How would you describe Lia an Michael's relationship? From what I think it's more than friends but less than lovers.
Of all of the Naturals, Lia and Michael probably have the most in common. Their abilities–the ability to read emotions and the ability to detect deception–are really very similar, and tend to arise in similar circumstances. In fact, in the real world, you would commonly see these two skills together in a single individual. In the books, there are distinctions–Lia can sometimes tell, for instance, if someone is lying even if she’s just reading a transcript of what they said, whereas Michael needs facial expression and body posture in order to read someone. But in general, even more so than Cassie or Dean, Lia and Michael can read people in a way that means they often know things that you don’t want to know about someone.
Sometimes, it’s nice to be able to believe a lie.
Sometimes, you don’t want to know what everyone feels about you all the time.
And that means that the Michael-and-Lia relationship is very complicated. In THE NATURALS, Michael describes his relationship with Lia as “On again, off again. Never for very long, and it was never a good call–for either of us.” In KILLER INSTINCT, Michael describes a night when he stayed out until sunrise with Lia and then got into a fight with Dean when they got home. So it’s safe to say that Michael and Lia have been physically involved in the past–in starts and stops, and in a way that tends to end chaotically.
What the books haven’t delved into as much–yet–is how hard it would be to be in a physical or romantic relationship with someone who knew exactly what you felt–especially if you were the type of person, like Lia, who spends her life hiding behind different personas and deceptions, so that no one can touch the real vulnerabilities you have inside. We also haven’t seen much discussion–yet–of how difficult it would be for Michael to be intimate with someone who knows when he’s lying, even when he’s lying to himself. Like Lia, Michael’s a person who lies to make things matter less–and when he and Lia have been physically involved in the past, that becomes harder and harder to do.
Even beyond their gifts, Michael and Lia have a lot in common. In ALL IN (Naturals #3), you’ll get to see this in a bit more detail, specifically with respect to the way they understand each other’s past and what it’s like to grow up with different kinds of abuse. Michael and Lia are both risk-taking chaos-seekers with a tendency toward the self-destructive. They’re both experts at pretending that nothing and no one can touch them. That makes for a dangerous combination, platonically or otherwise.
But, more than anything–more than on-again, off-again, more than friends, more than people who pretend they don’t understand each other because neither one of them wants to be understood, more than a dangerous combination–Michael and Lia are what all of the Naturals are for each other. Family.
Dean and Lia have the most sibling-like relationship of the group, but all five of the Naturals fill a void in each other’s lives that binds them together more tightly than romance or friendship. They’re a unit, a team, a support system, and they love each other fiercely, down to the one.
Which, of course, makes romance or physical relationships between any two of them even more complicated…
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