Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Twisted Wonderland was terrifying. Magical and wondrous too, of course, but so far the good parts were peppered and strewn between a leaky, drafty dorm, stressful encounters with students who all seemed more than happy to start fighting and a lot of studying. Endless, enormous amounts of studying, because you were expected to keep up with all these people while knowing nothing about this world.

Oh, and of course, the scariest thing yet: overblots.

Of course you had always dreamed about discovering magic one day or a magical world on the other side of your wardrobe or that you found out that mermaids and dragons were real after all. Who didn’t? In your fantasies, being the chosen one, or just simply going on an adventure, had always been exciting and, well, fun. 

Of course it was, it was in your head after all and those fantasies were safe and under your control. You could shuffle them around, change them up or drop them and go for something completely different whenever you wanted. You had spent many a night day-dreaming yourself asleep this way.

Reality was something different. You were completely and utterly helpless here in Twisted Wonderland. The second someone whipped out their magic pen, you were toast. And, of course, there were plenty of people who could break you like a pretzel stick without magic. You were just an average person, nothing special to you.

Of course it was kind that Crowley let you stay here, instead of tossing you out on your sorry ass and telling you godspeed. But it was…it was hard, trying to catch up on knowledge everyone considered second nature when studying had never been your strongest point and getting your legs under you in a world not your own. You knew nothing about the history or the inside jokes or the pop culture or anything, really.

You didn’t mind hard work, you didn’t mind having to put in elbow grease to learn something or get something done, but it felt like your entire life had turned into a hectic mess of either trying to put out fires or swallowing the urge to cry over your umpteenth textbook.

You weren’t stupid, you knew that, but you had always needed more time than other people for studying. It hadn’t been too much of a problem back in your world, but here? Here it was, you constantly were behind, you rarely understood what teachers were talking about and it chipped away at you in ways you hadn’t expected.

You were always tired these days, always tense, always worried, sacrificing sleep in an attempt to cram more into your head and finally make it stick. It was hard to not feel stupid then.

As you laid in the infirmary, your body in pain, courtesy of Leona’s overblot and Grim slamming that spelldrive disk into your head with all the might in his little body, you just wanted to sleep. The nurse had given you something for your pain a little bit ago, but it took it’s sweet time kicking in.

Any and all visitors were gone now and the only ones left were you, Leona, Ruggie and a few of the other Savanaclaw spelldrive students. In all honesty, you weren’t too thrilled about that. Savanaclaw had made a terrible impression on you at best and they clearly didn’t feel even a bit of remorse about what they had done, so, yeah. 

You kind of wished you could have gone back to Ramshackle, but the nurse had been too worried about your head to let you go back without someone there to check up on you.

You weren’t the only one who currently struggled with sleep, after Leona’s nephew had jumped all over him, he was now gritting his teeth against the flared-up pain, while Ruggie stared at the ceiling. The air was thick with some kind of tension and you prayed that the potion would finally kick in when you heard someone inhale in a way that told you they were going to talk.

"We’re not nobodies, Leona," Ruggie said quietly but there was a slur in his voice that told you he was going to drop into sleep at any moment. His potion seemed to work just fine. "We’ll show…everyone."

And he was asleep. You heard Leona sigh and you couldn’t help but remember the overblot battle, your skin aching from how dry it was, your hands worst of all. Even with the salve the nurse had given you, it would take a day or two for the dryness that had caused your skin to crack open and bleed to disappear fully.

The air still felt thick, like you could sense Leona brooding and you had no idea what did it, if it was the way your body hurt, the exhaustion, the continuous accumulation of stress since your arrival here or maybe you were done and tired with pain, both your own and that of others, but your mouth opened and you talked without much thought.

"You’re not stuck in life," you said and you sensed it when that green, intense and predator-sharp gaze fell to you even without looking at him. "Don’t let other people, or yourself, decide who you can be."

"What do you know, herbivore," he said, voice low and there was an underlying, if slightly tired, warning to his words.

"Rulers should be chosen based on skill, not blood," you continued, completely ignoring what he said. "You’re meant to look after your people, you’re meant to lift them up. A noble’s born position is fucking worthless if you ask me."

He wasn’t asking you, but you hadn’t asked to be dragged into an overblot either, did you.

Your words were all sharpness and unyielding hardness and there was an anger there that actually had nothing to do with Leona, but you were either going to get angry at him and his situation - for all that he was an ass, he didn’t deserve what had happened to him either - or you were - 

Well, you might just start crying, because you hadn’t allowed yourself to cry even a little since coming here, no matter how hard things got. Besides, you had had one hell of a shitty day, you were allowed to speak your mind at least a little.

You had no idea what the whole point of your little speech was going to be, if it even had one or you were just - overflowing, a little. Talking, releasing some of the tension that kept you coiled tight like a spring. It was all directed at him and his situation, because despite the fact that you sympathized with him, there was no way you were going to pour out your heart to this guy.

You lifted your head enough to meet his gaze in the bed across from you, his ears pulled back a bit and his expression caught between irritation and something wary and puzzled.

"Fuck your brother," you said fiercely and at this Leona looked surprised, those green eyes of his so very intense, holding a sharpness you didn’t think other people were capable off. "You are smart and shrewd and you have people loyal to you already. I don’t care if you think it doesn’t matter, it does and they think it matters." 

Words were pouring out and you didn’t bother to stop, not now that you had already started talking. "They were willing to choose you and risk expulsion for you. For some of them, that is their entire damn future. Forget your shitty brother and everyone else who disregarded you. They don’t matter, think of these guys instead and who else out there is waiting for someone just like you." You gestured at the knocked out Savanaclaw students, your limb feeling strangely floppy now that you moved it.

You leaned a little further up without conscious thought, even if you started to feel weirdly heavy and woozy, holding Leona’s gaze. "Kings should be chosen. Aren’t you worth choosing, Leona?"

For just a second, you watched his slit pupils blow wide and then they narrowed again and something subtle changed in his expression and when he sat up, his gaze briefly fell to your bandaged hands, your skin beneath heavily cracked from when he had used his powers and then overblotted. His expression was unreadable and the swish of his tail was a tad too slow to be caused by annoyance of frustration.

He opened his mouth to answer, which was the exact moment the potion kicked in at long last and you slumped back. The last thing you saw was his startled gaze, ears pulling back in surprise and then you were out like a light.

Fucking finally. 

You had said enough dumb shit.

*.*.*

You saw Leona here and there in the days after you were discharged from the infirmary, your gazes meeting for a moment more often than not. You saw him especially often whenever you walked through the greenhouse with your phone, pulling up an app about potion plants, trying to memorize them and their uses for Crewel’s classes. 

He always napped at a spot where your path led you past him sooner or later and while you never talked to him, you strangely enough grew to expect him. He became a part of your routine, as weird as it sounded. A silent part, maybe, but a part nonetheless.

You still put Leona out of your mind, mostly because you were just too busy to continue thinking about him. Jack was around more often since the tournament and you could have genuinely wept when he helped you with schoolwork, explaining things well and succinctly, to a point where even Deuce and Ace’s expression cleared with understanding.

"You’re my favorite," you whispered in fierce gratitude and Jack actually looked bashful for a second, shrugging and brushing you off, but you saw the tiny uptick to his lips just as he turned away.

It was honestly only thanks to Jack and Riddle - and Trey, the absolute sweetheart, even if he demanded help in the kitchen in exchange for tutoring - that you didn’t feel like having a panic attack when the big tests rolled around. Okay, no, you did maybe have a little panic attack in an abandoned corner in Ramshackle, but it could have been so much worse.

You felt like you had done alright when you turned the last test in, especially for some poor asshole who had gotten dropped into this world with no warning whatsoever. How long had it been already? A couple weeks? A handful of months?

You tried not to think about it. You tried not to think about your family that must be worried sick and the life you had been forced to leave behind.

You felt exhausted after the tests and honestly, all you wanted was to take a long, hot bath and just lie down for the rest of the day and do nothing. You were aware, somewhat, of the fact that you were too damn stressed all the time, too anxious and worried and sleep deprived, rushing around hectically in your attempts to keep up or to keep Grim out of trouble, to just…find your place here. 

You needed to find ways to unwind or you were going to explode and you had no desire to deal with the mess you’d become if that happened.

Of course, just as you thought as much, shit hit the fan and Grim, Ace and Deuce were dragged off to somewhere. Octavinelle, because these fucking idiots had decided to take the easiest way out possible for the exams. You wanted to throttle them and in this moment you had next to no sympathy for their plight.

At least Jack stuck to your side. At least you weren’t completely, totally alone or you might have had to find an abandoned corner to have a little break down in. You were so tired. Why was there always problem after problem after problem? Why couldn’t you just catch a break?

But…you couldn’t abandon them either. Not your friends, the few folks who had stuck to your side, had kept you safe in fights to the best of their abilities - even if they had gotten you into most of them in the first place - and who had done their best to help you catch up on knowledge about Twisted Wonderland.

So you signed Azul’s contract and found yourself kicked out of Ramshackle. While there were, apparently, rooms to rent in Octavinelle, you had next to no damn money. What now? You were half tempted to camp out in Crowley’s office, because if he caused trouble for you, you might as well cause some for him, when Jack offered to house you and Grim in Savanaclaw.

"Leona kind of owes you one anyway," he muttered under his breath. "He shouldn’t say no."

You weren’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth, even if your experiences with Savanaclaw were a little less than great. You made sure to hold Grim securely in your arms - and maybe he noticed who upset you secretly were because he said nothing about you holding him a little tighter than usual - and you stuck close to Jack.

There was some posturing when you arrived with him and you had no idea if people in Savanaclaw were just like that or if the beastmen had strong territorial instincts and you were the proverbial mailman getting barked at by upset dogs behind fences.

Leona, when Jack approached him, looked less than pleased and when Grim was about to puff up and argue that he had to let the two of you stay, you gave him a small squeeze. You needed him to be quiet, just this once. You did not have the capacity for another argument, for another problem, you had too much on your plate already. Your nerves were too shot.

Thankfully though, Leona agreed to let you and Grim stay and to your even greater surprise, you were brought to his own room, because apparently all the free rooms were an unholy mess. While he had told Grim that the little cat might as well clean up to help out, he hadn’t told you to do the same.

If anything, you noticed him eyeing you, but when your gazes met, he frowned and looked away, ears twitching and tail flicking. 

So, you had a place to crash. And three days to save both your shoddy, almost falling-apart home and your stupid friends. You loved them, but why had they thought accepting a shady deal was a good idea?

Grim promptly passed out as soon as Leona tossed him a large pillow to curl up on, exhausted from a day of working his ass off relentlessly at the Mostro Lounge. Leona slumped onto his bed, turned his back to you and seemed to fall asleep immediately as well.

You took a quiet, deep breath and you exhaled slowly, forcing yourself to steady your mind and nerves. You had to focus and you wouldn’t be able to help anyone if you stayed worked up. 

Leona’s couch was way more comfortable than your own bed back at Ramshackle - which either creaked like three cackling witches or like moaning ghosts of spurned lovers - but to your endless frustration, despite your heavy eyes and limbs and exhausted mind, you couldn’t sleep when you laid down.

It was nothing new to you, unfortunately. Even if you were bone-deep tired and just done for the day, you were sometimes too restless to, well, rest. Your mind seemed to relentlessly cycle around all your problems like a hungry shark that had scented blood in the water.

You knew it was useless to worry, but your brain certainly didn’t get the memo.

With a sigh you sat up and after a moment you got to your feet to sneak out onto the balcony. There was a warm, steady breeze and it smelled like sand and stone and sunshine. Sitting down with your legs carefully put between the gaps of the railing and dangling over the edge of the balcony, you looked up. The stars were beautiful, but their positions in the sky looked nothing like what you were used to seeing.

You missed your home. You missed your grandparent’s house in the countryside that you lived in with them. You missed your grandparents and that fat little cat of your neighbor that liked to visit you when you read books in the garden and that curled up on your belly. You always ended up falling asleep and woke up to pictures being taken by your grandmother, who had cooked the most delicious food.

Shit, you hoped they were alright.

"What are you doing up?" Leona’s voice made you jump and you inhaled sharply, pressing a hand over your suddenly racing heart. You heard his snort and you glared at him while he walked forward to stand beside you, his steps utterly silent.

After a moment, to your surprise, he sat down beside you, hair a little ruffled from where he had buried his head into his pillow. You had no idea why he was here, you would have expected him to just ignore you. You weren’t his responsibility after all.

"Are the stars in here the same as outside of the dorm?" you asked out of nowhere and after a moment of silence, he made a low, confirming noise. "Do you know any constellations?"

Another beat of silence, then a sigh and he leaned back onto his hands. "Sure. See that big star up there?"

You couldn’t help but pin him with a flat look and he threw his head back and laughed, throaty and amused, grinning at you like the ruffian he actually was. Prince your entire ass. He was prince of the trash bags at most. King of the dumpsters.

Leona smirked at you, then looked up, looking a little more relaxed, his tail half curled around his side. "What, you want me to point instead?"

You made a face, realizing that pointing would be just as - heh - pointless. "Do you have any bright ideas then?"

He shrugged. "Why do you care about the stars anyway?"

You were so not going to tell him that you felt so very lost in this world, that you always worried about getting kicked out if you didn’t work hard enough, that you feared the day someone would truly, badly hurt you with magic. That you couldn’t even look up at the night sky and find the north star.

So, yeah, no, you were not going to touch on all the messy emotions that were just one minor inconvenience away from choking you up. Like hell were you going to show that kind of vulnerability to Leona. Just because you wanted him to not hurt didn’t mean you were going to be dumb enough to trust him, especially not to that degree.

You shrugged. "We can talk about something else."

"Hm." Leona flopped onto his back, staring up, his hands folding on his stomach. He looked a little…well, not softer, but there was an ease to him here, in the dark with nothing but the stars above and a few lights glowing faintly below across the dorm. "Or we could go to sleep."

You gestured at him to go ahead and after a moment you heard him sigh and mutter something you couldn’t catch, before he did point up. "That right there, is the great Circle of Life," he said. "Look for the stars that are alternating between small and big."

It took you a second to spot the big constellation. "It looks more like an egg."

He laughed, throaty and amused, grinning at you in a fanged way that had nothing to do with baring his teeth in a mockery of a smile. This was genuine mirth. "I always thought so too. Over there you have the First Dragon, but if you ask me, it looks like a stick insect."

It did. You huffed, an amused little smile tugging at your mouth and you sank back to lie down as well and to your surprise, Leona kept pointing out constellations. They weren’t always actual constellations, sometimes he let you look for one that didn’t exist, snickering when you finally caught on to the fact that he was pulling your ear.

Your eyes started to feel heavy and it was getting harder and harder to keep them open. If the balcony had been actually comfortable, you probably would have fallen asleep. You felt a nudge against your side that made you squint-glare at Leona, who snorted.

"Go to sleep," he said. "Or Azul is going to wipe the floor with you."

He was, unfortunately, right. An unintentional, full-body sigh escaped you and you reluctantly dragged yourself to your feet. "Right. And…thanks, Leona." 

He waved you off, sitting up as well. "It was better than to have you skulk around, keeping me up."

You half wanted to ask if he was more aware of his space than he let on, if he ever was truly, deeply asleep whenever you saw him nap somewhere, or if it was just a sort of doze. In the end, though, you were too tired to start another conversation. Tomorrow, maybe. But you had to admit that you did feel…better. A little less like you were going to come apart at the seams.

"Night, cat prince," you said as you turned away to walk back inside.

You caught his surprised and then affronted and sour look from the corner of your eye, but by you had shuffled back inside before he could answer. You flopped onto his couch in a manner that would have caused your grandfather to scold you, telling you to be gentler with the furniture.

You had no idea if Leona got up, the asshole moved as quietly as an actual cat, but you also couldn’t be bothered to check. If anything, now that you laid on something soft - would Leona be opposed to you stealing his couch? You were so going to toss out your shitty bed and replace it with this thing - your body was quickly demanding the rest it needed. Especially now that your mind was finally quiet.

You heard Leona flopping onto his bed a moment later in the same manner you had flopped onto the couch. The thought of your grandfather scolding him too made you smile a little despite the ache in your heart at the imagined scenario. 

The last thing you were aware of before you fell asleep was Grim mumbling something about tuna and a soft breeze washing over you from the balcony.

*.*.*

You were going to throttle Jade and Floyd - hah, like you ever could, they were among the top ten people who could physically crack you like a glowstick as well as magically - but you still wanted to throttle them.

You were no longer dripping wet, but the salt water that had dried had left your skin itchy, your clothes scratchy and you really hoped Leona wouldn’t protest to you using his shower. Because there was no way you were going to go into the communal shower without someone standing guard. Like Jack. Jack would do that and not look. Maybe you should ask him for help if you could find him.

You didn’t have time for this mess with Octavinelle. All the hours you had to waste on this problem meant you’d struggle to catch up even more on other things. You loved your friends, but you couldn’t help and be a bit angry at them too. 

They had certainly noticed it, Deuce had been rather subdued when you had returned from below the sea and even Ace hadn’t tried any of his usual jokes. Grim had kept ducking his head, looking chagrinned, before he had scurried off, mumbling that he was going to get cleaned up.

"You look like a drowned rat." You heard Leona’s voice and looked back to see him behind you. He wrinkled his nose. "Went for a swim, did you?"

"What kind of bribery does it take for you to filet some fish?" you asked darkly and he snorted. "Or for me to steal your shower for, like five minutes." You made a face. "Or I’ll ask Jack to stand guard outside the shower room."

Leona frowned and his ears pulled back for a moment, his gaze sharpening and his expression briefly turned almost scary. "It’s fine. Come on, keep up."

You scurried after him, relieved that he had agreed so easily. Leona led you up to his room and flopped onto his bed, getting comfortable for a nap. You grabbed a change of clothes - you had three sets of school uniforms, courtesy of Crowley - and headed into his bath.

It was a gorgeous place. Shiny and big and obviously high tech and you wondered if maybe, after all, you were going to switch to the dark side and blackmail Crowley into giving you the same for Ramshackle. Maybe you could abandon your crusade against Azul and work with him instead.

It was only when you closed the door, locking it, that you realized you had not brought any bathing products with you. You had entirely forgotten about that in your rushed exit out of Ramshackle. Well, there was only one thing left to do, wasn’t there?

"Hey, Leona," you said, poking your head out and he opened one eye and lifted a brow, like he couldn’t imagine what you could possibly want of him. "Can I use your products?"

Both eyes opened now and you had no idea how to read his expression, only that there was something in his eyes, his tail flicking and then he shrugged and closed his eyes again. "Do whatever you want."

Oh, you were so going to take him up on that. Well, unless his stuff smelled like shit, some guys liked scents that made you want to sneeze and that made you hold your breath until they had walked past you. You ducked back inside, locking the door once more and finally shucking your clothes.

You picked up his soap and shampoo to take an experimental sniff and then you pulled back with a surprised blink. It was…nice. Really nice, actually. Like fresh gras and sunshine and warm earth? Kind of? It was weirdly, unexpectedly comforting and a very light and gentle scent too. It probably had to be to not aggravate Leona’s sensitive nose.

You did not take five minutes in the end, not when you discovered that Leona’ shower had a goddamn massage function and then you stood there like someone had found your off switch, tension getting eased out of you by the perfect kind of water pressure.

You were going to move in here. Leona just had to accept the fact that you were going to stay here for the rest of your days.

By the time you dragged yourself out of the bath, having used Leona’s expensive, stupidly nice smelling products, you felt like a wrung-out towel in the best of ways.

Leona looked asleep when you shuffled back into his room, only for his eyes to open as you passed him by. For a second you could swear that he was lifting his nose a little into the air, his slit pupils growing a tad rounder, but he said nothing. 

He just watched you with a quiet sort of intensity that was different from his usual intensity. You slumped onto his couch with a satisfied sigh that seemed to drag itself from the very depth of your soul. You heard an amused noise.

"Happy?" Leona asked and you moved your head enough to that you were no longer suffocating yourself with his fluffy couch pillow.

"I’m stealing your shower," you said, peeling your eyes open to meet bright green. For all that Leona looked as relaxed and laid back as possible, there was always this sharpness to him, no matter what. Maybe it was the eyes, the intelligence that lurked there or the way he carried himself, like he knew he was dangerous. "I’m gonna wait until you’re gone and then I’m going to steal it."

He snorted, lazily grinning at you. "Is that so?"

"Mhm." You closed your eyes. "Just you wait."

"Right, right." His tone would have pissed you off at any other day, today you just floppily flipped him off and it earned you a brief, throaty laugh. 

You heard a knock at his door a moment later and Ruggie entered, Grim slumping in after him. He looked like he had cleaned up somewhere and when he looked at you, you couldn’t bring yourself to still be angry at him. He clearly noticed, for he perked right back up. 

"I’m heading out to get dinner," Ruggie said to Leona, then paused and glanced at you, his nose twitching. His brows raised and he looked back at Leona, who threw him a warning glare. Grinning, Ruggie turned to you, "Anything you want? It’s on Leona’s dime."

Leona didn’t protest and Grim grew animated, rattling off a list that had Ruggie staring at him in baffled surprise and Grim huffed, "What? We never get the fancy stuff!"

Because the two of you were broke little shits. You flopped a hand at Leona. "I’m having what he’s having." You weren’t too hungry at the moment, nor could you be bothered to think beyond the fact that for once your muscles weren’t tense enough to cause you headaches. You were almost willing to forgive Azul’s scheming ass for stealing Ramshackle if this was the trade-off.

But you couldn’t live with Leona forever, even if he had a nice couch and divine shower. Ruggie laughed to himself and snatched up Leona’s wallet on his way out - along with a necklace that was lying around like some discarded, cheap trinket. You were willing to bet it was worth quite the pretty penny though.

Leona said nothing and since Ruggie hadn’t even attempted to be sneaky, he must not care if his stuff vanished. Or maybe he even left it out on purpose? Who knew, you certainly didn’t. You still didn’t really know Leona all that well.

You dozed off before you knew it, relaxed and feeling a little happy despite the overall terrible situation you and the others were in. You woke when Ruggie returned with dinner, a bag with his own food kept tucked into the crook of his arm. 

Grim was all over him, eagerly snagging the cans of tuna he was handed and scurrying away to dig in with glee. Ruggie dropped the rest of the food off at Leona’s desk and left with a last smirk and a jovial little wave. 

You dragged yourself upright and you were about to get to your feet when a takeout container landed on your lap. You looked up in surprise, but Leona had already turned back around, picking up his own dinner.

"Thanks," you said, because that had been nice of him and your grandparents had raised you well, damn it. Grandma had had the most piercing stare whenever you hadn’t been polite enough. Shit, you missed her.

Ruggie had gotten you, in fact, the exact same thing as Leona and upon your first bite you already knew it was the best damn thing ever. Leona smirked at you where he sat at his desk, his own food spread out before him.

"What can I say, I have impeccable taste," he said with a haughty little tilt of his head and you couldn’t even roll your eyes at that, because in this instance he was right. 

Instead of responding, you stuffed the largest bite you could fit into your mouth and Leona laughed at your bulging cheeks. "Little hamster," he said, a definitely teasing undertone to his voice.

"Cat prince," you shot back once you swallowed and he snorted, looking more amused than irritated compared to last night.

It was a surprisingly comfortable meal. Leona went right back to sleep once he was done and you cleaned everything up with Grim - he had to pull his weight and you had deployed the Stare to ensure that. You had learned how to do that thanks to your grandmother, who had always used the Stare to great effect.

Grim curled up on his designated pillow afterwards and promptly went to sleep, looking well fed and exhausted. You glanced up to see the sun setting and it was a beautiful view, so you walked out onto the balcony again.

It was only when you sat down in the same spot as last night, a breeze brushing past, that you realized that Leona’s bath-stuff smelled like this. Like nature and freedom and warm sunshine, comforting and cozy and relaxing. 

Or maybe that was just you, because you had always connected those scents to something nice. Your grandparents’ green, plant-rich yard, playing pirates at the river during the summer holidays with other kids when you had been young, adventures in the woods where you returned with scraped knees and a wealth of stories to tell.

You watched the sun set and as darkness fell over the dorm, you laid on your back to look up, easily finding the constellations Leona had shown you last night.

Somehow, for the first time since your arrival you didn’t feel misplaced and wrong and no anxious worries rose as you looked up at stars that looked nothing like those back home. Because for the first time, those stars were more familiar to you. 

It was one less piece of Twisted Wonderland that reminded you of the fact that you still knew so little about this world.

When you got up and headed back inside, seeing Leona sprawled on his back, one leg hanging over the edge of the bed and his blankets balled up a ways away from him, there was a soft kind of gratitude in your heart.

You blamed that squishy-warm feeling for why you tip-toed over to pull the blanket over him properly before you curled up on his unfairly soft couch.

*.*.*

You were so fucking done with overblots. At least you had Ramshackle back, even if it somehow had ended with you getting rather bruised once more. Though, you had to admit that it would have been worse if not for Leona throwing up a shield around you that had absorbed the worst of it magic.

But…it was all done and dealt with, Ramshackle was back in your hands, Ace, Deuce and Grim were free once more and Azul was going to recover just fine, as would Jade and Floyd, who had managed to avoid getting badly hurt during the fight. You had gotten reminded all over again that those two clowns could break you like a glowstick and you were not going to piss them off if it could be avoided.

At the moment you were trudging back to Savanaclaw with Ruggie and Leona, the former walking ahead, though not without a smirky little grin aimed at Leona, who had swiped at him halfheartedly. It was getting late and you just wanted to go…home. Ramshackle was home away from home.

Leona, to your surprise, was walking beside you, briefly glancing at your bandaged arm and the butterfly tape over a cut on your temple. There was a twitch of something that looked like a dark frown on his face before he looked away.

"So, you’re finally getting rid of me," you said once you reached his room, stepping forward to gather your things. It was done in a moment, since you had kept your things neatly packed to avoid making a mess.

"What, you’re not going to steal my shower after all?" Leona asked and you glanced over your shoulder to see him lean against the doorframe, arms crossed and the tip of his tail flicking behind him just quickly enough that you wondered if something was not to his liking.

Then again, for all that you jokingly called him cat prince, he wasn’t an actual cat, so you probably should stop drawing all those parallels. It might even be offensive, now that you thought about it.

"Don’t tempt me," you answered with a wry little smile. You would miss his shower. And his couch. And the tasty, easy dinners courtesy of Ruggie who had delivered all of them, because Leona was lazy and you weren’t above mooching a little off of him if he allowed it.

You grew more solemn. "Thanks for having me. Well, us."

Leona huffed. "I definitely won’t miss that cat monster’s sleep-talking. How do you deal with that?"

You didn’t tell him that you preferred Grim’s muttering as he slept, for it drowned out the whistling wind that crept through Ramshackle’s cracks, the groaning and creaking of an old house settling for the night. You had been especially glad for his presence the first few weeks, since you had been constantly worried that one of the ghosts was going to pop up to scare the shit out of you. 

You were, to this day, not ashamed of the way you had clung to Grim - and he to you, in all fairness - the first few weeks before the ghosts had calmed down. They were barely attempting to scare you anymore.

"It’s not that bad," you answered, hoisting your bag up and biting back a wince when a bruise at your side twinged. Azul had packed quite a punch. "Well, I’ll get out of your hair."

"Right." There was a moment where it looked like he was going to say something else, but then he pushed away from the doorframe, letting you walk past him.

"Night, cat prince," you called over your shoulder and you heard a sigh that ended in a little huff, making you smile.

Ramshackle was just as rundown as you remembered when you returned, Grim eagerly checking if his tuna stash was where he had left it or if it had gotten stollen. The ghosts, to your pleasant surprise, were quite glad to have you back, complaining about the terror twins and how rude they had been.

Jade and Floyd wouldn’t have been scared in the least of the ghosts and you were sure that they hadn’t hesitated to chase them away either. Dinner was a rather lively affair, especially when Ace and Deuce dropped by with a container of food, courtesy of Trey who sent his gratitude for your help with the two troublemakers.

"But really, thank you," Deuce said earnestly and even Ace nodded along with him. "You saved our asses."

"Just…study with me next time," you told them, which had all of them make agreeing noises, even Grim. "We’re a team, yeah?"

That made them perk up and grin and you smiled back at them. They might be troublemakers but they were your troublemakers.

Later that night you crawled into your creaky bed, freshly showered and you fell asleep with Grim pressed against your side, your arm wrapped around him.

You really hoped that things would calm down from now on. If you never had to see another student overblot it would be too soon.

*.*.*

A week long trip organized by some of the teachers was announced the following week and while Grim got selected, you stayed behind. It was for the best, really. There was too much work piled on your plate, especially after you had sacrificed three days to the cat-and-mouse game of Octavinelle.

In all honesty, it hadn’t taken long at all before you had returned to your frazzled, hectic state of being, sacrificing sleep once again because you had only just barely passed those tests and you couldn’t afford to fail the next ones.

You were so damn tired again and you fiercely missed Leona’s massage shower and comfy couch.

You wished you could take a few days off, laze around and not feel the weight of your tasks loom above you. But you had to be responsible. You had no idea if Crowley would let you stay if you had no passing grades, since you were essentially just mooching off of the school. You would never tell Grim as much, but the study guide he had gotten from Azul had ensured his part of the grades were looking a lot better than yours.

At least the group potion project you had gotten assigned to with a few other students, ones you had never talked to before, should allow you to polish up your alchemy grade a little. Unless, of course, these guys were even worse at potions than you were, which would surprise you. You were quite shoddy at potions, but you were getting better, even if it was at a snail’s pace. Or rather, to you it felt like a snail’s pace.

Grim had already finished up his group project successfully, though, so he could skedaddle off to camp. You were only a little jealous of that, not that you’d tell him as much, you wanted him to have fun.

You saw Grim and your friends off and you had to admit that you were secretly glad that Trey was part of the travel group. It was a relief to know he was there and that everyone, even Grim at times, were willing to listen to him. They should, hopefully, not get into too much trouble with him around. That and Ace and Deuce and even Jack were getting pretty good at wrangling Grim at his worst.

Once they left you returned to school to meet up with the group you had gotten assigned to. You hoped to get that potion project done and dealt with today so you could focus on other things. To your surprise, there were other students present as well when you entered the room, Leona among them. 

He looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here, but there must’ve been some kind of assignment he hadn’t been able to wriggle out of if he was here. From the expert way he had his potion ingredients set up and swiftly took care of everything with steady focus you doubted that it would take him long. 

Your group had already set up everything as well when you joined them and you had to admit that you had no idea what half of those ingredients were. You were relying perhaps a bit too much on them to get a passing grade.

You should have known that it was going to bite you in the ass. Because of course it did.

You had glanced away for just a second as Leona had bottled a perfect looking, softly glowing bottle of something and then one your study partners, who had left to quickly get a thing called Moon Claw and was coming back at a run, tripped. There was an alarmed shout and you and the others tried to move to catch him, but you were a moment too late, which also meant you were in the middle of reaching for him when he crashed against the cauldron.

Before you knew it, the boiling hot contents sloshed over the rim in a big wave and straight onto you. There was an intense kind of pain that went deeper than the burns, your very bones felt like they were cracking and breaking, splintering and grinding each other into something smaller.

Your skin felt like it was burning all over, going hot and cold and then there was an itch so intense it was straight up painful and then it was over.

You were caught in something that felt like fabric - only everything was wrong. It was too loud and too smelly and your body was all wrong and uncoordinated and you had just managed to tumble out of your strange cloth-prison when a massive looking hand reached down to grab the back of your neck and lift you up, someone shouting.

A different kind of pain exploded all across your neck and back and down your limbs and panic set in even worse as you were helpless to do something, anything, to get free.

"The fuck are you doing!" A deep, sharp voice snapped and the next moment, two big, gloved hands rescued you from the painful grip, swiftly scooping you up and pressing you against an equally clothed chest that rumbled with a deep, warning growl. Fuck, those hands covered you almost entirely and you were perhaps hyperventilating a little.

You were half aware of worried, loud voices and the deep voice rumbling as it answered, but the blood was rushing too much in your ears for you to pay attention. You did notice it when the warm body you were gently pressed against moved and that the startled, panicked shouting had stopped.

"Hey, calm down," the voice rumbled down at you and it was a little quieter now. Oh, Leona. That was Leona, you recognized that voice and an unexpected wave of relief gripped you. "These morons are getting Crewel, think you can remove your claws from my arm?"

You looked down, staring at little cat paws that clung to Leona’s clothed arm with all their might. You hurriedly let go and then stared down at your paws, your breathing growing fast again.

A cat. You were a damn cat! Oh, oh no. Oh this was bad. What were you supposed to do?

"Hey, easy," Leona said, voice a little quieter once again, almost a rumbling whisper and you realized that he wasn’t actually holding on to you, he was just supporting you so you wouldn’t fall down. You peered past his arm to see the ground far away. Yeah, no. You were fine right here. Fuck, you felt so tiny, especially compared to him!

Did all cats feel this way? Or was it just that you had gotten shoved into a shape so much smaller than your real body that you felt about as big as a fly.

Crewel stormed into the room a moment later and you ducked against Leona without conscious thought, feeling uncoordinated and so fucking defenseless still. Shit you felt your ears move atop your head, your tail lashing and your fur felt sticky and damp and now that the panic wasn’t as all-consuming, there was a bit of burning pain against one front leg and your side.

Crewel cast a quick spell that cleared the dampness from your fur and the burning pain nearly vanished, turning into a tiny bit of a sensitive ache. He cast another quick spell that made him frown, but whatever he was getting from it, it made him pause. He told Leona to be careful with you, which made him rumble a low noise you only heard because your hearing was stupidly sensitive right now.

Crewel then turned to your very chagrinned and worried looking group partners and grilled them thoroughly. Leona attempted just once to set you down on a nearby desk and you found yourself clinging to him, feeling panicked at the thought of just…being abandoned. To the whims of fate. The world at large, which was so much larger now that you were this small.

To your surprise, he paused then sighed and remained where he was, holding you. You were glad he didn’t shake you off or dropped you off with another person. You really didn’t want anyone else’s hands on you right now.

Crewel turned back to you and asked a few questions, sounding calmer and less sharp than when he had spoken with your group partners. You confirmed that, yes, you were fully conscious and aware of things. Yes, you were fine after his healing spell. No, you could not force yourself to turn back into a human.

"The bad news is that I don’t think it’s a good idea to attempt to give you another potion," Crewel said with an apologetic tone to his voice and a less than pleased glance at the other guys, who cringed back further, shoulders hunching up more. "It had already been messed up before it got spilled. You guys were meant to make a potion to turn someone’s hair a different color for a couple of days, not transform them into a cat."

His gaze narrowed and sharpened and he pointed at one of your group partners. "Is that cat hair I see on your shirt?" The tall guy looked startled and then horrified and Crewel took a deep breath. "Detention, for all of you. You will read the manual on lab safety again and tell me exactly what you did wrong here today. Go now, I’ll clean this up."

Crewel turned back to you, as the group shuffled out with lowered heads. "The potion should wear off in a couple of days from what I can tell. Do you have someone who can look after you until then?"

Because it was not safe to walk around school when you were even more defenseless than usual, with none of your friends around to protect you. Other students wouldn’t know that you weren’t a normal cat and you had no desire to find out how a stray around campus was treated. 

Crewel had already reassured you that your situation was going to be kept under wraps, so that was something at least. You didn’t want to get bothered by assholes who wanted to laugh at your situation. Or who wanted to chase you around for some 'fun'.

You shook your head and Crewel frowned, looking like he was thinking of a solution when Leona unexpectedly spoke up.

"I got it," Leona said and Crewel raised a surprised brow. When you craned your head to look up at the prince, the flat look he was leveling Crewel with turned into an unreadable frown when he glance down at you. "Unless you want me to drop you off with someone else?"

There wasn’t anyone else. Well, maybe the ghosts in Ramshackle, but, well, you had no idea if they could head to Sam’s and buy food or if they could cook. They could use magic and toss things around if they felt like it, but you had no idea how fine their control of their surroundings were.

"Tell Crowley he owes me one," Leona said when you shook your head and Crewel waved him off, rattling off a list of symptoms Leona was supposed to look out for in case the botched potion had any sudden, unexpected side effects. Alright, yeah, those sounded pretty bad.

You felt anxiety rise and you only realized you had started to cling to Leona’s sleeve again when the fabric bunched under your paws. At least you weren’t scratching him this time. 

"It’s unlikely that it’s going to have averse effects if nothing else has happened by now," Crowley said reassuringly. "It’s just best to be careful."

"Yeah, yeah, we’ll be careful." Leona started moving and you flattened yourself a bit more against his arms, since you were still whole unsteady on your new and strange feeling legs. Leona shifted his hold slightly to adjust and all of a sudden you weren’t getting jostled about anymore.

Leona and Crewel paused when they saw your discarded clothes lying on the floor. Great. You found yourself exhaling with relief when Leona waved his pen and your clothes folded themselves into a neat, square little packet without risk of your underwear tumbling about and he made it float over to tuck it under his arm.

"So much trouble," he muttered, but it sounded…almost weirdly like he wasn’t all that upset over it, and walked out of the room.

In all honesty, you half expected him to head over to Ramshackle, to maybe laze around for a couple of hours and then leave you there. The ghosts surely could help you a little, hopefully. You’d make do either way, you always did. You had to. If one thing had become clear since your arrival here it was that you either sank or swam and by god you were paddling.

Leona smelled like the lab, you noticed, with only a faint undertone of something sunny and grassy and earthy. It smelled almost like the soap and shampoo he had - if anything it was even nicer - and you realized it was his natural scent. You immediately felt a little bit like a creep for noticing that, only to get distracted as he walked down the hallway.

Students stopped and stared and you felt your ears pull back, your tail lashing and you startled as Leona shifted you onto one arm to free the other. There was some rustling and the next moment he pulled one side of his lab coat over you, tucking you a little further into it with the angle of the arm he held you with.

Oh. Oh, that was so much better. You found yourself relaxing, peering past the fabric that smelled like detergent and something a little sharper and herb-y, most likely the ingredients he had used for his potion.

"I took Animal Linguistic classes," Leona said as he headed down the stairs. You perked up and tried to speak, only to realize at the same time as Leona did that you had no idea how cats talked.

"Sorry, I don’t speak gibberish," he said, a little smirk curling at the corners of his mouth and you resisted the urge to nip his thumb in retaliation. 

You might have been turned into a cat, but you could already tell that you didn’t really have any cat-ish urges. You felt like always, aside from the fact that this was not your body. The thumb-biting was all your idea.

Leona took a few shortcuts across campus and soon enough he stepped through the Savanaclaw mirror and you couldn’t help but worry a little anew. Sure, the Savanaclaw students had tolerated you and Grim back when Leona had let you stay in his room, but you had no idea how they’d react to you now. They were quick to pick fights in your experience, always willing to throw down and eager to prove themselves in a fight.

You were just a shitty little cat, even less sturdy than usual. You’d be toast.

"Stop that," Leona said, breaking you out of your thoughts. "Whatever you’re thinking about, it’s going to be fine."

You hoped he was right. You stilled when you felt his free hand come to rest over you outside of the lab coat, the touch light and downright careful. Gentle even.

"You’re going to be fine, nothing bad will happen to you," he repeated, steady and certain and rock-solid and you found the anxious beat of your heart calming a little.

You hesitated, then butted your head up into his palm, since you couldn’t really answer otherwise.

Alright, if he said you were going to be fine, you were willing to believe him.

As he carried you up to his room, you were hit by the realization that somewhere along the way, at some point, you had started to trust him. You didn’t fear his hands, not even now that you were so fucking small. 

If anything he felt…well, he felt almost safe.