Fingerpainting

Sequel to You Know What A Heart Is…

“Where do you live, Logan?” Julian asked as he used the heart shape on his palm like a stamp onto his paper.

“In a big building with lots of people,” replied the fluffy-haired boy, jabbing a plump finger coated with green paint onto his paper.

“You don’t have a house? I live in a house. It’s a really big house too.” The little brunette frowned when he saw his hand wasn’t making any more prints. He held his palm out to his new friend again. “Do it again.”

Logan grimaced—it would mess up his green paint, but he nevertheless dipped his finger into the red paint and redrew the heart. Julian looked satisfied and continued stamping with his palm, and he looked over to Logan’s paper and said happily, “He has eyes now!”

“Yeah, ‘coz of the green.” Logan nodded, looking over his masterpiece.

Julian soon got tired of smacking the paper with his hand. “Do you want this?” he held out the paper full of stars to Logan, while he pushed away the paper full of hearts.

“Okay.” Logan took it from him, folded it in uneven ways and stuffed it into the front pocket of his jumper. The tips of Logan’s hair still had the blue paint. Julian giggled and grabbed a little at the blonde hair with streaked ends. Logan blinked, and Julian opened his now blue-stained hand.

“Yuck!” he laughed, showing him. Logan burst out laughing. Julian wiped away the blue paint onto his white shirt. Logan laughed even harder at the tiny handprints it left.

Julian started laughing when he realized, and Logan pushed his hands into the paint on the table. He pressed his coated hands onto Julian’s white shirt, using it like a canvas. Julian laughed, grabbed his own paint and started splashing Logan’s clothes.

The other kids watched with giggling interest as the two boys threw paint at each other. Two minutes could do a lot of damage and by the time both boys’ nannies broke up the hysteria, they were both a riot of colors and flushed laughter.

They were sharply reprimanded for ruining their clothes—and reminded of how unhappy their mothers will be of what a mess they’ve made of themselves—and were given cups of cold milk to cool their flushed selves. Exhausted by the play, the two boys conceded to play quietly with the coloring books instead.

Logan looked up moments later to find his friend sleeping with his cheek on his coloring book, hands stained with paint and crayon wax. The heart’s outline was still visible on the open palm close to him.

Logan smiled. Carefully, he picked up one of the highlighter pens that so coated Julian’s fingers, and used it to gently prod the sleeping head that rested on top of a thick episode script. “Hey.”

There was a noise of irritation from the sleeping actor. Logan sighed, glanced to his own book—geometry, with a riot of colors and shapes on the page—and gave up trying to memorize the formula for a moment. He looked back to his friend and prodded his forehead again. “Jules.”

The empty palm open near Logan curled slightly as the actor stirred. Julian opened his brown eyes and met the amused green ones of his friend. “Go upstairs to sleep.”

Julian smiled drowsily as he pushed himself up, bracing his hands on the surface of the table in the Stuart common room. He didn’t reply, he merely picked up his script. Logan watched him go, shaking his head a little in amusement, and thought he saw a heart shape left by Julian’s highlighter-stained hand on the tablecloth.