Hi!! If you feel like it, would you mind writing about the hero realizing that their sister has unknowingly been dating the villain?? And the villain taunts the hero by showing public displays of affection with the sister and the hero can’t do anything about it since the villain has the sister’s trust
The fact was, Meg had told her sister that she was dating the villain several times before, each time with equal worry and certainty.
That, she realised now, had long since been the trap. Poisonous breadcrumbs set for - how long? Since she’d first heard of the villain? Before she even knew for sure what the bastard looked like? Cold crept down her spine.
She knew now. She knew, and now was when the villain smiled politely across the garden, one arm looped a fraction too low around Ella’s waist.
“This is Tomas,” she said. “Tomas, my sister - Meg.”
“So nice to finally meet you,” the villain replied, and held out a hand.
Meg shook numbly, because they were in the middle of her parent’s garden party and driving away another of her sister’s ‘suitors’ might mean that her mother killed her before the villain ever had to. It felt like the ground was opening up beneath her feet.
“Pleasure’s all mine.” If her voice came out a bit raspy, everyone already thought her a little weird. The family eccentric who was always late, or bleeding, or in the middle of some kind of ‘madcap scheme’. Never mind that all of those things had ended up with wild excuses for something that wasn’t ‘hello family, you know those people with superpowers who you don’t like? Yes, I am one of them.’
The small talk buzzed around Meg’s ears. Her gaze locked on the villain’s hand, stroking boldly at a slither of skin just above Ella’s hip. She watched as the villain grinned and whispered in Ella’s ear, making her blush, and the two of them exchanged glances as if they were completely smitten.
Because Ella was smitten, wasn’t she?
Meg had been hearing stories about Tomas for months; it was a whole saga, friends first, real fucking dedicated. Time long enough for Ella to trust Tomas, to be invested in him.
It hit Meg with a dawning horror that there was absolutely no way that her sister would believe her. Ella had the first time, of course. She’d been less willing to accept the hero’s word the second time, but done so, and by the third time Meg may as well have been the boy who cried for wolf for how likely it was that her sister would believe her about the wolf curled up in her bed.
She didn’t trust Meg anymore.
Meg could have started yelling, sure - but all it would do was turn them all against her, wouldn’t it? She would be ‘ruining the mood’, and they would all rush to defend Tomas’s honour from Meg’s unnecessary-‘clearly she’s jealous’ bitchiness.
So she sipped her drink too fast and didn’t eat her favourite sausage rolls, and all in all did absolutely nothing.
The villain’s eyes met Meg’s several times over the course of the conversations that followed; his always twinkling with some dark mischief, something conspiring, like the two of them were in on some grand old secret with each other that nobody knew about.
It would be so easy for him to kill everyone, and so Meg couldn’t leave either. How could she leave? She didn’t know what the villain would do. What Tomas did was pull Ella into his lap, what he did was kiss her cheek when he topped up the drinks, what he did was charm Meg’s parents better than she ever did and slide like a perfect snake into their intimacy and affections.
They all just bloody well loved him, didn’t they? Why couldn’t Meg bring home such a nice young man also?
In the end, she retreated. Mostly because she prayed that she knew him well enough to know he’d have to gloat, have to follow. Maybe Ella, maybe anyone, would hear them and Meg’s secret would be completely screwed but hey at least her sister would be safe. At least his secret would be blown too.
But then if his secret was blown there was nothing to stop the bloodshed.
And Meg cycled back to the start.
She rested her head against the window of her childhood bedroom and tried to remember how to breathe. Her head spun.
Still, he did follow. She caught his reflection in the glass pane, ghost-like and ever so casual as he leaned back against her door and closed it. She heard the lock click.
“You win,” Meg said. “Just leave her alone. Please. Leave my family alone.”
The villain hummed, examining his surroundings with a mild curiosity. She was just glad that her parents were not the type to preserve the bedrooms of their daughters, and so there was little of her teenage and childhood self left within its walls.
Meg squeezed her eyes shut, before opening them and turning to face him.
“I said you win. Happy?”
“Oh, very happy,” he said. “Your sister is delightful. Great kisser.”
A malicious, gleeful sort of smile curled his lips; at odds with the sunny little thing he’d wielded to all of the guests clustered below them.
“It would break her heart, if I broke up with her,” he said. “She said she loved me, you know. Understood her like no one she’s ever known!”
“Yeah? Well, she doesn’t know you’re a vile snake.”
He clicked his tongue. “Such language, Megara.”
“You haven’t seen the half of my language!”
“I thought I won?” He raised a brow. “You’re not acting like I won. I think you should low a little more humility.” He twirled his glass in his head and cocked his head. “Don’t you?”
Meg gritted her teeth. Her heart pounded fit to explode in her chest. She exhaled a deep steadying breath. Electricity crackled and burned in the palm of her hand and hurt to be forced down.
He took a slow sip, enjoying the show.
“You know,” he said. “I just adore your family. They’re very welcoming. Surprisingly proper to the old ways. Why, they like me more than they like you.”
Meg’s shoulders tensed because it was true.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong.” The villain continued to study her with that smile. “They love you. They just really don’t like you very much, do they?”
“If you don’t stay away from them-”
“Oh, come now. No need for threats. It’s a party. And I won, so it’s not like threats are going to do you much good. Do you think I haven’t already planned for any threat you might make?”
The cold that had crept down her spine felt like it was everywhere, and everything felt very far away. Because, of course he had. He’d been planting villainous boyfriends for far too long for not this to have been unnervingly thought out, given that Meg had heard about Tomas before she’d heard of the villain!
“What do you want?” It came out a hiss, despite the breathing exercise. The electricity crackled in her palm again. She dug her nails in.
"Do you remember when we first met?” He took a step towards her, then another, setting his glass down on the windowsill. His gaze drifted idly to the party milling outside and far below and he seemed utterly unconcerned by the thought of being shocked.
She said nothing, but of course she did.
“I asked you to join me, then,” he mused.
“You’ll leave my family alone if I join you?” Nausea twisted in her gut.
He hummed, glancing at her. Whatever he saw on her face made him smile again. “Would you?”
“Fine,” she said, quickly, like ripping a plaster off. “I’ll join you. Whatever. Just leave - just leave them all out of it.”
She didn’t always like her family, but she did love them. When it came down to it they were a family and it didn’t matter that Ella didn’t believe her, wouldn’t believe her, Meg still couldn’t let this happen.
His eyes gleamed. He held out a hand to seal the deal.
Her stomach crawled, but after a moment she took it a second time that night, and tried not to think of devils and souls.
This time, he used the touch to yank - drawing her close with a stumbled step, too close. Their lips brushed and her heart dropped and -
“You refused me,” he said, and there was none of the glee, none of the charm in his voice anymore. It was dark and cold and nothing. “We could have been gods among these pathetic powerless versions of humanity, but you chose them instead.”
Panic filled her.
“I’m choosing you now.”
He pulled back, and smiled the perfect smile of her sister’s new boyfriend. He pulled her hand up and pressed a kiss to her knuckles.
“And now,” he said, in a normal tone. “Everything you have is going to be mine. Get used to seeing me - by the end of the year I’ll be your brother in law. Do behave accordingly.”
He turned on his heel and walked out, back into the party, further into her life.
The electricity in her hands shot out and shattered the lights as the door shut behind him.
She was going to kill him.