𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬

𝐝𝐢𝐱-𝐬𝐞𝐩𝐭

"Hell no, I can't believe that you didn't know who Billie Holiday is!" Maurice yells, pausing the episode of How I Met Your Mother playing in the background. Atlas shakes his head, throwing his hands up,

"How would I know about a jazz singer? Remember that I didn't grow up in America, I grew up in Australia." Atlas reminds him, cracking his knuckles and chomping on a piece of toast with Marmite smeared across it.

"Sure, sure, pull out all your excuses to pardon your terrible sense in music." Maurice fans his hands out and repeatedly scrunches them up.

"Whatever Maurice," Atlas mutters, his eyes getting drawn towards the lady on the TV who was playing the ukulele and singing an old french song in English. Atlas sways along gently to the melody and starts to sing along in french.

Maurice hears Atlas's voice and swiftly slaps his thigh,

"So you know Edith Pilaf but not any Jazz singers?" He asks, raising an eyebrow.

"If I didn't know Edith Pilaf, people would be wondering how you let me be your right-hand man." Atlas fires back, causing Maurice to nod in agreement.

If he had no idea about Versailles culture, he would be no better than the tourists that come around.

"Fine, you win." Maurice sulks, getting up to go grab his phone from the charging station. Atlas pauses the show, looking to see Maurice standing up, ready to go somewhere,

"Where are you going?" He asks. Maurice points his thumb in the direction of his phone,

"I need to grab my phone since I drained it last night."

"Watching Dolly Parton," Atlas mutters, quickly covering up the statement with a quick cough. Maurice shrugs his shoulders,

"Yup. But she's such a nice lady, fight me!" He mutters, swaying his hips lightly as he goes to grab his phone.

"I wasn't going to." Atlas mumbles, rolling his eyes and resuming the TV show. A barely audible ding comes from the kitchen, where Maurice's phone was currently located.

Maurice groans, if Atlas was going to text him at least let him be further away than a couple of feet.

"Atlas, I swear, if you texted me I'm gonna throw all your Marmite out the window and I'm gonna make sure that you get no more." He grumbles, causing Atlas to throw a pillow at the visible part of his head.

"First of all, Maurice, that would be an abuse of your power and even if you did that, I would buy it from the black market. Second of all-" Atlas gets interrupted by Maurice's howling laughter. Atlas's smile turns into a tight frown,

"What?" He asks, getting a wide-eyed reaction from Maurice,

"You would go to the Russian Mob and ask if they have Marmalade?"

"Yes, So?" Atlas asks, getting a pout and a shake of the head from his best friend,

"Nothing, continue your super long rant."

"Okay, second of all, I didn't send that text."

After that statement, both of them stare at each other in wonder and tension. Nobody else had Maurice's work number, except Atlas and a couple of others in DARK. Maurice swallowed thickly, his hand hovering over the phone,

"You didn't?" Maurice asks, trying to not panic and keep calm.

"No," Atlas mumbles, furiously scrolling through his phone to see if he had accidentally sent something to Maurice. Because if he hadn't then,

Who had sent the message?

"No," Atlas repeats, slowly looking up to meet Maurice's gaze. Maurice exhales heavily and slowly sits down before saying,

"I'm going to open the message." He tells both Atlas and himself, trying to convince himself that it was nothing big.

Maybe it was just a wrong number.

He nods, giving himself a stern talking to,

It was a wrong number Maurice, nothing more nothing less.

His palms start to sweat as he opens the message, what he finds inside stunning him.

"Crap." He mutters underneath his breath.

Atlas jumps forward, on the edge of his seat,

"What? What's going on?" He asks, running over to Maurice's side of the couch, personal space long forgotten. Maurice taps on the picture and turns the screen towards Atlas. Atlas pales significantly,

"The fudge?" It was a picture of Tara, holding up a peace sign with Sirius. It was a selfie of sorts, with a group of girls who were staring at her in the background, not with jealousy, but with something worse.

"You need to move her out of the university," Maurice says, no begs Atlas. Atlas sighs, shaking his head,

"I can't. Tara has had her eyes on the university since she was a sophomore in high school. Who am I to not allow her to fulfill her dream?" He asks, causing the male sitting to him to sigh in reply and slouch across the couch.

"Why did this person even send it to us?" Atlas asks, dragging his hand down his face,

Why had he even allowed Tara to come into Versailles?

It was all his fault.

He should have said no from the start.

"Wait, they're typing," Maurice mutters, biting his freshly painted nails out of stress, something he hadn't done in a while. Atlas cranes his head in a desperate attempt to see the screen,

"What are they saying? Are they attempting to blackmail us, because if they are, I'm fully willing to punch them in the face?"

Suddenly the power flickers and he hears a small shriek come from Tara upstairs, along with a,

"The power went out!"

The bright screen casts a blue hue onto Maurice's face as he reads off the message, dismay clear on his face,

"You want your princess to be safe, meet us at the dalgona coffee shop. 15:00."

The message was short and went straight to the point, if you don't come to the meeting then Tara's life would be as good as gone. Atlas clasps his hands behind his head, exhaling,

"Looks like we're going on a coffee date tomorrow." Maurice nods, holding a sour grimace on his face,

"More like a blind date."

SO....

Guess who's slow ass couldn't write faster?

Me!

I'm sorry for the late delay as school has made my life hectic again and I had other things that  I was missing.

ANYWAYS,

How'd you like the chappie?

Also, please do not be a silent reader, it makes my day when I see that someone has voted or commented on my book.

TPWK

-Sky