Chapter Text
June 30th, 2006
“I don’t think you were ever this pasty before.” Salem comments as Aster leads her to the treehouse just to show her given the treehouse has been up for the last thirty-five years.
“Well, I don’t go outside and sit and bathe in the sun as much compared to when the kids were tiny tots.” Aster’s feet and cane crunches the sticks under his feet as they make a sharp right turn, not bothering to stop at the pond if they kept going straight. "I'm a busy man, Salem."
He could show her that later.
Salem has been on the property before, been inside the manor, too. But she’s never been able to go out in the back and truly take a walk around with her timing always coming when it’s in the winter or staying for a short period of time, with no time at all to be shown outside of how much land James and him truly possessed.
“James does all the outside stuff now.” Aster shrugs as the approach the treehouse. “And this is the treehouse that the kids still play in to this day that James played in as a child.I think Monty built it when James was like... seven? Six? You'll have to ask them.”
Salem lets out a curious hum. “Have you been up there before?”
“On occasion. Not recently, though.” Aster answers. “Usually just to blow James.” He adds nonchalantly.
That catches Salem off guard as she chokes on air, coughing and mixing it with a laugh. “I should’ve expected that from you.”
He winks at her slyly. “Would you believe this treehouse holds our very first sexual adventure.”
“Honestly, no.” She answers with a snicker as Aster shoves her on the arm. “You reckon any of your kids got up to the no-good in there?”
Aster shrugs. “Possibly. Maybe not. With Elias, again, I'll have to circle around back to the word of possibly. I found out he was sneaking out a lot around here cause last summer one of the neighbors had their grandkids around. It wasn’t a one time thing, but an often occurrence so, who knows.”
Salem sighs. “Yeah. I get it. Teenagers. Payback’s a bitch for all the shit we got up to ourselves.”
“How’s um… Rachel? I haven’t seen her around here as much as I'm seeing Owen pick on Elias.”
Salem groans loudly. “She literally took one of the cars to go in London and waste all the gas in the bloody tank. She’s gone most of the day than not. Not that we really care but I can tell it bothers Owen. I don’t know what he sees in her.”
“A question we’ll always ask ourselves when our children end up with someone we don’t truly approve of.”
“I feel like,” Salem holds out both her hands. “We can either disapprove of the person our child is with but lose our child in the process or accept the person rather we like them or not, and watch our child be miserable for the rest of the time they’re with them, even if it’s for the rest of their life.”
Aster could relate to that feeling.
As they started to walk some more, Aster could hear some music being played. It didn’t take long when he lifts his head for Salem to yank him back behind a wide tree with a finger pressed up to her lips.
A muggle song was being played on the guitar as they both peeked from behind.
By the edge of the pond on the property, Elias and Owen were in their rare quiet moments of getting along.
Owen had Elias’ guitar, strumming along and surprisingly playing the guitar well as Elias hums, singing quietly sitting close beside him.
“You took my hand, you showed me how. You promised me you’d be around. Uh-huh, that’s right. I took your words, and I believed. In everything you said to me. Yeah, huh, that’s right.”
“Pink,” Salem whispers the singer’s name to Aster as they watch the scene unfold in front of them.
“If someone said three years from now. You’d be long gone. I’d stand up and punch them out. ‘Cause they’re all wrong. I know better ‘cause you said forever, and ever. Who knew? Remember when we were such fools. And so convinced and just too cool.”
Aster notices a dandelion tucked into Owen’s hair, making a popping appearance in his long light chestnut hair in comparison to Elias’ short dirty blonde hair. Aster and Salem remained quietly spying on their kids from behind the tree.
“See, I told you I could play, goldilocks.” Owen teases.
“And I told you I could sing.” Elias remarks taking back his guitar. "I don't hear you complaining."
“And now you’ve got to prove to me you’re such the song writer you say you are.”
“I am,” Elias scowls at Owen before he’s looking away with flushed cheeks. “I’m just… new at it, still, that’s all. My papa’s better at it than me. I'm picking up his tricks. One word at a time.”
Owen catches underneath of Elias’ chin with a finger, tilting his face up to meet his eyes. “Come here, try. For me.”
Elias forces his head away, face turning a share redder. “Fine. I-… It’s not finished yet, okay? It’s a work in progress, lyrics and music isn’t done, so you don’t get to judge on it.”
“Alrighty, sing to me, goldilocks.” Owen stretches out on the large rock, a silver of skin showing from where his shirt rises above his jeans catching the black long dangly piercing that hung from his navel.
Elias’ eyes stared at the revealed piece of sun-kissed tan skin for a moment before suddenly shifting back to his guitar and clearing his throat and he started to strum the guitar.
With the amount of years that Elias has been playing on his guitar, he picked up on a few skills. Able to pluck the strings strumming far faster than Owen had previously and use the heel of his hand to hit the body to make a drumming sound to give off more rhythm and beat.
Elias didn’t even have to start singing before Owen was bobbing his head, already interested.
“I wanna be your slave, I wanna be your master. I wanna make your heartbeat run like rollercoasters. I wanna be a good boy, I wanna be a gangster. ‘Cause you could be the beauty and I could be the monster.”
Elias smirks up at Owen, a lick to his lips with a devious wink. The look on Owen’s face painfully obvious got dark, fast.
“I love you since this morning, not just for aesthetic. I wanna touch your body, so fucking electric. I know you’re scared of me, you say that I’m too eccentric. I’m crying all my tears and that’s fucking pathetic. I wanna make you hungry, then I wanna feed ya. I wanna paint your face like you’re my Mona Lisa. I wanna be a champion, I wanna be a loser. I’ll even be a clown ‘cause I just wanna amuse ya. I wanna be your sex toy, I wanna be your teacher. I wanna be your sin, I wanna be your preacher. I wanna make you love me, then I wanna leave ya. ‘Cause, baby, I’m your David and you’re my Goliath.”
Elias stops, the song felt far from completed but it was already off to a good start, Aster had to admit.
Owen licks his lips, staring down at Elias and leaning closer without Elias noticing him. Elias stops the strings, hand pinching them from making more noises as he looks up, letting out a tiny undignified noise as their noses bumped into one another from how unexpectedly close Owen gotten to him.
“I gotta say, Goldilocks,” Owen tilts his head to the side, just the slightest bit and slotting their noses to fit better. “You impress me more and more every day.”
“Do I?” Elias’ voice comes out shaky.
Owen nods, nose nuzzling up to Elias’. Salem claws onto Aster’s arm tightly, yanking on him. Aster didn’t want to look away. It was getting too good now. Aster wonders if he should tell her about the hickey he saw on Elias' neck the other day.
“Yeah. I mean, I knew you were good but that was just… raw talent.”
Elias blinks at Owen once, twice. Owen attempts to leans closer, lips so painfully obviously grazing but yet not touching just yet. Elias pulls back a bit, seeming to be teasing Owen with the gleam in his eyes.
Aster really need to lay off the whole enemy-to-lover romance books as his heart pounded in his chest.
“This is where you tell me ‘thank you, master’.” Elias murmurs to Owen with a cocky smirk on his lips, being bold and daring to the larger and older man.
Aster was the one to let out a tiny noise in time for Salem to finally yank him back and slam him into the tree with a hand covering his mouth. Quickly, before he could have second guesses about it, he grabs out his wand.
He yanks Salem as close to him as possible and casts a silent disillusion charm on them both to blend them into the tree, hoping to hell it’d work for them both as Owen walks by them.
His eyes were not entirely focused to know what or who he was searching for, and by Aster’s best guess he’d be looking for any of Elias’ siblings or even his own or Rachel who hasn’t been over to the Potter Manor since her first day of arrival.
The best part was that with Owen being a muggle, was that the spell itself was more tricker to catch than if it was Elias if he came to search.
After a long minute of both parents holding their breath, Owen gives up with a shrug of his shoulders and returns to Elias. Aster sags in relief, releasing the spell and dropping his arm.
“Fuck, that was terrifying.” He murmurs quietly trying to calm his racing heart.
“Come on,” Salem forcefully drags him away from the tree and the boys. They don’t speak until they were a good distance away from the boys. “Why did you keep watching them?”
“I read too many books.” Aster admits. “That was like, a book coming to life. I had to.”
“It’s your son.”
“Owne’s yours too. You were just into it as I am. They were going to kiss, Salem.” Aster exclaims talking wildly with one of his hands. “Did you not hear what Elias said to Owen?”
“I heard. Do you have a little spell to erase my mind of that? I do not need to know my child’s sex life kinks.”
Aster rolls his eyes as they make it into the clearing of the backyard where James was with the younger kids. “I think I need to borrow James’ invisibility cloak. If only I could become an animagus and hide up in the trees.” Aster complains.
“That is you becoming an animal, right?”
“Yep.” Aster nods. “Like James’ a stag, Sirius is a dog, Peter’s a rat. Usually your animagus animal matches your patronus animal. Mine, before it became a stag to match James’, was a flying squirrel. I’d have no problem hiding in the trees. And the better part, flying without bloody planes or brooms.”
They both start to head into the house. Salem opens the sliding door and steps in first. Aster gets only one foot in before there’s screaming and shouting coming from the forest. Both of them sigh, knowing exactly who it was coming from.
Neither of them bothered to head back out, going in to see what they could help James and Peter with for lunch.