Archive of Our Own

Cater is going to lose his mind.

Every time Trey adjusts his glasses like that… that subtle little click-clack of the plastic, pushing them up when he laughs modestly, taking them off and cleaning the lenses while the coach is talking, folding them neatly and replacing them with those dorky goggles for potions. Every time Cater is even reminded of their insufferable existence, he wants to go skydiving without a parachute. 

It’s no question that Trey is the most attractive person in their class—in the entire school, even, and that’s not taking into account the way Rook talks about him. (Yeah, normally he doesn’t make a habit of thinking about Rook Hunt often. Hearing that guy talk about literally anyone, especially his housewarden, is enough to send Cater into a state of utter despair.) Trey is humble, he’s capable, he’s helpful to anyone who needs it and that charming boyish smile could fuel days of screaming schoolgirls if he wasn’t careful.

He’s a boycrush and that’s all. Hell, he’s everyone’s boycrush. Cater just isn’t in the business of honestly pursuing any guy that half the school is into, and also is, like, probably straight? Wouldn’t stop him from flirting, no, never, that’s just not in his nature. But he’d never actually pursue him.

Personally, Cater tries his best not to think too deeply about his own actions or mannerisms. Live life in the moment, YOLO, cool shit like that. Since adopting this very epic mindset, he hasn’t actually been able to achieve it very well, and spends many a waking hour pondering his general likeability and important questions such as why his classmate didn’t wave back and whether this means he is undeserving of attention and hated by everyone.

During lunch, he’d asked Trey yesterday—flirtingly, of course, to make himself seem less neurotic, more confident and like he spends his days doing something other than thinking about if someone’s exasperated sigh was directed at him or not—if he thought that Cater was ‘loveable’. It sort of backfired and Trey looked a little bit horrified, but he obliged him with an “of course” that was said with such conviction that it would’ve made a weaker man crumple to blush-pink dust. Instead, he couldn’t focus on anything but the point where Trey’s fingers pushed up the frame of his glasses and the sound of entire oceans flooding past his ears.

This morning, though, he woke up before Trey (which never happens!), and as he was dragging himself out of his bunk he spied the kelp-head’s nerd glasses. Cater does not usually have poor foresight, nor is he the most impulsive, but he needs to get his hands on those glasses or he’s actually going to cease to exist in the brain. He grabs them off the nightstand, slips them on his head like a hairband and pads away quietly to the bathroom to forget that he stole them at all.

Trey is rifling through his drawer as Cater comes back in, doing his morning routine check through his Magicam feed with a towel still pressed to his cheek. 

“Cater,” Trey calls. “You wouldn’t happen to have seen my glasses, would you?”

… Uhhh. With an attempt at stealth, Cater takes the glasses off his head and shoves them to the back of his wardrobe, hidden behind his favourite pyjama coat and collection of band hoodies he never has the excuse to wear but doesn’t trust leaving at home for fear of his sisters fucking with them.

“Nope,” Cater finally responds after a long moment, turning to face him cheerfully, and—

Ho—ly shit.

Trey’s sporting a pair of soft wire-rimmed glasses that make him look like a librarian, along with the cutest look of confusion in his furrowed eyebrows. He’s never looked more kissable. Like, let’s-make-that-bedhead-permanent, he’ll actually keel over and die if he can’t get his hands under that dumb graphic tee levels of kissable. 

Cater turns his phone on him.

“Please don’t,” Trey begs, a hand coming up to shield his face, but Cater snaps the photo before he can. Whoops, new lockscreen!

He grins, waving the photo in his hand brightly. “Too late! Anyway, I’m off to breakfast, T-T-Y-L.”

Trey watches him grab his tie and skip away. He can only assume that Trey, torn asunder in pure desolation, made himself pancakes with frowny faces in chocolate sauce while Cater spent his morning chasing after the most extravagant latte the world would offer him.

In the afternoon, Cater realises that he’s actually Weaksauce McGee and ends up needing to leave his bag in his room instead of just bearing its weight as he goes to whatever party is at hand today. When entering the dorm to drop this shit and bounce, he finds Trey in the kitchen working on a cute, extremely cam-worthy batch of tarts that he figures are for their dearest freshie housewarden.

He tries to keep moving and perhaps pretend that he didn’t see him, but Trey, with his adorable librarian glasses, looks up at him. Oh, sevens, help him.

Cater has no idea what expression his face is making right now, but it’s probably not a good one. Trey’s eyes are so pretty, and usually his stupid thick-ass glasses would shield him from the brunt of their beauty, but with these thin, meek little things, its like his citrine eyes are glowing. That—that’s not fair.

“Did people swoon when you walked by?” he teases with a plastered-on smile before Trey can question why his face is burning hotter than the oven.

Trey shakes his head with a faint smile and picks up another strawberry to meticulously place onto the platter that was more fruit than tart. “Not anyone I wanted to.”

“Not anyone you—WAIT, WHAT? O-M-G? Hold the fucking phone. You have a crush on someone!?” Cater leans forward, hands on the counter. He’s going to lose his shit. There’s no way. (Also, well, fuck him, maybe he was harbouring some kind of weird peace in Trey being single because then Cater had the illusion of a chance with him that he was just choosing, for the greater good, to ignore.)

Trey laughs bashfully, which, it should be mentioned, the flexibility of his eyebrows are incredibly impressive.

“Kind of, yeah.”

“WHO?!” It better not be Vil Schoenheit. He’s lost enough to that gorgeous, gorgeous man. “Wait, don’t tell me. No, wait, is it Riddle?”

Trey bursts out laughing. “Riddle? Goodness, no, he’s like my baby brother.”

“Then—” Rook Hunt?! “—no… anyone but him…”

“Whoever you’re thinking of, it definitely isn’t,” Trey says with that boyish bashfulness, turned back to his casual masterpiece. “Don’t you have homework to do?”

“Nope!” Cater lies and flees, but not before he snaps a quick photo of Trey and his unfinished tart. (He then later decides not to put it up on Magicam, for reasons unknown even to himself. Weird.)

Trey never ends up finding his glasses. Whenever he thinks nobody’s looking, he’ll take off his cute wire ones and stare at them with furrowed eyebrows like he can’t believe that he’s still wearing them. Cater knows for a fact that he’s not the only one stealing glances at Trey (because that’s Trey Clover, the school heartthrob), but he gains a bit of pride in being the one to at least cause such adorable pouty lips, if not hoard him to himself. Such is the way life goes. :(

The underlying problem is within Cater at this point, though; of course, Trey is stuck wearing glasses because he’s blind. Cater is stuck watching Trey be beautifully blind from a distance because he, himself, is unfortunately not.

Cater only posts photos of Trey every now and then, and usually he’s barely in them. It’s just that Trey used to ask, every time with that embarrassed smile, for Cater to not post photos of him and he can’t help but oblige those eyes. Damn those hypnotic eyes. It’s been a while since he’d explicitly asked, but perhaps he just trusts his friend to not go around posting photos of him he’d rather Cater’s followers not see.

One of their classmates sitting besides them is blushing, batting his eyelashes and leaning into Trey’s space as he helps the kid with the question he has, and Cater has the urge to gag exaggeratedly at it. You little punk, he thinks. Ugh. Me, too, though. Me, too. He swears, even the macho-est straight boys aren’t immune to the unintentional charms of Trey Clover.

Trey laughs at a compliment that he’s thrown, waving it away modestly. 

“No, seriously, thank you. It’s a huge help sitting next to you, Trey.” 

“It’s not a big deal, really. Don’t mention it,” Trey is saying, pushing up his silly glasses.

That’s it. He has to take these ones, too. Watch the fuck out, Trey F-ing Clover.

Riddle does not look over the moon with joy when Trey enters the common wearing his science goggles.

Their adorable (terrifying and ruthless) freshman housewarden frowns at Trey and crosses his arms, but he looks more petulant than upset. “What’s the meaning of this?”

Trey sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. “I keep misplacing my glasses. For now, I’m kind of stuck like this until I can find them or get them replaced.”

Riddle clicks his tongue, but he obviously relaxes. Cater bets that the kid is just worried that they aren’t taking him seriously, but after that crazy display of prowess not a single month into the school year, he’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in Heartslabyul that didn’t harbour a healthy fear of their housewarden. Even Cater was a little bit afraid of him, and he’s pretty sure the wee squirt has a crush on him, if the way he lets him get away with virtually everything is anything to go by. 

Riddle had gathered a few of the members of Heartslabyul together in preparation for an Unbirthday Party. Sitting at the couches surrounding him was Cater, one of his more intelligent classmates, a junior he mildly despises and some stupid brat with more Magicam followers than him. Trey seats himself next to him and he tries not to preen about being the hot guy’s favourite, mostly because he’s sitting closest to the door anyway and the motion means nothing.

“Since Valentine’s Day is fast approaching,” Riddle announces, pen in hand like a staff, “it’d be in our best interest to get this Unbirthday Party out of the way quickly, lest it be dampened by a couple dozen broken hearts.”

Aww, always so on top of things, their Riddle. Oh, fuck, wait, Valentine’s Day.

Trey raises a hand halfway up to get Riddle’s attention, expression confused. Or, it’s probably confused. His goggles are so thick it’s hard for Cater to tell from this angle. “Isn’t Valentine’s Day a month away?”

“Exactly,” Riddle clicks, nodding his head once curtly. “This is urgent. I trust that you can handle the preparation for the food with a group. Is a week a reasonable expectation?”

Trey laughs awkwardly, and it’s adorable. “Maybe two? I could try to get it down to one but it’d be pushing it.”

“Two, then,” he nods. “Cater, you’ll oversee the decorations, yes?”

Awwww, look at that, he’s asking, not telling. Cater tries not to coo and throws an assured wink his way. “Sure thing, boss.”

Riddle turns to the other three quickly, but not quick enough to hide the high flush in his cheeks. Ah, young love.

Trey looks at him oddly. In response, Cater smiles and snaps another photo. 

(That one doesn’t go up, either, even when Cater is lying around on his bed with his finger hovering over the Post button a few days later, and he thinks to himself, god-fucking-damnit.)

So, perhaps, maybe, just a little, there may have been… a tiny bit of an oversight in taking Trey’s last pair of emergency glasses.

There was now no barrier between anyone else and those stupid dreamy eyes. On top of that, now he’s basically trapped as Trey’s escort until they find a solution to this temporary blindness. (Does Mr S not sell glasses? Or is it because they’re prescription?) Other people have offered to take his place, but, as any other reasonable man such as himself would have, he responded to them like a territorial feral cat. 

It’s lately been getting harder and harder to ignore the onslaught of love letters, confessions, chocolates and flowers that Trey has been receiving, though, and he’s worried that Trey can tell. It’s pretty clear that Cater sounds less excited for him with every one, and he’d hate for Trey to think that he’s some jealous little bitch that lets overconfident losers get to him, because he’s not, thank you.

“None of them have been from your crush, have they?” Cater asks tactlessly as another freshman in love with Trey Clover patters away with cheeks redder than strawberries. He winces a little after the words fall out of his mouth and clatter on the floor. Whoops! That’s his bad, he’ll admit.

Trey’s face contorts in something akin to hurt and he fingers uselessly at the love letter he can’t even read. “No. Uh, have you gotten any?”

Cater sighs dramatically to hide how disgustingly jealous he is that that pitiful look is for someone else. “Nope! Alas, Riddle has yet to confess to me, and I’m starting to think he never will.”

This, for some reason, does not amuse Trey. Well, now, he guesses Trey was more protective of him than he thought. Good to know. “Riddle?”

“J-K,” Cater says with a dismissive wave. “It’s flattering, though. But, yeah, no, nobody’s given me cute little chocolates or anything.”

Trey shrugs his shoulders. Cater pulls back by his sleeve so he doesn’t collide with the incoming traffic (even though he wasn’t at risk of it). “I could make you chocolates.”

Wh—what. What?!

Nevermind the fact that he doesn’t even like sweets. Why the hell is Trey offering to make him anything?! He’s not the housewarden, he’s just an annoying roommate. Also, shouldn’t he be making chocolates for his crush or something? Wh—wha—don’t tell him that his crush is on Cater, is it? No, that’s #psychward. He’s not delusional.

(Plus, Trey would clock his ass so fast. Cater is not cool, or hot, or smart, or, uh, anything. It is all superficial, every single bit of it, and he’d prefer if no one found out what he kept under it.)

Cater swipes at his hair for something to do, attempting a perfectly normal and camera-ready smile. “Don’t trouble yourself for lil’ old me,” he says in what is hopefully a normal and not utterly devastated tone. “I—uh, haha.” Oops. Fuck. “I get plenty of love from my adoring followers.” Yeah, good save.

Trey purses his lips, turning to look unfocusedly ahead of them instead of unfocusedly at Cater. “Humour me for a second. What would you want for Valentine’s?”

His mind provides him with the terribly unhelpful and definitely inappropriate image of Trey, whipped cream and a disturbing lack of clothes. Oh! Uh, how about no! What the fuck!

It’s a good thing Trey’s legally blind and can’t see his face because oh, boy, it’s probably bad.

“A cake,” he lies, coughing because he choked a little on his own spit.

“For some reason, I find that hard to believe,” Trey says with vague amusement.

Something soft and crinkly hits the back of Cater’s head before he can respond with some other cute dessert and he stops in his tracks, emitting a faint ‘ow’ that was more reflexes than pain. Trey stops a few steps ahead of him and frowns in his general direction.

“You okay?” he’s asking as Cater turns around and stares at the offending projectile.

It’s a bouquet. Worse, it’s a bouquet of paper roses made from novel pages. He picks it up, at a complete loss, and looks up at the long hallway.

There were people ambling about, getting to their extracurriculars or make-up classes or parties, but there was no way to tell if any of them were the culprit. The bouquet has a little note tied at the end of it, and he lets himself believe that it isn’t intended for Trey before he turns it over, but it is, because the universe is out to get him.

“It’s for you,” he announces with false joy, and this time he doesn’t care if Trey can tell how annoyed he is because he was hit in the back of the head with it. And it wasn’t even for him! Fucking hell.

Trey sighs, taking the bouquet with the note tied to it that he also can’t read. “I’m sorry,” he apologises, because he’s Trey Clover. “I don’t know what’s gotten into everyone. Is it the glasses?”

Oh, it most definitely is not. Cater sighs disappointedly. “It’s the Everything Else, Trey-Trey.” 

Trey scratches his ear with a pained reluctant smile. “I don’t know. I find it hard to believe I’m getting more gifts than you are.”

Sob, sob, fucking sob. Only Trey.

Because he must remain slay and cunt, et cetera, he pats Trey’s arm and says, “Yeah, me, too.”

At the height of sexy-hot-attractive, everyone is stumbling over themselves to get to Trey’s blind ass as he sits in the cafeteria and squints at another written note while he eats. He’s not so poorly sighted that he can’t read, not really, but it’s funny to imagine. Cater had lifted three fingers earlier and asked him how many he was holding up, and Trey had, in response, shot him a look of exasperated disappointment.

In all honesty, Cater was more than a little outrageously jealous. Not only was Trey getting so much more attention—attention that he doesn't even want, mind you—the Valentine’s gifts were unavoidable now. Because it was Trey, he maintained that he’d at least try to read everything everyone wrote for him because he was just that sort of gentleman, and it’s pissing him off.

“This one… is a little confusing,” Trey says eventually around his sandwich. Cater sips his iced latte to water down the malice in his throat.

“What’s it say? That you guys are perfectly in tune and meant to be together? The stars aligned on your birth? Their compass points to you?” He bats his eyelashes.

“It says that I should break up with my boyfriend?”

Hah! What? (Boy, does he wish that Trey was his boyfriend.) Cater chews absently his straw. “Weird. Well, will you?”

Trey laughs, one of those genuine ones that isn’t born of unsettled reluctance of attention. “Y’know, maybe I will. I’ll have to sleep on that.”

Cater giggles, eyes sliding back to his phone. His entire Magicam feed was all Valentine’s, left and right, and one of them he suspects was literally about Trey. He swipes up and is met with a blurry, unclear photo of their dorm kitchen and oven mitts left on the island, with the caption “I’m gonna wife him up, trust” underneath. Yeah, that’s enough internet for one day. 

He clicks off his phone and looks up to find some Octavinelle student accosting Trey, someone he doesn’t recognise but could very well share a class or two with, holding an adorably elegant box. He has his torso bowed a full ninety degrees and he’s presenting the box out to Trey with rigid arms. Oh, honey…

Trey looks to Cater across the table with a bit of distress. Most of the gifts and notes so far have been left for him in convenient places like outside their door, or passed to him in the hallway by slightly more casual and outgoing students, or, y’know, thrown at the back of Cater’s fucking head. This, though, was a little unfounded, and terribly cliché.

“Please accept my Valentine’s Day gift, Trey Clover!” The kid says, and then somehow bends lower. Cater winces with pity. They’re attracting a bit of attention from the neighbouring tables, too, poor Trey.

Trey, with a modest laugh, takes the box. “Please, you don’t have to do this,” he stresses, placing the box on the table without looking at it. “It’s really not that big of a deal.”

“I’m sorry for bothering you! Have a good day!”

“It’s not a—” he’s saying, but the student’s already run away. “—And he’s gone.”

Cater laughs because if he doesn’t, he might literally growl. This is not his week. Based on Trey’s expression, he might be able to tell how strained his laugh is, which is not a good sign. He thinks he might skip astronomy and just take an hour long bath after this. “Is the gift at least cute?”

Trey looks down at it, then up at Cater flatly. “I don’t know.”

Oh, right, blind. LMAO. Cater blows the straw out from between his lips and pulls the box towards him. When he slides it open, there’s meticulously decorated chocolates that are just left of amateur, giving the impression that the kid had made them himself. 

“You’re joking,” he grumbles before he catches himself.

Trey leans back and crosses his arms. “What is it?”

“Homemade chocolates. It’s super adorbs,” he grits out, forcefully injecting energy into his words. He slides the box back across the table. “Fingers crossed, they’re not laced.”

“If they were laced, they’d smell like it,” Trey says simply, as if he’s baked with potions before—oh, wait, he probably has. Freak. “You should take one.” 

“Aww, that’s sweet, but it’s a gift for you,” Cater smiles, deflecting the candy. He does not trust it in the slightest. They’re probably sweeter than Trey’s honey eyes. “I’ll just have to woo somebody else into giving me candy, I guess.”

Trey shakes his head like he doesn’t believe Cater, which he supposes is fair enough, and closes the box without taking one. 

“You never figured out who my crush was,” Trey brings up unprompted one night while Cater uploads a picture of the greenhouse he took earlier when he was dragged there against his will.

The frankly offensive pile of Valentine’s Day gifts is piled on Trey’s nightstand: the bouquets, the letters, the candy, one really cute teddy bear that Cater is lowkey upset he didn’t get himself. Trey had offered it to him when he cooed over it and complained about wanting one for himself, which, um, no?

“The entire student body has confessed to you at this point,” he says without looking away from his phone. “Everyone that’s left now is, uh, chopped?”

“What does that even mean?” Trey wonders faintly. He can see him in his peripherals shuffling through drawers in search of his glasses again. He may have to give those back soon.

Trey eventually sits down on the edge of his bed with an old man sigh. Two weeks of being glasses-less seems to have taken its toll. Vaguely, Cater hopes it isn’t actually causing him pain. “I may have to start considering that maybe someone stole them.”

“Wouldn’t that be funny?” Cater laughs. Ha-ha. All three of Trey’s glasses sit in the back of his closet behind his band hoodies. He’d feel bad if he wasn’t kind of terrified of giving them back now; he can’t imagine that Trey would be genuinely upset with him at all, just a bit disappointed, and probably confused, and potentially uncomfortable. He can’t afford any of that, you see, so he’s just going to… not give them back. Maybe later he’ll hide a pair in a place Trey can find.

When Cater looks up from his beautifully crafted post, satisfied with the handful of likes that it got within minutes of uploading, he finds Trey already looking at him with the full force of his attention. He managed to suppress the yelp that was almost startled out of him, and begs desperately for his heart rate to calm the fuck down.

There’s a certain… focused intention in his gaze, as if he can see Cater as clear as day despite being a full few metres away, and he’s forced to wonder how horrible his eyesight really is. Like, does he actually need glasses that bad? Has he been pretending this whole time for no apparent reason? Also, why is he looking at him like that? (It’s not an expression he can put words to. There isn’t really anything overpowering to it, no mirth or confusion or frustration, just… focus. It’s intense, and kind of weird, and incredibly unsettling. Makes Cater feel like he’s being seen straight through to the bones, down to his marrow and his inner thoughts.)

He squirms a little, then lifts his phone between them like a barrier and takes a photo.

Trey sighs again, and the tension is suddenly gone.

“I suppose I’ll have to order in a replacement pair, or something. I’ve been itching to bake but I can’t use a knife until I get my sight back.”

“You gonna bake something for your crush?”

“I could,” he hums. “What’s your favourite food?”

Wow, the way that was said, Cater could almost delude himself into believing that he was Trey’s crush. He allows himself a split-second to bask in it. “I don’t think spicy ramen is the most romantic Valentine’s Day gift,” he says with an air of disappointment, tutting at Trey.

He laughs in response, but doesn’t outright agree. Oh, Cater sure hopes he doesn’t give his crush spicy ramen. (Mostly because he might have to go bury himself next to the painted roses out of pure envious misery.)

Valentine’s Day this year falls on a Saturday, which means Cater’s plans for the day consisted of blowing this joint and skateboarding off a cliff, hopefully into the waiting open maw of death, and then maybe finding a party or something and playing spin the bottle until they’ve burned a hole into the floor.

This, however, is foiled. Firstly, by the fact that he develops an annoying cold spontaneously (perhaps from when that devilspawn coach made him do an extra few laps for having his phone out, likely from how he spent the night before in the shower sitting under cold water and pitying himself). Secondly, Trey flippin’ Clover.

Why the hottest guy on campus wants to spend his precious Valentine’s Day in a sick loser’s company is a complete mystery to him, but it’s not like his other plans were particularly important or set in stone, especially from the fact that he’s cold as fuck and his nose won’t stop running. It’s thrilling enough being in Trey’s vicinity, he supposes, however much turmoil it puts him through.

When he’s finally dragged himself out of bed and followed an amused Trey into the common still in his pyjamas, Riddle is there, in his uniform for some reason, and the moment he spots the two of them his face goes red.

“Trey,” he hisses as if Cater’s, like, deaf or something. He might as well be, the way he flops into the nearest couch face-first and welcomes the darkness. “Why is he here?”

Oof, harsh. And here he thought Riddle liked him. Frowny face. Broken heart. Wilted rose.

He can hear Trey’s laugh and it warms him, which annoys him because get out of here, you’re not him. “Am I not allowed to invite people?”

“Why him?” 

“Because I like him?” Trey responds like it’s simple and obvious. Hahaha! Cater imagines taking his own heart, crushing it up violently and shoving it into a tiny little box that’s cut off from the rest of his stupid reactive body. Jesus, this is too many emotions to be having. “He’s harmless. And he’s sick.”

“Go on without me,” Cater moans dramatically into the couch cushions, lifting a hand and waving them away in what he believes is the direction of the exit, probably.

“I hope you know you’re causing more grief than needs to be experienced,” Riddle grumbles poutily, then to him, “I’m sorry you feel unwell, Cater.”

Cater gives him a thumbs up without looking up. “Thanks, cutie.”

Someone tugs at his shoulder and Cater reluctantly pushes himself up. Trey, far too close to his face, is peering at him closely with a look of motherly concern on his face.

He tries not to breathe sickness onto him as he presses the back of his hand to Cater’s forehead.

“It sucks that you’re sick on Valentine’s,” he’s saying. “Riddle and I were going to just play board games together today. I thought you might wanna join, since you’re stuck here.”

“You can play board games if you’re blind?” Cater asks, slapping Trey’s arm away when he decides there’s been enough contact and he’s at risk of infecting Trey.

“I’m not blind,” he huffs, leaning back finally. “I can see well enough to make you soup. Mostly. Riddle, can you help?”

“Soup,” Riddle echoes apprehensively. “Brilliant. I suppose I can try my hand at it, as long as you’re still overseeing it. I’m afraid I’m not gifted with cooking.”

Trey leads him away into the kitchen, but not before throwing a blanket (did he pull that out of his ass?) over Cater. He’s talking as the two of them walk away, explaining something about, uh, soup, or whatever.

“You’ll be fine. I just need help with the knife and the stove. Honestly, I could probably do it myself, but I don’t want to accidentally slice a finger off. You understand.”

“Yes, that would be… less than ideal.”

Anything else they might’ve said, he wouldn’t know, because he falls asleep.

He joins their stupid, hour-long game of two-person Uno mostly because he ran out of soup to drink and because watching Riddle lose a game of Uno to his mean upperclassman was getting frustrating to watch, even for him.

“That is so not a rule,” Cater argues, but pulls the two 7 cards he played back into his hand. “Swear on my life! I played Uno a bunch back at home and if you had two cards with the same number, you could play them at the same time.”

“Those are house rules,” Trey says matter-of-factly. “Technically, you aren’t supposed to do that.”

“What? What about, like, stacking the +2 cards?”

“That’s ridiculous,” Riddle claims, which, no, it isn’t. “You’d reach pure anarchy within seconds.”

“Yeah! That’s the point,” Cater insists, and then has to pause to sneeze, which does take away from his fierceness a bit. Based off the looks that the two send him, he might not be that fierce to begin with, though.

In the end, nobody wins Uno. Cater has a bit of a coughing fit that gets Trey rubbing his back when it’s over and Riddle hovering nervously behind him. The game is forgotten in favour of just drinking some warm ginger tea and watching a drama series that Cater saw clips of online.

(Trey ends up being much more invested in the show than Riddle is despite not being able to see it in the slightest, and Cater falls asleep halfway through the first episode against what might have been Trey. He hopes it wasn’t.)

Even though the week leading up to Valentine’s was hell on Earth and he was sick the weekend of, the days following that were pretty laid back. Trey still couldn’t see for shit, which Cater was starting to feel increasingly bad for, but after gently and sexily breaking the hearts of half the school, they’re at least now mostly left to their own devices and Cater can choose to initiate interaction himself instead of having it forced upon them. 

He, Trey and Riddle sit in their dining area with bowls of ramen that Trey prepared. Cater’s own bowl is so spicy his eyes are watering, and he’s never been so happy eating dinner, probably.

“Sigh,” Cater drawls instead of actually sighing because he’s very funny. “Wish I could’ve given Vil Schoenheit chocolates or something this year.”

Riddle furrows his eyebrows at him. “Vil Schoenheit? Why?”

“You have a crush on Vil Schoenheit?” Trey asks like he’s a little confused and saddened by it. Seriously, if he keeps pulling these kinds of things, one day Cater will be completely and irreversibly in love with Trey Clover, and that does not sound like a prosperous world to live in. (He’s already so far gone, too.)

“Everyone has a crush on Vil Schoenheit,” he says instead of voicing any of those other thoughts. “Hello? He’s, like, the most desirable guy on campus. Aside from you, of course.”

“I really don’t think people find me that desirable.”

Cater rolls his eyes. “Trust me, everyone finds you desirable.”

Trey raises an eyebrow at him challengingly. “Does that include you?” 

Eh? Er—um—ah—huh? Haha! What!?

Cater short-circuits his way through a strained laugh that seems to make Riddle look terribly uneasy. “I mean, duh,” he manages. “It includes everyone.”

Trey adorns this look of awkward fondness, like, really fond, and it’s directed at him with absolute clarity in those blurred eyes, and he thinks he might just disintegrate right there on the spot. It’s not fair. That’s not fair.

The hoard of Valentine’s Day gifts that was flooding their room, growing like mould, was a testament enough to Trey’s popularity, weren’t they? Trey had gotten rid of the letters (all stuffed neatly into a drawer, probably, because Trey Clover), and he kept trying to share the teddy bear and chocolates with Cater, who absolutely refused. It’s just—

Well—

Cater shoots up and his chair makes an obnoxious screech as its pushed back abruptly.

“I just remembered I gotta go—” Uh. Um. Fuck. “—water the hedgehogs. See you in a bit, fam!”

“The hedgehogs have received the proper nourish—ah,” is the last thing he hears from Riddle as he bolts straight for his room.

Oh, fuck, it’s so over. He’s done for. He’s cooked. Crispy. Deep-fried. 

There’s no fucking way. It’s not fair. He isn’t built for this, man. He should’ve been at the club.

The Trey Clover curse. It caught him. He’s ensnared for life. He’s trapped in his unending fall with no sight of the end. What is he supposed to do now? Write little love confessions in cute cards? Doodle pairs of glasses in his textbooks with hearts around them? Make a bouquet of roses out of pages ripped out of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? Melt down chocolate and mould it in the shape of Trey’s face? He’s fucking done for.

(Is the prospect of being known by someone so utterly terrifying that he’s willing to pass up a chance with Trey Clover? Fucking hell. It’s that, or it’s the suffocating fear of rejection that has him gasping for air. Because what if he’s wrong and there really isn’t anything there? Cater’s not worth the trouble, anyway.)

(Oh, but those fucking eyes.)

Cater digs all three pairs of glasses out of his closet and leaves them on Trey’s bed. He stands there and stares uselessly at them.

So… now all that’s left to do is… dive out the window and hope he breaks something important?

The door opens and he jumps ten feet in the air with a very calm and collected shriek.

“Cater. Are you doing okay?”

Oh, good god, it’s Trey Clover. He’s… right behind me, isn’t he…

Cater turns around slowly, afraid to meet Trey’s eyes. 

“Uh… surprise!” he announces weakly with lame jazz hands. “I found your glasses?”

Trey shakes his head like it doesn’t matter, and then seems to think better of it and reaches for his glasses. 

Well, this is it, gang. This is the end. It was a good run that he had. Once Trey Clover regains his sight, he’ll realise how insane this whole thing is and perhaps file for a new roommate, or something. Either way, bye-bye forever.

Trey pushes his glasses up and the first thing he looks at is Cater. 

His eyes glow.

The air in the room is too cold and too thin and he can’t figure out how to breathe correctly anymore, because why is Trey Clover looking at him like he’s something worth looking at?

Oh, great sevens, he might just keel over and fucking die. 

“Thanks,” Trey breathes into the stillness. “I missed being able to see you.”

A strangled noise escapes Cater and he smiles charmingly at him.

“Sorry,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck like all he’s doing is causing minor inconvenience and not like Cater’s entire state of being is imploding in on itself. “I can stop if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“Stop what?” he responds reflexively, but he already knows what. Trey shoots him a look because he knows that Cater knows, too. 

“I’ve been trying to tell you for a while—”

“I stole your glasses.”

Trey blinks at the blurted interruption cluelessly. Then he bursts out laughing, full of disbelief and delight and pure, untainted mirth. Nervously, Cater mutters a few obligatory ha-ha-ha’s.

“Okay,” Trey says finally. Annoyingly, he looks quite happy. “So?”

So? Is he going insane? “I don’t know, I made you miserable for a month?”

He smiles faintly. “You didn’t.”

“Look, it’s just not a good look for you,” Cater explains, gesturing with his hands for something to do, trying to shield himself from the full force of Trey’s intent. “You have two dozen confessions to choose from.”

“I don’t know them.”

“And you know me?” He doesn’t mean entirely to say it, and Trey looks a little bit surprised when it happens. Cater’s at a complete loss now without a reign on the words he says to people. This is dangerous. Trey Clover is dangerous. “... Sorry.”

Trey steps forward and takes one of his useless hands in his own. “I want to.”

He’s going to combust. He’s going to legit crash out. His strained grimacing smile is twitchy and untrustworthy. Trey’s hand is warm. 

“That sounds like a terrible idea. Trust me, you’d be happier with someone else.”

“Do you actually believe that?” Trey murmurs, and he honestly looks sad.

“… No. Haha,” Cater lies. Trey can tell that he’s lying, too. When did he become so good at reading him? Is his meticulously constructed poker face dead to the world in the presence of this man?

Trey purses his lips and steps closer. Those yellow amber eyes are so clear, intent. Cater can’t breathe.

“Do you like me?”

What a stupid question. “Of course, I like you,” he says with a jittery eye roll.

“No, I mean—”

“I know what you mean,” he interrupts flatly, then regrets it immediately. He doesn’t have the patience for this. His mouth twitches and he breaks from Trey’s stare before he actually literally goes up in flames. “I’m not really… myself. Right now.”

“I think this is the most ‘yourself’ you’ve ever let me see,” Trey has the audacity to suggest.

“And you want that? Not gonna lie, that’s kind of a red flag…”

He chances a glance back at Trey. He’s still staring at him like he’s—well, like he’s breathtaking. Cater is not breathtaking. He can be cute, or he tries to be, but whatever that expression is on Trey, it’s not the appropriate one. 

“Can I kiss you?”

What.

Cater sure hopes this is all just one really elaborate, horrifying wet dream. He can’t. He fucking can’t. 

“Don’t do this to me, Trey-Trey,” he begs with a bit more desperation than he’d rather anyone in his entire life ever hear, ever. He can’t refuse that sort of request, not from Trey, the guy that’s been driving him insane and cross-eyed with his stupid boyish chivalry and his modest laughter and that god-awful evil smirk. That look on his face right now, like Cater is all he’s ever wanted to see.

“Please?” Trey asks quietly, and his hands are resting on Cater’s waist lightly enough that he could pull away easily. Without even entirely meaning to, Cater’s traitorous hands are on his shoulder and at his jaw, and he watches as his eyes literally shimmer with joy. (Seriously, what the fuck? What stupid magical girl anime is he living right now?)

He lifts Trey’s glasses off and sets them aside. Trey only looks amused. “How well can you see me?”

He’s stalling and they both know it. Trey obliges him, because he’s Trey Clover. 

“I can see you fine,” he says, then leans a little bit closer. Cater finds himself breathing Trey’s air in staccato. “Right here.”

“Oh,” he utters dumbly. “Slay.”

Trey waits for him. Fuck. Shit. Damnit. Why?! Why must he have fallen to such a fate? This is all going to come crashing down. Cater doesn’t stay with people and they don’t stay with him. This isn’t a—this isn’t just something he can do. Not with Trey. He doesn’t want to lose him so quickly.

“If this doesn’t—like. Haha. If you hate me after this, just, um, don’t tell me.”

“Nothing could make me hate you,” he says gently with absolute certainty. Cater chokes on his sincerity.

He’s met with the urge to challenge the notion. I beg to differ and Wanna find out? and You say that now, but… all spring to the tip of his tongue but those crystalline eyes make it hard to speak. Trey watches him, daring him to tell him he’s wrong.

“Fine,” he whispers. “Fine. Yes.”

Their lips meet and everything in the world shuts up and shrinks down to their little points of contact. Trey’s calm hands at his waist, gently pulling him impossibly closer. Trey’s warm skin against Cater’s thumb resting over his collar. Trey’s mouth.

“Definitely don’t hate you,” he murmurs as they pull apart slowly. Cater watches his eyes open and glitter like geodes. “In fact, I think I want you more now, if that was even possible.”

“Want me,” he mocks, or he means to, but he sounds a bit too pathetic to come off that way. “Have you always been this shameless? I thought you were supposed to be all modest and shy.”

“I don’t like their attention,” he says succinctly. “I like yours.”

Cater tries to come up with a response to that that isn’t just verbal keysmashing but fails and thinks, fuck it. Let this ruin his life. If it only lasts an hour, he’d better live it like there’s no tomorrow. If it lasts longer, well. He prays to everything that could possibly be out there that it lasts longer.

He leans up and presses into Trey, pulling him down by his collar. Trey obliges him.

“Does this mean I’m your boyfriend?” Trey later asks with that stupid smirk, like it’s something to be smug about. Like he wants to be with Cater for a while.

Cater hopes it doesn’t show on his face how much the question shocks him, but Trey’s expression softens and he kisses him again, so it probably does. 

“If you wanna be,” he says and tries for a smile and a flippant tone (it ends up very unsteady and chalant).

“I would like that,” Trey affirms, cupping Cater’s jaw and drawing him down into another open-mouthed kiss. 

Yeah. He would like that, too.