Washing the dust of daily life off our souls

Kieren had just pulled his T-shirt over his head when there was a soft knock on his open door. Simon hovered in the hallway. “Your sister let me in,” he said by way of greeting.
      Kieren nodded. “Come in. I’ll be ready to go in a moment.” He turned back to his closet and took a beige sweater from the pile at random. He would have liked to have worn something he was sure Amy had liked for their visit to her grave, but the truth was that he just didn’t remember if she’d ever complimented him on one item of clothing in particular. He’d forgotten and now there was no way he’d ever get to ask her which one she liked best, so he’d just have to guess and hope.
      “You drew me.”
      Simon’s voice pulled Kieren out of his reverie. When he turned around Simon was standing in front of his desk, the wall above which was so covered in drawings and paintings it was impossible to tell the colour of the wallpaper.
      “Yeah,” he admitted slowly, because there was no way around this. “I did.” It took him another two seconds until he realised this was the first time Simon had ever seen his room - usually they hung out at the bungalow because it provided them with more privacy, and the times they’d been at the Walker home together, they’d always stayed downstairs - and suddenly he felt extremely self-conscious about it all. His gaze flickered to the painting he’d done of Rick, which still hung in a place of honour opposite his bed, and he hoped Simon wouldn’t bring that up.
      “Why?”
      “It’s not a big deal. I draw everyone.” It was a big deal, sort of, but he wasn’t about to admit that. Especially not with Simon staring at the pencil strokes that formed his own face in that weird, slightly too intense way of his.
      Simon huffed a weak laugh. “When did you crumple it? What did I do?”
      “That wasn’t me. Remember I told you Gary came here and turned my room upside down before kidnapping me that day?”
      “He did this to your work? Living asshole.” Simon stared at the picture for a moment longer before looking at Kieren, searching permission. He motioned at the drawing. “Can I?”
      Kieren nodded. “Sure.”
      Simon very carefully peeled the two little bits of sellotape loose that held the paper up. He put it down on the desk and tried to smooth out some of the wrinkles without touching the actual drawing. His hand ended up hovering just over it for a couple of seconds, reverently. It was as if he wanted to touch it, just like he always brought his hands up to Kieren’s face when they kissed, but something stopped him from bridging the last centimetres. He seemed unable to keep his eyes off the drawing and Kieren studied his face in turn, trying to read his expression. He couldn’t, not as long as Simon didn’t look at him directly.
      Simon let out a nearly inaudible sigh. “You’re gifted, Kieren.”
      “You keep saying things like that.”
      “This is different.”
      The ‘but they’re all true’ was implied in his tone. Kieren pulled at the sleeves of the beige sweater. Simon said it in a way that didn’t allow any room for doubt about whether he was serious, which somehow made it better and worse at the same time. Better because hearing someone praise him so openly and honestly was addictive, and worse because it proved Simon had far more faith in him and his abilities than he deserved. “You can keep it, if you want,” he offered. It wasn’t a very subtle way of changing the subject, but it should work.
      Simon didn’t answer immediately. “Actually,” he said, just when Kieren was starting to wonder if he’d accidentally offended him, “I think this looks much better just where it was.” He put the picture back up in the empty space it had left on the wall when he’d taken it. Apparently modern day miracles were real, because the sellotape still stuck.
      “Oh. Right.” Kieren really hoped Simon couldn’t pick up on the slight disappointment in his voice, because it was stupid and he had no idea where it had come from so suddenly. “It does look good there,” he agreed, trying for lighthearted.
      Simon looked at him. Kieren would have thought the way he was acting was shy if that had been a word that was applicable to Simon Monroe in the slightest.
      “I would like one of your drawings. The bungalow’s walls are very empty now.”
      Kieren didn’t have to ask what he was talking about. He’d seen the freshly painted bits of wall and the dustbin filled with ULA promotion material just after Amy’s funeral. “Anything specific you’re thinking of?”
      “You.”
      “Me?”
      “I love this,” Simon said, gesturing at the drawing of his own face, “but your self-portraits have something special to them.”
      It sounded like a very bad pick-up line (your self-portraits have something special - it’s you, baby) and Kieren felt a hysterical bubble of laughter well up in his chest. It didn’t get very far, though, because Simon was looking at him again, intense and earnest and maybe more than a little vulnerable. So Kieren just smiled, hesitantly. “Okay.”
      Simon nodded. “Okay,” he repeated. “Good.”
      He looked like he might keep standing there for a while if nobody urged him to move, so Kieren held out his hand. “Come on. We can’t keep Amy waiting.”
      Simon took the proffered hand and had Kieren’s body been capable of registering such sensations, he was sure he would have felt him squeeze it. As it was, he only had the funny feeling in his chest when he looked down at their tangled fingers. It was enough.