Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Leanna was quite possibly the most fucked she had ever been in her entire life. This was a fairly impressive feat, because her track record thus far included numerous write-ups from furious nuns for everything from failure to comply with uniform rules (Leanna had decided at thirteen that she had a moral objection to being forced to wear a tie to school every day), to punching another girl so hard she knocked one of her teeth out. Twice.

Additionally, in her post-school days, she had nearly failed four classes in her very first year of uni, been in three equally disastrous relationships, and been arrested once. All in all, Leanna had decent experience with being completely and absolutely fucked—which made it all the more horrifying that this time, she was actually panicking. Her feet struck the earth over and over again, and she focused on breathing as evenly as possible, trying to drown out her own spiraling thoughts. No use, but it was worth a try anyway. She had forgone her headphones for today's run, a true sign of near breakdown, hoping that the rhythm of feet on pavement and the steady beat of her heart would keep her focused on the task at hand. In the back of her mind, however, those sounds only overlapped with the insistent tick tick tick of the clock in the student office.

“Leanna…..Leanna, Leanna….Bryne?”

“Yeah.”

“Right.” The counselor shuffles some papers around on his desk. Silence. More shuffling. Tick, tick, tick. Leanna’s leg bounced incessantly under the desk. More shuffling. Tick, tick, tick.

“Ah, here we go. Now, you’re on the football team, right?”

“Yeah. And athletics.” The counselor's tie had little steamboats on it. She liked it. She’d hated wearing ties in school, but maybe if they'd've had steamboats or stars or something on them, she might have been alright with it. It’s just that they were all this awful yellow, and they made it difficult to breathe properly, and the counselor was still talking. Right. Counselor. Meeting.

“-Now, it’s understandable if you’re having difficulty in some of your classes. We have a very understanding school culture here at Trinity, as I’m sure you know.” He smiled at her in a way that suggested he was speaking to a toddler on the verge of a tantrum, or maybe some sort of stray dog. She bristled.

“I know about my marks. I was fine last year.”

The smile grew wider. It looked almost painful, like some sort of balding ventriloquist dummy. The clock ticked on in the background. Leanna was sure she was making some kind of face, which probably wasn’t helping the situation.
“Right. But, this year unfortunately, a few of your professors have shared some….concern….about your lack of participation.”

“I go to class!”

“Right. Of course,” He put his hands up in a gesture meant to placate her, which had the exact opposite effect. She took back everything she’d thought about his tie. He didn’t deserve fun ties. It ought to be an ugly yellow one that made it difficult to breathe. “But, well, some of your teachers have said that you….you struggle to answer questions, participate in discussions….your exam scores are, well, not what we expect here at Trinity, unfortunately.”

Leanna stared at him. Her leg was moving so fast under the table that she was sure her whole body must have been vibrating. She stilled it, straightening her posture.
“Right. Ok. Well…..,” Her voice trailed off like her brain had slipped a gear. All the righteous indignation she’d felt a moment ago had abandoned her, and she suddenly felt very cold. And a bit sick. “Is that…am I getting expelled or something?”

“Oh, no no no. Nothing like that,” He said cheerily, “However, I’ve spoken to your coach. If you’re unable to raise your marks by the end of the term, then we believe it would be best to remove other distractions from your school life. We expect a certain level of academic performance from everyone here, even if they are very talented,” he added, like he was praising a child for not eating paste. She swallowed. Her foot tapped against the floor, matching rhythm with the tick, tick, tick.

“So I’m getting kicked off my sports?” she croaked, her throat constricting. Like the ties all over again, she thought, before she could stop herself. Tap, tick, tap, tick, tap.
The smile was back.

“That is a possibility, but! It is still very possible for you to get your marks back up before the term ends. Your first year marks also left something to be desired, and we simply want to help you to help yourself, and make sure that this year is better than the last! So, going forward, try paying a bit more attention in your classes. I’m sure some classmates could help you out with notes, and we have study groups in the library. I’m sure you’ll be able to get things back on track.”

Tick,

tick,

tick,

tick,

tick.

The sounds of her feet against the pavement. Breathe in, out. In, out. In, out. Her throat hurt, and her legs were burning horribly. She’d lost track of where she was entirely and finally came to a staggering halt, collapsing onto the grass by the football fields, gasping, throat raw, brain echoing with every awful tick. The air was cold against her sweat-soaked body, and the sky was a pure, clear blue, a true rarity in Ireland. She thought about just staying here for the rest of the day.

The dirt wasn’t so bad. She liked dirt, really, at least compared to expensive university classes. Everyone ends up in the dirt one day anyway, she thought, and that was sort of comforting. She cut that thought process off before she had time to consider digging her own grave in the overpriced turf, and pulled out her phone instead. Two more missed calls from Tav had joined the other three from yesterday, all of which were quickly swiped off her homescreen. At least he’d never figured out how to actually send a text. She opened and closed a couple of socials, turned the phone off, and then, with horror, back on again, catching the time displayed front and center on its screen. 3:02 pm.

Physics 102 had started seventeen minutes ago. Physics 102 was located on the exact opposite side of campus. Leanna spared another thought to the idea of digging her own grave before forcing her aching body to its feet and breaking into a dead sprint, her legs protesting the whole way.

❖

“-now, electric potential due to a point charge should be written as follows, assuming V equals zero…”

The lecture hall was freezing. Leanna sat tucked into the back where she’d tried to hide herself upon entry, which was only a partial success (Professor Elminster hadn’t noticed, but about half her class had turned at the sound of the door, much to her stomach-clawing discomfort), and tried to curl even further in on herself. Being covered in sweat in a tank top and gym shorts wasn’t helping matters in terms of the embarrassment or her likelihood of catching a terrible cold.

She thought once again about just calling the whole thing a wash and dragging herself back to the dorms for a shower and a good wallow in copious amounts of self-pity, but the memory of the counselor's ventriloquist smile flashed through her head and pulled her attention back to the lecture. God, the lecture. She was certain she’d known what was going on only a moment ago; there’d been note-taking and everything, but in the short time she’d been distracted, the Professor seemed to have jumped several topics and erased the entire board. She was going to fail this class, almost certainly, despite the fact that she absolutely could not afford to fail anything. She managed to drag herself through the rest of the lecture and wrote down anything she could catch, even if she didn’t understand most of it. As everyone stood to leave, she stayed huddled in her corner, hoping to avoid any more attention.

“Ahem. Leanna? Could I speak to you a moment?” Professor Elminster rasped from the pulpit.

Leanna missed the dirt. She mustered all the cheerfulness still left in her body (a catastrophically low amount, by her standards) and managed a “Yup. Be right down.” Before trudging through the rows of seats to stand awkwardly in front of him. Elminster was possibly the oldest person Leanna had ever seen in real life, with a full Gandalf-style beard and a face that wrinkled cheerily around the eyes and mouth. At nearly six feet, she towered over him, and did her best to round in her shoulders a little, just in case he thought she was being rude by standing at her full height.

He smiled warmly, or at least what she assumed was warmly. It was difficult to tell sometimes, as the beard and the depth of his wrinkles seemed to freeze his face into a near constant expression of absentminded serenity.

“Mrs. Bryne, I wanted to speak-are you quite alright? You look a bit…ill.”

“Fine, sir. Thank you.”

“Good, good, yes. Now what was I….,” he murmured.

“You wanted to speak to me about…?”

“Ah! Yes! I know you’ve been having a bit of difficulty with your coursework, no?”

“Um, yeah. Yes. Yessir.” She fought the urge to cringe at her own stumbling. Elminster only nodded, reaching for a piece of paper on his desk.

“I have a number for one of my graduate students, Gale. I think he might be able to help you a little, just to get caught up in your courses.” Leanna stared at him. After what may well have been the second worst day of her entire life, fucking Professor Elminster was finally offering blessed solutions? She could’ve kissed him. She could’ve kissed everyone in the building, lack of a post-run shower be damned.

“Is that-I mean is he-did he agree to help me?” There was an edge of truly pathetic desperation in her voice, but she barely noticed.

“Well,” Elminster looked a little sheepish. It was a strange expression to see on a man who Leanna assumed must be the oldest living person to ever exist, but it was there nonetheless: “he hasn’t agreed to anything….as of yet, but I am certain that if you reach out to him, he will be happy to help. He’s a good lad, Gale. And in need of a bit of a distraction, I think.”

Leanna barely heard the rest of his sentence and snatched the paper out of his hand before he’d made it through the final syllable. ‘As of yet’ was fine. She could work with ‘as of yet’.

“ThankyousomuchProfessorIwilldefinitelytalktohimthankyou!” She practically skipped out of the room, paper clutched to her chest like a letter from her long-lost love or her husband away at war. Whatever she lacked in academic skill, she made up for in her ability to be insufferably persistent. Come hell or high water, ‘Gale’ would end up tutoring her, of that, she was certain.

Chapter Text

Leanna was not the kind of person who agonized over texts. Leanna didn’t really agonize over anything, really. She moved through the world with a near-unshakable belief that everything would simply work itself out eventually, despite many, many situations that seemed to suggest otherwise. So, after she’d sent a cheery introduction text to the number Elminster had given her last night, she’d simply turned her phone off and gone right to sleep. Now, however, it was 12 hours later without a word from this Gale person, and she was starting to, god forbid, agonize. Was it too casual? Too blunt? She opened her messages again to stare at the mostly empty chat log. 

[11:48PM] +353 7375 048937: hi! prof elminster gave me your number, he thought you might be able to help me with some of the coursewrok? im shit at physics lol

[11:48PM] +353 7375 048937: lmk if theres a good time to meet up in person bc i think it'll be easier that way

[11:49PM] Leanna: im Leanna btw

It was nearly lunchtime now, and nothing. He hadn’t even left her on read, the message was untouched. She thought about giving it some more space, but if she needed to get her marks up by the end of the term, she didn’t have time to be anything other than a nuisance. Sorry Gale. 

[11:35AM] Leanna: not to be bother, im sure youre busy, but i was hoping we could talk pretty soon? exams coming up so i js wanted to figure things out pretty quickly

[11:35AM] Leanna: and obviously i would pay for your help, if thats a worry :)

How, exactly, she was going to pay him was a mystery to her, but she hoped that would motivate him to reply soon. For his sake, of course. 

❖

Gale Dekarios was very possibly going to die. Imminently. His head was pounding so badly he thought about banging it against the wall for a bit. He would’ve, if he’d thought he could move without throwing up. Unfortunately, he couldn’t, so instead he stayed exactly where he was on…. ah. The floor. His increasingly familiar new friend. Who’s floor, he couldn’t be certain, but that was really the least of his worries. He wondered where his phone was, and tried to glance around, but moving his eyes too quickly led to a starburst of pain just behind them, so he simply closed them again and hoped someone had had the good sense to take the wretched device away from him before he could do anything stupid. Again.

Distantly, he heard the click, click, click of claws against hardwood. Tara. So it was his floor then. That was a comfort, if nothing else. The clicking drew nearer, and Gale felt the uncomfortable sensation of a paw thumping directly into his eye. He opened the other, catching sight of Tara’s disapproving look, which was a difficult thing for a cat to express, but Tara had always been particularly extraordinary. They stared at each other. Slowly, she raised her paw from his face and smacked him again. 

“Tara…,” He groaned, and the paw rose once more, “Alright! I’m getting up. I’m getting up!” Not fast enough. Thwap! 

“Christ, Tara. I can barely sit straight. Some grace would be appreciated." 

Now, scientifically, cats possess neither eyebrows nor the facial muscles required to move them. Gale knew this. He was supposedly very clever. However, somewhere in the hungover haze, he was certain that Tara had managed to raise a single eyebrow at him. 

“Understood.” He mumbled and at last hauled himself to his feet. His phone was lying abandoned under the coffee table, and he slipped it into his pocket quickly, lest he try and check what he’d likely sent to Mystra last night. Assisted by Tara (via sharp nipping at his heels whenever he slowed down too much for her liking), he managed to change out of last night's clothes, get his teeth brushed, and put the kettle on. Tara stood sternly by the pantry for several minutes afterwards, but eventually even she seemed to understand that attempting to eat something in his current state would’ve been a bridge too far. When he could put it off no longer, he gingerly removed the phone from his pocket and opened his messages. 

Paragraphs.

Five of them, exactly. One of them was poetry.

He wished he’d gotten alcohol poisoning.

There were also 4 outgoing calls, none of which were picked up, due to the fact that she’d blocked him months ago, which was evident to everyone except Drunk Gale. He had very strong opinions about Drunk Gale. When he was finished sighing and cursing himself, he checked his other messages. There was an email from Elminster and a couple of texts from an unknown number that he’d completely skipped over in his Mystra-related haze of dread. 

[11:48PM] +353 7375 048937: hi! prof elminster gave me your number, he thought you might be able to help me with some of the coursewrok? im shit at physics lol

[11:48PM] +353 7375 048937: lmk if theres a good time to meet up in person bc i think it'll be easier that way

[11:49PM] Leanna: im Leanna btw

He scrubbed a hand over his face and closed the chat log before he even finished reading. What on earth was wrong with Elminster? This was the absolute last thing he needed. He checked the email. 

Dearest Gale, 

This already did not bode well. His headache gave an anticipatory throb.

I am aware that you have been struggling quite tremendously, given your current circumstances, and while this is perfectly understandable, an old man like myself cannot help but spend his free time matriculating on ways that I might aid you in coming back to your former self. 

The headache was very much back. 

Fortuitously, one such opportunity came across my path without any of my meddling at all! As luck (or unluck, I suppose, in her case) would have it, one of my students is struggling quite intensely with her coursework. Now, normally I am not the kind to meddle about in the lives of my students,-

“Liar.”

-however the opportunity presented itself for improvement not only in her case, but in yours as well. I would be a fool to watch it pass by, no? So, I gave this young woman, by the name of Miss Leanna Bryne, your contact information and assured her that you would be delighted to assist her. Now, I imagine she will be quite eager to begin, as exam season approaches rapidly, so you would do best to contact her quickly. She does not strike me as a woman in possession of an excess of patience. 

“How wonderful,” Gale muttered to no one in particular except Tara, who had already wandered off to lounge on his armchair. He would’ve simply closed his phone and gone to sulk in bed, but the final sentences of the email caught his attention. 

Now, I understand that this might find you in one of your increasingly bitter moods-

Gale felt that this was uncalled for. 

-but I am afraid that I must insist. You cannot spend the rest of your life in your apartment with only Tara for company, wonderful as she is. You are, and always have been, one of my best and brightest students, and an exceptional man in your own right. I would ask that you once again start to act like it. 

Kindest regards,

Dr. Elminster Alumar, PhD

Well. Gale felt as though the wind had been taken out of his sails a bit. Elminster was a meddling bastard, as always, but Gale couldn’t help but think of him fondly. And he was certainly persuasive when he wanted to be. Likely from years of experience meddling, but nonetheless. Persuasive. And, now that he thought about it, it would likely do him a bit of good to be out of the house. At the very least, it would keep him from spending his afternoons working his way through increasingly expensive vintages. Theoretically. But theoretically was better than nothing, and his options were that, or stay here and stew in the embarrassment of last night's messages while Tara glared disapprovingly from the couch. He went back to Leanna’s messages. 

[11:35AM] Leanna: not to be bother, im sure youre busy, but i was hoping we could talk pretty soon? exams coming up so i js wanted to figure things out pretty quickly

[11:35AM] Leanna: and obviously i would pay for your help, if thats a worry :)

It didn’t seem too bad at all, all things considered. She seemed nice enough, if a bit….direct. And the offer of payment didn’t seem so terrible either. He typed out a quick response, set his phone on the table, and strode off to get dressed with a sense of purposeful cheer he hadn’t felt in months. 

[11:56AM] Gale: Apologies for a late response; I had a bit of a late start this morning. I would be happy to meet with you. Is there a good place and time? 

[11:56AM] Leanna: theres a coffee shop called last light near the sciences building

[11:56AM} Leanna: we could meet there around 1?

[11:58AM] Gale: Sounds perfect. 

Chapter Text

The Last Light Cafe was a quiet shop tucked neatly into a street corner, only a few minutes away from Gale’s flat. He had managed to make himself slightly more presentable since waking up on his own floor in last night's clothes, although his head was still pounding faintly, and the lights seemed entirely too bright. The hiss of the espresso machine set his headache beating in time, and the air smelled strongly of coffee grounds and burnt sugar. He glanced around the shop, which was fairly empty aside from a barista sporting a long, brightly colored ponytail, who was too busy chatting up a young woman with a guitar balanced on her lap to notice his entrance.

He wondered if that was Leanna. They probably should’ve exchanged descriptions. Something besides: “meet you there.” He pulled his phone out from his pocket again, just as a very out-of-breath woman with a mess of red curls burst through the cafe door, made eye contact, and announced to the entire shop:

“Gale Dekarios!”

He blinked at her. There were several moments of silence as he tried to figure out if she had meant to come off so…accusatory?

“Um. Well. Yes? That would be…,” He pointed awkwardly to himself. Ponytail-barista and her musically inclined friend had gone silent, and he was certain he could feel their stares burning into the back of his neck. The red-headed woman–Leanna, he assumed–didn't seem to notice as she threw herself into the chair across from him, blowing an errant curl out of her face.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t what he’d been expecting. Based on what he could glean from the few texts they’d exchanged, she’d seemed direct and outgoing. Younger than him, definitely, based on the fact that she couldn’t be bothered to devote precious seconds to spelling words like “just” and “tomorrow”. All of which fell in line with the woman in front of him. She seemed almost exactly what he’d been expecting, just…more. Twice over, really. Maybe three times. She was tall, at least his height, maybe taller, and seemingly about 80% arms and legs. She wore running shorts and a worn-out grey sweatshirt, and nearly every inch of her skin that wasn’t covered was crowded with freckles, especially over her face, which was framed by hair just long enough to curl around her jaw. Her eyes, which were a very nice sort of blue-ish green color, held him in such sharp focus that he leaned back slightly in his chair.

“I’m Leanna.” Her accent–Irish, and heavy–curved around the vowels.

“I could infer from your,” he gestured to the door, “exciting entrance. I’m Gale, although you sort of took care of that part for me.” He stuck a hand out, got it halfway across the table, then snatched it back like he’d touched a hot stove. Did people shake hands in this situation? Was that a normal introduction? God, he really did need to get out of the house more. He could’ve sworn he was good at this at one point. Pre-Mystra, probably. He shook the thought off.

“Sorry. I’m usually better at this.”

“At shaking hands?”

“At introductions.” That got a smile. “In my defense, I was caught slightly off guard. I was just thinking that we should’ve exchanged photos or shirt colors or something in that vien. Evidently not an issue.”

“I googled you. You’re on the university website. It’s got a whole section about your research and everything.”

“Ah. All good things, I hope?” Ponytail-barista and the friend had started up their conversation again, and he could hear the soft clinking of cups and bottles from behind the counter. This wasn’t so bad. He could leave his apartment. He could have normal conversations with other humans. He was holding a conversation right now! In a public place! Loath as he was to admit it, maybe Elminster had been marginally correct in his obsession with getting Gale out of the house. Lenna smiled again. She had one of those big, eye-crinkling smiles that seemed to light her whole face.

“Mostly, a lot of physics words I don’t think I can pronounce properly, but it seemed very impressive. Very professor-y.”

“Well, I’ve never actually taught another person before. I mostly grade papers for Elminster. But I am good at physics in general, so it hopefully amounts to about the same.”

She sat up straighter in her chair, and her eyes lit up again.

“So you can do it then?” Her whole body leaned towards him across the table. The intensity of her focus pressed against him, sharp and demanding, and he found himself inching back.

“Oh-I-well I’d definitely be willing to discuss-but…um. I’ve sort of, you know, I’ve got a lot on right now, so it may be-,”

“Like what?”

“Sorry?”

“What do you have on right now? Because I can work around a schedule.” She pulled out her phone and started looking through something.

Gale stared at her. He didn’t have ‘a lot on right now’. Of course he didn’t. “I’ve got a lot on right now” is the kind of thing you say to people when you want them to stop asking questions and leave you alone. It was a line that had worked successfully on most of his friends and various acquaintances in the past year. Although it was evidently not as effective as he thought, because Leanna was staring at him expectantly.

“Well, I’ve-I’ve got my research, obviously. I’m pursuing a doctorate in astrophysics, regarding gravitational waves, to be precise, which, if you don’t know much about is actually very interesting. But, I suppose if you don’t enjoy physics, it would be less enjoyable, so maybe not the right recommendation for you, but nonetheless, I find it fascinating. And very, extremely time-consuming. And I’ve got pets, and they’re very particular about how they’re cared for, so I have to attend to them, so I’m not-,”

She broke into the middle of his monologuing, “Look, I can really work around any kind of schedule. If you’ve got ten minutes in between research and whatever else, I can make it work!”

The manic energy had not lessened in the slightest. There was a look of pure, undeterred determination on her face so intense that Gale was beginning to understand why Elminster had been so insistent about them meeting in the first place. His odds of leaving this coffee shop without agreeing to the tutoring were looking slimmer by the moment.
The growing cornered animal feeling in his chest must have shown on his face, because Leanna sat back in her chair, deflating a little. She looked down at her hands, where they were drawing little patterns on the table.

“Look, I’m sorry, I’m not-I don’t want to be, like, pushy or annoying or anything. I am sort of pushy, I think. I just don’t always think things all the way through, and then I try to make them work by, like, brute forcing it, I guess. But I try not to be unbearable about it. And I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable, so. Yeah. I just, um, I kind of really need this. And I know there are other tutors, so I can figure something out, but Professor Elminster recommended you specifically, and I thought that he probably did for a reason, so. And it would only be until I can get my marks a little higher. I’m not good with school. And I do try! I go to class and all that, it just doesn’t really click in my head.”

The longer Gale looked at her, the more he realized that he may have been confusing mania with desperation. He felt a little bad, actually. She was intense, definitely, but it’s not like she was some lunatic trying to entrap him in a tutoring arrangement. He nodded, tugging at his beard. The edges of a hangover were still tugging at his thoughts, making them feel strange and fuzzy.

Eventually, he managed, “I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot. It's not that I don’t want to help you, necessarily, only my life is a bit…out of order right now. Elminster has a history of meddling. Constantly. And it's nearly impossible to convince him that he’s ever been wrong about anything. I know he recommended me, and I’m sure he has whatever he considers to be valid reasons, but I don’t know that I’m in a position to help anyone right now.” The pattern drawing had stopped, but he could hear her foot tapping against the floor.

“Right. Yeah. I get that.” She nodded. “I’m not exactly a massive success story at the moment.”

“Why do you need to get your grades up so badly?”

She sighed and rolled her shoulders back. The movement had passed on from her leg, and now her fingers tapped against the tabletop instead.

“I’m in a bunch of sports, and if you don’t maintain a certain average, they’ll kick you off. And sports are basically the only thing I’m good at. I wouldn’t have even gone to uni, I probably just would’ve done an apprenticeship or something, but I’m really good, and I wanted to maybe do football professionally when I’m done. But that probably won’t happen if I get kicked off the uni team because I can’t get the grades.”

God damn Elminster. Gale felt bad for her now. And sort of responsible. She’d come here because he’d been recommended, and she seemed genuinely interested in trying to learn from him. A year ago, he would’ve jumped at the chance. It was hardly her fault that he was so much of a mess these days that he could barely handle meeting for coffee.

“I’ll go home and take a look at my schedule, and I’ll see what I can make work. And if I can’t, I can definitely put you in contact with someone who can. I am far from the most intelligent person on this campus, I assure you.”

“Ok. Yeah. Just think about it, ok? I promise I will take up as little of your time as possible. Swear. I’ll uh-or, you can text me, yeah?” Leanna was already rising from her chair and tucking her phone into her back pocket.

“Of course. And I can talk for a few more minutes, if that's helpful.” He glanced back towards the barista. He felt strangely unwilling to let Leanna leave. This was the most normal human social interaction he’d had in a while. “We didn’t even order anything, which is sort of the point of meeting in a cafe, right?”
She looked apologetic. “Shit, sorry, I’ve got practice in like 10 minutes and my coach is terrifying. She’s like 6 '4 and,” she held her hands out wide on either side of her and moved them up and down for effect while she backed towards the door, “and I’m pretty sure she's already pissed at me because of the grades thing, so I really do have to go.”

“No, of course. Not at all an issue. You could’ve picked a different time if you thought it…,” He trailed off as she disappeared out the door. Gale was suddenly very aware that he was one of the only people in the shop, sitting by himself. He glanced over to the barista and found both her and her friend staring right at him.

There was a period of silence just slightly too long before she pushed the ponytail over her shoulder and asked cheerily, “Can I get you anything?”

Chapter Text

The problem with self-isolation, Gale was realizing, was that after a while, it became regular isolation, because no one really wanted to speak to you in the first place.

He’d decided almost immediately upon returning to his safe, comfortable flat that tutoring Leanna would be exactly as awful an idea as he’d originally thought. But he had promised her that if he couldn’t do it himself, he’d at least find someone who could. At the time, he’d failed to consider that the majority of his friends in academia had been mutual friends with Mystra, meaning they’d been the first to go in the initial purge, followed in short order by nearly everyone else that Gale had ever met, as he was now remembering.

He hadn’t meant to become so isolated. It crept up on him, slow, unnoticed, then everywhere. At the beginning, he’d barely been able to get himself out of bed most mornings, and the idea of doing things and seeing people, even people he liked, seemed unbearable. Eventually, it had been so long since he had seen anyone that he was sure he wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he’d tried. So he didn’t. When someone asked after him, or invited him out, or tried to come by, he sent them a polite, noncommittal response about “feeling a bit ill” or “checking his schedule”. He didn’t text back.

The most recent outgoing message outside of last night's bout of drunken incompetence was from nearly 3 months ago. He’d made up a fake vet appointment for Tara to get out of going for coffee. The idea of texting someone now, after so much obvious avoidance, made his stomach churn. Worse, it forced him to think.

The easiest way to survive loneliness was simply by doing everything you could to never think about. And the moment you started, the weight of it would crush the breath out of your chest entirely. Which is why he didn’t think about it, up until now, and suddenly he found that he couldn’t stop. He’d spent so long holed up in his flat, blaming Mystra, or Tara, or his own inadequacies. But how much of that was real, and how much had he made up in his own mind to justify being so afraid of trying to exist in the world again that he didn’t even bother to try?

He scrolled back through his contacts.

Sent 4 months ago.

7 months ago.

3 months ago.

At the very top was Leanna, her number still unsaved in his phone.

2 hours ago.

He stared at it. He couldn’t tutor her. It was a bad idea. What kind of position was he in to be offering advice to anyone? It was a bad idea. He wouldn’t do it. Of course not.

He’d thought she was nice, though. Once her energy stopped being completely overwhelming, it was nice. Energizing. He doubted she’d ever felt isolated in her life. Or been broken up with. She seemed like the sort to do the breaking up, not the other way around.

He ought to at least save her contact. Just in case he came across someone else who could tutor her.

Because he wasn’t going to. He wasn’t going to.

He opened the chat log, saved her name in the contacts.

He wasn’t going to. It was a bad idea. It was an awful idea. The worst. Elminster had absolutely no clue what he was talking about. He thought this to himself over and over, even as his fingers started to type out the message.

[11:56AM] Gale: What time does practice end?

Leanna had joined her first football team at 6 years old. Her mother had signed her up so that she would have something to do with her energy other than run back and forth on the sidewalk outside of their house. Not that it had really stopped her, which is why she’d been signed up for athletics about a month later, followed by karate, gymnastics, taekwondo, and a short period of tennis.

All this to say: Lenna was no stranger to leg pain and physical exhaustion. But at the current moment, she was beginning to question if she’d ever understood the meaning of those words at all.

She didn’t think she’d ever seen Karlach so pissed. She actually preferred running laps to being chewed out like that, which was great, because she was running many, many laps. Her throat was starting to hurt from how hard she was breathing, and she was only about halfway through.

She looped back towards the stands and nearly tripped over herself on the wet pitch at the sight of Gale Dekarios waving at her from the sidelines. She came to a stumbling halt as her brain tried to catch up to his sudden reappearance. She had maybe 30 seconds before Karlach started yelling again.

“Gale?” She gasped, trying to catch her breath enough to form full sentences.

“Hello again!” He said cheerily. “I happened to be in the area, and I thought you might be here, so I thought I’d swing by. I sent you a text, but” He gestured to her generally disheveled state, “evidently, you’re busy. I thought a bit more about tutoring, and I was hoping we could talk.” The last word was cut through by a shrill whistle blast.

“BRYNNE! What the FUCK do you think you’re doing? Did I say ‘run 30 laps, but feel free to have a chat in the middle’?”

Leanna groaned. “I’m going! I’m going! Fucking Christ. Sorry, she’s really on one right now.” She started jogging backwards towards the pitch. “I’d love to talk. I can text you or-,” her brain lit up with an idea, “if you want to go try and talk some sense into her.” She pointed towards where Karlach was standing, arms crossed, on the other side of the field. “You’re very official-looking. Very academic. Might have better luck than me!” She was shouting now. Gale looked bewildered, but the whistle blasted again.

“I’m going! I’m fucking going!” She turned back to the pitch and took off again, trying to watch Gale out of the corner of her eye. As she rounded the corner, she saw him start to make his way slowly across the field. So slowly. She tried to focus back in on her breathing, making another full lap before she checked again, to find him still walking? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. It took 3 laps for him to finally reach Karlach. Snippets of conversation floated over the field as she ran.

“-I had to have a meeting with the student office and all that.”

“Well, I think that's why she reached out to me. She does want to-”
She dragged herself through another lap. Her legs hurt. Everything hurt, really.

“-she seemed very open to learning. Some students simply struggle with that kind-”
She thought about just giving up and lying down on the grass. Karlach would yell at her, but she couldn’t physically force her to run, right? That was probably illegal.

“-very important to her.”
“I know. She’s a good kid. And a hell of a striker. Last year-”

Her legs were going to fall right off her body and she would never play football again. She should sue Karlach for damages. She struggled past the stands again, and the whistle blasted.

“Brynne! You’re done!”

She threw herself down on the pitch, gasping for air.

After a few moments, Karlach called over, "You ok?"

She gave her a silent thumbs up from where she had collapsed and blissfully let her eyes close. The grass was cool, and there was a soft breeze that coasted gently over her. The sky smelled like rain, though it would probably hold off.

Gale fucking Dekarios. She’d found him a bit confusing. He’d seemed very scholarly on his website page, what with his professional headshot and big words in the research description. Shadowheart had described him as “hot, in a nerd sort of way,” which Leanna was inclined to agree with. When they’d met, he’d seemed different then she was expecting. Smart, definitely, but a bit…disoriented? And she was almost certain he’d been hungover. But all of that was out the window now. Gale Dekarios was her favorite person who’d ever lived. She would kill for him. Faintly, footsteps were crunching over the grass towards her.

“Your, uh, friend? She gave me this.” Leanna opened her eyes to find Gale standing over her, looking concerned and holding her water bottle. She wordlessly held a hand out for it, and he gave it over. There were several seconds of silence while she gulped it down as quickly as possible.

“You’re a lifesaver. Seriously. I thought I was going to pass out and die. That woman is a lunatic.” She choked out after she’d finished.

“She seemed very nice when I spoke to her. Not that I know her better than you do, obviously. And she’s very…she’s got a big personality, certainly.” Leanna laughed at that.

“Big personality is definitely a word for it, sure.” Gale stared down at her for a moment longer before realizing that she wasn’t planning to get up anytime soon. He very gingerly sat down beside her. He kept a respectful, if slightly awkward, distance.

“I thought some more about tutoring. I know, when you first reached out, you mentioned payment.” Leanna blinked at him.

“Uh. Yeah, no, I did. I can definitely like, figure that out.” She had mostly mentioned that because it felt like the thing you do when you’re asking someone to tutor you. It had occurred to her that most of the time people did pay for tutoring, but in her head she had really believed that she’d find some way to negotiate around it.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t pay for it at all; it was just that she couldn’t pay for it on her own. She’d have to ask Tav, and to ask him, she’d have to explain everything to him in the first place, which was the absolute worst possible outcome. She could dip into her emergency savings, but Tav would know about that too, and he’d probably be even more upset than if she’d just asked him in the first place.

“How much is the normal rate?”

Gale glanced away from her towards the field. There was an odd expression on his face. He was fidgeting aimlessly with the hem of his sleeve.

“That’s what I wanted to, uh, specify. I thought-I was thinking that we might-or that there could be a different kind of-not like that! I mean, not…in a weird way, obviously. I don’t know how to explain this in a way that sounds anything less than deeply concerning.”

Leanna was a bit taken aback. This was not what she’d been expecting from this conversation, but in all fairness, the man himself had been very different from what she’d expected. And this was what she’d been hoping for, right? As long as he wasn’t asking for any sort of…weird favors. He didn’t seem like the sort. But who did? She shook herself out of it.

Gale took a deep breath, then continued. “I’ve been a bit of a mess for the past-for a while now. I had a very unfortunate breakup, and I haven’t felt quite myself since. It's been a very difficult time to try and get it all sort of,” he waved his hands in the air, “together again. Very difficult. And you seem like someone who doesn’t have so many…reservations about, well, anything and everything, I suppose.”

“I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

“It is! I only mean that you seem very self-assured. Confident. It’s impressive, truly. And I was hoping that if I agreed to this, that some of it might rub off on me.”

Leanna squinted at him from the ground. “You mean just like, hang out with you?”

“Well, I would’ve phrased it in a way that sounds slightly less desperate, but yes.”

“And you’ll do it for free?” He nodded.

“Hell yeah! You’re such a lifesaver. Seriously. I kind of thought you were gonna be a weird professor type person, but you’re like, great.”

“Well, don’t speak too soon. There will still be many opportunities for me to prove myself as a ‘weird professor type person’.”

She laughed and levered herself into a sitting position, sticking a hand out to him. This was better than she could’ve expected. She decided right then and there that everything was going to work out fine, thanks to Professor Elminster and his weird, semi-hot PhD students.

“I think we have a deal.”

He shook it firmly. “Pleasure doing business.”

She grinned at him. She must’ve looked awful still, but who cared? Everything was going to be perfect.

She had officially put it off as long as she could. There was no other way around it. She was going to have to call Tav. Leanna curled into a little ball and groaned at the thought. The cheap bedframe squeaked, and Shadowheart peered over from where she was sitting at her desk.

“I have to call Tav.”

Shadowheart gave a deeply unsympathetic snort of laughter. “Best of luck.”

Leanna rolled over to sigh face-first into her pillow.

Her head shot up again. “God, what if he tries to come and visit to check on me? He’ll never leave! We’ll have to share a dorm with a fifty-something lunatic!”

“That's definitely illegal.”

“He’ll find a way.”

“You know, you could’ve avoided this if you’d just talked to him in the first place. Maybe when he called you? Repeatedly? Hm?”

Leanna blew the hair out of her face. “I did talk to him!”

“Don’t bullshit. You know he doesn’t read texts.”

She groaned again and flopped back down. After a few minutes of very pointed silence from Shadowheart, she grudgingly pulled the phone out of her pocket. Tav picked up on the first ring.

“Why, on god's green earth, did I receive an email from the fucking student office talking about academic probation?!”

She winced and held the phone further away from her ear.

“Hello, Tav. How are you? I’ve been well, thank you for asking. It’s nice to know how much you care,” she said flatly.

“Leanna Catherine Brynne. I will drive down to that posh school of yours right the fuck now, in fact-,” she could hear him starting to move around on the end of the line.

“No! Nonono! It’s fine! Tav, it’s literally fine, ok?” She sat bolt upright in her bed and clutched the phone, her words a spill of panic and haste, “I found this guy, he’s got like a million PhDs and he’s gonna tutor me, so it's not even an issue. Don’t-don’t go anywhere, please. Just stay-I’ll call you, yeah? But like, it’s totally fine. I’ve got it handled.”

“Handled? Handled?! So then your marks are completely-”

“You know what I meant! It’s being handled! I am handling it! Because I am an adult, who doesn’t need to be fucking babysat-,”

“If that were true, then we wouldn’t even be having this conversation in-,”

“Oh, you’d’ve found something. You always fucking do-,”

“So I’m at fault here? That’s rich coming from-,”
Shadowheart piped up from her desk, “Is the shouting completely necessary?” She pointed to her open laptop, covered in chemical equations and formulas that Leanna didn’t bother to try and understand. She pulled the phone away from her ear and shot her an appreciative glance.

“Sorry, we’ll keep it down.” She said loudly into the receiver. Shadowheart shook her head and turned back to the laptop. There were several seconds of what Leanna hoped was chastized silence from Tav. Eventually, he said, much more quietly,

“You said you found someone to tutor you then?”

Oh, thank god. This was working. She could make this work.

“Yeah. One of my professors gave me his number because he’s really good at physics, and I guess he doesn’t get out of the house enough or something.”

“Sounds wonderful.” Tav monotoned. Leanna could see the face he was making on the other side of the phone perfectly in her mind.

“I thought so too, but he's actually pretty cool. Karlach had me run like a million laps earlier, but he got me out of it by being all professional and academic sounding. I assume. I was still running laps while they were talking.”

“What’s he called?”

“Gale Dekarios.”
Tav scoffed. “Sounds posh.”

“Oh, he very much is. And English, unfortunately, but I try not to hold it against him because of all the massive favors he’s doing me and all.”

“Wel,l he’s not doing me any favors, so I’ll hold it against him for ya then, yeah?”

She laughed. “Thank god. Where would I be without you?”

There was a moment of slightly more comfortable silence. This was working. She could do this. She had it handled.

“Well then,” Tav said.

“I’ll call. Don’t come to my schoo,l please.”

“You’d better call then.”

“Tav.”

“I won’t come to your school.”

“Thank you.”

More silence.

“And you’re eating enough? I told you when you left that three sports would be a lot of-”

“I’m eating fine. And I’ve done great. You saw all the stuff I brought home last year.”

“Well. Just make sure, yeah?”

“I will.”

“Alright.”
Leanna waited for a minute. When he didn’t come up with any other pressing health concerns, she took her opening.

“Ok. I have to finish up some school stuff. I’ll call.”

“Good. And I want to hear about grades going up.”

She waited another moment.

“Take care, ok? And say hello to Shadowheart.”

“Ok. Don’t die in the woods, please.”

“I’ll make an effort.”

Leanna hung up and flopped back onto the bed. Shadowheart glanced over at her.

“That actually went better than I thought it would.”

“I think he felt bad for yelling because you’re here. Thank you, by the way.”

Shadowheart stared flatly at her. “For what?”
“
I thought that was a rescue.”

“Stop yelling in my dorm.” She rolled her eyes, returning to her equations.

Leanna sighed, and her phone buzzed on the comforter next to her. There was a message from Gale.

[4:07 PM] Gale: Is tomorrow still good?

[4:07 PM] Leanna: Yep!!

[4:08 PM] Gale: Wonderful.

She dropped the phone back onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling. This was fine. Everything would be fine. She had it handled.

Chapter Text

The library was freezing again. Gale gave the sweater he’d taken off only a couple minutes earlier a forlorn look. He was becoming more and more convinced that some lunatic with access to the library thermostat was playing tricks on him on purpose, because it had felt far too warm when he’d taken the sweater off. But, until such time as he could prove that particular theory, he settled for begrudgingly pulling the sweater back over his head, and nearly knocking his glasses off in the process.

He tried to not check his phone again as he straightened them. Leanna was nearing 20 minutes behind schedule. Which was fine. She was a student. She had other things to attend to, obviously. But, if she’d decided to cancel on him last minute, she’d surely do the courtesy of sending a text, no? He hoped. He straightened his glasses again. Opened his laptop. Closed it. He gave in and checked the phone, which was predictably empty of messages. 

“Christ, I am so sorry!” Gale nearly threw the phone across the table. He turned with a start to see Leanna, in what seemed to be her usual state of hurried dishevelment. Her hair was making a valiant escape attempt from its ponytail, and her cheeks were rosy in a way that suggested she’d been sprinting moments earlier. Gale opened his mouth to tell her it was alright (truth), and that he hadn’t worried (lie), but before he could get a word in she began again. 

“My friend has this dog, but it doesn’t actually live with us because they don’t allow pets in the dorms so he lives with another friend of ours, but Shadowheart, my friend, actually does all the taking care of him and apparently the other friend needed him out of the house and I agreed to pick him up and then traffic-,” She took a gasping breath, “and now I’m late. Sorry.” She slumped into the chair in front of him. He was strongly reminded of the cafe, and wondered if Leanna existed in a perpetual state of sprinting places she was already late to. It seemed exhausting. 

“Of course, not an issue. It’s, ah, given me time to prepare.” He gestured to a truly perfectly arranged spread of various study materials. 

She half smiled, pulling a battered notebook and laptop out of her bag. “I feel a little underprepared now.” She started searching around for something. 

“Well, I’m very likely overprepared, so-pen?” He offered. 

She looked up, surprised, and grinned wide, taking it with a nod. “Like PEMDAS.” 

“Sorry?”

“It cancels out. Like PEMDAS.” She said sagely, waving a hand towards her own supplies next to his vast arrangement. 

“Indeed.” He said as seriously as he could muster. 

She smiled again, and opened up her notebook, staring at the blank page for a moment. “Right. Ok..where, um, I guess I don’t really know where to start?” 

“What don’t you understand? We’ll start there.” 

She stared at him, seemingly weighing something out. “If I say all of it, that makes me sound really thick, doesn’t it?” 

Gale nodded, then shook his head. “Sorry, no, it doesn’t-I was just thinking. About where to start! Not about-I don’t think you’re thick. I was not thinking that.” Her eyebrows pinched together. He’d lost her. Deep breath. 

“Ok, why don’t you show me what you’re working on right now, and we can start with that?”

That seemed to get things back on track, and they managed a decent start. Leanna was attentive to the best of her abilities, which, admittedly, were somewhat limited. She would drift off somewhere in the middle of practice problems, and Gale would have to nudge her back to life with a gentle “Does that make sense?”. She apologized always, and Gale didn’t think it was anything to hold against her, but nonetheless it was an obstacle. After an hour or so, when the leg tapping under the table had grown to a worrying degree, he declared a break and asked if she’d like to go for a walk. He didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone stand up so quickly in his life. 

The chill of early October was just beginning to make its way into the air, and the sky was cool grey. The fall colors weren’t in full swing just yet, but every so often a tree was dotted with yellow or gold tipped leaves. The walking paths wound through them in neat rows of flagstones. Gale glanced toward Leanna, who seemed significantly more at ease now that she had a chance to move around. He filed that away under his growing list of things that might be helpful for her. 

“So, let's talk about your thing then.” She said suddenly. 

“Sorry?”

“This thing that I’m supposed to do for you. I mean just, like, what am I actually doing? I know you just said hang out, but you’re doing all this stuff for me with the tutoring-,”

“Its really not much at all-”

“And I want to actually do something too.” She turned to him, eyes lighting up, “What about this girl? Or person. Whoever. Is this like a revenge thing? Or,” her voice lowered conspiratorially, “are you trying to get back with them?” She waggled her eyebrows in a way that made him want to dig a hole to die in right then and there. 

“I-she’s-I’m not trying to do anything. We broke up. She doesn’t want anything to do with me.” 

“So it is a ‘she’ then. Ok. Well, does she have a name?” 

“No! I mean, yes obviously. But no. It’s done.” He waved a hand. “We’ve both moved on.”

Leanna raised an eyebrow, but didn’t bother to correct him, which he appreciated. Instead, she raised her hands, conceding. “Got it. Nothing about….?,” She paused hopefully.

Gale sighed. “Mystra.”

“Mystra! Sure, I thought Gale Dekarios was posh. Christ.” She laughed, shaking her head. “Got it. Nothing else about Mystra. Swear.” She placed a hand over her heart. 

Gale nodded appreciatively. 

“Well, even if it has nothing to do with this girl who you have very obviously moved on from and will never think about again, you should come out with me and my friends or something. Oooo!” She clapped her hands together, “I have a game on Friday, and we’re going out after to celebrate. I’ll text you where we’re going.”

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly impose on you like that. Honestly, I really don’t need any extra..,” he wanted to say pity, but that felt far too revealing for an afternoon walk with a girl he’d known for a week, “help.” He finished lamely. The whole thing was no use, he didn’t think Leanna had heard a word he said, simply waving a hand in his direction. 

“We normally leave around ten, unless we lose, then it’s like right after the game, but if we lose I probably won’t have you come beacause we’ll mostly just be getting fucked up as quickly as possible, so it’s not really a social event anymore. But I’m not worried, the people we’re playing against have basically the worst record in the league. So yeah, ten, I’ll text you.” She flashed him an excited grin. “It’ll be fun!”

Gale felt like he’d stepped onto a moving carousel mid-spin, and he couldn’t find his footing again for the life of him. He meant to say ‘I appricate the thought, but unfortunately I will be otherwise engaged that evening, so perhaps another activity at a different time?’. Instead, he spluttered, “I-well-you see…what time?”

“Ten pm.” 

He couldn’t think of a single time in the past 6 months he’d been awake past 10pm, let alone starting his night at that hour. 

“Ah, unfortunately I don’t know if uh-”

“Ok, I know this might not be your thing, and like, you don’t have to come. Seriously, if this is like, unbearable for you, then tell me, and I will never ever bring it up again. But! I think this will be good! I’m here to help you get out of the house and whatever, right?”

“When I came up with the idea it didn’t sound quite so tragic, but yes.” 

She shrugged. “My god-father is basically a hermit, so I’m not judging anything. Really, by his standard, you’re doing more than alright.”

Gale looked at her. The issue, as he was rapidly realizing, with trying to turn her down, was that she always seemed so geniune in the idea that she was doing the right thing. She wanted to help, the same way she’d wanted to learn from him, and seemed so genuinely thrilled to do either of those that he found he didn’t have the heart to say no. He sighed, and rubbed a hand over his face.

“You said Friday?” 

Leanna whooped, clapping her hands together again. “Fuck yeah! Yes! Friday, 10pm, I’ll text you. It’s gonna be fun. You’ll have fun. Ooo! You know who you’d like? My friend Wyll, he’s also super posh and like,” She waved a hand in Gale’s general direction, not bothering to elaborate, “You’d like him.” They started to loop back around towards the library, and Leanna chattered excitedly the whole way back. Gale did his best to steel himself for whatever was coming on Friday, to little effect. Best to accept his fate now, then. 

“How late do these ah, festivities usually run, then?”

Leanna clicked her toungue. “Um, like two-ish?”

“Am?!”

She glanced over at him like he’d asked what year it was. “Yeah?”

Accept his fate indeed. 

As it turns out, there were not a lot of Mystra’s running about in the world. It had taken Leanna only a couple minutes to track down her social media, all of which were perfectly curated snapshots of what Leanna assumed was the most interesting life anyone had ever lived. 

“God she’s fit, isn’t she?” She offered the phone to Shadowheart, who raised a brow at her.

“Remind me why we’re stalking your physics tutor’s ex on Instagram?” 

“Because I think he’s like, obsessed with her. Or not-that sounds bad, but I think they’ve been broken up for months and he’s still not over her. Which, fair enough. Good lord. And I think she’s got like 6 degrees. That’s just unfair, really.”

Shadowheart shook her head, but leaned over to look at the screen with Leanna. “Did he tell you when they broke up?”

“No, and he got super weird when I asked about her. There’s no photos of him on here, and she’s not following him so things must have been…” She made a face, and Shadowheart nodded. 

“Weird. She is fit. I feel like you’d see her in a jazz club or something and then be obsessed with her for the rest of your life.”

“Exactly! I wonder why they broke up. They seem kind of perfect for each other.”

“Well isn’t he like, kind of an antisocial weirdo now?”

Leanna felt oddly defensive on Gale’s behalf. “I never said he was a weirdo! He’s just got anxiety issues or something. And he’s smart and like, nerd hot.” 

Shadowheart shrugged. “So did he hire you to get her back or something? This isn’t a Too All the Boys thing, right?”

Leanna scoffed. “God no. Although I honestly would’ve been down.”

“Really? With that guy?” 

“He’s nerd-hot! That's a kind of hot!” Leanna said defensively. “Anyways, it would’ve been interesting. How many people can say they’ve fake dated someone, hm?” 

Shadowheart laughed, and shook her head. 

“Anyways, no, I have not been hired to fake date anyone.”

“Never say never.”

Leanna snorted, and scrolled through a few more photos. The whole page really was extrodinary. Each post was a short selection of photos of Mystra looking perfect, in various senic locations and academic confrences. Her in a perfectly tailored blazer standing behind a podium. Her looking wistfully into the distance in front of the collosuem in Rome as her perfect, waist length hair blew behind her in the wind. A beautiful, dimly lit candid of her laughing over a glass of red wine. Leanna felt strangely hyponotized. This was a woman who had her life together on a level that she had never dared to dream of. 

“I don’t know, I’m kind of fascinated. Her name is Mystra.” She murmured to Shadowheart. 

“I guess.”

She kept scrolling. She knew this was verging on true stalker territory now, but she couldn’t help it. In addition to Mystra and her perfect, adult life, she wondered what had gone on to get Gale so destroyed over her. There wasn’t a trace of him anywhere on this page. She turned the phone off and flopped back to the floor. Gale was coming out with her on Friday. There would be drinking. Presumably, from the state of him on that first day they’d met, he was no stranger to said drinking. If there was a better time to pry information out of him, she couldn’t think of one. She grinned up at the ceiling. This whole thing was proving to be much more fun than she’d thought possible. 

“What are you doing?”

“Hm?”

“You’re smiling like a creep.”

She sat up. “Is my joy offending you? I wasn’t aware I was living in a police state where-” Shadowheart kicked her in the ribs from her seat on the bed, and Leanna scooted away. “Hey!”

“Stop being weird.”

She flopped back down on the rug. “I’m a delight. You’re lucky to have me.” 

This time, she managed to dodge.