Chapter 186: 186: The First semester IX

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A few hours later...

The last chalk stroke squeaked. Benches scraped. The hall spilled its noise into the corridor.

Fizz bounced up to John’s shoulder and saluted like a tiny general who had just conquered a pastry shop. "Report: the League of Fizz awaits. I am in grave demand. Autographs, wisdom, possibly three slices of cake that identify as research."

John angled toward the quad. "Old library. West side. You aren’t coming?"

Fizz puffed his chest. "I will not. My public is fragile and must be handled with snacks. Also they scream if I am late and I enjoy that a little."

"You and your league. SIGH!" John raised a brow. "Do not start a riot or make any trouble."

"I would never," Fizz said, already drifting backward, glowing with purpose. "At most a polite uprising with cupcakes."

"Behave."

"I am the definition of behavior. Ask any dictionary. Under B it says Fizz."

John started away. Fizz zipped close for a second and tapped his shoulder with a warm paw. "Go. Be charming. Say things with your eyes. Do not count breaths out loud. If you panic, think of soup. Soup is calming."

"I am fine," John said, but the corner of his mouth betrayed him.

Fizz grinned. "You are glowing like a lantern that just learned its name. Good. I will not third-wheel your destiny. I will return later with gossip and crumbs."

He spun on a spark, called over his shoulder, "If you are not back by curfew I will file a complaint with the moon," and shot down the corridor into a knot of first-years who cheered like they had been waiting for the circus.

John shook his head, steadied the line in his chest, and turned toward the ivy and the quiet door that remembered how to keep a secret.

Fizz dusted sugar from his whiskers, lifted his chin, and announced, very grand, that destiny and his fan club were calling. He must go. He spun away in a bright streak toward the hubbub of the League of Fizz, leaving John with a small smile and a quickened pulse.

John crossed the lawns alone.

Behind the east stacks, the old library kept its usual hush, the kind that knew how to carry secrets without dropping any. Ivy clung to stone like green handwriting. A cracked window let in a slant of cool light that made dust float like slow stars. The side door stuck as always. John leaned a shoulder, coaxed it, and slipped inside.

Sera was there already, a figure half in the ribbon of window light and half in shadow, cloak folded over one arm because she had clearly been too impatient to find a hook. She looked up as if she had been listening specifically for the sound of his step. Whatever careful composure she wore in daylight loosened at the sight of him.

He did not speak. Neither did she. They met in the middle of the narrow aisle and stopped close enough that the air between them turned into something warm and shared. John lifted his hands, slowly, so she could see him choose each inch, and set his palms to her jaw, thumbs gentle at the hinge of her smile. Sera’s fingers climbed his sleeves, gathered the fabric, and held on.

Their first kiss was unhurried and sure. No theater, no borrowed lines, just the simple, quiet relief of finding the exact person you walked here to find. John felt the line inside his chest —his metronome, his compass— lengthen and ease. Sera tasted faintly of cinnamon from the dining hall and of clean, cool breath from the walk over. She made a soft sound in her throat that his mouth captured and returned to her, slightly changed.

"Mmmmmm..."

They parted just enough to look. Up this close, Sera’s eyes were not merely dark; they were deep, with the kind of depth that made you think of wells in old courtyards that never ran dry. The small crease he had noticed earlier at the corner of her mouth was back, this time because her smile could not help it. John stroked the curve of her cheekbone with his thumb. She leaned into it like it was a word she knew.

"Hi," she breathed, as if that single syllable, shared, was more honest than any title.

"Hi Sera," he answered, and because honesty deserved company he added, quietly, "I missed you."

Something in her braced posture unhooked. "I missed you and your touch," she said, the confession landing between them like a small lantern set safely on a table.

They found the window bench that always remembered moonlight even at this hour. Sera turned sideways and climbed into his lap with the easy grace of someone who had decided not to be coy with herself. She tucked her knees toward him and let her weight settle across his thighs and hip. He wrapped his arms around her, one across the small of her back and one up between her shoulder blades to cradle the base of her neck. Her braid fell along his forearm, a dark, cool line that his fingers learned by memory.

They did not rush. The silence here was not empty; it was a patient room that let them fit themselves to each other again. John pressed a kiss to her eyebrow, to the bridge of her nose, to the little hollow above her upper lip. Sera ran the backs of her knuckles along his jaw and the rough edge of his uneven fringe and laughed without sound when a stubborn piece of hair refused to behave. He tilted his head, a quiet offering. She took it, kissed the soft spot at his temple like a blessing, then tipped her face back to meet his mouth again.

The kiss deepened. It did not turn feral; it turned thorough. Her hands slid to his throat, fingers resting in the warm places on either side where the pulse lives. He felt his own heartbeat through her touch and found it steadying rather than startling. He kissed her like he was writing her name with care. She kissed him like she was reading something she loved for the second time and finding new lines she’d missed before.

"Your hair," she murmured, smiling against him, "is chaos."

"So I have been informed," he said, and she kissed the apology from the words so they came out lighter.

He moved one palm in small circles at her back, not to own any inch of her but to tell that inch he appreciated it. Sera made another soft sound and answered by sliding her hand up under his collar to the warm curve where neck meets shoulder. The touch was careful, nearly reverent. She discovered a thin scar under his hairline; he felt her pause, considered the story she did not ask him to tell, and kissed it anyway. His breath caught and smoothed out again.

They talked in the spaces between kisses, not big talk, not plan talk, but the small honest things that make up the interior of two lives learning how to interleave.

"Basic Combat punches like a drum," he said. "I could feel the rhythm in my ribs for ten minutes after."

"Rhythm you can count is a gift," she said. "It means your feet can learn to dance with it instead of tripping over it."

"Snake’s jokes are traps," he added.

"They always have been," she said with fond annoyance. "He smiles like paper turning and then assigns you to read three shelves at once."

"Fizz taught a class," he said, still faintly disbelieving.

"I heard," she answered, amusement rippling through her. "Half the first-years are trying to light fires with cups of water. The temple’s fountain will need counseling."

They laughed into each other’s mouths. The laugh turned into another kiss, and this one wandered. Sera’s lips mapped his lower lip, the corner of his mouth, the short scruff at the edge of his jaw; John’s mouth learned the softness of her cheeks where smiles lived. Their noses bumped once; they broke and re-angled without self-consciousness, the way new couples do when they have already decided to be kind to themselves about learning.

Heat gathered in harmless places first: forearms, palms, the small distance under a collar where fingers lingered, the hollow under a jaw where a mouth fit perfectly. Sera’s breath shortened a fraction. John felt the new lust electricity in the line inside his chest and did not fear it. This was not a battle. This was gravity discovering it had a favorite direction.

"Your heartbeat," she said softly, palm laid flat over his shirt, "is calm."

"You do that," he said.

Color rose softly under her skin. She dipped her head to kiss the inside of his wrist, right where his pulse lived for her to find. He closed his eyes for a moment because there are some little kindnesses the body remembers exactly. When he opened them, she was watching, eyes bright, mouth parted just so, and he had to kiss her again because not kissing her would have been dishonest to the moment.