Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The start is, like most things in his life, rather messy.

It’s summer and summer always brings trouble. Something about the heat and never-ending days just seems to turn the air that suffocating type of stagnant that makes your head fuzzy with the need to bury your fist into something that will crack satisfyingly and tune out the incessant cries of cicadas. Leona is not the type of person to deny himself such a sweet little pleasure.

His knuckles tear upon impact but at least the metal gives, the sound of brute force and sharp claws against polished steel just this side of ear piercing, and the vibrations resonating surprisingly well with the ever-present sound of his blood rushing in his ears.

Rage is what he thinks of but rage isn’t the right word for what he’s feeling. Rage is too clean, too simple. There’s something alive in his chest that is desperate to crawl out between his ribs, make his hands clench around something, close his eyes, feel the hunger, feel the thirst and –

He balls his fists and hits the magical shift goal again.

It’s late in the afternoon, the sun beginning to set and painting the sky the same hot red of the not-quite-rage that has been bubbling inside his chest since the moment Malleus had flung the disk in the final seconds of the game and secured Diasomnia’s victory against Savanaclaw.

Every muscle in his body aches from exertion but the taste of defeat makes him want to push and claw at his limits until he’s spilling his guts next to the chalk line drawn onto the ground – because even bile tastes sweeter than yet another loss.

All he really, truly wants is to be alone for a little– no spectators shouting and cheering so loud their voices echo in his empty room hours later. No Ruggie five feet above the ground smiling at him with the kind of confidence only someone who knows they’ll win can muster. No Epel looking at him as if Leona was some sort of saving grace that could turn the tides by merely existing. No Cheka getting up early in the morning to call and wish him luck. No Farena slapping him on the back encouragingly, laughter as loud as his roar.

No nothing.

But, as usual, he isn’t granted such kindness, always close but never quite close enough.

His nails dig into the palms of his hands but Leona only buries them deeper so the next punch will hurt as much as it should. There’s a dent the shape of his fist and he deepens it one more time for good measure because violence and destruction is all his hands are really good for anyways. When he draws back warm blood seeps out in between his knuckles. He watches a small red drop fall to the ground at his feet.

It’s not nearly enough.

“Shouldn’t you have returned to your dorm by now?”

Malleus has his back turned towards the setting sun and Leona is overcome by the sudden urge to wretch the moment he sees his silhouette painted a color not dissimilar to the blood steadily pooling at his feet. His shadow is long and slender and stretches far enough to cast Leona into his self-made darkness where the light doesn’t reach.

This is all he hates combined into a scenic view, the promise of a sun that he’s not entitled to and the sight of a throne that’s slipping through his fingers like sand or blood or –

The metal threatens to crack under the sheer brute force he puts into the next punch but none of the pressure in his head dissolves.

Even after an excruciatingly long game of magical shift Malleus still stands tall and poised and something about his whole nonchalance really pisses Leona off. To Malleus his victory probably means nothing, another win for his book just the same as Leona marks down one more loss in his own.

The goal does not break, only bends unnaturally and Leona swallows the incantation of his unique magic because he knows he won’t stop after just one measly goal has been turned to sand. The glove on his right hand begins to crumble. Leona lets go of the handful of dust and smashes his fist against the goal again.

It breaks.

None of the anger dissolves.

He doesn’t look at Malleus, but he can feel his eyes burning holes into the back of his skull. Of course now he’s the center of attention, now when he wants to swallow the world whole and spit it out in peace. Half of the goal is buried in the red-gold sand of the magical shift field and gleaming prettily in the light of the setting sun. Leona lets his foot collide against its twisted steel and kicks it down the edge of the cliff with enough force for the rubber on his shoes to come loose. Two of his toenails split and make the insides of his sneakers uncomfortably warm and damp.

The goal falls and falls and falls.

When it lands it’s not nearly loud enough but the silence that follows is deafening, like the sound of blood dripping down his fingers and collecting into a little puddle that will be gone when the sun rises again.

Black sneakers enter his vision, one acid green stripe underneath each ankle a stark contrast to all the red around them.

“You’re not acting like yourself.” Malleus says, “Your teammates would be worried if they saw you like this.”

Something inside Leona snaps.

Rage isn’t quite what he’s feeling. It’s something deeper, something that drives sense and sleep away from him, makes him grasp for something, anything, and make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. Rage is what they whispered behind his mother’s back. Crazy and unhinged, completely ignoring righteous and furious and strong.

Leona knows his attacks are weak as shit right now, with his knuckles bleeding and body screaming from exhaustion but that doesn’t stop him from trying to wrench one off those damned horns off of Malleus’ head. His own head is spinning, the air in his lungs too stale, and none of his punches connect. At this point he might really retch up his lunch.

He kicks up a cloud of yellowish sand that may have been something else before he got there and curses when his coordination fails and leaves him just as blinded by the dust as Malleus. The particles sparkle in the sunlight and make Leona’s eyes burn at the edges. He wills them to adjust anyways and catches sight of a dark shape approaching rapidly. It’s thanks to his reflexes he’s not knocked to the ground when the thing slams into him with enough force to make a particularly nasty spell die on the tip of his tongue. His claws scrape against metal and the sound is so ugly and earsplitting he almost cracks it in half on instinct.

When the dust settles he finds himself holding the magical shift disk he thought he’d turned into sand already. It’s cold and smooth and shiny and nothing like the slew of emotions swirling behind his eyelids.

“You seem to need to blow off some pent up energy.” Malleus says, one corner of his lips quirking upwards in that foul all-knowing smile he learnt from Lilia. “Why not relive it on the field?”

Leona turns the disk in his hands, the callouses on his fingers from hours of practice for today’s tournament catching on the gilded engravings. Malleus takes two measured steps forward and crosses the line separating the field in two equal parts, takes position and waits.

His entire life, Leona has spent in the shadows, wishing for acknowledgement he knew wouldn’t come, not from his parents, not from his brother or servants or the people he so wished to lead. So when finally, someone doesn’t just brush past him, barely bothering to hide the way they turn up their noses as they pass him by, annoyed at his laziness, his bad temper, his entire being, someone to peek at Leona’s bleak grey world for better understanding of the second prince of the Afterglow Savanna and offer just a bit of kindness in the oppressing heat he calls home, it just had to be Malleus.

Malleus is still smiling when he looks up, not self-satisfied or nasty or ugly, just a faint curve of his lips that is as playful as it is hesitant. The mere thought of Malleus being the one to calm the not-rage in his throat is disgusting enough to make him scrunch his nose but despite himself his ears give the tiniest of twitches.

Slit eyes reflect the sunlight in a way that makes them appear almost red. Leona flicks his eyes down to the disk still clutched in his hands, equally red in the light of the setting sun. Come to think of it, Leona hasn’t really seen Malleus smile before. When he looks up again, everything around him is colored a deep shade of red – red, orange and yellow, all bleeding together to paint Malleus in a soft glow.

Warmth spreads from his stomach up to his ears, his entire body growing impossibly hot as his vision zeroes in on Malleus, in the middle of the magical shift field, extending his hand towards him in invitation, no trace of aggravation or exasperation or contempt on his face. It might not be the white-hot red of rage but red is red all the same so Leona lunges forwards and connects his lips to Malleus’ in a bruising kiss.

Malleus makes a startled noise that Leona would have laughed at if he hadn’t slightly missed his mark and ended up pressing his mouth to the corner of Malleus’ lips instead, so he’s thoroughly busy correcting his mistake. The next time he presses his lips against Malleus’ it’s with much better results, mostly because the initial shock has worn off and Malleus has managed to gather enough of his wits to respond, split tongue curiously licking against Leona’s chapped lips. Leona bites down hard enough to taste copper.

His shirt sticks to his back uncomfortably, damp from exercise and excess emotion. Neither of them really knows what they’re doing, there’s too much spit and their teeth knock together occasionally but Malleus lets him take out as much of his aggression as Leona needs. Malleus trails one hand down his side until it rests at the jut of his hip while Leona works on coaxing open Malleus’ mouth and together they find some sort of rhythm that makes the tension in Leona’s shoulders disappear, his knees going weak in a way he can’t bring himself to hate.

The angle is odd and Leona won’t subject himself to standing on his toes so he buries his fists in the collar Malleus’ gym uniform and pulls him down harshly. Malleus goes willingly, cups Leona’s cheek to turn his face a little to the left which alleviates enough of the strain in his neck for him to let out a lowly purr.

Admittedly, this is a much nicer way of releasing his anger than hitting empty goals with bare fists.

He leans into Malleus’ space until the toes of their shoes touch which isn’t nearly close enough so he buries a fist in midnight colored hair and yanks hard. The sound Malleus makes is something akin to a growl, sharp fingernails digging into his side warningly. It’s enough gratification for a lazy smile to sprawl across Leona’s face.

There’s too little oxygen circulating through his veins for him to care whether or not Malleus will leave small crescent moon shaped marks but Leona is intent on giving as good as he gets so he bites down Malleus’ bottom lip and calls it even. Almost as an afterthought, Malleus eases the grip on his hip to trail his fingers almost apologetically over the indents of his nails. Leona didn’t know Malleus to be soft, neither does he know softness beyond his teeth sinking into tender meat so it’s exactly that softness to pulls him right back to his senses.

He clenches his fist and decks Malleus hard, already bloody knuckles connecting with a pale cheek and leaving a brushstroke of red against snowy white skin. To his surprise, the punch connects, Malleus’ head snapping to the right harshly with the force of the blow.

Finally, his air-deprived brain supplies, not caring about the cruel nature of his actions. Call it vicious and nasty but this has been the first time Malleus had his guard down around him, the first time he had created an opening in his otherwise pristine defense, and the beast inside him had felt the overwhelming urge to strike. Malleus should know better than to let his guard down around the enemy.

Leona feels awfully smug.

“Look at you sitting on the ground.” he snarls, self-satisfied and ugly, and proudly showing off his fangs, “You’re not acting like yourself.”

Seeing Malleus in the grass, staring up at him in the most curious mixture of confusion and betrayal has Leona utterly delighted. There’s laughter bubbling in his chest that he doesn’t care to swallow down so he barks out a fitful of sour laughs and revels in the moment while it lasts.

Leona's not stupid though. He knows all about inevitable endings so he commits the picture to memory and turns on his heel before Malleus can regain his composure and go for revenge. Leaving Malleus behind on the magical shift field is a different kind of satisfaction, one no less sweet, especially when the sun dips behind the horizon and replaces the reds and yellows with ugly blacks and ashgrey, one that leaves a strange bitter aftertaste.

It’s not quite rage he feels that day and it doesn’t wash off with the crusted blood caked on his knuckles, no matter how hard he scrubs that night.

The next morning he wakes to a missed call from Malleus.

Leona squints his eyes at his screen for several moments, double checks the name and phone number and doesn’t come up with a good enough reason to call back, not that he was trying particularly hard in the first place. He settles on typing a well-intentioned fuck off before discarding his phone on the other side of the bed and going right back to sleep.

He wasn’t planning on sitting through history anyways.

Neither of them acknowledges what happened on the magical shift field and that works just fine for Leona. Responsibilities have never really been his thing and if Malleus wants to settle the score he’s more than welcome to challenge him to a fight. Who knows, maybe Leona will actually get to break his nose this time around. Or even better, one of those stupid horns of his.

But Malleus doesn’t challenge him.

“Remember to put the mandrake into the bag upright, Leona.” Trey says. His tone edges conversational and mildly annoyed at being mostly ignored but he knows better than to anger Leona who rips another mandrake out of a pot and chucks it into his bag before it even has the chance to scream.

“It’s like burying a body, n’est-ce pas?” Rook hums, elbow deep in the soil as he wrestles away the roots of a particularly unruly mandrake. “You bury it upright to minimize the surface of the crime scene which makes finding the body harder.”

“You should also be mindful to bury the body deep enough or else the soil will erode or the rain will wash it away.” Trey adds, wiping the sweat off his eyebrow, “Or someone just randomly digs it up. And be sure to litter leaves or garbage over it to make the grave less obvious.”

Rook nods, “One could bury an animal carcass above the actual body, like a dog or a deer, so if the cadaver dogs find the scene the police will dig up the dead animal and think it a false positive.”

“Do the two of you ever shut up?” Leona snaps, putting enough force behind his words to stop their conversation before it can escalate. It only serves to pique Rook’s intrigue. Thankfully, Trey is there to act as a buffer.

“Sorry Leona but as members of the science club it is our duty to investigate both natural and manmade occurrences such as decomposition and the environmental impact of our actions.”

“Oui, the headmaster has made it quite clear that Night Raven needs put effort into ‘going green’ so as to improve our image” Rook adds. Some of his hair has come loose from his ponytail. He pushes it back with the hand previously buried in soil and leaves a streak of mud on his cheek and at the tip of his hair. “And Professor Crewel is quite knowledgeable on the topic.”

“Whatever.” Leona sighs and yanks another mandrake out, “Just be quiet.”

That particular mandrake turns out to be on the cusp of withering into dust which means Leona ends up with a handful of dry crumbling leaves while the thing goes flying. Huh, maybe he was using more force than necessary he thinks as they all watch it soar in a perfect arc towards the other end of the green house, aligning itself with the back of Idia’s head. Trey winces before it inevitably hits its target, Rook’s mouth is curved up in that unnaturally cruel amusement of his, and Leona’s just thankful Ignihyde would never start interdorm drama. Somewhere to their left, Crewel lights a cigarette and steps outside to smoke.

Idia, blissfully unaware up until this point, choses this moment to turn around, his eyes going big, hair flaring up in alarm but he doesn’t move, frozen in fear and unable to save himself from a potful of dirt straight to the face.

The impact never comes.

The tip of Malleus’ pen glows bright green as he points it towards the mandrake and stops it midair. A flick of his wrist reverses its track until it’s floating in front of them again. Malleus holds out the bag underneath it and lets it drop amongst its brothers.

Malleus doesn’t challenge him. Instead he volunteers them as partners in their next shared alchemy class.

“I won’t thank you for that.” Leona says when Malleus smiles up at him in that lofty self-satisfied way fae smile. It’s insufferable but Leona’s already used to it. They partner up surprisingly often which isn’t actually that surprising at all. Most people are too scared of Leona’s infamously bad temper and Malleus’ overall creepy nature to willingly team up with either of them.

Truth be told, Leona doesn’t mind as much as he lets on. Like this he at least could be a little shit and fuck with their assignment when Malleus is busy gloating. While Malleus ties the bag with a neat little bow Leona inches the pot the mandrake had been inhabiting closer and closer towards the edge of the table. The moment Malleus knots it for good is the moment the pot finally tips over and smashes into dozens of little shards on the floor.

Malleus shoots him a deadpan look and Leona returns him that lofty self-satisfied smile. Just for good measure, he reaches over and swipes Rook’s pot off the table as well. Another crash that neither of them acknowledges. After all, this is unsurprising as well. Malleus and him have cleaned up their fair share of broken potion bottles over the course of the last three years. Behind him he can hear Trey sigh exasperatedly which makes him quirk the corner of his lips up even higher. Rook is still smiling only now like he knows a well-kept secret. It’s annoying enough for Leona to draw his eyebrows together.

There’s a sharp tug on his tail. Leona growls at Malleus before confirming it actually was the lizard’s fault but he doesn’t need to. No one else is crazy enough to pull such a stunt. He snarls at Malleus in warning, bares his fangs for good measure and notes how one of the Heartslabyul students flinches at the display. Malleus only flicks his weirdly long split tongue at him.

It's not threatening but most of their class doesn’t expect the sound, less a snarl and more the hiss of a snake or glorified lizard that Malleus is. He moves like one too, his forked tongue curling and twisting unnaturally. Leona sticks his own tongue out even further but comes out short considering the ridiculous length of Malleus’ tongue. What’s really off-putting is the color. One would expect it to look reptilian too, blue or perhaps a pale shade of pink but it’s a deep burgundy, looking like all of his blood was accumulated right there.

If Idia were still here, he’d probably be hiding behind one of the bigger trees further in the back right about now. But Idia’s both quick and smart so he long since disappeared into the bathroom. Crewel isn’t visible through the glass either, most likely busy wrestling Idia out of one of the stalls and forcibly escorting him back to class.

Malleus’ tongue returns to the inside of his mouth after another little flick and Leona is suddenly met with the realization that Malleus had used their little impromptu contest as a distraction to pluck out the last remaining two mandrakes with his scaley tail and thus completing their assignment without any further incidents.

Leona smacks the bag out of Malleus’ hands. All of the mandrakes inside start screaming as soon as they hit the floor littered with broken ceramic. Crewel would have their heads once he returns either way.

How was magical shift practice? Leona reads three days later on his way back to his room. He’s still groggy from his post-practice nap underneath the bleachers and the brightness of his phone screen hurts his eyes.

Ruggie had dragged him to their club meeting ten minutes early because Epel wanted to run a strategy by him that was vicious even for Savanaclaw’s standards and Vargas made them squat fifty times when they were the last ones done changing because they had to convince Epel there’s a difference between an aggressive playstyle and excessive violence – only one of which is allowed by standard magical shift rules. He thinks he might have pulled a muscle when a first year managed to fling himself off his broom and he caught him by the scruff just before the dreaded splat, but he tells Malleus none of that.

Shut up is what he texts back, pocketing his phone in his pants where he won’t pull it out again until his battery runs out.

There’s a thick book in Malleus’ hand, his fingertips stained an ugly shade of blue and that’s all Leona needs to conclude that he came right after a failed attempt at recreating one of Crewel’s more difficult potions – that and the fact that science is one of the classes they share, and also one of the classes he decided to skip today.

He stays quiet at first and pretends to sleep like he always does when someone tries to bother him. If Malleus calls his farce then he doesn’t mention it. Instead, he pulls out one of the flimsy chairs near the back and makes himself comfortable.

“The hell are you doing?” Leona asks. He doesn’t like company, likes it even less when they’re two meters tall and casting a horned shadow on his spot that up until this point has been nicely warmed by the sunlight. Malleus flips the book open, Leona’s tail begins to flick from side to side.

“Going over today’s history class again” Malleus says, shifting the book in his hands so Leona could get a glimpse of the cover, “it’s much nicer to learn here than it is in the library.”

Leona rather likes the library, mostly since it’s nice to nap in and people stay quiet, but it’s also where Vil and Rook do their homework after classes have finished and the last thing he needs is another one of Vil’s style checks. The conservatory has always been his favorite place to sleep either way simply because he likes the way the light filters in through the glass to warm the ground while the plants provide enough cover for him not to have to shield his eyes. But as someone from the Valley of Thorns Malleus doesn’t much care for sunlight and warmth so he eyes him skeptically.

Malleus flips the page and stays silent. Even ten swishes of his tail later, Malleus still hasn’t said anything which is also kind of annoying because the only thing better than not seeing Malleus is making his blood boil but whatever, as long as he stays quiet, Leona supposes he can make do with some company.

“If you wake me up” Leona says, toeing the tricky line between a yawn and a growl, “I’ll kill you.”

“You certainly can try.” Malleus tells him, his own voice somewhere between confident and playful. If Leona weren’t so damn comfortable he’d get up and leave a nasty bite in Malleus’ arm. But as things stand he is incredibly cozy, his head pillowed on soft grass and a stray ray of sunlight filtering through the space in between Malleus’ horns to warm him without blinding him.

“Next magical shift game” Leona yawns into the crook of his elbow, “you’re dead for sure.”

He doesn’t stay awake long enough to see Malleus’ lips stretch into a small smile.

Farena calls him the next day, not because he needs something but because he just wants to talk and it’s annoying enough Leona finds himself with too much energy to sleep his anger off. He doesn’t remember texting Malleus but his broom is heavy in his hand, the cuffs of his gym uniform damp from the morning dew of grass that’s in desperate need of a trim and the disk uncomfortably cold in his hands when he snatches it from Malleus. It still soars satisfyingly through the goal and that’s all that really matters.

The sun is warm on his face when he peeks at Malleus but the tips of his fingers feel frozen. Malleus is covered knee deep in the sand they’ve been steadily kicking up over the course of the last half hour or so, and there’s a faint dusting of red collecting around his nose that will turn into a sunburn should they stay out any longer.

“Are you -” Malleus begins but stops halfway when Leona shoots him a pointed glare. It only delays Malleus instead of stopping him from talking altogether. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Leona swallows back spit that is viscous enough to stick on the way down. “No.”

Malleus waits a beat for Leona to explain anyways but Leona doesn’t and the silence stretches between them uncomfortably long. The disk lies forgotten on the ground, unmoving even if Leona glares holes into the shiny metal. He half-considers getting it himself if Malleus doesn’t want to but that would mean passing by Malleus and he’s not sure he can handle proximity right now.

He needs something to ground him, something more substantial than a broom and the hot wind around them. Leaning back is easy enough of a start. He loses balance, falls and easily lands on his feet. The sand scrunches satisfyingly underneath his soles. He grinds his heels into it and inhales dry air.

“How are you, Leona?” Malleus tries again.

Two days ago he watched Ruggie scrutinize his arm from the corner of his eye. He’d turned it around, traced the veins underneath the skin and flexed his fingers as though he couldn’t quite believe it was still attached to him and not just a few more grains of the sand covering the ground they now stand on. Today, Farena had asked him when he’d come back home, drawing out the syllables as if he wasn’t aware Leona had no real understanding of the word ‘home’ anymore ever since Cheka took his spot in the sunlight.

Leona almost growls in frustration but he only bares his fangs instead. “I’ve been better.”

In the scorching heat that reigns Savanaclaw, Leona is cold. He is cold and tired and he hates how weak that makes him feel. He can’t remember what it feels like to be warm enough even though it seems a cosmic hilarity he’d ever forget.

It’s just side effects from his overblot, he tells himself, now that his deepest fears have been laid bare which makes bile rise in his throat. He doesn’t like for everyone to know about his ambitions and hopes and how he’s failed all of them. But now he needs to probe the empty space in his ribcage where his dreams used to sit and needs to remind himself of the times it used to be filled. This new life of coming to terms with things and moving on is all consuming and Leona is just so tired of it all. It feels like betrayal, adjusting to this reality and he’s sure if he stopped to think about it for even a minute he’d lose his nerve, drop whatever strength was keeping him going.

“I’m tired.” He tells the sand at his feet. “And cold.”

The crunch underneath his heels no longer feels satisfying but at least it’s something he’s familiar with. When he looks up Malleus has crossed the distance between them, now close enough for Leona to see oil black lashes fan across his cheeks and blocking Leona’s view of nothing.

“Do you want me to -?” Malleus begins but he sounds awkward and uncertain and Leona really doesn’t like that either. Malleus is lofty and overly self-satisfied and very, very playful and snide.

“Just shut up.” He says, his voice barely above a whisper yet infinitely loud in the narrowing space between them.

Malleus is still shocked when Leona presses their lips together but that might just be something Malleus does – be a little at a loss when it comes to dealing with people that aren’t his family. He’s pliant though and he lets Leona hide his cold fingers underneath the hem of his shirt where it’s surprisingly warm. Dragon fire and all that, he supposes though he doesn’t really care that much. His fingers aren’t freezing anymore and that’s the only thing that’s important. Maybe his head is a bit dizzy but it’s easy to chalk that up to the pandemonium his head and heart have become now that they’re free of residual blot. Who even knows what’s what in that mess left behind in his bones anymore? Might as well be rage, even if rage isn’t warm like that.

If breathing becomes hard Leona doesn’t notice. When Malleus tries to push back for air Leona just pulls him in by the horns again. The sound Malleus makes is borderline scandalous and a bit more than undignified and quite possibly the nicest sound Leona’s ever heard his entire life. He pulls Malleus even closer just to hear it again.

Their point of contact feels white hot and maybe Leona gets lost in it but so does Malleus. The tension in his shoulders eases, the pressure in his head lessens, the one inside his ribcage only grows.

Leona wraps his tail around one of Malleus’ legs.

Ramshackle’s prefect wanted him to be more open and confront his emotion and granted, he’s doing neither but he’s letting them out now, isn’t he? And it’s much better than he thought it would be, nicer too, in an odd sort of way when someone is biting at your mouth.

“Kingscholar.” Malleus starts again but Leona steals his next words with an artful curl of his tongue.

“Leona.” Malleus mouths against his lips but Leona wants none of the talking right now. He sounds much more alluring when Leona drinks his words from the tips of his tongue and swallows them with another lungful of warm air either way, even if Leona finds he rather likes having his name breathed like that, like he’s the only thing Malleus is paying attention to.

“Leona-” Honestly, Malleus can be so dense sometimes, this really isn’t the time for drawn out conversation. His fingers have thawed enough to thread into silky hair instead, where he –

“Leona-senpai?” Jack’s voice carries from the bottom of the stairs leading up the magical shift field. “Are you here?”

“LEONAAA!” Ruggie shouts not a second later, “Dinner’s almost ready!”

Ruggie’s not that much further ahead but far enough for Leona to roll his eyes and drop his forehead onto Malleus’ shoulder with an exasperated grunt.

“Looks like the peanut gallery is making its entrance.” He groans into the crook of a particularly pale neck. Midnight colored hair spills over him when Malleus cocks his head and makes his ears twitch at the sudden contact. A gloved hand comes up to pet them back to rest. Leona snaps at it and shoots Malleus a warning glare.

At least Malleus is back to cocky and playful now, even if his pupils are slightly blown.

“Leonaaa!” Ruggie calls again, pitching his voice that annoying tone that makes his ears ring.

“Get me a menchi katsu sandwich.” He barks back, making sure to sound far more mad than he actually is anymore. “I’ll come down soon.”

They stand in silence while Leona listens to the faint sounds of muffled voice arguing over whether or not it’s worth it to come up and risk angering him more. He doesn’t care enough to listen to the specifics of their conversation beyond that but he waits for the telltale sound of two sets of feet shuffling away to retreat to the dining hall.

“Leona” Malleus says again. He still sounds a bit awkward but more in a wobbly-knees sort of way than his previous I-don’t-know-what-to-do way. There’s a prolonged moment of silence where Leona watches him sort through his thoughts and pick out the right words to say. “Are you still cold?” Is what he settles on.

Leona blinks at him.

“Cold?” He echoes but Malleus keeps on looking at him expectantly. It takes another moment of wracking his own brain to figure out what Malleus wants to come up with a response. When he does he squints at Malleus suspiciously before turning on his heel.

“You really are a weird one, Draconia.” He says with a shake of his head.

Leona doesn’t wait for an answer and stalks off towards the Savanaclaw dining hall, leaving Malleus in the blistering heat of the magical shift field.

Ruggie did get him a menchi katsu sandwich. When Leona bites into it he doesn’t linger on the shadowed corners of the dining hall, keeping watch for acid green slit eyes.

He’s in the middle of a nap when Riddle comes to take him aside and asks him if he wants to talk. He doesn’t. They end up spending the afternoon watching the first-year idiot duo defile croquet anyways. None of the balls stay on the playing field for longer than five minutes and both Ace and Deuce sport decently sized flamingo beak shaped bruises not even twenty minutes into the game. It’s a mess, Leona doesn’t need to know the rules of croquet to know that much but the grass is soft enough for him to doze off while Trey fills the space on the picknick blanket with colorful pastries. One of them is a shepherd’s pie and Leona makes it his duty to finish it before anyone else can claim it as their own.

Cater joins them when golden hour hits and takes pictures of everything, Deuce stuck in a hedge, Ace leaning against the freshly painted and still very much wet fence around the croquet field, Trey trying to sort the situation out while Riddle is still preoccupied by adding the right amount of sugar to his tea. Which leaves him on the grass and Riddle on the blanket and with everyone distracted, Leona talks. Not much but he talks and Riddle listens, nods his head and understands.

It’s strange, being understood.

Leona thinks he could probably get used to it.

The next time Malleus inquires about magical shift practice he tells him how Epel flung himself off his broom and sprained his wrist.

Chapter Text

They text at least once a week.

At first it’s slow and simple. Malleus’ how are you? met with Leona’s get lost. His will you come to history today? receives a loving I’d rather be dead and when Malleus texts him I saw your game against Pomefiore. You did well today. They couldn’t have pulled off the last throw without you Leona rewards him with a nobody asked for your opinion.

We should play together again some time is the first message Leona responds to properly. It’s a good chance to get some experience in. He could improve his magical shift skills and let out some energy without holding back. It’s worth at least considering. Even though he would never admit to it he holds a fair amount of passion for the sport so after ten agonizing minutes of trying to fit their schedules together they decide on meeting up on Wednesday and don’t leave the magical shift field that day until they’re breathless and dirty and Trein reigns them in an hour after curfew.

After that, one text turns to two, then three, four, five and maybe a short call when they don’t have anything better to do.

Malleus now joins him in the conservatory at least twice a week.

There are many things Leona dislikes about Night Raven College – the lectures, the teachers, the students, but King of the Beats be damned, nothing is quite as bad as the fairies. Why Night Raven College depends on fairies when it comes to the weather in the first place is beyond Leona. Everyone knows how moody they are, downright bitchy too and always complaining about everything while only ever doing the bare minimum.

Leona’s standing under the little overhang covering the entrance to the library and watches thick droplets splash against the set paving, collecting into little pools in every cracked stone. It’s not the nice, Oasis Maker type of rain but a proper downpour. Some of the plants might drown. If he steps outside he’ll for sure catch the worst cold of his lifetime.

So maybe sandals aren’t the best choice of clothing but they’re comfortable and he’ll keep wearing them even when it means his feet getting soaked down to the bones if means he gets to spite Vil and his self-proclaimed impeccable fashion sense. One of the gutters cracks under the weight of rapidly accumulating water and spills over with a gargled sound. Leona turns on his heel and stalks back into the library.

He doesn’t make it much farther than the general entryway before familiar sounding footsteps echo through the halls. He should have taken the cold and be done with it.

"Did you not bring an umbrella?" Malleus asks when he steps out of the shadows.

“You’re one to talk” Leona says as he leans against the heavy mahogany door separating them from the outside. Like this he can hear the drops smack against the thick wood. The wind must have changed. When he glances out the window the rain has grown faster, falling harder.

“I simply … forgot today.” Malleus tells him, making that vague offhanded gesture he likes so much. He shifts his weight from one foot to another. If Leona didn’t know better he’d say Malleus looks a bit awkward but it’s not like Malleus is a social butterfly, nor that Leona is particularly interested in the first place. He merely hums in acknowledgement, secretly reveling in the way Malleus sounds a little unsure of himself, as if he were telling the worst lie in history.

Must be the water, he concludes. Leave it to dragons to be wary of a little rain. Perhaps his dragonfire didn’t burn as brightly after all?

“It seems like the rain won’t let up anytime soon.” Malleus continues, making his way over the door and carefully pushing open the wing Leona wasn’t leaning against. It creaks disapprovingly but gives way dutifully.

“You don’t seem particularly sad about it.”

Malleus sticks his hand out. When he pulls it back a small puddle has formed on the palm of his glove. He shakes it out just far enough for Leona to stay dry. Leona swings his tail back and forth reproachfully either way.

“I suppose I was a bit upset” Malleus says and wipes his hand on his pants, “though with you here I don’t feel as lonely anymore.”

Leona blinks slowly, kind of like a cat trying to decide if it was interested in your presence or absurdly offended by it. After a handful of moments in which Malleus wasn’t sure he wouldn’t get mauled, Leona sighs and drops his shoulders.

Most people have left already. It’s that weird time of day where people don’t know what to do with themselves in between dinner and curfew. Ruggie’s probably held up in the kitchen, preparing or stealing food while Jack makes up for his evening run by doing bench presses. It would the perfect time for a nap – and it would be the perfect place too, quiet and delightfully empty – if it weren’t for Malleus, of course, who is still preoccupied in the library because …

“Gargoyle research club?” Leona asks, all too aware a particularly intricately carved gargoyle sits outside, right above the door leading to the rainstorm.

Malleus hums, his eyes wistfully flicking upwards. Too easy to read.

“Well” Leona says, stretching his hands above his head with a lazy yawn as he slides down the door and makes himself more comfortable on the hardwood floor. “I guess this beats being stuck with you in a potions classroom.”

“You signed up for it.” Malleus argues, his chin raised high ever so slightly.

“No, you signed us up for it.”

“And you didn’t protest.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Leona says and yawns. If only sleeping would be easier on creaky floorboards. He tries his best anyways which, as it turns out, is not nearly enough when Malleus decides to join him and takes the space right next to him, close enough for their shoulders to brush.

“What do you think you’re –” Leona barks but his eyes catch something interesting – or rather, possibly lifesaving in their dire situation.

Malleus shifts, his dark uniform making him disappear into the shadows of the barely lit room. Acid green eyes state at him curiously as Leona lets his hand slide up Malleus’ arm until his fingers curl around the leather of his collar.

“You got a cape.” Leona says.

Malleus only keeps staring dumbly, blinks, actually looks down, grasps the edges of the fabric and makes sure it’s really there. “It would seem so.”

The library is empty, so would the rest of the campus be with everyone having already filed back to their designated dorms which means –

“Wanna make a break for the kitchens?” Leona asks, sly smirk already pulling his lips upwards. The teachers wouldn’t start making their rounds for another hour or so and the ghosts usually make enough for there to be plenty of leftovers they’d reheat and sell as fresh tomorrow. Leona could always go for another menchi katsu sandwich.

“They’re much closer than the Hall of Mirrors” He reasons as he pinches the leather of Malleus’s cape in between his index and thumb. “This could probably keep us dry if we sprint. We could raid the fridge while we wait for the rain to pass.”

The rain feels awfully loud in the silence that follows while Malleus considers his offer with a dumbfounded look. Leona almost waves his hand in front of his eyes to make sure Malleus hasn’t prematurely gone into hibernation or whatever other weird thing lizards do when it gets too cold but after a little contemplation Malleus finally nods his head and stands.

Leona doesn’t take the hand Malleus reaches out but he steps close enough for Malleus to successfully pull his cape over both of their heads, which is considerably closer than he’d thought but he’d seen Jamil walk into the kitchens earlier. If some of Viper’s food is still stored away somewhere in a lone cabinet then a bit of proximity is a small price to pay.

“Ready?” Leona asks, huddled against Malleus underneath his cape. It’s big enough to fit the two of them easily but his back is pressed tightly against Malleus’ front so he can leech off of Malleus’ dragonfire heat when the rain cools everything around them.

Malleus nods, a determined glint in his eyes that makes Leona snort.

“Alright then. On three.” He says, getting in position before he starts counting down.

“One” He starts and pushes the door open. It’s still raining heavily, heavier than it was earlier. He mentally maps out the quickest route to the kitchens.

“Two” Malleus makes a last-minute adjustment to the cape and they both bend down for maximum momentum when they take off.

“Three!”

They make a break for it, bolting through the courtyard in record time, even if Malleus steps in a puddle and subsequently splashes their pants. It isn’t that bad, at least their hair is still dry when they crash through the door to the kitchen not even two minutes later, out of breath but still somehow cackling at how ridiculous they must have looked even if nobody was there to see them.

“That could have gone worse.” Leona says while Malleus wrings out his cape. It’s pretty useless considering it’s leather and wouldn’t have soaked through in the first place. However, seeing Malleus shake his cape only for the residual drops to splash his pants and the look of betrayal that paints across his features is entirely too funny a show for Leona to look away.

Turns out Jamil has made kebab which lasts them just long enough for Malleus’ newly wet uniform to dry, and if there’s an acid green umbrella lying forgotten on a table back in the library then Leona isn’t any wiser.

They open the gates to herbivores living on the other side tomorrow and despite himself Leona can’t help but feel at least a little more chipper than usual. Halloween is probably his favorite holiday of them all – being allowed to scare unsuspecting herbivores without getting scolded, pushing his responsibilities onto Ruggie so he can laze around the decorated campus, even the most hidden of his hideouts now adorned with pumpkins and paper ghosts, stealing food from the vendors having set up along main street – staying clear of the pop up Mostro Lounge near the entrance. He doesn’t feel bad for what he’s done but he knows when he’s made enemies and he’s far from the good side of the twins, even if Azul no longer gives him the cold shoulder during dorm leader meetings.

The ship he had Farena ferry onto the island is pretty much set up, the only real work left is to somehow drag Ruggie away from the treasures strewn around the creaking floorboards but that’s nothing Jack couldn’t handle on his own. Leona sprawls himself out under a nearby tree, still close enough to watch the setting sun glitter on the water’s surface.

It's peaceful and quiet with everyone preoccupied with last-minute decorations. His newfound serenity lasts all of five minutes before the moment is ruined.

“Leona!”

Leona cracks open one eye enough to let Ruggie know he’s listening but doesn’t grace him with an actual reply. Ruggie doesn’t expect him to. “We’re done decorating the place. Everything’s ready for tomorrow so we’ll be leaving now.”

He languidly blinks his eye closed again and makes a noncommittal hum – Ruggie’s cue to round up the others and usher them out of the ship.

“Don’t fall asleep for too long, okay? I won’t come bail you out when Trein catches you out past curfew like last time!” Ruggie tells him with a wave goodbye. As if Ruggie’s ever bailed him out unless he had something to gain from it. He pulls the seashell bedazzled pirate hat down until it barely covers his nose.

One by one, the students of Savanaclaw begin to filter out and make their way back to their dorm, their voices steadily growing fainter as they disappear into the distance. Leona lets himself sink into the grass until only his head is propped up on one of the thick roots of the tree. It’s still warm from the sunlight, perfect conditions for a late afternoon nap.

“Shouldn’t you join them?”

Leona, ever impatient when it comes to his precious sleep, grows irritated before he opens his eyes, just in time to see Malleus step into his field of vision.

There’s a strange moment where the nasty reply he’s got on the tip of his tongue catches in his throat and clogs up his windpipe when he sees the uncharacteristically bright colors Malleus has wrapped himself in. Red and turquoise and gold and so distracting he momentarily forgets he should be annoyed at having the perfect insult knocked out of his lungs so easily.

He inhales through his mouth and says, “The hell are you wearing?”

Malleus lifts his chin up in that lofty way of his, self-satisfied and awfully proud. “It’s the traditional clothing of a small tribe of dragon fairies located far out in the east” He begins, far too eager to explain, “Ortho helped me pick out the inspiration for Diasomnia’s Halloween costume and this is what we settled on. Lilia has actually been there during one of his travels and took a liking to their vastly different approach of-”

“Yeah, yeah I get it” Leona interrupts. The last thing he needs right now is one of Malleus’ lectures. He’s heard enough about gargoyles to last him a lifetime and a half already, no need to repeat his mistake.

“It’s just …” He waves a hand in front of him, as if what he wants to say was hanging in the air and he could grasp it by reaching out. But the right words elude the tips of his fingers and he chalks his ineloquence up to his brain not functioning due to lack of sleep. Malleus is nothing short of distracting, his makeup perfectly applied to accentuate the elegant slope of his nose and the slight downwards curve of his eyes. The fiery red details of the embroidery serve to make them gleam in a way that turns their acidic neon into a borderline hollow gold. Malleus’ tail is showing from beneath the hem of his dress, long enough for its fuzzy tip to drag across the floor, and a deep plum in color that reflects the light and shines green.

Leona doesn’t know what he wants to say but he pushes himself up until he stands in front of Malleus. They’re pretty much eye level, the horns adding in total height though without them Malleus only has about five centimeters on him, not enough to intimidate Leona. He shakes his head, doesn’t clear his thoughts and settles on, “It’s pretty.”

It is pretty, intricately woven fabric wrapped around him, craftsmanship so evident in every stitch that is both hem and embroidery. Leona lets his eyes linger at the peacock feather spilling from a carved dragon’s head and threads his fingers into the midnight blue ends of Malleus’ hair. Malleus is pretty.

Leona doesn’t linger on that thought all too long.

He doesn’t realize the corners of his mouth have moved upwards until he sees his smile reflected in slit eyes. Leona schools his expression into something he knows would make the other herbivores go weak in their knees, all charming and sly and more comfortable in its insincerity, but Malleus’ expression hardly changes from his usual polite disinterest. Partially, he thinks, Malleus looks like he’s processing his words with all the slowness of a fourteen year old laptop.

He tugs at the strand he curled around his finger.

“YOUNG MASTER?!” Sebek shouts., his voice ridiculously loud despite being an awfully long distance away. Malleus steps back before Silver rounds the corner, his hair slipping out of Leona’s grasp.

Leona’s ears are still ringing but at least it’s Silver that finds them. Silver’s much more manageable than their first year cub, quieter too, even when he cups his hands around his mouth and calls, “No need to shout, Sebek. I found him.”

Sebek bolts into vision at a speed Leona hadn’t thought possible not a second later. It’d be impressive if he weren’t acting so ridiculous, red in the face and panting heavily, his hair in total disarray and tie having come loose.

“YOUNG MASTER!” Sebek yells despite the situation not calling for raised voices anymore – not that it ever did, “DON’T JUST RUN OFF ON YOUR OWN!”

“It’s alright” Malleus assures, his hands held up in a pacifying motion though Leona can see a slight furrow in his brow, “I said I’d be fine on my own, didn’t I?”

Sebek’s face falls. Silver shakes his head in defeated acceptance. How he doesn’t suffer from a perpetual headache is a mystery Leona thinks he’ll never find out.

“Y-YES, YOU DID BUT I-I JUST-”, Sebek stammers, still louder than necessary and seriously starting to annoy Leona.

“I said it’s fine.” Malleus repeats, easily waving Sebek’s rambling off as if he didn’t just smash his poor heart in pieces by dismissing him. Or maybe Sebek’s overdramatic. “So don’t worry about it.”

When Leona’s head is no longer filled with static he looks up and rolls his eyes at Sebek, who’s on the verge of tears but being very brave about it, like Cheka when he can’t serve grub to the aristocrats and politicians at his own birthday party and Farena –

“BOO!” Lilia drops into view. He has his legs hooked around a flimsy looking tree branch and swings close enough to Leona’s face he reflexively jumps backwards. They all scramble away, which makes the situation slightly less embarrassing than it needs to be. Sebek screams so loud Leona would have thought it was staged and very badly acted if it wasn’t Sebek they were talking about. His ears start ringing all over again, only now his heart has also wedged itself firmly into his throat. Lilia finds the whole display extremely funny though he is kind enough to only giggle at them while Leona and Malleus do their best to play his little scare off, and Silver clutches his heart dramatically.

“Don’t scare us like that, father.” Malleus says, with the slightest tinge of embarrassment, voice glum. It’ sort of cute, not that Leona has much time to contemplate the thought of Malleus being cute. He kind of needs to prioritize getting his blood pressure from Riddle-levels to something more healthy.

“But it’s Halloween! You guys used to love getting scared on Halloween” Lilia teases, sounding not at all remorseful.

“I didn’t.” Silver mutters under his breath while Malleus grunts dismissively. Sebek, for his part, looks like he might faint any minute now. For a brief moment, Leona is reminded of the Afterglow Savanna, of teaching Cheka how to lie in wait and capture his prey and how Farena didn’t look all too different from how Sebek does now, face so red one might mistake him for Hearslabyul’s dorm head.

Lilia laughs again, louder this time but not any less genuine, probably at the stupid faces they collectively make. Leona bares his teeth at him.

“Never mind, never mind.” Lilia says, waving his hands in a show of surrender before schooling his face into something more serious, “But Malleus, you really shouldn’t run off on your own. We need your help setting up all the lamps and the dragon is still missing its head.”

Malleus looks at Lilia for a prolonged moment, probably trying to figure out whether or not he can win an argument against the small devil but with Lilia the answer is always a sound no. Malleus knows that probably better than anyone else. He holds Lilia’s gaze but sighs in defeat after three more heartbeats, “Very well, then.”

Malleus is the first to begin his trek back to Ramshackle dorm, head held just a little lower than normal. The other herbivores scurry after him, with Silver flanking Malleus’ side and Sebek scrambling to close the distance between them. Lilia throws up one hand in a curt wave goodbye, still smiling that irritating all-knowing smile of his before skipping after his three companions and disappearing into the setting sun.

It’s still warm out when Leona’s mood sours. He could be napping right now, should be actually if it weren’t for Malleus and his overly doting liege.

Leona stalks back to Savanaclaw, footsteps so loud and heavy against the stone floor Ruggie slips away into his own room before he even sees him. A wise decision, Leona muses as he flops down onto his mattress. Damn Malleus and his herbivores, damn their familiarity that reminds him of the Afterglow Savanna and the dull echo of home, and damn Malleus’ pretty face against the setting sun.

Damn it all.

If he dreams of reds and blues and golds, of peacock feathers and the curve of horns, then damn all that too.

Monster.

It’s not a term Leona is unfamiliar with. He’s called Malleus a monster plenty of times, more often than anyone else at Night Raven College or anywhere else for that matter.

And yet.

When the term begins to float around the campus, whispered by faceless herbivores as Malleus passes them by, Leona feels something twist and clench in his stomach that he unequivocally knows to be rage. It’s nothing more than a murmur at first, an ugly kink in between the ribs when the people sound the word out like a secret bursting at the seams to be revealed while Malleus holds his head high like he couldn’t hear the voices following his footsteps like little ugly shadows.

Leona’s fingertips tingle with the familiarity of anger and his throat feels tight enough he snaps his words instead of his usual uninterested yawns and halfhearted eyerolls. A herbivore knocks over one of the treasure chests they’ve set up within the bowels of the ship. Half of its contents spill across the floor, Leona has to accumulate all of his patience not to rip out their throat. The selfie courses through magicam thirty minutes later, blurry and dimly lit and making its rounds like it’s one of the greatest achievements of human history.

Ruggie is caught somewhere between a more neutral yet no less intense sort of anger and the wet hot disappointment of having his work, and in turn Savanaclaw’s collective fun ruined. Jack’s tail hasn’t been wagging since lunchtime. They’re all accustomed to Leona’s mood swings by now, but this time his reasoning is for once understood. Ruggie side eyes him when he kicks the chest back closed and decides to take a five-minute break to get some fresh air, sighs and watches Leona disappear into the crowd of herbivores trampling around the campus while he cleans up the worst of it. It’s for the best to leave Leona alone when he’s in one of his moods anyways. Ruggie knows that all too well.

He's barely outside when he catches a glimpse at a familiar dark figure. Malleus is crowded by the herbivores, enough so that Leona can only make out the curve of smooth black horns jutting out above a horde of heads and hands flailing about. Sebek looks awfully offended from where he’s trying to softy wrestle the people at a more manageable distance with Silver’s help.

Malleus still stands tall, the same way Leona was taught to when Farena was still a prince and their relationship not in shambles, poised and graceful and like his only goal is to please the people even when Leona can see taught skin turning white across his knuckles. His smile is as stiff as his shoulders and Leona knows Malleus’ temper isn’t that much better than his own so he turns on his heel and stalks the other direction instead.

His ears are still sensitive from the cheers of the crowd when he finds a secluded place hidden by a sturdy apple tree a little farther ahead and relatively close to the forest. The grass out here is not as soft as it is at the conservatory, overgrown and wild and not threatened into perfection by Crewel and his horsewhip. It crunches underneath his feet as he makes his way towards the edge of the woods and keeps walking when he sees a dark figure looming in the shadows.

“You’re in my spot.” He tells Malleus as he comes to a stop in front of him. Expertly disappearing into the shadows runs in the blood of the students of Diasomnia. If it weren’t for his glowing eyes and the residual magic particles of a transportation spell still lingering in the air he’d practically be invisible. Leona can still smell him though, all ash and fire and ice cream.

“Then find another.” Malleus tells him, voice curt and probably the maddest he’s ever heard him be. Malleus was merely amused when they swapped ceremonial robes at the start of the school year, he’s not sure how Malleus reacted when he found out Leona wanted to stampede him but they’re still talking, aren’t they? So it couldn’t have been too badly. It’s strange to see Malleus be snappish, angry even. When he thinks of what awaits him for the rest of the week Leona can’t help but share the sentiment.

He’s not above being petty so he stands even closer until his toes dig into Malleus’ sprawled out legs and lets his tail whip from side to side. It only takes a moment but Malleus sighs and shifts to the left, creating just enough space for Leona to comfortably squeeze in between Malleus and the surrounding bushes.

Leona huffs, perhaps more exasperated than strictly necessary, and incredulously stares at Malleus sitting among the tall grass and wild dandelions. Malleus tips his head back and closes his eyes, his horns dully scrape against the bark of the tree, leaving little scratch marks in their wake.

There is another thing that bothers Leona besides Malleus’ general presence during his designated nap time. It’s how stunning Malleus looks wrapped in traditional clothing, stunning in a way he hasn’t ever noticed before. It suddenly makes sense the herbivores crowd around him, how Malleus draws every gaze in the way green eyes glow ever so slightly in the sunlight. When he exhales there’s a small plume of smoke forming right underneath his nose. It dissipates into the air alongside the pressure behind Malleus’ eyes and the tension in Leona’s shoulders.

Monster, Leona’s head supplies, and for the first time he questions whether that term actually fits Malleus.

Malleus runs a hand through his hair, lets it drop to the ground and gingerly spins a dandelion in between his fingers. Leona crouches down and ignores how easily he fits against Malleus. Their knees knock into one another. He twirls the word in his head again and again and tries to make sense of how it correlates to Malleus. Malleus doesn’t comment when Leona takes off his pirate hat and sets his head in his lap like a spoiled cat but he does blink at him dumbly. Leona frowns. Malleus is still allowing it even when Leona tosses and turns, even when he complains about how his thighs are too bony, even when he slips his cold fingers into Malleus' oversized sleeve and trails them across Malleus’ pulse where the heat of his dragon fire accumulates.

Maybe his tail stops whipping from side to side at some point, maybe Malleus tips his head back again and threads his fingers through Leona’s hair, maybe Leona allows it. But the word has made its way to the tip of his tongue where it’s stuck between his teeth until he sets it free. Malleus plucks the dandelion out of the ground.

“Monster.” he says into the fabric of Malleus’ dress, echoing what the herbivores whispered behind Malleus’ back, what he spat into Malleus’ face countless times before.

Malleus doesn’t even blink or quirk an eyebrow. He merely looks at Leona like he’s waiting for him to continue. When it’s evident Leona’s done talking, he takes the role of the wind and blows on the fuzzy seeds until they’re dancing through the air.

“I know.”

The seeds float away and Malleus tips his head back again. There’s no additional cloud of smoke, no dragon fire and no heat. It all feels very cold around them suddenly. Leona presses his face into Malleus’ stomach.

It’s not quite rage but something ugly bubbles and twists inside his stomach again, something he can’t entirely make sense of yet. It’s wrong, it’s all wrong. He’s called Malleus a monster countless times before. Why does his mouth suddenly taste like mud? Why is there iron clinging to the back of his throat?

Without warning, Leona snaps to his feet and begins the trek back to the ship again. Malleus doesn’t look after him. Leona pretends that doesn’t bother him.

His mouth still tastes like mud hours later when he’s brushed his teeth with so much force the bristles of his toothbrush deformed. He feels like he might never get rid of the tangy scent of metal heavy in the air and on his tongue.

Chapter Text

A rather dim looking herbivore takes one of the ruby amulets, poses with it for his friend and carelessly drops it to the ground after his picture has been taken. Even Jack is gloomier than Leona has ever seen him be and it’s only day three of an entire week of entertaining the brainless people crawling over the campus like maggots infesting month-old trashcans. The only thing Crowley has been good for is threatening to cancel the party on the last day which, coincidentally, is also the only thing that’s been keeping the students from outright murdering their visitors. Ruggie has been eyeing the water surrounding the ship the past days. Considering he’s rather good friends with Jade it wouldn’t surprise him if they added a few new decorations. It goes well together, pirates and bodies floating in the water, all limp as they drift away belly up.

Funny how the herbivores were proudly parading around and calling Malleus a monster when they were named ‘magicam monsters’ themselves not even a day later. Then again, it’s not funny at all when they litter the streets and act as if they own the place – that was Leona’s part to play after all.

They flock around Malleus again today, snapping pictures of him whenever possible and even going so far as to touch him, all for something as stupid as the ‘Draconia challenge’ they made up. He’s known Malleus even before they entered Night Raven, from banquets and parties that were barely disguised political affairs, and he can count the times they actually touched on one hand. Some of those times more outstanding than others.

Leona doesn’t know how to feel about it, about touching Malleus.

The memory of their first kiss wasn’t pleasant, with the loss against Diasomnia still fresh and so entirely unfair considering how much effort everyone on his team had put into that match. But, as much as he loathes to admit it, the thought of Malleus kissing him isn’t entirely unpleasant, especially not the second time around. Leona gets annoyed just thinking about it.

The worst part is probably how blurry his memories are. He remembers being angry and punching the goal, remembers Malleus showing up and he remembers how that alone made him even angrier. The next thing he remembers is Malleus’ lips moving against his own. The second time he was so cold his mind was freezing at the edges and when his vision thawed his lips were already pressed tightly against Malleus’. Everything in between is fuzzy and doesn’t make much sense, no matter how hard Leona tries to reach a reasonable conclusion.

Hell, he doesn’t even remember who kissed whom first and that fact alone unsettles Leona deeply. If it had, indeed, been him and not Malleus then what did that mean? Had he really wanted to kiss someone so desperately that he settled for Malleus? Or was it just a convenient way to relieve some stress? But even then, if someone had showed up that wasn’t Malleus, would he have acted differently? Most definitely, he’d never kiss someone like Azul or Jamil or King of the Beasts forbid Vil. So if Malleus actually was a key figure in all the stupid confusion clouding Leona’s head since then, then why was the entire moment so entirely forgettable? Sure, they kissed but Leona can’t even remember what Malleus tastes like, if it’s Malleus that tastes like mud or if it’s–

He doesn’t want to think about it.

The bad thing is the thought is now stuck in his head. Leona cranes his neck, trying to catch a glimpse of Ramshackle but the ghost ship isn’t close enough for him to see, not even in the distance.

The thought is now stuck in his head and his curiosity has been peaked and fuck, he really needs to find out, doesn’t he?

It’s not entirely reasonable but his plan is easy enough he might as well see it through to the end. He had the patience to steadily take out the best magical shift players of the other dorms and organize a stampede to rumple Malleus, he could wait outside Ramshackle for him to show up on his nightly stroll.

The magicam monsters have already left. They hadn’t bothered cleaning up the mess made today, they’d only throw everything into chaos again come tomorrow. There’s a crinkled paper wrapper from Scarabia’s waffle stand and countless of orange leaves that crunch underneath his boots. His eyes adjust now that the sun has dipped behind the horizon and the ashgrey of the sky dips into ocean blue.

His fingers grow cold again.

This honestly sucks. He’s made for the blazing sun and vast fields not the freezing cold of creeping October nights and the lingering smell of pumpkins, and little by little he’s growing more annoyed than probably reasonable.

But Leona is annoyed.

This really is his only chance to catch Malleus without any of his wards clinging to him like lost little puppies, so if he has to he’ll simply manifest Malleus mentally, growing so annoyed that his anger flows through the air, down the streets and pathways leading to the chamber of mirrors and into Diasomnia where Malleus will feel Leona’s rage until he has no other choice but to show up. Or maybe he’ll simply punch him tomorrow and leave Malleus to figure out what he did wrong himself. Yeah, that actually sounds like a solid plan considering he’s fucking freezing and there’s still no sign of the stupid lizard.

Leona huffs, his breath creating a little cloud in front of him. Like a dragon, he muses, but snuffs the thought out before the little plume can dissipate. When he turns around to stalk back to the warm grounds of Savanaclaw Malleus stands in front of him.

Leona doesn’t jump but he makes a strange, gargled sound and shoots Malleus a deathly glare when he opens his mouth to comment on it. The wrapper is now stuck to his heel so he shakes it off by grinding his heel into the crunchy leaves until it lies limply on the ground. When he’s satisfied with his work and his heart isn’t thundering quite as loudly anymore he runs cold fingers through messy hair and pushes a long braid back into place, “Can’t you give a guy a warning?”

Malleus cocks his head a little, green eyes looking more alive in the dark of the night than they do during the daytime, curious and sparkling almost mirthfully, definitely amused in a way that makes much needed warmth spread throughout Leona’s body. Probably from anger, definitely from anger.

“Leona?” The sound of Malleus’s voice snaps him back to reality.

Right, his plan.

“Fucking finally” He growls and steps directly into Malleus’s space, “it’s about time you showed up” Then he closes the distance between them.

It’s just a peck, a dry brushing of mouths that lasts for no longer than a second but it unclenches the frozen knot in his stomach and makes his fingers start to warm. Malleus looks a bit startled but it takes him considerably less time to gather his wits this time around. Leona takes a moment to gage his reaction and leans in again when he finds it satisfactory, Malleus’ breath now short and slit pupils dilated to the point they almost look round. Their mouths mash together when Malleus begins to reciprocate, he even has enough presence of mind now to close his eyes and push forward.

It's a bad kiss, Leona thinks when he pulls back, opening his eyes to stare into two green pools of liquid acid. He’s still a bit cold so he puts his hands into the pockets of Malleus’ jacket and leans his entire body weight against him, leeching off the dragonfire heat he gives off. Malleus’ hover over him awkwardly before he puts them around him.

Vanilla and mint chocolate chip ice cream, Leona knows now. Malleus doesn’t taste like mud. He’s not sure why that realization comes as sudden relief.

Malleus looks at him and Leona doesn’t like the face he makes, patient and waiting for an explanation they both know will never come but also guarded as if he’s afraid Leona might run away the moment he takes his eyes off of him. He leans up again.

He’s got his answer now. When he traces his sandpaper tongue against Malleus’ bottom lip, there’s a tiny wound, soft flesh raw where Malleus’ fangs would sit, followed by the faint tang of copper. It’s the great difference between Malleus and a monster and Leona hates the image he spent piecing together ever since some herbivores whispered ‘monster’ underneath falling golden leaves not even a week ago.

Monsters don’t sit in the tall grass and make wishes upon fluffy dandelion seeds.

Monsters don’t bite their tongue just to save a little face.

Monsters are born from blood, just not their own.

It doesn’t give him the kind of closure he hoped for and it’s frustrating in every way. The people, the touching, the magicam monsters and their posts, Leona hates how Malleus has white-knuckled everything to fit in when he just wants for Malleus to ask for help before every other option is exhausted.

“Why did you never say anything?” Leona roars and it’s sudden and loud enough to make even make Malleus take a step back. Normally Leona would kill to see Malleus flinch but right now it’s only frustrating. Frustrating like the cold seeping through his boots and freezing his toes, like the leaves dancing through the air only to end up on the dirty ground amongst wrappers and half-eaten food, like the little ball of not-quite-rage that’s formed deep in the depths of his stomach and is now spreading throughout his entire body – like Malleus, warm and patient but five feet away from where Leona stands in the freezing cold.

“Don’t just -” without Malleus’ warmth to ward off the quiet October chill he’s rapidly losing steam, the rage inside him dissipating as quickly as it had come. He runs his hand through his hair and shakes off a leaf that got caught in it earlier. No need to dance around anymore. He huffs out a little cloud again but this time he doesn’t linger on the thought of dragons.

“Next time” Leona says, breathes, through gritted teeth “just come to me.”

He doesn’t wait for a reply, neither does he know what he means by that or why he’s said it in the first place. But the words are out of his mouth and he’s frustrated enough to simply turn on his heels and stalk off in the general direction of Savanaclaw, leaving Malleus in the quiet October night.

It was a bad kiss, he thinks with a heady rush, but they have time to practice.

The sound of someone brushing the curtains away makes his ears twitch. He hasn’t really been asleep, more dozing off, slipping in and out of consciousness, but sleep or no sleep he has made it very clear that he doesn’t want to be disturbed and if Ruggie was thinking of stealing his wallet again he was about to get it.

He rolls over and pushes himself up. Threats of what he’ll do to Ruggie if he catches him in the act die on the tip of his tongue as he stares into glowing green eyes. Leona doesn’t need his night vision to make out Malleus’ figure, horns looking somehow sharper and more twisted in the charcoal-colored night.

“What are you doing?” Leona snarls though with sleep lacing his voice he doesn’t sound quite as threatening as he’d like.

“You invited me.” Malleus says easily. He wears the colors of dusk well, all shapes and curves and harsh angles that are only broken up by the starlight creeping around the edges of his outline. He’s got an underlying calmness about him he fails to carry in the light of the sun, something more innate and delicate that makes him look like he belongs and takes all of the threat out of his looming figure.

Leona grinds the heel of his hand into his eye and rubs away the remnants of sleep still clinging to his lashes. He did, didn’t he? While perhaps not his most thought-out decision, Malleus at least isn’t as annoying as Grim and Ramshackles’ prefect. He doesn’t make any unnecessary noise, he just walks over to Leona, sinks onto the floor right in front of his bed and stares out into the nightsky.

Still, he lets out an irritated gruff to let Malleus know he’s being bothersome, even if he has been invited, kind of. Malleus leans his head back until it rests against the mattress.

Malleus, for his part, seems content just sitting in shared silence. That much Leona can do. He’s used to people fussing about while he tries to sleep anyways. There never was much to do for him back home ever since Farena has taken up the throne. If Malleus wants someone to fill the negative space when family isn’t an option then Leona can relate to that.

He squishes his face back into the pillow. It’s not an invitation to stay but it’s also not an order to leave and Malleus understands that much. He keeps firmly rooted on the ground, gaze never leaving the inky shadows outside the window.

Leona pulls his blanket over his body and goes back to sleep.

Malleus isn’t partaking in the Halloween festivities on the next day. In fact, Leona doesn’t see him at all.

It’s annoying as hell because while he needs to slave away a perfect day for lazing off in the sun Malleus gets to have all of Diasomnia to himself just because he’s feeling a little bit antsy and everyone fears he might burn down half the school again. Then again, it’s not like life has ever been particularly fair in the first place.

He bares his fangs at the next magicam monster before they have to chance to pull out their phone and watches them scramble away. A wrapper of one of Scarabia’s overly pretty waffles gets tossed into a pile of gold. This might be the worst day of his life.

Ruggie’s dragged him out of bed earlier than usual because the entirety of Savanaclaw decided to stretch out their morning workout to blow off some steam. It was a good idea considering team morale was running low and the possibility of gutting the next herbivore was at an all-time high. It was also a bad idea because while Malleus’ sudden visit didn’t really interfere with his sleep schedule all that much he’s still particular when it comes to his naps and a solid eight hours of sleep just doesn’t cut it anymore.

His eyelids feel heavy and his stomach sour. He ducks out of the ship when Ruggie isn’t looking, slips behind one of the brightly decorated buildings and trots down the dirt path that leads to the edge of the forest. Finding Malleus in his contacts is rather easy nowadays.

to Malleus: you coming over again tonight?

Leona considers hiding out in the bushes for a little while, until Ruggie comes to drag him back to the ship and threatens him with his plastic saber – for safety measures of course and not because they all enjoy the sound it makes when they wiggle it in the air so fast it begins to bend. His phone chimes before he can settle in a more comfortable position. As expected from someone who’s been holed up alone all day.

from Malleus: Of course, if you want me to.

Typical Malleus, wanting to be invited to things outright instead of taking the hint like Leona wants him to. It’s quite annoying but his fingers are already flying over his screen.

to Malleus: I’ll keep the balcony door open

Leona gets hit with the bendy plastic sword the moment he hits send.

“LEONA!” Ruggie shouts, too close to his ear to warrant such a volume, “don’t go hiding like a cub when we’re all working our asses off!”

“Haaah? Who’re you calling a cub, cub?” Leona barks back, rubbing the spot right between his ears where Ruggie has hit him for the fourth time today. Ruggie only snickers and waves Leona’s phone in front of him.

“You’ll also need come back and help out if you want this back. Better hurry before I slip and accidentally drop it into the pond.”

Sometimes, Leona really despises Ruggie. Come to think of it, he’s never had hyena. Today might be a good day to change that.

It’s a little earlier than last time but Malleus shows up as promised. The sun has barely set when Leona returns from his shower. His skin feels raw, he’s been scrubbing extra harshly after a whole day of taking pictures with the magicam monsters as well as regular herbivores enjoying the festivities. Their scent is still lingering all over Night Raven. He’s just glad Halloween will be over come tomorrow, otherwise he might rub all the way down to the bone were this madness to go on any longer.

Malleus is already sitting on his bed when Leona enters, though now he’s mindlessly scrolling through his phone instead of staring blankly out the window. Progress, Leona supposes though from what he’s not quite sure. It doesn’t matter anyways.

“Didn’t expect you to be here already.” He says, going for nonchalant but coming out a lot ruder than he’d meant to. The tips of his fingers still smell like half-eaten waffles and crinkly paper wrappers to the point his nose hurts.

“You didn’t specify a time.” Malleus answers, still typing, “And you seemed rather tired last time so I figured you’d prefer if we met earlier today.”

Awfully considerate. Leona changes the subject before either of them could read too much into it.

“Who’re you texting?” He asks while he towels off his hair. It’s just damp enough to make the neckline of his shirt cling to his skin. It’s not that uncomfortable but he takes it off and tosses it over the couch anyways.

“Silver.” Malleus informs him and finally pockets his phone. His eyes flick towards Leona where they linger a moment too long before he politely looks away again, “I let him know that I won’t be able to make it to our nightly chess game.”

His ears give a twitch of interest. “Didn’t know Silver plays chess.”

“He picked it up a while ago.” Malleus tells him, decidedly looking anywhere that isn’t Leona.

“Is he worth playing against?” Leona asks, genuinely curious at the prospect of having someone new to play against. The chess board sitting on his nightstand hasn’t been touched in a while. He used to play against Azul sometimes but conversation is still dry between them. Maybe he could play Idia if he ever leaves his room again.

Malleus considers him for a moment but his eyebrows furrow to a fracture of a frown. “He’s still learning.” He says, trying very hard not to sound rude, “But considering your standards, no. At least not yet.”

Leona only hums in reply and decides to shake his damp hair out a little more. A few droplets splash against Malleus’ cheek. Malleus makes a face that’s almost cute with how offended he looks.

“We should play again sometime.” Malleus says and wipes at his face with a gloved hand.

Leona’s ears twitch again. “Soon.”

He wraps the hair ties on his nightstand around his wrist and starts re-braiding his hair. It would be wiser to leave it for tomorrow when it’s dry and easier to handle but that would mean getting up earlier and the prospect of waking up for morning classes is annoying enough to make him sink his teeth into the elastic.

Malleus is carefully watching him work his fingers through his still-damp hair. Braid one falls to frame his face nicely. The second hair tie catches on his canines and tears. There’s another one in his drawer but if he has his way his hair would get messed up again either way. He’ll make Ruggie search for it in the morning, wraps his hand around the broken hair tie and turns it to sand.

“You know what we should do?” He asks, watching the individual grains slip through his fingers. Malleus cocks his head to the side and uncrosses his legs. From then on, the rest is simple. Leona closes the distance separating them with lionheart confidence once his palm is empty and slides into Malleus’ lap. He’s met with little resistance. Malleus’ hands no longer hover before he settles them above the jut of his hipbone. There’s a vague semblance of conflicting doubt and eagarness in green eyes Leona doesn’t know what to make of.

He leans in and kisses the uncertainty from Malleus’ lips.

They’re both prepared for the impact this time around, with Leona clear of mind and Malleus not as shocked at the sudden progression of things. They work together better too, no anger-fueled desperation or short-sighted curiosity, just two boys testing the waters, trying to see what feels nice and what doesn’t.

Malleus slides one hand into Leona’s hair and gently scratches the sensitive spot behind his ear. Leona encouragingly wraps his tail around Malleus’ wrist and trails his fingers over the curve of his horns. Their lungs don’t fill fast enough when they part for air. Leona’s still a little breathless when he presses his mouth against Malleus’ jawline, right above where the collar of his unform sits. Malleus inhales sharply and grows a little bolder. He disentangles his fingers from Leona’s hair to slide them underneath his thighs and pulls him closer. The new angle’s far better than he thought it’d be, with less distance and more heat between them. Leona appreciatively purrs against Malleus’ mouth.

His shoulders are lax, jaw slack, and all of the pent-up tension dissipates with each push and pull of their lips. It goes a little beyond stress relief, Leona decides when Malleus coaxes his mouth open, but it’s definitely a hobby worth picking up.

The desperation returns, their hands stray. Leona touches leather clad arms and a pronounced jawline, inky strands of hair that spill between his fingers like oil and the dip of a pale collarbone while Malleus traces his tattoos with black painted fingernails and presses his lips right where Leona’s scar ends.

He kisses Malleus with newfound vigor, sliding one hand up until his fingers wrap around a curved horn. It’s smoother than it looks, colder too, and it fits against the palm of his hand as if it were pressing itself into the shape of his palm. When he gives an experimental pull Malleus’ reaction is instant. He gasps into Leona’s mouth and reflexively tightens his own hand that’s been steadily petting right where Leona’s braid meets the soft fluff of his ear. It should be painful but is so far from it Leona lets out his own little moan and cranes his neck back for Malleus to press the curve of his lips to the taut skin of his throat.

Exposing himself like this should feel concerning but with Malleus’ hot tongue against his skin Leona really can’t will himself to care. Instead, he leans back even further and gives Malleus’ better access. Malleus absolutely revels in the way Leona pulls him closer while his other hand digs into the meat of his shoulder and leaves angry red lines just above the leather of his cape.

It's thrilling in its own right, adrenaline coursing through his veins and making his head spin. Not quite as liberating as winning a magical shift game, not entirely like the excitement of a hunt, but a strange sort of ecstasy that makes him press his body even closer, and when he closes his eyes –

There’s a sudden rapt against his door, loud enough to startle them both.

“Leona!” Ruggie calls, incessantly knocking his knuckles against the hard wood. “Jack wants to go over how we’ll scare the magicam monsters tomorrow one more time.”

Leona snaps his head towards offending sound and growls, loud enough for Ruggie to hear through the closed door. “Do it yourself!” He shouts. Malleus winces at the volume, Leona still on his lap and close enough to rupture his eardrums. Leona calls even louder, “I’m busy.”

“No you’re not.” Ruggie snaps back. Leona can practically hear him cross his arms. He can actually hear his foot tapping impatiently against the floor, “You can sleep all you want after Halloween is over. Right now you’ve gotta come down and play pirate with Jack once more. It’s your job as a dorm leader so come out before I pick your lock.”

He growls again for good measure but ultimately this was an argument he couldn’t win. Ruggie would make him come down and help out no matter what, and it’s not like teaching the magicam monsters a lesson isn’t in his own self-interest. He really has no choice in the matter.

“Fine.” He grumbles, tail uncurling from Malleus’ wrist to swish back and forth angrily, “I’ll be there in a moment.”

“If you’re not down within the next five minutes I’ll invite Ramshackle over for a shared training camp!” Ruggie threatens. They both know the chances of Leona rolling over in bed and falling asleep instead are 60/40, maybe even 80/20 but the prospect of repeating his last impromptu sleepover is terrifying enough to ensure Leona bumps the odds up until they’re highly in favor of Ruggie.

“I already said I’d come.” Leona yells. Then he drops his forehead against Malleus’ shoulder with a roll of his eyes and an exasperated sigh and adds, “Just gimme five more minutes.”

Ruggie mutters something under his breath that Leona decides not to hear and finally makes his way down to the lounge. Malleus is petting his hair again, though this time it’s much gentler and leaves Leona torn between how patronizing the gesture feels and his secret love for head-scratches.

“I should be going then.” Malleus says after a few more moments of carding his fingers through Leona’s hair. Leona grumbles. He’s too comfortable to want to pull away but if he stays Ruggie would only use his unique magic and make him skip down to the lounge like a princess.

“Sure.” He says and pushes himself up on unsteady legs. His hair is messier than usual but he could probably blame a good nap for the mess on his head and will his knees to work to keep suspicion away. “You know the way out.”

Malleus nods, still a little out of it, and stands up as well, his legs equally as steady as Leona’s. Leona pushes a hand through unruly hair and watches Malleus’ reflection in the mirror linger in the middle of the room. He looks conflicted with wanting to say something and not daring to speak up but eventually Malleus swallows his words and silently disappears into the shadows.

Leona doesn’t need to look to know he’s gone.

He snatches his shirt from the couch and stalks off, loudly banging the door closed behind him, hoping the others will his hear his little fit and think better than to disturb him next time.

He leaves the balcony door open.

Chapter Text

The nightly trips to Savanaclaw become a routine from then on, though things don’t always end like they did the day before Halloween. Sometimes Leona rants about whatever he considers especially annoying that day, head resting on Malleus’ lap while slender fingers pet his ears. Sometimes Malleus extensively tells him about the difference between Gargoyles and Statues as Leona dusts off his chest set and places it in the middle of the bed between them. Sometimes they’re too busy mussing up the sheets to talk much at all.

And sometimes Malleus quietly enters, sits on the floor in front of Leona’s bed and unblinking stares out the balcony.

Leona isn’t particularly fond of sharing but the bed is much softer than the carpet, warmer too and most importantly, easily fits the both of them. The floor, on the other hand, is awfully uncomfortable. It’s cold and his knees begin to hurt after a while, his toes and the tips of his fingers grow chilly and he really isn’t willing to trade his soft cushioned bed for creaky floorboards, no matter how much Malleus likes the view out his windows, even if Malleus’ lap makes for a really good pillow.

The intimacy of sharing a bed isn’t lost on Leona but having been raised by Lilia Malleus is nothing if not a gentleman, never overstepping boundaries even when things get a little heated. He’s also surprisingly gentle for someone who’s supposed to be one of the five most powerful wizards in the entire world, always touching Leona like he was going to break, kissing him like he was something sweet instead of the foul-mouthed beast he was, holding him like he was precious.

Tonight, Malleus is gentle too though his tenderness isn’t directed at Leona. Perfectly hidden by the darkness around them, Malleus stares into the night sky beyond Leona’s balcony door, contemplating something he can’t put into words. He’s in one of his brooding moods and when he gets like this there really isn’t much Leona can do to get him out of his own head and back to reality, preferably Leona’s bed.

To Malleus’ bad, Leona is neither patient nor kind and with the night slowly progressing in a way that is unfavorable at best, he’s beginning to grow infinitely bored. He turns on the bed to inspect the obsidian night and its constellations spanning between two spirally horns.

Horns, huh?

By now he’s touched them plenty times, knows Malleus likes it when he pulls them and manhandles him a little, but he’s never really looked at them. He pillows his head in the palm on his hand.

They’re long and sleek and curve in a perfect arch and part of Leona wants to poke them just to see if they’re as sharp as they seem.

Leona quickly checks his options.

One, he doesn’t poke the horns and continues being bored until he falls asleep. Or two, he pokes the horns and Malleus will probably get mad because he interrupted one his moods and threw him off his groove. Worst case scenario: the horns are as sharp as they look and he’ll prick himself, maybe even bleed a little, and Malleus gets mad, probably completely disappears into the darkness.

All things considered, his chances aren’t particularly bad, especially considering he might even get to annoy Malleus. Leona’s never really been one to deny himself little pleasures like that so he reaches out.

“What are you planning on doing?” Malleus asks out of nowhere.

King of the Beasts be damned, and he hasn’t even touched him yet. Stupid Malleus and his ability to pick up on everything with his stupid fairy sensitivity or whatever shit was to blame. But Leona has already made up his mind. He was going to touch the horns. Malleus has no say in the matter.

“Shut up and let me do this.”

Malleus turns his head enough for Leona to see the raise of his eyebrow. He doesn’t move beyond that though so Leona presses a finger to the very tip of Malleus’ right horn.

Sharp but not sharp enough to draw blood– with a little more pressure, sure, but Leona doesn’t really fancy hurting himself. He’d rather not have to go to the infirmary tomorrow, or any other day for that matter. Too many memories of the aftermath of his overblot and long evenings after magical shift games for him to seek that place out willingly.

“You’re going to hurt yourself.” Malleus says. There’s an urgency in his voice, as if Leona was already bleeding all over the carpet. Leona’s not even close to breaking skin yet. He makes no move to pull away, but he does huff in annoyance. As if Malleus could ever hurt him, as if he’d ever let him.

“I said shut up.” Leona slides his hand down the horn, following its natural curve. No scales, no bumps, no nothing. Just a smooth horn. Neither warm, nor cold, just … bone?

“What’s it made of?” He asks and grips the horn a little tighter, trying to see if he could snap it in two.

“I thought I was supposed to stay quiet?” Malleus teases and if Leona wasn’t so preoccupied, he’d rise to the bait but right now he wants to know more about the horns on Malleus’ head and how to break them. Maybe they’d give if he tried another angle?

“Shut up and tell me what they’re made of.” Leona growls but so far he’s never managed to intimidate Malleus into doing as he says. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to try.

“You contradict yourself, Leona.” Malleus informs him, still sitting in the same position he’s been in for the last half hour. Like a statue, Leona muses. Perhaps the horns are made of stone? No, that wouldn’t make sense …

“King of the Beasts, you’re annoying. Just tell me already.” Leona huffs and tugs on the horn again as if he could shake the answer out of Malleus.

Malleus hums in contemplation, deep and somber and dully reverberating through the room. They both know he’ll tell Leona eventually. Leona prides himself on being able to get to Malleus, both under his skin and on his nerves.

“Keratin mostly.” Malleus says and when Leona doesn’t answer, he keeps talking, “It’s a protein. You can find it in hair and fingernails or the hooves of some animals.”

Leona squints skeptically. “So you’re saying these” he squeezes a black horn, then slides his hand into dark hair to twirl a black strand around one of his fingers “are the same as these?”

“Essentially.” Malleus answers. Leona tangles his fingers in the crown of Malleus’ head. He could pull his hair out if he wanted to. Could he pull the horns out too? He slides his hand up again and gives an experimental tug.

“Though hair and horns are vastly different in their other components.” Malleus continues, “The most outstanding one being, of course, their relation to magic. While horns can appear in either form, magical or not, hair can only take on magical powers if you’re under the influence of a potion – most commonly a growing potion – or, in very few documented cases, by direct blood relation to the princess of-”

“I get it, I get it. No need to go on a rant.” Leona interjects. There really is no stopping Malleus when he starts talking about something he’s passionate about – and Malleus is passionate about the weirdest things.

“What about this then?” Leona asks and pushes Malleus’ bangs out of the way. He’s noticed the markings a while back, almost a year ago when they teamed up for beans day and he wiped the sweat off his forehead after the final battle against Vil and Rook. They’re usually covered behind his fringe, and he hasn’t had the chance to catch another glimpse of them since. “Are they scales?”

Malleus hums. “No. They’re markings.”

“What for?”

“I don’t know.”

That’s new. Pristine, perfect Malleus, one of the most power wizards in the entire world admitting he’s at a loss? It must be a first for Malleus, Leona notes.

“Why not?” He asks and traces his fingers over the black spots on Malleus’ forehead. They don’t feel weird, maybe a bit raised from the rest of his skin but they’re neither harder nor softer nor otherwise particularly interesting.

Malleus contemplates his answer for a moment and Leona waits a whole minute before he tugs on a strand of black hair to get his attention back. It does the trick, Malleus finally speaks again. “Not everything in life makes sense, Leona. For example” he continues, shifting so they’re face to face, “these don’t serve a purpose either, do they?”

Malleus brings a hand up and swipes his thumb across the freckles splattered across the bridge of Leona’s nose. They’re barely noticeable, a slight discoloration of skin that you need to get up close to see. Leona scrunches his nose. There’s an odd gleam in Malleus’ eyes, not mischievous or teasing, almost soft, or as soft as eyes the color of toxic waste can be. Generally, in the dark of the night, Malleus looks softer, less like a crown prince born from thorns and more like a person, tangible and real. Leona raises his nose to look down on him but Malleus doesn’t seem to mind, just keeps examining Leona’s freckles.

“Did you know” Malleus begins, thumb now brushing over Leona’s cheeks, “Some fairies consider marks around the nose a sign of creativity and diligence. It is said that those people are guaranteed a successful life both in their career and family.”

Leona snorts “Well, consider me the living proof that their words hold no meaning.”

While Leona laughs, Malleus scrunches his nose and watches him silently until he settles down again. “I didn’t know you were part hyena.”

Leona blinks at him.

It takes another three prolonged heartbeats of him staring blankly at Malleus until his brain kickstarts again and he barks out another laugh. “Malleus, was that your attempt at making a joke?”

“Not at all.” Malleus says and places a hand on Leona’s shoulder. He pushes him down until his back hits the soft mattress, “But hyenas laugh at everything.” Malleus continues, the hand on his shoulder returning to caress Leona’s cheek, “Even the truth.”

He half-expects Malleus to lean down and kiss him but Malleus rarely takes the initiative, something about wanting to be invited to do things, and today doesn’t seem to be an exception. He’s lucky Leona just takes what he wants. Between the two of them there’s no hierarchy keeping him in place and rules that stop him from pushing himself up into Malleus’ space and closing the gap between them.

Leona simply takes while Malleus lets him.

Malleus goes willingly.

It's good enough for now.

He watches Riddle examine Ruggie’s arm from the corner of his eye. Riddle is meticulous in the way he works and moves with practiced ease. Beside him, Ortho floats up and down happily and parrots the results of the scans and tests he had Ruggie do earlier. All his results are normal, nothing is out of the ordinary.

Ruggie’s arm is alright.

Ruggie is alright.

Still, Ruggie spends the rest of the day and all of the night at Mostro Lounge, curled up amongst the other second years. Leona no longer catches him scrutinizing his arm from that point on.

“Do you think it’s because you’re one of the strongest?” Malleus asks him.

They’re sprawled across his bed, Leona’s chess set squeezed in between the tangle of limbs they’ve become.

Leona raises an eyebrow. “What?”

Malleus stills to take a look at the board.

“Before your overblot.” He says, then moves his queen. “You burned the brightest. Maybe that’s why you’re so cold now.”

He’s not cold but they’ve steadily been gravitating towards each other over the course of the game until Leona sneakily scooched his toes underneath Malleus’ thighs. Malleus had looked borderline offended at the sudden contact but it’s not Leona’s fault Diasomnia has no particular interest in heaters and proper insulation.

Leona takes a quick glance over their current positions and puts Malleus in check.

Then the game halts.

Malleus doesn’t look at the board again, only at Leona, and whatever is going on in that horned head of his, Leona wants no part of it. He wiggles his icy toes and huffs, “You’re being ridiculous.”

Malleus hums and rests his hand next to the chess board, palm up, instead of making his next move. Leona rolls his eyes but diligently places his own on top of Malleus’.

Their game ends in stalemate.

Malleus scratches the sensitive spot behind Leona’s ear and flips the page of the book he’s currently engrossed in. Leona doesn’t notice that his world has shifted upside down yet when Malleus flattens his hand and runs it down Leona’s spine, down to where his tail sits right at the small of his back, then up again.

They’re skipping Alchemy. Leona is, Malleus has a free period and Music classes in a little over half an hour that Leona is intent on making him miss. Malleus doesn’t need Music anyways. He can play a ridiculous number of instruments and he’s absentmindedly humming a song right now – that should be enough musical knowledge to last him a lifetime. It’s a surprisingly chipper melody, something far lighter than what Leona would have expected from someone from the Valley of Thorns, sinister and dark as it has been described to him. Then again, the lullabies he sang to Cheka were much alike, far removed from the ugliness of the world to lull an annoyingly innocent child to sleep.

Malleus’ voice fills the empty air, but it’s not loud enough to carry beyond the little perimeter of where there sprawled out underneath a plumeria.

“Do you know how to dance, Leona?” Malleus asks, cutting the song just short of its refrain. His fingers slip into his hair again where he moves them in small circles over his scalp until Leona lets out a soft purr.

“Mm kind of.” Leona says. Back when him and Farena still hung out they’d danced sometimes. Nothing grand, just two kids hopping to the beat of a drum. He stopped when it turned to him and a snappish dance instructor in an empty ballroom though, and he hasn’t danced since. “I’m not really good at it.”

“Does that matter?” Malleus asks, digging his fingers into the space behind Leona’s ear where fluff turns into hair. Leona turns his head in Malleus’ lap and narrows his eyes at him. It matters, he wants to say but his mouth stays shut. Farena can’t dance yet he stumbled his way through his wedding dance. Cheka still hasn’t discovered there’s a rhythm he’s supposed to follow but he shuffles around the room when there’s music anyways. And Leona – Leona hasn’t danced in forever. You dance when you’re happy, at celebrations and parties, even if they’re all politics and bubbly champagne. But that’s not his world, not anymore, not since –

“I wanted to ask you to dance at the party of the last day of Halloween.” Malleus continues and twirls a chocolate colored strand around his index. “But I stepped outside briefly and when I returned you were swept up by the students of Pomefiore.”

Ah, that. Epel and the other magical shift players wanted to play a drinking game, not caring that you couldn’t get drunk off of apple juice and sparkling water. Vil had some things to say on the matter, mostly about how Epel spilled his drink over himself and ruined the cape he spent so much time designing. Then there was Rook who Ruggie still thinks is intent on skinning him. Granted, Rook is part of the science club and you never know when Crewel decides it’s time for a new coat, not that Rook has ever needed an excuse for a hunt.

“Besides” Malleus starts again. “I don’t feel like you would have taken me up on my offer.”

Then Malleus’ hand stills completely as Malleus gets lost somewhere within his thoughts, in the dust covered shadows of the back of his mind. The hand in Leona’s hair grows light, his touch barely there. It feels like they no longer occupy the same space. Leona decides he doesn’t like it at all.

“You’re right. I wouldn’t have.” He says. Malleus stays quiet and that’s just as well, even if Leona adds the solemn look on his face to the list of things he doesn’t like. It’s the truth though. They’re not really friends, not quite – they still fight all the time, over magical shift and whose dorm has the better starters, who’s responsible for dropping another vial during potions classes or who gets the comfier pillow. And Leona doesn’t dance, not in front of that many people and not alone in his room.

He doesn’t even remember how to.

“We could dance now.” Malleus says, already shuffling to his feet. Leona’s head gets dislodged in the process and hits the soft grass. He shoots Malleus an ireful look and swipes at his feet but he’s too far and he ends up tearing his claws through empty air.

“Who says I’d dance with you?” Leona growls and pushes himself up on his elbows. His words fall on deaf ears, Malleus already has his pen out and draws an artful curve through the same patch of air Leona split. A familiar buzz fills the greenhouse as his fingertips start tingling pleasantly from the presence of Malleus’ magic, overwhelmingly powerful even at such minuscule displays of his ability, and perpetually majestic. As much as he loathes to admit it, Malleus’ magic is always a sight to behold, wild like a dream and commanding like a storm, nature itself abiding by his will as if it was the greatest honor. He closes his eyes and savors the feeling on the tip of his tongue.

Then there’s music, soft, melodic, and pleasant as an orchestra of string instruments takes over the quiet. When Leona looks up again, there are no violins and Chellos within the conservatory, only their sounds tinting the world around them the tender colors of a sunrise. Malleus has already pocketed his pen again, his hand now expectantly outstretched towards Leona.

“I’m not particularly well-versed in dancing either.” He says, looking this side of wary, as if he’s not sure Leona won’t unleash an armada of rampant herbivores from within the greenery and try to stampede him again at proposing something as ludicrous as dancing. “But it’s just us here.” Malleus continues, his hand not wavering in the empty space between them, “No one would see us.”

Leona narrows his eyes at him.

He doesn’t dance. But Malleus looks at him almost eagerly, hopeful, like all the cares of their world would disappear if Leona took his hand.

Leona sighs. “I get to step on your feet.”

The smile Malleus shoots him is blinding and Leona has to look away for a moment before his heart catches in his throat.

He lifts his hand, Malleus takes it, pulls him up and just like that they’re dancing.

Badly.

Malleus twirls him around the room with little grace and finesse. Neither of them knows what they’re doing. There are too many plants in too little space to avoid a face full of leaves at least once. One pot topples over and cracks at their feet when neither of them makes a move to save it. Leona frequently steps on Malleus’s feet and laughs at all of the faces Malleus makes when he does.

They stumble and almost fall.

There’s a stick in Malleus’ hair and a vine curling around his horn and Leona’ pretty sure there’s a thorn stuck in one of his braids. Malleus’ grip on his hip is a little too tight and commanding. He steps onto one of the ceramic remains of the pot and they almost bump into a rhododendron twice, actually do on the third time because they can’t take their eyes off each other.

It’s the most fun Leona’s ever had while dancing.

Malleus’ brows furrow when Leona starts laughing. He’s still concentrating hard on not tripping over his own feet but Leona does it for him, steps on Malleus’s boot that’s already got has an imprint of the sole of his sandal ingrained in the leather, and when Malleus finally looks at him he can’t help the stupid smile and joins Leona in his laughter.

“You know” Leona says in between chuckles, “I thought you were kidding when you said you couldn’t dance but you’re actually trash.”

If Leona wasn’t looking so cheerful Malleus would have argued. Right now though, he’d much rather Leona stay this chipper so he decides to take the blow to his ego. For now.

“I don’t want to hear that from you, Leona.” Malleus says and scrunches his nose in disdain. Leona laughs again and pulls him a little closer before he spins them around, a little faster this time, trying to catch up with the rhythm of the melody. It’s futile though and they both stumble.

Malleus steadies them before they burst in another fit of laughter. It’s difficult to keep the momentum of the dance going like this but Malleus tries his best, even when Leona interprets a step differently than he intended and he ends up scrambling to keep the pace. Adapting to another person is rather difficult for someone of his level of skill but he needs to let Leona know that he could depend on him as the lead, to keep him safe and secure even through little mess-ups. Somehow, he manages to keep them both on their feet. A miracle, as far as Malleus is concerned.

Leona steps on his foot again.

“Quit looking so tense.” He chides, shooting Malleus another smile, teasing and beautifully carefree.

They’re not quite dancing, more swaying on their feet and occasionally throwing each other for a loop, trying to make the other stumble but never letting them fall. It’s not physically exerting enough to make them break a sweat but Leona laughs again and slides his fingers into midnight colored hair, pulls Malleus close.

They’re both breathless by the time the music comes to an end.

“And it’s a hooooooome ruuuuuun!” Cater announces as they all watch the ball disappear somewhere within the forest. It’s far enough for Leona to have trouble seeing but he’s pretty sure the ‘ball’ that is really everyone’s gloves tied together with sheer determination and magic hits a branch and comes undone.

“Actually, I think that might be a foul ball.” Trey says, one hand on his hip while the other shields his eyes as he squints in the distance.

“Ça depend.” Rook cocks his head to the side in thought and gets up from where he was squatted behind Leona. “We never specified the depth of the outfield. It might still be within reach.”

“Don’t you need to circle all bases for it to be a homerun?” Vil asks though he sounds terribly disinterested. Leona’s not sure why he even bothered joining their game in the first place – any of them really. It started out with just him and Malleus and a one-on-one magical shift game after classes. Then suddenly they were six with only two brooms and Cater was magicking their gloves into a ball. With only two brooms and Vil’s nail file they don’t have enough for magical shift – and the only thing they’re making good use of is Vil’s nail file.

“Well, Leona certainly isn’t running.” Cater observes, swinging his phone from some indistinct space in the woods to Leona who bares his fangs at the camera and swings Malleus’ broom over his shoulder. His own broom rests safely against the nearest tree trunk. They only need one bat and he’s not about to let the herbivores manhandle his.

“I only hit the ball.” He growls, “I don’t run.”

“Fair.” Cater nods even though it’s not. Leona’s the batter, he should run as soon as he hits the ball. It’s also not fair he has to play baseball. He wanted to play magical shift and make Malleus eat dirt while they’re at it. Leave it to Rook and Cater to get involved in things that don’t concern them.

“So is it in or not?” Trey asks again.

“I don’t know.” Cater pockets his phone and shrugs, “I never played baseball before.”

“Neither have I.” Trey shakes his head.

“Have any of you even played baseball before?” Leona asks, caught somewhere between exasperated and bone tired.

“Nope.” Cater says and throws up what he thinks is supposed to be an appeasing peace sign.

“Never.” Trey agrees.

Vil keeps filing his nails while Rook shoots him this appeasing yet highly entertained sort of smile that makes his blood boil. Malleus looks utterly lost at him from the pitcher’s mound.

Leona drags a hand down his face.

“Alright then.” He says, not bothering to hide any of his disdain, “We can just play sockball then since our ball is trash anyways. Rook, you explain the rules while I get what’s left of the ball.”

Normally, he wouldn’t lower himself to such tasks but it’s better than sticking around. He could try to sneak away now but Rook would notice before he’d be able to get any considerable distance in between himself and the herbivores and it’d be an unfair fight anyways with the five of them ganging up on him – and he’s not about to have his ass handed to him by Vil Schönheit and Cater Diamond. Sockball is easy enough, even the cubs play it back home. Now that explaining the game is up to Rook and his waterfall mouth he might even get a nap out of it. Or maybe –

“Malleus.” He says and nods his head towards the general direction of the forest. “Get going.”

Malleus gives him an incredulous look. Clearly he was very interested in the rules of Sockball but Leona really doesn’t care. Rook’ll talk about something unrelated the first chance he gets anyways. Probably Vil’s hands now that he’s done filing his nails. Leona really doesn’t want to be around for that.

He starts walking. Malleus follows short after and they disappear into the forest just when Rook swings his arms out wide and leads everyone else down a mental detour.

The fairies have decided to skip winter so the trees are back to being thick with lush green leaves when their branches should be bare. The autumn leaves have also been cleaned up. There’s no crunch underneath his sandals when he walks. He steps on a twig and cracks it in half. It’s not the same but whatever. Green leaves make for a softer bed anyways.

“We’ve got ten minutes.” Leona says when they come to a stop in front of what’s left of the ball. Finding it was easy enough with all of their scents combined into a pile of residual magic. He thinks back to Rook and how he’s probably explaining why today’s sky is so much prettier and bluer than anything he’s ever seen. “Fifteen, actually.” He corrects and turns to Malleus with a sly smile. “Any ideas what we could do until then?”

“You could explain the rules of Sockball to me.” Malleus says, one hand coming up to tap his chin, “I think Lilia mentioned playing it once though he never told me about the specifics. If I remember correctly, it was when he –”

Leona presses their lips together before Malleus can continue that train of thought.

The surprise last only a fraction of a second, then Malleus exhales a little puff of smoke through his nostrils. It fans across Leona’s cheeks and warms his skin while Malleus moves against him, with him. Sunlight isn’t warm like Malleus but fire is too destructive to truly catch his nature. Malleus isn’t caustic, he’s not vicious, he’s not coal and ash but something gentler.

If anything, Malleus is infinitely soft, someone born from loneliness that still wants to reclaim the dreams he once abandoned. The dragonfire coils inside him like a stellar object radiating pure energy from its core, pushing outwards against the world and trying not to crumble inwards when the pressure from everyone else lures him into an unstable limbo between a star and a supernova.

If you asked Leona to pinpoint what happened first between him pushing into Malleus’ space until Malleus needs to step back and Malleus burying his fingers into his hipbone to pull him tight he wouldn’t be able to tell. But Malleus steps back, the fabric of his pants catches on the twig that’s now snapped in half and they both tumble onto the mossy ground.

Leona’s instincts kick in, he scrambles to stay on his feet, bumps his nose into Malleus’ shoulder and his elbow into his stomach and effectively knocks the air out of them both. They fall, hard, and he’s pretty sure Malleus hits his head against one of the overgrown roots sticking out of the dirt. It’s the first time he hasn’t landed on his feet since he learnt how to fly a broom when he was four.

There’s groaning – not the nice kind – and he can’t tell if it comes from Malleus or himself. Probably both. He never really recognizes either of their voices when they pull apart for air, like they’re still bleary from sleep and a little bit dazed and words are less spoken than they are resonating inside their ribcages.

He dislodges his elbow from Malleus’ stomach and pushes himself up enough so his face isn’t half-buried in a lime green waistcoat. There’s dirt in his hair and the cuffs of his shirt now have stains. He’s missing a sandal. Malleus has mud caked across his cheek and the same sort of childlike glee in his eyes when he tells Leona about an abandoned castle he discovered during one of his walks or found a particularly intricately carved gargoyle.

Then Malleus laughs, unrestrained and sincere and rich, and something strange wells up inside Leona’s chest. Something white hot and familiar. It’s not rage –

But it’s warm.

And it kind of feels like ... sweet passionfruit, or the sultry scent of the lotus bloom.

It really feels like …

Oh.

When Leona laughs he suddenly cannot stop anymore. He laughs until his lungs hurt, until there’s moisture collecting at the corners of his eyes.

He laughs and he doesn’t stop.

Malleus asks him if he’s broken.

Malleus’ tongue is hot and heavy against his own, hungrily licking into Leona’s mouth then tracing patterns along his skin, gently biting down where his shoulder and neck connect. One knee is firmly wedged in between Leona’s thighs, spread just enough to allow Malleus to slide their bodies together in an agonizingly delightful way.

Still, something’s off.

There’s a desperation in the way Malleus fists Leona’s hair in one hand, the same kind of vigor and underlying anger Leona kisses Malleus with when Cheka calls to tell him about a particularly beautiful sunset over the Afterglow Savanna. It’s not unlike their first kiss in that regard, though it’s not as clumsy anymore, not as painfully inexperienced.

It's annoying, really, because tonight Ruggie’s too busy helping out at Mostro Lounge to sneak into his room to steal the contents of Leona’s wallet, no Jack and Sebek requesting their presence for guidance or extra training and no homesick first years crying on their doorsteps either. They were finally going somewhere, three years’ worth of tension accumulating to this, both of them sprawled out on Leona’s bed with no reason to leave anytime soon. And much as Leona wants this, he’d rather not do it when Malleus is in a shit mood.

With a heavy sigh, Leona turns his head to the side and pushes at Malleus’ shoulder. Malleus stops instantly, leaning a polite distance away from Leona to allow him to breathe.

“Sorry, was that too much?” Malleus asks, lime green eyes filled with the slightest hint of worry.

“As if.” Leona huffs and wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. “I can take a whole lot more than you could ever give.” He says, flicking Malleus’ forehead in kindhearted teasing. “But you’re not feeling it today.” He shrugs nonchalantly, turns on his side and pats the space next to him.

Malleus looks at him like wants to protest but Leona shoots him a glare, the kind that leaves no room for arguing and when Malleus’ doesn’t move, shoves him until they’re laying side by side.

Well, that was easier than anticipated. He’d expect some sort of polite reluctance from the lizard that Leona would have to wrestle out of him but Malleus only sighs, pushes a hand through inky locks and stares at the ceiling.

Malleus can’t stop himself from thinking but he can force himself to at least relax a little. Maybe.

Malleus slides his hand up Leona’s waist and rests it on the small of his back. Leona hums approvingly but Malleus just keeps it there and lets Leona curl himself around him. He doesn’t move beyond that, instead gets stuck somewhere within his head and stares at the ceiling.

Leona waits all of five minutes before he lifts his head and follows Malleus’ gaze. It’s just a ceiling, no ornate details, no intricate patterns, no stucco lining the wall, and Leona fails entirely to see what Malleus is so fascinated by.

“Keep going.” He says so Malleus moves his hand again. He skims his palms over the rise of Leona’s shoulders, down to the small of his back, then back up again. It’s almost like petting a cat. Next to him he can feel Leona relax, his muscles loosening underneath his fingers as he presses a hum into the side of Malleus’ throat.

Maybe Malleus isn’t really looking at the ceiling, Leona muses. Maybe Malleus sees something he doesn’t. But Malleus turns his head before Leona can ask him about it, choosing to look out the balcony instead, right above where Leona’s head is squished into Malleus’ shoulder.

The night sky is something Leona understands looking at, at least. It’s pretty with the moon reduced to nothing more than a sliver and the stars sparkling prettily. Farena used to point out constellations and explain their meanings when they were younger so Leona instinctively searches for the ones he recognizes.

“Look.” He says and points at a particularly bright star. When Malleus does as he’s asked Leona traces his finger across the dark sky, connecting one star to a few smaller ones clustered around it, “There’s me.”

Malleus breathes in and drags his hand down Leona’s back again.

“Leo?” He asks, sneaking his arms around Leona’s waist to squeeze, then pull him tight.

“Mhm” Leona hums as he presses himself closer against Malleus. His eyes scan across the sky again, and then after a little more searching, “And there’s you.”

Malleus puts his chin on top of Leona’s head and lets his thumb drift down to swipe against the planes of his abdomen until he pushes a satisfied purr out of Leona. “Where?”

Leona huffs, takes Malleus’ hand in own and drags their entwined fingers over the endless span of the night until they land on a group of stars a little higher up, “Right here.”

The thumb has wandered down to his pelvis where it momentarily stops tracing circles into his skin. “… We’re quite far away from each other.”

Leona laughs. “Of course we are. Nothing out there is close, Malleus. Space is vast, there’s a whole lot more nothing than there is stars and planets and galaxies.”

The sound Malleus makes is caught between a disgruntled huff and a sulk rumbling in his chest, either way he doesn’t sound particularly pleased with his response.

“We should be closer together.” Malleus argues and presses his nose into the crown of Leona’s head.

“Oh?” Leona hums and squeezes their still entwined hands – a gentle reminder that they were, in fact, impossibly close already. “You’re gonna rearrange the stars now, great wizard Malleus Draconia? Show me what one of the most powerful wizards in the world is capable of?”

He receives a gentle nip to this ear in warning, not at all pleased with Leona’s teasing. But Malleus nuzzles into Leona’s hair again, letting out a soft sigh as Leona curls his tail around Malleus’ leg and squeezes.

They stay like this long enough for sleep to begin clouding Leona’s vision. He shakes his head and tries to stay awake, at least until Malleus’ leaves – because he likes watching him disappear into the darkness of the night, pretending he kicked Malleus out with a smug smile, not because he’s come to realize that waking up alone feels a little colder when you’ve fallen asleep next to someone.

Malleus has never stayed the night so far. With those grotesquely spindly horns of his he needs special pillows to sleep without waking up all stiff and cranky the next day. That and he’s too afraid of accidentally poking Leona’s eyes out with his horns while he sleeps. Leona will just have to snag one of those pillows from Malleus’ bed and stick cotton balls to the sharp ends of his horns, then he could finally fall asleep in peace.

Thankfully Malleus makes no move to leave yet so Leona shifts again until he’s no longer lying on Malleus’ shoulder and instead on his whole arm which is both more comfortable and successfully traps Malleus in place. If he were to fall asleep now, Malleus wouldn’t be able to sneak away. Malleus wraps their hands around Leona’s middle and pulls him against his chest more firmly.

“Someday.” Malleus murmurs into the empty space between Leona’s ears. It’s barely audible, even less so to Leona who’s tightly wrapped up in his blankets and Malleus’ arms and already more than halfway asleep.

“Hm?” Leona’s too tired for actual words, the heat radiating off Malleus gently lulling him to sleep. Dragon fire, it turns out, isn’t as devastatingly scorching and soul-crushingly searing as one might have thought, more like a hot mug of cocoa on a cold winter day or heated up sand on the beach. Leona sneaks his frozen fingertips underneath the hem of Malleus’ shirt.

“Nothing.” Malleus says instead of repeating himself and presses a kiss to the top of Leona’s head, “Just go to sleep.”

Leona already has.

Malleus is stiff and cranky when he wakes up. It’s three am and Leona’s entirely too comfortable to relieve Malleus of his job as his personal pillow. Leona curls himself around Malleus tighter. There’s a flick of magic and its green residue floating through the air, then a mattress that’s a tad firmer than his own.

They sleep in Diasomnia for the rest of the night.

Chapter Text

They’ve fallen into a rhythm long ago, Leona can no longer deny this.

Not all of their classes are shared but most of the afternoons are spent together lazing about in the greenhouse. They play chess or magical shift or sometimes just spar for the thrill of it. Malleus shows him the beauty of abandoned castles and Leona makes him ride a broom only for Malleus to discover the world looks different when you’ve got something to hold on to instead of floating midair. Leona acquires the right pillows for Malleus’ horns and Malleus keeps extra blankets because Diasomnia dorm is drastically colder than Savanaclaw.

Neither of them sleeps alone anymore.

They still fight, still have their lows interspersed in between the unnamed whatever they have created for themselves but somehow they work.

And somehow, Leona allows himself to feel.

Malleus is already out cold, tired from a day for royal duties and political small talk with people who are too afraid to approach him beyond sending messages through his wards. Leona works his fingers into charcoal colored hair and curls a midnight tip around his finger. Deep down in the security of his own mind, where he harbors all the vulnerable thoughts he never quite managed to crush, something akin to happiness forms.

Funny, how when things are going relatively well for him for once, they always seem to blow up in his face almost instantly.

He’s sprawled out on one of the metallic couches lining Ignihyde’s lounge, head propped up on one hand but ready to pounce and devour his prey at any moment. His trap has been laid from the very start, he’s been patient but most importantly smart, watching closely and acting accordingly. Victory was his, all he had to do is wait.

Idia moves his pawn and blatantly offers up his rook.

He grins at Leona, lopsided ugliness rearing its head as he openly baits Leona into trading his knight for Idia’s second rook. Move and lose his knight or stay and lose his bishop. Leona gives up his knight, Malleus raises a curious eyebrow, either way, Leona will take the game in the end.

Yellow eyes narrow in concentration, checking his options, most likely playing every possible scenario through in his head. Idia selects his queen.

“So …” He says and drums his fingers against the table. The screen flicks momentarily and Idia sets his queen down where Leona knows he won’t be able to reach her without throwing the game in the process. “How long has it been?”

Leona’s brows furrow. He moves his bishop and takes Idia’s knight. “How long has what been?”

Idia scratches his wrist nervously. His eyes scan across the board before he moves a pawn. “How long since you two started dating?”

Idia leans forwards and rests his elbows on his knees while he scrutinizes the tablet in between them. “I mean congrats.” He says and zooms in a little closer, “But couldn’t you have held out a little longer? I had money on you two getting your shit together around the magical shift championship before the end of the year. Couldn’t keep it in your pants any longer, huh?” Idia continues, cackling at his own joke, the sound reverberating through the cold lounge.

Leona’s stomach drops.

Malleus doesn’t look fazed from where he’s sitting on one of the geometric chairs they pulled towards the head of the table, his hands neatly folded on his lap as he waits for Idia’s next move. How, Leona’s not sure, since his spine suddenly straightens and familiar white creeps at the edges of his mind – a solid defense mechanism to hide how completely out of the water he is right now, having been caught in his own little game of hide and seek that was supposed to only have two participants.

It’s really his own fault for not calculating a mind as sharp as Idia’s as a possible threat.

No matter where Idia moves next, he’s got Leona cornered and Leona knows it’s losing one of his most important pieces or giving up the game entirely. Idia, quiet as he is, is a threat Leona knows not how to defeat.

Leona knows the status quo – hushed voices, closed doors, the conservatory during school hours and the dead of the night when nobody else is awake. That is what they are, a shadow of a relationship, lingering in the corner of your eye but always out of sight, something intangible like a gust of wind or poltergeist. There is a reason they never put a name to the something they’ve made for themselves. Label or not, ultimately, they have an expiration date. Malleus has a throne to claim and a land to call his own, something that waits for him while he learns at Night Raven, something Malleus can always come back to. No matter how you spin it, Malleus is moonlit flower petals and the star-spangled void while Leona comes from the light of day and dandelions sprouting through the cracks of dried out earth. There is no common ground between them.

It’s their unspoken truth. Neither of them has a reason to stay.

He can’t even force a stalemate.

Once their time has run out, the king of the Valley of Thorns will have obligations and duties, images to uphold, and rules and strictures to abide by, and Leona wants to be the deviation of the norm so badly. It’s a childish thought, to want something that grows and matures, that doesn’t make him his second choice and inevitably slips though his fingers.

Leona plays out the countless ways this could go in his mind, take the bishop loose his queen, trade a pawn for a knight, forfeit the round, but the status quo remains the same in none of them. He could pretend this conversation never happened, snap at Idia and laugh with Malleus at the ridiculousness of the existence of a them later. It’s the most likely thing to happen, him and Malleus in his bed a few hours from now, their something now a nothing that Leona could own for what little time they have left. Maybe Malleus won’t mention it at all then and go back to occupying the empty spaces of Leona’s room where the shadows crawl like maggots in a long dead carcass.

But if he says they’re something they’re not, he might lose Malleus.

Idia takes his last knight.

“We’re not.” He spits through gritted teeth as he takes Idia’s bishop with enough vigor his knee slams into the leg of the table. Somehow, saying it out loud is worse than he thought it’d be, the words leaving ugly bruises all the way from the lungs in his ribcage to the tight knot in his throat. Leona digs his nails into the palm of his hand until he smells copper. Next to him, Malleus uncrosses his legs.

Idia crumbles in on himself at Leona’s tone and even has the audacity to look startled. His hands come up in surrender while his back hits the solid couch behind him with a dull thud. Yellow eyes are now big and scared, and then they narrow almost accusingly.

“You’ve been partnering up in Crewel’s potions classes very time since October. Voluntarily.” He says, voice cracking when Leona shifts to sit. Still, Idia continues, pressing his back tight against the metal frame of the couch, “There’ve been more magical shift practice matches between Savanaclaw and Diasomnia this year than in the last four years combined and we’re not even halfway through the season. You’ve been studying for Trein’s tests together.”

“We’re not dating.” Leona growls. The sight of his fangs makes Idia recoil even further. The timer on the tablet flashes a warning, indicating Idia would forfeit his round if he didn’t act soon. Leona pins him with a stare.

“Okay.” Idia squeaks, reaches out an unsteady hand and puts him in check. “I get it. You’re not dating. Please don’t eat me.”

Leona nods.

Malleus stands up suddenly, his chair scraping against the polished concrete floor and making a vile sound, effectively turning both Leona’s and Idia’s attention towards him.

“If you’ll excuse me,” He says, voice oddly strained, “I believe I promised Sebek to train with him today. I wouldn’t want to be late.”

“B-But you said you’d play referee for us …” Idia argues but his own voice comes out thin and wavering. The blue fire on his head flares up a little in protest when his eyes flick towards Leona. Clearly, the notion of being alone with him makes Idia rightfully feel on edge. When he turns his head towards Malleus again he has already vanished, leaving only green particles of magic glistening like fireflies behind.

Idia pulls his knees towards his chest and puts his chin on top of them. “What’s his problem?” He asks, impossibly anxious.

The screen flashes in warning again. Leona sinks back into the uncomfortably solid couch and watches the time run down until it hits zero.

“Who knows.”

Malleus doesn’t show up at the conservatory for the rest of the week.

Which is only mildly concerning. Things come up all the time, they’re dorm leaders after all and the Ramshackle students have now recruited more members to their trouble bearing group of misfits than those two Heartsyabyul first years. Then there’s royal duties and extracurricular activities –

But Malleus avoids him in class as best as he can too. They don’t partner up in alchemy, Lilia reschedules their magical shift practice match this Thursday, and Leona’s room grows awfully cold at night. The darkness is a lot more unbearable when no one is moving in the shadows and staring out into the night sky.

Leona uses the time the same way he did before, sleeping, lazing, relaxing, turning his dreams into sand and watching them drift through the wind.

By day three, Leona realizes how detrimental Malleus had been to his health. Nights spent fooling around are filled with blissful sleep again and now that Malleus no longer keeps him company at the greenhouse, he can make Ruggie get him menchi katsu sandwiches before his nap. Braided hair remains brushed and ever so slightly wavy without slender fingers carding through it, tangling it in the process, and he can sprawl out as much as he wants in his bed again, taking up more space than any one person should ever feel entitled to.

Day five brings the gut-wrenching realization that he’s been abandoned. Idia simply pointing out how uncharacteristically close they’d been was enough to send Malleus running in a frenzy, scrambling for safer, prettier grounds where the grass was greener, and Leona remains the second choice.

It was his own fault for getting invested in ways he’d promised himself not to. After all, he has known for a while that you can’t hold sand in the palms of your hand. Fine grains will always slip through even the tiniest of gaps in between your fingers until no evidence of it ever having been there in the first place remains. Leona has long since learned that life is unfair like that. He thought he’d gotten used to it by now. When he presses his face into the strangely shaped pillow he stole from Malleus’ room he realizes he might never fully get used to it.

He throws the pillow across the room.

So yeah, he’s in a bit of a shit mood, has been for the past few days, and the sight of his fellow dorm leaders certainly isn’t helping. Vil has his hands on his hips, staring down at Leona with narrowed eyes as Kalim practically vibrates next to him. Leona internally braces himself for a jumbled mess of words pouring out of the Scarabia dorm head’s mouth. He squishes his head deeper into his own pillow and pretends to be asleep.

“I know your awake, Kingscholar.” Vil informs him, lips the shade of the ripe apples curving downwards at Leona’s childish antics.

“He is?” Kalim asks, leans down to directly stare into Leona’s soul and begins poking his cheek. “Wake up, Leona! The sun has come to greet you and so have Vil and I! Well, we’re really more here to figure out what’s bothering you so much. Though that’s not really true. We kind of know already but we came to make things aaaall better again so come on, come on! Get up and stop being all mopey!”

To his credit, Leona really tries his best to fall asleep and not chew off his schoolmate’s faces but Kalim keeps jamming his index into his cheek and his patience has been thoroughly run to the ground so he can’t really be blamed when he snaps his fangs in Kalim’s direction.

Kalim pulls his hand back in time to keep all of his fingers intact and cradles his hand against his chest before a giant grin spreads across his face.

“Vil was right!” Kalim cheers while Vil fixes him with another cold glare, “Haha, Leona you’re so silly, pretending to be asleep when you were wide-awake the entire time. Do you always do that? I should come talk to you more often then so you’re not all lonely. Of course you’d be gloomy like this, I’d be super sad if I didn’t have Jamil to keep me company too. But Jamil is always by my side so it’s not a problem. Well, he isn’t right now but that’s because he’s gone to Diasomnia with Azul and Riddle but he would’ve come if I’d asked him to-”

“Kalim” Vil says, placing a manicured hand on the teen’s shoulder, “Please don’t get off topic.”

As if he’d been burnt by hot iron, Kalim’s eyes shoot open in realization before filling with determination unrivalled by any other. “That’s right!” Kalim shouts far louder than necessary and stands a little taller, “Why are you and Malleus fighting?”

Leona’s ears twitch violently at the sudden rise in volume.

“What the hell, Kalim. Don’t go bursting people’s eardrums like that.” He snarls but Kalim merely shoots him a sheepish smile.

“Sorry Leona!”

“No you’re not.” Leona growls but decides to drop the argument in favor of sinking deeper into the mattress. He’s not in the mood for chipper people like Kalim right now, best to try and keep the conversation as short as possible so he could return to his nap.

“Whether Kalim’s sorry or not is of no importance right now.” Vil cuts in, voice smooth but cold, letting them both know that he won’t tolerate any more straying from whatever plan they’ve come to execute.

“But as Kalim has mentioned, we have come here to discuss a rather urgent matter with you,” Vil continues, “and we’d greatly appreciate your help.”

“I’m not in the mood.” Leona yawns and pulls his blanket over his shoulder. He should have gone to the conservatory. How have Vil and Kalim even gotten inside his room? He’ll need to chew off Ruggie’s ear for that later.

“You have no choice in the matter.” Vil informs him, crossing his arms over his chest. “And sit properly. You have guests, act like it.”

Still set on continuing his afternoon nap, Leona merely flips him off and closes his eyes. A heeled boot grinds down hard on his tail that’s spilled out of the bed and onto the floor.

Leona eyes shoot back open instantly, roar already rumbling through his chest, “You got a death wish, Schönheit?”

Vil looks entirely too pleased with himself, his lips turning upwards in a self-satisfied smile. Arrogant bastard. Entirely unbothered, Kalim plops down next to Leona and sprawls out like the spoiled prince he his as he stretches his legs across Leona’s thighs.

“Hey!” Leona warns but Kalim has already begun blabbering again.

“Did you know it’s been raining in Diasomnia for the past few days?” He asks, sinking into the plethora of pillows, “If this keeps up all the flowers will drown! Not that the flowers there bloom very often so it’s not like anyone will notice. They’re more like vines or some other spooky plant. I’m no good with herbology but Jamil would know for sure! But the plants are scary and dark and have thorns all over, which makes sense if you think about it, but just because they’re prickly doesn’t mean they should die! Sebek is really upset too. No matter what he does, Malleus won’t cheer up. Even Lilia is at a loss of what to do! Well, that’s not really true. He said ‘ah young love’ and left but he’s not really helping. That’s not true either, he brought Malleus ice cream and I think that cheered him up a little so that’s good but-”

“Kalim,” Vil says for the second time, his voice the slightest bit agitated, “get to the point.”

“Right!” Kalim sits up a little straighter and then leans forward to stare directly into his eyes, “You need to talk to Malleus and sort things out.”

Leona rolls to the side. “There’s nothing to sort out.”

“Awww don’t be like that!” Kalim whines, pushing at Leona’s arm. When he doesn’t budge Kalim throws himself on top of him dramatically.

“Things are getting out of hand, Kingscholar.” Vil’s smooth voice cuts in before Kalim can open his mouth again, “Both, you and Malleus are miserable and you’re not being very secretive about it. I understand that every couple’s first fight seems rather dramatic to them but-”

“We’re not a couple.” Leona interrupts. He can feel his eyebrow twitching in irritation so he grabs his pillow and pulls it over his head to block out the noise. Finally, he’s met with the silence he wished for. Vil and Kalim stare at him. This is his chance, Leona only needs three seconds to fall asleep so any moment and –

“Excuse me?” Vil says, sounding absolutely scandalized.

“But-” Kalim begins, frantically looks from Leona to Vil and back to Leona again, “you are.”

“No.” Leona clarifies, putting more heat into his words. He turns to the other side and successfully pushes Kalim off with a shove of his shoulder. “We aren’t.”

“Yes you are!” Kalim insists. If he’s offended at all by Leona wrestling him off then he doesn’t show it. Instead, he throws his hands up high in the air and gestures wildly, “Malleus buys you menchi katsu sandwiches! And Ruggie says Malleus’ pillows are in your room!”

“Jack has seen Malleus slip from your room during his morning runs.” Vil adds, brows furrowed.

“We were discussing magical shift practice.” He lies. They do talk about magift. Sometimes.

“Until sunrise?” Vil presses.

Leona shrugs. “I want to win against RSA this season.”

“So much so that you sacrifice your precious sleep to discuss strategies with Malleus?”

“I really want to win.”

“I know an act when I see one, Leona.” Vil says, scrunching his nose in distaste.

“I’m not lying.” Leona crosses his arms behind his head, “We’re not together.”

“Then get together!” Kalim shouts. He’s on top of Leona again, only now he puts all his weight on him too. Breathing is suddenly harder, especially since Kalim’s elbow is dangerously close to his stomach and Kalim isn’t known for his finesse or balance, “It took Jamil and I a reeeally long time to become friends again too. We’ve sort of been dancing around each other after his overblot but he’s promised to be super open and talk to me about everything. Maybe you guys should just talk and things will solve themselves! It helped us a lot.”

“Kalim is right.” Vil interjects, “You two really need to talk about your feelings and sort this mess out.”

“You’re in no position to tell me that, Schönheit.” Leona spits. This conversation has been going on for too long and he can feel a migraine starting to form behind his eyes that he’d rather sleep off than deal with. “Or have you and Rook finally ‘talked about your feeling and sorted this mess out’ without my knowledge?”

Vil narrows his eyes at him dangerously, “This isn’t about Rook and I.”

“Guys!” Kalim calls, waving his hands dramatically between them, “No fighting, just love. Or, talking about love I guess.”

Kalim doesn’t falter under the combined glares of Vil and Leona directed his way. Instead, he continues, unfazed, “Really, Leona, if you and Malleus would sit down and talk about everything then you’d be much happier, I promise. Jamil and I also still have problems but we talk all the time and -”

“And have you considered that your godawful babbling might be the reason you guys fight?” Leona snaps. Somewhere along the line he’s lost his blanket and Kalim has made a complete mess of his pillows. He’s cold and cranky and doesn’t want to talk. He’s in a shit mood and doesn’t want to think about Malleus but if Kalim insists then fine, he’s got some pent-up aggression to get rid of anyways. “You keep talking and talking and you never stop. Maybe if you didn’t cling to Jamil so much and gave him enough space to think without you constantly running your mouth Jamil wouldn’t feel so trapped all the time. You are constantly glued to him, hell, he can’t even play basketball without having to worry that you’ll magically show up out of nowhere so maybe if you could give people some space, like I asked you to, then Jamil wouldn’t have betrayed you in the first place.”

It's unfair of him to unload his aggression on Kalim but nothing in life is fair and quite frankly, it feels good to let off some steam, even if Kalim didn’t deserve such harsh treatment.

When he looks up there’s a weird mixture of sadness, insecurity and realization swirling in deep red eyes, and Leona does not feel bad, not even a little bit. He presses his face into his pillow again.

“Leona.” Vil says with a heavy sigh, “That really was uncalled for.”

They don’t slam the door shut when they leave. Leona feels like they should have.

The buzzing of his phone pulls him out of his nap. He blinks the remnants of sleep still clinging desperately onto his lashes away and squints at the fluorescent blue glow of the screen. It’s still too bright when he turns it down to the lowest setting but he stares at the notification anyways.

from: malleus                                                       
We need to talk.

Leona ignores how his heartbeat picks up ever so slightly, glances at the time and then the window. Yeah, no, it’s still day five and the sun hasn’t even begun to set yet. He’ll need at least a full week to be able to look the lizard in the face without immediately wanting to punch his lights out. There’s no way his ego will allow anything less, especially after his dumb stunt of developing feelings, something he’s always considered himself above.

to: malleus                                                            
not now

from: malleus                                                        
When?

to: malleus                                                            
later

He shuts his phone off for emphasis, not that Malleus would be able to tell. Night has yet to fall and all of tomorrow’s classes are entirely skippable which means he’s got 24 full hours of sleep ahead of himself. If he’s lucky he could even rope Ruggie into bringing him a menchi katsu sandwich.

The left side of the bed feels incredibly cold that night.

Rage isn’t quite what he’s feeling when his phones flashes two missed calls from Cheka, one from Malleus, and three texts from Farena. Rage means hate and yes, maybe he hates Farena and his overbearing nature, how he was never there but tried so hard to be, how he got what Leona deserves without even trying. Maybe he hates Cheka because he too will sit on a throne that doesn’t belong to Leona but feels like it should and just because his underlying jealousy isn’t reasonable doesn’t mean it isn’t still there. Maybe he hates Malleus for everything he is and everything he isn’t, everything he could be but doesn’t want to be.

And maybe Leona hates himself a little too.

Maybe he hates himself because sometimes he dreams.

And sometimes he remembers.

No matter how hard he tries he can’t forget the times him and Farena made up constellations in hushed voices out on the front porch late at night when their parents were asleep, the times Cheka crawled into his bed and looked at him like some sort of hero because he had a bad dream and Leona could chase the demons away. Maybe he misses Malleus and their chess games and the way Malleus’ voice sounds in the morning when he’s still hoarse from sleep. And maybe that little part of himself misses small moments like that where it feels it’s just him and his brother or his nephew or Malleus and the whole world around them could fuck off.

Maybe he misses that so much it aches.

And that can’t be rage.

Rage isn’t the right word for what he’s feeling.

Rage doesn’t hurt like this.

Ruggie doesn’t bring him a menchi katsu sandwich. Instead, he pulls up every single one of the sunblinds.

“Enough is enough.” Ruggie says, towering over a still tightly wrapped up Leona, “You’re twenty, Leona. And a dorm leader.”

“So?” Leona tries pulling his blanket over his head to block out the sunlight but Ruggie has always been quick on his feet and snatches it away quickly.

“So man up and confess.” Ruggie tells him as he folds the blanket into a neat square and puts in on the foot of his bed.

“Confess what?”

“I’m not the smartest but I’m not dumb, Leona.” Ruggie states, swatting at Leona’s outstretched hand when he tries to get his blanket back. Neither of them wins that battle and the blanket falls to the floor instead. “And neither are you.”

“There’s nothing to confess.” Leona growls., grabbing the soft fabric and pulling hard. Ruggie steps on his fingers.

“Liar.” Ruggie accuses and kicks the blanket into the small space beneath Leona’s bed where neither of them could reach without having to crawl along the floor where there’s dirt and dust bunnies and the remnants of Leona’s trash that he turned to dust instead of throwing it away.

“I don’t usually get involved in other people’s business, but this is getting ridiculous.” Ruggie says dramatically, “You need to get your act together already. Even the cubs have noticed you acting more pissy than usual.”

“I’m not pissy.”

“Lovesick then.”

“Ruggie” Leona warns. The air turns dry as he concentrates his magic, tainting the room in a sunset glow as the heat slowly rises.

Ruggie throws his hands up in surrender but doesn’t move. “Okay, not lovesick then, just very emotionally and romantically confused. I get it. We’ve all been there, man.”

The glare Leona throws his way was supposed to shut him right up but it’s not like Ruggie actually listens to him any more than he absolutely needs to so he continues his little speech.

“Look, I know you’re in love with Malleus, you guys aren’t as subtle as you think. All I’m saying is that you’d feel better if you got things off your chest and finally admitted it.” Ruggie says, settling down cross-legged next to a curled-up Leona, and pets his head patronizingly. Or maybe with gentle comfort, intended to reassure rather to condescend, but to Leona it’s all the same.

“I’m not in love with the weird lizard.” He grumbles.

“Leona.”

He’d really hoped he could not address any of this and pretend things never happened, shove his feelings down into the depths of his stomach where they could collect dust for the rest of his life. Leave it to Ruggie to ruin his plans.

This isn’t Leona’s area of expertise. Feelings have always been and will continue to always be something that’s a little beyond him. They’re complicated but not in the way his schemes or chess are. There’s no apparent structure and no signs for you to piece together the bigger picture until it’s too late and before you know it someone serves you your heart on a silver platter and you haven’t even noticed the gaping hole in your chest. He can’t crush his feelings in his fist and turn them to sand but he can squish his face into a white pillow and mumble them into its soft fabric, hoping Ruggie’s sharp ears won’t pick up on how embarrassing this is for him. For better or worse, Ruggie knows him well, too well, and as much as Leona loathes to admit it if there was one person he could always count on it’s Ruggie.

“Maybe,” He says, nose firmly buried in white cotton, “Just maybe, I don’t hate him as much as I thought I did.”

“You can do better than that.” Ruggie says and leans back on his elbows, “C’mon, Leona, you can’t call that a proper confession for the second prince of the Afterglow Savanna, Savanaclaw’s dorm head, the next big magical shift star in the making-”

“Shut up, I get it, okay?” Leona groans, swinging his pillow in Ruggie’s direction and knocking Ruggie satisfyingly on the floor. His blanket is lying on the carpet and his pillow next to Ruggie, but Leona isn’t cold. He’s radiating heat from his sense of injustice and his childlike confusion about the slowness of change and swallows the reluctance of wanting for things to improve if it’s at the cost of living differently.

Then he takes a plunge into the deep end.

“I think I’m in love with Malleus.” He says, not to the pillow or the empty space of his room but to Ruggie.

Suddenly it all feels real.

“You think?” Ruggie challenges. He’s still on the floor but he’s smiling at Leona, like a sunflower rearing its head towards the sky.

“Shut up!” He growls and sits up on the bed, “I know it, alright? I’m in love with Malleus.”

“Ha! I knew it.”

When Ruggie laughs Leona throws another pillow at his face, and when that doesn’t work he tries suffocating him with it.

And somewhere along the line, Leona starts laughing too.

Chapter Text

The trek to the cafeteria is entirely uneventful until his way is suddenly blocked.

Silver stands up from where he’s crouched near a tree and moves to stand in front of Leona, the bird that was previously perched on his finger taking seat on his shoulder instead while a squirrel nervously tugs at the leg of his pants when it sees him approach.

“Apologies.” Silver says instead of stepping away like his critters want him to. Silver always stands annoyingly tall and regards everyone with the kind of polite indifference that is expected from a royal guard but today there’s a lingering uneasiness surrounding him that is so uncharacteristic for him it makes Leona stop in his track. “But I believe Malleus wishes to talk to you.”

The squirrel scurries away to hide behind a tree when Leona comes to a halt in front of Silver who makes no move to stop obstructing the narrow dirt path. He really should stop taking shortcuts.

“I know.” He says and bares his fangs at the squirming squirrel. It should have known that it had been safer next to Silver than behind a tree. But Silver doesn’t take the bait, the road remains blocked, and the squirrel takes its chance and disappears into the branches. “Is that all?”

“That would be all, yes.” Silver answers, takes a step aside and bows his head. “Please excuse the interruption.”

Leona lets his eyes linger on Silver a moment longer. He can count the times he has spoken to him on one hand. If you remove all the times Malleus had been part of their conversations then that number is definitely closer to nonexistent. It feels odd to know so little about someone Malleus is so close to. Leona wordlessly decides to take his leave.

He's made it past the squirrel’s hideout when Silver calls his name again.

“Kingscholar!”

“Hm?” When he turns around Silver is no longer bowing. There’s determination in his eyes but he nervously shifts his weight from one foot to the other ever so slightly. The hands he has crossed behind his back clench and unclench as he contemplates crossing a line he doesn’t have the right to cross. Still, Silver bravely ventures forward.

“It is fine if your feelings aren’t mutual,” he says and rights himself a little more, “but please stop toying with Malleus’ feelings.”

“SILVER!?” Sebek shouts, running towards them with incredible speed. He nearly trips over a lone branch sticking up from the ground but manages to keep his balance, and his face dirt free.

“SILVER!” he repeats, still unnecessarily loud, “LILIA BLEW UP THE KITCHEN AGAIN!”

The look on Silver’s face is the sort of defeated acceptance of a man who has been through this exact scenario too many times to still be surprised and yet somehow never learns not to be disappointed.

“HE WAS TRYING TO MAKE CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP” Sebek continues, flailing his hands through the air before he settles on running them through his hair, “BUT THEN – THEN … AND THE CHICKEN-”

“Can’t Malleus fix it?” Silver cuts him off. Somehow, he sounds not even the tiniest bit surprised but Leona can practically feel Silver’s exasperation settle into his own bones.

Sebek dejectedly shakes his head. “He still won’t come out of-” Then he notices Leona and visibly reels for a moment. He opens and closes his mouth like a fish out of water several times before he continues, his voice rising both in volume and pitch, “THE YOUNG MASTER IS TAKING CARE OF IMPORTANT BUSINESS IN HIS ROOM AND WISHES NOT TO BE DISTURBED RIGHT NOW.”

“Of course.” Silver sighs heavily with a shake of his head and turns towards Leona again. “If you’ll excuse me, there’s important business I need to take care of.”

Leona yawns and stretches his arms over his head, “Go ahead.”

With a curt nod of his head Silver turns and leaves, Sebek following shortly after him.

There’s only one menchi katsu sandwich left when he arrives at the cafeteria and a line that’s easily skipped with a halfhearted roar. The walk back to the conservatory is much less fun when there’s no one waiting there for him.

Leona gets his menchi katsu sandwich but not his peace.

“Kingscholar!”

Jamil stands in front of him and blocks the sunrays filtering in through the glass front of the greenhouse. Some of his neat little braids have started to become undone, the strands now sticking up like a sore thumb, and his usually calm and calculating demeanor has turned into one of a madman out for blood. Leona tears the paper off his sandwich.

“Care to explain what in the name of the Sorcerer of the Desert you told Kalim?”

Leona watches him tap his foot impatiently against the tile floor for all of two seconds before the smell of his lunch overpowers his senses. “Nothing really.” He says with a shrug and lifts the sandwich to his mouth.

Jamil slaps the thing out of his hands before he can take a bite.

The world turns slow motion. He watches his menchi katsu sandwich fly through the conservatory, over the rhododendron and across the nightshades until it catches on one of the legs of the wire-framed chairs stacked up next to the entrance where it splatters across the tiled floor and creates an absolute mess of their surroundings. The sauce drips down a lone snapdragon, the still steaming meat bun slides halfway across the conservatory, he doesn’t know where the buns have flown off to. Jamil doesn’t care about any of it.

“What the fuck, Viper?” he spits, betrayal and disappointment etched into his very core as he laments his loss.

Jamil narrows his eyes at him and takes a deep, calming breath.

“What did you say to Kalim, Kingscholar?” he repeats, patience running thinner with each word he presses through his teeth. “He went out to see you yesterday with Vil but he hasn’t come back since then and I get the feeling this has something to do with you.”

Leona huffs, crosses his arms behind his head and slouches against the tree, “I didn’t say anything to him.”

“Funny,” Jamil says, placing his hands on his hips, “that’s not what Vil told me.”

Of course that bastard would rat him out.

He scrunches his nose. “I only said the truth.”

“And were you aware of how much damage you were causing in doing so, Leona?” Jamil seethes, his fingers rubbing slow circles into his temples to ease some of the tension that’s been accumulating for far too long. This isn’t the first time Kalim’s antics have caused him a terrible migraine, and knowing Kalim, it likely is far from the last.

Right now, the steadily building headache is a shared sentiment. Leona really wanted to spend his day in peace and blissful silence. He should have known he wasn’t granted even the smallest of hopes to come true. Still, he furrows his brows in annoyance and decidedly turns away from Jamil. “Then why don’t you go talk things out with him?”

“That’s rich coming from you.” Jamil jabs. Leona bares his fangs but Jamil hardly pays him any mind. “As things stand, I have no way of talking to Kalim at the moment.”

“Thought you guys were joined at the hip.” Leona yawns, burying his face into the crook of his elbow, his tail whipping from side to side behind him as an ugly smile spreads across his face. “Don’t tell me, has he finally grown sick of being with a backstabber like you?” Unlikely considering how stupidly loyal Kalim is to him. Still, Leona can’t help but bark out a humorless laugh at the sheer irony of such a situation.

“No.” Jamil snaps, his own rage flickering to life like the dancing flame of a candle threatening to catch your curtains on fire. Instead of burning the house down, Jamil takes another deep breath, and continues in an exasperated tone as he pinches the bridge of his nose, “But he’s currently inside Mostro Lounge and neither Jade nor Floyd will let anyone inside.”

“He’s hiding out with the fish?” Leona asks, raising an eyebrow.

“So it seems.”

“Then wait for Azul to open Mostro Lounge.” He yawns and curls in on himself a little more, “They won’t turn away customers.”

“That wouldn’t be for another four hours and I’d prefer to have matters settled now.” Jamil presses through tightly clenched lips. His left eye twitches, Leona thinks he might pop a vein.

“Life’s unfair.” He says and shrugs.

“Indeed.” Jamil agrees with a nod of his head, “Which is why you’ll go to Mostro Lounge and talk Azul into letting me in.”

“Absolutely not.”

“If you won’t come willingly,” Jamil says and crosses his arms, “then I’ll be forced to make you.”

The air around them starts spinning in a circle, the sudden breeze heavily laced with magic while Jamil’s eyes flare up in a dangerous red. Why did Jamil have to have such an annoying power? It’s like having Ruggie on his case all over again.

Leona groans and pushes up on his elbows. Today has been too long already and he hasn’t even had lunch yet. He pulls his lips back in a snarl, far enough to show the sharpness of his canines glistening dangerously in the sunlight.

Then his vision goes black as he is overtaken by the sleep he so desperately wished for.

The sound of his knuckles rasping against a heavy oak door snaps him back to reality. Jamil is next to him, arms crossed and smug smile painted across his face.

Leona has half the mind to maul him right then and there but the door swings open before he gets the chance to pounce. The heavy wood creaks ominously and fills the empty halls around them with an eerie screech. Floyd pokes his head out, careful to open the door just enough to give them a quick once over without making an opening big enough for them to brute force their way past him. Gold and olive eyes trail up and down before they settle in a rather unimpressed stare.

“We’re closed today.” He says and shuts the door without another word.

Leona shares a look with Jamil, shrugs and turns on his heels. Jamil knocks again before he takes the first step, louder this time as he lets some of his pent-up anger out on the door.

It’s Jade who opens this time, the smile on his face as pleasant as it is fake.

“I believe my brother has already informed you that Mostro Lounge has been shut down for today, no?”

“We were just about to leave actually.” Leona answers and takes another step.

Jamil pins him with a stare. “No, we weren’t.”

The smile on Jade’s face remains eerily still. “If you seek to make a contract then I advise you to come back at a later time. Azul is currently busy but I’m sure he’d be more than happy to hear you out once he’s settled the matter at hand-”

“We not here for that.” Jamil interrupts and steps forward. Jade steps back and starts pulling the door shut. “But-” Jamil continues and wedges his foot in between the door and its frame before Jade could close it entirely. “Leona wants to apologize for destroying Azul’s contracts.”

“No, I don’t-” Leona begins. The smile slips from Jade’s face for a fraction of a second, replaced by something far more serious. They all know that Azul’s overblot had left a bitter taste in the mouth of the twins, even more so than it did in Azul’s. If it hadn’t been for Azul’s quick recovery and constant reassurance that he was indeed fine then that day would have likely seen more than one wizard snap. Jamil shoots him a pointed glare. The smile returns to Jade’s face, no less pleasant but now there’s an edge of danger that Leona knows too well as a predator himself. Leona throws his hands up in surrender and sighs exasperatedly.

“Is that so?” Jade asks, tapping a finger against his chin in thought. “I’m sure Azul would appreciate the apology at any other given time. But the truth of the matter is Floyd and I have been given precise instructions to let no one enter unless explicitly stated otherwise. I’m afraid I must ask you to return another time.”

“That’s not possible.” Jamil retorts, his voice stained when Jade starts forcing the door closed despite Jamil’s foot still firmly wedged in between the doorframe. “You see, the apology comes much too late as is and prolonging it any further would only make matters worse. As a prince, Leona simply can’t afford being on bad terms with a wizard as powerful as Azul. It would be bad politics on his side and I’m sure the future King of the Afterglow Savanna will reward you greatly for showing such kindness to his uncle.”

The corners of Jade’s lips curl upwards, revealing a neat row of pointed teeth. Then he grinds his heel into Jamil’s foot and closes the door shut when Jamil inevitably pulls back.

They stare at the door in silence for a moment, the intricate engravings almost mocking in the way they curl and swirl playfully like the current of the ocean. Leona half expects the twins to emerge and remove them by force but the door stays shut and the hallway remains empty.

Leona lets out a deep growl and turns to Jamil. “Don’t speak for me ever again.” He hisses.

“Don’t gaslight Kalim then.”

“I didn’t-”

The door swings open again.

“Come on in but keep matters quick.” Jade tells them, bowing his head slightly as he welcomes them into the lounge.

Floyd leans against the wall a little further back, keeping close watch on their every move as he watches them with a lazy smile. “Azul haates it when little fishies make themselves important, you know?”

“Gentlemen.” Azul cuts in, clapping his hands together as he easily takes center stage. “If you don’t mind, I’d-”

“Where’s Kalim?” Jamil interrupts, stalking past Azul and further into the lounge, carefully studying his surroundings as he ventures into the room. The twins move immediately but Azul raises his hand and they stand down again, following Jamil’s frantic search with their eyes instead. He’s leaning over the bar to make sure Kalim wasn’t hiding in the empty space underneath the counter when a small voice calls his name.

“Jamil?” A pile of blankets near the front quips. Poking his head from his makeshift nest, Kalim stares at them with wide eyes.

“Kalim!” Jamil is in front of the fluffy mountain Kalim is buried under instantly, squishing his cheeks as he inspects the other for any obvious injuries. He moves with practiced ease, almost clinical in his precision. When he finds nothing and the comfort of not having to explain how he lost the hair of the Asim family washes away the last of his doubts, he returns to his usual self, sharp and exasperated, and snaps, “What are you doing?”

“Giving you space, obviously!” Kalim says, sounding almost proud of himself but his face quickly falls. “I don’t want to annoy you any more than I already do, heh. I figured you’d appreciate some time alone after everything that happened during winter break so you can play basketball and do all the fun things you don’t usually get to do with me around!”

Kalim’s eyes widen in realization. Grabbing Jamil’s wrists and pushing his hands away from his face, he continues his verbal onslaught, “Jamil! Why are you here? This is supposed to be your me-free time and you’re totally ruining it by being here!”

Jamil sighs but tries his best to relax the corners of his face that seem to have etched themselves into a perpetual frown. “Idiot, I thought we agreed to talk about things. Don’t go around assuming I need time away from you without any reason.” He says, the lines on his forehead slowly disappearing.

“Oh, yeah sorry about that.” Kalim rubs his neck sheepishly, “I guess I jumped ahead of myself again, huh? And we talked about that too … but I would have come to talk to you eventually. I just wanted to give you some breathing room first.”

The next sigh is long, exasperated but ultimately relieved. “And how long were you planning on staying away?”

“I don’t really know.” Kalim admits, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, “About a week maybe?”

“A week?!”

“Is that not enough?” Kalim asks, eyes big. “I could try giving you more time, but I don’t know if I could hold out much longer without you, hehe.” He says as he scratches his cheek in embarrassment.

“That’s entirely too long.” Jamil presses, sounding downright scandalized at the mere thought. Ultimately, it would be Jamil’s head on the line were anything to happen to Kalim, and just because the fish wouldn’t go out of their way to hurt Kalim, his safety also wouldn’t be guaranteed – Floyd has the tendency to get far too overexcited and Azul is continuously wrapped up in spinning his schemes. Jade is another matter entirely, one that Leona doesn’t want to think about. With the addition of Kalim to the mix something was bound to go south sooner rather than later.

“Oh good! I didn’t want to be away that long anyways.” Kalim smiles, taking Jamil’s hands into his own, “And Azul would have probably kicked me out too by then.”

“Indeed.” Azul agrees, not sounding apologetic in the slightest. “I wouldn’t have closed Mostro Lounge for longer than strictly necessary. It’s bad business.”

“But this is so much fun, Azul.” Floyd chimes in, leaning forwards so he can rest his head on Azul’s shoulder and nuzzle his cheek. “We’ve never had a movie night before and you loove the blanket pile.”

“Personal feelings have no place when it comes to business.” Azul defends, wiggling in Floyd’s grip but ultimately giving in without much of a fight as he leans into Floyd’s touch.

“You should totally do movie nights at Mostro Lounge, Azul!” Kalim eagerly cuts in, “It’s been great!”

“Is that what you were doing the entire time you were gone?” Jamil asks incredulously. There’s a twitch in his brow that Leona notes smugly. While Jamil was frantically searching for him, Kalim was happily bundled up without so much as a care in the world – Leona considers it payback for destroying his menchi katsu sandwich.

“Yeah! Azul even made popcorn! Jade, Floyd and I take turns picking the movies because Azul likes those boring documentaries that make me fall asleep. It’s okay though because Jade says Azul secretly likes our movies, even if we sing along off key. And Azul has even played the piano so Floyd could have his very own song! Did you know that Floyd can sing really well? He's almost as good as you, Jamil!”

“That’s-“ Jamil begins, takes another deep, steadying breath and grits through his teeth, “nice.”

“But what about you?” Kalim asks, pulling Jamil closer to stare directly into his eyes, possibly even his soul. “Did you have fun without me, Jamil?”

“Something like that.” He tells Kalim, trying not to elaborate on how stressful it had been to find him. For someone so loud and obnoxious, Kalim has a tendency to get lost rather easily – well, kidnapped mostly but Leona sees no difference. What’s lost is lost, no matter the circumstances.

“We should head back to Scarabia.” Jamil exhales, the reality of not getting executed for losing the heir of the Asim-family finally settling in. “You’ve caused enough trouble for Azul and I’d prefer we leave before he decides to come up with another one of his contracts.”

“Oh, not at all. In fact, Kalim is a very precious guest to our fine establishment. One we’d hate to turn away.” Azul explains, putting one hand placatingly over his heart, “What I meant earlier is that if you hadn’t come to solve your problems, Jamil, we simply would have been forced to take matters into our own hands.”

“But seeing how we’ve already informed everyone that Mostro Lounge would be closed for the rest of the day, wouldn’t it be a shame if we wasted this perfect opportunity for a movie night?” Jade cuts in, placing his hand on Azul’s shoulder and squeezing gently.

“Yea, let’s watch more movies, Azul.” Floyd agrees, already moving towards the small pile of films stacked next to the projector and sorting through them.

Leona detaches himself from where he was slouched against the wall and makes it almost all the way to the door before Azul takes a measured step, swiftly moving in between the exit and him.

“Since you made the long way over to Mostro Lounge you simply have to stay a little longer.” Azul says, voice so smooth it grates on Leona’s nerves, “As the humans like to say, the more the merrier, no? Besides, you still haven’t had the opportunity to do what you initially came here for. But just this once, let’s put the fun before business, for Floyd’s sake.”

Leona looks over Azul’s shoulder. It’s roughly five meters until the door. He could make a break for it but Jade and Floyd flank either of Azul’s sides and block his escape route. He sighs heavily and tries a different approach, “You’re really going to miss another day of profits for a movie night?”

The smile across Azul’s face widens forcefully. “Jade and Floyd have already decided on their own. I couldn’t deny them even if I wanted to.”

The unspoken bond tying the eels to Azul is incredibly annoying. There’s little Azul wouldn’t do to keep his precious companions happy, not that the sentiment wasn’t returned. Before he can say anything else Kalim grabs his foot and tugs hard. Caught off guard, Leona tumbles and falls right into the soft prison he tried so hard to avoid.

Kalim is on him in an instant, giving Leona one of his overly zealous hugs that feel more like slowly being suffocated, and pets his hair like a tame housecat. Jamil pulls him back in time to narrowly avoid Leona’s teeth wedging themselves in the meat of Kalim’s hand.

“Cuddle pile!” Floyd exclaims far too happily, stretching his arms as wide as humanly possible as he cages Azul and Jade in and rests his weight on them until they topple over and fall on top of Leona, successfully knocking the breath right out of his lungs. Kalim finds the situation entirely too funny so he laughs loudly and hugs Jamil closer, joining the heap of limbs they have become. Even Azul looks somewhat fond, buried beneath the combined weight of the twins. Jamil is just resigned to his fate.

Yeah, no, Leona’s been forced into too many ‘cuddle piles’ back in the Afterglow Savanna to know that there’s no escape if he doesn’t act fast but disentangling himself now is utterly pointless. He doesn’t even know where his feet are. Someone sits back on his tail, there’s an elbow in his ear. If he concentrates, he can almost feel Cheka get ready to pounce. In a feral bout of self-preservation, Leona manages to throw them all off himself. He's hardly gentle when he pushes them away with a roar, coming to stand above them as looks down on their surprised faces.

Floyd is the first to start laughing. It’s only downhill from there until they’re all a giggling mess of unidentifiable second year limbs. It's almost startling to see them so carefree, with tears in the corners of their eyes and too little air in their lungs. It’s also probably the first time Leona has seem them act their age. Most importantly, it’s baffling enough to keep him from making a break.

Kalim pulls out his phone from the depths of the blanket pile. The fluorescent blue of the screen cuts through the dark atmosphere of Mostro Lounge and makes them all groan at the sudden brightness. Leona knows his eyes are more receptive to light which also makes them more sensitive to such harsh adjustments. How Kalim doesn’t even squint in discomfort when he’s quite literally burning his own eyes out is a mystery to him. As is, Kalim only happily tips away while his phone periodically vibrates in his hands.

“Ruggie says to pin you down until Jack and him come over. They’ll only be five minutes.” Kalim says and shoots Leona a happy smile, completely oblivious to the fact that he had doomed himself. Fighting off a few overzealous second years is one thing, adding Ruggie and Jack to the mix is simply a dirty move. Ruggie is crafty, cunning and the only reason his attendance this year isn’t abysmal, and Jack has those puppy eyes of his. If he doesn’t get out before they arrive he’ll be forced to spend the evening holed up in the blanket pile and listen to Floyd’s rendition of Kiss The Girl until his ears bleed. He eyes the door but Kalim continues.

“Ruggie also says he’ll tell Farena and Cheka that you were mean to us if you don’t stay.” he informs Leona, red eyes swiftly scanning across the screen, “And that he won’t buy you menchi katsu sandwiches for a month.”

Ruggie sure can be a pain in the ass if he wants to be. If it weren’t him being blackmailed, he’d almost be proud.

He eyes the door again. He could do it but Floyd shoots him a lazy smile as he sprawls out in front of Leona’s feet and his escape. Azul gives another sign with his hand and Jade sits up besides his brother, mirroring his expression and proudly showing off the sharp teeth lining the inside of his mouth.

“One movie.” Leona agrees with a disgruntled growl, “Then I’m gone.”

Kalim types another message, waits for the reply and gives Leona a thumbs up when his phone vibrates again. “I’ve invited everyone else too. Cater says to wait with the next movie until they’re here.”

It physically pains him to hold back the groan stuck in his throat. Instead, he growls and as a final act of defiance, and slinks to the floor at the very back, as far away from everyone else as Kalim will let him. If nothing else, he might as well get some sleep during the movie.

“Idia says he’ll only come if we watch Hollow Knight.” Kalim informs them.

“Eeeh? But there’s no singing in that one.” Floyd complains. Now that Leona has settled down he’s back to perusing the pile of movies they’ve procured, discarding every uninteresting option by carelessly throwing it in a corner.

“Tell him we’ll watch it.” Azul says, shifting so his head is pillowed on Jade’s shoulder.

“You don’t intend on watching it, do you?” Jade asks, a knowing smile spreading across his face.

“Of course not.”

Leona closes his eyes and tunes their conversation out. He’s slept under far worse circumstances in much worse place – this is child’s play. He only needs three seconds so he takes a deep breath, closes his eyes and wills for sleep take over.

The door swings open and Leona is instantly hit with the overwhelmingly sweet stench of apples and roses, making him gag at the sudden offensive smell. Vil strides in, as confident as he is beautiful, flanked by Rook who follows him with a smile just as creepily pleasant as Jade’s, and Epel, happily chatting with Jack and Ruggie.

“Yo, Leona.” The latter says casually, as if his current predicament couldn’t be traced back to the hyena, “How was the walk to the cafeteria?”

Leona doesn’t grace him with an answer but he bares his fangs at him before he turns away with a huff. Ruggie is hardly ever fazed with Leona’s antics anymore so he shrugs and makes his way towards where Kalim was hogging the bowl of popcorn.

“Sit properly, Kingscholar.” Vil chides, not even fully in the room yet. Leona slouches down even further. Amethyst eyes narrow but choose to scan across the mess Kalim has created within the last 24 hours instead, taking note of every blanket strewn across the floor and the chairs they stacked onto one another to create a little den in one of the corners of the room. A piece of popcorn crunches underneath a heeled boot and the pure horror painted across Vil’s face almost makes sticking around worth it.

“Ah, the beauty of youth.” Rook muses, stepping into Vil’s field of vision and somehow not tripping over his own feet or a stray blanket in the dark of the room. “The carefreeness of teenagers still unbound by societal responsibilities. Beauté! Don’t you agree, Vil?”

He smiles and holds his hand out for Vil to take. Naturally, Vil does. The contours of Rook’s face grow strangely soft when they touch, then he leads Vil to one of the few still clean looking tables at the back of the room. Vil slides smoothly into the booth, far away from the offending mess his peers have created while Rook takes hold of one of the untouched velvety looking blankets and gingerly wraps it around Vil’s shoulders. Epel looks at them with the pure disgust of a child having witnessed his parents making out, sticks his tongue out and pretends to gag. Jack elbows him in the side gently but Epel punches right back, with more force than anyone thought him capable of, least of all Epel by his shocked expression as Jack doubles over wheezing.

The door swings open again and one after another, Riddle and his entourage stride in, followed by an overly happy Ortho dragging a less than enthusiastic Idia by the sleeve of his hoodie into the lounge. Idia looks as anxious as he does appalled at having to leave the comfort of his room to do something so scandalous as socialize. His mood brightens however when he sees the projector propped up on one of the tables.

“How’d you get something like that?” He asks, crouching down to next to Azul and Jade, still close enough to Kalim to have the precious bowl of popcorn within arms-reach.

“Jade does the accounting for the school.” Azul explains, the slightest tinge of pride in his voice.

Not having taken a step further into the lounge since arriving, Riddle is still standing in the entrance, looking repulsed by what the normally clean and organized Mostro Lounge has turned into, much like Vil had.

“Queen of Hearts Rule Number 173: keep your surrounding prim and proper, especially on the third Thursday of every month when croquet shall be played in the evening rather than the morning!” He says instead of greeting them, his face already beginning to turn a faint shade of red when nobody pays his reprimanding any attention.

“Relax a little, Riddle.” Trey says and shoots his small companion a good-natured smile. “This isn’t Heartslabyul.”

Cater throws his arms around their shoulders, squishing his cheek against Riddle’s as he joins Trey’s everlasting mission of pulling the proverbial stick out of Riddle’s ass. “Totally! Let’s take a selfie instead, okay?”

Completely ignoring their seniors, Heartlabyul’s first years, naturally coupled with the entirety of Ramshackle dorm, huddle around where Jack was still trying to return to normal breathing. Epel, somewhat caught in between apologizing and being awfully proud of himself, is still carefully petting Jack’s back. Deuce, at least, has the decency to look worried but Ace has begun laughing at the hunched over Jack before Epel even had the chance to explain himself.

Farther up front, Idia tries to wrestle Floyd away from their selection of movies, and Leona has to give him some credit for the sheer balls it takes to tackle someone like Floyd over a stupid DVD. For an antisocial introvert, Idia at least has the nerve not to back down from a challenge, no matter how ill the odds are stacked against his favor. Considering his past, it’s not surprising. Idia has pulled the impossible off already once – Ortho serves as living proof.

Their little fight is nothing short of amusing, all long limbs and sharp elbows and a surprisingly funny mix of Idia lacking control over his lanky body and Floyd’s complete ignorance of his surroundings. They almost knock Riddle over twice in the process, neither of them any closer to actually putting their choice of movie in the DVD player.

“You can do it Idia!” Kalim cheers, throwing his hands up in the air and simultaneously knocking the popcorn bowl out of his lap with his enthusiastic cheers. Luckily, Jamil catches it in time before Azul makes them clean the entirety of Mostro Lounge in revenge. However, Azul seems entirely preoccupied shouting his own round cheers in Floyd’s favor and even Jade throws small words of encouragement his brother’s way, eyes reflecting a gleeful mirth as he watches Floyd take an elbow to the ribs. Riddle looks absolutely livid.

Always one to use distractions in his favor, Ruggie plops down next to Leona, offering him the stolen popcorn bowl. He’s managed to pick out a movie and start it without anyone noticing, the opening credits now playing with everyone’s attention still on the two fighting teens.

It's an old movie that he used to watch with Cheka, suited for children with bright colors and an easy to follow narrative, broken up by cheesy jokes and overexaggerated characters but with enough subtext and interesting plot twists to keep the viewer engaged. It’s a good choice, ridiculous enough for Floyd to enjoy but with just the right amount of layers to keep Idia from complaining. There’s even a few songs carefully splattered throughout the movie.

Leona takes a handful of popcorn and relaxes into the many blankets that have now become the floor of the lounge.

“Good choice.”

Ruggie shoots him a grin in return. The others catch on to Ruggie’s schemes by the time the opening credits roll across the screen. Floyd stops his foot in what would have been a rather undignified kick mid-air as his head snaps to the side.

“Hey-” Flyod begins to protest but his eyes stay glued to the screen, watching the storybook introduction of the movie. Even Rook, who has been watching the struggle intently, lets his eyes drift towards the movie and leans in close to whisper something into Vil’s ear.

It takes fifteen minutes and the entirety of the princess’ birthday party but eventually everyone has successfully scrambled to get a good view while somehow managing to both take up as much space as humanly possible while still sticking close enough to pass around the bowls of popcorn Trey has prepared in the meantime. Turns out, the second years are surprisingly cuddly seeing as they’ve reformed their pile of limbs. There’s a pleased smile on Vil’s face, much more real and honest than the one printed in magazines and movie posters as Rook’s hand gently rests on the small of his back, pointing out little details in a hushed voice, their faces awfully close together. At their feet, the first years have pretty much stacked themselves on top of one another and tangled their limbs beyond recognition. More than once has Ace complained about Deuce accidentally kneeing him in the side, or Epel about someone sitting on his hair. With less than a meter in height, Grim has disappeared into the depths of the pile, hopefully having found a small airhole to sustain himself for the rest of the movie but most likely already having been crushed by Jack’s constant shifting around.

The scene changes when the villain enters, all wild winds and thunderous storms as the celebrations come to an abrupt halt. Green flames lick up the screen and suddenly the biggest threat the kingdom has ever seen stands right in front of them. Her raven settles onto her staff and then her smooth voice carries throughout the ballroom, bringing despair with each accentuated word falling from her bloodred lips. She is terrifying in her own right, carrying herself like a queen yet when she speaks the ground beneath her feet trembles. Then she says –

“BOO!”

They all jump, shouts varying in volume and intensity echoing through the lounge. One of the popcorn bowls goes flying through the air and lands in between Cater and Trey. Ruggie jumps and huddles to the safety of the second-year blanket pile, his tail firmly wedged in between his legs.

Lilia laughs, far too chipper and sweet, and receives cold glares from everyone who can gather their wits semi-successfully.

“Sorry we’re late but we had a little trouble herding all the sheep together.” He says, picking up the bowl of popcorn and popping a few of the raw kernels at the bottom into his mouth. “But never mind all that, we’re here now and that’s all that counts, right?”

“Yay! Diasomnia is here!” Kalim cheers and throws his hands up in victory, “I almost thought you wouldn’t make it.”

For a fraction of a second, there’s a frown etched onto Lilia’s face but it’s gone as quickly as it came and Lilia slides into the booth next to Cater and gently nudges Kalim with his foot. “As if we could say no to a movie night.”

“Should we rewind the movie?” Riddle asks, already reaching for the remote but Lilia dismissively waves a hand.

“Don’t bother. We’ve seen it a hundred times already. It’s a classic in the Valley of Thorns.”

Leona lets his eyes flick behind Lilia and is met with the sight of a dozing Silver nuzzling into Sebek’s shoulder. Sebek stands ramrod straight and Leona can’t help but notice how instead of his usual tense self he looks more constipated right now, like his head was going to explode at any moment. It’s an effort to wrestle Silver over to the pile of second years without waking him up but Silver is a heavy sleeper and Sebek has experience in the matter. By the time they’ve all settled down again, Idia had already rewound the last few minutes they collectively missed since Diasomnia’s entrance.

The movie continues. The princess is now grown up and dancing through the forest with an entourage of little woodland critters.

Malleus is not there, not even when he scans the corners of the room and the darkest shadows. Leona decides it doesn’t bother him when the room around him grows quiet once again. With Ruggie having merged into the second-year pile, he has enough space to sprawl his legs out and make himself comfortable. It’s better this way anyways, with no one he has to share with. He has his bed back, and now the entirety of the floor, and it doesn’t bother him that the space around him always seems to grow cold without Malleus lurking in the shadows.

The movie is calm and comforting in its familiarity but as the clock ticks on and the plot progresses, he can’t help the way his tail whips back and forth almost angrily. It’s a fairytale and he’s always rather liked them for their simplicity, for how things never really were complicated even when they should be. There were rules and a clear structure, everyone plays a part that might never really gets important but at least serves a purpose. It’s not like real life because it’s not supposed to be, but something in the pit of his stomach curls and unfurls and contracts that doesn’t sit right with him.

It goes like this: every princess is innocent and beautiful, every dragon must be slain, and the story always holds true to their promised fairytale ending. Leona knows the end, has seen it a thousand times, and even told it himself to a half-asleep Cheka curled up on his bed, but when the prince raises his sword to strike the dragon down, he can’t shake the thought there’s got to be more to the story than that.

By the time the dragon falls Leona finds he can’t sleep but he also doesn’t want to keep watching anymore. He already knows the end, only this time he no longer likes it. He unlocks his phone instead. He’s no longer got any missed calls from Malleus, but a heart two sizes too big for his chest and fingers itching to tangle into midnight colored shadows. When he looks up again, Lilia is sitting next to him.

“I won’t tell you what to do,” Lilia says, eyes unseeingly staring straight ahead, “but Malleus is out on his nightly stroll. He should be at Ramshackle by now.”

Leona nods.

When he gets up nobody stops him.

If Leona put a little effort into some much-needed introspection he might be able to admit that he missed Malleus. He doesn’t but he makes his way through the hallways and doesn’t stop at the door this time when he sees it’s raining again. The courtyard is empty and Leona kicks up every puddle as he stalks towards Ramshackle dorm. His pants get soaked, with his sandals Leona is practically walking on water and wet soil. He doesn’t care about any of it when he finally sees Malleus.

Malleus looks harsher in the dim light of a clouded night, his edges sharper, nose straighter, face colder, all of his angles highlighted and on display as the shadows of Malleus’ tall form join the shadows of everything else. Pillowed against the ashgrey evening, Malleus looks saturnine, and Leona doesn’t like it one bit.

“Don’t make that face.” He says and shakes the wetness from his hair only for newly formed drops to soak it again immediately. “It doesn’t suit you.”

Malleus looks startled, head jerking back, spine straight, his mouth forming a small ‘o’ as it always does when someone catches him by surprise.

“Leona?” He asks, looks, lifts the corners of his mouth, lets them fall again when he remembers one week of absence, and repeats, “Kingscholar.”

The thing in his stomach does another twist, tight and hot and ugly.

“I’m here.” Leona says uselessly. Malleus can clearly see that, but Leona needs him to get it too. Falling in love requires little effort but loving someone is a continuous feat with struggles and failures lining the way. Leona’s not sure if it’s true love or not but it’s something, a start, and Malleus has to understand the gravity of the situation for him to move the first pawn and start a game he doesn’t know the rules of. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Malleus nods but doesn’t understand the way Leona wants him to. Instead, he cocks his head to the side and steps closer to cover Leona underneath his umbrella.

“I called you.” He says. The umbrella isn’t big enough to cover the both of them so Malleus tips it forward. Raindrops catch and slide into void black hair and flatten his bangs against his forehead.

“I was sleeping.” Leona answers truthfully. It’s always been easier to sleep than face the truth. When he’s asleep there’s no crown barely out of reach, no brother too busy for the chess games they stopped playing once Farena had taken up the throne, no Cheka reminding him of all that could have been and all that never will be, no Malleus promising him a space he might belong to. It’s always been easier to sleep but lately Leona has been dreaming.

And maybe things don’t need to be dreams anymore. Maybe he can make them a reality. He thinks he’s done sleeping now. Leona nudges Malleus’ arm so the umbrella covers his horns again and feels the rain on his cheeks.

“Why didn’t you inform me?” Malleus asks the handle of his umbrella, staring down at where Leona has placed his hand on Malleus’ forearm.

Leona swallows, spit turning to vinegar somewhere between his tongue and his stomach. “About what?”

“That you’d be sleeping.” Malleus says, gaze now fixed somewhere beyond their point of contact. “That I wouldn’t be able to talk to you.”

Because picking up the phone would have meant choking down all the words he knows he needs to say. Because texting back would have let Malleus know what he wants. Leona grew up in the wilderness of the Afterglow Savanna, he doesn’t know sweet and soft and tender, but Malleus has nestled between his ribs and molded himself against his core like a burrowed dragon protecting its treasures.

He wanted to tell him but Malleus had walked away. He needed to sleep instead.

“I didn’t think you’d care.” Is what he says instead, all the things he wants to confess suddenly stuck in the back of his throat like molasses. It’s better than the truth, it wouldn’t hurt Leona to have Malleus know that much, and part of it is true. Malleus had walked away. That meant he didn’t care enough to stay.

The sound Malleus makes is wretched. The wind turns, rain turning into downpour as the water falls relentlessly and thunder strikes the ground like an overcharged electric socket. Malleus moves the umbrella to cover Leona again.

“You didn’t think I’d care?” He asks, shouts, voice cracking twice. His face is a caricature of all the emotions a crown prince should never show – anger, betrayal, an overwhelming sort of sadness. His throat sounds hoarse and when Malleus exhales there’s the little puff of smoke again, only this time it smells foul like ashes and the whitehot thing Leona knows to be rage.

Leona shrinks back but doesn’t recoil when Malleus’ slit pupils narrow dangerously. Malleus is getting soaked again, rain turning to steam as soon as it hits leather clad skin.

“That doesn’t matter right now - that,” Leona begins and jostles the umbrella until it’s covering Malleus again. A cold stream of water drizzles onto both of their heads. Malleus sputters and coughs and somehow, the rain washes Malleus’ anger away as abruptly as it had come. His shoulders sag and he lets out a wet, defeated sigh that Leona could almost mistake for a sob.

Leona pushes his bangs out of his eyes and realizes their faces are only centimeters away, and what a ridiculous image they must be making, completely drenched and contorted over one another in a futile attempt to keep each other dry.

He laughs at the absurdity of the situation, then he laughs at the bewildered expression Malleus is making and at how easy everything could have been. He could bring Malleus into his space and have him warm the cold spots of his life. They could lie in the sunbeams and play chess and Malleus could show him all the abandoned castles and tell him about their history Leona’s never cared about before.

But Malleus had gone running at the mere mention of them being a couple.

It makes his throat constrict and stomach twist, like the idea of abandoning Malleus in the middle of a downpour. Leona drops his forehead onto Malleus’ shoulder.

“Malleus, we need to talk.”

Malleus stands still, caught in the rain and feet glued to the uneven dirt path. There’s no running anymore, no dodging the topic of what they are and aren’t, just Leona’s face in the crook of Malleus’ neck and Malleus hovering his hand above Leona as if he suddenly were too afraid to touch him. Malleus adjusts his umbrella to not do anything worse to them instead.

“Okay.” Malleus says. “Let’s talk.”

Chapter Text

They’re sopping wet when they arrive at the hall of mirrors. Leona has half considered which mirror to take and whose room to go to when he decides he doesn’t want to make that choice because it feels awfully final and he’s not sure he wants to face their inevitable end, even now when he’s staring directly at it.

He turns around but his question dies against Malleus’ mouth.

Malleus’ lips are starfire hot against his. Leona has already memorized their shape but he didn’t know how much he’s missed this, how much he missed Malleus. The umbrella drops to the floor and Leona tangles his fingers into wet hair as he presses closer, leans into the warm hand on his cheek and kisses back with just as much fervor and desperation. He swallows the sound Malleus makes deep in his throat like he’s a dying man and this is his last meal. When Malleus pulls back again it’s entirely too early and Leona has to fight the urge to chase after him.

“What was that for?” He asks in a halfhearted attempt to distract from how breathless he is.

Malleus looks at him, eyes lidded and swirling with all the emotions Leona is too afraid to put a name to. “Because I don’t do it enough.”

And then Malleus kisses him harder, all teeth and desperation like the first time at the magical shift field. His hands are holding Leona close, clutching onto him, and Leona suddenly feels dizzy. He needs something steady, something to ground himself. He needs the oppressing heat to keep his mind from wandering, dreaming, hoping. He needs to let Malleus in and never have him leave again.

He grabs Malleus by the collar and pushes him through the mirror.

It’s not raining in Savanaclaw, dry and hot and familiar. Malleus gathers his footing before he tumbles face first into the sand. Leona shakes his head like a wet dog and splashes hum with the residue of the downpour still clinging to his clothes.

“Leona-senpai?” A first year Savanaclaw student calls. He’s flanked by four of his peers, two Leona recognizes from the magical shift team, another a promising basketball player and the last an uprising member of the track and field club. They all look at him dumbfounded, then at Malleus, back to Leona.

“You’re a little later than usual.” He says, clueless but suspicious.

It’s not late. The sun has yet to set, still early enough for the other beastmen to finish cleaning up after their evening workout routine. Leona normally comes back from the greenhouse by the time they’re doing stretches. They’re in the middle of cleanup now, and by the puzzled looks on their faces, Leona figures they have never seen Malleus before, nor any idea of who he is.

They collectively keep cautiously looking between Malleus and him as if they’re not sure Malleus was safe to be around and whether or not they could trust Leona on that matter. Leona sighs, vaguely motions towards Malleus and says, “You don’t need to worry. He’s fine. He’s my …” He turns to Malleus and squints thoughtfully. His what exactly? It’s rather bad timing, they were just about to have that particular conversation. Malleus is looking at him now too, just as expectantly as the first years gathered around them, and waits for Leona to decide what he is to him.

“Well,” Leona continues and turns back towards his juniors, “He’s mine.”

The first years look at each other and make no move to leave. Leona’s patience steadily wears thin until he snaps his head and growls at them, “Now get going. The weak die young in Savanaclaw and you’re still fresh meat. We fight our battles alone in the wilderness, best develop that stamina of yours before I decide it’s time for a snack before dinner.”

They share another look, still uncertain, but ultimately hurry back towards where they came from, finally leaving them alone. Leona’s shoulders drop, when he looks at Malleus his expression is unreadable, surprised, confused, fond? Leona can’t tell. He shoves him towards his room instead.

“I missed you.” Is what Leona thinks he hears Malleus breathe into his mouth. He’s barely had enough time to lock the door before Malleus pressed him against it, fervent and burning and too intensely passionate to be mindful of elegance and grace. Leona doesn’t answer, he’s too busy giving just as well as he takes, biting and pushing and pulling and aching at the possibility of having misheard.

It's remarkable how little effort it takes Malleus to hoist him up and carry him across his bedroom and onto his bed. Malleus leans over him and gathers Leona’s wrists to hold them above his head where their combined hands sink into his mattress. The air in his lungs isn’t enough for this. When he gasps into Malleus’ mouth, Malleus almost caves in on himself.

“Leona.” He says and presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth, then his cheek, the scar running across his left eye. Then he’s losing steam, his face contorts, expression twists into something sad, maybe hopeful, definitely desperate. “I want more.”

Leona’s pretty sure he’d do anything for Malleus right now. He bucks his hips up and nods his head, but for Malleus, it’s not enough.

“I want more, Leona.” He repeats, letting his head drop to press his nose into the fluff at the base of Leona’s ear. “I need to know if you want more too.”

Of course Leona wants more but he also knows ‘more’ was never meant to be his. Malleus could have everything he wants if he keeps pressing him into the mattress like that, and Leona can have this, maybe not Malleus but whatever this is, whatever dance they’re doing, whatever neither here nor there they’ve created for themselves. He’s never really had a future, something to look forward to, something worth growing old for. But Leona can have at least this much for himself. Maybe he doesn’t need Malleus forever, maybe right now will be fine. He understands ’right now’. He understands that ‘right now’ was not even close to ‘forever’ or ‘always’ or ‘indefinitely’ – he’s not naïve anymore, he’s learnt nothing is ‘forever’ long ago, that nothing is ever truly his. Leona wants more than right now, but right now will have to do if that’s all he can get his hands on, until he turns that too into sand.

He nods again. Malleus smiles into sunkissed skin.

“Good.” Malleus laughs, breathless and relieved, and presses his lips against the taut muscle of Leona’s throat. “We can figure everything else out later. For now it’s enough to know you won’t push me away again.”

“Push you away?” Leona snaps. Something coils in his stomach, something whitehot and ugly, something he knows to be maybe not rage but anger. He shoves Malleus’s shoulder until he can look at him, all of his disgust and irritation bleeding into the contorting features of his face, “That’s rich coming from you.” He roars, loud enough for the sound to hurt his own ears. “After all, Idia mistaking us for a couple was enough to leave you running.”

Malleus looks at him, shocked and scandalized, and takes far too long to unfreeze from his sudden stupor. When he speaks his voice comes out rough and shaky, “What?” He pushes up on his elbows, shifts his weight until he’s sitting on Leona’s thighs and runs an unstable hand through charcoal hair. Malleus breathes in deeply through his mouth but his voice still comes out choked and fiery hot, wisps of smoke drifting from his nostrils. “Leona. What the fuck.”

Leona knees him in the stomach.

“Don’t worry, your highness.” He spits while Malleus wheezes, “I didn’t give him the idea.”

He’s lashing out again, another hissy fit in the making, but right now that’s the only thing that will stop the ringing in his ears. He thought he was over hoping and wanting and dreaming. Why couldn’t he just turn it all off? Why did he have to want for Malleus to warm all of the cold spots in his life? Why couldn’t things ever be easy?

“Yes, that was fairly obvious.” Malleus snaps once his lungs have filled with air again and he can breathe semi-normally, a continuous stream of little smoke puffs now dancing from the tip of his nose into the heavy air around them, “You were quick to correct him, if I remember correctly.”

Leona’s already bared his fangs, his nails have dug into the bedsheets and ripped them, but then he takes a moment to process what Malleus said and comes up thunderstruck. This cannot be right but he’s certain he didn’t mishear this time. He blinks and wills his hands to flatten against the mattress.

“Malleus.” He says, inhales for a heartbeat, a pause, a lifetime. He can feel the fear that sits coiled tight around his chest. His ears are still ringing but he pushes forward anyways. This is his last card to play, the only thing he has left in his arsenal – the only hope he’s still clinging on to. There isn’t enough air in his lungs, his voice wretchedly hopeful and uncertain. “You aren’t upset Idia mistook us for a couple.”

Malleus glares at him, half-offended and bordering on disgust, this close to throwing his own hissy fit. “Of course I’m not.”

And suddenly Leona can breathe again.

The evening breeze gently sways his sunblinds, taking the ash at the bottom of his heart and dispersing it over vast fields outside. Time becomes a fuzzy thing when Malleus’ voice echoes in his mind but it laps at his heart like the ocean at the shore and brings him back to reality. His heartbeat doesn’t return to normal but his heart is beating, blood rushing, tension disappearing when he looks into lime green eyes.

“You absolute moron.” He says, grabs one of his pillows and smacks Malleus right into the face.

“Idiotic lizard.” Another smack.

“Horned bastard.” Malleus grabs hold of the pillow. Leona simply takes another and smothers him with it.

“You are foul and awful.” He accuses while Malleus struggles.

“I could spend a week telling you all the reasons why you’re the worst.” He hisses but throws the pillow to the other side of the room so he can properly straddle Malleus who’s still not sure he won’t get mauled and have his body thrown to the hyenas before the sun sets.

“But what good would that do?” Leona asks, quickly losing steam. His shoulders drop, he leans down until his forehead rests against Malleus’ and closes his eyes. The words come easy now, falling from his mouth and washing over his skin, settling into his bones, as if he was always meant to voice them out loud.

“I still love you. Nothing could change that.”

Malleus almost burns up beneath him. Leona kisses him before he can say anything else.

Maybe Malleus isn’t the only one burning. Maybe Leona’s caught fire somewhere along the line even when he’d though his own flame had been snubbed out long ago. Malleus kisses him like a phenomenon, and Leona feels like maybe he is – not quite a supernova made of dragonfire but more like a star that never stops falling, no longer burning out and dying.

He loses track of time, everything happens slowly but all at once as the air around them shifts until there’s nothing but heat and fluttering heartbeats. Supernova meets falling star and the entire universe catches fire. Heat crawls up Leona’s spine, flushing every inch of skin it touches along the way.

Leona’s throat feels strangely tight as he allows Malleus to turn them over and press him into the sheets. It’s difficult to maintain some measure of aloofness when impatience claws at him so desperately. Malleus’ fingers slide down his abdomen, lower still, until they trip over the zip of his pants. His stomach wrings tighter.

“Tell me if it’s too much.” Malleus says and presses a chaste kiss to his lips. “Tell me if you want me to stop.”

Leona groans, huffs, grows impossibly relentless when Malleus simply keeps his hand there and dutifully busies himself with mapping Leona’s skin with his mouth as he waits for permission.

“Malleus.” Leona says when he takes hold of his wrist and moves Malleus’ hand where he wants it. “If you stop now I’ll eat you alive.”

Malleus breathlessly laughs against the heated skin of Leona’s neck, sounding overwhelmed with every inhale of stale air. “While that does sound lovely” He says, moving his way up so he can nuzzle the tip of his nose into the softness of Leona’s hair, “I thought tonight I could be the one eating you instead.”

Leona sucks in a sharp breath. “We can make that happen.” He says, tightens his fingers in Malleus’ hair and pulls harshly. “If you’d get on with it already.”

“So bossy.” Malleus drawls but his complaint is the only thing in his room that lacks any sort of fire. He finally moves his hand, this time much more enthusiastic and helpful. Between them they manage to kick off Leona’s pants to the floor, next to the already forgotten pillow. Leona struggles upright so he can pull off his shirt which requires far more coordination than he thought it would when Malleus drops his hand down low, around him, and moves first experimentally, then so incredibly unashamedly.

He isn’t shy about showing Malleus where he wants him to touch, neither is he about touching Malleus so he reaches out and skates his hands along every curve of Malleus’ body while Malleus works his hand in a maddening pace. Leona is demanding and Malleus can barely do anything but watch him with rapt fascination as Leona writhes completely unrestrained. It’s rare to see Leona unabashedly enjoy himself, to see Leona happy. Malleus is terrified of missing even a second of it.

He drinks the sound Leona makes from his lips, then he moves lower, almost clinical in the way he commits the shape of Leona’s body to memory by touch alone – the sharp edge of his jawline, the subtle curve of his Adam’s apple, the dip of collarbones, then his sternum and each of his rips down to his pelvis where he skips straight to the inside of Leona’s thighs. The powerful muscles clench and unclench rhythmically underneath his fingers as he presses kisses and bites into tender flesh. The hand in Malleus’ hair moves to the base of his horns and pulls, and Malleus lets himself be guided forward more than willingly.

Malleus slides off the bed and drops to his knees with a horrid loud band against the wood floor but he’s too busy shuffling towards Leona to even flinch at it. Then there’s hands on Leona’s calves and open-mouthed kisses against the inside of his thighs and Malleus looking at him with clouded eyes. Leona lets Malleus part his legs a little further while Malleus slides, squeezes. Malleus touches him again, stroking slow and steady, enjoying the feel of Leona against the warm palm of his hand. The small noise of pleasure Leona lets out at the sudden electricity running down his spine has Malleus stunned for a moment.

Leona groans and impatiently tugs at the horn again, “Don’t you dare stop now, Malleus.”

A small smile spreads across Malleus’ lips, wicked and delicious and completely fond. Then he leans in to press an open-mouthed kiss to the tip the head. Leona preens at the attention, his toes curling into the soft carpet. Malleus grows thrilled, borderline endeared, and cradles the underside of him with his tongue.

Malleus gives his trembling thighs a comforting squeeze, and when Leona lets himself grow accustomed to the ever-growing warmth around them, he gives a tentative roll of his hips. Malleus lets his eyes fall shut, focusing on the feel of Leona in his mouth, the smell of him, the heat of him, and groans a wonderful sound, the vibrations in his throat making their way down to the tips of Leona’s fingers.

“Malleus.” Leona breathes, pulling and tugging and pawing at his horns. It’s amazing, soft and warm and loving and entirely too much to handle. His head is reeling, Malleus speeds up in earnest.

Malleus’ mouth works around him, pulls against him and sucks him into the flex of his throat. Leona’s head tips back, his neck straining. For a moment, he can’t speak at all, can’t even draw in a breath, too overwhelmed from the sensations vibrating through him. Malleus makes a sound around him, half growl, half moan. Its echo surges through Leona’s body, thrums all the tension inside him like a plucked string.

“Malleus.” Leona repeats with more urgency and desperation. It’s too hot, too much, and perfectly right, but Leona’s not sure he wants this to end yet. “Malleus, it’s not- I will … it’s too soon.”

Malleus doesn’t stop, swallows down again until he’s nearly choking, presses his tongue against him, and –

Leona’s hips push forward entirely on their own. The hand around Malleus’ horn holds on so tight he thinks it might snap, and then he comes with a gasp. He doesn’t recognize his own voice anymore but Malleus is stroking the flexing muscles of his thighs soothingly and takes what he’s given.

His face feels flushed, there’s sweat on his brow, legs wobbly when he’s already seated. When the world around him starts to focus again, Malleus pulls back and rests his cheek against his thigh. He makes a show of licking his lips and flicks his split tongue out with a radiant smile when he’s clean. Malleus looks so pleased with his handiwork Leona lets him reach up, thread his finger into the short hairs at the nape of his neck and coax him into a sweet kiss. It’s excruciatingly tender, and Leona finds himself unable but to return it. His head is spinning when Malleus pulls back again, the gleam in his eyes saying this had been his intention from the beginning.

Leona, impossible as it seems, falls for him just a little more.

“Incredulous lizard.” He laughs against Malleus’ mouth.

Malleus’ hands are still trembling. Close as they are, Leona can feel the hardness of him against his thigh. Leona kisses him again and Malleus seems to ease once his lips are on Leona, once he has one hand braced on the bare skin of his waist and the other clutching against the headboard, and for all that Leona can feel arousal begin to pool and tighten to a knot in the depths of his stomach once more. Despite pleasant static still lingering behind his eyes, the delay of it all mixed with a new bout of satisfaction cresting a distant horizon makes his ears snap to attention again.

There’s so much heat between them but no matter where he touches there’s no slide of naked skin, just him against the leather of Malleus’ uniform. It’s so unfair a new kind of intensity spikes up his spine.

“Take this off.” He snarls, tugging on the collar of Malleus’ cape and sounding far more demanding than he intended. Malleus takes well to being bossed around a bit though, or maybe he’s too far gone to make a clever quip, either way, he doesn’t need to be told twice. Malleus retreats down the bed, sits back on his heels and dutifully strips out of his uniform. Leona doesn’t even pretend he’s not outright staring while Malleus unzips his jacket and lazily drops it to the floor. Only then does Malleus remember that he is a fairly powerful wizard so a snap of his fingers takes care of the rest of his clothing.

Leona makes a mental note to forbid magic next time just so he could indulge in watching Malleus get undressed. As is, he’s already reaching for Malleus before all of the residual particles have dissipated in the air and tilts his knees open wider. Malleus fits himself between them once more easily. There’s no coordination needed in this, they’ve spent too many lazy evenings and drawn-out nights learning each other, even if they’ve never gotten this far. They match each other, their bodies, their heat, their desire in every which way. Malleus presses a warm palm to Leona’s thigh to hold him down and Leona lets himself lie heavy against the bed. The weight of his body presses him in place while another spark of magic flares through the air, then Malleus’ hand slides lower than before.

Malleus presses kisses to the junction of his throat and jawline while Leona grows accustomed to the small circles being traced into sensitive skin. It’s strange but not unpleasant and feels perplexingly right. By the time Malleus moves the first digit inside Leona tremors of pleasure course through him like waves passing through the endless depths of the ocean. Leona moans and angles his knees a bit wider as Malleus works decadent currents through his body. Malleus’ lashes drop heavy and dim the stormy desire clouding his vision. He presses his nose into Leona’s neck and adds another finger, making a shudder of friction run up Leona’s spine.

“Malleus.” Leona says, this side of breathless as the sound of Malleus’ name spills through the room like the endless waves of heat licking and curling through the air. Malleus’s grip on his hips tightens, as if bracing himself against his name on Leona’s lips. Leona lets Malleus feed him the ghostly sensation of three fingers dragging against his walls, curling, pumping and twisting cruelly sensual. He can feel the flex of his own muscles like lightning trapped in his ribcage until his nails dig deep into the soft meat of Malleus’ shoulder. His body is arching in time with the motions of Malleus’ fingers, religiously following the sensations until he’s pulsing with the excess energy coursing through his veins.

Malleus keeps him there for an endless span of time, pressing Leona into the give of the mattress while he works him open with each twist of his fingers. Leona’s still spent and slack from before but every inch of his skin feels alive. There’s new tension everywhere, and Leona doesn’t need to look down to know Malleus is straining and hard between them.

Leona unclenches his right hand and lets it drop between Malleus’ legs. The reaction is instant, Malleus shudders a deep guttural groan and bucks up against his palm. Leona lets a self-satisfied smile spread across his lips. He leans in for a kiss, soft and slow and so tender.

Malleus presses his lips to the corner of Leona’s mouth. “Are you still okay?”

“I might not be if you don’t get on with it.” Leona growls and chases after him to bite Malleus’ lower lip. “I’m ready Malleus. Don’t you dare make me wait any longer.”

The groan Malleus presses into his neck is unearthly. He feels Malleus whisper right against the sensitive spot behind his ear, “Lift a leg for me.”

Leona makes an extremely needy sound when Malleus slides his fingers out of him, one he might deny were his mind not so delightfully fogged over. As is, he complies easily and lets Malleus shadow him beneath a curtain of silky midnight colored hair. Leona groans again, somewhere between desire and frustration. Malleus grants him another kiss, mostly to soothe his need as he lines himself up.

It’s getting to Malleus too, and Leona very much likes the look of him now, too pleasured to stay still, eyes unfocussed. “Is this still what you want, Leona?”

Leona growls impatiently. Everything he wants is right in front of him, Malleus should know that by now. All he needs to do is reach out. He doesn’t want to wait another second.

“You perfect horned bastard.” He swears, hand wrenching into Malleus, anchoring him close as he wraps his legs around Malleus’ waist and pulls him close, pulls him home.

They groan in tandem, needy and desperate and completely overwhelmed. Leona’s entire body moves with his breaths, labored at the sudden fullness of it all. Malleus struggles to fill his lungs with enough air. There’s another plume of smoke forming underneath his nostril as he lets out a tortured exhale. It’s so tight and warm, Malleus getting lost the undiluted feeling of Leona.

Malleus is still breathing hard once he’s completely pushed in. “Leona” He sighs. Leona is so devastatingly overwhelming, making his mind to come a halt as every atom vibrates with need, “You- you feel … incredible.”

Malleus hasn’t moved, but he’s also not sure he can. Leona has slung an arm over his face and is kind of just nodding, chest heaving. It’s all a bit much. He clenches and unclenches his hands and finally reaches up over Malleus’ shoulders and grabs on tight, hiding his face into the crook of Malleus neck.

“Good to know.”

His legs are still hooked around Malleus, a little shaky but still very strong when it comes to shifting his hips up in an encouraging push. Malleus slides deeper, groans, starts to move, slowly, unsure of where to start but he figures out the whole rhythm business with every thrust of his hips. It all feels natural. Sex with Leona feels natural. It’s such a devastatingly heart-wrenching conclusion he absolutely has to kiss Leona right now.

“Tell me what to do.” He whispers against the curve of Leona’s lips, pressing his mouth everywhere he can reach. “Tell me how to make this perfect for you.”

Leona makes a sound that completely unmoors him, so desperate and beautiful. Leona presses his eyes closed when he hears his own breath hitch. It’s easier to give in and tell Malleus the full truth of things like this. He digs his nails deep enough to draw blood. “Love me.”

“I already do.”

When Leona opens his eyes he sees his own desperation reflected twofold on Malleus’ face, flushed to the shoulders and heavy eyes dark and clouded over. He is an absolute mess when Malleus gives him what he wants, raw and open sounds tearing from his throat with every thrust, first tender then soul crushingly deep. He had no idea anything could feel this good.

Malleus looks at him like he’s in awe of it, of Leona. He slides a hand over Leona’s abdomen, then down again so he can wrap that hand around the length of him. Leona screws his eyes shut, throws his head back and makes a wounded sound, falling apart right underneath the slick palms of Malleus’ hands.

“Too fast?” Malleus asks.

Leona laughs, or tries to laugh. A hysterical noise comes bubbling up in his throat and spills out of his mouth. “Don’t you ever dare stop.”

Malleus presses a wanton sound against his throat, soft kisses against his flexing tendons when Leona moans out at a particularly nice thrust.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Malleus says, voice cool like the latest hour of the night, and such a stark contrast to the accumulating heat surrounding them. He punctuates his words with a rough grind that has Leona see stars. He cries out and rakes a hand down Malleus’ back, leaving five angry red trails in his wake while Malleus’ name falls from his lips on every downstroke.

Malleus drags in a breath, sounding like he’s struggling for it. “Leona,” he grates out past tightly clenched teeth, as if he’s on the verge of caving in but still arduously holding himself back, clinging onto the last fragments of coherence and fighting the urge to give in to the desire that cackles through the air like lightning.

“Leona, I want-” Malleus says but his voice breaks with desperation. He trails off with a shake of his head, squeezing his eyes shut tightly.

“Leona.” Malleus groans, whimpers, begs, as he drives forward and bottoms out entirely. The skin of his back breaks as his wings unfurl with a flutter. Black leathery skin brushes over Leona’s thighs, sleek and so exquisitely indulgent before they span out in their entirety and knock the plant Leona keeps in between the bed and the balcony to the floor with a loud clatter.

“Sorry.” Malleus gasps, his wings flopping uselessly and sending Leona’s chess set on his nightstand to the carpet. His eyes are unfocussed when he hurriedly vanishes them again with a strained flick of his wrist and a sharp bite to his own bottom lip that draws blood. “I lost control for a second. “He says, voice strained, “... I- It won’t happen again.”

Leona laughs, still more than a little dazed by the shock of being filled so abruptly and how wonderful that had felt. He unlatches one hand from Malleus’ shoulders to soothingly stroke it over his cheek instead and licks the little trickle of red from his mouth before he presses his lips to Malleus’ plush ones. When his nails scrape bluntly where jawline meets the tender skin beneath his ear Malleus gives a full-body shudder and works his hips even harder. Malleus’ hands are bruise-tight on his hips but Leona finds comfort in the dull steadying pressure of Malleus being so close when the tangle of want and urgency inside him threatens to choke him.

Malleus whispers his heart into his ears and Leona relaxes with the certainty that it belongs to him. When their hands intertwine Leona feels as if he holds the entire universe inside of him and swallows his own name as it spills from Malleus’ lips in the sweetest plea.

The bedsheets are sticking to the curve of his spine, clinging to his shoulders. Leona would feel the discomfort of the heat they sear into his skin if he weren’t so radiant with the glow coursing through his veins that he hardly notices. His insides have turned to magma, honey-thick and blazing-sun warm. It’s almost too much to bear, the weight of a shooting star settling into his core as the ends of his nerves catch fire and burn up his bones.

“Yes.” He breathes, the words now tumbling out of his mouth without his permission. Malleus writhes above him, grinds down the hand he so lovingly has wrapped around Leona, making him squirm and pant heavily. It’s not enough, not when Leona can feel his orgasm weighting the base of his spine and the entirety of his body trembling with its inevitability.

Leona has lost all sense of time and attention to detail, has lost the concept of space, between him and Malleus, him and the burnt shell of his room, the heat still rising, always rising. His body aches and trembles with the need for more, more friction, more pressure, more dragonfire inferno and falling-star blaze. His voice no longer belongs to him, rips out of his throat with every thrust Malleus takes into him. His legs flex, fingers clawing into Malleus’ shoulder without abandon, but he can only pay attention to Malleus and the heat rippling through his body as his focus zeroes in on the knot of anticipation within him. Nothing matters anymore, the ripped bedsheets, broken plant pot, all of the flames licking up the walls, it’s all unimportant, utterly insignificant, so long as Malleus doesn’t slow.

“Now Malleus.” He hears himself say, voice distant as it echoes throughout the liquid heat of the room. He scrunches his nose to mask the thundering of his heart. “You can … come on –”

Malleus surrenders at his words with a sound like dying. He shudders another moan and tightens his arms around him, buries his face into the crook of Leona’s neck with a shiver and a gasp to brace himself against the force of Leona’s body working around him. Leona spills between them, his body a shivering wreck. He’s completely stunned by it, by its heat and intensity and how much it feels like coming home.

Malleus kisses him through it, long and languid and recklessly devoted. He follows Leona not a moment later, stuttering, wrung straight to the toes with the feeling of it all, and its enormity. When he’s no longer shaking he folds forwards onto Leona, comfortable in the curve of his neck.

The concept of time and space doesn’t return to Leona but he’s quite comfortable with just Malleus and him and their heartbeats settling down, returning to normal. The heat around them fades but doesn’t dissipate, never fizzles out beyond a comforting hum of liquid warmth steadily mixing into the firehot blood in his veins. Malleus is a steady weight on top of him, grounding him more than any person should ever have the right to. Leona pulls him tighter.

His legs eventually begin to loosen around Malleus’ hips but while his muscles scream at him to drop them against the soft sheets he keeps them half-circled around Malleus’ instead. Letting him go seems impossible right now, so he doesn’t. He can have this now, all of it, all of Malleus. His hands smooth over the angry lines he carved into Malleus’ back, his touch barely-there and uncharacteristically gentle. Normally he has to tilt his chin to even kiss him, but like this it’s so easy to lean down and nuzzle his nose into Malleus’ sweat damp hair. He finds the sensation delightful in its novelty.

They’re lying around like this for a good while, long enough for the sun outside to dip behind the horizon. There’s something awfully intimate about just being close and listening to each other’s breaths while the reds and yellows of Savanaclaw’s sky bleed into washed out purples and deep indigos. The last lone sunbeams glittering in through the balcony door slowly fade out as the light gives way to the shadows. Then they’re pillowed in familiar dark.

Leona cards his fingers through hair the same color of the velvety blackness settling around them and realizes what a rebellious act loving Malleus is. Nothing the light touches may ever be his but he’s quite comfortable in the obscure quiet of overcast skies and the thunderous gloom of drawn-out nights. He longer wants everything the light touches when Malleus is a being carved from ashgrey shadows and voidlike shapes cast onto the walls in the dead of the night. Malleus would wither in the bright of day, Leona has withered against the freezing touch of the blazing sun.

If the sun touches it, he no longer wants it.

Half of Malleus’ face grows indistinct in the thick darkness lacing the air but Leona’s eyes have never had trouble adjusting to the dark. His fingers find the curve of Malleus’ cheeks easily, he pushes forward and lets the shadows of his own face join the shadows of everything else around them.

And then, when he pulls back for air, he laughs.

And he doesn’t stop.

Malleus pushes up on his elbows and shoots him a confused look. “Are you alright, Leona?” He asks, all worry and concern and love, “I didn’t break you, did I?”

Even with the added space between them Leona doesn’t feel cold. Night has fallen, the tips of his fingers don’t freeze and he doesn’t need to slide his toes underneath the covers. He thinks he might have grown incapable of being cold.

“No, you didn’t.” Leona laughs, head spinning, heart full. “Malleus, you ruined me.”

He grabs Malleus’ face and kisses him harder.

The only one surprised to find Leona can burn brighter than ever is none other than himself.

“Leona!”

He looks up to see Farena standing in the doorway, smiling at him from across the room, the entirety of his face radiant and ecstatic. Leona locks his phone before Farena can catch a glimpse of the photo Malleus has sent him – a gargoyle he saw at the abandoned castle he’s currently exploring.

“Yes?” He asks, somewhat annoyed. He hasn’t been back in the Afterglow Savanna for that long, and he’ll be gone before he starts his 4^th year internship in a few weeks – not enough time for Farena to remember the concept of knocking before entering a room, not that anyone in his life has ever been privy to respecting his privacy.

“You’re smiling!” Farena says, shouts, points out with far too much excitement.

Leona frowns.

“Who’s texting you to make you smile?”

He drops his phone into the depths of his bed and pointedly ignores the question by angrily whipping his tail back and forth.

“I haven’t seen you smile like that in forever!” Farena says, already crossing the room with intimidating vigor and determination. “I’m going to hug you and maybe never let go.”

“Don’t you dare-” He begins but in the end, he doesn’t really have a choice in the matter.

He stays longer in the Afterglow Savanna than he intended. By week two Malleus claims the Valley of Thorns is too cold without Leona and shows up in a cloud of neon green particles of magic that Cheka mistakes for fireflies. Neither of them mentions that Leona has never been in the Valley of Thorns before.

Turns out, Malleus doesn’t wither in excessive light, neither does Leona, but they both flourish in the dark. That much doesn’t change.

Farena is a bit intimidated at first, at the underlying politics of it all and because he’s never really been confronted with shadowy black before, and most definitely by Lilia.

Cheka isn’t scared to begin with.

He perches on Malleus’ shoulders and steers him by his horns and hunts the scaley tail Malleus swishes from side to side whenever he pretends he doesn’t see Cheka approach. By day three they have their first accident, which is how Leona finds himself dabbing little trickles of blood from Malleus’ brow right before dinner.

Cheka had lost his footing and Malleus had underestimated how far lions could jump. There was crashing, there was falling, and a really loud thump, and Malleus had only had enough time to keep one of them from hurting themselves which is how Malleus had ended up with a tiny scratch over his left eye, one not even close to being deep enough to scar.

Leona presses the cotton pad against the ‘injury’ and snaps his teeth in the general direction of Malleus’ hand straying to pet the spot right where Leona’s tail meets his lower back. Leona would make sure his bite would actually scar but Malleus retreats his hand before impact and grins when he pulls his hand back in favor of shooting him a disapproving look.

Malleus smiles then, points at the thin line crossing over his left eye and proudly displays it as if Leona hadn’t personally dragged him into his room to clean it.

“We match now.” He says with all of the conviction of a child who the concepts of fire and pain were still wholly unrelated to.

They don’t.

Their scars don’t look anything alike. Leona’s is deeper and most importantly, an actual scar whereas Malleus has merely scratched his skin in a way that wouldn’t be visible by the end of the week. He tells Malleus as much.

Though what he really means is closer to, we already did.