Warnings: spoilers for episode 19 on, sexually explicit.

lessons of the road

She'll have a scar now to match every one of his, Ema thinks, hand poised on León's chest. What history they write is an inquiry for another time, when their blood is cooler. Hands give way to tongue, touch shuddering into taste as her lips weave around the scars. Down she saunters, and León's voice stutters towards a higher pitch. Her teeth graze his toned stomach, and her tongue, trained sharp in more than one way, darts along the fine down of his nascent happy trail. A moment later, they find their prize.

León is a quick learner, and the smug gratification she feels in drawing those jagged moans from him is tempered by the fact that she knows he'll soon catch up. His cock is lean and tan like the rest of him, and when he fills her a few moments later the feeling is a detonation of fireworks, a back-of-the-eyes pain, an unspeakable redemption.

"Am I hurting you?" León asks when she winces. Of course he would be concerned about her wounds even in the midst of her taking his virginity. It would be sweet if it weren't annoying. In answer, she flips him over in one violent motion so she can ride him, and she does it hard and fast enough to white out all thoughts of Luciano.

There's no way to tell León that she wants this pain mingled with the pleasure, that the threat of her wounds reopening is a mere titillation, and that somewhere in the back of her mind she needs this act to substitute the one that was really supposed to happen tonight. Another kind of death experienced with her monstrous former husband. She's tuned to a frenzied pitch after all that their meeting, so long deferred, could hardly close: everything within her that had strained like strings wound for years, more tightly even than the tension than holds the wires of her weapon taut. I'll let you play me, León, she thinks, grief and blood unspooling from her almost like love—his fingers clutching, hers giving way. Just for tonight, she thinks, and that word alone mutes anything else she might feel at the tidal waves of his touch.

As they ride back to Santa Bard, he has plenty of time to think. Not that there comes much clarity with reminiscing. A hash of pain-hazed memories beckons whenever he falls too far from the present moment. It repeats itself in the same succession of mirages. Fields of new-planted crops, water shining down the irrigation channel, then the plumes of flame and the wild roars of the Horror. Through all the passing images, he takes care not to dwell on Lara's eyes.

He wonders if Ema is similarly ravaged by her memories of her husband. On the road she holds herself ever straight, cocky smile set to fire, driving her horse hard with nary a wince for her still healing wounds. Her pain feels alien to him. He's still learning to master his own.

And there are all the little matters of traveling to take heed of. "One room," he says to the innkeeper, and does his best to maintain a straight face, and to ignore the little leap in his gut. He can feel Ema smirking at him as he reaches for his coins.

The tavern smells of sweat under the gamey aroma of roasting pork, but the bustle of the crowd celebrating the end of working hours is cheerful enough to distract from it. A warm bowl of stew and some fresh bread, firelight, and song—there are few cares these cannot soothe. But sometime after Ema's fifth chalice of wine a troubled look overcomes her, as she chews on her bottom lip and casts her gaze far past the band of fiddlers it seems to light on.

He's not sure how to approach her. He wants to take her hand, but is wary of seeming impertinent, or worse, naïve. "It's getting late." This merits only a momentary shift in her glare from the fiddlers to him.

"I'm not going to go to bed, if that's what you're suggesting, boy," she slurs imperiously. "I'm in a good place right now, and I worked very hard to get here."

"Right." He scowls as she beckons to the barmaid for a refill. "Wounded people shouldn't be drinking. It's not good for your health." As it's about the fifth time he's said something to that effect on their journey so far, he wonders if it's overly obvious he keeps asking about her body because he's not quite sure how to ask about her heart.

"I'll be fine. You think this is the first time I've traveled with injuries?" She levels a cross stare at him. "More importantly, what about you?"

"What about me?"

She slumps her head into one hand, the firelight catching in her lopsided gaze. Only drink takes the edge off of Ema's eyes, which normally slant and twinkle in some mixture of accusation and amusement at everything in their sight. He still doesn't feel quite comfortable being caught in them at times. What she says next plunges him back into those months when every glance they exchanged made him stiffen in an apprehension he couldn't name. "You told me about what happened to those farmers. Are you really okay with what happened with that girl?"

León swallows. Under the table, Ema shifts her leg against his. "I told you—"

"You mastered your rage, your desire for revenge and all that, I know." She waves a hand. "But I mean your heart."

Long moments pass, colored by the ricochet of folksong and stomping feet. He closes his eyes against a few instinctive reactions (what do you mean, my heart?) and searches for the kernels of indifference he used to feel for everything.

"I made peace with it. It's hard." Guilt punctures him in knives. "But… I should be fine. You've been through much worse, with your husband over all those years."

"It's different. First loves cling to you in a way even later, longer ones don't."

"Wh-who said I loved her?"

Ema's knee presses harder against his. He feels a stinging sensation rise up behind his eyes and nose, and works to keep it from catching in his voice. The sounds of the tavern seem suddenly far, the cresting wave of memory near. Ridiculous. She's drunk and spouting nonsense—how is he the one fighting back tears?

Then again, he supposes the anguish of his happiest days had always been near.

"Who said that?" he repeats, closing his hand into a fist to hide its shaking. (Lara's eyes were a muted turquoise, steeped with the colors of the forest, rapt with wonder for warm soil or ripening corn.) Ema, without saying a word, reaches across the table and takes his hand in both of hers.

"We should stop at the first town we get to today," León says, glancing at the position of the sun. "It's going to be a new moon."

They reach a suitable place along the way, a few minutes before sundown. León takes care of tying the horses in the stable, securing their room, even taking her bag up the stairs. It gives her a certain pleasure to watch him act chivalrously, and she allows him out of mingled amusement and gratitude.

Until it gets annoying. "Stay at the inn and rest while I'm not awake," he's telling her. "I… won't be able to change your bandages or help you if you need anything."

She leans far forward, right into his face. "Oh, because what would I do without your help, boy? It's not as if I can take care of myself or anything."

"I'm just telling you—" he starts, but Zaruba at least is on her side, and interrupts him.

"All right, then," the ring clatters, and the next moment León collapses into her arms.

She spends the evening drinking to her heart's content in the downstairs tavern, glad to be free of his nagging, and losing herself by watching the flames dance in the hearth. It's animal comfort, but it's often all she needs.

In the morning she walks around the town, which offers little to pique the interest aside from an occasional fragrant bakery or bobble-filled antique store. Come the evening she is incredibly bored, and counts the hours until she can expect León to wake. She eats dinner in a pub a little ways from the inn, and is heading back when a prickle in her spine alerts her to malevolent intent.

It's coming from behind her, a shuffle of footsteps and eager breath. The moment she rounds the next building in her path she whips back, and sees a group of heavyset laborers she recognizes from the pub tailing her. Damn, she thinks. Men, not Horrors.

"Hello, pretty lady," one of them swaggers. "We saw you eating by yourself and thought you might be lonely," laughs another.

Fighting the urge to snap back, she launches into a sprint. She may not be allowed to hurt them, but that doesn't mean she has to stick around for this.

They follow her with glee, boars on the hunt. Normally, evading such a group of humans would be no problem. But her wounds protest after only a minute of running, and she can feel them gaining on her. Would it hurt to give them one little taste of her steel strings? Yes, she reminds herself. It's not worth staining her honor as a Makai Alchemist.

She counts on them stopping once she reaches the inn, but they follow her through the downstairs tavern, and at a glance she can tell none of the innkeepers is free enough to pay any mind to another hurried customer on a busy night. And damn her dignity if she'll scream for help. She shoves her way through the crowd and limps as quickly as possible up the three flights of stairs, fingers slipping in her pocket to find the key. Shit, that spreading warmth over her stomach isn't sweat, but blood. They're pounding up the stairs. She can't for the life of her seem to fit the key in the lock.

It finally clicks, and she nearly swings the door off its hinges as she hurls herself in and then slams it. Grabbing her side, she collapses with her back against the door, a new needle of pain stabbing her each time they pound against it.

Of course, León chooses that moment to open his eyes. "Ema?"

"Welcome back, León," she grins, shuddering against a barrage of knocks.

His eyes widen, then narrow. "Who is that? What do they want?"

The distasteful calls yelled through the door answer for her. His nose wrinkles. Through the pain, she can't help but admire his economy of movement as he leaps off the bed, ducks to pick up his sword, and wrenches open the door.

"What do you want?"

Their leers abruptly die. The men's eyes fall to the sword sheathed at his side, and it doesn't take a second look for them to scatter like marbles.

Now I'm in for it, she muses, as León slams the door back shut and whirls around.

"Ema. What the hell do you think you were doing? You shouldn't have been out, let alone at night and with those wounds!"

The way he looks at her is infuriating. She pushes herself to a standing position, crossing her arms over her stomach in part to stem the pain. "I don't want to hear it, León. You think I was in any real danger there? How do you think I managed all those years Mendoza was holding those witch hunts, with those bastards of the Inquisition ready to rape any woman who so much as glanced at them wrong?" She doesn't say, Of course, I was with Luciano then.

"Then you should know better," he snarls. "What if I hadn't woken up just then?"

"Obviously, the next thing you would've seen would've been my bloodied, defiled body." His lips press into an even thinner line. Seems like her sarcasm has done nothing to deflate the mood. "Look, I don't need your new protection complex to fall on me. If I make a mistake, I make a mistake. It's my own responsibility. You can stop acting like I've committed some terrible affront against your pride as my—"

Whatever she might say falls from the tip of her tongue, but León doesn't seem to notice. "That's the most selfish thing I've ever heard. Hypocritical too. If I make a mistake, just let me die. And how many times did you save me—from Bernardo, from the knights?"

"Because I'm a fucking adult, and you were a little shrimp who couldn't take care of yourself back then. I hardly need a boy like you to watch over me."

For a moment León looks like he might punch her. Instead, he stalks over the bed and sits with his back to her. It so much resembles a child's tantrum that she would laugh if she weren't fuming.

On the other side of the room, she changes her bandages, binding the tourniquet so tightly around her stomach that it hurts to breathe. The adrenaline ebbs from her, and with it her fury. Actually, a far more embarrassing feeling is welling up beneath that instinctive lash of rage.

She knows she's at fault for saying insensitive things, but what's the source of that shame? Her own injured pride at having been unable to shake the men off? Is it regret at what they've begun, whatever that is?

Her stomach sinks. Maybe they're deluded in seeking carnal comfort from each other. León is a boy, and it will take more than knowledge of a woman's body to make him a man. He should have a young girl's hand to hold, someone to make mistakes and learn with, a fondness that long precedes consummation. Not these explosive, passionate encounters that yield heat without fire, these mercenary exchanges of affection. For there will be no declarations of love here, and though she won't need one, perhaps he will.

Shaking herself from her thoughts, she dips the last washcloth in warm water and wrings it dry to hang. Her breath catches when she comes back to the bed. León is curled on his side towards the wall, and on the shoulder facing her blooms a dark sweep of arcane symbols.

"León." She strokes his arm, half expecting to be burned.

She couldn't care less about infringing on his feelings, she's no longer so young; still, she wonders if he realizes the things their relationship can never be and regrets it.

"I'm sorry for saying that just now," is her half-ventured attempt at saying that.

"I was worried," he grits out.

"I know." She withdraws her hand. "I'm a foolish woman for not appreciating your feelings."

"No. Maybe I'm the foolish one for not trusting you." And the marks fade away on their own as he masters himself. León sits up to face her, and she feels suddenly years younger and more naïve as he says, "I'm glad you're safe."

The self-possession in his eyes is far sexier than could be any rage.

In Alfonso's castle so far they've been silent to each other for two nights. It's probably to be expected, because how could he have said it to Alfonso like he did when they were on the road—one room, please? It feels different to be back with the others, not least of all because other concerns take the fore now.

But this façade is a losing game, he thinks. Ema is his ally, but not his companion, not the way Alfonso or his shitty dad are. A persistent voice, a cajoling of intuition, tells him that she could leave at any time.

The thought of them bearing out the rest of the search for Mendoza, of her afterwards leaving without some acknowledgement of everything that's happened disturbs him. (Is this how Lara felt?) So, the eyes of the others be damned, he sneaks to her room on the third night and knocks.

"Wha~t?"

He recognizes the wavering timbre of her voice, and prepares himself for the wave of boozed-up breath when she opens the door. "Drinking alone? How like you to be so uncouth even in the seat of nobility."

"Don't blame me, León. It's the universal pastime of older women," she slurs, and stumbles back inside.

He closes the door behind him and takes a look around. Actually, he's surprised things aren't more disheveled. Ema takes little with her wherever she goes, and keeps all her alchemist supplies in her coat. He sits next to her on the bed, elbows on his knees, and grunts a little when she sinks a hand into her hair.

"You're worried about your dad and Mendoza," she sighs. He nods. "Do you want me to tell you it'll be all right?"

"Only if you believe it."

"Wrong answer." She clenches her hand for a moment, and León yelps as her nails dig into his scalp, pulling him from his hunch into an upright position. "Even if I did believe it, it would be too easy an answer, hm? It may never be okay. Just as some things are bound not to last."

As she drapes her arms around him, the scent of her breath heavy with wine, he steadies himself to say what has collected in him during the past few days of silence. "I know, Ema. Don't believe it, then. I'll still make it so. And even for the things that won't last—" He is abruptly hushed when she presses a finger against his lips.

"Forget I said that," she murmurs, looking elsewhere.

"No," he says, simply. "Ema, I'll remember that it could end every moment, because it has for me, before." He kisses the side of her finger still pressed against his mouth, and then the back of her hand.

"And for me," she murmurs. "But this isn't about that, anymore."

"No," he agrees. "It isn't at all."

Gradually, the melancholy lilt fades from her eyes, and though he still cannot read them with certainty, the look in them now resembles the quiet contentment of something having been understood. She unfolds the hand he is kissing and cups it around his face.

They drop the matter, though still speaking of it in another way. Ema doesn't deal in Lara's innocent hope or Alfonso's unwavering optimism. His feelings for them are hard and mirror-bright; those for her are darker, more expansive, and smoldering around the edges with the shared acknowledgement of suffering.

Kisses are not consolation for pain, but they do respect it. Her lips move from his mouth to behind his ear, and the warmth that pools through him then seems only a mere echo of that heat. Though there are memories behind their touch, there are no longer any ghosts. The utmost edges of his skin sing to be near her; the tips of her fingers that sweep his collarbone speak a new language unto itself. And there is so much to say.