life in the fast lane - [hal]

[david william harrison]

art, it had always been something dear to one david harrison's heart. ever since he was a boy and his father was knocking him around. though, he couldn't really draw or anything like that. david's talents had never reached to the visual arts no matter how much he would've loved for them to. but, when it came to drawing, or painting, or even sculpting, david was just at a loss when it came to any natural talent. or any talent at all. he'd tried more than once taking classes to gain some sort of knowledge, but he supposed that when it came to art. true art, there was no way that he could just force himself to have talent. he wasn't born with it, so he was more or less screwed. but that didn't mean that he couldn't spend his days showing off that amazing talent of artists that he found. there really was no other job that he could have in the world besides the one that he had. all day he spent around beautiful pieces of art, admiring them, selling them, bringing in new artists. besides the people that came to showings really were the most interesting of humans. no matter what way you looked at it, artists were their own special breed of human.

this night was no different. after planning the showing for several weeks he was ready to open it up to the public. hoping to get some people to come in and purchase some paintings, but also to get the young artist whose work it was better known. the boy had talent like david hadn't seen in a long time and he just couldn't let him go on unknown and painting for a hobby instead of making a living off of it. that was david, though, always going out and finding people who had something special and making them realize that special thing should be the focus of their lives instead of just working to pay the bills. then again, david hadn't had to worry about money since he had been taken in by matthias. hell, david didn't even need to get a job if he didn't want to. but he had, because at the core of the harrison man he believe that you worked for what you got. the first part of his life he had never been handed anything and even when he lived with matthias he had been required to not just sit around and expect things to come to him because he lived with him. he had worked, in one way or another, for everything that he had ever come to own.

so really it was a simple night for david. usually he would have one of his boys or arin come with him as his date, but he decided it was best for him to go alone that night. if he had brought one of his loved ones he would've been more focused on them. as was what usually happened. so it was just him that night, dressed to the nines in a pinstripe suit. if there was one thing that david knew how to do it was dress up for the part, and right then he looked damn good if he did say so himself. the young man circled the room meeting and greeting, making sure that everyone was happy, that everything was going alright. that was when he saw the man. closer to his age than to the twenty-somethings that filled his gallery that evening. and it took him a moment to realize he knew exactly who this man was. this was oddly enough, a person that was causing a bit of excitement to fill david's soul. if only because he knew the man's story. he knew the story of hal barker. with a smile on his lips he made his way over towards the other man, eyes moving to look at the piece that had captured the barker boy's attention. "beautiful piece isn't it?" he asked in calm tones, offering hal a glass of wine.

[hal jefferson baker]

If you looked at Hal quickly, you wouldn’t say he looked out of place at an art gallery. He was dressed well, almost too well. All his colors coordinated, the purple tint of his glasses matching the slight touch of indigo on the inside of his blazer, his hair elegantly disheveled, and his eyes gleaming with a fake glaze of interest. Of course, any true artist would easily spot his façade by the little things he did. Hal kept his phone out, his eyes skimming over emails every now and then as most businessmen do, not uncommon in a city like Hartford, but in an art gallery, it showed his dependence on the technology. Hal genuinely felt uncomfortable with all this art around, so he compensated with the phone. He had a watch on, too. An expensive watch, but not an analog clock, and his eyes drifted towards it every couple of minutes as if he had a date or something. He didn’t have a date, not this time, but he was waiting for something… the end of this gallery showing.

He was never a big fan of art; Hal was strictly left-brain dominant, he thought in numbers and algorithms and pure logic. Sure, he had played the piano as a child, but he was never very good at it. The man could barely carry a tune, let alone draw a masterpiece. Hal couldn't understand things he couldn't do himself, he didn’t understand art, and the fact that he didn't understand it pissed him off. He supposed that was why he came to the gallery in the first place. He had plenty of other things to do that night—most of them being women named Scarlet or Ashley, but instead he came here, having to listen to twenty year old hippies call him an ozone killer while they raved about how awesome that spray paint piece to the left was. Hypocrites, all of them. If there was anything that pissed Hal off more it was people who thought there were things to interpret in a bunch of blue blobs.

That was what he was seeing now. Blue blobs on a canvas. Acrylic paint, maybe?

beautiful piece, isn’t it? He could have burst out laughing right there but….

But, Hal didn’t take his eyes of the painting, not at that moment. Something about the way the piece made him feel reminded him of something horrible, and he couldn’t put his finger on why, which was why he was looking at these blobs in the first place.

“I mean, if you like that kind of thing,” Finally he turned his face away, raising a brow, “I’m more of a…” his eyes drifted to his watch, and he didn’t care to finish the sentence when the other man offered him a glass of wine, “Oh, yes please, thank God.” He said taking the glass from him. He had half a mind just to down it like a shot of whiskey, but decided against it, and instead, sipped it carefully. Hal wasn’t so much an alcoholic, he was more of a sport drinker… and when alcohol was offered, it was generally a relief. He use to try and drink his problems away, but it didn’t take long for him to realize running and denying were far easier solutions, and Hal was all for easy. That was the whole reason he wasn’t in a stable relationship.

“I’m sorry have we met?” Hal really took a look at the man he was speaking to, analyzing him for a moment. He swallowed; the man seemed friendly but all too familiar to him. And for some reason, that sparked Hal’s interest, which, for a man who had virtually seen everything, was quite an honorable accomplishment.

“Lovely gallery, really, ah—inspiring—Is that a painting of a naked Greek man?” He pointed in a random direction; Hal’s sarcasm was kicking in again. Being an asshole was his defense mechanism, this man had caught him off guard… he didn’t have time to formulate his thoughts, and, well, “Oh…wow… they really… they really got all the parts in there didn’t they…?” He smiled. Most people didn’t know how to take a joke. Hal never meant any disrespect… usually. He didn’t get art; it wasn’t his place to give an opinion, even when asked for one. Computer software and hardware, now that he understood.

“Uh sorry, Hal Barker, and you?” And he extended his hand for him to shake.

[david william harrison]

if there was one thing that david was good at in his life it was interpreting people. he knew people, whether he knew them personally or not. they were rather predictable when it came down to it and maybe the harrison man held some sort of pride in being able to tell what kind of a person someone was before he went and actually met them. that was how he liked to do things though, he liked to watch from a far. understand as much as he could before going close to a person. because, the better educated you were before you met someone the better. even if it just meant watching their body language and how they were carrying themselves in a situation. which really, body language was the best way to figure out something about another human being. david relied on it quite possibly more than anything else.

and this man, well, he had no interest in art. and given that there wasn't a girl -or boy who really knew- on his arm there was no way that he was here on a date. maybe trying to pick someone up, though, he had been more attached to his phone than actually interacting with other people so he was rather sure that that wasn't the case. so really, david had no clue why he was there. he wasn't an artist, he could tell that he wasn't a fan of art given that if you really looked you could tell that he was completely out of his element. and maybe in the end his reason for coming was as simple as just being able to get some free wine as a starter for whatever night this man had planned in front of him.

no matter the case, though, david was a good host. he was good to the people that came into his home or into his gallery, and just because the man that he had decided to approach looked more out of his element than anything else, that didn't mean that he was going to get any less of that good treatment than he gave to anyone else that entered this establishment. david prided himself on his gallery, an it showed with the way that he walked around the place. the way that he talked to every person that entered it as if they were some kind of family. and then there was of course just how at peace and happy he looked when he was at his work place. not that david ever really looked unhappy the jolly fucker that he was.

and this man, well, he was maybe a bit more entertaining than most that came into his gallery and the way that his sentence just faded into thin air when he offered the wine caused an easy sort of chuckle to leave the man. a bright smile taking over his lips that caused his eyes to twinkle ever so slightly. a david harrison trait if there ever were one. that light hearted air didn't leave him even as the other man asked his question causing his brow to raise and he examined the other if only for a moment. "no, i don't think that we have, sorry to say. i'm really good with faces," he said in simple tones and with a small shrug taking a drink off his own glass. which of course contained apple juice given that david never partook in alcohol consumption.

he let his eyes follow to the painting that hal was talking about and even though he should've been...he wasn't sure. insulted. defensive. what have you. all that he could do was chuckle as he heard the other man's comments before those blues turned to rest on him again and he shook his head lightly. "yeah, they did get all the parts in there. that's what's amazing about artists, they're always so precise when it come to genitalia," he mused with another easy chuckle as his attention returned fully to the man at his side. "it's almost like their sexual deviants or something," he spoke in a low whisper leaning into the other man if only for a moment before giving him another bright smile. sometimes, it was just easy to be a bit immature, even when this was his gallery.

david slipped his hand simply into the other hands and shook it. "david harisson. pleasure to meet you," he spoke in those chipper tones, that smile never leaving his lips.