#theskull

“Muse” - Lucy x Skull

Lockwood and Co. Series

Summary: Inspiration comes from the weirdest objects.

AU: College

———————

“Lucy”

“…”

“Lucy”

“…”

“Lucy!”

“…”

“Luuuuuuuuuucy!”

“What?!”

“Whatcha doin'?”

I looked up from the white canvas in front of me. Turning around, I was greeted by the sight of my roommate and best friend, Skully. His usual death-themed clothing, his spiky and longish hair hanging about his face, that stupid grin on his slightly-freckled face and the ‘Sirius Black just escaped from Azkamban’ vibe he always had about himself.

We lived together in a small apartment in campus since both of us had not much better options. The flat wasn’t so bad; it had two beds on one side of the room, a tiny kitchen on the other with a stove, a microwave and a small fridge with barely any room in it.

The place’s rent wasn’t terribly high, but dividing it with another person was more economical, so I decided to give it a try. As to how he ended up being my roommate, it was all down on luck. Bad luck.

“I’m thinking”

“About life and love?”

“No, about what I’m going to do with this!” My hands flew before me, pointing to the canvas. Skully sat on his bed, looked at the canvas and adopted a posh and smug expression, lifting his eyebrows, pushing out his lips and grooming a non-existent mustache.

“That is a very interesting painting, Miss Carlyle. In fact, the best painting I’ve ever seen! How much do you ask for it?”

“Shut up” I grumbled and he snickered behind me “Its for my final project, I have to make a painting of something unusual in Impressionism style. Its supposed to be already finished, but-”

“You left it for the last minute?”

“Yeah”

“Lucy, Lucy” He mourned in fake sorrow “Will you ever learn?”

“Stuff it. I’m trying to decide what to paint”

Skully remained silent for some minutes, then moved on his bed until he was posing with his arms over his head and one leg outstretched.

“Paint me” He said.

“What?!” I shrieked, turning back to face him.

“Paint me like one of your French girls” He giggled in a shrilly, high-pitched voice. I threw a pillow at him.

“Stop playing, I’m working here! Besides, why would I paint you?”

“I’m a very unusual sight” He said it like it was obvious “Its not everyday you get to see such a beauty like me”

“I see you everyday”

“Consider yourself privileged”

“There are better things to draw”

“Ah, Lucy, you know there aren’t” He exclaimed and threw his arms in the air, adopting a new, dramatic pose “We both know I’m your inspiration, your stimulation, your muse!”

“I don’t have a muse!” I fought the embarrassed blush that crept up my neck “Now let me work!”

After that, Skully kept silent. I sat back on my chair and let my thoughts drift. I had already spent hours racking my brain to spark my creativity, but nothing came up. For some reason, I wasn’t being able to think of anything that satisfied my standards of unusual for a painting.

The white canvas before me seemed to keep mocking me silently as I debated my options, and slowly something seemed to start creeping into my mind. An idea forming slowly and taking form inside me.

I felt it shape inside my lifeless creativity and breath it to life. I felt it tickle my inspiration, stimulating it back to consciousness. It planted into my brain and kicked me into action. I knew what I wanted to paint.

An hour later Skully left, wether it was for one of his classes or to hang with his friends I didn’t know, I didn’t listen to him when he walked out of the room. I couldn’t be more bothered, honestly, even if he had gone out to sell drugs or commit a murder. The important thing was that I was finally left to the quiet of the room and my thoughts.

I had long since started sketching on the canvas. Silent curses and sometimes little song’s lyrics were the only thing that left my lips as my hands worked delicate lines on the whiteness before me.

When Skully finally came back, probably an hour after sunset, I had just finished retouching and correcting the final sketch. Opening my supply bag, I had only begun to take out my brushes when a microwaved soup and a coffee was placed on the nightstand beside me.

“You’ll need this if you’re going to be finishing that in three days” I heard Skully say behind me.

“Thanks” I muttered absent-mindedly. I ate my dinner in silence, listening to my friend laughing as he watched youtube videos on his bed.

I spent all that night making the base layer of paint with my oils, which made the dorm stank more than it usually did. Not that I minded, I already spent my days surrounded by that smell.

The next morning I suddenly found an orange waiting in my nightstand, staring at me in anticipation. So, I ate it. At some point I think Lockwood and George (our dorm neighbors) came over with Skully, but I was too engrossed on my painting to notice.

The ceiling fan was later turned on in attempts to get the oil paint dry and to dissipate the smell, but I had no time to waste. So, I washed and prepared my brushes and blenders once again for the next part.

I spent that night making the second layer of paint, fixing first layer mistakes, and cursing as silently as I could so I wouldn’t wake Skully, when he finally went to sleep after watching many youtube videos like the previous night.

I guess I fell asleep at some point, cause the next morning, the morning of my last day, I opened my eyes to find my brushes on the table, my painting dry and a blanket wrapped over me. A note had been left on my paint bottles, sloppy handwriting and ink stains making it a little hard to read.

‘There’s a bagel and a cold coffee on the fridge. Eat.”

- Skully

I snorted fondly. A very shitty breakfast, but one nonetheless. Its not like I had time to make anything better.

So, I ate my food and drank my coffee as fast as I could without chocking and resumed my painting, now applying shadows and lightning.

——

My back popped satisfactorily when I stretched, looking at my canvas in triumph. I had just finished my painting and still had a few hours before sunrise.

The room stank of oil painting, microwaved food and artist’s sweat; the smell of success. My tired (and slightly hallucinating) eyes scanned the canvas, basking in its confusing artistic mysteriousness.

It was a skull set inside a jar, surrounded by some floating, misty green plasm. Outside the jar was a girl, alive and slightly annoyed-looking, her eyes focusing on the face that was created by the plasm, blending in different sets of green. The face itself wasn’t over the skull, but rather floating on top of it with a smug expression while looking at the girl.

It had taken me several tries to decide on their final positions, but honestly I felt like it matched what I had been thinking: the girl, in a way, though not an exact portrait, was me, younger but equally tired-looking. The skull, with its stupidly smug grin, was my friend Skully.

I looked away from the canvas to where he was sleeping on his bed. A tangle of limbs, loud snores and the occasional weird mumbles. His hair was a mess and I could see a dribble of saliva coming from his mouth, shining in the moonlight.

An un-majestic sight.

And still, an oddly inspiring one.

For more that I tried to deny it, he had become the center of my painting. In fact, Skully had somehow managed to become the center of all my sketches; long-haired dudes sitting in the streets or taking part in some sort of shady activity, skulls in different angles and stupid grins, sometimes even with stupid comments.

For some reason I couldn’t fathom, Skully had become a source of inspiration.

Skull: murder. An execution in the sewers by relic-men or Winkman. Your body would never be found

Lucy: and George?

Skull: poisoned by anybody

Lucy: what about Holly?

Skull: you, I hope, after taking in my advice

Lucy: and Quill?

What if the reason there are no Type Three ghosts is because only people with Talents that are MILES beyond normal can become type threes?

The Skull, for example: he could have had a very powerful Talent when he was alive, maybe Sight (per say) and maybe that’s why he was Dr Bickerstaff’s assistant, since he could see the ghosts with every detail, not to mention he could feel their psychic magnitude, he could tell the Dr which tombs to rob for what experiment, besides, it could also be that, since he had this spectacular talent, that’s why he decided against his own death.

Marissa Fittes: yes, she is “alive” in the series, because Ezekiel told her the secrets of “eternal life” (a big and complete lie), but if she had remained a ghost, would she have become a Type Three? Her Talent was beyond compare, unique, matchless (until Lucy came along), had she not found a way to “immortality”, for a lack of a better word, would she be the third Type Three there was?

Let us not talk about Ezekiel, he doesn’t look remotely human, I really doubt he was a “proper” human, to put it in a sense.

Which bring me to the main course of the evening; Lucy.

If she dies, will she become a Type Three? Her Talent is only comparable to Marissa’s (and, perhaps, the Skull). Also, if we go back to the books, we’ll remember that, on one of her conversations with the Skull, he said he turned his back on death, he refused it, evaded his own passing, now, Lucy has been to The Other Side, seen what happens there, just like Marissa did in her times (and maybe the Skull did too, using Dr Bickerstaff’s bone-glass without dying; maybe his Talent [Sight I would say] allowed him to see through it and understand what was beyond without having to peer into it too long), so having come to terms with that, would she, like those before her, turn her back on death? Become a ghost capable of reasoning, communicating and “coexist” with the living?