Title: The Painter's Palate

Rating: M

Summery: Basil thinks of eight reasons he loves Dorian

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Red was the color of Dorian's lips after a brutal kiss. Those pink petal lips would flush with blood as Basil crushed them. Dorian's lips would open in soundless moans as Basil took him, his hands twitching and his body thrummed. But those lips, those lovely red rose lips always drove Basil wild.

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Orange was one of those strange colors that looked absolutely amazing on Dorian. In fact, after seeing the color on Dorian's pale skin when the lad had pounced on Basil at his canvas and spilled the paint on him, Basil had ordered orange silk sheets for their bed. The orange looked like it was eating up Dorian's delicate skin, like he was wreathed in flame as he squirmed under Basil. That vibrant color went well with Dorian's black main too, and made his eyes even more intensely black. They would tumble in a jumbled mess in those fiery sheets, and Dorian would murmur "I love you" against the sheets into Dorian's ear.

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Yellow was the color of the ring Dorian had presented to Basil on their second anniversary. The gold had reflected in Dorian's black eyes, which shone with thoat old boyish excitement. The firelight in the grate had turned the happy tears on Dorian's face golden and made their sweat-soaked skin turn gold later that night as they tangled in the sheets. Yellow was the color of the daffodils in full bloom at their tiny wedding in Lord Henry's garden.

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Green was the color of Dorian's favorite silk pajamas. He always favored those dark colors for bed, and they made his skin look like porceline glass. They were also Basil's favorite pajamas because they had pearl-snaps on the front and could be ripped open with the lightest touch. The silk bottoms sometimes found themselves used as bindings for Dorian's hands on the headboard, or blindfolding the young man as Basil ravished him. And even when they remained on Dorian for the night, the cool silk rubbing against Basil's bare chest was enough to make Basil curl around his lover, just "collecting sensations".

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Blue was the color of the light bouncing off Dorian's black mane when the light hit it just right. His hair was black and smooth as a raven's wing and threw dark cobalt blue highlights in the spring sunshine. It was one thing Basil was convinced he could never paint was the complexity of the blue in his lover's hair.

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Purple was the color of the bruises on Dorian's wrists or neck after a wild night with Basil. Lord Henry was concerned at first for the boy's welfare when Dorian would come to lunch unnaturally late and covered in small bruises all over his wrists and neck and he seemed to have trouble sitting and standing without looking uncomfortable. But Lord Henry gave up on his worries for the boy's health when Basil and Dorian were joined in holy matrimony in his garden.

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White was the color of Dorian's skin- as fair and nubile as a Botichelli cubid's flesh, tinged in pink on his cheeks when Dorian laughed to hard. His skin was so purely white, the blood vessels shone underneath them on his wrists and neck and on his temples. His skin was pure and translucent, until Basil marked him with a love bite, turning the skin purple and blue. When they made love, Dorian's white skin would flush pink all over, only to fade back to white as they lay tangled in the sheets. Basil would secretly admire that skin, running a light hand over the curve of Dorian's shoulder and hip as the boy slept. He would watch the silver moonlight cross the milky skin, and make it no less brilliant in Basil's eyes.

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Black was the color of Dorian's eyes. Those eyes- wondering windows to a ragged yet mending soul, as unreadable as the mind of God. They could be sharp and cruel and pitiless, as Basil had once seen them, but they could also be childlike, naïve and pure, as Basil had also once seen them. And now, they were wiser, deeper and darker, but not dead. In those dark abysmal pools of black was a light shimmering in the very depths of Dorian's soul. When Dorian was in the throws of passion, his black eyes would shimmer with unshed tears, grow glassy with the sensations barraging his senses. They would flutter closed for just a moment before locking with a clarity that always surprised Basil before they thrusted up against each other and released.

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Gray was the color of a smidge of hair on Dorian's temple, given to him as a mark that he was really aging, even though his face somehow retained its youth for years even after the painting was destroyed. Dorian had obsessed over it, cried over it and attempted to dye it or even cut it. He wore large hats to cover it up, but Basil absolutely loved it. It gave Dorian's lovely face some grace and austereness that the boyish face could not quite find yet. Basil had combed it back with the rest of Dorian's hair for parties and wouldn't let the boy touch it, lest he should ruin the sleekness of it. But the thatch of hair wasn't the only gray in Dorian. Dorian's very soul was gray- neither good nor evil, perhaps purer than some and perhaps more evil that some, but gray none-the-less. And Dorian was Gray. Dorian was HIS Gray, and it would always, forever be so.