Exit Signs I Missed (A Dark Artifices Fanfiction) ✔️

Swerving On The 405

Julian had come to a realization. 

His feelings for Emma were paint. Once, the paint had been simple, perhaps a primary colour, five years ago when they had only loved each other as best friends, as parabatai. Then, there had been a different colour when they became parabatai, and everything had become twice as intense - and doubly muddled. And now - now desire had been thrown into mix, the wrong kind of love had been added, yet another hue of paint. No matter how hard he tried, he could not take back his feelings for Emma anymore than he could separate paint that had been mixed together.

All of it - the friendship, the parabatai bond, the romantic love - all of it was streaked on his heart, his canvas of a heart, and he would never be able to take it off - no matter how much he, or even Emma, wanted to.

He heard her voice; he was always hearing her voice, seeing her face, melding in and out of dreams and reality that were filled with nothing but her. "I swear to Raziel, if you don't heal Julian, I'll - "

Flay off my skin and make a carpet of it? This Silent Brother seemed to have a sense of humour, or perhaps Emma had made the same threat before. He wasn't sure. Everything was blurring together, as confusing as his feelings for his parabatai.

"Emma," he whispered, so quietly it felt like an extension of his thoughts, so near silent he hadn't realized he'd said it. "Emma, come here."

"Jules?" She darted to his bed, one hand on Cortana, as if she could battle whatever illness was plaguing him, the way she had everything else that tried to harm him. "Jules, what is it?"

"Don't - don't let the children come in." He cleared his throat, his voice croaking and hoarse. "I don't - I don't want them to see me like this."

"Jules, Ty and Livvy aren't children anymore. Can't they - ?" She looked at him, really looked at him, the first time she'd looked him in the eye since she'd begun dating Mark.

"No." He hung onto her wrist, pulling her close. "You cannot let any of them come in, Emma, promise me - "

She was so close, her brown eyes wide with concern, eyebrows knitting together, a lock of her blonde hair falling out of its bun and onto his shoulder. She smelled like sweat and leather and rosewater soap. Julian could count the rings of gold in her eyes, the freckles dotting her nose. There was nothing he wanted to do more than kiss her -

"Jules," she whispered. "Jules, you're burning up."

The Silent Brother glided over soundlessly, and gestured Emma away. She said something he couldn't hear as the world faded to black.

:::

"Get in." Emma was waiting in the car for Mark, who had just emerged from the Institute. "We're going somewhere."

"Where is this somewhere you speak of?" He climbed in, and she was reminded of that night heading to the Midnight Theatre in her ivory dress, with Julian at her side, his hand next to hers. It seemed like a lifetime ago, something that had happened to another, luckier Emma.

"Anywhere but here."she backed out of the driveway and revved the engine, hearing the lovely vibration, the purr of the car beneath her.

Once they were down the hill the Institute was perched on and at a stoplight, Emma looked over at Mark. His hair was wild, though the car's top hadn't been down. His eyes, though - the blue and the gold gleaming luminously in the fading light - his eyes were hollow. Haunted. They still held all the fierceness and beauty of the Hunt, like an ice sculpture or the moon; beautiful, but untouchable no matter how close you were.

Then, maybe not that untouchable, Emma thought, when his hand found its way to her leg. He was still not hideous, and his hand was warm on her thigh, and before she knew it she'd pulled over and was kissing him.

He kissed her like he was as pleasure-starved as she was, like he'd been spending days without touch of any kind. She kissed him back just as feverishly, just as eager to blot out pain and tears and heartbreak with sheer physical pleasure, flooding her senses with his scent of cedar and river water, vivid and fresh, with the taste of him, sharp and bitter and sweet and cold. Drowning out the world and Jules' sickness and any thoughts of her parabatai with the way Mark felt against her, skin against skin but still not close enough, with all their lies and secrets holding them apart.

They wound up in the Toyota's backseat, her on top of him - and if she closed her eyes, he was Julian, and he was bleeding out; this time, bleeding into her.

This time, she could not save him.

:::

The drive back was quiet, which didn't seem very good for Emma's sanity: being left alone with only the emotions and thoughts chasing each other around her head felt like it might split her head open, or her heart.

Even with nothing but the night sky overhead, a thousand pinpricks of light shining down on them, Emma felt trapped. The stars were all judging her, had seen her with Mark, had seen her use Mark as a way to erase her anguish and dry her tears. They had seen, and surely someone would know.

When they got back, the children were heading to bed, Dru carrying Tavvy up the stairs, Livia and Ty talking on the couch until eventually, their conversation waned and they walked up the stairs to their bedrooms.

Emma collapsed into bed, dazed, and kept Mark with her. He wrapped his arms around her waist, and she pressed her face into his chest as if he could keep out the world - but he was the world; he was agony and sorrow and tragedy, scars and tears and blood.

He was not a happy ending.

And outside her bedroom window, she could still see the stars.