Work Text:
Trey’s day wasn’t off to the best start. Riddle had flown off the handle at some poor freshman who had made the mistake of looking through the hole in a donut (rule #27 you must not hold a food item with a hole up to your eye and look through it). At least Trey had managed to talk him down from actually beheading the kid.
Ugh, the day had just started and he was already exhausted. No, exhausted wasn’t the right word. He couldn’t place it. On edge maybe? Not even so much the concrete feeling that something would go wrong, just… unplaceable dread. Somehow both all-consuming and barely noticeable.
What was this? He wasn’t sick. There wasn’t anything he could think of that would be making him more stressed than usual. He could go brush his teeth again, but that didn’t feel like it would help. He just needed to take his mind off of it.
Baking would help. Rook had given him some pomegranates that he’d managed to grow in the greenhouse. Trey hadn’t gotten around to using them yet since just opening them was a bit of a process, but right now that sounded like exactly what he needed.
He washed his hands, before setting out a cutting board with a damp towel underneath it to prevent it from sliding, a bowl for the scraps, and one for the seeds, and finally set a kitchen knife at the top of the board, horizontally, with the blade facing away from him.
None of this was mandatory, not according to the rules of the Queen of Hearts anyway.
All of it was just basic kitchen prep, the kinds of things his parents taught him. It was all either for safety or efficiency, and was also probably the reason most people didn’t like using the kitchen when he was there.
Just about everyone who tried to cook while he was there left with the opinion that Trey was bossy and overprotective. Sure, he would correct people about knife safety, and give them advice on what to do in the case of certain emergencies. He made sure that everyone (Deuce in particular) knew to never pour water on a grease fire.
He would apparently “nag” about sanitation as well. The implication that reminding people to wash their hands counted as nagging was one that Trey found both disgusting and deeply disheartening.
On some level, he could understand how he might come off as overbearing. People typically think of cooking as easy and fun, and they forget that it involves sharp objects and high temperatures. They just don’t think anything could go wrong, so telling them all the ways that it actually could made him sound crazy.
As irritating as he found it all, it at least meant that he usually had the kitchen to himself.
Trey sighed. This wasn’t helping his anxiety. He just couldn’t understand why people always assumed they knew more about this than he did. He’d been doing this his whole life, and everyone knew that. There were rules to this, and if you wanted to break them, you should at least know what they are and what they’re for.
He stared at the knife on the cutting board.
Break the rules, huh?
Without thinking, he reached over and turned the knife around. The blade was facing him now. He wasn’t sure why, but that small action made him giddy. He felt his face crack into a smile.
Just a tiny act of rebellion. A feeble kind of risk taking. It was intoxicating.
He picked up the pomegranate, and held it on the cutting board, paying no mind to the position of his hand. He picked up the knife, and brought it down in one smooth motion, slicing the top off like a guillotine.
Off with your head!
He chuckled, and went about scoring along the segments. He put his index finger on the spine of the knife as seemed to be everyone’s first instinct. It felt awful, hilariously so. Why did people insist on doing this even after he taught the right way? Even so, he kept it like that, and cut along the skin until he could split it open.
…what was he doing?
What had just gotten into him? He could’ve hurt himself. That wasn’t… the kind of person he was. Was it? A strange sorrow crept over him.
What did Cater feel when he hurt himself? Was it the same? If Trey really did it, would he know? And if he did, could he go back?
The anxiety settled back into his chest as he washed the knife and put it away.
He moved the cutting board and the bowls over so he could sit down while he picked the seeds out of the pomegranate. He didn’t usually sit down when he was doing something in the kitchen, it felt strange. There were faster ways to get all the seeds out, but he sort of wanted to be at this for a while.
Slowly, he started separating the seeds from the white pith and dropping them in the bowl. They were beautiful, like hundreds of little gems. The silence was helping him, at least a little. His chest still felt a little tight, but he could ignore it, for the most part at least.
The seeds made the quietest little cracking sounds as they came free. The tips of his fingers were slowly getting stained slightly purple.
He hadn’t thought about what he would make with them yet. A tart? Or maybe a cheesecake? But the idea of setting up mise en place right now was making his head spin. What was going on? He was never like this.
Oh well, if he wasn’t going to use them now, he should probably freeze them. That might make them lose some of their texture, but the taste would be fine.
Just then he thought of something stupid. He chuckled to himself as he poured the seeds into a small plastic bag, filled it with water, and put it in the freezer. It was an old “popsicle recipe” courtesy of Che’nya, though his version swapped out the pomegranate seeds for canned sardines. He said it made him feel like he was at the zoo. Trey wasn’t sure if he meant an animal at the zoo, or maybe Che’nya just thought that was a normal thing to eat at the zoo.
Despite never wanting any, Trey had started feeling left out, so he would make his own with bits of fruit or edible flowers. They used to do that all the time. Just sit and talk, Trey eating a mostly water flavored popsicle, and Che’nya loudly licking a horrible smelling ice cube of fish.
It had been so long since they’d done that. Just thinking about it made Trey’s heart feel a little lighter.
Just then, the door opened, and Cater walked in. Phone already in hand, he went right up to Trey and flashed a peace sign, pointing the camera at the two of them.
“Trey, come take a selfie with me!” He said.
“Stop, people are gonna think we’re dating,” Trey said, lightly pushing the phone away.
“I mean, we are, so is it bad if they think that?” Cater sat down next to him, and nudged his knee with his own.
“Not really, I just…” Trey sighed, and spoke a little quieter. “I don’t want Riddle to try to crack down on us hanging out or something.” There was that feeling again.
“Would he do that? Isn’t dating allowed?” Cater asked.
Trey looked away. “Yeah, but I don’t know, I feel like he might be… weird about that kind of thing,”
“Homophobic?”
“I didn’t say that. It’s just that his mom definitely seems like she could be. And y’know, wouldn’t it just be easier to not find out?”
Cater rolled his eyes. “Even if he is, couldn’t you just tell him that it’s not against the rules?”
“I don’t think he’d do anything overt, he just might find more busywork for me, or make sure we stay in our rooms at night.”
“You think he even knows what sex is?”
“I think he knows all the ways STDs get transmitted,”
“Ugh, but I think like, most of Heartslabyul’s figured it out already. We’re not that subtle.”
“I don’t think he can really tell what’s normal for a friendship. One time when we were kids he said that Che’nya and I ‘touched each other more than a married couple,’ even though we only really hugged sometimes,”
Cater laughed. “He really just told on his parents like that?”
“Honestly, everything he said should have sounded like he was telling on them. We all knew what was happening to him, and no one did anything about it.”
Cater put a hand on his shoulder. He looked serious all of a sudden. “You know it’s not your fault, right? You were a kid, it wasn’t your job to protect him.”
Trey cocked his head. “Huh? Where’d that come from?”
“What do you mean where? Every time you talk about Riddle, or his past, or his mom, you’ve got this weird sense of guilt about it, like you think you at ten years old should’ve stopped it. I’m telling you that it’s not your fault.”
Trey reeled for a second. “Oh, I guess I did take the conversation in kind of a downer direction, sorry, I’ve been feeling kind of off all day.” Trey knew that wasn’t really a response to what Cater was saying, but he just wanted to change the subject. Cater’s words only made it harder to breathe.
“Off how?”
“I don’t know, my chest feels sort of tight, but I don’t think I’m sick. It’s probably nothing to worry about.”
“Oh, that might be an anxiety attack. Does it like, feel like you’re sorta dizzy and can’t really breathe?”
Trey was grateful that Cater had gotten the memo and changed the subject, but now it seemed like they were going to talk about Trey’s mental health again, which he also wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about.
“Yeah, but can those just happen for no reason?”
Cater laughed. “Yeah, can’t think of anything you might be stressed about,” Cater shook his head. “I think they actually can just happen randomly though.”
“And they’re normal. They don’t just happen if you’re mentally ill,” Cater added hastily.
Trey rolled his eyes. “I know that.”
“Just makin’ sure, Mr. Has Never Been Mentally Ill Even Once.”
“Come on, if I was mentally ill, wouldn’t I have noticed by now?”
“You’d think,”
Trey sighed. “Whatever. Do you know how to get rid of it?”
“Umm… breathing, sometimes going for a walk can help… actually, yeah, let’s go for a walk.”
“Whatever you say. You’re the doctor here,”
“You asked!”
Trey smirked. He honestly just said that to get a rise out of him.
“Oh my god, I’m actually gonna kill y- mysel- no…”
As if on cue, they both burst out laughing.
“Were you trying to correct yourself?” Trey asked.
“Shut up!”
Once the laughter died down Trey started cleaning up the area where he was working. To his surprise, Cater got up and started washing one of the bowls.
“Aww, thank you. Maybe you could help me clean the kitchen more often.”
“Ooh, y’know I totally would, but I don’t… want to.”
Trey laughed. “Oh well, worth a shot.”