Always Too Late

a Dark Artifices/Mortal Instruments story

by EmilyHelene

I'm always too late

I see you but I always hesitate

I can't wait because never is too late.

Julian knew he had to do it eventually. If training endlessly to stay alive battling demons to protect the natural world had taught him anything, it was that it was always better to act than to wait around. At least when it came to facing a demon head on, Julian knew exactly what to do: aim for the largest area, place as much force behind the throw as possible, don't miss. When it came to facing something completely abstract like actually saying something to Emma, he was clueless. Stuff like that took a certain type of courage that always seemed to be just out of reach. As far as he was concerned, it all came down to experience and he had exactly zero.

He was going to do it soon. What other choice did he have, really? He'd turned to painting as a means of escape from his own thoughts but even that had only ended in disaster, if the dozens of half-finished, sub-par canvases were any sort of testament to his success.

The paintbrush in his hand was caked with half-dried colour and the canvas that rested atop his easel had only been partially covered in oil paints. He had been trying to recreate the battlefield after the Dark War in opposite colours, a sort of colourful irony, where the Endarkened carried flowers instead of weapons, and the eyes of the fallen were closed in slumber, not death. As a painter, he was well aware that there was more beauty in suffering than anyone really wanted to admit. Still, he did his best to focus on the positives. He'd been finishing fewer and fewer paintings these days which had started to become quite rotten for his supplies.

"Shit," he cursed, running his fingers along the bristles. The blue paint that came off was brittle and crusty. He really needed to get it together and say something to her. Preferably something coherent and preferably soon. Gauging these things was so difficult; he had been about ready to just give up on the insane idea entirely, but something kept pressing at him from beneath the surface, forcing him to keep going. Or, more accurately, someone. He stood up from his stool and walked toward the sink; maybe it wasn't too late for this brush. The water was cool and ran in a smooth, steady stream toward the drain. Near the tail-end of its descent, it turned from a sparkling clear to a brilliant blue and he stood there for a moment, drawing circles of blue in the porcelain sink like a child.

"I can do this," he whispered to the taps and their rapidly running water.

"You can do what?" Emma asked, appearing in the door frame in front of him. Julian lost his grip on the paint brush and it flew through the air, tracking blue-tinted water over the bathroom walls. Considering it was oil paint, it probably wouldn't come off easily. Uncle Arthur was most likely going to kill him.

Emma choked back a laugh, picking the brush up from the ground and handing it to her parabatai. "You okay there, Jules?" Despite the smirk, there was obvious concern in her voice. She had never seen him like this before, all antsy and shaken up. She was dressed in classic Emma-attire; a faded green T-shirt and jeans with black Converse and mismatched socks on her feet.

"Yeah, I'm all good. I just can't quite get my piece quite right and it's frustrating." He found the first excuse that seemed even remotely plausible and felt it tumble from his mouth, praying to the Angel that it sounded natural enough not to set off any warning bells. If she caught him now, he didn't think he'd be quick enough to make up a story. One look from her was enough to convince him to tell the truth for the rest of his life. He walked over to the painting and gestured toward it, as if that would explain everything to Emma whose idea of art was an expertly placed blow.

He dipped his brush in the brown and resumed painting. With his hand curved elegantly around the brush, he created swirls of colour on the thick linen. To anyone else, they probably looked like fairly standard abstract splotches of colour, but to him they were much more. If he wanted to turn the lacklustre spattering of brown into the rich, golden haze of Emma's eyes, he would be blending for hours. He'd also rather she wasn't around to see it. At least not until he made sure that her gaze had been replicated perfectly.

She rolled her eyes. Had he looked away from the painting, he would have noticed the lingering look she was giving him. He was too transfixed by the eyes on the canvas to notice that the real Emma Carstairs was looking for his undivided attention.

"Julian, can I talk to you for a second?"

He looked from the half-finished painting to Emma who stood, arms crossed, in front of him. It was no contest; when it came to capturing his attention and keeping it, Emma won every time. He looked at her, really looked at her, and walked across the room to his bed. It sunk beneath his weight when he sat down, puckering the thin fabric of his blankets.

"Yeah, sure." He patted a patch of blankets beside him, offering her a seat. When she sat, her leg grazed his sending what felt to him like a spark of electrical current through his entire body.

She looked up at him, rather than over, as he had grown several inches over the last couple of years. Her eyes were the only eyes he had ever known to contain elements that both invoked fear and provided comfort. But just then, looking into them, he couldn't decipher the message hidden in the flecks of brown and gold.

"You have a lot of gold in your eyes, you know," he pointed out, looking quickly back down at his feet. Why was he acting so timid? This was Emma, for crying out loud. This was the person to whom he had entrusted his life, who had seen the darkest parts of him and still insisted on hanging around. Fearful was the last thing he should have been and yet, there he was.

"Do I? I've never really looked at them before, honestly." From her, this didn't surprise him in the slightest. She was too busy kicking ass and taking names to both staring endlessly at her own reflection. By the Angel, why was this so difficult for him to get out. She didn't look at him, just remained staring straight ahead. Her voice took on a serious tone and she asked, "Have you ever regretted anything?"

Julian furrowed his brow in mock confusion, letting his biggest regret remain where it belonged: his thoughts. "What brought this on?" He put a comforting hand on her back, a gesture done more out of Agape than Eros. He looked at her, willing her to turn her head but her gaze remained forward.

"I'm going to say something," she said, her voice even. "And then we're going to go back to our lives like nothing happened and I didn't say anything, okay?"

"Okay," he said, nodding. A spark danced in the pit of his stomach, wondering what she was about to bring up.

"I regret becoming parabatai." Julian's mouth went dry and his stomach dropped fifteen feet. Emma was the person closest to him, the obvious choice for his bonded partner. Hurt flooded through every vein alongside his blood. Could it be because she felt something deeper for him, too? That seemed like too much wishful thinking for him. She had resumed speaking, but he was too lost in thought for anything she was saying to register. "Julian?" she asked, waving a hand in front of his face. "Are you even listening to me?"

"I'm still trying to process the fact that you regret becoming bonded as my parabatai," he answered. Emma's mouth closed softly.

"It's not because I don't like being your partner in crime, Jules. Believe me when I say that I love that more than anything. But these runes? They keep us from ever being anything more. From ever, you know." It became clear to him that this was as much as she was going to say on the topic. This was exactly what he had been wanting to hear from her and yet, something about it felt incredibly wrong. Hesitation filled him. He was torn between acting out on impulse and urging her to continue. He tried to hold his tongue, but the words toppled from his lips anyway.

"Emma, can I kiss you?" His eyes grew wide, somewhat shocked by his own gall. And just like that, the gauntlet had been thrown down. His intentions were clear, but without action, they would be in vain.

"What?" she asked, eyes bugged out of her head in genuine surprise. "Are you sure that's such a good idea?"

"Well, no. But it's not like I'm asking you to marry me."

Emma pondered that for a moment, the tiniest hint of pink spilling onto her cheeks.

"And we could just go back to normal after. No hard feelings, no weirdness." The words hurt coming out, but he didn't want to push his luck. There was no way that they could make anything of this; it was just too far to push the Clave, even for Emma.

She nodded, but there was something in her eyes that told him she was holding back.

"Emma?"

"Just kiss me if you're going to kiss me, or don't if you're not." Patience never had been her strong suit.

He leaned in, with every intention of pressing his lips to hers, but uncertainty overcame him. What would this mean for them, not as parabatai, but as people? If nothing ever came of it, then what was the point? It would just be more painful for them anyway. If he kissed her once, he wasn't sure if he'd be able to stop himself from stealing a second, and a third, and a fourth. But Emma wasn't the kind of person you wanted to steal from. His stomach began to twist and turn, seemingly folding itself in half. Even though they had said that everything would go back to normal afterward, he knew with the utmost certainty that there was nothing either of them could do to bury what had surfaced. All he wanted was for his stomach to stop churning and his head to stop spinning; maybe then he could make a logical decision about something that was, in all seriousness, completely nonsensical.

That was all fine and good, however, but what would come of him not kissing her? Nothing. They would go back to how they used to be (or as close as possible to how things were before) and carry on living. He would merely entertain the thought of kissing her, and probably kick himself for being a chicken. He wished he knew what Emma was thinking; whether she wanted to know what it felt like to kiss him as much as he longed for the feeling of her lips. This was pure torture.

Humans had been painting two people kissing since the earliest days of their existence, the medium transforming from cave walls to stretched canvas. There was so much a painting could capture, but it would never really express the anticipation leading up to the moment itself. He could feel himself shaking and wondered for a moment if she could tell. Judging by her shy expression, he guessed that she couldn't. To kiss or not to kiss? Well wasn't that the million-dollar question.

"Julian!" she said, pulling him from his thoughts.

"Just forget it, Em. It was stupid. We can't." He looked at her but he couldn't tell if he was embarrassed about not kissing her, or embarrassed because he had even asked. "I don't even know why I asked."

Emma's brown eyes hardened and he couldn't remember having ever been the target of their harshness. It was a foreign feeling, and admittedly not a very nice one.

"I don't know why you asked either." She was lying, and he knew it. She had always been able to see through him, even when no one else could, his emotions veiled only by tracing paper.

And with that, she got up and walked out of his room, taking the best chance he ever had of having her with her.