Leo woke to light being splayed across him, and he winced at the brightness of it, even with his eyes closed. He groaned, and reached to pull the comforter over his head for more welcome darkness.

"Good morning Leo. It's time to get up." Came the irritatingly singsong voice of Vincent Nightray, and that gave Leo pause. As he contemplated why, exactly, he was being woken by Vincent of all people, the events from the previous evening hit him. Between the piano, and the mysterious knocking, and Vincent's older brother with a fucking gun, he'd had a highly disturbing evening. Without any more prompting, Leo found himself wide awake, blinked his eyes open, and pulled off the comforter with a great flourish.

Leo hoisted himself out of the bed, to realize that he'd even slept in his shoes. He'd entirely forgotten to take them off the night before when he'd crawled into Vincent's unused bed. He'd feel bad about it if it was anyone else's bed, but Vincent never used it, and they had a few maids that came by every day to straighten up things. Of all the people he knew, Leo felt the least bad about odd behavior around Vincent. To the blond's credit, Vincent seemed to give him a cursory once over, before that sticky smile spread over his face. "Had a rough night, perhaps?"

The answer was yes, but Leo knew he couldn't say that. He gave Vincent a look that probably read "YES YES YES YES" before settling his gaze down to the plush blue carpeting. If he mentioned Gilbert and the gun, Vincent would close him off. Vincent loved nothing more than his older brother, and Leo wasn't willing to test his loyalties just because they were sort of bedfellows a few times a week. Gilbert was flesh and blood, and sometimes, Leo felt like he was just an occasional treat. It wasn't even slightly equivocal, and there was no way he could bring it up without there likely being repercussions.

That left the whole Nightray Manor creepiness of last night off the proverbial table. Leo could live with that -he didn't want to become one of the long list of casualties of Nightray Manor- even if he didn't like it, but that did leave him with the theater basement thing to consider. And the moment he settled on it, Leo realized that he really did want that resolved, if for no other reason than to shut up that insistent voice in his head. He looked up at Vincent again, noticed the tilt of Vincent's head, and the dangling of his red earrings. Leo could tell right then and there, that Vincent was interested in what he had to say, even if he always masked his interest in that persistent impartiality.

Leo schooled his face into something impassive, and tapped his foot on the carpeting. "You could say that. I spent most of the evening in the theater building."

Vincent gave him an odd little look in response, before turning to wander over to the joined bathroom. "It's locked at 11. Being a little delinquent, aren't we?" Vincent gave him a little smile, before opening the bathroom door and wandering in without closing the door behind him. "Preparing for another article?" The sound was a little more muffled with a wall between them, but Vincent emerged from the bathroom, a more gentle smile on his face, and a hair brush in his hand.

Leo had enough good sense to look displeased, trying to keep the pout of his face, but he nodded in confirmation. "Something about a piano."

The blond made his way over to the bed, and gently pushed Leo so that his back was facing Vincent, before taking a seat on the bed himself. "And what did you find?" One of Vincent's large hands settled on Leo's shoulder for just a moment, before the blond brought up the brush, and gently started running it through Leo's frazzled hair. For whatever reason, Vincent loved combing Leo's unruly mop of hair. Leo tolerated it.

Leo took a deep breath, before beginning his statement. "Mysterious piano music late at night from the basement. That's most of it, but there are no records of a piano in the basement." He heard Vincent hum, and knew it was confirmation that a piano was not suppose to be down there. "Music rumors are the worst though. You remember Lacie and Barma." He couldn't see Vincent shaking his head in confirmation, but he could imagine it.

"I do." Was the passive response he got instead, as Vincent softly worked through the tangles in his dark hair. He could feel the back of Vincent's fingers on his neck, and it gave him slight pause.

When he did start again, he felt more even, calmer than when he'd started. "I heard the music myself. It was there, coming from the basement." There was a slight pause in rhythmic motion of Vincent's brushing, only a seconds pause between two crisp, staccato quarter notes, just for emphasis, but Leo caught it. "It wasn't from anywhere else. I followed it down the stairs and to the basement." That was a bold faced lie. He'd been in too much of a frenzy to even think that the music had come from anywhere else, but looking back on it, Leo was positive. It had only come from the basement.

He didn't get the hum of confirmation from Vincent, but the brushing continued at an even pace, like a metronome. "All basements on campus are locked. They're unsound. No one goes in, or out." The statement was in Vincent's default nonchalant tone, but there was something else to it as well, something that Leo couldn't place. Vincent hummed again. "I'm sure it was from somewhere else. There's nothing down in the basement of any of the campus buildings." Vincent paused his brushing, and chuckled to himself, before continuing. "Except for maybe some large rats."

Vincent's blatant dismissal mad him angry, but Leo filed away the feeling, and tried not to let it show. Instead, he turned around so that he was facing Vincent, and the blond couldn't brush his hair. "I know what I heard, Vincent. There's something down there, and unless you've got musical rats running around, it's human." Sometimes it was irritating that his glares didn't get past his thick mop of hair, but to look at Vincent, Leo was positive that his intent got across crystal clear.

To his irritation, Vincent simply gave him that slimy, sympathetic smile. "Maybe it is musical rats."

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