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When he didn't smell like the muck that was mopped off a tavern floor at the end of the night, Leovander Loveage often smelled of flowers. Sebastian noticed it the very first time they met, which didn't endear Loveage to him. The scent was too much like home. And for Sebastian, who had only been home a few days of every year since age eleven, the reminder was like pressing on a bruise.
After a few months when their instructors wisely settled on separating them, Sebastian was grateful to be spared the proximity to notice how Loveage smelled. Usually. Their paths still crossed more than he was entirely comfortable with, but casters and scrivers shared very few classes together. Beyond Duality, where they were physically separated by half a dozen tables, Sebastian only closely encountered Loveage briefly in the library or refectory.
And every time he passed too close, Sebastian found himself leaning toward the maddening scent he left in his wake. Not strong enough to be perfume, Sebastian thought it must be from his soap or his shampoo. Just noticeable enough to make Sebastian ache for the flower fields he grew up in.
He missed home even if he didn’t quite miss Dwull. He missed his parents. He missed working beside his mother digging through the rich soil, watching the flowers bloom and selecting a few slightly crumpled blossoms for the vase in the center of their kitchen table. The most pristine flowers were always reserved for purchase by the gentry.
On that infamous day when Loveage’s spell exploded in his hands and sent him flying through the classroom window… Sebastian had been somewhat distracted by the gentle smell of hyacinths that wrapped around his heart like a vice. He may have concentrated a little too hard on the spell, may have poured a little too much of himself into the casting.
By the end of first tier, Sebastian was utterly convinced nothing good could come of proximity to Leovander Loveage.
One day, Sebastian would be able to guarantee that his parents’ centerpiece was overflowing with perfect roses and flawless peonies. But first, he needed to graduate from the Fount… without being expelled and imprisoned for Loveage’s murder.
-
And then everything changed.
Loveage was Leovander now, and he was Sebastian’s friend, and in a twist of fate that no one could have predicted—least of all Sebastian—he became much more than that.
After their return from the Unquiet Wood, Leovander was always encroaching on his personal space and Sebastian's opinion on the matter had altered.
Sebastian glanced down at where Leovander had fallen asleep on his shoulder. He had to restrain himself from burying his nose into his hair, to breathe in the lavender scent that clung to those soft curls.
It wasn’t always lavender. Leovander must have had an entire cabinet full of luxurious bath products because the floral scents changed from week to week. Sebastian catalogued them all as the weeks turned to months and winter settled over Miendor. He barely noticed the cold, lost as he was in his own false spring.
Nowadays he was glad for the reminder of home.
Home and Leovander, inextricably mixed together until Sebastian was wrapped in comfort like he had never before found at the Fount.
Maybe then it shouldn’t have come as such a surprise when his resolve snapped at midwinter. Leovander was next to him at a party, laughing at a sarcastic remark Sebastian hadn’t listened to and leaning in to bump their shoulders together. And Sebastian caught a note of hibiscus and suddenly he was leaning in to kiss those wine stained lips.
Leovander seemed to have none of Sebastian’s hesitation or anxiety, just wound his arms around Sebastian’s neck and melted into him, trusting that Sebastian would take his weight.
Sebastian was grateful that classes had been paused until the following week. He walked through the next few days in a daze, sharing space and trading kisses with Leovander until his heart was so full that he thought he might burst with it.
-
Two weeks after midwinter, Sebastian went to Leovander's room to study. They had fallen into a pattern of trading off between their rooms and various desks in the library to do their coursework together. Leovander insisted upon the variety. He claimed that the change in location helped him to focus. Sebastian had yet to see the results of such a claim.
He knocked and there was a muffled call of "just come in, I'll be out in a minute."
Sebastian opened the door and was met with a heady wave of lilac. He stopped at the threshold and breathed deeply for a moment. There was a soft splashing noise and his long held suspicions about the origin of the scents were proven true, Leovander was clearly in the bath.
"Sorry," Leovander said, emerging from the bathroom in a fluffy blue robe and towel drying his hair. "Agnes wanted to spar and I desperately needed to soak away the sweat and humiliation. I'd have been ready by the time you got here, but I fell asleep."
The sight of Leovander—softened and damp and a little flushed from the warm water—was impossible to look away from.
"Come here?" Sebastian asked, holding out his hands.
Leovander didn't hesitate, but stepped into his embrace. Sebastian pressed his face into Leovander’s neck and let the lilac fill his senses.
Home, he thought, tightening his arms around Leovander. He was home.