The Rock That Breaks the Waves

a Dark Artifices story

by EmilyHelene

"I hate you, Julian!" Tiberius screamed, throwing his stuffed Bee at his brother. He stormed out of the room, his footsteps echoing off the thick stone walls of the Institute. Each word struck him, stinging more than words could say. "You killed him. You killed him while I watched."

"Ty—" he started, but Julian knew fighting back would get him nowhere. When Tiberius was in a mood, he would alert everyone in the household. This was no mood, though; this was something else entirely. Julian stood in the middle of the hallway, completely blindsided by the harshness of Ty's outburst. He wished Emma were there. She and Livvy had gone out for the day and he was nearly certain he wouldn't see her until night fell.

He dragged himself back to his room, trying not to let the pain he felt redefine his features. If one of the younger Blackthorns saw him, he didn't want them to think even for a moment that something was wrong. He needed to have it together because that's what older siblings do. He couldn't afford to falter, not after everything that they had been through together.

Still, seeing Emma would have eased the tension in his brow and reminded him that the voice at the back of his head telling him that he was failing his brother was not in fact, truthful. He couldn't wait to see her, but wait he had to do.

The painting came out messier than he had intended, the lines harsh and stark rather than fluid and well-blended. He wasn't sure who he was trying to replicate on the canvas, but whoever it was, he was sure the painting wasn't accurate. The eyes were off slightly as well, abnormally round and slightly more two-dimensional than he would have liked.

He called out, in anger and frustration, kicking over the cup of brushes filled with slightly pigmented water. In seconds it seemed, the water was everywhere, drops of different colours filling the grout lines in the marble floor of his second-floor bedroom.

He picked up the nearest brush and threw it at the wall, colour exploding from the individual fibres. The remnants of watered down paint dripped from the walls, creating intricate smear marks and dried pathways of colour. It felt good to throw something; maybe this was how Emma felt when she snuck away to throw knives. Each one was like the release of even just a small part of his pent-up frustration.

How was he supposed to do this? He wasn't a parent; he was sixteen years old and terrified. The face of the Endarkened warrior who was once his father haunted him daily. The image of him towering over Tiberius, willing to strike out against his son sent shivers down Julian's spine. The sound the knife made when it pierced his flesh played on a loop in Julian's mind, guilt bubbling up within him like water in a kettle.

He needed a cigarette.

Before he realized what was happening, he found himself walking to the roof and pulling the pack of Marlboro black menthol clove cigarettes out of the back pocket of his jeans. Feeling the tightly rolled cigarette between his fingers, his muscles started to relax immediately, tension beginning to fade from his shoulders.

When he lit it up and breathed in the thick combination of tobacco and cloves, the weight of the world seemed to lift off his shoulder, if only for a moment.

Emma hated when he smoked; she said it would be the death of him. Seeing as she willingly threw herself into battles with demons easily fifteen times her size, he didn't exactly have her pinned down as the best person to be defining life-threatening activities.

The cigarette felt familiar between his lips, like a welcome escape. His breath came out in a cloud of smoke and it danced around his face for a moment before fading out into oblivion.

"Thought I might find you up here," Emma said, wrinkling her nose at the cigarette smoke in the air. He whirled around to face her and saw that her cheeks were flush pink and her cotton t-shirt and jeans were slightly torn and caked with dirt.

"Did you just get back?" he asked, surprised by her sudden arrival. "…and since when did a girls day out involve so much dirt?"

She walked closer to him and coughed, waving the away as best as she could earning an eye roll from her parabatai. It was accompanied however by the guilty, tentative smile that had become his signature those days. She did what she could to quell the warmth that bubbled up inside of her stomach, which admittedly wasn't much, but at least she was trying.

"Yeah, Livvy's downstairs. We managed to pick up a few things but we ran into some…trouble on Sunset Boulevard."

"Ah, the true definition of trouble in paradise, I see," he joked, taking another puff of the cigarette. "It's a good look for you."

She punched him in the shoulder. "Shut up." Much to Julian's immense irritation, the cigarette, which up and until that point had been dangling precariously in his mouth, fell to the ground."How was your day?"

He bent down and picked up his fallen comrade and ran a hand through his messy hair. He couldn't remember the last time he had brushed it.

At her question, Julian turned his gaze back toward the skyline. "It was fine."

"Bullshit." She had no verbal filter; he had always admired her brutal honestly but right then, it sounded like a challenge that he just wasn't up for. This wasn't just anyone, though, this was Emma.

"It's just…it gets really hard, you know? I have no idea what I'm doing and I'm failing them. I can feel myself failing them." The words seemed to tumble from his mouth and he was powerless to hold them back. He kept his eyes fixed on the view and his hands held steadfast on the metal of the Los Angeles Institue balcony railing. He tossed the cigarette to the pavement several stories below and it dropped soundlessly, rapidly becoming nothing more than a speck against a world of grey.

He felt her hands wrap around his waist and for a moment, he didn't mind that everything with his family seemed to be falling out of place. Standing there with her in that moment felt so right. He wished he could stay there forever. Slowly, she began to trace a series of letters across his back, something they hadn't done since they were children.

I-T-S-O-K-A-Y she wrote, I-A-M-R-I-G-H-T-H-E-R-E.

He turned to face her and held her close, burying his face in her long blonde curls. "It's just too much sometimes, Em," he whispered, voice thick with emotion. "I can't do it."

Julian nearly never showed this vulnerable side of him to anyone and she was surprised by the desperation that coated his words. He needed her and she didn't know what to do; she didn't have an answer for him.

"You're not alone, you know." Her voice was soft and he felt her breath tickle the hairs on his neck. A shiver ran down his spine and he couldn't quite tell if it was from the cooling California evening or Emma's soothing words. "I'm always going to be here for you." She touched the rune on his neck, the one that bound them indefinitely. "We're forever, Jules. I'm not going anywhere and we can get through this together, just like we always have. Tiberius looks up to you, I know he does. He thinks you've always got it together and everything that is a struggle for him comes naturally to you. You don't have to be the strong one all the time." He pulled away from her for a moment, looking at her like she had all the answers. "The only person who expects that from you is yourself, Jules. It's killing you, I can see it. Don't let it. Do what we do best," she said, gripping his hands tightly within her own. "Fight it."

"Emma—" he started, but she cut him off with a shake of her head.

"You've done it for me," she said, and he realized in an instant that she was right. In the months following her parents deaths, he had woken up in the middle of the countless times to the sound of his best friend screaming. Most nights she woke suddenly in a frenzied panic and he felt powerless against the nightmares that plagued her on a daily basis. The best he could do was sit up with her, hold her when she needed him, and known when to back out when she didn't.

"I don't know what I'd do without you, Em. You really mean the world to me, you know that?"

"You would do absolutely shit all without me, Julian Blackthorn, and that is a fact. But yeah," she said, her voice growing soft again, "ditto."

It was only then that she noticed the bags under his eyes. "Someone looks like they could use a nap…" She led him by the hand away from the rooftop that held all of his troubles. "Everything will seem better in the morning."

"Would you mind…crashing in my room tonight? I just don't know…" Vulnerability painted his features and one look in his eyes told her that he had aged more in the past five years than likely should have. She reached up, standing on her tiptoes, and planted a chaste kiss to his cheek.

"I wasn't under the impression that I was going to be anywhere else, Jules." She smiled at him, a genuine grin, and it made him feel instantly better. She almost never gave those out but when she did, it felt as though he was standing in his own personal ray of sunshine.

"Just don't take all the blankets again, okay? And no more sleeping in my boxer shorts," he added, joking with her. He didn't care what she was wearing, so long as she was there with him. "It's weird. And you always manage to cause me some sort of bodily harm while I sleep."

Her tone was playful. "No promises."

As always, thanks for taking the time out of your day to review my stories. I'm just on a Blackstairs kick lately so I apologize if the update emails keep filling your inboxes with a ship that you don't even know.

Reviews make my day and I'm working all weekend so they could help ease the pain. In the meantime...

Happy Writing,

EmilyHelene