The once deathly quiet infirmary was now bursting with life as Cassandra and her Court hunkered down to spend the night in there with Riddle; apparently, all the amenities they had brought with them weren't just for her and her newest lover.
The nurse ghost flitted around the area, providing medical treatment to all the Heartslabyul students who had received minor injuries during the overblot. She didn't have much to do, however, as Cassandra's boys took care of a lot of the work, smiling all the while and cementing their places in the students' good graces.
"Now, I don't want to see either of you boys back here anytime soon, and if you do get hurt like this again, I'll come back up here and lecture you myself, got it George? Martin?", Yue commanded with his hands on his hips as he finished wrapping up two boys' minor cuts, somehow managing to look impeccable in his purple cheongsam (which he wore in favor of the school uniform, unlike the rest of the men in the Court, who couldn't be bothered to coordinate outfits that day. Lazy bastards) once more despite the literal hellscape he had just walked through. The two brown haired students, George and Martin, looked at eachother, smiled, and nodded as they turned back to face Yue.
"We promise to stay safe, Yue. Thanks for everything! We owe you one!", Martin called out as he and his friend waved at Yue and walked out the door, the both of them being the last injured students to leave. Yue smirked.
"I'll hold you to that! You boys take care now!", he called back, not completely joking. Ace and Deuce, who were chatting on one of the beds, watched them go as they tried to remember where they had heard those names before.
"Wasn't that the guy who you threatened to strangle with his own large intestine?", Ace asked with a raised eyebrow. Deuce's brow furrowed.
"I think it was his small intestine... ", the navy haired boy muttered to himself, recalling the night he and Ace booked it for their girlfriend's dorm. Ace hummed.
"You should probably apologize for that so he doesn't smother you in your sleep, since he, you know, sleeps in the same room as us?", the red eyed boy suggested. Deuce shrugged.
"Or we could move into Cassandra's dorm... ", the blue eyed boy trailed off, as he and his best friend slowly turned to look at said girl, who was cuddling with Riddle in his infirmary bed, her back facing them. The gray eyed boy glared at them from over their lover's shoulder.
"No, you're not doing that.", he said, shooting down the idea immediately. Cassandra laughed, and Riddle looked at her in confusion as he sat up. Cassandra followed suit.
"I really don't understand what you see in them.", the redheaded boy commented with a raised eyebrow. After Cassandra had nearly had her ear yanked off by Riddle, she had explained her kingship, relation to Hades, and soulmate situation to him. He had been left in a state of shock for about half an hour, but bounced back relatively quickly and was now just trying to spend as much time with the missing piece of his soul as possible. Vows of undying loyalty to his new sovereign could come after, right now he wanted sleep and cuddles. Cassandra grinned.
"I see a sweet and brave boy and a troublemaker with a heart of gold, and you'll see that too soon enough.", she said with a chuckle. Riddle shook his head but said nothing, before he perked up and began to look about.
"Where did Grim go? It's been strangely quiet this last hour or so.", the redheaded boy noted, having grown used to hearing Grim's voice in the last few hours due to his talkative nature, and Cassandra smiled warmly as she pointed her thumb in the direction of a bed in the corner. Riddle looked over at and saw the gentle rise and fall of two bodies under the covers, likely Grim and Skip, tired from the day's events.
"They passed out a little while ago; but speaking of Grim, I'm reminded of a story my father told me a long time ago.", Cassandra said in a wistful tone, and Riddle focused entirely on her, curious about his girlfriend's revered but elusive father.
"Long before I was born, my father adopted my brother, a boy who he named Marcellus Gerad, or Marcel as we called him. His biological father was... less than kind, and when Marcel became a man, my father killed his blood father and took him to his mansion. He lit a torch and said, 'Marcellus, great men are forged in the flames of adversity. It's time you put out those flames of hardship and light a new fire of determination to be better than that man ever thought you could be.', and so he did. Marcel set the manor ablaze when everyone was out that night at a ball, and he told me that it felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted off his shoulders; as if he was finally free for the first time in his life.", the girl said, golden eyes and voice soft with nostalgia as she recounted her tale. Riddle listened, captivated by the tale of such great men (and not fully processing the whole 'murder' bit). When she was done, his lover turned to face him with a serious expression.
"There is much to be learned from this, but the most important thing I want you to take from that story is this; Riddle, there comes a time in every young man's life where he must learn to commit arson.", Cassandra said in a deathly serious voice, and it took Riddle a minute to fully grasp what she was trying to insinuate. When he did, however, he looked at his girlfriend in shock and anger.
"Cassandra, we are not burning my childhood home to the ground!", the boy yelled, appalled at the suggestion. Cassandra frowned.
"Ah, but just think about it, love! It would be so cathartic for you!"
"No!", Riddle shot back, but Cassandra went on.
"Plus, it would allow you to get back at your harpy bitch of a mother- !", the girl pleaded, but Riddle cut her off.
"Language!", he hissed with a glare, more focused on the swears she was using than the person she was using them to describe. Cassandra collected herself and gave him a flat look.
"I speak well over a dozen, love.", she responded snarkily, and Riddle didn't have time to be impressed as she wrapped her arms around his waist and held him from behind, resting her head on top of his with a sigh.
"Darling, you cannot tell me that hag doesn't deserve it.", Cassandra said as she and Riddle both moved their heads so they could look each other in the eyes without changing position.
"I saw how she treats you, Riddle. How she treats you like a puppet she can yank around on her strings, and I'm not having any of it. You are not going back to that house, period.", the redhead girl said, warmly but firmly. She then kissed Riddle gently on the forehead and nuzzled her face into his neck.
"I just want what's best for you... ", she mumbled into his shoulder. Riddle's stern expression melted and he sighed.
"I know, which is why you need to understand that I have to go back; not to live, but to get some closure. I need to speak with my mother one final time; I need to understand why she treated me like she did. Also I need to retrieve some possessions of mine. I know that if I leave so much as a sock in my room after we talk she'll torch it in the backyard.", the boy said quickly when Cassandra looked up to protest, mumbling the last bit in a voice that said he knew this from experience. Once he'd said his piece, the girl nodded slowly.
"Fine, but I'm going with you. And I swear, if that bitch says or does anything to you I will snap her neck so fast she won't even realize she's dead.", the tanned girl said, hissing her threat with a fang-filled snarl. Riddle looked up at her in alarm.
"Please don't murder my mother.", he requested quickly. Cassandra rolled her eyes and gave him a pointed look.
"Fine, but if she does something first when we go this summer, then I make no promises.", the girl begrudgingly agreed. Riddle narrowed his eyes at her.
"No, we're going during winter break; I want to get this over with.", he said, and Cassandra narrowed her eyes right back.
"No, you are staying with me for the holidays; the Court and I are going to throw the wildest Christmas party you will ever go to and you are going whether you like it or not. Also, wouldn't you rather spend Christmas with your loving girlfriend over your cold-hearted bitch of a mother?", the redheaded girl refused with a smartass smile. Riddle thought about it, sighed and gave his girlfriend a stern look.
"Alright, we'll do it over the summer. Now, I have to ask what your plan for- !", the short boy began, only to cut himself off when he began coughing violently. Cassandra looked at him in concern, and handed him a red handkerchief from her trouser pocket to cough into as she rubbed soothing circles on his back with her other hand. Once he was done coughing, Riddle spoke to her in a shaky voice.
"Th-thank you.", he said, and while Cassandra smiled at him reassuringly, that smile was soon wiped off her face when she saw what he had coughed into the handkerchief.
"Uh-oh.", she said with a stricken look, and Riddle's face went pale and severe when he saw he had coughed blots of ink onto the once completely red handkerchief.
"That ain't good.", she said, her southern accent bleeding through her usual one in her distress. Riddle nodded, and Cassandra tried to think of a logical, non-foreboding reason for what was happening, when she had one, she shook her head.
"Hades said cutting you with Excalibur should have purged all the overblot ink from your body, right? So that's probably just normal ink, the residue left behind by your overblot. You coughing it up is probably just your body's way of detoxifying it from your system.", the girl theorized. Riddle thought it sounded plausible, but he wasn't completely convinced.
"And what if it's not?", he asked cautiously. Cassandra shrugged.
"Then I'll just heal you using Excalibur.", she said off handedly, and Riddle looked at her in shock before glaring at her, grabbing her ear and yanking it down to his level (not too hard though, as he didn't want to hurt her too bad).
"If you could heal me with Excalibur, why did you feed me your blood and hurt yourself?!", he asked a wincing Cassandra.
"OW OW OW OW OW! Not this again! God, you are worse than my Mother!", the king yelped out, letting Riddle have his moment despite the fact she could break away at any time, and recalling when he used this move on her when he was demanding answers not half a day earlier. Riddle yanked harder.
"Talk!", he yelled, and Cassandra, ever the whipped lady-husband she was, complied.
"I didn't use it because I think it's meant to be used on large groups of people and severe wounds, I don't know! It's super flashy and someone would have seen, too! Vampire blood was just easier, but it doesn't work on illnesses! Excalibur can probably heal anything, though, so I'll use it for this! Now please let me go!", she yelled, and Riddle released her before turning away with a huff and giving her the cold shoulder, much to her horror. Trey, Cater and Che'nya watched from their places standing by the door, sweat-dropping.
"They haven't even been together a day and she's already whipped.", Cater said bluntly, and Che'nya snickered a bit.
"Yeah, but the whole situation is made even funnier by the fact he's somehow even more whipped than she is.", the beastman said as the trio watched Riddle begin to sweat under Cassandra's pleading gaze, turning around so he could be enveloped in her embrace mere seconds later. The two then laid back on the bed, and the three boys returned to their conversation.
"So, you said Cassandra has three other soulmates at RSA?", Trey asked, and his childhood playmate nodded.
"Yeah. We all met the night we got our marks- hurt like a bitch, by the way. Was it that way for yours?", the purple haired boy asked. The two others winced and nodded.
"Oh yeah. Hurt so bad I broke a bowl while I was in the kitchen and woke up some students down the hall. Had a fun time explaining that one to them.", the green haired boy said sarcastically. Cater raised an eyebrow at him.
"You think that's bad? I freaked out so bad I broke my phone!", the orange haired boy said, holding up the cracked object in question. Both boys winced a bit at the bad damage.
"That's gonna be a pain in the ass to replace.", Trey commented. Cater shrugged and began scrolling through Magicam.
"Eh, not really; Cass said she would pay for it.", the green eyed boy responded offhandedly. Che'nya put his arms behind his head and smirked at him.
"Geez, sugar baby much?", he teased. Cater gave him a dead look.
"I mean, if you mean that in the sense that I'm a broke-ass college student relying on my wealthy significant other due to a lack of familial financial and emotional support, then yes.", the boy said without his usual energetic tone of voice. Trey and Che'nya looked thrown off and concerned, hyper aware of the subtle hints people tended to drop due to their relationship with Riddle.
"Umm Cater, is everything alright at home?", Trey asked slowly. Cater gave him a forced smile and a slightly unhinged laugh.
"Ha! Honestly, no. I think I'm going to be disowned when I finally force myself to visit home and deal with my family drama this summer.", the once exuberant boy said in a tired, bone-weary voice. It was clear he had been carrying the weight of this on his shoulders for a long time.
"Cater... ", Trey began to say, tears welling in his eyes. Cater saw this and quickly gave him a genuine, reassuring smile.
"Don't worry about it, summer's a long time from now and it's been a long time coming. I think I'm actually looking forward to finally telling my dad he can go fuck himself.", the green eyed boy said, mumbling the last part darkly. Ash, who had been listening in while sitting beside the bed Skip was sleeping in and cleaning his gun, walked up behind Cater. The two boys who stood in front of him noticed his arrival; Cater, however, did not.
"Good on you, dad's are overrated anyways.", Ash said without warning, causing Cater to nearly jump out of his own skin.
"The hell, Ash!", the startled third year hissed as he turned to face him. Ash ignored his curse and crossed his arms.
"Parents in general are overrated, too. My mom and dad didn't do jack shit to raise me, Griffin did all the hard work; and when he wasn't there... well, someone did 'try', but I don't talk about him.", the blonde said, referring to his former teacher, Blanca, giving the empty area beside him the side eye, as if the man himself was magically going to appear out of nowhere. Yue nodded in agreement and walked up beside him.
"Yeah, he was such a pretentious ass. But yeah, dad's are useless. All mine ever did was give me a last name I hate and six half brothers who made my life a living hell.", the Chinese boy tacked on. Che'nya and Trey looked at him in shock and horror.
"That's awful!", Trey said sincerely. Yue smiled at his concern, crossed his arms and shrugged his shoulders.
"Eh, it's fine. They're all dead and I'm alive sitting pretty with this sweet immortality set up so... I win!", the purple eyed boy said with a smile. Ash rolled his eyes at him but said nothing.
"So let me get this straight; you want me to... not heal you and use you as a blot lab rat?", Cassandra asked, confused as to what Riddle was asking of her. The two of them were still cuddling in bed. Riddle nodded.
"Yes. Think about it; no one really knows a lot about blot, where it comes from, or what causes it. Overblot rarely occurs, and those that experience them rarely survive the ordeal. I'm a once in a lifetime chance to learn more about the process. Plus, if I take a turn for the worst, you could always heal me then.", he explained, and Cassandra slowly nodded as she understood what he was asking.
"So you basically just want me to observe you and take notes on your condition?", she asked. Riddle nodded again, and Cassandra smiled.
"That I can do.", she answered, abruptly sitting up and pumping her fist.
"For science!", she yelled excitedly. Riddle, not sure what was happening, sat up and did the same thing.
"For science!", he parroted. From his place on a bed a few yards away, Shorter watched the scene and sweat dropped in confusion.
"What the hell are they doing?", he asked no one in particular. Eiji, who was standing beside him with the same expression, answered him.
"I have no idea. Hey Kalim, what do you think of Riddle?", Eiji abruptly asked the white haired boy who sat beside Shorter on the bed. Kalim looked off-put by the odd question.
"I mean... I've known him for a while, and I'd like to think we're friends... why?", the boy asked with big red eyes, and Shorter smirked at him.
"Not like that; he wants to know what you think of him dating Cassandra.", the purple haired man explained. Eiji nodded and sat down beside the shorter boy.
"Yeah. Me, Shorter, Ash and Yue all got the chance to have a sort of honeymoon phase with her when we first started dating; weekend trips, dates, movie nights, things like that. Not to say we don't do those now, but it was just the two of us then, you know? When there was just four of us, it was easy to make time, but now... how many of us are there now?", the Japanese boy asked. Shorter began to count on his fingers.
"Holy fuck, we're in double digits!", the man yelled out as he realized how much their numbers had grown in the past week or so. Kalim didn't seem shocked.
"That's not that bad; I mean, I have a lot of brothers and sisters, so time management is kind of my thing.", he explained. Eiji and Shorter both raised their eyebrows at his statement.
"How many do you have?", Shorter asked out of curiosity. Kalim shrugged.
"I stopped counting after thirty-two, but I can remember all their names and birthdays!", the heir said excitedly. The two vampires sitting on either side of him looked at him in shock.
"W-what'd ya mean thirty-two?!", Shorter stammered out, not only shocked by the sheer number of siblings the boy had, but also by the fact the number was so big he had stopped counting. Eiji shook his head.
"That must be one happy marriage.", the boy noted. Kalim nodded in agreement, and Shorter rubbed his head in bafflement.
"I mean, with all those kids, something must be going on somewhere... ", he mumbled. Eiji caught his words, as well as the sexual innuendo, and smacked him on the head. Kalim watched him do this in confusion.
All of this happened as the sun set outside, turning the inside of the infirmary orange as conversations continued on. Cassandra smiled contently as she buried her face in Riddle's neck.
Life was good.
—----------------------------------------------------
"What do you mean he's covering it up?!", the outraged voice of Sam yelled, his shadow growing larger and magenta eyes glowing to represent his rage. Divus, who was sitting on the couch in front of his chair, winced at the change in volume and sat his glass of bourbon down on the coffee table.
"I mean he's covering it up. Crowley doesn't want word getting out about the overblot, says no one will send their kids here if they find out someone overblotted under our supervision. So he's threatened any students who know about it with expulsion if they tell anyone. The entirety of Heartslabyul has essentially been forced into silence. They're not even allowed to tell their parents, or the rest of the school.", the professor explained. Sam looked at him in shock.
"What about you? Can't you say anything?", he asked. Divus shook his head.
"No, Crowley threatened to have my job if I did, same with Mozus; and he threatened to have your lease since he already knew I was going to tell you.", the gray eyed man said, and Sam cursed under his breath in Creole
"This can't be legal.", he said, and Divus glared at nothing.
"Of course it's not, but what can we do about it? Night Raven College is in the middle of no-man's land; Crowley's word is law, and even if we could get him to face an inquiry, no Rose Kingdom students will want to testify against him in fear of what he could do to them. We're trapped.", the young teacher said bitterly. His dog, who he had brought with him to his friend's house, whimpered a bit at his master's distress, his head in his lap. Divus smiled at him gently and patted his head.
"It's alright, Rowan.", he soothed. Sam watched the scene with a contemplative expression, before he looked at him in sudden concern.
"What about Riddle? Is the poor kid alright? Did-did he- ?", the dark skinned shopkeep began to say. Divus saw where he was going with his train of thought and shook his head.
"No, he's fine; Cassandra carried him off to the infirmary not long after Crowley showed up, but not before giving him his usual verbal beat down. She, her dorm, a few Heartslabyul students, Mr. Al-Asim, and some purple haired boy who I have no recollection of ever teaching have been holed up in there ever since.", the monochrome haired man snorted. Sam laughed.
"Yep, that sounds about right. Do you think Cassandra knows about the ban?", the voodoo practitioner asked, and suddenly the conversation had drifted off to the girl they both didn't know the other had feelings for. Divus shook his head.
"No, I doubt she does right now, but when she does she'll likely organize an entire dorm-wide protest about suppressing freedom of speech.", the designer joked. Sam laughed.
"Ha! I wouldn't put it past her!", he said fondly as he picked up his own glass of moonshine and downed the half-full glass like it was a shot. Divus, used to his friend's drinking habits, rolled his eyes and smiled fondly as he got up off the couch.
"It's been lovely catching up with you, Sam, though I wish it were in lieu of better circumstances. Come along, Rowan.", the teacher said, straightening his fur coat as he called for his dog. The dalmatian came trotting to his side, waiting patiently as his master gathered his things. Sam walked them through the shop to his door, but stopped them before they walked off the porch.
"Divus, before you go, a word of caution.", the shop owner said seriously. Divus straightened his posture and raised a perfectly arched eyebrow.
"About what?", he asked. Sam looked him in the eyes, his magenta ones reflecting a rarely seen severity.
"About the future. When you told me about Riddle's overblot, I got the strangest sensation. The spirits are restless, my Friends on the Other Side are getting antsy, it's almost as if... ", the man trailed off, a far away look in his eyes. His friend looked at him in concern.
"As if what?", he asked urgently. This snapped Sam out of it and caused him to finish his sentence.
"As if they were expecting this to happen; as if this is just the beginning of something bigger than any of us can imagine.", the voodoo priest admitted, and both men stood there for a while, not sure what to do with this knowledge. Divus wrapped his coat tighter around himself and turned to walk away.
"I'll keep that in mind!", he called back as he and Rowan walked down the porch stairs. Sam looked like he was about to say something, when before he started walking down the dirt trail back to the mirror gate, the professor shot him a sincere look over his shoulder.
"And I'll be safe.", he promised, before he promptly faced forward once more, and strutted down the way into the dark, soon disappearing from the under the yellow porch lights.
Yeah I know not a lot happened, but the little interactions were fun to write. That line about arson has been floating around my head for a long time. Like, since I started this fic long. Next time... I don't know! Something funny, probably!
So Long and Goodnight, Thackery Binx.