The days stretched on excruciatingly slowly, and Blue was beginning to find that a hazy sadness lingered over him as the hours dragged on and his irritation gave way to moderate depression. Eivind barely spoke to him, and while at first Blue was relieved to not have the wolf hovering over him every second of the day, he soon found himself longing for the wolf's gentle touch and watchful eye. Eivind wouldn't even sleep next to him, instead preferring to stay on the overstuffed couch downstairs. Every morning Blue awoke, expecting to turn over and see Eivind slumbering soundly at his side, but Eivind was never there, and the large bed felt overwhelmingly empty without anyone to share it with.<br/><br/>A few times Blue attempted to initiate conversation with Eivind in shallow, unobtrusive ways, and each time Eivind replied with nothing more than a definitive snap and an exit from whatever room they happened to be sharing. After a handful of times of Blue receiving this response, he stopped asking questions, stopped prodding, and set about just popping pain pills and sleeping as often as he could. Being asleep seemed to be the only moments where Blue wasn't wallowing in his own self pity, and if Eivind noticed anything odd about Blue's behavior, the wolf failed to comment on it.<br/><br/>Eivind set about keeping himself busy by building a new banister for the top section of the spiral staircase. Blue watched from afar, admiring how good Eivind was with his hands and how naturally the new section fit in with the rest of the staircase. Blue wouldn't have known the first thing about building a banister, all he could do was draw and paint. It only served to reinforce his idea that wolves were very self-sufficient and that Blue's place among them was essentially non-existent. Even if Eivind would reluctantly keep him life just for the sake of Blue being his so-called mate, he couldn't imagine a scenario in which any of the other wolves saw this as a good idea. Blue had nothing to offer, and he was beginning to think that Eivind thought the same.<br/><br/>It was a surprise for Blue when, upon completing the banister, Eivind asked him to paint it however he pleased. Blue quietly agreed to the task, thinking that Eivind would only provide with him basic colors, nothing too bold or interesting, but at least it would make the time go by. However, when the wolf presented Blue with a rainbow of rich paints and paintbrushes of all sizes, the boy's eyes sparkled. "Fuck, Eivind," he said gently, his heart pounding wildly as his fingers running over the bristles of each individual brush. The paints were oil-based, made for painting wooden furniture, and not something Blue was used to working with (he typically preferred watercolors) but he didn't care. He had studied oils in school and knew enough about technique that the prospect didn't intimidate him. All that mattered was that he finally had a brush at his fingertips again.<br/><br/>Before Blue had even started he knew that just painting the top of the banister to match the rest wasn't going to be enough. He set about covering the entire wooden railing in a creamy primer, making a canvas out of something that was otherwise just smoothed pieces of curving wood. He worked bare-chested, partly because Alaric had instructed him to avoid shirts so as to allow his wound to drain, and partly because moving up and down the narrow staircase was hot, exhausting work. But Blue didn't care. The mindless meandering he had taken up in the days since his minor spat with Eivind had ceased. Blue spent every waking hour on the banister, transforming it into a twisting forested landscape. Each picket was painted to look like a tall, reaching evergreen tree. Blue used a mixture of lights and darks up the lengths of the pickets to create shape where there otherwise was none, defining each and every leaf and needle. Where the pickets met the thick hand railing, Blue had painted an explosion of cosmic colors to reflect the nighttime sky. Dark blues, rich magenta, swirling purples and fiery reds to depict various galaxies and star systems, as if the trees gripped at the very edges of space. Each star was painted on carefully, deliberately, as Blue climbed all the way to the top of the stairs, hours upon hours upon hours of work poured into creating something out of nothing, until finally the last bright star was painted on and Blue saw there was nothing left for him to do.<br/><br/>He couldn't remember the last time he slept, and when he looked down at his healing body there were smears of paint across his chest and abdomen where he had wiped at himself carelessly. It didn't matter. Painting the banister had given Blue a sense of purpose, and now that he was finished, he wasn't sure what was left for him.<br/><br/>He descended the stairs and reluctantly began washing his brushes in a bowl of water, his ears perking up as he listened to Eivind move around in the kitchen. He sighed. He had never thanked Eivind for the paints, nor the opportunity to do as he pleased with them. Even if Eivind didn't want to talk to him, Blue thought he deserved to know how much he appreciated what Eivind had done for him. He left the brushes alone and stood, tiptoeing his way across the room and hovered at the edge of the kitchen.<br/><br/>"I finished," he said abruptly, not sure if Eivind would really even care, but not knowing how else to get the wolf's attention. "I wanted to thank you, Eivind, for giving me the paints. It really means a lot to me. I, uh, I think I might have gone a little overboard, though. I hope you don't hate it. I just . . . it felt so wonderful, having the opportunity to paint again." Only now that Blue was finished did he actually consider that Eivind might have hated what he had done. What if he didn't like it? Would he tell Blue to paint over it? All of it? The thought was blasphemous, and Blue knew he would be devastated if Eivind wanted him to get rid of his work. He was a simple man, classic and functional in his tastes, and Blue didn't know if his efforts would offend Eivind's sensibilities.<br/><br/>"The top is still drying, but you can look at it, if you want."