He rolls his eyes and says, "Save me from this smell, then, I want a quick shower before breakfast and even though I could go alone there's no reason for me to do that."

"Yes, quite right. I could probably use one too."

He hops out of bed, grabs a potion bottle out of his bedside table, and - beholds his broken door.

"There is going to be absolutely no way to hide that something incredibly fucked-up just happened," he observes.

"People are going to unreasonably assume we somehow fucked, because why else would two people stay together overnight otherwise, no matter how terrible an idea that would be."

"Lake, I don't mean to be rude, but if I were going to fuck you it would be during the day. I cannot imagine being horny enough to justify last night."

"That's my point, but now I wish you to look me in the eye and tell me you don't think people are going to assume it anyway."

"I said nothing of the sort. I've learned never to overestimate gossips."

Edmund starts down the hall, potion bottle and water jug in hand. "I suppose we could have gotten the activity out of the way before curfew and just got caught out in the afterglow. Which is also insulting, but at least doesn't imply unlikely things about your ability to maintain an erection in the presence of burning mal corpses."

Scorpius purses his lips and very communicatively does not say anything.

"Good lord, really? I'll take it as a compliment."

"You're pretty and fighting things gets the blood flowing, sue me."

"I've never personally gotten my rocks off fighting for my life, but I am very pretty, so I'll accept the thesis."

His room is close enough to the bathrooms to be convenient without being close enough to the stairs to be inconvenient. They fetch up there before too long, and few enough others are awake that it's empty. "Take turns with one on watch, or does Scorpius Lake not care for such petty dangers?"

"Scorpius Lake does indeed not, as Scorpius Lake has never been jumped by a mal however much he wanted to be. I would have a very boring time here if I didn't go chasing stuff, it's very disappointing."

"Never? Not even - groglers, lyeflies, the idiot monsters that just move and eat and spawn? Even amphisbaena know you by reputation?"

"Reputation, or they can smell it, or something. Last night was the first time I've ever had them come to me rather than me chase them." He turns a faucet's handle to demonstrate and only water comes out and absolutely nothing starts making a ruckus in the pipes even as he takes his time washing his face.

In lieu of saying anything to that, Edmund turns on the neighboring faucet, half-fills his jug, then adds a drop of the potion. The water turns to a silky liquid soap. He moves as if to take off his shirt, then looks at Scorpius hesitantly. "Mind if I wash my clothes? I'll help with yours too if you want, the potion's brilliant."

"—sure, that'd be grand."

Easier than going back to his room for a new set anyway, so he starts stripping.

Edmund does the same, as unselfconscious as any Scholomance student. "Ella made the soap potion," he comments as he scrubs the cloth in the sink. "The product'll take stains out of or off of just about anything and the reactant can convert up to a pint per drop. Ella's a genius, just wish she were also a human person with feelings regarding anyone other than Adrian."

"I feel like I should not be getting this info for free," he says even though he is dying for any form of non-transactional human connection.

"If you get to give people things I get to give you things," Edmund says absently. "Besides, free's what you make of it, what if you take this free information back to Chloe and she orders a hogshead of the stuff from Ella? Everybody benefits."

"Meant more the part about Adrian."

"Oh. That's because I like you and you aren't actually going to tell anyone and I don't care very much if you do."

"You'd said five words to me before last night!" There's a giggle and Scorpius whirls in its direction and sees a couple of kids quickly walking away from the bathrooms, letting the door shut behind them. "...well."

Edmund shrugs. "We are standing naked in the loo together. After you spent the night in my room fighting off maleficaria. The assumption is not, at this point, unreasonable."

He laughs, shaking his head, and makes his way to the showers to have said actual shower before the junior queue's up at the cafeteria. "Not yet true, unfortunately," he calls from the stall.

Edmund finishes washing their clothes, dries them off magically, and hangs them on the hook between Scorpius' stall and the one he's going to be using. He showers efficiently, using up the rest of his soap, then rinses out the jug and fills it with water and filters out the tiny transparent barely-perceptible mals. 

He walks out of the shower and dries himself off and has the thought if I walk to breakfast with Scorpius instead of my enclave, there is not a person in the school who will not believe we are fucking.

The thought of talking to his clavemates right now makes him want to bite himself. And - it's a lost cause anyway, isn't it. Scorpius said so himself. 

"Lake," he says, shrugging his shirt on, "you still there? Want an escort to the cafeteria?"

He's already put most of his clothes back on. "Sure," he says, and Edmund can hear the amusement in his voice.