Daylight glows grey through the bedroom window. It's a bright grey, testifying how the storm had abated during the night. What remains of the rowdy tempest is a gentle shower and chalky clouds that'll burn off with the sun.
The boy wakes grudgingly. He had enough of the waking world yesterday, thank you very much. He'd rather stay in bed today and not worry about food, or Myr, or finding shelter from bloody rain that never stops. He'd rather he didn't think about food at all. The reminder dredges up his aching appetite from wherever it had been buried in his sleep. His stomach growls loud enough to be heard from the kitchen next door.
He recognizes the routine that has defined his time here. (He’d be an idiot not to.) He wakes, aching and hungry. He sneaks to town for the food and compassion he needs. He sneaks back full of neither, having just enough of both to keep him alive another day. He circumnavigates around Myr, lest he suffer his wrath, before fatigue knocks him out for the night.
Is this how his days will go? Is this all there is to his life?
He sighs, grimacing at the shattered and torn feeling left in his limbs from being chilled for hours on end. It feels like exhaustion, but worse. Exhaustion, he knows like an old foe. Exhaustion, he knows how to fight. This, whatever ‘this’ is, is worse. It's the lingering rawness from slowly freezing and it's not in his muscles, where fatigue weighs on him. It is everywhere, trickling deep inside him to where the cold rain cracked his thin bones open to scrape the marrow out and fill him with ice. It wasn't even snowing, yet it was so very cold.
The boy shivers. Maybe he still is frozen. Not as bad as yesterday, now that he's dry, but the pain is still there, isn't it? Who's to say the ice left while he was comatose on the chesterfield?
He shivers harder, but for different reasons. This is not where he was last night. This is not where the cold felled him. Someone carried him here. Someone knows where he sleeps at night. Someone saw him helpless and unguarded and the tiniest thought in that direction sends his skin crawling like there's an ant farm inside him. He knows damn well how to press an advantage like that and he fully anticipates getting pressed for it. Doesn't know how they (whoever ‘they’ is) found out about his safe haven. Not that it's safe anymore.
The boy strains his limbs to move, goddamnit. He's stiff and sore and starving, but they're more reasons to get out of here. It's not safe. He can barely sustain himself here when he's well. How’s he to manage when he tremors as he stands?
Pins stab into the soles of his feet where they touch the floor. It has nothing to do with splinters of any kind and everything to do with the aches and pains that come with thawing. He doesn't so much as glance at his shoes, neatly placed next to his bed; there's no way he can put them on his feet the way they are now. He doesn't feel better with each step he takes. He feels worse, but he keeps going, keeps forcing one foot in front of the other in an attempt to get anywhere that isn't here. He makes it past the door, into the hall, and makes it no farther.
When his knees buckle beneath him, slamming yesterday's fresh bruises back into the hardwood floor, the boy understands he no longer has the strength to escape. That he could stand and walk at all is something he owes to spit and a prayer, not some miraculous wellspring of strength he'd found in himself. Put plainly, his abilities are finite and without any relation whatsoever to how high or low his hopes may be.
He drags himself to the wall to props himself against it for as long as he dares rest, darting eyes watchful for anything that nears. He doesn't search for Myr because he doesn't need to see him to know where he is. A pair of working ears are enough to track the drunk upstairs and down. It's the foreigner he watches for because it's the quiet threats that take you by surprise. It's the quiet ones that you watch for because they can do their worst without you knowing they were ever there. The boy knows because he's quiet too.
Despite his vigil, he overlooks the foreigner standing in the kitchen doorway who knows how many times. He's more out of it than he assumed. He starts when he finally sees the man and slides off the wall to scramble away from him, backwards and on his ass since he doesn't have a single good leg to stand on. The foreigner silently stares after him, brows furrowed.
The boy increases the distance between them by another yard and a half. The foreigner doesn't so much as twitch. He doesn't chase after the boy. The boy slows. He stops. The buffer zone between him and the large man remains undisturbed. It's a small comfort, enough to reassure him. He calms, collects his wits, and shifts so he looks slightly more capable (more than he feels). Thus begins the staredown between boy and man. The foreigner wins. Damnit.
“How long you been standin’ there?” The boy demands. He's petty and wants to say something that'll rattle the foreigner.
The foreigner answers easily. “Long enough.”
And what the hell is that supposed to mean? The boy huffs and glares at the foreigner. “I'm fine.” (He lies.)
The foreigner cocks a brow at that. “Are you?” It's not a question.
The boy grits his teeth. Being called out on your own bullshit is never pleasant. “Why do you care?”
He didn't expect that of all things to disturb the foreigner's unflappable calm. Blink and you would've missed it. The foreigner's eyes crease, his mouth tightens, his gaze breaks from the boy to somewhere beyond the manor walls. For a second, the boy witnesses the closest thing to emotion he's seen on the foreigner. For a second, he sees what he would've called pain on any other man (except toffs because they don't count). A second later, that whatever-it-was is gone and the boy wonders if it was there at all.
“Because I have no wish to see another dead child.” The foreigner draws the words out as if saying them hurts like pulling teeth.
The boy is quiet. He turns the foreigner's answer in his head a full five seconds until he decides he doesn't want to know. It's none of his business. He has enough tact to know not to ask, but not enough to know what you're supposed to say to something like that. He's got a sinking feeling he knows more about the foreigner than he asked for.
“Uh… I’m sorry.” The empty condolence sits lamely in the air. There has to be something better to say, but hell if he can think of it. Not on an empty stomach. Nonetheless, it seems to do the trick.
The foreigner straightens a degree. “I… thank you.” It's as scripted as the words that prompted it, but, for all that, it's heartfelt.
What's left is a heavy silence. It ends when Myr chokes on a snore in some obscure corner of the house. The sound carries and echoes around them.
The boy rolls his eyes. “I wish he'd choke in his sleep and die already.” He immediately wishes he hadn’t said that.
Oddly, the foreigner doesn't mind. He even snorts a laugh that trails off into his familiar rumbling mirth. “That would make the both of us.”
The boy cocks his head, marveling at the once in a lifetime spectacle. He swears he sees the foreigner's smiling.
The foreigner catches him gawping. “And what, might I ask, are you looking at?” He sounds pissed, but he isn't. Not with laughter shining in his eyes.
The boy shrugs and grins. “Y’know, you're alright.” He can't fathom why he didn't get along with the fellow from the get go.
“I am glad to hear it.”
Over the course of their conversation, the boy has rested enough to trust his legs to hold his weight (however briefly). He stands so the enormous height difference between him and the foreigner isn't as intimidating. As if it'll work.
The foreigner patiently watches his efforts. The furrow in his brows is back. When it looks like the boy's got his feet under him, the foreigner asks if he can get to the kitchen by himself. He says he's cooked eggs for breakfast. The boy would run to the table if he could. He unhappily compromises for a slow hobble, his only available speed. The grimace never leaves his face while he's moving.
The foreigner shadows the boy. He's far enough that the boy doesn't get crowded, close enough to catch him in case his legs give way. He pulls out the nearest chair a few steps ahead of him, then, after seeing him settled, backs off to fuss with the stove on the other side of the kitchen.
The boy wriggles on his seat in an attempt to see what's in the foreigner's pot. Whatever it is, it's boiling. The foreigner mentioned eggs, right? The boy doesn't get eggs, not unless they're thinned into a watery broth to be shared with dozens of others. He wonders what else is in the soup pot. Not much if the smell, or lack thereof, is anything to go by. He slumps onto the tabletop, smacking his lips in equal parts impatience and disappointment. He's bitterly reminded of the pub's savoury stew. A hard act to follow, no arguments there, but this is just sad. Even the workhouse put a few shreds of rubbery potatoes in whatever they served. Is this what the foreigner eats? Poor guy.
The boy runs his inner monologue as he watches the foreigner frown at the pot’s contents. He frowns too when the foreigner rummages about the cupboards and pulls out a plate, not a bowl. He can't be that stingy, can he? The frowns on both faces deepen as the foreigner pulls out a spoon too shallow to be used for serving broth and starts jabbing at whatever is in the pot.
Either the foreigner hasn't a clue what cooking is or ‘eggs’ is some daft foreign lingo for ‘thing you boil alive in pot’. The boy shifts his attention between the foreigner and the pot, unsure which he should be more concerned about.
The foreigner coaxes and traps something against the side of the pot. It clunks upon contact. Carefully, he tilts the spoon and lifts. The boy perches himself on his arms, seeking a better vantage for a look-see and spots the small, round, speckled object balanced precariously on the spoon.
That's all he spies before one arm gives, followed promptly by the other, sending him sprawling onto the table. His chair moves out from beneath him with the abrupt shift in weight. Without anything under him, the boy crumples to the floor, hitting his chin hard against the tabletop on his way down.
He groans and blinks at the spots in his vision. He sees the foreigner towering over him between the growing, black splotches. The spoon’s empty.
“Do you continue to insist that you are fine?”
The boy gives the foreigner a withering glare. “Shuddap.” And that's the last thing he recalls before the dark spots blot out everything he sees. He blacks out.
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