Out of the Cold

Chapter 3

I started this fic with the intention to update it weekly....yeah, that didn't work out.

Anyways, I wrote most of this chapter with my aunt's puppy asleep on my legs.

The kid hadn't eaten much. Half a cup of hot chocolate and only a couple bites of a pancake, and then the kid just sat there, curled into a ball, eyes fixed on Techno whenever he entered the living room.

Techno did his best not to look at him, to pretend the kid wasn't there. Those eyes were scared. Not in the way Techno had been...but it was so familiar, that look.

When he put the plate on the coffee table in front of Ranboo, the kid had looked up at Techno with wide eyes as he cringed away, pressing himself against the lounge as if that would protect him - it brought back memories. Techno looked away, but not before he confirmed with his previous observations - Ranboo's eyes were very noticeably mis-matched, with one being a deep red and the other a vivid green.

But that look in them, those shadows - it was so achingly familiar.

Techno went back into the kitchen. He stayed there, listening to the sounds of the TV's as he filled his own plate with pancakes smothered in sickenly sweet syrup. He didn't know what the words he was hearing were - he was absorbed in his thoughts. Memories, so many bad memories, swirling around his head - he never should have answered Puffy's call.

He had spent years suppressing his childhood, he had moved countries to escape it. Even talking with his family - his adopted family - that was too much, sometimes.

Befriending Puffy and the small social circle she was part of - that was a mistake. But it had been fine at the time, they had passed college and now he had no obligation to hang out with them. He had drifted apart with many of them.

Because if he wasn't close to people, then he couldn't be hurt.

Right?

But that was wrong, he was still close to some of them...close enough to see Puffy often, to answer her phone calls.

Only a few days. It was only for a few days and then that kid would be gone and he could go back to his normal life, with only Steve and occasionally Puffy and Skeppy and whatever other people they decided to drag along for company, when his only worries were about pleasing his clients and - how many excuses did he need to give Phil and Wilbur before they stopped calling?

That kid, cowering and fearful in the other room, brought back too many memories. He reminded Techno of the worst years of his life. But...

There was a time Techno had hoped for a family, for happy memories. He had had one, but so long ago that memories were pale, blurred. And yet for so long they were his only source of comfort, only a trace of the longing he had had for an understanding with someone, a family. He found it, eventually, with his brothers and Phil...Ranboo needed that. When Techno had read his file, he had compared it to his own. He had been Ranboo's age when he stole paperwork and read it without his social worker's knowledge. Had the kid seen his own file? Would Puffy have let him read it? Techno could lift up his phone, call her and ask -

Ask for Ranboo to stay.

That was a terrible idea. Techno didn't like kids. He could barely tolerate his younger brother - adopted brother - and they weren't even in the same country.

How old was I when I met Phil?

Techno dropped his plate in the sink. He wasn't aware that he had moved, that he had even finished eating. But now he was standing over the sink, staring down at the ceramic plate, staring at the crack that now split it in two.