Bound #Wattys2017

Four Years Before: Julian Thornstead

A/N: Yeah, it's the usual. The italicized parts (if there are any) are from the final fight.

"Why do you smile so much?"

It had only been days since he and Layla had bound themselves to each other, their blood like the red string of fate. And as they rode towards the hole the lesser demons had torn into the real world, he noticed how much she smiled, even though her dried lips cracked more and caused her to wince.

"Why don't you smile this much?" she asked him, throwing the question back in his face.

"What are you talking about? I smile."

She laughed. "No you don't. I've never seen you smile. I've seen you laugh once, but that was once."

He cocked his head at her. She'd noticed such a trivial thing.

"I do smile," he said and broke out in a grin.

She let out a laugh, a clear and beautiful sound, smooth and unbroken like water rushing over rock. "You're not smiling," she said between her laughs. "You're grimacing. See?" she dug through her pack and found a handheld mirror.

He looked at himself- and found his smile quite terrifying. No wonder every time he gave a soldier his 'smile', they snapped to attention and followed his orders with an alertness that hadn't been there before.

He stopped smiling.

"Here," she said as she pulled her steed closer to his. Then she leaned over and touched the corner of his lips and gently tugged upwards.

Too surprised to say anything, he simply stared back at her.

"There," she said as she looked at him. As if suddenly noticing what she'd been doing, she yanked her hands back and put a respectable distance between them.

But he smiled again, ruffling her hair.

She smacked his arm before rearranging her hair to the way it was before.