“Watch carefully, the magic that occurs when you give someone just enough comfort to be themselves.”
Michael thinks, sometimes, that everything is a circle, and that things come and go as they must, and if he just loosens his grip long enough to let go it will come back to him in due time. And, like a circle himself, endlessly turning, as the year starts to wind down Michael finds himself back in Terrastella, drinking their wine, dancing to their music, admiring the cliffs and the city and the unending charm of its people. He thinks he likes them most of all.
He and Elena are so alike. Really.
And maybe that's why he's scared of her, just a little. Maybe that why when he sees her over the shoulder of a pleasantly charming stranger he worries, for a second. Michael remembers her in those water eyes, a voice so quiet and so earnest that it made Michael want to sprint in the opposite direction as fast as he could-- because, as we all know, the only thing worse than not knowing is knowing too much, and Michael has gone centuries without any sort of painful self-reflection.
He doesn't like looking at her and seeing himself. He doesn't like looking at anyone and seeing himself. Honestly, he doesn't like seeing himself at all.
Still, when he sees her, a flicker of attention that breaks the narrative of a story he's being told--something about pirates and hidden gold, a sailor entertaining the small group gathered round with tales of his life at sea--he can't stop himself. Michael looks back at the man, small but intimidating, and smiles before nodding and ducking out of the conversation.
As he slides up to Elena's side, Michael plucks one of the glasses from the table, something red and slightly sweet. He smiles at her, like he's never had a smile drop off of his face in his life. "Elena! What a pleasant surprise. Can't get rid of me, apparently."
He looks at her, warm and gold, ribs heaving, and picks up another glass to offer to her. There is that panic in him, the one that looks at her and sees only a mirror, the one that wonders how long it will be until she asks him some biting question that cuts him like glass-- because it is what he would to. It is all he knows how to do.
Michael sips from his own glass, giving her a conspiratorial grin when he's done. "You look like you've been busy. Do you dance?"
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