The Sunflowers are Bleeding

God isn’t real, but Noah is.

An angel fallen from the heavens sent to sit on the throne of academic mania and stressed-out insomnia. A living Lucifer shining from the back of the class while slumped over unfinished homework and a cell phone that never chimes. His wings are clipped beneath oversized hoodies, but Roman swears he leaves feathers in his staggered wake.

He never made it to Hell or wherever he had been bound for. He hit the unforgiving floor of human incompetence and found it all the same.

Of course, this is just speculation. Noah couldn’t be God or the devil or anything in between—they don’t exist. But Roman looks into shadowed hazel eyes every day, sees tousled brown hair in a permanent state of bedraggled and lips nicked with a scar, watches lean muscle contract beneath glowing skin. He sleeps in the presence of quiet beauty so undefined it must be biblical because no one else radiates that same aura that Noah does.

The wire glasses perched on his star-flecked nose slide down an inch. Noah looks over them, like he meant for that to happen. “What are you working on?”

Roman’s fingers pause and tempered panic rockets through his pulse. Charcoal is smeared across the page and his fingers, and an all-too familiar figure is starting to take shape. “Just some warm-up sketches,” he says, not a total lie. Noah can sniff them out the moment they are spoken into existence. “I have a project I need to work on for class, but motivation is running low.”

Noah cocks his head, and the glasses slide down even more just as strands of hair swoop over an eye. The light from his desk lamp turns them a shimmering bronze. “Tell me about it. Need some help?”

The right answer is a resounding no. He cannot keep drawing his roommate, hiding the sketches is already tedious enough without Noah’s knowledge of one existing. What if he notices how little Roman needs to study him to get the curve of his jaw right, or the angle of his lithe hands—wait. Maybe he doesn’t mean himself as a muse, and Roman is assuming too much towards his obsession. He risks a look towards Noah, and the man—god—is as still and patient as ever. It can’t be imagination how he literally glows while sitting at his desk with one leg tucked against his chest. Indifference has never looked so divine.

It's too silent. Roman has to come up with some kind of response, but he’s caught with his tongue and thoughts tied. Noah arches a brow—he’s shaved a clean diagonal slice through it—but no other part of his expression shifts. In a panic, Roman blurts, “Don’t you have work too?”

“Sure.” The word is breezy and dismissive and punctuated with an effortless dance of a pen through fingers. “But you know me. Need a muse?”

Roman does know him. Noah is a perpetual procrastinator and takes any excuse not to do his work, which usually involves fixating on Roman for hours at a time. It’s a blessing and penance. But—muse.

“You want to model for me?” The words are out before he can catch them, and he regrets it instantly. He’s reading into this too much. That’s not what Noah meant, surely. The angel before him wouldn’t desecrate himself by allowing a no-one to stare and recreate.

But Noah shrugs and Roman can’t not watch the way his lips pull up into a faint smile. “Why not? Not that I’m anything to look at, but it’s something. Maybe you’ll get inspiration for something better.”

Roman is horrified. “You’re gorgeous,” he declares, his horror overshadowing the panic of his slip. Noah only tips his head back into a laugh, then stands. “Tell me you’re joking,” Roman presses, even as he averts his gaze when Noah reaches back and yanks his hoodie over his head.

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Noah says, the words dripping with humor, “but objectively speaking, there’s better.”

No. No, this must be a test. Roman doesn’t know what kind or what he’d get for passing, but he bites his tongue and refuses to argue. To distract himself from the sounds of Noah stripping, Roman flips his sketchbook closed and leans over to grab a canvas instead. They’re tucked behind his bed, all kinds of sizes, and he chooses one of the largest to capture the grandness that is Noah. He deserves nothing less.

Fuck, he needs to set up the lighting and pose Noah. Needs to stare and study on purpose, with Noah knowing and watching. Roman forces himself to look at his angelic roommate, who’s already looking at him and waiting for instruction. In just his boxers. Roman’s mouth dries. “I—do you mind sitting on the edge of your desk? And then I’ll… yeah.”

Humor radiates from Noah in a halo even in his silence as he perches on the corner of his desk. He doesn’t need to clean it off, since he hardly has anything on it to begin with. He has hardly anything at all. Roman makes himself think about anything but the bright eyes on him or the soft skin beneath his fingers as he quietly directs and adjusts. If nothing else, Noah is a good model and does what is asked with ease and without question, but that only makes it worse. The skin of Roman’s fingertips burns.

He steps back to get the full picture. Noah’s legs are positioned in a casual but artful brace against the side of the desk while one arm rests between them. His other hand is held up at shoulder level, like waiting for something to drop from the sky. Roman had selfishly asked for a hand position that showed off the delicate lines of Noah’s fingers, then continued with that theme by having Noah turn to the side with his head tilted up just so, making sure he could see the side with the scar.

Beautiful. Ethereal. Divine. Roman quickly adjusts the lamp to make both the shadows and light highlight the sharp planes of Noah’s face and drape over his body. Noah’s eyes track every movement that Roman makes, and it unnerves him—that fixated attention he always receives whenever Noah chooses to make him his entertainment. What is he thinking?

Silence is better than making conversation when Noah is practically naked beauty and Roman is at risk of bumbling up his words. So, he quickly goes back to his bed, makes sure his backlighting doesn’t affect the light on Noah, and gets to work.

He thought that having permission to stare at Noah would be the death of him, but Roman loses himself in his work the moment the charcoal stick slides over the canvas. Noah holds still, supernaturally so, and lets Roman work without a word. It feels like dancing, art. A back-and-forth ballet with slow strokes and careful smudges and slicing swipes. The shower of charcoal is only another twirl, a mirage of a movement that stuck to memory. Roman is both dancer and conductor, the scratch of paper the orchestra.

Bit by bit, an image takes place. Roman is working on pure instinct; he takes creative liberties as he goes along, determined to make this a masterpiece for Noah to truly see his worth. He doesn’t know how long it takes before it’s finished, but one moment he’s looking at a blank canvas, and then he blinks and sees charcoal caressing an angel.

Noah himself remains unchanged—Roman could never dare think he could ‘fix’ imperfections that don’t exist—but Roman had put him in semi-sheer clothing that drapes over Noah’s body in such a provocative way it almost seems more scandalous than leaving him almost nude. The shirt, especially, is unbuttoned and falls off his shoulders to expose his chest. Jewelry sparkles at his ankles and wrists. The background is pure black, but a stream of light opens up right above his hand where petals and feathers drift down towards his waiting fingers.

Roman swallows as his eyes skim around the other details, unsure of how he should feel about it. He’s never drawn Noah like this—it feels like a violation in a way, though there’s no way for that to be true. “I’m done,” he says, or he thinks he does. Noah stands and comes around to hook his arms on the mattress next to Roman’s thigh, and Roman holds his breath as they both survey the drawing.

Because he also drew wings—great, beautiful, feathered wings sprouting from Noah’s back and held in a relaxed pose. Everything about the Noah in the drawing screamed relaxed from his lazy posture down to his smallest of smiles that he gifts Roman every night, but even his tranquil state couldn’t draw the eye away from the seduction of beauty and grace in every shadowed angle and glowing curve.

This is how Roman sees Noah. But now, seeing it on paper, it feels foolish.

“Sorry,” he says, because now he can’t stop thinking about how weird it must be. Angels don’t exist, God doesn’t exist, and Noah is just a man. Roman is making mythos out of mundane. “I don’t know why—”

But Noah is smiling and grabbing the canvas before Roman can move it away. His eyes dart all over the drawing, at the detail and care Roman put into everything, and linger on the wings that fill the empty space of the background. “They look almost identical,” he breaths, and it’s admiration on his breath rather than aversion. A hand reaches out to touch, then pulls back before he can. Roman numbly lets him take the canvas out of his hands and watches in both fear and fascination as Noah moves to stand in front of him. The charcoal is stolen and discarded, and his blackened hands are taken in unblemished ones.

He’s still smiling, and there’s a light in his eyes that sets their hazel ablaze. “Ask me,” Noah commands lightly, as if he knows Roman knows what he’s talking about. As if he knows that Roman knows.

But that can’t be. “Ask you what?”

No answer, but Noah brings Roman’s hands up until he has them where he wants. Smears of black shadow his cheeks. Roman can’t bring himself to let go.

Hazel dips down to follow the movement of Roman’s throat as he swallows down the nerves, then flicks back up. That smile doesn’t waver—it carries a mix of smug and delight. Roman reaches for the impossible. “Did it hurt? When you fell from heaven?”

Noah lets out a breath like it’s the first he’s been able to breathe in a century. “Like a bitch.” He clings to Roman’s wrists and grins up at him. “But so worth it. I found myself an admirer.”

“There could be more,” Roman says, because it’s true. Noah is too beautiful for others not to notice. But Noah doesn’t seem to be interested as he shakes his head and tilts his face up.

“I only want the one. He’s already got this worship thing down pretty well, but there’s another way that I think he’d be good at.”

Roman’s face heats and Noah’s laughter echoes in his ears, but he’s too focused on warm lips on his and soft hands holding his arms to think of anything else.

**

Later, when he has Noah’s light weight on top of his chest and there’s charcoal smeared all over his skin because he refused to let Roman wash his hands, the silence of the room leaves space for spinning thoughts.

God isn’t real, but Noah is. Noah, a self-proclaimed angel by silent admission, is very real as his breath skitters over Roman’s skin. Scars do in fact line his muscled back, and that subtle glow about him only persists. But what is delusion and what is truth? Where does the metaphor of art and reality of life bleed and bend?

Nips and kisses startle him from his thoughts. Noah continues with his gentle assault until he hits the corner of Roman’s lips. “What are you thinking?” he whispers, and suddenly it doesn’t matter. Angel or beautiful boy, mythos or mortal, God or man, it doesn’t matter. Noah will always be something special to Roman, and they can worship one another however they like.

Roman steals a kiss for himself, and he tastes forever on Noah’s tongue. “I’m thinking I snagged myself a god.” He’d get on his knees for eternity just to keep hearing Noah’s answering laugh.