#int ft. azra

[julianrchandlerx]

Julian continued tidying up and making sure Azra’s section was clean and clear of the spill, not once dropping his warm smile as she hiccuped through a thank you. It was moments like this that sometimes made him stand out from his usual coworker for paint and wine nights — the catty artist who felt they were too good for the retail job and yet we’re still stuck there. He was often paired with them during these events to be the softer touch. “Hey, I’m here to help. It’s no problem at all,” he smiled, making sure she had clean napkins just in case of any stray paint he may have missed. He chuckled quietly, nodding his head gently at her words. “You know what? I think it’s definitely one of those days, but it’s okay. We’ll get through it together!” He paused for a moment before adding, “Though Breaking Dawn Part Two is the best of the films, and Rocky Road is the king of ice creams so if anything you should definitely end your night like that if you can. That vision fight scene still gets me, even after all these years.” He dated one too many twilight fan girls back in the day and had an embarrassingly good recollection of the films. If only they knew he was a vampire now.

His smile crinkled his eyes when he noticed she’d calmed down a bit, the horrible paint water incident now behind them it seemed. “You’re welcome.” Julian perked up at her more enthusiastic response to his idea to salvage her painting. “Stormy weather is the best. Overcast, steady rain and distant thunder? Makes for awesome reading weather, dontcha think?” Julian shrugged and flashed a lopsided grin, “I didn’t wanna assume, mostly because I totally get emotional about painting so no judgement either way. I definitely understand having a weird week, though.” He thought everyone related to that with recent events. “But hey, it’s almost the weekend! Perfect time to unwind and destress, right? Especially if you have movies and ice cream to help you through it.”

There were tears streaming down Azra's face as the vampire came to her aid, and she couldn't have said to save her life what she was really crying about: that she had ruined the painting? that this stranger was being so kind to her? that her mouth now tasted like acrylic paint? "You're-" she hiccuped, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, then wincing when she got paint in her eyes too. "--so--" she found an unpaint covered bit of skin and this time successfully wiped away the tears. "Nice. T-thank you." With quivering hands, Azra lifted the mug to her lips and drank the 'not-paint' water; it successfully did not taste like the non-Skittle colors of the rainbow this time. "I shouldn't have gone out today," she admitted to the man. "I recorded the last Twilight movie. I should have just stayed home and watched it with some Rocky Road." What an impression she was making, running around this town--her new home--crying at the drop of a pin in front of everyone she met.

By the time she'd finished the unpolluted water, however, Azra had marginally calmed down, and her tears seemed to have dried up. "Thank you," she said with a little more confidence this time. Thanks to the vampires' efforts--and his superhuman speed--her painting truly didn't look that bad. "Yeah," she said, nodding. "That could work. I like storms. Very atmospheric." She took up the brush again and mixed some white and blue together. "I know this might be surprising," she said. "But I don't usually get this emotional about painting. It's been a weird week."

[julianrchandlerx]

He’d received reactions from his complimenting of customers — typically unwarranted cockiness or uninvited drunken advances — but Julian never had a person cry in following kind words. The unmistakable brightness in her eyes caught him a bit off guard, but not so much as the events which quickly followed. Without much thought he reacted immediately, taking the canvas and setting it on the closest flat surface before zipping to the back of the store with that ridiculous vampire speed and then to Azra’s side with a fresh water bottle, two mugs aptly labeled “paint water” and “not paint water”, and a few bunches of paper towel. “Hey, hey, no worries. Accidents happen, but that’s not a problem,” he said with a small warm smile, offering fresh drinking water in that “not paint water” mug before turning to her affected work.

Water and acrylics could be a mess, but Julian knew how to carefully blot as much damage away as he could, though some paint drips could not be saved. “Now my mom taught me how to paint,” he started, the man taking any chance to throw in an anecdote about childhood lessons to help lighten a situation, “and the most valuable lesson she ever taught me was how to work with simple little accidents like this. A water or coffee stain is just a chance to get creative in the next steps, that’s all! What was once a pure white stallion is now a speckled mare, and the likes.” Satisfied he got most of the wetness off the canvas, he replaced it before her and motioned to the spots on her painting where the paint was washed away and the white of the canvas was peeking through. “No big deal, you know what we can do to fix this? Clouds! It’ll turn your sunset scene into a romantic, stormy dusk. How about that?” His tone was upbeat and positive, trying to spin it all into something good.

Azra felt like a child, resorting to finger painting in order to make the bad feelings and boo-boos go away. As far as Azra was concerned, however, this was far from a bad thing. Activities reserved for children--like bursting into song at any given moment, coloring your feelings, or taking a well-needed time out to sit in a corner and take deep breaths--were all activities adults would be a lot happier if they'd try too. So she'd gone to an art class, thinking this must be healthier than what she'd been doing for the last few days: practically living in the Rage Cage, breaking everything, then crying about what she broke and offering to pay for the damages despite the fact that breaking things was exactly what the business was there for--and that she and no money to pay them back anyway.

Most people had gone through worse than she had--she knew that. So Azra kept quiet. Other people in town had watched their loved ones be tortured or had to do the torturing themselves. People had died--again--at a holiday event, and Azra was lucky to have come out unscathed. So she didn't talk about her dream, and she didn't complain in public. She just broke plates and then went home and cried while she watched Twilight on repeat and ate copious amounts of ice-cream. Today, however, he'd managed not to cry off her makeup, made it out the door, and was finishing a painting of the sunset when the teacher himself came by to give her a compliment.

She felt the tears well in her eyes and this time really wasn't sure why except that everything was making her cry now. "Uh-hu," she managed, reaching for a glass of water to give herself a second to calm down--only, once she took a sip, she realized it wasn't just any glass of water: it was the water she'd been cleaning her paintbrushes off. She spit it out--and splattered her almost-finished painting with it, making the sunset drip off the canvas. "Oh no..."