#have my little scribbles and doodles and half rendered art

[luveline]

you know, I'm coming right back [Fred Weasley x Reader]

summary: you're a lonely artist and Fred is your adoring model

word count: 2.4k

tags: reader insert, lonely reader, artist reader, seventh year, kids in love, first kiss, getting together, pining, fluff, friends-to-lovers

It was easy for you, usually, to act fine. To feel fine. Any loneliness that clouded your life was pushed firmly into the depths of your thoughts. You tried to focus on the things that mattered, essays and charms and your art.

You loved to draw. You had sketchbooks filled to the brim with sketches, some half finished, others coloured and lined. You drew everything, though you struggled to bring anything from your memory. Everything you drew had to be done right there, right then, with unsuspecting models. You sketched students eating their dinner, scribbled side profiles when you managed a spare minute in class. But you're most impressive artwork was done in the library, where nothing moved. Everyone was silent. You had pages and pages of bored, tired looking students. When exams approached, you hurriedly copied down the expressions of people on the edge of depression and panic.

You had friends, ish. You knew people. You'd had intense friendships that somehow always ended in awkward drifting aparts. Well, you thought. There must be something wrong with me. They liked me before they didn't, so the fault must've been mine.

You huffed out a sigh, pressing your face deep into the textured page of your sketch book, breathing in the smell of charcoal. You were sketching the illusive Fred Weasley, who you'd never truly drawn before. Maybe you had scraps from your second or third year when you'd still attempted to draw moving objects before getting comfortable and accepting that still life was your forte.

He was maddeningly good lucking when his eyebrows puckered in concentration. He seemed to actually be studying for once, sat at a table with his brother, George, and housemates Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet.

You were sat by yourself, and couldn't help listening to his lilting voice as he bantered with his friends. They were talking about Umbridge (the current victim of the Hogwarts' student body hate train), and quidditch, and their recent ban from quidditch. You'd never played.

"Watch out, dolly fell asleep," said one of the girls.

You bit your lip. You'd been nicknamed dolly by the girls in your dorm because of your porcelain doll you'd had since childhood. Even though this year was your last, you still hadn't felt the need to hide her away. She made you feel much less anxious and alone.

The whole school knew, naturally.

"Don't get any funny ideas," said Angelina,  to the twins.

"Come on Angie, you think so little of us?" said George.

"Yesterday I watched you trick a group of forth years into taking puking pastilles." Angelina said.

"It was hardly a trick. We told them they were multi-faceted," said George.

You could hear your heartbeat if you focused. It was in your ears. It bump, bump, bumped.

Bump bump. You flinched, a hand settled on your shoulder quickly moved.

"Wake up, dolly. Library's closing."

You squinted up into Fred's face, head halo'd by candlelight. Lifting your head from the wooden table, you stretched your neck to the left. It clicked.

"Uh..."

"Hmm?" You prompted him, smoothing your hair behind your ears.

"You have - dirt. On your face. Here-" He said, reaching forward. You closed your eyes as he gently wiped the skin above your eyebrow.

"It's charcoal."

"What?"

"It's not dirt," you said, peaking at him through your eyelashes. "It's charcoal."

He looked mildly surprised. You shifted, hoping to cover your sketch before he caught sight of it.

It didn't matter.

"It's me. My gorgeous dolly, you've created quite the masterpiece right there, haven't you? I look vexingly handsome, of course. Thought if that's a consequence of your skill or my handsomeness is anyones guess."

You were lost for words. "Uh, quite."

"Yes, yes, quite. Say, could I keep it?"

"... You want the drawing?"

"I'd love it, if that's okay."

"I," you quickly dug your thumbnail into the paper, tearing carefully at the centre. The paper came away a little ragged and smudged. "Of course. It's yours."

He handled it with care.

The librarian jingled her little bell again.

"Thank you. So, see you?"

"Yep," you agreed.

He nodded his head and bowed out with his friends. You tried not to feel paranoid at their laughter.

-

You were curled up in a hidden alcove, though it was hardly hidden. Most students knew where to seek privacy in the castle. You just so happened to get there first that evening.

You were trying to sketch Fred again. It felt weird to be missing a page from your book, and weirder still that you couldn't remember his face when he wasn't right in front of you. You tried, but it kept going wrong.

When you finally managed one you liked well enough, you had accidentally ruined it with a heavy hand and the wrong shade of brown.

He looked much too brunette.

You carefully rolled your coloured pencils back up, securing the leather ties tightly so as to keep every pencil confined.

Sighing morosely, you flipped to a new page. Things got so complicated sometimes, it made you agitated. You doodled a little sad face in the corner of your page. When the one thing that you enjoyed in life started to go wrong, it set off your whole mood.

Your birthday was coming up. It had been on your mind a lot lately. You'd spend it alone. That's what you figured. Nobody would know it was your birthday, or if they did, you weren't friends now, so...

You began with an arching circle, bisecting the lines appropriately. Feeling out the familiar lines of your own face came easy, the slight upper tilt of your brows, your hair and your pursed mouth. You always looked sad in the mirror, and it showed, dotted here and there when the only thing to draw was your own face.

The rudimentary outline of a birthday cake took form. The candles were unlit.

In a fit of unhappiness, you scratched out your mouth. It was never smiling.

"What did that piece of paper ever do to you?" said a voice.

You jumped. Fred was peering down at you curiously, wringing his hands. You put your pencil between the soft cover and smashed it flat, closed.

"Hi, dolly."

"Weasley."

"Oh, not even a first name?"

"You neglected mine first," you reasoned, rolling the words. He smiled at your joking tone.

"How rude of me. Hi, Y/N," he corrected himself.

"Hi, Weasley."

He smirked.

"Anymore of me in that blessed vessel?"

"Nah. You never stand still."

"If I pose for it?" He asked. You patted the ground in front of you.

He was a lovely model. He stayed infinitely still, more still than you imagined possible for him. He sat at a 3/4ths angle, chin up but not too far, mouth tilted and eyes open.

His eyes were the one thing he couldn't keep still. You tried not to flame in the cheeks everything you'd catch his gaze on you.

You sketched fast, choosing to hatch rather than render, big swooping lines to give the illusion of a depth that wasn't really there. You would've loved to do a full render, maybe even a colour portrait, but he was beginning to look a little antsy.

You set the book on the floor to face him and pushed it into his eyesight softlt. He turned. He looked nice like that, face bent, hair falling into his eyes.

After a moment, he began scrounging through his robe pockets. He set down a box, a lighter, a pair of gloves.

Finally, he set a galleon onto the floor close to your crossed legs.

"For you," he said, smiling at your inquisitive look. "For the drawing."

"Oh, I can't accept that. And I'd like to keep this one, if it's alright."

Fred thought for a moment. "Alright, you keep it. And the galleon, too, for the one you gave me the other day."

You bit back a smile. "I can't take your money, Fred."

"I can't keep having you draw me for free. It's as valuable a service as anything else. Plus, I'm not sure if you know, but I run a lucrative business these days."

You picked up the coin, rubbing your thumb against the engravings thoughtfully. "It's hardly a service."

"A talent, then. A skill. You're very good."

You're neck almost snapped as you looked into his face, wanting to assess his expression for genuineness. He looked earnest, and kind. You blinked away the gathering heat behind your eyes.

"Thank you."

He waved a hand at you. "Think nothing of it."

"Really-" you cleared your throat, "-you're doing me a favour. I'm not good at drawing things that move."

"I'm sure you're better than you think," he said.

You shook your head, smiling smiling smiling.

"What's in the box?"

"Oh, this old thing?" Fred weighed the box in his hands. It was soft at the corners, like a simple jewelry box that you had in your trunk. He offered it to you. You opened it carefully, the lid sliding free with a shhhhh sound. Inside was an evil looking fruit pastille, a match stick and a dried up flower petal.

It felt like a very private thing to see, suddenly. Such an eclectic collection of items couldn't be random.

"The first puking pastille George and I made. Or rather, the second - the first was forcibly fed to Lee Jordan in our third year. The match stick is from my Uncle's matchbox. I never met him. And the flower was from Ginny, when she was 9." He sounded nervous.

"It's a memory box."

"I- yes. It is. Things are sometimes so miserable now, with Umbridge and you-know-who. Scary, even. I look at them when I feel like it won't ever end."

You took them in for a little while longer and then placed the lid onto the box with nimble fingers. You scratched the lid with a fingernail.

"It's nice. You're right. Things are so awful right now, it's good to have reminders of why we keep going."

"Exaclty. Dolly, can I interest you in a fruit pastille?"

"Not on your life."

"They're perfectly edible!"

"Sure, Fred."

-

The honest conversation you'd shared with Fred was a catalyst between you. He often came to find you, each time whining and nagging you to just sit in the library like most people do.

"What, so your housemates can throw paper balls at me?"

"They thought you were sleeping!"

A likely story, you thought. He sometimes asked you to draw him, posing with the elegance of a natural born model. It was great for you personally, you felt that you were really getting a feel for his face. Eventually, you were able to draw his face from memory, the details of his nose coming to your fingers as easily as a first year spell.

It became about capturing emotion. You could capture his likeness now without a second thought, but his emotions were much more complicated. How would you show his veiled frustration the day Umbridge kicked him off the quidditch team? Through the clenching of his jaw? The shy veins in his forehead? How did you showcase the fear when he'd come back to Hogwarts after Christmas break, through his eyes, downturned and squinting just a little?

Today, it was poorly hidden elation. "How come you're so happy?" You asked, pencil between your teeth. He grinned. You measured his face with your thumb in the air, forming an L.

"Is it a prank?"

"You're thinking too small."

"A new product?"

"Still need to go bigger!"

"Hmmm," you hummed. Measure twice, cut once. Or in your case, sketch once.

"George and I, we're gonna open a shop."

"A section at Zonko's isn't enough for you?" You asked, casually, though you were very very happy for him.

"It's going to be amazing. We're going to run it, just the two of us, and you won't catch me in these scrappy long sleeves anymore. The next time you see me, I'll be in a full suit and tie."

"The next time? Is that not tomorrow?"

Fred closed his mouth, realising his mistake. He had revealed something he hadn't intended to. "We're leaving," he confessed. "We were going to wait for our NEWTs but... Well, we won't need them. This is going to work."

"So. You're leaving today?" You asked, crestfallen.

"Hey," Fred said, rubbing a placating hand over the curve of your shoulder. "Tomorrow. During the DADA OWL. We have a plan."

"This is goodbye?"

"No! No. Not if you don't want it to be. Actually, I've been meaning to ask you something, and maybe now isn't the best time, I had this whole letter planned and I didn't want to distract you from your exams and-"

"What do you want to ask me?"

Fred straightened. "I wanted to ask - will you go out with me? Not, you don't have to be my girlfriend if it's too soon, I'd love to take you for food someplace, I was going to ask you to Hogsmeade, but when the shop officially became ours, the plans changed so fast and I didn't know if you'd still want-" you cut off his rambling.

"I'll be your girlfriend," you said.

"You will?"

"Sure, if you'll be my boyfriend," you murmured.

Fred moved the arm that had been on your shoulder to the nape of your neck. "That's a dealbreaker," he said, leaning in.

He kissed you chastely on the lips first and then pulled back to look into your face. You chased him, a moment of bravery, and opened your mouth to taste him. He was sweet, like sugar. Your sketch pad crinkled beneath you both as he pressed forward. Your chests touched, heaving.

"You're not gonna be my boyfriend?" You asked against his mouth, breathing hard.

"I'm gonna be much more than that, dolly," he said heatedly.

Your mouth was tingling. "Kiss me again?"

You gasped at the force of him, laughing. He laughed too against your lips, and the sound tickled. He gave you a multitude of short and sweet kisses before pulling away again.

He wiped the wetness from your lip with his pinky finger. "Godric, you're cute. Look how flushed you are! You're insane."

Something churned in your stomach. The butterflies had acquired a trampoline. You felt happier than you had in a very long time. "You're not half-bad yourself, Weasley."

#listened to boyfriend by big time rush while writing hahaha #fred weasley x reader #fred weasley imagine #fred weasley fanfic #fred weasley #fred #fred weasly x reader #sad reader #reader insert #artist reader #fred weasley fluff #sorry for the big blocks of text tumblr has a 250 paragraph limit #why woukd they do that

[clonerightsagenda]

These keep getting longer

I think it’s evident at this point that I consider my duty to the prompt filled if the words are mentioned in passing or even implied

tuesjade prompt: art supplies

Jade isn't in the greenhouse or napping in the common room (or even halfway up a tree, which is where you found her last time you went looking) so you check her bedroom, which maybe you should have done first. There she is, flat on her back and flicking pennies at the ceiling. Instead of dropping back down onto her pillow, they settle into orbit around her head like a glittering halo. When you walk in, they fall in a copper shower around her shoulders.

"Jake!” she says from beneath a pile of loose change. “Do you need something?"

"Not need, exactly." You hover at the doorway until she motions for you to come in. "It's more that I'm here to ask you something. You see, Calliope and I have been working on a comic together."

"Oh, is that what you two have been hiding away to work on? We were wondering what you were up to." She sits up and pats the bed. Stray pennies clink and shift. "Can I see it?"

"As a matter of fact, I did bring some samples along." You're a little shy, but if you can't show your fumbling attempts at artwork to your grandmother, who can you trust? Calliope took the reins for most of the first booklet anyway. "Behold!” You hold out the hand-stapled collection of pages with a flourish. “The brand new adventures of our enterprising heroes."

She pages through your first issue, complimenting the art and laughing aloud at your cornier jokes. “My grandpa used to make that exact pun, you know," she says, tapping one speech bubble you were proud of.

"That stroke of genius must be hereditary."

She smiles down at the panel for a moment before turning the page. "Guess so."

“It’s funny,” you say. “Speech bubbles feel so… constrictive, for some reason. I know it’s a function of the medium, but you just can’t fit that many words in. You’d think I’d be used to it, since I’ve read my fair share of the funnies. But I keep thinking, how can they say everything they need to? They have to be so terse. It makes for a lot of revising.”

“You’ll get it with practice,” she promises. “And then we’ll all notice you’re sending us monosyllabic texts!”

When she reaches the end, you clear your throat. "I wanted to ask if you'd like to be a guest artist. We're trying to get as many people as we can for different issues, so it can be a group project." Calliope took a while to sell you on that. Some of your friends are actual artists. Their work will make your scribbles look pitiful. Still, you saw her point in the end. These things are more fun done together. And she's promised to stab people with pencils if they laugh.

"That sounds like a lot of fun. I haven't drawn in..." She shakes her head. "I don't know. A long while! I'm not great at it, but it was a nice way to pass the time."

"Oh grandma, you're being modest. You were always the best at arts and crafts.” Once you’d gotten into some old paints and left a trail of child-sized handprints on the wall. Instead of yelling, your grandmother had handed you a brush, and the two of you had covered the plain surface with a mural of swirling colors and flowers. It was one of the things you missed most when your house exploded. “The things you could do with a magazine collage were sheer magic."

"I don't know about your version of me, but this me is no Picasso." She waves her hands, and a sketchbook appears between them. You’d expect something with glitter or drawings of flowers – Jade is no stranger to the stereotypically “girly” end of accessorizing, even with the deconstructed guts of appliances and a few odds and ends of weaponry stacked up in the corner of her room - but the leather binding is plain and worn. "Here are some things I did before the game."

You open the book to the first page and blink. You know that handwriting. “Is this… mine?”

“Oh, that’s right.” She reaches over you and turns over a big chunk of pages. “This used to be one of my grandfather’s journals. He drew schematics for inventions or sketches of wildlife he’d discovered on his explorations. Sometimes he’d take me out on an “expedition”. He’d take field notes, and I’d imitate him by trying to draw what I saw. That’s how I got started doing art, actually. After he died, I kept it up. Maybe using his book was disrespectful, but…” She shrugs, reaching a page where no more of your – your other self’s – writing is visible. “I always thought he wouldn’t mind.”  

The sketchbook feels different in your hands now that you know your alternate self once held it. Heavier. You try to put it out of your mind. You have drawings from the Jade who is right here. Her lines are thick and defined, like a child's crayon drawings. Of course, she would have been a child then. Here's a doodle of a school classroom, with Jade and Bec behind a desk. The other students... They’re not pretty, but one of them has clunky square glasses. Another wears a headband. "Are those John and Rose?"

She laughs. "Yes. They hadn't sent me pictures yet, but I'd seen them in the clouds. I liked hearing about school, even when they complained. They never understood why I pestered them for so many details, but I wanted to imagine myself going too. Maybe they’re right and I wouldn’t have liked it, but I hated having to wait until they came home to tell them something."

Her human faces are clumsy and cartoonish, but she has an eye for rendering detailed objects in perspective. Students like flat paper dolls sit behind three-dimensional desks. "You could be an architect," you say.

"I had a Pictionary modus, so I had to be accurate," she explains. "I was never as good at people. I didn't have anyone to practice with."

You nod, flipping further. "Going off a picture just isn't the same." Here's something different. She's drawn a figure fast asleep. The lines are sketchier and more uncertain, with a realistic softness the other drawings are missing. This time, you’re confident assessing their identity. “You drew John?”

"I tried to get a good look at him while I was dreaming on Prospit," she says. "Then I drew him from memory afterward. I thought about asking him to pose a few times once we were on the battleship, but I couldn't think of a way to ask that wouldn't sound silly."

"So you resorted to candids, did you?" The last few pages of the sketchbook are populated with quick doodles built from lighter lines. The jointed fingers of a carapacian. John with his long windsock hood, gesturing broadly with his hands. Dave, no, it would be Davesprite, hiding a half-smile with one hand. An echidna curled in a tight ball with its tongue poking out. It would set your behind ablaze to say any of them are photorealistic, but you can tell what they're supposed to be.

After those you find renderings of the innards of the battleship, a mess of interlocking pipes and conduits. Now these you'd believe were ripped out of a user's manual. The rest of the pages are blank. "Did they catch on?"

She snatches the sketchbook back. "No, they don't know about it, so don't show them."

"Have you been sketching me at all?" You strike a pose, lifting your chin in the air. "How’s my profile?"

"Stop teasing, I haven't drawn anything in years." The book vanishes, and she puts her hands on her hips. "So you see, I'm not sure I'd be very good at it."

"I'm much worse than you, and I'm one of our lead storyboarders. Calliope insisted she wasn't doing all the visual components. Apparently I'm supposed to "learn" and "grow"." You tug at her elbow until she drops her arms. "Don't you want to learn and grow, Jade? Isn't that what you Space players are all for?"

She puffs out her cheeks. "Fiiiine. I guess I can pick up some colored pencils again."

"There's just one thing..." Oh rats, you hadn't thought of how this would come across. "Our guest artists... policy is that they do the villains. To keep the heroes consistent and all that. Is that ok?" You hurry on. "You could be a werewolf, or a mad professor who gets turned into some creature after exposure to magical radiation. You know, something fun."

She blows her cheeks back out. "Radiation sickness isn't much fun. I might prefer a well-intentioned extremist. Maybe I destroy corporations for harming the environment."

"But..." You hesitate. "Is that a heroic thing to do, when you boil it down? Greater good, and all that. It might be more of an anti-hero occupation, so to speak."

"Not when you're hurting the employees."

"We could convince you to let them go first... No." You shake your head. "It doesn't fit our profile to become anarchists. We'll have to save that for our gritty reboot in a few decades."

"I'll go with something more ethically simple."

"So it's ok with you?"

She pats your hand. "I'm not going to get offended about it. I know I was the bad guy for a while. Pretending to do it again won't hurt me."

"I know I wouldn't want to relive it."

"It was different for you.” She looks down at her hands, and you wonder if she’s remembering them ashen gray. “I didn't have a bunch of people living in my head. After the first moment, it was just me, the worst bits. It's not like you wanted to rip anybody's heart out."

You shudder. Caliborn had shoved you to the back of your mind, where you kept company with a bunch of silly green men and a spooky clown, but you'd caught flashes of the outside world. He was happy leaving you to feel your body's pain. Human hands weren't meant to take that kind of punishment, but the vision-blurring impact hadn't prevented you from seeing one of your best friends die. "Can we talk about something more cheerful?"

Her ears pull back slightly. "I didn't mean to upset you."

"And here I was worried about upsetting *you*.” You laugh. “I guess we know which of us is made of sterner stuff."

"You're pretty tough," she says, poking you in the shoulder. "You're our adventure guy."

"Mostly in comics. My alter ego is much braver than I ever was."

She shakes her head. "They're just made up. You're the real deal. And you made it through the worst a bored comic book writer could ever throw at you."

You tap the cover of your comic book thoughtfully. "We *are* the grittier reboot."

She laughs. “That’s right. We are! So now you can enjoy your… less gritty reboot, if that’s a thing comics do.”

“We could have a beach episode.”

“Name a day, and I’ll take us back over to the island. We’ll make a vacation out of it.”

How will it feel to revisit the place where you grew up? Will it feel like coming home, or more like visiting an old prison cell? Which memories win out – the fond ones or the terrible ones? At least you’d have your grandmother at your side. Maybe that way you won’t keep expecting her to pop out from behind every tree and boulder. “There’s an idea. Your character could be a Captain Nemo type. He had a mysterious island and everything.”

“I have in the past piloted something somewhat like a cool submarine,” she agrees.

“Let’s doodle you a nifty uniform,” you say, and she grins and picks up a pen.

#tuesjade #homestuck/ #kat writes fic #they'll get shorter as my list leads me to characters i'm not as familiar with #or... will my lack of confidence w/ their voices make me lean on narration #thus generating more words? #i will have to analyze the data as it is created