Broken Brush

So, things got weird today.

April, Miss Fally as I like to call her, wanted to show me a surprise! Which was cool at first. I like to be treated as much as the next person. So I was happy to oblige and close my eyes for her... right up until the point where she opened the door and tried to lead me outside.

"Uhhh.... just how far are we going April sweety?"

"A few blocks," she said as if that was perfectly normal. That wasn't fucking happening.

"I'm not walking down the street with my eyes closed for 'a few blocks'," I insisted. That's about when I noticed Slicer and Navi behind me. "What are they coming to?!"

"Of course silly! So we can share in the feels!"

"We can't take Slicer. I don't want him flagging down police to come rescue him from us. Bound as he is, he'll draw a lot of attention."

"Oh..."

I slammed the door behind us. "Navi can babysit. It'll be just you and me."

"Aww... fine," she grumped and then grinned.

"Good!" I smiled back and we started down the street.

I'm really, really glad I didn't let her talk me into walking there with my eyes closed. We went to the trashiest back alley I've seen in a good long while.

"Time for the surprise, close your eyes now!"

"Uhh.... is the surprise that I'm getting mugged?"

"That certainly would be surprising," she said putting hands over my eyes impatiently and pressing her body against my back to forcibly push me forward into the scary looking warehouse we had stopped in front of.

'Please don't steal my organs, please don't steal my organ, please don't steal my organs,' I whispered to myself.

April let her hands off my face. By this point I had closed my eyes on my own a little afraid to open them.

"Behold!" she declared.

I opened my eyes to find a cooler full of ice in front of me. 'Fuck, shes gonna steal my organs.'

"Isn't it great?!" she asked pulling a blood pack out of the ice.

".... What?"

"So you can paint!" she declared. I walked over to the cooler to find it was full of blood packs. I don't mention this often but I only paint murals and I only paint them in blood. Its complicated. I don't want to get into it.

"Oh," I said looking up at the bare disgusting warehouse walls. "We can do that."

Her bright smile waved a little, you know, like a psychopathic mother's might in a cartoon after she spends all night making dinner and all the father has to say about it is 'Oh, it was alright.' That kind of horrific lip quiver.

So I gave her a big bright smile and a hug. "I love it," I giggled. "I...! Am gonna paint you something. What should I paint?"

"Ummm... I don't know."

"Pick something! I want it to be special."

"I want a meadow and flowers and wavy tree.... and a big horse with a fire mane!"

"One /THAT/ coming right up!"

From there on I spent the next few hours hard at work painting. The fire mane was the hardest. Takes a lot of detail to depict fire with just one color. Had to go over that part with a lighter to give it color and texture. When I finally finished I collapsed against the wall content that my work was done.

April... did not seem pleased.

"Picasso.... what is that?" she asked. She was not smiling.

"Uh... A horse," and crawled over and sat beside her with an exhausted huff.

It was not a house. It was two children. One a teenage boy and one a little girl. They were in raggedy clothes and were standing in a beautiful meadow. You could see their hair and their bright beautiful grins... but not their ears, noses, eyes, or really any other part of their faces. Just their grin and their hair.

'FUCK FUCK FUCK' I shouted in my head. My fucking brush had painted something else on me again. It keeps fucking doing that. It pissing my off to no fucking end.

"What, is /that/!" asked April sounding absolutely pissed.

"Uh.... Children?" I asked, as I noticed my tree had turned out wrong too. Instead of a tree, it looked like Father was looming over the children. How the fuck did I miss that?!

April didn't say another word. She got up and rush out the door.

I practically had to chase her down.

"What wrong?" I demanded to know, grabbing her hand.

"Nothings wrong. Why would anything be wrong. Happy, we're happy here. Silver linings is.... were happy," she says forcing a very weak grin.

"April, talk to me."

"We... I, I just don't like children okay."

"I thought you said you loved children?"

"I d-did? Then I do. I love children, lets go see some children somewhere else," she said trying to pull away. I pulled her back.

"April, talk to me. The truth, for once!"

"I dislike children... they make me uncomfortable! Let's talk about something else!"

I nodded and pulled her into a hug. She finally stopped shaking. "I loved my present. I missed painting," I said before letting her go. She looked a little shy and I watched a real grin find a place on her face again.

"Don't forget to thank Navi too! It was her blood."

"I won't" I said sounding a little more thrilled that I really meant to be. Don't really know why I was so happy. Really no way to tell if April was telling the truth. I think she would have told me anything to get away from that building. I should have exploited that more maybe.

We laughed and hugged again, a little less awkwardly this time, granted I think she only hugged me to drag me further down the street inconspicuously.

We went out to eat after that and before long April was back to her loopy, grinning, goofy self. We brought some food back for Navi and Slicer too since they couldn't go with us. Navi whined about not getting to eat out. Other than that her night seemed to have gone fine. She apparently had a handless fight with Slicer and kicked his ass.

Slicer continues to be a whimp. A title I do believe will immortalize him. Really captures his essence.

Hehehe. Picasso out.