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moonshine-nightlight · 6 months ago

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Courtship Confusion: Part 2

You’ve been working with your siren partner for a couple years now. A consummate flirt, you’d initially been put off by his whole charming deal, somehow he’s become your best friend. You’ve been wanting to see if he’s still interested in dating, but unfortunately he’s not picking up your hints. A pair of visiting cubi remind you of the cultural differences that come with interspecies dating. Maybe you’ve both been misunderstanding each other. Maybe it’s time you set the record straight.

Modern Fantasy, friends to lovers, siren/harpy, male monster x reader, Part 2 of 8

AO3: Courtship Confusion Chapter 2

[Part One] Part Two

One of the witches tries to clap now that Morgan’s song is over and looks down, befuddled at her cuffed hands. Some of the others are coming down faster, struggling with their cuffs and cursing out the officers—luckily with only words and not hexes.

Morgan smirks down at the formerly ensnared before removing himself from their sight. He alights to the ground at the back of his makeshift stage, his wings gentling his fall. He’s so effortlessly graceful it makes your teeth ache.

With your own practiced movement, you look away long enough to get your bearings while he strides over, going in a wide circle to put some distance between himself and the witches.

“Good job,” you say, because it was. You remember how these types of operations used to go. How much more dangerous and less successful they were without Morgan’s skills. “NIA snagged two, but we got the rest.”

“Wonderful,” Morgan replies, clearly satisfied with a successful hunt. His distance from those formerly bewitched is two fold. Firstly to help them calm down, away from his influence, but also to help calm his own prey instincts. There have only been one or two instances where the person you were attempting to stop was powerful enough to prove to be a valid threat even after Morgan sang. Morgan preferred to set people at ease around him, but he could disregard such tendencies when he needed to without a second thought. Sirens’ merciless reputation was not unearned.

He was beautiful then too. That was when you first realized that perhaps your feelings for him had changed, from platonic to something else. And by then, it was already too late.

His ruffling of his own feathers as he adjusted his wings’ position on his back drew your attention. Your hands itched to help preen him, but you knew how sensitive he was about that. He’d only let you do more than fix a feather once or twice and even then only after they had been seriously messed up and in private.

You track his gaze and see the senior officer wave Morgan over. Evidently enough time had passed that they believed Morgan’s presence would be more help than hindrance.

You look back up at Morgan, to see if that's the case for him as well. He turns to you and seems surprised you’re already looking at him. He smiles a pleased but lazy smile, hands slipping into his pockets. “Be right back,” Morgan reassures you, answering your unasked questions. He starts to hum something calming in the back of his throat as he ambles over to the cuffed witches.

You wave him off as you start packing up your equipment. Why is it these things always take so much longer to put away than to take out?

You’re nearly done when someone else, not Morgan, interrupts. “A siren, ay?” You look up to see a pair of the NIA agents approaching. You don’t remember them from the briefings earlier but NIA had brought in some additional field agents to help too. “Rare to have one this far from the waters.”

You shrug. People like to point out how odd it is for a siren to be landlocked, but what can you say to that except confirm that Morgan lives here? He’d only lived by the water when he was a little kid. “Suppose. Everyone lives pretty much everywhere these days.”

“That’s true enough. It was a wonderful performance,” the second of these two agents adds, just in time for Morgan to join you. Both agents are in nice suits, looking more like actresses than agents. You feel scruffy in comparison and resist the urge to fix your hair which you know the headphones from earlier must have messed up. The first agent’s dark hair looks artfully tousled by the wind while the second’s short, lighter hair looks as if it's as perfectly styled as it had been when she left the house.

Unfair. You almost hope they’re cubi or vamps or something to explain their supernaturally beautiful appearance.

“Why thank you,” Morgan says, as he walks over just in time to be complimented. He’s clearly unintimidated by their poise—likely because he’s managing to look as good if not better than them. “I’m always happy when my talents lend themselves to our work.”

“You just like to sing on company time,” you tease, looking for some familiar ground to regain your footing. You weren’t usually this insecure, but your nerves always acted up after the adrenaline wore off. You preferred to get anxious now rather than before, but neither was pleasant.

He grins and adjusts his lapels. “As I said.”

“I’ve never seen a siren work so precisely,” the older agent comments, eying Morgan with speculative interest. You hate the jealousy and protectiveness that flares up in you with that look. She’s certainly his type: attractive and interested in him. She looks between the two of you and perhaps you should feel flattered not to have been forgotten, but it just barely helps you push your unreasonable feelings to the side. “You certainly seem to have this routine of yours down pat.”

Before either of you could respond, the second agent adds, “We were skeptical when your office offered to help, but we’ve never had such a clean capture.”

“Thanks,” you reply. She said it like a compliment but it feels backhanded to you, though perhaps unintentionally. The traditional ‘local vs national’ rivalry has you inclined to hear an implication that a local office might have nothing to offer, but maybe you’re just reading into things. They lack some of the arrogance and condescension the national agents often had. The kind that makes you grit your teeth and forcibly redirect Morgan before he says something too honest, even if you agree with him.

“We were happy to be of service,” Morgan replies, an edge to some of his charm. “This is our specialty, mine and my partner’s, I mean. You’ll not find any better.”

If the brag comes across as self-agrandizing, they don't seem to mind. “So it would seem,” the senior agent says, leaning forward with interest. “Would—”

“Riding out!” One of the other officers calls out, the signal for everyone not a tech inventorying the warehouse for further evidence to move back to the precinct.

“We should regroup back at base,” the second agent says. You resist the urge to raise an eyebrow in surprise, so they actually had something they wanted to talk to you about? You’d been chalking up their idle chatter as looking for someone remotely interesting to linger near until everyone left—which Morgan definitely was, even if you weren’t.

“Aye, aye,” Morgan replies with a tease before turning his back on them completely. Likely reminding them that they have no actual authority over the two of you. You press your lips together to suppress your smile. “Your arms look full, why don’t you hand me the keys?”

“Not on your life.” You don’t even entertain the possibility, despite how unwieldy the duffel bags you’ve got are. “You haven’t renewed your license yet for a squad car.”

“Semantics,” Morgan scoffs as he falls in step next to you. You figure the agents will go their own way now and track you down back at the office, if they’re even still interested. Instead they fall in step a couple paces behind you, talking to each other but clearly following you and Morgan.

“Rules,” you reply automatically. There’s no sense in speculating on their motives with so little information, so you do your best to ignore the agents. Maybe their care was just also parked out by this entrance. “Here.” You hand him one of the bags of equipment. “Since you wanted to help and were so concerned about my arms.”

“But Inspector,” Morgan whines even as he easily takes the weight, slinging the bag over his shoulder. “It’s not my fault that I rarely need to drive.” He puffs up his wings for emphasis, drawing attention to their sleek appearance.

You’ve got plenty of practice keeping focus even with him showing off his assets. “But you still need the license when you do, no matter your ‘natural advantages’.”

“I have a typical license,” he grumbles, giving up once he can see you’re not budging. “It’s not my fault they require a separate one for our vehicles and that they changed the rules after the Buzzar incident. How was I supposed to know?”

“Because you were there when it happened?” you point out.

“Yes, and I would never do such a thing.” Morgan says, but you just raise an eyebrow. He’s damaged squad cars doing stunts before. He purposely ignores you as he continues, “And I certainly don’t see why it had to be memorialized on the exam.”

“Doesn’t matter and no amount of whining now is gonna change anything,” you reiterate with a smirk. You jingle the keys in your hand. Truthfully, you’d be driving regardless since you’re the senior inspector, but it’s fun to have a reason to tease him about. You only let Morgan drive in extreme circumstances anyways. “I’m still driving.”

Morgan pouts as he opens the trunk to drop in his bag, taking yours from you wordlessly. Before he can try to convince you again to let him drive, the senior NIA agent speaks up, “We’ll see you there.” The second agent waves as they head over to the sleek black car with the NIA logo on it parked only a few yards away.

“Why do we have to drive this old clunker when they have that?” Morgan grumbles.

“Because we have a fourth of their budget,” you reply with a snort. “Come one, get in.”

#my writing #story: courtship confusion #courtship confusion #reader #male monster #siren #harpy #terato #exophilia #osha compliant #back on track with this story #now that the NWWD side story is done #hope to post this one consistently next #trying to reorient myself with my writing projects and goals #word count as always will pick up from here as we get further into the story lol

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