A day in the School for Good consisted for Clarissa mostly of teaching, paperwork and dealing with princesses who needed advice about love or clothes. As much as Clarissa loved her job and students, she couldn't help but cherish the quiet moments.

Late at night, when the students would be in bed and there was no one to interrupt her, she would sit in her office with a cup of tea and stare out of the window. From time to time, she even stole some candy.

Her window faced the other school. An hour past curfew, there were just a few lights on. The Never students slept extremely fast compared to the Ever students. She never understood why, but she supposed it had something to do with the whole Evil thing going on there. The few lights that were still shining brightly were those of the teachers. It took about an hour for those lights to go off, too. And then there was only one remaining.

Lady Lesso's.

The dean for Evil always stayed up later than everyone else, even Clarissa herself. Given they were both the last ones to be awake, Lesso was doing her paperwork and grading until dawn some nights. There's no rest for the wicked was in this case true. She had always admired the other dean for her determination to let Evil win again and even when she was faced with another loss, she wouldn't give up.

But tonight Dovey felt a sort of pity. For two entire weeks already, the light had been on when she went to bed and when she woke up, too. Her colleague had come in looking exhausted with huge bags under her eyes.

So, naturally, she decided to do something about it. Clarissa took the darkest cloak she had from the rack, it was a dark fuschia which did not at all match with her golden dress, and sneaked through the dark halls. There were some candles still lit, which was just enough to see shadows and silhouettes.

Oh, how she hoped her students wouldn't see her now. Because first, they would try to talk to her, asking her all sorts of questions and secondly, she would have to lecture them about the curfew.
Usually, she wouldn't mind entirely but now, she had to help out a friend, her best friend.

Clarissa made it to the locked front door without anyone noticing. With her magic she opened the door silently and slipped through before closing and locking it again. The fairies that were guarding the castledoor tonight practically jumped at her but she managed to shut them up with a 'It's me. Let me go.'

There was a soft, but freezing breeze that made Clarissa hurry as fast as she possibly could on heels to the other side of the bridge.

In front of the gate she was nearing, two wolves were slouching against the walls while they were laughing about 'stupid Never students'.

The wolves were almost two heads taller than Dovey, broad and had gigantic teeth. It wasn't odd that she felt at least a bit intimidated by them. Not that she would ever show that.

"Um, excuse me." Clarissa interrupted, earning her a deadstare, "Could one of you be so kind as to point me to Lady Lesso's office, or at least open the door for me."

The left wolf rolled his eyes and spat "Of course, Ever."

Rude.

He pulled the door slightly open, just far enough for the dean to slip through. "Highest floor, third one on the right."

Clarissa was greeted with the disgusting smell of poisonous herbs mixed together. She was stupid to think that it would be warmer in the school, because it certainly was not.

The stone walls were decorated with mementos of the fairy tales. Even ones where evil did not win; Mother Gothel's cloak was proudly displayed for example. The floor was dirtier than she had ever seen it in her school and the stairs were steep.

The clicking of her heels when she ascended the stairs was unhearable under the snoring of multiple students and teachers. As there was a teacher located on every floor.

It felt like hours before she reached the top floor. Somewhere down the road, Clarissa had already gotten rid of her heels but that didn't stop her feet from hurting. She did not know how Lesso did this every day.

"Third on the right." she repeated to herself as she held up her fingers to check which side was right and which one left.

When that was finally figured out, Clarissa started to move and counted the doors.

She was proven correct when on the mahogany door Lady L. Lesso was written. For a minute Dovey wondered where the L. stood for but then remembered what she was doing here and knocked politely on the door.

"Get out!" The woman on the other side snapped.

Seeing this as an invitation, Clarissa opened the door and found Lesso bowed over a stack of papers.

"I said get out." Lesso looked up from her desk only to see her friend standing in the door opening.

The red curls that always hung freely around were now pulled back in a loose bun. The eyebags were even darker and the emerald eyes had lost their sparkle. Her make-up had smudged a bit, revealing a couple freckles.

"Well, I hadn't expected you here, princess." Lesso said with a grin on her face.

Clarissa's cheek flushed slightly pink at the nickname. "Good evening to you, too."

"Why are you here, Clarissa? Because I can't talk right now." She sighed, "As you might've noticed, I am very busy."

"I know. That's why I'm here." The Ever dean smiled softly, "I'm here to help with whatever you're doing."

Lesso seemed taken aback by this because she just stared at her colleague. "Your goodness is repulsing." she eventually said, "But I don't think you can even help. I'm grading essays about the best way to defeat your nemesis. Not really your type of thing."

It wasn't. It was the furthest thing of whatever her thing was supposed to be. But that wouldn't stop her. Not after seeing the woman in that state.

"I'll manage. Now, will you let me help you?"

"Sure." Lesso hesitated, but only for a minute. "But don't come crying to me, if you don't like what you're reading."

"Of course."

The Never poofed a second chair next to her and laid one of her neatly organized piles of papers in front of it with a quill.

Clarissa sat down and managed to get her skirts in a way that wouldn't annoy either of them. Suddenly, she felt the hot breath of her fellow dean on her face.
In the meantime, Lesso had apparently rolled her chair next to Clarissa's. "Okay, we can do one together first. To get you on your way."

The Ever nodded slowly.

Lady Lesso had never been so close to her in decades. Last time was their first meeting. She had tripped over a crooked stone and Lesso had catched her. She'd pulled Clarissa up with her one arm, while gripping tightly on her cane with the other. When Dovey had asked the mysterious redhead why she did it, the only thing she got out of her was a smirk.

Clarissa had been too busy savoring this moment to focus on her friend's explanation. There were three things she had noticed. One, Lesso smelled, oddly enough, like cinnamon and apples. Two, the hand resting on her shoulder was cold. Three, she seemed a lot nicer than usual, which Dovey liked.

"Clarissa?" The Evil dean shook her awake from those thoughts.

Clarissa turned her head to Lesso's. She was certain she wasn't the only one that noticed how close their faces were. She darted her eyes to the red lips and unconsciously bit hers.

"Clarissa? Are you alright?"

"Hmm…" she now looked up. "I'm fine. I wasn't really paying attention, sorry. Could you repeat it again?"

Normally, she knew her friend to roll her eyes and huff. Now, she just nodded. "Of course, princess. Just try to follow me this time, okay?"

Words didn't come to her, so she was forced to nod again.
"Alright. So, as I was saying. Here we have Ayrton's essay. He believes that burning his nemesis is the best way to get rid of them. He had given four reasons: It is quick, simple, you're able to do it everywhere and burning has a very low survival rate." Lesso moved her pen across the page, accentuating the things she just named. "Now, you need to write down what you think about his arguments, the quality of his writing, grammar and the formatting. That can be very short. When you're down with the entire class, you rate them from 1 to 20." She softly pushed Dovey's jaw so they would face each other again.

Clarissa's heart started to race again and she could only hope that her burning cheeks would go unnoticed.

"Okay. I understand." she sighed softly.

There was silence. She could feel Lesso's eyes on her, burning through her face. "Good." The redhead whispered, "Now let's get to work." She rolled her chair away again and Clarissa immediately missed the feeling of her being close.

Instead of pondering about what all this meant, she just focused on the essays that had to be graded.

For the three hours they had worked in almost complete silence. Lesso was concentrated but when she heard Clarissa gasp, she had snickered softly. Furthermore there was the scratching of pens on the parchment.

In those three hours, Clarissa had also seen the cruelest ways to kill somebody. And only to think that one of her beloved students would have to go through something like that. It saddened her.

The one she would never forget was the essay of a Never girl named Millicent Davina. She planned on making her nemesis fall in love with her, pretend to have changed her ways, order one of her henchmen to play the villain only to betray the Ever at the end and kill them.

Reluctantly, Dovey had to give her the best grade of her class. She was grading the Evil now, after all.

They finished at 3 A.M.. Lesso threw her pen on her desk as she leaned back in her chair, while Clarissa put everything back as neatly as possible.

"Thank you, Clarissa."

This got her attention. Not in all the years they had known each other had Lesso thanked her with pure sincerity.

"You're welcome." Dovey grinned, "If you don't mind, I'm going back now. I'm exhausted." She made her way to the door but was stopped by the other dean, who had taken her cane and slammed it onto the black carpet. "Wait. You can sleep here. It would be… too evil of me to let you walk through these halls alone. We've had some accidents of ghosts appearing at night… and threatening to kill those they approach. Wouldn't want to give you a heart attack, now. Or worse, for you to wake up the entire school when you scream."

Lesso stood up and limped to a second door at their side. "Come. Here are my quarters."

Clarissa didn't know what to think. Truthfully, she didn't think at all. She just followed like a puppy.

The door was held open for her as she entered a black and white room with dark blue and golden accents. She stopped to look around.
"I'll give you a tour tomorrow. But shall we sleep now?"

"Yes, of course." They walked through another door, which revealed a majestic bedroom. The same colors had been extended. The bedframe was white, but quite low and the matras looked like the softest she had ever seen. The closed curtains were black and the door to the walk-in-closet a dark blue.

"Here." Lesso tossed her a black shirtlike dress, "This will be a lot more comfortable than the millions of petticoats you're wearing right now."

Clarissa examined the dress. It was the simplest thing she had ever seen, just black and straight (A/N the only straight thing in the room, by the way.).

"Don't worry. I won't look." The Never turned around and got rid of all her jewelry, waistcoat and bra. Leaving her in a white blouse and black pants.

In the meantime, the dean for Good had lost her skirts and was now left with her corset. If she had been in her own room, the fairies would have helped her.
"Um, Lady Lesso." She hesitated, contemplating if she shouldn't just go home or sleep with her corset. "Could you help me with my corset?"

There was a chuckle and then an 'of course'. Followed by the thumping of her cane and soft footsteps.

Clarissa's breath hitched as she felt the hot breath of Lesso once again on her skin. She got handed the cane, while the dean tried to unlace the corset. Lesso leaned with her head on Clarissa's back, since she needed both her hands. When the corset was finally loose, she grabbed her cane fast and limped to the left side of the bed.

The Ever pulled the dress quickly over her head and slid under the covers on the right side instead of her usual left side.

And she had been right. This mattress had almost absorbed her and it was amazing.

"Goodnight, Professor Dovey."

"Sleep well, Lady Lesso."

It took perhaps a second for Lady Lesso to nod off and Dovey was greeted with soft snores. This hadn't been how she'd imagined ending up in bed with the other dean, but she could not complain.

She then fell into a peaceful sleep, too.

The next morning Dovey awakened not the way she fell asleep. As she had feared, she had rolled over to the left side of the bed and was now wrapped in the arms of Lady Lesso.

She wiggled a bit and accidentally woke her cuddler up.

It took a minute for her to realize in what position they were laying. She then said: "We shall never speak of this ever again."