Backdated to January 30th 2018
Follows I'm an Engineer, Not a Fsking Doctor


There was still blood on his hands from helping to hold Aelius’s leg steady, which Yuuri ignored as he turned away from where Tiberius remained in the kitchen, and stormed out of the room. He would go back to clean up later, but for now there were more important things to deal with.

Faustite couldn’t have gone far, and Yuuri had no intention of letting him get away with leaving a mess for Lauri to deal with when he had enough to worry about.

How dare he just leave while Lauri took care of everything for him? And Aelius didn’t know Faustite was Elex?? Had he not told him?

“What do you think you’re doing?” Yuuri asked when he finally found where Faustite had skulked off to, just outside the warehouse itself. His voice was still soft but simmering with anger as he looked down on the pitiful, crying creature that Faustite currently was.

Was this how people saw him? Did they see this poor, pathetic thing that looked less than human, and that wasn’t even accounting for the fact that Faustite was part youma.

“Don’t you dare drop your burdens on Lauri like that again. What if Tiberius wasn’t here? Do you have any idea how much danger you’re putting Lauri into by showing up here like you did? You could have at least hidden your aura. Or did you not because you don’t want Aelius to know who you are?”

The disapproving cluck of the door spared him enough time to scrub some of the evidence from his face. Black stained the gaudy wine of his sleeved shirt, and more overran his fruitless endeavors while he struggled to breathe normally. To draw in breath and expel it all the same. To feel calm, collected, distant. But a meager second spent erasing his evidence only left him caught in the act -- more pathetic and more contemptible and more riddled with weaknesses than if he never moved at all.

Then he spoke, and Faustite learned that Lauri's little mouse had a row of teeth. Sharp from their lack of use, they drew blood all the same. They drew ire. Ire and fright and desperation.

"Do you always talk around your points? Be exact, Yuuri. You mean I wasn't thinking. That I acted rashly. That I was stupid. That I inconvenienced you. That I threatened your little love nest with the man you've been making eyes at from across the tournament room," he snarled. He rose from the stoop, his small frame carrying none of the imposition he wished he had, and he ruined it further by wiping more black from his ruined complexion.

"You're right. I wasn't thinking. How could I? I found my subordinate dying by chance. He never called. He faced a knight -- he faced a fight he knew he couldn't win. You know what that means." He turned then, unable to meet Yuuri's gaze through the thought.

The communicator dissipated and fingers traced the steep angles of his nose to the bridge apex. "I'm not sorry that I took him here." He drew a slow, trembling breath, but it wasn't enough. "Or that you were both here. Or that I never glamoured my aura." Swallowing, he managed a last sentence before shoulder-shaking fits of weariness took him. "Even if he wouldn't recognize me."

Black.

The tears were difficult to miss, but what was more startling was the color. Yuuri stared for a moment, then glanced away to give Faustite more room to hide the emotion that streaked his face and stained his clothing.

But the startled concern wore off quickly as Faustite turned to counter him. Yuuri’s eyebrows furrowed in frustration and embarrassment while his face heated at the insinuation.

Lauri did mean a great deal to Yuuri, more than he was willing to admit, probably even to himself, but whether or not Faustite did not understand or pay close enough attention to their relationship as packmakes to know that making eyes at Lauri during the tournament was as far from the truth as possible, or if Faustite was just trying to bait him into admitting to something, Yuuri wasn’t sure.

The thought that Faustite might be jealous crossed his mind, but that paralleled Yuuri’s own feelings more closely than he’d like, so he quickly pushed the idea aside.

Still, the things Faustite said were concerning, and although the anger was still there, still simmering, he reined it back for this sad, miserable boy.

“How are you sure that was his intention? You don’t think he might have been caught off guard and didn’t have a chance to call for help?” he pressed, his voice soft but with an edge of irritation.

Yuuri hadn’t missed the final comment, and curiosity tugged at him in spite of his annoyance at the teenaged part youma standing weepily before him. But for the moment he pushed it aside.

“You’re lucky Lauri was here. You owe him. But I’m sure you know that.”

Another pause, Yuuri’s jaw clenched tight as he shivered in the cold evening air. He hated that he would have done the same thing if he’d been in Faustite’s shoes. Lauri would have been the first he’d thought of if he needed help.

“Why wouldn’t he have recognized you?” He couldn’t help himself, curiosity pulling him. Sympathy too, as much as he wished it didn’t. “Although I hardly look like you, so it’s probably a fair assumption that he wouldn’t.”

He ran his tongue around all the hurt that coated his mouth, raw and aged, primed with steely hate, before swallowing it down like vomit. "Context," he ventured softly. Faustite since ceased stoking a fire that failed to produce; the crucible sat empty of product and he read the some total of his forge's failings in Yuuri's disapproving gaze. Eager to add on, eager to comply -- if only to mount spite -- he continued. "He's been miserable since his corruption. Acting out. Disobeying orders. He almost walked into the Hall of Shadows when I confronted him about it. He expected the world to bend for him, and when it wouldn't, he expected it to kill him. He decided he didn't want any part of it. He wanted this," he finished, his voice stone with surety.

As he looked out at the muted street, its silence soft with snow, all the solitary, pallid globes of light looked back at him. They reflected latex consumption of his soul in starless eyes. New sorrows found old paths down his face, but at least he faced winter's bitter indifference over Yuuri's muted expressions.

Lucky as I am for Lauri or Tiberius or even you, I wonder if it never should've happened. If I should've walked away.

But hindsight always reads the same: full of failures. Littered with better choices on paths untaken. The person at my back must think the same of me. Even in the tight embrace of an algid day, Faustite felt too hot. His hands sweated, his face flushed. Scrubbing away evidence of his poor self-appraisals only irritated his skin.

Snow's buffer imparted in the pause another clue -- that no further cussing came from within the warehouse. No sound came of Lauri or of Heliodor, and the ensuing absence of lament implied their leaving. Whether the hospital or the Negaverse medics, Faustite knew it was a better choice for Heliodor's grievous injuries.

Yuuri's aside gave him pause, the nearly non-sequitur enough to break his remaining fury. It was with a heavy resignation that he slouched back down onto the steps.

"My General reminds me that the people I choose have a habit of killing themselves. That I'm the lowest common denominator. First my mother," he tried to suppress a quaver, "and now him. In the interregnum following his corruption, after all the gory mess that led up to it, I thought I could stop the cycle. Cut the leak that exposed my identity to him and hide away anything that could lead to… This." He motioned back toward the door with a scant look backward. "I petitioned a Sovereign to erase my identity. I'm not Elex Yorke anymore.

"And it didn't do any good."

Regret was starting to weigh heavily on Yuuri as the chill of the night settled into him, breath visible as he exhaled, just as the area surrounding Faustite seemed to steam faintly with warmth. Was his body really that warm? He recalled being told that Faustite was apparently too hot to get an infection. Maybe it was an effect of being part youma that Yuuri just hadn’t noticed before, enhanced visually by the cold air.

Bloodstained hands tugged at the sweater sleeves he wore, and fingers sought the warmth of his too-thin arms inside the thick fabric. He pulled his arms close to his body, even though it did little to help, and he was sorely tempted to go back inside to at least find a coat.

But if he turned away now, would Faustite stay long enough for him to return? Would he decide to leave? If someone left Yuuri when he was trying to talk to them, he would have assumed they wanted nothing more to do with him. And while he was still annoyed, things were a bit more than what Yuuri first realized. And he knew he might have overreacted a little, his concern for Lauri’s safety at the forefront of his mind.

Faustite’s explanation of why he suspected the other young man’s intentions was enough to distract Yuuri from the pain in his jaw as he clenched his teeth together in an attempt to keep them from chattering. To Yuuri, this senshi sounded like a spoiled child. Doted on and cared for. Praised for anything good, while the bad was simply ignored or excused.

He didn’t dare say it out loud though, knowing Faustite was already upset. There was a part of Yuuri that wanted to shove this back in Faustite’s face. After Faustite had turned his nose up at Yuuri for succumbing to emotion, wouldn’t it only be fair for Yuuri to do the same?

“Your general doesn’t sound like someone I’d want to meet,” Yuuri said gently, also recalling Elex say how his General lied to and made fun of him. It all seemed to be manipulation. And it all seemed to be working.

The warmth of the warehouse called to him, and Yuuri drew in a frustrated breath as he took a step closer to where Faustite sat, biting back a grimace as he sat down on the cold steps, a good arms length away from the part youma Captain. He looped his arms over his knees as he pulled them up against his chest, holding them tight for whatever heat they offered.

There were times like this that he didn’t know what to say, especially not in English. He knew what he wanted to say, but the translation sounded too strange.

“Veuillez recevoir mes condoléances les plus sincères et croire en mes respectueux sentiments,” Yuuri said softly, knowing it wouldn’t encompass everything, but the little bits that Faustite shared about himself made him look less like the snobby, self-important teenager he’d been when his foot had been injured, and more like a lonely young man being torn apart by the weight of everything forced upon him.

Or, a voice in the back of Yuuri’s mind reminded him, he might just be overthinking everything, and Faustite would brush him off or misinterpret his intentions.

Yuuri could have told him that simply erasing his identity wouldn’t change anything. He still remembered Pasi, and while Lauri might not remember Pasi’s life, the pieces that he did get to know were still there for him. And now it seemed as though Faustite tried fixing something by changing what he was, but lives were never truly erased.

“Who are you now?” he asked after a moment, giving into his curiosity, after clearing his throat as he shivered.

(( Please accept my most sincere condolences and have faith in my respectful thoughts. ))

"I wish someone killed her." Faustite shook his head, his gaze drawn to his hands, where they toyed feebly with the thought of intertwining. And as he stared, a smirk slowly started to form, claiming more and more real estate until he recognized a regrettable irony. Sitting there, next to someone poorly understood, someone barely remembered, someone spat on and walked upon and now he shared secrets aplenty like there wasn't more to lose. Like there was nothing left to lose.

Boots crept into his peripheral and a body not larger than his settled beside him. Distantly. Youmafication's catching, isn't it? The smirk widened.

When Yuuri spoke again, it was with the breath of a place barely known to him and it tempered his smirk. He remembered it in passing -- a harried transition from plane to train, an age before adolescence, with fairytale paint layered thick as acrylic over cobblestone streets and picturesque awnings and hundreds of years of oppression. Bloodied avenues long dried up. Impressionism. Philosophies that overdrew the beauty of the world, condensed it down, breathed it in and expectorated it in a breath too vaunted to be english. A courtly tongue forgotten to his family roots across the pond.

A strange remembrance of life, he knew, but a needful one. A necessary one. He remembered the Mediterranean but for a second -- the way its smooth pebbles dug into his soft boyish feet with cool water to wash away the discomfort. Yacht on yacht on yacht on yacht on yacht, armed with helicopters at the ready, sat in their rows like opulent sentinels looking over the french Riviera. That was Nice, wasn't it?

"I don't know what that means," came the soft admittance, as color and sound and the sieze of his rhythm receded, as it settled into its steady work again.

In the moment's forgetting, he looked to Yuuri. To all the shiver lines tracing his bone-thin shoulders and that daring angle underneath his jaw. The way his fingers curled tightly, digging all the warmth out of the spaces between his knees. The way his lips trembled at their corners when a breeze harangued him and wicked away another degree of body heat. When was the last time Faustite tasted a chill? It must've been the last day spent as Elex.

Fetching were those taunting seconds. He spent the beats of silence with black fingers working over lacquered buttons. They obeyed as readily as any youma to hear his tongue. And once he forced the brass ring over shoulder and down his avian arm, he slipped off the too-hot pinstripe vest to offer the other youth on a pair of hooked fingers.

His attention held on Yuuri. "I don't know," he answered simply. "I never had to name myself before."

Yuuri looked curiously over to Faustite as he removed his vest and handed it to him, surprised that he would offer it when before it seemed as though the less contact he had with Yuuri, the better.

Hesitantly, Yuuri unwound one of his arms from around his legs, and reached out for the vest. He paused before taking it, frowning at the other young man with concern.

“Will you not be cold?” he asked, although as his fingers touched the heated fabric, it was fairly obvious that no, Faustite would not be cold. It would have been more polite for Yuuri to refuse, but as his teeth chattered and hands shook, he gratefully took the vest and pulled it on. An arm through each armhole, but instead of moving his knees out of the way, he simply pulled the vest over them, sighing softly at the temporary relief from the bitter cold.

“Thank you,” he mumbled, curling his hands into the warm fabric, but still a little wary of Faustite’s intentions. Especially after Yuuri had accused him of putting Lauri in danger, and snapping at him to not dump his burdens on Lauri again.

There was a pause as Yuuri pressed his lips together, and then turned his head to rest it against his knees, the vest wrapped around him as much as physically possible. He watched Faustite for a few moments, as though trying to decide what he wanted to do. The adrenaline of the surprise appearance was wearing off, leaving him chilled from the cold and feeling rather helpless. For Lauri, and Faustite’s and Aelius’s sakes.

“It means…” he paused, again knowing that the translation was weird. “I would like for you to please accept my sincerest condolence…” Another pause, this time so he could bite somewhat nervously at his lip. “I can not imagine how you must be feeling.”

Once more, Yuuri stopped, turning his head to press his face against his knees, and also to warm his cheeks against the vest.

“Are there any names you like…?” he asked, his voice quiet. And then, “I’m sorry… for yelling before. I didn’t know.”

"Sometimes I forget what it's like to be cold," he admitted. He followed the way Yuuri coiled into himself, bone folding on bone with meager flesh as an insulator against winter's bite. "Then I see people like you."

In return, Faustite spaced out his legs. They formed their spindly arches over the ground, casting shadowy demands into the unbroken snow. No footsteps led to or from the building, despite all the comings and goings. Strange how the Negaverse upended social mores so easily. Stranger still that social mores found their ways back into circulation, peering through the pockmarks and holes streaming through each agent. Yuuri's 'please's and 'thank you's formed a strange caricature of a serial killer, of a thief, of a sinner who paid tithes with lives. His gaze -- and thought -- left the thinner one at the bite of lip.

The reverie was broken with Yuuri's translation, and Faustite returned a chuckle. "I see why you said it in French. English lacks elegance." He shook his head, only now becoming aware once more of the black wash over his pale face. Again he tried to wick away the evidence of his emotional failings, even as he snorted back lagging tears.

Looking down to the snow, Faustite kicked small wear patterns into it. Aimless geometrics to occupy his restlessness. "I don't want to pick a name when I'm like this. What use is a name if its first memory is your lowest point?" He left the question to hang.

"You had a point." A pause, and he worked his tongue at the front of his mouth where the words lay. "It was a risk. It was dangerous. If there was a senshi nearby…" His attention then joined with the thick splints on his wrists and their perpetual reminders at every attempt to bend. "Lauri wouldn't be Lauri anymore. That friend would disappear. You'd be left to remember the differences of the same man across three lives. All the minutiae becoming old artifacts. Brain clutter. And every time you called his name, you'd risk naming him Lauri. And whatever histories Lauri left behind would be fable for the newsreels. I can think when I'm not faced with my subordinate's imminent death." Or a lover's betrayal. Or the imperative to commit murder.

Or anything pressing me to think.

"But the best I could do was bring him to you. That's worth an identity."

A shiver ran through him that had nothing to do with the cold. The very thought of Lauri no longer being Lauri made it feel like he was being choked, his chest tight and unable to breathe. Yuuri clenched tighter to his knees, his forehead pressed against them as he hid his face from the cold and shame of tears involuntarily welling.

It was a stupid reaction, and he knew it. Nothing was going to happen, or so Lauri liked to tell him, but did that account for just him staying alive, or staying as Lauri as well? Yuuri knew that Lauri staying alive with his identity intact was the most important thing, but would that mean Lauri would once again be unable to recognize him?

A fourth first meeting with the Finn awaited, if Yuuri was lucky enough to survive whatever situation forced Lauri to take a new name and new life. Somehow, Yuuri didn’t think he would make it to that point, if the Negaverse and White Moon were involved.

“Being at your lowest point seems like a good foundation to start new,” Yuuri mumbled gently as he lifted his head enough to be able to rub at his face with his sweater, making sure to turn away from Faustite as he did so. The last time he cried in front of the other young man, he was silently ridiculed and left by himself.

Again, Yuuri was well aware that he could easily point out the tears of black on Faustite’s face, but…

As someone who knew how it was to be overwhelmed by emotions and the weight of everything, he couldn’t bring himself to do it, even if it meant Faustite would turn on him for being just as pathetic.

“Is it worth that to Lauri?” he wondered just as quietly as he shivered. “Lauri’s already lost the memories of his life before, so maybe he wouldn’t care, but I would. No one bothers asking Lauri what he wants or how he feels because he’s so willing to do whatever is necessary. He knows he has to, and I fear others taking advantage of him for that,” he said, hoping that Faustite would understand why Yuuri had followed him out.

“You asked me before what it was like…” he continued after a moment, turning back to glance over at Faustite. “I’m always afraid I won’t be good enough. That maybe I don’t deserve everything Lauri or others have given me. The time they’ve taken out of their lives for me.” A pause as he chewed at his lip again. “I’ve also never been happier. The pack you mocked…? I would do anything for them, Lauri especially. Die if I had to. But I’m more useful alive. As is Aelius…”

Faustite sighed at the mumbled objection. "Fine." Was it fit to name a hated person if it drives them to improve? Or was it better to give them a lofty name to fill out in their endeavors? Or was it better yet to just pick and get it over with? When a thousand names hung about him like plump, ripe figs on a tree, how was he to choose which fruit to pick? Baby names were just as often picked by sound, by the shape of the fruit, or by its meaning, the taste of its flesh. Maybe the practice was no more lofty than picking and eating until his gut was gorged with the most satiating one.

The thought of Heliodor's mangled condition pushed away all poor thought for naming convention; he spared no quarter for sitting around mentally picking through names when his subordinate was likely in the ER by now. Perhaps he'd never dance again. Or run. Or walk.

His gaze slid again to Yuuri and only found the back of his head. "We're all subordinates. We don't get to have choices." We don't get to say no. Lauri was aware of his place. Aware of cohesion. Aware that to want was to individualize and individualizing undermined the whole. They were to live and die by their comrades. Yuuri spat the sun out of his mouth with the way he cared for and adamantly guarded Lauri's interests, but by doing so, he turned night on the wrong team. He left a cold division in his wake.

Faustite stood then, prepared to leave, when Yuuri spoke once more. And as he hesitated, as Yuuri wound through his careful, nervous, plodding explanations, Faustite felt a familiar boiling under his skin. A boiling both for himself and for Lauri, for the 'pack' into which Yuuri was inducted. Strain wrenched and pulled at the cords of his neck while Faustite worked to keep his voice steady -- bereft of the annoyance Yuuri so dutifully stoked. "If they devoted so much time to you, don't spit on it by doubting yourself." Talking like that puts you a step above Heliodor. No more.

Heliodor… "Aelius should've been a starseed," he muttered as his fist clenched at his side.

Yuuri looked up in concern when Faustite stood, wondering if maybe he sensed something. He was still able to feel auras, whereas Yuuri wasn’t. But after a moment, it was clear that danger wasn’t the issue. The issue was, most likely, Yuuri. Definitely Yuuri. He’s seen the way Faustite looked down his nose at him before.

Had Faustite seen his tears? Was he going to walk away again, thinking Yuuri was too weak and pathetic to deal with? It wouldn’t surprise Yuuri, but even then he kept his mouth shut against any comments about Faustite’s own oil black tears.

“I wish it was that easy to change how I felt about myself,” Yuuri said back as he watched Faustite and the way the muscles in his jaw worked as he spoke. “I’m not used to being part of a team, but I’m working on it,” he quietly admitted, thinking to what Faustite had said about how they were all subordinates and didn’t get to have choices.

But that wasn’t necessarily true. They all got to decide what they did, whether they follow orders or not. They got to decide how far they pushed themselves, and when to call for help. Aelius hadn’t called for help for whatever reason.

“Do you really mean that?” Yuuri wondered quietly. “Elex is important to him. He said so before Lauri took him to the hospital.” Whether or not Faustite was right about Aelius, Yuuri didn’t know. He didn’t know the other young man enough to make that decision, but seeing as Lauri had worked as hard as he had to save him, and Faustite brought him to Lauri for help, Yuuri had difficulty believing him.

Faustite was upset and was acting out. And he was so young. Younger than Yuuri. It was sometimes easy to miss with his attitude.

“You’re part of it, you know,” Yuuri said after a moment of hesitation, wondering if he should clarify or if he should just keep his thoughts to himself. In the past Faustite had brushed him off, and he seemed like he was going to do that again in just a moment.

But was he really so blind that he didn’t see Yuuri was willing to sit with him in the cold and make sure he wasn’t alone? He could have easily ignored Faustite’s distress and returned inside where it was warm and started working on cleaning up the mess that was left behind by Aelius’s ruined leg.

“You don’t have to like me and I don’t have to like you. You’re still pack to me,” he mumbled as he lowered his head back down onto his knees, waiting for the inevitable moment of Faustite leaving.

'I wish it was that easy to change how I felt about myself.'

Faustite stood silently for a time, mulling over the response given by Yuuri. It was easy for Schörl to change how Faustite felt about himself -- easy to chip away at his personhood, his preferences, his personality until she rendered her indelible signature into the very bones of his psyche. She subverted him so subtly, so insidiously well that he was caught unawares for months, deluding himself into thinking he was thusly unaffected. Couldn't the same happen in reverse? Or was uplifting a person no different than constructing a building, where tearing that same person down was akin to demolition?

Yuuri's general may have deconstructed him seamlessly. Assessed the parts, scavenged what mattered, and tossed the rest away. Left Yuuri as an incomplete husk primed for chaos as a filler. Then, once he reaches the pinnacle of his military career, that chaos will integrate into his personality and form a demonstrably imperfect imitation of what was once a human being. They were each placed on that same path.

And he would do the same to Heliodor -- to Aelius, to Rowan -- following that same subversive military structure. "I mean it," he muttered with ire absent.

"We dated for a while. Someone -- a Dark Mirror Senshi -- tipped him off to my status as an agent. Set that train of thought in motion. After he confronted me, I committed to a lie. I told him I wanted out. I wanted to purify. I asked him to look for answers. Schörl wanted to see who he knew, and I wanted to see if he would do it." How hopeful I was.

"The witching hour came and Rowan turned up unsuspecting and empty-handed. Rowan -- that was his name. He was a White Moon senshi. He could've asked anyone. But he did nothing. He showed up all smiles and sweet nothings and now he pays me back with failures. I mean it," he reiterated with all the sharp of a bitter soul.

His shoulders sagged under the weight of his misadventures. Brows betrayed his mixed expression in the meager moments before he approached the door. A robust wrench jostled it open against the bitter cold as the warehouse sighed out its welcome. Perturbed by the breath of warm air, Faustite turned against it to seize his frozen companion. Comrade, he supposed. Packmate, for as trite as the word sounded within the hollow of his head or his throat or his heart.

Disappointment, fear, and hope coalesced into their own intolerable concoction, sickening him and worrying at his mental fortitude. But I'm not a person. I'm not the one Lauri took up into his home.

A captain's strength eased the job -- too-warm black hands slipped under arms and fore pent-up thighs, where he caught a firm but narrow hold of Yuuri's chest. His own impenetrable copper, moondust and salt stained his nose; past that came Yuuri's faint olfactory identification as he set chin to shoulder in hauling. The familiar note of lavender haunted all the blood. "Come on," he managed through gritted teeth in the single pull to get Yuuri to his bone-chilled feet. As Faustite disentangled himself, his hand seized Yuuri's wrist to inform him of his lack of choice. He approached the begrudgingly warm indoors.

Hearing about how Faustite knew Aelius, knew Rowan, and how things played out was not what Yuuri had expected to hear, although he could see why Faustite felt the way he did about the outcome of everything. If Yuuri had been in the same position… if it had been Adrien who found out about him being Kamacite, what would he have done? Probably would have tried to change his identity too, at the very least. He couldn’t fault Faustite for that.

Just as he knew he shouldn’t be too hard on himself when Faustite’s reaction was, once again, to walk away. This time to leave him in the cold while the Captain retreated back into the warmth that he didn’t need. And Yuuri knew he would eventually get up to follow, but would allow some time and distance before he pushed himself to his own feet --

Not that he had to.

Yuuri let out a startled squeak as warm hands slid around him to help lift him to his feet, the heat permeating from Faustite through his skin made it very clear why the air seemed a little misty around him. He shivered and wobbled on shaky legs as he was pulled back inside, still surprised that Faustite even bothered.

Did he expect them to get along? Not at all, but the more they spoke to each other, the more Yuuri wondered just how similar the two of them were. Different paths were taken, or forced upon them, but were they really that different?

“Wait,” he requested as the doors shut behind them, locking out the cold, except for that which had already settled into Yuuri’s bones.

Gnawing anxiously at his lip, he frowned at Faustite as he shivered, and then stepped forward. He didn’t pull his wrist away from Faustite’s hold, but he reached up with his other arm to slide under Faustite’s arm, wrapping it up to clutch to his shoulder and avoid the pipes from his back.

“You’re warm,” he muttered almost dazedly, his teeth still chattering as he dropped his forehead down onto Faustite’s shoulder to soak in the heat he gave off. “This is for making me cry before,” he half joked, “When I helped you.”

Another pause and then, “Please… just a minute.” Maybe it was the cold getting to him, or the surprise that Faustite didn’t leave him on the steps. If he pushed him away now, then that was fine. He would respect that and give the other his distance, but before he needed to start cleaning, warming up would be nice.

Faustite reasoned out his plans easily enough -- get Yuuri inside, make tea while Tibs lurked the kitchen, Yuuri would wash up, and Faustite would covertly pry into Yuuri's knowledge of Lauri to find out which hospital might shelter his subordinate. Then, after settling the rest of their conversation, either ask Yuuri to take him there or go on his own if the anxious and reticent boy distrusted him.

But the command at his back caught his attention, and in half-turning, he received Yuuri in full. Bone-thin, thinner than him, with hands of ice and his waifish body racked with uncontrollable shivers. What could he do with that? A question once brought Yuuri to tears. What if he misstepped? Said the wrong thing? Made the wrong gesture? His starless gaze slid to the brush of wefts perched on his cheek. Was it worse to stand there acting like he tolerated it, or to return the gesture?

Yuuri tempered fire with his hands, however. The chill was welcome -- needed. In the wake of a few long moments, of Yuuri's observation, Faustite cupped his hands to those narrow shoulders and searched the length of his biceps. Down the long, smooth muscles his fingers traipsed, searching for the core of their chill, before returning to their starting point on his shoulders. Then down over too-thin muscle that barely disguised the peaks and valleys of bone. There he gathered less chill before finding his natural waist. Small wonder the cold hadn't eaten through him in their time outdoors; Faustite wondered if he trembled with the beginnings of hypothermia.

Faustite buried half his face into a clothed shoulder for the duration of the hug. While copper and moondust bothered him, the tint of lavender bothered him more. He remembered its well-known partner, bergamot, and its chaperone, lemon. He remembered the other faint notes unknown to him, like the other floral scent entwined in Yuuri's profile. The smell alone pricked scars he never knew he had. How exhausting.

Faustite regretted the words before he could first taste them, but he voiced them nonetheless. "Thank you." The words alone sounded like taking the knee, like losing a match, like recognizing Yuuri as the better person. Like admitting he was wrong. Like tossing away a swollen pride that led him injuriously through his tried, sordid, and spotty Negaverse career. Like he accepted the amorphous band of misfits that Yuuri insisted on calling 'pack', on calling a collection of dogs, of simple animals, and accepted his part in their ever-more-obscure hierarchy. But perhaps worst of all, the words sounded like he made a friend desperately and wistfully needed.

"I'm too hot," he managed at last, half-muffled by fabric. Even if Yuuri lapsed hypothermic, he couldn't cool Faustite down sufficiently unless he became a frozen corpse -- and Faustite felt certain that Lauri would hold that one against him. Still, he would wait long enough for Yuuri to retreat on his own. "I'll make some tea."

Normally, Yuuri liked to keep his distance from people. It was polite and didn’t make them feel crowded or threatened, usually. He liked the distance for himself as well, because it was easier.

But Faustite wasn’t pushing him away, so he held on tighter. At least for the few moments where it felt like he was okay with it. The comment of being too hot had him finally drawing back, but only so he could untangle his arms from around the sullen young man, and lift his ice cold hands to Faustite’s face.

Palms lingered for a few moments on his cheeks, then he used the back of his hand to press against Faustite’s high temperature forehead, and then back down to his cheeks again. He’d heard the muttered thanks, but wasn’t quite sure how to respond when he didn’t think he’d done anything worthy of thanks.

“Shouldn’t you have something cold to drink, if you’re too hot?” Yuuri asked carefully, more so he didn’t chatter over the words tumbling from his frozen face. He used his thumbs to gently brush at the black streaks from tears from Faustite’s dark eyes, then lowered his still too cold hands to gently press against his companion’s neck, feeling the way his overly hot pulse thrummed against his fingers.

He warmed his hands there for a few moments longer before pulling back completely to give Faustite his space, Yuuri’s arms lifting to wrap around himself as he shivered. Staying outside for so long had probably not been the best idea, but now both he and Faustite were inside, and it didn’t seem as though Lauri was back yet, which meant there was time to clean still.

“You should rest if you need to, but I wouldn’t mind some help cleaning up,” he said after a moment as he rubbed at his own arms to try and warm them. He thought about asking Faustite when he planned on telling Aelius that he was actually Elex, or used to be Elex, but the words died on the tip of his tongue. It wasn’t important at the moment, and it wasn’t his secret to tell.

He wouldn't complain for the touch -- Yuuri's icebox hands were their own boon in the sweltering 68-degree warehouse where sweat threatened to soak his uniform. When Yuuri's hands found his cheeks, he stacked hands on hands to feel the chill from both sides. Closing eyes negated some of the intimacy that begged addressing. Part of him bemoaned his inhumanity as a barrier to any real interactions; he would always be left beyond the scope of men, both for his age and his appearance.

Yuuri's hands slid further, adding a strange dimension to any spoken response, so he tilted his head from side to side in search for answer, then raised brows with a blasé concession. "Lauri has beer," he observed at last, as if the mention of beer was at all palatable, and that he would actually choose it over his grievous addiction to plant-water. But it sounded like a rebuttal.

Faustite began to step away and only paused when Yuuri spoke again. Help clean? He swallowed against his lukewarm reception of the phrase. "You won't want my help," he offered back. "I was raised with a maid." And while Schörl spared the time to teach him some rudimentary house chores, making tea being one of the first, he lacked so much of the experience that other kids his age had. Yuuri likely didn't want the headache of teaching while cleaning and inhaling the mixed fruits of blood and bleach.

Again he broke for the kitchen. Likely Tiberus would pass out soon, or become too unfocused with alcohol abuse to continue blocking his signature; their time was short. As he moved, he called loudly enough that Yuuri would hear him easily: "If you have nothing else to do tomorrow, come with me to see him."

Aelius often pined for that personal touch, he knew, and Yuuri was better at dispensing it than he. Plus Faustite himself would need a modicum of restraint to keep from pulling the plug on the other teen's life.

xStrickenized