Closed a place at the table

[Elio Boneheart]

Elio didn’t really know how to approach a Nightray, approaching Mikael had happened completely accidentally, but this was Ai. Sure, he knew her, had known her since he was younger, one of his Mother’s friends, Bryce’s too, as far as he knew, but that didn’t make talking to her about something like this any easier and he wasn’t sure why it would have honestly. Quite made it worse really. He stood outside the door to her study for quite a bit longer than he needed to, since he had floo access to their manor now (Mikael really was serious about that whole protection thing) he could come and go as he pleased, but he wasn’t about to just burst into Ai’s office, he wasn’t an idiot - he was pretty sure he knew what she could do with a wand after having seen what Mikael could do with one.

This was probably stupid - she probably was alerted to his singular presence the moment he stepped through the fireplace, but it somehow still felt like maybe he wasn’t right here. He was uninvited after all, even if he had an open invite, it and it wasn’t really uninvited or something. After everything with Laurent’s threats, and the way Mikael had reacted to them and talked about it, he couldn’t exactly keep pretending that he didn’t feel it. There was a coil of fear about a mile long in the base of his stomach and some kind of guilt burning at the back of his throat. It took him another several tense moments before he finally managed to knock, and then gave a small shiver of fear, almost ice cold down his spine.

He held out the pastries he brought from Honeydukes (as if he knew how to cook) as the door opened and he stepped inside. “I brought you some pastries,” he said, holding them out like a peace offering.​

 

[Ai Nightray]

The moment Ai was alerted of Elio's presence within the wards, she knew that he was here to talk to her and Liam. After all, Mikael and the others were still in school at this point. Perhaps one or the other but she had a feeling he was here for her rather than her husband. Which is why despite the two of them being engaged in a discussion pertaining to the family business, she decided to shoo her husband away. He'd given her a nonplussed and offended look for it, but she'd made sure to soothe his ego with a kiss before sending him on his merry-way. Now that had been minutes ago. Like a while minutes ago. The floo Elio would have had access to would have been the one in Mikael's suite no doubt. She doubted she'd removed Elio's access to the main one as well since he'd been a frequent guest at the manor growing up. He wouldn't be surprised if Elio also had access to the one where Mikaela's family wing since Elio was a close friend of Theodore. So yeah, Elio had been a fixture in the manor even before he had ended up in a relationship with her third son so Ai was not in the least bit worried that Elio had gotten lost on the way to her study. Or perhaps she'd thought wrong and he was here to see Liam in which case she would have been excited for nothing. She'd been about to give up and storm Liam's study when there was finally a knock on her door.

The door was opened with a simple wave of her hand - a swift spell of dizziness overtaking her that was easily dismissed - perhaps she should start getting used to using her wand and incantations again. Ai stood and quickly walked over to Elio, bypassing the treats and encasing him in a hug and standing up on her tiptoes to give him a kiss on the cheek for good measure. "Look at you all grown up," she said with a grin as if she hadn't just seen him during school break. "Fine young man - graduated and all," she sighed as she finally took the treats from him and opened it with a beaming smile, popping a treacle fudge into her mouth and then offering one up to Elio by basically placing it against his lips. He may be all grown up now, but she'd watched over him as a child and that wasn't about to change anytime soon. "So what finally made you visit little old me?"​

 

[Elio Boneheart]

Elio didn’t mean to, but he did stiffen for half a second when Ai pulled him into a hug, the familiarity of it always managing to catch him off guard. He’s always been a sort of affectionate person, but apparently that’s not enough to prepare him for the feeling of a mother’s hug, even with how much he hugged his own mother. Coming from Ai it was always a shock, maybe because Mikael wasn’t physically affectionate like Elio was. Then he leaned into it, like he had done a thousand times before, because what was better than a hug? Not much honestly. The kiss on the cheek similarly made his ears grow hot, and he laughed under his breath, sometimes he really didn’t understand how Mikael grew up with Ai for his mother and still managed to turn out as unaffectionate as he was. He had always been awfully fond of Ai, even as a child.

As he opened his mouth to say something to her - and then it was promptly stuffed with a piece of treacle fudge… not vegan. Dammit. He ate it anyway, because there were rules in this house, and this had always been one of them: you didn’t say no to Ai’s food, or her affection. “Merlin,” he grumbled, and shook his head, swallowing the treacle and then smiling lightly at her. One of these days he’d be game enough to tell her he was a vegan, but she seemed to think vegetarian and vegan were the same thing, she just thought he didn’t like meat. Bless her. He looked at her and his eyes grew a little more serious. He felt like she might know why he was here, but he felt like he should mention it anyway. “Things aren’t - safe. You know that. I just-” he shook his head, hesitating. “I don’t want you thinking you’re in this alone. I’m not just some… guest anymore. Not to Mikael. And not to this family, if you’ll have me.”

It was clumsy and too many words for what he was trying to say, but it was honest and maybe that was all it needed to be. He wasn’t asking for their permission, but offering his loyalty, messy as it was. Sometimes he didn’t think Mikael believed him, but he knew Ai would. She always believed him. Well, when he wasn’t nine years old and lying about cake.​

 

[Ai Nightray]

The way Elio flushed after a kiss on the cheek made Ai laugh, such an obvious sound of delight as she pulled away from the boy who had captured her son's attention. Mikael and Elio as a couple was still admittedly something she nor Liam never saw coming but decided to take in stride nonetheless. Still, how Elio would flourish with her cold son was something that worried her sometimes. She just had to hope that Mikael was better than his father when it came to affection or even just communicating. She somehow doubted it, but a mother could hope. She set the box of treats on the coffee table in her study, and it immediately disappeared to be replaced by healthy snacks instead - fruits and crackers, which made her pout slightly. At least they gave her tea as well. House elves. Perhaps it was too much to hope they would indulge her sweet tooth when she'd been prescribed a healthier diet, unbeknownst to the rest of the family. Hopefully, they would at least serve it to her for dessert later on.

Ai took a seat on the couch and served the tea for herself and Elio while the young man seemed to gather his words. His words made her pause in her task for a moment, a small smile on her features before she continued and set the pot down, patting the space beside her to invite Elio to sit once he's gotten what he wanted to say out. Such a sweet, sweet boy. "Honey, you were never just 'some guest'," she said, a hand to his cheek to make sure he's looking at her. "Even before you and Mikael," she said with a smile before she pulled her hand away to get the cup of tea so she could have a drink. "You've been here often enough that I'm pretty sure I'd have adopted you if you're mother wouldn't kill me for it. You getting together with Kael just made everything a little bit more official," she said with a wink. She knew Kelsey didn't really approve of the relationship, and well... Ai could certainly understand it. Didn't mean she wasn't happy to have Elio actually officially nearly be part of the family. She couldn't wait for the wedding - not that she'd mentioned that to her friend of course. She had more tact than that now.

"Now," she said as she put her drink down. Elio knowing things weren't... ideal, in the family was a part of growing up. Soon, she wouldn't be surprised if Eurydice and Annika would soon start to realize the same thing. But safe. Safe was a different thing altogether. Which reminded her that Laurent had met with Kael during Brightstone the previous term, and both individuals had remained quite tight-lipped about the exchange. What was worrying was that they were both saying the same thing. He gave me advice, was all Mikael said when she'd asked. Elio coming to her and offering his assistance. She couldn't help but wonder, "is there anything my idiot son has told you that I should know?"​

 

[Elio Boneheart]

Elio couldn’t help the way his face turned slightly crimson when Ai touched his cheek. He huffed slightly with laughter at the adoption comment, because he could definitely sort of see what she was talking about. Back when his mother wasn’t with Bryce and didn’t have a lot of money he’d spent some large stints in this house, especially when Kelsey had been short on money and could only afford to feed one of them. Ai had graciously offered to help look after Elio, so then she wouldn’t have to worry about trying to feed the both of them. He still remembered a lot of that time, but he mostly pretended he didn’t remember it. It kind of made his chest feel tight, but in a good way, like maybe this was just as much of a home for him as his mum’s place was. Ai seemed to just understand that like she always had. He didn’t know how she did that. He wished he did.

He quickly sat next to her when she patted the available space, and gratefully accepted the tea, though he placed it beside him before he actually drank it. He’d never been a tea drinker, but he drank it sometimes for Ai - since you never said no to her, not in her own home. He paused when she asked him a question, one he wasn’t sure he fully knew how to answer honestly - of course she’d go straight for the throat, she might be Ai, but she was also still an arm of the Nightray family - arguably the arm, if rumours were to be believed. “I don’t think he’s trying to keep secrets from you,” though the more he thought about it these days the less sure he was of that fact. Besides that he never wanted to be the reason why Mikael and his mother might clash. “But I don’t think he knows how to… talk about what’s going on. With Laurent. With any of it.”

He felt kind of like he was betraying Mikael by talking to Ai, but he wasn’t exactly revealing plans, and it felt like she was fishing for information more than looking for stuff she didn’t already know about. Maybe she was testing his loyalty? In subtle ways, sure, but this was still Ai they were talking about. “He told me what Laurent said, and I don’t know if it’s a threat or a test or just some pureblood power play, but… it rattled him. I know it did. And Kael - he’s good at hiding when he’s scared. He acts like it’s nothing, but he’s thinking about it. You can tell.” He looked down at his hands in his lap, frowning. “He didn’t even want me to know at first. Like if he kept it quiet, he could control it somehow.”

The problem was Mikael was scared, and when he was scared he tended to bottle things up, and it annoyed Elio to no end, because how was he supposed to help when he bottled things up? If he couldn’t talk to Ai, or to Elio, who could he talk to? “He’s scared for you. For Liam. For the girls. For me. And I think that’s part of why he’s shutting down.” He didn’t like that he was saying this, but he’d been accused of not trusting people before, and it had nearly broken him. He had to trust someone, he had to trust that someone else wanted what was best for Mikael too. He had to trust that Ai would pick Mikael over him, even if Mikael didn’t want her to. “You know, he told me not to tell you anything. That you didn’t need more to worry about. So if I disappear after this, you’ll know why.” He laughed, because it wasn’t a joke, not really. “But I think he forgets you’ve already seen the worst of this. You raised Mikael. You don’t scare easy.”

If there was one thing Elio knew, it was that Ai was part of Mikael’s whole world, and losing her from his life would probably break him into pieces. Elio wasn’t sure he’d be able to help if that ever happened. Then, softly, he said, “I just thought you should know. He’s not fine. And I’m not sure he’s going to say it before something bad happens.”​

 

[Ai Nightray]

Ai laughed, terribly amused by Elio's defense of her son. It wasn't really meant to mock him or anything, and she may not know her children as much as other mothers did with their own, but she liked to think she knew enough. Her children—their children, her and Liam's—they were all the best and worst of them. Mikael, especially so. "Of course he's keeping secrets from me," she said when she finally calmed down. "He's my son. And he's Liam's son. A Nightray. Terrible as it is, it would be weirder if he didn't have secrets. Especially with him wanting to take over the family." Mikael had never made it a secret that he wanted to succeed Liam. Ai had been skeptical through the years, especially with how her son showed no interest in academics or didn't have much skills to boast—until his grades skyrocketed in the last two years. Now... perhaps they would have to wait and see.

Ai took another sip of her drink as she pondered Elio's speculation of Mikael's feelings about Laurent. Listened to him talk about how Mikael had revealed to him what he refused to reveal to Ai. And yet Elio was trying not to reveal anything specific. Interesting. Mostly focusing on how Mikael was feeling. The fear. The need to control. So much like her. So much like his father.

The Nightray matriarch didn't doubt for one second that Mikael was worried for the girls, quite possibly the twins. She'd made a lot of mistakes raising her children—a lot of them. But one thing she'd made sure to impose on them was putting each other high on each other's priorities. In the event... in case of the worst, she didn't want them ending up like her and Conan. He let Elio finish getting all of his thoughts out before she even dared to set her cup of tea down.

"Well, thank you for letting me know, hun," she said finally when he finished. "I'm sure my son won't disappear you for talking to me, but rest assured, I have no intention of telling him you came to me about this. If Liam asks, all we did was talk about my possible grandbabies and when the wedding will be," she said as she popped some fruit into her mouth, "so if Mikael learns of this conversation, it'll be from you. Not from me." And then she leaned against the back of the couch, staring into the space as if this would reveal to her what exactly Laurent's plans were. She would have to speak to Liam still, about his cousin threatening their child, but they had always known, being heirs wouldn't protect their children forever.

"You know... it would be easier for both of us if you tell me what exactly Mikael told you about Laurent and their talk," she said, pondering how much about the family she should reveal to Elio. They weren't married yet, but at this point, she was pretty sure it was only a matter of time. She didn't know how much Mikael knew about the recent history of the Nightrays, but she was mostly sure Elio had no clue yet. Tizi and Jai didn't even know until she and Liam told them. "Laurent and I... we have history. Liam's parents and others were killed when he was six. Let's just say I sent his mother away for an indefinite amount of time." Perhaps that would be enough to let Elio understand that this wasn't just pureblood power plays.​