I Am Ruined (TDA Lord of Shadows Sequel)

[ X ] Coming Clean

The room was silent for a moment before Ty spoke, "And? You and Emma kind of always break the law. We all do."

"Yeah, we'd be more concerned if you weren't breaking a law." Dru chimed in, but despite her and Ty's unruffled looks, Mark, Cristina, and Kit froze. They knew exactly what they were confessing. Kieran remained fixated on anything but the conversation.

"It's- it's not like that." Emma began, wanting to get it over with sooner rather than later, "We've been breaking the rules of parabatai."

Ty look unconvinced, "Like the oath? You are always there for each other; Whither thou goest I shall go."

Julian and Emma exchanged a glance; Ty had always been great at deduction, but with people close to him, secrets were almost hidden in plain sight. Emma was worried that he would be angry at Julian for lying to him, especially as fragile as he was after Livvy's death. Kit groaned in impatience at the silence, "By the Angel, I saw them kissing in Emma's bedroom."

At that, everyone in the room froze. Kit seemed to realize immediately he shouldn't have stated it so tactlessly. His sky blue eyes opened wide as he apologized, feeling Julian's harsh gaze on him. Emma, however, just laughed. She laughed. She didn't know why she laughed, everything about the situation was horrible but all the anxiety came bubbling to the surface and escaped in a fit of giggles.

Kieran glanced over at the two of them, "You are lovers?" Ty was looking between Emma and Julian as if trying to see something tangible between them, a change in the air or something.

"Julian and I are in love. We have been, for a while now. And not in the way parabatai should be." Emma said, seeing Julian snap his gaze towards her. Why did he look so startled? They agreed to tell everyone, surely this was better than Julian and Kit's explanation.

"You're in love? But you're like our sister-" Dru started, Julian snapped out of his trance and chuckled awkwardly.

"Uh Emma is like your sister, not mine." He rubbed the back of his neck and was actually blushing. Julian never blushed and it warmed her heart at the uncharacteristic embarrassment.

Ty was still looking at them, his dark eyebrows furrowed, "I thought we all kind of knew that deep down. I mean, the way you look at each other it never seems like friends. I just figured we didn't say anything because it was technically illegal. But we're family, we want you to be happy." He said it so matter-of-factly that Julian's expression was left unguarded, radiating love and relief.

"This doesn't explain what happened out there, though. With the riders." Cristina asked, even more confused than she had seemed when she first came in.

And so Emma explained, the whole situation with the parabatai curse. How they knew it made them stronger but they didn't realize how strong until now. And how it would inevitably
destroy them. She only gave a brief description, leaving out the part about them destroying everyone they love. Tavvy was in the room and Emma didn't want to scare him. And in some part of herself, she was more than scared to tell them. At some point during her explanation, Kieran had averted his attention to the conversation. Julian wondered if he already knew about the curse existing or was just hearing about it now.

"So the runes glowing? That is from the curse? Well how do you stop it?" Kit was sitting on the arm of Ty's chair now, a weight lifted from his chest from no longer having to keep the secret from Ty.

Julian sat down on the table behind him, defeated, "We- we don't know."

"You thought no longer being in love would fix it? And that is why we pretended to date, Em?" Mark asked.