#marleigh

bonus couple level <3

The heist case was an intriguing one, with enough little twists and turns it’d make any auror salivate at the prospects of it. Two robbed heiresses and a bank desperate for answers? This was the kind of case that’d look good on any resume. And maybe if their partner looked just as good on paper as the case itself, Harlow would have been a bit happier about it. Instead the scowl on their face is apparent the moment they step through the gilded doors of Cromwell’s, as their eyes land on Marleigh McMahon. 

The other auror aggravated them, that wasn’t a well kept secret to anyone in the office. They were loud and crass, and got away with far too much. Which on their own would make them a mild inconvenience for Harlow. But it was the fact that somehow despite it all, they were a good auror, that irritated them to no end. 

“McMahon,” they greet as they walk into the lobby, “did Eames finally figure out that you’ve been pretending to be on a case for the last week? Or did Langer just finally get fed up enough she tossed this case on your desk anyway?” 

He almost throws the case file on Athena’s desk that morning when he sees it. A case about strange lights and alien conspiracy theories certainly sounded like the softballs he’d been given lately, but it’s the name typed above his that has him certain there was a mix up. After Racine and the absolute travesty that proved to be, he figured the likelihood of him and Marleigh ever working together again was incredibly low. Yet, when he looks back behind him, to Langer’s office, where she’s currently somehow even more busy than before, now quite literally working two jobs, she gives him an amused shrug when he finally catches her eye. 

He’s not certain if he has her to thank her, or a last ditch decision by Eames before he jumped ship, but he wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to work with Marleigh again, especially on a case that sounded as fun as this one was. Picking up the note Rory had left in the file, he heads to the bathroom, hoping to evade Marleigh before they get into the office that day as he does. Once the concealment is on, he’s pleased to see Marleigh has only recently sat down at their desk. 

Straightening his posture he walks over to them, “Excuse me,” he says as he nears their desk, crossing his arms and trying to look like every authority figure he’s had in his life as he does so. “I’m Bob Saget with human resources,” he greets gruffly, “and I’m here to investigate a rather serious- no, grave, matter at hand here.” 

It’s not too long after Jim informs them of the trap charmed into the portkey when more aurors show up, those who aren’t injured head back out to the manor, to help those who found themselves entrenched in battle, while those injured stayed behind. He tries to keep himself busy as he waits for Athena to get back, to give him a better idea of where his help was needed the most. He feels like at this stage the point is moot, considering how many aurors are still lost out there, but he made her a promise, and so he stays behind. Waiting anxiously for her return. 

It’s as he waits when Marleigh McMahon’s group comes in, with the wix themself looking half dead and covered in blood as they’re brought into the barn and laid out on one of the hay bales Felicity has since set out to use as makeshift hospital beds. Abel hangs back at first, not wanting to crowd the wix as Felicity and one of the Mountain aurors discuss Marleigh’s injuries while she looks him over. 

“You did great, sunshine, really,” he hears Felicity tell the younger auror as Abel finally steps forward. “They wouldn’t have made it without your help.” The younger auror smiles at her compliment before pulling her into a hug, his shoulders sagging as she embraces him. 

Wanting to find out the state of his own coworker, he takes a seat on a wooden crate that’d been placed next to Marleigh’s makeshift bed. 

Everyone needs alone time

Photo: #marleigh

As soon as he gets Marleigh’s- or rather Sol’s message, he apprarates from Kerrigan’s, where he’d spent the entire night watching the television, wracked with worry, and immediately to Calderon’s. Half the night he has to spend in the waiting room though, waiting anxiously for any news on Marleigh. In that time, he gets enough different pieces of what happened that night to start to put together a picture of what happened. Things had gone south almost immediately for the mission, with the first sign of trouble being the telekits going out, and things only getting worse from there. It makes him sick to his stomach to think of Marleigh in the hands of Greyback, having themself sliced open by the maniac, especially when he thinks of his and Ignatius’s light-hearted jokes they made about the wolf what felt like a lifetime ago.  

When he’s finally given the clear to go to Marleigh’s room, they’re already passed out, after the mediwixes had done everything they could for the wix. He has to fight the urge not to cling on to them, at the very sight of their broken and battered body, covered in new wounds, and oddly- new tattoos. Those would be questions for later though. 

Pulling up a seat next to their bed, he wastes the next hour reading through a couple pamphlets one of the mediwixes left for him. All of them vary in title, but collectively they could have easily been called “So You Might Be Half-Werewolf Now, Here is Why That Sucks”. Eventually he does find some sleep himself though, curled up in the chair, one hand on Marleigh’s bed. 

He’s not sure how much later it is when he does wake up, stirred by movement on the hospital bed next to him.