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When he’s in danger Wilde wasn’t one to make noise - one of the things that made Grizzop realise he had been in danger more often than one might have thought on first meeting him. So the high pitched shriek and crash of furniture from his office had Grizzop running that way, slipping the dagger Sasha had given him into one hand and cursing that he didn’t have his bow.
They still had enemies, of course they did, there were the remnants of the cult of Hades and Artemis knew how many of Wilde’s old set who would like to see him taken down a peg or two and Grizzop took his duty to protect the man extremely seriously.
He slammed open the office door to find Wilde pressed up against one wall, staring at the opposite one, his chair knocked over from where he’d obviously scrambled back from his desk in a panic.
“What happened?” Grizzop asked, failing to see anything else in the room that might have caused this. “Are you all right.”
Wilde swallowed and made a somewhat sheepish face, raising one hand to point at the opposite wall. It took another second for Grizzop to realise he wasn’t just pointing at the wall, he was pointing at something on the wall.
A fat, brown, hairy spider sat next to the portrait of Wilde’s sister.
“It came out from behind the portrait,” Wilde said. “It’s probably been there for weeks. How dare it!”
Grizzop let out a breath. “It’s just a spider, Wilde,” he said, sheathing his dagger and turning to go.
“Wait!” Grizzop flicked an ear and looked back. “You’re… not afraid of them are you Grizzop?”
“Wot, spiders? Nah they’re harmless. Well. Mostly. Anyway that one definitely is harmless, it’ll just eat other bugs for you if you leave it.” He turned again, then turned back. Wilde hadn’t moved, and was still looking back and forth, between the spider and Grizzop. “Wait,” Grizzop said, slowly beginning to smile. “Are you telling me you are afraid of them?”
Wilde pouted. “It’s a very common phobia, Grizzop.”
“You faced down zombie skeletons, squizzards, walking tree giants and a sodding dragon !”
“ Sodding Dragons can’t fit behind portraits and lurk there waiting for weeks so they can come out and run with their little hairy legs all over my precious manuscripts.” Grizzop saw him give a whole body shudder. “Gods it probably has friends. I may have to burn down the entire house.”
Grizzop let out a huge sigh, glancing around the room, seeing Wilde’s decanter of good whiskey on one table with its glasses. He snatched one of the glasses up, and then a piece of paper from the desktop - making sure it wasn’t one of the ones covered in Wilde’s looping script.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting rid of it,” Grizzop said.
“You can just kill it, surely…”
“No, I’m not killing it, they’re not evil, they’re just animals.”
He clambered up on another chair near the spider’s spot on the wall. Wilde was making anxious noises from behind him and actually let out a little yelp as Grizzop popped the glass over the spider. The spider was utterly unconcerned, simply moving its legs a little as Grizzop slipped the paper under the glass and trapped it.
He turned around and hopped back down, holding the spider out for Wilde to inspect. “See. Totally harmless.”
Wilde reared back. “I’ll take your word for it,” he said.
Grizzop rolled his eyes and took the spider out and downstairs, setting it free in the garden. The spider seemed completely fine with this arrangement, scuttering away as soon as the glass was removed. He stood up and turned around, nearly barreling straight into Wilde’s hip.
“What are you doing?”
“I just wanted to make sure it got away,” Wilde said, biting his lip. Grizzop put his hands on his hips and Wilde gave him another sheepish grin. “Thank you,” he said, leaning down to brush his lips over Grizzop’s head.
“It’s not the worst thing I’ve had to do for you,” Grizzop muttered, but it was half hearted, as Wilde moved his lips along one ear, breathing into it and gently nibbling the tip.
“My hero,” Wilde murmured.
“Oh shut up.”