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The morning came with a stark contrast in temperature; clouds had rolled in overnight, and though they were set to clear out later in the day, the chill in the air was much more prominent as a result. Enough so that upon waking up, Riddle shivered and pressed himself deeper into Trey’s hold. Uncuffing his pant legs with his toes helped, but only marginally.
For the first time he weighed the pros and cons of simply…staying in bed. At least for as long as it took Trey to get up. The warmth against his back was so inviting, the breath at his neck ticklish and yet comfortable in its familiarity, and those palms were excellent at warding the chill away from his fingers. A one-time exception based on the circumstances.
And then his body flew into autopilot before he solidified the decision, slipping up and out of Trey’s arms and shuddering when exposed to the cold morning air.
Nobody else was around the previous morning. There was no guarantee it would be the case this time, but it was also much earlier than before—four in the morning, he realized belatedly upon checking the clock, and immediately felt foolish for abandoning the cozy hold he’d been enveloped within. He was up now though, mind already whirring away in spite of the grogginess weighing down each step, thus tea was deemed the clear, logical, definitely not sleep-addled choice over simply burrowing back into the blankets and basking like he’d been tempted to. Anyone laughing at his sleepy state would be silenced.
He reached for the chair where he last recalled setting his cardigan, and grabbed the first thing his fingers grazed, pulling it over his shoulders with a yawn. For a moment it felt almost too big, the sleeves too long. He brushed it off. He didn’t have the energy to fiddle around with sweaters in the dark.
Cuffing the sleeves just to be sure, he tiptoed out of the room, listening for any signs of activity as he crept down the hall. Aside from some…frankly incredible snoring (pity to the roommates) the floor remained still, and so he made his way downstairs without issue.
With the curtains closed and walls up, any moonlight seeping in was muffled, and the lounge would’ve been cast in ominous blue shadows had it not been for a single, dim, warm lamp lighting the path. That should’ve been his first clue that someone else was awake, and it did indeed give him pause, but he’d recalled from previous nights that lights had been left on to assist with navigating on the off chance someone (Idia came to mind from a half-remembered conversation half-overheard, though for the life of him Riddle had no idea why he of all people would’ve left the bedroom of his own volition) decided to venture downstairs. He was thankful for it in those moments, no longer worried about fumbling over stray objects as he strolled to the kitchen.
He needed water, of course, pulling the electric kettle off the stand and setting it by the sink, but the tea…where had they put it again? Cater mentioned they’d moved around both the loose leaf and the tea bags earlier, something about Lilia causing a kerfuffle during lunchtime, but…Riddle rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying desperately to dig through the sleepy mess in his head and recall where they’d ended up, because they certainly weren’t tucked into the corner next to the coffee grounds like they should’ve been. Huffing, he reached up to investigate the cupboards, sleeves sliding further up his arms as he dug around the sugar and—
All at once he froze, muscles and thoughts locking up in tandem under the sensation of being watched. Stalked.
Before he could wrench himself into seeking out his unnerving new companion, never one to pick flight when being challenged, a gasp dispelled any sense of fight that had been building in him. That definitely wasn’t one of the Leech twins, thank goodness. Such a dramatic, yet restrained sound could only come from a handful of people, and while Trey had warned him more than once about Rook’s…eccentricities, he didn’t feel much cause for alarm.
“Good morning. My apologies, I don’t mean to be a nuisance. I was just searching for the tea we’d procured a few days ago,” Riddle explained quickly, quietly as he pushed the contents of the shelf back the way he’d found them, suddenly feeling every bit like a child with his hand in the cookie jar. “I hope I didn’t…” his voice trailed off as he shut the cupboard doors and turned to properly address Rook, one hand still hanging on the handle.
Rook didn’t say a word. He merely smiled. Wide, proud, unsettlingly enamored. The same kind of obsessive grin he’d sport when watching Leona do most anything.
The same as when he hunted.
The fight or flight response returned tenfold, a hundredfold.
“What? What is it?” Riddle demanded, only barely restraining the bite that tried to leach into his voice. Rook didn’t even need to answer though, as at the same moment he realized Rook wasn’t actually looking him in the eye, and followed his gaze down to look at himself, where he almost expected to find some kind of creature latched on.
He did not find a creature. He did, however, find a club suite.
Suddenly, Riddle had never been more awake in his life.
It was Trey’s cardigan, plain, pale cyan with the occasional white club adorning the fabric, entirely different from his cream-colored one. No wonder it felt so much bigger. He hadn’t the faintest idea how he didn’t realize, even through his groggy haze. But there he stood. In the kitchen of the Hunt family’s Land of Sunshine villa. At four in the morning. In Trey’s cardigan. It even smelled like him—
No, he was not about to have that thought right then.
Rook still hadn’t said anything, yet his grin had only grown wider since Riddle noticed, and he was immediately overcome with the sense that he had somehow lost. “Oh, non, non, you need not worry. I had my own business to attend to at this hour,” and oh, fie, the excited blush on Rook’s cheeks made it even worse. “To aid in your search, I believe the tea was placed below the countertop for safekeeping. But, ah,” Rook’s eyes flit back down to the jacket, and his voice bubbled with restrained giddiness, “if I may be so bold as to ask—”
Face flushing red-hot, Riddle shut his eyes, lamenting the fates of both himself and Trey for the remainder of the trip—nay, the remainder of the year.
He didn’t know what time it was beyond “early”, just based on a one-eyed blurry peek out into the darkness of the room. Early enough that Riddle was already up, the gap left in his wake cooled by the air. Must’ve been overcast if it was still so dark out despite that. Reluctantly, Trey groaned and tucked the blanket up enough to cover the empty spot on the bed as he began the long, arduous mental task of rousing himself to leave the warmth of the covers.
He meant to sit up when he heard the door open, he well and truly did, but his eyes had already fallen shut again. Maybe if he pretended to be asleep, Riddle would figure he still needed rest and leave him be for another ten, fifteen, twenty minutes. Maybe he actually would fall back asleep. Trey didn’t so much as twitch as he heard the soft footsteps approach the side of the bed, but when the mattress dipped and the blanket was lifted carefully rather than promptly yanked off, all without a word, curiosity got the better of him to peer. Trey’s ruse was abandoned entirely as Riddle reached under and lifted his arm, assisting in the effort by encircling him and tugging him close as he tucked back in to reclaim his previous, chilled spot. The fabric of his sleep shirt somehow felt…off.
An unpleasant jolt shot through his legs, and it took him a second to realize that it was from Riddle’s calves, pajama pants partially rolled from all the shifting around—man, they were cold.
“Were you downstairs?” Trey asked as he nuzzled his nose into the top of Riddle’s head.
There was a pause long enough to where he wondered if Riddle had immediately dozed back off. When Riddle did finally respond, it wasn’t with an answer he’d expected. “I’m afraid I must apologize.”
That got both eyes open. He pulled his head back and blinked down at the top of Riddle’s head even though he couldn’t see, stumbling over his own thoughts as he tried to parse exactly what was going on, whether it warranted panic. The tone of voice Riddle used wasn’t really…bad, per se, not alluding to anything truly grave, but enough to cause a flicker of concern all the same. “Apologize? For what?”
“My intention was to brew some tea to aid with sleeping, but I encountered Rook while doing so, and in my carelessness…”
He’d meant to pull back the blanket enough to get a (very muddled) look at Riddle’s face, but the flash of a brighter hue rather than the shadowed darkness of a maroon sleep shirt—it was a light shade of blue, he realized—made him peer down further. Trey’s heart leapt right up into his throat at the sight, fluttering like butterfly wings, before dropping like a stone straight to his feet as it dawned on him what exactly encountering Rook while wearing that meant. A weak “Oh” was all that escaped him at first, throat dry for several different reasons. At Riddle’s sigh, annoyed rather than outright upset, Trey dropped both the blanket and his arm to herd him close again, uttering the laugh of a man resigned to his fate. “Oh boy…”
Riddle grumbled, pressing his face right up into the crook of Trey’s throat. “I was aware that Rook could tend to be a bit much, and yet…” a disgruntled sound, “I understand your warnings now.”
“Yeah,” Trey breathed. “Yeah, he’s certainly a character alright.”
Fingers lightly squeezed Riddle’s shoulder, digging through the fabric of his cardigan—his cardigan, not the one Riddle had bought for the trip. The thought shoved aside his impending doom to reclaim the spotlight, stomach flip flopping this way and that, smiling wide like an elementary school kid with a crush, feeling like a lovesick schoolboy, for once not at all concerned with the childishness of it. How could he? If he was about to get harassed in new and exciting ways the moment he set foot out the bedroom door (he half expected Rook to be standing there, waiting for them with baited breath), then Trey was going to unabashedly enjoy every single second of Riddle wearing his clothes while he had the opportunity.