Nor was it too small. The pictures, each carefully framed and placed inside with something a little less like love and a little more like pride, the most forgotten for the artist, did not crowd the wall so much that no one had any room to see anything at all.
Everything fit exactly as it should.
The artist moved from one gallery to another. He'd titled the collection, "Life As I Know It," which at the time he was coming up with it sounded very pretentious to him. But now that he was moving from one room to another, it seemed like it fit.
A scattered assortment of emotions were strewn across the exhibit. A room focused on "happy", wherein pictures of chocolate and kittens and flowers and peaceful scenery were placed. Another room focused on "like", and smiling faces of people whose names were omitted - but whose identities could be easily guessed - lined the walls. The rooms followed similar patterns. One for "irritation" that mostly had pictures of taxis and people yelling. One for "humor", one for "anger".
But three in particular stood out, and Ishmael visited them infrequently.
One was simply titled "fear" and only had one picture in it: a picture of a fire surrounded by nothing but overpowering towers of boulders, each poised as though to smother the flame.
Another was only called "hope", and Ishmael visited that room least of all. It, too, only had one picture: a single light hanging from the ceiling with a hand reaching towards it.
But the one that Ishmael was the most reluctant to go in, not for fear of criticism or avoidance of praise, but simply for embarrassment's sake, was a room titled "love". And while "like" had had faces like a young man with fluffy hair playing a guitar, a woman with dark hair and a cat, a group of young adults spending their fourth of July with sparklers and laughter, the room "love" only had one subject.
Shots of blue eyes, of a hat tipped over a silly face, of a man on a stage with his hands held out in the middle of something. A sleeping face, a part of the bed clearly meant for someone other than Ishmael, a picture from behind as the man was leaning down to pet a small dog. And one, placed in the center of the middle wall, picture of Desmond Isaac Carmichael.
No words accompanied the pictures because Ishmael didn't have the words for them. Instead, he hoped and held his breath that it would be enough. As with every other room, as with this one.
So he turned his attention to the guests attending, and greeted each one with as much of a smile as he could manage; a smile that was actually genuine. Because for once, he wasn't the reason people were running. He wasn't the reason they locked their doors at night. He was just...Ishmael.
And for a brief moment, that seemed like it was enough.
Where there had been trees on endless trees, castles, royalties, and the like, there were now flashing signs, busy people, sounds from all around, and no one wearing that second-rate trend (only second rate because the prince that was definitely not Izzy and therefore not as good) of puffy shoulders that looked good on nobody.
If it weren't for the smell, that would almost be enough to make up for the fact that Izzy had no idea where he was, no idea where he was going, and knew no one on the street.
He wasn't naive enough to think that this was Anadalasia, so when he pulled someone aside (one who looked less formal and less vacant than half the people walking down the street) and said, "You're delicious and I'm lost. I think there's something there," he wasn't really surprised when he got a glare in return.
"What do you want?" Ishmael asked, tone anything but warm and friendly.
"You, a hot bath, and being hand-fed grapes. All of the above would be nice," Izzy answered with a grin. "I'll settle for a map and a tour at your gorgeous side."
The charming prince from Andalasia had already been given the time he needed to make up his mind about staying. It had been somewhere between the other prince being recognized for talents he clearly didn't have and this new world offered so much more, at least that's what the flashing signs said with moving pictures on them.
Andalasia was all well and good, for those who couldn't see what was clearly before them. This new world, whatever it was...had its perks already...perks like the brown-eyed grump who was currently staring at him like he came from another world.
Funny thing about that.
"No." The answer was less than perfect, but Izzy wasn't one to give up so easily.
"How about a walk around town, then?"
"No."
"Your eloquence gives me hope."
"Are you-?" Ishmael turned to stare at the persistent, strangely dressed, no doubt drunk or high or both, man looking back at him with startlingly blue eyes. "You really want a tour? That's it?"
"I also accept kisses," came the smooth reply.
The citizen of New York, the guitarist who had fewer gigs than he did shifts at the local grocery store, stopped in his footsteps. It had to have been a scam or a hustle, or like the damned girlscouts that came up with reasons why he should buy their cookies so they could get a bike. Maybe more like the last example because those damned girlscouts never went away until Ishmael gave in.
And maybe they sensed weakness to begin with, the weakness that Ishmael would, eventually, relent to the ever-growing pressure and incessant requests.
Maybe that was why he was always targeted.
Either way, Izzy of Andalasia, less confused than a particular ginger had been upon her arrival at New York, was given a "royal" tour as far as Ishmael was concerned. The tour, in all its glory, wound up being no more than Ishmael pointing out obvious features Izzy could easily use to move on.
"That's the public transit stop. You can use that to leave at any time." Which, of course, was only met with a pair of bright blue eyes and an easily uttered phrase that only made Ishmael grind his teeth to stop from trying to grin.
And of course, in the midst of his oh-so-helpful tour (like explaining that the yellow things are not herding, they are called taxis and they take people places. No, not like horses), Ishmael got to learn...very little about Izzy.
It wasn't that Izzy didn't have stories about Andalasia, oh, did he have stories upon stories (upon stories...upon stories...). It wasn't even that he was trying to enchant the grumpy user of monotone by being as mysterious as possible (though if that worked, he wasn't about to complain).
And maybe, in a way, that suited Ishmael, that Izzy didn't talk about his fairy godmother he hadn't seen in quite a while, the way he actually felt in Andalasia, or even what Andalasia was in the first place.
Because those weren't the important things about Izzy.
Important, eye-catching things like the way he held himself, as though he really was royalty. His chin up high, his stride mostly confident, the confidence of someone who likes to appear thusly. He almost did seem to be a prince out of a fairytale.
But that was just ridiculous as far as Ishmael was concerned.
Ridiculous as the notion that one tour would turn into a drink. Even more ridiculous than the notion that a drink would turn into two and somehow that would end up with Ishmael letting Izzy stay the night, "Only until you go back to Anda-what-the-hell-you-call-it."
There was a home, a twisted caricature of gold, in Hell, but home was made for someone else. For devils with silver tongues, the children thirsting for their master's approval. For those who had learned to tuck themselves in and to sleep with both eyes open because monsters came in groups now and didn't bother hiding in closets.
Home was made for those who weren't made, whose skin carried no bar code, no birthmark screaming "Made in Hell". For those who had names and not just a title. Home was not made for Ishmael.
Hell was just a place, a space on the cosmic map and Ishmael was Hell's bastard, made - not born - in the midst of thousands of bastards just like him. Nightmare number no one remembered, fit for active duty, starving for fear, pushed off the assembly line.
Sent out to fight and met with no surprise, no sympathy, no sentiment at all when he stumbled back because no one cared in the first place. A nightmare had no place in the house, not even with his "brothers" and "sisters".
This was not a family.
This was not a home.
Not for Ishmael.
If home is where the heart is, Ishmael thought he'd had a heart when he had gotten wrapped up and around James Winter.
If Hell wasn't home, then the arms of a stranger-turned-friend who looked at him as though he was something more than nothing, more than a bar code, but not quite anything more than something on the side, something to do when lonely or bored, it seemed like home enough.
Because this home was almost comfortable at bars after he'd sung the empty cavity in his chest out, because he couldn't call it a heart, when he sat beside an angel and dodged questions about where he was from and where he was going - which was easy to do when all James wanted to do was talk about himself.
This home was almost easy when he was asked to go places, to be a part of something, to join and to laugh. And this home almost hurt when he turned them down and the invitation had been passed to another person just as easily.
This home was almost painful on the days when he felt like he was just another number again, one that hadn't even been given a number to be called by. Just a warm body on a cold night, but wasn't that what he had always been? And didn't it feel better when his name was actually used? And wasn't it nice to see that beautiful face staring back at his when he played?
This home was almost his, at least he told himself that once before spitting out the acrid taste of a lie he couldn't swallow. It had never been his, not really, not when he was so easily dismissed from conversations, from bar nights, from hotel rooms. Because the tricky part about the word "almost" is that it meant "not quite" and "not quite" was another way of saying that it never really had been to begin with, but if he closed his eyes and wished hard enough, he could pretend.
But James was not his.
James was not a home.
Not for Ishmael.
If home is where the heart is, then Ishmael only existed in places like a spirit who couldn't fully manifest.
He was the paycheck that kept him going and the guitar he hid behind like it was a shield. Lyrics he couldn't say to anyone because he had no one to say them to, photographs of things that had slipped through his fingers, nights spent awake until he fell asleep on the floor, on the couch, and didn't remember doing so.
Ishmael was the tips passed into his jar from faces he never remembered and faces that never remembered him. He was the look he gave his surly landlord when he passed over the money that was due. He was the apartment he lived in.
Ishmael was cold and Ishmael was empty. Both of which felt better than being warm and being open only to lose everything once more, or to stand with hands held out, waiting for something - approval, importance, love - he would never receive. It was better than waiting for text messages and phone calls on a phone that would never ring. It was better than the look of disappointment he saw in the people around him when they were let down time and time again.
It was safe.
But it wasn't home.
And Ishmael didn't care.
But if home is truly where the heart is, and not just something to be woven into crochet projects, stitched on decorate towels, and sold on Hallmark cards near December, then Ishmael stands warily by his heart. The hand at his side clenched around barbed wires made of photographs and memories, the other held out with fingers whose trembling barely reached the surface, never daring to close digits around anything passed to him.
Because everyone knows it only hurts more when things are ripped away.
Things like Jade's smile and the times he was the one to put it there. When she curls up at his side and isn't doing so because she's afraid. Or the way she rolls her eyes, taking another sip of her smoothie, and it's a shared joke between the two of them. Every time she's at a gig, standing in the front row, cheering louder, clapping longer, standing closer than any other fan.
Moments like listening to the sounds of her guitar when she strums it from the couch. And how she looks at him with an expression that's only half-serious when he asks for a picture. Moments when she teases and it never hurts because she never meant it to in the first place.
Being shown the way she holds herself, even when nervous, even when sad, until the doors close everyone else out.
Things like the way Q holds his guitar and has to remember to look up from it when he plays because there are people around. The way he falls easily into silence around Ishmael and neither of them feel cheated. The way he wasn't aware Ishmael had taken a photograph of him until after the light had flashed.
The moments when the werewolf invites Ishmael to sit near him, to sing with him, and does it all with a quiet acceptance. And the times he brought chocolate ice cream to Ishmael for no other reason than wanting to give Ishmael, his friend, something to eat.
Being shown the way to his palace in the trees and told there was always a place for him.
And every day their words didn't change, the little things stayed the same, the more Ishmael wanted to finally close his fingers, to say that they were his, that he had held those moments in his hands.
But he held his fingers straight even as his other hand was lifted, the clenched fingers slowly being moved by fluttering fingers to open, to let something pass through the barriers he had built, to let a warm hand lay palm to palm and finger to finger with his. It was that hand, most of all, that he was scared to close.
Because in it, his hand was held by the owner of a pair of bright blue eyes and a smile he wanted to photograph just to prove to himself one day that he had finally seen something that forced a pulse into his heart.
It was here that Izzy lay his affections, found in moments, in looks, in everything he said to Ishmael and meant.
It was the time he had promised to take Ishmael out, like every other before him, like the empty promises Ishmael knew word-for-word, only this time, the promise had been kept. No drunken regrets in the morning, no words swept under the rug and left to rot.
It was the time he had showed up full of adventure, full of promise, and hadn't left when Ishmael turned sour like the drinks he had been serving. Speaking with an honesty Ishmael hadn't heard in that world, blue eyes alight as he pressed for affection.
It was the time he had seen Ishmael, bruised and banged up from trying to play a part he was never cut out to play, and cared. Because somehow, Izzy's affections had not stopped at a one night stand, at a title bestowed lovingly, at what Ishmael could do. They had carried on to the bruises, to the scratches, with bandaids that sparkled and a kiss to his temple, no words of malice, no words of disregard.
It was the time he had picked Ishmael up and, halting over his very words, asked if he wanted to stay...and meant it. And in that moment, Ishmael wanted more than anything to close his hand around Izzy's, to say that this star, this sassy, lovable star, was his.
So he slowly curled his fingers, just enough to lace theirs together at the tips.
Because he wanted this. He wanted all of this.
He wanted a world where he and Jade sipped smoothies at the mall, a world where he and Q made their own style of music.
He wanted a world where the one he wanted was seeking to be nearer to him, to bring himself closer.
He wanted a world he could one day bring himself to believe.
