.free -indigo oneshot-

[charade]

Indigo Gerber has always been a thinker; a head for numbers and statistics, reasoning and problem-solving. Or, at least he used to be. It’s hard for him to keep touting himself as one of his generation’s brightest minds when he was unable to keep all of his friends from dying.

Well, almost all of them.

The brush slaps the canvas, and he regrets using crimson, because he can see the bathroom, and Amrin will not get up. Fiona is crying and cradling Harvey and there is red seeping from the bullet hole—

Red. Red like Poppy’s hair. Like Coralie’s.

Damn me for a fool, he thinks, before splashing some green onto a few untouched places. It’s hard not to hear Beryl whining about breakfast when he does so. As if Blaine and Mr.Nox weren’t dead.

Watercolors are so wet. I suppose it’s in the name, but still.

I do hope this turns out alright. Perhaps some violet?

Violet and her cat he visits every Tuesday.

Fiona is Thursdays of course. It makes sense; he just doesn’t have the time to explain it.

And of course, there is Adrien. Dearest Adrien.

Perhaps he ought to bake him a cake. That was appropriate, wasn’t it? For Anniversary’s? Even the anniversary of something perilous like surviving murder and death? Did they sell cards for that sort of thing?

He reaches for his glass of lemonade and takes a gulp from the cup he is washing his brushes in instead. It does not taste like lemons and sugar, and he spits it out, choking and heaving, thumping his chest like a caveman. .

It was his fault.

Yes.

No ifs ands or buts about it. If he’d been stronger perhaps, or if he’d not dulled his brain with mind-altering substances. He’d sworn off those afterwards. It sort of helped that Adam was dead and buried too. Difficult to find reliable dealers.

Indigo has never considered himself to be the creative sort, but life is too short not to make the most of it. There is paint on his shoes. His cheeks. In his stomach.

It’s not a great likeness if he’s being honest with himself, but then second opinions are what friends are for, and those are in short supply. She has wings, and the chains around her ankles are broken.

It’s captured enough of her that he can smell fries and beef wellington, and it’s just enough to drown out the memory of blood and tears.

There are no tears running down his face, he reminds himself.

Then he reminds himself that sometimes the little white lies people tell themselves are for their own protection.

“Goodbye Whitney,” he says softly to the painting.

“Thank you for being my friend.”