( WAS ALMSOT GONNA CRASH OUT /j- I had a long ask written but hen it disappeared before I could even send it HELP 😭)
helloooo lily, tis is 🎨 anon. How r u? Hope ur day is going well. Saw your requests have been opened, and my eyes went 👀. Can I request (seperate) phainon, jing yuan, and aventurine (Im requesting them again, lol sorry 😭) with an artist reader (artistic reader strikes again), maybe a scenario where reader makes their bodies a canvas for them to paint on (imagine painting van gogh's starry night on phainon's neck, the sun tattoo of his serving as the moon). Bonus, reader takes their chances to poke or tickle them with their paintbrush. Oh I also thought about maybe Anaxa could be added in this request if its okay with you.
(note: idk if this ask of mine has already been sent to you, but if it is imma resend it anyway, cuz while i was writing this request i was about to go out for a dinner; i have no data to access tumblr whenever im outside so just in case i copied and pasted this on my notes for me to send it laterrr + plus i easily forget things)
(this ask was way longer than i expected im sorry😭)
Living Canvas (Phainon. Anaxa. Jing Yuan. Aventurine. x Reader. Separate)
Synopsis: You turn him into your canvas. One brushstroke at a time, something deeper begins to take shape.
A/N: Hi again 🎨 anon! :) I really love the artist reader concept, so this felt like the perfect excuse to revisit it. :)
I tried to approach each of them a little differently, both in tone and in what the “painting” represents for them, because I think they’d all react in very distinct ways to something like this. (Also yes, I absolutely took advantage of the poking/tickling opportunity. :D)
I hope you enjoy these as much as I enjoyed writing them. 💙
Tags: Fluff. Hurt/Comfort (Light). Artist Reader. Early Relationship. Body As Canvas. Painting. Intimacy. Teasing. Playful Banter. Symbolism.
Word count: 3862 in total
⋆ ✦ ⋆
PHAINON
The light is still golden when you tell him to take his shirt off.
Phainon blinks. “…Pardon?”
“Your shirt,” you say, already mixing colors, entirely too casual about it. “Off.”
He looks at you for a moment, then grins. There’s nothing performative about the way he pulls it over his head, unhurried, settling back against the cushions with the ease of someone who has absolutely no idea the effect he has.
You swallow.
The golden line across his chest catches the afternoon light. Your gaze drifts to the sun mark on his neck.
You’ve seen it a hundred times. But today you’re looking at it differently.
“You’re staring,” Phainon says, amused.
“I’m assessing.”
“Mm.” His smile is knowing. “And what’s your assessment?”
“You’ll do,” you say, entirely serious, and he laughs. That full, uninhibited sound that you’d do a great many things to keep hearing.
“High praise,” he says. “I’ll treasure it.”
You settle on the edge of the low table across from him, palette balanced on your knee, and study the sun mark.
You’ve been thinking about this since the idea first struck you. What it would look like to paint around something that already exists, already means something.
“Hold still,” you say, voice going softer with focus. “And don’t talk.”
“And if I have thoughts?”
“Keep them.”
He closes his mouth. Mostly obedient.
Your brush dips into the blue. You exhale slowly and press the first stroke against the curve of his neck.
Phainon inhales.
You work slowly, building up the swirls of night sky that Van Gogh dreamed in brushstrokes. And you let the sun mark become your moon, the fixed point around which everything else spirals.
You paint upward along his neck, then down toward his collarbone, and his breathing steadies but stays slightly shallow. Aware.
Then, on impulse, you drag the brush just a fraction lighter, along the curve just below his ear.
He flinches. Then he laughs—unguarded and absolutely wonderful, shoulders shaking, composure gone entirely.
“That—” He’s still laughing. “Was that deliberate?”
“I needed to check the texture.”
“That is not a real answer.”
“It told me what I needed to know.”
He shakes his head, grinning helplessly, and you wait for him to still again before continuing. The stars take shape. The moon anchors the composition with a gravity you didn’t plan but that feels inevitable. Like it was always going to be there.
“What are you painting?” he asks, quietly, sometime later. His voice has changed. Lower now, less teasing.
“Something that fits.”
“Show me when you’re done?”
“Hold still and you’ll earn it.”
He tries.
You trail the brush lighter again, just once, just along his jaw.
He makes a sound somewhere between a groan and a laugh, head tilting away instinctively. “You are doing that on purpose.”
“The brush slipped.”
“Your brush has slipped four times.”
“It’s expressive.”
“It’s sabotage,” he says, but his eyes are bright and warm, and there’s no real complaint anywhere in him.
He settles back into stillness with the quiet willingness of someone who trusts you completely, and something about that trust makes your hands steadier than they’ve been all afternoon.
You add the last of the stars. Then you sit back.
Phainon watches your face rather than looking for his reflection. “…Is it done?” he asks, softly.
“Almost.” You reach out and press your thumb gently to the curve of his collarbone, smudging one line just slightly, softening it. “Now.”
He glances down, slowly, and goes quiet. “…Starry night,” he says finally, voice rough at the edges.
“With your sun as the moon.”
He looks up. The expression on his face does something complicated to your breathing.
“You made it mine,” he says.
“It already was. I just showed you.”
He reaches up slowly and catches your wrist. “You always do this,” he says, quieter. “Make something feel more real than I expected it to.”
Your pulse moves strangely beneath his fingers.
“The paint’s not dry yet,” you warn him.
“I know.” His thumb traces the inside of your wrist. “I’m not moving.”
The last of the afternoon light gilds the stars on his skin.
“You’re looking at me again,” he says softly. “The way you do when you’ve made something you’re proud of.”
“Maybe I am.”
His smile settles into his face like the sun returning after a long cloud.
“Good,” he says. “I think I’d like to be something you’re proud of.”
And when you lean forward and press your lips to the very edge of the starry night you’ve made of him, he breathes out like he’s been waiting for exactly that.
“You’re going to smudge it,” he murmurs, not moving an inch.
“Worth it,” you say against his skin.
And he laughs and pulls you close anyway.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ANAXA
“This is unnecessary.”
“It’s art.”
“It’s inefficient.”
“It’s fun.”
Anaxa regards you with the expression of a man who has already run the calculations and found the expected return insufficient, and is participating anyway because you asked.
You count that as a victory.
You’ve learned to recognize the difference between Anaxa’s genuine refusals and this, which is aesthetic complaint layered over concealed willingness.
He’s sitting on the edge of his desk rather than behind it. Collar loosened. Arms crossed. Expression deeply skeptical.
“You want,” he says slowly, “to use my body as a surface.”
“I want to paint on you,” you clarify, which does not improve his expression. “There’s a difference.”
“The distinction is unclear to me.”
“That’s because you’re overthinking it.”
“I am thinking at the appropriate level of thoroughness,” Anaxa says, with dignity. Then, after a pause, his eye flicks to your brushes with an expression he probably thinks is neutral. “What would you be painting?”
There it is.
“Something that suits you,” you say, already uncapping your paints. “Hold still.”
He goes very still immediately, as if to demonstrate that he could have been holding still at any point and this was simply a choice.
You cross to him, palette balanced on your forearm, and pause.
You press the brush to his collarbone.
He goes absolutely motionless. “…Your brush is cold,” he says finally.
“Paint’s room temperature.”
“The sensation is—” A brief pause. “Noted.”
You don’t smile. Not really.
You start with geometry. Clean, deliberate strokes that form the outlines of a star chart. The actual arrangement of stars visible on a clear night, each one placed at its precise angle relative to the others.
You know he’ll notice if you approximate. You know because he’s watching your technique with that narrow-eyed focus that means he’s analyzing rather than simply looking.
“Your stroke is uneven,” he says.
“It’s organic.”
“It’s inconsistent.”
“Star charts account for atmospheric distortion. I’m incorporating realism.”
“That is an acceptable defense,” he says, with the air of someone granting a significant concession.
You decide to reward him for it.
You poke him with the handle-end of the brush, right below his collarbone where the skin is more sensitive.
He inhales sharply. Then goes still again. Then turns to look at you with an expression of profound offense.
“That,” he says, “was unnecessary.”
“You were getting too comfortable being critical.”
“I was providing feedback.”
“You were being insufferable.” You’re already returning to the star chart, adding the next constellation. “You’re my canvas. Canvases don’t critique.”
“I am not a—” He stops. Reconsiders. The tips of his ears have gone faintly pink. “Continue.”
You do.
The star chart takes shape slowly.
But then you begin the second layer, and this is where it changes. Over the hard geometric lines, you add something softer: the faint suggestion of nebulae, of color existing in the space between stars.
His commentary has gone quiet. He’s watching your hands now rather than your face. Something in his expression has shifted.
“What are you adding?” Anaxa asks. His voice has gone lower, the way it gets when he’s attending to something that genuinely interests him.
“The space between things,” you say.
“Elaborate.”
“You know what’s between stars?”
“Gas, dust, radiation, electromagnetic fields—”
“Nothing that can be seen easily,” you interrupt. “But it’s there. It shapes how everything else looks. The fixed points are fixed, but the space around them is what makes them mean something.”
His breathing has changed.
You drag a slow stroke across his shoulder, following the curve of the joint, and he doesn’t comment on the technique this time. Just watches.
“You’re not painting a star chart,” he says finally.
“I am painting a star chart.”
“You’re interpreting it.”
“Aren’t those the same thing?”
He’s quiet for a moment. “No. Mapping is objective recording. Interpretation is—” He pauses. “—is you, inserting meaning.”
“Yes,” you agree simply.
He studies you. Then the work on his skin. Then you. “What meaning are you inserting?”
You meet his eye. “Ask me when I’m done.”
He doesn’t push. You poke him again. Lighter this time, more trailing, just along the edge of the painted constellation where the skin is more sensitive from the brush.
He catches your wrist. “You’re testing the limits of my patience,” he says. And it’s the same line as before, nearly the same words, but the tone has changed completely. There’s something underneath it now.
“And?” you prompt.
His thumb presses, very briefly, against your pulse. “And,” he says, very quietly, “I find I don’t entirely mind.”
You finish the painting slowly.
When you finally sit back, he looks down at himself: the precise star chart rendered on his skin, the fixed points held within soft clouds of color.
“Your reasoning was sound,” he says at last, voice carefully even.
You blink. “That’s high praise.”
“It was intended as such.” His gaze moves from the painting to you, and something in his expression has gone warm. “The juxtaposition of fixed points against the implied space between—the interplay of certainty and the unseen. It’s an interesting argument.”
“It’s a painting, Anaxagoras.”
“It’s an argument,” he corrects, but quietly. “One I find myself unable to refute.” He pauses. “You were painting something about me.”
“I was painting something for you.”
He’s silent. And then, almost against his will: “I see the distinction.”
You smile.
His eye narrows. “Do not look pleased with yourself.”
“I’m not,” you lie.
“You are.” But there’s no edge anywhere in it. The words land softly, the way they do when he forgets to guard him.
You begin cleaning the brush.
Anaxa stays still. He just sits on the edge of his desk in the loosened collar with a star chart drying on his skin and watches you with the kind of attention he reserves for things he’s decided are worth understanding.
“Next time,” he says, and you look up at that, “you might consider asking before you use the brush handle.”
“And if I didn’t ask?”
A smile crosses his face. “Then I would deal with it,” he says, “as I did today.”
Which means, in Anaxa’s language: you may do it again.
You file that away carefully, like a gift.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
JING YUAN
“This,” Jing Yuan says, with deep and placid serenity, “is new.”
“Is it a problem?” you ask.
He opens one eye and looks at you. You’re sitting cross-legged before him, armed with a small palette and approximately three brushes more than you probably need, looking enormously pleased with yourself.
Something in his expression softens with what you’ve come to recognize as fond acceptance of his fate. “No,” he says. “I don’t believe it is.”
He’s seated near the window, where the afternoon light falls in long diagonals across the floor. He’s already at the degree of stillness he cultivates like a discipline. Back straight, hands resting open on his knees.
You’ve watched him meditate, watched him wait out interrogations, watched him sit across from impossible situations with absolute composure.
He looks, you think, exactly the same right now. Which is, frankly, mildly annoying.
“Are you comfortable?” you ask.
“Exceptionally.” There’s amusement threading through it. “Though I find I’m curious about your intentions.”
“You’ll see.”
“Mm.” He closes his eye again. “Then I’ll be patient.”
Of course he will. Patience might be Jing Yuan’s most disarming quality.
You tap his shoulder with the brush. He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t react. Doesn’t even breathe differently.
“…You felt that,” you say.
“Of course.” His voice is entirely serene. “It was a brush against my shoulder.”
“You didn’t move.”
“I didn’t see a reason to.” The ghost of a smile. “Should I have?”
You tap him again, slightly lower.
Still nothing.
“This is deeply unfair,” you inform him.
“I’m simply holding still,” he says mildly. “As requested.”
“You’re being smug about it.”
“I’m being composed. There is a difference.”
You select a different brush and drag it slowly across his shoulder, where the collar of his robe has been loosened to give you access to the skin beneath.
This stroke is slow. Intentional.
And this he notices.
“…You’re starting,” he says, quieter.
“I’ve been starting,” you say. “You weren’t paying attention.”
“I was paying complete attention.” His voice has dropped just slightly. “I noticed.”
You believe him.
You work from the shoulder upward, building in layers. Long, sweeping strokes in diluted ink, translucent layers of grey-blue in the classical tradition, the kind that landscape painters used for distance and atmosphere.
Pale first. Almost nothing. Then gradually, with each pass, more weight. More weather. More sky.
“You’ve gone quiet,” Jing Yuan observes.
“I’m concentrating.”
“I know.” There’s warmth in it. “You hold your breath when you concentrate.”
“I don’t.”
“You do. Every three or four strokes.” He pauses. “I’ve been counting.”
You end up poking him somewhere below the collarbone.
He exhales. A soft sound, low and marginally amused. “That one landed differently.”
“Good,” you say, more sharply than you intend. “You’ve been cataloguing me.”
“I’ve been observing,” he says, with perfect evenness. And then, softer: “I observe you the way you’re painting me. With attention.”
Your brush stills.
You resume without answering. But your hands are steadier for the admission, and when you add the next layer, it feels different. Like you’re painting for him rather than on him.
The clouds take on more presence. More dimension. You add the suggestion of great height, of a sky that goes further than sight can follow.
Jing Yuan doesn’t speak again for a long while.
The light shifts. The room goes golden.
You poke him once more. Deliberately this time, at the soft place just below his collarbone, lower than before.
He makes a sound. A slight catch of breath that he smooths over almost immediately, the corner of his mouth curving just slightly.
“You’ve discovered something,” he says, with great dignity.
“I have,” you agree, very pleased.
“I’d ask you not to exploit it.”
“I’d ask you to stop looking so unbearably composed.”
He opens both eyes and looks at you fully, and the expression there makes you forget what you were about to say next.
“You’re almost done,” he says. Not a question.
“A few more strokes.”
He nods, closes his eyes again, and returns to his particular quality of patient stillness. But now you can see the slight rise of his breathing, the way his hands have shifted just slightly on his knees.
You add the final strokes: light, at the very edges of the clouds. Then you set the brush down. “Done,” you say.
He looks down slowly. Takes in the painting with the same unhurried attention he gives to everything. Doesn’t speak for a long moment.
“Clouds,” he says.
“Clouds,” you confirm.
“I’ve spent centuries watching that sky.” His voice has gone very quiet. “I know every particular of how it moves.”
He looks up at you, something moved in the depths of his expression. “You painted me something I know how to rest beneath.”
Your throat tightens. “I thought it suited you,” you manage. “Something vast that’s still somehow... peaceful.”
He holds your gaze. The clouds dry slowly on his skin. “You see too much,” he says tenderly.
“Only what you show.”
He smiles. The kind that’s entirely unperformative, that exists only because something has made him genuinely happy.
“I show you more than I realize,” he admits, and it sounds like something placed carefully in your hand.
You smile back. “I know,” you say. “I’m grateful.”
The light settles around you both. Gold and unhurried, like time itself has agreed to move gently for a while.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
AVENTURINE
“Oh,” says Aventurine, the moment you approach with a palette and clear intent, “this is dangerous.”
“You say that about everything.”
“And I’m usually right.” He’s leaning back against the settee with that particular studied ease you’ve learned to read as armor.
His jacket is already discarded, sleeves rolled to the elbow, and you’re not entirely sure if he did that on purpose or if he simply hasn’t noticed.
You’ve stopped trying to figure out which.
“The lighting’s good right now,” you say, by way of explanation.
“Is it?” He turns his head. “And here I thought you just wanted an excuse to touch me.”
“That too,” you say honestly, and he blinks, the deflection momentarily stripped away.
Then he grins. Genuine and slightly helpless. “At least you’re honest about it,” he says.
“Hold still.”
“I’m holding still.”
“You’re grinning too much.”
“My face doesn’t cooperate well with artistic demands.” But he adjusts, the grin converting to something more relaxed.
You tap his arm with the brush. Testing.
He jerks. Then immediately laughs. The real kind. The sound of it does something to you that you’ve stopped pretending isn’t significant. “That,” he says, when he’s gotten it under control, “was sabotage.”
“It was assessment.”
“Of what?”
“How you react when you’re not expecting something.” You’re already applying the first real stroke—bright, bold, along the inside of his forearm. “Good information.”
He watches the color appear on his skin with an expression that’s working very hard to be neutral. It’s not quite succeeding.
“What are you painting?” he asks.
“You’ll see.”
“I like to know the odds before I commit.”
“That’s why it’s better this way.” You add another stroke. Deep gold, not blended but adjacent, letting the two tones sit side by side rather than into each other. “Less calculation. More experience.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “You’re doing something on purpose.”
“I’m always doing something on purpose.”
“This specifically,” Aventurine says, and gestures vaguely. At himself. At the way you’re leaning close enough that he could reach out and touch your face if he decided to. “This feels like it’s about more than the painting.”
You glance up at him. “It is.”
He holds your gaze for a moment. That vulnerable flicker moves through his expression.
“Right,” he says, very lightly. “Good to have that confirmed.” He looks away. “Carry on.”
You press your thumb briefly against his wrist and feel his pulse, quick and real. Then you let go and continue.
The painting builds piece by piece. Not a single unified image but fragments of color, each one distinct, placed adjacent to the others with thin lines of bare skin between them. Emerald green beside deep gold beside blue-black beside cyan.
Each section small. Each one whole in itself.
A mosaic.
Aventurine doesn’t comment on the technique for a while. He just watches. Like he’s waiting to see if something will be asked of him.
Nothing is asked.
You just keep painting.
When the mosaic has enough pieces to suggest intention, he tilts his head slightly.
“It’s fragmented,” he says.
“So far.”
“But it doesn’t look—” He stops, considering. “It doesn’t look incomplete.”
“No,” you agree. “Each piece is whole. The fragments are the point.”
He’s quiet. Then: “You’re not painting me as an unfinished thing.”
“You’re not unfinished,” you say. “The pieces aren’t incomplete—they’re just pieces. They all exist at once.” You add another section, magenta. “You don’t have to be one unified surface for the whole to be real.”
The silence that follows is more careful.
Then you poke him. He yelps. And then he laughs, catching your wrist before you can escape, his whole face lit with surprised delight.
“Where,” he demands, breathless, “did you find that?”
“Same place you found the grin,” you say, which makes him laugh harder.
“That is very unfair—”
“You’ve been holding still for twenty minutes and I needed you to breathe.”
“I was breathing!”
“You were composing yourself. That’s different.”
He stares at you, still slightly breathless, grip still around your wrist. His thumb traces a slow circle, fully aware of it, making no effort to conceal it.
“You,” he says, with great feeling, “are genuinely dangerous.”
“You mentioned.”
“It bears repeating.” But something in his expression has gone considerably softer.
You recognize the face. It’s the one he makes when he’s about to say something true and has decided not to flinch from it.
“It’s good,” he says, looking at the mosaic on his arm. “The painting.”
“You’ve barely seen it.”
“I can tell.” He turns his arm slightly, examining the fragments. “It looks like…” He searches and doesn’t find what he wants, so he settles for honesty instead. “Like how I feel, sometimes. Like separate parts that somehow cohere into one person anyway.” His voice has gone quieter. “I didn’t expect you to know that about me.”
“I’ve been paying attention,” you say softly.
“Yeah.” He breathes out. “I noticed.”
You go back to painting. He stays still and lets you. The mosaic fills in piece by piece, the fragments accumulating into something that can be stood back from and understood as whole.
When you finally set the brush down, he looks at his arm for a long moment. Then at you. “Keep going,” he says.
“I’m done.”
“I didn’t mean the painting.” His voice is soft. “I meant—” He stops. Tries again. “I meant I’d like you to keep paying attention. The way you do. The way you just see things and don’t make me feel like I have to account for them.”
Your chest feels strange and warm. “I’m not going anywhere,” you say.
He nods once. Then, quieter: “Good.”
And then he pokes you. When you yelp he grins, delighted and unguarded, catching you before you can retaliate. “Even,” he says, satisfied.
“It is absolutely not even—”
“It’s even,” Aventurine insists, laughing, arms around you now. “The art was beautiful, by the way.” He presses his mouth briefly to your temple. “Don’t tell anyone I said that. I have a reputation.”
“What reputation?”
“Dashing. Unpredictable.” He considers. “Emotionally unavailable.”
You look at him. He looks back. “Well,” he says. “Two out of three.”
You lean into him, careful of the drying mosaic on his arm.
“You were never unavailable,” you say. “Just careful.”
He’s quiet for a moment, and in the quiet you feel him breathe. The way he does when he’s allowing himself something.
“Yeah,” he says finally, very softly. “I was.”
The mosaic catches the last of the light. Fragments of color, distinct and whole, all part of the same coherent thing.
Like him.
⋆ ✦ ⋆
A/N: Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it. :)
Masterlist.
