#complete au

It had taken time, but the lad had recovered from the loss of his mother. As much as could be expected anyway. He was close to his father and his grandparents. He liked all of his nannies but especially the raven-haired beauty laughing with him as they read together.

“He loves her,” Alexander noted.

“Okay…” Constantine replied warily. He knew when his father was angling for something.

The king pulled his son into the hallway, out of earshot as he continued, “She’s going to leave.”

Constantine blinked, “What?”

“She’s going back home to Auvernall. She’s been offered a position with-“

“Well stop her!”

“How do you propose I do that, Son?”

“Offer her more money!”

“It’s not about the money. The position she’s accepted allows her to be near her family. It would take more than a mere raise to convince her to stay.”

“Well, whatever it is, give it to her!” Constantine could not deny the way his son lit up in Eleanor’s presence. She had been a fixture in his life since birth, spending more time caring for him as an infant than his own mother had. The bond between the two was obvious and had been instrumental in her promotion to head nanny.

“I don’t think there’s anything that I could offer her to get her to stay,” Alexander grasped him by the shoulder.

Constantine felt his heart sink, “What are you suggesting, Father?”

“I’m suggesting that you’ve put off remarrying long enough.”

“You can’t seriously be implying that I should-“

“Marrying her will secure her continued presence in Leo’s life, give Cordonia the queen that she needs and present you with the opportunity to give your son siblings. It’s a win/win/win my boy.”

“What makes you think she wants to marry me?”

His father chuckled, “Are you really so blind? Have you not seen the way she looks at you? Leo loves her and she loves him. She’s at least enamored of you. It’s the perfect solution!”

Confusion swept through him. He would do anything for his son. But the thought of betraying Jackson was unbearable. “But Father-“

“You’ve had three years to get it out of your system, son. It’s time to get serious about your family.”

Constantine’s stomach dropped. Get it out of his system? Did his father know about him and Jackson?

“She put in her two weeks’ notice this morning. Time is of the essence! You need to woo her and woo her quickly.”

His voice barely above a whisper, he protested, “But I don’t love her…”

Alexander heaved a deep sigh, “You and your notions of love! Look at her, Son! She’s beautiful, kind, and smart. Love will come in time. Meanwhile, you’ll be giving Leo a mother, something he desperately needs! Or are you willing to watch that boy get his heart ripped out again?”

“I…”

“Think about it. But do it quickly because time is running out.”

Alexander strode away leaving Constantine alone with his thoughts. He crept silently closer to the nursery room door again, peeking in to watch as Leo snuggled into Eleanor’s lap. He mumbled something and she looked down at him, “What is it, little one?”

Leo’s blond head lifted, and his ocean-blue eyes peered into her onyx ones, “I love you. Can you be my mama?”

Constantine’s head fell back as tears filled his eyes. He knew what he had to do.

Blondie flashes a grin, full-up of too many teeth, plumb-red tinted lips parting dangerously around too-sharp bone, an expression as seductive as it is terrifying. "That's right," she opens the backseat door and bows with a flourish, waving Laura inside the vehicle, "my name's Erica; our chariot tigerlily and I will be providing you all of your escorting and personal protection needs, as per your mother's- and therefore my paycheck's- request."

"Uh-mm," Laura laughs again, walking down the concrete steps and away from her apartment complex's entryway, stopping short when she gets to sidewalk proper, biting her lip and wringing her hands a little. Erica remains bowed, though she does turn her head to narrow her smokey eyes, the silken waterfall of her sunlight hair tangling with her neck, the black bow holding the pig-tail in place falling just under the girl's ear, contrasting the brilliant neon-chain piercings that decorate- nearly overwhelm- it. "Are you... old enough to be doing this?"

An explosive sigh as she rights herself, leans an elbow on top of the door and rests her cheek on her hand, its' opposite going to her hip with a half-resigned, half-sass sort of attitude. "Do you want to see my credentials? I've got about a dozen boxing medals, three belts, a nikyu rank in judo, and-" she does an asymmetrical kind of jazz-hands, underwhelming and seeming almost bored, like she's explained this thousands of times, before returning to her original position- "surprise surprise, a driver's license. I'm qualified, does my age really matter?"

"I... suppose not?"

"You don't sound too sure about that, princess."

Laura shakes her head with a little hiccup-squeak- a sound she will never admit to having made, and will quietly freak out about later, thank you- "Nope, I'm sure. I'm sure," and with that she skedaddles on into the car- as elegantly as she can manage, after everything- ignoring her driver's growing smirk with an awkward, embarrassed kind of desperation. She hears Erica huff out something of a laugh before the car door's shut gently behind her, the girl moving to the driver's seat and clambering in.

"So: where to?"

"Belle Grove Kindergarten," Laura answers promptly, mildly relieved to be done with the social niceties of it all.

"Oh, that's right, your mom did say something about you being a teacher." Laura hums affirmatively. "I hate kids, personally, but, you know-" she turns the key, starting the car and pulling away from the curb- "kudos to you for bringing knowledge to the next generation of assholes, or something like that."

Laura chokes on her own spit, and it takes a lot longer than she'd like for her to become composed enough to dignify that with a response, and all she ends up managing is a very high, very unsure, haphazardly chagrined and slightly sarcastic, "Thanks?"

She glimpses, from the rearview mirror, Erica's eyes crinkling with the mirth and width of her smile.

It's odd to learn about someone so extensively over such a short period of time, but, at the same time, it seems almost natural. There's awkwardness and blundering, but Erica and Laura just kind of click.

The wind-swept wild maiden, and the tamer, tranquil, motherly type of woman, both of them very, very different, but uniquely complementary to each other.

Erica, Laura finds, became a bodyguard straight out of highschool, her epilepsy- which she avoids talking about like the plague, so long as she can get away with it- made it difficult to become a driver in any capacity, but, her episodes winding down as she got older, along with finding meds to manage it that managed it well, or, at least, better than the others before, did seem help in that vein. Still, if she has even one seizure, it could revoke her license, which, while Erica understands, the safety of others and all that, she's also vaguely bitter about.

The girl's overtly sexual, voraciously flirtatious, with a mask of lethal confidence born from deep-rooted insecurities. She's very explorative of her identity at this point in her life because her identity always used to be her illness, and now that she has the chance to discover herself outside of that, she's diving in headfirst, reckless and urgent. She's a very in your face with both my middle-fingers in the air type of person, but there's a depth, a complexity to it, and a frugal kindness saturated in cynicism riding just underneath.

Her style, too, is fascinating, from her clothes to her car to the way she utilizes her language, and, despite mostly being a pacifist herself, if Laura's being honest the way Erica fights is... mouth-watering. Would be a vulgar thing to think. Which is why Laura isn't thinking it.

At all.

Erica taps the metal curl of her sunglasses against her teeth, glaring at the door that leads into Laura's apartment complex, impatient. She knows that the school-year is over, but she also knows that Laura isn't the type to have with staying inside or being idle. The woman likes fresh air and sunlight the same way flowers do, in that she needs it like breathing, could only wilt without it.

Which is why Erica ended up outside her place, figuring she'd still need a ride... somewhere.

Sighing explosively, she gets up off of her car, rubs the sun-scorched metal feeling out of her skin with a small grimace, and decidedly presses Laura's buzzer. No response. She clicks the button over and over again, irritating-persistent, pestering, until she hears a crash and an undeniably familiar voice shouting, "Cora, I swear to god—"

The aggrieved words halt, stutter, caught like fluttering-fragile butterfly wings in her long, pale throat, heterochromatic eyes startled-wide when they light on Erica—who'd backtracked down the small set of stairs, back to the sidewalk, to look up at the sight of her boss' daughter, her client, her friend, standing sleep-soft messy on her balcony. ink-silk curls in a loose-tumble bun, a slightly revealing preppy-pink satin slip under an unzipped hoodie, baggy sleeves sliding adorably over her bony hands, dream-like cotton-candy designs on it.

"Sorry to disappoint, princess," Erica smirks, watching as Laura's barefoot toes flex against charcoal grey floorboards.

Laura blushes furiously, rosy hue dusting her from her prominent collarbone all the way to her crown, getting ripe-strawberry dark just at the tip of her ears, and erica's helpless to the way her smirk widens into a genuine grin. "Not disappointed," Laura says, breezily, turning her eyes away and smoothing her hands down her skirt with all the air of recomposed royalty—the act betrayed entirely by her coloring and the high-pitch, embarrassed crackle of her tone. Erica bites back a laugh, scuffs the heel of her boot on the crack-crumble cement.

"You gonna grant me entry into your tower? Or am I gonna have to beg you to let down your hair?"

Laura's eyes flutter closed, tonguing the back of her teeth even as an indulgently mirthful smile overwhelms her. "You know... I shouldn't," she points out with a look, exasperatedly shaking her head even as she retreats back inside to buzz Erica in, fatalistic, calling over her shoulder: "You’re likely a dragon, come to kidnap me and burn me alive."

Erica rolls her eyes, jogs back up the little street-stairway, opens the door when it unlocks for her at Laura's bidding, before running up the three flights it takes to get to Laura's apartment, only the barest hints of breathless when she gets to the woman's door and sweeps inside. "No way am I a dragon. I'm more like... Excalibur," she leans into the woman's space, sultry-purr, "silver and sharp."

Laura backs away with a sound split between a groan and a sigh, "And just as dangerous."

"Not exactly," Erica hums, shutting Laura's door carelessly and meandering to the dining table, snatching an apple from the wicker-weave basket in the middle of its’ wax-shine mahogany expanse and biting into it. "The dragon kills you, princess, because it's hungry, driven by instinct, whatever. I, on the other hand, am wielded in your defence-" she shrugs- "or not. Maybe your evil step-mother picks me up and beheads you with me. My point is, as a weapon, I have no intent, good or bad." 

She looks up from her fingers, picking restlessly at blood-rich apple-skin to find Laura staring at her, expression indecipherable.

Silence reigns- vaguely uncomfortable- for a second too long. Erica blinks, knits her brows.

"... What?"

Laura shakes her head, "I— Nothing. Nothing, nevermind." She clears her throat, shuffles things around that don't really need to be shuffled, restless. "Um, so. What're you doing here?"

"My job, unless I was fired while I wasn't paying attention."

Laura huffs a little, glittering starlight returning to her eyes, "No; I'll have need of you for a while yet. But..." She shrugs, "I don't really have anywhere to go."

"Bullshit," Erica scoffs, narrows her eyes when laura's only response is a deadpanned glare. "Seriously? No... friends? social gatherings? nothing?"

*"Nothing,"* Laura sighs, nearly a pout, flopping lethargically onto her white-cotton plush couch. "Just the kids—work."

Erica blanks for a moment, fidgets, eats her goddamn apple.

"Okay," she shatters the vaguely somber air after a moment, annoyed, tossing her apple-core into the trash-can on her way to the couch before lifting Laura bodily off of it, hauling her into a bridal-carry easy as anything, and ignoring her yelp of utterly indignant shock. "Fuck this. We're going out."

Laura sputters for a moment, hands flapping a little wildly as Erica straight-up carries her past the threshold and- since the stairs don't seem like a good or practical idea- to the elevator, before she resignedly, almost begrudgingly, gives in, wrapping her willowy arms around Erica's neck and melting into her with a huff. "I suppose it wouldn't do to leave tigerlily all by their lonesome, anyway, would it?"

“No,” Erica agrees victoriously. “No, it would not.”

They spend the day driving around, avoiding paparazzi, getting frozen yogurt, a whole trunkload- literally- of books, two records, a record player, and a moment saturated in the floaty-fluff memory of dancing with Erica in the middle of the street, both of them a study in awkward clumsiness and both of them devolving into hysterical fits of laughter.

The image of Erica with her head thrown back, their bodies spinning, dizzying, her laughter throaty and reckless and breathless-wild, is replaying in Laura’s head on a loop when Erica walks her back up to her apartment, the sight of the girl's teeth, tongue, the roof of her mouth, unexplored places that Laura suddenly, yearningly, viscerally, wants to map out, discover, taste, know. Which is probably why, when Erica grins a, "G'night, Lulu," with every intention of leaving, Laura ropes her in- knuckles fisted in the collar of her shirt- and kisses her soundly.

Erica freezes for just the barest hints of a frantically eternal, terrifying moment, before she's all motion, folding Laura into her body with all the ease of a sculptor molding clay, fingertips, sharp nails, pressing into her shoulder blades as she dives into her in turn, greedy, with a gasping moan, wavering somewhere deep, all animalistic, ferine need.

When they part enough to allow air back into their lungs, lips bruised and spit-slick, Erica rasps, teased lovely, so fucking lovely at the edges, "That was-" a swallow, dry, clicking- "unexpected."

"No, it wasn't. It was a kiss. That's what you're supposed to do at the end of a date, isn't it? Kiss?"

Erica snorts, dissolves into giggles, lets her head fall to rest on Laura's shoulder, button-nose pressed into Laura’s pulse-point. "Yeah," she agrees, every muscle easing down to supple, pliant, and Laura hadn't even realized how tightly Erica was holding herself until now. "Yeah, I suppose it is."

"Come inside?" She asks, maybe begs, and Erica lifts her head, raising an eyebrow, which has Laura rolling her eyes. "To cuddle. Watch Netflix? Eat p—" she halts herself- because she knows, she knows how much Erica hates popcorn- squints her eyes at the ceiling for a second as she thinks, both arms wrapped around Erica's back, one hand absently playing with her puppy-soft hair. "Poptarts," she decides, finally, looking back down into Erica's eyes, only to be knocked entirely breathless by how much of the girl's naked heart is beating in them, joyous, honeycomb sweet, and glittering with something new, transcendent, something that, maybe, hopes to be love.

Erica catches whatever expression of besotted surprise Laura must be wearing with a kiss, like fireflies in a mason jar, says, "Sure. Poptarts sound good."

And Laura realizes, mostly accidentally, that she's now dating her best friend, and her whole world glows.