lack of paint, side by side, warm shoulder to warm shoulder, and I could finally breathe.