The world came back in fragments.
The press of the canvas beneath his hands and knees, cool and tacky with paint. The soft, irregular drag of Ryan's breath just above him. The blindfold still clinging to his lashes like a second skin.
Luna didn't move.
He couldn't—not because Ryan held him down (he wasn't, not anymore), but because his body had gone loose, pliant, humming like it had been dipped in heat and left out to dry.
His arms trembled. His thighs ached.
His chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven waves, like the tide wasn't sure whether it was coming or going.
And beneath him… ruin.
Paint smeared everywhere—on his belly, his chest, his thighs. And not just paint. Something more intimate. More honest.
He whimpered before he could stop himself.
Ryan's hand smoothed up his spine, featherlight. Reverent. He said nothing. Just exhaled deeply as he admired Luna like he was some cathedral he'd dared to burn down—and still wanted to worship in the ashes.
Luna pressed his face harder to the canvas, wishing the floor would take him. Swallow him whole. Make him unpainted.
But Ryan's hand was there again, gentler now, brushing his curls back, tugging the blindfold loose.
Darkness lifted.
The room swam in blurred edges and soft light. Shadows pooled in corners, heavy with what they'd done. With what they were now.
Luna blinked, dazed and raw. His voice came out in a rasp. "You… you ruined it."
Ryan chuckled, low and unapologetic. "I finished it." He said as he pulled back on the wifebeater. Luna's eyes were still focused on the ruined painting beneath him, he didn't think to look back at Ryan at all.
Luna sat back on his heels. What was once the subdue vision of a sleepy park scene was now a mess of grey and lilac, a streaks of white that was distinctly not paint. There were areas that managed to survive - a lamp post here, a leaf there, but the overall painting now looked like a tornado was ripping through the park, leaving nothing but grays and deep blues and confusion in it's wake.
Luna turned his head, finally facing Ryan. Ryan knelt there, inked with smears of color like battle wounds. And his eyes—
God. His eyes.
No rage now. No jealousy. Just a strange kind of peace. And something far more dangerous: devotion.
Not the kind that asked for anything.
The kind that took.
Ryan reached down and touched Luna's cheek, his thumb tracing the edge of his jaw like it was part of the painting too. "You okay?"
Luna didn't answer right away.
Because how could he explain what it felt like—to be touched like art, like vengeance, like a prayer someone had waited too long to say?
He licked his lips, tasting salt and sweat and silence.
"I don't know what I am," he whispered. "Not anymore."
Ryan leaned down, pressing a kiss to his temple. It was soft. It was too soft.
"Then let me help you remember."
Luna closed his eyes again, and this time, he let himself be held; finding a comfort in not being able to see, letting Ryan guide him, control him instead.
And Ryan loved it. He fell upon Luna like a falcon falls on it's target, scooping up the smaller man in his arms and pulling him coles, breathing in deeply the scent of sweat, paint and cologne, shuddering as he bathed in Luna's essence.