AN: I finally got to watch Season 2 of In The Flesh yesterday. I wasn't sure I'd be able to get past the heartbreak of what happened to Rick, but I found myself as captivated by Simon as Kieren was. Anyway, this popped into my head so I wrote it down. Thanks for reading.
Kieren's bedroom is dark yet bright, much like its occupant. Simon's gaze wanders around the room, taking in the artwork that decorates it. Nearly every work of art is a portrait. Passionately created of the people Kieren loves most. His parents, his sister, Amy (who they'd buried today), and a boy who can only be Rick. Amy'd told him all about Rick Macy and judging by the vivid portraits surrounding him she hadn't exaggerated Kieren's feelings for the soldier. It's actually one of the things he likes about Kieren, the way he's so calm on the surface but how there is so much passion hidden beneath.
He feels Kieren watching him, those big, soulful eyes following his face, doubtless wondering what he makes of all this. This room is in a way a glimpse into Kieren's mind. He wonders what Kieren thinks of him, but there are no renderings of his face among the pictures.
When he looks to the artist, he's sitting on the bed, leaning back on his hands, and he's lovely. Simon has never been so affected by the mere sight of someone before. It's not strictly the way Kieren looks, it's a combination of things. His appearance, the way he moves, his presence. It's the way he watches Simon like he might have all the answers, the calm way he waits for Simon's opinion now because he values it. Sometimes it's a forlorn acceptance he sees, which he recognises because it comes with depression. Sometimes it's hope. Kieren is, in a lot of ways, a contradiction. He's passionate and meek; clueless yet insightful; reluctant and fierce; careful yet impulsive. Maybe his appeal is just that he's Kieren. There doesn't have to be anything more to it than that. Simon has never met anyone like him.
Simon knows sometimes he thinks too much, so he takes a seat on the bed next to his new companion, close but not too close. His foot hits something half concealed under the bed and when he sees it's a balled up piece of drawing paper he leans down and picks it up. What hadn't been good enough for Kieren? Slowly he unravels the ball, glancing at Kieren's face, intrigued when Kieren's eyes grow impossibly wider.
"Gary did that, I would never..." Kieren rushes out. Simon realises he wasn't supposed to see this but Kieren doesn't tell him to stop, so he continues to flatten the paper out until he is looking down at a crumpled drawing of himself. It's a simple sketch, black lines arranged skilfully into the shape of his face. Like all Kieren's work it's not quite a reproduction of the subject, more a representation of how he sees them. This one however is the most life (or death)-like of them all. Simon finds himself a little disappointed.
"This is how you see me?" he wonders, looking up to see a slight unease on Kieren's face. "It's bland."
"It's accurate," Kieren defends, snatching the drawing back and looking down fondly at it. "You were gone and I needed to see your face." Oh. Simon can be sorry for leaving, or he can be glad Kieren missed him and that he's here with the artist now. If he'd listened to the Prophet, things would be very different today. His lip twitches up, deciding to take the lighter path. Kieren has a habit of doing that to him.
"If you painted me, what colour would I be?" Kieren considers for a moment before he stands and moves closer to the painting of himself and Rick. He crouches down beside it.
"I painted him so many times..."
"I noticed." Simon stands and scans the room again, eyes roaming over the paintings of Kieren's lost love. "They're all so bright. Oranges, reds, yellows... You loved him very much."
"I did. He was my world..." Kieren agrees, ghosting his fingers over the radiant paint between the two figures. "It's firelight. The only time we could really be ourselves was in the firelight." Kieren stands and fixes his large eyes on Simon with a meaningful look. "I saw him again, after he rose. But when I think of him now, he's like this…" he motions towards the painting, "…he's alive." Kieren looks inwardly and a tiny smile curls his lips. Simon understands in a way. With Kieren he feels more like himself, well maybe that's not right, himself was a gloomy bastard. It's more like he doesn't have to pretend. He doesn't have to be Simon the Disciple or Simon the dutiful son. Just being Simon is enough, and he feels so much better for it, so much freer. "He'll always be a living memory..." Kieren reflects. He looks up and their eyes meet before he takes a few steps closer and reaches up to rest a hand on Simon's face. "Blue. You're blue."
"Blue?" Blue is for death. Blue is for sadness. Blue is for the end of things. Kieren runs a thumb over his cyanotic lips. Simon sighs under the touch, he doesn't want to be colourless to Kieren. "I don't want you to paint me if it's going to be like that. Blue is dreary and cold."
"In Roarton?" Kieren scoffs. "Blue is the best colour there is. Do you know how many days a year we actually see the sky? Blue's rare and precious and makes me feel alive... in a totally undead way of course."
"Of course," Simon smiles. "So I'm the sky?"
"I know that I shall meet my fate, Somewhere among the clouds above..."
Simon raises an eyebrow.
"That's about death, not the sky."
"You're staying," Kieren smiles, gripping Simon's upper arms. "It's about the sky being the last thing he ever sees. Ever wants to see... A lonely impulse of delight, Drove to this tumult in the clouds..." Simon doesn't want to hear the rest; it's not true anymore anyway. So he kisses Kieren, silencing the morbid Irish poetry that the artist had learned just for him. Or the him who existed before Kieren Walker. And the kiss is blue.