where you cast those stones you wear;
Landon continues to stare at her blankly. “Sorry, there’s just this weird ringing in my ears. It sounds like you just asked me to be your boyfriend?”
Or, the one where Caroline breathes down Lizzie's neck for her questionable dating choices (cough, Sebastian), and Lizzie comes up with a plan to clean her slate. Enter Landon.
lizzie/landon, background klaus/caroline, mikaelson-forbes-saltzman; ensemble teenager shenanigans at the salvatore school for the young and gifted. for @ishenwulf. gif by @mysticfall
CHAPTER THREE / PHASE IV
The thing that shocks Landon the most about fake dating Lizzie isn’t that it’s going well; the whole school believes they’re dating. It’s the fact that despite the whole school believing they’re dating… girls are still asking him out.
“It’s weird,” he says, eyes darting around to check if anyone’s listening to their conversation as they’re bent over their cauldrons. He hastily chops up some dried wormwood and tosses them into his potion. It splutters into a pale orange and sort of coughs up some funky-smelling bubbles. “Yesterday, Hope waved to me. She was actually waving to me - I checked behind me, Jed wasn’t there. And today she sat with me at lunch.”
Lizzie hums non-comitally as she chops up her wormwood into perfect inches and drops them by threes into her potion, which turns a brilliant gold, something sweet and inviting rolling out of it in heavy plumes.
“I mean, I’m pretty sure Hope’s not, she’s not a--” he stirs his potion as he increases the heat of the induction cooker, trying to get it into a thicker consistency.
“A homewrecker?” Lizzie suggests, cocking an eyebrow.
“Yes,” Landon says, frustrated, silently thanking her for him not having to say it. “She knows we’re together, everyone does! And yet…”
Landon gestures with his hands, something neither of them can really interpret. He looks at her hopefully. She rolls her eyes. When they feel Ms. Claire’s sharp gaze on them they immediately slouch over their cauldrons, feigning concentration.
“It’s an Alpha thing,” Lizzie tells him begrudgingly, without looking at him. “Her wolf senses someone strong coming into territory. Someone who exhibits the signs of a capable mate. You’re prime meat, Kirby, because I have you tucked into my little green basket.”
“Ignoring the fact that you just likened me to butcher cuts,” Landon frowns, “so, what? She’s into me, she’s not?”
“Wow, all this from a wave hello?” Lizzie measures out a tablespoon of powdered root of Asphodel and scatters it in a circular motion onto the surface of her potion. “I knew you were gonna get your unmentionables in a twist, but not this much.”
“She’s never shown any kind of interest before.”
“The social order of the pack has changed, my little bird,” she says sagely.
“The hell’s that supposed to mean? We’re not part of a pack.”
“Miss Emo Pants seems emotionally attached to us enough to consider us her pack. Plus, you exhibited physical strength and aggression when you squared up with Sebastian two weeks ago.”
“You seem to really know her.”
“She’s my step-sister,” Lizzie huffs impatiently. “And a full moon’s coming. Hope doesn’t realise it, but she’s totally wolfing out on you.”
Landon blinks. He tries to register this information. “And… and you knew this, when you planned all this? Why am I asking, of course you did. You plan every single curl that drops down your forehead.”
“My curls never drop down my forehead,” she tells him primly. “But yes, I did. Our exit plans are in place.”
“Hope’s not a door, Lizzie,” Landon chastises.
“Funny,” Lizzie shoots back, “neither am I, but you don’t seem to have a problem with me being one. Doorway to popularity, doorway to Hope, doorway to actually being an interesting human being--”
“Care to share your conversation with the rest of the class?”
Lizzie snaps her jaw shut and groans inwardly: Ms. Claire is standing before them with a stern, perfectly sculpted eyebrow raised. Landon shakes his head fervently, “Nope, we’re good.”
Landon shoots her a look before bending over his work. They don’t talk for the rest of the class, after which he leaves as soon as possible.
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