#♡ ━━ only seeing myself ; when i'm looking up at you ↷ esme

[moon-upright]

Rare Smiles - Julian Devorak

(the one in which Esme gushes talks about her lover's smile...)

(esme is something of a writer so why doesn't SHE answer this prompt, huh? why should i do it)

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Julian's Smile: A Thought by Esme Noble

Julian's smile isn't rare, if by “rare” you mean “infrequent.” On the contrary, he smiles all the time, and for a variety of reasons, I find.

He smiles sometimes when he's nervous, sometimes when he's sad, or to make people comfortable, or to keep a secret (his version of a poker face is a relaxed smile as opposed to stoicism)… Just off of the top of my head. That doesn't even mention how he smiles when he's happy, and how even within that one emotion he's got different shapes of smiles — his raffish grin, a teasing smirk, a small smile of awe, a smile of endearment, a beam of pure joy.

It's like a reflex to him; if you catch him unawares, he's likely to smile in surprise at whatever you did or said. (Especially if he's falling asleep. If he's barely awake and you speak to him, half the time the corners of his lips curl up and his eyebrows raise before he's even processed what you said. It's the funniest thing. The cutest.)

His smile is rare in the sense that something about it is so unique to him. It's Julian's Smile. That's why it looked so odd to see him grin while in disguise as Asra. It just didn't fit who Asra is.

It's everything that Julian is. It's sharp, it's dramatic, it's flirtatious.

If you went into a bar and asked around about him (“What's the first thing you think of when you hear Julian Devorak? ”), you would hear a variety of answers, from “You mean the tall one?” or “The one with the hair?” to a heartily laughed/sneered “That bastard!” And certainly included in this list is “The one with the smile?” Or some variation of it. I mean it, I've heard it myself. He is the one with the smile so bright that it burns itself into your mind.

I suppose even I am not immune to a pretty smile — when we first met (the actual first time, before the Plague), it was what I initially noticed about him. Some people have that ability to smile naturally in such a way where all you want is to see them smile again. I imagine that I'm not alone in this feeling either, where Julian Devorak bursts into your life, all grins, and it makes your heart soar into some Ether realm full of fire and light and color. To smile like that, and change someone's life forever, to change me from someone who was not particularly inclined toward anything, and tilt my world on its axis, is magic.

Though I figure it wasn't only the smile that did all of that. It would be meaningless if not for the person behind it. Julian Devorak and his magic.