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Emma’s hair is the color of the sun and Julian would stare at it for hours even if it meant he would go blind, even if it was the last thing he ever saw, even if all the edges of the world softened to a blurry mess.
Emma doesn’t even realize it, but Julian can’t help but follow the wild strands as they shake with her laughs, as they fly when they’re riding in his car, windows down, sunglasses on, as they cascade when she hastily throws them in a messy ponytail, ready for a fight she will always win. Julian follows them and wants nothing more than to touch them, to feel the silk under his fingertips, to lock himself in his painting room and try to find a way to translate the ever-changing color, the smooth and soft touch, the bewitching smell, the free way it moves and exists like it's its own thing with its own mind.
Julian could never make it justice, but he sure tries.
He sits on a wobbling stool with one of Mark’s old shirts. It’s freckled with past projects and there’s worn-in gaps from all the life it’s seen, and Julian has washed it so many times it’s lost Mark’s recomforting smell, the one he was trying to hold onto when he threw it over his frame all those years ago. There’s a canvas in front of him, in various shapes and forms, but it’s always staring back at him in its whiteness cursing him, mocking him.
Julian knows he should not draw the slope of Emma’s nose, he should not color the flush of her cheeks, he should not memorize all the tiny scars dotting her skin when they’re hanging out at the beach, he should not stare into her brown eyes and find all the color of the forest, strong and fierce like her, something infinite to their souls. Julian knows it and the canvas knows it, but, still, he opens his acrylics and dips his finest brush in them.
Julian always starts with her smile. It feels like he never sees it enough, like he always needs to draw it out before he loses the memory of her white teeth and her plump lips stretched up, the little wrinkles in the corner of her eyes, the left dimple just oh so apparent. Emma never really fully smiles. She smirks, she teases, she half-grins, her lips shut. When she smiles, because Tavvy threw his soup at Julian’s face, because Cristina whispered a dirty joke under her breath, because Livvy put on a Taylor Swift song and forced all of them to stand up and dance with her, because Julian smiled at her, Emma is undeniably the most beautiful thing on Earth.
Sometimes, Julian wonders why he even bothers. He knows every time he opens his paints, every time he squirts yellows and reds and oranges on his palette, every time he brushes on his first stroke that nothing he could ever create from the deepest parts of his brains and his heart could ever compare to his Emma. She is too alive, too sharp, too free, too untamed to ever be reduced to a single stopped image. Still, Julian tries.
They’re in Paris when Julian itches to sit her down and stare at her and try, once more, not for the last time, to capture everything Emma is. She’s sitting on a chair on the balcony, her hair is thrown over her shoulder, her leg is folded underneath her, the sun is softly setting over her skin until everything is golden and shining, and she’s staring back at Julian. He almost stops right there, just because it feels too personal, too intrusive, just because he really wants to kiss her. Still, he dips his brush in and starts in on her smile.
“Am I a good model?” Emma asks teasingly when he’s dotting her face of freckles. She’s been spending her days under the sun, in parks where they lay and pretend the world doesn’t exist, in hikes in the countryside of France, in cafes' terraces sipping on coffee too black for her, in the streets of Paris fearlessly chasing after demons, Julian behind her like she knows he always will be. She’s tan and freckled now, and her cheeks have the slightest bit of a sunburn Julian loved delicately painting with soft pinks and peaches.
“If you didn’t move so much, maybe.” Julian teases, throwing her a quick glance to see her roll her eyes. It’s not true anyway. There’s no better model than Emma, all soft and pretty, all harsh and beautiful. He draws her jaw cutting and her cheeks caressing.
She dramatically sighs, looking out of the window to the busy street and gothic architecture. The sky is a soft blue, so close to turning orange and pink and purple, and she breathes in the fresh air. Julian wishes he could capture this moment, but it’s gone before he blinks. “My leg is dead.”
Julian snorts. “You can kill a neighborhood of demons with your eyes closed but you can't stay put for five minutes.”
“It’s been much more than five minutes.” Julian rolls his eyes and continues. He’s made most of her face now. Every time he looks at the canvas the love of his life stares back and he has to take a second to take her all in. With a nervous breath, Julian dips his brush in gold and starts in on her hair. “It’s so hard dating an artist,” Emma complains, head falling on her hand with a pout. Julian doesn’t answer, too focused on flicking his eyes back and forth between her and the copy in front of him. He’s trying to get her hair just right, but everytime he looks away and comes back she’s changed in ways he can’t keep up.
With a teasing smirk, Emma cooes, “Are you making me pretty?”
“I don’t need to make you pretty,” Julian says, eyes fixed on the canvas, eyebrows furrowed in concentration, “You just are.” And then, looking back at her, Julian says because he really needs her to know, “You’re my muse, Emma, because I’ve never seen anything in this world as beautiful as you.”
Emma smiles, a true smile, one he would kill and die for to make her face crack with one of these again. His heart stops beating for a second and he wonders if he can scratch all his work and start again with this exact expression. “You’re a smooth-talker,” Emma whispers.
Julian smiles back at her. His heart is beating so fast, his stomach is fluttering, and he’s considering throwing everything on the ground to run to her and embrace her. Instead, she looks down at her palms shyly, and Julian stares just a second longer because it’s so rare Emma is speechless.
Julian is painting white highlights when Emma asks, “Am I really your muse?”
“Yes.” Then, he adds, “You’d be any artist’s muse if they just saw you.”
She smiles again, and Julian paints the dimple on her left cheek just a little more prominently.
Emma has never been good when she’s floored with emotions and feelings. Julian can feel it when she untucks her leg and looks back outside. With another humorly tone, Emma says, “Maybe you’re right. After all, Cameron wrote me a poem.”
Julian stops his brush in the air, looking at her, mouth wide with glee. “He did not.”
“Oh, but he did. For our two months anniversary. I’m pretty sure he googled things that rhyme with Emma.”
“You have to tell me more.”
Emma cleared her throat. “My lovely Emma. You are always so raw. And if love was against the law. Then baby I’d be an outlaw.”
Julian throws his head back, letting out a laugh from the back of his throat. “He rhymed law twice.”
She throws him a look. “Yes, that’s the problem with this poem. That’s the squeaky wheel that needs grease.” She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, and Julian almost screams to her to stop, to not disrupt all the work he’s been doing, but he could never freeze her in time anyway. “Cameron will make Livvy a very lucky girl.”
Julian turns back to his painting, his shoulders hunched, a sad grin on his lips. “Do you think she’s happy?”
“Yes.” Emma doesn’t even hesitate. Julian loves her for that, for how certain she always is, how fierce and decided.
The hair is not exactly what he would want, but he’s been at it for too long, so Julian moves to the background. It feels so easy to hold onto compared to Emma that he works through it in a blind of an eye, the mesh of colors and the points of old houses practically painting themselves.
“Are you done soon?”
“You are so impatient.” Julian rolls his eyes. “And yes.”
“I get to be a diva,” Emma smirks mischievously. “I’m your muse.”
“Is this gonna get to your head?” Julian sighs, but his heart blooms when she calls herself his muse. Emma is his like he is hers.
“Oh, I’m definitely texting Cristina this as soon as I’m free.”
“I’ll just have to keep you there forever, then.” He says, putting the last touches, trying to add the same vibrancy to his painting Emma has.
“But then how could we kiss?” It’s definitely not because of this, but Julian calls his painting done and puts down his brush on the table flickered with paint.
Emma stands up excitedly, running up to him. Julian watches her carefully as she takes in the painting, notes her eyes grazing down the canvas, stopping on the different parts of herself, notes her mouth closing and her eyes softening and a bright smile overtaking her features like the sun greeting the day.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispers, and Julian has to stop himself from saying not as much as you. “Would it be pretentious to have a painting of myself in my room?”
Julian snorts, shaking his head. “Let me have this one.”
Emma nods, turning to him and throwing her arms over his neck. “Then you have to make me an auto-portrait for mine.” He doesn’t really want to paint himself, but Emma rises on her tippy toes and grazes her lips against his, just a slight caress with the promise of more.
“Sure,” he whispers, “Anything for you.”
Emma meets his lips, mouth open, slow and passionate as she drags her hands in his brown locks. His back shivers when she tugs, and his own hands fly to her waist, drawing her closer, enveloping her like he could contain all her wildness for just a second. She smiles and Julian’s heart beats louder. He kisses her harder, hungrier, like a starved man with his last feast, like a doomed man with his only hope of salvation. Emma is his ruin, and his muse, and his sun, and maybe even his doom. But it’s okay. Because Emma is his.