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If you were to ask each of my peer mates what Leovander Loveage’s natural state of being was, spectacularly drunk would probably have come up more than you would expect.
Not so much for the past few weeks. Ever since my and Grimm’s little foray into the Unquiet Wood, I had been as straight-laced as I could manage, knowing that so much as a toe out of line could be the final straw for the Fount’s academic board. The prospect of being thrown out on my arse and losing my inheritance after all that bother was highly unappealing. But before that - before everything with the curse, and Sybilla, and the outlaws - I had spent more of my time inebriated or hungover than I had sober.
And there was today, of course. In fact, I didn't think spectacularly drunk was even sufficient for how very un-sober I was at the moment.
As a child, I had spent a good portion of my summers on the swing hanging from the old oak tree on my mother’s estate. I would spin until the ropes were completely taut, spiraled around one another, then lift my legs and watch the world blur as the swing returned to normal.
Now imagine, if you will, that same dizzying, disorientating feeling, magnified a hundredfold, accompanied by anxious giddyness and eyes that stubbornly refuse to focus, all while your feet are planted quite firmly on the ground. Now you have some idea of just how much I had had to drink that night.
The evening had not begun this way. In fact, it had started out very well, all things considered. It would perhaps be a stretch to say that I had been being productive, but I had at least been working rather than playing my violin or writing charms for my own amusement. My spell folder was still sitting on my desk back at the Fount now, nearly full for tomorrow’s Duality class, set down right where I had been working diligently up until a few hours ago.
But then I had started to scrive the Grandmagic I had promised Grimm, and rather than flowing effortlessly like they had been up until then, the words had simply… refused to come. The blank parchment had stared back at me in challenge, and, like always, I had blinked first.
So now I was in a bar in Luxe, significantly past both curfew and the number of drinks I could reasonably handle, and some small part of me knew that I would be fucked if I got caught but a much larger part of me just wanted to stop thinking.
I had debated inviting Grimm along for all of two minutes before coming to the entirely obvious conclusion that he would rather have Beau take him all the way to the lake country with no anti-nausea spells than be caught out after the midnight bell. And honestly, I didn’t trust myself around him with my inhibitions so lowered - because as much as I pretended that the curse being lifted had changed my feelings about him, they were just as strong as ever.
And there was yet another reason to get shitfaced. Because I was genuinely, incurably in love with Sebastian Grimm. I no longer had a convenient excuse for the way my heart leapt when I saw him, or for the juvenile flush that came to my cheeks when he leaned close, or for the uncountable perfectly nice nights with Agnes that had been ruined by my hopeless pining and chronic inability to shut my mouth about anything ever.
I waved the bartender over, clumsily sliding my empty glass towards her and trying to remember how to form sentences. “Can I- um-” I spun my hand in frustration, willing the words into my mind. “Another. Please.”
She looked me over dubiously, taking in my undoubtedly glazed eyes and the high color of my cheeks. Her severe ponytail and suspicious gaze would have made me nervous if I had had the capacity for any rational thought.
“You sure you want that?”
I nodded fervently. That, at least, I was sure of. I pulled out a wad of cash from my pants pocket - I’d had enough sense to leave my sorcerer’s coat behind, not wanting to attract unwanted attention like I had that night at the beginning of the year. The numbers stared back at me, swimming together, and I frowned down at them before giving up and pulling out a random handful. The bartender’s brows raised as, with effort, I managed to set the bills in front of her. She no longer seemed inclined to question my drinking habits.
“Coming right up.”
As she disappeared - she couldn't have gone more than a few feet away, of course, but in my addled state object permanence wasn’t so easy - I let my eyes wander back to the couple I had been watching on and off throughout the night, a young woman in a silky blue dress and a young man in a hastily ironed dress shirt. They were clearly very early on in their relationship, nervous and giddy and practically hanging off each other. Hidden as I was by tables and patrons, it wasn’t hard to go unnoticed as I observed them. It also helped that they were entirely caught up in one another, eyes full of stars and heads full of sunshine and fucking rainbows. My traitor eyes kept wandering back to them, and my traitor mind kept replacing them with myself and Grimm, and my traitor heart kept making my ribs ache with longing until I could scarcely breathe.
Nothing else in the pub had been able to hold my attention; when I was drunk, I was even more restless than usual, focus flitting around like a fly escaping a swatter. There was a pretty girl in the corner who, if it had been a few weeks ago, I probably would have approached. A group of young men in the center of the room who were making too much noise and then looking around to see if anyone had seen them making too much noise and was impressed by their ability to annoy everyone else. An older man who kept glancing at me, now nearly falling out of my bar stool, then moving to hide me from the sight of his teenage daughter. But the only things that I gave more than a few seconds of my time to were my drinks and those two lovers.
The bartender slid my glass back over to me, now refilled with whiskey. Not my beverage of choice by any means, but I had come to this pub with the express purpose of getting properly sloshed. I wasn’t drinking for pleasure; I wanted to forget. I downed the glass in one gulp - the final punch to end the round.
I must have blacked out at the bar sometime after finishing that glass, because I remembered nothing else until the feeling of a hand poking at me like I was some sort of diseased animal. I looked up to see the bartender, her face a mixture of mild disgust and less-than-mild annoyance.
“We’re closed.”
I picked up my head with a great effort and surveyed the room. At some point during my brief unconsciousness, all of the other patrons had left, leaving the bar jarringly quiet. And, indeed, the sign on the street-facing window was now turned to Closed, though it took me a few moments to figure that out, squinting through eyes that wouldn’t cooperate and instead tried to cross every few seconds.
“So it is.” I began to push myself up from my stool, immediately felt the room begin to spin, and promptly sat back down. I didn’t like my chances of making it to the door upright, let alone back to the Fount.
The bartender cleared her throat, and, looking at her face, I decided that I liked my chances of making it out of here if she got truly angry even less.
“Sorry, sorry, let me just-” I got up and stepped gracefully down from the stool. At least, that was my intention. The actual act was more alike to that of a baby climbing off of a chair, and through an unfortunate series of events I ended up on my hands and knees on the sticky floor of the pub.
The bartender looked down at me from behind the counter, nose wrinkled. I stood - no small feat, in my state - and made my way to the door, heavily assisted by various chairs and walls.
Outside of the pub, the winter air was bitingly cold, drawing the moisture from my already cracked lips and making them bleed whenever I moved them. The chill of the night should have helped to sober me up, but I was far past my usual levels of intoxication and doubted that even a plunge into the lake would have brought an ounce of critical thinking back to me in this state. As it was, I simply shivered and stumbled away from the door, trying to ignore how invitingly warm and cozy the yellow light spilling from the windows appeared. Perhaps if I begged an empty room off of the bartender-
Some small, sober part of me, valiantly pushing on despite the sheer amount of liquor I had downed that night, reminded me that if I wasn’t back in my room by breakfast, very bad things would happen. I couldn’t quite remember what those things were at the moment, but they were definitely to be avoided.
The cobblestones swirled underneath my boots as I made my unsteady way down the street. Looking up didn’t help much - all it did was allow me to catch sight of the other people out for the night, giving me dirty looks as I passed. Or worse, pitying ones.
The same as the look that Grimm had given me after finding out about my mother.
And, God, had I not just consumed a pub’s worth of whiskey to drown that exact thought? How much would it take to be free of the shame, for just a moment?
I turned on my heel, which made the world spin even worse than it had been, colors melding together into a nauseating watercolor carousel. I stopped in my tracks, focusing very hard on neither falling nor vomiting on my boots. Once I was fairly sure that I could make it down the street upright, I carefully retraced my steps to the pub and tried to wrangle my hand into a fist. When this failed, I simply slapped the wooden door with an open palm, sending out a resounding crack that went straight to my head and made my temples throb.
The door swung open and the bartender glared down at me, that same mixture of disgust and vexation evident in the creases around her mouth. I tried my best to put on a charming smile.
“Helloooo. Was wondering. How much for a- a-” I furrowed my brow, frowning down at a crack in the step that had caught my attention. The words were muddy and useless in my mind, and trying to speak was like trying to use my fingers when my arm had fallen asleep. I mimed popping a cork, then drinking from a bottle. “Grapes,” I said empathetically.
“We don’t sell bottles,” she replied, moving to shut the door in my face.
“Wait!” I held up a pleading hand, and she stilled with eyes suspiciously narrowed. I once again pulled out my cash, and, finding the prospect of choosing bills to pay with to be too much effort, simply pressed the entire stack into her hand. “Enough?”
The woman looked down at the money with wide eyes, taking her other hand from the door to rifle through the notes and moving her lips as she silently counted. I was fairly sure I saw her mouth one thousand before she promptly stuffed the stack into her apron pocket and looked back up.
“I’ll be right back.”
The door closed, and I was left once again in the cold not-quite-darkness of a winter night in Luxe. I watched with interest as a teenager snuck out of a window a few houses down, wondering if they would make it back in time to not be caught. Wondering the same for myself, but dimly, as if my curiosity were for a character in a book.
The door swung open again, and the bartender handed me an unopened bottle of wine. Then, looking me up and down consideringly, she took it back and popped the cork using a corkscrew from a pocket in her apron. The transfer back to me was slightly clumsy - deep red sloshing from the mouth of the bottle as my hands wavered - but she didn’t comment, just nodded to me and retreated inside once again.
Lifting the bottle to my lips, I took a deep draught, savoring the tangy, sweet dryness of the wine after so much liquor. The bottle felt slick in my grasp, and I held it tightly with both hands like a child holding a cup.
I needed to go back to the Fount.
I did not want to go back to the Fount.
The Fount held curfews and Grandmagic and Grimm. It held my spell folder, my parchment, my quill; all of which would be waiting for me if I returned to my room. A half-finished light spell would mock me from the desk, nestled among stacks of charms and cantrips, the words of it peetering out at the hands of a coward.
It just… it was one thing to compose a Grandmagic spellsong. At least then, I had the comfort of both my violin and spontaneity to give it a sense of familiarity. But to actually sit down and compose powerful magic like that, to have the time to agonize over the choice of every word and the structure of every sentence- it felt impossible. Like I physically couldn’t get my hand to move my quill. Every time I tried, images of my mother collapsing at the table flashed through my mind, and the phantom smell of peaches filled my nose, cloying and sweet and nauseating.
I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t.
I turned so that the looming presence of the Fount was at my back and began to walk the other way.
Perhaps walk was generous. What I managed was more of a sloping, unsteady stumble, weaving from one side of the pavement to the other as the ground tilted beneath me like the deck of a ship in a storm. Wine sloshed out of the bottle and down my hand, staining it a sticky red like half-dried blood. I licked the tartness from my fingers, unwilling to let any of it go to waste considering I had probably paid ten times its worth for it.
“You need help there, lad?” came a worried voice from somewhere off to my side. I stopped and turned my head, which gave me such intense vertigo that my stomach lurched. My eyes slowly focused on a middle aged man, furrowing his brow at me with concern.
“Nnnope! I’m just fine,” I slurred, grinning. I held up the bottle, and more wine spilled, staining the chest of my white shirt crimson like I had been shot in the chest. Now there’s another memory I should have forgotten by now. “Want some?”
The man didn’t respond, instead making as if to steady me. “Are you sure? You look like you’ve had a little too much tonight.”
“Oh, I have!” My smile only grew wider. “I had to forget, you see. All those pesky thoughts. Too much bother.”
“I could help you back to your house?”
“I’m afraid you can’t do that. Unless you have access to the Fount, of course,” I said cheerfully. I realized that I was still holding the bottle up above me and abruptly dropped my arm.
The man’s eyes widened. “You’re-”
“A sorcerer? Barely. Actually,” I confided, “I’m quite rubbish at it. Killed my own mother with Grandmagic, if you can believe it!” I laughed as his expression dropped in horror. “Now, if you don’t want any wine, I’ll be going.”
The man was too shocked to protest as I continued to stumble down the street.
I didn’t get far. The road sloped down as it wound away from the square, and drunk as I was my center of balance wasn’t at its best. All it took was one uneven cobblestone for me to find myself sprawled on the street with no recollection of actually falling. Pain shot through my skull as it cracked hard on the ground, then settled into a harsh throb. I tried to push myself up, but only succeeded in discovering and worsening what was at least a sprained wrist.
The ground wasn’t so bad, I supposed. It was cool, at least, which felt nice against my overheated skin, buzzing despite the chill of the air.
I was content to stay right where I was until I remembered that the road was, in fact, a road, and miserable as I was I didn’t fancy being run over by a carriage. My left arm bore the brunt of my weight as I half-crawled, half-rolled into the grass bordering the street. The ground was muddy and freezing from the recent winter rains, but the bushes around the perimeter of the nearest building kept me mostly out of sight of anyone else, and I was honestly feeling too shitty to much care where I was anymore.
It felt good to sit down. My legs, though I had been atop a stool for nearly the entire night, ached as if I had just climbed a mountain. My throbbing head had lessened to a dull pain - not enough to warrant my full attention, but just enough that I couldn’t forget it was there. And there was no doubt I would have to go to the infirmary for my wrist, which smarted sharply every time I moved it. God, Grimm would have a field day with this when I showed up to Duality tomorrow injured - and without any Grandmagic to boot.
God. Grimm.
The fact that I had gotten drunk enough to fall down a fucking hill and yet still couldn’t forget that bastard's face for even a moment felt like a personal affront. Even as I lay there in the bushes, curling myself into a ball and squeezing my eyes tightly as if to block out the images, his stupid face swam in my mind. Memories of the spellsong in the sunflower field. Of sleeping in his room, his face turned almost peaceful in sleep. Of our kiss outside Sybilla’s tower…
I should have stayed sober and just found a stranger to spend the night with. Not even in a lewd way, just to kiss, or talk - hell, just to sit next to one another. Anything to kill this desperate, all-consuming ache of longing that sat stubbornly behind my ribs, slowly growing until there was room for nothing else in my body but its horrible, moon-tinged light.
I did have one last defense against my thoughts; one which usually would not have come easily, but in my state and at this hour was practically unavoidable. As the bell tower above the Fount began to chime the fourth hour - when had it gotten that late? - I closed my eyes and slept.
***
“God fucking damn it, Loveage!”
My least favorite part of nights out is waking up the morning after. Dry lips, pounding headache, the feeling that I’ve been trampled repeatedly by a very angry and very overweight horse - it’s almost enough to make drinking lose its appeal entirely. Not quite, but close.
However, the added miseries of cold, wet clothes and an aching back from a night in the bushes made me consider swearing off alcohol altogether and joining the nearest monastery - and the sight of Grimm glaring down at me with the early morning light framing his face only made me want to set myself on fire on top of that.
I forced myself into something adjacent to a sitting position and looked up at him, squinting against the sunrise as my head throbbed.
“Hello, Grimm. Lovely day.”
He scowled even harder and opened his mouth to reply, but before he could, Agnes appeared next to him, face blazing with fury. My stomach dropped. An angry Grimm I could handle - it was how he had spent most of our time together, after all - but an angry Agnes was a completely different story. I felt about as safe as I had while suspended twenty feet off the ground by the wood kraken.
“Hey there, Agnes,” I said through a cringing smile. “Er - what time is it?”
“It’s six thirty in the goddamn morning, Leovander,” she spat. “Classes start in half an hour, and you are not being expelled today, so get the hell up.”
“Right.” I tried to push up to standing, but my wrist, nearly forgotten amidst all my other aches and pains, forcefully made itself known once more. I cried out and dropped back onto the ground.
Grimm’s face softened almost imperceptibly, and he reached down to help me up. Where his hand met my arm, sparks of airy light lit up my nerves, and I was nearly sick. Was this really what I had come to? Blushing at a touch like the protagonist of a romance novel?
Once I was on my feet and passably steady, Grimm let go. I barely had time to register the loss of contact before Agnes was beside me, urging me down the street and keeping me from falling. I gave her an apologetic glance of thanks.
“How did you guys find me?” I asked after a few minutes of unbearably tense silence.
“I came into your room to give you that quill you asked to borrow, and you weren’t there,” Agnes replied. I winced. How had I forgotten about that? “I asked Grimm, but he hadn’t seen you either, and when you aren’t with either of us chances are you’re drinking. A man on the street said he’d seen you and pointed us over here.” She paused for a moment, not meeting my eyes. “We were worried sick,” she said quietly.
“I see.” I paused. “...Thank you.” A lump suddenly formed in my throat at the thought that they had cared enough to risk their spotless records to come find me. Or it might have been nausea.
Agnes’ hand brushed my skin, and she furrowed her brow. “Leo, you’re burning up.”
Yeah, that was definitely nausea.
I lurched over to the side of the road and was sick in the bushes. When I could finally breathe again, I tried to straighten, only to find that my legs were shaking too violently. I made the easy decision to collapse to my knees instead. The wet pavement soaked my pants. Agnes hurried over and felt my forehead, face growing increasingly concerned.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were sick, asshole?”
“Didn’t know,” I mumbled, shivers now wracking my body. And honestly, I hadn’t. I always felt shitty after a night of drinking; how was I to know if that was because of liquor or illness? Everything was going so fast; I had been fine moments ago, and now I could hardly form sentences.
“This is why you don’t sleep outside in winter,” Grimm muttered, helping Agnes to pull me to my feet. Whatever burst of energy had allowed me to feel relatively normal for the last few minutes was gone, and I could barely support myself as we continued towards the Fount. My legs felt like jelly, my head like it was stuffed with cotton.
“Was too drunk to make it back,” I mumbled, stumbling a bit. Grimm cursed and tightened his hold around me, hauling me back to my feet. God, could I ever stop embarrassing myself in front of him? He must’ve thought me pathetic - more than he already did, anyway.
The Fount was not a far walk from where we had started, and though it took probably three times as long to get there as it would have if I wasn’t in this state, it was still well before classes began when we walked through the gates and into the building. The main room was quiet at this time of morning, students and teachers alike preparing for their first classes of the day.
It took significantly more effort to get me up the stairs, but Agnes and Grimm, bless them, managed it. The walk from the landing to my room was somehow the worst of it - my body knew that I was close to rest and for whatever reason took that as its cue to give up entirely. I was practically being carried by the time we entered.
Agnes laid me down atop my bed, dirty shoes and all, while Grimm went over to the windows to draw the curtains. My desk was set against the wall to take advantage of the natural light, and he glanced down at it, eyes flicking over the pages of spells. I knew that I didn’t want him to do that, but I couldn’t really remember why, and telling him so felt like a monumental effort.
His gaze came to rest on one sheet, right in the middle of the desk, and he frowned, his lips moving silently as he read the scriving. Now I remembered - I had been writing Grandmagic. I watched Grimm’s face go from confusion to understanding, and I cursed his perception. Too observant for his own good. Or my good, anyway.
Thankfully, he didn’t say anything in front of Agnes. He just gave me an odd look as he drew the curtains, then helped me sit up while she handed me a glass of water. My hands were shaking hard enough that I ended up with nearly half of it down my front, and she tsked as she took the cup back, setting it on the bedside table.
If I had felt bad before, I was properly miserable now. The morning’s energy was completely gone, leaving me weak and shivering. I was still nauseous, and my skin was slick with a feverish sweat that made my clothes stick to me unpleasantly. My brain was too foggy to process much of what Grimm and Agnes were doing. The whole room seemed to undulate around me if I shifted even the slightest bit, forcing me to squeeze my eyes shut and stay perfectly still until my senses returned to normal.
“God, Leo, you are the biggest moron I’ve ever met,” Agnes grumbled, fussing with my covers and forcing me out of my coat and shoes. I didn’t respond, mostly because I was trying very hard not to be sick from the movement. “Why the hell were you wandering around Luxe after hours? You know how close the board is to kicking you out on your arse.”
I was afraid that Grimm would choose that moment to show her my unfinished spell - but if he had seen the connection between it and my ill-advised outing, he didn’t say anything, and I was too far gone to formulate a lie. Agnes looked between us and huffed in irritation.
“Don’t want to tell me? Fine, I have to get to class anyway. I suggest you do the same, Grimm.” She gave him a last warning look before turning and hurrying out of the room, and I didn’t begrudge her for it; my stupidity was no reason for her to get in trouble. I turned over to lay on my side, deciding that the momentary lurch in my stomach was worth not having to face Grimm’s expression as he left.
After a few moments without the sound of footsteps or the door shutting, I peeked over my shoulder, unwilling to go to the trouble of moving my whole body. Grimm was still there, standing in the middle of the room and staring at me, looking as if he were trying to solve a puzzle.
“Need something?”
“No.” He hesitated for a few more seconds, then sighed with the air of someone doing a great favor and walked across the room, shrugging off his coat as he went.
“Grimm…?” Was I hallucinating? I knew I was sick, but I didn’t think I was that sick. “What are you doing?”
“You’re ill,” he replied flatly, as if that explained anything.
“Yes. Very astute observation. But why aren’t you heading to class?”
He scowled, sitting down at my desk so that I didn’t have to crane my neck to see him anymore. “If I leave you alone, who knows what could happen? You’re clearly not in your right mind.” I scoffed, but he continued as if he hadn’t heard me. “And besides, all my classes today are free periods except for Duality, and what the hell would I be gaining from that if I didn’t have my scriver?” He seemed to realize how that word choice sounded and coughed, cheeks going pink as he quickly turned away to look out the window.
“That’s… actually very sweet of you,” I said, somewhat reluctantly. “But I don’t want you getting in trouble. I may have taken the brunt of the Fount’s anger after the business with the curse, but it’s not like you got away scot free.”
“I’ll just tell them I was sick too if they ask.” From the set of Grimm’s jaw, I could tell that arguing wasn’t going to get me anywhere, so I just sighed in resignation and closed my eyes.
“Suit yourself.”
A somewhat tense silence stretched between us for a few minutes, and I knew with a sinking feeling that it was going to take a very long time for me to fall asleep with him staring at me like that. I could tell him so, of course, but then he’d wonder why, and I was really not up to having that conversation right now. Or ever.
Then Grimm’s voice cut through the quiet, fainter than it had been all day. Almost… careful. “You were writing Grandmagic.”
I opened my eyes, looking at him where he sat at my desk, studying the papers that littered it. I wondered how ridiculous I looked at the moment, hair matted and clothes askew, then decided that I didn’t have the energy to care. Neither did I have the energy to deny what was right in front of him.
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t finish it.”
I just watched him silently.
“Why?”
I shut my eyes again, feeling the skin of my face buzz with fever. Could I pretend to be too delirious to answer? But no, I was already having a coherent conversation with him. He would know that I was lying, and that would only make him more intent on figuring out the truth.
“I just couldn’t do it.”
There was a brief silence. “But you did it in the Unquiet Wood. And again on the way home.”
“That was different.” My eyes remained closed, a shield against whatever pity or irritation was on his face. “With my violin, it’s… safe. With the paper-”
I heard Grimm stand, the floor creaking under his boots, and he hesitated before sinking down on the edge of my bed. The mattress dipped with his weight, and my leg slid down to rest against his side. I pretended not to notice.
“Loveage, you know that it wouldn’t be any different writing it.”
“Do I?” I finally opened my eyes, and found exasperation warring with concern on his face. Exactly what I had been trying to avoid. “I can be pretty sure, but I can’t know. Which means I could be wrong, and if I am-” I shook my head, the fabric of my pillow almost painful against my hyper-sensitive skin.
“You’re afraid you’ll hurt someone?”
“I’m afraid I’ll hurt you.” Damn. Apparently Sick Leo was just as bad as Drunk Leo when it came to filtering thoughts.
“Oh.” Grimm looked stricken, and my insides shriveled up with embarrassment. “That’s-”
“Don’t.” I pressed my palms hard against my eyes until kaleidoscopic patterns danced through my vision. “Just- forget I said anything. Forget about the spell.”
I jumped as a hand pulled my own away from my face. “No, Leo, I’m not going to just forget it.” Hearing my first name on Grimm’s tongue was almost foreign after so many years of angry Loveages. “You need to figure this out. You’re doing yourself a disservice.”
“I’m sorry, ok? I’ll try again tomorrow.”
He let go of my arm, seeming to remember himself, then clenched his jaw as he stared at me. I felt flayed open under his gaze.
“Fine. But I’m not letting you waste your potential anymore, got it?” The words sounded harsh, but I knew better from so long in Grimm’s company; this was his version of comforting me. And, oddly, his complete faith that the only thing holding me back was my own cowardice did make me feel much better.
With an effort, I managed to push myself up to sit against the headboard, ignoring the surge of nausea that the movement brought. My leg was still pressed against him. He looked at me. I looked back.
Now, it’s important that you understand this: fevers and hangovers both make me act very, very stupidly. I am also, just in general, very stupid. What I did next was a result of all of this combined stupidity, along with the fact that Grimm was being very sweet and his hair was hanging maddeningly over his forehead and he was right there. So really, I can’t be blamed.
I shoved forward and kissed him squarely on the lips.
Grimm made a muffled sound of surprise and, after only a few seconds, pushed me away. I immediately cursed myself for my impulsiveness, and for the fact that I hadn’t considered that I might get him sick, too, though these thoughts were dampened by the happy afterglow of the kiss.
He stared at me dumbly for a few moments, and I stared right back. Then:
“You’re drunk.”
“Not anymore.”
“You’re sick.”
“...Yeah.”
“You didn’t mean that.”
Did I? I was suddenly not so sure. My addled mind couldn’t formulate a response.
We sat in an uncomfortable silence for what felt like hours before he stood. I was sure that he was going to leave the room, but he only went back to the desk chair and sat.
“Get some rest, Loveage.”
Back to the last name, then. I pursed my lips, fighting the childish urge to burst into tears, and tried to do as he said, but if I had been restless before it would be practically impossible to sleep now.
In the end, it took me nearly 4 hours to drift off.
Grimm didn’t move once.
***
By the time I woke up, it was dark out, and I had missed all of my classes. The room seemed vacant except for me. Good. Maybe Grimm had at least gotten to one lecture.
My fever had broken sometime during my rest, and I felt practically back to normal after an entire day’s sleep. I still had a slight headache, but I suspected that probably had more to do with the liquor than anything else. The downside to all of this was that my mind was no longer foggy with sickness, and I felt with full clarity the consequences of what I had done.
Christ, I was in some deep shit.
Would Grimm believe me if I told him that the kiss had been the result of impulse muddled by drink and sickness? I couldn’t write it off as the curse any longer. Would he even talk to me? What if we went right back to where we’d been before everything, interacting only to inconvenience and annoy one another?
A snore from somewhere in the room startled me out of my thoughts, and I leaned forward to look over the edge of the bed. Sure enough, there was Grimm, huddled in a nest of extra blankets on the floor and fast asleep, shivering like a leaf in the wind. I’m not above admitting that seeing him there made my stomach swoop. Maybe I hadn’t made him hate me after all.
I debated with myself for a minute or two, but I am a horrible debater, and in the end I picked up a book from my bedside table and tossed it at Grimm. It hit his chest with a thunk.
“Grimm,” I hissed. He didn’t stir, so I threw another. “Grimm.”
He finally blinked awake just as the third book hit his sternum. I could see the moment of confusion as he tried to remember where he was, then the irritation as he realized I had woken him.
“What do you want, Loveage?”
“It’s cold as balls.”
He paused, as if physically restraining himself from correcting my coarse language. “It’s a bit chilly, yes.”
I scootched over, making space in my bed. It was ridiculously large, anyway; why give every student a queen-size mattress when they’re not supposed to have others stay the night?
Grimm seemed to catch my meaning quickly, and I almost wished it wasn’t so dim so I could fully gauge his reaction.
“I’m not sleeping in your bed.”
“Oh, don’t be an arse,” I grumbled. “I’m being very selfless here.”
“I’m fine on the floor.”
“Your lips are practically blue!” Technically, I couldn’t see his lips, but it was an educated guess. And it seemed to work; Grimm gave a long-suffering sigh and stood up. His knees cracked as he did so, and I was tempted to tease him for it (“You aren’t turning into an old man on me, are you Grimm?”), but I was afraid to scare him off. Which was stupid. All of this was stupid. Had I really just invited Sebastian Grimm to sleep in my bed?
Much to my indignance, he nudged me aside a bit more before laying down rigidly. He reminded me a bit of one of those ancient mummies you see in museums, all wrapped up in linen and stiff as a board. He left as much space as physically possible between the two of us, and I tried not to feel offended.
“Come on, Grimm, it’s not like I’m diseased or something.” Well. That wasn’t quite the right joke to make considering I had almost been sick on his shoes earlier that day.
“I agreed to sleep here because it’s warmer, Loveage. It’s not like I came up to cuddle.”
“You’re no fun.”
Grimm huffed and turned away to face the wall, going silent. After a few minutes of watching his back, I decided that he was either actually asleep or doing a very convincing act of it, so I closed my own eyes and tried to rein in my racing thoughts.
But add this to my ever-growing record of self-sabotage, because with Grimm that close there was no way I was getting any more rest that night.
At least, I thought so. But the rhythm of his breaths quickly brought a strange calm over me that had me drifting off in minutes, and in that silent room, in that quietly intimate act of sharing a bed, I slept better than I had in years.
***
I woke before the morning bell. The room was just barely beginning to lighten, which meant that I couldn’t have slept for more than an hour or two, but I still felt exponentially better. My brief illness from a night spent out in the cold seemed to have gone away entirely, leaving only a slight headache and a sour taste in my mouth from the drink. I was very warm, which was odd because the room had been freezing the night before. That was why Grimm had had to-
Oh, fuck.
I was suddenly very thankful that Agnes had left my room the day before. The idea of anyone else witnessing me waking up wrapped around Grimm like a second skin was too humiliating.
My mind buzzed with the events of the night before. Had he hated the kiss? Did he hate me? It wasn’t like he had physically recoiled or anything- no, wait, he had. God, Leo, you are such a fucking-
Grimm began to stir, and I sprang back, praying that he hadn’t noticed my rather compromising position. My mind whirled. How the hell had that even happened? We may as well have been in separate beds with how far away he’d been; how had I managed to end up clinging to him like that?
It had been cold. My subconscious must have sought the closest sort of warmth. It had nothing at all to do with the fact that that source of warmth happened to be another human, or that I was in love with said human. That was what I told myself, but even at the time I knew it was a weak explanation at best.
Thank god, Grimm seemed none the wiser, blinking sleep from his eyes and rolling over to face me. I hastily arranged myself into a passable imitation of someone who had just woken up in the same spot that they’d been all night.
“Sleep well, darling?” I asked, wiggling my eyebrows and grinning.
Grimm rolled his eyes and scoffed, turning back over.
I watched him reluctantly stand, then suddenly became very interested in my nails as he began to change into fresh clothes. I had no idea where he’d gotten them - had he planned to stay overnight that far in advance? Thinking about it just made my face hotter.
“Are you feeling better?” Grimm’s voice surprised me; it was rough with sleep, and the question seemed abrupt, like he hadn’t known he was going to ask it before he did.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
I looked up just as he finished buttoning his shirt and, because his back was turned, indulged myself in watching him shrug on his coat. His shoulders really were ridiculous - the sort of build that drove people to madness in those old myths.
I had not actually just thought that. Oh my god.
“In that case, I’ll leave you to get ready for classes. I imagine you’ll have a lot of explaining to do today, so you’ll want to look more… presentable.” He eyed me up and down with slight disdain.
I watched him walk towards the door.
You know that feeling when you’re suddenly presented with a split-second decision? The sort of blind panic, desperately trying to sort through possible choices and all too aware that if you don’t pick quickly, your path will be chosen for you?
Yeah. Me too.
I am very, very bad at split-second decisions.
“Wait.”
Hand stilling on the doorknob, Grimm looked back at me over his shoulder, blinking in confusion.
“What is it?”
“I-” The words stuck in my throat. But damn it, Drunk Leo had already made this decision for me. Grimm may have been trying to pretend that the kiss had never happened, but I knew that if I did too, our relationship - whatever it was - would never be the same.
It also wouldn’t be if I did address this. But. Like I said. Bad at split second decisions.
“I want to talk about last night.”
Grimm frowned, feigning confusion, but I could read him too well to fall for it.
“What about it? It’s not like it’s unusual for you to get drunk.”
“You know what I mean.”
His expression wavered. “We don’t have to talk about that. I understand that you were not in your right mind.”
“No, I-”
“You don’t have to apologize, Loveage.”
“I don’t want to apologize, you twat, I meant it!”
There was a silence just long enough for me to plan my escape from the room and subsequently from the city. Preferably the country as well.
“You-”
“Stop.” I dropped my face into my hands, covering my now - I was sure - extremely evident blush. “Forget I said anything. Just-”
“Leo.” Again, the sound of my actual name from Grimm sent a shiver down my spine. And so did the way he said it - there was a sudden, aching softness there that threw me. I heard him cross back over to the bed, then startled as gentle hands pulled my own away from my face, an echo of last night that gave me a momentary feeling of deja-vu. I refused to look at him.
“You said you wanted to talk. So talk.”
I clenched my jaw, feeling my resistance like a wall in my mind. But there was nothing I could do to reverse what I’d told him. Might as well rip the bandage off now instead of drawing out the humiliation.
“I meant it. When I kissed you. I- I really thought that after the curse was lifted, everything would go back to normal but-” Now I met his eyes, wide and dark and more lovely than anything I had ever seen in that moment. “I’m still in love with you, Grimm.”
There was another long silence. Maybe I could change my name after I ran away so I would never have to think about the way he said it.
“Oh.” His voice was small, uncertain, and entirely unlike him. I cringed back. Leave it to me to make Grimm so uncomfortable that he lost his stoicism. “You-”
“You don’t have to say anything,” I blurted. “In fact, I would prefer it if you didn’t, because I’m humiliated enough as it is and it would only make this more awkward and you really are going to be late for class if you don’t… go…” My rambling trailed off as I registered how Grimm was looking at me. His eyes held something careful, almost… was that tenderness? From Sebastian Grimm? Shit, I really had broken him.
He was leaning forward.
My mind blanked, whirring thoughts devolving into a stream of fuck fuck fuck. What the hell was he doing? Surely he didn’t mean to-
“Can I?”
The question made even the stream of profanities in my head blank out. I let out a very dignified squeak.
“What?”
He blinked at me in a way that was more familiar than the rest of this insane situation - the Do you really need me to spell this out for you, Loveage? look. Any other time I would have made him do so, just to get on his nerves. But even I knew that there was a time and place for such things. Grimm asking to kiss me was not one of those.
I nodded.
Grimm closed the final few inches between us, and then he was kissing me. For the second time in less than 24 hours. I would have laughed at the insanity of it if my mouth hadn’t been otherwise occupied.
He kissed differently than I had. Where I had been impulsive and single-minded, Grimm was intentional and firm, yet achingly careful. He smelled like woodsmoke and I was sure that my mouth tasted terrible this early in the morning and Oh my god Sebastian Grimm was kissing me. I gave up on analyzing it and just relished in this fact, determined to savor the moment for however long it lasted.
That ended up being only a few seconds - all too short, if you ask me. Grimm looked anxious as he pulled back, eyes darting over my face. I was struck again by this side of him that I had never really seen before, uncertain and on edge like someone much younger and much less sure of themselves than he was. Had I done that? The thought made me giddy.
“Leo.” His voice made me shiver. He sounded rough and breathless and wrecked.
I tried frantically to come up with a witty response and settled on a very verbose, equally strained, “Sebastian.” His first name tasted foreign and sweet on my tongue. Why had I insisted on only calling him by his last name for so long?
He looked at me. I looked back. I saw something glittering in his eyes, something true as a ship through waves and rich as autumn leaves. It was a look that was usually reserved for when he was lost in the flow of a spell, watching the flames turn the spell paper to ashes. A knowledge of undoing, and simultaneous creation. In that moment I could have given up on music and magic forever, if only he would have kept looking at me like I was the greatest Grandmagic he had ever cast.
“You have to. Um.” I cleared my throat, trying to tear my eyes away from his gaze. The shock of the moment hadn’t fully hit me yet. “You’ll be late to class if you don’t go.”
“Leovander Loveage,” Grimm said, fighting a grin. “Please shut the fuck up for once.”
I blinked at him, then felt a smile of my own begin to creep onto my face.
“If you insist. But you’ll have to make m-”
Grimm kissed me again, and I could feel his grin in the curve of his lips against mine. I let all thoughts of lectures and unwritten Grandmagic fall from my mind. They could wait. No spell could compare to this.