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His breath puffed out in front of him, part of the cloud clinging to his face in little vapour droplets that quickly froze to his eyebrows. The cold bit at his skin and the hat on his head wasn't quite adequate enough to keep the cold from turning his hair into a blanket of ice against his scalp and the back of his neck. The cold air also stung his lungs, and he found himself wishing that he'd brought chapstick or something with him for the dryness of his mouth. He had to tell himself that licking his lips would leave them raw and red, something he would inevitably be mercilessly made fun of for.

That being said, running was a good way to occupy himself with the power out at his house. He loved his family, and the fireplace had sorely needed some use, but his in-laws' houses did not have fireplaces. That left over a dozen people crowded in the living room around the fireplace, holed up with potato chips and cans of Vienna sausages, plus the marshmallows that the kids had on barbecue skewers over the fire. He loved his family, but he'd needed to get away from them for a little bit. Plus, this would make him appreciate that fire even more when he got back to his house.

He just wished that running warmed him up more than it did. The cold was bitter enough to steal away the heat from any part of his body that was exposed for even a moment. He wondered if he should get a hot chocolate mix for a certain redhead if he could find an open store, since they could at least boil water over the fire. Being distracted by this thought as he was, Richard inadvertently zoned out of his surroundings beyond making sure he didn't run into traffic or slip on ice.

He had thoroughly spaced out, thinking wistfully of central heating, spicy food, warm fuzzy blankets, hot water bottles, eyes gazing blankly ahead of him as his mind wandered. When he found himself suddenly stopped, it took a second beyond the reflexive "oof!" for him to realize what had happened. He blinked one, twice, momentarily confused why he had stopped. He didn't see anything in front of him, so what had-

Oh. The boy's 'oof!' and 'woah!' finally registered to him, and Richard reached out instinctively to help steady him, apologies already spilling out of his mouth. Luckily, he didn't seem to need his help not falling over, and Richard took a step backwards. "Sorry about that," he offered with an apologetic wince. "I guess I should've been paying better attention." To his defense, the boy was probably a foot shorter than he was, so his gaze went well over his head. But he didn't fall, and he didn't seem to be injured, so there was that? But, honestly, he should probably make sure--wouldn't be polite to just assume he hadn't given the kid bruises by accident or something.

"You alright?"

He could admit that the boy was right, and he laughed when he pointed it out. "Yeah, that would... not be ideal." He followed his pointing to the park he was pointing to. "You know, that's... a good idea, actually." Maybe he could do a lap around the park and then head home? By then hopefully his family would be ready to let him eat himself think for five seconds. Maybe the power had come back on? He knew that was wishful thinking, however. His father had mentioned going out to the shed for the generator if the power stayed out too much longer, but that would involve actually getting it out of the shed.

He was pretty sure there were years of Christmas decorations and yard tools piled on top of that generator.

Probably tons of old building supplies from the early days of his mother's dance studio.

Maybe some spiders the size of St. Bernards.

Honestly, it was probably a good thing his father hadn't tried to unearth the generator.

"Yeah, yeah they do," he finally replied to the 'power outages suck'. "Hey, maybe I'll take your idea and run in the park." A quick grin. "I can't get hit by a car or run kids over in there, right?"

Cats? Did the park have a feral cat colony nearby? He glanced over to the park for a moment. "Yeah, true," he agreed with a laugh to the 'safe from cars'. He deserved to be made fun of for spacing out that badly, to be honest. "Oh, true. It's probably not plowed or anything, but maybe the trees sheltered it enough that it can be run through?" That was a thought, right? Despite being unlikely, anyway. He set off toward the park at a loose trot, watching closely for any patches of ice in his way. How embarrassing would it be to slip and fall in front of someone he'd just met? His brothers, at the very least, would never let him hear the end of it.

Unless, of course he just didn't tell them--

"Let's go check out what kind of trail it's got!"

Richard bounced up and down on his toes, contemplating the park paths ahead of them. At the snow shoes remark, he laughed a bit. "Yeah, probably. I don't think this'll work, unless you have a dog sledding team hidden somewhere to break the path?" He wasn't particularly relishing the idea of running through that, himself. He supposed the main paths were an issue, but running on icy pavement probably wasn't a good idea. The kid had already skidded a bit. Richard was first aid certified--he had to be because of the studio--but he didn't have a first aid kid on him.

"Any other ideas? Though I might have to scoot home soon, myself." His mother at the very least would start to get antsy if he stayed out too long in the city-wide blackout at these temperatures. Some things were just never going to change being "mom's youngest", no matter how old he got.

Richard chuckled. "Yeah, I can imagine." He almost asked if the kid had charge on his cellphone to call his mom if needed, but remembered half the towers in the area were down anyway. Even if he had power, he might only have spotty service at best. Richard, himself, only had service if a satellite was in close enough proximity for the LTE or 5G or LMNOP or whatever it was to kick in. The idea of building a snowman had, for some reason, not actually occurred to him yet, and so he reacted to the kid's idea with a bit of surprise. Maybe he'd been too busy being cooped up inside and the Suffering that went with being cooped up inside with his entire enormous family (his parents, three brothers, their spouses, their seemingly eight hundred kids between them all) plus boyfriend (which was not Suffering, but was still crowded) almost entirely housed in the living room near the fireplace. Hadn't the kids gone outside and played in the snow at some point, at least?

Probably?

He rubbed the back of his neck as he snapped himself back down to Earth. "Well, have fun. Your mom would probably also be super pissed if you were out super late, so don't forget to go home at a decent hour." He was trying to be congenial, but a note of amusement accompanied the thought in the back of his head that he was probably just coming across as a worrywart no-fun adult. With another chuckle, "and be safe."

No fun, no fun.

Richard could only imagine, as he knew his own mother would certainly be less than pleased. He offered a return wave and grin. "Nice talking to you, too, and yeah, here's to trying! My boyfriend's probably about ready to fling himself out a window--I left him there by himself." A laugh, and he turned with another wave to start jogging back home. If places were open for business he might opt to bring a saimin with him as apology to said boyfriend, but he'd have to offer a rain-check or substitution, given the current state of things in the city.

Maybe an extra large saimin once the city was back to business as usual.

Humming to himself as his train of thought was thoroughly diverted, Richard trotted off.

--FIN