25. Talk as fast as you can about a painting the same way you chop onions! 🌹
So I’m sorry it took me five bazillion years to fill this prompt, @fadedforyou, but now that Cullen’s been sucked up into our world, I finally had some inspiration! Thanks so much, and I hope you enjoy!!!
Pairing: Cullen Rutherford x Belle Dolan (MGiT AU)
Rating: T for Teen (porn mention)
Entranced. It was the only word Cullen could think of todescribe his feelings about the image before him.
From the moment Belle instructed him on the use of herlaptop and something called, “the internet,” he had been clicking on everything.Click after click after click taught him about the new world he now inhabited.Some clicks brought him to the histories. Some clicks brought him to scientificdiscovery. Some clicks brought him to things that made him feel disgust andshame, among other things. But this…
He was reading about war, at first. Then he clicked onsomething that took him to a linear history of religious wars, which, to himsounded like variations on Exalted Marches. He read forward through time untilhe reached a history of the Dutch Golden Age, sparked by the end of the ThirtyYears War. He clicked and clicked and clicked until a young woman stared backat him.
She was pale, as pale as Belle, a soft glow cast over herskin. Her muted blue eyes were wet, and they watched him from the darkness thatsurrounded her. Yellow and blue cloth swirled about her head, obscuring herhair, and a large pearl dangled from her ear.
“Hey.” Belle’s voice startled him. “I need to use mycomputer. My phone won’t load thi—” She stopped when she saw the image in frontof them. “Girl with a Pearl Earring. Vermeer.”
“Rather simply named for something so beautiful,” saidCullen.
“Yeah.” Belle’s voice wavered. “It’s one of my favoritepaintings. I just—I love her face and her expression and the colors and thelighting and everything. The composition is perfect and the black background isso unusual and she’s so pretty, but it’s really all so plain. It’s unique inevery way.” The waver in her voice turned into a wobble.
Cullen tore his gaze from the Girl with a Pearl Earring tolook at Belle. Two small tears trickled down her cheeks. She shook her head andsniffled before groaning. She looked a bit annoyed. “God. Sorry. I just reallylove that painting.” She wiped her tears away with the heel of her hand. “Howdid you wind up in this corner of the internet? I thought you were readinghistory today.”
“I was. I clicked on something, and then—”
“You clicked on another thing, and then another thing, andso on and so forth?” Her smile bore the slightest touch of pity. “It happens tothe best of us. It’s the way the internet’s built. Click, click, boom.” She chuckledto herself.
“Any accidental pornography yet?” she asked.
Cullen’s eyes shot skyward, and he squeezed the back of hisneck in a vain attempt to stop the blood flowing there from reaching his cheeks.“Well I—”
Belle barked out a laugh. “Yeah, you’ve had some accidentalporn. Welcome to the information age.”
Ah. So that was what this age was called.