Ron thought the cut tag failed, but it turns out RON fails...
Who: ARCHIE AND IZZIE
What: CUTE. Okay, and he meets her evil parents.
Where: The Egg residence
When: Today!


Her eyes followed her parents cross the room and out the door to the kitchen to let Eloise out the door, and once they were out of sight, Isobel let out a long breath and shrunk into her seat. Of course her sister had just happened to drop by the day she brought Archie over for tea. What a coincidence! How good to meet you, Arcturus!

That sickeningly sweet look no Eloise's face----ergh, it got Izzie so mad.

Not any madder than the whole tea revolving around her sister's latest discovery at St. Mungo's, something about dragon's blood and it's affects on---some---disease. It wasn't even that interesting, and hadn't her parents insisted that they meet the man she'd been spending her time with?

Well--her mother had said something along the lines of 'running around' with, but. Archie's natural ways were seemingly impressing her parents. At least, they hadn't scoffed at him, yet.

"My stomach hurts," she announced, hopefully as cue to duck out while her parents were busy.

The first thing Archie had thought when Izzie had mentioned the fact that she and her family did not get along was, "Well, honestly, how awful can they be?" But upon deliberation, he thought about how his family was nothing short of unpleasant and crazy and how he had to protect Izzie from their madness at all costs, and he conceded Izzie might have had a point when she said they would be better off steering clear of them.

But he was a proper boyfriend, wasn't he? And didn't proper boyfriends grit their teeth and do proper things, even when it had the potential to end in bodily harm (he had been envisioning Izzie's father as the type who kept heavy, blunt objects around the house with the express purpose of bludgeoning potential suitors)? They did, dammit! So when the invitation for tea had come 'round, it was only natural they they accept, and finally get the meeting over and done with.

And thus far, he thought things hadn't gone over so terribly. They were nice enough, if rather overbearing, and on the whole, things could have been a lot worse!

"Your stomach is fine," he told her cheerfully. "Cheer up! We're on our third cup. They can't keep us here much longer without letting us use the restroom. We can make our break for it then."

"We're never going to get out," she moaned, dropping her face into Archie's shoulder. "They're going to come back and ramble on for years and we're going to be old and grey and hi," she let out, when her parents entered the room again, immediately sitting and straightening up.

"Don't slouch, dear," Catherine Egg corrected quickly, causing Isobel's eyes to narrow. Her mother sat in the chair in front of Archie, leaning forward with her hand out in a friendly manner, "Isn't Eloise a doll, Arcturus? We're so very proud of her."

"Told us she wanted to be a healer at the age of four," Mordicus Egg added, dropping into the seat next to his wife. "Always knew that she was going to be great."

"Yes, she reminds us every day," Izzie continued the glorifying of her sister. Sometimes she felt like Eloise was lurking outside of her flat to find out when she was going to be heading over to their parents' house, just to make sure that the conversation would be all about her. "It's a story I just love hearing over and over again."

"Sarcasm doesn't suit you, dear," Catherine snipped quickly, shooting a look toward Isobel before looking back to Archie, "Now, Arcturus, do you have any brothers? Such a lovely example of a pureblooded man, surely you must!"

Archie scratched the back of his head in a nonchalant manner, trying very hard to keep any discomfort he had among the Eggs from being obvious. "Eloise is--very lovely. You... must be proud to have such an array of successful careers in your family. Like with Isobel's studio." He patted her on the knee closest to him in a proud manner.

Well, even if he had arrested her there... clearly it was so prominent that it had drawn the attention of the Ministry--that had to show some degree of success, didn't it?

"My--er, well, yes, I--do have a brother, as a matter of fact. Pyxis is...," incredibly unpleasant? A ponce? An idiot? "very career-oriented. I know little-to-nothing of his social life."

Well. Eloise and Pyxis would make a disgustingly good couple that would no doubt flaunt their accomplishments in Archie and Izzie's faces for all of eternity.

Or at least the next 60 years, which would seem like eternity anyway.

A blush appeared immediately, and Isobel looked up at Archie with a great look of adoration. Well, maybe this wasn't going to end so horribly. He seemed to have no problem with keeping her parents in line and reminding them who they were supposed to be focused on, something she'd never been able to do. And, he thought her studio was a success, which was exciting all on its own. She'd built all of that up on her own, you know, bought it with some savings and voila it was amazing and now charm-free and Archie thought it was a success.

She wasn't sure why that made it so much better, but it did, and she really liked that.

Izzie lost herself in her thoughts for a bit, but not long enough to miss the end of her mother's babbling. It had mostly to do with Eloise, which was really something she was used to tuning out, but--

"---oh, it's such a shame we hadn't met you before!" Catherine said, causing Isobel's eyes to widen. Really? "You and Eloise would have so much in common, well---you should talk to your brother for us!"

And...now her stomach really hurt.

His eyes widened. "Er--"

Archie was suddenly beginning to understand a lot of what went into making Izzie... well, Izzie. And he had to say, he didn't blame her at all.

If his parents had been this sort of bad, he'd find stretching himself into impossible shapes (in often provocative positions) thereapeutic.

He couldn't think of a nice way to tell Catherine Egg that if he had to spend more than fifteen minutes alone with Eloise Egg, there would be an Archie-shaped hole in the closest wall. He figured if she didn't take offense to someone disparaging Isobel, she'd happily take a frying pan to anyone who dared say a word about Eloise.

Come to think of it, Eloise and Pyxis really would be a splendid couple.

Which, of course, was why they couldn't ever meet.

"I--will mention that to him the next time we speak," he said, beaming as convincingly as possible. Archie spoke to him as little as possible, so technically he wasn't lying.

He grasped Izzie's hand, perhaps a little tighter than would ordinarily be comfortable and vaguely hoped no outstanding invitation for dinner would be provided. "Well, I was lucky enough to have met Isobel. I think she's the Egg for me." He gave her probably his first genuine smile of the evening and squeezed her hand before turning back to her parents. "I--you--have a lovely home, I have been meaning to tell you that since--the moment we arrived."

"And we're so sorry that we have to be heading out," Izzie said quickly, standing and pulling Archie up with her. "He's helping me install new---curtains."

"Oh! Well, do stop by any time, dear," Catherine said, directing her invitation toward Archie. Isobel nearly wanted to rip his arm out, how desperate she was to get out of there, but she spotted her father's face and--an expression of intrigue and...was he impressed? He looked impressed and was staring at Archie and--Izzie shook her head. Maybe she shouldn't be rushing out of here. Maybe it actually looked like her parents were going to stop being the annoying prats they normally were and realize that she wasn't a complete waste of a child and that someone they thought to be a proper young man was actually---

She shouldn't care if they thought that Archie was a suitable young man (even if they thought it for their other daughter), but she did, and it made her stomach twist in a lovely sort of manner that he would tell them that---she was the Egg for him. That sounded so odd out of context, but it made her warm up and just stare up at him again with that same look of---something that---she hadn't--

"I'll owl you when we're done," she said softly, in a much kinder tone than she had used with her mother in quite some time as she tugged Archie out of the room. That---could have gone a lot worse. It could have gone a lot worse, and actually, it hadn't been so bad. Not so bad was definitely a step up from the armageddon Izzie had been expecting, and as she shut the door to the parlour, she turned and pushed Archie gently into the wall beside it, leaning into him and lifting her chin high get a good look at his face. "I think I love you, Mr. MacMillan."

It felt nice, actually, to see her parents this afternoon. Not that they were particularly amazing human beings, or paid Izzie the amount of respect they should, but Archie thought it was a pretty important step in their relationship, and he was happy it had been established sooner rather than later. Of course, he by no means wanted to bring Izzie near the MacMillan household, but if she had the urge to rush to his defense half so strongly as he did for her, maybe it wouldn't be so bad.

Well, that was a lie, it was going to be awful, but it would be liveable, which was the important thing.

"I'm rather glad to hear that, Miss Egg," he told her, bowing to place his forehead against hers. "Because I have been waiting to find the proper time to say that to you." He placed both hands against her cheeks to kiss her before pulling back with an arched eyebrow. "Did you say you think you love me?"

Her face remained scrunched as he pulled away, and Izzie blinked slowly, pushing harder against him some more. She knew how her parents worked---they would be in the parlour for quite some time, gossiping and then maybe even sending a letter out to a friend about the occassion. Why they were so ridiculous that way, she had no idea, but. It gave her time to appreciate this feeling that had erupted at the meeting. She supposed it wasn't a surprise to her, that she felt like she loved Archie---hell, if she wanted to be really honest, all that sexual attraction she hadn't been able to explain during their first interactions had probably something to do with falling in love with him.

Who would've thought?

"I did. But, I do." She wiggled against him, slipping her arms around his waist to pull him indecently close (she really had no problem with this kind of PDA, even if they were in an empty hallway), "At least, I'm pretty sure of it, anyway."

He grinned and kissed her forehead, holding her face in his hands. As fondly as he looked on the days when he wasn't sure if she was going to slap him or kiss him (one time, she did both), it was nice to just be kissed. "Glad to hear it, Miss Egg," he teased. "Because if I was going to have to change my Egg to Eloise, that would make both of us unhappy."

Well, maybe he was still liable to get slapped sometimes.