Making Memories of Us
@ares

Date: 1 July 1984
Location: Ares and Issa's Flat

The best part of a good mystery was the part of any reader, of every reader, that just wanted to solve the thing themselves. There was the main character, the hero, whether they were a detective, a lawyer, a doctor, or someone that had just experienced the loss and the brutality of the crime themselves, and wanted to get to the bottom of it on their own. There was the character whose job it was to solve the mystery, and that still didn't stop the reader from trying to figure it out on their own. From reading into everything, from trying to find clues that the protagonist hadn't seen, that they hadn't noticed. They got invested in the crime, in solving it, and that was the beauty of a good red herring in mystery novels. There was nothing that she enjoyed more than when an author set it up so the reader could be so sure, so absolutely positive, that they had figured out who had done it, only to rip the rug out from under them and send them in a tailspin as new clues were uncovered, and everything changed. Issa thought that the breadcrumbs needed to be there. Someone needed to be able to read a book the second time, and they needed to see that the proof of who was responsible had been there all along, it had just been the slightest little details, the smallest little overlooked moments that fooled the reader and the protagonist alike.

It had to make sense. That was important to her. When she finished a good mystery, she always read it a second time. She went even slower, she picked through the details, and she wanted to see that it had been there all along. That the author had been able to put in the clues in a sort of way that no one had noticed, or at least not many people had noticed. If she couldn't find that, if it wasn't there, then she thought the author had taken a little bit of a copout. She didn't like it when the bad guy was someone that they had never met, never heard of, never even seen in passing. When it was just some stranger that neither the protagonist or the reader was ever even introduced to, even for a passing moment. It had to be someone that they at least knew, someone that they had heard of. Whether it was the cop who was always first on the scene, the reporter who knew too many details that hadn't been announced to the public, the medical examiner that concealed information in an autopsy. Something needed to be there, and she read it through a second time to make sure that it was there. But the first time around was always the best. There was nothing better than getting to the part where all of the pieces started to click together, everything started to make sense, and it all started spiraling downward so fast that it was impossible to put the book down. Everything was fresh, everything was new. There was nothing quite like reading a book for the first time. There was nothing it could really be compared to.

Issa wasn't there yet. The book wasn't yet at the point of no return, but it was close. She could tell that it was, so she hadn’t thought much of hopping up on the counter and grabbing the tome out of the kitchen cabinet. She knew that storing books in kitchens wasn’t something that a lot of people did—which was frankly strange to her, because what in the world were they meant to do when they were waiting for something to cook? But while she let the sauce get going, she saw no problem in sitting down on the counter by the stove, and turning open the book to the page she’d been reading. She was writing in this copy… she liked to do that, to get first reactions, because there was something special about reading a book for the first time. It brought about thoughts that she wanted to capture, thoughts she might not have the second go-around. She thought that this author was doing a particularly good job of not letting on who really did it… there was a choice, that obvious choice, but they weren’t too obvious. People would have to really think to get there, but she thought that would be the moment when the rug was ripped out from under them. During the page, and continuing to read, pen tucked behind her ear, she was completely focused on the book in front of her, and not at all on the sauce she was meant to be minding.

Making Memories of Us

She was smarter than him, and really that was hard to do. But if there was one bit of advice that he had gotten from his mother that he had truly taken to heart it was that he needed to marry a girl that was smarter than him. When he had been in school that had never been a big deal. He wasn't looking for anything serious back then, he hadn't been looking for serious when Issa had come along, and then there had just been something about her. There had been something that he just couldn't quite explain about her that had made him want to try harder. She deserved more than what he had given to other people, she had made him want to try harder, and when he had first considered takin her home to meet Kat, Ares had stopped to think about that piece of advice that she had given him when he had been a teenager. He had found the girl that was smarter than him without trying, and he knew that he had to hang on to her, because a girl like that... Well she was one in a million, and he knew that he wasn't going to get another chance like that. He wasn't going to find another one in a million, and he didn't want to. There was something about her, that even now, even years after that first date, Ares didn't think that he would be willing to risk losing any time soon. 

Life wasn't complicated, and there weren't any mighty expectations that they needed to fill. They were still young, they had plenty of time for the things that were going to come in the future. Right now they could just be them, and they could worry about the little things in life. Like who's turn it was to take out the garbage, and who was in charge of cleaning out the cat's litter box. They could worry about whether or not they get the pizza from just down the street, or the one from six blocks away because they have the best crust... They worried about whether or not they remembered to send a birthday card to those relatives they don't really like but that send money they don't really need but pretend to be ever so grateful for at the holidays. Ares knew how lucky they were, that those were their biggest worries in life right now. He knew that there were people that had it a whole lot worse off than they did, and he thought that when it came down to it there were just a lot of things that he could be grateful for. There were things to be grateful for, and Ares thought that the one thing he could never take for granted, was the witch sitting on the couch reading.

Whatever it was that she was reading had her enthralled, and he could tell that without even looking into her mind. He could tell by the way that she bit her lip and furrowed her brow as she read. He could tell by the way that she fiddled with the ends of her hair as she waited to turn the page. There were a million ways that Ares could tell, because after years of watching the woman he loved read he knew what they meant. He knew the differences in reading a mystery and a romance by her posture. He knew that if she was sitting up straighter then she wasn't really enjoying it, and that if she was curled nearly into a ball it was probably making her think... Ares could read her the way she read the books, and he thought that that was a language he would never get tired of reading. He had learned the language of her, and it was one that he thought he could only continue to get better at. He spoke so many languages, six to be exact, but seven if you included her... Making his way across the room, his feet covered only in his socks, Ares thought that he would get the jump on her, or at least he would make it to the edge of the counter before she realized that he was headed straight for her and not just in the direction of the stove. Pausing when he got just next to her he kissed her cheek and grinned down at her, "Whatcha doing?"

Issa knew that it wasn’t exactly normal to keep books in the kitchen—ones that weren’t cookbooks at least, but she thought that it only made sense. When she was cooking, what was she supposed to do while she was waiting for something to be done in the oven, for water to boil, or a sauce to thicken or anything in between. Was she just supposed to stand there and wait for it? Of course not. And so she’d taken to filling some of the cabinets in the kitchen with books, both to give her something to do while she was cooking, and because they were running out of other places to even put books. They had to go somewhere, and so she figured they might as well go somewhere where they’d get some use out of them. Issa didn’t think that Ares read while cooking, though, so really she was the only one getting use out of them, but that was fine. He would know what books to find in here when he did need them, even though she was well aware that he thought mystery books in the kitchen was a mistake. There was no greater way for her to get distracted cooking then getting trapped in a good mystery. It would have been easier to have biographies or something like that in here, because then she wouldn’t get too distracted from what she was doing. But she couldn’t help it this time. The book was getting good, and so she had grabbed it when the sauce had needed to thicken, and had hopped up on the counter.

She had intended to only read a couple of pages—a chapter at the most, because she knew that the sauce wouldn’t need that much time and that it would start to stick and ruin the pan if she went too long without stirring it. But then she had actually started reading, and within a few pages, it had gotten good, and she had completely forgotten that there had been a purpose to her being in the kitchen at all. She forgot that she was only meant to read one chapter at most, and focused on the books and the little notes that she had started to write in the margins. That was a habit that she’d gotten into… Merlin knew when, but she particularly liked to do it when it was a book she thought she could convince Ares to read also, because then he could read her thoughts on it too. Only if he wanted to, of course. They were also there for herself, so it wasn’t as if she really expected anyone else to read them. She liked it when it was something she thought that she’d actually want to read again—she liked knowing what she’d thought the first time around, and the second, because she always added notes. She also made sure they had a clean copy in case someone wanted to read one without being bothered by her scribbles, and also a hardback copy if there was one. That was probably the reason why they had so many books to begin with… the fact that they had about three copies of some books.

She didn’t notice that Ares had come into the room. It was hard to pull her focus when she was reading. Not impossible, but it certainly depended. If she was reading nonfiction, biographies, anything about history, then it was usually a bit easier. She was reading slower, she was sometimes taking notes if it was particularly interesting, and so she wasn't as deep into the book that she couldn't be drawn out of it. It was a completely different story with fiction, especially mysteries. That was when it was hard for her to know what was even going on around her. On more than a few occasions, it had ended up with her hopelessly distracted, especially when it got to that point where putting down the book was just next to impossible. When that part happened, someone could be right next to her and talking and she might not really hear them. The exception was usually. But she still didn't notice that he was in the room until he was standing in front of her, until there was a shadow on the book and he spoke, and that was when she looked up and saw him grinning down at her. "Montague just found the murder weapon in the police commissioner's home office." Issa answered, before closing the book on her lap. The sauce on the stove was still completely forgotten.

They were… different. The two of them. Well maybe they weren’t. They were just a boy, and a girl, and this was their life. But for him, for who he was, she was different. No one got to choose their own bride. No one got to just up and decide that they were going to marry a halfblood. But Ares didn’t care. He had told his uncle as much too. He didn’t care if they were going to take his title away, he didn’t care if he married her if he wasn’t going to be Prince of wherever anymore… He also knew that he wasn’t that indifferent because he knew exactly where he was prince of, and duke of, and the whole nine yards. He knew all of it, but that didn’t change the fact that he didn’t care. At least about that. He didn’t care about the titles, or the money, or any of it. It wasn’t his country, he may have been born there, he may have spent the first two years of his life there, but he wasn’t their prince, and he would never be their king. His father was the younger brother, Claudius had died leaving behind only one son, and Ondrej… Well Ondrej didn’t need Ares for anything. He could leave him be. He had two sons, and he had Andrew via Anicka, and that was fine. he didn’t need Ares for anything, he wasn’t disgracing anything, it was ridiculous. He wasn’t committing high treason by marrying a half blood, but if you asked his uncle it sure seemed like he was.

This seemed to be the greatest offense that Ares could have ever committed, and it was one that he hadn’t even actually committed yet. They weren’t even engaged… Sure he had bought her a ring, and yeah he was thinking about it, but they were just dating. They were living together, because she had had no where else to go… Losing her parents had been hard on her, but it was something that he had been there for. It was something that she hadn’t had to go through entirely on her own. He didn’t know what it was like to lose a parent like that, let alone two… He didn’t even remember his father, it wasn’t as if he could relate to what it must have been like to have lost two parents who cared for her dearly… He knew that he still had his mother, but Katrine had always been far more interested in Athena, and that was fine. She could be interested in Athena all she wanted, so long as Athena stayed out of trouble. Marrying his sister off one of these days was going to be a feat, but Ares thought that if there was anyone that could have done it, it would have been Kat. She had always been better at convincing Attie of things than he had been. But Ares knew how to get his way with his little sister too… All he had to do was smile, and act interested in whatever she was doing, and if he spent long enough doing that, she would give him whatever he wanted…

He knew that Issa wasn’t that way though. He had to work for what he wanted out of her, and right now he thought that he would have rather have liked dinner not to burn, but beggars couldn’t be choosers he supposed. She was caught up in the story, and the way that she was huddled in on herself just enough made him suspect that she had been thinking about who had actually done it in the story that she was reading. He knew from her posture, and the fact that it was the same book she had been reading when he had left earlier, that it was a mystery… From what he had gathered thus far, there had been a murder, over some lover’s dispute, and someone was someone else’s brother, and he wasn’t entirely sure that he was keeping accurate track, but he knew that she was. “Oh?” He crossed into the room and came to stand in front of her and brush a kiss against her lips before stepping back to grin at her, “And just who was it that actually committed the murder if it wasn’t the police commissioner then…” The way that she had said it made him think that she wasn’t entirely sold on the idea that it had been the police commissioner who had murdered… Was it Montague’s sister? He didn’t remember… but he was sure that he was about to find out.

This wasn’t the way that she had expected her life to go. There was no denying that. She didn’t expect for her parents to die, she didn’t expect to be in love with someone that she’d really only rolled her eyes at when she’d heard the next rumor about who he was dating in school. This wasn’t what she had expected, but she knew that life just had a way of surprising people. It wasn’t predictable, it wasn’t some script that went the same way that a person wanted it go to, every single time. Sometimes, something horrible happened, and it was just a fact that you had to pick up and keep going, or you let it consume you. Issa hadn’t been ready to let her parents’ deaths consume her. She knew that they wouldn’t want that. It had been hard… it was still hard, knowing that they were gone. It wasn’t something that she thought that she would ever get used to, because she loved them. They might have traveled a fair bit, they might not have been around every single day, but she had gone with them on some trips, and they were off helping people. It wasn’t as if they were just jet setting around the world and leaving her behind. What they were doing was important, but now, it just made her think about all of the time that they hadn’t had, and now they wouldn’t have any more time. Not until whatever came after life, but she didn’t plan on dying for a very long time.

She hoped not at least. It meant she wouldn’t see her parents for quite some time, but she liked her life. She loved it, really. It might not have been what she expected, but she was happy. She had Ares, and their flat, and their cat, and everything was good. Issa had a family. It wasn’t the one she’d been born with, but she still had Ares and Clara, and she was incredibly grateful for them. They made sure that she didn’t feel alone, and being able to come home to their flat every night, having Ares come home… everything just felt like it was going the way that it should be. It wasn’t the plan, it wasn’t the life she’d thought she was going to have when she’d pictured her future, but apart form her parents not being here, this was better—so much better than she ever could have imagined. It got easier a little bit every day, the fact that her family was gone. It got a little bit easier to bear, and she thought that would continue to happen, until she could just think about them and be happy about the time that they did have. And be happy that she would see them again someday, whenever that someday may be. But she hoped not for a while, because she was happy here. She and Ares weren’t married or anything, they weren’t engaged, but she hoped that they might have a shot at forever. She wasn’t sure… but it seemed like a definite possibility.

Issa knew that she probably would have to get a little bit better at this whole cooking thing, though, because getting married—should it ever happen, meant that she should probably be a bit more domestic. She probably shouldn’t read a mystery while trying to cook a sauce, because then Ares would get tired of coming home to burn sauces and ruined pans. At least, he might get tired of it, though she thought he knew what he was getting into. She wasn’t perfect. She burnt food, and wrote in books, and was impossible to talk to when she was reading a good piece of fiction. She put books in kitchen cabinets and couldn’t hold her liquor. She was far from perfect, but she still thought that Ares had known that, and yet somehow still loved her. Thankfully, because at this point, she wasn’t sure what she would do without him. She kissed him back when he stopped in front of her, before glancing down at the book at his question, and then back up at him. “Well, I was thinking it might be the morgue attendant, maybe, but it’s too soon to tell.” As she set the book down on the counter next to her, though, she got a glimpse of the forgotten sauce bubbling over on the stove. “Oh!” Her eyes widened a little as she hopped off of the counter and went to grab the spoon.

Ares had never been one that had thought that they were going to have books piled up in his house when he was out on his own. He hadn't thought that he he'd have books period. Booze maybe, and maybe some records... A stray magazine or two. But not books. And certainly not like this. Moving Issa in with him after she had finished school had been a choice that he had made when he hadn't been entirely sure where to go from there. He had thought that there were plenty of things that he could have done. He could have gotten her her own flat. He could have convinced her not to sell the house that she had grown up in. But none of those thad felt like the right answer. The only answer that had really made any sense at all was to bring her here, and move her in with him. The problem with that though, was that he hadn't really put a lot of thought into the fact that moving Issa in had meant moving a whole lot of books in with her. She didn't just come by herself. She was a walking library of sorts, and now there were books. There were books everywhere. He had opened the medicine cabinet the other day to look for the spare toothbrush that he had put up there after throwing his old one away, and he had found, not the toothbrush he was looking for, but a couple of smaller books tucked onto the shelves...

He didn't think that that was something that was ever going to change, but he thought that they would, or rather he would, eventually get used to it. The sheer amount of books that his girlfriend seemed to own was just astounding to him. But he knew better than to tell her that she needed to not buy them but only borrow them. There was a reason that they had more than one copy of most things. If she wanted to write in a book, she would buy another copy. So that no one else had to read the scribbles that she made in the margins. And he loved her, but they were scribbles. There were an abundance of markings in the pages of the books that he could no really distinguish, and he thought that if he couldn't read them, there was surely going to be no chance in hell of anyone else reading them... He didn't think that Issa had to be told that her handwriting was worse than a drunken goblin's, but sometimes he thought that she was worse about it than others. If she was really invested in what she was doing, there was no telling how legible something was going to be when it got done. There was always a chance that things weren't going to look the way that they were supposed to at all. But they would deal with those problems when they got there.

For right now the only problem that Ares foresaw them having was deciding what it was that they were going to be ordering for dinner. Because by the looks of whatever kind of sauce it was that she was attempting to make in that pot, he really didn't think that he wanted to eat it. He was quite sure that there were plenty of things that they could get take away that would be better than what they were going to have to try and suffer through eating that. Her getting caught up in a book was nothing new at all really, and he thought that it was something that they could easily just move on from and spend the rest of the night not worrying about. So long as their kitchen didn't end up smelling like whatever it was that she was more than likely burning. Shaking his head at her he thought that she would have most likely figured it out by now. "The morgue attendant? Isn't that a little cliché?" Not that he read all of the books that she read, but he heard enough about each of them to think that he knew what was coming out of all of them by now. Laughing lightly he got out of her way as she went to go attempt to save whatever it was that she was trying to make. "Why don't we just order pizza so you can find out if it's the attendant or not?"

The first book that she had really read had been a mystery. Issa didn’t remember that specifically, obviously, but it was a story that her parents had repeated time and time over the years. They thought it was endearing, what with how much she ended up loving reading. But she had apparently taken a book off of the bookshelf… high up on the bookshelf too, so their series of events had been that it had probably been a burst of accidental magic that had her getting the book she’d wanted on a shelf that was too high to reach—but apparently they hadn’t been in the room for that part of the story. They had just found her on the ground reading. She hadn’t had a clue what was going on in most of the books. It had been one of her father’s mystery books, so it was an adult novel, and many of the words she hadn’t even been able to begin to pronounce. But that had been the first mystery that she read, apparently. And it hadn’t been the last. If she had to choose any particular genre of fiction that she loved the most, it would easily been mystery. It was hardly a competition. There really wasn’t a type of book that she didn’t like, but mysteries were certainly her favorite. Nothing took her out of her own life and took her somewhere else more than a good mystery did.

It was why their dinner had been done for the moment she’d opened the cabinet and grabbed the book. The moment that she’d hopped up on the counter and started reading it, the sauce on the stove was absolutely doomed. She didn’t even intend to so completely forget what she was supposed to be doing, but when it came to reading, it was just easy for her to go somewhere else entirely when she was reading. It was next to impossible to even get her attention off of a book when she was reading at all, let alone if it was a mystery. One of the only people capable of doing it at all was Ares, and even then, she’d hardly remembered she had been cooking at all once he started asking her questions. She told him plenty about the books she was reading, when he asked, so usually he had enough information to get by on just about any conversation they had. Sometimes she, admittedly, had him filling in the gaps when she started talking about something that she’d never told him before. But he was smart, so he did fine. She thought that was why they had gotten along so well to begin with. She hadn’t expected that from him, when they had first started dating—and she really hadn’t thought he would be able to keep up with her. That was what her parents had always said was important for her, after all. Not to settle for anyone that couldn’t keep up with her.

She hadn’t personally thought she was all that difficult to keep up with, but she thought her parents might have actually known better than her on that one. It wasn’t all that surprising. Her parents had been… very wise. She supposed that was the right word for it. They were smart, which was why she knew that she had to try to make them proud even though they weren’t here. And she thought they really would have liked Ares, had they had the chance to get to know him. She wished that they had. But there was no changing what had happened, and she was just glad that she’d had Ares. She was glad that he didn’t mind her staying with him, which had just gotten a little bit more permanent once she’d graduated. He was her family, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. She didn’t have anyone else here, and she had her mother’s family in Germany—that she hardly knew. Going there after her parents had died hadn’t been an option. Ares, and Clara, and his family that liked her anyway, were the only family that she needed. And she was happy—and Ares was happy, and their cat was happy, so that was all that mattered to her. “Cliché? Morgue attendants aren’t always creepy and suspicious.” They had broken that stereotype in this book with a very likeable, and attractive, man working in the morgue. Who might just end up being a psychopathic killer. Maybe. The moment that she’d remembered the sauce, though, and went to salvage it, she knew it was a lost cause. She wrinkled her nose and looked up at him, spoon still in hand. “Are you sure?” She felt a little bad that she had ruined dinner, but Ares was used to it by now. At the very least, she hoped that she hadn’t scorched the pan or anything like that.

When he had first met Issadora Fairbanks, this had not been what he had been expecting. A domestic life was not something that he thought that he was all that cut out for. But for her he tried. For her, he thought that he would try just about anything. He had gone to school. He had learned everything that he was supposed to, and now he was here. Now he was back in school. He was doing what he could to make sure that she was taken care of. Buying a bar had been to annoy his step-father. That was all that Ares had really cared about when he had bought it in the first place. The money was his. Hans couldn't touch it. Katrine couldn't touch it. That was his money, to do with as he pleased, and what pleased him was buying the bar. Deciding to go back to school was something that he hadn't expected, even from himself, but here he was. He already had one degree. Political Science was only a two-year program. And he had finished that this past spring. He had two more to go now though. Two more years of school to have a degree in economics as well. What he was going to do with it, he hadn't quite worked out yet, but something.

Or maybe he would just keep the bar. There was nothing wrong with that. He could just keep the bar, and not worry about it any further than that. His trust fund was enough that he didn't really have to worry about much. He wasn't a prince. His father had been. But he wasn't. His mother had taken him away when he was little, after his father had died, and he knew better than to think that he would ever have the same place in that world that his cousins had. Josef, and Anicka, and Dominick. Princes and a princess. They were the ones that the countries knew. They were the faces that couldn't so easily disappear in a crowd. Not a crowd in the Czech Republic or Slovakia anyway. Anicka especially, he knew that his cousin was loved by her people. The People's Princess. Something that no one had asked her to be, and something that he thought that she didn't mind escaping here. He was a Duke. Ares was a Duke. Which wasn't exactly the same as being a prince, but it wasn't nothing either.

He thought that they would figure it out. Whatever this was, he thought that he would figure out how to be this person that he had never thought that he was going to be. Because with her, he thought that it was worth the effort. She had made him grow up. She had made him focus, settle down, worry about the things that were important to him. And he knew that he was going to have to step it up. He was going to have to do better. To be better, but there wasn't all that much that he could do about it just yet. He had to finish school first. And he had to make sure that the bar was taken care of. And he had to make sure that she was taken care of. Because Issa being happy was important to him too. He wanted that, he wanted her to be happy. And he knew that it was hard. He knew that her losing her parents had been hard. But that didn't change the fact that she had a family again now. He would be her family.

Coming into the house he hadn't been surprised in the least that she was reading. He had gotten used to the fact that dinner was sometimes only half cooked. He had learned to cook for himself, for both of them, actually. If he didn't want takeout. Sometimes he could salvage whatever it was that she had started, but he was almost convinced that there was no saving all of this. He didn't think that it was worth the effort of going through the work when ordering pizza would just be so much easier in the long run. This way he could watch her read the end of the book, while he pretended that he was reading for his own course work. "I'm pretty sure that they rank right up there with inferi on levels of creepiness." That was probably an exaggeration, but he rather liked the idea of morgue attendants being the creepy ones in all of her books. Otherwise all of his philosophies fell a little short. "I don't mind pizza. I think I could probably eat it once a day and not get sick of it. It's just one of those foods, you know?"

Ares Wentzell had been a surprise. From the beginning. Issa hadn’t really paid all that much attention to him, because she had been more focused on her studies and on her friends than on the boy that everyone knew had slept with half of the of-age witches in the school. Everyone knew that he had a wandering eye, and that he was never with the same witch for all that long. Plenty of them had gotten their hearts broken thinking that they would be the one that got him to change--taming the bad boy. It was a cliché in books, and it was a cliché in real life as well. So she had never really paid all that much attention to him, because she just wasn’t interested. She hadn’t wanted to waste her time on some bloke that was only going to break her heart, and she didn’t think that she was exactly the type that was going to catch his eye anyway. Issa liked reading, she liked her classes, and she didn’t honestly date all that much. She just wasn’t the type of girl that Ares Wentzell was likely to take a second look at anyway. So there had just been no reason for her to even think all that much about him.

She hadn’t been able to stop from hearing the rumors, because they were everywhere. He was just one of those people that girls whispered about in their dormitories and gossiped about who he was dating and who he’d asked to go to Hogsmeade with him. It had been silly, and she had been good at ignoring it when possible. Sometimes her roommates talked to her about it, though, which was always a little harder to ignore without being rude. But for the most part, she didn’t have to bother with many of the rumors, involving him or anyone else. Then she had actually met him. She hadn’t thought much of it, even if he was different than she had been expecting. He wasn’t what she had thought, and then he’d asked her to come over for Christmas. It wasn’t a normal first date by any definition--holidays were normally a big deal to ‘bring home the girlfriend,’ but that had been their first date. He had found out that she was going to be alone for the holiday, so he had invited her over. It had been… nice, and then she’d ended up falling hard.

Everyone had told her to be careful, and that she was going to get hurt. With his reputation, she knew why they thought that. She knew all about him too, she just thought that it was worth the risk. She wasn’t going to make decisions based off of the possibility of getting hurt. If she got hurt, she got hurt. That was just the way that life worked. But she’d found that being with Ares had just… always been worth it. He had proven her wrong in the beginning, when he wasn’t anything like she had expected--and then he had been there for her through everything. Through her parents dying, when she’d really needed to lean on him. It was something that she thought she was still working through. She had always been close to her parents, and losing them so abruptly was something that she never could have expected. But he had been there for her. He had let her stay with him, when she hadn’t wanted to go back to the house. He was absolutely the love of her life, and she didn’t know what she would do without him. She was glad that she didn’t have to figure that out.

She thought that they were really going to last, after all. It was why she didn’t worry about what she would do without him, because she honestly thought that this was going to last in the long-term. If she believed in soulmates, and a part of her wanted to, she thought that he was hers--and hopefully he thought that she was his. Regardless, he was stuck with her anyway, at least for now, and that meant he had to deal with her habit of starting dinner and then forgetting about it once she started reading. It was a shame that she wasn’t able to salvage it, but it was far too late to do anything about it. Issa just hoped that she hadn’t ruined the pan completely. It didn’t look great. “Morgue attendants are not as creepy as Inferi.” She answered, wrinkling her nose. Not even close, in her book. Inferi were just… honestly more than a little bit terrifying. “Fine. But I want the place with the good crust this time…” It was the further away pizza shop, but she thought that it was definitely worth it tonight.

Ares didn't think that anyone had expected this of him. He was naturally not the type of guy that you just up and settled down with. He wasn't the type of guy to settle down at all really, and then there had been Issa. And she had been a surprise, and she had been a challenge more than anything. She was younger than he was, and he thought that she rivaled him well on being the most brilliant student at Hogwarts at the time. Because Ares knew that his grades had by far exceeded anything that anyone would have thought for him. Top of his class, though by looking at him, and his track record, you would have thought that he was just some other pureblood snot that didn't know what he was going to do in the real world. That wasn't the case though. Not at all. He had goals, he had things that he wanted to do, and he had done things that he was going to do. And the bar was a part of it, but so was Lufkin. So was everything else that he wanted, and somewhere along the way, Issa had become a part of that.

He thought that she was pretty great, and that she was stronger than he thought that she was. Because she had survived losing her parents, and that had been a few years ago now, but he thought that she was still processing it in some ways. That they weren't going to come back this time. He knew that she had still been in school. That he had taken her in, that that was what it had been, or at least what they had told people. That she had moved in because she didn't have anywhere else to go when she graduated school, but Ares didn't think that that was necessarily the truth. She could have gone home. Back to the house that she had known since she was a girl. But she didn't. She had sold it, and moved in with him, and that was as simple as that. They were going to make this work, because he wanted to make this work. She was worth that to him. She was worth everything that he was giving up. She was worth annoying his mother, and his sister. She was worth losing a lot of things, because for him, she had come to be enough.

Her and that stupid cat. He didn't really know why he had said yes when she had asked if they could get a cat. Probably something to do with the puppy dog eyes that she had given him, and the way that she had batted her eyes and said please. It was hard to tell her no, and it was just a cat. Or at least that was what he had told himself when he had agreed. It was just a cat. How much trouble could a cat be? The answer? Plenty. A cat could be plenty of trouble, and she had had to pick the cat with the most fur that he had ever seen in his life. It wasn't just a little sleek thing, oh no, it had to have fur that went absolutely everywhere. He didn't think that he had gone to class yet this week without taking a little bit of the cat hair with him. Cats weren't even friendly… He didn't understand it. He thought they should have gotten a dog. At least a dog would play, and he could take it on runs with him or something… A cat was just… There… Shedding all over his stuff. And all over her stuff, and he didn't mind when it was her hair that he was picking off of his clothes before he put them on, but long blonde hair was easier to get off than short white cat hair.

Ares supposed that there were worse things in the world than having to deal with the cat hair though. He could tolerate the cat, because she liked it. And it was easier to tolerate the cat, than continually torment her by telling her that he was going to leave it outside. The cat talk, much like the dinner talk, was an ongoing discussion, but Ares was convinced that he would win the talk about locking the cat outside before he actually managed to pry her away from a book long enough to finish cooking an entire meal without getting distracted. He had been known to save a thing of pasta or two over the time that she had lived here, but he had also replaced their pans more than once already. "Okay…" He would give her that one, "Fine. But they are up there, one step down maybe…" He chuckled at her when she said that she was dictating where they pizza came from. "You burned dinner, with your creepy morgue attendant, and now you're dictating where I get second chance dinner from?"