Work Text:
Emma shoves her pointe shoes down her bag unceremoniously. She hears the ballet gods cry in the distance, cursing the very negligence of such intricate works of art, but she can’t bring herself to care. She’s in a hurry, speeding across the locker rooms as she puts on a pair of loose shorts on top of her tights, loosens her sleek bun and ties her Doc Martens on her feet still sore from dancing.
Emma takes one last look in the mirror. It’s messy and too neat at the same time, and she already knows he’ll make fun of her, but she has no time to fix it so she groans and swings her bag over her shoulder, ready to leave.
“Where are you going?” Livvy asks, taking off her leg warmers, a knowing smile on her lips.
“Home,” Emma says, but it’s a little rushed and she makes that twitch with her lips Livvy knows is her tell.
“Yeah? Not off to meet Mystery Boy?”
Emma blushes, but she tries to be dismissive when she says. “There’s no Mystery Boy.” Her voice doesn’t crack or quicken, her face remains neutral, her tone is casual, but Livvy still rolls her eyes. She knows .
But Livvy doesn’t know the whole truth. And as Emma bites her lip, she knows she can never tell her.
“I gotta go,” she whispers, nudging towards the door, and then twists around and runs away. She should be thinking about Livvy, should feel a ball of guilt in her stomach, but she doesn’t.
Julian Blackthorn is waiting for her outside.
__
“Cute,” is the first thing Julian says to her.
He’s sitting on his motorcycle, one foot dropped to the ground, holding a black helmet in his hands. He’s dressed in black from head to toe, with a T-shirt from a band with a ridiculous name Emma doesn’t know and would probably hate, and his wrists are studded with industrial bracelets. She knows that if he didn’t wear his leather jacket, his arms would show a sleeve of tattoos he got when he was too young and probably too drunk. Black suits him. It makes his skin seem paler, makes him seem longer, like he’s one long strip of darkness and grumbling wildness.
There’s something kind of right about his dark hair, curling in an unruly way like they could never be contained, about his jaw, all sharp and stinging like he could cut her hands any time she lets them caress it, about his smile, lopsided and vicious and biting. Everything about him fits him, fits his image, makes him look dangerous and thrilling.
Everything but his eyes , a sort of seafoam blue Emma has spent days trying to pinpoint the color of, both in his and his sister’s pupils. They’re soft, colorful, accentuated by long eyelashes falling on his cheekbones like spiders, and Emma thinks it’s as far of a punk comparison as she can give them because in all honesty they are nothing but pretty .
Right now, his pretty eyes are looking up and down her attire, especially her legs clad with pink tights he’ll probably try to tear off her. If he tries, though, they both know she’ll find a way to rip his head off. It’s expensive , and she’s not making her parents spend money because a teenage boy couldn’t keep his claws off.
“Shut up,” Emma’s reply isn’t as biting as she wants it to be, and he clearly thinks so too because he answers with a snort.
“So adorable,” he coos with a mocking pout.
Emma flips him off. “I could still kick your ass, dork.” It’s true. Emma might be small and able to spin delicately, grace and beauty incarnate, but every part of her body is sculpted and strong and she throws a mean punch.
Julian gives her a small smile, the corners of his mouth twisting up ever so slightly, and he looks almost proud. He throws the helmet towards her and she catches it easily. The sides are rimmed with flames and Emma can’t contain her snicker. It looks ridiculous.
“Hop on.” His chin gestures to the back.
“Promise you’ll stop speeding down the highway like you’re looking for our imminent death?”
Julian smirks, cocky and brash, and it’s in these moments Emma thinks he’s most dangerous. “Never. You wouldn’t want me to anyway.”
With a defeated sigh, she straddles the bike. Her arms circle Julian’s middle tightly, pressing herself against him. “Don’t kill me.”
“Promise.” He pulls the clutch and drives off.
__
It started innocently.
Emma had always seen Julian as Livvy’s brother, handsome but dark and brooding, not at all her type. He used to tease her, rubbing her hair like an older brother would, which really wasn’t fair because they’re the same age , and making snide comments about ballet Emma was always quick to snark back at. Ballet had always been her passion, her obsession, her inspiration, and she would be damned if she let a stupid boy try to ridiculize an artform he could never understand. So she met him, fire for fire, push for push, bite for bite, and he looked at her almost impressed.
And that’s all they had been for most of her girlhood, as she became taller and sharper, as he became wilder and angrier. They’d grown together, but far apart. He was always stuck in his room, always off to some party or concert he shouldn’t be at. Sometimes, Tavvy would cry and cry for hours, and they had to call Julian because only he could call him down. He’d always leave wherever he was, no questions asked, and take the little guy in his arms, balance him on his hip, and make silly faces at him. Emma would stare almost in surprise, like she couldn’t quite believe this was the guy with Dead Kennedys and Rancid posters in his room. Sometimes, something in her would melt a little.
And that’s all they had been for some time too, until Emma was stuck on an art assignment, unable to wish her brain to think creatively, to make her hands draw the smooth, easy lines her body could do with her eyes close, and after a long night of sitting in front of a blank canvas she stumbled onto Julian spray can in hand, tagging a wall beside their school.
Emma had frozen, looking at the little girl with a sword in her hand fiercely facing some monster he was creating with only spray paint and stencils. “Wow,” Emma had whispered, because it truly was impressive. And when Julian spun around in surprise, she said, “You’re in so much shit.”
“ Don’t ,” Julian had whisper-yelled, walking over to her with long, hurried steps. “Don’t say anything.” He had tried to look as intimidating as possible, towering over her with an angry scowl, but his hands were shaking and his lips were twitching nervously.
She’d met his eyes fiercely, crossing her arms and asking wolfishly, “What’s in it for me?”
__
Julian lays on her bed, playing with a tennis ball. Her covers are still pink and fluffy from childhood, and she would spend a second to be embarrassed about it if they hadn’t already spent afternoons and nights making out on it. Never mornings, though, as that was the time she practiced.
“I’m bored,” Julian announces, throwing the ball in his hand and catching it with the other.
Emma is sitting at her desk, furiously typing on her computer the essay she has to give in in two hours. She’s got multiple tabs open and her notebooks laying wide on the table, highlighted in her favorite markers, ready for work. “I told you it would be boring.”
“Yeah, but I thought I could seduce you away from your studies.” Emma snorts, and Julian lets out an offended cry at her reaction. “Hey. I can be very convincing.”
This time, Emma bothers to throw him a look through the mirror on her desk. “Yeah? All your other girls let you swoon them away?”
“There’s no ‘other girls’.” The words shock her and she sits back straighter in surprise. She doesn’t know why she assumed Julian would be running off with a billion girls, holding their hands with his paint stained ones, letting them hold him as they sped down the street on his bike, whispering sweet nothings in their childhood beds. After all, he’s beautiful enough to get them all, and wild enough to keep them. Isn’t that what he did to her?
“No?” Emma croaks. She tries to sound casual, but she’s clearing waiting for the answer to graze his lips.
“No.” Julian says, and he doesn’t even bother sounding casual. Emma tries to bite down her grin, but she can’t help the confession make her heart beat just a little faster and her insides bloom with something pretty and sweet, something she would never use to describe her heart.
Julian throws the ball, catching it, before saying unsurely, “Do you see other guys?”
Emma smirks. “Oh, tons. I can barely keep up with them all.” She glances in the mirror to see the corner of his mouth go up, his nose scrunching and his eyes wrinkling to hold back a laugh. It’s the kind of smiles that make her stick around.
__
Emma turns and turns and turns, her leg sticking out of her body like some careless child had put her in all wrong, straight and pointed with her sheer force. She goes in and out of pointe, gets into arabesques and penchés, makes it all look easy and fluid. She’s done Odile’s Variation so much it’s almost muscle memory, following the music as she dances around like a ballerina in a music box. Pretty and graceful, Emma embodies the Black Swan with ease.
Livvy says that’s her real force. When other girls gush about her natural flexibility and agility, about her core and her strength, about all the technical ways her body knows how to sit, Livvy thinks she shines because she’s raw and powerful, like an unstable force spinning on itself, and people can’t look away in fear she’ll gather so much energy she’ll explode in front of their very eyes. Emma doesn’t know if that’s true, but she likes to think of herself as capable of exploding, just because it gives her an edge on all the other ballerinas at risk of imploding.
She’s halfway through her reserved time to practice, still going through the same variation to make sure her act is perfect for the showcase, when her phone rings. It stops the music abruptly, and Emma flinches, coming down from her assemblé.
Running to her phone, she glances down to see the emo boy stock picture she uses as Julian’s contact, the one he hates and begs her to change but makes her snicker every time she sees, and she picks up quickly. “Yeah?” She’s out of breath, exhaling heavily in the speaker as she tries to catch it.
“Am I getting you all hot and bothered already?” Julian’s husky voice passes through the phone, and Emma can imagine his smirk. She rolls her eyes.
“Ah-ha. Some of us exercise, you know?”
“Hey. I exercise.”
Emma lets a taunting smile he can’t see slip. “I’m not sure running from the police counts, Jules.” There’s something almost ridiculous about calling him his childhood nickname when she’s talking about breaking the law.
“Do you know how physically demanding mosh pits are?” Julian retorts easily.
Emma rolls her ankle, trying to relieve some of the ache building up her leg. When she dances, she transcends pain, becomes only a vessel for movement. Now that she’s stopped, back in the real world, she remembers ballet hurts like a bitch. “Can’t say I do.”
Julian hums. “We’ll have to rectify that.” There’s something exciting about the idea of plans, of Julian taking her somewhere not because her lips are soft and welcoming and her body can bend in all positions, but because he wants her to experience something from his world.
Emma huffs, shaking her head to push these thoughts away. “I can imagine it. Little ballerina getting pushed and stepped on by angry people,” she jokes.
“Please. I’m sure you’d be the hazard. You’re small but mighty, Emma. And anyone who thinks you’re fragile would get their ass kicked.”
“Quit sweet talking me, Blackthorn,” Emma grins. Or I’ll make it mean something . Julian chuckles and she can hear it come from his throat. She wonders if his eyes wrinkle. “Why are you calling me?”
“I’m bored. Wanna hang?”
Emma’s eyes peeks at the clock. There’s more than a quarter of her reservation left and a lot of things to finetune from her choreography. “Sure,” she breathes. “Pick me up at the Institute.”
__
“I miss you,” Livvy declares, ice cream cone in hand. A pang of guilt hits Emma’s stomach.
“I’m sorry. I know I’ve been so busy.” Emma says, taking a spoonful of her chocolate ice cream. She never takes a cone, always a bowl. It’s not exactly a lie, but it makes her stomach twist like it is.
“I get it,” Livvy says, sending her a comprehensive smile, all soft and sweet just like her. It makes Emma’s guilt worse, contorts all her guts together, because she knows she doesn’t deserve it. “I’m busy too, and I’m not even the one graduating. I just wish we found more time to hang out.”
“Me too,” Emma takes Livvy’s hand, squeezes it, hopes it relieves her heart. It doesn’t. “I miss you too. You’re the only one who can stand me.”
Livvy snorts. “That’s not even true. All the Institute loves you.”
She shakes her head. “All the Institute respects me. And hates me. And envies me.” She doesn’t mean to sound cocky, but it’s true. Emma is known as one of the most, if not the most, talented ballerinas at the Institute, and everyone looks at her as if that’s all she is. “Not you. Never you. You’re my best friend.” Livvy’s mouth cracks in a wide smile as she sticks her tongue out to take a lick of her strawberry ice cream.
Livvy is her best friend. And yet, Emma continues to lie to her, to hurt her, to go behind her back and kiss her brother. God, she knows it’s wrong, but she can’t stop.
As they walk down the street, Emma feels like a bus crash waiting to happen.
__
It started with a single ballet class. Livvy was six when Emma was eight, on the edge of turning nine, and they met at the Los Angeles Institute of Ballet. They had these adorable pink tutus on and Livvy was missing two front teeth, and they clicked together like missing puzzle pieces. Livvy and Emma entered a ballet class strangers and came out best friends.
They talked to each other about everything, all their secrets and their deepest shames, all their child troubles and their angst, all their favorite memories and their worst.
Emma knows since she’s nine years old that Livvy always hated the friends that stick to her for her brother, trying to get close to the older boy that was cute and smart and picked up worms with his bare hands, before ditching her when they couldn’t. Emma hurt for her best friend, so she told her he was ugly, even if he really wasn’t, and promised she would never do something like that.
Ten years later, Emma did exactly that.
__
“You know I hate surprises,” Emma mumbles. Her eyes are covered with a blindfold, Julian guiding her by her shoulders as she extends her arms for balance and takes slow, fearful steps. She’s danced in a blindfold before, but she always hated not knowing where her feet are.
“I actually didn’t know that. This is a fun surprise, though.” Emma lets out a distrustful huff, upping her nose snobbishly. She hears Julian chuckle behind her.
“Hurry up ,” he moans, trying to push her faster. In retaliation, Emma takes a comically slow step, as if she was stuck in slow motion. “You’re worse than a sloth. Where did all that ballet training go?”
“Since when is walking blindly a ballet training?” Emma snaps back defensively. Julian laughs again, this time right beside her ear, the sound tickling her. She feels the hairs behind her neck stand and she wonders how he got so close, how she didn’t feel him.
“Why are you so scared?”
“I don’t want to break my face!” She cries, gesturing vaguely behind her to slap his side.
“You think I would let you?” Julian says it casually, as a funny quip, but Emma senses something more serious about it, something true, something almost worried she didn’t trust him.
“No,” Emma says quietly.
“Good.” Then, he stops her, letting her back press against his front. She blushes, her skin uncontrollably warming. “This is it.”
Julian takes off her blindfold with a cheerful tada! and Emma faces nothing. She squints, rubs her eyes, lets herself get adjusted to the sudden light, but no matter what she does, there’s nothing in front of her. She turns her head to throw Julian a confused look, arching her eyebrow.
It’s like he reads her mind, because his finger delicately grazes her chin and tips it upwards. “Up,” he whispers in her ear, sending chills down her back she tries to hide but fails as the cocky half-grin takes over Julian’s face.
Up is a blank billboard that she sees every day from the Los Angeles Institute of Ballet, and maybe she can read his mind because she immediately knows .
“No. Fucking. Way.” Emma slowly drags out, still staring at the billboard with a gaped mouth.
“Come on,” Julian tugs her black beanie further down her head and then walks to the ladder. He’s all confidence and purpose, and although Emma is the ballerina, the one who walks and moves gracefully, never a sound coming from her feet, she trails after him unsurely.
“If I get arrested, I’m beating the shit out of you, Jules.” Emma declares as her hands settle on the rung. He’s already up ahead, climbing it with ease.
“I’m sure you would.” Julian throws the bag on the platform, which clunks against the metal, and then pulls himself on it. Emma watches him, looks around to make sure there’s no one, takes a breath and climbs .
The view up there is beautiful. It’s like the whole city is a blanket, low and infinite, lights twinkling around her. The air feels fresher, too, and she breathes it in.
“Is this the feeling you chase?” Emma asks, eyes closed, letting the air fill her lungs. She doesn’t think she’s ever been this relaxed, and it’s kinda crazy that several feet up the air is how she can finally get it.
“No,” Julian answers simply, before handing her a blue spray can. “What do you want to do?”
Emma turns to the blank canvas with determined eyes.
__
They stare at their graffiti, hand in hand, proud smiles on their lips. Staring back at them is a little boy holding a sword fiercely facing a monster, the same painting that started it all for them. Emma did the boy, which is clear by the sloppy artwork, unclean and messy lines, hard to grasp if you don’t already know what it is. Julian did the monster, a huge and terrifying creature with dark purples and blues, sharp teeth and saliva falling from its mouth, that Emma named Rex. It’s not really pretty, and certainly not cohesive, but it’s a masterpiece to their eyes.
The moment feels quiet and infinite, until everything is disrupted by far away police sirens. Emma whips her head to Julian in surprise. “Run!” He screams, throwing together their paint supplies and shoving it in his backpack.
Emma doesn’t hesitate, jumping on the ladder and climbing it down at a record time, skipping rungs and letting her hands slide down the sides. Her heart is beating in her chest, and she lets herself slow down to peek a look at the red and blue lights coming their way. Her breath catches and fear takes her body like waves traveling down each limb.
“I’m gonna fucking kill you!” Emma screams to Julian, who’s already only a few feet above her.
“Do it once we’re out of here!”
Emma drops to the ground, looking around the street. She’s not quite sure where they are and where the sounds come from, and she tries to get her mind to just quiet for a second so she can just take control of the situation when Julian grabs her wrist and runs .
She doesn’t think she’s ever run this fast, her feet faster than her brain, her legs sprinting down the street and making every twist and turn Julian can think of to get the police off their trails. The siren keeps following them though, and it’s almost as loud as Emma ears ringing. She can feel her blood pump in her veins and the back of her head is pulsing but she doesn’t stop, just runs faster and faster until she’s the one in front of Julian, pulling him along by their hands.
When the police fades and becomes a far away memory, Julian stops in his tracks. Emma’s hand is glued in his and she’s forced to stop too. It feels wrong to not be running, her leg still pumping with all the blood that rushed there to help, and her heart is beating so loud she thinks the whole neighborhood can hear it. They’re out of breath, trying to catch it miserably, trying to calm down all the adrenaline racing through them.
Julian’s eyes meet hers and Emma loses all projects of killing him once they are out of here. “That’s the feeling I chase,” he says, and then grabs her neck and crashes his lips against hers.
Their lips find and leave each other in an angry, brutal pace, like the adrenaline settled on kissing the hell out of each other to shake away its need to flee. They’re already flushed, warm and out of breath, already skipped so many stages of a kiss, so Emma opens her mouth and slips her tongue inside Julian’s, grabs his mess of curls and pulls it, like she wants him to hurt just a little, like she’s too agitated for mercy. He lets out a groan that she swallows, and she feels so hungry, so greedy, like she can’t get enough of him.
It’s restless, almost, like they can’t quite stay still, like they still feel like running. Julian’s long fingers angle her jaw to kiss her better, and then fly to the curve of her back to hold her, to feel her breathe, to make sure she’s real. He’s wild and free against her, like he’s always been, but there’s something different about him, like he’s stopped holding back all the parts of him he thinks will scare her away. Emma wishes he would know she’s stuck, a hopeless fly in his web, so he’ll always kiss her like this, with all his body and heart.
Julian grabs her sides, as if to keep her in place, as if to stop her from jittering, and Emma doesn’t know when she lost the upperhand. She lets her hands fall down to his shoulders and then his back, slipping underneath his shirt, grazing every skin she can get on the way, clawing at him just to hear him whine again, just to feel his back shudder, just to know she can win.
Julian’s hands fly up her ribs, his thumbs tickling the ends of her breasts, and Emma feels so heated she thinks she’ll boil and explode, like a volcano erupting. She wants to warn Julian away before it spills everywhere, but he’s the foolish man who decided to play with her, and anything he gets he deserves. She bites his lip to make him understand, drags it in between her teeth, but the smirk on his lips when he kisses her again tells her he understood it as nothing but a compliment. If only Julian didn’t know her so well. If only he didn’t kiss her so well.
Alas, he does, and so Emma kisses him more.
__
The first time they kissed, the deal had been made for three weeks. As Emma stated so eloquently, he would help her with art, as he clearly was talented, and she would keep her mouth shut about all his illegal activities concerning said art. Julian’s jaw had clenched when he had accepted, and he clearly had been annoyed with her for the first week of the deal.
By the second, though, they were laughing, throwing quips and bites at each other easily as they sketched on their respective notebooks, Julian's always prettier than anything Emma could dream of doing.
By the third, the deal was slowly stretching to its end, and they had already fallen in a comfortable routine with each other. Blackthorns and Emma were meant to be friends, apparently, because they got along swimmingly for two people so different.
At the end of the third, when Emma showed him her ballerina that was all wrong proportions and awkward shading, brandishing with a proud smile and affirming she was giving in this particular piece for her final, Julian didn’t even hesitate. He grabbed the sides of her face and kissed her, and Emma kissed him back.
You can say that is how it started.
__
Livvy’s feet kick in the air as she lays on her back on the bed, head and hair falling down the edge to give Emma an amused look. “Stop listening to Getaway Car.”
Emma sticks her tongue out at her. “No.” Just to be petty, she ups the volume, letting out a loud laugh, head thrown back, at Livvy’s eye roll.
Emma jumps around, letting her limb fly free and moving her hips around in a way that’s terribly embarrassing for a professional dancer. Still, she feels carefree, and she screams the lyrics at the top of her lungs. Livvy is quick to laugh and jump out of bed, dancing beside Emma, hair flying around her, shoulders shaking offbeat.
__
“Please tell me Mark didn’t cook,” Dru pleads as she takes plates from the top cupboard. She doesn’t even have to stand on her tippy toes to get them, which makes Livvy clearly look at her with sibling envy.
“Hey!” Mark cries, holding his hip with a frown, a spaghetti server in his hand.
“He didn’t,” Julian answers, coming into the kitchen with Tavvy on his hip. “I did.”
“Sweet! Did you make the marinara sauce I love?”
“You bet I did,” Julian smiles, ruffling her hair. She’s quick to swat his hand away.
“I’m sure your sauce would be great, too,” Emma calls to Mark just to be nice. She had one of his grilled cheeses when she was young and she’s not quite sure how someone could mess bread and cheese so bad.
He gives her a solemn look. “Thank you, Emma.”
Livvy leans in towards her, whispering. “It’s a lie, though, right?”
“I can hear you!”
Julian’s head throws back as he laughs, wrinkles in the corner of his eyes, and something in Emma gets all soft and gooey. She thinks she should look away, because anyone who sees her would immediately tell she is not staring at Julian in sibling-like affection.
“Spaghetti?” Ty asks as he takes his regular seat, electric blue earphones around his neck. Everytime Emma sees him, she’s struck by how much he and Livvy look alike.
“Yes!” Dru says excitedly, putting down a plate in front of him. She turns to Julian with a teasing grin. “I’m so glad your edgelord transformation didn’t keep you from feeding us.”
His eyes throw daggers her way, a mean glare Dru only seems to find comical. “Keep talking and I’ll send you to your room without food.”
“That’s child abuse,” Ty says, picking ustensils from the glass they keep at the center of the room, too lazy to place them back in a drawer. He’s the only one who eats spaghetti with a spoon.
Mark turns to his sibling with a triumphant smile. “Bet you guys want the non-child abuser cooker now.”
Livvy stares at him. “Eh.” He throws her a spaghetti, which just falls on the floor in front of his feet. Tavvy giggles.
Julian lets out a sigh, putting down Tavvy in his chair and bending down to grab the spaghetti. “You guys can’t keep my kitchen clean for one minute.”
“But what would you do with all your free time if you weren't cleaning up after us?” Dru teases, finally sitting down beside Ty. She flicks Tavvy’s nose, and he lets out a cheerful cry, clapping his hands. “See. Tavvy agrees.”
“Where’s Helen?” Emma asks as everyone finally sits down around the table, Julian purposefully dropping right beside her. She gives him a glance, but quickly looks away.
Livvy smirks. “With her girlfriend ,” she sings, dragging the last syllable out. “You should be glad she’s not here. They’re always all over each other. It’s gross.”
“It’s cute ,” Mark interjects, bringing the pot of pasta over. “They’re in love.” He puts it down on the table with nothing, and Julian winces, grabbing a rag and slipping it underneath to protect the wood.
As soon as his hands leave the pot, every sibling digs for the spaghetti like starved men in front of their first food in weeks, and even though Emma knows them by now, she’s still a little shocked by the battlefield in front of her.
“They’re animals,” Julian whispers in her ear. She can’t help but grin.
Livvy forces her head back as she starts talking about a new variation Zara Dearborn is trying and a rumor she heard about Cristina and Perfect Diego in the locker rooms. Emma is only half listening, because Julian sneaks a hand under the table and rests it on her thigh. Her whole body freezes, and she sneaks a look at him to seem him cheekily biting in his spaghetti, looking down at his plate as if he wasn’t doing anything. She glares at him, but doesn’t move his hand, and he spends the whole dinner rubbing circles on her skin.
__
Emma is gripping the bike’s handlebars, adrenaline pumping in her veins, her feet still comfortably resting on the ground. She looks at the empty horizon and tries to tell herself to go , do it , but she can’t get her fingers to press on the ignition.
“Are we gonna be here a while?” Julian asks, his arms loosely embracing her. He just taught her how to ride a motorcycle, and he seems much more confident in his teaching skills than she is.
“I’m gonna die.” Emma whispers.
Julian rolls his eyes. “You’re not gonna-” Emma grips the clutch and flies away.
The road is infinite under her, and it feels like she’s floating, too fast for the world to catch up. She has the helmet on, but her blond hair flies behind her like they can’t quite catch up, and Julian’s arms tighten around her, and it feels so good she lets out a scream, a wide grin breaking her face in half.
__
“The bracelets are so silly,” Emma giggles at the studded things Julian always adorns, which are currently resting against her thighs as Julian grabs her hips, tugging her closer to him. She’s sitting on his desk, legs spread on either side of him, and he’s doing his magic on her neck, licking and kissing and biting but never enough to leave any trace of it. Still, Emma can’t help but laugh.
Julian sighs, his lips leaving her skin as he rests his head on her shoulder in exasperation. He shakes because she’s laughing, which only makes her double down more in a belly aching laugh. “I was doing some of my best work there.” He moans.
Emma pats his shoulder, trying to bite down her smile and the leftovers of her mirth. “Sorry, buddy.”
Julian’s head snaps up. “You can’t call me buddy while I’m making out with you.”
Emma arches an eyebrow defiantly. “You’re not making out with me right now.”
Julian accepts the challenge with no complaints, bending his head down to kiss her, a slow and torturous thing as if to tease her for mocking him and his bracelet. She tries to speed things up, grabs his shoulders and sits straighter, closer to him, and tries to sneak her tongue in, but he’s unrelenting, dragging things out until she’s going out of her mind.
Julian heats her up at low temperature, letting her simmer quietly as he smirks and smiles and enjoys it, and she almost thinks of kicking him in the shins for being difficult when the door slams open and a scream scares them apart.
Whipping to the sound, Emma is horrified to find Livvy’s shocked face, jaw hanging open, eyes wide.
“Oh, my God.” She whispers in disbelief.
“Livvy-” Emma starts, which snaps Livvy back in reality and she squeals, turning around and closing the door behind her.
“Sorry!” She cries, sounding genuinely apologetic after just seeing her brother and her best friend stabbing her in the back.
Emma’s face snaps back to Julian, eyes wide in fear. His hand is plastered over his mouth, trying to hold back a laugh, and she frowns, hitting his shoulder. “It’s not funny,” she chastises him. He doesn’t have time to defend himself that she’s already out the door and running after Livvy.
__
“-And I promise to never do it again, I swear it was just a fluke or something, I’m so sorry I will never break your trust again, please forgive me you’re my best friend and-” Emma is almost losing breath as she spits out all her apologies in one interminable sentence, words stumbling out of her mouth all together.
Livvy cuts her. “I don’t care.”
“And I really didn’t mean to- What?”
She shrugs. “I don’t care. If you and Julian are happy, I really don’t care. I’m kind of hurt you thought you had to hide it from me, but, again, I don’t care. Wait, you know what, I also don’t care that you hid it from me, because I totally understand that it was all about the sexiness of sneaking around and-”
Emma’s hand flies up to stop her. “Please don’t finish that sentence.” She sits down beside Livvy, the bed creaking underneath her. “Really? Because I totally understand if you’re pissed and-”
Livvy lets out an amused chuckle. “Really.” Even if she keeps saying it, it doesn’t ring true to Emma’s ears. She knows Livvy was always hurt by all the little girls coming to her and using her for her brother. Surely, she’s just luring her in a false sense of security to get back at her later on. It doesn’t sound like something Livvy would do, but Emma can’t be too sure. She is Julian’s sister, after all, and Julian is ruthless.
“But you always hated the girls using you to get to Julian?” Emma frowns, still confused.
“Yeah. When I was six . Is this really why you kept it from me? Emma, if you were using me for my brother, you wouldn’t have stuck around for ten years. I know you care about me .”
Emma lets out an incredulous laugh, falling down on the bed. “I can’t believe I went through all this stress for nothing.”
“This really is all on you. In what world would I be upset you’re with my brother?”
Emma knows it’s not the time, but she glances at Livvy’s happy smile and she feels the need to precise, “I’m not with with him, though.” Livvy arches an eyebrow. Emma blushes. “Like, we’re not dating or anything. It’s… meaningless.” Her throat closes up around the words.
“I don’t believe you and Julian can do meaningless. And I don’t believe you and Julian can do meaningless together .”
Emma frowns. “What’s that supposed to me?”
She gives her a pointed look. “I see the way you guys look at each other, talk to each other, kiss each other ,” Livvy teases, and Emma rolls her eyes as if she minds. “It’s not meaningless.” Emma stays silent, unsure of what to say, so Livvy adds, “You like him.”
“I don’t!” Livvy stares at her in disbelief. “I don’t , I swear! It’s not like that. He just… scratches an itch. He’s there , that’s all.”
“Okay,” Livvy says simply. “You can keep lying to yourself if you want.” Emma opens her mouth to retort, but Livvy is quick on her feet. “Wanna watch a movie? I hear Dru just got some old terrible horror movies sent in the mail.”
Emma nods vaguely. That night, she sits beside Julian on the couch, watching some bad movie she can’t pay attention to. He’s flush to her side, sticking to her, letting his warmth breathe through and letting his soft skin brush against her everytime he moves. He’s laughing at the bad effects, wrinkles in his eyes, and as much as Emma doesn’t want to, her insides melt just at the sight, at the sound. It’s scarier than any horror movie they could watch.
__
Emma praises herself on her ability to endure pain. After all, you cannot take ballet lessons since you're five years old and deal with all the blisters, the sores and the pinches the teachers give you to fix your posture and not come out of the other side with a pain threshold so high you don't flinch when you have to go on pointe with wounded feet.
Still, Emma grabs Julian's hand as hard as she can as needles dig into her ankle. She breathes in and out slowly, because she'll raise hell before she lets out a bruised moan in front of anyone.
"I don't know why you chose your ankle. I told you bone is more painful and fat is less," Julian says, not letting show any trace of agony from her brutal grip. He did tell her everything there is to know about tattoos before she stepped into the shop. She didn't listen to any of it, though, already an image in her mind.
"You only said that because you wanted to see my ass."
"It would have been a plus, yes," Julian smirks cheekily, and Emma grips his hand tighter instead of biting back. The tip of his fingers are turning red, but her ankle is being pierced open repeatedly, so she thinks it's fair.
Once they're finally done and the world stops feeling like it's gonna end around Emma, she releases Julian and doesn't let herself linger on why it pinches her heart to do so. In her ankle rests a pretty and delicate pair of pointe shoes, rubbons flying around, and she smiles at the sight. It's exactly what she wanted. A little cliche, but meaningful.
"Cute," Julian says. She glares at him and flicks his forehead.
__
Emma’s hair is done in an intricate and tight bun on top of her head. It lays against her head, held together by the pins digging in her scalp and all the hair spray she could find. She’s in a black tutu, lace ornating the bodice, and a jeweled headpiece rests on her head, held together by more pins. She’s got thick and angry lines around her eyes, elongating them, and Emma almost looks angry.
She goes on in two minutes and she feels restless energy build in her chest.
Once she steps on stage, lets the applause wash over her as she takes her position, and starts dancing, the whole world slips away and fades into nothing. All she can hear is the music and all she knows is the steps and her heart beating against her chest. She thinks that’s the feeling she chases.
__
Emma hugs a younger ballerina, thanking her for the shy compliment she just slipped in her ear. She’s changed back into comfier clothes, but her hair is still sleek and her eyes are still painted. She’s got flowers in her hands and her entire body is sore, especially her feet who are screaming for a warm bath, and she thinks this might be the most ballerina Julian has seen her from up close.
His eyes settle on her and Emma’s heart races faster. She doesn’t think she can take him making fun of her for all her ballet smeared against her, not when she doesn’t have an armour on, not when she would care.
So she tells him. “Don’t make fun of me,” Emma warns.
Julian frowns. “Make fun of you? Emma, you were incredible.” Her breath catches in her throat as he takes two long steps and swallows her in his arms, so tight and so close she can feel his heart punching against his ribs at a mad rhythm. “You were so beautiful,” he whispers in her hair. “I almost cried.”
“Thanks,” she breathes quietly, hugging him back. He smells good and he feels familiar against her. She wants to rise on her tippy toes, hell go on pointe if she has to, and kiss him right there.
Fuck , Emma thinks. I like him .
__
Emma finds Julian on the roof of the Institute, his feet dangling from the top in a way that makes her skip a beat in fear. There’s a party going on downstairs, but of course it’s too fancy and proper for him, and she finds him hiding far away instead.
She walks to him slowly, sits beside him, her legs crossed and tucked underneath her so she won’t fall. She’s not as crazy as him.
There, staring back at them, is the graffiti they did together. The billboard towers over the other buildings. No one has bothered repainting it in all this time, even if it’s not pretty enough to keep it around and call it art. Emma sees it every day when she practices, but she thinks this might be his first time seeing it since they almost went to jail for it.
“I love it.”
Emma looks at Julian, then back at their painting. Her little boy looks even weirder from afar, and she’s pretty sure no one can tell what it’s supposed to be other than some vague shape with colors. “It’s ugly,” she jokes, a half-grin on her face.
“No,” Julian shakes his head seriously, and she loses all humor. “No, it’s beautiful. It’s us.”
Emma doesn’t know what to say to that, so she doesn’t. She takes his hand, however, because it’s right there and it’s warm and big and calloused and stained with paint.
“Why did you think I would make fun of you?” Julian whispers.
Emma throws him a look. “I don’t know. You always poke fun at my ballet things.”
“How?”
“Just. Calling them cute and adorable and laughing.”
Julian’s head turns to her and finally, his eyes lock with hers. They really have never fit him, too pretty, too beautiful, too soft and delicate and not at all rough and dangerous. Right now, though, they seem to be holding a feel as soft and delicate as them, but as rough and dangerous as him, and Emma almost wants to look away. “Have you ever thought that I just find you cute and adorable?” Realization slowly dawns on Emma, going down her spine as liquid warmth.
“Are you trying to tell me making fun of my tights was you shooting your shot all this time?”
“Are you trying to tell me that me making out with you every day wasn’t me shooting my shot?”
Emma opens her mouth to protest, already valid and fully formed arguments she’s had to give Livvy multiple times on the tip of her tongue, when Julian steals all her words away and kisses her. It’s a quick, chaste kiss, gone before it starts.
“This is me telling you that I like you, by the way,” Julian says seriously.
Emma rolls her eyes. “I’m not stupid.”
“Could have fooled me.”
She slaps her arms. “This is a terrible way of starting a relationship, punk.”
Julian smirks. “Relationship, huh?” This time, she shuts him up with a kiss.
Emma opens her mouth and welcomes him home, stripped of all the armours and guards between them, stripped of all pretends. Julian found a way in her heart she doesn’t know when, but it’s his and it sings every time his lips meet hers, every time his hand caresses her lower back, every time his hair intertwines between her fingers.
“No, but, seriously, what did you think we were doing all this time-”
“ Shhhh .”
__
Emma has her thick Doc Martens and one of Julian’s shitty bracelets on and she slams against every body that has the malchance of being around her, banging her head and screaming out in between the lyrics that she doesn’t know. When she finally opens her eyes again, looking for him around the room, she finds him in the middle of the mosh pit, pushing people to get to her, and she gives the last man in their way a subtle but powerful kick. Julian grins and mouths to her knew it .