If you have the option - please read this one over on Ao3 or tumblr - I've added reference artwork.
Summary: When John dives, Virgil sees art
Words: 449
For: SinEater who requested John + Diving + Jul 25th (spectator)
Naples yellow is not quite doing it for him. He tests the cheerful pigment on his wooden paint palette and closes his eyes to envision the shade he is going for one more time, humming a round note to call the color back to him. He imagines the register of the viola – cozy and smooth in that middle-range of the alto clef.
It feels like honey in his throat, and the color that returns tells him he needs a bit more umber, something to push it into something grounding. Topaz perhaps.
He's got a purple ready beside the array of yellows, including the Indian yellow he's already used on the canvas - the darker color will help with the vibrancy of the golden shades he's going for.
It makes him think of John - dimmer than the cadmium that is Gordon, but with a tranquil luminescence all its own. Like the stars that radiate in the heavens with the wink of the wise and all-seeing.
His brother is the offspring of Aether, the child of the firmament, made from moonstone and stardust and the infinity of the space between. And when he dives, it's the brilliant copper fire of a space rock gifting its elements to the world below, not a death, but life anew.
He'd felt that fizzle in his bones the moment his brother leapt backward from the springboard. His descent transferred space mist out into the arena with a sequence of twists and somersaults before all that cosmic energy was embraced into the world aquatic with a minimal splash and a breath of silence.
The judges may have seen degrees of difficulty and entry and execution, but Virgil saw art, his fingers immediately reaching for his sketchbook to capture the moment even as the world waited for his scores.
With that same reference sketch taped to the side of his easel, Virgil sings what John's light feels like and mixes the color with his paints as the image comes alive on canvas.
Instead of the arena, it's one of the many dives off Tracy Island's cliff-side, effortless, free, arms held aloft in flight the moment before they transition above his head into the final angle that welcomes the deep.
On the top of the canvas Payne's grey and violet support the background of stars, and in the lower corner, he's painted ochre over the sky.
He captures movement, not just of John, but of the spheres that move with him.
And with the final flourishes of his mixing brush, he hums as he reaches the color he needs to highlight the piece.
Gold.
To remind his brother that his own essence is more vibrant than any medal.
