Chapter Text
Trey was surprised when he heard someone knocking at the bakery's clearly closed door during the Winter Break. Doing what he was asked, he naturally went to check who could be choosing to stand in the Queendom-typical light snowfall, especially this close to midnight. He knew that the family patisserie was popular, but they have yet to get that desperate fans.
He was even more surprised when he saw Riddle flinching as the little bell at the door rang, just standing there, clutching his wrist protectively, shivering. It took Trey a beat to notice the other boy doesn't have a coat on him. It took either of them more than that to speak up.
"Riddle?" Trey tried to sound more cautious than worried. He wasn't sure if it worked.
"I…" Riddle tried. His voice was coarse, bloodshot eyes darted away immediately after an attempt to maintain eye contact. That finally managed to get Trey back to his senses.
"Come in! Good Seven, you have snow on your head…"
Trey made way and waited for the smaller boy to gently trek into the shop. Riddle stopped suddenly in the middle, staring into the cash register as if a ghost was running it. He flinched again, harder this time, as Trey locked the door again. He shook his head violently, facing the floor to try to cover his face. He gripped his wrist tighter as his shoulders gave away the fact that he started crying before his voice could.
Trey managed to catch him before his knees gave way and he fell to the floor. He shouted for his siblings to put on some herbal tea and a couple blankets. The shouting made the sharp sobs worse.
Trey's mom helped him get the shaking Riddle to walk upstairs to the living room sofa. Trey's dad opened it up in the meantime for more space. Some time passed before Riddle calmed down enough to hold the mug. Even more time passed before he was able to talk. Trey's siblings long since went to sleep while his parents chose to give the two as much privacy as their small flat allowed for, locking the door to their bedroom behind them.
"I talked to her," Riddle's voice was small, quiet as he trailed off the end of his sentence. He was looking at the liquid in his mug as if it was poison, but full of sadness and not the expected anger or distrust. As if he was the one that poured it for himself.
It was extremely late and Trey, after a full day's of work at the shop, and later the house cleaning, was slow at connecting the metaphorical dots. He remembered the final day of the fall semester in the Mirror Chamber. When everyone was leaving. It was only a few days ago…
The realization didn't shake him much, like he subconsciously knew that was the case from the start. Or that it would be sooner-or-later. Yet it still wasn't something he took lightly.
"And she made you leave?" They were both sitting on the couch, but Riddle, even smothered in blankets as he was, looked uncomfortable. Trey, sitting cross-legged a small distance away, was patient and calm and trying to sound as gentle as he could while working on half the energy.
"No, she didn't. Not really," Riddle trailed off at the end again. His voice got even quieter, clearly holding back more tears from coming. "But she didn't stop me when I did."
That was the one statement he adamantly finished that whole evening. Trey wanted to at least put his hand on the smaller boy's shaking shoulder, but he stopped his reach halfway. Something told him it wouldn't be right just yet. That Riddle wasn't quite ready to have his personal space violated. Instead, he refocused on his left hand, the one he couldn't let go of until calm and presented with a warm big white mug to hold. The one with a black silhouette of a cat on it, the handle as the cat's tail. The one Trey's younger siblings both loved so much.
Riddle was holding the mug firmly with his right hand, the weight of the tea and porcelain fighting against his still gently shaking body. When he first grabbed it, he instinctively put his other hand on it too, but winced at the touch. Trey at first dismissed it as just a light, mostly insignificant burn caused by the hot tea.
"I didn't know where else-" The boy, adamant on appearing even smaller than he already was, couldn't finish his sentence. He tried to hold his mug normally again for some sense of stability but once more winced in pain, trying desperately to bite it down.
The tea had long gone cold at that point.
"Riddle, can I see your arm, please?" Trey opened his palm but kept it close to himself. He knew from experience forcibly reaching out could make whatever was wrong with the hand only significantly worse. He didn't want any form of a repeat of that.
Riddle immediately pulled the hand back to his chest, his eyes flooding with silent panic. Trey waited and looked on, non-verbally trying to convince the boy he can help. It didn't take that long for Riddle to give in. He first gave Trey the mug to put on the coffee table, himself unable to move that much from under the heaps of blankets. Then he gently pushed back his cardigan sleeve to his elbow. He showed it to the older boy but himself looked away, some form of shame cracking out from under the sad, tired numbness from before.
Trey took it up as gently as he could, only raising it slightly towards the light for himself to see better. The area at the wrist was red, slowly fading into shades of purple, but it kept mostly into an odd shape of a rectangle. The palm had a deeper, more sharp and complex shape to which the bruise kept.
"Mother, she..." Riddle's voice was more empty than before as his sentence still trailed off, his sight more absent, detached from the moment. He still wouldn't look at the direction of his hand. "She didn't want to talk about it. She simply wouldn't allow it. I tried to, I really did. I promised you and the rest and I took that seriously. Apparently, one too many times…" Trey finally managed to break out of the frozen stare he locked on the bruises. "I put out my hand on instinct, at least I think so. Her work phone buzzed on the table. I took the opportunity and ran out. I just ran…"
He turned to look at the hand. He must've been seeing the bruises for the first time in proper light by the shift in his expression. Tears swiftly came back to his eyes.
"I know I would've ran out without my shoes if I didn't already have them on."
Trey hugged him as he cried, his hand back in a protected grip. He was shaking, his sobs violent again. Trey just held him. He was still so cold from standing in the snow, despite the blankets and the warm tea.
By the time Trey could safely get up to boil more water his pajama shirt had a soaking wet spot at his shoulder. He came back to the, now barely awake, Riddle with a gauze towel wrapped around a frozen gel packet.
"Riddle, I'm going to put this on your wrist, alright?" He waited for Riddle's contact which came in form of a small nod. Trey didn't expect words, not at this hour and not after everything. Riddle put his hand on the couch's back and allowed Trey to place the ice pack on it. His eyes were still absent. "The temperature outside tonight helped with swelling a little, but now because of it we need to get something warm in your system. Would chamomile tea be alright with you, Riddle?"
Another nod.
"I'm going to go take care of it in that case. I will be right there, in the kitchen. Riddle, could I ask you to hold the pack in place while I'm gone?"
A nod and some slow movement from Riddle and Trey was rushing to get back with the tea as fast as he could. In the few minutes he had he also managed to send Cater a quick update about the situation while the tea was brewing so that the other won't think something happened to him after he had to suddenly hang up their call because of 'someone at the door.'
[sent at 00:55]
Riddle is here, very bad state, Mother involved, wrist bruised
[received from 'Cater' at 00:56]
kk
all chill
take care of him now, sounds like a big time emergency
[sent at 00:56]
You'll be ok?
[received from 'Cater' at 00:57]
yup
promise👌
The immediate response made him smile and he came back to the couch again, this time equipped with warm beverages. With a little more gentle talking he got Riddle to drink the tea in full. After exchanging the ice pack for a soft bandage, he helped Riddle to get to his bed.
"My mom prepared my old pajamas for you, Riddle. The covers are freshly changed too, we were cleaning the house today in preparation for next week. I'm going to go grab a blanket for myself while you change. Is that alright, Riddle?"
Another nod was all he needed to turn around to leave the room.
"Trey?"
"Yes, Riddle?"
"Thank you."
When Trey came back, after cleaning up the couch and all the cups left around, carrying all the blankets Riddle was wrapped in, which was possibly all the blankets his household owned, the younger boy was fast asleep. Trey put the warmest of the blankets over him as a precaution and used the rest to make his sleeping spot on the floor. As he lied down, all the tiredness of the day and the past few hours washed over him and soon he too was asleep.