BBB: Art Post!
Author's notes on art:
Wow, verbosewrdsmith went so far above and beyond what I expected of an artist. She created eight incredible pieces of art for my fic, and they could not be more perfect. I love the scenes that she chose to depict. I had a hard time choosing a favorite, but I think that the final sketch of Ryan and the sprinkles is it. The expression on his face is just the way I pictured it, and I love the background that she gave with Spencer's little sister. Also, the color sketch of Brendon and Tom is just fantastic, and I think kind of perfectly captures that moment. I couldn't have asked for a better artist. Thanks so much!
*Note: All art has an excerpt from the fic attached and may be a little bit spoilery.
The artist's (verbosewrdsmith 's) notes:
I picked this story based on my ridiculous love for high school AUs (someday I will be able to explain this) and my incredible affection for Tom Conrad. I had no idea what I was going to get. I was hoping for a mostly-completed draft with an fairly interesting story and one scene I could have fun drawing. What I got was an incredible story that'd become one of my favorites and that I am looking forward to reccing to everyone who will listen and a ridiculous number of sketch bunnies.
After my first read through of the first draft, I knew I was going to be doing one "big" drawing-color, an actual background, more than one character. I also wanted to sketch some of the other scenes because there was just that many scenes that I wanted to draw. The end result is one full color drawing (two versions of it) and six sketches. I do want to take a second and mention that I had some epic scanner issues (namely, my scanner unexpectedly decided to HATE my Mac) that have had some impact on all of my art. None of my scans were as clean as I'd like and I didn't have time to fix the contrast, so all of the sketches have a slightly odd, almost sepia-tone to them. Other then the technical difficulties, working on art for this story has been a ton of fun. Thanks withoutacure1 for writing such a great story!
Brendon whirls to face the street behind him, just in time to see a figure dart behind a telephone pole.
He’s almost convinced that his mind is playing tricks on him, because, at a glance, the figure had looked an awful lot like Tom.
He can just hear the sound of a frantically whispering voice coming from behind the pole. There is a long pause and then more whispering. He’s hearing one half a whispered phone conversation. The conversation of a guy who closely resembles Tom Conrad and ducked behind a telephone pole to avoid being seen by Brendon.
Brendon is taken mildly by surprise when Jon Walker’s face pops into view, disrupting his perusal of the bookshelf across the room. Brendon hadn’t really gotten a good look at Jon’s place the first and only time he’d been here. He’d kind of had other things to occupy him, so he’s taking everything in this time.
He thinks he’d spotted a Hardy Boys mystery stuck between a crime novel and an old Biology text before Jon’s head got in way.
He blinks his eyes a few times to bring Jon back into focus. The other boy’s head is hanging off of the bed inches in front of Brendon’s own, his hands clinging on to the comforter in an effort to keep from toppling to the floor.
“Wait a minute.” Jon moves in a little closer to Brendon, as if the lesser distance will give him a better view of Brendon’s soul or something. “Do you like Tom?”
“What? No! We’re friends. I’m Tom’s friend.” Brendon flaps his hand in dismissal, the blunt in his hand waving wildly through the air.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Tom says, after a slight pause.
The words shouldn’t feel intimate, not with the noise of the bar crowd or Tom’s bandmates only a few feet away. But with Tom maintaining eye contact like the freaking snake from the Jungle Book, it kind of is.
And while Brendon has become accustomed to the tricks of handling Tom Conrad, sometimes it really fucking sucks. Because Brendon knows that it would be easy to forget all of that and just take what Tom is saying to mean that it’s somehow special to Tom that Brendon’s there, that Brendon means something special. But Brendon can’t afford to do that, not when he knows better, and not when it’s so important to him to keep being Tom’s friend.
It takes all of his self-control, never all that strong to begin with, not to respond with a joke and make it that little bit easier on himself. Instead, Brendon just pulls his lips into a smile and says, “Me too, Tom.”
Same image, just with some added lighting effects I'm on the fence about.
Tom lets out another short burst of laughter at that, and shrugs the neck of the apron over his head. Brendon takes his own from Tom’s outstretched hand and does the same. He reaches behind his back, tying the trailing apron strings in place then smoothes the apron down his front.
He looks back at Tom, and tilts to the side in a ‘what do you think?’ gesture.
Emblazoned across the chest of the apron in Brendon’s name, painstakingly spelled out in three-inch tall letters of sparkly pink and purple rhinestones. Tom’s own apron features his name in blue and green rhinestones.
They are hideous and gaudy, and pretty much the best thing Tom has ever seen. They’re as ridiculous as Brendon.
He rests his eyes for only a moment, but when he blinks them open again, he has the feeling that some time has passed. He can no longer hear the excited rhythm of Brendon’s voice.
Something nudges at his side. He looks down to find the top of Brendon’s head pressing lightly on his ribs. He absent-mindedly brings a hand up to pet clumsily at Brendon’s hair. Brendon is stretched out on his back, Tom’s phone clasped tightly in his hand. His other hand is buried in the pocket of the red hoodie.
He is up off of the bed and across the room before Brendon can even blink. He walks his way right between Brendon’s knees on the desk. He looms over Brendon in a way that would be menacing were it anyone else, his eyes searching Brendon’s face.
When Tom’s hand reaches up to gently touch his chin, Brendon has a split second to think, Oh God, he’s going to kiss me, before Tom’s mouth is headed on a crash course for his.
Then Tom is tilting his head up for a better angle, is sliding his tongue between Brendon’s lips. He lets Tom take the lead, tugging at his bottom lip with sharp teeth.
“Don’t go,” Tom whispers the words into Brendon’s mouth. And Brendon can’t help but moan in response. He’s wanted this for so long.
And Tom knows that. Tom knows that Brendon has an embarrassingly large crush on him. And Tom doesn’t want Brendon to go. And it is just like Tom to do something stupidly impulsive to fix a problem-as stupidly impulsive as to kiss Brendon to make him not leave.
As Tom finger’s card through the hair at the base of his neck, he begins to wish that sometime in the last six months he had developed some immunity against Tom’s unwitting cruelty.
But he didn’t plan for any of this. He just wants to stop feeling like this.
Even better than a few days earlier when Ryan became the victim of a rogue sprinkler attack and stood in the middle of a patch of dead grass dripping hair product and eyeliner with a deeply affronted look on his face.