"With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven

Coveted her and me."

– Annabel Lee, Edgar Allan Poe

Note: Bolded sentences are snippets released by Cassie

"Em!" Julian called from outside her door. "Emma!"

Emma sighed as Livvy went to open the door. "What do you want?"

"To talk to you."

"Well, I'm busy, can't you see that?"

"Wait –"

"Livvy, tell your brother I'm busy."

Livia, who proved herself to be more loyal to Emma than to her own brother, obliged. "Julian, Emma's busy right now. She has a date in –" she checked her watch "thirty minutes. You're gonna be late!" Emma found her panic at that realization so cute. Livvy was so concerned about her love life, almost as if it was her own.

"Keep him waiting. That's the trick," Emma said and winked.

"You're still seeing that jackass?" Julian asked a tinge of incredulity in his voice.

"Yes," Emma replied, not bothering to sound offended that he'd just insulted her boyfriend.

"Why? He's an obnoxious little –"

"Honestly?" she stopped the flood of insults. "He's fit."

"I can't believe you just said that." Julian looked at his sister, looking for some support.

Livvy held up a hand. "In Emma's defense, Cameron's annoying, but he's hot."

"Livia," Julian said. "Get out."

His tone was more serious now – the tone he used when he was being a father rather than a brother – and Livvy closed the door behind her.

Emma sighed annoyingly and looked at Julian in the mirror. "Are you going to fix my hair now? Because that's what your sister was here for."

"Stop. Please. We need to talk." His eyes were pleading. How was she supposed to resist him if she didn't want to?

"We are talking, Jules."

"Not really. You've been avoiding me lately. Don't even try to deny it," he added, knowing Emma was going to protest. "Look –"

"Julian–"

"Just hear me out, only for a minute, and then I'll let you prepare for the surely delightful evening Cameron has planned for you."

Emma sighed, and Julian took it as a cue to go on.

"I know things haven't been exactly right between us since I got back from England," he said. "And I don't know if it's because I'm a little jealous of Cristina, or a lot jealous of –"

"JULIAN," Emma said, louder this time.

This was dangerous territory. He'd never said anything like that.

"No, let me finish."

"I can't. We're parabatai. You don't get to be jealous of my boyfriend, Julian. It's dangerous."

He was taken aback. "I was going to say Jaime and Diego. You trained with them instead of me. All week. And I didn't say anything because I thought maybe you were mad at me for some silly thing and it would go away, but you kept on avoiding me."

Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. You just want him to be jealous, don't you? "Oh –"

"But now that you mention it, Cameron sure doesn't make my top 10 either."

She ignored the last part. "Jules, I am not avoiding you," even to her ears, it felt like a lie. "Look, we're talking. We always talk. We seat next to each other during meals, we go to the beach together –"

"It's in the small things, Em. Things other people would not notice. But I do."

She took a cautious step. "Okay, let's say I've been avoiding you – which I haven't. What would you say?"

"I want to know why. Why you're acting like this. Why you've been practically throwing yourself at dudes."

"Wait, what?"

"The Rosales. Cameron. The other two guys from last month… it's so unlike you and I can't manage to find an answer. I think I'm going mad."

"I'm not throwing myself at dudes, Julian. Nor am I avoiding you."

She was a liar but she thought she sounded convincing enough.

"Yeah, sure you're not." His face suddenly brightened with realization. "Is it because I broke my promise?"

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"I made you a promise after I went to New York with Helen. I swore I would never go anywhere without you again. And then I went to England."

Emma's heart melted at the memory. She had missed him so much that she made him promise. "Jules, we were twelve." And not even parabatai. Their lives had been so simple then, so natural, before their world was shattered, before Sebastian Morgenstern destroyed their families.

"We took some important decisions when we were twelve, Emma," he remarked. "Entreat me not to leave thee –"

"I don't need you to recite the words of our oath," she said, her voice cool. "We've already fought over this.* Becoming parabatai was a mistake. Another twelve-years-old's foolish promise. Only, we can't undo this one."

"What is it then? What's up with you?"

By the Angel… "Nothing is up. I'm just trying to have some fun."

"I don't buy that."

This was getting harder and harder. "You'd better, because that's it."

"Emma, I love you more than anyone in the world. You know that. More than I love my siblings. More than I'll ever love anyone else. We're parabatai." That's the problem. "And I have a right to know what's happening to you. Just as you have the duty to prevent me from going mad."

"I don't know what to say." Liar. Liar. Liar.

"Just talk to me. I can't stand being this close to you and not be able to touch you, I can't stand the look on your face right now, I can't stand not knowing what you're thinking."

"Believe me, you don't want to know what's going on in my head right now," she mumbled.

"But I do," he said, his voice soft as velvet.

"I love you," she said, defeated, because truth was she couldn't take it anymore. She couldn't hide her feelings forever, she'd always known that, and it had become too great of a problem in the past weeks, especially after their fight. Jules had noticed something was off. She'd tried to avoid it, to avoid him by dating Cameron but none of that seemed to be working so far.

I love you. Three little words. They said them to each other all the time. He had just said them a minute ago. But Emma knew that Julian had understood what she meant now. His face, Raziel, his eyes. She couldn't look at him, she couldn't focus, so she directed her gaze at his hands, usually so fidgety, now so painfully still, frozen, like his whole body.

"What if I just love you? What if I love you but I never touch you or talk about it, what would happen then? I know I shouldn't but I do. But you don't need to worry about it. I'll figure something out."

"Emma… don't – I mean, we can't."

"I know. I know it's wrong and I'm sorry. But loving you is a part of who I am."

She was about to run away, to go hide in a hole and never come back, but Julian's hand on her arm held her there.

"I think – I think that's fine," Jules said surprising her a little, and she allowed herself to look at his face again. His eyes were a million miles away, and his voice had been so soft… their gazes met and he seemed to regain focus, realizing what he'd just said. "No, wait. That's not fine."

So he had seen reason at last. After one blissful moment of shock, he had seen all the ways it was wrong and unnatural, and most importantly, forbidden.

"That's not fine," he repeated. "I don't want you to love me and not talk about it. I don't want you to love me and never touch me, Em."

"What do you want then?" she asked, a tiny sparkle of hope burning in her chest.

He gently shook his head. "Are Diana and Arthur back yet?"

Changing the topic from her undying love to small talk? Really, Jules? Emma tried to swallow her anxiety. "I don't think so. We would've heard them."

"Brilliant," Jules said, now looking at her like he was searching her face for an answer. "So we're alone."

"The children are all here."

"You've got to stop calling them children. Livvy and Ty are fifteen."

"Still children."

"Em…" he said, and his voice was but a whisper, but it was different than before.

Emma had to focus on her breathing. "What?"

"The day of our parabatai ceremony was the second worst day of my life." She didn't need to ask to know that the very worst day of his life had been when he'd been forced to kill his own father in front of his siblings. "I hated it but I got along with it because it was what we had planned and I couldn't turn my back on that promise. But I hated it."

She was silent, they'd had this conversation before, it had been their biggest fight yet.

"I think you've already made your feelings about that choice awfully clear, Julian. No need to pour salt on that wound."

"That's not the point."

"That is exactly the point!" he said, way too loud, and their heads both bolted towards the door to see if their discussion had attracted any of the children.

"Emma." Raw pain. "I said what I said because – sometimes I think I asked you to be my parabatai because I wanted you to be tied to me."

"That's what we both wanted –"

"The things I want are wrong and broken things to want."

"That makes two of us apparently."

Silence fell. But it was the loudest silence Emma had ever heard. She was aware of every single breath he drew, every movement he was fighting so hard not to make, every effort she was making not to reach out for him, not to touch him –

"Fuck them."

"Fuck whom?"

"All of them. They can shove it. Just – just kiss me. Please."

Emma hoped she wasn't hallucinating, because she sure as hell didn't need telling twice. She crushed her lips on Julian's, finally allowing herself to feel something for the first time in months. His arms instantly wrapped around her, with an unspoken promise of never letting go. And then she realized Jules was right. The Clave could have come right there and then, and Emma wouldn't have cared.

A/N: You guys asked for a sequel to "Of first fights and unexpected revelations" so here it is. Let me know what you think of the story! Lady Midnight is almost upon us and I can't wait!

xoxo

Ginny_theQueen