#when you're the unofficial third in command so now everyone expects you to deal with stuff

[therosefrontier]

@badthingshappenbingo

Title: It Doesn't Take Much (to Cover Up Small Cuts)

Fandom: Twisted Wonderland

Prompt: Lacerations

Characters: Cater (main POV), Trey (gets a brief POV), Riddle

Placement: canon present, somewhere in the middle of the school year well after Book 1 territory, no time in particular

Word Count: 5625

(crossposted to AO3)

+++

It didn’t take long after Cater started his freshman year at NRC to learn that his school had just a slight bit of a fighting problem. Despite all of the school’s rules (and all of Heartslabyul’s), people still had a habit of getting testy with each other, the freshies especially. It was just par for the course, probably. The school was full of strong mages with big egos to match, and sometimes, they resolved their problems in a school-sanctioned way, like a duel (which was still technically fighting) or a sports game like Spelldrive, but at other times, people just kind of went off the rails.

Cater was usually pretty good at staying out of it when there was trouble, or skillfully ignoring it when other people were mad at him, and he was also pretty good at shoving his own opinions and wants out the window to make peace and keep everyone happy, so he never really got into any fights himself (unless he counted Riddle’s overblot…or Leona’s). However, he was the guy to go to when angry people needed to talk things out. All he had to do with disarm them with some lighthearted words and make them realize that fighting just wasn’t worth it. He had to do this a surprisingly high number of times last year, both when mediating between two people having your average everyday argument and when talking down his dormmates from going to war with Riddle. Sometimes, they’d be having an argument because they’d be tossing blame over some infraction on each other out of fear of Riddle, and admittedly, Cater would oftentimes slickly throw the fear of their housewarden right back at them, letting them know that he’d be totes mad if they got into a fight, which was way more mad than he would be over them eating a hamburger on the wrong day of the week or something.

Things were different now, though, so with Heartslabyul on their rocky way to putting all the drama behind them, Cater would try not to use the fear-of-Riddle tactic quite so often, even if it was sometimes still applicable. Riddle was doing way better and Cater wanted to respect that. That said, he wasn’t afraid of Riddle losing it on their dormmates over a few random Queen of Hearts rules, but he would absolutely be red-face-mad if he caught his dorm members in a brawl.

So basically, as much as he really would love to have Riddle or Trey with him right now for backup, Cater figured the best play for today would be to just resolve this problem on his own, nice and easy, no fireworks necessary. Whatever was going on exactly.

“Come on, this way!”

Then again, Bura did sound kind of panicked, so maybe Cater had a few fireworks in store for him once he saw the damage. When Bura found him in the lounge, Cater got only a few reassuring words in before his dormmate grabbed his hand and started emphatically leading the way. However, he was also a freshman, so he might just be freaked out just over seeing his dormmates fight at all. The brawlers in question were also freshmen, which meant that their magical ability was probably not that strong yet, so really, how bad could it be? 

Bad. Very bad. He was absolutely fooling himself when he let himself believe that it wouldn’t be.

“Cater-senpai, there you are! Micah’s lost it! You have to do something!”

“We can’t get in even if we try! My fire spells are useless!”

“Are you kidding!? Micah almost stabbed me! I’m not going anywhere near whatever they’re doing in there! Cater, is Trey around?”

“Micah and Seven are going to kill each other!”

Yeah, very bad. “Whoa, whoa, slow down. What happened?” Cater asked, trying to keep calm as he surveyed the complete and utter mess that was their dorm’s rose garden—which is to say, the garden looked like it belonged in Diasomnia, not Heartslabyul. An absurdly high wall of haphazardly crisscrossed thorny vines dotted with dark-colored roses stood in between him and the two students who were fighting, and the vines were moving. Their ends swayed this way and that like kelp in the ocean, and Cater had a feeling that trying to get near them would not be a fun time. Although he couldn’t see the fight, he could definitely hear it—the distinct clamor of spells getting traded back and forth, and also, even on this side of the wall, there was debris everywhere.

Yeah, no smoothing this one over. Riddle was going to flip.

“Micah unlocked his signature spell just a few days ago,” Bura explained, his voice still shaking. “He called it, uh, Cut the Deck, or something? It’s the thorn wall thing! That’s him! He used it to divide the space between him and Seven and the rest of us! It’s just…it wasn’t nearly this big when he did it before…”

“It wasn’t?” Cater echoed, his voice hitching with a small beat of panic. He couldn’t help but think that this could be the beginnings of an overblot if he was showing some insane display of magic…it wouldn’t be the first time that happened in this garden. Even now his traitor mind would not stop flashing back to the day it happened to Riddle, when he uprooted half the rosebushes and raised them into the sky like projectiles without breaking a sweat, with Cater stuck standing there for a second with his heart stopped in panic, wanting to run but knowing he wouldn’t, realizing just how badly this could go, the reality sinking in that Riddle might even die…

At least then, Cater wasn’t alone. Right now, there was no banking on help from these guys who called him here; they were way too freaked out. Cater had to just go in there and handle it himself. He told himself that it would be fine. This probably wasn’t an overblot; at least, not yet it wasn’t. It was just a couple of freshies in an argument, one of them fresh off of discovering his signature spell (which would be really cool, if he didn’t have to be the one to, well, deal with it).

“I mean…no worries! Cay-Cay’s got this!” he assured with a smile. “Everyone just stay back, okay? Keep as far away as you can. Wouldn’t want to get in the crossfire of all that, right?”

The underclassmen assembled there didn’t object in the slightest. “O-Okay. Be careful!”

Yeah, let them get to safety. While they ran, Cater shot a quick text to Trey and Riddle, knowing that things could get dicey. He knew that they weren’t exactly in the dorm right now, so he wasn’t going to delay this waiting for them, but he’d let them know so they could do damage control once they were free to come back.

>>>Hey guys!! no rush but two freshies are fighting in the dorm garden and it’s totes a mess in here lol. im gonna break it up now. catch u later! bye~!

Alright, time to do things. So much for his lazy afternoon. With a heavy sigh, Cater cast a protective shield around himself and got closer. As expected, the thorns shot towards him when he did, as if they were trying to push him back. He was curious about how the spell worked. Were the thorns directly connected to the spell, or was it mirroring the rose garden? Or was it transforming the bushes, even? Well, whatever. They could figure that out later. Right now, he tentatively cast fire magic towards the wall, noticing how it did burn, but new vines grew instantly in its place. Looked like he was just going to have to sweep a wide area, throwing a lot of power into the spell at once, and then dash in while he could.

Lucky for him, that worked. Next up, talking down the freshies.

“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU! You blame me for everything!”

“Well I’m not the one DESTROYING THE DAMN GARDEN! Who cares about the color of the roses now!?”

Oh boy, this was going to be fun. “Hey!” Cater dodged the splash of a water spell and shouted towards the two brawlers to get their attention. “Hold up!”

“Wha—Cater-senpai!?” Micah’s eyes went wide, and he stopped for a second.

“Haha, in the flesh! Soo…wanna talk about what’s up? Because everyone out there is getting worried about you guys, you know.”

“He started it!” Micah shot an accusatory finger towards Seven. “He was messing up our job on purpose, and now half the roses are green, for crying out loud! I’ve had enough of him!”

“I’m trying! You’re the one who keeps flying off the handle! You making me nervous is what’s messing me up! What are you, the housewarden!?”

“It’s not my fault! You’re just always like this! Even back home you kept getting me in trouble! Like back in Ms. Vira’s class when—”

“You’re really going to keep bringing up what happened in the SIXTH GRADE!?”

Oh. Oh no. They knew each other. “Hey, hey, don’t worry about it, ‘kay? If you need to learn how to paint the roses, Cay-Cay’s got you covered!”

“Who cares about that!?” Micah spat back. “I’m not stopping until he apologizes!”

“As if! You’re the one who keeps turning everything into a fight!”

“Stop blaming me for your problems! I’m sick of it!”

Well, there was one attempt failed. Cross that one off the list. Cater took in a silent deep breath. “Alright, we’ll start with that, then!” he spoke to them both, making sure to stay both calm and upbeat. He knew he wasn’t going to get anywhere by getting upset at them or acting panicked at all. “You guys obviously got some stuff you need to talk about, right? So, let’s talk!”

“Tsk, I have nothing to say to him!” Micah shot back, but Cater stayed unfazed.

“Well, for starters, what do you want Seven to apologize for?” He got the picture of what just happened a little bit already, but it tended to help to get someone to talk through everything in their own words.

“For ruining my life on purpose, that’s what!”

“Whoops, that’s a little bit vague, don’t you think?” Cater interjected before a very offended Seven could shoot back. “It’s super cool that you two knew each other in middle school, but how about let’s just start with what happened right now? Were you trying to paint the roses together?”

“Yeah, we were supposed to change them half red and half white today,” Seven explained. “Us and our other two roommates. Only problem is, we’re kind of both bad at the color-changing spell. I was trying to help Micah with his part, but he got upset when I did it wrong.”

“H-Hey! That’s not what happened at all! You’re the one who couldn’t do the damn spell!” Micah insisted. “It’s just…can you just slow down, for just a minute? For once?”

“Ergh…fine,” Seven huffed, and Cater felt a tiny bit at relief. Maybe now they’ll simmer down. “I get it. I’m figuring this out too. But you’ve been acting weird all week, you know that? What’s your deal?”

“H-Hey, don’t throw this back on me! I’m just trying to do everything right. With…school and stuff. And I could do better if only you didn’t keep messing up tasks and making me look bad!”

“HEY! I’m not making you look bad! You’re doing that on your own! I was helping, remember!?”

“NO YOU WEREN’T! You were mocking me! You never listen to a single word I say!”

“WHAT!? That’s not true at all!”

“Hey, hey, no need to get worked up, ‘kay?” Cater interjected quickly with an easy smile, trying to tone them back down since Micah and Seven were getting red-faced again. “The roses aren’t that big of a deal. Point is that you learn, alright? Believe me, just about everyone has problems starting out. No need to start a fight over it!”

“No need?” Micah echoed, his eyes narrowing even harder, his seething even stronger. Cater got a bad, bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. This wasn’t working. For a moment, he thought he had a bit of progress, but that wasn’t the case. He failed to say the right thing…

“’No need to start a fight,’ is that it!?” Micah repeated again, magic gathering in his hands once more. “You’re all the same—ALL OF YOU! Everything that happens, I’m just supposed to take it! Is that how this works!? Don’t start a fight, they said. It’s not a big deal. Well, it’s a big deal to me, okay!? Why can’t anyone just listen to me, just once!?”

“Micah-chan…”

“JUST GET OUT OF HERE! CUT THE DECK!”

In an instant, a wall of thorns shot up between them.

Cater jumped back quickly, eyes shooting open as wide as saucers as he narrowed avoided getting slashed by the briars. He noticed now how the spell really did seem to be shaping the garden around them, using the bushes as well as the debris as a starting point for the wall. He could probably make the wall out of other things, too. Cater was sure he’d get a chance to learn soon enough…but of course, that spell was only going to be bad news for him—for all of them, actually.

Micah was making a bubble around himself, rapidly creating walls by the second, yelling incomprehensibly all the while. Regretfully, Cater realized that words might not be enough to get through to him, at this point. He was going to have to use magic just to get him to stop. He looked back to see Seven backing off, looking scared and suddenly lacking the fire he had a minute ago, and he decided that this was his chance to get him out of here.

Cater split himself and sent a copy after Seven, who told him that they had to leave, and Seven didn’t argue. They ran off, and Micah noticed.

“HEY! GET BACK HERE, YOU—”

Cater stopped him in his tracks, throwing up a defensive shield through midair to block the bolts of void magic he tried to send towards Seven and Cater #2. His expression was grim now as Micah turned his attention on him. Cater tensed up, looking at the freshie’s face and half-expecting streams of blot like tears to be falling from his eyes, but gratefully, that wasn’t the case. He was probably accumulating a ton of blot right now, but he wasn’t in an overblot…yet.

Cater split himself again and went after him from either side. He was attacked by thorns the entire time—they seemed to reach for him wherever he turned, and also, Micah wouldn’t stop using his spell to get him away.

“CUT THE DECK!”

Cater winced as the thorns shot up and made quick, shallow cuts through skin. He jumped back and felt hot blood drip down his forearms that he held up to protect his face. He had to do something…

“Micah!” he yelled. “You’re going to hurt yourself! Please, you gotta—”

“Stop it! You don’t know how I feel! You…you would NEVER know…”

Thorny vines kept flying this way and that. It was impossible to dodge and block it all. When Cater threw up a shield around himself, more vines sprung up from the ground beneath him. He kept considering using strong magic to fight back, but he would never deescalate this like that. At least, he didn’t think that would work, right? He couldn’t risk making this about him, which is what would happen if he started fighting back seriously…

“MICAH!” Cater, or rather, a likeness of Cater, got through the bubble, allowed to do so by the real Cater using fire continuously to make a path for him. He reached in and grabbed the freshman’s wrists with a very mild stun spell, even to make him drop everything for just a moment, even as he wriggled out of his grasp.

“Y-You…you…”

“It’s okay that you’re mad,” the other Cater said, the original providing mental prompts. “It’s tough to feel overlooked. I don’t know what happened in the past, and you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but when I said we could talk, I meant it, okay? I’m not going to hurt you. I won’t talk over you, either. So, let’s just take a moment to breathe, alright?”

+++

The rose garden was an absolute mess.

Trey let out a long sigh as he dutifully surveyed the damage, noting the torn-apart rosebushes and heavy debris littering the upturned grass and dirt. Believe it or not, this wasn’t the first time something like this has happened in this garden, although it may be one of the worse episodes. Sometimes, the chaos would be an accident courtesy of mage students still learning magic, and other times, it would be a fight. Things would get heated between the students, and unsurprisingly, the roses would be quick to become collateral damage. Like today.

(At least, this didn’t hold a candle to the state of the garden after Riddle’s overblot…)

The two freshmen who got in the fight had been retrieved and were being quickly escorted by Riddle to the infirmary, who definitely was irate and had an earful for both of them, and a couple other upperclassmen were asked to tag along and help. Riddle asked Trey to check on things here, and specifically, to check on Cater.

Cater, who at this moment was nowhere to be seen.

“Where’s Cater?” Trey asked one of the freshman onlookers, one of the roommates of the two who had been in the fight, who still looked very shaken up but lingered around the area anyways. There were a lot of people watching, actually, but they kept a very large distance as if nervous. Actually…no, it probably wasn’t nervousness at all, at this point. They likely were just curious but didn’t want to get saddled with the cleanup work…

“U-Uh, I don’t know, he—”

“He’s right here!”

Trey turned around quickly to see Cater running to them from around the corner, looking perfectly fine and flashing his signature peace sign with a smile. “Thanks for coming, Trey! I’m guessing Riddle took care of the rest?”

“Y-Yes…” Trey answered with hesitation. “He’s taking them to the infirmary. Is everything alright with you?”

“Yep! This was a mess, for sure, but at least they’re both fine. Well, mostly. I’m just exhausted, so, I’ll head back to the dorm in a minute. You can take care of everything from here, right?”

“I can.” Trey gave a short nod, frowning.

“Alright, good to hear! I’ll see you later, Trey!” Cater waved before running off again, and Trey watched him silently, a bad feeling settling into the pit of his stomach for one simple reason.

That wasn’t Cater.

“Ugh, he’s not going to help with the cleanup at all, is he?” the freshman groaned with a sour expression. “Can’t believe he just left you in the dust like that, Clover-senpai…”

“It’s fine,” he said evenly. “Cater had to deal with a lot on his own already, and also, there’s no need to fix everything right away. Once they’re recovered, we’ll get Micah and Seven to do most of the work.” Of course, Trey could see himself playing chaperone in his future, as they couldn’t just leave the freshmen alone with this task when they didn’t know what they were doing, but none of that was important right now. “You can go back to the dorm, or wherever you were going to go next. There’s nothing to see here, for now.”

The freshman hurried off, after that. Trey took a deep breath and walked further into the rose garden, sliding himself out of sight of the crowd as he carefully stepped over the debris.

Cater’s copies were nearly identical to himself in appearance, so much so that many people could never tell the difference. Trey didn’t know the difference at the beginning, either, but now, it was hardly even a challenge—all he had to do was look at his eyes. The eyes of the clones had a hollowness to them that was unmistakable, albeit hard to put in words. To put it simply, they were empty. Dead, even. Trey has heard it said that the eyes were the ‘window to the soul,’ and he couldn’t say he knew any concrete scientific basis for that, but the simple eminence of an aura probably had something to do with it, so it would follow that one could tell whether the aura was present or not. Cater being linked to the copies of himself meant that they probably had some ‘aura’ present, but it likely wouldn’t be nearly as strong as it was with the original.

(Trey never said this observation out loud, but sometimes, he really wondered if he should, because it hurt when other people didn’t know. People called Cater shallow and superficial behind his back and in the same breath mention how ‘cold’ and ‘dead inside’ he looks all the time. Trey knew they were talking about the clones and didn’t know it…but then again, Trey would be a liar to say that the real Cater never looked almost the same way.)

Trey didn’t know why Cater tried to pose a clone as himself and insist that he was fine, only tired. Was it just that he had already left for his room to rest, so he sent a clone to do the running for him? It could easily be simply that, but Trey wanted to talk to him in person, if only to get his side of the story on what happened in full (and also, to make sure he was actually okay). Trey would look in Cater’s room next, but first, he would check around the garden, just to see if he was still here. He then remembered belatedly that calling him was an option, so he pulled out his phone while continuing to search.

Cater answered on the third ring.

“Hey, Trey…what’s up? Is everything alright over there?”

Oh no. No, no. Trey’s breath quickened. Cater’s voice sounded shaky. Tired, yes, but there was pain in there too, Trey was sure of it. He instinctively hurried up his efforts, running through the twists and turns of the maze-like garden to try to find him as soon as he could. “Cater! Are you alright? Where are you?”

“I’m…I’m fine, really.”

“Cater. Where are you?”

“I’m…” Cater hesitated, and Trey felt simultaneous a sense of dread and of pain at the realization. Cater didn’t want him there. He was trying to throw him off, and here Trey was, looking for him anyways. Was Trey overstepping? Would his presence do more harm than good? “I’m in the garden,” he said. “Uh, north side, near the yellow daisy plot. I’m in the bushes. I just…well…”

“Okay. Hang on.”

Trey found him not long after that. He was sitting hidden within an enclave of bushes, like he said, leaning back against the rocks, and…

And he looked terrible. Trey’s breath skipped for a bit when he got there, and Cater smiled back up him despite looking like he had been plunged through a pit of thorns, dragged back up, and pushed back down again. There were cuts all over his body, from head to toe: a gash on his cheek, a tear through his right arm that ripped through his dorm uniform jacket, numerous small lines crisscrossing both of his hands, holes and slices through his legs. It was a bloody mess from more lacerations than Trey could count at first glance, some of them deep enough to still be bleeding, and they had no discernible pattern in themselves, but the leaves and thorns sticking into his clothes gave a good indication as to what was the cause. Trey already got a brief picture of what happened with that fight…if he were to guess, this was the work of Micah’s newfound unique magic.

“Cater…”

“It looks worse than it is, really!” Cater blurted out quickly, his energy a good sign, but there was still a very distinct strain to his voice. Perhaps, some of the hoarseness was just due to breathing in all that dust and bits of grass, but still, it didn’t sound good. “I…healed myself a little bit, but I’m kind of on empty. I used my UM a ton just now, and…well, it takes a lot of juice out of me, you know…”

Trey was by his side in an instant, using a healing spell of his own to help mend the wounds, if only on a surface level. “We need to get you to the infirmary,” Trey decided. “But Cater, why didn’t you head there for yourself already? Why hide here?”

“I just…wanted some time to fix myself up first,” Cater admitted, sounding embarrassed as he said it. “It’s not really a big deal, though—just a bunch of small cuts. Getting scraped by thorns is not exactly an infirmary-worthy injury, you know?”

“If it was just a few scratches, yes, but this is all over, and some of them look really deep,” Trey pointed out, brows furrowed in concern. “Besides that, you’re bleeding. It’s worth a look by a professional. Look, I’ll take you there. Riddle already has the freshmen taken care of.”

“R-Right, thanks…” Cater still seemed hesitant, and Trey wasn’t sure what to do.

“Is something else wrong?”

“No, no! It’s just…please don’t make a big deal out of this, okay? It’s fine. I don’t want Riddle to freak out, or anyone else. I mean, Riddle’s probably mad enough as is…”

“It’ll be fine,” Trey assured, not certain what else to say besides that. “It’s not like Riddle would be upset at you. You know that, right? Just…Cater, why didn’t you tell me you were out here? Why strain yourself to make another clone…?” Maybe Trey was asking too many questions. Maybe he should just focus on healing and not be prying into his intentions. Or maybe…

“I…I don’t know. But…thanks for coming anyways, Trey.” Cater managed a weak smile.

With a heavy weight in his chest and also a bit of relief, as well, Trey gave a tired smile back.

+++

Cater didn’t know why he didn’t want them to see him like this. Maybe he was just too tired, or too nervous in a general sense. He also couldn’t think straight. His whole body felt like it was on fire, and his energy felt like it was being constantly wretched out of him with a siphon. Trey’s healing definitely helped, but he still felt like a limp noodle the moment he tried to stand up. So, Trey helped him, and eventually, he changed tactics and started carrying him instead, which was a little embarrassing, but he was grateful for it, too, especially since he was only getting more and more tired…

At some point, he conked out completely. He’s not sure when that happened, but he must have been out for a while, because when he woke up, he was on a bed in the infirmary, fully situated and comfortable with the doctors not even in the room at the moment being, but with the sensation of fresh bandages covering large patches of skin all over, his arms and hands especially. Besides that, he had been changed into a whole hospital gown in place of his torn-up and bloodied dorm uniform. He must have been a little worse off than he thought…

“Cater!” Riddle was in front of his face in an instant. “Are you alright!?”

Cater smiled up at the red-haired housewarden anxiously hovering over the side of his bed. “Yep, feeling great!” he said, and it was partially true, too. He felt way better now than he did earlier; he was just a little out of it still.

“Are you sure about that?” Trey countered weakly, shaking his head with a tired smile. “You had me a little worried when you passed out like that.”

“Yeah…sorry about that.”

“Hmph, I can’t believe the nerve of those freshmen!” Riddle seethed. “To think they would so brazenly attack you just for attempting to speak with them…”

“N-No, it’s not like that, really!” Cater insisted. “I wasn’t ‘attacked,’ per se, just caught in the crossfire, is all! Agh, it’s embarrassing, really. To think I would get knocked out by a freshie. Well, in my defense, I was kind of holding back on purpose, so there’s that, but… Yeah, anyways, where are they now?” Riddle was talking about them as if they weren’t here, but surely…

“They’re asleep,” Riddle answered, gesturing to the other side of the room. “I won’t wake them up now, but, well.” He huffed out a sharp sigh. “I apologize for not being there sooner. ‘Off with Your Head’ would have stopped Micah more quickly, surely…”

“Yeah, no worries. It’s on me for not deescalating things better,” he confessed.

“Hmph. It’s on you for not instilling more urgency in your text, that’s what,” Riddle countered, looking sour about it but dropping it. “Anyways, I’m glad you’re feeling better, if only marginally. Is there anything you need?”

“No thanks,” he said quickly, but then he changed his mind. “Uh, maybe water.”

Trey and Riddle stayed with him for a while. Cater wasn’t keeping track of the time, really. He told them the full story of what happened, all the while wishing he had a better story to tell. He should have been able to talk them down. He shouldn’t have let himself get hurt so bad. Even now, he felt worried, because he did get to talk to Micah, in the end, but…it was obvious he was going through a lot. He was tired and frustrated, and it wasn’t just because of Seven. It was because of his family, because of other ‘friends’ back home, because a whole bunch of unresolved feelings from the past, and he was at his breaking point. He felt like he could never get away from being blamed for every little thing, and so, he blamed Seven for landing him in situations that made him look bad. Even now that he was away from home, he was still being hounded by his parents, who were asking questions about what he was doing and had done without ever really hearing the answer.

(It was no reason to fly off at the handle, but Cater knew that it had to be tough, feeling alone in a crowd like that. Never being heard, never feeling secure enough to say anything in the first place. It was hard, coming to that realization that you were on your own and having to beat down the jealousy monster towards those people who weren’t. So, you just tried to put on a brave face, tried to prove to everyone that there was nothing wrong with you, not now, not ever…)

Cater didn’t know what all was going on, actually—it was a wonder Micah trusted him enough to tell him what little he did share, much less the whole thing—but he did know that it had literally next to nothing to do about those roses. It was never that simple, was it?

He didn’t share the details of what Micah said out of respect for privacy, but Trey and Riddle got the picture well enough. Cater then slid out of that topic as slickly as he could. He wanted to talk about anything else, and so, he somehow managed to bring up breakfast and ask enough questions about pancake preparation to get Trey on a cooking rant, to which Riddle also had opinions.

“Recipes are so aggravatingly vague in this manner,” Riddle vented just a little. “I would like to know the texture of the pancake I will be receiving, but I rarely get that unless ‘fluffy’ is in the pancake’s title, and in that case, I don’t know what ‘fluffy’ is supposed to mean, exactly. I’ve been trying new recipes ever since my time in the Culinary Crucible, but I don’t know if I’m making progress…”

“Ha, well, I’m always up for giving lessons, if you need it!” Trey offered, as he often would.

“Thank you, but I would like to learn this without adding to your workload.”

“You could also stop by more often to watch!” Cater suggested. “I like to join Trey sometimes to help out a little. It’s super relaxing!”

“That’s because you usually just sit at the bar and watch,” Trey pointed out lightheartedly. “You just stay for the food.”

“Ack, got me there!” And then Trey would use his signature spell on the samples, whenever Cater asked, so he could get just a few sweets turned savory, or Trey would make one of those special waffles with the nuts… “It’s just so much fun seeing you cook, you know!” He just liked to be there without a reason, sometimes. To just talk about things or slip into comfortable silence just as easily.

He kind of liked that about this right now, just being here. Not trying to accomplish anything for once. He was still dizzy, though. He also shouldn’t keep Riddle and Trey from their work or whatever else they had planned for today. Again, he really didn’t want to make a big deal of this… That said, awkward as it may be, he was kind of glad they came anyways.