Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Riddle expected the end of his third year at Night Raven College to be a handful. Why wouldn’t it be? On top of finals and the graduation ceremony for the fourth year students, he had to prepare for his own departure from the dorm, a task which was a to-do list in itself. But he doubted it could top the special kind of absurdity the year before had thrown at him, and thus he was wholly confident that, stressful or not, he would make it through unscathed.

He’d been right on all counts, of course…save for the one single thing that plagued him up until the day he departed.

Once he’d passed down his crown (both physical and metaphorical) and said his goodbyes to students and hedgehogs alike, Riddle took up his luggage and crossed through the Dark Mirror. He inhaled nice and deep on the other side until his lungs ached. For the first time in months, his confidence wavered.

His work wasn’t over just yet. He still had one last box to check, the most important box of his life. To do so, he would have to first make his way to Patisserie Clover.

Riddle could see Trey fixing a display behind the counter as he approached, who just so happened to lift his head and glance out the window. Upon locking eyes, Trey immediately left the neatly wrapped boxes and rounded to unlock the front door, propping it open with his foot.

“Hey, it’s good to see you,” Trey said as though they hadn’t just met up during his graduation, smiling in a way that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Riddle smiled back, and from the feeling of it his expression must’ve looked much the same. They stood in the doorway for as many seconds as they could spare, an entire conversation of worries and reassurances exchanged solely by look by the time Riddle actually set foot inside. Being back felt…strange. But he couldn't afford the moment to reminisce.

Maybe it was greedy of him to do this. The notion worried away in the back of his mind for the hundred-thousandth time while he slipped his shoes off at the doorway separating the storefront from the household. That didn’t mean he would, nor could, back out now.

Chenya already awaited him at the dining room table, having helped himself to a grape-flavored ice lolly from the Clover family freezer. “And there he is! Right on time,” he purred as Riddle set his rolling luggage aside and took a seat. “Not a minute too soon nor too late.”

“But of course. We don’t have much time to waste,” Riddle huffed in return.

When Trey joined them, however, the table fell silent. No one said a word. Chenya even kept his slurping on the ice lolly to a minimum. The nature of what came next wasn’t pleasant after all, and with Riddle at the center neither of them wanted to press him on it before he’d gathered his thoughts.

When it came to the topic of his mother, there were always so many to gather.

Eventually, Riddle took a breath to help solidify those thoughts before they could slip away between his fingers like so many grains of sand. “Let’s go over the plan one more time,” he began, and watched their focus sharpen at once. It was reassuring how seriously they were taking this. “I’m going to attempt talking with my mother again, and will share my academic intentions with her. While I’m engaged, you will wait outside for no more than fifteen minutes, after which, should all be well, you may leave and we can all go about our day as normal. Otherwise…”

“If things AREN’T well, I’ll be the one to acquire your stuff,” Chenya finished, waving the ice lolly in a circle before pointing it in Riddle’s direction. “A box of folders in the lowest drawer of your desk.”

“That’s…right.” Riddle sighed. “I’m still uncomfortable with the notion of you infiltrating my house. Doing so without permission from the homeowner is unlawful entry.”

“Ah, but Riddle! I’m not unlawfully entering, I’m merely a guest accompanying you to help you move out! Completely fair play for an adult.”

Rubbing his temple slowly, Riddle released a second, longer, slightly more exasperated sigh, and acquiesced. “...I suppose.” Then he looked at Trey. “Are your parents still alright with these arrangements?”

Trey nodded. “Of course they are. We’ve got everything ready if you need it. No trouble whatsoever.”

“Alright. Allow me one moment to reorganize my belongings, and then we’d best be off.” Tugging back his sleeve, Riddle stared down at his watch. “Mother will be expecting me soon.”

Together the trio ventured from the shop, trading idle chatter and lighthearted banter about the previous week’s happenings to keep the spirits up. Once that final street corner came into view however, the quaint little house to their right acting as the last bastion hiding their presence from Riddle’s mother, any noise died off.

Trey gave Riddle a firm, reassuring pat on the shoulder, and from Chenya came one against his back. The time had come to put his preparations to the test. With one last breath, Riddle turned the corner alone.

Standing in front of the gate in her favored red blazer and pencil skirt, hands clasped neatly against her lap, was his mother. Even from afar he could see the way her face perked up upon spotting him. Her pleased expression cleared some of the dread pooling in his gut, even if it was only temporary. He had to fight the urge to jog up to her.

“Welcome home, Riddle,” she greeted as he approached. “I’ve heard from your teachers that you were at the top of your year again. Excellent work, as expected.”

“Thank you, mother.” Riddle dipped his head gratefully, a pleasant buzz working its way through his head and draping over his shoulders from the praise. However, there was no time to bask in it. He cleared his throat to wrench himself back on task. “Mother, before we get settled in, I have some important business which needs your attention as soon as possible.”

For the briefest fraction of a second suspicion flickered across her face, and Riddle sucked on his teeth. It was gone just as abruptly. “Is that so? Very well, come in.” Without any further preamble, his mother turned and walked back up the path through their front yard, not even waiting long enough for him to catch and hold open the gate when it swung back.

As much as he wanted to, Riddle didn’t dare look behind him, lest he accidentally give away Trey and Chenya. With every step the warmth from his mother’s greeting dwindled. He was walking into a test, one unlike anything Night Raven College or its colourful host of students could throw at him, one that sent apprehension weaving its way around his ribs, threatening to choke him of oxygen. Stepping in through the entrance felt like passing a dangerous threshold, the familiar cla-click of the door shutting behind him punctuating the fact that there was no turning back.

Riddle sat his luggage upright near the door, but he didn’t collapse the handle. One by one he undid his laces and stepped out of his shoes, but he didn’t set them on the shoe rack. Both actions were deliberate, as much as the little voice in the back of his head nagged at him for being so sloppy. Perhaps his shoes were hidden behind the suitcase just enough to conceal them as his mother didn’t call him on it, and he kept that momentum going by immediately unzipping the top of the luggage enough to fish out a maroon hardcover binder. The paper slotted in the front pouch was uncharacteristically blank, no label whatsoever denoting the binder’s contents. He kept that side pressed against him so his mother wouldn’t focus on it.

They entered the dining room, and they took their usual seats; her’s at one side of the cloth covered table, his directly across. “Now then, what is it you need to discuss?” she asked as soon as they were settled.

Here goes.

Riddle opened the folder to the exact page he needed, easing the papers out from their cover. “My fourth year internship, and plans for further education beyond that,” he announced. “As per the school’s recommendation I need to share this information with you.”

“Yes, of course. I trust you’ve been approved for our agreed upon facilities?”

“Naturally.” Riddle smirked, a familiar, comforting bubble swelling in his chest at the way she gazed upon him, eyes gleaming with pride. “See for yourself,” he all but chirped as he slid the acceptance letters across the table for her to examine.

“Well done,” she praised, but her words were low and quick compared to the look she’d given him, almost an afterthought while she took her time flipping through each letter. Once she found what she was looking for, she slotted every other page behind the chosen one, tapped the stack on the table, and set it down flat. She jumped right into business. “And this is the one you’re going to attend.”

Riddle’s smirk went tight at the corners before crumbling, and he cleared his throat. “Actually, before we get to that, there’s more we need to cover.”

“More?” The expression she pulled was equal parts confused and condescending, brow raised and head dipped. “What more could there be? This,” she tapped the letter with her index finger, “is all that’s necessary.”

“Night Raven College encourages their students to explore multiple avenues, even if they’re already set upon a desired path.” He paused, fought the urge to wet his lips as though it could somehow provide relief for how utterly dry his throat had gone. “In compliance with this, I’ve also applied to a number of legal institutions.”

As he went to pull out those acceptance letters, however, she waved her hand flippantly. “A waste of time. I don’t need to see them.”

He balked. One of his hands balled into a fist, blunt nails doing their damnedest to dig through the fabric of his gloves. As quickly as he could, Riddle thumbed through the stack and only pulled out the back two pages instead of the whole bunch. He had hoped there would be more time to ease her into the idea. He should’ve known. “I bring this up because this information is relevant to my fourth year plan,” he managed to say around the hammering of his heart.

He could’ve stopped here. He could’ve simply turned around and followed along with his mother’s wishes, playing pretend that he hadn’t filled out his forms the way he really had, that he hadn’t sent a reply to the wrong academy. That he wasn’t one step away from irreversibly shattering the only normal he’d ever known.

But that would’ve been lying in every possible way. To his mother, and to himself; he’d already squandered any chance of holding on to his “normal” the moment he finalized his plans with the Headmage. And besides, how long would he have even been able to hide such a thing from his parents? A week? A month? A semester at most, surely.

So he tried to steel himself, hoping his voice wouldn’t shake when he held out the papers and said, “Please believe me when I say I’ve taken this into great consideration. This decision was not made lightly. But I’ve chosen to attend Crims University of Law for my internship and beyond.”

Their gazes held for what felt like hours. It was how he could track the exact journey her expression went through: Surprise, shock, fear, betrayal, indignation, anger, fury. His mother opened her mouth as if to yell, but nothing came from it, and instead she ripped the papers from him to read through. They crinkled under her grip. While she analyzed every inch of the first page, her face twisting further into a gnarled knot of rage with each passing second, Riddle quietly gathered up the abandoned loose sheets and tucked them neatly back into their designated slots.

When she looked at the second paper, she ignited in an instant. “HOW COULD YOU DO THIS?!” she roared, slamming the first paper down onto the table—the photocopy of his fourth year submission form, detailing his plans to attend Crims. Riddle winced. That only seemed to fuel her rage further, like he’d admitted guilt. “After everything we’ve—no, I will not allow it!” The second paper—his acceptance letter—crumpled in her fist as she pointed to the phone on the wall. “We are correcting your terrible mistake immediately!”

“You can’t—” he tried to reason, the air escaping his lungs faster than the words could, making them sound breathier than he liked. But his mother was not having it.

“Do NOT talk back to me! I can, and I will! I cannot believe you would do something like this! What could’ve possibly put such an absurd idea in your head?!”

Riddle shook his head, desperation clawing its way up to join his heart in choking off his windpipe. “No, I—I mean to say they won’t let you! The rules state once the semester has ended, we can’t make revisions to our—”

“THEY WILL!” she barked loud enough to hurt his ears. “I refuse to allow your foolish lapse in judgment to ruin your education! Honestly, how could they not require parents to take part in such an important step?! It would prevent children from tarnishing their lives and wasting all their effort! All these years!”

“Mom—”

“BE QUIET!” In a huff of fury, his mother turned the letter on its side and tore it in two, tossing the crinkled halves haphazardly down onto the table with a grunt. Riddle watched them bounce once before coming to a stop in front of his binder.

A switch flipped inside him, snuffing out what little spark of hope he’d had of convincing his mother and leaving him feeling terribly cold and empty, a void where the whisper of light once was. But then, slowly, something else replaced it. Something small, a tickle of feeling at most, but it was dense, and it was hot.

He’d already walked the path of anticipatory grief, wrestled for days with the notion that this was not only a valid path in life for him, but a good one at that, and choked on the inevitable loss until he had to bury it under a thin veneer of denial to stay sane. It didn’t make staring at the ripped up acceptance letter hurt any less. It didn’t make what was to come next any easier.

But it was what ultimately allowed him to get up out of his chair.

His voice needed a couple seconds to catch up with the rest of his brain, and when it did its firmness surprised even him. “I think this discussion is over.”

In an instant her focus snapped back to him, a rant he no longer heard cutting off mid-word so abruptly her breath still escaped her in a fevered scoff. “Excuse me?” When he didn’t reply, occupied with gathering the plan and the torn acceptance letter and stuffing them back in the binder, she approached. “This is not ‘over’! You’ve done something horrible, and now you need to—”

Riddle didn’t even push his chair in as he left the dining room and strode down the hallway towards the front door.

“DO NOT WALK AWAY FROM ME, YOUNG MAN! RIDDLE ROSEHEARTS!” his mother roared, each syllable hitting like a strike, something he was surprised hadn’t happened yet. She chased him down, snatching up his free arm before he could reach his suitcase. “HOW—” she yanked, forcing him to turn, and, ah, there it was. As if the thought willed it into existence, an open palm slapped him across the face, “—DARE YOU! You DO NOT treat your mother this way!”

The dense, hot ball caught and ignited into anger of his own, the physical hurt of his stinging cheek lost to the internal. Yet unlike every other instance, he couldn’t bring himself to snap and scream until he was red in the face. The anger boiled, bubbled, burned any meaty part it brushed up against, flaring especially strong when he didn’t answer her right away and his mother struck him again, same cheek, but it did not ever explode.

Not at mom.

Not at her.

Jaw clenched, Riddle wrenched his arm away from her. The scared little boy in him making his heart race cowered at the way the colour in the pits of his mother’s cheeks flushed scarlet across her face. The rest of him held firm, resolution solidifying around the crackling, burning ball of anger-hurt while he fished the blank page from the front of his binder and held it out to her. He half expected her to slap it away.

She didn’t, thankfully, instead snatching the paper from him and turning it over to reveal the letter he’d written about officially moving out on the opposite side. That bought him the opening he needed.

Riddle plucked his magical pen from his breast pocket as he slipped on his shoes, using a spell to tie the laces in lieu of kneeling to do them one at a time. There was so little time to spare, after all. Luggage in hand, binder tucked under his arm, he twisted the locks on the door and all but threw it open.

The first thing he saw was Trey standing beyond the gate. His brow set itself deeper than his usual worried furrow, crinkling the bridge of his nose just so, and his hand gripped the metal of the gate so tightly Riddle could see the white of his knuckles even at a distance. Chenya was nowhere to be found, meaning he likely initiated his part of their plan. And that in turn meant they’d heard the shouting. Eyes locked with the sun glare from Trey’s glasses, Riddle swallowed his humiliation and continued out onto the porch.

The click of the door must’ve snapped his mother out of whatever shocked stupor the note left her in, as she bellowed from behind with such a force it threatened to push him over. “RIDDLE!”

He made his way down the steps as fast as he could without outright running. Seconds later heels clacked on the wooden porch and stone path behind him.

“RIDDLE ROSEHEARTS, YOU GET YOUR UNGRATEFUL SELF BACK HERE RIGHT NOW AND—You!” His mother cut herself off, stopped mid-chase down the front walk. Her focus shifted to Trey, eyes snapping like a predator spotting easier prey during a hunt. The comparison became even more apt when Trey visibly flinched upon being noticed, the colour draining to leave his face deathly pale, and he almost seemed to shrink in on himself a little when she bellowed, “What are YOU doing here?! Did I not tell you to never show your face around our property again?!”

Riddle couldn’t help but feel a smidge bad for Trey, but her sudden shift in target allowed him to reach the gate undeterred, so he vowed to make it up to him later. There, right at the final stretch he wanted to turn around, to give her the courtesy of a proper goodbye, maybe even thank her for everything she’d done for him up until then. “I’ll send you word of my new address once I’m settled in,” was what he’d said instead, eyes trained forward past the black gate bars.

After all, if he looked back then his resolve would surely crumble.

Trey unlatched the gate for Riddle after a tense second of shaky fumbling, held it open while he stalked out onto the street. Without pausing his stride they exchanged a wordless glance, and Trey fell into step beside him. Their pace remained brisk, coming just short of a run.

“Riddle?!” his mother called, voice cracking uncharacteristically, just barely catching the gate as it swung back at her and bursting out onto the street past it, but going no further than that. “RIDDLE!”

Neither one acknowledged her. Riddle had to bite his lip to stop himself from doing so.

Don’t look back. Just keep walking looped over and over in his head in a voice that both was and wasn’t his own until it blocked out almost every other thought. Breathe four seconds in, four seconds out. Don’t look back. Just keep walking.

Even after they turned the first corner he continued his mantra. Even when they could no longer hear his mother’s wailing, and the air between them instead filled with Trey’s heavy, rapid breathing he continued his mantra. Even as he noticed a second, purple body silently materializing on his other side, arms tucked securely around a familiar box, he continued his mantra.

Just keep walking.

Don’t look back.

By the time they returned, Patisserie Clover had opened for business. Nobody stood behind the counter, likely occupied in the back while they had the opportunity. Trey pushed the door open and held it for both Riddle and Chenya to enter, and the cheerful little bell chime caused something to give way in Riddle’s head for the mantra abruptly went silent. His thoughts tripped over themselves, all bunching up at once and making it impossible to gauge which one should be addressed first. The odd, calm feeling that had settled over him on the walk back was the only reason his limbs didn’t immediately turn to jelly.

“Welcome!” a cheery voice called from beyond an open doorway at the far back-left of the shop behind the counter, one Riddle hadn’t heard in years. “I’ll be able to help you in just a mome—Oh!” A woman appeared, leaning in from the side.

Seconds later, likely curious after the way she’d cut off, a man copied her lean above her head. Upon seeing who their visitors were he fully straightened up, his smile wide and bright and wrinkling his eyes at the edges—only for a moment. It didn’t quite vanish, but upon looking between the three of them the smile no longer beamed either. “Well, I’ll be! Riddle Rosehearts! It’s been ages!”

“Hello, Mr. Clover, Mrs. Clover,” Riddle greeted back, voice detached to even his own ears, his brain running solely on autopilot.

Before they could get into any further pleasantries, Trey set a hand on Riddle’s shoulder. It was shaking. “We’re gonna get Riddle settled inside.” His voice was surprisingly calm, but held an underlying firmness that conveyed urgency. His breathing hadn't completely evened out either.

At once Trey’s father seemed to understand the situation, brow pinching in an almost mirror image of how Trey’s would when concerned. “Ah, right, right. He’s gonna be staying with us then, yeah?”

Trey nodded.

“Thank you for granting me the opportunity. I’m sorry for any trouble.” Riddle dipped his head low.

Mr. Clover waved his hand. “No trouble at all, I assure you! Go on, now. We’ll see you boys in a little bit.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

Riddle could hear their hushed voices from the back room as they crossed the shop floor, retracing once confident-if-cautious steps through the household entrance from mere minutes earlier. He untied his shoes and left them where he had previously. He even parked his suitcase in the exact same spot as before. Pulled out the same chair as before. The déjà vu felt suffocating.

Saying the strength left him would’ve been dramatic, but few ways could sufficiently describe the way he dropped into his seat. Something sure left him, that much was certain, gooey and viscous, dribbling like a toppled inkwell and leaving his insides stained black. He didn’t even have the will to put away his binder, instead shoving it off to the far side of the table. It was a surprise his hands didn’t leave smudges on everything he touched.

Just like before, not one of them said a word, the silence filling the room melancholic rather than anticipatory this time. After a few seconds, Chenya set down the box and left the table.

It was the oddest sensation just then, looking up at the clock. The whole mess—from when they left the patisserie to their less-than-triumphant return—took no more than 52 minutes. And it continued ticking away, undeterred by his plight. Birds kept chirping outside the window. Perhaps the dull emptiness contributed, but it all seemed terribly anticlimactic.

And, he was beginning to realize, familiar. That first little while in the nurse's office after his overblot had been a similar affair.

Just like back then, the events replayed themselves in his head, except this time it was far more crisp and clear than the muddled mess of blot. It almost felt as though he’d just woken up from a particularly vivid dream, his mind conjuring up one of the worst possible outcomes until he’d clawed himself back to reality out of sheer will. But what just transpired HAD been reality, the ache along the skin of his cheek proved as much, and that simple acknowledgement was enough for all the emotions repressed through his walking mantra to come back, filling up the emptied out cracks in his joints in such a rush it made the room spin. His head swam with too many thoughts, too much feeling, and in trying to fixate on any one thing for purchase he slipped and fell back into anger.

What that angry, hurt little part of him wanted to do was collapse over the table. Scream or cry or hit the wood until it split and left little splinters in his fists, turning the anger inward for stomping all over his mother’s rules because he couldn’t turn it on anyone else. He grit his teeth, clenched his fist, and allowed himself one, loud, firm thump against the table, a prickling pain covering the side of his hand. Then he reigned it back in, because what good would any of that do? No point in torturing himself or wallowing in pity. He made his choice months ago. Now he’d just have to own up and follow through.

And the first step towards doing that was to break the quiet currently suffocating the room. “That could have gone better.” He hated how bleak it sounded—how bleak he sounded.

“I’m really sorry, Riddle.” Trey set a hand on his shoulder as he finally took the seat beside him. Only slightly steadier this time. The tremble shifted his layers against each other.

Riddle shook his head. “You needn’t apologize. We prepared for this possibility, and I knew what I was walking into.”

“Yeah, but…” he heaved a slow, plaintive sigh. “Still. Just because we prepared doesn’t make what happened any better.”

He didn’t have the energy to object, the fight in him spent on survival instead, nor could he find a reason to. What he did have was a free hand, and with it Riddle rubbed at his cheek, the cool leather of his glove soothing the mean tingle of his skin. Distantly he thought back to a year and change ago, when the ghost princess infiltrated their school and left red, potent hand prints across the cheeks of several students. Some part of him wondered if his face looked the same right then. What a pair they must've made coming through that door, one face red and the other white.

Before he could worry himself further over his appearance, something crossed in front of his face and he recoiled in surprise, hand raised to swat should it be a large pest of some kind. An infuriatingly common occurrence in the Queendom during the summer. Instead of an insect infiltrator however, he was met with a bright red ice lolly dangling upside down inches from his nose, waving like the pendulum in his old grandfather clock. A glance cast to Trey found him in a similar state of surprise over a green one. Their wrappers crinkled with each movement.

Seconds later Chenya made himself known high above the table, grinning wide with another purple ice lolly trapped between his teeth, arms bent as though he laid upon an invisible ledge while dangling the two other treats.

Trey took the green ice lolly after a moment, too bewildered to refuse.

Riddle, on the other hand, was less than willing to cooperate. “Chenya,” he started, struggling to summon up the scathing scold he wanted. It came out flat instead, the tone of a tired teacher pleading with a particularly unruly child. “This is hardly the time.”

“On the contrary, this is the purrfect time.”

Riddle glared at the ice lolly being waved at him as if Chenya were trying to personally insult him with it. He didn’t much feel in the mood for a sweet treat. His stomach was all sorts of queasy despite not having had breakfast yet, at once too full with the weight of what he’d done and yet terribly empty in the wake of it, a gaping chasm.

…ice lollies did have benefits when one was ill, though. This wasn’t quite the same, but if the shoe fit…

Heaving a huffy breath through his nose, Riddle leaned over and took the ice lolly, turning it slowly in his fingers for a moment before yanking off the plastic and popping it in his mouth in two jerky moves. It only took seconds before he began to grow soothed by the cherry melting on his tongue. Some of his appetite returned.

Maybe THIS was the real first step instead. He didn’t quite know. He didn’t like not knowing where one path ended and the next began, but something about that notion seemed right, made his body feel just a little bit lighter.

Trey, confident he wouldn’t be missed for the moment, got up from his seat to collect the wrappers.

With Riddle sufficiently distracted from his woes for the time being and Trey occupied, Chenya took the opportunity to prod the side of the box with a non-sticky finger and ask, “So, what’s all in here?”

Blinking out of his head, Riddle looked over at the box and tugged it close, standing from the chair to properly peek inside. The ice lolly was taken from his lips and held far, far away. “My crossword puzzle collection,” he said, a hint of fondness creeping in while fingers danced along the tops of several folders. Most were in near-pristine condition, though some towards the far end had dents running along the rims, or visible ink and graphite smudges, or frays in the material from how often they’d been touched by human hands. He didn’t need to count every individual paper to know his collection remained intact; as long as each folder held paper of some kind, they’d always have the correct amount. His mother never touched his collection, there was no need to, so his parents rearranging or removing individual pages was a non-issue.

“Wow. You’ve certainly made a lot,” Trey noted as he returned with bowls for each of their ice lollies, lest they drip everywhere.

“This is…” Riddle paused, mentally running the numbers, “exactly 3934 out of my 4003. I haven’t added the ones from these past few months yet.”

Trey blinked. “You fit all of that into this box? With a spell, I’m guessing.”

“That’s correct. Whenever visiting home, I would enlarge the box to its proper size and add any crosswords I made on the final night before departure.” He swallowed. “Perhaps not exactly the most vital of belongings to retrieve. My birth certificate or other such records would’ve—”

“But it’s important to you, yes?” Chenya interrupted, and laughed when Riddle startled upon noticing he was now floating upside-down over the table, lazily gazing down into the box. “Then it’s most certainly a vital belonging.”

Despite himself Riddle felt a smile curling his lips. He slowly removed one of the less-packed folders, watching it grow in size and fan out in his palm. An idea crept up on him, tickling his nerves and filling him with a strange sort of excitement. “If you both are amenable to the idea, you’re welcome to try and solve them sometime. After all, I did make them for others.”

“Sure, I haven’t had a chance to try a good puzzle in months.” Trey leaned closer, the colour slowly having returned to his face, and when Riddle held the folder out he plucked a page with the same delicate touch as taking a petal from a flower.

A hint of warmth blossomed in his chest, and it became easier to smile, even more so when Chenya took a crossword for himself, fingers wiggling comically before snatching it away to inspect.

He almost didn’t notice the clop of loafers on hardwood.

“Well, it’s nice to see you boys settling in.”

All three of them looked up at Mrs. Clover’s voice, her expression gentle and just a little bit relieved.

Beside her, Mr.Clover stood with his hands on his hips, sleeves rolled back to show off his forearms. His gaze flitted between the three of them approvingly, and then fell to the suitcase. “I could take that upstairs for you if you’d like?” He gestured towards it with an open hand.

“That would be nice, thank you. Just a moment.” Riddle shrank and returned the folder to the box, set his ice lolly in the provided bowl, and retrieved his binder from where he’d almost shoved it right over the far edge of the table. Then he got up from his seat to try and slide it back down through the top of his luggage.

“Hope you’re okay with sharing a bedroom. We’d offer you a guest room, but there’s only so much space in this place, and with three kids, well…”

“I’m fine with it. Trey and I discussed my lodgings already.” A thought occurred, and suddenly Riddle lifted his head. “Ah, but before you take this…” He left his luggage to stand up straight, hands clasped in front of him, looking between both of Trey’s parents. “Allow me to apologize on behalf of my mother for that incident a decade ago. I realize it’s been quite some time, but that doesn’t mean such a thing should be swept under the rug.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t fair, and—”

To his surprise, Mr.Clover’s hands raised as though to placate. The movement was so reminiscent of Trey that it gave Riddle pause, which was just enough of an opening for the man to cut in. “It’s fine, it’s fine! You don’t have to apologize. Sure, that went on for longer than average, but when you’re an adult you run into that kinda stuff sometimes, even more so when you’re in the service industry. Sounds grim, I know, but it happens!” Then, even more surprisingly, he laughed.

It was short-lived, and his hands folded behind his back, expression growing pensive. Beside him Mrs. Clover’s face fell similarly, removed the chef’s hat from her head and held it at her front as her husband cleared his throat and continued. “If anything, we should be the ones apologizing to you. At the time neither of us said anything, but since then we’ve always felt that it was wrong to do so. You both were just children after all. So, we’re sorry for not being proper role models for you boys.”

Riddle blinked, wide-eyed, open mouthed, completely and utterly flummoxed. He jawed at the air, the thorough speech he’d prepared gone up in smoke behind his eyes. They grew wet from the sensation.

“It’s good to see how you’ve turned into such a fine young man,” Mrs. Clover commented, her smile the first one between them to return. And then it turned cheeky. “Looks like Trey’s stories were true after all.”

At some point Trey had averted his eyes entirely, staring hard at an incredibly interesting spot where the baseboard had developed a crack off to the side. The comment had him whirling back to the conversation at hand, cheeks darkening as he snapped a “Hey!” in surprise.

The whiplash of the situation made Riddle’s head spin. He finally closed his mouth to try swallowing only to find his throat had again gone tight, but the feeling accompanying it wasn’t a bad one this time, the warmth not from anger or grief. It was enough to cause the wet mist in his eyes to gather together and blur his vision. To preserve even some of his image he quickly tugged his sleeve over the heel of his palm and swiped at his face. Maybe he could claim it was just stray flour in his eyes if pointed out. Or some of Chenya’s fur, as his tail had come to rest comfortingly across his shoulders. Because he absolutely, positively was not about to be brought to tears in the middle of Trey’s dining room.

But even if he was, for once he didn’t feel ashamed about it.

Chapter Text

When the jokes subsided and the frozen treats were mostly done with, Mrs. Clover escorted Riddle upstairs while her husband returned to the front of the store. Chenya tagged along with them, a third ice lolly in hand.

It wasn’t the first time he’d ever seen Trey’s room, but the context behind his reason for standing in the doorway cast everything in a fresh light; the muted green of the comforter on the bed next to a window, a single-layered desk opposing it, a low-cut glass plated tv-stand with a monitor just beside that. To his immediate left sat a dresser, hats of various make stacked on top, and above that was a shelf containing a handful of colourful medals, a few soccer ribbons, and some framed certificates. Recognizable, yet unfamiliar. Riddle’s suitcase sat upright at the foot of Trey’s bed right where Mr. Clover left it. His box of crosswords floated overhead to join it, courtesy of Chenya.

Despite how plain the decor was in comparison, he couldn’t help but think back to his first day in Heartslabyul, taking in his new home away from home. It might’ve almost been comfortable, if he wasn’t being needled by the distant, underlying sense that he was intruding.

“We have extra linens in the closet if you want them instead,” Mrs. Clover offered.

“Thank you.” His smile was small, and he almost left it there before the implication properly sank in, and he fought with all his might to stop from looking at Trey’s bed. “I-I’ll be sure to personally launder any I end up borrowing.” If there was any mercy within the universe, her wording would’ve been accidental.

From the way Trey coughed into his fist, it wasn’t. “Mom—”

“I thought I heard an unfamiliar voice.”

He wasn’t sure if he should’ve been relieved or not by the interruption. Riddle backed out from the room to peer into the hallway, and found himself unintentionally mimicking the pose of the young lady peeking out from the next room over. Her hair was dark like Trey’s mother, wavy and short, and she wore rounded glasses.

Upon spotting Riddle, she perked up. “Oh, there you are! You’re our new guest, right? Trey’ssss…boyfriend?” she asked as though she were testing the waters, her eyes flicking to her mother, then to Trey, her brows raising. Trey cleared his throat and glanced to the side—only to promptly shove Chenya’s floating head away when met with a frightfully wide grin.

The small, excited flutter in his chest from the word ‘boyfriend’ was almost instantly stilled at the odd inflection it was said with. He, too, glanced back at Mrs. Clover, only to find her smiling as pleasantly as before; she even seemed amused, so if she was already aware, at least to some extent, then… Riddle had to fight to keep his hackles from raising. “That’s correct. Is there a problem?”

“No, no! I’m sorry, I was pretty sure but I didn’t want to just,” she wiggled her hand in the air, “throw it out all confidently and make it awkward if I was wrong. Since you’re sharing a be—er, room and all.” Finally she fully withdrew from her room and approached, clover patterned skirt swishing with the movement. She held her hand out. “So I’m guessing that means you’re Riddle.”

Wait, how did they both…? Nodding, he pushed the curl of suspicion to the side to maintain cordiality, took her hand and shook it. “Riddle Rosehearts.”

“It’s nice to finally meet you! I’m Nina, Trey’s sister.” She grinned, wide yet gentle.

“It’s nice to meet you as well. Er, how—”

Mrs. Clover gasped so suddenly it startled Chenya into vanishing entirely. “Oh! I just realized, we never did introduce ourselves back then, did we?”

Riddle paused, running back through the events of that fateful day, stopping immediately after they scrambled out of the patisserie in a hurry to avoid toeing too close to thoughts of his mother. He didn’t recall them mentioning their names. Even if he’d heard them later in the day he likely wouldn’t have remembered, given—ugh, and of course he ended up dwelling on her anyway, guilt twisting in his chest. He shook his head, both to answer Mrs. Clover’s question and to try and clear his mind.

She smiled, a hand to her chest. “I’m Regina. My husband’s name is Alex. You can call us by our first names if you’d like, whichever you prefer. We’re not very picky. Unless you’re a customer, of course.” Without even giving a chance for a proper handshake, she then turned to Trey. “Sorry to be so curt, but I need to get back to the shop. Weekends, you know.” She flicked her wrist and rolled her eyes. “Could you be a dear and show Riddle around?”

“Of course. I planned on doing just that.” He nodded.

“Thank you. Alright!” Mrs. Clover clapped her hands together. “Don’t hesitate to ask if you need anything. You know where to find us.” With one last wave, she scurried back down the stairs and out of sight.

“I hadn’t even considered how busy a patisserie must get over the weekend.” Riddle clucked his tongue. “I feel bad for imposing at such a cumbersome time.”

“Ehhhh, it’s fine. Like they said, you get used to stuff happening. Life’s not gonna put everything else on hold just because you’re busy.” Trey shrugged.

“You hardly need to remind ME of that.”

Trey’s soft snort was fond. “Anyway, shall we?”

He couldn't help it, he had to ask. Riddle’s head incrementally angled back towards Trey, but his gaze snapped to his sister, sharp with apprehension and disapproval. “Before we do, if I may quickly ask first; Nina, how did you know of our…er, sleeping arrangements?” We discussed those details via text, he added internally.

Before she could, Trey cleared his throat and muttered low around a tight jaw, more for the sake of throwing a jab than being the one to answer. “Because someone can't mind her own business.”

It must've been a spell he'd cast, some secret incantation Riddle couldn't grasp the meaning of, because Nina's face at that exact moment turned positively devilish. She leaned in almost uncomfortably close towards him, the angle making parts of her hair appear as an imp’s horns, hand raised near her chin in a manner similar to Vil Schoenheit. “He cracked like an egg after five minutes. It's endearing, really. Saxton spent like a week trying, but he just can't resist his cute little sister.”

Riddle didn't even need to look to feel the heat of Trey’s embarrassment radiating off him. Stunned, he watched wide-eyed as she stood back upright and dusted her skirt off, her smile resuming its perfectly sweet tilt once more. It left him with multiple questions regarding the nature of their siblingship. He scoured his memory in search of other similar relationships that might provide further insight, and recalled dismally that while he'd heard many stories from his peers, the only actual experiences he had with siblings were the Shroud brothers and…the Leech twins. Originally he had dismissed both as exceptions rather than the rule, but after THAT display he wasn't so sure anymore.

No wonder Trey and Cater hit it off so easily. He’d have to keep an eye on her.

Of all the thoughts intermingling in his mind, the only word that actually made its way out of him, entirely without meaning to, was a mildly startled “Saxton?”

As if on cue, the door next to Trey's bedroom creaked as it opened, and out stepped a disheveled looking boy dressed solely in spotted underclothes, mid-stretch with one arm pulled behind his head. He got about two steps before his eyes opened and then went wide, realized there was company, and immediately leapt back into the room with a very startled “Oh crap!”

Riddle gawked until the door shut, then turned to Nina, brows threatening to disappear into his hairline as he searched for yet another answer in the continuous stream of surprises. Behind him, beyond thankful the tension was shifting off of him, both Trey and Chenya wheezed a muffled laugh.

Nina rolled her eyes, trying to physically wave off the scene as no big deal with one hand. A mirror of her own mother earlier. “Yeah, don't worry about it.” The hand then cupped around her mouth as she whirled to shout down the hall. “You KNEW we were gonna have company today!”

“MIGHT!” The word echoed out clearly. Even the door couldn't muffle it properly. “I knew we MIGHT have company! I didn't think,” a pause, banging, shuffling, “it'd be at nine in the freaking morning!”

“Stellar first impression. Wanna try that again?” Unable to resist the siren call of sibling teasing, Trey tossed the comment over Riddle's head, who then turned his bewilderment upon him. For a split second Riddle again felt as though he were back at the dorm. An impulse to reprimand tickled his throat, and he swallowed it back down, reminded himself to remain civil; he had no power here.

About a minute later, the boy re-emerged in a casual grey t-shirt and sweatpants, a little more put together and a lot more sheepish. Longer hair than Trey’s, most of it messily slicked back in a frantic attempt to hide his bedhead, an effort meant for naught as it came apart and popped back up every which way within seconds. Most notably, he lacked glasses.

“Saxton,” the boy answered the question before it could be asked, ducking his head with an awkward laugh. “Sorry about that.” Then his eyes slowly widened in recognition. “Wait, I think I remember seeing you at the graduation ceremony. You were with the other big shots there.”

He nodded. “I was seated with the other Housewardens, yes. My name is Riddle Rosehearts. I’m surprised you recognized me since we all had our hoods up.”

“I probably wouldn’t have, but Trey did kinda stare directly at you for a little while, so…”

…A fair point, he begrudgingly had to admit. The eye contact then had been mutual. His struck cheek tingled from the blood rushing to his face, and his eyes cut to Trey to find his ears turning a vibrant pink and his mouth pulled into a thin line, unable to catch a break. Whatever big brother bravado he'd flashed seconds earlier had vanished. “Alright, how about that tour?” Trey declared after taking an audible breath.

Nina set her hands on her hips, smirking. “What, aren’t we allowed to chat a little with our guest?”

Trey sputtered. “There’s plenty of time to talk after breakfast—”

“Weren’t you the one who said we have to make a good first impression?”

“I did, yeah—”

“So what’s the rush? He’s not going anywhere!”

Not going anywhere.

All at once, the pink was gone, and his lips pulled even thinner. “It’s…been a really long morning.”

Something about Trey’s tone, or maybe the sheer, bone-deep exhaustion that accidentally wormed its way in, got the point across. Both of them immediately went quiet, friendly, teasing expressions twitching over into concern for the briefest of seconds as two pairs of eyes jumped between them. Riddle found it hard to keep eye contact with either, but managed to hold strong and hoped they wouldn’t clock the empty cavern of cold, dull grief sitting behind his strong front.

After a few beats, Nina nodded. She dropped her arms. “Mmm'kay. I'm taking the afternoon shift today, so I'll probably see you again at dinner.” She flashed another, much less pesky smile. “I hope you enjoy yourself here.”

“Yeah, same,” Saxton added, clearly as a dozy afterthought, rubbing sleep out of his eye and muttering something about a shower under his breath.

“Thank you.” Riddle returned the nod, and ducked away to follow Trey's lead down the stairs. “Your siblings are…” he started a few steps down, voice low, rattled a few options around in his head, settled on, “fascinating. I can't say they matched what I had anticipated from your anecdotes about them.”

“They're not always like this, I promise.” A beat. “Just sometimes.”

“They're verrrrry fun when you get to know them,” Chenya chimed in from above his head, and suddenly everything about them made a lot more sense.

A piece of the ensuing conversation drifted down from upstairs, impossible to miss despite how hard he attempted to drown it out and avoid any accidental eavesdropping.

“I saw him too, by the way. Which means…Fork it over.”

“...uh?”

“The twenty? For the bet?”

“Wait…are they actually?!”

“Bet?” His echo came in unison with Trey, and Riddle’s confusion reflected in his gaze as their eyes met. Confusion that rapidly burst into a new breed of horror and understanding, somehow threatening to turn Trey white even as his cheeks blazed red. Evidently he decided to leave it be rather than run the risk of further humiliation, as before Riddle could turn back and inquire, an arm blocked his attempt and continued him on his path down the stairs.

The tour was short without much fanfare. Trey explained the second floor situation to avoid further sibling teasing; the bedrooms were ordered oldest to youngest, with Trey’s parents on one end of the hall and Nina at the other. A small bathroom and hall closet also occupied part of the floor. On the main floor their family kitchen sat beyond the dining room, with a living room beside that, and a crawl space under the stairs served as a storage area for seasonal equipment. Riddle couldn’t help but notice the framed photos scattered across the rooms in clusters. The backyard was small and a little cramped, tucked against the public's winding stone staircase on the right. Through the wooden gate to the left was a small alleyway with a side-door for deliveries and trash, and thus brought them back around to the front of the shop.

It was right around then he’d begun to realize how dazed he actually was from earlier, only one hand on the controls while the other grasped for some kind of mental anchor, not quite dissociating (from what the medical journal he’d read described the symptoms as) but uncomfortably close. The entire time, from the moment he first peered into Trey’s room, it felt as though he’d been seeing through his eyes but not acting through his body, a witness to somebody else’s life. There must’ve been an emotional disconnect in his brain somewhere, a nerve that had jostled loose or burned out or shriveled up during the fallout that he never really noticed was missing until faced with an unrelated situation. At some point between coming downstairs and seeing the kitchen, that odd, worrying calm had settled in again, almost bordering on becoming numb.

He wasn’t looking forward to whatever happened when things slotted back into place again. If they ever did.

An antidote to his addled brain, the chime from the front door’s bell again brought him back to the present.

The three of them stood to the side to allow a customer to exit, and as soon as the storefront was empty Mr. Clover leaned over the front display. “So! How’d you like the place?”

“It’s a very lovely home,” Riddle answered, and meant it wholeheartedly despite his distractions. “What are the rules of your household? After you’ve shown such hospitality, unknowingly violating even one rule would be an unacceptable offense.”

“Rules?” Mr. Clover blinked. “Just the standard ones you’d expect, really. Pick up after yourself, don’t hog the bathroom if you can help it, no volatile magic in the house.”

“We try to take our shoes off at the door to keep the floors clean, but when your business is attached to your home sometimes that’s difficult.” Mrs. Clover added from the back room. “We also rotate household chores. There’s a whiteboard calendar in the dining room as a reminder. That’s…about it.” She cast a quick glance out the door to her husband in case he remembered anything else of note, then shrugged when he turned up blank.

“That’s…it?” Riddle echoed, frowning.

“Well, you’re all old enough to have some common sense by now. We figure if you’re going to be reckless you’ll do it outside the house.”

“But with such a minimal list, would that not open the door to deviancy and disorganization?”

That only seemed to confuse them, which further confused Riddle in turn. He simply did not understand. Could they not see how much trouble their children could get into? How much potential could be lost? Sure, he had no worries over whether Trey would misbehave, and his siblings seemed…obedient enough on the surface, but his time at Night Raven College taught him how tricksy even the most innocent face could be.

Before he could press further, Trey set a hand on his shoulder. “That’s not exactly it. The shop runs from 8am to 5pm every day with a day off on Wednesday, and we’re often asked to help out when it’s busy, so we’ve gotta keep that in mind when planning our day to day—you shouldn’t have to worry about the helping out part, though. Generally we try to keep it down around 10 at night or so, and it’s best if you’re home before then too, unless you give notice. And there’s a system in place for leftovers in the kitchen so people don’t steal each others’ food.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Let’s see, what else…um, our dishware is organized a certain way, and while we have a dishwasher in the shop we don’t have one for personal use, so that’s on the list of chores. Of course, preferably no family dishes in the shop dishwasher. You’re allowed to eat anywhere as long as you don’t leave crumbs and bring the plates back when you’re done, but we get together for dinner. The windows without screens and back door stay closed most of the time so bugs don’t get in, even if it’s hot out, but you can open them if you really want some fresh air. Uhhh… Oh! Volatile magic includes stuff like combat magic, conjuring, alchemy—stuff that’s at risk of causing a mess or breaking things. If you wouldn’t risk using it on or around a hedgehog, in short. Though given your repertoire, you could probably get away with more than the rest of us.”

Finally, a more acceptable list. Still not quite up to the standards he’d expected, and some were clearly suggestions rather than outright rules, but for now it would serve adequately. “Understood. I’ll strive to abide by them.”

Taking Riddle’s acceptance as a cue that whatever mysterious issue he had was resolved, Mr. Clover turned his attention to his son instead. “So, Trey, we’re gonna give you the day off to help get Riddle comfortable.”

Trey’s brow furrowed. “Are you sure? Won’t you guys be busy?”

“I appreciate the sentiment, but you needn’t sacrifice an employee to accommodate me. Chenya will be here,” Riddle said.

“Pssh, we’ll be fine. How do you think we managed while you were off at school? We’ve got two others. And besides, moving is a stressful event. It helps to have some solid support.” He shrugged, the motion saying the words he wouldn’t speak aloud. Especially after THAT.

“Well…alright. But if things get hectic, I’ll come and lend a hand.”

He’d agonized for so long. Just the thought of separating from his mother had felt like losing a limb, or a vital organ, the ache a physical and tangible thing radiating out from an invisible wound in his chest. Several nights were lost in sleepless fits upon finalizing his internship, the bleary image of his dorm room bathed in moonlight tattooed on his eyelids from how often he stared while waiting to grow drowsy. So the apparent ease of it all continued to surprise him; how quickly it was over and done with, the clarity in determining his next steps, the sturdiness of his body after taking a handful of seconds at the dining room window to breathe. He kept anticipating another violent outburst creeping up his neck. That tiny tantrum earlier couldn’t have been all there was. But it never came, and he was starting to get concerned. Perhaps it was dissociation after all, he finally admitted grimly as he inhaled the stagnant summer air, but it didn’t stop him from moving and thinking, and that was the important part.

Might as well capitalize on it while he could.

As soon as he set foot back in Trey's room, Riddle made a beeline straight for the desk. “The first place to start would be acquiring any important documents. My ID from Night Raven College can only get me so far.”

“Ah, the boring part of moving,” Chenya rumbled from around the ice lolly stick in his mouth.

“Hmph. Boring it may be, but it’s extremely important that I establish myself as independent.”

And thus, Riddle spent most of his first day of independence at Trey’s desk. He borrowed his thin laptop for convenience, phone pressed to his ear while Trey played gopher after finishing breakfast, bouncing between the desk, Riddle’s luggage, the downstairs printer, and the mailbox outside as necessary. Sometimes he’d disappear completely to lend a hand with the business, with the reminder that he was only a few rooms away if needed. Chenya remained for moral support and snack breaks of increasing frequency to supplement a lackluster lunch (Trey tried, he really did, and Riddle appreciated his effort at making appetizing meals, but his knotted stomach just could not handle all that much right then.) Normally he would’ve lost it at being repeatedly interrupted, but this time it was a much welcome reprieve. Especially after being given the royal runaround due to needing documents currently in his mother’s possession, but couldn’t get new copies of those documents without other documents, and it just kept going and going and going and going, a vicious vortex with his mother at the epicenter. Chenya offered to try and “fetch” the old copies for him. Riddle offered to eject him out the second floor window.

It might’ve been minutes, might’ve been hours, but after being hung up on by an agent who had originally put him on hold and nearly crushing his phone in his hand, a voice suddenly spoke directly into his ear. “A nine letter word describing the smell of rain after a dry spell.”

Riddle narrowly avoided banging his knee on the desk with his flinch. He whipped his head to glare at Chenya, but his eyes instead dropped to the paper clutched in his floating hand. “Are…you doing crossword puzzles?”

“We are. You should join us.”

He leaned over to see behind the chair and spotted Trey sitting on the edge of his bed, pencil in hand, carefully erasing something from the paper on his bedside table—-the puzzle he’d plucked for himself earlier. Riddle’s eyes went wide. Bubbles popped in his chest, leaving his insides fizzy with warmth. Looking back at his phone, he felt a single pulse of anger thrum in his blood, but the giddiness could not be stopped. “I…perhaps I can take a small break.”

Heated both from the midday sun casting directly across the desk, and from the sight of his close friends so engaged with his puzzles, he shucked off two layers of his school uniform, and eventually the tie came with them after some deliberation. They were hung up neatly on the back of Trey's chair. It felt…strange existing in only his basic shirt and uniform pants. Not the first time he'd ever done such, but only ever within his own dorm room. To force it away he grabbed his box of crosswords to pick one for himself, and reclaimed the chair, turned so he could face them instead of huddling away. Chenya tried to offer a hardcover book to write on like he’d been doing on the floor, but Riddle refused, lip curling at the tiny intents left behind on the cover of Chenya’s, and instead retrieved his pen from his uniform’s breast pocket to make the paper float obediently before him.

For those few, blissful minutes, reality drifted so very far away.

Even though they’d both started before he did and he spent some of his break observing their reactions, listening to their quiet mumbles, basking in their peace, Riddle finished leagues ahead of them. And none too soon; his cell phone rang mere seconds after he crossed the last T, one of the many, many callbacks he’d been waiting for. Rather than relief at making progress, all he felt was mild disappointment. The respite was nice while it lasted. With one hand he met the others’ concerned looks with a wave and a smile, signalling for them to continue on without him as he spun the chair back to the desk and answered the phone.

By the time Trey departed to get a start on dinner, Riddle had smoke billowing from his ears. He pushed the laptop and papers out of the way so his forehead could drop against the desk. He'd endured longer, more stressful days before, but in the wake of his morning he'd burned down to cinders. Hours of dwelling on topics and tasks tangentially related to his mother took its toll, the break mattering little, sandpaper against his nerves until the cloying numbness that hadn’t ever quite left looped right back around into being painful again. His temples throbbed, and he could practically feel the veins bulging along his skull.

Chenya waved a cake pop from downstairs in front of his lips. He bit into it without lifting his head, the sugar a drop of water in a desert, not a thought to be given towards how it might spoil his appetite. He kept the empty stick in his mouth until they were both called to eat.

Thankfully his appetite hadn’t been spoiled from a day of on-and-off snacking. If anything, he was starving; the nausea had finally weaned enough to where his stomach rumbled in hunger rather than warning. Between the inadequate nourishment and burning what energy he had arguing over the phone with people hell-bent on not doing their jobs, any lingering queasiness was overridden.

Riddle salivated over the spread of meatloaf and greens, watching rapt as Trey put a plate together and handed it over. While everyone else gradually trickled in he eyed the portions, compared them to almost year-old memories of similar meals at Heartslabyul, and mentally calculated the approximate grams and subsequent calories before the hunger really hooked itself in his brain and dragged him away from running numbers. It looked so much more appetizing, smelled so much more appetizing, than what he was sure would’ve awaited him at home. He didn’t immediately partake, both waiting for permission and overcome with guilt at the comparison (one less plate at the table tonight. Or maybe his mother still set up his spot, and it too would remain empty.)

“You don’t have to wait for the rest of us.” Mrs. Clover said, breaking him out of the thought before it could spiral into something worse. She nodded towards him. “Go ahead, dig in.”

His brow furrowed, uneasy, but his stomach growled again and he didn’t need to be told twice.

Perhaps it was because he’d prepared himself for meals with more nutrients than flavor out of habit, but the first bite of meatloaf hit him with a warmth and comfort he hadn’t felt in months. Trey cooked just as he did at the dorm, as far as he could tell there wasn’t any special twist or change. So then what was it? What made this meatloaf different from every other?

Before he could puzzle out what was happening, his thoughts were interrupted.

“So, Riddle. If you’re a year behind Trey, that means you’re going into your fourth in the fall?” Mr. Clover asked while he stacked up podded peas on his fork.

A bit taken aback, Riddle paused his feasting and nodded. “That’s correct.” Slow, a tad cautious. Ready to silence himself and duck his head out of habit. An internal reprimand for talking at the family dinner table. But he couldn’t just ignore him either, it’d be incredibly rude.

“What’re you planning on doing, if you don’t mind me asking? I’m going to guess…for an academic like yourself, you’ll go the internship route.”

He’d been so engrossed in the meal, he’d completely forgotten about the knot in his guts. It tightened just a little, forcing him to swallow around nothing. “Originally I had planned to pursue a magical healer’s license, like my parents. I still hold every intention of following through on that in the coming years, mind, but after some…” He rolled the sentence around in his head briefly, trying to decide which word best described the situation without revealing too much. “...Restructuring, let’s say, I’m going to attend Crims University of Law and obtain a degree in magical law first.”

“Magical law…” Mr. Clover echoed with an awed, almost whimsical chime.

Mrs. Clover perked up. “You know, I actually have a couple acquaintances that work in the magic courts. One of them is a reporter, and the other…tsk, I think she said she was a clerk? Or administration? Something like that, she doesn’t bring it up often. But the next time they stop by the shop I could ask them more about it.”

“That’d be appreciated.” Even through the discomfort of chatting at the family dinner table he found himself smiling at their interest. That was new. “Gaining insights from those already in the field is always valuable.”

“Do you know what specific career you’re aiming for?”

“I intend to start as a paralegal through an apprenticeship, and use the experience gained to meet the necessary qualifications for a solicitor. I’ve already taken the openly available practice exams that Crims offers for some of its curriculum, including their mock SQE. Perfect scores, of course.”

A snort from across the table made his fork pause just short of mouth, gaze snapping up to hunt for whoever had the gall. Both Nina and Saxton were focused on their plates, but after another bite Saxton glanced up and made eye contact, and the relatively polite first impression made at the top of the steps cracked a little. A look he was all too familiar with.

“You don’t believe me,” a statement, rising to an unspoken challenge.

“Look,” Saxton started, then stopped to sheepishly cover his mouth and finish chewing when Mrs. Clover shot him a stare of her own, “don’t get me wrong, I know you’re great at what you do. You were sitting in the ranks with Malleus Freakin’ Draconia of all people—that’s nuts! But even then getting ‘perfect’ on the SQE without actually going to law school is kinda far-fetched, isn’t it?”

Trey jabbed his fork at him from across the table. “Hey, if anyone else claimed that I’d totally think they were lying. But I witnessed Riddle pick through the entirety of NRC’s law section over the span of a few months. He’s probably cleaned out Sage’s Island in its entirety by now. He’s not fooling around.”

“Their mock SQE also contains only a small portion of the content as well, so a perfect score isn’t all that unrealistic. I’m not underestimating the difficulty of the real exam, and I am aware the rubric for tallying a score is different from a standardized test. However, I have every intention of keeping my perfect record on the real deal as well,” Riddle added.

Saxton still didn’t appear very convinced, eyebrow raising, and merely bit into his carrots with a hum in lieu of answering.

An addendum to his assessment; he’d have to keep an eye on both of Trey’s siblings.

The lull in the conversation was a brief one until Chenya made a comment about silence and dormice, and suddenly the chatter returned in full force over animals and tea parties and suspiciously active rose bushes. It made his head spin, threw him right back into the cafeteria with the others at school. Familiar, comfortable, included without it feeling forced despite his actions looming over their heads like approaching storm clouds, shaped like his mother rather than a phantom this time yet threatening to turn the air thick with ozone all the same.

Mr. Clover was the first to get up, thanking Trey for his efforts with dinner before taking his plate to the sink and vanishing into the storefront again. Nina finished soon after, but lingered over the back of her chair to continue the conversation. It took some time due to all the talking but Riddle made sure he cleaned his plate, and as he fielded another question about horses the mental clock began to tick down from fifteen in accordance with the Queen of Hearts’ rules. He may not have been at Night Raven College at the moment, but until he held a diploma in his hand he was still a student of Heartslabyul.

“Hold on! Don’t run off just yet,” Mr. Clover called as he shouldered the door open. In his hands he carried a standee—the one from the front window, Riddle realized, eyes widening. On it, protected by the glass covering, was the big, bright strawberry tart. “We haven’t had dessert!” He set the standee down in the middle of the table. Any thought of the rules went right out the window.

There was a split second where Nina tilted her head, only for her to immediately reclaim her seat the moment her eyes flicked to Riddle. She shot a grin not to him, nor the tart, but towards Trey, who seemed just as caught off guard as the rest of them.

Riddle caught the exchange in his peripheral, yet couldn’t quite rouse his curiosity, much too enamored with the tart. Shiny, untouched, gorgeous just like Trey’s always were and yet somehow more extravagant. Anticipation prickled along his skin, gooseflesh along his arms.

“We remembered how much you enjoyed the tart last time, so think of this as a welcome gift of sorts.”

His thoughts screeched to a halt as he watched the knife cut into the glaze. He couldn’t take his eyes off it. Mr. Clover held up the plate with the slice in a silent offer. Eyes impossibly wide, Riddle nodded, and the plate was set in front of him. Rather than pick up a fork and dig in like usual, he stared down at the tart, and the joking chatter between Nina and Mr. Clover faded into dull murmurs behind the roar of his heart in his ears, an equal mix of excitement and fear.

It was the same, but different. He was sitting at the opposite side of the table now. The window was in front of him rather than at his back, and the drawers lined with family photos were to his right instead of his left. There were more people around him. A time limit didn’t hang over his head. But the glaze of the tart still reflected his face back at him.

And it all felt so…so…

Something wet hit his pants. At first he assumed some unseen glaze had spilled over the edge of the plate, but he blinked and it happened again.

“Hey, are…you good?”

The table fell silent, thick with concern as the storm cloud finally poured. Mrs. Clover made some kind of pitiful sound, and only then did Riddle lift his hand to touch his face, another tear running hot over his fingers. His stupor shattered in an instant. The numbness peeled back, exposing the raw, festering wound between his ribs, pulsing and hot and alive. A small sob forced its way out before he could catch it, all at once aware of how futile holding back the avalanche of emotions crashing over his head was yet trying to anyway, because why here, why now?! He covered his eyes, and the tears bled through. A hand touched his back, rubbing along his shoulder blade, and he heard someone utter a soft “Hey, now…” over the clinking of utensils and plates being set down.

Utterly humiliating, and yet he couldn't stop. Force was useless. And so he reigned his voice in enough to ask “May I please be excused?” without choking through another sob.

“Of course you may!” Mrs Clover answered, almost sounding shocked that he even felt the need to ask. “Take all the time you need.”

“Thank you,” he whispered, embarrassment bulging in his throat as he pushed himself away and abandoned the dessert. His legs carried him on autopilot out of the room, unknowing and uncaring where he went, but it couldn't be there with that fresh, warm tart. With that family.

His lungs craved fresh air, but he only made it as far as the living room couch before his knees buckled and sent him onto the cushions instead. Immediately he curled in on himself, lips peeled back to bare his teeth flat against his hand as the sobs renewed in earnest. It made no sense. He didn't understand his own reaction, why grief hollowed out his bones rather than filling with gratitude.

The couch dipped next to him, an arm wrapped around his back, strong body pressing up against his side. Trey didn't speak a word, his palm merely rubbed a long, slow lap across his back. One sob later, a big, fluffy lump curled around his waist, and something bunted up soft against the back of his skull and rumbled. The closeness, the contact, all of it was comforting and torturous in equal, paradoxal measure, unable to glimpse where his joy began and his anguish ended, unable to choose whether he wanted to sprint away until truly left alone or to sink into it until he couldn’t distinguish himself from anything else. He felt sick. He felt free. He felt trapped. He felt valued. He felt, he felt, he felt he felt he felt he felt he felt like his heart was going to stop.

Almost.

A voice inside his head, entirely his own, snapped at him to Get a grip! and it got him to take his first steadying breath. It wasn’t very long from there until he’d white-knuckled his way back into the realm of coherency, picking through the mental wreckage left behind. “My apologies,” he sniffled, digging through his pockets for his handkerchief. “That was…terribly unbecoming.”

“It’s fine. You’re okay.” Trey’s voice touched his nerves like a cooling balm on a burn. Even if it did sound a little…strange. Constricted, talking around a lump.

Riddle’s throat spasmed as it went tight again, and bobbed when he swallowed through it.

He likely would’ve needed the rest of the evening and night to stick his entire self back together again, and so while he normally would’ve never settled for anything less than perfection, he cobbled together a mental foundation he could stand on, unsteady as it was, and decided it was the best he could get. He could forgive himself for it; the situation didn’t exactly fall under the umbrella of normal anyway. One final inhale to solidify his resolve, tears wiped on his handkerchief, and Riddle stood from the couch on trembling legs.

The tart sat waiting for him. The rest of Trey’s family did too. He didn’t know if that made it all better or worse.

Nobody made a big deal about it as he reclaimed his seat, beyond Mrs. Clover gently asking if he was alright now. His answer, “Yes, I’m sorry,” was only a half-lie, unwilling to further burden anyone else with the weight of his hurts. With a deep breath, four seconds in, four seconds out, he picked up his fork.

The tears returned as he feared they would, his hands wouldn't stop shaking, but for once he had all the time in the world to savour his tart. And so he took as much of it as he desired.

Riddle gazed out the bedroom window at the lights across the street, and felt the distinct ache of homesickness twist in his already sore chest. He missed the nightly routine his mother dictated; a fifteen minute shower, five more for lotion, ten for hair, five for stretching, five for teeth, and while he’d get dressed for bed she would drill him on the day’s studies and he could flex his knowledge. Mathematical equations and historical facts and geography and potion formulas and conjuring methodology and direbeast classifications and the symptoms of an illness. Normally she would leave his door open, but on days when he was very good she would let him close it. He loved those nights the most, it meant he could sneak an extra fifteen minutes reading a chapter from a biography or memoir he’d pilfered from the downstairs bookshelves.

It was easy enough to shrug off in the dorm with such a vastly different environment, but the streets beyond the window were familiar, a reminder of how close he was to the canopy bed he’d spent over a decade in. The roof over his head had changed, but this was still his hometown.

He’d followed the routine to a T to curb some of his longing, done early enough that he avoided the mad scramble for sink space he could hear happening from down the hall. The lack of a quiz foiled that plan thoroughly, answers he’d never get to say piling up behind his teeth even as he tried to substitute the gap with his nightly journaling, as neat and organized as the student incident reports that first spawned the habit. His pen tapped the margin of the finished page. He still wanted to go home. He still wanted to see her.

“Do you want to take the bed?”

Trey’s voice only partly pulled his attention away. Slowly, he turned to glance at the mattress big enough to fit them both. Then he turned to Trey, and he stared with a look equal parts amused and exasperated, brows raised high. After you told your family about us?

Message received. Trey scratched his cheek, his smile turning a little bit shy. “Just figured I’d check. Sometimes having space when under stress is nice.”

“...That is true. Sometimes.” After what he’d done though, he didn’t want to be alone in a bed that wasn’t his, staring up at a ceiling that wasn’t his. Not tonight. Sleep would escape him more than he would within it.

Riddle set aside his journal on the desk while he waited for Trey to get settled, then climbed in and slotted himself perfectly in Trey’s arms when he held them open, just how he liked it. The mattress wasn’t as plush as those back at the dorm, the blanket older, thinner, well-used but not yet worn, but it still, along with everything else so far, felt too reminiscent of his first night in Heartslabyul. He fully expected to spend much of it awake yearning for the house he’d only just fled.

Trey’s hand shifted as he leaned over top to set aside his glasses, and a realization occurred. Maybe he didn’t have to give in to that depressing déjà vu.

Breathing deep, Riddle rolled over onto his back, giving him enough room to properly look at Trey. “I didn’t get an opportunity to say this earlier. Thank you for all your help today. Both with my paperwork and my mother.”

“Of course, anytime.” Trey tried to smile, or at least Riddle thought he did only for it to get swallowed up by how his face scrunched when he squinted. “How’re you feeling now?”

His pause alone likely spoke volumes, but Trey didn’t press while he scoured his mental lexicon for an appropriate descriptor. “Tired,” was what he settled on because really, what better word was there? Physically, mentally, emotionally—he was tired.

And he doubted a good night’s sleep alone would be enough to solve it.

Chapter Text

Trey awoke to a cold, damp pillow against his cheek. Confused and blinking hard against the darkness of the room, his first impulse was to swipe the side of his hand across both cheeks, only to leave him even more confused when they came back dry. That didn’t make much sense. His eyes lacked any form of ache from his tear ducts, his nose wasn’t blocked with snot, and his chin didn’t feel sticky from drool when he lifted away from the fabric, so where in the world…?

That was when his gaze fell upon the blurry, dark blob of Riddle’s hair, his face tucked close against Trey’s chest.

“Riddle?” he whispered softly, and received no response. Still asleep, warm, gentle breaths ghosting through the fabric of his sleep shirt, and with every inhale whistling ever so slightly. A telltale sign of a stuffy nose.

Not wishing to accidentally disturb him by searching for his glasses, Trey felt his way up from Riddle’s shoulder, fingers oh so carefully brushing along the curve of Riddle’s jaw. His cheek, too, was dry. But as he brought his touch higher, cautious with his movement lest he accidentally poke Riddle in the eye, he felt it; the bridge of Riddle’s nose was wet with what was once a pool of tears waiting their turn to spill over the edge. Whether Riddle had been crying in his sleep or succumbed to exhaustion mid-jag, Trey couldn’t tell. Nor did he know which would’ve been worse.

Without fishing his other arm from under the pillow, Trey wiggled his sleeve up and tucked the edge over the joint of his thumb, then reached back in to gently dab the dampness on Riddle’s face away. Maybe the fabric ghosted across an eyelid without meaning to, or it was the change in texture against skin, but he only barely brushed anything when Riddle’s lashes fluttered open with a curious, sleepy noise.

Well, no risk in waking him now. Trey reached over him to fumble for his glasses while Riddle shifted. “Trey? What’s…” he heard Riddle begin to ask before his voice trailed off, and turned back just in time, glasses in place, to witness Riddle touch his face. First with his fingers, then with the sleeve as he sat himself up. Trey watched as Riddle’s expression morphed from confusion to recognition, and finally embarrassment. “...I’m sorry. Did that wake you?”

“No,” Trey lied. “It’s fine.” He wanted to ask if he was okay, but even in the darkness he could see the red, puffy rims of Riddle’s eyes, and the way he worked his jaw. Asking felt loaded, in a way. So instead he went with “What happened?”

“I think…” a pause as he blinked, slow and groggy, and his frown deepened. “I had a nightmare.”

“Yesterday was pretty stressful, so it’s not surprising.” He went to reach an arm around him, only to hesitate when Riddle turned away. “...do you want to talk about it?”

Riddle shook his head. “I shouldn’t dwell on it, or I might have trouble falling back asleep.” He peeled the covers just enough to slip out from the bed without disturbing Trey’s side, turning back when Trey instead yanked them off fully and followed him out. “You don’t have to get up with me, I’m just going to clean my face.”

“I figured you’d like a glass of water. It wouldn’t do to wake up in the morning dehydrated.” Only a half-lie this time; his body had filled with an antsy jitter all of a sudden upon witnessing Riddle try to leave alone.

Through the darkness Trey saw the way Riddle’s brow pinched, ready to point out that he’d just said something stupid (he could just get water from the washroom tap, his brain supplied) but he must’ve been too tired or too unsettled or too lonely or all of the above to care. “...alright.”

Not a word was spoken from then on. No grumbling, no reassurances, nothing. When Trey passed the cup of cool water from the fridge, Riddle took it from him, and then took his free hand as well. He threaded their fingers together and squeezed. It conveyed everything that needed to be said.

Of all the things he missed about Riddle, his morning alarm was not one of them. He came within a hair’s breadth of complaining when the beeping pulled him from his sleep, groaning in dismay and burying his face further into the pillow, only for reality to slam him in the head as his forehead touched the damp spot again. It took him another half-second to recall they’d flipped the pillow before going back to sleep. That woke him up faster than the alarm ever could’ve.

Again Riddle was the first to emerge from the bed, grunting like a man twice his age as he sat up on the edge and rubbed at his face and cursed under his breath when he pulled his hands back. Trey didn’t need his glasses to see Riddle look back at the pillow and sigh. “I’m going to take a shower,” Riddle muttered, voice unusually discouraged, though the groggy rumble in it probably wasn’t helping. “Is the washroom usually free at this hour?”

“Should be.” This time he didn’t follow, remaining propped up on his arm while Riddle dug through his luggage for a change of clothes, heart aching so fiercely it choked him of his words. By the time he’d worked up the strength to ask, Riddle was already out the door. With a sigh of his own his gaze fell to the pillow, felt his heart squeeze even harder, and forced himself up to throw the pillowcase into the laundry hamper.

Normally he would’ve gone right to the washroom to do his teeth, but decided instead to let Riddle have his space this time rather than chase after once again like a heartsick maiden. He occupied the minutes by using a spell to dry out his pillow from where the tears had soaked through on both sides, the mundanity of the task opening his mind to dwell on yesterday’s events. What he did right and what he did wrong and what was vastly out of his control but he should’ve handled anyway, somehow. His jaw clenched.

Above all else, he kept returning to the glare Riddle’s mother shot at him, and his skin began to crawl. The way her expression changed from a desperate, disbelieving, familiar sort of anger to downright malice as she made eye contact during their retreat. Riddle hadn’t felt well yesterday, but now he was the one with the queasy stomach.

Oh, he hated that woman.

The shower abruptly cut off, and Trey’s heart leapt with the irrational fear that Riddle had somehow heard his thoughts. Despite the ire brewing, he managed a laugh to dispel his tension, tossed the pillow back onto the bed, and decided it should be fine to knock now. They weren’t strangers to sharing a space while getting ready for the day.

As the two of them returned to Trey’s room he caught the way Riddle’s eyes immediately went to the desk, and he set a hand on his shoulder. “You did a lot of work yesterday, so why not take it easy and let your brain rest up?” he suggested, trying to keep it a casual thing by wrangling the concern out of his voice.

But of course, he should’ve known better as Riddle shook his head and turned slightly. “I didn’t do this just to mope in bed about it. Unless I’m physically incapable of moving, I have no excuse to not get something done.” He sounded better at least, the determination back in his eyes.

“...alright. Just don’t push yourself too hard.” Trey reached the hand up from his shoulder to cup Riddle’s face.

Riddle leaned into the touch, nuzzling in before turning to set his own hand overtop and press a kiss to the palm. “I won’t.”

Even as Riddle reclaimed the chair and set about reviewing some of the forms he’d worked on previously, the worry in Trey’s heart made him linger. Finally free, and yet he was right back to a desk anyway. It didn’t seem fair. But Riddle wouldn’t be Riddle if he’d left anything unfinished, Trey reasoned with himself, and felt the tightness loosen up. Still, maybe he could do something to make it more comfortable. A nice breakfast, or some morning tea with honey, more than just a 2am sip to help keep Riddle hydrated. Shouldn’t take too long, especially if someone had already boiled some water ahead of time, then he could shower and get on with the day.

If only it could’ve been that simple.

He knew something was off the minute he set foot downstairs. At a glance nothing was out of the ordinary, the kitchen and dining room empty as usual with everyone either upstairs or prepping to open the shop. A mug sat near the steaming kettle in the kitchen (mom’s favorite, he noted, the one she usually brought into the back of the shop despite the risk of dropping it) and a bag of pre-ground coffee next to that. Less usual, but not entirely rare. The air itself felt wrong, charged, prickling the hair at the back of his neck as he slowly crept back through the dining room towards the shop door. It was open, as expected, but not fully.

“...r son ran off with my boy! I demand to know—”

Trey froze on the spot, guts wrapping around themselves. His throat went terribly dry.

She was here.

Why in the WORLD was she here?!

Though, really, the better question was why shouldn't she be here? After all, he was there when Riddle left, a rock at his side to break the waves. Heck, a part of him was amazed it took her this long to storm over.

He couldn’t quite catch what his parents were saying, and only heard full words whenever her voice rose (which was often) but he didn’t need to be a genius to know it wasn’t a friendly chat. A loud clack made his heart launch into his throat, expecting her to burst through the door like in his nightmares—he wouldn’t ever be able to forget the sound of her heel hitting their tile, not in a million years. His brain sent conflicting signals to his body, screaming at him to do…what? Retreat upstairs and pretend all hell wasn’t breaking loose? Run in and chase her off before she could worm her way into getting at Riddle? Sit stock still like a deer in headlights because his useless legs decided to root themselves to the ground instead of doing something worthwhile, anchored in place by the crushing realization that he had, once again, played a part in bringing her fury upon them?

His body seemed hell-bent on achieving that last one.

“Uh, what’s going on? Why's there a police car outside?”

Trey nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of Saxton’s voice, whipping around with a sharp gasp to see him peering through the opposite door with an uneasy tilt to his lips. A third party involvement must’ve been exactly what he needed to get the gears running again, as Trey immediately strode over to him. “Don’t worry about it, Mom and Dad have it covered. Listen—”

“Holy CRAP, are you okay?!”

Trey didn't answer. He couldn't. If he detoured his train of thought for even a second he was actually going to faint. “I need you to do me a huge favour. Go upstairs and make sure Riddle doesn’t come down for a little while.” He spoke entirely too quickly, desperate to get the words out around what little air he could get. He even tried to grin, but it definitely fell short. The police were involved. “Think you can do that for me?”

Saxton’s eyes darted from Trey’s face to the door where the voices were growing louder, and back again. “Oooookay…” And with that he was gone, back up the stairs.

Alone again, Trey let himself grab onto the doorway for balance as the house tilted on its axis. He couldn’t get in a full breath. His body shook like a leaf in the wind.

Any second now the door behind him would fly open, and he would be dragged out into the front, forced to stand between his parents for his execution. People would stop to watch through the glass. Riddle would be there despite his efforts to protect him, locked to her again, screaming in anguish and grief as he begged for her to leave them alone, and—

Another clack flipped something in his brain. Trey bolted, scrambled upstairs. He tripped twice, and nearly collided head first with Saxton.

His brother staggered away from the closed bedroom door. “Dude—”

“Change of plans,” Trey said. Or did he? He certainly heard his own voice, way, way too calm despite the sirens blaring in his ears, but he couldn’t feel his mouth moving. “Go back to your room. Don’t go downstairs.”

For a minute Saxton just stared, wide-eyed and visibly spooked as he gave Trey another once-over. Then, slowly, he nodded and retreated down the hall without another word. In that time he’d managed to claw back some semblance of coherency, working his jaw and hands and lungs to make sure they had feeling, and he ran a hand through his hair and hoped he didn’t appear as half as terrified as he felt. With a deep breath, he opened his door like a normal person would, and stepped in as if he wasn’t battling the urge to barricade the entrance behind him. Immediately he was greeted by Riddle staring at him. He did not in the slightest appear pleased.

“Hey,” Trey tried with as close to a smile as he could manage, shutting the door behind him. “What are you working on?”

Riddle didn’t take the bait, crappy as it was. “What’s going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“First, your brother arrives for no discernible reason, and vanishes in lieu of answering when I ask for one.” Riddle jabbed the butt of his pen towards the doorway for emphasis. Then he pointed it up at Trey. “And now you appear as though you’re on the verge of fainting.”

Trey tried to swallow, but his mouth was a desert. “D-do I?”

Setting the pen down, Riddle nodded and got up from the seat. “You’re terribly pale. Did something happen downstairs?” The suspicious tilt to his brow hadn’t budged, but his voice had softened into concern, hands up as if he was prepared to catch Trey should he suddenly drop.

“Just a rough customer is all.” As soon as the words left his mouth of their own violation, he realized he’d said the exact wrong thing. He watched as Riddle’s brow crinkled further in thought, then checked his wristwatch, then pulled his lips into a thin line. “It’s fine, Mom and Dad—” Trey started, trying to reassure the same way he’d done with his brother, but Riddle cut him off.

“You don’t open for another hour. Why would they allow a customer to enter early and break their own rules?” And then Trey had to watch Riddle’s eyes flicker up to stare beyond him, beyond the wall, as a particularly loud bang echoed up from below, as the pieces fell into place and realization clicked, all before Trey could do anything to stop it. Just as he feared, Riddle tried to duck past him to get to the door.

“NO!” Trey grabbed his wrist before he could even get close. His heart felt ready to rip its way out of his neck from the force of the lurch it made. “Wait—!”

“Let go!” Riddle yanked, trying and failing to free his arm from the vice grip.

“It’s fine, Riddle!” Trey pleaded, repeating himself. “Mom and Dad are taking care of it! You don’t have to go down there!”

“But it’s not fair! She’s my mother, and her appearance here is my responsibility to handle!”

“She doesn’t have to BE your responsibility anymore!” His grip tightened further. Desperation eked into his voice until it cracked. “She never should’ve been in the first place!”

“This is how you want me to repay your parents' hospitality?!” Riddle snapped, rounding on Trey suddenly, and he staggered. A vein had started to bulge in his forehead. “Hiding up here while they’re forced to bear her anger for my mistake again?! I’m not made of glass, Trey, let GO!” His second yank was so sudden and violent it succeeded in freeing him from Trey’s grip, and he was out the door before Trey could grab him again.

“Riddle!” Trey shot after him, chasing him through the hall and down the stairs. His lungs ached, struggling to get any oxygen past his suffocating heartbeat.

When he saw Riddle stop in the doorway to the dining room, Trey feared the worst; Riddle’s mother had burst in, and now nowhere was safe for him. But when he joined him, set a restraining, tight hand on Riddle’s shoulder, ready to shield him from whatever onslaught they were about to face, he did not find Riddle’s mother tearing up their home. Instead he found his own leaning against the dining table while she quietly nursed her cup of coffee. Her hat laid discarded near the kettle brought through from the kitchen. At the commotion she lifted her head to greet them with a tired smile.

“Good morning, boys.” She paused to sip her coffee and regard them for a moment. “I’m sorry if we disturbed you. No need to fret, the situation’s handled.”

Trey could hear the way Riddle’s throat clicked when he swallowed. “My mother was here, wasn’t she.” A statement, almost an accusation.

“Mmhm.” Miraculously, her smile widened. Exhausted, but gentle. “She just left.”

Riddle’s shoulders drooped, and Trey’s hand fell from it. “I-I see.” His voice was strained. “I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with her again.”

Regina waved her hand. “No, no, it’s alright. Alex and I both knew ahead of time she’d probably come by to express her concerns. We just told her that you’re both of-age adults, and it’s not up to us to control what you do anymore. With any luck, she won’t be back for a while.”

With any luck, Trey repeated internally, but it was doubtful. There was no way that was the full story. Not when the police were involved.

“I…” Riddle sighed. “Thank you.” The couple seconds he lingered there were awkward, both too long and too short, before he turned to head back upstairs.

Trey didn’t follow him right away, instead making eye contact with his mom. Her smile turned tight with stress, but held not a hint of blame towards him; if anything, it was apologetic, and a little relieved. It didn’t comfort him any. The guilt still came. At a loss for words, all he could do was nod and nod until his legs let him move again.

By the time he caught up, Riddle had taken to pacing in circles around the open space in his room. He didn’t even glance up when Trey entered, fist pressed tight to his mouth, other hand holding his elbow, movements frantic and jerky with anxious energy.

As Riddle wore tracks through his carpet, Trey took the opportunity to actually get a breath or two. His head swam, vision fuzzy at the edges for reasons unrelated to his glasses, and his legs almost gave out and sent him careening to the floor the minute the door shut. He probably should've sat down, actually. At the very least he let himself press his back to the door. It felt so, so selfish, and he promised himself he’d apologize for it, but his eyes traced Riddle’s path and the rhythmic thump thump thumping of his footsteps until his breathing naturally aligned with his laps. Inhale one direction, exhale the other. Riddle’s mother was gone, and they were both still here. Like Nina said, he wasn’t going anywhere. So it was fine. It was fine.

Once his legs were sturdy enough he pushed off from the door and crossed the room to Riddle. His fingers twitched to reach out to him, but he didn’t allow his hand to move. Not yet. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Riddle stopped on a dime with one final thump with his back to Trey, growing even more tense until he stood rigid as a statue. Suddenly Trey was in the hallway outside the Mirror Chamber again, air stuck in his chest as his childhood friend-turned-stranger whirled on him, teeth bared and ready to verbally lay him out. Then, all at once, Riddle’s body began to wilt. “I should be the one to apologize,” he replied after a pause, head still down, back still turned. “I shouldn’t have acted so rash.”

The admittance surprised him, then shamed him in turn; Riddle wasn’t his mother anymore, hadn’t been for years even if the metamorphosis was a gradual one, and the memories resurfacing brought a fresh, sickly wave of guilt with them. Trey shook his head. “It’s a tough situation. I can hardly blame you for it. But that doesn’t mean I should be treating you like some wounded animal.”

Then it was Riddle’s turn to shake his head. “You did what was necessary in the moment to stop me from committing a foolish act. When I realized she was here, I panicked and ran in without a plan. If she’d still been there…well, I can imagine the result.” He shook his head again, harder, more resolute, and turned to face Trey fully. “That being said, foolish as it is, I can’t allow your family’s business to get caught up in this mess I’ve caused.”

“Riddle…”

“I know you’re…uncomfortable around her.” Understatement of the century. “So please, don’t put yourself between us. She’s my mother. I should be the one to talk to her, if this happens again. I can…” Riddle’s hands clenched into fists. “I can do it.”

That was when Trey allowed himself to reach for Riddle’s hand. Both of them. Riddle didn’t fight him this time, he let Trey unfurl his fists and slot their palms together. “I…” his cheeks puffed as he blew out a breath, forcing himself to look Riddle in the eye instead of at their hands. Since that day over a year ago, he’d vowed to be more open, to actually tell Riddle his thoughts rather than keep them to himself. He hadn’t been the best at it, admittedly. No better time for practice than right now. “I just don’t want you getting hurt again because of this—because of her. The thought of her approaching you again so soon…it scares me.”

“Trey…” Riddle threaded their fingers together and squeezed. “I made this choice myself, and these are the consequences. Even if I was staying elsewhere I’d have to face them.” He smiled. It was small, it was weak, but it was genuine. “Forgive me. It’s selfish of me to say, but I’m glad I’m able to weather this storm here. With you.”

Looks like we’re both being selfish. Finally Trey’s insides unknotted themselves from the dense ball they’d twisted into, leaving him feeling lighter. He didn't know what he'd wanted to do, where to put his stupid hands or what to do with his stupid face, but it didn't really matter. There was only one thing he could do. A fond huff snuck its way out, lips curling in a smile he couldn’t fight back, and before he could really think on it he was pulling Riddle to his chest. “You’re one of the strongest people I know,” he murmured into the open curve of his red bangs.

Just as they’d traded head shakes earlier, now Riddle was the one huffing, that short, clipped noise he made whenever his ego was being stroked. Nothing more was said though, and instead Riddle's arms came up to grip at the back of his shirt, forehead pressing hard to his chest. His next breath was deeper, shakier, but that was as far as it went.

They didn’t move for a good, long while.

It was Riddle who eventually broke their silence with the recommendation that Trey finally had his shower. Only then did Trey notice the sweat staining his sleep shirt in big, wet patches. Eugh, no wonder his skin felt so wrong. He grabbed a change of clothes on his way out, lingering to make 100% certain that Riddle would be okay on his own, but after setting up his towel and checking the shampoo (and realizing that Riddle must’ve brought his own along, his hair hadn’t smelled like he’d used theirs) he stopped short of getting undressed.

His body had been squeezed out, wringing every last drop of adrenaline and energy until his tingling limbs leaked with it. Lifting a hand he stared, and found it trembling ever so slightly. A curse slipped out under his breath. He wanted a coffee, something to give his crinkled scrap of a self some kick for the day, but it'd only make it worse. The anxiety haunted his chest like a restless spirit.

A shower wouldn’t be enough. What if Riddle’s mom returned while he was occupied?

Abandoning the bathroom temporarily, Trey made his way to the kitchen for the drink he’d never managed to make, senses honed for any sign of further confrontation. He knew he'd regret the lack of caffeine later, but he dug out the box of chamomile tea from the cupboard and haphazardly tossed a bag into a mug. No sugar or honey or ginger, he had no patience for that right now. The first sip washed over his nerves and soothed them with warmth. The second made him yearn for his bed again, to shove his head under the pillow until he woke up to a day where Riddle’s mom would never appear again.

Finally, he let himself sit at the dining table, the most wonderful relief to his poor legs. He didn’t have much time to bask in it though, as a voice called through from the door.

“Uh…is it safe to come down yet?”

Trey waved him over when he saw a head of messy hair peek through. “The coast is clear.”

Saxton crept around the corner like a wary cat, turning from Trey to the shop door and back again as he made his way over to the table. “What the hell was all that about?” he asked once he was close enough, voice low in case someone else overheard. “You were literally so pale I thought you were gonna die.”

I felt like I was gonna die. “Yeah…not my proudest moment, huh?”

“So seriously, what happened?”

“Just…” he sighed, considered how much he should actually share. He was too tired for this. “Know that Riddle’s mom is really bad news.”

“Considering she brought cops with her? Yeah, I figured.” Saxton paused, brow furrowing as his fingers drummed against the back of the chair. “...didn’t something like this happen way back then, too?”

Trey didn’t respond, hoping the topic would drop if he pretended to sip his tea for long enough. He tried not to look, but still caught the way his brother's mouth twisted, as if fighting over whether to press the issue further or not. Thankfully, he didn't, and the dining room remained silent. That probably revealed more than Trey would’ve wanted, but whatever, all the better if it did the job for him.

Eventually Saxton took a breath to speak, and Trey braced himself.

“Hey, take the day off if you need it.”

Oh, thank goodness. Trey shook his head. “Nah, I'll be fine. If anything, rolling up my sleeves would be a great way to get my mind off of it.”

“Well…if you say so. But I'm coming to help anyway.”

“I’m sure Mom and Dad will really…appreciate the…extra…head…” His sentence trailed off, squinting over Saxton’s shoulder, trying to tell if he was really seeing what he thought he was, or if the stress was finally making him hallucinate. No, no it was definitely there. Which meant the next part he could also see with complete, crystal clarity before it even happened.

Saxton turned in search of whatever Trey was glaring at. He came face to face with the…uh, face. He screamed and tripped over the chair as he backed up, barely managing to catch himself before he went down and took it with him. And then the rest of Chenya formed, giggling joyfully at his successful prank.

“Ohohoho, I finally got you again! It’s been far, far too long.”

“You son of a—” Saxton’s swipe met only air as Chenya drifted out of his reach.

“Chenya,” Trey greeted, more than a little relieved for the familiar company. “When did you come in?”

“Your mom let me in.” He grinned. “Don’t mind me, I’ll be in and out in minutes! Just here to perform a duty is all—and, ah, borrow some things of yours if it comes to it.”

His brow raised slowly. “Now’s not really a great time, but…sure? What do you need?”

The only response he received was a chuckle as Chenya slowly vanished, his toothy smile fading last. In another time, another life even, he would’ve been concerned—he probably should’ve been, if he really dwelled on it, but he simply did not have the brainpower to fret. Besides, it was Chenya; he knew which lines not to cross.

“Yoooouuu’re just gonna let him ransack the house again, huh?” Saxton half-teased, half-accused, hand to his chest as he wound down from the scare.

“Oh, absolutely not. And he knows it.” Trey took another sip of his tea, considered what to do, then downed the rest of it in a few quick gulps. Amazing how easily Chenya’s presence brought a sense of normalcy, despite his incredible quirkiness. “I’ve gotta go take a shower. Let Mom know I’ll be down in about twenty?”

“Sure thing. Oh, and Dad left us something in the fridge for breakfast.”

With the mug in the sink to be handled later, Trey took the stairs two at a time, eyes and ears peeled for that rascally cat. He briefly considered checking on Riddle as he paused in front of his closed door, but realized he was still in his sweaty, sticky pajamas, and decided to pass on the inevitable lecture about cleanliness. Chenya was here…somewhere. It’d be fine!

Donned in a fresh change of clothes, the morning felt…not a million miles away, but farther, definitely. A bad dream that refused to fully let go, but was starting to fade nonetheless. He could work with that. He’d managed with worse before. Alas, the hair dryer had gone missing from its spot yet again, and he made a note to publicly shame whoever the culprit was to the rest of the family before heading back to his room to grab his pen.

“Hey,” he announced his arrival with a knock as he scrubbed his damp hair with a towel, and pushed open the door. “Did you happen to see where the hair dryer wh–UH?!” Trey tripped over the word, jaw dropping.

That was.

Uh.

Hm.

There stood Riddle in the middle of his room, arms up as the sleeves of one of Trey’s t-shirts hung from him, the rest shoved into the band of Trey’s sweatpants yanked up over his hips and fastened there with Trey’s belt, his expression caught somewhere between shock and humiliation when their eyes met. Chenya peeked out from behind Riddle’s legs, hands still working away at cuffing the pant legs once, twice, three whole times. Nobody said a word for a solid minute.

Thank goodness for that, honestly. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to form words around the excited beating of his heart, even if Riddle did look a little bit silly swimming in his clothes like that and, yeah, there his heart went doing another somersault. The day was really giving it a workout. Riddle was wearing his clothes. Wearing. His clothes.

“I think Trey likes it,” Chenya purred, grinning ear to ear.

Chapter Text

Riddle couldn’t remember the dreams, not fully. Nothing beyond brief flashes of emotion, fleeting yet potent enough to still twist his heart, and that he almost called for mother upon waking instead of Trey. Perhaps it was for the best that he didn’t recall the rest.

Waking up in Trey’s bed left him in a state of half-lucidity, uncertain whether he was actually conscious or not. Everything held an almost ethereal quality to it, the grogginess in his brain weighing him down like the beginnings of another bad dream, compounded tenfold when the waking nightmare kicked off in earnest and he nearly went tumbling face-first down the stairs in his rush to catch his mother. He clung onto how much he could physically feel to ground him. His sinuses stung with each inhale. His cheek still felt raw from being slapped. And then his eyes… All in all, his entire body was seized by a dull, persistent soreness that not even the warm, morning shower could soothe.

Trey shutting the door as he went to take his own shower caused a taut wire to finally snap in his skull and brought everything into sharp focus, forcing him to face the undeniable fact that this was all real. That he really had gone spiraling off the path and into the woods like every delinquent his mother had warned him about. Now that the shock of the event had settled, her appearance in the flesh served to really hammer the notion home, even if the final, disembodied word of her exit was all he’d caught. One day away from her by choice, and she’d been proven right—

Ugh, enough with the spiraling. He had to stop doing that.

But he couldn’t focus. No matter how many times Riddle wrenched his thoughts back onto the paper before him, they kept breaking off leash and running in circles. He was too charged, a cat plagued by static from having its fur rubbed the wrong way, to the point where he felt like he had to expel it before he went crazy. But he was all cried out, the well dried up, and so the pacing began anew, back and forth and back and forth, wondering what to do and what to say to her next time they met, until he grew too tired for that as well. Despite his insistence to Trey earlier about staying productive, Riddle collapsed backwards onto the bed, utterly miserable. He stared up at the ceiling, fighting to will his body and brain out of such infantile behavior. His chest hurt again, a sharp pinch in his core, and he rubbed his fingers along his clothed sternum despite knowing the pain ran deeper than a simple muscle ache. Gradually the fingers curled and hooked, dull nubs of nail scratching the fabric idly.

She was just worried about him. Her appearance was proof of her dedication, fulfilling her role as the mother he loved so much. She’d come for him when he suffered his overblot, and again after Malleus had plunged Sage’s Island into an endless sleep, and now here she was during his moment of weakness and…and…

If that was truly the case, then he wouldn’t have been so scared. Riddle gripped his shirt, squeezed it tight in his fist, felt the self-deprecating laugh heaving itself out around the pain of acknowledgement more than he heard it. Fully aware of how close he toed towards actively losing his mind and yet powerless to stop.

How far would she go this time? Would she try to shut their business down? Perhaps have them arrested?

Could she still be capable of that?

And it would be all his fault, too.

Before he could settle on a way to really dig his claws into the metaphorical wound and twist, something large and fluffy dropped on his face. He sputtered around the fur in his mouth, hands flailing uselessly. When he couldn’t successfully shove it away he instead sat up to knock it down into his lap. He slapped a hand down to trap the big purple tail in place, then whipped around in search of the rest of its owner. “Chenya!”

“Yeeeees?”

“Gah!” Riddle nearly leapt right out of the bed at the disembodied head suddenly on the pillow beside him.

“I’m not interrupting anything important, am I?” Chenya’s grin remained playful, the rest of his body forming over the edge as his tail slid off of Riddle’s lap and onto the floor.

“Even if you were, I doubt such things would deter you,” Riddle muttered without any venom. Well, getting scared half to death was one way to halt his runaway thoughts, for certain. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to take you away,” he chimed gleefully.

“Take me away?”

Chenya’s ears perked. “What way?”

“Wh—Away.”

“And where is that?”

“I-I don’t know! If you’re the one taking me away, then you’re the one who’s supposed to show me!”

“Show you what?”

“I—” Riddle threw up his hands and pushed off the bed. He ground his teeth, the sound audible, and his temples began to throb. “I’m not doing this with you right now, Chenya. This is not the time, and you’re grating on my last nerve.”

“Seems to me like you just did.”

It was such an innocuous comment, lighthearted and silly. It also made another wire in his brain snap.

“CHENYA!” Riddle boomed, rounding on him, heat flushing his face, and at once Chenya’s ears pinned back in alarm, tail tucking under him. At first the outburst felt good, like he’d finally found a means to release the building pressure, but what filled the gap left in its wake was only more guilt. He ducked his head in shame.

Before he could work out a proper apology and explanation, Chenya’s ears perked right back up. “And that’s,” he pointed at Riddle, drawing a circle around him with his finger, “exactly why I’m here to take you away!”

Just like he couldn’t fight the thoughts of his mother, Riddle found he didn’t have the strength to push back against Chenya anymore either. He sighed, so, so very weary, and cupped his elbows. “Did Trey put you up to this?”

“Nope! My feline senses told me that today is a purrfect day to bring my good friends outside!” A beat. “And I followed the police car here earlier.”

Oh.

She DID get the authorities involved.

Any warmth prickling its way in from being called a good friend was promptly drowned in a creek. Riddle fell back down onto the bed and threw his arms up over his face, blocking out the light, trying to will the shimmery dream-like sensation back to him as proof this was all just some mundane continuation of his nightmares. He almost refused Chenya right then and there; the words hit the back of his grit teeth. He should be working on his documents. Engaging in productivity.

But, heavens, if escaping from the scene of the crime wasn't something he longed to do, his heart trying to physically force its way through his chest to hop down the stairs and out the door and into the horizon. It flushed his cheeks with shame. He'd just be running away from the problems he’d caused.

…wouldn't he?

Somehow, he doubted Chenya would agree.

Riddle inhaled hard enough to make himself dizzy, and huffed it back out in a rush. “I'm expecting phone calls,” he tried.

Chenya remained undeterred. “You can take them while we're away!”

“I have important documents and identification on the way. I'll need to sign for them.”

“There's no post on Sundays.”

He was grasping at straws, and both of them knew it. “I…” Another sigh. A chirp answered it. Riddle lifted his arms just enough to peek out, and was met with an open hand and an inviting grin. He stared at it, swallowed his heart back down from where it had leapt into his throat. Slowly, with the unease of a nervous hedgehog, he unfurled his arms and hesitated. A moment later he took the hand.

Chenya yanked him right up out of the bed and to his feet fast enough to make the room spin. “Meow then! Let's get you ready to go!”

He staggered, brushed himself off with his free hand as if it would help make him feel more steady. “W-well, I'm already dressed. I'll just need my wallet—”

“No no no, that won’t do!”

Riddle startled, glanced down when Chenya pointed at the white button-up emblazoned with the silvery sheen of NRC’s logo on the breast, then back up again. “What do you mean? It’s a shirt.”

“If you’re going to be taken away, you need to dress for it! No uniforms.”

Furrowing his brow, he dragged over his suitcase to dig through the pile of folded clothes. This could be problematic in the very near future, he realized, and filed that worry away for the next available opportunity. “I fully understand the issues that arise from wearing such apparel when I’m not currently representing Night Raven College, but I don’t HAVE anything that isn’t part of a uniform! And before you even think of suggesting it, I’m not setting foot outside in my pajamas.” Beneath the three remaining copies of the standard white shirt for their school uniforms, he found his PE shirts and jumpsuit and immediately crossed those off the list. His Equestrian Club attire though…perhaps the undershirt would be—

“Try this!”

“Try wh—Ah!” As Riddle looked up, something large slapped over his face, and as his rear hit the bed he threw his hands back to stop from toppling out of sheer surprise. He sat there for a moment, struck dumb, before pulling the shirt off his head to inspect it. “Chenya. This is Trey’s.”

Chenya grinned from where he lurked beside Trey’s drawers. “Yes it is!”

“It’s not mine to wear. Even setting that aside…” he held it in front of his body. The bottom pooled in his lap, wrinkling the simple decal paintbrush design. “It’s much too big for me.”

“That’s never stopped you before.”

“My PE uniform was an unfortunate exception due to the circumstances.”

“And Trey’s jacket?”

His cheeks grew hot. “It was solely to keep warm while studying in the winter months and nothing more. Beyond one single instance, after which I decided it was much too bulky to utilize effectively, I never wore it outside my room.”

“Thennnn,” Chenya dragged out the word as he turned, grinning, a belt in hand. “We’ll just have to fix that.”

“What in the world are you—?!”

This was absurd. This was entirely, utterly asinine.

And it was made infinitely worse as soon as Trey walked in on them.

He thought his reflection in the mirror was bad. But the reflection of himself in Trey’s glasses? Oh, he was going to pop. Burst into a million petals and fly out the window. It would’ve been less embarrassing than this.

“I think Trey likes it.”

Riddle only half-heard Chenya’s quip, just like he half-noticed the way Trey’s damp hair stuck up in the air from where he’d been rubbing it with the towel before his hand fell like a rock. There were much, much bigger things at hand than how cute he would’ve found it any other day, because Trey still hadn’t said anything. He just stared, and stared, and stared some more, and Riddle might've snapped at him to close his gaping mouth if he wasn't seized by an incredible wave of insecurity. Having eyes on him wasn't unusual, he'd commanded every form of awe and scrutiny under the sun in his time at NRC; he just couldn't parse which side of the spectrum this particular variety fell under. His arms dropped to his sides, and he fought the urge to pull them close to his abdomen and cup his exposed elbows, hoping it would hide how much the fabric of Trey's shirt draped off of him. That only made it more apparent instead, bunching up around where the belt secured the much-too-large pants to his body and sliding forward to expose his collarbone. One hand shot up to hold it back in place.

Chenya insisted that he had permission, but… Oh, why had he let him do this?!

Face blisteringly red, Riddle dropped his eyes away and muttered, “This is too much. I'm taking it off.”

Chenya popped up from where he'd been crouched. “But Riddle! If you get changed, you won't get the benefit of dressing like this!”

“What possible benefit could this have?!”

“Camouflage!”

“Camouflage?” He looked back at himself in the mirror. The whole ensemble looked ridiculous enough to stick out like a sore thumb in his mind, a far cry from his preferred clothing preferences. Quite the opposite of what he’d expect of camouflage, really, even taking the Queendom's eccentric fashion into account. He caught Trey’s gaze in the reflection again and tried not to cringe. “I don’t think—”

A cap covered his eyes before he could finish, an embarrassing sound jumping from his throat and cutting him off.

“So, does my ensemble get the Trey appurroval?”

“Huh?!” Trey squeaked, startled out of his trance suddenly enough to send his glasses sliding down his nose. “I. Uh. Well,” he fumbled, cleared his throat, “I mean, it certainly is an…outfit.” He shrugged. For a second he opened his mouth to continue, paused, then seemed to dismiss the thought and shrugged again. Riddle couldn’t quite place why, but something in his gut told him the choice Trey made just then was a wise one. “And if Riddle decides he's, um, okay with wearing it then I…don’t see why not?”

“I doubt there would be much else in your wardrobe that would fare any better,” Riddle grumbled, lifting his arm to squint at the short, dangling sleeve. “I feel like a child’s toy. Pieces of a uniform would still be more appropriate than this.”

“Nooooo uniforms! That's the rule!”

He had half a mind to rip the hat off and swat Chenya with it.

Finally picking his jaw up off the floor, Trey approached, scanning him head to toe and back again. On the third time his brow pinched with a realization. “You really don't have anything casual to wear?”

Riddle ducked away and shook his head, shame beginning to flush his cheeks darker. “I gave most of my belongings to Cater for safekeeping, and discarded everything else I’d amassed that wasn’t part of a uniform. On the chance that I did remain at home, my mother would’ve been incredibly cross if she’d seen what I was wearing without her approval,” he admitted. His exposed arms broke out in goosebumps as if the temperature of the room had spontaneously dropped several degrees.

“Right…I remember that, but I didn’t know it included your clothes too.”

To stop from bringing down the mood any further, he continued, “I'll have to find time this week to go clothes shopping. It's best to resolve this dilemma as soon as possible.”

Trey hummed, gaze blatantly dropping to ogle the shirt again before blinking like he remembered he was supposed to say something. “How about this Wednesday? I've—wanted an excuse to check out some new frames.” Obviously tacked on at the end as an afterthought when Riddle dropped his hand to allow Chenya to make more adjustments and he caught another flash of collarbone.

He almost called it out. The subtle confirmation that Trey’s…reaction wasn’t a negative one had settled some of his nerves though, so Riddle let it slide. “That sounds nice. Very well, we’ll go then.”

A soft whump caught their attention, and in unison both turned to look at the floor. Chenya stared up back at them, hands curled into little paws, pupils huge, sparkling, pleading.

Riddle rolled his eyes. “Yes, of course you can come too.” He was met with a gleeful chirp.

“So, uh, wait… Why are you borrowing my clothes, exactly?” Trey asked, trying so very, very obviously to stop from resuming his stare.

“I’m taking him away!” Chenya declared from the floor.

Trey sought clarification by glancing at Riddle. All Riddle could do was make his exasperation evident through a shrug. In turn Trey cocked a brow. “Is that so? Well, if I get time then maybe I’ll come join you.”

“You most certainly should! Now, if you’ll excuse us…” Quick as a whip, Chenya sprang up from his begging crouch and snatched his hand around Riddle’s bare wrist, yoinking him almost off his feet and out into the hallway as Riddle yelped in shock.

“Ch-Chenya, hold on!” He tried to grab the railing stairs to stop them, to no avail; his grip was far too weak, only able to make a shrill squeaking sound as it slipped right off. “I haven’t even had breakfast yet!”

“There’s plenty to feast upon outside. So let’s go, let’s go!”

Riddle was only granted a grace period to slip his shoes on and tie the laces, and that was more than long enough for a fresh new wave of apprehension and anxiety to crest upon him where he knelt. It crashed down hard when he set foot in the front of the shop and saw out past the huge, clear windows, no solid walls to hide behind.

Trey’s parents had said it was fine to come and go as he pleased, but—

Before he could even begin to ask for permission, Chenya beat him to the punch with a cheerfully called, “‘Scuse me, ma’am! I’m borrowing Riddle for the day!”

“Have fun y—” as she lifted her head to look from where she adjusted a glass standee, Mrs. Clover paused mid-word, only for a moment, eyes wide with surprise fixated solely upon him. Riddle had half a mind to turn right back around and march back upstairs. “—you two!” she finished, smiling.

Foiling any impulsive attempt to retreat on the spot, Chenya pulled him out the front door, throwing a “I’ll bring him back before dinner!” over his shoulder.

Riddle staggered after him, nearly tripping in the doorway, then again over his own two feet a half-block later. He struggled to pull in air until his chest felt like it was about to explode, and he couldn’t even apologize to the pedestrian they nearly barreled into on the way. Worse yet, a breeze shot along his chest and stomach; he almost stumbled a third time when he glanced down and realized Trey’s shirt had slipped out from the belt and was now billowing in the wind. “Chenya!” he called, frantically shoving the shirt back down. “Ch-Chenya! Slow down!”

“Oop! Sorry!” Chenya hopped a couple times to stop his momentum, then released Riddle’s wrist once he wasn’t about to fall.

With the shirt back in place, Riddle let his hands drop to his knees and panted. His airway had narrowed, throat tight, pulse refusing to slow even as he caught his breath. How could they have just left like that!? No purpose for their outing stated, no time frame or locations given, and now here they were gallivanting about on the streets all willy-nilly without permis—

Wait. Mrs. Clover did give permission. Not explicitly, but waving them off held the same meaning.

Then it should’ve been fine, right? Hand to his chest, he worried at his lower lip and glanced back over his shoulder, brow knit tight, expecting to see her sprinting down the street after them. But no one was there, save for the passerby still strolling in the opposite direction (towards his home, he realized, before promptly stomping it down when a deep chill crept along his spine.)

Could it really have been this easy the whole time?

Noticing that Chenya was watching him not with impatience but the slightest hint of concern, he straightened back up even though he hadn’t fully recovered. “I’m sorry about that.” He adjusted the hat from where it had almost blown off. Yes, he tried to convince himself, it would be fine. Hopefully. “Let’s…let’s keep going.”

He kept anticipating strange looks from everyone they passed as they began to venture deeper into the heart of Crimson City, forcing himself to stare straight ahead no matter how much curiosity tugged to take in the sights. But that only lasted a couple of blocks as he accidentally made direct eye contact with a pedestrian standing at the opposite side of a crosswalk, watched the way they inspected his outfit, and suddenly he couldn’t stop himself from checking everyone else around him with an urgency nearing obsession. He braced for the awkward sudden turns to pretend they weren’t looking, the judgemental side-stares, the open gawking from recognizing what family he belonged to—and found none of it. An older woman offered him a kind smile with raised brows. A girl on the phone barely seemed to notice his existence. A businessman across the street looked his way, and was immediately more taken with Chenya than him. Even the original person he’d met eyes with had lost interest, staring almost bored at the road lights while shifting from foot to foot impatiently.

Did…nobody actually care?

The questions continued to pile up.

As they continued on he sought out more looks to try and prove his fears warranted, but aside from a minuscule handful of surprised once-overs, the vast majority minded their own business, at most offering brief, polite greetings or minor comments about the nice weather. He kept coming back to Chenya’s camouflage comment. Wearing an outfit he'd never normally wear—a Rosehearts would never normally wear, not even if he had control of his own wardrobe. His heart continued to beat hard, but it was to a different tune now from its earlier panicked thumping. A thrill ran through him.

Poking his tongue out to swipe over where he’d gnawed indents into his lower lip, confidence beginning to bolster, he asked, “We’ve established that your purpose was to ‘take me away’, but is there any particular destination in mind? As nice as a stroll can be, I don’t particularly wish to aimlessly roam the town.”

“Yes and no.”

Oh boy, here we go. “It can’t be both, Chenya.”

“But it can! We do have a destination, and we don’t have a destination. It’ll become apparent when we find it.”

“...so we are wandering, perhaps not aimlessly but without intent, until a place or activity catches our fancy, and that will be how we spend this outing.”

“Bingo!”

“That sounds preposterous. And what if nothing does?”

“Oh, something will.” Chenya turned to wink. “I have more than a few ideas.”

“But wouldn't those qualify as specific destinations?”

“Nope, because we're not going directly to any particular one, so all of them and none of them are the endpoint of our journey.”

“That's not…tsk.” He gave up trying to argue, and instead decided it would be easier for his sanity if he handed himself over to the tomfoolery. “Fine then, let’s see how these ideas of yours hold up.”

Chenya led the way, allowing Riddle to (finally, his anxiety no longer corralling his wonder) observe the storefronts passing them by. None of them were familiar, clothing boutiques and sandwich shops and secondhand stores he’d never seen before. At first he figured they must’ve changed hands over time, curiosity piqued about each building’s original purpose, but then he saw the street name as they reached another crosswalk.

He’d never been down this street before. Not once in eighteen years. It was only a few blocks away from his doorstep, and yet he might as well have been in another town entirely. Sure, he was aware he hadn’t been allowed to go traipsing about, and knew less about the goings-on in his own hometown than the average resident, but there was a stark, uncomfortable difference between being aware and physically coming face to face with the depths of his own inexperience.

When Chenya suddenly stopped, he almost walked smack dab into his back.

“An excellent choice!”

“Don’t just stop in the middle of the—What?” Blinking, Riddle turned back in the direction he’d been staring. So lost in his own thoughts, the sights and sounds and all the complicated feelings that came with them, he hadn’t properly registered the soda parlor right before his eyes until then; an ornate store with bright walls and large glass windows, one of which had been collapsed up into the roof to open up an outdoor seating area. Adorned with a blue bottle over the top of the front entrance, its pink “Drink Me!” label drifted off over the opened window. He could see the menu easily on the chalkboard, all manner of drinks and even some frozen desserts framed with cutesy doodles and patterns.

Chenya dragged him in by the arm before he could read it all.

Their drinks came in small, clear, recyclable bottles with a hand-written label listing the order attached. Riddle couldn’t stop staring. The pink tea shimmered in the sunlight like a potion, sweet as strawberries on his tongue. He kept stirring it with his straw while Chenya awaited his order.

The outdoor patio was already fairly crowded, so rather than settle down at one of the remaining umbrella-less glass tables and bake their legs in the direct sunlight, they resumed their purposeful wandering in search of a better place to sit. It didn’t take long to find one.

He didn’t recognize the park at first when Chenya pointed it out. Only after circling the playground for smaller children and cutting across a seating area did the memories flood back, the field where they used to play soccer and croquet, the trees they used to climb. His footsteps staggered. A pair of children sprinted past him and disappeared into the brush, hollering and squealing in their game.

“Join me!”

Riddle snapped out of his stupor just in time to see Chenya flop onto his back on the ground, one arm in the air to stop his drink from spilling everywhere. “I shouldn’t. I’ll get grass stains all over Trey’s clothing.” His face flushed as he said it, hit square in the noggin with the reminder that he was wearing Trey’s clothes.

“Pish-awwww, he always gets grass stains.”

“And it’s his choice to run that risk with his property. I’m not doing the same.” Instead, he claimed a seat at a nearby bench, and rolled his eyes as he watched Chenya scoot his side along the grass to lay closer. Clucking his tongue, he reached down to flick stray blades off his ear. “You’re getting yourself filthy.”

Chenya’s ear twitched, and he shook his head to dislodge the rest of the grass before settling again. With his bottle on his chest, he dragged the straw down and craned his neck to sip.

“You shouldn’t drink while lying flat like that, or else you’ll get acid reflux,” Riddle continued to chide, unable to stop the fond smile from curling the corners of his lips.

The straw was released with an audible pop. As if to prove Riddle’s point, right when Chenya opened his mouth to respond, a tiny burp came out instead and he slapped his hand over his mouth in alarm, fur standing up on end. The very next sip, he’d propped himself up on his arms.

“I did warn you.” He snorted, and went to take a sip from his own straw when his pocket vibrated, the sensation strange against his leg in such loose pants. A text from Trey.

8:47am> Have you had breakfast yet?

8:49am> Better hold your horses on that.
8:49am> Dad's insisting I make a breakfast delivery anyway.
8:49am> Where did you guys end up?

8:50am> On my way.

As he went to tuck away his phone his thumb accidentally hit the button a second time while trying to put it to sleep, waking his lock screen right back up, and he paused. A picture of the Heartslabyul hedgehogs ready for a game of croquet, tumbling all over themselves in one big spiny heap, stared back at him. Aside from the digital clock, its seconds steadily ticking away, the only thing obscuring the image was a tiny notification about the current weather. His thumb caressed the screen, nudging the time up and down a little with the movement. Of course he wouldn’t have any other messages, no missed calls; she was never given his new number when he’d changed it. But the empty screen opened up an equally cavernous pit in his stomach, one that no food nor drink had any hope of ever filling.

The phone was pocketed again, and Riddle took a deep breath. “Chenya…” he started, drawing out the name slowly, giving himself more time to back out from the topic. He didn’t take it. “Do you think I did the right thing?”

“Hmmm?”

Condensation slid down the side of his bottle, spreading into the crack between his finger and the paper label. “Leaving home, and the way I went about it.”

Another, softer rumble from Chenya, not a purr nor a growl. “I think you did something very brave.”

“But was it the right thing?”

“Who knows.” The grass beneath him rustled as he shrugged. “Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe there wasn’t even a right way to begin with. Or maybe every way was the right way.” A pause as he sipped. “Do YOU think you did the right thing?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking.” Riddle scoffed, grumbled, then sighed. His drink was set aside on the bench, and after wiping his hands off on some of the napkins stuffed in the opposite pocket, he turned his head skyward and removed the hat, letting his hair ruffle in the breeze. The blue was so vibrant, the clouds so bright. Were he at home the sight would’ve been interrupted by wooden lattice on the windows, a ruler would’ve struck his knuckles for staring at them by now. He remained silent for a long while. And then, “It was only a matter of time. Continuing to live there as things were wasn’t sustainable. I understand that,” he admitted softly, suddenly feeling like he was the one experiencing acid reflux. His eyes shut. He could visualize the iron bars joining the lattice. His mother’s disappointed frown. “But the very idea that I may never be able to make her happy again, that I’m the reason she’s upset, I…I feel so wretched just thinking about it.” What kind of monstrous son am I?

Something soft brushed up against his ankle, fur tickling under the cuffed pant leg. “If she wants what’s best for you, then she should be purroud of you.”

He hoped that would be the case. He sincerely, with every fiber of his being, hoped his choices could one day make her smile and praise him earnestly again.

But he knew her too well.

The notion didn’t crater his mood as much as he’d anticipated, oddly enough. The melancholy was there, of that he had no doubt, but voicing it aloud to Chenya excised the leaden weight that should’ve accompanied it. Peeking over, he found Chenya perfectly relaxed, sipping away at his drink as though Riddle hadn’t just coughed up a chunk of his heart onto the grass, and the sight instilled a sense of relief to fill out the space left open. Relief, and a hint of longing.

He thought back to earlier that morning, when Trey’s palm cupped his cheek and brought him close, then back further, further, to his second year when the dust had settled and they finally had a chance to talk. Trey had been so open with him, so earnest. Oh, how Riddle ached to speak with him like that again, share his worries like he’d just done with Chenya, but he wouldn’t dare impose such a burden when Trey had already been so involved. At the end of the day, even if Trey—and everyone else, he recalled—promised to support him, handling his mother was his cross to bear.

Though…someday, perhaps, he could give it another try.

Comforted by possibility, Riddle shut his eyes and basked in the warm sunlight on his face.

Chapter Text

It didn’t take long at all for Trey to arrive. Riddle just barely gulped down the final sip of his tea when he raised an arm to wave, while Chenya had long since finished and had begun to idly fill the empty bottle with blades of grass and daisies while he sunbathed. He chirruped his greeting and sat up when Trey reached them.

“Hey! Sorry to keep you waiting,” Trey called, the sunlight glinting off the lenses of his glasses and hiding his eyes as he first approached. The hand he brought up to shield his face helped, expression scrunched up in a half-squint. Riddle watched Trey’s gaze sweep over him, locking on his shirt for a second too long to be a casual glance with a hitch in his breath, before being obviously wrenched away to the bottle clutched in his grasp. “Darn. If I’d known you guys were going to Drink Me, I would’ve asked you to pick me up something.” His chuckle came a little too high pitched, ears blatantly pink in the sunlight, dropping the bag from his shoulder onto the bench.

“My apologies, it was a spur of the moment occurrence. I’ll let you know next time,” Riddle said, a little guilty at unintentionally leaving Trey out, but unable to stop his smile. Spending time with Chenya was certainly fine, but now that Trey had arrived, he felt as though a piece he hadn’t realized was missing slotted itself into place.

In a flash, Chenya clamoured up and peered over the back of the bench, going out of his way to nudge the side of Riddle’s head with his own in an affectionate bunt as he did, leaving his ear bent at a strange angle. “Whatcha got for us?”

“Breakfast sandwiches.” Pulling back the zipper on his shoulder bag, Trey revealed another, smaller thermal bag tucked away inside. From beyond the second zipper he pulled one of the sandwiches out, wound tightly in tinfoil. “I went ahead and warmed them up before I left. I’d say take your pick, but they’re all the same, so…”

Riddle accepted the first one when offered. His brow raised when, after handing one to Chenya and watching him scamper back to the flattened grass of his sunning spot, Trey pulled out a third bundle and took a seat on the bench, shoving the bag aside. “You’re eating with us? I thought you were working today.”

The sound Trey made was closer to a scoff than a laugh, but held no scorn. “I’d get an earful if I didn’t.” He began to unwrap the tinfoil. “We’d JUST finished the daily prep, and it was later than usual, so I figured I’d grab a quick bite before any customers came in. Dad caught me at the fridge—and by that, I mean he followed me—and made the ‘suggestion,’” said with his hand pausing its task to hook heavy air quotes, “that I make a special delivery and get some air. Pretty sure he just wants me out of the house for a bit.”

It didn’t take a genius to see why, after the morning they’d had. “How cunning.” He made a mental note to thank Mr. Clover privately later, and carefully peeled open his sandwich.

Crispy, flavourful, its warmth radiating down his arms and through his belly in contrast to the chill of the drink. The weather hadn’t grown too unbearably hot quite yet, but he still found a smidge of relief when the wind picked up and worked its way into the baggy openings of Trey’s loose shirt to cool him. Right around then, as he pinned his arms to his side to stop the sleeves from fluttering obnoxiously, did it occur to Riddle how…different everything was.

Slowly, he lowered the sandwich into his lap. It felt strange not having a table, or a plate, or utensils. Any napkins not tucked securely in pockets would’ve blown away. He didn’t need to get up after fifteen minutes, or push in his chair, or ask to be excused. Most strange of all, he found himself unable to confidently come up with a convincing argument for why they were specifically here; they just were. Outside eating breakfast because they could.

“What’s wrong? Do you not like it?”

Startled out of his thoughts, Riddle shook his head. “No, no, it’s delicious. It’s just…” His tongue shot out to swipe at his lip as he gathered his scattered thoughts. “At home we would have each meal at the dining table, at the same time every day without fail, and at school it would usually be within the cafeteria—with some exceptions, of course.” He smiled up at Trey, drifting back to those special moments where the lot of them would gather together and feast upon Trey’s cooking for lunch. The early weekend mornings where he’d stack the pancakes high in the kitchen and lay out a selection of fresh berries and cream to top them with. Their one and only proper dinner date the day after Halloween, during Trey’s visit back to Sage’s Island for the holiday. “But I’ve never had an entire meal outdoors without it being a part of some specific occasion.” His smile widened a fraction, softening at the edges. “I think I’d like to do this more often, while the weather is nice…”

“The table out on the back patio is always available if you ever want some sunlight.” Trey hummed. “Or we could make a thing of it. There’s actually a few places I’ve been wanting to show you. My treat.”

His heart fluttered at the prospect, sending pleasant, excited tingles down to his fingertips. “That sounds lovely. I’ll be sure to take you up on that offer when there’s an opportune time.”

Perhaps he’d sensed an opportune moment to intrude without ruining the mood, as he’d become so very good at doing, but when their conversation lulled under the crinkle of tinfoil and the crunch of sandwich toppings, Chenya suddenly purred loudly. Sitting upright properly for once, he scooted along the grass until he’d bunched himself up right between the two pairs of legs, ears wiggling in joy. “Mmmh! Your dad’s sandwiches are the best!” He nudged Trey’s knee with his elbow. His body rumbled with his purring; the vibrations against the baggy pant leg around Riddle's calf felt odd and ticklish.

Trey’s laughter came out breathy, eyes gleaming with pride even as his voice betrayed an underlying envy. “I have no idea how he does it. They’re sandwiches, it shouldn’t be hard even conceptually, but he’s shown me step by step and I can never get it right. They always spill over or get soggy if reheated. Guess it’s just one of those things I need more practice at.”

“Your father made this?” Riddle asked after he swallowed his bite, surprised. His hand still rose to cover his mouth just in case. “You mentioned previously that you make the meals in your household, so I’d assumed it was your handiwork.”

“Usually I’m the one making breakfast for everyone since they’re so busy, but I guess Dad figured he’d treat us this time.” He shrugged, voice trailing off.

Perhaps the ‘suggestion’ had been more premeditated than Riddle had assumed.

Ever the mindful one, Trey collected up their empty Drink Me bottles and tinfoil as each of them finished, wadding them all up into a big, crackly ball, and made the venture over to the nearest recycling bin to dispose of everything. Upon his return he fished his phone out to let his parents know he was coming home, and almost as if on cue, it buzzed in his hand. He rolled his eyes. “And there it is. ‘You should stay outside and enjoy the weather, we’ve got Sax and Nina here.’ Knew it was a ploy to get me out.”

“Yet you still fell for it anyway. Mayhap you intended for this all along?” Chenya purred, eyes narrowed into teasingly thin slits as he stretched.

“I can tell you right now, I wasn’t planning on getting kicked out. As for the rest, well…” He didn’t dare glance away from the screen, but Trey’s lip still quirked into a smirk before he tucked the phone back again. “Either way, it looks like you’re stuck with me for a little while. So, where are we being taken away to now?”

Riddle turned and waited for Chenya to explain. When he instead decided to roll over on all fours and begin the process of shaking the lingering grass off his body, Riddle clucked his tongue, only half-forcing his exasperation. He should've anticipated the duty falling to him by now. A hand rose to shield from the cloud of dust and fur. “We don’t know. Chenya has ideas in mind, but has opted instead for us to roam about in the hopes that they might become enticing.”

A beat passed, and Trey snorted. “...Yeah, that sounds about right.”

Admittedly, Riddle wouldn’t have minded if they’d spent the rest of the day at the park. The breeze wafting the grass in gentle waves, the distant sounds of children shouting and squealing from the playground, the greenery of it all, it soothed him in a way he hadn’t experienced in quite some time. A shame he hadn’t brought a book, or perhaps a ball to play with, though he supposed they were all too old for such games now. He hung back for a few beats even as Chenya began to saunter off to take it all in and imprint the fresh new memory alongside the rest. When he noticed Trey lingering too, watching him rather than the leaves on the trees, Riddle offered a sheepish smile and jogged to catch up.

The three of them couldn’t all fit into a line along the sidewalk anymore, so Chenya again led the charge a couple steps ahead to prevent Trey from being forced onto the decorative grass, falling into a straight line with practiced ease whenever a pedestrian came the opposite way. Conversation came and drifted naturally, allowing Riddle the time and space to window-shop. A world of a difference from trying to wrangle Ace and Deuce whenever he’d ventured out with them.

A stronger breeze ruffled the baggy clothes as he passed under a building’s looming shadow, sending the fine hairs on his arms on end, and he rubbed at the skin to chase away the chill. Unfortunately, his hands weren’t much up to the task of providing natural heat; Trey’s had always been the warmer of the two.

A powerful, sudden impulse seized him then. He glanced down towards Trey’s hand half-tucked inside his pocket, a couple fingers lazily hanging out, then up to his face, too engaged in conversation with Chenya to notice he was being observed. How easy would it have been to hook his fingers around Trey’s and fish the rest of his hand out? He felt them tingle in anticipation, drummed them against the skin of his arm. They were a couple. Holding hands was a normal couple activity when out and about. Nothing strange about it at all, so what was all this anxious fumbling?

His eyes flicked over to Chenya, watched the way he partially turned back to shoot off a quip. They had company, he began to silently chide himself. Even if Chenya had borne witness to some of their more romantic affections already (affections that by all means should’ve been private, had he not popped up) and would not have minded one wit, engaging in such a display right then would’ve been terribly rude. His mother would’ve been disgusted by such audacity. The urge to hold hands soured into a childish one, and he dropped his arms back to his sides.

Once sufficiently scolded, he drew back out of his thoughts into the surrounding world just in time to realize they were passing the library. A massive building molded into the shape of an upturned, tented book. Multiple walkways trailed up to the front steps, lined with a mixture of oak trees to provide shade and a vibrant rainbow of curling ferns for decoration. Some people had tucked themselves in the shade between two paths, books in their laps.

Right, he didn’t actually have a library card of his own. Yet another thing to apply for sometime in the future.

Staring at the towering red walls, Riddle mentally mapped out what he knew of Crimson City, both the walking route ingrained in him from childhood and what he’d gleaned from the morning’s wandering. He’d need a visual to double check, but from what he could recall the path his mother took him was indeed the most efficient way to reach the library on foot from the Clovers’ front door. Whether he’d be capable of walking that same path himself without succumbing to guilt was another matter. An icy finger of discomfort dragged down his spine at the thought, and he suppressed a shudder, turning away to wrench his thoughts back onto a more pleasant track—

Only to nearly leap a mile into the air upon locking eyes with Chenya and his 180 degree-turned head, like he was some kind of incessantly furry owl. His hands still sat as if they were threaded at the back of his head, except now they cupped his chin instead. Even Trey appeared visibly startled at the sight, having frozen a good two steps behind them both.

Not a word was said this time. It wasn’t necessary. Chenya’s eyes narrowed into pleased slits, and then he scampered off, leaving Riddle to flounder and exchange a glance with Trey before giving chase.

Well, he could scratch obtaining a library card off his to-do list.

They climbed the steps and waited for a family to exit through the sliding glass doors before they entered, and almost immediately Riddle was swept off his feet by a wave of nostalgia. His mother used to bring him here frequently as a child, usually to borrow extra lesson materials or request rare grimoires she couldn't find elsewhere. It had been…goodness, years since he'd last set foot in here with her. Or at all. The shelves still towered over him, but being able to actually see over the checkout counter as they walked in added a fresh, enticing layer of unfamiliarity.

It may not have been as grand as Night Raven College’s collection when it came to the topic of magic, but through the sheer quantity of books and resources offered, the Crimson City library was in a league of its own.

Already anticipating the inevitable, Trey asked, voice just barely above a whisper, “Meet at the checkout counter once we’re ready?”

Both Riddle and Chenya nodded. With that, they all shot off in different directions as fast as they were reasonably allowed to in a library. Riddle didn’t necessarily have a specific place in mind, letting his legs carry him to whatever shelf caught his attention first, and of course it would end up being Law. Fingers trailed along the very edge of a shelf as he walked. Most of the books he recognized, all of them already read, while the ones new to him were records and regulations and a collection of various acts and amendments passed over the years. He picked one out from the group to whet his appetite with; a more generalized overview of laws within the Queendom and their subcategories. A recent publication, too. Riddle tucked the book under his arm and moved on.

Philosophy, Rune Languages, he passed on the Adult Fiction section, though he did linger a step to scan the labels on the shelves curiously, just in case. From there he continued his weaving between the rows until he came upon the Health and Wellness section, and a small shiver of familiarity ran down his arms as he spotted the familiar reading nook tucked between two shelves in the center of the row. He used to sit there patiently while waiting for his mother to finish her search, legs dangling off the chair, racing to read as many titles from the spines across from him before she ushered him away. It looked so much smaller now. Felt smaller too as he paused, with only the slightest hesitation, to lower himself into the seat. His feet touched the floor. He couldn’t help but smile.

Casting his gaze to the titles across, something caught his eye, and both the chair and his stack of selected books on the table beside it were abandoned. Only then he realized he hadn’t brought his pen. Well, it should be fine for the short term. Using a spell, he pulled the blue book out where it sat above his head to properly read the cover.

Attached to a Parent Who Doesn’t Exist

Identifying unhealthy family relationships, and how to heal

Riddle’s heart leapt like the book had lunged at him. His throat grew thick, breakfast suddenly sitting heavy in his stomach. Instinct told him to shove the book right back where he’d taken it and banish it from his memory; impulse had him opening it to read the inside cover.

…unpacking the complicated feelings towards your parents, the hope for behavioral change, and many of the ways in which abuse…

He shut the book. His heartbeat rang in his ears. Helpless, afraid, the image of his mother wrenching her hand away from him in disgust ensnared him like a trap, leaving him unsteady. He hadn’t realized how fiercely he’d begun to sweat until he exhaled hard, and his own breath bouncing off the cover back at him cooled his clammy face. He shook his head. No, no, she didn’t…she wasn’t like that. Her reasons had been justified then.

Still, he couldn’t bring himself to put the book down right away. His fingers buzzed with pins and needles, trying to brush the sensation off as a side-effect of blot. It took a deep breath for him to finally send the book back where it belonged, and as it left his hands, he couldn’t help but feel as though he’d just released his grip on something vital. Even after he collected his books and turned to leave, his gaze lingered on the spine, making a subconscious note of the shelf and call number.

This was enough, Riddle decided as he wiped his face off on his handkerchief. Before another category could lure him in with its siren song of promised knowledge, he marched his way right up to the checkout counter. To his surprise, he was the first one there.

An old beastwoman tapped away at a computer inside a separate room at the end of the counter, her large, floppy rabbit ears tied loosely under her chin like a headscarf. She barely even noticed him through the glass window, too occupied with her work. It felt rude to do so, but he did still need a card; Riddle picked up the tiny mallet from its slot and rang the hanging desk bell once.

“I’ll be with you in just a moment!” The old lady called out, her accent thick and familiar.

He set his books aside, clicked the mallet back in place, and waited until she kicked off from under the desk and rolled her chair over, the sound of wheels clacking over the linoleum tiles sending another splatter of nostalgia zinging across his senses. “Excuse me, I’d like to sign up for a library card,” he said as the librarian snatched the edge of the counter to stop her chair from continuing its trajectory into the wall.

Rather than nod and fish out the form, the librarian’s face went on something of a journey; surprise, curiosity, then her eyes narrowed and she adjusted her big, round glasses and leaned forward in what came close to recognition. Riddle’s cheeks flamed pink, and his eyes darted to the books.

“Rosehearts?”

His heart stuck.

“Riddle Rosehearts, is that you?” The librarian’s eyes went wide, quickly followed by the rest of her expression, transforming into one of genuine joy rather than mockery until her beaming outshone the fluorescent lights hanging above them. “I barely recognized you! Oh, you’ve grown so much since we last saw you!”

It was Riddle’s turn to stare at her, fighting to keep from gaping like a dying fish as the flickers of his own recognition caught light. No wonder he hadn’t placed her sooner; her voice had begun to atrophy with age, her ears had drooped and greyed, and he’d never seen more than looming glances of her whenever she leaned over the counter to wave hello on their way out. The sound of her chair’s wheels was the best he had to go off of. His smile no longer became forced. “It’s been a long time, for certain. My studies have kept me quite busy.”

“I can imagine. Seemed like your mother was determined to teach you everything in existence!” Chuckling, the librarian reached behind the counter and slid him a form. “What are you up to these days? Still working your way towards becoming a human encyclopedia?”

Riddle hummed as he reached for the ballpoint pen off to the side. “Something to that effect, I suppose. As of right now though, I’m preparing to attend Crims.”

“You’re going into law?! Oh, you could’ve fooled me! You were always so quiet as a wee lad, never would've pictured you standing in a courtroom. Or a doctor’s office, for that matter.”

His lips pursed, running through his options on how to respond. “I have Night Raven College to thank for that. My time there has been…enlightening.” Striking down the last curve of his signature, he passed the form back over.

“Bit late for me to say it, but congratulations on getting accepted there! Your mother always mentioned how she’d wanted you to attend. Either there, or Royal Sword.” She plucked it from his hand, and just as she had before, kicked her legs off the back of the counter to send the chair careening into the side room. A few strokes on the keyboard later, and she was back, a card perched between two of her fingers. “Sorry ‘bout that. Let’s get these checked out for you.” Her hands worked deftly, scanning the inside covers like a well-oiled machine. “How IS mum doing, by the by?”

Ah, the dreaded question. He could feel his muscles locking up, breakfast churning uncomfortably as the ghost of her screaming from the sidewalk returned to haunt his ears. “She’s doing fine,” he managed before his voice could dry up entirely.

If the librarian had noticed his distress, she didn’t make it obvious, nodding away. “Good to hear. Been an age since we last saw her, too. I’d started to worry that your whole family had packed up and flown the coop.” With the last book scanned, she then checked his card, and plopped it on top of the stack. She pushed it across the counter for him to take, and folded her hands with a bright, pleasant grin. “And here we are! Due date’s on the receipt, but I don’t need to tell you that. Enjoy yourself!”

He almost sighed in relief. “Thank you—”

“Ah! Hold on, hold on.” Suddenly, she ducked down behind the counter, and re-emerged with another small card and an almost comically massive roll of…stickers? “You never got to have one of these, did you? Your mother always refused to let you.”

“What is it?” Blinking, Riddle leaned forward to inspect the card.

“A sticker card! Every time you check out books, you get a sticker, and if you fill it up you get a prize! Could be a free book of choice from a selection, or a CD, or something from almost any other service we offer here. Over the summer we partner with the ice cream shop down the street and give out free cones. Encourages folks to keep reading.” She wiggled the end of the sticker roll towards him, making an encouraging “eeeh?” sound.

It reminded him of the promotions Sam would host from time to time, or the membership card Azul pushed for the Mostro Lounge during their second year. He wasn’t sure how often he’d be able to visit the Crimson City library, especially once he’d graduated from NRC and moved properly into the dorms at Crims, but he had to admit the prospect enticed him. If he remained diligent about his reading, perhaps he’d be able to claim at least one prize before then.

“Very well. I’ll take it.”

“Excellent!” He’d expected her to put the sticker on for him, so it came as a surprise when she ripped one of the squares off and handed it to him with the card instead. For a few, awkward seconds, all he did was stare at her. Then he stared at the sticker. Lips twisting into a shape resembling a polite smile, he set everything down and peeled off the sticker. Everything about doing so felt juvenile. A part of him preened regardless as he smoothed the fluffy mome rath out in the square with his thumb.

Pleased, the librarian grinned, and he returned it with a nod and a quiet “Thank you,” as he slotted the cards into his wallet and collected up his books to leave. Upon turning he spotted both Trey and Chenya approaching with empty hands.

“Quite a stack you’ve got there,” Trey commented. “Ready to go?”

“Are neither of you checking anything out?” Riddle asked, tilting his head.

“Nah, I’ve still got a cookbook at home I’m not done with.”

Chenya pouted dramatically. “The DVD I wanted is gone.”

“You should put it on hold so you'll know when it's available,” Riddle suggested, casting a glance back, but the librarian had already launched herself back to her computer.

“Nah, it’s more fun this way. You’ll never know whether it’s there or not until you see for yourself!”

“Sometimes, I question your logic.” He huffed a small chuckle. “Anyway, yes, I believe I’ve about wrapped up here. Let’s be off.”

As they made to leave, a soft tapping sound had him glancing over his shoulder. The librarian waved through the side room’s window, fingers waggling. Her voice was muffled behind the glass. “Come back soon!”

He waved with his free hand in return. It only occurred to him once he descended the front stairs and set foot on the pavement that she’d neglected to comment on his attire.

About halfway down the center walkway, in a particularly shaded patch where sunlight struggled to filter between the leaves, Trey excused himself to the side and plucked his phone from his pocket to check the time. “I should probably head back. They gave me a break, but I feel bad leaving my parents when they’d originally had me on schedule today.”

“I think I’ll turn in as well, then.” Riddle adjusted his hold on the books, hefting them higher under his arm. “I still have some work I’d like to complete sooner rather than later. But this was a fine outing.” A smile was cast over to Chenya. “Your methods leave much to be desired, but I can overlook it once. Thank you for the opportunity.

Twirling his wrists in the air, Chenya set his hands behind his head, his grin so wide it threatened to pop right off his face. “Why, thank you! And thus, we finally have discovered our destination.”

The heaviness returned to his gut. Gradually at first, then all at once, sinking like a stone as he inhaled. He hadn’t planned for this, but if they were to head straight back, then… “Actually…before we do, there’s one more stop I’d like to make.”

“Oh?” They asked in unison.

Riddle licked his lip, then began to worry it between his teeth, and cast his gaze further down the street. “The police station.”

Chapter Text

In and out, quick as a whip. That was what he'd intended, reluctant to let the moment stain their outing, regardless of how important it was. It didn't quite go that way, a trend Riddle was rapidly growing tired of.

The police were receptive, but at the same time surprisingly flippant about the situation. Like they themselves were also beleaguered by having the whole debacle drag on as it was. A part of him was compelled to comment; it would’ve saved them all a lot of time and grief had they simply requested to talk to him during their visit, and that they neglected to do so felt like a dereliction of their duty, but he held his tongue. It wasn’t his place to lecture the authorities.

No, he wasn’t kidnapped, coerced, or being held against his will in any way; he was a legal adult, moved out by choice, and could provide evidence if necessary. They appreciated the statement and assured him nothing more would come of the incident, and that was that. Or it should’ve been.

“She’s very worried about you.”

“You should call your mother and speak with her.”

“She’s your family, she’s only doing what she thought was best.”

Little comments and suggestions peppered into the conversation, whittling away at his resolve until guilt had overtaken it almost entirely. By the time they left, Riddle's cheek had begun to prickle again. The three of them parted ways in the patisserie doorway, with Chenya quipping that he’d kept his promise as “before lunch is definitely before dinner,” though the air between them wasn't quite as jovial as earlier.

The outing had truly been lovely, but his mother’s presence hung over the memory like a thick storm cloud. Not even shucking off Trey’s clothing in favour of something more comfortable could clear the air of it. As soon as he had his arms in more form-appropriate sleeves, he cracked open one of the books he'd borrowed to keep his mind occupied, a primer on advanced alchemy utilizing homegrown plants. Hours ticked away in blissfully uneventful silence. Night fell swiftly, and the knowledge that the Clover Patisserie was safe from any legal trouble, at least for the time being, was enough of a comfort to grant him rest. Not a full night’s rest—he still found himself awake at two in the morning staring up at the shadowed ceiling, something he (understandably) wasn't alone in when he tried to turn over and Trey adjusted the blanket for him—but it was a dreamless one. That was the most he could ask for.

The following morning Riddle attempted to forge something of a new routine for himself out of the ashes of his old one, eager for a fresh beginning. Prepare for the day, iron out his clothes, breakfast (courtesy of Trey), followed by doing the dishes even though he hadn’t been integrated on the chore chart yet. It was the least he could do. From there he refilled the kettle from an earlier clamour for coffee he overheard while ironing, and exchanged a small, parting peck on the lips with Trey as he tied up his apron.

“Hopefully today will prove to be less…eventful,” Riddle said as they drew away.

Trey smiled, though his brow was pinched with threads of anxiety.

With tea and a coaster in hand, Riddle retreated upstairs. How strange it felt, he noted, to have no pressing matters on a weekday. Outside of finishing up his paperwork and household chores, there was no schedule to follow, no classes nor private lessons nor summer programs to attend—

The realization hit him so suddenly he nearly dropped the mug. His mother probably did sign him up for some kind of summer program. She always did every year, without fail. Just because he hadn’t been told ahead of time didn’t mean she’d arbitrarily changed her mind, especially with his fourth year internships on the horizon. A knot had started forming in his guts at the thought of her dismally contacting each program and withdrawing him, heartbroken and disappointed, but then something much worse coalesced beneath it and caused his stomach to drop entirely; more likely than not, she hadn’t withdrawn him under the assumption that she would’ve wrangled him home by the time they started. There could be a list somewhere with his name on it, and not attending would be a terrible reflection of character, especially now that he was independent.

Riddle carefully set his mug down on the coaster before all but flinging himself across the room to grab his phone. He unlocked it, then froze with his thumb over the green call button.

Calling his mother was out of the question. No matter how he approached her the exchange wouldn’t end well, to put it simply, and then there was the matter of her acquiring his phone number. If possible he wished to avoid that. He chose not to share it for a reason.

The next option was calling his father, which was…better in some ways, yet worse in others. Less likely to raise his voice, for one, and getting to the point without dredging through all the flaws in his choice to leave was much more possible, but it would still open a line of communication. If he even picked up in the first place.

Worth a shot, he supposed.

But as he went to enter his father’s number, an unsettling realization made itself known: Did…he even know his number? When was the last time he’d heard or seen it? He didn’t even have it in his contacts, double, triple, quadruple checking to make sure he hadn’t somehow erroneously labelled him differently, but it wasn’t there. Wracking his brain for the better part of twenty minutes also proved fruitless, constantly drifting back to his mother’s previous cell phone number before it was damaged at work, or his mother’s personal office phone, or his mother’s old clinic. Always back to her.

Thin, polished fingers of temptation tried to weave themselves through his hair, and Riddle shook his head to dispel them, pocketing his phone. His father must’ve left a public contact number somewhere. He cast a quick, cursory glance further down the hallway as he left (Nina’s door was open, Saxton’s shut) and made his way downstairs to the living room. The walls weren’t necessarily thin, but he could pick out distant, idle chatter from the storefront as he passed the dining room.

Logic dictated that one would keep a phone book within arm’s reach of the phone, and sure enough he fished out more than one massive book from the cabinet beneath its stand. Careful not to bend or rip the delicate pages, he determined which one was more relevant, then began to flip through fist-sized chunks until he came upon R. He didn’t even need to see the full number listed under Rosehearts to know it was their home phone. Below that, two more numbers, one each for both wife and husband, and that was where disappointment and frustration made itself known; his mother’s number was her business line, which he knew at a glance, meaning the unfamiliar one listed for his father would likely be the same.

Of course it wouldn't be simple.

Breathing his frustration out on his breath, he pulled out his phone again, thumb again teasing the clock on the lock screen. Clogging up the business line with a personal matter broke decorum, and was terribly obnoxious aside. Especially when he had another potential means of getting the information he needed. His mother’s number was right there.

Committing the number to memory, he shut the book, returned them to their spot in the exact order he’d found them, and marched back up to Trey’s room, where he paced a full two circles before the fingers made themselves known again. Again, he nipped his temptation in the bud.

When he dialed the number and heard it ring rather than hand him the low drone of the busy tone, a wave of relief he hadn’t been anticipating hit him with such force that he had to sit down on the bed. At first he wondered if his father would actually pick up or not, then dashed the thought as a silly one. It would more likely than not be a receptionist fielding his call. An unfortunate outcome, but leaving behind a message and a later attempt at contact would easily suffice. So he waited. And waited. And just when he expected to hear the robotic voicemail, the line clicked. He was met with silence.

“Hello?” he tried cautiously.

“You have reached the voicemail of—”

He groaned aloud and pulled his phone back to glare at it. The delayed, standard script being parroted through the speaker mocked him for getting his hopes up. A receptionist would’ve been more welcome.

“Unfortunately, the mailbox is currently full. Please call back, and try again later.”

Terrific. He couldn’t even leave a message!

Riddle cut the call and wrestled back the urge to hurl his phone into the nearest wall, rubbing the bridge of his nose. A waste of time and effort. The notion threatened to splash him with stagnant grief over his father’s absence, run through and through and through so often that it had almost become boring, but he still had a task to accomplish. He opened his contacts and stared down at his mother’s entry. His pulse picked up.

She’s very worried about you. You should call your mother and speak with her. She’s your family, she’s only doing what she thought was best.

The police’s urging echoed through his mind, filling it with a thick, heady fog of longing and guilt. They were right, he shouldn’t have waited so long to talk to her. He wasn’t so naive to believe that she wouldn’t still be upset, but…

Fingers closed around his forehead, and he hit the green call button with a thick gulp, hand trembling ever so slightly as he brought his phone to his ear. His heart beat in his throat. Chills ran down his arms with every ring, giving him goosebumps. He was so excited. He was so scared.

The line clicked, and his heart stuck, half-anticipating another defeat via robotic voicemail.

“Hello? Who is this?” Calm, poised, serious.

He could’ve cried in relief. It was the most pleasant he'd ever heard her.

Stand straight, mouth wide, speak firmly. “Hello, Mother. I—”

“YOUNG MAN, DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU'VE DONE?!”

So much for having a stiff upper lip. He pulled the phone away from his ear with a wince. It was amazing she'd even let him get his greeting out.

Thus, the onslaught began. Riddle had only ever heard her so furious twice, and while both incidents continued to haunt his memory frequently, that didn’t mean he was prepared to face it again, even if he’d thought otherwise. His chest rapidly grew thick and twisted in pain, and his eyes prickled with the threat of tears. He kept the receiver angled away from his mouth so the audible clicking of his throat every time he tried to swallow around the forming lump, and the deeper breaths that followed every attempt, wouldn’t be obvious. He’d missed her voice so much, but why? Why did it have to be like this?

He couldn't interrupt her. It would've been incredibly disrespectful. So he waited for a pause in her ranting to slip a word in edgewise, only to get cut off with a violent admonishment for interrupting her anyway. Even when he counted three whole seconds of silence. Even when he watched the clock to make absolutely sure he wasn't counting too fast.

At one point he changed tack, the guilt and longing too choking to ignore any longer. He needed forgiveness like his body needed blood. “I love y—”

“BE QUIET!” No dice. He wasn’t sure why he’d thought that would work.

Watching the clock turned out to be a terrible mistake. He hadn’t been able to do that previously, and quickly realized what a blessing that turned out to be. Each second felt like a minute, each minute an hour, to the point where he began to wonder if the clock in Trey’s room was actually operating slower than it should’ve been. An hour passed of non-stop screaming. It felt like six. The thought of continuing on for four more hours—give or take, she always seemed to begin losing steam around hour five—each one its own separate eternity of watching the seconds tick in the hopes of finding an opening, made him feel like screaming.

Another half hour, and then, the moment he'd been waiting for.

She mentioned summer courses.

It was almost lost within the stream of her lecture. Riddle stood up from the bed so fast it almost made him dizzy, heart leaping like he’d missed a step on the stairs. At once he returned to the desk, fumbled for a pen, a pencil, anything. “Where are they being held?” he forced in as soon as she’d paused, even if it meant enduring retaliation.

“DO NOT INTERRUPT ME!” Her voice peaked and partially cut off as her phone’s receiver struggled to handle it.

“I’m sorry, mother.” The apology was mostly a reflex. He gnawed his lower lip and pressed on. “But I really need to know.”

“For what? You’ve thrown your life away, so what does it matter?”

“I plan on attending them.”

“So you’ve come to your senses and will return home?” The first sentence since her greeting that hadn’t been filled with venom, but was still sharp enough to cut.

Riddle took a deep breath. “No, but—”

“Then there’s no point in telling you! How would you ever make it to The Looking-Glass on time? I suspect you’ll skip on them too once you know. All you’ve ever been naturally good at is running away.”

He’d been so focused on jotting down the slipped name that the comment caught him off guard, stealing the air from his lungs as though he’d been stabbed in the chest. It jolted through his body like lightning, and left his skin numb and tingling just the same. The pen slipped from his grasp and clattered on the desk. His arm went with it, a dull pain blooming from where the bone of his forearm collided with the edge. It was nothing compared to the cold, sharp agony as he felt the blood draining and pooling in his feet from the wound she'd opened on his heart, seconds old yet already festering and threatening sepsis.

“How could you say that…?”

Riddle didn’t intend on saying it out loud. His mouth had moved of its own accord, his voice distant and foreign to his own ears.

And his mother didn’t acknowledge it. Too busy ranting away about her lack of control.

He was plummeting. The carpet might as well have caved in and took him with it. He held no strength to fight it. His knees almost gave out on him, and it was only by a miracle that he managed to lower himself onto the chair without missing. The room tumbled around him. His body flashed scalding hot and ice cold in rapid waves. Bile rose in his throat.

He needed air.

Entirely of its own accord, a subconscious survival instinct driving him, Riddle’s body heaved itself up out of the chair and dragged unsteady legs over to the window, free hand flicking the latch and pushing it up until he could stick his head out. He gasped, a man breaching the surface of the ocean during a storm, catching a mix of oxygen and murky water that threatened to drown him. Then he did it again, and again, until his brain managed to get one hand back on the wheel and he could swallow the acid on his tongue.

His body slackened, any comfort found through the window was fleeting. Leaning heavily on the sill, he let his head drop, and his gaze went with it past the decorative plants down to the patio below. Through the misery in his chest, he felt a pang of disappointment echo through; a drop from that height would only be enough to send him to the emergency room, more likely than not. Maybe the roof—

Sudden, frozen shock liquefied his organs and made them drop, and with a gasp Riddle violently shoved himself away from the window, stumbling until his back hit Trey’s dresser. He stared at the window in sheer horror as if it had tried to physically attack him. Time had stopped entirely, the continuous drone of his mother’s voice fading into distant background noise. When he raised the phone back to his ear, his hand shook violently.

“I’m sorry, Mother, but I have to go,” he forced out through the tiny hole of his throat, practically a squeak. He wasn’t sure if she’d even heard him. He tapped the End Call button anyway.

The cell phone hit the floor with a dull thud. Riddle followed it. He couldn’t breathe, panic fluttering between his ribs with each frantic gasp. His entire body had grown frigid inside and out, damp with sweat. The room tilted on its axis. It was too cramped, the knob of a dresser drawer digging into his back, the walls steadily closing in to trap him in a tiny box, and he balled up on himself so he could fit, fists balled against his sternum, his heart hammering so hard it physically moved his hands with each beat. Steel bars pressed on his sides, caging him in, locking him up where he belonged. No hope of running away.

Something scalding and wet hitting his hand made him look down. He half expected to see black, or maybe red; instead, his clear tears began to weave down around his knuckles. The change in temperature was enough to break the freefall of his thoughts, and when he looked back to the window, he found the room exactly as it had been an hour and a half ago. Don’t leave the windows open, his conscience reminded him through the gap left behind, and even though it felt as though his body was actively about to collapse into gelatin at any moment, Riddle climbed to his feet, shuffled over, and shut the window with a jerky, forceful slam. Locked it. Yanked the drapes together. Then his legs really did collapse, sending him back to the floor, arms hanging up in the air from where they still clutched the curtains as if they could offer him salvation.

Riddle shut his eyes, rested his forehead against the wall, and agonized over his own inability to wake up from his nightmares.

He didn’t know how much time had passed before he managed something resembling a full breath of air. He didn’t dare look back at the clock to find out. His tea had gone cold though, the mug chilly to the touch. Surrounding him, dancing in the edges of his senses, the house had practically come alive with distant thumps and creaks and voices as its residents went about their day. A stark difference from the lonely silence he'd grown up with, another reminder this wasn't his home. Whether it was a comforting one or not, he couldn't tell. Sighing, he stared at his phone for a few minutes, expecting it to come alive in his unsteady hand as his mother tried to call back to deride him for cutting their conversation (if it could be called that) short so curtly. He didn’t know if the feeling in his stomach was relief or dread when she didn’t. There were a great many things he couldn’t be sure of right then.

It worked out in a sense; his eyes fell to where he’d scribbled down the name of the institution, the end of the S marred with a blotchy streak from when he’d released the pen. In the end, he’d gotten what he called for. The cost had been much too high, though.

Riddle didn’t have the ability to go back downstairs for the phone book. Not yet. The very idea of setting foot beyond the bedroom door repelled him. Instead, he used his phone to search up the contact information necessary. Looking at the screen made his eyes hurt. Just like with his father, his call went to voicemail, though he successfully left a message with his name, inquiries, and availability for a callback. His voice had gone hoarse as though he'd been the one screaming. Once his call was completed, he gave his phone one last longing look, then flicked it behind him like a flying disc, the slightest bit relieved when he heard it hit the comforter on the bed rather than some hard piece of furniture, if only because it didn’t risk damaging Trey’s property.

For what felt like hours (but was probably only a few minutes, if his previous flawed perception of time was any indication) Riddle sat slumped at the desk, gaze a million miles beyond the wall, his mother’s scorn repeating over and over like a broken record. He likely would’ve actually stayed there for hours sniffling and hiccuping in despair had his skull not throbbed, and the frustration it instilled was enough to get him moving again. Kneading his temple to chase away the throes of a stress headache, Riddle returned to the papers he’d abandoned on Trey’s desk and set them back aside in favour of updating his planner. A quick review and re-organization of his daily schedule and to-do list always brought him back on task.

If all he was good at was running away according to her, then fine. He’d just run away from this, too. Anything to live up to her expectations.

Something had happened. Trey didn’t know what, but he had an inkling. When it came to his mood, Riddle was an open book; his heart on his sleeve, earnest and blunt, it was impossible to miss when he was rankled (almost impossible, as Trey had come to learn. The depths of Riddle's anguish still came back to worry away at him from time to time.) He ate dinner slowly, as if he’d had little appetite, and picked at his dessert before storing it away in the fridge.

Riddle barely looked at him when Trey finally asked what was up, his answer firm but his voice thin; he refused to talk about whatever so clearly bothered him, even after some gentle prodding, and so Trey left him to his own devices. If Riddle decided he wanted to talk, he'd come upon it himself.

With Riddle dominating the general space around the desk, Trey lounged on the bed as he flipped through the magazine in search of interesting recipes. Most of them were following fads, as to be expected, and didn't instill much confidence as something fun to make OR eat. The last thing he needed right then was tips on how to cut calories. Really, he was beginning to wonder why he hadn't just left it with the rest of the paper recycling.

The mattress vibrated, and he dug around in the sheets with one hand for his phone. On the lock screen was a message from Cater.

7:38pm> Ok ok ik this is super late bc I was busy w/ stuff ALL WEEKEND but like
7:38pm> Sooooooo? o3o
7:38pm> How’d it go??
7:38pm> I’d ask Riddle but uhhhh. Yanno. Don’t wanna blow cover ┬┴┤_•)

Trey glanced up from his phone towards Riddle’s back, taking a moment to watch him while away the hours at the desk. He seemed to be doing better than earlier, though the way his cheek rested upon the palm of his hand was telling of how deep his exhaustion ran. Lifting up his phone, Trey silently snapped a photo and sent it in reply to Cater. It’d explain the situation better than he ever could.

7:42pm> LOL of course he’d be studying
7:42pm> Sucks it didn’t work out tho :(
7:42pm> Prolly for the best but yk what I mean

7:43pm> No mom?

7:45pm> :/
7:45pm> :3c I got this

Seconds later his phone buzzed in his hand, a notification from a different chat popping up over the top of the text thread.

Cater
7:49pm> Aight it’s been long enough hw we all holdin up ✧⁺⸜(･ ᗜ ･ )⸝⁺✧

Their personal group chat, recreated after abandoning the repurposed Spelldrive Investigation thread shortly before Trey and Cater started their fourth years, under the guise of new beginnings. It felt fitting, if a little cheesy. The phone on the nightstand next to him buzzed as well, a loud, audible rumble against the wood.

Riddle whipped around sharply, a wild sort of fear flashing through his wide-eyed expression. It quickly softened into a more general trepidation as he gnawed on his lower lip, clearly at war with himself over whether he should check it or not. A wary animal.

The sight made Trey’s heart hurt. He decided to help him along. “It’s from Cater.” He held up his own phone as an example.

Almost instantly Riddle appeared to relax. Not entirely, his hands kept clenching and unclenching from anxious fists, and his jaw remained tight, but the rest of his body slumped back into the chair with a sigh through his nose before he finally got up and approached. There was the slightest hint of hesitation as he reached for his phone. For the first time since they’d parted that morning, Trey watched as Riddle managed a tiny, weak smile.

“It certainly took him long enough,” Riddle mused quietly. Then, as if they’d heard him, a message from Ace made both of their phones buzz, and again when Deuce appeared moments later.

Ace
7:51pm> dude im already so BORED
7:52pm> was gonna go check out this cricket game but a rabid gopher or smth tore up the field so they cancelled

Deuce
7:52pm> How do you know it was a gopher?

Cater
7:52pm> XD rip

Ace
7:53pm> idk couldve been a mole
7:53pm> the field was sol why does it matter what did it
7:53pm> looking for your extended family or smtn?

Deuce
7:53pm> shut the heck up [Edited 7:53pm]

Ace
7:54pm> yo you seeing this riddle??
7:54pm> you have read receipts on i know you saw that

Deuce
7:54pm> Oh wait right did it go okay?

Ace
7:54pm> yea hows the teapot tyrant?

Riddle’s smile faded, mouth twisting into something tight and wretchedly sad for all of a beat before he pulled it into a thin line.

“You don’t have to tell them about it right now,” Trey offered, sitting up on the edge of the bed. Ready to catch him if needed.

But Riddle inhaled deep and shook his head. “No, I will. I don’t…” he paused, wrestled with the thought a little more before finishing. “I’d rather not make them worry.” That weak smile returned, but it was forced. Riddle’s thumbs tapped out a message, one Trey didn’t check even though his screen lit up from where it had fallen back into an idle sleep, then set the phone back on the bedside table and took a seat next to Trey. His hand found Trey’s, and Trey quickly threaded their fingers together in a show of solidarity.

After a few moments of silence, Riddle inhaled, and what followed wasn’t what Trey expected. “My mother signed me up for summer courses at The Looking-Glass Academy. I intend on going.”

A new development; if Riddle had known earlier, he would've already long since brought it up and prepared for it. Which meant that, more likely than not, he'd had some form of contact with his mother. The worst-case scenario, and the one Trey had expected all along when he first walked in and found Riddle resting his forehead against his folded hands. Disappointment sagged Trey’s expression. “Oh. Is…it mandatory?” He immediately felt stupid for asking.

Riddle shook his head. “It’s not. I could withdraw if I choose to. But I want to show my mother that I’m capable of managing such things on my own.”

I don’t think this’ll convince her. He kept the thought to himself. “Alright, well…guess it’s a good thing we’re getting you some new clothes soon.” Trey tried to smile, hoping to inject a silver lining for them both.

“Yeah…” Riddle seemed to drift away for a moment, before abruptly snapping back to himself like a rubber band. “I’ll still require a place to stay, if this arrangement is alright. The Academy doesn’t have lodgings for students over the summer.”

“Of course!” A smidge of relief at most, but he’d gladly take it. His smile didn’t feel as forced. “Heck, I bet Dad’ll be happy to give you a ride there and back if you need it.”

Reeling back, aghast, Riddle yanked himself free to place his hand on his chest. “I couldn’t possibly bother him with such a thing!”

“Then you’d better be ready to shoot him down when he offers.”

This time Riddle’s sigh was one of defeat, and he almost flopped into Trey’s hold with a dramatic pout. Trey squeezed him close, and ran his thumb along his bicep when the pout became a genuine frown. It didn’t feel like enough. It never felt like enough. So he dropped his head against Riddle’s and murmured, “It’ll be okay,” as if the words alone could make it true.

Chapter Text

Just as Trey had warned, Mr. Clover did indeed offer to drive him to his courses upon learning about them the following day. Riddle tried to reassure that he needn’t worry about it, but Mr. Clover in turn insisted it was fine, and before he knew it he found himself accepting the offer, resistance whittled down by the unflinching good cheer. He successfully fought back the urge to shove Trey when he turned and met his grin.

The rest of Tuesday dragged by in a blurry, grey haze. Clouds drifted in to blot out the sun. Sleep had done nothing to dull the pain. Briefly Riddle considered trying fresh air again, but he couldn’t bring himself to look out the window. He couldn’t bring himself to look at it, either. His phone, though? Oh, that he could certainly look at, staring until his eyes went dry, waiting for it to ring, but Mother never called him back. It left him terribly anxious, anticipating what might possibly come next. What was she doing? What was she feeling? He warred over calling her to apologize instead, but his fingers wouldn’t let him.

By the time Wednesday had arrived, he'd…somewhat recovered, though “recovered” felt like too strong of a word to describe it. Repressed? Compartmentalized? Ran away with his ears covered, hoping against hope that the screaming in his head would stop? Something to that effect. An unhealthy choice, as he’d been brutally reminded again and again, but necessary to avoid inflicting a foul mood on the others during their shopping trip, especially when Mrs. Clover was kind enough to give them a ride. Peeling back the gauze and scraping away any painful infection could come another time.

It started raining in the wee hours of the morning, and grew into quite the late-spring downpour as Riddle set the final plate from breakfast in the drying rack beside the sink. He paused to listen to the racket beyond the closed curtains. “Fitting, I suppose…” he mused grimly under his breath, then shoved the thought into a deep, overstuffed crevasse with the rest of his misery.

Trey was balancing a small stack of hats when Riddle returned to the bedroom, lips pursing and twisting as he held up a ball cap patterned with flames, paused, reconsidered, and plopped it back onto the rack from whence it came. “Do you need to borrow an umbrella? We’ve got an excess downstairs,” he offered without looking, occupied with his reflection in a small stand mirror.

“I have my own, thank you.” Sitting on the edge of the bed, Riddle dragged his suitcase closer to fish the umbrella out, then felt around the very bottom of it until something cold and metal rattled loose against his fingers. For the briefest moment, dread crept up his neck, only to breathe a heavy sigh of relief when he pulled the abnormally fat coin purse from his bag and found the zipper still tightly shut.

The sound was enough to pique Trey’s curiosity, and he turned between trying on hats to look. “What’s that?”

“My savings.” Opening the coin purse revealed a wad of thaumarks tucked away inside, and a bulging interior pocket. Riddle began to finger through the bills to ensure everything was accounted for. “I set aside every sorcent I could spare for personal finances and necessities as part of the plan. Since summer residence is no longer a concern, those funds can be used towards clothing,” he explained.

“You kept it all on hand?” Trey couldn’t help but ask.

Riddle nodded. “My parents have access to my bank account,” he said, a tad bit quieter.

“Oh. That, uh, that makes sense.”

It was still such a strange thing to consider, being without his parents’ financial backing. Of course he planned and budgeted for such a thing, applied for scholarships, discussed and secured avenues for funding his fourth year should the worst happen, but up until then the possibility of it truly occurring never crossed his mind. He held his entire monetary worth in his hands. The weight suddenly felt worryingly light, yet at the same time dragged down his wrists as though it had doubled.

“Are you boys ready?” Mrs. Clover called from downstairs and pulled Riddle from his thoughts.

He zipped up the notion inside the purse with the rest of his money, and tucked it safely away with his wallet as Trey finally and frantically settled on a hat. Rather than exit through the front door, the three of them brought their shoes to the side, and made a mad dash to the SUV parked in the back of the alley.

“Thank you for driving us,” Riddle said as he slipped into the middle-left seat and fished for the belt. His mother had a car, though he rarely ever watched her drive it, let alone been inside himself. The few times he had, there had always been some kind of pristine, plastic scent lined with something artificially sweet lingering in the air. The Clover's family car smelled like it was actually used by people, and sweet in a way more akin to sugar than cleaning chemicals.

Mrs. Clover waved her hand in the mirror. “You're very welcome! I was looking for an excuse to get out of the house today anyway, even in this weather.”

Their first stop was picking up Chenya. To spare Trey from the risk of incurring motion sickness, Riddle was the one to text him to let him know they were on the way, and lingered in his contacts as he awaited a response. Still no word from Mother. Swallowing down a sigh, he settled his phone screen-down on his lap, and it quickly occurred as they pulled out of the alleyway that he didn’t actually know where Chenya lived. Close by, for certain. He supposed he was about to find out.

About a block and a half south from the Clover Patisserie, the streets became more densely packed with trees and other foliage, and the houses more spaced out from each other. Narrow pathways cut between each building and fence, with aging wooden signs dictating which way led where. The area was regarded as something of an unofficial retirement community, as older citizens often relocated there in their twilight years to enjoy the natural greenery—or so Riddle had heard. He’d only ever been in the district once, accompanying his mother on a rare, unorthodox house call when she still refused to let him out of her sight.

Chenya’s home stood out the minute Riddle set eyes on it. He didn’t even have to second-guess; if the bright purple roof wasn’t enough of a giveaway, twin triangular windows poking out from the top like a cat’s attentive ears, then the absolutely massive red-barked tree taking up what would’ve been a backyard, towering over the quaint wooden home, definitely sealed the deal. An eccentric home befitting an eccentric beastman.

No sooner than he sent the message letting Chenya know they’d arrived did he spot one of the curtains rustling, a shock of purple hair peeking out behind the glass before vanishing again. Mrs. Clover must’ve seen it too, as the door beside him unlocked and began to slide open with a soft ker-chunk! Just as the rain began to break the open threshold of the car, the house’s front door opened, shut, and suddenly a purple bullet rocketed in, jostling Riddle’s seat with a startled yelp as it scrambled desperately to get into the back.

Trey, meanwhile, remained entirely unperturbed. He even laughed a little as he turned and leaned an arm over the top of the car seat to look. “There’s a towel back there for you, if you need it. Don’t you dare think about shaking off.”

“Ohh, thank you, thank you,” the frazzled lump of slightly damp, purple fur said with the relief of someone who had just survived a near-death experience.

“Good morning to you, too, Chenya,” Riddle greeted, annoyance melting away into amusement now that he wasn’t at risk of being knocked around. “Did you not bring an umbrella with you?”

Peering out from the towel draped over his head, Chenya pouted. “I wanted to, but they’re all missing or broken. Not that it would’ve helped a lot against,” he waved his hand towards the window, ears pinned flat, “THAT.”

Trey’s brow furrowed. “Including that lizard one? With the foot?”

Chenya nodded sadly. “Ripped a hole in it.”

“Darn, that one was a favourite.” He clucked his tongue, then shrugged. “Oh well. Maybe we’ll find a replacement.”

“You can share one of ours in the meantime,” Riddle offered, and took Chenya’s happy little chirrup as acceptance. “Now, hurry up and put your seat belt on.”

It wasn’t until he was elbow deep in a rack of sweater vests did it occur to Riddle how strange the whole experience had been.

Upon ducking into the mall (that he had never in his life seen, despite it being minutes away from home), wiping their shoes at the soggy-carpeted entrance, and shaking off what stray droplets their umbrellas failed to shield them from, Mrs. Clover turned to him and asked, “Any store in particular you wanted to see?”

The question caught him completely by surprise. He’d fully expected her to shirk any potential input and lead them around like a group of obedient ducklings, as mothers were meant to do—another flawed perception, apparently. The more he thought, the sillier he felt about getting startled. That on its own would’ve been plenty enough to dwell upon, but then there was the conversation that followed while consulting a nearby directory.

“You're looking for new clothes to wear during class, right?” Mrs. Clover had followed-up, taking her eyes away from Chenya’s tapping at the tall, oval screen.

Riddle nodded. “Appropriate clothing for attending class is my top priority, which won’t be difficult to find at most any retailer. While I’m familiar with many of the more famous brands, I haven’t ever visited most of their stores, but as long as the clothing is of a suitable quality then it shouldn’t matter where we shop.” He paused, debating whether it was worthwhile divulging such details, then figured there wasn’t any harm. “We originally intended to procure some casual clothing on this outing, but such things have become…less of a concern for the time being. I have to stay mindful about how much will fit in my luggage.”

“Why not get another suitcase? It's cumbersome trying to drag multiple around, but it might be too hard to carry your entire life in just one. When I first moved out, I had four!” She laughed, a hand settling on her chest. “Or if you'd like, you can leave some with us. We've got closet space to spare.”

Riddle tried not to gape at her. “What? I-I couldn't possibly…”

“Oh, why not? It's fine! I wouldn't have offered it if we didn't have room.”

“I'll…keep the option in mind. Thank you.”

Her suggestions came back to him then as he ran his thumb over the button of a brown vest. He’d already picked out enough clothes to last him the summer with regular washing, one specified set corresponding with each day of the week, one backup set should something unforeseen occur, and normally that would’ve been that. With his task complete, Mrs. Clover should’ve rounded them all up and herded them off to the checkout. That was what his mother would’ve done. Perhaps she’d call any minute now and berate him for dawdling, as if she magically knew his every move. It would not have surprised him in the least had that turned out to be the case.

Leaning away from the rack, Riddle peered off further down the aisle. At the far end of the store was a booth showing off different frames for glasses, more as fashion accessories than for serious prescriptions. Still, Mrs. Clover tried on a pair of massive round frames with an odd, pointy nose attached, and turned dramatically to face Trey, who immediately covered his mouth to contain his snickering. Trey then plucked them off and tried them on over his proper pair, and the giggling became mutual.

Riddle’s neck flushed hot with what might’ve been envy or embarrassment or some uncomfortable mix of the two, and he rubbed at the nape as if he could physically wipe it away. They were off making the most of the outing, and there he was expecting to pack up and head home already. He could practically hear Ace’s voice in his head, what a buzzkill.

A thought occurred to him, wrenching his attention back to the vest in his hands. Sure he expected to leave out of habit, but did he want to? Mrs. Clover’s offer echoed again in his skull, overlaid with his mother's stern warnings, and a flicker caught light in his chest. No, he decided as he turned around to add the vest to his neat pile of selected clothes, he wasn’t finished yet. Riddle retrieved his phone from his pocket, and resisted the urge to check his (empty, no doubt) voicemail as he opened Magicam.

Ace
10:49am> didnt bring any shirts home with u??
10:49am> wait
10:49am> i just realized uh ignore that

Cater
10:50am> OMG YAS pls ＼(^o^)／🙏

Ace
10:50am> dw we gotchu
10:50am> make it quick tho im going out in a few hrs

Excitement beginning to bubble, Riddle gathered up his clothes, mulled over his options, and ventured off to try his luck in the sports section first. If Trey and Chenya were planning to take him outside again, he’d need proper apparel.

Casual shopping without someone to set a starting example turned out to be easier than he anticipated. His experience with Ace and Cater hadn’t been unpleasant, far from it, but it was clear from the first pair of pants off the shelf that he was woefully out of his depth. Back on Sage’s Island he had to take his status into consideration; Heartslabyul’s Housewarden couldn’t simply wander around in any old garments, after all. But that was no longer the case since he’d passed down his crown, and while he still technically represented Night Raven College and Heartslabyul as a whole until he finally graduated, they were on break now. Perhaps it was thanks to their previous guidance, or perhaps it was the change in circumstances, but this time making a selection wasn't so daunting. The weight, while not entirely gone, had lifted considerably.

That didn’t mean he could be hasty, though. Each article of clothing had to serve a purpose, and he would not suffer having shirts in his closet that he bought on a flight of fancy and then never wore. No venturing too far outside his comfort zone—a step or two would suffice plenty. Maybe, if his ambition held, he could ask Trey for input on hats. The thought sent a thrill up his spine. His mother never allowed him to wear one at home.

As if summoned by the mere thought of hats, Trey appeared in his periphery. “Find what you were looking for?”

Riddle shook his head. “Not quite. I’ve gathered what I require for my classes, and now I need…” He paused as he inspected a brown tee with a little rose in a glass case embroidered on the front, only to balk and click his tongue in dismay when he turned it around to discover the horrifying scene of a hulking beast clashing with a pack of wolves splashed across the back. It was promptly folded and returned to its spot, and he moved to the next set of t-shirts. “...Something suitable for outdoor activities,” he finished, shoving clothes down the rack in search of the smaller sizes—

And nearly sent everything in his grasp flying when a smiling, purple face revealed itself from the darkness behind the hangers.

“If it’s for the outdoors, then you’ll need more than just one or two things,” Chenya chirped, clearly pleased with his antics. He slipped out from his hiding spot, slacks tucked over his arm, and presented them when Riddle finally stood back up straight from calming his startled heart. “Try these!”

Immediately, the bottoms stuck out to him; what started as a pair of plain, black pants slowly transitioned into a red checkerboard pattern past the knees. They…weren’t half bad, actually, even with the pattern. Truthfully, he expected something more outlandish. He could see himself wearing them out on the town if they found something to accompany it. At the very least, he would humour Chenya by trying them on. Slowly, Riddle added them to the ever growing pile over his arm.

Doing so might’ve been his first mistake of the day, he realized in gradual dawning horror, as he watched Chenya’s pupils blow wide in glee. Not exactly a cause for alarm in itself—it was always nice seeing his friends happy—but it was immediately followed by him vanishing back into the racks, only his purple tail visible like a shark’s fin as he lurked away. That made Riddle worry.

Said worry was immediately extinguished by Trey’s huffed laugh. An elbow nudged his arm. “I did see some stuff back that way that might better suit your tastes.”

Riddle’s curiosity won out, the looming danger quickly all but forgotten. “Oh? Show me.”

Perfectly plain shirts, a dark overcoat, and some shorts for around the house when the humidity became truly wretched. With it he figured an extra pair of suspenders wouldn’t hurt, so they weaved and wound through the aisles until they found a wall display chock full. It didn’t take long before one caught his eye, cupping the snaps in his palms so the brass gryphon and turtle dove appeared to be dancing together. Normally he would’ve preferred something plain (or, rather, his mother would’ve) but he had to admit, the pair had enticed him. So he pulled it off the rack, and was promptly greeted by a peculiar sight that someone had erroneously slipped into the rows of waltzing animals.

Of all the themes to portray upon a pair of suspenders, the girl growing too large to fit inside a house was nowhere near his first choice. Metal limbs jutted out from the golden shack, bulging as it struggled to contain the shape of her dress, and her legs formed fabric button fasteners. It was certainly…a unique choice, and he almost found it charming as well, if it wasn't for its blatant, glaring flaw.

“That's definitely going to stab someone.” Trey put voice to the issue with a laugh. “How are you supposed to bend forward without getting punctured?”

“I'm not sure if you can. My goodness, look,” Riddle turned one arm with his finger, “the limbs aren't completely flat. They’re angled inwards. Even if you hold perfect posture the entire time, they're viable to cause wrinkles at BEST!”

“It's like she's trying to grab onto you. Oh, that's scary.”

They shared another laugh, snickers and chortles mixing behind concealing palms, and a beat of silence passed as it died away.

“We cannot let Chenya see these.”

“Definitely not. Let’s move on.”

While picking through a selection of gloves, he turned just in time to witness the devious feline in question scamper up to Trey and nudge him to garner attention, before presenting an aquamarine shirt absolutely covered in teeth. Cutesy, smiling teeth all lined up in neat rows, some flipped upside down, one holding a toothbrush. Riddle watched Chenya gesture to it along the bottom with one detached hand, grinning like he told a terrible joke. He then watched Trey pause as if to give the shirt genuine consideration before laughing and shoving it away.

He should've taken the whole exchange as a warning, a reminder of the danger looming around every corner. That way when Chenya eventually came up to him next and presented a peach shirt patterned with diagonal marching hedgehogs, he would've been ready to refuse. But he didn't, and so he wasn't. Next thing he knew it was draped atop the pile.

From there things seemed to cascade, finding excuses to try on clothes he hadn't initially planned on buying. At some point Mrs. Clover caught up with them, and retrieved a shopping basket none too soon; the pile was beginning to grow heavy on Riddle’s arms. He still had his limits to keep in mind but…a little fun was fine. Right?

“Oooh, you should get a new swimsuit too!” Chenya declared once he was satisfied with his newest round of additions.

“But I don’t have any intentions on visiting a pool over the summer...” He paused and cast a glance over to Trey.

In turn, Trey shrugged. “You never know.”

It never served him well to entertain hypotheticals but…he supposed they had a point. Special apparel for special occasions. A pair of sandals and some (blue, a colour he didn’t wear often, but something about that particular set drew him in) swim trunks were added to the pile. Soon, a woven sun hat joined it.

The idea of a second suitcase was becoming more and more appealing by the moment.

Preparing for summer was all well and good, but it wouldn’t take very long for the weather to grow cold again. Scouring the seasonal clearance racks for winter jackets and sweaters at a discount wasn’t a half bad idea; while he appreciated donning fashionable outfits, following the latest trends wasn’t exactly at the top of his priority list when it came to not freezing in the Crims’ dorm rooms, and it would save him time in the long run to get multiple seasons worth squared away now.

He was about to pass by a wall of the strangest jackets he’d ever seen in his life (a parka did not need that many zippers as far as he was concerned), when his eyes landed upon the last set of hooks, and he promptly stopped dead. A nagging sense of familiarity burst into the cold, disquieting sensation of being haunted. For a handful of seconds, maybe even minutes, all Riddle did was stare at the bright red fur coat. Putting his basket down and reaching for the coat weren’t actions he made of his own accord, his hands operating entirely independently, the traitorous things. The first brush of contact made him flinch like he’d been shocked, but it wasn’t enough to deter whatever impulse had seized control of his motor functions. It was addictingly soft to the touch, just like he remembered, hands sinking into the thick fur. It weighed a little more than anticipated, but sagged in his grip in exactly the same way. It even had that annoying tag on the back of the neckline he clipped off with a pair of crafting scissors.

…and it was warm. Such a coat would serve him well in the colder months.

Riddle inhaled sharp like someone had doused him in a bucket of water, wrenching himself back into his own body from where he’d started drifting, blinking away the tunnel vision. The store felt louder than before. His body felt hotter. He carefully returned the coat to the rack before his clammy hands could dampen the fur. It would be much too bulky to fit in his suitcase, and the space of a second one would be better utilized by other things, he reasoned with a shake of his head. When that wasn’t enough, he continued to shake it as he forced himself to walk away, pretending that he couldn’t feel the coat's presence at his back as though it were a living, breathing thing. That he could escape the almost maddening awareness of one particular piece of fabric buried deep beneath the rest within his basket.

He tried to salvage the situation by scoping out a few extra additions, but the damage had been done. Unsettled, Riddle decided he’d had enough of this store. He tracked down Mrs. Clover amidst the aisles and let her know he’d be at the changing rooms, then located an empty stall smack dab in the middle and claimed it for himself. Within the privacy of the tiny box, he took a moment to breathe deep and reorient himself with the task at hand. His eyes drifted from the stack of clothes on the bench to his reflection in the mirror, dressed down from a proper uniform and clearly a little out of his element. But not for long.

He figured the others would want to catch a glimpse of him in the clothes they’d picked out, so Riddle first tried on the simple shirts and pants and vests he’d chosen for his classes to ensure he had the proper sizes. With everything squared away on the far end in a neat little pile, with the exception of one vest he, frustratingly, needed in an even smaller size, he began to dig through the remainder and… Oh, there was…a lot. More than he’d thought while browsing the racks. Perhaps they had gone overboard.

Well, it wasn’t as though he intended to keep everything. He was simply…getting his feet wet with the idea of casual attire. Even if it felt a little wasteful to try clothes he wasn’t going to buy. Riddle sighed hard upon realizing the scolding in his head came in the form of his mother’s voice, and he hesitated before picking a shirt from the basket to chase it away.

Once he was ready with his first attempt at an entirely Riddle-composed casual outfit, he poked his head out to find the others had gathered upon a round, cushy set of seats. Slowly, he pushed the door the rest of the way open to reveal himself. It wasn’t anything grand, a brown button tee, white slacks, a bow tie, and the suspenders he’d picked out, but it checked all the necessary boxes for outdoor summer attire without appearing sloppy.

The reactions were immediate.

Mrs. Clover’s hands flew up to cover her gasp. “Oh, look at you! You look so cute!”

Riddle’s brow pinched, peering down at himself. Not the first time he’d ever heard it from a parent, but somehow it didn’t feel as demeaning as in the past. Didn’t leave him any less annoyed, though. “C…cute?”

“In a good way,” Trey supplied perhaps a tad too quickly, smiling slightly too wide as he immediately feigned distraction in the opposite direction of his mother to avoid making eye contact.

With behavior like that, how was he the one being called “cute”? Setting the thought aside, lest it turn his cheeks red, Riddle cleared his throat. “Er, well, thank you. I suppose this earns a pass for future outings.” Anticipating further cooing over his “cute” appearance (and to spare Trey from humiliation, though from Chenya’s snickering he doubted his exit would prove effective in that regard), he retreated back into the changing room to process the mix of emotions. A tad bit embarrassed, for certain; he scarcely received such encouragement from a parent before, at least not without it being accompanied by an underlying joke at his expense or some form of ulterior motive. But the longer he thought about it, the more he found he didn’t mind. If anything, it only helped the warm glow in his chest grow.

Magical pen in hand, he neatly returned the clothes to their hangers with a flick of his wrist, then set them on the bench in a stack and dove into the basket. He had so many options to test, after all. The next time he emerged, curious about the response his choice of overcoat would receive, Chenya was missing, and his eyes set about scanning the aisles behind the seats in search of that lurking purple tail.

“If you’re looking for Chenya, he’s in the changing room next door.” Trey nodded towards Riddle’s right. “He said he wanted to join in on the fun.”

As if waiting for the cue, not even bothering to open his door, Chenya appeared with a flourish. Entirely in denim. Jacket, pants, shirt, hat, tie, socks, shoes, earrings! Trey clapped a hand over his mouth to muffle the guffaw that leapt its way out. Riddle merely stared. There wasn’t anything more he could possibly do.

Noticing his companion in fashion, Chenya turned with a grin. “Oooh! Love the coat! The dark shade gives you a lot of room to work with.” Then he posed, flicking the strip of denim dangling from one ear. “How do you like my…jearrings?”

“It’s awful,” Riddle helplessly blurted at the same time as Trey’s “Where did you even find all that?”

Thankfully, Chenya took the reception in stride. Trey made absolutely certain to take a picture of both of them together, as awkward as it made Riddle feel in the moment, to send to Cater before they returned to their clothing endeavors. The third time Riddle emerged, Chenya and Mrs. Clover were in the middle of an animated conversation, a pink feathered boa draped over Chenya’s equally pink feathered shoulders. And Trey was conspicuously absent.

“Next door,” Chenya—or, rather, the feathered boa puppeteered by some invisible force—pointed to Riddle’s left. The allure of new clothing was too contagious, it seemed. From then on they each took turns presenting outfits. Most of them with genuine intent to wear at some point in the future, though the occasional gag slipped its way in thanks to Chenya’s influence; silly hats, outlandish accessories, ill-fitting attire, the works. Everything in Riddle’s pile was given a chance to shine, or two, or three, and even the hedgehog shirt had its time in the spotlight. Against all expectations when Chenya first approached, it ended up in the “to buy” pile, right next to the teeth-lined shirt that had mysteriously made its way back into Trey’s hands. With most outfits Riddle made sure to snap a photo in the mirror before moving on. To avoid clogging up the text thread, he decided to send pictures in bulk rather than one at a time.

Cater
12:37pm> :D!!! Lookin GOOOOOOD ;P
12:37pm> Just dont wear socks with the sandals when you go out or Ill actually cry lol

Ace
12:38pm> no he should keep the socks
12:39pm> itd be funny

Trey
12:39pm> So do you wear ankle socks or knee socks when you go swimming, then?

Ace
12:39pm> dont

Cater
12:39pm> 😱 OMFG

Their text chat wasn’t the only place he’d received commentary from.

“Try it in red.”

“I think it needs a hat to really bring it all together.”

“You could use those for pajamas!”

“I already have a perfectly fine set of pajamas, thank you!” Riddle snapped as he ducked back into the changing room to be rid of the blatantly oversized summer hoodie and matching shorts.

As he reached for the next pair of slacks, something jingled from the basket, making his muscles freeze solid. Right. He was having so much fun, he’d…forgotten about that. The haunted sensation returned. A part of him hesitated, urging to carry on as though he hadn’t heard the sound, but there wasn’t much use in avoiding it. After all, he’d been the one to pick it off the rack.

Slowly, as if fearful it would jump out at him, Riddle searched through the remaining clothes and hangers in the basket until he brushed cold, solid metal, and gathered up as much of the chain as he could in his fist to muffle the clinking as he retrieved the pleated half-skirt. Small, black and red, as close as he could find to the original. He had zero intention of buying it, it wouldn't fit with his current wardrobe selection; the choice was more…to sate his nagging curiosity, and much, MUCH safer than the coat. Holding it in his hands brought about the same troublesome unease, but to a lesser degree. For a time all he did was look at it from every angle, mindful of the chains dangling from the belt, but he had people waiting on him and it wouldn’t do to dally.

Strange wouldn’t begin to describe how wearing it felt, so used to keeping his belts level on his hips, so having it drag down on one side kept making him anxious of it slipping right off. Riddle had to force his hands at his sides to stop from constantly fiddling with it. He tried walking in the narrow space the changing room allowed, occasionally stopping to twist his hips like he’d seen Cater doing to show himself off, until he’d grown used to the uneven sensation, and when he did, in his heart of hearts, he found…

Well, nothing. It was just okay. Not offensive, but nothing clicked into place like he’d anticipated either, no grand revelation that this was who he had longed to be like he’d read about while conducting research.

Hesitantly, he turned to face the mirror, braced for the image it would reflect. But there was no other Riddle staring back at him in thigh high stockings and a fur lined coat, no dyed hair or excessive jewelry or platform boots. It was only the him he’d woken up as, the him in a plain white shirt and Chenya’s choice of checkered pants and a plaid half-skirt, the him looking just as lost as he felt. He continued to stare as if observing for long enough could instill something. But it never came. He couldn’t tell if he was relieved or disappointed.

Oh well. He could say he tried it, and that was that. Riddle removed the skirt and tucked it within the reject pile. As he did, a different sound caught his attention.

Ace
1:03pm> aight im tapping out gl

He frowned at the screen. How long had they been at this? He scrolled back in the chat and, oh… sure enough, the timestamps didn’t lie. Hours had passed since that first request. Tapping out a quick thank you, he set down the phone and looked back at his sorted clothing piles, listening to the others chatter away beyond the door. The idea of leaving now brought a pang of disappointment despite his earlier agitation, but they couldn’t spend all day there. Surely the others had made plans of their own. Deciding they’d done enough, Riddle gathered up the clothes he’d decided to purchase and returned them to the basket, then tucked the remainder in his arms.

“I’ve made up my mind. Sorry for keeping you all,” he announced as he emerged for the final time.

“There’s no need to apologize, it was fun watching you all enjoy yourselves!” Mrs. Clover beamed, and reached to relieve him of his reject pile. “Chenya’s still trying one final thing, so I’ll take care of these for you in the meantime.”

Only after handing them off did he realize what he just did, cold horror flooding his system as one of the skirt’s chains slipped out and dangled. Horror that was swiftly tempered with relief when an employee cheerfully swooped in to handle the clothing instead, the offending chain lost forever within the shifting fabrics. It finally got him to sink down onto the cushioned seating with a sigh, and he felt one of Trey’s hands briefly rub a reassuring circle into the small of his back before Mrs. Clover returned, and the hand returned to its previous resting place on the seat.

Clothes safely tucked away in bulky paper bags, they made their exit from one store and went right into another; a travel boutique chock-full of suitcases. By the time they’d had their fun and were ready to depart, feet beginning to ache from zig-zagging between stores and getting very briefly lost when an escalator suddenly broke down, the rain had stopped. Sunlight began to peek its way through holes in the clouds. Riddle paused on the curb as Mrs. Clover fiddled with her keys to try and locate the SUV, and breathed deep to embrace the petrichor from the nearby decorative gardens. To his surprise, much of the misery he’d locked up tight that morning had dissipated. Not all of it, and what remained threatened to burst through the barrier should he ruminate too deeply, but just enough to where his optimism no longer felt forced.

Maybe…everything truly would turn out okay in the end.

Chapter Text

Riddle's eyes snapped open to pitch-black darkness, heartbeat in his ears and fists clenched tight to his chest. For minutes he remained frozen, staring, breath stuck as he listened for…something. Someone. He couldn't remember. He didn't know who or what. All he could parse was a distant, throbbing grief, and the terrible sense that he was about to be grabbed and yanked and taken somewhere he very much did not want to be. The fact that an arm had already clutched around his midriff wasn't helping. Its owner snorted above his head, the sound a rare but familiar one.

Adrenaline left him gradually, the air in his lungs going with it, as the rest of the synapses in his brain woke up and granted him an awareness of where he was. Riddle's body sank further into the bed with a deep inhale and sigh, hand unlocking from its braced fist to trail down and run over Trey's elbow. That was fine. Welcome, even. Even if some monstrous thing did grab hold of him while he was vulnerable, Trey wouldn't let it take him.

As soon as the thought passed his mind, the dial began to turn from comforted to humiliated, flushing his cheeks. What a childish notion to have over a nightmare.

…still, it calmed his racing heart some, so such thoughts couldn't be all that bad.

With one last sigh, Riddle squirmed under Trey's arm to reorient himself, rousing the extremities still asleep as he rolled over to face the window. The Queendom's nights hadn't grown unbearably warm, not yet, but the heat was creeping up on them, and being plagued by nightmares certainly wasn't helping matters. Riddle's skin was clammy with sweat, bleeding through his pajamas and making the fabric stick uncomfortably. Shifting the sheets brought air, and with it relief. But it wasn’t quite enough.

He traced the curtains illuminated by the moonlight with bleary eyes, and briefly considered getting up to allow them both a breeze. He did that frequently during their last few nights together in Heartslabyul, flicking open his bedroom window with a spell when the temperature grew to be too much while cuddled up close. It became a nightly occurrence after filling out his fourth year applications, too anxious to sleep soundly with everything locked tight, without an exit. How he'd longed to have that arm around him then. With the last dregs of the nightmare still nipping at his heels, details long since faded from memory but its presence continuing to loom dread over his heart, opening Trey's window for a short while sounded like a fine idea.

But as he went to get up he recalled the argument with his mother, the distressed stumble to the window. The impulse that intruded when he leaned out. It hadn't been the first time such thoughts had occurred, nor had it been that long since his last bout with them, but it made his stomach drop all the same. His body, too, as he fell back onto the pillow and scrubbed his face with both hands. Riddle muffled his frustrated groan with his palms. Going on three days since then, and he couldn't bring himself to approach the window. It was becoming a problem. A problem he alone would have to—

“Riddle?”

Oh, fie.

“Trey,” Riddle whispered, rolling back over to face that furrowed brow.

In an instant Trey's expression scrunched further, squinting through the darkness at him, however futile the effort. “Everything okay?” he asked, voice gravelly with sleep. The hand draped around Riddle ran up his back, peeling away one of the sweat pools as it did.

“I'm fine,” he reassured, keeping his voice firm yet gentle to show it. “Just got a little warm, is all.” Not a lie, just an omission; Trey didn't need to know of every nightmare that plagued him.

Maybe he already knew, or maybe he was too groggy to question it, but Trey merely hummed his acknowledgement and began clumsily pulling the sheet away from Riddle. After a moment, he gave up and let his arm drop over Riddle’s hip, slurring, “Bett’r?”

Riddle couldn't help but smile a little, fondness snuffing out the last of his worries. “Better,” he answered, reaching down to cover Trey's hand with his own. The movement only served to remind him of how disgusting his pajamas were though, the underside of his arm dragging and sticking in a way that threatened to make his entire body shudder, and he hummed and tapped a finger against Trey’s knuckle. “Actually, I'm going to get changed.”

“Mm.”

The hand fell as dead weight on the mattress as Riddle slipped out of bed. He gave the shopping bags set off to the side a glance, and it was there where he realized the horrible, awful truth: he hadn't washed the spare pajamas he'd just bought. It had been the first bullet point on his to-do list once they'd returned to the Clover Patisserie, but a load of laundry was already well under way when they arrived, and Chenya's continued presence had subsequently dashed any notions of engaging with household chores. Thus, he was left without a replacement, as he refused to wear potentially dirty clothes in Trey's bed. Riddle mentally kicked himself for getting so distracted. Even if the distractions had been entertaining.

His frustrated silence must've been telling, as a voice rumbled out from the bed. “Could use one‘f mine.”

Riddle's head whipped back. “I have other clothing, and they'd be much too large…”

“‘s jus’ for t'night. I don't mind.” One golden eye peeked out, watching him, sightless yet seeing too much.

He bit his lip, glancing between the bags, his original suitcase, then Trey's dresser. The clothing…had been comforting to wear, once he'd gotten past the embarrassment of it all. If it was just for tonight, then…

The very first thing Riddle did the following morning was throw a load of laundry in. Never again would he be caught with his pants down.

One last headcount reassured Trey that he'd indeed packed a dozen cupcakes, with the one additional bonus tucked safely inside as a gift. Normally he wouldn't have to check as many times as he had, but his head kept threatening to drift off, and he didn't want to risk any slip ups while trying to keep it tethered. With the recipient on the way, he slotted the box behind the counter to await pickup and grabbed a rag, using a spell to dampen it ever so slightly before wiping away the fingerprints an eager child left on the glass display earlier. In doing so it gave him a moment to think, which was the exact thing he’d been avoiding for hours. Nothing to be done about it now, his head had already detached, and the anxiety let itself in and settled down in its favourite nook.

It wasn’t the heat that woke Riddle up. Even through the sludgy haze of sleep, Trey caught the way his heart had beat hard through the pajama shirt. But Riddle didn't seem eager to disclose it, or maybe he'd already forgotten what happened, so pressing the matter didn't cross Trey's mind. He'd hoped that the shopping trip would've been a suitable distraction to set his mind at ease and grant him a good night's sleep, but in hindsight he realized just how little it helped. Of course Riddle would've been dwelling on his mother during it. At least all the walking seemed to renew what had been a dwindling appetite.

Ah, and there was another thing. Trey swore his ribs had felt more prominent against his hand when he ran it up along Riddle’s side, and wondered how long it had been like that before he noticed. But perhaps that one was a trick of the mind; it had certainly been more than a little occupied in the moment with the fact that Riddle was wearing his clothes. Again. Trey tried to focus on the memory as a distraction, only for it to slip through his fingers in favour of further fretting.

Regardless of whether he’d imagined it or not, the truth of the matter was that Riddle was not doing very well. If only…

The ringing of the shop’s bell had Trey perking up, his customer service attentiveness surging to put a pause to his brooding. His shoulders promptly sagged into a more relaxed posture upon seeing who their visitor was. “Wow, not often you walk in like a regular customer.”

“I can go back out and try again if you'd like, but I’m afraid the cat’s already out of the bag,” Chenya quipped back, tail swishing lazily as he strolled up to the counter.

“No need. If anything, it’s a nice change of pace.” Trey reached down to take the box of cupcakes back out. “Here we are. A dozen cupcakes, fresh from the oven.”

Upon seeing the box Chenya's pupils blew wide, and his fingers wiggled comically in the air before he peered over the plastic film. “Oooh, and an extra, just for me? It must be my lucky day!”

Trey winked, and began ringing up the order at the register. He expected to hear the familiar clatter of Chenya's many trinkets as he fished out his wallet, but when met with silence instead, he peeked up. The anxiety returned.

Chenya had set both his elbows on the counter, the cupcakes tucked securely between them, and his chin rested on the balls of both palms. His eyes had lidded, but he continued to smile. Clearly he was waiting for something.

Just as Trey began to fear that his fretting had been obvious, Chenya raised his eyebrows in such a way that all but confirmed it to be the case. “So.”

“...so?”

“Sorcent for your thoughts?”

His eyes darted to the box in lieu of pointing. “How about a sorcent for those cupcakes?” It was a weak deflection, and one he knew Chenya was anticipating, but it was all he had. A second later, a few thaumarks and some sorcents slid across to him.

As Trey went to stash the money in the register, Chenya dropped another sorcent on the counter. It rang loud, rattling until it finally fell flat. Trey stared at it, then dragged his eyes up to meet Chenya’s grin without lifting his head. The silence in the wake of the coin grew heavy. Eventually, Trey caved, sighing as he pushed the coin back for Chenya to take, his lean following the movement. “I’m wondering if I’m doing enough. I'm trying not to coddle him—Don't look at me like that, I'm being serious! But…” His shoulders drooped as he resumed idly running the rag in circles. “I'm just concerned about him.”

“Ahh, Trey, ever the worrier.”

Despite the topic, Trey managed a smirk. “Don't act like you're not. That's really why you showed up in person even after I offered to deliver, right? You wanted to check in on Riddle.”

Chenya didn't reply, at least not verbally. He did, however, bring his index finger up to the side of his nose with a grin. Then it relaxed. “Riddle’s going in an entirely new direction. It’ll take time before he gets used to the grass under his paws. He may not want the help walking, so you’d best be suited to keeping an eye out from the trees.”

“Easier said than done. After everything that’s happened, it’s hard watching him continue to be tormented like this.”

Chenya's smile fell. “Is his mom contacting him?”

Trey paused to mull it over, then shook his head. “I don't think they've spoken since Monday, but I can tell it’s still bothering him. Doubt she’ll stay gone for long, though. I just…wish there was something more substantial I could do for him.”

“Mayhap we return to some of our old-fashioned hijinks. Or we could egg her house.”

Well, that managed to get a laugh out of him, however small and quiet. “Which one of us went to Night Raven College, again?” Trey leaned forward across the countertop to keep his voice low, eyes darting to the potential customer lingering outside the shop window. “Look, as much enjoyment as I'd get from that, we're not doing it.” Then he pulled back and fixed a cheerful grin as the entrance bell rang. Chenya faded out of sight off to the side.

When Trey waved the customer off with half of the red velvet cake they'd prepared that morning, Chenya reappeared two steps to the left of where he'd been previously. “Have YOU talked to her?”

“Me? Oh, absolutely not. Frankly, I never want to hear her voice again.” The very idea made Trey want to shudder. He suppressed it. “If I had no other choice, though…” His smile grew into a weak, pitiful thing. “For Riddle’s sake, I’d…certainly try. Can’t guarantee I’d fix anything. Heck, even her just laying eyes on me would probably make things worse for him. That’s part of why I haven’t considered it an option.”

“A wise choice.” Chenya nodded thoughtfully, knuckle pressed against his lip and pushing it up at an odd angle. After a moment of quiet contemplation, he stood up straight again. “Then maybe you can't do anything more. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't stop the owner from breaking its leg in the middle of night because they're jealous of you getting too close to their prized steed. At most you can put its leg in a splint and bring the water closer so it doesn't have to walk until it's healed.”

Trey merely stared. “What kind of analogy is that?!”

“Oh, I have no clue.” Chenya shrugged. “I dunno stuff like this. Can horses even walk on broken legs?”

“I imagine not, but that's something you'd have to ask Riddle about—” he huffed a breath. He was getting sidetracked. “Anyway, I don't buy that for a second, but…maybe you're right. Much as I hate to admit it. Guess I'll have to wait and see.”

“Sometimes, that's all you can do to move forward.”

It was at that precise moment that the far door flew open, Nina bustling her way through as she fixed her apron. “Oh, hey,” she greeted Chenya with a nod on her way by, slipping behind Trey to get into the back. “Guess it's not so busy if you're hanging around chatting.”

“Not yet, but you never know with the evening crowd.” Trey leaned back so he could watch her pluck her hat off the hook. “Uh. Wasn’t Saxton supposed to help out today?”

Nina shrugged. “He said he wasn’t feeling well and asked me to swap shifts so he could nap.”

Trey's brow knit. “Not feeling well… I'll check up on him after I make dinner, then. If he's trying to sleep it off, I shouldn't bother him.”

“I already let him know to ask if he needs anything.”

“Thanks, Nina.”

“Off to the kitchen?” Chenya asked. “I'll be on my way as well, then. That extra cupcake won't eat itself.” Purring happily, both Chenya and the box faded from view with a little wave. One Trey returned, even though he figured Chenya was already gone.

“You spoil him,” Nina teased.

Chucking, he took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair, then began to fiddle with the apron strings at his back. “Nothing wrong with sharing with friends.”

Nina hummed. “True, I guess. But, hey, speaking of spoiling…”

Uh oh. Trey knew that tone of voice. He began to tug at the knot of his apron faster.

“Are you two, uh, in the habit of doing that?”

“What, sharing food? Don't act like it's weird, you do it too.”

She wasn't deterred. “You and Riddle?” Nina clarified with a slightly exasperated lilt to her voice.

“I do share food with him too, yes.”

It was the wrong answer. He knew it the moment her grin suddenly split wide, every bit the cat that caught the canary. “Mmmmmhm. Y'know,” she started, leaning against the countertop, fingers steepling together idly. “Last night, I saw something when I went to get a drink.”

Unfortunately, Nina had planted herself between him and his escape route behind the counter, leaving his only exit through the back. Where their parents were currently up to their elbows in batter. The risk of them overhearing was already bad enough as it stood, but guaranteeing it? Much worse.

He briefly considered elbowing his way past her—he was taller and stronger, he could easily just pick her up and set her aside like a piece of inconvenient furniture—or perhaps vaulting over the display and sprinting out the front door, but doing so would reveal the depths of his urgency. He'd never hear the end of it. The best case scenario was stalling long enough for a customer to arrive, and bailing while she was distracted.

Trey knew if he looked away at that moment he would lose, but there was nothing else he COULD do. “Was it a spider?” he suggested as he hung up his apron and hat in the back room as quickly as possible without also appearing panicked.

“Har, har. You wish.”

“It’s the season for them. You know where the grabber is if you do happen upon one.”

Nina merely hummed, eyes narrowed pleasantly. Trapped behind the counter, he very much felt like a spider under a cup just then.

“It was Riddle, actually.” She ignored the bait and carried on.

“Huh. Not surprising, it was pretty warm in my room last night. He probably went to cool off.” Where the HELL was the evening rush when he needed it?!

She began to sidle closer, effectively pinning him against the wall display with her presence alone. “Aaaand he wasn’t wearing his regular pajamas.”

“Aaaand that’s significant how? We went shopping earlier, he has new clothes.” He mimicked her tone, dragging out each word longer than it needed to be. A customer. A phone call. Mom swooping in to save the day with some kind of request. Something. ANYTHING!

Defenseless and with nowhere to run, Nina landed the killing blow. “Because it was way too big, and I seem to recall you owning a green shirt with clubs across it juuuuust like that one.”

Dammit.

Trey squeezed his eyes shut in defeat and hung his head, the balls of his hands dropping against the countertop, red reaching right up to his ears as his sister laughed in that high-pitched, tittering way of hers whenever she successfully won a game of wits. Eventually, he realized that his sister wasn’t the only one laughing, and his head snapped up in horror to discover the disembodied grin shaking in the air.

“I KNEW he’d like it!”

Nina’s laughter became absolutely uproarious.

For a few seconds Trey’s utter embarrassment dwarfed all, silently hoping the ground would open up and swallow him whole. Then, he managed to find his voice, and snatched up the rag he was using previously to flick it at Chenya over the counter. “Hey! Don’t you have cupcakes to get home!?”

“It’s cute! Really!” Nina tried to reassure through her giggling. “I never get to see you be sappy lately! And Riddle looked comfortable in it too—”

Nope, he was not in the market for any further teasing, thank you. Balling up the rag for the laundry, Trey slipped his way behind Nina, poking her in the side of the head to show that, through all the embarrassment, there was no bad blood. Only the standard grudges that occasionally came from sibling revelry. “I’m getting you back for this.”

“Oh, I know.” Sighing contentedly as she came down from her laughter, Nina folded her arms on the counter and let him by to escape into their home. “But it was still worth it.”

Chapter Text

His mother called back on Friday.

Riddle had been downstairs exploring the house alone, taking in the finer details and browsing the family photos in the living room, since he’d been too preoccupied with…other matters to do so properly before. None of what he was looking at had been committed to memory the first time around, and now, eyes slowly sweeping from one picture frame to the next, the room filled with a thick layer of unfamiliarity. It almost made him want to fidget.

He didn’t flinch when his cell phone rang, but nearly had a heart attack right on the Clovers’ nice rug when he saw the number calling. As fast as he could, Riddle shot back upstairs to Trey’s room for some privacy.

This time he had no flawed perception of how it would go; he hadn't even finished saying “Hello” before she was cutting him off. How dare he not call her and apologize, she raised him better—or she thought she did. And his response was automatic and well-worn: Yes Mother, he's sorry, Mother, he was in the wrong to not call. Her comment from last time continued to haunt him within every word, and he found himself preemptively curling inwards to brace for another sharp cut.

Oh, how naive he truly was.

She’d been lambasting him with all sorts of admonishments, lamentations over how someone could treat family so cruelly, if he really loved her then he’d quit his behavior and come home. Then, something odd happened.

The line went silent.

Riddle knew she hadn't hung up on him, he could still hear the faintest of sounds on the other end, an occasional rustle or clack, half cut-off by the background noise filter their landline came with. His brow pinched, agitation not forgotten, but momentarily sidelined. Had something happened?

Just as suddenly as it started, his mother broke the silence. “You're staying with that troublemaker, aren't you?” A beat passed. Then, “Are you…with that man?”

“I—” his brain caught up a half-second later, “—beg your pardon?”

“You're seeing him, aren't you,” she rephrased, the accusation harder in her voice.

That was…not what he expected. Riddle’s jaw hung.

His brain lagged behind by two paces despite racing at mach four, so thrown off by the sudden suspicion, too busy wondering how or when she could’ve possibly found out, that he didn’t respond in time. The lack of an answer was as incriminating as a confession.

“It's not right. He's always been a terrible person, and now he's manipulated and trapped you! Tell your mother right now, what sorts of foul things has he been filling your head with?” The disgust from her was so palpable it turned his stomach sour.

It wasn’t the first time his mother had spoken ill of Trey, and Riddle knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it wouldn’t be the last. Every time she did, he would put his head down, silenced by the guilt building in his throat, a guilt that doubled and tripled with every subsequent comment that he never tried to refute. Over time he’d honed the guilt into a fine edge, and used it to cut back the longing in his heart whenever it grew too unwieldy; would Trey have even wanted to still be friends if he knew what she was saying about him? What Riddle was letting her say? Perhaps being forgotten was for the best.

Knowing what he did now, however, he found that while the guilt of the incident all those years ago remained, the edge had grown dull from disuse, and it no longer choked him on its own merits either. To his surprise, he did not lower his head when the impulse to do so struck. Rather than slip-sliding away when he felt the ground shift, Riddle planted his feet.

“He hasn't done—”

“Do NOT talk back to me, young man!”

“—anything of the sort,” he said, voice wavering as she yelled over him, but he managed to finish the sentence anyway. Then he swallowed and tried to straighten up a tad bit further, his automatic response finally kicking in to wrest back control. “I'm sorry, Mother.”

Her seething breaths came clear through the phone receiver, but when she spoke again it was somewhat distant, like she’d turned away and was muttering to herself. “So my intuition was correct, then. This dark path is all HIS fault. Tsk, I can’t believe those useless instructors didn’t separate them like I’d requested!”

Perhaps he shouldn’t have been listening. Then again, she often decided to talk to herself in front of him, too loud to ignore. It never mattered if he knew her private thoughts or not, the outcome was always the same.

Except for this time, apparently, because before he knew it his mouth was open again, the portion of his brain responsible for his automatic obedience overpowered by emotion. “Trey has been nothing but kind and supportive. Even…” he choked himself off. Admitting the rest to her would’ve been an outright sin, so he let it pass in his thoughts instead. Even when I don't deserve it.

“You're so enmeshed you can't even see the damage he's causing!” The sudden surge in volume made him pull the phone away to spare his eardrums. “He's been such a horrible influence on you! He's ruined your life!”

Riddle felt his lip curl. The words left him on their own, audience in his own body, and he was only slightly bothered by the bite in them. “He saved my life.”

Where would he have been? At best he would've mauled two students and been left hated by everyone, alone in his misery while force-feeding himself the lie that it was fine. At worst he would've overblotted anyway, maybe even in his first year instead, and without Trey to restrain his magic and provide an opening…

He didn’t want to think about it any further. Now was not the time for that particular hypothetical.

His mother’s scoff in response somehow cut deeper than her anger did, and his skin prickled. Of course she’d think he was being ridiculous putting Trey on such a pedestal. She wasn’t there to see what happened. She wasn’t there to see any of it.

Not that it was necessarily her fault; he was the one withholding information from her. Learning about his overblot had been bad on its own. If she’d caught wind of how much he’d actually struggled in that time, her disappointment alone would’ve been enough to undo him entirely, never mind the punishment that would’ve accompanied it. None of it mattered now that he’d made the active choice to disappoint her, though.

“I can’t believe this. I simply cannot believe this!” Something in her voice peaked, a different emotion surging up alongside her anger that threatened to squeeze at his heart. “How ungrateful! After everything I’ve done for your sake, you’ve decided to replace me with a—a hooligan!”

Riddle winced. “I’m not replacing you, Mom! I…” his shoulders sank, his embers beginning to cool, “I still want you in my life.”

“You should’ve thought of that before abandoning your family for—for—for some awful boy! Do you realize how this looks for us?! I will not tolerate my son being a—”

Riddle physically flinched, anticipating a hit that had stopped an inch from his face. Only a second or so passed, but time stretched on as he waited, frozen from head to toe, from blood to heart to nerve, for his mother to finish her sentence and land a blow that was already bruising worse than what her palm had left behind.

It never came. Instead, she clucked her tongue. “Now who could possibly be calling at—Mm.” Her huff came distorted through the receiver. “Riddle, I'm getting another call. But do not think that I approve of these circumstances. I don't know what kind of poison he's been feeding you, but you need to come to your senses.”

When the line clicked, Riddle counted to six, then breathed a loud, deflating sigh. Not having to outright answer her accusation felt like a minuscule victory, even if the outcome would’ve been the same either way, but at this point he'd take what he could get. It was the only reason his legs didn’t give out from how hard they shook.

As he stood there in the middle of the room, staring down at his phone, the reality of their call sank in. It was the first time he'd ever really fought with his mother, if he could even call that weak floundering “fighting.” The closest he had come before had been over winter break during his second year at NRC, and that…hadn't exactly gone well. Even over the phone or via letters things were kept concise and purely factual, leaving little opening for interjections. Talking back simply did not happen in the Roseheart household.

The feeling brewing in his chest was a complicated one. But his hands were buzzing, and his legs were buzzing, and soon his head was buzzing too, bees shaken up in their nest. Especially when the “poison” allusion came back to the forefront and raised his hackles, dulling the bone-deep ache of knowing he was about to be insulted again. It wasn’t anger—he wasn’t sure if he was capable of honing such a thing against her. At first he didn't like it, repulsion and regret trying to add themselves to the mix, but instead they all sat side by side, bubbles of oil and water swelling between his ribs.

He'd begun to question many more things over the past year, and even dared to poke at some of the more taboo thoughts previously buried. Whenever he came upon a conclusion he didn't like, it was promptly dismissed and shut away, only to be cautiously dragged back out by the fingertips to re-examine in the dead of night. What if Mother was wrong about this or that? Did she simply not have the necessary context? Was the sky really blue and the grass really green?

Or what if it was something worse?

Perhaps that was why he could feel such frustration now, where he couldn't before. He'd left the door open for it. He wasn't particularly inclined to shut it back out, because when those dark-slick oil bubbles popped, he found that something else had snuck in with it, obscured until then, not entirely merging but nestling in more comfortably with that big emotional blob.

Unmitigated, overwhelming gratitude.

And, alarmingly enough, this one wasn't directed towards his mother.

It was by that token that Riddle's limbs began to move, the buzzing reaching its maddening peak. He found Trey in the kitchen, donned in uniform and muttering something about wheat flour under his breath, and it distantly occurred to Riddle that he was likely on the clock and shouldn't be bothered. But he strode forward anyway, unable to be knocked off the course his body had taken.

“Trey.”

“Hm? What's—” Riddle’s palms reached up to cup both cheeks right as Trey turned, cutting the sentence off with a squeak that was, in Riddle's opinion, downright adorable. For a moment all he did was stroke his thumb along the high of Trey's cheek affectionately, appreciating the way his skin gradually turned pink, almost as though his thumb had painted it on. Even better when it spread right up to the tips of his ears.

A tiny, flustered laugh escaped Trey’s lips. “Uh…what's…all this?”

“I don’t think I've been forthcoming enough with my appreciation for you. Perhaps I should start taking Rook's advice after all,” Riddle answered after another second, and grinned when the pink bloomed red. Charged from the argument and hopelessly fond, he rocked up onto the balls of his feet to kiss him. To reassure how right it felt to do so. How easy it was to say against his lips, “I love you.”

There was a beat, brief yet striking in its intensity, where Trey didn’t react further, and he feared he might’ve interrupted some important task after all. But then one hand settled on top of his on Trey’s cheek to keep it there as Trey pressed in, and suddenly his mother’s phone call became the farthest thing from Riddle’s mind.

As evening drew in and Riddle cooled from his fevered pitch, he began to fret over his mother’s accusations and their consequences, previously shoved aside in the heat of the moment. She wasn’t wrong in that a relationship with Trey could possibly hinder his efficiency with studying, and he’d been so caught up with the fact that he was seeing Trey specifically, that the possibility of her taking umbrage with his choice in partner for other reasons never crossed his mind. If he really thought about it, he could remember standing at her side during social events while she talked with others about teaching him how to be a gentleman for a nice young lady in the future, though much of those conversations were lost on him. He was always too distracted by the pretty cakes and treats laid out for the guests, so close and yet so far.

Rough fingers running over the back of his hand drew him out of his worrying. Silently, unwilling to interrupt the dinner conversation happening in the background, Riddle flashed Trey a weak smile and threaded their fingers together under the dining room table to squeeze them. They remained connected, sitting neatly on Riddle’s thigh, until their plates were cleaned and the family began to disperse.

He wasn't necessarily scared about kissing Trey in his home, but the act felt immodest, like he would taint the sanctity of their house by giving more than the occasional peck, and with all the trouble he'd brought into their lives he wasn't sure if he even deserved that much most days. That one, urgent kiss must've done away with the restraint on both sides; settled in earlier than usual for the night, it didn't take long at all for a kiss to break their quiet chatter, then another, and another. Trey accepted Riddle’s lips easily, slowly, and only had to be scolded once when he decided to be cheeky and sneak a peek.

It had been far too long since he'd last kissed Trey properly, felt the swell of his lips, tasted the faint minty flavour. Trey always took such impeccable care of his mouth; being granted access felt like a special privilege he'd earned. One Riddle intended to take every advantage of, grinning as his tongue slipped past and met Trey's.

As they broke apart for air, Trey’s breath ghosted across his face in a chuckle. “You did a good job brushing your teeth,” he commented in a fond whisper. It was immediately followed by a squawk as Riddle pinched his nose.

“Don’t say things that will ruin the moment.” So much for only needing to scold him once.

Unfortunately, Trey didn’t seem all too remorseful, and even went so far as to smirk at him. “I’m trying to pay you a compliment.”

He lightly jostled Trey’s nose, then let him go when it became apparent the punishment wasn’t having much effect. “Then do so in a less vulgar manner.”

“As you wish.”

Huffing, Riddle's hands slid over Trey's shoulders, then up along his cheek. His fingers tingled from the warmth of Trey's skin. From time to time he'd suddenly become explicitly aware that he was allowed to touch Trey like this—and he WAS allowed, he'd subsequently reinforce before doubt could finish creeping in. Trey gave him permission, the Clovers knew about them and approved, and there hadn't been any laws against such relationships for many years, nor much negative public perception, despite his mother’s…unfortunate reaction. It always blew his mind all over again, even after they'd been together for so long. Likely in part due to the physical distance between them over the past year, he concluded: As the saying went, absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Briefly, he wondered if the same could be true for his mother. Then he promptly suffocated the thought by kissing Trey again lest it ruin his good mood. She faded from his mind as his teeth bit into Trey's lower lip, an appreciative groan putting him back right where he needed to be.

The agreement to keep things above the belt was mutual and unspoken, and both were more than comfortable with that. It didn’t prevent the impulse to move into a more controlling position though, nor did it stop Riddle from seizing it in the heat of the moment, pulling away for just long enough to kick the sheet back and throw his leg over to Trey’s other side. There was a pause as Riddle loomed over a mildly bewildered Trey, smug grin curling from ear to ear, enjoying the way Trey’s blush almost glowed in the dim light before those lovely hands rose to clutch at his side and up his neck and Riddle leaned in to claim those lips again—

Footsteps.

Riddle’s entire being froze into a solid block of ice.

All at once he was back in his room, counting the footsteps before his mother reached his door to check in. It had been a nightly occurrence after he was caught sneaking out, and gradually waned away into a weekly one as he grew older. Eyes wide, he stared through Trey’s equally startled expression, through the bed, seeing nothing except the image of her slippers as he counted.

Four, five, six.

Any second now the steps would stop in front of the door, and Trey’s parents—or maybe even his own—would burst in, spitting fury and hellfire. Riddle braced himself as the sound grew closer, as floorboards creaked, breath caged in his chest.

Seven, eight, nine, ten…

And the footsteps kept right on going past Trey’s room. He refused to move, refused to budge, continuing his counting until they were finally interrupted by the distant thump of another door closing. Probably the bathroom door, he’d grown familiar with its softer click than the other doors in the house by then. Just like that he thawed, his locked breath coming out in one shaky rush as his body drooped.

Trey’s hands held him steady, and a tiny, anxious laugh escaped through him, rattling against Riddle’s legs. “We should probably wrap it up for the night,” he whispered, sliding his palm down to rub along Riddle’s arm comfortingly.

Silently, as if any sound could expose them, Riddle crept his way back down onto his side. He suddenly felt as though his body weighed a ton, pulled down by some unspoken sin. A final kiss to his forehead lifted some of it away, so that it didn't smother him when he felt safe enough to shut his eyes.

He hoped his lips wouldn't be swollen in the morning.

He came to slowly, the frantic beeping of the alarm a distant tether tugging him to the surface from the dark pit of sleep. In that moment opening his eyes was one of the hardest things he'd ever done in his life, second only to reaching out and silencing the racket. Half of him wanted to let his arm simply drop and dangle over the edge of the bed. He managed to pull it in, the motion giving him enough leverage to roll over onto his back and scrub the crust away from his eyelids.

It wasn't very often Riddle woke up plagued by drowsiness, but such days were becoming more and more frequent as of late. He had speculation as to why, but his brain was too sludgy to reason through it. Oh well, nothing for it but to apply brute force.

Before he got the chance to try sitting up, the lump in bed beside him stirred, grumbled, shifted, and soon an arm emerged. It reached over him, groping through the air. Once it became clear that it couldn't touch the table from there its owner released a louder groan in dismay and pushed himself up just a little bit.

Oh, my. That was certainly one way to help him wake up.

Riddle watched (or perhaps ogled was the better term, not that he'd admit such out loud) patiently, waiting for his turn to move. His eyes traced over the muscle of Trey's exposed arm, leading up to where he began to loom over in his stretch for his glasses. His collar hung, more skin visible than usual. Praying that his face wasn’t as red as it felt, Riddle forced himself to look away and pressed his cheek into the pillow, dismayed that it wasn’t cool enough to provide any relief.

Above him, Trey continued to mutter to himself, deep and gravel-rough. Then he cursed, followed by the soft sound of something hitting the carpet, and his arm dropping to sit over Riddle's body in defeat. It seemed he wasn’t the only one having an off morning.

Rather than reach over the edge, Riddle snapped his fingers and brought the glasses back up into his hand with a spell. “Here.”

Trey took the glasses from him. A second of processing later and he was hugging him, both arms snaking around Riddle’s chest, glasses still in his fist. “Have I told you how much I love you?” he said, croaky from drowsiness and muffled from where his face had burrowed into Riddle's neck.

“You can show it to me by getting up,” Riddle smiled, reaching up to give Trey’s hair a small pat.

The pause was anticipated, stealing a few more seconds of such close contact before being forced to separate. Instead of pulling away, however, Trey tightened his grip ever so slightly. He even went so far as to partially slip his free hand under Riddle’s sleep shirt, fingers resting warm against bare skin. “...we don't have to get up yet,” he murmured.

The smile dropped. “What? Trey, my alarm already rang.”

“I know.”

“Are you suggesting that we slack off?” His jaw twitched.

“It's not slacking off, it's resting. I'm helping out in the afternoon. No other plans in the morning, so I'm allowed to sleep in.”

“You may be content with laziness, but I have…” Riddle mentally ran through his plans for the day to the best of his still-somewhat-sleepy ability, down to the minute (with leeway for unforeseen delays, of course). He was about halfway through his final book from the library and needed to see them returned before classes started. He had to prepare his new planner and triple check that he cut off all the tags on his new clothes. He wanted to speak with his mother again, but that could come later on in the day once he'd thought about what to say to her. He…erm…well…

Hm.

Not exactly the most…packed schedule, he had to acknowledge. Just like Monday. It felt like a waste to have so much unchecked time. Surely he must've been forgetting something important. And if he really wasn't, then that was a problem to be solved after a proper breakfast.

“...it's still not a good thing to ruin our sleep schedules,” he finished lamely.

“Fifteen minutes won't ruin it.”

“Fifteen minutes was a significant enough time frame for the Queen of Hearts to implement it within several rules.”

“And you know now that nothing bad happens if you go over it.” His head pressed insistently against Riddle’s jaw like a needy cat. Trey could—and frequently would—swear up and down that he wasn't a very affectionate or romantic person. Yet there he was, cuddling and nuzzling him like he was a stuffed animal, all but pleading Riddle to stay. The dichotomy was adorable.

As though presenting proof to the court that he wasn't quite done from last night, that neither of them were, Trey's lips pressed just behind his ear, and Riddle felt every muscle in his body threatening to fall lax. His resolve began to waver in the face of such unmitigated affection.

No, he must stay strong! He'd overcome harder trials than this!

…

Riddle turned over, reached for his phone, and set a new alarm. Then he set it back down and shut his eyes. “You're a terrible influence,” he grumbled against the pillow. Another kiss to the nape of his neck this time had his heart singing, laying limp and allowing Trey to tug him as close as he possibly could, tucked right to Trey’s chest, chin upon his head. Thank goodness the mornings tended to lean cooler, or else such a hold would’ve been unbearable. Easy silence fell between them, and since he’d doomed himself to fifteen more minutes in bed anyway, Riddle attempted to bask in the contact.

Despite his exhaustion, relaxing again did not come easy. Every second that ticked by was a second he should’ve been getting up and going about his day, not lazing about like a dormouse in a teapot. His mind kept screaming at him to quit this farce. The discomfort became so grand he almost wanted to squirm until he rolled right off the bed. But then Trey breathed deep and released a long, comfortable sigh against Riddle’s hair, and he was forced to face the facts: He wanted to be there. If he put up more of a resistance at any point, Trey would certainly let him go. The screaming in his head, vicious and persistent, urging him to move lest he give in and fall to ruin, was mostly not his own.

Cracking an eye open, Riddle plucked up one of Trey’s hands in both his own and brought it to rest against his heart rather than his stomach. He held it there, the closest he could manage to his own little return hug while stuck back-to-chest. Then he let his eye fall shut, and set about clearing his head using the lazy tick of Trey’s pulse through his wrist, a method of calming they’d devised together not long after the incident with Malleus Draconia.

Perhaps indulging once in a while was fine…right?

The alarm blared again all too soon. For the first time in ages, Riddle was mad at it.

Before he even got a chance to lift his hand, he felt Trey say into his hair, “Fifteen more minutes.”

“You had your fifteen minutes.” As he went to reach for his phone to silence it, Trey’s grip shifted, climbing higher, effectively pinning Riddle’s arms to his body. He huffed loudly and clicked his tongue. “Don't be a fussy flamingo. What if I have to use the restroom?”

“...right now?”

“Yes, right now.”

At first he wasn’t sure if that would be enough, and began rousing the rest of his faculties out of the hazy cavern they’d drifted back into to prepare a full-scale resistance. But then, slowly, Trey’s arms opened, even going so far as to hold up the sheets for him. There was only the briefest pause, the smallest droplet of hesitation, a yearning to stay right where he was, before Riddle was up out of the bed. He finally silenced the obnoxious beeping as he did. At the risk of being snatched and wrestled back into the inviting comfort of his partner’s arms (not that Trey would, he knew his place), Riddle leaned in to place a kiss on Trey's head, watching his brow scrunch up close. “You had better also be up by the time I return.”

“Mhm. Right behind you,” Trey grumbled, and nearly poked himself in the eye with the hinge of his glasses as he went to rub his face.

Snorting a chuckle, Riddle pulled away and set about getting ready for the day, his drowsiness fading into all but a distant ghost.

Chapter Text

The horror of his situation sank in a couple hours later, gradually at first, then all at once.

In the shower it needled him. During breakfast it needled him. Even when he took over the bulk of the dishwashing from Nina and tried to occupy his mind with the monotonous repetition of wash, rinse, rack, it needled him. There had to be something he was missing. Normally checking his calendar would be among the first things he’d do upon waking up, but he was fifteen minutes behind in (what was left of) his routine and refused to be caught up in the morning kerfuffle for mirror space. So his planner sat at the desk, untouched, and the sensation of possibly forgetting something vital was driving him half-mad.

Riddle returned to Trey’s room as soon as he finished with the dishes, marched right over to his planner, and whipped it open to the current date without having to search for it and waste time—though at first he was certain he had erred. Beyond a reminder to return his library books, his to-do list for the day was blank. He double, triple, quadruple checked the date as if it would somehow magically change the fifth, sixth, seventh time, but no, he had the right day. Monday onward was packed, filled with neat little notes about classes and the like. Today and Sunday, nothing.

It was there, a week away from home, that it finally hit him, this new reality he found himself in that he’d previously shrugged off as simply strange, blissfully unaware while distracted by the allure of good company. He could muse about the oddity of having no pressing matters all he wanted, but the blank page brought it all into clear, sharp focus. Without having to adjust his schedule or plan weeks in advance, he had an abundance of free time.

And that was terrifying.

In Heartslabyul he had a dorm to run, rules to enforce, animals to care for, and the books piled high on every surface in his room once he was done, any number of topics to teach himself within arm’s reach.

There was no longer any dorm. No need to uphold any rules. No animals. His stack of books totaled at eight if he counted the textbooks he’d brought home with him.

The library was an option, and its existence calmed his fears just a tad. He could spend time there digging through their myriad of topics with no shortage of lessons to learn. His mother would surely approve of such eager self-studying.

A blue book cover tucked away within the Health and Wellness section flashed through his mind, and his limbs went cold and numb.

“So, what’s the plan for today?” Trey’s voice dropped a piano on the panic that attempted to seize his body and sent it through the floor. Oblivious to the collapse he’d just halted, Trey fished around in the narrow space between his bed and the nightstand to pull out a magazine that had slipped down at some point. Then he paused mid-movement to look, one hand still braced on the nightstand for balance. “Riddle?”

Clearing his throat helped, as did flexing one hand a few times to re-establish some form of feeling. But Riddle’s eyes did not break from that empty page. “It…appears that I have nothing. I did wish to pay another visit to the library once I finish with the books…but…” he trailed off. He did not, in fact, wish to pay another visit to the library. Not anymore.

“Sounds like we both have the morning off.” Trey must’ve realized that something was wrong, as his voice had grown softer, careful, tiptoeing into a proverbial minefield. He certainly didn’t tiptoe in his physical approach though, joining Riddle at the desk, leaning close without invading his personal space or blocking him in. “In that case, would you be willing to help me with something?”

The rustle of the magazine finally got Riddle to look away from that awful blank spot, first at the floppy paper bent open in Trey’s hand, then up at Trey himself, eyes wide. Once again, Trey came through for him. Physically Riddle turned, simply curious. Mentally he latched onto the offer like a lifeline. “What is it?”

Gesturing with his wrist, Trey led them both to the bed, where they sat down on the edge as he presented the magazine for Riddle to see. Distantly he recognized it as the one Trey had been reading before, same day as…well, he wasn't going to dwell on her right now, or he’d try not to, in any case.

“I’ve been in the mood to try making something new, but nothing’s really caught my eye. The cookbook from the library didn’t turn up much, so I decided to take a peek at one of these,” he wiggled the magazine, “but it wasn’t any help either. Figured I’d let you take a look through both before I get rid of them in case there’s anything you’d want.”

It didn’t take very long before Riddle began to agree with Trey’s assessment. Some of the dishes were appetizing, though they were also familiar Queendom staples with a minor degree of effort put in to make the recipe appear unique. Margarine instead of butter, a decorative pansy on top instead of rose petals, those sorts. Others were…certainly choices, he’d give them that much. Fish, sweet cheese, and honey might’ve been a popular combination in some other part of the world, but it wasn’t exactly something he was eager to try.

A few pages in he came across a double-spread covered with flashy, bite-sized articles praising low-calorie lunches and diet fads, and he’d barely let go of the paper before Trey uttered a derisive sound. Riddle turned to him quizzically, Trey looked back without a word, and something of a staring contest began between the two of them. Eventually (which didn’t actually take very long), Trey caved. “I wouldn’t bother with this section, personally. It’s…not great.”

Raising a brow, Riddle appraised the images anyway, scanning over the recipes. They almost reminded him of the meals his mother would make, once upon a time. Except for one, key difference. “There’s not much in the way of nutrition in any of these,” he commented.

“That’s one part of it, yeah. They don’t have much flavour to them, either, unless you really load in the spices, at which point you’re eating more spice than food. Not much fun to make or eat.”

Fun to make… Again, his thoughts drifted back to his mother. Did she derive any enjoyment out of the meals she made for him? He could recall how proud she was of her efforts, yes, but that didn’t exactly constitute having fun. Not every task had to provide entertainment, but still, a part of him hoped she’d found something to enjoy out of crafting such nutritious dishes, because otherwise…

An idea caught in the fabric of his mind, tugging him away from that path before it could grow too dreary. Low-calorie, low-calorie… “Trey,” he started slowly, gears turning, “have you utilized your research in your cooking at all?”

“My research?” Trey’s brow furrowed, then he see-sawed his hand. “Um…kind of. We’ve been using the fruits I grew and brought home, so that’s been going well—you could even say my efforts have ‘borne fruit’—” he snickered when Riddle paused, grinned, scoffed his laugh in quick succession, amused enough by wordplay to be spared the pain of a bad pun, “but I haven’t made enough progress on the sweetener front to actually begin baking with it.”

The magazine was set aside, its already flimsy hold on his attention now discarded entirely in favour of something much more worthy. “You still have your papers, yes?”

“I do. Just…” Rather than enthused about the topic, he suddenly appeared sheepish. At first Riddle assumed it was borne from modesty, never one to particularly enjoy the spotlight, but then Trey climbed off the opposite side of the bed and opened up his closet. Out came a backpack Riddle had never seen before, which Trey dropped onto the blanket, its weight enough to make the mattress bounce and heave. Within sat three plastic ringed binders, and two notebooks. “I keep everything in here,” he explained.

“In a backpack…?” Riddle’s eyes widened. “Have you not removed them at all since coming home!?”

“I have! Whenever I come up with a new theory, I take one of these out and jot it down, then put it back.” Trey shrugged, shoulders coming up to his ears. “We don’t have the necessary kind of equipment or the room to experiment with researching spices, and fruit breeding takes a long time and needs specific climate conditions to give good results, even with magic. Never really saw the point in unpacking it all if I’m not using it every day, and eventually I’m going to have to take everything with me anyway.”

He breathed, relieved. “Then you haven’t given up on your endeavors.”

“Not at all, I’m just biding my time while saving up some funds and looking at options.”

“My apologies for doubting you.”

Trey waved his hand and sat down. “Nah, if you pulled an old backpack out of the back of a closet I’d have the same assumption. It’s not like crosswords where it’s a hobby you’re storing away.” As Riddle’s eyes drifted to the part of the closet where they’d moved his collection, Trey fished out one of the binders and held it out. Stuck along the spine was a label with ‘Sweeteners’ scribbled on in black sharpie. “Here, feel free to take a look if you want.”

“I’d be happy to.” Pulling himself back into the middle of the bed to sit more comfortably, Riddle propped it open on his lap. There weren't any sticky notes and he didn't sort with coloured ink, but Trey had separated his papers into two groups: Formulas containing magical components, and standard chemical compounds. Riddle picked each apart in detail. Apparently Trey had made more progress when utilizing magic, but put an amazing amount of effort into finding a solution without it; the pages in the non-magical portion counted almost double that of the magical ones.

With the last notebook on the bed, Trey discarded the backpack and got himself cozy against Riddle’s side. Now that they’d conquered the whole “keeping research in an old closet backpack” aspect without any casualties, he seemed much more relaxed. “It’s pretty complicated stuff.”

“This isn’t my field of expertise, admittedly, so some of the nuance behind your decisions here may be lost on me, but I can understand this all just fine.”

“Wow. Maybe I should’ve asked for your input sooner.”

Riddle shook his head, chuckling. “I may be able to understand this, but I doubt I’d be much help. Like I said, I’m lacking much of your context and experience when it comes to food-related endeavors.”

“Well, to get you up to speed…” Trey began, reaching over to grab one of the notebooks from where he’d dropped it. His arm bumped up against Riddle’s shoulder as he leaned over to display his work, and that was all it took. Off they both went picking apart Trey’s findings, exchanging suggestions and ideas and concepts, sharing relevant anecdotes from the Scalding Sands or an elective at NRC. They changed binders from time to time, holding them open off to the side while in search of related pages in one of the notebooks. At one point the magazine made its reappearance, but only to be used as a makeshift bookmark.

“If I can breed some fruits that are naturally very sweet while also keeping their calories low, I might be able to use them to extract an effective low-calorie sweetener that also offers nutrition to the body,” Trey summed up, trailing a finger over a printed photo comparing two monk fruits as he went. “Apparently there’s already a bunch of research into this, so I was given a lot to work with, but it’s way harder than it sounds on the surface.”

“Trying to locate a compound that binds to the same taste receptors as something like sucrose, while also containing less energy than them…and trying to synthesize those molecules to match that of sucrose could either change how the body breaks down those bonds and lead to adverse effects, or re-introduce energy you would’ve otherwise cut out.”

“At that point, you might as well just go back to using regular supermarket sugar.”

“And the reason you’re pursuing this without relying on alchemy is…?”

He shrugged one shoulder, trying to not jostle Riddle. “I just think it’d be nice if anyone had the ability to make it. You could still do it with alchemy, but then if someone without magic wants to give it a shot, that won’t be a barrier to entry.”

Riddle dropped his head to Trey’s un-shrugged shoulder. “How considerate of you.”

“...Plus, I wouldn’t have to go through the hassle of getting it reviewed by the Magic Safety And Regulations board.”

A snort. “Something tells me this is more likely your main reason.”

Turning, Trey smirked down at him. “Can’t it be both?”

“I never said it couldn’t.”

Trey’s laugh shook both him and the bed slightly, and as it settled, so too did a warmth within Riddle’s chest, separate from the summer heat filling the room. They were back at the changing rooms, trying on outfits and laughing over Chenya’s antics. They were in Heartslabyul’s hedge maze, sharing tea and sweets over talk of their respective club activities. They were outdoors on a bed of clovers, chests heaving from running, sun on their faces and grass in their hair. His fears and anxieties sputtered, trying and failing to flare, smothered by a blanket of calm, simple joy.

A sharp knock on the door promptly ripped the blanket right off.

“Hey, loverboy, we need an extra set of hands downstairs,” came Saxton’s voice through the door, and Riddle swore he heard something of an extra bite added to the nickname, meant as an insult rather than a tease, though perhaps he’d just imagined it; Saxton did sound rather frazzled in general.

Trey’s face morphed through several emotions in rapid succession, surprise to embarrassment, then to confusion when he glanced at the clock, and finally settling on concern as he climbed off the bed. “Large order?” he asked as he pushed open the door.

“Wedding reception,” was all Saxton said, and suddenly Trey was moving like he’d been lit on fire, darting around the room to change into a different shirt and pants in seconds.

“Sorry to bail so suddenly.” He paused in the doorway and offered an apologetic smile, brows pinched hard. “You can keep digging into those if you want. Maybe you’ll think of something that I overlooked.”

Riddle waved him off. “It’s fine, it’s important that you help your family.”

Truthfully, he was more than happy to have something to do, especially if that something was reviewing glorified homework. As soon as the door shut, Riddle stacked the pillows higher to support his back, then sank onto the bed to resume where they’d left off, and while his good mood lingered, Trey’s sudden departure dropped the temperature in his chest by more than a few degrees. He couldn’t settle back into that same feeling. It was close, comfortable enough on its own, but didn’t quite reach the mark.

Without that weighted blanket, the anxiety began to catch light.

His mind wrapped around the topics of fructose and sucrose and starches once his eyes trailed far enough down the page, how much might be in every meal he ate, how little there might’ve been at home in comparison. If his mother saw what he was eating—what he had been eating for years—upset wouldn’t begin to describe her reaction. But such sugars were common in many natural foods, necessary for a healthy body to a degree, and he’d been careful to balance his diet to offset any excess all according to her exact guidelines. So it should be fine, right?

Maybe he should ask if the Clovers had a bathroom scale…

As if in revolt, his stomach growled fiercely enough to rattle the binder in his lap right at that moment, startling him. A glance at the clock told him it was just about noon. “I suppose now’s an opportune time for a break,” he mused aloud to himself and set the binder aside, rising from the bed. The sticky, bubbling thoughts peeled up and came with him, running the numbers on what he’d had for breakfast as he went downstairs, how much would be appropriate to eat, what he would even be allowed to—

A wave of fluffy, vanilla-scented sweetness bowled him over and dissolved the calorie-centered tar of his ruminating partway down. Cupcakes, maybe, or perhaps a full cake suitable for a wedding. Multiple tiers, covered in icing and fondant, edible flowers or pearls or candied fruits dotted about. His mouth watered at the possibilities, even knowing they explicitly weren’t for him to enjoy.

It wouldn’t be fair to make a request while they were all so encumbered with an order, but Riddle knew by now that they always kept some kind of dessert tucked away in their fridge, free for all to indulge unless marked otherwise. Of course, he held every intention of having a proper lunch, but with all the running around he’d be doing in the coming days…

Vanilla warmth invaded his senses again, and he came to a decision: He could afford to have a little treat.

Chapter Text

“Do you have everything?”

“Did you forget who you’re talking to?” Riddle answered, adjusting the strap of his bag over his shoulder. “I’ve triple-checked everything I could possibly need this morning. I’m prepared.”

Trey nodded, but continued on anyway, “What about—”

Normally he wasn’t in the habit of interrupting, but Mr. Clover was waiting. A peck to Trey’s lips silenced him. “Yes, Trey, I have your lunch packed away.” He smiled, equal parts fond and exasperated. “Thank you for going to the trouble of making it for me.”

Once the surprise of being interrupted wore off, Trey grinned, and leaned back down to reciprocate with a kiss of his own. “Sure thing. Have a good day today.”

With that Riddle turned to make his departure, unaware of the sibling pincer-attack about to descend upon his poor, hapless partner the minute the door shut behind him.

Originally he intended on riding somewhere in the back of the SUV, just like he was used to when it came to driving with his mother, but noticed the passenger-side front door was the one open and waiting for him while Mr. Clover fiddled with the stereo. Without wasting time deliberating on it, he climbed in. When Mr. Clover didn't appear offended with his presence up front, a part of him that had tensed up without realizing subsequently loosened with relief, affirmed that he hadn't misread the invitation. That would've been an unfortunate start to his summer semester. “Thank you very much for driving me. I understand how early this is,” he said as he clicked in the seatbelt buckle.

Mr. Clover smiled at him. “It's no trouble at all! We'll get you there with plenty of time to spare.”

The drive was meant to only take about twenty minutes, early enough to dodge the worst of the traffic, but it still felt like an age. He'd underestimated just how…awkward it could be, traveling with your friend's parents alone, even with an upbeat radio station filling in the silence. Looking out the window, watching the buildings pass by, Riddle ran through his mental checklist, and when that concluded within all of two minutes, began to reflect in a straw-grasping effort to relax.

Sunday had passed by faster than he’d anticipated, even if it required scrounging the absolute bottom of the barrel for productive tasks to occupy his time. Hours ticked by unnoticed as Riddle organized each outfit for every day of the upcoming week, studied a map of the Looking Glass Academy grounds to formulate the most optimal route between his classes, made that trip to the library where he deposited the books through the return slot and left before its allure could draw him back in and trap him within the Health and Wellness section. An entire afternoon lost to fretting over his mother, rehearsing, finally hitting the big green Call button, and then another hour gone to the conversation that followed. Opening with his preparations and plans for the summer helped divert the topic away from his relationship and into more familiar territory. Unfortunately, it was not a terribly productive conversation, and rather one-sided at that, but at least he wasn’t thrumming with uncontrolled emotion when he eventually hung up. Some progress was better than none, he kept telling himself.

“If you need a ride home, you know who to call.”

Mr. Clover’s sudden offer startled him out of his thoughts. Riddle knew he meant the patisserie, but his house flashed through his mind instead, knotting up his stomach. Still, he managed a smile. “Thank you, I appreciate the offer. But I'd rather not impose during your hours of operation. I can make my own way back.”

He didn’t take a hand off the wheel, nor did his eyes leave the road, but Mr. Clover grinned and bobbed his head to show his nonchalance. “Nahhh, it's no big deal. We've had to make trips out during the day for the kids before—still do when they need a hand. It comes with the territory of being parents.”

He wanted to believe him, but remained unconvinced. Still, it would've been rude to keep refusing. “I’ll keep it in mind, then, should there be an emergency.”

“Doesn't have to be an emergency. Could just be a long day, and you decide, you know what? I don't want to deal with this today.” Two fingers gestured as if swatting away an invisible pest.

Riddle couldn't stop the corner of his lip from twitching, unsure whether to be amused or bothered by the suggestion. “From the sounds of things, you're speaking from experience.”

“Oh, definitely. There was a span of a week where Regina and I kept swapping who would go and pick up Saxton from his middle school when he called. Had my fair share of days in high school where I wanted to throw my book bag into the street too, and my mom would come fetch me.” Mr. Clover shrugged, and hit the turn signal with the side of his pinky finger. “Sometimes it's just nice having someone there willing to give you a break.” Then, his grin tilted, widened into something teasing. “Sorry it can't be Trey picking you up, though. I kept telling him to get his license sooner, so—”

“N-no! I'm not—it's—” he sputtered, cheeks warming. So much for not making a fool of himself right at the start of the semester. “I-I understand that he has priorities, and that earning his driver's license wasn't one of them right now.”

Mr. Clover snickered, and had opened his mouth to say something further, be it teasing or well-meaning advice, but instead perked up as he turned the corner. “Ah, there we are. Now that wasn’t so bad. I thought traffic around here would’ve been worse.”

More than thankful for the distraction, Riddle rubbed at his cheeks to dispel what was likely a terribly blatant blush as they turned into the parking lot of the Looking Glass Academy. The main building itself was massive, though not to the towering degree of Night Raven College, a royal manor-turned-institute. Its grounds held a checkerboard feel to them, squares of flowers and fountains and other decorative foliage sectioned off from patches of picnic areas and various student facilities, crosshatched paths running between them to allow access. From a birds-eye view, it brought to mind a board game; their brochure he’d found in his researching efforts had even recommended using their map as such for students with young children.

With one last “thank you,” Riddle exited to take his first steps on the grounds, and noticed that Mr. Clover waited until he was well beyond the bordering hedges before he began to pull away, a strange contrast from what he was used to: As a child his mother would march right up into his tutor's classroom with him to ensure he’d make it to his seat and be ready on time, and when he was older, ensure he didn't run away once out of sight. Not that he ever did. Or that the thought had ever crossed his mind more than once. He knew his place. Standing off to the side in one of the crosshatched sections of the path, he wasn’t sure what to make of it now, then decided it wasn’t worth wasting time over.

Where the exterior had been all sharp angles and organized intersections, the academy interior was a much different story. Walkways circled everywhere and doubled back on themselves, spiraling up, up, up several floors, decorated with hanging signs pointing to departments and other important locations every which way. Right beside the entrance they’d placed a massive, detailed map of the building, as well as provided smaller paper maps, almost like someone on staff had grown fed-up with getting lost every day. Had Riddle not cut his teeth on such chaos in Heartslabyul, it might’ve come across as overwhelming. Still, he felt the need to pluck one of the maps for himself. He considered taking pictures of the architecture to send to Cater as he strolled the halls in search of his first period.

Stepping into a classroom felt like slipping on a well-worn glove, focus and mindset shifting to comfortably fit in the familiar spaces. Pressure to exceed already began to bear down upon his shoulders, and yet as Riddle unloaded his bag and set up his workspace, he didn't feel a lick of worry. The location was different, but the environment remained his to dominate in. Compared to the curriculum at Night Raven College, this was child's play—fascinating child's play, but child's play all the same.

Thus, his new routine was born from the ashes of the old. Similar enough to feel comfortable, yet unique enough to keep him on his toes.

Lectures, labs, readings and study periods would fill his weekdays, releasing him back out into the world with approximately an hour and twenty-six minutes before he would’ve had dinner at home. The Clovers ate somewhat later than the time his parents enforced, closer to the hours he’d kept at Night Raven College, so it allowed him plenty of time to travel back via a bus route he’d progressively worked out over the break periods, with a backup in mind for delays. Luckily Wednesday appeared to be something of a buffer day, only two lectures in the morning and a lab in the afternoon, making his return much more flexible.

Public transportation in their region of the Queendom wasn't bad at all, just crowded at peak hours. If he arrived at the bus stop five minutes early he found he could grab a seat. Otherwise he would have to stand the entire way back, and admittedly he was not a fan of being squished, especially between people who apparently didn't even notice his smaller presence. Riddle stretched once the bus arrived at the train station and granted him his personal space again. From there, a short walk.

As soon as he stepped back in through the Clovers’ door, the chime of the shop's bell announcing his arrival, the mantle of an honour student was finally stripped from him, leaving indents of its weight behind. Breathing at once became both easier and harder, less stifling but likely to leave him dizzy if he became too greedy in his freedom. He’d exchange pleasantries with whoever manned the counter at the time, then slip upstairs to jump right into studying before dinner.

All in all, it wasn’t bad. It would take some getting used to, for certain, but as a short-term arrangement he found it acceptable. Of course, not everything could be so simple; contact with his mother became part of the routine as well, a near-daily occurrence he began to dread regardless of the medium.

Only one time did she call him during class, on that first day of attendance. His phone remained on silent to avoid humiliating disturbances, so it was only upon exiting for a lunch break did he discover the twenty-six voicemails from her and nearly shouted in the middle of the building. He tucked himself into a convenient alcove before calling.

“RIDDLE ROSEHEARTS—”

“I'm really sorry I couldn't answer! I was in the middle of class and—”

“Don't tell me you're actually attending!”

Riddle frowned. Had he really shattered her faith in him so thoroughly? “I am. If you wish, I can send you my work for review.”

Her phone picked up her disbelieving huff. “What were the contents of the lesson?”

“As it’s week one, we’re reviewing the basics to ensure we understand what we’re treating. Today we’re covering the various systems within the human body, and a broad overview of cells.” A flicker of hope tried to catch in his chest. Maybe she'd be proud.

But of course it wouldn't happen. “I don't see how such things benefit someone committed to ruining his life.” Her tone didn’t budge an inch away from doubt.

Riddle could recognize a lose-lose situation when he saw it. He suppressed his sigh and trudged off to have lunch. The sight of Trey's efforts packed into the square container proved to be both a dangerous distraction and a needed reprieve with his phone pinched between his ear and shoulder, his mother's stern voice carrying directly into his head, vying to reclaim its lost territory. He only barely managed to wiggle out of her lecture before the next period began. When the day ended, he still found seven text messages from her.

She never called him during his classes again. It became solely an evening ordeal, any time between setting foot in the patisserie's front door and bedtime. He even blocked it out on his daily schedule, a spectre haunting his homework and study periods.

The texts were almost worse, as it turned out. They came in short, flurried bursts whenever she pleased, leaving him on edge, never sure if she was truly done for the day or if he'd receive more in an hour. He could view them at his own pace at least, and his ears weren't left ringing in the aftermath. But it also meant they were there to read again and again, an easy way of picking off his scabs and letting them bleed.

Ungrateful. Ungrateful. It began to look less like a word and more like a weapon.

A floorboard creaking from behind drew his attention, and he cast a look over his shoulder to see Trey lingering in the doorway, silent as a dormouse save for the unfortunate squeaky board that gave him away. “How long were you there?” Riddle asked, irritation leaching into his voice, though it was dull. “You’re fully aware how rude it is to eavesdrop.”

“Not long, I promise.” Trey held his hands up in defense. “Just wanted to let you know that the dessert is ready, but I figured I’d wait until you were done with whatever that was instead of interrupting.” He nodded towards the phone in Riddle’s hands. Then his brow creased, and Riddle knew exactly what he wanted to say next despite ultimately remaining quiet. Are you alright?

Thank goodness he didn’t. Riddle loathed openly answering “no” to that question.

He dropped his eyes back to the phone, quickly flipping it over so the screen sat face down and shoving it to the far edge of the desk. He didn’t like the strange anticipatory sensation that came from looking at it. With the tether of thought disconnected, Riddle sighed out what tension he could, fixed his expression into something a little more neutral than a scowl, and left with Trey to retrieve some dessert.

Settling back into a schedule centered around education acted as a catalyst of sorts, for better and (not that he would admit such) for worse.

Riddle’s new additions to his standard mornings hadn’t fizzled out. If anything, he doubled down: He HAD to be the one doing the dishes after breakfast, no matter what the chore chart said, or else he’d deem himself a freeloader. He HAD to refill the kettle afterwards even if it was already full, or he feared being accused of leaving less for everyone else. He HAD to bring tea in a mug and a coaster directly up to Trey’s room even if Trey went ahead and left a coaster up there for him, or else he could be perceived as sloppy. On days when he had no time to dawdle he used a travel mug instead, graciously borrowed from the Clovers, which was promptly washed by hand and returned to its spot at the very first moment. He’d adopted a few other steps to each task as the days went on, routine becoming ritual, but on the other side of it all he felt less like he was at risk of losing his head. Not entirely, just less.

Do it precisely and perfectly like a good man would, because good men would not burden others as I have without paying their dues, and surely Mother would approve if she knew such things were being done precisely and perfectly and—

Gradually, the internal rambling would fade into the familiar background buzz of anxiety. Nowhere near as overwhelming after almost nineteen years, but present enough to prickle the base of his brainstem if he tried to ignore it entirely.

He was in the midst of the tea-making step of his morning, counting out the scoops for the steeper even though he knew them by heart, when he opened the cupboard for a mug. As he reached up, standing on the tips of his toes, someone called to him.

“Oh, there you are.” Mrs. Clover beamed from where she leaned in through the kitchen doorway. “If you have a moment, I wanted to ask if you’d like to do a favour for me.”

“A favour?” He paused, fingers hooked around a glass handle, turning his head to look at her. “I’d be happy to.”

She clasped her hands together joyfully, pressing her knuckles to her cheek. “Excellent! We have this new lemon tart recipe we’re trying out, and we need a taste-tester who isn’t as biased as the rest of us. Usually one of the kids would ask their friends to come by, but since you’re here…” She vanished from the doorway. “Just a second, I’ll be right back with it!”

Wide-eyed, Riddle blinked at the empty spot where Mrs. Clover had once stood, surprised by her eagerness. In a way it reminded him of Trey, excited to reveal a new culinary creation he’d been practicing, though perhaps with a bit more pep in her step. The thought made him chuckle softly, and he pulled the mug down from the cupboard to give his feet a break from stretching.

With his head still turned, he didn’t see that it wasn’t the only one coming down until something hard hit his elbow. He recoiled with a sharp gasp, alarmed, and realized what exactly happened the split second before the rogue extra mug shattered on impact with the countertop, much too late to even begin trying to catch it. A few shards flew out across the surface, some dropping onto the floor

His blood drained in a rush, pooling in his feet as he stared in utter horror at the mess. Then his brain registered the pattern on what remained of the mug, upside-down and marred with jagged cracks, and he felt his stomach drop out and splatter into the growing puddle of viscera. He put down the one in his hand before he could drop and accidentally break it too.

He knew which mug that was. He’d seen Mrs. Clover with it almost every day since he’d arrived, beside her at breakfast, in her hands after a long day’s work. And now he’d broken it.

“Oh…!”

The sound was enough to snap him out of his shock. Immediately, Riddle whipped around to face Mrs. Clover, caught somewhere in between looking her in the eye and fumbling for his pen which he’d left upstairs with his bag and that just made it all so much worse because summoning it would take two seconds longer than if he’d just kept it on him like a good mage would. “I am so incredibly sorry! I didn’t see it was there and…” His throat bobbed as he swallowed. He shook his head. He shouldn’t be making excuses for his actions.

Mrs. Clover stepped into the kitchen, and years of conditioning kicked in, forcing him to stand with his hands at his sides and his head down, bracing for whatever came next. He wasn’t about to cry—such a thing would be unacceptable—but a gaping pit had opened up in his abdomen and sucked everything down, and no matter how hard he tried to lock every muscle in his body, he found he couldn’t stop the trembling. The rational part of his brain snapped at him, what in the world are you doing? There's no need for any of this, get a hold of yourself! The rest continued to spiral off the rails, undeterred. His mother’s punishments were utterly terrifying, but they were also familiar. He knew exactly what to expect for his carelessness.

Here? He had no idea, and while he’d begun to understand that not all parents were as…strict as his own, that unknown variable caused a glut of bile to rise and catch in his throat. Hopefully the collar of his shirt would be left untouched. Fixing any wrinkles from being grabbed was always a pain, and he couldn't attend class without appearing perfect.

“You’re not hurt, are you?”

That…wasn’t what he expected, though it wasn’t enough to disarm. “I’m unharmed.” A bump on the elbow didn’t warrant attention.

“That’s good, then. Could you grab the dustpan? It’s in the cubby behind you.”

There was a moment, all of a second, where Riddle managed to look up at Mrs. Clover’s face, saw her concern, saw that she was smiling at the same time, and then he was back under the waves as he skirted around the ceramic on the floor to retrieve the dustpan and brush. Immediately he set about gathering up the pieces, hands shaking hard enough to make the dustpan clatter against the floor, then the countertop, its contents rattling. They’d been so kind in letting them use their kitchen. How could he have done such a thing? He should’ve been paying more attention, or he should’ve purchased his own mugs so as to not risk damaging theirs, or he should’ve—

“Riddle. Sweetheart.” A hand set on his shoulder, his body flinching, anticipating the other hand to land next. But it didn’t. “You don’t need to look so stricken. It’s a mug, it’s not the end of the world if one breaks,” said so gently, so lighthearted, not a trace of anger to be heard.

“But…” he swallowed, looking down at the pieces gathered in the dustpan. “Was it not a favourite of yours?”

Mrs. Clover relinquished the dustpan from him, and added the shards she’d gathered to the pile. “It was, but accidents happen. Besides, that one already had a nasty crack in it. I’m surprised it lasted this long.”

Finally, Riddle allowed himself to lift his head, befuddlement neutralizing his fear. He almost didn’t comprehend it. He’d damaged her personal property, and she barely even seemed affected. It wasn’t like at the dorm, where their wares were provided by the school and shared among hundreds—

The idea hit him so suddenly it was out of his mouth before he could even think. “I can repair it,” he offered, sucking his teeth to stop from grimacing when his voice shook a little. “It might take some time to set, but I used to repair teacups at the dorm with magic.”

“Can you now?” Her brows raised, an expression of genuine interest, before it smoothed back out. “You don’t have to go to the trouble of doing that.”

“Please.” His heart felt like it was about to pop in his chest. “Please let me fix this.”

She made a gesture with her free palm meant to ease, and set the dustpan down. “Alright, alright. If it’ll give you some peace of mind. It’s no big deal if it doesn’t work out though; like I said, accidents happen.”

Relief. Blissful, utter relief. It wasn’t over yet, but at least he was no longer treading water. “Thank you,” he breathed. In a flash, his pen was in his hand. “I’ll have it ready for you by the time I leave for classes, I promise.”

“Don’t stress yourself out over it,” Mrs. Clover soothed, and stepped back to let him get to work.

Normally, learning mages would need a set of specific ingredients when performing magical repairs on an object: Pine tar, gelatin, and a powdered metal depending on the material being repaired, the purer, the better. However, with enough experience such additions no longer became necessary. Of course there was always glue, but that left visible cracks, and he couldn’t have that. It’d be proof of his mistake. He had to do this properly. If he did, then maybe he’d get lucky and they wouldn’t forbid him from making tea, or worse.

Pen held out front, his focus narrowed down exclusively on his task, Riddle guided the pieces together with his free hand like a three-dimensional puzzle. He turned the broken mug this way and that, filling even the smallest hole, filtering out dust the best he could manage. Perfectly, precisely. By the time he was finished, his eyes had gone dry. Slowly, as if expecting it to shatter again the moment it made contact with anything, he lowered the reconstructed mug back onto the countertop. The cracks glowed with an ethereal green sheen, bonding the ceramic in place.

Riddle heaved a sigh and massaged his eyelids with a finger and thumb. He’d done it. He made up for his catastrophic error.

An impressed hum made him open his eyes again. Mrs. Clover approached and leaned over the countertop, examining the mug without touching it. “You’re quite the mage.”

He set a hand to his chest, proud. “But of course. Mother raised me to be exceptional.” Now that his mind had begun to clear, he couldn't recall Trey ever mentioning that his parents reprimanded him beyond scolding when necessary. His bones felt brittle though, like his ribs had been crushed under the weight of his fear, so his pride immediately started to crumble from the touch. “I’m terribly sorry again for all of this.”

“It’s fine! No harm done—literally.” Gingerly, she pushed the mug further back so it would remain safe while the magic wrapped up. “Here, now that that’s all done with, would you still have time to try that lemon tart?”

The prospect of a treat no longer felt appetizing, but that didn't mean he was about to go back on accepting the request. Eyes wide, Riddle nodded. “If I’m allowed.”

“You sure are! Come out to the front, I was just about to cut a slice.”

As he followed her out, Riddle cast one last look back at the mug, pulling a little more relief from the sight to chase away what he could of his guilt.

Chapter Text

It wasn’t a violent awakening, but neither was it a peaceful one. A shallow, sharp gasp yanking him to immediate alertness, no groggy fumbling, no panic about where he was, and that should’ve been a relief; it was what he was trying to do the whole time, shut his eyes and will himself somewhere else, somewhere safe. He’d succeeded, just not fast enough to spare him from the crack of pain jolting across his knuckles at the same time.

Hissing through his teeth, Riddle pulled his left hand in and cradled it close like he’d smacked it on something hard, applying pressure to try and alleviate the ache radiating out to his fingers. It shook slightly in his grasp, pulse racing beneath the skin, bones ringing as if he’d been struck by a tuning fork instead of a ruler. A part of him expected to see blood on his palm when he pulled away to assess the damage, but his skin almost was pristine. Didn't even appear red where the blow landed. Only a thin sheen of sweat.

Riddle let his hands drop onto his chest with a sigh, and looked over to where Trey continued to sleep unbothered, stomach-down and sprawled as much as he could without denying Riddle any room of his own. It had finally grown hot enough to where cuddling up was simply no longer an option, but Trey had refused to let Riddle sleep on the floor, and Riddle refused to steal Trey’s bed away from him. They made it work, until it didn’t, until he’d woken up on nights like this one with a childish longing to curl in closer despite knowing it would be a miserable, sticky experience. It was his issue to handle though, his yearning to stomp down, so he never felt it necessary to divulge the details to Trey.

He could suppress his own desires, but he couldn’t suppress how stuffy and humid the room felt, especially as he tried to control his breathing and calm his racing heart. Nudging the sheet off, he sat on the edge of the bed with the intent to get up and open the window, only to stop. In the back of his mind, its claws hooked tight and refusing to fade, he continued to hear his mother’s scolding, the whistle of the ruler cutting through the air before striking his arm, wrist, hand. When he lifted his head to look at the window, it grew louder. His knuckles throbbed.

Frustration burned up his throat, but he had to listen to the rational part of his brain while it remained in control; despite the relative clarity of his thoughts compared to past nighttime awakenings, he was not of sound mind.

Instead he sat, and he stewed in the heat, until he was confident his legs wouldn’t automatically take him to the window, at which point Riddle ventured downstairs for some fridge-chilled water.

Deuce
4:31pm> Hey so um I found a chicken and I dont know what to do about it
4:31pm> It was chillin on our mat kinda hangin out and I think it might be a neighbours but I dont know anyone nearby who has chickens so

A picture of a small, fluffy white chicken sitting happily on a welcome mat followed the text.

Ace
4:32pm> dude wth

Cater
4:32pm> LOL????

Deuce
4:32pm> Moms gonna ask around town but if nobody claims it then idk
4:32pm> It seems friendly?

Deuce
4:35pm> Oh crap I didnt even think about that I already picked it up

Another picture, this time of the chicken looking considerably more confused as it sat in one of Deuce's palms.

Cater
4:35pm> LMAO DUDE Y R U PICKING UP RANDOM ANIMALS???? 🤣😭

Deuce
4:35pm> It started raining and I didnt want to leave it outside
4:35pm> Is it any different from looking after flamingos?

Deuce
4:36pm> Yea?

Cater
4:37pm> omg ur killin Cay-cay here Deucey u got a pet now

Ace
4:37pm> name it dinner

Deuce
4:37pm> PISS OFF IM NOT CALLING HER DINNER

Ace
4:37pm> oh no he called it her now hes doomed

“Good grief,” Riddle muttered under his breath, and started the arduous process of typing out the full Queendom law article surrounding the handling of domestic poultry. Playing with digital crosswords had helped improve his thumb dexterity and speed, but he knew full well he still lagged behind his peers when it came to texting.

He was only about halfway through when Trey pushed the door open. “Hey, just a heads up, but Dad's gonna come up and install a sliding screen in the window.”

“Oh?” Riddle lifted his head, thumbs still hovering over his phone's keyboard.

Trey nodded and moved over to the window to open and tie the curtains. Sunlight cut a path across Riddle’s lap. “You mentioned a few nights ago that you liked to sleep with the window open when it gets hot, so he went out and picked one up. That way we can leave it open without worrying about bugs getting in. Originally he wanted to sneak it in while you were in class, but he forgot that you're off earlier on Wednesdays.”

Riddle's eyes went wide, and he stood, chicken-related laws forgotten. “W-wait! You needn’t go to such lengths to accommodate me!”

“We were considering doing it anyway. It's long overdue, so you gave us the perfect excuse to go ahead and finally add one.” Trey smiled as if the screen never would've existed otherwise, and was therefore grateful for his existence.

It warmed him faster than the sunbeam ever could've. “Well…alright, then. I certainly won't argue with that. It'll be nice having some fresh air.” Then his brow furrowed. “Have you just been suffering in the heat every summer until now?”

There was a pause before Trey looked towards his nightstand and the wall plug beside it, a convenient way to avoid eye contact. “No, I used a fan, and usually that plus the A/C is enough. And I did pull it out of storage yesterday to set it up while you were gone. But someone tripped over the cord and broke it.” When he looked back to Riddle, his brow pinched and his smile grew bashful. “So that's another thing we're gonna have to grab at some point.”

Luckily for Trey, Riddle was still too wrapped up in the notion of his parents making a change for him from an offhand comment over dinner, so he was spared from an exasperated look. Gratitude tried to well up within, but it was thick and syrupy, weighed down and contaminated by unease. The last time anyone had modified a window with him in mind, it was to put steel bars up. A screen couldn't stop him if he truly had to get past, and it was supposed to be movable on top of that, but it was still another layer between him and the outside world. With how he'd been thinking about it lately, perhaps it was for his own benefit in more ways than one.

No, enough. He had grown thoroughly tired of that line of thought. He almost shook his head to knock it loose, but then Mr. Clover emerged and it was set aside for later wrangling, along with his phone and any chicken related antics causing it to buzz.

“Sorry to barge in like this,” Mr. Clover said, adjusting his grip on the square screen to rest it against the wall. “I'll just be a few minutes, then I'll be out of your hair.”

“It's no trouble at all. Thank you for doing this.” Riddle watched as Mr. Clover opened the window, then glanced up at Trey, who had moved out of the way to stand next to the desk. He didn't need to wait to meet his gaze before turning back to ask, “Can we be of any assistance?”

Humming, Mr. Clover inspected the window sill, palm running along the edge. “I could use the extra hands. These windows don't have the proper ridge to slot in a sliding screen, so we're going to have to figure this out the hard way.”

At once, two years of practice came into play, and they moved as a unit to stand on either side of Mr. Clover, ready to tackle the problem. Even though he was the one supposedly in charge, the two of them began investigating the window frame and the screen, taking measurements and tossing out ideas on how to proceed.

“We can't do this head-on, the frame won't fit it.”

“Sliding it through at an angle might work, but we'll have to be careful so it doesn't just drop out the other side.”

“What if I approach from outside? I can fly up with my broom and hold it in place.”

“I like the way you think.”

It took only minutes for Riddle to retrieve his broom from the closet and trot downstairs, making sure he shut the back door firmly behind him before a harvestman haunting the exterior door frame made a run for it. As he mounted and flew up, mindful of the plants on the sill, he heard a click from below identical to the sound of the door. Initially he ignored it, occupied with helping wiggle the screen into place, but that one little sound began to whittle away at him (he was certain he shut the door, but…) and eventually he cast a glance down. Not a soul to be seen. Every second passed without double-checking the door grew agonizing. How many pests could get in? Had that harvestman made it past the threshold yet?

“Alright, you can come back inside.”

Riddle nodded, concealing his relief, and dropped quickly. His relief doubled when he found the door to be closed, just as he'd thought. “You're being ridiculous,” he chided himself, and promptly dismissed the sound he'd heard as a trick of the mind, mistaken from something else. There was plenty of activity around them at this time of day.

“Looking good. I think we can call this a job well done.” Mr. Clover pulled the screen down and flicked the lock into place as Riddle returned, smiling over at him. “Hopefully this'll make your nights more comfortable.” One of his hands rose, palm up and out.

At first he had to assume he was being told to wait, that maybe there was another part to this whole matter he’d overlooked. But Mr. Clover didn’t move, and it soon clicked what he was actually asking for. Riddle paused, blinking, more than a little thrown off, before hesitantly returning both the smile and the hi-five. “I’m…sure it will, yes,” he tried, hoping some good cheer would stop the moment from feeling so painfully awkward. It didn’t seem to faze Mr. Clover one bit, who promptly absconded as promised, leaving Riddle to stare down at his palm and contemplate what just happened.

By the time the call ended, the line cutting out before he could finish saying goodbye, Riddle wanted to throw his phone across the room. The frustration was solely at himself (he hoped, even as his body accused otherwise) but that made it no less potent. His head thrummed with the beginnings of a headache, and as he lifted his free hand up to knead at his temple he could feel veins protruding. Perhaps he’d been somewhat presumptuous in feeling like things were settling down. His mother made that very clear over the past hour and a half, showing that she hadn't forgotten about his relationship, that she wasn't about to let it be. One step forward, two steps back.

He’d been through enough to (on occasion) recognize when his self-control couldn’t be trusted, so he set his phone down far out of reach before it became a projectile. There was no way he could return to his studies like this. He could breathe deep and count to a hundred or a thousand or ten thousand for all it mattered, but just glancing at the textbooks strewn about the desk made the veins throb against his fingers. All he could think of was her anger. For once, he could acknowledge that a distraction was necessary, a concept Chenya probably would’ve had a field day with, if he wasn’t out for the evening.

There was always Trey, of course, but every fiber in Riddle's being refused to treat him as a quick-fix for all his problems and reduce their bond to an addiction. Besides, Trey was downstairs preparing dinner. He couldn’t go and interrupt with something so petty yet again. So what in the world was he to do? He needed relief before it hampered his academic performance.

He still had options, he reasoned. Things he hadn't yet explored. Maybe some fresh air would help him get there. A glance towards the window made him shudder as the memories returned, and hot on its heels came a fresh wave of disgust, heaped directly upon himself. He was officially completely fed up with this farce. It was a window, for goodness sake!

Not much of a distraction admittedly, only shifting his train of thought to an adjacent track running parallel, but perhaps it would go off in another direction, better than where he was otherwise headed.

When he stuck his head out that one day and imagined the ground rushing up at him, it wasn’t the thought itself that alarmed him—well, it had, but he was more or less used to them by now. But its timing and persistent presence meant that he’d have to face some rather unpleasant truths. Truths that, spurred on by his turmoil, he grabbed by the handful and tried not to wince when they hurt.

He had to acknowledge the part of him that had hoped, however terrible that hope made him feel, that leaving his home would bring a stop to such thoughts. A much harder pill forced its way down his throat before he could stop it; he hadn’t actually left at all, not mentally, nor was he ready to take the actions necessary to do so. Then the hardest of them all, one that caught and choked and refused to go the rest of the way, that it wasn't just his home but his mother—

Riddle promptly shoved himself up out of his seat. “It will be fine,” he said aloud to himself around the foreign object blocking his windpipe, attempting and only half-succeeding at being both firm and reassuring. “This arrangement can work. It WILL work. I’ll make it if I have to.”

Part of that was overcoming such disgraceful behavior.

For a few beats he stood there and stared at the curtains, turned yellow with filtered sunlight. Shadows had begun to encroach at the edge, a warning that sunset was approaching. Then, muscles tense, he threw open the curtains, then both the window and the screen, ready to face whatever happened head on and shout it down if needed. If nothing else it’d be a good outlet for his stress. His hands clutched the sill until the knuckles turned snow white, heart high in his throat to knock loose and eject that unfortunate final truth for something much scarier, anticipating the nastiness in the back of his brain to rear up with memories and temptations.

And they tried to, oh, they certainly did. Only they were swiftly overpowered not with fury, but with thoughts of how nice the sun felt, how different the air was outside the threshold, how he’d never counted the patio chairs before (three, enough for three siblings, or if he, Trey, and Chenya wished to engage outside.) If he was mindful of the planter box, perhaps he could lift off from here with his broom. The idea began to unravel the knots in his chest and neck, as did the reminder that if he honestly, truly did fall for one reason or another, a spell would catch him easily.

How foolish he’d been, to overreact to something so trivial. So easily dismissed with but seconds of effort. And perhaps the thoughts he’d attached to it had been trivial as well; his home had never actually been an issue, he needn’t worry about his longing for it, for his mother.

No part of him believed that. If the window had been trivial, if his desire to escape had been misplaced, then he wouldn’t have been so wholly, utterly relieved to take in the outdoors again.

Yes, right, the outdoors. He should be focusing on that instead, or else he’d never find his way back to the desk with a clear head. Slowly, vice grip loosening, Riddle put more of his weight on the window until he was all but leaning out. A breeze rustled his bangs, pushed his hair against his cheek. He shut his eyes and listened to a cricket from somewhere far away, still heard over the distant sounds of traffic and city life. When he’d had his fill, when his head stopped its incessant pounding, he looked down to begin taking in the view from Trey’s bedroom window properly.

It was then that he’d noticed the backyard wasn’t empty. Saxton stood in the small grassy patch of lawn between the patio and the plants, broom in hand.

At first he didn't appear to be doing much of anything, and Riddle started scanning the garden line instead (that one spot towards the back-right was beginning to look rather overgrown), but in his peripheral vision he noticed Saxton laying the broom out on the grass. A flash drew his full attention back over. An attempt at automation, perhaps? That theory promptly flew away on the wind when Saxton proceeded to pick up the broom and threw it straight up in the air. It fell right back to the grass, evidently not the desired outcome from the faint, frustrated groan that followed.

Hm.

Riddle knew well the old adage about curiosity and cats, but he chose to investigate regardless, locking up both the screen and the window before venturing downstairs. A quick jaunt outside would be a satisfying way to conclude his dwellings and leave him ready to return to studying, he reasoned.

He'd meant to make his approach quietly so as to not disturb concentration. A very squeaky deck plank ruined that plan. Saxton whipped around to face him like he'd been caught red-handed, broom clutched tight, and Riddle figured there was no use in urging him to resume his…whatever this was. “What are you doing?”

“Uh…” Saxton’s eyes dropped down to the broom and bounced back up. “Sweeping?”

“Sweeping the grass?”

“Maybe the grass needed to be swept?”

“That’s the broom reserved for the front of the shop, is it not?” Riddle gave it a once-over as he approached. He recognized the blue handle. “If you were tending to the grass, one would assume you’d have instruments specifically for outdoor use. You’ll risk dirtying the floors if you use that.”

For all of a second, Saxton fixed him a look of utter bewilderment before it returned to the broom in his hands. “I'm going to clean it off after…” he mumbled like a scolded child. Then, all at once, as if he realized who he was talking to, his demeanor changed suddenly. “What's it matter to you, anyway?”

Riddle would be lying if he said he wasn't taken aback. “Am I not allowed to inquire about another’s behavior?” His eyes narrowed.

Saxton scoffed. “Yeah, figures you'd see something strange about it.”

“I don't much care for others putting words in my mouth, nor do I like your inflection or your tone just now.” Skin prickling, he made his displeasure known in a rather pointed frown. “Perhaps if you explained what you were doing instead of getting defensive, it wouldn't be seen as strange.”

“I told you what I was doing!”

“And you were obviously lying!” Heat flared in Riddle’s chest, rocketing up his spine to begin gathering in his skull.“Not only are there no dead leaves or other such debris around to be swept, but I watched you lay the broom flat on the ground and throw it around in the air. And furthermore,” he jabbed a finger towards the offending object, “you're holding it upside-down!”

Sputtering, Saxton quickly flipped the broom around to stand up properly. “Look, it's none of your business, alright?! Just leave me alone.”

Right around there, he recognized what was happening, and the acknowledgement alone ticked the heat down a notch; Trey would not be happy to hear he'd gotten into a fight with his brother. That, and he just plain did not want to deal with any further lip. Not so soon after what he’d been through. “Fine,” Riddle snapped, crossing his arms as he turned away to leave. “It will not be my responsibility to explain what happened to your parents if you damage something.”

It was supposed to be a warning, absolving him of any guilt. Apparently, as was the case many times previously, it would've been better to keep his mouth shut.

“What the hell is your deal?”

So much for leaving. “MY deal?!” Riddle whipped back around, head boiling, colour flushing in the pits of his cheeks. “I should be asking you that! What's ‘YOUR deal’?! We've held a proper conversation only a handful of times!”

“You come into OUR house and try to act like you own the place! Of course I’m gonna have a problem with that!” Saxton threw his arms out wide, nearly losing his grip on the broom in the process, though he didn't seem to care all that much about it anymore.

“I haven’t—” he started, then abruptly paused, halting his anger for just long enough to roll the reel back, assess every interaction he’d had with Trey’s family over the past two weeks. His brow furrowed. Had he been going overboard? He’d done his best to avoid making unreasonable requests, and they’d accommodated him like it wasn’t an issue when he did ask a favour—and even when he didn’t, in fact. He’d waited his turn for the laundry and washroom, used his own resources where possible, cleaned up after himself and placed everything else exactly back where he’d found them. He’d made sure to say please and thank you, and hadn’t raised his voice as far as he could recall. So where had he erred?

Aside from breaking the mug. But I fixed that! he pleaded with himself. But you still broke it, his own voice replied.

Of course, he wasn’t exactly the best judge of his own actions. Even after he’d loosened his grip on the rules, he struggled to tell what was acceptable, whether he went too far or not far enough. It was a balance he never came close to mastering. While he thought he knew proper social conduct and etiquette, perhaps he’d been flawed here, too, all along, even before the mug. The notion made his stomach churn.

“Mhmm? You’re so sure of that?” Saxton leaned in, brows raised, vindicated by Riddle’s hesitation.

The anger surged right back into place. “Then why haven’t you said anything?!” he shouted, hands thrown out to his sides, mirroring Saxton. “If I really have been breaking a rule, I should’ve been informed so I can correct my behavior!”

“Oh, what, are you too perfect to realize yourself when you’re screwing up like the rest of us?” Scoffing, Saxton shoved past him and stormed back towards the patio. “Whatever. Forget this. I don’t know how Trey can put up with you.” He slammed the door behind him, and that was that.

Riddle watched him go wordlessly, mouth agape, vision growing red at the edges. Had Saxton been in Heartslabyul, his head would’ve rolled, regardless of whatever familial relationship he held with Trey. But to a degree, Saxton had been correct; he was but a guest in their home, and regardless of whether he actually had made some social infractions during his time there or not, beheading a resident certainly would’ve counted as one. So instead Riddle stood, and he seethed, fists clenching and unclenching, urging him to chase and bring the fight indoors, and when it grew to be too much his hands flew into his hair and he threw his head back in a furious growl. Only when his anger had cooled to a smolder did he finally stomp back inside.