Winterspell [Bowen]

Aiden wasn't panicking. Not quite. Mostly and probably. Stressed? Oh yeah he was stressed. He didn't have to start classes just yet, having only just arrived - and been released from hospital, even if the only physical reminders of the accident were scars he desperately wished would fade. They wouldn't, though, not as far as he'd been told. Looking at them made him nauseated and sweating even if he managed to not be overheating at the time.

He was trying to find his way to food. It seemed a simple enough task, but without knowing the layout of the building well and having lost his supplied map somewhere in the chaos of moving in (which was nowhere near finished)... well. He was lost, and then there were suddenly people around.

Hence the near-panicking. He'd been caught up in school crowds before, and survived, but only in a school where he had known basically everyone at least tangentially. He knew none of them well, but they all knew his brother and left him alone as a result. Here, he had none of that. Even if he pretended that Conri was just back on the mainland he had none of that, and would never have it again.

Somewhere in the swirling haze of heat and body heat and bodies and eyes and the dimness that came from wearing sunglasses indoors came a tight grip on his arm. The panic really flared then, desperately torn between a rejection of physical contact and the slower realization that that was his scarred arm, along with a dose of extra heat that made his head spin enough that for a moment he could barely manage to stumble along blindly.

He staggered to a stop and had to lean over for a moment until things stopped wobbling unpredictably. And breathe. Breathing was very important.

Aiden was still sweating in his hoodie and old jeans when he was finally able to glance awkwardly up at the stranger who had hauled him out of the crowd. And then look away, and shuffle nervously. "Ah........ er...."

"Thanks," he said quietly, still not looking at his rescuer and subconsciously rubbing the part of his scar that ran along where Paradox had grabbed him. It didn't hurt. It was just... well, it was that.

Grinning at him was too much like staring at him, and meant people were either about to start laughing or try to exploit him or trick him into something stupid. He didn't want anything to do with that. He just wanted to...

well, he wanted to crawl into a hole with internet and avoid the world forever. He wasn't quite young enough to think that that was likely to actually be an option. So instead... he worked very hard not to think about things and just be vaguely miserable and very uncomfortable instead of actively miserable.

Regardless of this guy's plans, he had some useful information. His previous school hadn't really gone in for bulletin boards much. Well, it had them, but no one ever updated them. "Yeah, thanks," he said quietly, and then stared at the offered hand like it was a poisonous snake.

Scratch that, like it was the hand of someone who wanted to initiate/continue physical contact with him.

But handshakes were polite.

He really didn't want to do the physical contact thing.

Ugh. Aiden slowly, extremely hesitantly, and very reluctantly accepted Paradox's hand and gave it a kind-of-shake. And then shoved both hands into his pockets, wriggling his right hand to get the sleeve in as well rather than letting it ride up.

"I.... I'm Aiden," he replied. Not that he wanted to give his name, or stay here chatting, but it was the required polite thing to do.

New guy. He'd never been the subject of that phrase before. He'd never gone anywhere new. Even moving up a tier to, say, high school, he wasn't new. He was just moving from one building to the next with everyone else. He had heard it, though. It usually came before attempts to establish the newcomer at the bottom of the vicious pecking order that lived in society. Outsiders at least got to avoid that. Not-new outsiders, at least.

Alec's behaviour didn't do much to change Aiden's forming opinion either. Rescue the new kid to earn a debt, be totally confident about the situation, and then draw the hapless, indebted newbie into a chain of horrible events. Aiden might have watched too many high school animes to have a realistic idea of what those events would be (host clubs to BB gun survival competitions was a pretty wide range, and those were just two), but he didn't want to find out what this one would be.

Disengaging was key. He couldn't admit to owing Alec anything. He definitely couldn't fall even more obviously into his debt. "No, I'm fine," he said. Perhaps his voice was a bit insistent, but then he was attempting a bald-faced lie. "I was just going.... that way." Through the crowd, unfortunately, and he gestured vaguely in that direction for clarity.

Aiden's heart and breath stumbled as Alec stepped in close, but he couldn't get himself moving until the taller guy was already talking. Warm air on his ear, unfamiliar and confusing. The sheer presence of another person so close by, and not simply bumping and moving away.

Complex reactions and emotions were always easier to tangle and redirect and manipulate, whether through words and actions or occult methods. Aiden resisted the influence without even realizing that it was external, but instinctive reactions are rarely enough on their own. Bit by bit, his apprehension and rejection and refusal eased back. He didn't trust Alec. He didn't want to trust Alec, though he did want Alec to be trustworthy.

He would give Alec a chance. Just a chance. The moment anything set off fresh alarms, he was gone, and he wasn't coming back. It was easier to think, especially about setting boundaries with Alec, once there was actual space between them again. Space to breathe as well as space to think. Space to exist.

Aiden followed Alec, if still hesitantly, and eyed the new divide in the crowd warily.

Well, it wasn't actually the first time he'd seen something like that. Conri had pulled stunts like that a few times. People listened to him because he was popular and liked and smart and all that other socially valued stuff. Conri could just tell people to move and they would move. They didn't even complain most of the time.

He doubted Alec was anything like Conri, but it was both more pleasant and infinitely more painful to imagine that than comparing him to bullies and abusive popular power-wielders.

Or maybe he just wouldn't think about it at all. He'd just follow and get through here and make it to somewhere with food and water and not an excess of heat. That was the safe option. Just shut down and trail after Alec.

@"Paradox"

Aiden didn't want to be there, didn't want to be doing any of this, but he was and there wasn't really anything he could do about it. All he could do was put one foot in front of another, look at Alec's feet, and wait it out.

There were worse things than waiting. Waiting was passive and detached. It was potential and absence.

There were words, but he wasn't waiting for words. He was waiting for... something else. He wasn't sure what. He was vaguely sure he didn't want to pry into it. He'd just keep waiting until he found it or it arrived, and then he would deal with however bad it might be.

The words kept coming, though. Maybe he was waiting for words. If he didn't know what he was waiting for, didn't that mean that anything might be it? He didn't want to think too deeply about that. Deep thought tended to wander. He very much did not want to wander.

"Cold," he said faintly. He had sought cold. Still sought cold, but for now was following Alec. Was there a connection there? Best not to think too deeply. "And food." Yes. He was hungry and needed food enough to risk coming out into this. Perhaps Alec would lead him to both.