#* drabble

Once again, Henry had challenged Arthur to rough house on their last visit to Westminster. The sixteen year old humored his eleven year old brother and it had ended in a tear one another one of his shirts. Rather have one of her ladies in waiting do the task of mending his shirt, Catherine had taken the duty upon herself.

She had been in confinement on bed rest for the last month as she entered her third trimester. There was only so much that her ladies could do to keep the Princess of Wales occupied lest she go stir crazy. Too late for that.

Arthur chuckled from the doorway. He had come by, as he did every night to speak with his wife before he went back to his own chambers for the night. “It is doctor’s orders, my love.” he said, sitting on the edge of his wife’s bed. She lifted her head to glare at her husband but there was an overwhelming playfulness in her blue eyes that was overriding the irritation.

“This is your first pregnancy and no one wants to risk anything happen to you.”

“Or the heir. Mainly the heir.” the seventeen year old princess added, lowering her gaze to sewing once more.

“Both of you.” Arthur insisted, reaching over and pressing his hand to his wife’s knee. “Only a few months left and we will soon be holding our child. It will be in the midst of Spring. We will be able to take him outside, show him some of the lands he will eventually rule over.”

Catherine put the shirt, needle and thread aside onto the wooden bedside table and reached her arms out to her husband.  

The sixteen year old Tudor smiled gently and the two moved about on the bed until he was lying next to her, both of them under her blankets. Her arms wrapped around his midsection as her red curls rested upon his chest. “Stay with me for the night.” she asked, her voice ever so muffled as she nuzzled his chest through his nightshirt.

Arthur laughed softly as he pressed a kiss to his wife’s head. One arm resting behind his head, the other wrapped around Catherine, his hand placed upon her swollen stomach. “You know I-”

“I know. You also know that I am an early riser. I will be able to wake you up and shoo you off before my ladies arrive.”

He did know that. Knew it well. Before she was with child, there were many a mornings when he was jostled awake from his wife moving off of the bed before the sun had even fully rose above the horizon.

“You know I can not say no to my Guinevere and you use it against me.” he teased.

Catherine nodded, a triumphant smile spreading across her face. “Indeed. My Arthur.” she moved her head away from Arthur’s chest and leaned up to peck her lips against his. “I love you.”

This one’s giving her a real thrashing, sending her flying into the walls at every conceivable opportunity, with an intensity that has to be personal. She figures that it is; the spirit they’ve tracked to upstate New York, isolated in an abandoned cabin by a lake somewhere in the Adirondacks, belongs to a woman who’d lost her two children, a boy and a girl, in a drowning. Sue feels for her, she really does, because she can’t imagine what it’d be like to lose her own children at all, much less in such a horrible way, but —

The wall cracks under the impact of her head for the fifth time, and she doesn’t have to be able to see anything to know that she’s bleeding.

“Johnny!” she calls to her brother, whose shovel she can still hear digging into the dirt just outside the cabin. “What are you waiting for? Burn the damn bones! I don’t have all day!”

“That’s really high and mighty coming from the one who left the salt in the car, Sue! And you tell me I’m irresponsible.” More shifting of dirt, and then there’s the distinct clang of metal on bone. “Hang on, I’ve almost got her!”

The spirit seems to know it, too; her head turns, mouth open inhumanly large to scream. She moves, swiftly, to the window…. 

“FLAME ON!”

Instantly, the hold on Sue releases as the spirit disintegrates: she slides to the floor, gasping for breath. The fingers that slide to the back of her head definitely feel blood, but as far as she can tell, it’s nothing too serious — something that another few minutes might’ve changed.

Regardless, though, the job is done, and hopefully, finally, the spirit can find some peace.

She knows the answer he wants, but her shoulders tense at the thought of giving it. He is all dark hair and chiseled jaw and lithe limbs and she ought, at least, to be able to conjure lust. Some nights she forgets enough to manage that. 

It should be an easy answer to give. She has been trained all her life to give it. Ticklish whispers in her ears -"tell grandmother you love her,” or “tell uncle how pleased you are to see him”- and Leta would be expected to toddle over to the relative in question, and smile, and accept kisses and embraces when offered. As a small child, with dirt on her knees and twigs in her hair from playing with the cousins, she had once thrown a fit, not feeling much like telling anyone she loved them. 

Her father had been furious. He had grabbed her shoulders once he could get her alone, hissing, “This is how you earn your place with them. Do you want them to forget us?” His hands had been so tight, but what scared Leta most was the fear in his eyes. After Leta had made the prettiest apology she could, her father had put his hand on her shoulder, pride replacing fear. “Without family, we are nothing,” he’d told her. Even then, Leta didn’t want to be nothing.

The next time, she didn’t have to be asked. She smiled at her grandmother and kissed both of her cheeks. “I love you,” she said. And again the next time, and again, until it was reflex. 

At school, she’d learned something else to be, away from her parents and the endless round of family visits. There were cousins close to her in age, but she had rebuffed their attempts to draw her into their social circles, pretending that it was only their friends she didn’t like. Inside Hogwarts, Leta was free to be whatever she wanted - and by third year, she had begun to be as perverse and direct as she never could be at home. 

And yet there was one thing she could never say. She practiced it, her sixth year, mouthing words at her reflection in a window or whispering them to the insides of her bed-curtains, trying to get the words just right. I love you. I think I might love you? I’m in love - isn’t that silly? She would catch sight of a shock of ginger hair, and her breath would catch as she thought of saying it. Every time she opened her mouth to say them, though, the words stuck. 

It could never have lasted, anyway, she told herself later. It was small comfort, with the broken pieces of their friendship still scattered through her life. Newt was gone from her side as surely as if the expulsion had been enforced. The trust was broken.

“I’ve missed you so, grandmother!” she said brightly that summer, the secret of her apprenticeship held close to her chest. She moved easily through garden parties and dances, the trick of pleasing well learned. 

Amalric’s eyes bore into Leta’s, and she takes a careful breath, careful not to let the tightness of her chest show. It’s only a matter of pleasing, she tells herself. But those eyes and hands have known her too well. He isn’t asking in front of the family, while chatter burbles around them. Amalric’s eyes begin to narrow as she makes him wait for an answer. 

“Of course I love you,” she says at last, turning over and drawing the sheet up. “What kind of question is that?” she adds, forcing a laugh.

“There is really nothing that you want i-in return?”

The underground’s lord smiled. “Only a small thing. What I will gain in this treaty is nothing in comparison from what you will.”

CRASH.

Phantom turned his head towards the direction of his office door, a dark brow cocked upwards. The other male turned halfway in his chair to look in the same direction.

“What was that?” he asked, his voice filling with more tension than there was before.

Phantom shook his head. “It’s nothing. Now back to the task at hand.” he tapped his knuckles at the wood surface of his desk to get the man’s attention once more.

“Is there nothing you wouldn’t do to ensure your family’s safety? To guarantee their security henceforth? Both financially and ph-”

CRASH.

Letting out a low growl of annoyance, Phantom stood and turned his head to his henchman who stood stoically at his side. “Make sure he doesn’t try to leave.” he pointed his cane towards his client. “One moment please.” he smiled at the young man before leaving his office and making sure to close the door behind him.

After walking down the few hallways to his office, he entered the main barroom.

To say it was chaotic would be a tad bit of an understatement.

A few major things that caught his eyes one by one --

The house band he’d hired that night was all standing, not a lick of music being played.

Broken chairs. Wood shrapnel littered his exquisite - and expensive - marble flooring.

The behemoth of a man laying atop a pile of what Phantom figured was the remnants of table.

His daughter grinning up at him as she stood over the groaning man. How he wasn’t entirely knocked out at this point was beyond the demon.

Phantom placed the end of his cane on the ground and leaned on it with both of his hands. His dark brown eyes flashing crimson at his offspring for just a second as he glared at her. Her smile faltered a bit.

“I have several questions but the first I will ask you, Calliope.” he cleared his throat. “What in the fuck is going on out here?”

Callie shrugged her shoulders. “He was heckling the band. And he was harassing a few of the patrons.” she defended herself as she nudged at the man with the tip of her boot.

“Uh-huh.” he nodded. “And what did I tell you do in an instance just like this?”

“To get one of the bouncers to throw any nuisence out and lock the door behind them?”

He nodded once more. “Yes. And why do I tell you to follow this protocol?”

“Because you are almost always with clients and we don’t need reason to try to scare them away?”

A nod once more. “And where the fuck do you think I was just at?”

“In your office…with a client…that you don’t want to be scared away?”

“Sharp cookie, kid. Sharp cookie.” he said, standing up straight. He snapped a finger towards one of the bouncers. When he had gotten their attention, he simply pointed to the man on the ground with his cane. “Get rid of this asshole, please and thank you.”

“Of course, boss.” The bouncer hefted the near dead man over his shoulder and more or less threw him out the front door. He tossed the man’s wallet to Phantom who had caught it easily in one hand before removing what money and few credit cards were inside before tossing it back. The bouncer tossed it outside - it landing with a small thump on the man’s chest.

“Father, you don’t understand. You didn’t hear what he was sa-”

“Calliope, I don’t care what he was saying!” he interrupted her.

“But!”

Phantom shook his head. “No buts! You keep saying that you want in on my business, on my empire.” he started.

“And I do!”

He pointed his cane in her direction. “Well, first off. Stop interrupting me and listen!”

Callie shrunk back ever so slightly.

“Seldom do you ever listen to me. I give you the simplest instructions and you can not even follow those.”

“Sir, please just hear her o-” one of his bartenders spoke up. Phantom then pointed his cane in their direction.

“I did not ask for you - or anyone for that matter - to chime in.” he said, without even pulling his gaze from his daughter’s. “You’re relieved. Go home, Calliope.”

“But.”

“Go. Home.” he repeated his words. “We’ll talk later.”

Callie rolled her eyes and scoffed. She walked behind the bar and gathered her things before walking to the door. She turned on her heels to face Phantom.

“You know, you might do a good job at ruling this empire, this fucking kingdom, but you are a shit father.”

“Go. Home.”