"I've never done this before."
Jesse looked up, blinking almost owlishly at Xara from where they're sitting on the other side of the kitchen table that is a little dusty.
Well, that is usually a little dusty. Romeo and Xara have made their usual monthly stop in Beacontown to buy materials and figure stuff out and all that, so Jesse invited them over for breakfast. Xara being Xara, she woke up early and found Jesse already up drinking some coffee and reading the newspaper.
"Done what?"
"Read a newspaper–"
Jesse looked up a little more, quirking their eyebrow in confusion. "You've never read a newspaper before?"
"I wasn't finished." Xara shot Jesse a pointed look, the much shorter hero ducking their head a little sheepishly and giving her a rather awkward grin. Once they'd subsided, she continued, "As I was saying, I've never read a newspaper with so much… gossip in it."
The purple-haired woman turned to stare at the newspaper. "Especially with gossip about people I know."
Instantly, Jesse's usually-innocent expression turns into a devilish grin. "Oh, you get used to it, especially from The Daily Sunshine. They write the weirdest things."
As if on cue, Lukas walked into the room, the blonde author running his hand through his hair and making it a little more disheveled. One hand was precariously balancing a cup of coffee, while the other was cradling a notebook in the crook of his elbow and the hand was holding a copy of the Daily Sunshine.
"Jesse, I just thought I'd let you know we're getting a divorce."
Jesse hummed absentmindedly as Xara proceeded to choke on her coffee, throat trying to force it out of her mouth but hand trying to keep it in. The result was that a good amount of the dark liquid ended up in her lap.
"Is it 'cause I'm kissing Petra?" Jesse asked casually, turning the page of the newspaper and scanning it.
Lukas read a little deeper into the article. "No, it's because I'm kissing Petra."
"Could you kindly let me have my affairs in peace, Lukas?" Jesse asked mildly, before tapping an article on the first page. "Xara, look, there's a little one about you; apparently you're plotting world domination."
Xara blinked at Jesse.
"Are… are you not concerned about these articles?" Xara glanced down at the one that claimed that Jesse and Lukas were getting a divorce. "I mean, getting people to believe that you two are getting divorced, let alone that you two are married…"
Jesse smirked. "Xara, these articles have been running for two months. They posted a tiny article in one issue saying that it was just a joke newspaper. The people who actually believe the stories are a major minority."
A short pause.
"Wow, I just made an oxymoron."
The smirk turned into an eager grin. "C'mon, read the one where you're plotting world domination, it's really funny."
Xara turned her gaze to the mentioned article. A low chuckle exited her mouth when she realized exactly how silly the article was. "Alright, you're right."
"I'm surprised we didn't divorce initially with that affair you had with Stella," Lukas remarked absentmindedly, setting his coffee down and sliding into the seat on Xara's right. He opened his notebook and started making little notes in the margins.
Jesse grinned. "Yeah, Stella thought that was super funny, if the way she nearly laughed her head off when she came to tell me about it was any indication. I think the reason we didn't divorce was 'cause you had that showdown with her for my hand or whatnot."
"The one I was totally unaware of until you came to me laughing so hard you nearly choked, yes," Lukas agreed mildly.
Radar stuck his head through the door, beaming at Jesse and holding onto a huge planning book that details all plans and schedules for the next five months down to the last little detail. Sometimes Xara wondered how exactly he managed to keep all of that straight. "Good morning, Jesse! Did you see that article in the Daily Sunshine about Petra?"
"What, the one where she and I are having an affair?"
Xara flipped the page, fighting down the urge to grin like a total idiot at the article titled 'Intern-al Affairs', complete with a picture of Jesse and Radar standing together looking for all intents and purposes as if they were on a date. Honestly, at this point Xara was starting to wonder how the newspaper got some of these pictures.
"No, the one where Petra was revealed to be a werewolf." Radar said that so mildly that if you weren't paying attention to what he'd been saying you would've thought he was making an absentminded comment about the weather.
"Oh, no, that one must be later in, then…" Jesse started flipping through the pages, eyes flicking through the pages as they tried to track down that one article. "I mean, Lukas and I've got good taste in monsters, then."
Lukas shrugged slightly, making a few marks in his notebook as he noted that down. "Yeah, you could do a whole lot worse. We could be having an affair with the Ad- Romeo."
Xara was in the middle of taking a new sip of coffee when he said this. She promptly turned her head to the right, burying her head into her elbow and doing a spit-take because good Notch she was now cackling like a maniac.
"Actually, last week there was an article where Olivia was dating Romeo," she managed, when she no longer had coffee up her nose.
It was a good thing she hadn't changed yet.
Lukas slammed down the coffee cup and swiped his notebook out of the way at the same time, slopping some hot-but-not-scalding coffee all over the kitchen table while also keeping the precious notebook safe. He'd now started laughing like a maniac. "What?!"
"Yeah, it was all over the front page. Surprised you didn't see," Jesse said mildly, turning the page and still looking for the one where Petra was a werewolf. "We sent it to Xara."
Xara gave a grin that quickly turned predatory. "Romeo turned a lovely shade of red when he saw that article." She doesn't mention that she had to walk around a building and laugh like a mad scientist for twelve minutes upon reading the article.
Jesse turned the page, and their eyebrow immediately shot up. They looked at Xara and wordlessly turned the paper around to show a picture of Petra sitting under the moon and looking…
Well, let's put it this way, if Jesse was sexually attracted to people, they probably would've been tempted to jump in bed with Petra. Seriously, how did the Daily Sunshine get these pictures? If it was Photoshopped, then it was done phenomenally well.
"Well, I think I found it…"
"Here, let me have a look." Xara took the paper and scanned the article absentmindedly, noticing phrases like 'lycanthrope' and 'bloodthirsty, lust-driven monster' but not really paying attention to the rest of the article. "Hm, they've got a good vocabulary."
"Really? Usually they just have cliffhangers and bait people with the title," Jesse said, looking interested and like they wanted the paper back.
Xara gave a mild hum, checking the article more carefully and handing it back to Jesse. "Well, then they have expanded their vocabulary."
"Ooh, mind if I have a look?"
"Knock yourself out," Jesse said mildly after giving the article a glance-over, handing the newspaper over to Lukas, before glancing up at Radar. "Any other articles of note, Radar?"
Xara lifted her coffee cup to take another sip– as of so far she'd spit out more than she'd actually consumed.
"Did you spot the article where you and I are having an affair?" Radar asked briskly, having started flipping through the schedule and checking the schedule for today.
Xara set the cup back down, biting her lip and trying not to laugh. Romeo had teased her back before becoming an Admin– a long time ago about her laugh sounding like a very amused hyena's.
Jesse repressed a huge laugh as Lukas nearly knocked his coffee over at that comment, barely saving the newspaper from being ruined beyond legibility. "Yes, I did, actually, though I didn't read it. Anything else?"
"Mmm, there's one where Mevia and Ivor are planning revenge and plotting to destroy the world…"
"How does that work? Mevia barely ever comes around," Jesse said, mildly. Upon spotting Xara's raised eyebrow, they clarified, "Um, Mevia's this lady that we met in a different world. She's really good at fighting, she can be super intense…"
Jesse paused.
"Actually, you might get along with her."
Xara gave a huff of laughter. "I'm taking your word for this."
"Not sure; I think they claimed that Ivor 'rescued' her from that world; he's now having an affair with her even though he's married to Harper."
"Ahh, there's the affair. I was wondering about when it was going to show up."
Lukas knocked over his cup of coffee.
Xara put her head in her hands, kneading the bridge of her nose and concealing the stupid grin spreading over her face– one that Fred would've gently poked fun at her for, one that Romeo had hugged her for once and then run away because 'you looked so happy and it was super cute', one that she was starting to wonder if she could show it to these kids because they were kids, they were children, they were wonderful and weird and silly and it was like being back in the cabin again.
She'd never done this before.
But she was certainly going to come back and do it again.