It started with a massacre.
No, she wasn't kidding about that and no, it wasn't anyone she particularly knew. She just literally stumbled across the scene with a boy that looked to be her age (it was hard to tell, his bangs covered half his face) with liberal amounts of blood on him. She would swear it was the strangely unhinged laughter that had drawn her to that particular alleyway.
It could be classed as terrifying, but underneath it she could hear the tones of panic and someone in desperate need of a hug. Or at least that was her opinion.
Without even thinking about it, she dragged the partially unresposive teen to her apartment. It didn't take much prompting for him to wash off the blood and switch into some spare clothes she had that hung loosely on his frame.
It was only after he started eating the cookies she handed him that he finally spoke.
"Shishishi...who are you peasant?"
Her face twitched a bit.
"I literally dragged you home like a stray cat and fed you, and it's only now that you ask that question?" she deadpanned.
The boy made a strange hiss at her.
"The prince is not a cat."
"All you're missing is cat paws and the ears. You would be one royal kitty," she teased.
He pouted, until she shared more cookies.
"You're not scared of me?"
"Why would I be?"
"...You literally dragged me from a massacre, covered in enough blood to get anyone arrested."
"But it's not like I knew anyone or saw it happen," she said confused. "And the way you were laughing sounded more like you were having a really weird panic attack and trying to get out of a bad situation before it got even worse."
To be honest she was more concerned about him than she was about a few corpses.
Seeing his open surprise at that comment, she made sure he saw what she was doing as she walked up to him and hugged him. He stiffened a bit in her hold.
"What are you doing, peasant?" he demanded, sounding more than a little shocked.
"Hugging you, because you sound like you need one. You're not a monster even if you did apparently kill what had to be twenty adults," she said firmly. "Besides, as far as I know you were in the wrong place at the worst possible time."
Realizing she wasn't trying to take advantage of him, he carefully relaxed.
She only let go when the timer dinged, indicating more cookies were done.
"Now I have tea, milk and water. Which do you want?"
"Shishishi...the prince will have milk. And no, I am not a cat," he said quickly as if anticipating her teasing.
She smiled at him and chuckled lightly, having been foiled.
He looked like a particularly silly chipmunk with how quickly he ate the cookies once they were cool enough.
"So a prince of what?"
"Excuse me?" he asked, almost bristling.
"You say you are a prince. A prince of what exactly? Is it a country, a company or something that makes everyone treat you like a prince because of an inherited position from your family?" she clarified.
He calmed down.
"I am a genuine prince. My bloodline goes back at least a full ten centuries, and our family has ruled over our country for the same period of time. However my particular branch only took over after the main one at the time was assassinated save for a single princess. She was promptly married into the branch family once she came of age to someone roughly in the same age group."
She made a face.
"Wouldn't that technically count as incest?"
He shrugged.
"She was only a princess by technicality and only good for marrying off during that time period. Having her marry into the new main line was the best way to insure that part of the bloodline continued," he replied. "Besides, the man they married her to was of a distant enough bloodline to avoid any side effects from marrying into the same family."
"That makes a lot more sense," she said with approval.
He gave her a strange look, or it felt like it anyway.
"You are actually interested," he said confused.
Most people tended to tune him out before now.
She made an odd face.
"I have a personal interest in this sort of thing. Near as I can tell my father's paternal line goes back at least eight centuries, though it only became a noble one about two centuries in, whereas his maternal line goes back at least to the time of the druids, though I have trouble figuring out when they became nobility considering they never actually gave up their roots in regards to certain rituals or beliefs despite the fact that the Church was really cracking down hard on that particular pantheon at the time," she replied. "Both were classed as ancient at this point, though I don't know what exactly is the requirements for that title."
He stared at her.
"You're nobility twice over?" he said in shock.
She blinked.
"I guess. It's not like I would know what to do with the titles anyway and all I got for it was a vault full of gold that I don't really do anything with," she said dismissively. "It's not like being known as the heiress to two ancient and noble families really means anything in this country anyway."
He stared at her for several moments. She couldn't really tell what was going through his head.
"Belphegor. My name is Belphegor."
There was zero recognition for his name.
"Call me Jazz," she said cheerfully. "I would tell you my full name, but I'd rather not invite bad luck to find me."
Bel didn't even realize how late it was until his superior called to bitch him out...and to make sure he wasn't actually dead considering they had found the bodies, but he was nowhere to be found.
He pouted a bit, until she gave him the perfect excuse to stick around longer.
"It's going to take another hour before your clothes are clean. Getting that much blood out was a complete pain," she informed him.
Bel perked up at that. Even if he did pout when he finally had to leave.
At least Jazz let him have the remaining cookies.
In retrospect, she had no idea that throwing her luke-warm tea at him would amuse the odd prince so much he kept breaking into her apartment. He managed to dodge the cup, but not the liquid.
"Ushishishi...your aim needs work," he said, licking the tea off his hand like a cat.
"I'm better at catching things than throwing them," she said, slightly amused. The cat comparison just got worse.
Her hand lashed out as something flashed by her face out of habit. She stared at the item in her hand.
"Is this a knife?" she said incredulous. "Where did you even get this? I mean this has to be custom made for the shape alone, never mind the pain it would be to sharpen it!"
It took her several seconds to register the broad smile on his face.
"You actually caught that. Most people where I work just dodge before bitching me out," he said happily amused. Then he tilted his head. "Why aren't you freaking out I just threw a knife at you?"
"Your aim was half-assed at best and it was pretty clear you weren't trying to actively murder me," she replied absently. She was more interested about the designs on the blade. "Seriously, where did you get this? It's really well made."
"You like it?" he asked curious and slightly hopeful. "Most people prefer guns as weapons."
"Please, guns are overrated and most people wouldn't know a quality weapon if it bit them in the ass. Besides, knives are easier to hide and have a variety of legitimate uses," she said absently. She pricked her finger and actually smiled when she saw red. "This is a quality knife. Who's your supplier?"
Bel was rather happy at the way she was more interested where he got his blades than the fact he had literally thrown one at her head.
"So what brought you here?"
"The prince wants more cookies. My...friends...stole most of them when I wasn't looking," he pouted.
"Well I don't have the ingredients for a new batch, but I did make a cake earlier," she offered. He perked up. "I was actually planning to watch a movie, care to join?"
"What movie?"
"Don't laugh... I like to watch horror movies and then mock the cliches," she admitted.
"Shishishi...make popcorn and you have a deal," he said grinning wickedly.
That was actually a favorite passtime among the group he worked with. When your job description involved murdering people for money, you tended to have a more flippant view of horror movies. Especially the Mists.
Mammon had to ban their division from having group horror nights and started charging the new idiots after the third time they busted a random mook trying to recreate movie scenes and causing an even bigger mess than the client was happy with.
Anyone busted in the act was charged with a heavier fine than usual from the miserly Mist unless they were creative enough to amuse them with.
As the two settled in for the night, Bel found himself in stitches from the snarky and downright hilarious comments she kept making. He had her snickering as well from the flippant comments he kept making about the blood spatter and death scenes, and how they were 'unoriginal' or 'totally faked with computer graphics and weak stunt doubles'.
Jazz didn't even realize she was leaning partially on him until she got up to change the disc and use the restroom...only to find herself leaning against him as the next movie in the sequel started.
It was surprisingly relaxing.
(No matter how much he denied it, she would adamantly swear he was purring by the time the third movie ended.)
You could say the madness (and it's rather awkward climax) began when someone with ties to the Death Eaters decided to hire the Varia to track down and brutally murder the missing witch who was supposed to have the ability to murder their boss.
Considering it was a relatively easy hit, and the pay was rather good, the lower ranked mooks were sent out to eliminate the target once they located her. Oddly enough, she was within the same region so they wouldn't even have to travel that far.
That was where the headache started.
Jazz caught the mooks easily enough. Having to fend for her life and being friends with a boy all too happy to insure your self-preservation instincts remained razor sharp meant they went down rather easily.
The next time Bel visited to mooch off her food and have a movie night, he found some very nervous assassins that looked vaguely familiar tied up in the basement behind some sound proof wards.
Considering how often he came to crash, he left a few spare changes of clothes and several knives that he had gifted to her after she showed a proper appreciation for his weapons.
By the time he arrived, she already had them terrified of her.
"Hey Bel, remember how you said the bloodspatter in our last movie night was horribly unoriginal and boring?" said Jazz a little too cheerfully. "Care to show me what a professional job looks like?"
His grin was unhinged and absolutely terrifying. Thanks to the silencing charms the poor bastards couldn't even tell the unhinged Storm Officer that they were from the same group.
"Ushishishi..." he snickered wickedly, before kissing her on the cheek causing her to blush rather prettily. "The princess says the nicest things. And you even gift wrapped them for me."
It was at that point the mooks knew they were well and truly fucked. Why hadn't their intelligence division warned them that the target was dating the unhinged Storm officer?!
By the time Bel was done with the mooks, he found Jazz still blushing slightly. He made sure to wash off before he walked up behind her and rested his head on top of hers.
"Did you mean what you said when you called me a princess?" she asked softly. Bel blinked at the uncertain and confused tone in her voice.
"The Prince would not use such titles lightly," he replied. "Besides, you are my princess."
She blushed rather prettily he noted, and he wondered why she seemed shocked that he liked her romantically.
"Have you never had a boyfriend before?" he asked, a little surprised.
Jazz was rather pretty and her sense of humor was hard to match. Her green eyes were complimented by the red-tinted black of her hair and fair skin.
So he found it rather hard to believe that no other guy had taken an interest in her romantically before.
"You're talking to the girl who had to accept a pity date during a formal ball," she said dryly, with no little sense of frustration. "No one wanted to ask me out as their dance partner and there was no one I liked that I would want to ask as my date to the ball."
"You're kidding," deadpanned Belphegor, as he didn't believe that for a minute.
Jazz looked openly irritated about the matter.
"My date made it pretty clear he didn't see me as a girl until I got dressed up, and then he was too busy being mad at the third member of our trio for securing an actual date to the ball. Once the mandatory dance was over, I left the ball early because it was clear no one wanted to dance with me at all," said Jazz unhappily. "I doubt any of the guys looked at me twice during the entire thing and I wasn't about to sit there miserable because my former friend was being a complete ass."
Ron had been so angry over Hermione being Krum's date that he completely missed the fact he had effectively ruined her own night. It was supposed to be a fun event where they got to dress up and party, and she had been so miserable after the mandatory part was over that she left the ball before it was even half-way through and went back to the tower to cry herself to sleep.
It had taken Hermione asking where she was for Ron to even notice she had ditched him, and the other girl didn't even try to justify the fact that Jazz had gotten the bad end of the entire ordeal.
She had gone into the ball hopeful and come out with a complete disappointment. She felt it was fairly justified that she only rescued Hermione and Gabrielle from the lake and left Ron for Krum to retrieve.
It had effectively dashed any chances Ron would have had at dating either of the two girls, as Hermione had been very unimpressed by his behavior.
Seeing she was still seething about what a disasterous night that had been, Belphegor did the sensible thing.
He made sure she was face to face with him (or as close as they could get with his bangs covering half his face) and made sure to tip her head upwards a bit. Her confusion was adorable and cute, in his opinion. And the shock swiftly melted into happy delight when he kissed her on the lips.
It was the first time they had properly kissed (the first time she had been kissed period by a boy), but she wasn't complaining in the least.
Their movie night and the question of why assassins were after her was forgotten thanks to the influx of teenage hormones and the first real step they had made into a budding relationship.
Jazz was happy to forget everything but making out with her new boyfriend, and Bel was all too pleased at the fact his interest in the amusing young woman who qualified as "appropriate courting material" for a prince shared an equal interest in him.
He was more interested in staking his claim on the woman sitting on his lap than he was about why there were four assassins that would need disposing of in her basement. He could deal with that later, after all.