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.