𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚕𝚎𝚗 𝚍𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎. fred weasley

𝚡𝚕𝚟𝚒. 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚙𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝚊𝚜𝚑

✦✧✦

Axel visits on Saturday, three days after Christmas. With him is Viktor, who gives Cress a tentative hug before sitting down at the chess table with Jaehyun. Axel drags Cress to the couch, making sure that Viktor is in his sight. Tiny Viktor is curled in the pocket of his jacket, Uma perched on his shoulder like a tiny cat rather than a dragon.

"Where's Mal?" Cress asks. He wrote her a note saying that she'd be here as well, but when the wall disappeared, it was only him and Viktor on the other side.

"She's sick," he replies quickly, before going through everything that happened at his house on Christmas.

There's a lot of family drama -- she thinks he mentions something about Viktor scaring Nathaniel -- that she barely manages to catch onto. Peyton's girlfriend (who their parents never accepted was her girlfriend, just a "good friend") kissed Peyton right under the mistletoe. Axel says his mum fainted, but Cress knows he loves the dramatics. She laughs anyway, and it shines some light on the heavy atmosphere in the room.

Cyprien hasn't come out of his room since Christmas. Rowan has taken him all of his meals and tried to convince him to join the group, but he denies, saying the full moon is coming and he would rather be left alone. Except he said it with such rage that Rowan called him some choice words and escaped to their room.

Now there's an odd feeling in the air, and they still don't know if they're going to be able to leave this wretched hospital to get the help they need.

She pushes it out of her mind just as she has been for the past couple of days. Axel braids small sections of her hair, asks her about her Christmas. Cress pushes away the journal that she can't stop looking at to the back of her mind and tells him about Fred, how she saw him and how his sweater matched hers.

"Oh, Godric," he says, scoffing. "Mate's delirious as is it. How badly did you hurt him, Mo?"

"I thought it was mutual," she replies, biting her lip. "I didn't think-- he agreed to it!"

"He's a respectable git, it seems," Axel responds, nodding. "Good, good. Don't ever let someone guilt you into staying with them. It's bad manners."

"Bad manners, huh," Viktor says from across the room, not even looking up from the chess board. His glasses are falling down the bridge of his nose.

Axel snorts. "Vik, do not start with me."

"I will not," Viktor says, lips twitching. "I just tink that you should retink that. 'Member Christmas?" 

"Oh, you would bring that up," Axel retorts, laughing. "As if you didn't know Nathaniel was going to interrupt, you big liar."

"I did not, no," Viktor denies, but his eyes are dark with humor when he glances over at them. "I was very ashamed at being caught in such a. . . difficult position."