First Kiss - Los Angeles Institute, 2008

"Can I kiss you?"

Sitting on the training room floor next to her newly minted parabatai, thirteen year old Emma Carstairs twisted sharply to face him. "What?"

If Julian found her tone off-putting, he didn't show it. He leaned backward, hands braced on the mat beneath him, and gave her a long, level look with his teal eyes. "I asked if I could kiss you."

"Why?" she demanded.

Julian shrugged his skinny shoulders. He'd had another growth spurt over the past couple of months, and the three inches of height he'd gained made him look even thinner than usual. "Just to see what it's like."

"But kissing is..." Emma searched her mind for the right descriptor. "Gross."

Not that she hadn't thought about it before. Not kissing Jules, exactly – but a year ago, she had drifted off into the occasional fantasy where she was kissing his brother, Mark. Emma neglected to tell him this, though. Mark was a sensitive subject around the Los Angeles Institute since the cataclysmic events of the war with Sebastian Morgenstern.

"How do you know?" said Julian, warming to the topic. "Have you ever tried it?"

Her honest answer was no. But she didn't want to give it, for some reason. "But you're my parabatai."

"So?"

"So... we're not supposed to kiss. It's against the rules."

"It's against the rules to be in love," he argued. "The Clave didn't say anything about kissing."

It was hard, Emma thought, to have a debate with Jules when he was in one of these moods. She tried, anyway. "But you're supposed to kiss people you're in love with."

Julian lifted one dark eyebrow at her. "You think that Helen was in love with anyone she kissed before Aline? Or Mark with..." He broke off suddenly, his face twisting into a grimace of pain. He hadn't meant to bring up his brother, by all accounts lost to them forever. Emma laid one hand on his shoulder, squeezing it gently in silent support.

And then she realised the implication behind his words. Mark had kissed girls. It wasn't surprising – he was very good-looking – but the thought made Emma feel strangely hollow inside. Julian didn't appear to have noticed. His Blackthorn eyes were downcast, face crumpled up in pain.

Looking at Jules when he was upset was like a fist slowly squeezing Emma's heart into pulp. She would've done anything to take that look off his face.

"Alright."

"Huh?"

"You can kiss me, if you really want to."

Julian seemed to brighten considerably. "You mean it?"

"Yeah." Emma rolled her brown eyes. "I don't see what the big deal is, but fine." She swivelled to face him on the mat, shrugging her shoulders. "Let's get this over with."

Jules grinned, sitting forward. Their faces were only a couple of inches apart at this angle, and Emma could see little things about him that she'd never really noticed before. Like how long his dark eyelashes were, or the one solitary freckle on his cheek. It made her feel slightly strange.

Julian tilted his head to the left, and held it there for a few seconds. Emma watched him as he frowned, and tilted instead to the right.

"What are you doing?" she asked impatiently. "You look like a bird."

"How are you meant to tilt your head?" he asked her. "Left or right?"

Emma sighed in exasperation. "I don't know."

"Well, which way do girls usually tilt their heads?"

"I've never asked." She considered for a moment. "Go right."

"My right, or your right?"

"Julian. Do you want to do this or not?"

He smiled sheepishly, which made Emma smile in return. It was a rare occurrence these days, seeing Jules smile. When he smiled, it was like he put his entire soul into it, and Emma couldn't help but smile back. Like a reflex.

"Okay," Jules breathed. "Here goes nothing."

Well, that's romantic, Emma thought, before she reminded herself that it wasn't supposed to be romantic. Because it was Julian, and because this was nothing more than an experiment in gratifying his ever-insatiable curiosity.

Jules leaned forward, pressing his lips against hers. They both froze there for a moment, unsure of what to do next. All Emma could see was his blue-green eyes blinking back at her from far, far too close a distance. Tentatively, Jules moved his lips against hers, and Emma was struck by how soft they were – softer than she'd expected. She was going cross-eyed trying to keep watching him, so after a second's deliberation, she closed her eyelids.

And then, somehow, they were kissing. Uncertainly at first, but the pressure increased, and Emma found that some deep-seated instinct took over. Their mouths moved against each other, and it felt easy, she thought, as natural as breathing. Julian's mouth opened, coaxing Emma's with it, and their breath mingled together, hot and tingly.

And then she felt something warm and wet sliding over her tongue. She jerked back in surprise.

Julian frowned at her questioningly. His lips were damp from where they had been kissing.

"What," she demanded, "was that?"

"What was what?"

"You put your tongue in my mouth!"

Jules rolled his eyes. "It's what you're supposed to do."

"Yuck." Emma thought it over for a moment. "Really?"

"Yeah."

She huffed again, thinking that she did far too much for Jules sometimes. "Okay, fine. I guess you can, then."

His eyes sparkled impishly. "This is the most unromantic kiss ever."

"Hey, you're the one who said that..."

"I'm joking," he chuckled. And, Emma realised with a start, he was. Really, truly joking, for the first time in... well, it felt like forever. She suddenly felt the need to prolong the moment for as long as she could.

She tilted her head back to its previous position. "Quickly, then."

Jules kissed her again, and this time, when his tongue flicked into her mouth, Emma didn't jerk away. She had a brief few seconds of thinking this is really disgusting, before it actually started to feel okay. Better than okay, really. It felt... well, she had never felt anything quite like it.

Her arms came up to lock around Julian's shoulders, and she decided impulsively to use her own tongue, stroking his back. It sent a slight shiver through Jules, which in turn made Emma's heart hiccup in her chest. The kiss went on, and Emma was overtaken with a swooping sensation, a feeling that she had just plunged off a cliff and was hurtling towards the ground at a million miles an hour...

She broke away, gasping for air. Julian sat back, leaning on his palms again and looking fairly pleased with himself. Emma's cheeks were burning, and yet, she was shivering – she felt hot and cold at the same time.

"Well," she said, and embarrassingly discovered that her voice was shaking. "Are you happy now?"

"Hm. Yeah, I guess."

"You guess?" She rounded on him, a flame of self-doubt licking up her spine. "Didn't you enjoy it?"

"Yeah..." It was only then that Emma noticed the puzzling expression on his face. She knew Jules better than anyone else in the world, but she had never seen that look before. There was an emotion in his eyes, one she had no name for. "It was weird. But good-weird, I think."

"Good-weird," she echoed. It seemed accurate. Was the alien, twisting feeling in her insides just an effect of the kiss, then, not because of Julian himself? She hoped so. "You... don't want to do that again, do you?"

"No," Jules said decisively. "I... don't think that would be a good idea." He gave her an odd look. "I'm going to go and find Ty. See you at dinner?"

Before Emma could answer, Julian was on his feet and sweeping out of the training room. As soon as he was gone, Emma flopped back on the mat. Dejection and hurt and relief and a million other emotions she couldn't separate buzzed around her head like a swarm of bees. She took a deep breath, then another, and continued until she felt somewhere close to calm again.

Julian had been right, she thought. It would be a terrible idea for that to happen again.

A/N: Couldn't resist writing a little bit of BlackStairs feels. Why must Lady Midnight be so far away?