Work Text:
Brusha groggily sat up in her bed, rubbing her tired eyes and yawning. She was never a morning person. She reluctantly hopped out of her bed and stretched her arms and legs, heading over to her closet--that was really just a junkyard at this point--to get her easel and art supplies. Brusha had a vision of a painting that she couldn't resist creating. So here she was, up at 6am just to paint something that she wasn't even entirely sure of yet.
She grabbed the easel and art supplies, then went out the door. Brusha didn't care for aprons, since her clothes weren't that fancy anyway. She didn't care if her sleep shirt got ruined with paint, since most of them were already sprinkled with it.
Brusha headed over to get a coffee. She enjoyed her coffee quite well, despite most of the other toons despising black coffee--or even just coffee in general. She couldn't care less about what they thought about her morning coffee, though. After she finished her coffee, and threw the cup in the trash, she got a red plastic cup and filled it with water. It was tricky to try and balance so many things at once, but she was used to it by now.
Her foots padded lightly against the floorboards as she went to a spot far away from her studio. Brusha was bored of painting in there almost every day, so she decided to try something new today. The water in her cup sloshed around and almost spilled, and she had to steady it before continuing her march to the floorboards.
She enjoyed the view that she had--The train station to her right, and the shops to her left. She set up on the right side on purpose so Dandy couldn't watch her as she painted. Even though Brusha felt neutral about Dyle--sometimes getting a bit annoyed with him when he'd blabber about trains seemingly endlessly--She still would much, much rather be watched by Dyle as she painted, compared to Dandy.
The dark circles under her eyes had gotten even darker over the past few months from having to wake up earlier, but she didn't really care. She sighed as she got out a canvas and started to make a base, when...
Splat.
A drop of paint fell onto the floor, and Brusha winced. She knew that Tisha would be yelling at her later on for this, but right now she was focused on her painting.
Brusha bit her lip as she delicately moved her paintbrush for the tinier details. She wanted this to be as accurate to her vision as possible. Brusha started to zone out and focused entirely on the brushstrokes, not even noticing when more and more paint splattered onto the floor.
Unfortunately for Brusha, despite waking up at 6am, Tisha was up as well.
Of course.
"Brusha, what are you doing up this ear-GASP!" Tisha stared at the scattered blobs of paint on the floor. "What the hell have you done?! Do you have ANY idea how much time this paint is gonna take me to clean up?!"
Brusha groaned. She hated having to deal with Tisha all the time--It was like having a snippy, strict mom over your shoulder, all the time, who would find any reason to get mad.
"Nope. I do not know and, to be frank, I do not care." Brusha muttered as she continued to run her brush along the canvas's surface.
"It took me nearly 2 HOURS the last time this happened! And the time before that, and just about every instance where you've ruined the floor!" Tisha yelled. All of Gardenview could practically hear her at this point.
"Mhm. That's nice," Brusha murmured. She was not in the mood to deal with Tisha today.
"Nice? NICE?! Do you EVER take things seriously for once! You're so inconsiderate, you selfish--"
"SELFISH?" Brusha snapped. "SERIOUSLY?!"
"YES. SERIOUSLY, BRUSHA!"
The two toons continued to scream and yell at each other, and Brusha would purposely spill some paint onto the floor just to ragebait Tisha as she tried to clean it up. Brusha was tired, so tired of having to deal with Tisha every day. Tisha was always the one to be starting these fights, and it pissed Brusha off. She just wanted a peaceful day for once. Brusha grimaced at the thought that she used to consider Tisha a friend.
Eventually, Dandy got tired of the screaming and came over. "Why must you two be quarreling this early?! What is it about this time?"
"I guess Brusha decided to paint out here today and it's splattered all over the floor! She never even considers how much work it is for me to clean this up, all the ti-"
"Just SHUT UP." Brusha snapped. "You want me gone so bad? Fine. I'll go back to my mopey studio. I just wanted to paint outside of that boring room that I'm forced to paint in all the time. Bye, clean-freak." She started to pack up her easel and paintbrushes, being careful as to not ruin her half-finished painting.
Tisha didn't even reply. Not even Dandy dared to utter a word as Brusha stormed past both of them and off to her studio. Tisha just stared. She knew that Brusha could get snippy at times--she had plenty of memories--but she didn't expect Brusha to be so much more aggressive. She was surprised that Brusha could even be more aggressive.
Tisha continued to wipe the paint off the floor, sighing. Dandy reluctantly went back to his shop. He thought that Tisha looked rather sad after Brusha's outburst, but he had business to do. Plus, he wasn't sure that Tisha would exactly... accept his comfort.
~
Brusha sighed as she entered her studio. Sure, she was glad to even have a studio. But sometimes she just wanted a change. Sometimes she just wanted to feel as if she weren't confined to the same two spaces every day--her bedroom and her studio. Her studio was fairly dull, even with all the bright colors of her previous paintings hung on the walls.
But maybe it was just her, because everybody else thought that her studio looked bright.
Brusha sighed and stared at the ceiling for a bit, not caring that some paint was starting to drip down her leg. She relived some of the good memories of her and Tisha's friendship.
Brusha would never admit it, but she missed it. She missed Tisha. She missed their time together. She missed when they didn't fight--at least, not all the time. She missed when Tisha wasn't constantly angry at her. She missed how much brighter the world seemed, even just a few months ago.
She missed everything.