December 18th, 1891 - The Great Hall

Lester dragged himself down to the Great Hall with little memory of the night before. He had gone to the party, and he drank — probably too much — there, and then he had talked to Sisse, maybe? And gone to bed? He didn't remember anything distinctly, but his head hurt and his stomach roiled and he was very much going through the motions before they were released to go home. At least he was more-or-less packed.

Lester sat at the table with his knees pulled up to his chest. He startled at the sight of Alice. "Morning," he said, without much enthusiasm. Should he eat? Or drink some juice? Or just suffer? He didn't know.

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Alice hadn't slept a wink. Every dream and vision she'd had of her first kiss involved boys — first Cameron, then Edison, and sometimes Mr. Chatham when she was responding to their letters. Never once had she imagined her first kiss would've been spent upon Sloane, but that wasn't what had frightened her. No. What Alice couldn't quite wrap her head around was that she liked it.

She hopped out of bed as soon as dawn could be spotted through the window, for she wasn't yet ready to face Sloane. Merlin, what would Cameron think of it? Would Sloane tell him? Would Sloane tell anyone? (That then began the anxious spiral of Edison finding out, which caused her to then abandon the thought of sitting in the common room until breakfast. Merlin knew she couldn't face him either.)

After several hours of studying in the library, Alice eventually had to listen to her stomach and head down to breakfast. Suprisingly, though, the table was largely empty save for Lester. "Morning," she returned as she sat besides him. "Feeling alright?" He was awfully pale and vaguely...green looking.

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Lester didn't even know how to begin to answer the question of how he felt. He shrugged his shoulders at Alice. "What about you?" he asked. The words came out slowly, like he had to work at them. What was he supposed to eat this morning? His stomach felt nauseated and empty at the same time; he didn't know how to deal with it.

He didn't even remember if Alice had been at the party with them or not. Sloane had been there, he knew, and she had been — a mess. At least he had decent company.

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Alice had never been so grateful to not have overindulged at the party last night as she was watching and listening to Lester. Silently, she nudged some bread over to him as an indication to eat this. While she had never needed to soak up the alcohol for herself before, she had watched her mother care for her father enough times to know the drill. Bread was the cure, and lots of it.

"I'm fine." She wasn't, not at all. Sloane had kissed her like it was nothing. Like it was meaningless. And meanwhile Alice couldn't stop thinking about it. Girls weren't supposed to kiss girls and they definitely weren't supposed to like it. "I uh- did you see any mistletoe at the party last night?"

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Alice didn't sound fine, but there was that whole saying about stones and glass houses. With visible reluctance, Lester reached for the bread she'd slid towards him and picked up a slice. He didn't make any attempts at eating it yet. "I think I did," he said. There had been mistletoe, right? There had definitely been mistletoe. "Did you get stuck under it?"

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Alice ought to have been relieved that he asked whether or not she'd been stopped by the bloody plant, but all she felt was trapped by a web of her own making. How could she explain her abrupt question without admitting to the fact that she'd been kissed? And by Sloane for that matter? She bit her lip and dropped her head towards her lap. Merlin, she was a bloody idiot.

"I, er. Yeah, it was nothing though." It had to be nothing. Sloane was courting Cameron or whatever they called it, and this wasn't even mentioning that Sloane was a girl. "It wasn't even a second long I don't think."

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Normally, Lester was more considerate — normally, he wasn't spending an abundance of energy on trying to Be Less Nauseous. So it was without thinking that he said, "Was it your first kiss?"

It didn't even take a second for him to realize that was inappropriate. "I mean — I've never been kissed." Maybe that would soften the blow of it?

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Her eyes widened into saucers at the brazen nature of his question. For one, Alice had never even gone as far as offering one of her male friends a platonic, congratulatory hug. Was there someone out there saying otherwise? Was she known to be some kind of hussy?! "Of course it was." She answered in a bit of a rush. "It doesn't really count though, does it? Since it was under mistletoe and not because of some storybook romance...?"

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Lester nodded, and regretted nodding. He reached up to hold his hand in front of his eyes. "I don't think mistletoe counts," he said.

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Alice nodded once before pushing a plate of toast closer towards him. "Eat that when you can, it'll help the hangover." She instructed gently instead of dwelling upon the kiss. There would be plenty of time for that later. "Try to have some water too."

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