Closed: Werewolves are not a device to sell shitty papers.

[daleysebastian]

Sebastian was, for lack of a better term, brooding. He'd been staring at that stupid fucking Daily Prophet article since he'd gotten his hands in it and was no where closer to sorting out the chaos it had turned his head into. It hadn't said anything, specifically, about him being a werewolf. It was heavily implied but not out right labeled. Of

Comments

[daleysebastian]

"We ... have a problem." It was about as ominous as anything Sebastian could have said. He didn't want to panic Sabrina - there would be plenty of time for the rest of the world to panic - but there was no getting around it really. Sebastian felt like even though his tone was modulated, his usually stoic and unimpressed expressions were slipping.

There was too much anxiety surrounding everything, and he could feel the panic pulling at his eyes and spiking his heart rate.

It was too soon after they'd nearly died and too close to the full moon for this. Sabrina might practically vibrate with energy, but Sebastian filled with anxiety and trepidation, disappointment and fear for which he had no outlet. Hopefully, he could keep it together for Sabrina.

"It's out there. The fucking Prophet is talking werewolves and naming us. More heavily naming you. And the pack." He finished crossing the room and held out the paper for her. "Someone in the Ministry is talking." It was only a matter of time, maybe, but with nearly a full lunar cycle between the attack and the reveal, he'd been lulled into a false sense of security.

[daleysabrina]

Sabrina had never really been one for reading the paper, which was strange considering that she had watched her father read The Prophet almost religiously ever day and it had actually been this very paper that had led her back to her brother. But she was so unfamiliar with this world now, feeling absolutely no connection to the events.

Then again, that was before the articles were actually about her.

Now there was definitely a connection and it made her stomach twist up before sinking right to the floor, eyes going wider than usual and her mouth was dry.

"No- what? No-" she said, shaking her head wildly, a part of her hoping that Bash had finally loosened up and this was some sort of strange practical joke.

They hadn't actually even properly announced her return yet, waiting until this whole thing with Nolan had been cleared up before drawing attention to her.

"How is this even possible, Bash? What did it say about me? Me? Really? Are you sure?"

[daleysebastian]

Sebastian blinked and shook his head. As if he'd be telling her this if he wasn't sure. Did she think he'd suddenly developed a penchant for practical jokes? That was far more ridiculous than some loose-lipped Auror - fucking Aurors - making nice with a gossip columnist.

He shook out the paper and held it up, reading the highlights.

"- full-on attack of the Daley Manor on March 16th. Yes. Those Daleys. That's the start. Sebastian Daley had returned from Merlin knows where. That's all it says about me." Which was a relief only in that people weren't going to be paying too much attention to him.

It also served to make him angrier since he'd rather be the focus than his baby sister. He cleared his throat and went back to reading. "Sabrina Daley ... has popped up too." There was a fucking exclamation mark. Sebastian was irrationally irritated by the punctuation. "This werewolf is , talking about the young Daley girl and how much his pack needs her to return."

That was all he could get through before his fist closed around the pages and he looked up, eyes catching Sabrina's. "It's the one Potter cornered last month. The wolf, I mean. They kept it quiet longer than I expected."

[daleysabrina]

Sabrina gasped, an audible gasp, as her hands flew up to cover her gaping mouth.

This couldn't have been real, not for a moment. It was like some sort of living nightmare, everything that Nolan had ever worried about her coming true.

The entire magical world now knew that she was a werewolf.

"What- what are we going to do?" she asked him, stumbling over her words. "Are they going to come for me? Bash, what are they going to do?"

[daleysebastian]

"First, we're not going to panic. Okay? That's step one." Rather, he was going to do what he could to make sure she didn't panic. Then he was going to go have a break down on Reid or Jemma, whomever he found first.

"No one is coming for you. We'll lay low - which isn't that hard. Neither of us are super social." Sabrina was arguably far more social than he was, but it's not like she was out walking in parades or something. Mostly, it seemed like she spent time at Dean's, which wouldn't be an issue considering he knew all the details already.

"I'll build up a few more charms around here. No one's getting on the property without a bloody clearance. That takes care of the Wizards that might get crazy." Sebastian was in full on crisis mode. He was trying to think twelve steps ahead, but proverbial chess had never been his game. "Which I don't expect to happen just yet." At least, not until the day of the full moon. Which was only in a few fucking days. Merlin.

Sighing, Sebastian settled his hands on her shoulders and looked at her very seriously. "Jemma's good at containing things. So I'm going to see what she has up her sleeve. I'm going to see what the hell Potter is doing and where he fucked this up. And we're going to get this pack under control. So they're not coming for you either. It'll be fine."

[daleysabrina]

There wasn't a whole lot that scared Sabrina (confused her, yes but she wasn't easily scared or deterred) but this, her secret being out there for the entire world to see, definitely spooked her. It was one of the main reasons she had never tried to leave the camp before, not knowing how she would be accepted back as a werewolf. It was how Nolan and the elders kept everyone from leaving the camp.

And it killed her to admit it, her heart beating a little bit faster and her stomach turning the sickening type of somersaults on her, that he had been right all along.

"Okay. Okay-" she said slowly, nodding her head as she looked up at her big brother. She had to trust him on this now, more than ever.

Then she added very quietly, a heaviness in her tone, "This is all my fault, isn't it?"

[daleysebastian]

It seemed like, for the moment, the crisis had been averted. Sabrina wasn't in a Sebastian-level panic. That boded well. If he could keep her calm and get this whole thing under control before it became an active problem for her, he could possibly consider himself a decent older brother again.

"No." His voice was even with the option of stern. He squeezed her shoulders and ducked his head to catch her eyes. "Nothing about this is on you, okay? None of it. This is the pack and an Auror who fails at his job. You didn't do anything."

He completely believed that. Maybe, in some twisted way, someone could blame this on Sabrina. It was the pack, mostly. The pack was causing drama and distress. Wizard and werewolf interactions were getting better up to this point. Then the pack had to turn up to breed panic. Sebastian might also be able to blame himself for being too secretive and letting any of this become something that resembled news. No one in their right mind could blame Sabrina.

[daleysabrina]

While she may not have gone into a full out anxiety attack sort of panic, Sabrina digested things in a much different fashion.

She took everything in, slowly working it over and over in her head until she had completely built it and then rebuilt it in a way that put all of the blame right on her. She always seemed to find a way to do that.

"But Bash-" she started, shaking her head, not quite sure whether to look at him or the ground or her feet.

"This puts us both in danger. This puts Dean in danger-"

[daleysebastian]

"Which, I'm sorry, isn't exactly something we didn't know already." That was the thing about putting the people around you in danger, it usually happened long before it was obvious. Hell, he'd been putting Reid in danger since Jemma had introduced them, if you asked Sebastian.

Nothing made that less terrifying, but it drove the point home that things needed to be dealt with sooner rather than later.

"But that's not your fault. Reid's said that to me a hundred different ways so I get that it's hard to believe, but it's true." Sebastian didn't really know Dean. They passed each other and exchanged pleasantries - or what passed for those with Sebastian - but not much else. After Nolan had shown up, though, Sebastian knew exactly where Dean stood.

And that, apparently, was anywhere between Sabrina and danger. "You don't have to put him in danger. He'd do it for you all on his own any time he got the chance. So don't feel guilty about that."

[daleysabrina]

Even though she knew that there was a truth in Sebastian's words, especially the bit about Dean and all that he would do for her, there was still a ball of guilt working its way into her stomach.

She felt so squirmy over it but all the motivation to go out for a run had completely dissolved.

"I think that scares me even more. The part where he'd do anything for me," she confessed, picking at her numb tail as she shifted from side to side.

Suddenly those sneakers were feeling really tight on her feet.

"I don't want him to do anything for me. I want him to be safe."

[daleysebastian]

"That doesn't get to be your choice." Not really. Sebastian was still trying to get used to that. No matter what he did in an attempt to keep Reid out of harm's way, it didn't matter. He happened to be dating - which was actually what this was, there was no denying it after the words they'd said when Sebastian had been near death - the guy with the world's worst and most dangerous sense of timing.

"But we'll do whatever we can to keep Dean from getting more involved than he is. We'll get this under control before he even gets the chance to throw himself in harm's way." He said it with so much confidence, he could have believed it.

[daleysabrina]

Deep down, as much as she tried to act tough and prove to her brother that she was an adult now, Sabrina was still that little girl who needed her big brother to give her advice. There had been so many instances over the years that she stayed up late wishing he'd been around to turn to.

Even when she'd come back and everything was so confusing she didn't feel like she could actually go to him. There had been a disconnect there.

But now she was grateful to have him back again.

"We'll get through this together," she said, meeting his eyes with more confidence than she'd had previously.

"It can't be worse than what we've already been through-"

[daleysebastian]

"I seriously doubt it." They'd been through so much, individually and as a family. Most notably, they were the only family they had left. They'd survived that, so they could take care of this.

They were absolutely going to be fine, and Sebastian was going to find a way to make sure he made that happen. Since she'd come back, he'd been walking this line of seeing her as the baby sister she'd been when he last knew her and the woman that happened to be his younger sister she was now. This was the first time he felt like he could really see it. She was confident and sure in the same ways he was.

That is to say, they might neither be sure of a hell of a lot, but they were going to do what they needed to do because they had to.

"I have no idea what's going to happen now, but we'll be fine. And we'll figure it out." He was officially done cutting her out to keep her safe, mostly, at least.

[daleysabrina]

"Okay, yeah. We'll figure it out," she said, mostly just repeating what her brother was saying.

Sabrina was a survivor, pushing forward no matter what was shoved her way. It was a necessarily evil but she knew that she could do it again.

At least she wouldn't have to do it alone.

"Do you think they'll go after the camp now? Will they want to question me about it?"

[daleysebastian]

More than anything, Sebastian wanted to say that no they wouldn't be doing that. No one would be asking her to do anything like that.

He wasn't naive enough to believe it.

For lack of something better to say, Sebastian jerked his head toward the kitchen and tugged lightly at her arm.

"Come on. Tea." This was definitely a tea conversation. He wasn't too invested in tea, honestly, but it was one of those comfort things that had stuck around from the late night heart-to-hearts he'd had with his parents at various times in his childhood.

"They'll probably want to talk to you," he started saying when he started moving. "Hell, we need to get you registered. And officially alive again. There will be questions about that, too. I'm sorry, I should have been more on top of the official things."

[daleysabrina]

Whenever things were going very well, which happened to be quite often these days, the Daleys always ended up in the kitchen. While the space was originally designed for restaurant quality, all stainless steel and over sized appliances, it could have been cold but had somehow become the most comforting part of the manor.

"Tea is good," she sighed, following her brother through the expansive formal dining room.

"I'm surprised nobody has come looking already. As far as they knew I've been dead-"