"That's not your call to make!" I'm almost shouting now, and I hate how my voice cracks slightly on the last word. "You can't just stand behind guys flexing and cracking your knuckles until they run away! That is—that is a terrible roommate boundary, Faugh!"
"I did not flex," he says, and there's something almost wounded in his tone, a genuine offense at being accused of such a thing. His massive shoulders shift slightly, as if to prove their current state of relaxation, though the movement only emphasizes the sheer breadth of them. "And I only cracked my knuckles once. That was entirely unintentional. A nervous habit."
I drag both hands through my hair, feeling the carefully styled waves I spent forty minutes on this afternoon collapse into their natural chaotic state. "This is insane. You're insane. I'm going to paint."
I storm past him toward my studio corner, yanking the claw clip out of my hair and letting it fall in a messy cascade around my shoulders. Behind me, I hear Faugh take a breath like he's going to say something else, but I whirl around and point at him with what I hope is an intimidating finger.
"Do not follow me. Do not bring me tea. Do not silently organize my brushes by size while giving me meaningful looks. Just—just leave me alone for like, an hour, okay?"
He inclines his head in that formal, weirdly courtly way he has, the movement deliberate and measured, as if he's acknowledging the boundary I've just drawn between us with the solemnity of a medieval knight accepting orders from a queen. There's something almost ceremonial about it, the kind of old-fashioned deference that seems completely at odds with his giant frame and the general aura of casual menace he usually projects without trying.
"As you wish," he says, his voice carrying that same careful precision he uses for everything else in his life. The words hang in the air between us, formal and slightly archaic in a way that somehow makes them feel more binding than any modernokay, whateverever could. He respects the boundary because that's what Faugh does, he respects things, even when they're difficult, even when I can practically feel the effort it costs him to simply turn and walk away.
I grab the nearest canvas, an unfinished abstract piece I started last month and abandoned when the composition wasn't working, and drag it to my easel with more force than necessary. My bag of supplies is already open, tubes of paint scatteredacross the drop cloth in a rainbow of creative chaos that I know is driving Faugh quietly insane even from across the room.
I squeeze a violent slash of crimson onto my palette, then cadmium yellow, then a deep, bruised purple that feels appropriately angry. My brush hits the canvas with aggressive, slashing strokes, and I'm not even trying to make anything coherent, I'm just channeling the tight, hot frustration onto the surface.
The thing is, Derek was kind of terrible. I knew he was terrible from his messages, from the way he kept steering every conversation back to himself, from the casual negging disguised as compliments. But he was interested, and he was human, and he seemed normal in a way that felt safe and manageable and not at all complicated.
Unlike my current situation, which involves a towering, meticulously groomed Orc who has somehow become the most stable, dependable presence in my chaotic life. A man who folds my paint-stained laundry with hands the size of dinner plates and leaves perfectly organized lunches in the fridge with little notes written in careful, precise handwriting that makes my heart do something embarrassing. A man who has transformed our shared apartment into something that actually feels like a home, all clean lines and the lingering scent of cedarwood and freshly ironed cotton instead of the stale coffee and creative desperation that used to define my living space. A man who somehow makes me feel safer just by existing in the same room, even when, or maybe especially when, I come home to find him calmly reorganizing my supply closet or reaching past me to grab something from a high shelf, his giant body creating an unexpected shelter above my head.
Unlike having a seven-foot Orc roommate who folds my laundry with big and leaves perfectly organized lunches in the fridge with little notes written in careful, precise handwriting.Unlike coming home to an apartment that smells like cedarwood and clean linen instead of stale coffee and my own anxiety. Unlike the way my stomach does a weird flip every time Faugh ducks through a doorway or reaches past me to grab something from a high shelf, his massive arm creating a living canopy above my head.
I attack the canvas with renewed ferocity, my brush strokes becoming increasingly aggressive as I work the wet pigment across the surface. The colors bleed into one another, cerulean blue colliding with burnt sienna, cadmium yellow dragging through deep crimson, creating a muddy, chaotic swirl that looks less like intentional artistic vision and more like the aftermath of some colorful, violent crime. My arm moves in sharp, almost jerky motions, the bristles leaving visible tracks through the still-wet paint, and I don't bother blending anymore. I'm past the point of refinement. This is pure, unfiltered emotion translated directly onto canvas, all messy frustration and confused longing rendered in shades that clash and writhe against each other like they're fighting for dominance.
The truth, the part I absolutely cannot say out loud, is that Derek running away felt less like losing a date and more like relief. And that's terrifying, because what does it say about me that I'm more comfortable with my giant, fastidious Orc roommate than I am with a normal human guy who wears too much hair gel?
I lose track of time, the way I always do when I'm painting, the world narrowing down to the drag of bristles against canvas and the wet slide of pigment. My shoulders start to ache from the repetitive motion, and there's a smear of purple across my forearm that I definitely didn't notice getting there.
The canvas is a disaster, a genuine, unapologetic catastrophe of conflicting emotions rendered in pigment and frustration. It'sangry and incoherent, the color composition genuinely awful in ways that would make any art professor wince, but it's also honest in a way that feels like lancing a wound. Like I've finally drained something poisonous out of myself and left it bleeding across the stretched fabric. The purple and yellow and deep crimson all war with each other, refusing to coalesce into anything remotely cohesive, and somehow that's exactly what I needed.
I'm so absorbed in the wreckage of my own making that I almost miss the sound at first, the soft, measured pad of footsteps behind me, each step so deliberate and controlled that if I didn't know better I'd think whoever it was had trained specifically in the art of not being noticed. The floorboards barely creak under that considerable weight. I don't turn around, already knowing exactly who it is and already bracing myself for whatever well-meaning observation he's about to make about my creative process or my general state of dissolution.
"I said an hour, Faugh," I mutter, keeping my eyes fixed on the chaos in front of me, on the writhing mess of colors that somehow captured something true about how I'm feeling. "One hour alone. That was the deal."
"It has been an hour and fourteen minutes," he replies, his voice emerging low and careful, carefully modulated in a way that's notably different from the clipped, controlled tone he'd used earlier when Derek was here. The defensive edge is gone, replaced by something that sounds almost like concern, though Faugh would never admit to something so overtly sentimental. "I brought you something."
I set my brush down with a sigh, wiping my hands on a paint-stained rag before turning around. Faugh is standing at my studio space, holding a small plate with what looks like aperfectly composed pastry, the kind with delicate layers and a light dusting of powdered sugar.
"Where exactly did that come from?" I ask, my eyes narrowing slightly as I take in the pristine pastry with its perfect golden-brown exterior and delicate swirls of glazing. "Because I know for an absolute fact that we don't have anything remotely like that sitting in our kitchen. We've got stale cereal, three questionable yogurts that I'm pretty sure have achieved sentience, and whatever experimental cooking disaster you attempted last Tuesday that I'm still refusing to identify."
"I walked to the bakery on the corner while you were working." He takes a single step closer, moving with that controlled deliberation he always has, like he's constantly aware of his size and consciously trying not to be overwhelming. "You did not eat dinner before your date. You become irritable when your blood sugar drops."
"I'm irritable because you chased off my date by standing there like some kind of massive, orc-shaped threat and cracking your knuckles menacingly, not because I'm hungry," I snap, crossing my arms defensively over my paint-splattered sweater. "And honestly, that's a really unfair conflation of two completely separate issues. One is about you violating basic roommate boundaries, and the other is just... basic human physiology. So maybe don't lump them together like they're the same thing, because they're absolutely not."
"You are irritable because he was unworthy of your time and you are frustrated that I was correct." He says it without smugness, just stating it like an observable fact, and somehow that makes it worse.
I want to argue, but the pastry looks really good, and I can smell the buttery, flaky layers from here, and my stomach chooses that exact moment to growl audibly.
Faugh's mouth twitches at the corner, just barely perceptible, a micro-expression that might almost be amusement if I didn't know better. His deep voice emerges low and measured, carrying that formal cadence he always uses when he's being deliberately patient. "Eat, Chantel. You will feel considerably better once your blood sugar has stabilized."
"This isn't an apology, is it?" I eye him suspiciously, narrowing my hazel eyes as I study his impassive slate-green face. "Because from where I'm standing, this looks like you're trying to win an argument with baked goods. Which, okay, actually kind of brilliant as a strategy, I'll admit that, but it's still manipulative." I gesture vaguely at the pastry with one paint-stained hand, my voice taking on that rapid, rambling quality it always does when I'm flustered. "You can't just show up with buttery layers and expect me to forget that you literally intimidated a perfectly nice guy into leaving my apartment. That's not how conflict resolution works, Faugh. That's just... that's just tactical snacking."
"I am not arguing. I am providing sustenance." He extends the plate slightly, and the motion makes his shoulders shift under the tight fabric of his henley, the dark green material pulling taut across muscles that look like they were carved from stone.
I take a step forward, reaching for the plate, and our fingers brush as I grasp the edge. His skin is surprisingly warm, rough with calluses, and the contrast between his massive hand and mine is almost absurd.
The sound that rumbles out of his chest is low and involuntary, a deep, resonant growl that I feel vibrate through the air between us. It's not aggressive, not a warning, it's something else entirely, something that sends an electric shiver racing down my spine and pooling low in my stomach.
