A huff of laughter came at Blaine’s suggestion, the worst part was Lip could picture it far too clearly. “He’s not worth the money, plus—
“ He started up, unable to hold back the beginnings of a smirk, “Wouldn’t wanna encourage him. He’s liable to think he can make it as an artist if I plant that seed.” After all, it didn’t take much to send Frank down the road of any get rich quick scheme and considering how subjective art was, he didn’t doubt for a second that there was someone out there his father wouldn’t mind ripping off. “I like the idea though,” He grinned. might make the place look a lot classier than it was. If anything it would stick with the gentrification theme sweeping throughout the neighborhood.
Lip leaned over the side of the bed for a moment and opened the drawer to his night side table. He rustled around for a moment before finding the small box of joints he had rolled, and pulled one out before putting the lid back on and shutting the drawer. Rain always made him want to blaze, then again did he really need an excuse? Rolling back over he let his head rest against the headboard as he grabbed his lighter and lit the tip of the joint. It took a little while to get a nice glow, but once it finally stuck around, he inhaled deeply, taking the smoke deep into his lungs. As he did so, he extended the joint over to Blaine, should he want to partake.
He listened with a grin, eventually exhaling and avoiding a building cough that threatened to reprimand him after testing his limits a few seconds too long.”Fuck, everyone would flock for that shit.” Lip laughed, though his cough finally bubbled over as the cloud of smoke hang stagnantly above them, slowly dissipating. “Slum life: An Addict’s Renovations. The lesbians up the street would eat that shit up.” Art and other people’s suffering? That was so hot right now. At least to the people that always sped up every time someone from South Side passed them by on the sidewalks. They clutched their purses tighter, or got closer to their partners as if waiting for the lowlifes to strike and rob them for every penny they had.
Lip’s tongue wet over his lips as he listened, eyes quietly surveying Blaine as he spoke. He was pretty good at reading people when his dick wasn’t involved (and often trying to make him avoid the warning signs). Karen had been lonely too. Hell, even Mandy. Maybe not on the surface level of things, stuck within the depths of the Milkovich house, but she had gotten the shit end of the stick, sadly he had also played his part in that one. Fuck. If Blaine didn’t paint a picture. He’d seen the guy party, puke his guts out, and hold his own, and yet under all that, under the prep boy clothes and the old Hollywood hair was something a lot deeper. Something that oddly reminded him of Helene, Well, the good parts of her. It was almost uncomfortable how much he could relate. After all, wasn’t his quest always trying to fill that hole inside? The one he blamed Karen for leaving, but in reality it had been Karen who had temporarily filled it if anything. “Nah, don’t.” Lip shrugged off, shaking his head dismissively as Blaine tried to explain himself.
Lip less offered the joint now, but instead handed it over because if anyone needed a hit or five, it was Blaine. “Hate to break it to ya, bud… But I think that’s called depression.” A simplistic term that didn’t scratch the surface, but within their conversation there were different tiers. Lonely and quiet was one thing, but what Blaine was describing was far more. An affliction of perhaps the two, but it was all linked. “You’re still focusin’ on other people, aren’t you?” Lip questioned, looking over and actually meeting Blaine’s eyes. It’s not that he thought of himself as the charity case in the situation, but it made sense as to why Blaine wanted to be around the dysfunction so much more. “Did you ever get back to being what you wanted?”
Could have been much worse.
“Yeah, totally. Like, you could have had Carl stealing your socks so he could jerk off under the covers while you’re trying to study for your calc exam.” The grin slowly turned into laughter as Lip nudged Blaine’s shoulder, trying to lighten things a little bit, but at this point in life, the heavy shit didn’t really seem that heavy anymore, not unless he was in the thick of it and it was happening around him. “Did I mention we had bunk beds?”
From what little amount of Lip’s father he’s experienced, Lip was right. Frank Gallagher didn’t seem the kind to let an opportunity to not work while making as much money he could scrape up go by. Putting a paintbrush in his hand could either be a disaster or a blessing. Probably the first one of the two. Instead of painting his own work, Frank would be the type to try and crank out fake Monet’s to unsuspecting people saying he found them in an estate sale and got lucky. “True. Probably best to let him do whatever he might come up with next that doesn’t land him in jail for forgery,” Blaine mused with a hum and a shrug. If Frank put half as much effort as Lip has told him he puts into his scheming towards making something of himself? His family would never have had to worry about a thing. The guy would have been beyond successful. It was more than sad to know that his kids suffered for his lack of trying.
Blaine watched as Lip got all of his pot supplies out. He never participated in the whole getting high thing that Lip (and everyone around him) loved to do. But he didn’t mind when others did. Their choice, yeah? So, he watched with a building curiosity as Lip drew out a join actually a little disappointed that they were all rolled up instead of Lip going through the process of making one himself. Watching how concentrated the other got while he went through his ritual of rolling a joint was always entertaining. Ah well. Next time. With pot and the Gallaghers? There’d always be a next time.
Lip playing along with the hipster photographer idea made Blaine grin and lean in bouncing their shoulders against each others as he laughed. “See? You’re getting an idea there, though. Take your photography and sell it to people who are trying to seem cultured by just being..not and make money off their horrible attempts at seeming edgy or hip? That’s how real artists start for the most part, right? Selling depth to the rich who don’t know how to get it any other way? And a few of them who really understand get lucky enough to grab a piece or two before they’re all gone?” Ah well. That’s how museums started. Or maybe it was the contact high he didn’t realize he was getting as he breathed with the heavy cloud above their heads that made him invent the whole idea. He was a little too relaxed to think too hard about it.
Then he was blabbering about his homelife. No doubt his tongue loosened by the warmth his body was sinking into and by the time he was done, he felt like an apology was in order. Of course Lip wouldn’t let him give one. Lip never let him apologize for himself. In a very different way than his friends back in Ohio used to dismiss his nature to excuse himself if he thought he had done something to earn it. They dismissed the whole situation. Sort of negated everything around it that happened. Or honed in on one thing about it that made Blaine pretty sure they didn’t want to let completely go (because it’d be brought up months later) but felt obligated to accept or dismiss his apology as a means of acceptance.
Lip always made him feel like whatever slip he made didn’t matter. Because that’s what humans do and in the long run of things? Letting stuff that wasn’t a big deal slide was how friendship worked. Mistakes happen, but they aren’t that big of a deal because the bigger picture was way more huge than that tiny blip of oops. “Depression? Yeah,” he smiled at the thought and glanced down to the blanket he pinched between his thumb and forefinger and began grazing the edges of them over the cotton. “Not as much as I used to,” Lip caught his eye and he didn’t look away. “In a better, more healthier way now, I think. It’s always gonna be my nature to focus on people. But I focused a whole lot on me since I’ve been here too.”
“Back to what I wanted? I’m getting there.”
”That happened? How’d you.. Wow. Wow.” GROSS! Oh thank God he was the little brother. Blaine blanched with a laugh and shook his head at the offered joint handing it back with a grateful smile. “Not sure a non-filtered joint is great for the voice but thank you. However. No thank you for the image you put in my head that I don’t think any amount of wishing I could forget that is going to relieve. Also. What about you? Ever think you’ll focus on you completely? Because..sort of pot calling the kettle black here..”
pianokeysandbowties 