Disclaimer: House of Anubis belongs to Hans Bourlon and to Gert Verhulst.

Summary: When that Jerome kid had come offering his services, Rufus was very far from imagining the journey that was about to start.

Author's note: Please note that my first language is not English, it's French. If you find any mistakes or weird sentence, let me know, so I can better myself. While I know I am almost fluent and while I do read after myself and use Grammarly to help, sometimes, a mistake can pass by.

Second note: I've had this idea in my head for almost three years but I never dared to start because I thought I needed to stay as close to the first season as I could. But hey, it's fanfic, so as long as the timeline is respected enough, I guess no one will be mad at me for displacing a comma. I hope you'll like the idea I had. Note that I have only seen the first two seasons but it was a long time ago.

Twists of Fate
Chapter 2

If he had been able to, Rufus would have punched himself in the face for how stupid he was being. The Chosen's ritual was a few months away, he still needed to know how to assemble the cup, to plan the whole thing carefully to be able to gain eternal life, at last. Yet, here he was, hiding, trying to sneak on a teenager to find something he could run tests on. He had no time to waste, he knew it, yet here he was, wasting it on something trivial. That Jerome boy would be the death of him. His image hadn't left his mind since they met. His eyes had engraved themselves in his brain, for a reason he could not grasp. And that feeling of seeing and speaking to his younger self didn't help either. Rufus had managed to deal with it easily until a simple thought crossed his mind, one that stuck with him, one he couldn't shake away and he had to admit, one that scared him as well. While he had no wife, no fiancée, no girlfriend, like many men, he had one night stands. And remembering that, remembering Jerome's face, the idea popped in his brain and had the effect of a bomb blasting on him:

For all he knew, Jerome could be the result of one of his ephemeral romances.

"What would it change?" He had wondered "Even if he's my kid, what does it change to my goal? I'm not his dad, I'll never be his dad, so why bother?"

The boy came from a family wealthy enough to send him to a boarding school. So, why bother? He wasn't even certain he was his kid in the first place. Maybe Jerome Clarke was just what he was supposed to be when they first met: a teenager whose spirit was close to the child he had once been. He was getting soft and he hated that. Yet, he needed to know, to be able to put all of this nonsense behind him and focus again on the cup of Ankh.

"Coincidences don't exist. You know that better than anyone else. Why else would you find yourself here, where everything started? By sheer dumb luck?"

And here he stood again, losing track of what really mattered. He hoped the kid would find valuable pieces of information for him, or even better, pieces of the cup itself, or else, it could get bloody. And by God, those teenagers chit-chat was driving him even crazier than he actually was. Finally, Jerome left with his friends, not before throwing in a garbage bin the MacDonald's cup he had been drinking from. Rufus quickly retrieved it and properly sealed it.

Now, it was just a matter of hours before he could forget everything about Jerome Clarke and focus on his quest.

XXXXX

Sitting in his van, the results in hand, Rufus wasted no time in opening the envelope. However, he took his sweet time reading everything, so he wouldn't miss any data or misinterpret them. Once done, he sunk on his seat more. The papers were absolutely clear about what they indicated, there was no place for mistakes. For one brief moment, a genuine panic grew in his soul as he uttered for himself:

"I'm screwed."

Jerome Clarke was really going to be the death of him.

But if he was going to be the death of him, Rufus had to admit that dying by the hand of his own illegitimate son would be as beautiful as it'd be ironic.

However, one question popped into his mind.

"What to do now?"

To Be Continued

Hope you still like it, I'll try and make longer and longer chapters!