CA!Verse; Jade/Roderich

[penguinknitter]

In which the power goes out and Jade's logic is kind of sweet.

It had been a day where everything had gone wrong. A storm had rolled in during some of the afternoon sessions, and had broke when he was walking home, pouring down rain as he ran to the staff dormitory. Roderich had just slid his key in the lock when the power went out, leaving him standing in front of his door swearing under his breath.

“Is today going to get any worse?” He mumbled as he managed to get into the apartment, slide off his coat and get it hung up before running into anything. When he did though, he grumbled before managing to get himself into the living room. “Jade? Are you home?”

“Yes.” He heard a voice from down the hall, and it was soon accompanied by the man in question holding an old oil lamp in his hands. Roderich looked at it, apparently he forgot that he even had that. “I found this in the bottom of the closet. How long have you had this?”

“Since I’ve been here, almost. Elise got it for me when I told her about one of the winter storms we had my first year.” He smiled a bit at the memory as Jade set the lamp down on the coffee table. The different light softened his looks, and Roderich took it in before he turned to head down the hall after lighting a candle from the lamp so he could see. “I’m going to change, I’m soaked.”

When he came back, he was holding the candle along with a blanket. He noticed Jade had seated himself on the sofa, book in his hands. Apparently the gift Roderich found for him for Christmas was a good idea. A small book light was fastened along the top of the book, giving him plenty of light to read by, even with most of the apartment covered in darkness.

Roderich took a seat on the other end of the couch, pulling out his laptop to at least put the rest of the battery to good use. He could write an email to Liz, and send it in the morning, with a PS explaining why it was late. Wrapping the blanket around himself, he did just that, before the beep sounded, telling him it was time to shut down before it went completely dead.

“Roderich.” He heard Jade’s voice say from the other end, and he looked over as he set his computer on the table. Seeing him making a ‘come here’ motion with his hand, he slid over, a bit confused. Jade moved his book for a moment, reaching over to grab Roderich’s arm and pull him forward, causing him to fall against Jade’s body.

“What are yo--?” Roderich managed to get out, before Jade silenced him with a finger.

“Simple. No electricity means no heat. And with the temperature outside getting close to freezing, it’s going to be cold in here.”

“A blanket would have worked. I would have gone to get you one.”

“It’s been proven that body heat is the best way to stay warm in situations just as these.” He looked down to see Roderich raising an eyebrow at him, but not moving. “Besides, you do have a blanket already.” Roderich shook his head, adjusting the blanket and resting his head on Jade’s shoulder, as the older man got comfortable again reading. A few minutes later, he was comfortably dozing off.

Last thing he remembered was something like a chuckle as Jade pulled his glasses off, and a pressure on his forehead. Then…sleep