Escape the Cold [closed]

He'd thought things were starting to get better, but it turned out to be one of those nights.

He hadn't been sure how long he had been wandering around at that point. It felt strange enough walking around the school campus since he'd moved out the last of his things, and Roseburg itself was only so big, he had thought he'd only passed the same memorial place once or twice; but he might have underscored that count only... a fucking lot. There was nothing for him to do right now. Nowhere to go. Nothing to see. A few of his siblings had tried to invite him out to a little lunch on the lake, but he'd readily declined. It was stupid. He was being selfish. But that's where he'd met her. He didn't want to deal with the reminder if he could help it.

Not that he could help it anyways. Everything was seeming to remind her of him then. All the stupid junk food in the stores, he could pick out her favorites. All the games on his shelf, he had to remember which ones they'd played together, or that he'd forced her to learn. He could hardly bring himself to use his own damned gift because, well, fucking obviously.

For the third or fourth time that evening, he'd laughed at himself. He was so pathetic. On his own, with no company and a sleek glass bottle in his hand, the trek of alcohol probably clinging onto his jacket - not the most attractive sight. Retard. If Dublin saw him then, he'd never hear the end of it. But he couldn't help it. Sometimes the liquor helped him; distracted him for a bit, let him forget. It's what he felt like he really needed.

He paused for a rest outside some old abandoned shop, tired eyes watching the snow fall.

What was he supposed to do now?

So she had graduated. By some fucking miracle, she had graduated. Finally able to escape the hells of school. Sure, she could have gone back to the government and applied for a HSE at any point, but would the Headmaster have accepted that and allowed her to apply to become an apprentice for the infirmary? It wasn't a chance she'd have wanted to mess up or even risk. She stuck out the years at Beata. With what could probably be one of the most underwhelming gifts ever, one that she very well could've been making up the whole time, she mused.

That was something she hadn't escaped from at all. The taunts and accusations that she was just a medical genius, and her 'gift' was all a ruse. That she was just a normal human who had managed to infiltrate Beata. But that wasn't the case. Her gift couldn't be represented in any way physical, minus the mismatched colors of her eyes. Yet it seemed that the infirmary had proved the legitimacy of her gift so any issues that arose could be brushed off.

...

Why did that all matter now? She had survived it all.

With the winter months the athlete had decided to go out for walks rather than play tennis, considering the courts usually found themselves outdoors or the gym occupied by another sport. The abandoned part of Rosebury always got her mind jogging, to which part she had no idea. The long waves of raven hair covered her almost like a cloak in contrast to the pea coat she wore, hiding her almost to be half of a shadow in the snowfall. Or so she had thought. It only made her stick out more.

She looked at every single figure that found itself outside in the snowfall. Most of the time they were animals, too stubborn to flee for a warmer place. Perhaps that was why she only wore a small, tightly knit frown. Her gaze still cast downwards.

A laugh sliced through the air, cutting the otherwise serene snowfall that fell in a perfect rhythm. It disrupted it all. Snapping her head up, squinting eyes found their way to the figure. It was right along her path. The laugh rang familiarity, but she couldn't exactly pinpoint it. Not yet. As she walked closer the smell of booze hit and stung her nose, and she had half of the mind just to keep walking.

But that face made her stop. She would recognize it from anywhere.

"P-Preston? What the hell are you doing, it's freezing!" Well, the alcohol in his hand probably told the whole story. More concerned eyes were able to judge what the hell was going on.
"Are you doing alright..?"

"... what?"

Absolutely clueless and near lost in his own world, he hadn't made out the face of the young woman rushing up to him until he caught sight of her eyes. Taimi. It wasn't often that he saw her, but it was impossible to forget a face like hers. The young man sniffled through the cold, trying his damn best to out on a somewhat decent smile for her.

"Hey," he mumbled a greeting and shrugged himself up a little more. "It's not that cold, is it?" His face as flushed red and he was a tad underdressed for the weather, but the bottle sloshing around in his grasp did well enough to keep him warm.

"I'm fine - I was - er... I was just on my way home, somewhere around here..." Of course he'd never forget his way around town, or which direction the Guardians units were. Never. Aha. Ha...

"I'll be alright." Probably.

Yep. He was definitely drunk.

If it wasn't from the smell that radiated off of him, his tone definitely spoke miles. Rolling her eyes, she scanned over him. He wasn't at risk for hypothermia, but spend much more time sitting as he would and surely a little bit of frostbite would nip him in the ass.

Raising an eyebrow at his comment, she offered her hand out to him. "You're not going to get too far in that state, especially if you're this far away." She had gotten to know town herself. The Guardian areas were a bit of a walk, so was the Andrews house. "We can go back to my place to warm up a bit, unless you can remember where exactly your residency is?"

Moments like this she really wished her gift was teleportation.

Preston burst into what sounded half-like a chuckle and half-like he was about to choke on his own spit. "Taking me home with you already?" He muttered, "Isn't that sweet of you?" His train of thought had derailed off at un-Godly speeds, ignoring the bitter taste of bile in the back of his throat. With slight hesitance, he took her hand into his, a flit of sparks flitting across the curve of his fingers. "I think... it's ... probably best we went to your place?" Was he repeating himself at this point?

The young man was never beyond drinking, had no real quarrels with drugs or anything, so long as he'd still felt like himself in the moment. If he were in control of himself.

He wanted to puke.

God, this was embarrassing. Shame almost burned straight through him, turning his cheeks red. Or maybe that was the booze.

The eyebrow that had previously been perched in question was lowered when her suspicions were confirmed. Whatever attempt he had at a laugh was almost pitiful, and worry blushed her cheeks. Whatever sparks passed from his hand to her own were ignored as she had her mind set to either priorities. Taking the hand she had held around her neck, her other arm went to support Preston's waist.

It sure as hell wasn't the first time she had carried a drunk person home.

He reeked of alcohol. It wasn't a smell she liked, at all. If she could, she'd part ways with it, but seeing as they lived in a small town it was depressingly common for teens to be drunk. How old was Preston at this point..? Whatever. It didn't matter.

An occasional glance sideways, and a purple haze surrounding him. It looked like a child's attempt at a toilet-paper mummy, wrapping his torso all the way up to his neck. Nausea. "Alright, let's go. I'll keep you stable." For a moment, she had half the mind to pause and wrap her scarf around his neck, at least to give some warmth aside from the vibrant red of his cheeks. It was hard not to mutter under her breath, to curse him for such a reckless act.

Surely, he had his reasons.

Looking about, her duo-toned eyes scanned at any hope for a cab or something to get them back sooner. There had to be a shortcut around too... couldn't there? After all, it didn't seem likely he had stumbled out all this way in such a state.

Right?

The former Autumn grunted under his breath in agreement, taking a few stumbling steps forward, leaning heavily on her for support. Why was it such a god damn bitch to move around in the snow? For a moment, he considered throwing several lightning bolts forward on the path before them to, fuck, he didn't know, make the snow melt or something to make it easier on them? Nothing could possibly go wrong there, right? Fortunately he had the better mind to keep his powers to himself for the moment, lest he accidentally hit Taimi with it. She wasn't a bug zapper either... And she probably wasn't made of rubber. Or had rubber armor. Or something stupid like that.

"Tell it to me straight, Doc." He murmured, a weak joking smile to him. "Is my liver going to make it?" Preston chuckled, puffs of air blocked by the kind scarf wrapped around his neck. It smelled sweet, like her, he thought.

An alleyway was quick to catch his eyes. "There's a shortcut back that way -" he pointed out, raising one finger.

She most definitely was not a Pikachu incarnate, in fact actually quite the opposite. Any moment a shock happened to occur she'd be in quite a bit of pain, even one of the simple rub-your-feet-on-the-carpet ones. Electricity most certainly wasn't her thing.

Preston's joking at such a moment at first brought a rush of annoyance to mind, but it was calmed as she took it into consideration with the situation. Here she was, carrying a drunk home and he wanted to know if his liver would make it. It got a laugh out of her, especially the title of 'doc.' She was anything but, just merely a lucky scholar. Her gaze traveled over to him, scanning as much that she could. His liver was most certainly fine given his age, but any more and there would probably be issues. Gifted as they may be, they still very much were mortal. "You're fine for now." It was all she would offer, not any advice on his drinking or the otherwise. Last time that happened it ended up with the campus' first teenage pregnancy.

The alleyway that had caught Preston's attention also caught her own, but her judgement was quick to question his own. Of course, he did likely know the streets better than she did, yet there still was the fact that he was drunk. She most certainly heard the little hiccups here and there. "Alright, but if you lead me into a death-trap you're zapping them. I'm useless in combat aside from my fists." She mused. She could joke too... right?

Luckily, he seemed to be getting a bit lighter. The alleyway wasn't a complete death trap, in fact there was a bit of light to it. At the end, long as the thing was, was most certainly a familiar street. Just a block westward of that would be her own apartment, and quite a bit of their walk was cut short. "Well, for the least of it, we're pretty damn close. Nice one, Pres."