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It’s three o’clock in the morning in the middle of January, and Hubert has locked himself out.
How could he have been so careless? He’d forgotten his keys when he left for Edelgard’s. And if that wasn’t bad enough, his hands are so cold that he fumbled the spare right into the storm drain.
Whoever finds his frozen corpse is probably going to laugh at him.
No, no, there’s still one thing he can try. He’s fairly sure he left one of the upstairs windows unlocked. All he has to do is scale the side of his house to reach the balcony - easy, right?
The best shot he has is the trellis, so he sets one foot on it and bounces, testing the weight, pleased when it doesn’t immediately snap. It should be fine. Probably. As long as he’s careful to spread his weight evenly across his limbs.
It’s not like he can stay outside.
So he starts to climb. The trellis creaks with each of his movements, shaking under his weight. Something creaks under his foot and for the first time in his life, Hubert prays.
Please, goddess, just let me get inside.
It’s agonisingly slow going. And it doesn’t help that it’s so dark he can barely see how much further he has to climb. He looks back to the ground, hoping it will be clearer, and swears when he sees he’s barely a meter up.
Then he sees movement out of the corner of his eye. He looks to the neighbouring balcony to find a man standing there, orange mane luminescent despite the moonless night, a flowerpot raised above his head.
Wait- what?
“Cease, burglar!” The man yells, hurling the pot directly at Hubert.
He narrowly manages to avoid it by dangling halfway off the trellis, yelping as it shatters against the bricks, and he’s just about to shout an indignant reply when- Crack.
The flimsy wood beneath his foot gives way, sending him tumbling to the ground.
“That’s what you get, you scoundrel!” The man on the balcony crows. “Now get out of here before I call the police.”
Hubert blinks up at him. He takes a moment to take stock of his bones - none broken, as far as he can tell, thanks to the snow - before hauling himself to his feet.
“I live here, you idiot!” He shouts.
He can’t make out the man’s expression properly in the darkness, but he’s fairly sure it’s smug. “Then why, pray tell, were you trying to break in?”
“I locked myself out.”
The man leans over the railing to squint at him. A second passes. Then two. Three. Four. And the man recoils in shock.
“Oh, goodness. You do live there, don’t you.”
Hubert glowers up at him. “Yes, that’s what I said.”
“I am so, so sorry about that. I thought you were a burglar.”
“Well, I’m not,” he sighs.
They look at each other awkwardly and he shuffles his feet. What is he supposed to do? He could just leave. Edelgard would put him up, as embarrassing as it would be. He can call a locksmith in the morning.
“Do- do you need somewhere to stay?”
He looks up at the man, incredulous. “After you just tried to brain me with a flowerpot?”
“I feel like I should offer precisely because of that, yes.”
Well, it’s better than walking all the way back to Edelgard’s house.
“May as well,” he sighs.
“Splendid!” The man calls. “Come around to the front. I’ll be down shortly to let you in.”
The man turns to go inside, so Hubert heads back around to the front, gauging his neighbour’s position by which lights flicker on. He reaches the door without incident and starts scraping his shoes on the doormat. It has a novelty phrase printed on it: my other house is a horse.
There’s scrambling on the other side of the door before it swings inwards to reveal the man, who quickly gestures him inside. He’s just as orange close up, though his hair is considerably shinier under proper lighting. It clashes terribly with his burgundy bathrobe. Somehow, he’s still… handsome? Oh. Well, that improves the situation somewhat.
Hubert steps into the entryway and kicks off his boots. From what he can tell of the house’s layout it’s a mirror image of his own, at once both familiar and disconcertingly alien. This must be what it’s like to have your house renovated for one of those reality shows; to leave and then return to something that looks the same, but has the wrong aesthetic. The patterned wallpaper is too loud. The carpet is too shaggy. And someone has replaced his minimalist wall art with several photographs of what looks like the same horse, each one wearing a different ribbon.
“Again, I am very sorry,” the man says. He holds out his hand. “Will you allow me to start over? I am Ferdinand von Aegir, and I live next door. A pleasure to meet you.”
Hubert laughs. He takes the outstretched hand and shakes. “Hubert von Vestra. Please remember me, if only so you don’t try to kill me again.”
“I think I’d struggle to forget such a face,” Ferdinand says, winking.
Hubert doesn’t know what to do with that, so he concentrates on removing his coat.
He ends up sleeping on a couch with far too many pillows. It’s better than freezing, but not by much. Ferdinand rouses him in the morning and, after a bit of fuss about how awful the stuff is, fixes a coffee for him while he calls the locksmith.
Hubert finishes his call and sets his phone down on the table. “I should be out of your hair in about an hour.”
“Mm,” Ferdinand hums, halfway through a sip of tea. “Stay as long as you need. It’s no trouble.”
It’s… odd to be sitting here in a strange kitchen with someone he’d never really intended to interact. Before, they’d rarely run into each other. And when they did Hubert had pretended not to see him.
Maybe he can start saying hello, after this.