I don't fucking trust you but here I am writing this anyways

[cubone_i_guess]

That kid was there again.

It was the 3rd time in fewer weeks that Pan had seen him at the park. It took twice for him to notice the repeated figure, and once more to realise that there was a good reason he was there so much. People don't typically sleep on metal benches if they've a bed to go home to.
And, well, Pan couldn't just leave him there. The kid looked only a bit older than himself, and was about as skinny. After spotting the occupied seat, the thought of all the bad things that could possibly happen to a child on the streets ate at, picked at his mind with sharp beaks. The thoughts tormented him as he turned around on the spot, and all the way home without having looked at the park's season-bright trees as intended. Only when Pan saw the sleeping lump still there upon his return did he feel a bit better.

While far from equipped to deal with a homeless, strange minor (not to mention the social interaction about to happen), Pan did have at his disposal a backpack hastily packed with a blanket, fruit, snacks, water, and socks. In his hands he held a tubberware of spaghetti, steaming quietly to itself in the chill, fork pinned to the top with a well placed thumb.  Back at the apartment he had a guardian that he could talk into pretty much anything in the time it takes to pack the bag and microwave last night's leftovers.

So, deep breath.
Maybe a near-silent and fairly brief commentary on how it was a miracle shit like this, by a few connected dots, had only gotten him killed once before (but that was a completely different post).
A few "Um, excuse me?"s in volume slowly progressing loud enough to get the other's attention.

Comments

[alearnedinstinct]

The sleeping boy had a raggedy windbreaker, jeans with an impressive amount of obviously hand-done repairs, and what definitely looked like tape helping to hold together his sneakers; he also had an impressive need for sleep, considering he hadn't even stirred at Pan's verbal prods yet.

He was definitely still breathing. The rise and fall of his chest was accompanied by a small amount of wheeze, every now and then. And -- now that Pan was closer to him -- he could tell the kid's hair was red, but not really red. Light, dusty brown roots showed at about half an inch before going to bottle-red.

I thought for sure you'd have a cute yet unsettling response to the last subject line

[cubone_i_guess]

Fuck. Pan was pretty sure that waking a sleeping homeless stranger up by touching his shoulder was NOT a good first impression, or even a good idea. But the person was still asleep and seemed pretty intent on staying that way. So, what choice did he have but to hesitantly tap his shoulder?

His hand jerked back like a reaction to a static shock, a convenient simile, since that was what had happened. At least Pan thought so at first. No one really pays much mind to such things, after all, except... Well, static shocks aren't supposed to happen twice, right? And that thought was what made him realise that touching the other boy's shoulder felt a little strange, beyond that. Insubstantial. Certainly not the texture on his fingertips one would expect from the shell of a windbreaker. Or really...strange, had he felt any texture at all?

One more "Excuse me, please wake up" was tried, since static electricity, strange or not, is annoying.

i got too eager

[alearnedinstinct]

Sometime between Pan's attempts at a poke to the shoulder and his latest, polite request to wake up, the boy's rate of breath had changed, from the deep, rhythmic rate he'd had before, to something lighter.

The kid was certainly trying to be sneaky about it, but the unconscious flutter in his closed eyelids gave him away; he was peering out through his eyelashes. After whatever evaluation he'd been trying to do of Pan was over with, the boy slowly shifted, as if he actually was just waking, and drew himself up to a sitting position self-consciously. He looked like he was having trouble keeping his eyes open from bleariness.

There was a light rasp of phlegm in his voice when he spoke, making it sound a bit like a croak. "...Hi?"

That's scary

[cubone_i_guess]

He had Pan fooled, who was too busy fretting about what to do if he didn't wake up, and then what to do now that he had woken up.

"Um..." He took a seat a sizable distance (by bench standards) away, the backpack placed between them. He looked like he was trying to take up the least amount of space possible, knees pressed tightly together and shoulders slightly hunched in on himself. "I brought you a blanket and some other stuff. Do you like spaghetti?" Pan spoke quietly, but having food held out to you should be a pretty clear signal to anyone, even if the offerer can't seem to look you in the eye.

b o o

[alearnedinstinct]

Jonathan watched him like a wary stray - well, there was no like about it, he was - as Pan set down the backpack and sat by him, with a relative respect for personal space. The gears were grinding into place in his head - he'd seen this boy before, in the park. He supposed he'd been hanging out here for too long, honestly, if samaritans were approaching with spaghetti.

Some distant echo of propriety he'd never really believed in in the first place eeked into his words. "You, um, you didn't have to do that..."

Contrary to what he was saying, he actually sounded a bit touched by the gesture.

A cautionary thought crossed his mind, that there might be something in it, something bad -- but.

Man it was still warm he couldn't remember the last warm thing he'd ate.

Confident in the power of past experience with tampered food and an amateur chemist's sense of taste, he accepted the tupperware without another word of self-destructive protest. He glanced at Pan from the corner of his eye, and sampled a bite.

Nothing seemed up with it. It had meat sauce, that was about all that was notable. Maybe some oregano was in it. But no poison. He relaxed.

A VAGUE TIME SKIP LATER

[alearnedinstinct]

<sub>"Nonono, wait, Sherry, come back, c'monthere'splentyofspacetoruninbackhere--"


Jonatha, for the record, had remained reticent in entering all parts of the flat save the living and bath rooms - so when Sherry the Tiny Horse went galloping off with adorable, inches-long strides down the hall to destinations unknown, he was reluctant to follow, but quick to plead uselessly to the little horse. Sherry was busy being a free horse and could feel the wind streaming in her mane as she leapt (clop!) from one plank to another, and blazed hoofprints into all the misfortunate rugs.

He didn't doubt he could overtake her or outright stop her in her tracks with a telekinetic trick, but -- you don't risk roughhousing a tiny little creature, no matter how much Kyousuke said she was sturdy! What if he stepped on her!?

That's how he ended up scurrying after the micro-horse into the hall, when he probably had fifty other options for handling the situation that he would later agonize over not dreaming up at the right time.</sub>

Time for things to get aaawwwkkkwwaarrddd

[cubone_i_guess]

Pan had thought that Sherry would keep their guest occupied long enough for him to take a shower. And, well, it actually had. Just a few seconds longer and he would have gotten to his room, too.

"Um.." For a second, Pan completely forgot he could walk away and end the awkward situation. But instead, he stared at Jon, towel wrapped around his waist and scarred chest completely exposed.

A long, angry red scar ran from his left shoulder to right hip. Shorter and thinner white scars littered the rest of his torso, mostly random but some in parallel groups. His back had the same raised pale rows, but much longer, crossing haphazardly.

[alearnedinstinct]

There was a moment of intently awkward staredown that lasted exactly as long as it took for Jonathan to remember himself as an existing, singular entity that really ought to not -- ought to --

Jon made a sound that might have been a syllable but was much more like the closest verbal approximation to the sheer incarnation of embarrassment, and covered up his eyes with his hands. His next breath was dedicated to about five utterances of the word 'sorry' in rapid succession.

[cubone_i_guess]

Pan might have said "it's alright" or something similar, but he wasn't sure if his reflexes could cover both running away and an attempt at verbalisation. He couldn't remember, and by the time he had taken the last few steps to his room and shut the door, his mind was too full of other thoughts- and getting dressed- to care.

He had seen the scars, probably could have counted most of his ribs with how long he stared. Probably thought Kyousuke was abusing him or something, that he was starving himself and what was the guy's name anyways? Pan had forgotten. Didn't matter, he was probably going to run away, maybe call the cops, child services, something. Then what would they do? They had no papers, no birth certificates or id or anything. Whoever would come take him away and the other kid would freeze on the street, or starve, or worse.

The boy, dressed in the first things he had grabbed, fell onto the bed and dragged a sleeping Boss into hiding under the comforter with him.

itt: they're both very alike

[alearnedinstinct]

Jonathan, against Pan's estimations, had merely retreated to the couch and had bundled up into something resembling a very angular pile of fabric. Mostly he wanted to hide his face just in case anyone at all came near to the living room, even Boss, even Sherry, who was whinnying worriedly up at him from beside the couch.

He felt the designs etched into his back itch with whispers of memory and he dug his face deeper down into his drawn-up knees, thinking that if he could just press the last bit of light away from his eyes, maybe the rest of him would wink out, too.

_{He missed having a mask he could pull on and be away within.} That scared him.

There was a red slash of light left on the back of his eyelids, glowing in the black, and he could think of nothing but that long, deadly-looking mark from Pan's shoulder to hip.

_{(Kyousuke was 'Life,' he'd said, and the two were like appendages of a whole. Maybe that was the consequence of that ugly red line: owing someone your life could do that.)}

He had a strange buzz in his head that he quashed as best he could, recognizing the feeling of psychic buildup. It wouldn't work forever. Control used to be his art form, but -- he always lost it at the most inopportune moments. Maybe he could bleed off the rustled-up energy somehow, while Pan was still hid away and Kyousuke wasn't to be seen.

[cubone_i_guess]

It was only a few minutes before Kyousuke walked, er, maneuvered his way into the apartment, fighting the door over if a fairly large cardboard box was going to be allowed inside, while trying not to drop the damn thing. One could tell it was a 'damn thing', because that's what he muttered as he closed the door with his foot, and left the kitchen table to deal with it.

"I don't recommend looking in tha... You okay, kid?" He would wait here if it was all the same to Jon. It was just a gut feeling that space would be best, but he tended to trust those.

I'm in one of my stylemood thingies

[cubone_i_guess]

It looked like he had tried to get somewhere, and thankfully he brought a blanket, because he gave up just a few feet down the hall. Maybe Pan was lured from his sleep by the smell of eggs and bacon flirting into all corners of the apartment from the kitchen. Maybe the kid's just weird when he's tired from having slept for a good 15 hours. Either way, there he was, a fetus on the hardwood, wrapped in an embryonic blan- this metaphor is getting creepy, and you get the idea.

Oh, and Boss was asleep on top of him.

[alearnedinstinct]

Clink.

Jonathan had a plan. If Pan was going to be, as Kyousuke had forecasted, too awkward to really speak much - then eating out in the kitchen with other people was probably going to be painfully stiff to live and to see. The very fact that he was unconscious in a blanket-wrap in the hall made Jonathan have an idea for addressing that.

He would lure Pan into wakefulness with the very food that had half-lured him already, without the added social complications.

Namely, that is,

Jonathan carefully set down a plate of breakfast next to the Pan-in-a-blanket, and noiselessly fled back to the living room, where he owed Sherry the last of a handful of baby carrots.

Mission success?

[cubone_i_guess]

Kyousuke chuckled quietly to himself, able to see the hallway when he plopped on the couch to eat. He had wondered what the kid was doing, running off like that with a plate of eggs, bacon, and toast. "Help yourself. You know the drill by now. Orange juice in the fridge, if you'd like."

Pan must not have been too terribly far gone, as by the time Jon was out of sight, he was blinking and yawning. After an amazing 15- yes, fifteen- seconds long yawn, he sat up, hunched over, and started to eat.

Boss would have been a lot more upset about losing his nesting spot so ungracefully if Pan had bothered to shoo the little brat from his plate. Aaaand there goes the toast. At least there hadn't been jelly on it.

"I wonder how long he's been there? Surely not too long?" To his credit, while he did obviously find the whole thing funny (for now, Kyou did at least sound a bit concerned.

If Jon had particularly good hearing, he might have caught a sleep-slurred thanks to "the breakfast Ba'al."

[alearnedinstinct]

_{"Ow -- hey, watch it with those teeth."}

Alas, Jonathan didn't catch much, because he was quite occupied avoiding certain accidental nipping on the account of an enthusiastic small horse. He gave Sherry a betrayed look, and decided she could eat her carrots just fine without him risking his fingers.

So he abandoned her to the kitchen linoleum while he got his own food, having stalled on it for the sake of the plan and - well, also for the deeply-ingrained instinct to never serve himself first unless specifically instructed to.

[cubone_i_guess]

"He said thank you, Joey. Well, close enough."

Pan ate in no hurry, and seemed to have trouble keeping his eyes open. Blinks shouldn't normally last that long. But he was waking up slowing, that much was clear.

The fox was bright eyed in no time flat, and had scarfed down a while slice of toast in the time it took Pan to eat a strip of bacon. There was another slice, and while Boss gently picked it up, he didn't eat it. Instead, he went on a search for Jon, the Breaker of Fasts, the God of Morning Meals.

Hi, Friend!

adventures in SCIENCE: the prelude

[alearnedinstinct]

It was mid-morning, and at some point no one else in the tiny apartment had bore witness to, their house guest had pulled a vanishing act. Sherry sat mournfully with her legs tucked under her on Jon's blanket - a telling artifact, considering that he hung onto that thing like a lifeline and, though his backpack was missing, likely wouldn't have flown the coop for good without it.

Other little things marked a hopeful intention to return. A book, half-read, with a bookmark tucked into its middle; a few pages of loose-leaf lined paper covered in some inscrutable kind of notes involving hexagons, with 'edit' notes to boot - big, angry scribbles and the word NO written so ardently it dented the page was what most of those looked like. But some of the weird hex-monsters were labelled 'revise,' and that was promising.

He'd thought about it, some time ago, while talking to Kyousuke. Now he'd decided to go for it; scope a location, today, gather the low-hanging fruit of what he'd need while waiting it out to see if the place remained acceptable; he could do this. He was.. reasonably confident he could manage this.

A second form of defense, besides his increasingly unreliable psychic powers.

A way to indulge that scraping need to show the world what truth was, what knowledge beckoned; to be in control--

An out-of-business toy store, with rotting, giant plushes that reminded him a little of Sid blocking most of the out-to-in view - promising. No. Don't settle on the first you see.

One of those places you had to take a set of stairs and a rickety banister to get down into dug-out depths went from the maybe to no list when he was in there and it was cold and occasionally, creepy shit, like - like a voice in his thoughts that wasn't his but His and the feeling of straps over his chest, coming back all too much all at once. So. Not there.

Oh boy my favourite

[cubone_i_guess]

Kyousuke was the first to wake, and therefore, the first to notice Jon's absence. He shrugged it off, gave a few reassuring words to Sherry, and made coffee. It wasn't anyone else's concern what Jon did, after all. Even if that meant going off galavanting in the cold in ungodly hours of the morning. More power to him.

Only with mug in hand did he notice the papers.

It took him a minute or so. At first, Kyousuke thought it was some sort of code. But then the notes scrawled on them didn't make sense, so that couldn't be right.

Chemistry.

Beyond that, nada, and he was left with a distinct lack of motivation to figure it out. Best let the kid work out the kinks whatever this was (apparently) had first, at least.

'rent' as in rend not money

[alearnedinstinct]

It took till noon and it took a few new nicks to mend in his windbreaker from squeezing past jagged and small spaces, but he found it. Or, what would be it, after the obligatory Paranoid Waiting Period -- he bit at his lip as he brushed broken glass into a pile with the side of his rent shoe, resisting the urge to rip at the looser bits of dried-out skin with his teeth.

Learned well, didn't we, Dearheart? Only the best of rabbit holes for my quick little apprentice.

In quiet places, in lonely places; he heard the lingering voice more often. He tasted iron, realized he'd bit down too hard on his lip and forced his eyes shut hearing the words-that-weren't. Breathe. In. Out. Air through the bristles of his clenched throat, to weave through the prickling stalks infesting his twisting stomach. That was silly. Straw needed to breathe?

He needed to breathe. Effigy. That's what he was. Symbol, not literal, peel his layers back and it would bleed wet red, not dry yellow.

"Not yours," he whispered to the broken down room.

First things first. He needed things. Plastic tubes. Glasses he could heat and seal. He could cut corks to shape. Pots. A hot plate.

He wondered if he dosed himself with the chemical, if that voice would scream, too.

*Doesn't know what to do so throws Time/Life dialoge at*

[cubone_i_guess]

"Interesting one, him. Don't you think?"

"Go away, Time."

"Aw, I'm hurt. Life, you're never happy to see me!"

"Nope."

"Don't you wanna know where he went? What he's up to? What he will be up to?"

"Fuck off, before I sic the wolves on you."

"Oh, I'm shaking. You'll regret him, I think. The kid certainly."

"Always. Now leave."

[cubone_i_guess]

"Fuck. Um. So. I think she might have slipped by me when I left." Whoops. At least she couldn't have gotten far, on her little legs. Unless she ran. Which she does nonstop. "She wouldn't be able to get back up the stairs. At least there's snow on the ground, we should be able to follow her hoof prints."

Windbreakers are hellish the excuse

[cubone_i_guess]

To his credit, Kyou could figure some things out. For instance, anyone could tell that Jon's windbreaker was on it's last legs, just as clearly as anyone who'd step outside could tell he needed something warm to wear. Warmer (and less hobo chic) than his current draping of faded nylon, if possible.

That wasn't what he figured out, though. No, after some time thinking and quasi-legally decorating the ally, the man had come up with a plan to help.

So explains the new jacket folded on the coffee table. It smelled of Walmart, was plain black on the outside, and had a thick inner lining of whatever you call that fuzzy fabric. On top of it was a scrap of paper with Joey's 'name' and the clever bits.

The noise of you jacket is driving Boss and me mad.

Jon wouldn't take it out of kindness. He liked Boss about the most out of anyone in the apartment, along with Sherry. And, if the situation could be resolved without him having to talk to anyone, all the better for the deer-child.

So yeah, clever bits. Hopefully it worked.

kyou is smart

[alearnedinstinct]

Kyousuke's keen insight didn't stop 'Joey' from circling hesitantly about the new jacket like the wary bird he most certainly was. To be plain about it, he'd overlooked it - until curiosity had him leaning close to inspect the garment laying still undisturbed on the table, and he realized the note had the fake name he'd given them on it. Whoops.

God, he missed having glasses. He'd never found the old ones, though to be frank he hadn't looked for them too hard. They would've been among the other, _trophies--

^{Bad thought train,} bad thought train. Note. Think about that. He plucked up the note so that he could read it without having to press his nose down over the table.

...The noise?

Jon shifted attention to his windbreaker incredulously, then carefully crooked and uncrooked an arm, listening to what happened as the fabric shifted -- oh. He guessed that was the noise. He'd stopped noticing it. He supposed it could be agitating, if you weren't used to it.

He looked up at the jacket on the table again. It looked.. new. Really new. Actually new?

Damn. The sound must have been so aggravating Kyousuke had bought a whole new piece of clothing for the sake of being rid of it.

If he rejected it, Jon imagined he might get pretty miffed. Miffed was bad. He was still the strange, vagrant boy hiding out from the cold in their home, home of some equally strange people though it was.

Ultimately, that was what made him decide to take it, spiriting it and his backpack with him away to the bathroom, so that he could stash the windbreaker in it with his other _(very) meager belongings.

Allow me to correct you.

[cubone_i_guess]

Kyousuke had a not so clever bit a few days ago. Pan had come back from feeding birds, hadn't put away the birdseed himself, and, well, sometimes you forget the kid's shorter than some of the cabinets. So... yeah.

Pan debated the wisdom of climbing onto the counter. Luckily, he heard Jon before more than one knee was committed to this bad idea.

"Jo-oey?" (Damn, it was hard to remember sometimes.) "Can I borrow your tall for a sec?"

[alearnedinstinct]

"Huh? Uh -- I'll be over in a second!"

He hadn't quite caught the gist of what Pan had said - borrow his what? - but the plaintive call was enough to get him moving faster. He fumbled the zipper once, twice, before getting it to hook, and pulled it up to the top in one long motion, one hand holding the hem of the hoodie in place for leverage.

The windbreaker was already stowed away; Jon emerged into the living room with his backpack slung - but not actually worn - over his shoulder. He dropped it in its usual place with little ceremony.

Look, Pan. Someone's got a new shirt.

The neck of it is.. a little lower than the last one. In that it actually shows some of his collarbone, as prominent and bony as the rest of Jon, along with -- what the hell even is that?

Like hundreds of tiny pocks, and there were patches of shinier, puffy skin around the deepest ones, all running in shaky, messy circles 'round his collarbone and base of his neck -- and of course, Jon had no clue any of it showed, because he hadn't had the chance to check himself in the mirror because Pan called him out.

"What'd you need?"