A/N: My take on what happened at Tatiana's birthday party. This is my first one shot, so any helpful reviews would be GREATLY appreciated.
By the way: My other fanfics (Clockwork Powers and Clocking in the Hours) are going to be updated soon; this is just something I did in between.
THANK YOU to my AMAZING beta readers: Uptomyneckinfandoms (both her insta and her fanfic account) and fandomsdestroyedme (insta only)!
Pls tell me what you think!
Will looked upon the party with a rather bored expression, feeling quite uncomfortable whilst doing so; due to the invitation specifically stating "formal attire", and Charlotte insisting that he comply with its instructions, he was now shifting awkwardly in a shrunken navy blue suit he had worn several years prior and had not found the time to have tailored. Of course, his expression did not let on to his uncomfortableness, and he instead dawned a mask of indifference and cool, haughty confidence as his eyes flicked over the crowd of Shadowhunters.
He was not the only one already disinterested with this affair, as he soon noticed; many of the partygoers- a fair portion of which were still in their adolescence- seemed to be dozing off, and even the string quartet's members, despite their harmonious playing, were slowly growing tired-their eyelids beginning to droop and their hands beginning to slowly lose precision in their playing. The birthday girl, whom this whole party was thrown for, seemed to understand how ghastly her celebration was, for she appeared to wear a perpetual scowl on her face- not once, throughout the several hours that this 'celebration' had dragged on for, had Will seen her smile. Stuffed into a god-awful pink taffeta dress, which puffed out in the likeness of a parasol, her arms crossed, she looked like a very angry petunia. Her sandy blonde hair was curled into tiny ringlets that reminded Will of a poodle, and her bright green eyes seemed to radiate annoyance.
Of course, Will had tried to stay as far away as possible from the birthday girl. What was her name again? Tabitha? Tatiana? He shook his head, it was something like that. Throughout the course of the party, he had seen her try to make eye contact with him on several occasions- each occurrence, he'd turn away just in the nick of time. Unfortunate as it was for her, Will neither wanted nor could engage in even the slightest of friendly activities with her, for the possibility that she might develop... Attachments; as much as Will found the girl's attitude vexing, it wasn't as though he wanted to send her to her deathbed.
However, as he was glancing over at her table, she looked up at him again. With nary a split second to react, Will couldn't turn his head in time, and their eyes locked. Muttering a few ungentlemanly words, the green-eyed girl- who's name Will still wasn't certain of- apparently took their brief eye contact as nothing short of a marriage proposal, for she seemed to have excused herself from her table, and was now heading towards him.
Cursing once more, Will scolded himself for being so careless, after all the hours spent avoiding eye contact, he just had to go and slip up this one time, and now she was acting as though he'd-
"William?" An apparition in the flesh, she seemed to have crossed the entire ballroom in the span of a few short seconds. Caught slightly off guard, Will made sure to harden his scowl- there was no point in beating around the bush, her little developing crush needed to stop. Now.
"Yes, Tabitha?" He replied in an icy tone, looking around her rather than at her, even though she was just a few feet away from him.
Her jaw dropped, and Will wondered how he had managed to offend her this early in the conversation. "It's Tatiana! My name's Tatiana!" Oh, right. Tatiana.
Not letting this faze him, he rolled his eyes, "I was certainly close, so I can't see why you're offended." This won him an angry, offended look from Tatiana.
"Because," She said, hurt seeping into her words. "That's not my name."
Shrugging nonchalantly, Will asked, "Well how was I supposed to know your name?"
Her eyes went wide and she gestured to a hideous pink banner behind her that read, Happy Eleventh Birthday, Tatiana! "It was on the banner!"
"Yes, and a rather unfortunate shade of pink that banner is, too," Will commented, plucking a glass of apple cider off of a passing servant's tray. He tipped the contents into his mouth before placing it back down on the table behind him.
Tatiana's face turned the same shade of pink as the banner, and she opened her mouth to speak, but before she could produce any words, a much stronger, male voice spoke. "Tatiana, what are you doing away from the children's table?" Looking up to see who had spoken, Will recognized Benedict Lightwood, with his white hair and stern expression, and remembered how Charlotte had spoken of him.
Before they'd arrived, Charlotte had been complaining to Henry about having to deal with Benedict, and how she knew he'd bring up her age and gender in conversation to sway loyalty. Although Will knew he could do nothing in retaliation to Benedict for being rude to Charlotte, he found some pleasure in jutting out his chin and narrowing his eyes at the man; of course, Benedict couldn't see this, since he was too focused on his daughter not being exactly where he told her to stay.
Closing her mouth, Tatiana turned to her father and let him lead her back to the children's table, without saying good-bye to Will. At first, he took this as a sign of success- this meant she was no longer infatuated with him- but then he caught her furtively glancing over her shoulder at him, a hopeful expression on her face, as though she longed for when they could continue their conversation. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Will realized he'd need to do something completely drastic to disperse this girl's captivation with him.
"Why were you so rude to her?" Jolted out of his thoughts, Will turned to see Gideon Lightwood standing behind him, looking rather angry while doing so.
Dawning his look of indifference once again, Will responded, in a bored tone, "She was just annoying me-"
He was stopped midway in his sentence, when Gideon interjected, "Yes, but it's her birthday. The least you could do was pretend to act interested."
"So you mean lie to her? How scandalous, Gideon," Raising his eyebrows, Will spoke in an overdone tone of shock. "I didn't know you had it in you."
Looking as though he was going to say something scathing in response, instead Gideon just shook his head and walked off, muttering, "Honestly..." Though Gideon did rather annoy Will, he couldn't help but feel as though Gideon at least showed some restraint compared to his brother.
Bored to bits, Will looked around for Charlotte, wanting to just leave already. Spotting her at one of the larger tables engrossed in conversation with a regal-looking woman, he figured he might as well just stick by Charlotte until it was time to leave. Heading over the her table, Will stopped in his tracks when he overheard a familiar English accent.
"Have you seen the new resident of the London Institute? Practically a mundane, if you ask me. He couldn't hit a target if it were in arm's length." Spinning on his heels, all ideas of visiting Charlotte forgotten, Will marched over to the small white table where Gabriel Lightwood and a few other Shadowhunter children who looked around his age sat. Glancing up from his conversation, Gabriel's smug expression turned into a devilish grin when he saw Will standing in front of him. "Speak of the devil."
"Sorry, not in the mood to have a chat about your father right now." Will snapped, though he kept his facial expression calm. It was much better to appear level headed than to throw a fit.
"What?" Gabriel asked, his eyebrows furrowing.
One of the other Shadowhunter kids beside him muttered, "I think he was implying that your father is the devil."
Pausing for a second and registering this, Gabriel then eyed Will with an insulted expression, and spat, "It would be wise to not insult superior Shadowhunters. You'll learn that lesson with time, Herondale."
"Oh, I already know not to insult superior Shadowhunters," Will said, his lips twitching upwards. "That's why I was insulting you."
Face going red, Gabriel sputtered, "You -you absolutely foul... Worm." He didn't seem to pleased with his response, and Will burst out laughing.
"Brilliant, Gabriel. Your way with words never fails to astound. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have better things to do than to associate with those who are obviously below me." Sticking up his nose, imitating Gabriel, Will walked away from their table with an exaggeratedly proper manner. He could've sworn he saw Gabriel balling up his fists as Will left, but he didn't think anything of it.
Returning to his normal gait after Will was positive he was out of Gabriel's line of sight, Will's foot bumped up against something. Glancing down to see what his foot knocked into, he was quite pleasantly surprised to find a book laying in the walkway. Leaning forward, he grasped the book firmly and pulled it up. Turning the book to its front, Will's eyes lit up when he saw, in bright pink lettering, on the cover, "Tatiana's Diary."
A fiendish idea sparked in the back of Will's mind. One that would surely put an end to Tatiana's dangerous crush on him. Convincing himself that it would, in the end, benefit Tatiana, Will glanced over at the string quartet, who seemed to be packing up for a short break. Opening up the book, he read the first few lines and choked back a gag.
She had scrawled awful love poems about him within the lorn pages, that seemed to be torn and battered. With lines such as, "his eyes as blue as a pretty summer's day," he knew what he was about to do would embarrass Tatiana fully, but it might also save her life.
Heading over to the small makeshift stage that the string quartet had previously been performing on, Will did his best to calm his nerves. Feeling quite guilty about what he was going to do, he plastered the best smile he could onto his face, hoping people would at least assume he was doing this for fun.
Clearing his throat loudly to attract everyone's attention, he said, in a theatrical manner. "Today, for Tatiana's birthday, I would like to read you some... Interesting poetry that she has written." Several people gave him suspicious looks, and Will could see that Charlotte looked horror stricken, clearly knowing what was about to come next would be terrible. Tatiana was fidgeting nervously in her chair, unsure about what Will was going to do. At least now he knew he had everyone's attention.
Lifting the book up, he revealed the cover, and, hearing a small squeak of terrified recognition from Tatiana, whose table was only a few feet away from the stage, he began to read.
"His eyes as blue as a pretty summer's day,
He makes my heart feel a special way;
I love his black hair, and his cute smile,
He makes my time so worthwhile;
His hair is as dark as a midnight sky,
It's makes me yell 'Oh my! Oh my!';
He makes me feel like a million,
Oh yes, my dear sweet William;
'I love him, I love him', I begin to wail,
Oh yes! I love Mr. Herondale!"
Bowing as he heard shocked gasps, Will could make out the furious faces of Benedict and Gideon, as well as the tear stricken one of Tatiana, who seemed to have broken down crying. Feeling a remorseful pang in his chest, Will wondered if it had been right to be so cruel, despite his best intentions; however, he had very little time to think about it, as, at that moment, he was forcefully tackled to the ground.
Writhing free from his attacker, Will did a technical lift and stood up to face who had pushed him to the ground. He was not in the least bit surprised when he saw Gabriel, face flushed with anger, standing before him, a loathing glint in his eye. "You-" Gabriel then proceeded to say a few very ungentlemanly words that no twelve year old should know, and that Will was certain Gabriel had learned from his father.
"Watch your language there, Gabriel. Wouldn't want the children to hear such foul sayings," Will said, though he knew Gabriel had every right to be upset with him. Even Will was upset with himself for what he'd done.
Seething, Gabriel said, in a low, hoarse whisper, "I'm going to murder you, Herondale. I'm going to absolutely-"
Feigning a yawn, Will cut him off. "Well if you're going to murder me, I suggest you do it already, rather than just talk about it. I'm quite bored of all your empty threats."
That was enough to send Gabriel flying- or rather, Gabriel's fist flying, right at Will's face. Side-stepping the attack, Will regained his balance and smirked at Gabriel. "Practically a mundane, eh?"
Balling up his fists once more, Gabriel threw a left hook punch, which Will easily ducked. Back exposed, he quickly landed a palm strike to Gabriel, which caused the boy to stumble forward slightly. Turning to face Will once again, Gabriel actually looked a tad more nervous than when they had begun the fight. The fight went on for a few more minutes- Gabriel throwing attacks that mainly relied on brute force, Will dodging them and finding openings- until Gabriel threw a front punch that Will caught.
Benedict and Gideon were close to the stage now, and Gideon looked as though he wanted to jump on stage and join Gabriel, but his father was holding him back; Charlotte and Henry also were next to stage, and were both telling Will to stop this instant. However, all of the surroundings seemed to blur together, and Will was only focused on the pale arm he was clutching. Fueled by the annoyance of Gabriel's previous statements, Will made up his mind.
Jerking the arm to the right, a faint crack whipped through the air, and Gabriel's eyes went wide in pain and humiliation. Letting go of the arm, Gabriel collapsed to the floor, nursing his arm and looking abashed, though not any less furious than normal.
Two hands were suddenly wrapped around Will, and he could feel himself being pushed away from the scene. Looking up, he saw it was Charlotte who was directing him away from the stage and over to the front entrance, with Henry beside her.
"William, that was absolutely uncalled for! Whatever compelled you to act so irrationally?" Charlotte's tone was the harshest Will had heard, but he knew he couldn't tell her the real reason he had gone through with his morally oblivious task.
"I don't know, Charlotte. Had quite a lot of fun, actually. A lot more than I was expecting to have. I can't wait for the Christmas party."
Please please please review! I'd love creative criticism! This is my first one-shot, so I'd like to know how I diddly darn did.
Love you lot-
Dogestiel