I will jump right over into cold, cold water for you

[theroadremains]

WHO: Son of John
WHERE: The Fountain, The Inn, The Butcher, The Baker, The Candlestick Maker. Pretty much all the big buildings near the fountain/inn. If your character lives there he might knock or peek through the windows.
WHEN: January 7th - Night and January 8th
OPEN TO: The post is open to everyone but each section has a set number of tags available to it.
WARNINGS: an instance of short, mild musings about ceasing to exist.
STATUS: CLOSED

---

The Fountain
7th; Dusk, Closed - Moana
He doesn't dream much. He sleeps too light for dreaming, and even when he had dreams in the past they had never been this. For a moment the urgency and the survival instincts don't kick in. The water is cool and clear, it doesn't burn even though his eyes are open. They're sore but he's able to see in the dark liquid without feeling like they're on fire. He floats, just slightly upward with the push before he starts to sink again. It doesn't register as anything more than a strange and wonderful sensation until his lungs wake up and he inhales a nose and a mouth full of water.

His survival instincts kick in all at once. He thrashes, air bubbles of a yell of surprise escaping and the gentle dream of floating becomes a nightmare as he kicks and thrashes too out of sync to make any headway. He's not getting any closer to the top and his lungs have started to burn. That sensation is too familiar. and he grabs for the fountain wall with a desperate clawing reach of his arms, trying to climb his way out when 'swimming' fails.

The Fountain
7th; Night, Closed
Some time after his rescue he had pulled on nearly every piece of grey, white and black clothing in the pack and on his person. He was so thick in layers of odd mismatched clothing the only thing left in the bag were a few pairs of socks and briefs. He took a seat on the edge of the fountain, his clothing still wet. Ice had formed on the ground everywhere water had sloshed when he made his great escape. His fingers were dipped into the cool, clear water, making ripples and patterns in the cold medium. His eyes were not trained on the designs he sent out, but on the sky above him.

Up in the night sky, brilliant colorful lights danced like fire, breathtaking and in colors he had no names for or knowledge of. He had never seen anything so beautiful in his life. The cold was in his bones and in the water. It seeped through the dense layers of fabric and rested in freezing beads on his skin. It was a threat, and he knew he couldn't stay out in the unprotected night for long. But for night, the air was warmer than it usually came to in the day. The snow was blindingly bright white, untouched by ash, and the snow falling from the sky was pure and clean. He breathed in deep lung-fulls of air, unimpeded by ash polluted particles, and watched the lights dance in between the clouds with open awe.

The Inn
7th/8th; Night/Morning, Closed - Mark, Kate
"Can I help you with that?" The question comes from a young man just off to the side. The words have a southern drawl and a slight rasp to them, but seem friendly in tone. He's dressed in what looks like every piece of clothing he had entered the village with, a mix of white, black and dark gray. He seemed to appear from no where, suddenly there as if the walls had been hiding him in their paper coverings. He had been watching the people of the camp move about, fascinated by the colorful clothing some of them wore. They were all so bright and relatively clean.

Few seemed to openly carry weapons, no one wore masks, and no one had given him a look like they needed to watch to make sure he didn't grab extra rations and stuff them away in his pockets. It was all surreal. A dream. A far away and impossible dream of things his mind didn't have words for and couldn't have imagined.

He can't focus on it for long without his mind spiraling and grasping for answers. He just knows he needs to make himself useful so he can learn how they had rid themselves of the ash that clung thick to the air, the ground, the walls and the living.

Nearby buildings
8th; Day, Closed
All through the day he wanders the village, stopping now and then to peer through front windows or lightly knock on doors. There are two pairs of cotton socks pulled over his shoes now in addition to all the layers of clothing he wore. He steps carefully through the high packed snow almost gracefully, as if he knows just how to deal with and walk through it. Other times he can be seen using bare, ungloved hands to dig paths through the snow, a few solid armful scoops at a time. By afternoon he's a little blue in the lips, and his black coat and denim overalls are white with snow and frozen damp.

He stops now and then to scoop some snow up to his mouth, or wanders back to the fountain to watch the water, but he otherwise looks thrilled to be out in the cold, clear air. Snowfall and all. Somehow his new coat is already ripped in several places, snagged on tree branches or rough pieces of wood. He isn't bothered, and he keeps on knocking.

Anyone who answers will find him, head slightly tilted to try and look past them indoors, and ready with a simple, hopeful question.

"Have you seen a wheelbarrow or an old white dog?" He rasps the question, voice hoarse from frozen lungs, but the rasp is something older and more lasting.

The Inn
8th; Night, Closed - Kira
Having exhausted himself in the cold and the snow searching every inch of the village for the dog, he comes to a conclusion he had already known but hopefully been ignoring. The dog isn't in the fountain, or in the village, or anywhere nearby. No tracks, no coming when whistled for, no abandoned wheelbarrow. Just an echo of a voice in the back of his mind, irritated and huffy, asking why he's taking so long.

Night presses him back into the inn, well after most of the village seems to have gone to sleep. He shakes the snow off at the door, shedding his frozen stiff coat and overalls. He steps out of snow packed, sock covered boots and slowly, stiffly makes his way to a slow, barely breathing fireplace, kneeling in front of it before dropping onto his side in front of it like a tired old dog in his scrub trousers, shirt and tank top. the longjohns peek out from under the sleeves and he pulls the arms of them over his hands and stares into the fire, watching tiny embers snap and float upward as lone, escaping flames.

"You're still up." It's a statement more than a question. He didn't miss the form reading by the light, he just needed a moment before he found his voice, a little hoarser now, the rasp a bit more evident from a day out in the cold air.

Comments

inn; the 8th; night

[3ofswords]

[Following some TDM CR]

Usually he wasn't: even sleeping until noon, he found himself returning to bed whenever he ran out of work in the kitchen in the evenings. His hands ran out of things to do, his company dwindled from the easy conversation of a meal to the last person washing their dish, and he was left with--this place. It wasn't very different from the garage, with all of its waiting for people to come home, for news and new supplies to create new tasks. Sometimes there was nothing to do but sleep, conserve energy between rationed meals, hold somebody close, drift in and out of dreams of somewhere else.

This is different. He sleeps so much he wakes up more tired than before, and it's only Credence's worry that gets him moving again.

Tonight, for maybe the first time, he couldn't sleep. The lights were too bright, the air was too charged. His cards dug into his hip and side when he rolled this way and that in the small bed, and maybe they had been trying to say something. He didn't want to ask--they weren't reliable, not here, not for being a simple deck of 52. He was afraid of them, almost four weeks since he crawled out of the fountain, and no news of the outside world was the only good news.

Not that he'd wandered down just to sit at the fire and feel the crushing weight of his failure. He has the cat, happy enough with his lap if he wasn't going to provide an unmoving lump under a blanket, and one of the books on foraging he'd gotten from a box several days before. It isn't the latest Twitter hashtag, but it's kind of interesting--his mother had known about plants, in a very different way than this book, but he hadn't thought them very useful in the middle of Manhattan.

"I'm still up," he agrees, watching the nameless young man from lunch curl up on the floor like a dog. He tilts the book out on his wrist, his other hand patting the cat's side until she hums like a little motor; his head he tilts back against the stone of the wide fireplace, seated as he is on the bench, so his book can be open to the fire's light. "You're going to catch pneumonia if you run around all day out there and stay in those clothes all night." Perhaps this is why the deck wouldn't let him sleep--perhaps there's still something to them. Fate has nothing on the laziness of the cat in his lap, though, and while he arches a brow at a grown person laying on the floor, he doesn't immediately move to fix any of it.

[theroadremains]

The lump on the floor makes a sound like a protest, half-hearted, lazy, quiet. He breathes out and there's a slight rasp and a cough, but he doesn't drag himself out of his curled position. He soaks in the heat, not used to having fires at night when the smoke will give him away. Just hot coals shoved into old burnt up canvas and tucked under his roll to keep the chill of the ground from gripping his bones in the night. He idly stretches a hand out, waving it in front of the fire and watching the shadows play with the light before dipping his fingers in some of the warm, loose ash and rolling the all too familiar substance back and forth between them.

"Don't do still." He finally manages words, and there's a heavy weariness and a soft sorrow to them that wasn't quite so present earlier in the day when everything was wonder and confusion. It still is, and he's still amazed by the entirety of the place. The massive tunnels of clean white snow, the fires burning unabashedly and brightly warm, the clear water rippling in the deep fountain, unfrozen and too clean, too crisp, too devoid of the acidic bite.

"Don't have anything else to wear, either." He adds, contemplating stripping down and just sleeping in boxers. Contemplation shifts to action, and he sits up, slowly peeling damp and thawing clothes off his torso one layer at a time to lay out near the fire until he's bare from the waist up. He sits, breathing in more warm air, slow soft breaths. His lungs aren't used to the heat or the volume of the clean air.

"Pneumonia is a sickness?"

[3ofswords]

"Yeah, I had it a couple of months ago," he says, giving the cat a few more pats before extricating her from his pantlegs. If the man with no name wants to strip all his clothes off in the open air, maybe Kira's intervention will be needed after all. "It sucks, and this place is probably an even worse one to have it. You have to keep warm."

He lifts his feet and plants them on the ground, leaning forward on his knees to see the line of shirts and undershirts. Down to the skin, the firelight is generous to his ugly-lean features, and can almost be blamed for the grime on his skin.

"There's a bathroom upstairs, and rooms to sleep in. I have some extra clothes you can wear while these dry." Kira was only in his long johns under his coat and knitted bear hat, his scrubs and boots left upstairs for the night.

[theroadremains]

"Bathroom upstairs?" Who on earth was making bathrooms inside a building in this crazy camp? Bathrooms were dangerous places usually placed far from the camp, a good distance walk away from people. They were surefire sources of illness if they were too close to the usual living space of the survivors. He tugs the last pair of thick wool socks off his feet and loses the overalls and trousers until he's in nothing but briefs and long john underpants. It's not warm but it's warmer than his wet clothing, and he draws his knees up to study the man whose name he had never bothered to keep from their earlier meeting with a squint.

He shifts the bear hat to tattered stenson, bulks him out, gives him an ash covered body and a thick beard. It suits a certain standard he expects from men who talk like Kira does. Detached. Commanding without actual command to their voices. Camp Leaders, he thinks, but the image flickers and vanishes in a cloud of ash as soon as it forms. It's not the right one for him. He doesn't think there is a right one for this strange guy he's met. It's a problem. No dog, no echo. Both faded away with the daylight, replaced by the dancing lights in the sky.

"You didn't die." There's disbelief in his voice when he finally realizes what the man said. It hadn't seemed important on initial hearing but then his mind had turned it over and sent it back. How? What? Why didn't anyone shoot him? What was this camp?

"This place is warm." He adds, still mulling that strange claim over. It's warmer than he's been in as long as he can remember. "How did you survive the sickness?"

[3ofswords]

Kira blinks, and the space between his sights of the newcomer is mice in a maze, spilling down dead ends and turning corners. Blinks: there he is again, in his underwear and closer to the fire. He's full of questions he isn't even asking, behind the ones he is.

None of them personal, Kira thinks, and that's good. He'll not have to wake up Kate to deal with him instead.

"Someone took care of me," is the short answer to the one he had asked. "I was still home in Manhattan. We had nurses at the base, and some basic medicine. And someone would wake me up to knock the fluid out of my chest."

Someone. Pushing away from the wall, Kira slips out of his coat and drapes it over slightly broader shoulders. "You can leave those," he says of the clothes, and carries on to the stairs, again without a glance to see if the young man will follow.

Inn; 8th; morning

[markwatney]

This time of year, there isn't a whole lot to gather from the underbrush that hasn't already been picked over by industrious animals or birds by the time any of us get to it, but most of my little bungalow has been crowded with plants since the temperature started to drop. Okay, fine -- My bungalow is pretty much always crowded with plants regardless of the temperature, as had been my apartment back in Houston. The point is, I've been growing what I can as I can in an attempt to supplement everyone's diet with fresh produce. It's not much, but it's better than nothing.

I'm carrying one of the white plastic buckets that I "gave" to everyone at Creepy Christmas. The food inside was great to have, and clearly alt-me had the right idea, but the moment I saw the buckets, I started asking for them back. I've got a growing stack of them in my kitchen. I've already got some tomatoes and onions started in a few of them, and they'll be really helpful come spring.

The bucket in my hand doesn't have much in it -- Mostly herbs, a good bunch of sprouts, some nice-looking radish and a few small tomatoes. Like I said, better than nothing.

I don't see the kid until he's right up next to me, but to my credit, I don't startle. At least, not much -- There was maybe a little jump in there, but I promise you, I am way too manly to scream.

I falter, glance down at the meager contents of the bucket, then back up at the kid. That he's new is not even a question; you can't escape that newbie shine here, we're way too close-knit to miss it.

"You could help me wash these," I offer. If he's wanting to jump right in, might as well put him on the right path.

[theroadremains]

As is always the case with him, he shoves himself bodily into the Camp's chore routine shortly after his arrival. The place is an impossible dream built on nonsense. It breaks everything he knows and all logic he's learned, but at its core it is still a camp, and he still figures they have chores, ash or no ash. He still needs to be useful if he wants to learn anything from this camp before he continues on and the best way is to immerse himself among them and offer all he has. Himself.

He looks briefly to the bucket only partially taking in the contents on a first glance and then back to the stranger. He gives him the tattered labcoat, the dirt stained gloves and the wild hair, pulled back but flying loose strands. He's the doctor, the botanist, the tired scientist who can't cure the world or save it but keeps struggling along to keep the people alive. It settles on him for a moment, wavering at the edges like the fogs, and he smiles when it settles. It will do.

He takes the bucket, and waits for further instruction though not before glancing at its contents with his head cocked to the side and his fingers reaching and stopping, idly tapping along the bucket's rim.

"What kind of beans are these?" He's pointing to the tomatoes or the radish, or both. It's hard to say. Sprouts he recognizes, but the colorful reddish and purples-greens and the deep green herbs? Those are well beyond his limited knowledge of surviving plants. Green just can't seem to make its way on his ash-choked, sun-starved earth.

[markwatney]

Fortunately, I've been in the business of teaching the varied and unusual residents of this place about plant life for long enough that the question doesn't prompt more than the mildest, briefest surprise. We literally have people here who say they're from other planets. Shit, I was technically from another planet for awhile, it's not like I can judge. Maybe this kid is, too.

"Come on in here, and we can get a good look," I say, motioning him to follow me into the kitchen and over to the sink. "Dump 'em out there on the counter."

I reach to catch hold of one of the tomatoes as it tries to roll toward the edge, and hold it up. "This is a tomato. It's actually a fruit, although it's not sweet, so a lot of people think of it like a vegetable." I reach to turn on the faucet and grit my teeth against the frigid water that sputters out.

"The harder ones, those are radishes, and they're a root vegetable. They grow in the ground, taste kind of spicy." I cut him a sidelong glance. "How long since you turned up?"

[theroadremains]

Obedient and silent, he follows, tipping the bucket to allow the vegetables to roll out onto the counter. They're in shapes and colors he's never seen in plants, beyond possibly the faded front of an old can label. He touches the radish, hesitant not from their unfamiliarity but out of concern that just by touching them he will somehow reduce them to ash. He picks the radish up and turns it in his hand, feeling over the texture with his thumb and lifting it up to smell. There's a sharp scent to it that almost makes his eyes want to water but it's nice, and he sets it aside in favor of watching water, clearer than air, sputter out of the sink's faucet.

They must have set up some kind of small barrel reservoir under the sink to draw from with the tap, but even with that in mind his mind races at the waste of liquid. They must recycle it. It's the only logic he can apply that doesn't send his mind into a mild panic. He focuses on Mark's words instead, sinking in to the comfort of new knowledge.

"I've seen those before on cans." He points to the tomato as he speaks. He's never had it, despite the visual of a faded can label at the back of his mind. Tomatoes were bad news, the cans rusted internally and bulged, they weren't safe to touch. He learned from others not to pick them up no matter how desperate he was for food. Jars were meant to be safer but even then the blood like rotten black-red goop inside them seemed like death waiting to happen. This one is different from those, 3 dimensional, it looks softer than he ever imagined them being.

"Never heard of a radish, though." He offers, and slides them carefully toward the edge of the sink. He's not meant for handling food. He's not a member of the camp, and it's risky just to offer his help near such obviously precious rations when there's other tasks he could be doing. It risks him looking like he's waiting for a chance to steal supplies, and even though it's untrue it's a dangerous line to walk along.

"Last night. Got in just before the dark cold." The freeze that he expected to crash over the camp never came. It was cold, but warmer than even most days without the fires falling. "Never seen so much light at night. The sky was burning." The ash hovers at the back of his mind, and he's tempted to ask, but for all he knows asking will drag the dream crashing down around him. He hesitates, and then pushes himself to ask.

"D'you know how they got the sky so clear?" Even with the clouds covering large portions of it, he had seen glimpses of a deep color with specks of glowing ash or white hot embers hovering in it, flickering with light but unmoving amidst the waving flames in colors he didn't know the names for. And the air was crisp and clean, breathable without the choking burn and suffocating weight he was used to.

Inn | 8th, early morning

[lastofthekellys]

Kate doesn't startle. She's slept... decently. She's had some tea to try and deal with her morning headache, an occurrence she hasn't missed in her months of enforced of sobriety but if that's the price she has to pay Joe's ghost, then that's what she'll do. And there are simply too many people in the Inn for her awareness of her surroundings to dull.

So she notices him, the new young man. He is like Mr Barebone, in a way: despite looking around her own age, there is something fractured through them which makes her want to call them boy and make sure their coats hang straight.

She keeps her fussing to herself, for now, beyond making sure all staying the Inn know when breakfast is ready. Except, now, while some of the late-comers are washing up and she's heading outside, and he appears.

She saw him coming. He's a stranger, a newcomer, and she's always more aware of the male than the female of the newcomers. It has long since paid to be so, even as she fusses.

But he's polite, and offering, so Kate cants her head to the side and nods. "Goin' outside to feed the chooks an' check on the rabbits," she says, handing him the bucket so she can adjusts her red woollen hat. Her gloves, also red, are fingerless, but they'll do for the moment.

"Check on the chooks, too," she adds thoughtfully, opening the door for him. "They're young yet, and this weather is frightful."

[theroadremains]

"Chooks?" Rabbits he knows. And birds, too but that's all they ever were. Birds. All lumped together, one amalgamation of feathery things all lumped together in a category. He takes the bucket immediately despite his question. No hesitation in him. And when she opens the door, he slips out through it with all his perplexed nature still there.

At breakfast he took barely enough to be considered a quarter ration by his standards. He's used to living on the smallest slivers of food and he hasn't made himself useful enough here to want to risk losing a hand or his life over being seen as a scavenger. He works for his keep, he doesn't steal, doesn't beg or play the pity games. He keeps his head down and he works hard. The four or so bites of food he took was just enough to be sure he has the energy to do anything people here might ask of him without a fainting spell and nothing more.

He's all gray, white and black, but his eyes linger on vibrant red with moments of unguarded wonder. There's more color, more bright, cleanliness in the inn alone than he knows what to do with. It's too much so he pushes it aside, readjusts his ears for listening, and replaces all that overwhelming color with a faded image of a woman, wrinkled at the eyes but still a touch of kindness in spite of the harsh, acidic bitterness of the world around them, acrid and violent as it is. She's the woman who helps patch the holes in his barely holding it together clothes. The one that shows him how to tie a splint, how to fix a shoe so the cold don't get in.

He straightens up, offers her a smile and a bit of courage.

"Feed em well, won't let the cold get to their bellies too soon, don't worry. I'll sit with em and keep them warm if you like?" His voice has a soft rasp to it, a southern drawl. It's warm and rough but he makes sure his tone is respectful as it always is till someone shoves up against him with a weapon and a threat.

[lastofthekellys]

"Chickens," Kate explains easily, although the word feels too formal in her mouth. They are chickens once they are dead, or if mentioned in a farming manual. The living, breathing birds are chooks. "I was given six, plus a rooster. They're still adolescent yet, but the girls should start to lay in the spring."

She's still not used to this, the squeak-crunch of snow under her boots. She knows the bite of cold, she knows an ice-dragon's breath in the air, but here the cold is sharp and deep and it never snowed around Greta in her lifetime. She knows frost, not this. Not that any of it is enough to make her give up her skirts. The skirts keep her legs warm enough - warmer, she'd say, than the trousers of others. She's certainly wearing more layers, and the path from the kitchen door around to where she keeps the coops has been worn in, broken, cleared over weeks, for all it keeps filling in.

There are two coops, both built from salvaged materials. Doors, flyscreen, windows. They could be better, for all they've clearly been made with some effort. But before Kate greets her girls and boy, before she clucks greetings to her chickens, she gives the young man a startled look. Startled, and pleased.

"You know somethin' of takin' care of these? In this weather?" she asks him, clearly interested. "Now, I wouldn't ask anyone to sit out here. If one gets sick, we'll take her inside and nurse her back. But if you'd check on 'em durin' the day, I'd be much obliged. I'm farmer-raised, but in a different climate to this."

[theroadremains]

"Course I do." The cold was constant, it never ended. He knew how to keep a creature warm, though he had usually seen the meal creatures kept in buildings and tents to keep from risking them freezing in the night. Still, he knew how to warm them, how to use the snow to their advantage to block the wind and how to cover a hutch to keep rabbits warm against the bite of the frozen earth.

He trails his fingers over one of the coops when they get there. Of course the creatures were new, it explains how they've survived so far in spite of conditions and the state of their makeshift homes. He saw plenty of yet un-scavenged parts and bits in the inn that could do her creatures better, but it isn't his place, is it? Still, an offer for an offer, and if he wants rations he has to make himself worth them. He knows that, wouldn't have it another way. It's what separates him from the scavengers. He always works for his keep, never begs or lets others give him generosity they might hold over him or grow bitter over later.

"Daytime you haven't much to worry about. It's the night chill you have to watch. Warm ashes in a sack, no embers. Banked snow to block the gusts. More solid walls to hold their heat to each other." He lists them off, his mind racing along past all the ways he could patch up or replace her coops with something far more suited to the weather and the creatures enduring it. He kneels, it's been so long since he was last allowed to touch the creatures while they still breathe, but he remembers the feel of rabbit fur between his fingers.

"Strange birds." He whispers, touching his fingers to the flyscreen, before looking back toward her, his voice firm and confident again. "I can help keep them warm. Make sure they're not falling into a cold sleep."

The Fountain; 7th - Dusk

[chosenbytheocean]

She'd been told countless times that there was no way back. Yes, Moana knew that she should believe that but she was stubborn and she wanted to check for herself. There was little else she could do in this cold. She was forced to wear layers and shoes and she disliked every moment of it. Her limbs were restricted and she kept tripping on either her laces, which seemed to magical untie themselves, or the tip of her shoe. Moana had never thought that picking up her feet would be such an issue but the boots were far clunkier than her bare feet.

Wrapped in too many layers she walked around the fountain, stared at it and always found nothing that might lead her back to her island. As the sun lowered she knew she should return to the inn. Night was even colder and it wasn't something she was ever willing to deal with if she had too.

She peered into the water of the fountain, frowning at it's surface. "You're not as great as the ocean." Even if it was a portal to this place, it didn't context everything like the ocean did.

Moana was about to leave when she noticed a shadow moving beneath the water. She frowned and then panic spiked in her chest. That was a person. She quickly pulled off her jacket, then the layer she had beneath that and her boots before diving into the fountain. She never had trouble swimming and thankfully the work on her island had made her strong enough to fight against the man's flailing. Her arms wrapped tightly around his waist and she kicked hard, moving them up towards the waters surface. She pulled him towards the edge of the fountain while attempting to keep his head above the water.

"Are you okay? Grab the edge." Moana was gasping for air as she threw one arm over the concrete and kept the other around the strangers waist.

[theroadremains]

When they hit the surface, he was choking and gasping around the water that had seemed to fill him everywhere. Never had he touched so much water at once and were it not for the cut off of oxygen he might have enjoyed the experience. As it was, he managed enough comprehension of his surroundings to grip the frozen fountain edges tightly with both arms, hoisting himself up against it with all his strength as he coughed up more and more of the water onto the rocks. His breaths came out as a wheezing, choking struggle, but he could breathe. It was only after several deep and heaving breaths that he panicked again, nearly plunging himself back in the water in his attempts to pull his shirt up over his mouth.

The darkness and his sore lungs made it difficult for him to realize he didn't need the mask that was missing from his face, but he dug his fingers into the edge, his other hand pressing wet fabric to his face, and looked at her with wide and frightened eyes.

"Where's your mask?" Muffled, rasping, his voice was filled with urgency. He hadn't even noticed the dancing sky lights or the clean air. He was too caught on the woman in the water, the water, who seemed unafraid of the acid burn he couldn't feel or the ash lung that was sure to follow breathing without the proper precautions.

[chosenbytheocean]

Moana was trying to follow him out of the fountain when he began to flail. She slipped, her elbow hit the edge of the fountain hard as she slid back into the crisp water. She grunted but ignored the jolt of pain through her arm. Moana held out a hand to try and calm the man.

His question only served to confuse her and it took her a moment to realize that, no, she had no idea what he was talking about.

"What? I don't have a mask."

She pulled herself from the water, sitting on the fountains edge before she swung her legs over. Her fingers wrapped around her hair and twisted spilling the water it had gathered to the ground. That was probably going to become ice but Moana didn't think about that. She didn't want to stay wet with how cold it was. She already felt the chill biting at her skin like an insistent child begging for her attention.

[theroadremains]

"The ash-" He started to protest, slowly hoisting himself the rest of the way out of the water and looking around confused. White was falling from the sky, and it looked like ash, but where it landed on his skin it was cold and white, not grey, and it started to melt on contact. Snow, but not the snow he knew.

He looked searching at the sky and the world around him. The snow was everywhere, bright and white even in the darkening light. And light peaked from behind the snow clouds, with bits of a darkness in between that he didn't know either.

Even once he was out of the water he kept his grip on the fountain wall, using it to steady himself where he sat, drenched and still heaving to catch his breath. For just a moment he tested breathing in without his shirt. The air was sharp and cold, even colder when it hit the dampness in his nose and throat, but the acrid sulfur smell and lingering, clinging flakes of ash didn't come with it, and he coughed breathing too large a lungfull of air back out.

The fountain must belong to the camp. Some kind of uncovered purified storage trough for filtered water. How had they made so much? More importantly, why wasn't it covered to protect it? He looked back at the water, staring down into the darkness that had tried to drown him, but fear was replaced with wonder and he dipped his hand in the cold liquid again before giving the survivor another look, and taking another uncertain, unsteady breath.

"Are you okay?" He saw her slip. She had saved him, he had to be sure she wasn't in danger because of it. And maybe learn more about the camp he had somehow woken up in. Had someone dropped him in while he slept? Or had he fallen asleep while walking and lost his path?

8th; Day; Rory's Dwelling

[oncewasroman]

Not much had been happening in the Williams/Pond household. Well, something had been happening, but it wasn't something to be shared. For the moment, it was quiet though. Amy had been in a bit of a funk after her initial arrival and Rory was going out even less because of it. As such, when there's a knock at the door Rory hurries to answer it. His wife was asleep and he didn't want her to be disturbed just because someone was lost or perhaps needing some help.

What he wasn't expecting was a blue-lipped, half-frozen stranger on his porch. Rory shivered just from opening the door but somehow seeing this guy exhibiting some pretty clear signs of hypothermia made him feel even colder. He had been so distracted by the sight that he hadn't fully comprehended what was said, "I'm sorry...what? A dog?"

[theroadremains]

"In a wheelbarrow." He repeated, looking at the man in earnest. There was a shiver to his lips. He was used to colder weather than this, but he was also used to walking miles in it in far warmer and thicker layers of heavy winter survival clothing. Not a coat and a few thin layers of cloth with no real hat or gloves and no mask to keep out the cold, polluted air.

He held his sides to keep his arms pressed close and the warm in, his determination to find dog outweighing even his usually solid survival instincts. He wanted dog back, and safe, and to know no one in the camp had stolen him to make a meal of him.

"White, this tall." He hovered a hand near hip height and shoved it back into his coat immediately after.

[oncewasroman]

Rory glanced over his shoulder as if he needed to check. There was no dog nor wheelbarrow in his house, not before and certainly not now. Rory turned back to the teenager on his porch.

"I'm sorry...no. I'm afraid we don't have either of those," Rory replied. He frowned, "Look, I'm sure this is really important, but you should really come in for a bit. It's freezing out there and if you are out much longer without proper gear you're going to run the risk of dying long before you find either of the things you are looking for."

It's blunt, but just from his initial meeting Rory could tell this guy would otherwise probably just go right back to his search.

[theroadremains]

He wanted to continue on searching. He would have until his limbs went numb in the cold for the chance of finding the dog before anyone else could. Unfortunately, as the day progressed and he covered more ground and spoke to more of the camp's surprisingly large population, he became increasingly aware that he was following a mission doomed to failure.

He gave a last glance out at the blinding white snow, not muted with gray, and then turned back to the stranger with a small nod before entering the building. He squeezed his hands open and shut to keep the blood moving, and looked briefly around.

"My gear was taken." He offered the explanation, the only one he had. He knew about the fountain, he had had some things explained, but the loss of his belongings, especially his warm and well padded survival gear, had only been an afterthought until it had been mentioned. His focus had been too set on other things.

9th; Morning; Closed to Credence

[theroadremains]

When Casey woke on his second morning it was from a confusing tangle of dreams that left his mind groggy. The sleep, posture aside, had been better than any he had had in as long as he could remember. Light from the sun was peaking in through the windows, and it was bright, brighter than he could stand to look at. He squinted at the window and shifted, looking to the warm weight at his side. Kira was still asleep, and didn't seem close to rousing or responding to the movement of the hammock's other inhabitant.

Rather than try to wake the man, Casey carefully extricated himself. He took a moment to ease Kira down to a proper laying position and draped the strange, sleeved blanket over the sleeping survivor. His last 36 hours had been a confusing jumble of new experiences culminating in a restful night that left him no more certain of how to progress in the camp, but energized for a new day of making himself useful to the other survivors so he could linger in the ash-free zone a little longer.

It was only as he finished settling the unusual blanket over Kira's form that he noticed he wasn't alone beyond Kira. He stilled at the catch of the faint sound of breathing and slowly looked up to lock eyes with the other man in the room. He said nothing, but straightened and slipped his hands in the pockets of Kira's too small clothing that clung and pulled at his skin when he moved.

[repressings]

It's his usual routine--and Credence likes routine, he finds himself grounded the better one he has--to check on Kira. It's not needed, but it's routine nonetheless. Of course Kira can handle himself but there are some days in the short month that they've been acquainted with each other that he wonders if Kira's even breathing. He sleeps an awful lot, and Credence doesn't have the heart to tell him that will get him the belt where he's from. So he keeps quiet and pokes his head in when he first wakes up and then again at lunch, usually with a meal and a very gentle clearing of his throat to try to wake him up.

It's morning now, and Credence recognizes it by not only the light streaming into his room but by the fact that when he pushes the blankets off of him his entire body gets goose flesh. So he dresses and combs his hair as best as he can and gets ready for the day, and just before he's about to start the chores--he thinks he can hear Miss Kelly up, he's not sure--he opens the door softly and--

Oh.

Credence is expecting Kira in bed, a lump of blankets and nothing else, or maybe if h's lucky a tuft of hair. He's not expecting two forms, let alone two forms together, and not someone he doesn't quite recognize. His surprise is evident only by an owlish blink, confused, and with the door open, he can't take his eyes off of them.

It's probably a lot longer than he thinks, but the other, strange form wakes and gently puts Kira back where he was and then they're staring at each other, both confused, both not saying a single word. The stranger puts his hands into his pockets and Credence's gaze slides from the other's hands, to Kira, and he actually looks up at at the other.

He tilts his head to the side, a silent question: what are you doing here?

[theroadremains]

In the early morning hours, Casey might as well be a shadow. Everything in darkness except his face and skin which stands out pale. Especially in contrast to the deep black of Kira's scrubs. He waits a moment, maintaining eye contact. Watching and waiting for signs of a threat, an imminent attack, any evidence of ill intent or a weapon. What he gets is a head tilt that makes him think of the way the dog looks at him when he does something off his usual habits and routines.

In response, he does what he always did with dog. He tilts his head in response in the opposite direction and waits a moment, a slight furrow of his brow in Credence's direction. When he moves, he does so slowly, moving from the hammock to the foot of the bed and sliding a hand free to rest and lean casually on the bed frame with barely a creak of old materials shifting.

He raises both brows, and glances over his shoulder to Kira's sleeping form, leaving Credence unobserved for a moment and ignoring him in favor of making sure Kira hasn't moved. If only to show a lack of fear. When he turns back, he offers Credence a lazy, tired smile and a shrug.

[repressings]

Oh.

Oh.

It's such a strange movement, how the other mimics him and then proceeds to slowly move. For a moment, he thinks they're mocking him until he realizes that he probably just doesn't want to wake up Kira. It's considerate, so Credence nods slightly as the other rests a hand on the bed.

Then he looks at Kira in a weird way, in a way Credence isn't sure he likes very much, and then that smile, and it clicks.

Why else would two men sleep together?

To confirm--and to maybe draw attention from how red his face is--he points from Kira to the stranger and then the bed, eyes wide, baulking at the thought. There's no way--there can't be--that's a laundry list of trouble.