~Third Person PoV~
"Alright, you boys, I think you're all more than capable of taking care of Ava and (Y/n) from this point on." Mrs. Oates said. "Just do as I taught you every day until Ava gets better." She smiles sweetly at the group. "And make sure they both get plenty of rest."
"We will make sure it happens." Asch states, matter-of-factly.
Rhys lets out a small laugh. "What I believe Asch is trying to say is, thank you for all of your help." He and most of the others, excluding Asch, now to her. Asch looks around at his knights and rolls his eyes before bowing to Mrs. Oates as well.
"Oh my!" The old woman exclaimed with a smile. "You're all so courteous in such a way I can't describe! You all make me feel like a princess."
"Mrs. Oates, may I ask..." Rhys began. "How did you learn to heal humans as you do?"
Mrs. Oates put a hand to her chin and hummed in thought. "Well, I suppose it all started when I was a little girl. My mother would get sick very often, but no matter what, she would always get up to clean up after mine and my brothers' and my sisters' messes. She hated a messy house, I'll tell you that. Then, one day, she couldn't get up for the mess anymore. So as the older sibling, I had to step in and clean for her. I guess you could say a tidy house kept her asleep, but a messy one kept getting her up." She laughed. "But yes, basically that's where I learned to care for the sick. Well, that and all those years of nursing I did." She let out another laugh, entertaining herself more than the boys. "Well, I've gotta getting going to bingo night now." She winked. "I heard there's a hot new hunk hosting the game tonight, and he's about my age. Oh, maybe I can get myself a sugar daddy! See you all later." With that, she turned around and left.
"Did you hear that?" Pierce asked, and the other Daemos turned toward him.
"Yes, I did." Rhys answered, already creating a plan in his mind.
Noi was not on the same wavelength as the two. "Woah... Mrs. Oates is gonna find a lava human?"
Rhys shook his head. "No, Mrs. Oates' story."
"I think I'm on the same page as you..." Asch interjected.
"You are?" Rhys asked.
"Mmm- yes."
Leif's eyes went wide. "Wow, Asch is really getting smarter."
"I've always been a wise battle tactician."
"Similar to your brother, I assume." Pierce chimed in.
Asch rolled his eyes at that. "Let's not talk about my brother..."
"Tell me what you thought of just now." Rhys spoke up, wanting to get the group back on track.
"We need to make a mess." Asch stated.
Noi looked to the prince in confusion, blinking a couple times. "What?"
"That's right." Asch went on with a certain smug tone to his voice. "If we make a mess, Ava and (Y/n) will hate it and they'll be forced to get up."
Rhys nodded. "Exactly. It seems like humans have motivation to clean."
Noi frowned. "But (Y/n) is already annoyed with us..." He muttered. "And will doing that really help Ava?"
"We should exhaust all options." Pierce stated before knocking a potted plant over onto the floor. It's case shattered upon impact and Rhys stared down at it, wide-eyed.
Asch, however, let out a chuckle. "Good start, Pierce! Now let's keep doin' it!"
Leif walked over to the coffee table and flipped it on its side, knocking its contents onto the floor while Noi jumped up onto a small loveseat near Ava's bedroom door and knocked the plant beside it down. It began...
The two humans stare at the group with wide eyes. "What?!" Ava exclaims. "So, wait, you got that kind of message from Mrs. Oates' sad story about her mother?"
"Yes." Asch answers in a very Pierce-like fashion.
"And it worked." Rhys adds in a soft yet proud tone. "You two are out of bed."
Ava furrows her brows. "Yes, but I didn't wake up because of the mess!"
"Yeah, I woke up because I was just... ready to?" (Y/n) says. "I was feeling better, that's all you guys really had to wait for."
"But you woke after the mess was made." Pierce reasons.
"What?" Noi asks.
"I- Ugh!" Ava huffs. "That's not how it works."
Noi steps closer, setting a hand on each of the humans shoulders, his eyes flickering between the two of them. "I'm just glad you're okay."
Both Ava and (Y/n) flush slightly, and Ava's eyes soften. For a moment, her anger fades and (Y/n) reminds themself not to blow up about this too much. The boys have good intentions, it's their own weird way of showing they care.
"We will leave you to clean the mess, Princess Ava. Please meet with us once you are done." Asch starts to walk away, through the wall, followed by Pierce, Leif, and Rhys before either human can process what he's said.
Noi starts to follow them, only to quickly look back at Ava and (Y/n) for a moment. Then he follows the others out.
"Wait..." Ava mumbles once the guys left.
(Y/n) looks over at her. "You okay?"
She furrows her brows. "We just let them walk away?!"
Noi goes through the wall, only for Ava to follow immediately after, dragging (Y/n) along behind her. "Stop right there, jerks!"
The Daemos turn and look back at them. Asch blinks, registering her words, before his brows furrow. "Excuse me?"
"You guys are going to help us clean up the room." Ava demands.
Leif raises a brow. "Uhh... no."
"Uh, yes!" Ava fires back before (Y/n) tries to intervene, wanting to spare the Daemos after they took care of themself and Ava.
"No no, Ava, it's okay. W-We can handle this, they did just go through all that work to take care of us, and... and their hearts were in the right place-"
"I don't care! They made a mess and they should clean it!"
Asch frowns at the two humans. "Why should we?"
"Because you want to learn more about the human world, don't you?" Ava asks in a huffy tone. "Well now it's time you learn about responsibility."
The others turn to look at each other, contemplating their words, and Ava manages to coax them back into the apartment with the reluctant help of (Y/n).
~(Y/n)'s PoV~
"Who told you guys this mess was acceptable?" Ava asks the boys, her hands on her hips.
"We already told you: Mrs. Oates." Rhys answers.
"No no no no no." Ava lets out an exasperated sigh and I reach over to lightly Pat her on the back. "It's come to my attention that we need to basically teach you guys from the ground up." She mumbles, and then her disposition changes like she's trying to see more positively. "In a way, I'm kinda glad you guys made this mess 'cause now, you get to learn about how humans clean."
Rhys nods to her. "I am interested to see-"
Asch cuts him off, speaking while he's halfway through an eye roll at Ava's words. "Just use your servants to clean it, leave us out of it."
I blink a couple of times, his words catching me off guard. "Uh- huh?"
Ava, on the other hand, laughs at him. "Surprise, surprise, not every human has servants, and even if they did, I'm positive we would never call them servants."
"But, you're royalty." Rhys objects.
I can see it in Ava's face as she remembers the misunderstanding with the Daemos. "Yes, I am a princess, and yes, (Y/n)'s a... prime..." She speaks slowly, and then her eyes widen, and I know it means she's thought up an excuse. "But! We're living on my own, so that means we do everything ourselves."
Noi's eyes sparkle, as they always seem to when he talks about us. "Than use your magic!"
"No! Cleaning your mess with magic is called losing." Ava replies.
"No, it's called being lazy." Asch protests, and I hold back a laugh at the irony. "Just use your magic like this." Any amount of amusement I find in the situation immediately dies when he summons a fire into his palm and lights the book at Ava's feet aflame.
I gasp and take a step away, mine and Ava's eyes both doing wide. "Ah!" She cries, trying frantically to pat out the fire which is shockingly successful. "Don't do that!" She stands back up, staring at the Daemos.
"I agree." Rhys speaks up. "We should not be using our magic. Especially since our departure-"
"I get it!" Asch interrupts, and I'm glad he does. Rhys' words made my heart sink. "We don't need to talk about that."
"Did you say departure...?" I ask, quietly.
Asch's eyes seem to soften as he looks over at me. "Yes, our departure from... this idiotic task Ava's trying to get us to complete!" I decide it's probably for the best to ignore his evasion. For now at least...
"Well, you wouldn't need to complete it if you just didn't make it in the first place!" Ava argues.
"We were trying to help you get up!"
"By giving me and (Y/n) more stress?!"
"It worked, didn't it?!"
Pierce speaks up then, stopping their bickering. "We should hear her out."
Leif raises a brow. "Yeah, what's in it for us if we clean?" He asks, and I feel like I should've guessed he'd want some kind of prize for this...
"The satisfaction of having a nice place to live...?" Ava offers.
"The satisfaction that you're making us happy?" I try as well, even though I don't want to make the boys think I'm still mad at them.
Asch scoffs, looking away as a subtle pink color dusts his cheeks. "That's stupid."
"You're stupid!" Ava exclaims.
"I mean, there is some delight in cleaning." Rhys notes. "But I do not understand why we have to do it."
"Because it teaches responsibility!" Ava speaks through clenched teeth.
"Ugh, fine!" Asch caves. "We'll do it if it'll get your talking to stop!"
Noi smiles over at me and Ava with a blush on his cheeks. "I like them taking."
I feel my own face burn and Ava's eyes widen.
"Shut up!" Asch huffs, and Noi closes his eyes and puts his head down. It makes me want to give over and give him a hug.
"I'm rather intrigued by this 'satisfaction' Ava and (Y/n) speak of." Rhys mutters. "Admittedly, I don't think any of us have ever cleaned before."
"You- You haven't?" Ava questions, shock apparent in her tone, and before I'm able to express how I would've expected that from them, Leif speaks.
"I have."
Mine and the other Daemos' eyes go wide. "You have?!" Asch, Pierce, Rhys, and Noi say in near-perfect unison.
"Uh, yeah, I have." Leif says. "I didn't always live in the kingdom, y'know?" When he says things like that, it always makes me curious. He makes it sound like the rest of them have lived in their palace all of their lives. I want to know why. And I want to know why the same isn't true of Leif.
Noi gasps. "What's it like?"
"It's. One. Of. The most." Leif begins, dragging out his statement. "Boring and dumb tasks ever. I only ever did it once or twice." His timing is pretty comedic and I'd laugh if it weren't for Ava.
Asch huffs. "That's it, we're out."
"But you just said-!" Ava tries to object before Asch interrupts.
"Leif said it was dumb, and I don't like dumb things!"
Ava glances over at me, speaking under her breath so that only I can hear. "Hmph, do he like himself?" I lightly smack her in the arm.
"What?" Asch asks, looking between the two of us.
Rhys, unsurprisingly, is the one to get us back on topic. "Well, perhaps it's different from Daemos methods."
All at once, an idea pops into me head, and I nearly jump. "Wait! I've got it!" I take Ava's arm and hurry off to my bedroom. "We'll be back soon, just be patient!" I say before closing the two of us in.
Ava looks at me, tilting her head. "What is it?"
I smile. "Well, they like doing stuff for prizes, right?" I begin. "I thought if we made them a little treasure box or something, they'd actually do the cleaning. Like, we can make it a contest for them or something."
Ava grins, squeezing my arm. "That's a great idea, (Y/n)!" She laughs. "They'll never know what hit 'em!"
~Third Person PoV~
Once the two humans are gone, the boys are left waiting in the living room, heeding (Y/n)'s words, albeit impatiently. They're gathered in a semicircle around Asch who's sitting on the sofa, and Pierce is sitting as well, in a chair, while the others stand by. It isn't long before (Y/n) and Ava walk back out, (Y/n) carrying a small poster boards and Ava with her hands behind her back.
"I wanted to make sure you guys knew that humans have some very special methods of cleaning." (Y/n) states with a cheeky smile.
Asch crosses his arms. "Yeah, which is...?"
(Y/n) lifts up the poster board, holding it proudly in front of their chest. It's a scoreboard for each of the Daemos boys with the printed pictures (Y/n) took of them taped on." "This is a, um... sacred chore-chart."
The boys' eyes widen.
"Fascinating..." Rhys remarks.
Noi's eyes are bright and full of wonder. "What does it do?!"
"We're going to give you all tasks to do, and each time you manage to complete them, you will get a sticker on the board." (Y/n) explains.
"A happy cat face sticker." Ava corrects, holding up the stickers from behind her. "And if you can get three happy cat faces, you get to pull from the-" Using her other hand, she pulls out a small, decorated box from behind her back. "-treasure box."
Noi gasps again, excitedly.
"What's inside?!" Asch questions.
"I NEED TO KNOW!" Leif adds.
"Nope! You guys don't get to find out until you clean the house." Ava hums.
"The first one to clean the most gets three cat stickers, but you must keep cleaning until the house is back to the way it was." (Y/n) states. "If you don't, any points you previously earned will be null and void."
Asch summons another flame into his hand. "I'll use my magic to-!"
"No fire!" Ava intervenes before he can further destroy our apartment. "No magic, no breaking things! Nothing! You have to do it the human way: with you hands."
The prince scowls in annoyance. "Fine..."
"I consider this a worthy challenge." Pierce states.
"A competition?" Rhys asks before a smile grazes his lips. "Brilliant!" (Y/n)'s face flushes slightly at the compliment, considering this was their idea put into motion.
"Now this, I can get into, especially for a prize!" Leif exclaims, eyes sparkling.
Noi nods. "I can prove I'm stronger than you guys!!"
"Perfect!" Ava hides the box behind her back again. "Now ready, go!"
With those simple words, the boys all scramble off in different directions to start cleaning. Pierce figures out the laundry machine, though the spin cycle surprises and confuses him. Asch picks up a Starbucks cup from the floor and tosses it aside, iced his shoulder. Noi uses the plunger in the toilet frantically. Leif phases around, picking up trash in a bag, and even carries a pan on his head. Soon the apartment is clean and organized, just as it had been before.
Ava beams at her now cleaned apartment. "Perfect! Now for the winner..."
"Leif, you won!" (Y/n) hums, happily.
The assassin grins. "I knew it! See? I didn't need to grow up in the kingdom to be worthy!"
"Silence!" Asch huffs.
Behind Ava and (Y/n), the scoreboard is propped up and all the boys have one cat sticker except for Leif who has three.
"Leif, no one likes a sore winner. Now, everyone else: because you guys did a great job, you all get one happy kitty face!" Ava admires her little stickers briefly. "Now Leif, you get to pick from the treasure box."
"Alright! Leif hurries over to look inside the box, and he pulls out a red fidget spinner. "Wha- What is this?"
(Y/n) frowns. "Oh, i don't think I meant to put that in there..." I mutter. "It's called a... fidget spinner. Here, look." They adjust the toy in Leif's palm and spin it. Leif gasps and the others all step closer to examine it.
"How are you spinning it?!" Rhys inquires.
Leif's eyes remain wide. "I-I don't know!"
"Are you doing it with your mind?!" Asch speaks up.
Leif frowns. "It won't stop..."
"Yeah, i-it spins for awhile, and-" Asch cuts Ava off once more.
"This is incredible... It keeps going."
"Oh god, why did we put that in there?" Ava asks, looking to (Y/n), who only shrugs.
"This is... satisfying to watch." Rhys admits.
"Very." Pierce agrees.
Ava sighs at their antics. "Whatever, you guys cleaned the house and that's all that matters. I'm going back to bed, good night." She turns away and walks off to her room, leaving the boys staring at the toy in Leif's hand.
"Night, A..." (Y/n) hums, watching her leave. But they decide against retreating to their room as well, and they watch the boys for a moment with a small, fond smile. "You know, as nice as that thing is, I feel like you guys deserve a little more for all you've done..." They step closer again, stopping the fidget spinner with their finger. "Like, for starters, a proper apology..."
"An apology?" Noi asks.
(Y/n) nods, their smile fading. "Y-Yeah..." They mumble. "When I yelled at all of you the other day, I just- I wasn't thinking straight. I was exhausted and frustrated and I took it out on you when I should've have..." Their eyes flicker away from the boys as they sigh. "I'm not mad, y'know? I never wanted to be, I really do value you guys being here... S-So I'm really sorry about all of that..."
Their words render the boys completely speechless for a moment, and after a few beats of silence, (Y/n) worries that they said the wrong thing. "L-Look, I-"
"I suppose we can accept your apology..." Asch mumbles, his cheeks tinting pink, though (Y/n) doesn't notice.
"Yes." Pierce agrees.
"We under stand your frustration came from a place of worry, (Y/n)." Rhys adds. "Truly, with the way they reacted, you have no reason to apologize. We should apologize for making you panic..."
(Y/n) frowns. "Th-That's-"
Rhys continues. "You were simply worried about losing someone you cared for, you-"
"I-I care about you guys too!" (Y/n) interrupts him, face flushed. "I-I... I care a lot. I don't want to let you guys go..." The boys go quiet again, staring at the human before them, all contemplating their words.
Asch's face only grew redder, wondering the last time someone would've said something like that to him. He must've been a child, his mother must've still been around then... It was so long ago, he nearly forgot how powerful those words could be.
Pierce finds himself smiling slightly, though his eyes are still concerned. He approaches the distressed human, gently patting them on the head. He watches (Y/n)'s shoulders relax, and his smile grows.
Leif had heard the fear in (Y/n)'s voice at not wanting to let go. He'd known that feeling before, and as much as he tried to push it back down, it kept bubbling up in him. He forgot how nice it felt to care and be cared for like that.
Rhys felt a pang of hurt in his chest. He knew they'd have to leave eventually, that was just their mission, but... (Y/n) would be making that quite difficult, wouldn't they? He liked being around them as well, liked how while spoke mystically and inconsistently, (Y/n) was, for lack of a better term, more down to earth.
Noi was simply ecstatic to be cared for, to have one of the humans he held so highly really say they cared for him. If the others weren't around, he'd beam and wrap them up in his arms. Maybe he wouldn't want to let them go either...
"So, I thought..." (Y/n) begins again, breaking each of the boys out of their heads. "I thought I could make it up to you by taking you guys out again. Maybe to try some more human food? I know some nice restaurants we can try if you're interested..."
Rhys' eyes light up. "That would be wonderful, (Y/n), but you have no need to apologize, like I said."
(Y/n) smiles. "Then... think of it as an extra reward for cleaning and looking after me and Ava..." They say, softly. "J-Just from me this time, okay?"