Exit Signs I Missed (A Dark Artifices Fanfiction) ✔️

Carves Into My Hollow Chest

"Mark?" Julian entered his room after a soft knock and Mark's whispered permission for entry.

The elder Blackthorn could imagine thousands of nights, five years of moments like this, his gentle brother - not so gentle anymore, he thought ruefully - and his four children, the darkness and Julian's voice comforting or amusing or simply his quiet presenche. Julian as all that stood between Drusilla-and-Livia-and-Tiberius-and-Tavvy and peril or fear or imagined terrors. Now Julian was the oldest, Mark thought, the shadows under his eyes, the voice of his that was so like their father's, the dangerous secrets he kept all attesting to that. Or had he always been like this, the responsible one, the ruthless one, the one who did what had to be done without complaint or argument?

"Yes, Julian?" His voice was anticipation itself, on an edge waiting to break or fall, not knowing which would hurt more.

"I'm sorry." An apology? This simple statement jarred Mark out of his drowsiness, sounded ridiculous echoing in his mind - suddenly guilty of a thousand things, undeserving of any of his brother's apologies.

"Whatever for?" Mark sat up slowly, thinking about the whip marks on Julian's back and Emma's, and that no amount of apologies, empty pointless words could take back the lashes. "Julian, there is nothing you need to be sorry for - "

"Yes, Mark. There is." The rustling sound of the coverlet, Julian moving closer to him, like he was hoping to be hurt, hoping for recompense to his guilt. "I left you. The day Jonathan Morgenstern came to the Institute, the Portal was open. Emma was worried about you. She wanted to go back for you. The Portal was only going to hold for a few minutes, I thought for a moment that maybe there was enough time to get you - and I would have, if it was only me. But it was Emma. I wasn't going to leave her. I was selfish; I didn't want to go through if she didn't; I didn't want her to go back for you if that meant she didn't make it to Idris." A pause, a quiet sob. "I should have gone back for you."

"Julian. My gentle brother." The darkness gave him time. Everything was slower in it, as if words took more time, in the dark, to find their destination, to travel through ears into minds and hearts. He had time to think, about what words would heal his brother. "You did what you had to. You have always done what has to be done. What if you had gone back for me? Jonathan Morgenstern would have turned you and Emma both, two Shadowhunters down and one left to the Hunt. It is I who should be sorry, brother. For when I returned... I know you were not expecting me to be as I was. You had hoped, if not expected, me to be capable of caring for you, capable of doing what you have done so well these past five years. And I was..." He smiled, then, a sad and bitter expression, hidden in the night. "I was not. I was only one more burden for you to shoulder."

"Mark." Julian's tone was admonishing, and once again, Mark saw a glimpse of Andrew Blackthorn in his younger brother, recalling Octavian looking at Julian the way Mark had Andrew: in awe, seeking approval, praise. "Mark, don't you ever call yourself a burden. You're family. We love you. Tavvy, Dru, Livvy, Ty... Raziel, Ty loves you so much. And Emma, too, obviously." Mark thought he detected a strange emotion in Julian's voice... jealousy? "I love you."

"I love you as well."

With those words, he thought back to the last person he'd spoken them to: Kieran.

:::

"You love me?" Kieran looked at him in disbelief. Faeries rarely showed such emotion, hardly ever wore their hearts on their sleeves - sometimes, before he had met Kieran, he'd wondered if they had hearts.

Mark looked back at him, trying to display as much honesty, pour out as much love as he could in his steady gaze. "I have never lied to you, have I?"