Work Text:
Riddle has always hated the dark.
He tells himself it's irrational, something he should've grown out of years ago, but his body remembers what he tries to forget. The click of a lock, the way the lights snapped off without warning. His mother's stern voice on the other side of the door: Stop crying. Calm down.
Whether it was nightmares or a fever or just the overwhelmed sobs of a lonely child who needed comfort, the answer never changed.
Silence, darkness, isolation.
So sometimes, even now, he wakes in the middle of the night with his breath short and his heart coiled tight. He curls in on himself, presses a hand to his sternum, trying to steady a heartbeat that feels too young, too scared.
It always takes a while. Sometimes minutes. Sometimes longer. He waits for his breathing to slow. He waits for his muscles to unclench. He waits for the dark to feel like just a lack of light, instead of a memory of being shut away.
And then, much later, he begins sharing a bed with Idia.
The first night he wakes, disoriented, his pulse ready to sprint... there's light. A soft, gentle blue glow, like a lantern someone left just for him. Idia's hair flickers quietly beside him, casting the room in a cool, soothing halo.
Riddle exhales. The fear melts before he even understands why. He isn't alone. He smiles without meaning to. He inches closer, lets the warmth of Idia's body and the shimmer of that strange, beautiful light wrap around him. Sleep takes him almost instantly.
This keeps happening. Every night he wakes—rare, now—his eyes open to that blue. And each time, the glow greets him before panic can grow, and his heart feels so light it almost aches.
One night, he wakes, but not fully, in a kind of drifting half-dream. His thoughts float, his limbs warm, and his hand is already buried in Idia's hair. The glow pools between his knuckles, whisper-soft, and Riddle watches it with a startled awe.
Idia stirs, blinks. Squints at him.
"Mm... sorry," he mumbles, voice thick with sleep. "I-I know it's annoying. The hair thing. I can't really turn it off."
Riddle just stares at him. It takes him several seconds to find words, because he genuinely cannot understand.
"Annoying?" he echoes quietly.
Idia tenses, clearly thinking it's a yes.
Riddle shakes his head, dazed. "It's... comforting," he says, fingers still resting lightly in the glowing strands. "To me, it's like... like seeing the moonlit sky after wandering in darkness."
Idia's eyes go round. For a moment the only sound in the room is their breathing. Then the blue begins to change. The glow warms, bleeds from sapphire to the tender pink of sunrise on snow. It brightens until the whole room flushes rose. Idia makes a strangled, mortified sound and slaps both hands over his face.
"Uh," he says into his palms, "that's. Definitely not moonlight anymore. That's straight-up budget love hotel aesthetic..."
Riddle feels the laugh rise before he can stop it. Soft at first, then brighter, spilling out like silver bells. The fondness blooming in his chest is overwhelming. He scoots closer until their foreheads nearly touch.
"Then we should make proper use of the atmosphere."
Idia peeks at him between his fingers. Riddle is still smiling, earnest, a little shy. And Idia gives up, relaxes, sighing out a single breath. The look in his eyes shifts to something so warm and tender it makes Riddle's heart clench. And then idia is leaning in, pulling Riddle close.
Their lips meet, the room glowing rosy and warm around them—moonlight traded for something sweeter, something Riddle never thought he'd be allowed to have.
Outside their bedroom, the night stays dark.
Inside, there is more than enough light.