Archie was sitting at the table with a cup of black coffee in one hand and his head in the other. He still looked asleep, which explained why Jay was loading two plates with food at the counter. Herry yawned loudly, alerting the others to his presence, and proceeded to join Jay at the food. In order to cook enough for the seven of them Athena had to cook so much food that the table was crowded and she left food on the counters too. Herry grunted a good morning and Jay smiled and nodded in return.
By the time Herry had loaded up three plates, balanced carefully in his arms, Odie, Atlanta and Theresa had joined the table and were nibbling at the fruit and toast on the table. Jay was reading the paper and Archie was hogging all the bacon, which was strange, since everyone, even Jay, loved bacon. Herry put it up to things being weird since Archie and Jay started dating and didn't think any more on it.
There was one last piece of toast on the plate between Archie and Odie. They both reached for it at the same time, and then Archie pulled back. That was extremely out of character since Archie loved getting the last anything. Odie didn't touch the toast and Herry debated putting his food down. If Archie wasn't eating it, there had to be something wrong.
"Oh darling," Archie said in a ridiculously cheesy voice that made Jay give him 'the look' over the newspaper, "could you make me some toast?"
Whenever Archie did that Jay usually slung back some sort of witty remark that made Archie grumble and go do whatever he wanted himself. Instead Jay forced a smile and set the paper down with an "Of course."
This had the attention of everyone in the room, even Neil who'd just slunk in for the end of the interaction.
"Did you two get in a fight?" Herry asked worriedly. Jay snorted and Archie cracked a grin.
"No, what makes you think that?" Archie said as he grabbed the toast right before Odie did. Herry was about to continue when Odie's eyes flew open in shock,
"What did you do to your wrists?" he shouted. Archie tensed and Jay let out a laugh from behind them.
With all eyes on him now, Archie nervously held up his hands to show the bruises circling both wrists. Silence descended as they all waited for an answer.
"Training, y'know? Ares ties those knots crazy tight," Archie grinned and his ears went a shade red- a sure sign he was lying.
"You haven't been in the Damsel position for training in weeks, and the last time Cronus had any of us bound and gagged was last month," Theresa pointed out.
There was that awkward silence again.
"Arch," Atlanta said, giving him their look that meant they were doing some friendly soul-connecting thing that they did, "are those on purpose? Do you need to talk-"
"No!" Archie shouted, "I didn't do this on purpose… well, in a way, I guess." He frowned and went into contemplation leaving them all even more confused.
"Well if someone didn't forget their safety word then someone wouldn't have bruises now would they?" Jay finally clarified as he set the toast down in front of Archie.
Archie got all wide-eyed and ducked his head, pushing the newly-made toast over to Odie who looked at it like it was about to kill him.
"If someone would remember that stop means stop then someone wouldn't be trying to win my love back," Archie said into the silence, keeping his head down.
Neil coughed awkwardly, "I'm going to get some bacon- and I'm going to eat it over there where I don't need brain bleach."
Theresa, Atlanta and Odie followed him. Herry ate his pancakes and thoroughly enjoyed them.