Dinner was silent that night, the only noises being made were the forks scratching the plates. Once everyone had their fill, the servants came in and removed the plates and food from in front of them. Mark sucked on his teeth before finally speaking up,
"Father, I have a question."
His dad paused wiping around his mouth and gave his son a nervous side glance.
"Yes? What is it?"
Mark paused for a moment, debating on how to go on about his question, he shifted his gaze towards his teacher, who seemed to be trying to hide his face, odd.
"Well...I heard one of the servants speak of an upcoming ball that you seem to be hosting." Mark started, his father cursed bitterly under his breath, but Mark continued, "Is...It true?"
"I wanted to wait to tell you, but, yes, Marcus, it's true."
Mark just chuckled and swallowed a bit, he decided to just play along, seeing how he wasn't going to stick around to be married anyway.
"Alright then. Don't know why you wanted to wait. I'm fine with it, honestly." Mark smiled at his dad and stood.
"O-Oh?" His dad asked, startled.
"Of course."
Getting up from his seat, Still smiling, Mark hummed softly as he walked passed Jared, there was a moment of silence as he sauntered off. Still humming, he gave Leon a happy wave as he walked passed him.
"Liar." Jared mumbled bitterly, ignoring Danny and Arin's stares. His father cleared his throat,
"Jared..."
"He's planning something, father, you know it."
"Jared, it's Mark. He's not planning anything, you just hate him." Arin laughed earing a glare from his brother.
"No, I don't hate him. I'm just not blind, like all of you." Jared snapped standing from his seat, then stormed off in the opposite direction of Mark and the king could only sigh out.
"...Well...Should we be off?" Danny asked and Arin nodded, just wanting to get away from high tension in the air, they got up and left their father alone at the table with only Mat now and he only sighed once more.
"...Matthew?" The king asked with a heavy sigh still in his voice, it was clear he was tired, Mat stood from his seat and moved a bit closer to the king.
"Yes?" Mat answered as he grabbed a few stray plates and silverware to give the servants still cleaning up.
"Any news on Mark's obvious love?"
Mat swallowed hard and tugged a bit at his collar.
"Nope. Judging by his reaction to the news, I'd say he doesn't even have one." Mat mumbled out.
"Matthew...You aren't lying to me, are you?" The king asked with a bitter growl at the end of his sentence. Mat swallowed again.
"Of course not, I'd never lie to...you..." Mat looked up to see Stephanie, the woman waltzing in with clothes in her hands. The king noticed Mat's gaze and turned to Stephanie,
"Your highness, your clothes are ready whenever you are." She smiled brightly at him.
"Oh yes. Thank you Ms. Stephanie. We'll continue this later, Matpat." The king stood and the two walked off, Stephanie turned her head and smiled at Mat, who just dumbly waved goodbye to her.
"If I can be blunt." Leon jumped in, making Mat jump and turn to the man,
"Yes, what is it?"
"She likes you, go for it."
Mat gave a chuckle to that and gently tugged on his collar, "Yes, thank you Leon, I'll keep that in mind."
"You're also a terrible liar. If you're going to lie about Jack and Mark's relationship-"
"How do you know?"
Leon straightened his clothes a bit and smiled,
"I've worked for the king longer than you have, I know many, many secrets. Let me say this, Mark isn't the only one in this palace to have a secret relationship. The others are more quiet about it." Leon winked.
"...Oh..Yeah..Great." Mat grumbled before just sighing and rubbing his face with his hand angrily, the last thing he needed to know was that. "I could of worked for the high king...A normal family, but nooo...I just had to work for the family of secrets!"
"I'm sure the high king wouldn't enjoy your theory of the pope-" Leon started,
"IT'S A GOOD THEORY, DAMMIT!"
Leon laughed loudly as he walked away from Mat, the teacher sat down at the table and rubbed his face tiredly.
"Long day?"
Mat jumped a bit look up at Stephanie the seamstress smiled warmly at him and then took the seat next to him. He smiled back at her,
"Not really, but...It's nothing really."
She place a hand on his knee and smiled again at him, it almost made him melt.
"I think it's a good theory."
"Stephanie!" The two heard the king yell from the next room and she stood once more. "See you." When she walked behind him, she gently ran her hand along his shoulders making him jump. Watching her walk away, Mat sighed out softly. Quickly he shook his head, what was he doing? He shouldn't fall head over heels over that poor woman like this. Standing, he stretched his arms above his head before walking away from the dining table. He needed to go and talk to Jack.
Mark continued to hum softly as he looked at himself in the mirror, move some of his black hair out of his face he smiled to himself. Still, a dreadful thought was still lingering in his mind, how exactly was he going to go about the ball, no doubt a lot of royals would like to dance with him, maybe even try to kiss him. He shuddered at the thought, kissing a strange person, it took him months to kiss Jack...
Why would his father even force him to marry? It wasn't like he was first in line to the throne, no that was Arin, then Danny, then Jared, and finally him. So why make the last in line marry at all? It didn't make any sense to him.
"Lies...It's all lies." A voice softly whispered.
Mark perked up and turned around, there was no one with him.
"He just wants to control you..."
Feeling his heart start to race, Mark continued to frantically look around.
"Hello?" Mark called out.
"Father doesn't love you..."
Swallowing hard, Mark looked out of the corner of his eyes before noticing that something wasn't right with the mirror, shaking, he turned around to face his reflection. It was him, yes, but it's or his eyes had dark circles under them and had little to no light or happiness to them. His reflection smiled at him before speaking softly once more,
"d̹̖̞͙̦̗̻ͥ͆̒̐ͯ̊͋ị͇̬̭ͯ̂͐ͥd̘͎̠̯̂ ̠̯̳̭̣̲͇͑̆̌̐y̫̝͎̼̘͓̭ͫ͑o̼̩ͤ͊͗̋͌͗ū̱̭͉̹̰̉̑̓̔͌͋ ͖͈͖̣͎̗̔͌̈́ͧ͐̂̿f̑ͨ̑ͥ̓́ỏ̫̔̍̍̉̈̈́r͎̃ͨͭ̎̎̆ͤg̞͈͕̠̙̤ͩ̉ͫͬ͒e̪̘̳̤̘͌ͭt̹̝̞̱̣̥̟ͬͥ͊͊̄ͬ̇ ̫̜ͣa̳̞͉̥̫͎b̯̙͚̻̫ͣ̓̅̆͛ͅo̤͕̙ͪ̇̄ͅṵ̣͂̅͑̄͑͂t̪̗́̎͐̋̍̋ m̼̣e̩̮̭̦̯̽ͅ?̲̞"
Mark had no idea what happened next, all he knew was that he must of passed out.
When he came to he was surrounded by everyone, Jared, Arin, Danny, his father, Mat, and even Austin.
"Marcus? Marcus!" His father asked worriedly, slowly sitting up, Mark felt like his head weighed a hundred pounds. He felt something slowly run down from his nose to his chin, reaching up he rubbed his fingers under his nose to feel the thick liquid, pulling his fingers back, he found out it was blood.
"Hold still!" Mat ordered as he used some sort of cloth to plug up the bloody mess under Mark's nose.
"Easy there..." Arin coaxed softly as him, Jared, and Danny pulled Mark to his feet.
"Wha..." Mark mumbled as he tried to piece together what happened.
"You were screaming bloody murder, son, we found on the floor your nose just pouring out blood." His father explained.
"The mirror...It...Spoke." Mark pointed lazily to his normal reflection now.
"Clearly hallucinating. Don't worry some bed rest will get you right." Mat mumbled, slowly Jared, Danny, Austin, and his teacher all helped him walk to his bed. His father let out a worried sigh and turned to Arin, who just shook his head,
"I told you it'd come back..."
"But why now? We can't have him a delusional mess before the ball..."
"...Lets let him rest, father, Hopefully it'll just be a one time thing and he'll forget about it. Alright?"
The king frowned deeply at this but still nodded,
"Very well, but if I wake up to a knife in the arm like last time-"
Arin chuckled before his father could finish,
"Mark has better control now that he's older, trust me, he won't stab you again."
So, while I end on that note, let me do this by saying I have all the pairings that I want in this story now! Yay! So obviously Septiplier is the main pairing (duh) but off to the side for later there's going to be Phan, Leo/Thomas Sanders (yes Thomas sanders is in this It's a guilty ship ok) Doug/James (Critic/Nerd another guilty ship but this one is only a cameo) Kubz/Azzman (the guiltiest of them all ) StephPat, and a few others that are only mentioned rather briefly. HOWEVER!
Can anyone guess the secret ship Leon mentioned? This ship will have a big part in the story. It won't be shown until way later in the story, but still guess away.