Brush Strokes
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He hears a muted clink as she dips her first brush into her first bottle of ink. She hums softly, mostly tuneless, something with no words even if she wanted to use them.
Then she slides the first line down over his shoulders, curling around his spine, and he hisses, because that first touch is always so
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Cold. This sand is bloody cold, and now Dean's feet are cold right along with it. Barefoot. He's barefoot on the beach in, what is this now, March? and doesn't know why. More to the point, he doesn't know why he's barefoot, on the beach, while Luna is wearing her shoes despite being hip-deep in the ocean.
She said that it made perfect sense, the rather unusual (to Dean) swapping of footwear, and though he didn't understand in the slightest, he is oddly not inclined to question.
A month ago, he probably would have questioned and questioned and resolutely refused to remove his shoes, but - things have changed, haven't they? Now he's more concerned with simply burying his toes deeper into the sand in hopes of finding some approximation of warmth.
Also, staring transfixed at the way Luna's flimsy skirt is bobbing slightly with each wave, sometimes plastering itself to her hips, sometimes floating in a way that makes him think of mermaids.
Er, the imaginary kind. The kind in all those books his sisters read as kids, the kind on the prows of ships.
The piece of seaweed she's wrapped around her hair to keep it back isn't dispelling the illusion, either.
Of course, none of this helps the fact that his feet are freezing. He wishes that whatever she's doing will be quick, so they can start moving again. Maybe get some blood flowing.
He can't tell what she's doing out there, can hardly even hear her over the wind and the waves breaking on the cliffs. But she comes back to the shore soon enough, brushing off her hands in the exaggerated way that lets him know she's trying to make some kind of joke. He has no idea what it might be but finds he doesn't really care.
"I think I'm done here," she says. "Would you like to continue?"
"Lead on," he says. "You're the boss."
"Am I? How nice. I've never been one of those before." She smiles at him, and he is struck by what might be the most important lesson learned from his past months on the run. Never wait for a second chance.
So instead of turning and walking at her side, he lets his impulse win over and sweeps her up in a complicated maneuver so she's piggyback behind him, then takes off at a soft trot.
He can feel her initial surprise in the rigidity of her shoulders around his, but then she relaxes into it, humming softly against his neck. Her legs hold only the minimum amount of tension necessary to stay on, and her wet skirt clings to his
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back and along the line of every rib. He doesn't know what she is drawing and won't let her tell him. She wouldn't even if he did want to know, and he accepts the very likely fact that even she does not know what she is creating.
She leans in close to inspect a swirl on his shoulder blade. He can feel the end of her plait, long, coiled, whispering at his side. There is a soft sput as a drop of ink drops to the blanket. He thinks that perhaps it was not the best idea to do this in their
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bed, and she is leaning above him, fingers twirling in his hair. She is studying him, he can feel it through his closed lids, so he cracks one eye and looks up at her.
"Something you're after?" he says, sleep conspicuously absent from his voice.
"I've been thinking about it, and this will be all right after all," she says. She holds one of his short dreads as close to his line of sight as she can get it, which is not, in fact, very close.
It is the first night she's seen him since he and Seamus left to spend more than a month trekking through some South American jungle to locate some particular native drink that 'would have half the bloody country pourin' into the pub like Rosemerta pourin' butterbeer on a Hogsmeade weekend,' as Seamus had put it. They hadn't found the mysterious alcohol, but Seamus had found himself in love (or something like) and Dean had found he didn't want to mess about with cutting charms on his own head, hence the new hair.
When Luna had first seen it, she had been surprisingly shocked. And, well, next to nothing actually shocks Luna. For example, the time Ron, experimenting with George in the shop, accidentally dyed himself a garish shade of blue? One would have been hard pressed to tell that Luna had even noticed. Dean thinks it's because appearance doesn't even register with her, somehow. This theory also explains why she sometimes goes outside with her clothes on inside out, or just a single earring in, or ink from her presses smeared across her face.
'Course, that might just be something she does, for the fun that's in it. He can never quite be sure.
But no matter how Dean looks at it, there's no reason he can tell that she should be shocked. Unless her means of interacting with other people has become more standard as she gotten older, and he fervently hopes that isn't true. So hearing her be all right with it, later, as though she had been chewing on it all evening, calms his heart considerably.
He covers the hand resting on his chest with his own and waits for her to finish, because he's known her a decently long time and knows how to differentiate between the pauses where she's waiting for someone to say something and the pauses where she's thinking about the rest of her thought. (He can also tell the difference between those and the ones where she's concerned about Wrackspurts. But those are usually accompanied by flailing, so they're a bit easier.)
"No, I see it now. At first I thought it wasn't right, but you're still just as you as you were before." Instead of idly twisting it about in her fingers as she has been doing, she runs her hand through his hair, much as she can, and kisses him so long and so deep that he is seriously considering rolling her over and letting her finish that thought in the morning. But then she pulls away and smiles rather dazedly.
"See?" she says.
"How was I not me before?" he says, used to this kind of conversation by now.
She says, "It looked like you were hiding from something. And I thought you were done with that sort of thing."
"I am," he says, and gently touches her face.
"I know. I can see that you're just lazy."
Dean grins as Luna begins to laugh and offers to cut his hair for him. No, there is only one thing he wants for her to be doing for the next little while, so he pulls her to him again, and kisses his way down her neck, and he
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shifts to the left, because she's managed to get that fine point into one of the few areas he's actually ticklish. She backs away, waits until his urge to squirm has passed. She is nothing if not patient.
He breathes and settles. She leans in and a drop of ink
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falls down the stairs, and keeps on running. All around him, people are screaming, crying, hugging. The battle is over, and he can't believe that the only thing he cares about is finding Luna. Finding her and touching her, and making sure all of her bits are in the right places. He is passing a family that has just become broken, another that has just become whole. But it's all a blur because he can't seem to find her.
Seamus falls into step beside him. Somehow, he knows what Dean needs, and he gently steers their path towards the grounds.
There. She seems to be glowing in the warm golden light of the sunrise. She's hugging someone Dean has never seen before, someone he's sure she's never seen before. The stranger takes a bright purple package out of her pocket and touches it with her wand. A Whiz-Bang shoots into the air, and everyone is showered with stars.
Dean stops, because he's finally found her and now he doesn't know what to do. Should he run to her? Spin her in the air? Lead her away and kiss her until neither of them can breathe? But then she spots him and solves his problem before he can even move.
She walks to him and grabs his hands. Her eyes are shining and she is flushed with joy under her many cuts and bruises. She is filthy.
"Dean! We won!"
"I know." He can't help smiling, looking at her.
"Oh! And I forgot. I have something for you." Luna stands on tiptoe and she
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kisses him just below his ear. She has finished with the broad strokes now and has jumped straight to the fine details. He feels her drop dots seemly at random at the base of his spine.
More tiny strokes send feelers out across his skin. He is starting to wish he could see what she is doing, but he knows that she thinks it would
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"-spoil it. It's so pristine. Besides, we'll never hope to attract any Narflinds if they see our footprints through it."
Dean smiles and wraps his arms around her. She does this every year at the first snow.
"And what, exactly, do we want Narfthingummies for, anyway?"
"Dean! You know the song of the Narflind is one of the most beautiful in existence. And it may have healing properties, only no one's managed to record it yet, so we can't be sure." She turns in the circle of his arms. "You ask me this every year. I'm beginning to think you aren't paying attention."
She smiles.
"I have so been paying attention. In fact, I know that what the back garden might be off limits, the front isn't, and I also know that a certain Loonybird is going to get thrown into a large pile of snow in," he mimes looking at his watch, "just about three minutes, so she ought to go put some shoes on."
Luna executes an elegant twirl and escapes out from under his arm. She laughs like a child and dashes for the front door, grabbing her shoes and hopping about to get them on her feet.
"You set up the recording equipment like you promised?" she calls as she ungracefully overbalances and falls smack on her rear.
"Swear on my racing broom," he says. "We won't miss a sound."
Her shoe finally on, Luna scampers out the door leaving Dean with a handful of her coat. He laughs and follows her.
When they come back in, hours later, they are both surprised the find over 90 minutes of the mating call of the Narflind recorded in perfect clarity.
Dean turns to Luna and says, "I'm sorry. You were
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right along his shoulder and acts like she'll continue it down his arm, but stops short. Her weight on the mattress shifts, and he knows she is pondering where to place the final strokes.
He forces himself to relax, not to betray his excitement. When he hears her uncork the final bottle of ink, focuses all his attention on what's in front of him, the
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door slams behind him.
"Dammit, Luna, talk to me!"
She doesn't turn to him, just heads even more quickly into the garden. "No, Dean, I really don't think this is the right time to talk about this. There is a pod of Grunde--"
"Enough! Enough of your creatures, enough of your fancy, enough of your sodding excuses. We are talking about this. Luna, look at me!" He grabs her arm and turns her.
"I don't want to talk about this," she says, and there is an edge in her voice that he has never heard before. "Let it go. I'm not going to see him, alright?"
"Luna, he just wants to know that you're ok. Yes, he screwed up. I know that, ok? I know. But he's your father. He loves you. And I know you love him, so don't just tell me that you don't want to see him," he says.
She wrenches her arm free of his grip. "How dare you? He jeopardized everything. Everything. He didn't just make a mistake."
Dean knows that her father acted out of his love for Luna, and Dean understands love for Luna. But he cannot find the words to make her see. "Yes, he did! He did what he did because he loves you. You'll regret it the rest of your life if you don't at least try to forgive him."
Luna turns away again. "He wasn't supposed to do that."
"Why? Why the hell wasn't he supposed to make a mistake? Luna. Why?" he says.
"Because he's my father!" she screams, and all the birds in the nearby tree take flight. She watches them streak across the sky and is silent for a long time.
"He's not supposed to. Not him." Her voice, when it returns is dry, brittle. "Not my dad."
And Dean goes to her, he kneels, and he
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holds his breath, for this is the delicate part. She tucks her brush away somewhere and takes out her wand.
She murmurs the spell and he feels a faint pricking sensation as the ink sinks into his skin, staining deep down. It will remain for several months as clear as the first day, then fade to nothing. Unless he performs the permanence charm.
He turns to look at her. She's grinning, a brush behind each ear, and he thinks he will. Yeah.
"Hey, Luna?"
-fin-