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“It's fine, Riddle. Just a sprain. I can sit up, at the very least.”
Riddle’s face draws into such an adorable scowl that Trey has to resist the urge to grin as he lectures, “You are the Vice Housewarden of Heartslabyul. You of all people should know the difference between what you can do and what you should do.”
“Are you really pulling rank on me?”
“No, simply reminding you of yours. I won't say it again. Lay back down, or it's off with your head.” Riddle smirks a bit, clearly satisfied with himself. “That’s pulling rank.”
Trey chuckles and obliges: he lets his upper half slump back down from his headboard, his weight sinking into the pillows underneath him. The shuffling does admittedly send a twinge of pain up his leg, but Riddle’s so concerned with the ice pack that he doesn't seem to notice. His pout deepens, and his lips are moving, but it’s not until soft graphite eyes sharpen into a steel glare in his direction that Trey’s ears start hearing words again.
“You’re not even listening, are you?”
“Sorry,” he says, blinking hard. “I think I’m still a bit dazed from the painkillers.” A half-truth. He’s pretty sure the reason he’s having trouble focusing is because he’s tired, but stealing what little awareness remains is Riddle himself, who cocks an eyebrow, clearly not buying it.
“They’re over-the-counter, Trey. They shouldn't be impacting your mental faculties.” He sighs—he’s letting it slide, at least for now—and shifts the ice back onto his ankle. “What you did was completely stupid. Like you said, I could’ve caught myself.” A long pause, as the stinging cold starts sinking into his skin. “But… I’m sorry for putting you in that position. And… thank you, for keeping me safe.”
There's a part, a majority really, of Trey that wants to refute what Riddle’s saying. It feels like stolen valor, accepting any gratitude from him for saving him, but he swallows his objections down in favor of a slight smile.
“I’m the Vice Housewarden of Heartslabyul,” he says, echoing Riddle’s words from earlier. “But that makes me your Vice Housewarden. I know it's my job to help you keep things in check, but I want to help you, too.” It's selfish, smothering his raw-at-the-edges affections and desire to atone for the past underneath such a generic sentiment to avoid discussing it altogether, and he knows it.
(He doesn’t particularly care, though. There are always other things to discuss, ways to dance around the elephant in the room, as it were.)
Riddle’s eyes narrow with suspicion, a stormy grey that precedes the lightning strike of, “Why?”
(He makes avoidance awfully hard.)
“You know why.”
“No, I don't. Stop mocking me.”
“I’m not. Honest.” He reaches for Riddle’s gloved hand but thinks better of it; the upward pull at his own lips goes tight, plastic. If he truly hasn’t figured it out yet, he’s not ready to know, even if it means Trey has to take it to his grave. “Because we’re friends,” he says. “That’s why,” he emphasizes, like voicing it might make that the whole truth.
His ankle throbs again, the feeling now dull and numb from the ice.