steelartisan | (no subject)

(no subject)

Serenity is a very nice ship. Cozy. The room Kate and Piotr inhabit is small, but it's comfortable, and Mal and his crew are both kind and generous to let them live there for so long.

But small passenger bunks on a small spaceship, however cozy, do not have lots of extra room for easels. And it's generally considered rude to accidentally smudge oil paint on your host's floor and walls.

Which is why Piotr is out by the lake, taking advantage of the morning sun to work on a new canvas.

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"You met Puss," Kate observes as she sets her chin on his shoulder and drapes her arms around him.

This requires using phasing to be several inches above the ground.

She can cope with that.

"Da." He's smiling, and has been since her arms settled around his shoulders.

He is just starting on the background, in deep reds that will be mostly painted over with black. The composition is sketched in pencil: the cat, sword raised in salute, in what looks like some sort of street or alley.

"He is all oranges, all motion. He needs better light than Milliways."

"Always the artist," she grins and presses a kiss to his neck.

"Pity you can't arrange life to be lit the right way."

Is this teasing? Juuuust a bit.

"It is very uncooperative."

His life is so hard.

"Dork." It's affectionate as she squeezes slightly.

"Can I look at your sketchbook?" She won't stop him from painting.

Also she hasn't seen it in a while.

He turns his head enough to smile at her, brush poised an inch above the canvas.

"If you want to."

The one on the ground nearby is the sketchbook he usually brings with him to the bar. It's a good size; he likes it, which is why he's going to need a new one soon. The book's nearly full.

"No, I ask because I hate your art." Deadpanned, as she kisses his nose briefly and then lets go. A moment later and Kate's sitting on the ground, sketchbook settled in her lap.

The older drawings she's seen before.

And then there are the many new ones. She's seen him drawing one or two, sometimes in bed or just when they're sitting together, but there are many she hasn't.

He watches her reactions in the corner of his eye, while the rest of his attention is occupied with dabbing burgandy across what will eventually become a shadowed stone wall behind Puss.

Kate's careful, as she turns the pages.

Many of their friends. X-Men and at the bar both; one of Scott, talking to a student at the mansion, followed by one of Simon holding medical tools. A few of Sunny, Anthony next to her in one. Storm and then Logan, looking at a lake--she's not sure if it's this one or the mansion's--and Mal on Serenity's bridge.

There are several of a girl who might be Illyana, if one feature was different here or there. Kate touches those with lighter fingers. Several of herself--there's one of her sleeping, arms phased through the sheet, that makes her smile a little extra--and a few of people she doesn't know.

And there are drawings, throughout, of a woman holding an infant. Her hair's dark, and her face is hard to see with the angle she's drawn at, or else her hair's falling over it. A few of those, a few of just babies that aren't any she knows, all scattered throughout.

The first one she doesn't stop at for long.

It's one towards the end that makes her stop turning the pages and just study it, fingers tracing over the lines after a minute.

Piotr glances at Kate, and back at his painting.

And then -- at the way she's looking at the paper, and the silence instead of a page turning -- back at Kate.

(He's trying to remember what's in there. Nothing that would upset her, he thinks?)

"You draw a lot of babies," she says eventually without looking up.

It's not that many, in some ways, but--

There's more than two. Especially if you take into account the ones being held by someone.

Piotr pauses, thinking that over.

And looking at Kate; the arch of her neck, the line of her shoulders, the way her head is bowed over the paper.

"Do I? I had not counted."

"More than I'd've thought, anyway," she amends, and looks up with a half sort of smile.

"They're pretty pictures, mind."

Piotr smiles just a little.

"I hadn't noticed," he says again. With half a shrug, "I draw what is there."

He doesn't only mean what's in front of him. There's what he sees, and what his mind's eye sees.

"Da." Absently, as she turns the pages till she sees another infant being held by a woman.

"...Why this, though?"

"Hmm?"

The brush gets set down carefully, so he can take a few steps sideways and crouch beside Kate. He wants to see what she's looking at, for the direction this conversation is going.

(He holds his hands carefully away from her, though, and lets them dangle between his knees. They're all smudged with paint. He never has learned the art of avoiding that.)

"Why babies?"

It's not exactly the question--or not the only one--she wants to ask. But it's a start.

There are answers and answers to that, as there are questions underneath the one she's asking.

He has to think about it for a minute.

"I like babies. Children. They are so open. Full of possibility. Everything is the future for them, and everything they're thinking shows."

He smiles a little, crookedly. "They are always interesting."

She's tracing the child's features for a minute.

"Do you want one?"

"I have always wanted children," he says simply, and with a rueful half-smile.

It's not the whole answer. But it's still true.

"Someday. If I could. I like children."

He loves them, really. And he loves family.

He says this mostly to his sketchbook, quietly and thoughtfully, and only at the end does he glance at Kate, a little hesitantly.

She's biting her lip, a little, and not looking up.

"Do you want them with me?"

And the answer, instant and certain, is yes, of course.

But he doesn't know what she thinks.

(And there's Mikhail. Always that, in the back of his mind.)

"I love you," is what he says finally, and with a small and crooked smile.

"I don't know what you want. Da. Someday. If you do."

"I love you too."

That's soft, and to the sketchbook as much as Piotr.

It's a minute before Kate looks up, looks over at him and looks tired. Because it's Piotr, and she does love him, and since she was thirteen and a half she's thought off and on about being married to Piotr and having children with Piotr. Because Piotr was brought up to think family was the most important thing, and probably without that he still would, and she knows it.

And because for herself she does. She always has. Stryker used that against her, once, made her see the dreams she had before finding out about mutants and X-Men, and mother was there at the top.

And she doesn't know how to say it, really, so she just lets the words tumble out, says, "Phasing induces miscarriages most of the time," without thinking about building up to it or gentling it.

It doesn't say what she wants, and she realizes it after the words are out. And she doesn't know how to say I want them too, to say, I want them with you after that, just looks down at the charcoal lines on paper.

What do you say to that?

Oh and are you sure and I didn't know and I'm sorry and--

"Oh."

"Not all." She shrugs, a little. "Just--it makes it harder. Stress on the system. Too much and the fetus is--split, I guess. It's hard on it."

And nine months is a very long time.

"And I phase in my sleep most the time," she half-whispers, smiling crookedly and without humor.

And then Kate doesn't say anything for a moment before saying quietly, "I do want them. With you."

That makes it worse, she thinks.