(In which Emile and Leo dance (if you can call it that).)
‘It’s like a dance,’ Leo says, and immediately regrets his choice of word, just as quickly as Emile is to roll his eyes.
‘I don’t dance.’
‘Of course you don’t,’ Leo mutters, and Emile has the nerve to laugh, triumphant and oh so smug, oh so impossible. ‘It’s not really a dance. But it’s been known to help when you think of it as one.’
Emile grunts, and thankfully, it seems to be all the protest he had left in his system. He gets off the ground, grabbing Leo’s extended hand as he wipes the leftover grass off the back of his trousers with the other, stumbling just a bit too close to Leo in the process, but neither of them bothers to complain. Leo reaches for Emile’s other hand, and there they stand, face to face, Emile a few inches smaller than him, but the defiance, the fire in his eyes always make him seem larger than himself, larger than life. It’s what makes him so unavoidable, what makes him so indelible.
‘What now?’ Emile asks after long seconds, after twining their fingers together (Did he mean to do that? Leo can’t help but wonder), after noticing he’s gotten lost in the depth of Leo’s gaze for just a bit too long, after vehemently shaking his head, shaking the beads of vulnerability off his cheeks.
‘Now, we feel.’ A pause. ‘And if you say you don’t feel, I am throwing you off this cliff,’ he adds before Emile has the time to say exactly that, if the look of surprise, then of surrender and amusement on his face is to be trusted.
‘Too slow,’ he whispers with a bashful smile.
Here they are, then, hands in hands, eyes closed, swerving softly to the sound of unheard music, to the rhythm of the gusts of wind caught in the nearing trees, in Leo’s hair, under the soft fabric of Emile’s shirt. They feel it, so distinctly, the raw energy coursing through them, one and the same, all the inhibitions, all the oppositions of which Emile has been built, vanished for an instant.
Emile takes the lead, closes his eyes, inhales sharply. Leo feels his own legs moving backwards, falling in perfect sync with the movement of Emile’s own before Emile even needs to say the word, to share his intentions, because Leo already knows. Because this is what bondforging is, at its barest. It’s knowing without word, and sharing without question. They move as one, a push and pull that grows less and less noticeable each passing day, and when Leo wordlessly asks him to let go of his hands, Emile complies, holding the reins still. He takes control of Leo’s body from a distance, moving in a wide circle as they move further and further apart, yet Leo has never felt so close, has never felt such warmth.
He knows Emile feels it too, the perfect unison in which they move, in the way his eyes widen, in the way his expression softens, his smile slowly spreads as he successfully makes Leo move, a perfect mirror of his own body, as he makes him twirl, just to test the extent of his hold, to see what he can get away with.
‘So you do dance after all,’ Leo teases once they’ve split. ‘If you can call it that.’
‘I need to keep some the mystery alive,’ Emile says with a cock of the eyebrow. ‘What with you being in my head and all.’
‘Ass,’ Leo simply scoffs, and when Emile laughs in return, loud and bright and unrestrained, Leo feels that familiar shiver course through his entire body.
Did he mean to do that? Leo can’t help but wonder as they walk back to the camp, as their shoulders bump, fingers graze, steps fall into an easy sync.
(In which Emile tries, really tries not to like Leo.)
I don’t have to love him, Emile thinks, over and over again, until the words lose meaning, a bothersome sequence of rhythms and sounds that still won’t leave him in peace. He ruminates the thought until the shift of the wind pushes the thick smoke from the dying fire he’s supposed to guard into his eyes, a rude reminder that brooding isn’t the sole reason he’s awake.
It’s not always a romantic bond, sure, but none of the many bondforgers he knows have ever felt compelled to mark that distinction, none of them have ever bonded with someone they didn’t love, sooner or later.
It doesn’t mean I have to do the same, he thinks harder as he reaches for a log without raising from his spot and tosses it into the fire pit, small flecks of ember flying up in erratic swirls as he does, a small reaction that usually does a bit more for his mood than the nothing he’s currently experiencing.
He can hear Saga and Rhianon’s steady breathing behind him, sleeping just a touch closer to each other than they need to, to prove him wrong, perhaps, to rub salt in a wound he thought healed over long ago.
I don’t have to love him, he thinks, we don’t even have to be friends, he lies. He can see the frame of Leo’s back in the quivering light of the newborn flames as he attempts to eat up those words he knows to be fundamentally untrue.
‘You could at least try,’ Leo had told him earlier today, his voice even, always so even, and those were the last words he’d spoken to Emile all day. Good riddance, Emile had thought then (and he knows, oh he knows that Leo felt it), still thinks now as he tries to ignore the shadow Leo’s silence is beginning to cast over the both of them.
Leo talks a lot about trying. About opening, and giving and taking, about water and wine, and how the mixture isn’t always as offensive as Emile remembers it to be.
‘I’ve tasted it once and have been sick ever since,’ he’d told Leo some weeks ago, on a particularly frustrating day, with all the smugness he could muster. The look on Leo’s face then had stuck with him, somehow, not quite angry, not quite hurt, but inexplicable enough that Emile now regrets making the quip in the first place.
(He doesn’t regret it enough to apologize. Never enough to apologize.)
He can hear Saga’s voice, calling him petulant and selfish, or his mother’s, sighing something or other about stubbornness and spite. He dislikes the criticism, but would hate to prove them wrong even more.
He hates this, all of this. Hates Leo’s hovering, the words he uses, the way he moves, like his feet barely graze the muddy road they walk on, the way the long strands of his hair dance in every gust of wind… He hates the way magic, in all of its shapes, his own, Emile’s, even Saga’s and Rhi’s, speaks to him, like an old friend, easy as the beating of his heart.
He hates the way it feels, when Leo tries to bond with him. Hates how pleasant and inviting it always is, like arms bound around his chest, pulling ever so slightly towards a warmth that’s too comforting, too natural, too good to be sincere.
He also hates how easily Leo gives in, on the rare occasion Emile does initiate the bond.
I don’t have to love him, Emile thinks, his eyes lingering just a touch too long on the slim frame of Leo’s back. He’s not sleeping, Emile can tell from the tension still present in his shoulders, one that always seems to disappear in the blissfulness of sleep. Yet here he is, pretending he can’t hear Emile’s restless bustling, as if trying to prove that two can play this stupid game Emile has been set on winning since the second they realized that they were compatible.
Emile can admit, in more vulnerable moments, that he knows he’s being an idiot. He can admit it, but that’s already more than Leo needs to know. None of Emile should matter to Leo, as far as Emile is concerned, yet here he is, firm and relentless, with his heart right there, out in the open for Emile to mess with as he pleases.
Emile doesn’t quite have it in him to push him away, but can’t stand him being so close. He wants him far and wants him near, wants to be left alone, but can’t bear the thought that Leo might actually listen, one day.
Maybe he does have to like him, eventually. Maybe he will come to love him, even, soon or later. Maybe it’s inevitable.
Still, it doesn’t mean he needs to be happy about it.
He hates how easily Leo accepts his fate, how willing he is to build any sort of bridge between them, as shoddy and unstable as it might be. Emile doesn’t go out of his way to destroy them per se, but the way he refuses to budge, refuses to meet him in the middle, garners the same result.
He doesn’t know, Emile thinks. Doesn’t know what it’s like to slam every door and window open with a confidence that only comes from an unscathed heart, to invite another one in without question, only to be met with nothing but the bite of a northern squall that wraps around your bones, leaving you sick and unwilling to leave the house ever again. Leo doesn’t know, and it sickens Emile that he would be so willing to run that risk.
But then again…
Emile closes his eyes, focuses on the threads of golden filaments that stretch out between them. He can see them so clearly, when he bothers to try. That angers him, too, how bright and alluring the threads have been, of late, much brighter than it’s ever been.
(Far more deadly, if it were to sever and recoil right in his face.)
He did pay attention to what Leo had to say before, about bondforging, and threads of magic, and the way most spend a lifetime untangling the ties and loops and knots and false destinations, in search for the other end of that single, sturdy, stubborn rope. He closes his eyes and can sense it the way he senses the wind in his hair and the kiss of sunlight against his skin. Undeniable, unavoidable.
He can feel the faint tug of Leo’s presence at all times, too, much more noticeable now that they’re forced to be in each other’s presence every day. He can feel it, and he can feel the sense of solace and peace it brings him, whether he cares to admit it or not.
Emile stands clear of the thread as much as possible, avoids touching it too much if he can help it. It’s easier that way, easier than thinking of all the different ways things could go wrong if he did.
But most days aren’t like this. Leo doesn’t go to sleep without a word on most days. Leo doesn’t refuse to talk, to meet his eyes, on most days.
As much as Emile hates to admit it, something is amiss when Leo decides to play along with his idiotic games.
Maybe diluted wine isn’t so bad, every once in a while.
Emile closes his eyes, wraps himself in gold and warmth, and gives it a small tug, light and cautious.
He doesn’t miss the way Leo immediately responds to his feeble attempt at parley, doesn’t miss how he startles at the touch.
‘Leo,’ he hisses, careful not to wake the others. ‘Leo I know you’re awake,’ he adds when Leo still refuses to turn around.
‘What?’ he asks after long seconds, after slowly sitting up, after spending long seconds trying to decide whether he wants to face Emile or not, after deciding it’s the right thing to do, as unpleasant as the thought might be.
(‘Some unpleasant things are still necessary,’ Emile remembers Leo telling him once, and while he had scoffed then, he finds himself in agreement now, but one concession at a time is more than enough.)
‘…Hi.’
‘Hi.’
Silence again, as has been the theme today, a silence Emile has caused, a silence Emile knows he needs to break.
‘Can we… can we try again? In the morning?’
More silence, not quite so thick, not quite so loaded.
‘I’d like that,’ Leo finally responds with a shadow of a smile, leaning back onto both elbows.
‘Excellent,’ Emile says. And when Leo doesn’t move, when he continues to look at him as if attempting to pry more words out of him, he adds a quick ‘Goodnight.’
‘…Goodnight,’ Leo finally responds, leaving the standoff with Emile’s stubbornness for another day.
Emile doesn’t miss the way Leo turns around to face the campfire, as he normally does, the way his eyes are hooked onto Emile right until they close, the way his features soften as soon as he does, the way the tension in his shoulders seem to vanish with each exhale.
I don’t have to love him, Emile thinks once more, but the curse seems to be lifted, if only for a little while.
