Work Text:
Marlene is lying on their sofa, languid and relaxed, eyes closed and body offered to Dorcas’s gaze.
Dorcas paints her.
Sometimes it feels like the only work worth doing. Painting Marlene at dusk, her eyes ablaze and her tousled hair catching like wildfire in the last of the orange sunrays; painting her at dawn, her dream-flushed cheeks and delicately parted lips mirroring the pink clouds that linger on, reluctant to give up their colour; painting her in the bright afternoon light, her skin sun-kissed and vibrantly alive against the faded old crimson velvet couch; painting her by moonlight, shades of black and white and all the grays that fit in the ups and downs of their relationship.
It's what she does best, and what she likes most to do. Her finest work, and her greatest comfort. Over the years a testament of her love, and a study of her artistic growth. Her greatest legacy, and the only art she shields from the public eye.
There are studies: pencil sketches of Marlene’s face lost deep in thought; charcoal drawings of her blurry shape zooming past on her broomstick; large painted eyes made up of every shade of blue known to man and probably some more. There are paintings: life-sized portraits, startling in their photographic realism; a larger-than-life pointillistic mural than only surrenders Marlene’s face from ten paces away, the optical illusion only known to the select few friends who have been invited in her studio; small watercolors of domestic scenes from their early life together, scattered in every corner of their flat; a triptych of large canvas filled with thick oil paint shapes, from Dorcas’s brief abstract period.
She could create a museum out of all the art she’s made of Marlene over the years.
It would probably be a shrine.
She paints her now. There is no pose, no imposed stillness. Marlene chooses how she wants to present herself. That will change, and she will move: open her eyes, smile, take a sip of water, sit up and stretch; laugh when she spots the streaks of pink paint on Dorcas’ face, maybe get up to wipe it away; duck down to kiss her, smear paint over herself when she accidentally brushes against her palette. Dorcas will paint her movements like she paints everything else. It’s not for her to tell Marlene how to behave in the studio. Marlene is not a model, not her model; it’s not her body she’s trying to translate on canvas, it's Marlene’s life. Maybe that’s why Dorcas will spend her own painting Marlene again and again, and hopefully never be done.
She starts with Marlene’s body, taking her time and working her way up to Marlene’s face, as always.
Marlene’s feet.
Pressing against hers under the table at the Three Broomstick; a mistake probably, or just the result of too many students crammed around too few tables; yet the feet remain, an ankle brushes slowly against her own, and Dorcas falters, doesn’t know what she is saying anymore. She’s facing slightly away from Marlene, not looking at her; they don’t know each other, not really, have never spoken properly. There is a boy next to her – a man, she should probably say, he’s a seventh year like her – slightly intoxicated, speaking to her too close and too loud and she nods and smiles politely and crosses her arms over her chest but the boy doesn’t take the hint and babbles on while her mouth dries and her palms sweat and her ankle burns hot at the single point of contact and is she just imagining things?
“So… McKinnon?” Regulus asks later as they’re making their way back to the castle, the Gryffindors walking ahead of them and out of earshot. There had been a glimpse of a moment, at the door of the pub, when Marlene had held it open for her and their eyes had met – but Dorcas had already lighted her cigarette and Lily Evans was calling for Marlene and they had both turned away.
“What about her?” Dorcas replies, too fast.
Regulus rolls his eyes and shakes his head knowingly, the smug little bastard.
Well. Maybe not just imagining things, then.
Marlene’s legs.
Impossible to ignore, stretching on for what feels like miles underneath the shirt that Dorcas had to lend to her. The shirt is slightly too big, its hem just about covers Marlene’s knickers and not much else. It’s an appropriate replacement for pyjamas; Dorcas’s gaze on Marlene’s legs is all but appropriate.
They are the first to wake up after the Hogwarts reunion drinks that turned into an impromptu slumber party. Dorcas is not sure anymore how or why half the girls from her class have ended up at her flat but she finds it very hard to care right now.
She should go to the kitchen, offer Marlene some tea and whatever she has that can pass for breakfast, but she finds herself rooted to the spot, her own legs treacherously unresponding. She would have to step over Lily and Pandora, who fell asleep side by side after drunkenly declaring themselves each other’s new best friends, and Dorcas should probably feel jealous about that but there is no room in her brain except for Marlene’s improbably long legs.
“Can I paint you?” she blurts out, because of course she would revert to painting when she’s confused and flustered.
Marlene bites her lip and blushes and says yes, and Dorcas paints her for the first time, sitting on the coffee table in Dorcas’ too big shirt and hugging her legs nervously.
Dorcas paints the marble-white expanse of skin of her arms and legs, stretched taut over toned muscles; the barely visible blonde fuzz on her calves; the chipped pink nail polish on her toes; the large bruise that blooms on Marlene’s outer thigh where a Bludger has hit her. When she looks up to paint Marlene’s face, slowly and breath held, her eyes meet Marlene’s and she suddenly doesn’t know how to hold a brush anymore.
The brush drips pink paint on her own brown thigh and her hand shakes slightly and Marlene opens her mouth to say something –
Emmeline Vance stirs and bangs her head against the coffee table and curses loudly, and the moment is gone.
Dorcas’s first painting of Marlene remains unfinished for a long time.
Marlene’s stomach.
Skin paler still than the rest of Marlene’s body, exposed only in the most intimate of moments.
Dorcas’s hands find their way to it, always. Spooning Marlene on their first night together, her hands gently stroking her skin as her erratic breath slows and evens out and she eventually falls asleep in Dorcas’s arms. Hugging her from behind as they watch Lily and James’s first dance at their wedding, a clumsy but beautiful waltz, and Dorcas’ fingers tap along with their steps one-two-three, one-two-three on the tight silk dress stretched over Marlene’s stomach. Both hands splayed over Marlene’s navel as she falls down on her knees and kisses her way down, down, down, and takes Marlene with her to the depths of pleasure.
Marlene always sucks her stomach in, at first, self-conscious about the soft curve that remains here in spite of the rigorous regimen of training and carefully followed diet. Dorcas scolds her, gently, and tickles her sides until Marlene giggles and relaxes and the curve of her stomach reappears under Dorcas’ hands. “I’m bloated,” she complains, embarrassed. “You’re perfect,” Dorcas says firmly.
During their third year together they all celebrate baby Neville and baby Harry’s first birthday at the Longbottom’s. There are more children than Dorcas is comfortable sharing a space with, half of them belonging to a heavily pregnant Molly Weasley. “We’re hoping for a girl,” she explains cheerfully, and Dorcas wonders how one can look so happy while under constant attack of demanding little tornadoes whose language seems to consist mostly of “Muuuum!”. But then her gaze falls on Marlene holding her godson – little Harry, who Dorcas has to admit is pretty cute – and, well. It’s like Marlene lights up from within every time Harry looks at her.
“I don’t know how Molly and Arthur manage,” a dishevelled Marlene huffs after putting Harry to sleep. “One is already more than I can handle.”
“Yeah, not to mention Molly is doing it while being pregnant again. God, that looks awful.”
Marlene looks up in surprise. “I don’t know, Alice was positively glowing when she was pregnant. I think it’s beautiful – I mean, they gave life, it doesn’t get anymore magical than this, you know?”
Dorcas smiles, slow and hesitant. “Is that… something you want? Children? Giving birth?”
“I… think so. Not now, but… someday. What about you?”
Dorcas cups Marlene’s face. “Yes. Not now either, obviously, but… I think I would want to. Raise children. With… with you. If you would like to have them.”
Marlene’s eyes widen, her hands instinctually flying to her stomach. “How… would that even work?”
“I have no idea. But we’re witches, I’m sure we can figure something out in due time.”
Marlene watches her in awe as Dorcas covers Marlene’s hands on her stomach with her own and ducks down to kiss them. It’s not quite a promise, but it’s close enough.
Marlene’s arms.
They are in the early stage of their relationship and Marlene gathers her up in her arms after dinner, laughing when Dorcas claims she is too heavy, swinging her easily to prove her wrong before carrying her off to her bedroom.
It’s Marlene’s first official game with the Harpies and a foul from the other team sends a bludger hurtling towards one of her teammates. Marlene has no time to beat it away and takes it in the chest instead. She falls but somehow manages to catch and hold onto her broomstick, she’s dangling from it and Dorcas’s heart is dangling from her chest until Marlene finally pulls herself up just from the strength of her arms and finds her seating again. Marlene’s arms are sore for a week after that. Dorcas’s heart never quite recovers.
They are trying new things and even though they’ve spoken about it at length and covered every detail, Dorcas feels her stomach swoop with anxiety as she delicately holds both of Marlene’s wrists up. “Are you sure?” Marlene nods, leans up to kiss her. “I want this and I trust you, Dorcas. Tie me up.” Dorcas obeys, carefully tying the knots around Marlene’s wrists so that her arms are held up firmly against the headboard above her head.
The world is falling apart around Dorcas and the only thing keeping her from falling apart with it is Marlene’s arms around her, holding her close, grounding her, tethering her. Dorcas grips them with both hands, sobs shamelessly into Marlene’s shoulder, and when that first wave of grief passes over her and she find some semblance of clarity again, she thinks: she’s the only home I will ever have now, and the only thing worth surviving this.
Marlene’s hands.
Dorcas knows them perhaps more intimately than any other part of Marlene, knew them by sight long before she finally felt their touch.
She remembers obsessing over Marlene’s nails, always painted, red and gold before her Quidditch matches, bright colours the rest of the time, courtesy of her friend Mary. Always painted and yet short, always short, not bitten down but carefully clipped, sending Dorcas into the depths of uncertainty, is she, is she not, does she know, maybe it’s just for Quidditch?
She could draw from memory every single of the asperities on Marlene’s hands: the rough calluses at the base of the thumb and the lower palm, acquired from years of swinging her Quidditch bat; the small scar on the left forefinger from when Marlene cut herself with her steak knife on their second date and refused to go to St Mungo, trusting Dorcas’ healing spells far more than Dorcas trusted them herself; her life and heart lines that she asked Dorcas to read for her one day, back when they still weren’t sure that what they were doing was called flirting.
She could recognise Marlene’s fingertips anywhere; the way they touch, gentle caresses and hard pinches; brushing her cheek, stroking her hair, digging in her thighs. She could trace on her own body the trails left by Marlene’s fingers, one or more for every night they’ve spent together, hundreds of trails that map out Dorcas’ entire body: her hair, her face, the outline of her lips and the sharp angles of her cheekbones and jaw; her arms and her thighs, the tattoo on her shoulder blade, the raised bumps of her spine; the curve of her breasts and the soft nipples that harden under Marlene’s touch, the curve of her ass; the place behind her thighs that she likes to think belongs to Marlene.
She takes her time to paint each and every one of Marlene’s fingers, loosely curled on the sofa close by her face, and briefly pauses to look at them. Marlene’s left hand is on top on her right one, ring finger exposed, and Dorcas thinks of the small box, recently purchased and carefully hidden in her sock drawer. Soon, she thinks. Soon, she hopes.
Marlene’s neck.
Bruised red and purple one Sunday morning, marks left in the wake of Dorcas’s unrelenting mouth. “I’m sorry, I think I got a bit carried away last night,” she murmurs sheepishly while stroking the side of Marlene’s throat. “I’ll help you glamour them tomorrow.”
Marlene turns to look at her reflection in the mirror on the side of their bed and hums. “No, leave them here. I quite like that look on me, don’t you?”
Dorcas’s breath hitches, feeling suddenly dizzy because yes, she quite likes the look of her mouth’s imprint on Marlene’s skin. But while Marlene’s teasing tone and quirked eyebrow are clearly suggesting they return to their activities from the previous night, Dorcas has an entirely different idea.
“Can I paint you?”
“Since when do you have to ask?”
“No, I mean can I paint on you?”
“Oh, I know that look. That look means I can say goodbye to sex,” Marlene groans, then sighs: “Yes, you can paint on me but I’m not moving from this bed.”
She’s almost asleep again by the time Dorcas returns, levitating her brushes and too many cans of paint for their already cramped bedroom. She straddles Marlene’s hips, mixes paint until she finds the exact shade of purple, and start painting from the hickeys. Marlene hums and chuckles, ticklish as ever, and obligingly pushes her hair away as Dorcas paints her way to her shoulders, adding more colours as she goes. Swirls of purple, red, pink and gold wind their way from Marlene’s neck to her lower back and her arms, stopping just shy of where the sheet is bunched around her hips.
When she puts down her brush Marlene props herself up on one elbow and cranes her neck to look at her reflection. She’s silent for a while, and Dorcas doesn’t know what to make of that.
“What do you think?” Dorcas asks uncertainly.
“You know how I’ve always told you I want a tattoo but I don’t know what to get?”
“Yes?
“This is what I want. Draw a tattoo for me, Dorcas.”
Dorcas bites her lip. “Hickeys and paint go away, Marls. Tattoos are… pretty permanent.”
Marlene pulls her in a deep kiss. “Yes. That’s the point.”
Marlene’s hair.
Long and braided during her Hogwarts years. Just messy, easy pigtails braids in her first years, meant to keep her face free of hair. Then elaborate French or Dutch braids, crown braids, fishtail braids that Marlene would obediently let Lily and Mary put her hair into, never learning how to do it herself. She did learn later, when she and Dorcas got together, the hours-long process of washing and moisturizing and parting Dorcas’ hair to braid it into the dozens of small braids, tight and neat enough to last for months.
Cut very short in the summer before her last year at Hogwarts, a pixie cut that highlighted her features and had Dorcas notice her for the first time. Her friends could be heard lamenting the loss of her thick blonde waves, but Dorcas thought Marlene looked lighter and happier than ever before. Although in hindsight, that might have been from coming out to her parents.
She lets it down a lot now that it’s longer, long enough to brush her collarbones and light enough to bounce every time Marlene turns her head. It tickles Dorcas’ nose when they cuddle at night, gets caught under her arm and causes Marlene to yelp in pain and Dorcas to apologize profusely, leaves long strands everywhere – their pillows, Dorcas’ clothes, their shower drain.
Marlene wants to keep growing it “at least until it covers my tits, like a mermaid – but ideally all the way down my back”. It’s going to take years. Dorcas hopes she’ll get to see it much longer still.
Marlene’s face.
The decisive set of her jaw when Marlene has made up her mind and Dorcas knows, now – she didn’t at first, that cost them a lot of painful arguments – that there is no point trying to convince her that whatever she’s up to might not be a great idea.
Her lips, chapped and cracked after too many practices in the winter months; swollen and indecent-looking when Dorcas pulls away from a heated kiss; pursed when Marlene is mad at her for forgetting to do the shopping again; pulled into a wide smile that reveals pearly white teeth anytime they are out with friends; clamped shut when she tries not to laugh at Dorcas’ jokes.
Her small button of a nose, upturned and deliciously mutinous when Marlene teases Dorcas, pretending to be jealous of Regulus or Evan or mocking her cooking skills after Dorcas has yet again forgotten the stove, engrossed in her easel and oblivious to the burning smell that fills their flat.
Her cheeks, smoother with every passing year, the last blemishes fading into oblivion as Marlene grows from teenagehood into adulthood. What doesn’t change is how easily they blush. Dorcas made a game out of it when they were flirting: if she blushes when I say this – one point for me. If I get fifty points – I have to ask her out. Surely she wouldn’t blush that much if she didn’t like me at least a little, right?
Her cheekbones, sprinkled with freckles that only come out in the summer. Dorcas had felt awed and slightly indignant that first time she had spotted them: she had been watching Marlene, pining over her, for months now, how could she never have noticed them? She wanted to count them, kiss them, name them all, watch them fade one by one in the autumn and reappear again in the summer, a never ending cycle of seasons playing out on Marlene’s skin.
Her eyes, that Dorcas has spent hours staring at and yet she still couldnt’ tell you their exact colour. Aquamarine blue for sure, she thinks one night over a candlelit dinner. No, ocean blue, she corrects the next morning, by the morning light. But then they go out for a picnic and suddenly she could swear Marlene’s eyes are azure blue. It’s one of the world’s greatest mysteries. Dorcas wants to believe it’s because they light up differently every time Marlene looks at her.
They’re watching her now, following her movements as she chucks her palette aside and carefully wipes her brush before putting it down in a water-filled mason jar.
“Are you done?” Marlene smiles.
“Almost. I still have to paint the background, but I’ve got the most important part covered,” Dorcas teases.
“And what do you think?”
“The painting? We’ll see. The model? Gorgeous as ever.”
Marlene rolls her eyes fondly and gets up from the couch, putting on her robe in one fluid movement. She crosses the room in three strides and settles on Dorcas’ lap, her arms around Dorcas’ neck, eyeing the painting critically.
“You’ve made me more beautiful than I am.”
“They do say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
“Keep beholding me then, it works for me.”
Dorcas tightens her grip on Marlene’s waist and pulls her into a kiss. “Always.”
Sometimes, in spite of the name she’s carved for herself and the relative financial security that comes with expositions in galleries and orders from rich patrons, Dorcas doubts her artistic ability. Maybe she’s a scam, and soon everyone will realise that. Maybe art is not her calling, but just a hobby she should keep working at when she gets home from her real job. Maybe that’s not what she was destined to do after all.
But this? Marlene’s mouth on hers, Marlene’s hands carding her hair and cupping her cheek, Marlene’s eyes when she tells her she loves her – this, she thinks fiercely, is art, and Dorcas has never once doubted it.