colder than unlit ashes

@"Zeronos"

It wasn't a long walk, not really, but it was cold and he was hungry, and there wasn't an end to it.

Adder didn't have somewhere to go. There was no one waiting for him, no home to return to. His tentatively claimed holes were all being watched, and he confirmed them individually as he wandered. All watched. All protected by others. All unavailable.

Night settled around him more and more as he walked. His bare feet would be dragging already if it weren't for the coldness of the sidewalk. The air was at least a more distant cold. Every step reminded him of how cold the night was going to be. It wouldn't be a problem if he had somewhere to be that was at least a bit insulated... or a blanket...

but he didn't.

He didn't have anything he wasn't already carrying. He could waste some of his barely-lingering energy on blaming others - he knew precisely who to blame, from the moment he felt that enchanted rope around his ankle to his relocation - but he needed that energy to keep walking. Walking generated some warmth, at least. It kept his muscles from stiffening.

If he was walking, he was still alive. He was still cold and hungry, but he was alive. Life was the important part.

And for now, he still had it.

Right?

Damn it, his feet ached. His toes were completely numb and the rest of his feet were stiff sore blocks of fleshy ice. It wasn't cold enough for frostbite, was it?

Maybe if he weren't barefoot, or if he'd eaten in the past few days. He was and he hadn't, though. He didn't need shoes to protect his feet, not against anything other than cold, and he wasn't used to it being this cold this early in the year.

His stomach twisted and growled. He'd made the mistake of thinking about food, and now he got to pay the price. Doubly so, for he'd had a full meat meal almost within his grasp and then -

and then he'd failed, and only had this endless walk to console himself.

Adder's shoulder bumped against a wall, and the cold brick bit his skin through the thin hoodie he had scavenged. It was rich-thin, not meant for warmth. Meant for fashion, before he'd worn it for two days straight and made it as quietly grimy as the rest of him.

He was still leaning against the wall. Why? It was cold, and standing still let the cold creep up his feet and into his shins, sneaking past his ragged jeans like there was nothing there at all.

He needed to keep moving. It was too cold for him to stay here on an empty stomach like this... but now the side of his head was against the wall, and it was cold through his hair.

No.

Adder set his teeth and struggled upright again, wincing at the cold brick's rough chill against his bare hand before he staggered onwards.

Keep moving. That was what he was doing. That was what he was going to do. He was going to keep moving... even if he couldn't really feel his legs below the knees anymore. Each step was just a distant thud that sent ragged force up his bones until he could feel it. He could hear it still. His footsteps sounded...

uncertain. weak. pathetic.

That wasn't right. He could and would fight through this, find some sort of warmth and pass the night by. He would recover, and tonight would pass into memory.

He would...

he would...

[sub]he would...[/sub]

Still fighting his mind and his body and the cold, Adder stumbled on an uneven join between two segments of sidewalk and landed hard on one knee. Hard enough to bruise, hard enough to cut if he had landed on the other leg; that side had a tear over the knee. At least his jeans protected him this time...

Not against the cold, though. It was so cold...

@"Zeronos"

Somewhere in the cold was a trace of familiarity.

Adder had learned to associate some things with that familiarity, helpful enough things that as it grew stronger, he struggled up again but didn't bolt.

His hair was so colourful. Why was his hair so colourful? Like city lights, but cleaner. More familiar lights than here...

Warm. Warm wasn't familiar. He...

Warmth was good, yes. He wanted warmth. He didn't want to be cold, and... and he was cold enough to be desperate. Freeze or owe someone. This wasn't a theoretical question. This was the choice directly in front of him.

He was cold... was he even shivering anymore? He didn't have the energy to shiver. Not really. He was too hungry, too empty to be warm or to warm up. He was just cold nothing.

He wanted warmth, and managed to nod at the guy who left his scent on food.

He wanted food too. Food was warmth. He wanted warmth.

Adder shivered, and decided that he probably shouldn't try to walk while he was shivering.

As a general rule, Adder didn't like being picked up. It was a trust thing, mostly. A lack of control, when he needed all the control he could keep to survive. Survival was his top priority, and that meant being slow to trust, if he ever trusted at all.

Neon was warm, though, and Adder honestly did associate him with food now. How was he supposed to argue with that? He couldn't bring himself to try, not when he was so cold and Neon was so warm...

He must have drifted off, as little as he would ever admit that he fell asleep in the presence of a near-stranger, never mind in a near-stranger's arms, because he was jolted awake by abrupt warmth and weight and only faintly familiar softness. Worry kicked in for a moment, but then the weight rolled off and Adder struggled upright.

Well, more upright. His head was still a bit fuzzy and way too much of his body was tingling and stabbed with pins for him to concentrate properly, much less move properly, and he hadn't been on a bed in...

He hadn't had an actual bed since he lived with his parents. Plenty of time to forget how mattresses responded to movement. Blankets he knew, though, and even if Neon hadn't dumped a bunch on him he would have immediately burrowed into them. When he was satisfactorily swathed and surrounded by insulation and warming up again, he peered out of his nest at his rescuer-host.

The very fact that this place wasn't fancy was kind of reassuring. Adder didn't have a very good track record with wealthy people. This was much more familiar, and less threatening even if it was someone else's.

...that smelled like food. Adder's ears twitched up and he sniffed at the air. Food.

But also conversation. He swallowed, since the scent of food had him salivating already, even if his stomach was too empty to be able to get up to much in anticipation.

"I don't have one," he replied after a moment, a little bit muffled given how much he had burrowed into the blankets. He'd been on his own for a long time. The most he'd been with anyone had been when he'd been trapped, honestly. He was well aware that that wasn't the same.

Adder shifted deeper into the blankets so that only his eyes and nose were exposed to air. Warm... but he had to stay awake to get food. He could do that. He needed food. He wanted food.

@"Zeronos"

Adder watched the food-making with a level of intensity that seemed a little unwarranted by its quality. Food was food, even if it was mostly water. He appreciated water too, but mostly anything that could be roughly classed as food.

His ears shifted back a bit at the question, but his eyes didn't leave the pot. "Yeah, well, it's my first one here. Didn't come here willingly, and now I have to start from scratch again." Adder pulled the blankets a bit higher around his face. He wasn't fond of talking about himself, and remembering those long weeks locked in a room, clawing his fingertips to shreds even if they healed near-instantly at times, stressed him out.

It was a good thing he was watching food become more foodlike. He could be very patient and keep quite calm when there was food coming. His ears slowly came forward again.

THE STOVE BEING TURNED OFF MEANT THAT THE FOOD WAS READY, RIGHT? Adder leaned sharply forward, expression brightening and opening a bit. Food.

He shrugged the blankets off his shoulders and shifted so that he could neatly balance the makeshift dishes, although he only gave his fingers a moment to adjust to the temperature before pouring hot soup into his mouth.

It was a amazing and delicious and honestly better than a lot of things he'd eaten before, even if it scalded his mouth and left him panting awkwardly after he swallowed to cool it off. He wasn't particularly concerned; it wasn't enough to actually impede his ability to eat, and it was far more important to get the soup into his stomach right now.

@"Zeronos"

As he ate, if his not-quite-desperate gorging could be called that out of politeness, Adder briefly forgot where he was and that there was someone else nearby. Neon was easier to forget about, somehow. It had to be his smell. People didn't normally smell like city. People didn't smell familiar like that.

Adder licked the bowl dry, still grimacing from the heat but plenty de-stressed for it to show on his face. He was too worn out to be guarded, really, but even if he couldn't get moisture or flavour from the bowl anymore (he made very sure. Adder did not leave traces of food behind) he wasn't done eating. He had been given... something dry and grainy. He sniffed at one, considered it for a brief moment, and then ate it.

Crunchy food. Adder was satisfied by that. He crunched through the rest in short order, even if his teeth were a bit excessive for the job, and scraped out the last crumbs from the container.

Hot food and solid food. That was good. Good enough to talk more? Hm. Hffff. There weren't any more crumbs left, where there? No, he'd checked. He rarely missed food traces but he'd check anyway. Nope. Out of luck.

Well. He had eaten. He could be plenty satisfied with that. Adder abruptly glanced up at Neon, skirting along the edge of eye contact and considering him closely. Colourful, pierced, possessing shelter but not rich. Adder skirted around the thought that there was very little food present overall in a rather different manner than he didn't make eye contact, casually avoiding rather than curious and unaggressive.

"I don't have one. Not beyond staying alive, even in this place, anyway." After finally answering, he slid the empty containers away from him and tucked himself deeper into the shroud of blankets. He wasn't cold now but he wanted more warmth. Actual warmth was far too rare.