the studio and the stars
When Regulus arrived at the small cafe, he was only expecting to grab a coffee, maybe be bothered by a fussy child and then be on his way. What he wasn't expecting was to see a man as radiant as the sun sitting on a chair a table or two away from where Regulus was seated, fiddling with a camera, he especially wasn't prepared for him to look directly at Regulus before flushing and looking away to tinker with his camera.
Regulus studied his face mapping out the moles on his warm skin and tracing how his dark brown curls fell every which way, Regulus shook his head, looked out the window and took a sip of his lukewarm coffee that’d cooled off quite a bit in the time that Regulus was staring at the beautiful stranger. Regulus flushed slightly when a flash of light distracted him from the small bird he was pretending to look at and glanced back at the boy, who was studying the small screen on his camera with a wide grin on his face, looking up at Regulus and winking before taking a picture of him.
Regulus sat in shock for a second, a slight smile on his face before checking the time on his watch, his heart dropping at the realization that he was going to be so late to his art workshop he was supposed to attend as a “special guest” he had to bike as he couldn't afford to get his janky car out of the shop and he assumed it'd take awhile to get there. Honestly he was surprised to be invited; he was still a small, up and coming painter, but nonetheless he had to be there on time.
Regulus gathered his things hastily and just about sprinted out the door, looking back at the pretty boy before jumping on his bike and riding to the small art studio in much less time than anticipated, fixing his hair before entering, greeting a beautiful woman with long, dreaded, almost white hair as she turned and smiled warmly at him
“Hello! Regulus I presume?” she said her voice melodical almost as if she hummed the words as she welcomed him in.
“Yes, are you Lily?” he asked curious as to if she was the woman who asked him to the event.
The woman giggled, shaking her head smiling softly.
“No, that would be my wife. I’m Pandora. It's lovely to meet you. I've heard lovely things from Lily.”
Regulus flushed slightly in embarrassment and smiled as a shorter redhead woman rushed over to greet Regulus, her hair piled messily on her head.
“Hello, Regulus? It's so good to meet you. I'm Lily” she smiled “Im the woman who spoke to you over email, I'm so glad you could make it, the class doesn’t start for about half an hour give or take a few minutes and I was wondering if you could give me some input on the piece I'm working on currently?” she asked and it was as if Regulus had known them his whole life as he nodded, following her into a doorway and up a flight of stairs into what seemed to be her private studio.
Regulus looked around his eyes falling on painting after painting of Pandora in different lights and surrounded by millions and millions of colors that seemed to capture her perfectly, as if seeing her through different eyes, he assumed Lily’s. His eyes were drawn to an unfinished painting in the center of the room he was surprised to see it wasn't in fact, a portrait of Pandora but of a man with an unfinished almost familiar, scarred face.
“I can't seem to get his eyes quite right. The photo I was given is good, but the light doesn't reflect off his eyes right and it looks odd when I paint it” Lily said frustrated, cutting through Regulus's train of thought as he looked at the dulled-out eyes.
“Have you tried stars?” he asked, looking closer at the painting.
“Stars?” Lily asked, puzzled as she looked at Regulus, he cleared his throat and looked up realizing the small stumble. The dumb name his brother had given his method of giving eyes light and life.
“Um, you don't like the way the light hits his eyes in the picture so why don't you just use someone else's? When I was younger, I used to have my br-” he cleared his throat “My friend stand in the light so I could copy the reflecting light, but I wasn't really allowed to paint so we would go out into the starlight to do it, that's why it's called stars.” He looked away slightly embarrassed at his rambled explanation and kicked himself for the slipup as he turned his eyes back to Lily whose mind seemed to be going a mile a minute as she grinned and clapped her hands together.
“How have I not thought of that? Yes, that's perfect.” she turned to Regulus
“I have a slight favor to ask,” she said.
“This commission needs to be done by tomorrow and once I have the eyes everything will come together so can I please just borrow yours briefly? I'll be done in time for the workshop” she said clasping her hands together in a silent plea as she grinned waggling her eyebrows Regulus rolled his eyes, amused and nodded slightly, smiling widely as he walked over to the small stool Lily placed there and sat down opening his eyes wider as he awaited instruction.
“Okay, look at-” Lily glanced around the room, her eyes landing on an unfinished painting of Pandora doing a needle in pointe shoes and pointed towards it
“Look at the ballerina canvas, would you please?” Regulus shifted his gaze to the elegantly drawn ballerina promptly spacing out to think about the boy from the cafe, he wondered what he was doing, if he thought Regulus was pretty too. He blinked and refocused on the ballerina painting diminishing the thought entirely before thinking of how he would paint the man, he wondered how it would be to craft his face on a canvas, to attempt to paint the unruly curls on his head, until his attention was being grabbed by Lily who was chewing on the end of her brush staring at the man on her canvas.
“Something wrong?” Regulus asked looking over at the painting, the eyes seemed much more lifelike now.
“No, I just.. I feel like something is missing” she scrunched her brows before her eyes lit up as she tapped the paintbrush on her forehead and grabbed a smaller paintbrush before slowly going over the little reflections of light and turning them into.. stars?
“What are you doing?” Regulus asked standing up to examine the painting, careful not to get in her way.
“I'm doing this commission for a couple I already finished the first man's portrait, and he calls this man ‘moony’ so I drew half-moons in his eyes, but this guy doesn't talk quite as much only enough for me to know he calls the other man his ‘star’ so I'm doing stars in his eyes” she slapped her hand to her forehead chuckling.
“I can't believe I forgot” she stuck her tongue out tweaking the last star before leaning back to examine her work and nodding her head.
“Perfect now I can finish the rest in peace” she turned to Regulus
“Shall we get to the class now?” She grabbed her phone out of her back pocket and checked the time.
“Perfect timing, let's go it starts in 2 minutes”
Regulus followed her back down the stairs and through the door before being ushered through another door to what seemed to be the classroom it was quite peaceful, warm lights fell through window which he came to notice had all types of stained glass and colors and tones on each one he walked up to the first one to catch his attention. A stained-glass window of a Pandalily Regulus held his hand up and watched as hundreds of colors cascaded onto his palm, Lily came up beside him to see what he was doing and noticed the colored lights on his hand, smiling.
“This was Panda's idea,” she said, looking around at the windows. Regulus looked at her slightly puzzled.
“What was her idea?” he asked
“To tint all the windows differently, if you look around no one window is the same they're all different for the purpose of teaching my students how to capture certain lights” she said smiling fondly.
“When we first started it was difficult for me to teach them how to capture different kinds of light because I wasn't all that good at it either.” she explained “and during one of my many rants Panda suggested tinting all the windows differently so we could do it all firsthand, that's why there's a canvas next to each window, the students rotate which window they get every week and it works quite well.”
“That's amazing,” he said, tracing the glass. He wondered how much it would cost to do this to his apartment, smiling slightly before shaking his head reminding himself of his rude old landlady who would burn him at the stake if he tried.
“The kids should be arriving already we should let them in.” said Lily ushering him to the door and opening it to find a group of kids who seemed to be maybe nine or ten at the least who lined up when they saw Lily and walked in as she greeted them all by name cheerfully as they sat in their seats by the windows. Lily walked up to the front of the class drawing their attention to her as she spoke.
“Hello everyone, it's so lovely to see you.” she smiled
“Hi Ms. Lily.” they grinned anxious to hear what she had to say.
“As some of you know I invited another artist to give you guys tips and for you to talk to as well as asking questions regarding art.” she said, pacing back and forth.
“I know some of you don't like talking very much and I’m not making you but if you'd like Mr. Regulus is here for any questions you have for him, just make sure you keep it nice and appropriate, i'm looking at you Cassie” she said warmly as the class giggled.
Regulus turned his attention to the girl Lily pointed out her face in a mischievous grin that looked familiar in a way he couldn't quite place but he shook it off, grinning widely as he greeted the class.
“Hello everyone! I'm Mr. Regulus or Mr. Reg if you have trouble with my name, I'm so grateful to have been invited to this class and I hope I'm able to answer your questions if any of you end up having any, I'll be painting on this canvas” he pointed to the left of himself in the far corner by the warmest tinted window.
“Don't hesitate to come up and comment on my piece or just chat! It's what I'm here for” Regulus walked over to his station and sat on the stool contemplating what he should paint before deciding on painting the boy from the cafe the warm light from the window perfectly suited for the portrait.
About halfway through the portrait the girl- Cassie, Regulus reminded himself, walked up to him and struck up a conversation.
“Hi Mister” she said, rocking back on her heels.
“Hello, Cassie, is it?” he said, smiling warmly at her, lowering his brush.
“Yup that's me except it's kinda not cause Cassie's my nickname but yeah people here call me Cassie and my papa calls me that too sometimes but it's not my name but yeah” she rambled
“Well, what's your actual name then?” He asked
“Well, my actual name is kinda hard to say sometimes so that's why people call me Cassie, but my real name is Cassiopeia like stars, my papa has a star name, you look like my papa, but my papa has long hair like sooo long and yeah” she said measuring the length with her hands sticking her tongue out in concentration before presenting them to Regulus proudly.
“My name is like stars too you know?” Regulus said
“Can I call you Weg instead?” She asked, grinning widely showing off some missing teeth.
“Yeah, sure I don't mind, can I ask why?” he laughed curious as to the nickname
“Well cause I think it's funny” she leaned over his shoulder to look at his painting
“Why're you painting my Uncle Prongs?” she asked scrunching her eyebrows together and examining the canvas
“You know him?” Regulus asked, surprised
“Yeah, that's my uncle, well kinda my uncle, I'm pretty sure we aren't related but my papa calls him his brother sometimes and he refers to him as my uncle so kinda but yeah I know him that's prongsy why're you drawing him?” she said
“Because I saw him today and I thought he was pretty” Reg mumbled
“Whazzat? What'd you say?” Regs eyes widened, and he cleared his throat,
“I dunno I just am” he shrugged, that seemed to be a good enough answer for her cause she promptly stood up straight and skipped back over to her canvas picking up her brush and continuing to paint like nothing happened.
The rest of the class went quite smoothly. Some kids came up and asked how Regulus got into painting or how he managed to paint from memory, altogether, it was quite peaceful. Once the class was over all the kids took their art to the back of the class to hang and grabbed their paintings from the previous week off the walls to take home and lined up at the door to be collected by their parents, one by one each parent came to the room and picked up their kids waving to Regulus and bidding farewell to Lily, in the end Cassie was left and Lily acted as if it was a normal occurrence and apparently it was.
“Oh, Cassie stays with me for an extra fifteen to thirty minutes after class to accommodate her fathers, they like to grab coffee for everyone, and she gets some extra lesson time” she shrugged walking over to the portrait of the scarred man she was working on that Pandora had brought down for her.
“That's my dad she's painting” Cassie said rocking back and forth on her heels again, what seemed to be a frequent habit based on the state of the heels on her shoes.
“Thats cool” Reg said sitting down to add some finishing touches to his portrait of the man ‘Prongsy’ according to Cassie, quite an unfortunate nickname he thought, once he was done he stood up examining the painting before nodding and setting his brush down to close his paints, he slung his worn brown leather bag over his shoulder and placed his painting on the window sill to dry.
“Can I come back next week?” Reg asked pointing to his painting “it needs to dry, and I don't have a car as of right now” he said smiling awkwardly, Lily smiled brightly and nodded
“Of course you can, you're always welcome and if you ever need a ride feel free to call.” she said, finishing off the painting and hiding it in the corner of the room before there was a knock on the door, Lily just about pranced over and opened it up.
Regulus’ heart dropped, his smile vanishing. There in the doorway was his brother with a baby in a sling on his chest and a man behind him who looked puzzled at regulus’ shock before a look of realization washed over his face, Cassie ran to the man behind him and let herself be scooped up into his arms, she started talking animatedly about the class oblivious to the tension that was strangling Regulus. Swiftly, Regulus gathered his things into his bag and bid Lily a cheerful farewell before just about sprinting past Sirius and the man. Cassie beamed at him and waved him goodbye.
“BYE WEG! I HAVE A BETTER STAR NAME THAN YOU” she giggled but Regulus hardly heard her over the buzzing in his ears. Sirius started to walk after him, cautious of the baby on his chest but Regulus was already running, he quickly said goodbye to Pandora and ran out the door and hopped onto his bike, pedaling as fast as he could to get home, he needed to go home.
Finally, after about twenty minutes Regulus arrived at his flat, fumbling with his keys and throwing the door open, kicking his shoes off and throwing his bag onto his old couch. His eyes welled up, he was out of breath and tired. He wanted to sleep; he needed to sleep. He ran into his bedroom and fell onto his bed, silent tears streaming down his face, he thought of how Sirius looked now, he let his hair grow out and he got the tattoos he wanted.
Reg sobbed into his pillow, he thought of Cassie, and the little baby on his chest he thought of how Sirius used to refer to him as his baby and now he has babies of his own. He thought of how this was the first time Sirius had ever seen him as who he is, a boy and he recognized him. Regulus’ body wracked with sobs, clutching his pillow. Eventually Regulus grew tired and fell asleep with a tear-streaked face, dreaming of how life could be if he just left. If he wasn't a coward all those years ago, he fell asleep wishing he could draw the stars in Sirius’ eyes once more.