Another Night In (Michael/Dare)

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

Dare felt so many things when Michael had said those three words--This is Emily--that at first, he'd been unable to breathe. Then his eyes fell, and he took the drawing in, a handcrafted image of the girl for whom Michael had given himself to the Death Eaters. She was beautiful, but the drawing was so much more than that, it was the pure joy on her face that Michael had captured. "She's beautiful," Dare said, refusing to speak in the past tense. He wouldn't try to diminish her in Michael's eyes.

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

Michael nodded, smiling softly as he turned the page to another of her, and another. "I sneaked her into one of the rooms upstairs one day," he said, pausing at one of her laying laughing again, she had always laughed, across an old plush armchair. "Of course, dad found out," he said, turning another page to a picture of the man. Though it had been so long since Michael had looked through the book, he still knew where everything was.

"He wasn't too happy about it, scared to death she was going to turn us in." The page caught the suppressed anger, it was always suppressed, at least in front of people. When he was alone with Michael he would let it show, and his empty brown eyes, the ones he had given Michael, who had somehow filled them, would ice over. His straight nose would flair and it seemed like his mahogany hair would fly behind him in anger. Michael turned the page.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

"So she knew?" Dare asked. Obviously she had found out later on, at the very least before her death, but Dare didn't know the whole story. He was cautious in the asking, knowing how much all of it still hurt, but the fact that Michael had smiled for that picture gave him hope that it wasn't all painful. Dare really believed that Michael had loved Emily. Dare's hand shifted against Michael's knee, just slightly, renewing the comfort and connection between them.

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

"I don't know, honestly," Michael said, looking up at Dare. "She was really innocent. For an auror's daughter she didn't know much about the darker side of the world." He remembered how she would laugh off his assertions that his father would be angry for her being there, or when he was so urgent in getting her to leave before the man came home. He focused on the page in front of him, Soren with his wand raised, with a strange figure meant to be Michael beside him, learning. It was so easy to forget, how Michael had actually gotten along with his father at times.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

Dare looked down at the page as well, absorbing, trying to learn as much as he could without asking too many questions. He could see the resemblances between Michael and his father, could see subtle things in the way he held himself, in the tension of certain muscles in the face and the relaxation of others. In the way he held his wand. It was strange how much of Michael he could see in the picture, even if the Michael at his side was so completely different. Dare smoothed his hand against Michael again, lightly encouraging him.

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

Michael brought his eyes up from the page and looked at Dare, just the simple motion of Dare's hand bringing immeasurable comfort to him. He leaned over and pressed his lips lightly to Dare's cheek, and the corner of his mouth quirked up slightly when he met Dare's eyes before turning his own back to the book. He turned a few pages, drawings of Emily and his father mixed together in a confusing blend. Then there was one of Emilian with that girl, Tatyana, dancing. "That was the only girl I ever saw him with more than two or three times before Adara," he said, flicking his eyes up at Dare. "Well...other than Carolynn, but she's another story entirely."

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

Dare's eyebrows rose again. "And how long has he been with Adara?" Dare knew they'd been together at least a couple months, though seeing them together it looked like far longer. The two did plenty of wordless communication, from what he'd seen, something you couldn't really do until you knew someone. Michael had said that Emilian had never been close to someone else, but then, he'd said that he'd been... friends, for lack of a better word with that Mano guy. Things really didn't get less complex the more Dare learned about them. He didn't mind, though. He found it all interesting.

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

"Wow, I don't know..." Michael stared blankly at the book in front of him, sorting through memories to see if he could figure it out. "The first time I saw them together...was way back in December. But I don't think they were actually together, then, he acted like she was just another one of his girls. A couple of weeks later I saw him in the Shrieking Shack, and he seemed really into her. I don't know when they officially got together, I think it was after his big fight with Chase back in March." Of course, Michael had just started speaking to Emilian with any kind of regularity the past few months, so he wasn't a good one to ask.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

"That's pretty impressive, all things considered," Dare said. Actually, all things considered, it sounded like a miracle--an anomaly, even--but Dare didn't think that needed said. "But you said he was with--using the term loosely--this girl more than a few times, too?" Dare asked, turning the conversation back toward Michael's book. As much as he was interested in the dynamics between Emilian and Adara, it wasn't enough to sit there pumping Michael for information.

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

"Yeah, I think it was because she didn't just do whatever he said like a lot of the others did." Michael shrugged and reached for the edge of the page. "It wasn't, like, a relationship or anything, but if he saw her, she'd probably end up in bed with him that night." And it had ended when the girl had decided she liked being with Mano more than Emilian, "She was with Mano, the last I heard." That hadn't made Emilian very happy.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

Dare nodded, but couldn't think of anything really to say to that. He still thought it sounded exhausting always being on the hunt for sex, even if it sounded like Emilian hadn't had to work too hard to accomplish his goals. Dare didn't make any connection whatsoever to his near-desperate pursuit of Michael. Michael was his boyfriend, so it made perfect sense in his mind. Dare continued the light motions of his hand against Michael's knee absently as he looked over the drawing one last time.

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

Michael had hoped that Dare would ask more about Emilian, or perhaps latch on to the idea of Carolynn, but it hadn't happened, so Michael couldn't think of any way to postpone turning the page. He sighed softly and tuned it, the strange happiness that had been in the previous drawing immediately forgotten for the darkness of the next. It was a painful scene, so much had happened between the two, a whirlwind few days during which Michael had made stupid decisions, but they had made so much sense at the time, hadn't they?

It was a dark room, with a huddled figure in one corner, the faint outline of curly hair just visible in the small unnatural light coming from one wand held by one man in a pair. It held so much detail, everything stood out in his mind perfectly, painfully. His muscles tensed as he stared down at it, trying to fight the vivid memory from his mind.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

Dare knew the subject of the drawing immediately, even in the deep shadows that filled the page. He recognized it, and his breath caught. This was more than a drawing, far more, like everything else he'd seen in the book, and yet unlike anything he'd seen. The pain was palpable in every stroke, in every minute detail. The drawing must have taken forever to complete, and Dare could see it, Michael with pencil to paper, reliving it over and over, trying to burn the wound out, and unable to.

There wasn't a word he could say, nothing that could begin to express Dare's sorrow that Michael had been through that, and so his arm tightened around Michael's waist. He leaned closer, rested his head lightly against Michael's, and offered what he could in physical support, in reminder that Michael had, somehow, survived, and wasn't alone.

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

Michael stuck on the page, glad as he was for Dare's support, as much comfort as Dare gave, Michael couldn't pull away from it. He shut the book. "I can't," he said softly, shaking his head. There was more in the book, plenty more, and he had thought that he would be able to get through it as long as Dare was there with him. But he couldn't bring himself to turn the page again, it was too much for him. Sometime Michael would show the rest of the book, but as much as he may have moved on, he couldn't finish it out. He swallowed hard and took Dare's hand, staring down at the light book against the bed.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

Dare squeezed Michael's hand, his brows knitting at the obvious pain Michael was feeling. Dare desperately wanted to go on, wanted to know and understand, at least partially. He couldn't force Michael to be ready, though. He wouldn't push him to go on. When the book had closed, he'd felt like Michael was closing off from him. But it didn't have to be that. It could be Michael closing off from himself, not wanting to put himself through the pain all over again. That was something Dare could understand "Can I?" he asked softly. Can I look?