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An itch on his face woke him up. One that sank deep past the skin, burrowing into the very bone of his skull. Groaning, he tried to scratch it, only to find his hands wouldn’t move.
Eyes open, he was met with darkness, as well as the unsettling realization that his hands weren’t the problem; his entire body laid completely and utterly frozen. Couldn’t even manage a twitch. The only things still under his control were his (itchy, so so itchy) eyes, and thankfully his lungs, so at least he didn't have to worry about suffocating from…whatever this was. He tried to wiggle his fingers, toes, something, and it quickly became clear through the groggy miremuck of his thoughts that not only would they not move, but he couldn't feel them to begin with.
Uh oh.
That should’ve had him alert in an instant, but he must’ve still been half asleep, it was the only explanation he could come up with for how off balance his senses felt, his brain rocking in his skull. Or was the room itself rocking? It was so hard to tell. The itch wasn't helping him focus, but if he strained his ears, he could hear…water? Maybe? Blind, dizzy, a little bit sick from both the weird movement and the anxiety starting to prickle in his gut, he wanted to shut his eyes again, yet like so many other things he’d wanted to do over the past forty-five seconds, he couldn't. It wasn't from a lack of control this time, either.
Someone was there in the darkness, a lingering primal awareness of another's existence, and though he wasn't entirely sure yet if he wanted to know who or what it was, he called out.
Or at least, he tried to. The “hello” certainly sounded more like a squeaky breath than a word. Did his tongue even move? Again he tried, and while this time he knew something shifted and slid open on his face with the sound, bringing a new sensation blooming across his consciousness, the result was the same. He couldn't feel his body, yet he could feel the solid stiffness of it, the pain as it spread from his eyes to his joints, squirming like clinging vines or roots—
That was when the panic really set in.
“Help.” It came out as little more than a ghost of a whimper. “Help!” Better, but only marginally. His voice sounded wrong to his own ears, too rattly, too artificial.
The presence with him moved then, a wooden creak accompanying it, and all he knew was dread. Were the others with him? Was that person-thing one of them, faces painted over where the metal cages had left them dented? He couldn't escape. Limp, helpless, a puppet with its strings slack and tangled in the ball joints tight enough to cut his circulation. Breaths coming in time with a fluttery heartbeat echoing from a hollow chest cavity, he tried one more time, lungs straining from the desperation he forced the word out with. “HELP!!”
A hand grabbed his shoulder, and all at once his entire being shut down in sheer, consuming terror. The next moment everything unlocked, and with a gasp so sharp it hurt he threw himself forward, one arm out to fight off the hand, the other clutching at his eyes to do something about the pain before it drove him insane, only half cognizant that his body was his once again. He only succeeded in sitting upright, and the confusion birthed from the movement stalled his panic long enough for the first shreds of clarity to bleed in. He hadn't managed to shake off the puppet's (person’s?) hand, but it wasn't fighting him, either; in fact, its thumb was rubbing circles into the meat of his shoulder, a warm anchor heating sweat-chilled skin beneath the fabric of his clothes. Not a threat, and therefore not a priority.
They might've said something, the person (puppet?), but it was lost to the itchy ache throbbing around his right eye, distracting him before he could really understand. His fingers flexed, searched for wood he couldn't find, dug deeper into his face, blunt nails carving tiny divots into his skin as if he could pull out what was under. Was that really him doing it, though? Could he actually feel his hands? Or was the pins-and-needles buzz just a side-effect of the panic surging through what was left of his bloodstream, and—
“Trey.”
The voice came from somewhere to his right—above, below, he didn’t know, was too disoriented to know—and only slightly startled him, but it was demanding enough, familiar enough to stop his runaway thoughts right in their tracks. The lights suddenly flickering on helped in no small manner as well, the colours of the room recognizable enough to sit distinct from some dingy backstage storage room. Sucking in a breath almost as deep as when he’d first been woken up, Trey lifted his head and peered through his bent fingers at the Riddle-shaped blob sitting nearby.
He was in Heartslabyul. Not a theme park booth or a cargo ship or–or–wherever his puppet would’ve ended up.
Riddle’s room. Safe and sound.
One hand pulled back from where he’d lashed out and dropped into his lap, the muscles growing weak with relief, and something plastic nudged against the side of his thumb. Another second passed before he recognized what it was. His fingers uncurled just enough to accept the glasses, but made no move put them on, the thought of feeling the rims on his face (adhering to his face) solidifying a boulder in his gut, so instead he stared down at the blurry semi-outline of them with his other hand half-pressed to his brow like he’d woken up with one humdinger of a hangover.
Another throb had him tensing his hand again, affirming that his body was in fact his.
Riddle, of course, noticed. The mattress dipped as he shifted forward, fingers grazing Trey’s wrist, his touch asking permission while his voice ordered, “Look at me.”
Trey flexed his jaw, the first prickles of humiliation creeping up his neck. He didn’t need to be coddled, he wasn’t a child—but his throat remained tight with anxiety, with the possibility of finding lumps under his skin or holes in his face that his own hands somehow missed. He swallowed once, twice, until he could eke out a pitifully strained “Yeah, sure.”
Oh, who was he kidding? He would love a little reassurance.
Slowly, he pulled his hand away as Riddle took over, lithe fingers gliding over the skin around his eye. “Tell me if anything hurts,” Riddle said and applied pressure with the pad of his thumb. He pushed and pulled as a doctor would, careful yet thorough, even tugged a bit at his eyelid, causing the left one to shut in reflex.
Trey’s hands twitched, urging him to get back in there and resume digging at his own face; Riddle wasn’t pressing hard enough, he’d never notice it, and…and…huh.
He had tensed up, braced for the sting of roots rubbing against raw nerves and bone, yet wherever Riddle touched the lingering sensation faded away, his body remembering there wasn’t anything there anymore and loosening the mental knots. The only thing even remotely rough on his skin was from the callous on Riddle’s right-middle finger, a different texture from the rest.
“I don’t see anything amiss,” Riddle concluded after a short pause, “and you don’t seem to be in any pain from this.”
His knee-jerk reaction was to laugh it off, but there was no way it would sound anywhere near natural, so he swallowed again to tamp the impulse down and huffed the exhale instead. “I, uh, guess it was all in my head. Good to know I won’t be waking up the school nurse over something silly.” He still sounded weaker and shakier than he would’ve liked, and maybe he should’ve just stayed quiet entirely, because the sound Riddle made was anything but approving. All he could do was try to smile.
There was a pause, and then Riddle’s hands moved down to cup Trey’s cheeks, holding his head firm but not completely restricting movement. Trey had to squint to see Riddle’s frown.
“You were whispering for help in your sleep. What happened?” Riddle asked, gentle, dispelling any fear that the frown was from anger.
“Just a bad dream.” Trey shrugged. Knowing Riddle actually heard him…
Mortifying, absolutely, but the thought of Riddle flying into action in response to his distress settled in his overtired head, and for a couple seconds the throbbing in Trey’s chest wasn’t from adrenaline.
Riddle waited for him to elaborate. When the silence stretched on and it became clear that wasn’t in the cards, he hummed and let Trey go. Something in the movement told Trey that he likely didn’t have to say anything anyway; Riddle already knew. And that was somehow even more mortifying than hearing him whimper like a scared kid in the dark.
Though he’d more or less regained his senses regarding the phantom face pain, his heartbeat continued to flutter against his ribs, his skin tickled with the memory of an itch, his limbs felt too stiff. Putting on his glasses turned out to be the straw that broke the camel’s back, something else—something horrible—unlocking as he immediately shucked the covers and threw his legs over the edge of the bed. “I need to get up,” Trey said a touch too quick halfway through a breath, “I need to move. Walk. Do something.”
To his surprise, Riddle didn’t refuse him, nor did he give chase. “If you must. There should be some bagged chamomile in the leftmost cupboard should you need it. Don’t stay up too late, though. You know what’ll happen if I receive word you dozed off during class.”
No need to fret there, Trey thought as he exited the bedroom, using his pen to cut a bright beam of light through the darkened hallway. I doubt I’ll be sleeping again any time soon.
To Trey’s credit he did not, in fact, fall asleep again. That certainly didn’t mean he was awake, though, and from the looks he kept catching throughout the day he wasn’t hiding it very well either.
Upon returning home and for a few days following their ordeal at the park, he’d had to reason that so many important people going missing at once would've caused an international panic, and the evidence left would've been enough to find and bring them all home safely, in order to shake off the lingering shock. They had a major nation’s second prince. The heir to a mind-bendingly powerful merchant family. One of the royal guards to Malleus Draconia. Of course it would've been fine in the end.
Getting cleared by the nurse should've been enough to put the last of his worries to rest, all wrapped up in a neat little bow, yet he didn't anticipate how brutal the mental of it all would end up being. He thought it'd go away eventually, the incident slotting itself neatly away under the label of “over and done with” alongside all the other chaotic mishaps of the past few months. Then he thought about what happened a little too hard while scratching at his eyebrow, one memory drifting to another, and suddenly the floodgates opened, details fitting together like the world's ugliest puzzle. The sheer scale of the whole operation, how many people they'd taken in one day, how close he'd really come to never seeing his family or friends or Riddle again—
Was this what it felt like to be on the other side of things? Not that he'd ever doubted Riddle's lingering hardship after his crisis—doubting was the furthest possibility from his mind, in fact—but yeesh, this sucked in a whole different manner. Reasoning didn’t calm him down anymore. His stomach turned every time it so much as crossed his mind.
No wonder he wasn't sleeping well.
“Which is precisely why I've put together a treatment guide for you.”
Riddle's voice made Trey jump a foot into the air, nearly sending the biscuit in his hand flying and narrowly avoiding choking on the hunk in his mouth. Had he been speaking aloud? Oh, he really must've been wiped.
“Riddle!” Trey half-greeted, half-exclaimed as he turned, fumbling to catch any crumbs from his lips. “I—” he made sure to swallow before speaking in earnest, “didn’t hear you come in.”
That earned him a furrowed brow, and justifiably so; Riddle’s heels were always loud, an announcement of his presence before the man himself appeared, so missing them either meant Riddle had purposely concealed his footsteps, or Trey had delved so deeply inside his own head he’d simply stopped being aware of his surroundings. More like than not, it was the latter. And in the kitchen, too? Yeah, yeah that wasn’t good.
In his hands Riddle carried a small stack of stapled papers, which were promptly slapped upon the kitchen isle and slid across for Trey to receive. He gestured to them with a flick of his wrist. “These pages contain everything I could gather on the subject of dreams, as well as a handful of other matters I felt could be relevant to your ailment. Now I realize this goes beyond what qualifies as first-aid, and that you really should see a licensed medical professional for this—which you continue to insist isn't necessary,” he added with a particularly pointed glare. “However, as Heartslabyul's Housewarden, I cannot simply allow a student’s condition to deteriorate under my care.” He cleared his throat. “And as a partner, I’m worried about you. This is not an issue that should be left alone until it becomes chronic. Your health and education are at stake should you consistently fail to get a good night's rest.”
Embarrassment filled Trey’s head, accompanied by hefty doses of guilt and shame over making Riddle go out of his way for him yet again, prickling his cheeks until he abandoned the biscuit to take the guide. Ugh, he should’ve just pulled rank and dragged Ace and Cater home. Would’ve saved all their heads, both metaphorically AND literally.
As he thumbed at the paper, as if he’d read his thoughts somehow, Trey heard Riddle mutter, most likely to himself, “Perhaps it would be wise to check in on Ace and Cater as well…”
The memory of Cater sitting slumped a couple cages down made him shudder, so as embarrassing and guilt-inducing as the guide was, he dove into it as a distraction. One of the pages was all about methods for nightmare repellant, from healthy sleeping practices to external treatments to potion recipes. The page following it had treatments specifically for sleep paralysis, and there at the bottom, the undeniable proof that Riddle knew exactly what was tormenting him, was a footnote on reversing the effects of transformation spells on the human body. He’d even gone so far as to underline a part specifying cognitive effects. And the citations on the back…
The warmth in his cheeks took on a decidedly different flavour. “Thanks, really. I can tell you put a lot of work into this.”
“I certainly did. Let’s hope it proves useful in the nights to come.” Riddle smiled, and waited for Trey to slide him a fresh biscuit across the isle before taking his leave.
Implementing every single tactic into his nightly routine felt like way, waaaay too much for his overtaxed, underslept mind to handle, so that evening Trey picked a handful of simple, non-intrusive ideas to start with. Avoiding snacks a few hours before bed, a chamomile tea blend infused with lavender in accordance with the rules to soothe his body (plus an extra tooth brushing session to sooth his mind), and borrowing use of Riddle’s diffuser lamp in place of incense felt approachable enough.
He figured Riddle would appreciate seeing his hard work put into practice, so even though he held no plans on turning in right away, Trey waited for Riddle to return to the bedroom before he began massaging around his eyes. No roots, no wood, no pain. With his glasses off and eyes shut he didn’t see Riddle approach, but heard his slippers ruffle the carpet, and a smile spread as he felt lips press into his hair.
Just a few, small steps, and yet he had to admit, it left him feeling just a little bit more confident.
An itch on his face woke him up. One that sank deep past the skin, burrowing into the very bone of his skull. Groaning, he tried to scratch it, only to find his hands wouldn’t move.
Something about it instilled the faintest sense of déjà vu…
Eyes open, he was met with darkness, as well as the unsettling realization that his hands weren’t the problem; his entire body laid completely and utterly frozen. Couldn’t even manage a twitch. The only things still under his control were his (itchy, so so itchy) eyes, and thankfully his lungs, so at least he didn't have to worry about suffocating from…whatever this was. He tried to wiggle his fingers, toes, something, and it quickly became clear through the groggy miremuck of his thoughts that not only would they not move, but he couldn't feel them to begin with.
Except…no, he could feel something. His right hand was surprisingly warm.
Acknowledging the warmth caused it to spread up his arm, through his chest, feeling returning to what should’ve been a lifeless doll. Now he could tell why it was so hard to move in the first place, how tightly wound up his muscles actually were, completely locked down like a rabbit hiding from a fox. His heart still hammered, yet his mind hadn’t begun to race with it, allowing him to pinpoint where the knots were the worst, where his focus would best be placed, keeping his breathing slow and deep lest a lack of oxygen made his head spin. He could’ve moved his jaw—clenched it, flexed it, counted his teeth with his tongue until he hit the magic number—but instead decided to take advantage of his warm hand.
Something was in his loose grasp against his palm. Squeezing his eyes shut again to block out any visual distractions, wincing against the sensation it caused under his skin, he fought to curl his fingers around it. Just a little bit. That was all he needed. He felt his index twitch, then his middle, and his thumb.
What came with it was the sensation of being pulled, and the world tipped upside down, and—
Trey awoke with a gasp, and nearly sucked in one of the feathers from the pillow under his face, tickling the side of his lip. With his free arm he propped himself up. Cool air chilled the sweat on his skin. He tried to remember the guide. He could not remember the guide. Breathing felt like a solid first step though, and a few slow, controlled inhales had his heartbeat slowing, the staccato rhythm cushioned under the faint, lingering scent of roses from the diffuser lamp. Still couldn’t stop himself from scratching under his right eye, but that was okay. Nothing was there.
He was…fine. He was perfectly fine.
Slowly, Trey turned his head to peer blindly through the dim light at his other hand, where a smaller palm sat warm against his, fingers tangled in some awkward half-lock that somehow hadn’t broken apart from tossing and turning. Riddle hadn’t stirred either, breaths so soft and silent the distant crickets almost drowned him out. Even though his vision was nothing more than a dark, blurry mess, Trey felt a sigh of relief escape, deflating back into the puffy, slightly damp pillow.
Well. At least he didn’t wake up flailing around, and the itch wasn’t painful. That was a start. Might as well capitalize on it and see how much he could get away with.
Squeezing Riddle’s hand, Trey breathed deep, and decided to take the risk. He shut his eyes, scooted his body closer to the tether keeping him grounded, and let himself drift back off to sleep.