// Armel & Aiden

Armel couldn’t quite recall a time when he felt more jumpy and nervous. He had called prior to see if Aiden was free to have a talk with him and thankfully managed to sound deceptively calm during the entire ordeal. The boy didn’t quite let on or say what it was about but said that it did involve Khalindra and left it at that. Aiden was left to make his own presumptions as to what it was all about because Armel had to leave shortly after the arrangement was made due to lessons.

Now Armel waited in front of the door he had knocked upon, idly fidgeting with the front of his dress-shirt. He dressed to impress. The ram-horned youth wore a nice pair of slacks and a pair of nice shoes to set off the whole look. He managed to make himself like a very upstanding young gentleman.

Luck happened to be on Armel's side this particular week. Aiden had that day off from work and was in a fairly good mood. Then again, the blond doctor was nearly always in a good mood unless one of his bosses had him pissed off.

He'd been lounging on the couch when he'd heard the knock - Khalindra was off doing something (probably at the library) and the twins were with her. He hadn't wanted any distractions of Armel needed to talk to him about something. Pushing himself up, Aiden made his way to the door and pulled it open, raising a brow at the state that the boy was in.

"Who died?"

“No one,” Armel said in an oddly casual manner though he swallowed down the word ‘yet’ before it could bubble out and add more to the phrase. He quietly meandered into the home once allowed to do so his hands folding behind his back as his golden eyes glanced around the domicile most likely to do something other than fidget nervously.

Armel cleared his throat a bit. He wasn’t going to beat around the bush for very long, if at all, he didn’t believe in such things. The youth, however, did wait for Aiden to address him again.

Aiden stepped back to allow the young man inside, closing the door behind him. "Come on and sit down, then. Can I get you something to eat? Drink? Or do you just want to jump right into it? What's Khali done this time? What do you need to talk about?" He was good with talking to kids, thank god. He was a pediatrician. There would be major problems if he wasn't.

Armel shook his head at being offered food and water but he did move to have a seat though he did not really relax any. He watched Aiden as the man went along with his talking and again shook his head, “Nay, she’s always been a fair lass t’me, Sir. She ‘asn’t done anythin’ t’me that I ‘aven’t rightly deserved,” Armel said lightly as he thought about the couple of lectures she had spoken about how he did not come over often enough.

He gave a small pause from one point to the next before he spoke again, “I want t’court Khalindra, wi’ yer permission ‘course,” the youth said jumping right into what he had desired from the meeting.

"Well that's good, I'm glad she---Wait. Court?" Aiden quirked a brow. Court. Didn't that mean..."Urm. Armel. I, uh. Khali's young. You're young. Are you sure?" Everything that he'd ever read or heard in relation to 'courting' was...the precurse to engagements. Which, as he knew, came before marriage.

And his twelve-year-old-equivilant daughter was not going to enter into such an arrangement any time soon. Not while there was breath in his god damn body thank you ever so much.

“I’m pretty sure,” He said with confidence, he had meant date though he had some sort of odd aversion to it. Something about the word seemed course and unrefined. Now the word ‘court’ was a different matter entirely, it had a serious final edge to it and it suited him just fine. Yet he could see that he had somehow miss-stepped and would have to backtrack and smooth things over.

He’d have to use that word.

Armel quietly smoothed over the pant-leg of his thigh, his mind momentarily sidetracking to plans to change into his usual clothes when this was all done and over with before he forced himself back on topic, “I mean t’say, Sir, is I want ter … date yer daughter. F’as long as she’ll ‘ave me, any’ow.”

Well, that was better than the entire marriage thing. That would have made the poor doctor have a hernia and throw the guy out of his house. Yep. Armel certainly dodged that one. "I...see" The blond crossed his arms over his chest and eyed the youth with contemplation. Hm.

"Why?" That was a simple question, wasn't it? All in all, the doctor was taking it fairly well. No yelling, screaming, or beating the boy into a pulp. Yet, anyway. He was actually rolling the idea over in his head, surprisingly enough. This wasn't going to be easy to say yes to, but he had to admit Armel was a good boy.

The answer wasn’t as simple as Aiden would have liked to have believed it to be. For Armel it went a lot deeper than ‘I like her’ and he was pretty certain that feeling was reciprocated by Khalindra. He pointed his golden colored eyes ceiling-ward as he thought over the question before he worded an answer, “I ‘ave great respect for Khali and she deserves nothin’ but the best. I might not be the best for ‘er but I want t’make ‘er happy,” he said actually being humble before Aiden.

“I think she is the prettiest lass and also th’ smartest. I jus’ want t’be with ‘er more often. I want t’be able t’openly hold ‘er ‘and knowin’ you actually gave yer blessin’ instead of feelin’ like a sneak…”

He certainly made it difficult to find a reason to deny the request, didn't he? Aiden made a 'hmm' sound, closing his eyes and trying to find some kind of flawed piece of logic that would make sense for him to say no. He found none. He could have pulled the 'no because I said so' card but he also knew that it would never fly with his daughter. He rather liked having his ears working.

"I don't like it," Aiden said slowly, "Because Khalindra is still my little girl. I still think she's too damn young to even think about dating. So if I'm going to say yes to you, there will be some ground rules. You will have her in by nine every evening you two go out. Not a second later. You will be respectful and respectable. You will not do anything which you know I will not approve of." he paused. "And you know exactly what I'm talking about."

Armel took Aiden’s words with amazing amounts of grace and patience as he sat before the man and let him talk out the boundaries that would occurring when Armel came around to date Khalindra. He stared at Aiden quietly and it had almost occurred to the boy to be a smartass at the final tidbit but he wisely withheld his tongue and simply nodded.

“Alright,” he replied lightly with his voice squeaking faintly toward the end. His throat had become dry during a majority of this ordeal. “Understood, Sir.”

"Then you have my permission until something happens that makes me uncomfortable. At which point, you will break it off until I say otherwise." Aiden held out his hand for the youth to shake. That was a fair thing, he thought. Being a dad with his little baby girl finally reaching the age in which they were interested in boys was a difficult thing. He was doing great! Absolutely fine.

...This was going to suck.

The ram-horned boy reached out his own hand and he shook hands firmly with Aiden and simply said, “Done.” This almost had the makings of some sordid business deal in some fashion. He then began to stand up, “If’n ye’ll f’give me, I gots to go report in f’my lessons an’ such. I’m gon’ be goin’ away for a short while…I already told Khali about it…”

"Have a nice day, Armel. And have fun wherever it is you're going." He didn't have any reason to question where the young man was going, anyway. He wasn't his father. Just the father of the girl he apparently wanted to be more than friends with.

...Yeah, definitely going to blow.

Armel gave but a faint nod and murmured, “Always,” as he moved off toward the door upon basically being released. Where Aiden was essentially mourning over the fact that his Khali and Armel were going to date, the inside of the youth was a veritable celebration complete with heathenism and drinking. Certainly if the good doctor knew about the inner workings of the quickly growing boy he’d have put a stop to it all.

Heh, sucker.