aires | oh n

[ raises eyebrows like "yes?" ]

You've got your job. I've got mine.

[ a beat. ]

... This one, then.

[ points to one of the hotels. it's a fancy one, but the defining feature is that it's within walking distance of a restaurant that sells incredibly spicy hot pot. he's nothing if not predictable. ]

I'd prefer not to break any laws while we're there. As a note.

[ dryly. it's not a necessity, but like. y'know. ]

[ mm. he looks at the map, nods, takes a screenshot, and then fusses around with it for a bit. just a couple days. he'll have to leave to get the assets for it, but it's not like it'll be for long, and that might soothe some of the itch under his skin that comes with Staying, anyway. but a couple days should be enough to get any lingering pressure off, should be enough to disappear under the radar by just disappearing in plain sight.

and at the comment... for the first time since this debacle began, there's the faint hint of a smile, his usual shitty amusement finally starting to peek back through the clouds. ]

Then don't break any laws, fluff.

[ it's shitty, but it's definitely more therion and less "panicking, protective feral animal"? so that's a start! ]

[ it's a start!! and it's a relief, too, to see him acting more like himself. jiaoqiu's tail flicks in his lap a bit, pleased.

he is also still holding therion's hand. he'll be doing that until therion dislodges him, honestly. with his free hand, he pulls his own phone out, intending to send a message to his supervisor. he should really give more notice than this, but whatever, he's the only one willing to work these hours and it's not like hanya can't handle his job. she just doesn't like to.

a hum. ]

Are we to stay here for the night, or go straight there?

Should probably stay here.

[ he glances down at the pile of fluff in his lap, feeling the undeniable feral urge to just pull it or smack it off his lap like a cat, but he does not do either of those things.

after he says it, though, there's a beat, and - ]

Sure you'd rather not just stay in your own bed? Last chance. You might get fleas.

[ though he phrases it roughly, it's more considerate than it sounds. he knows it sucks here. it sucks a lot! ]

If I were worried about fleas, I wouldn't have let you into my bed the first time.

[ be nice

he squeezes therion's hand, but doesn't call any attention to it otherwise. he's fine right here, therion doesn't have to worry. ]

I will insist on finding food, however. Both of us need to eat.

[ rude. he gets a bony elbow to the side for his trouble.

as for food... he thinks about the sorry state of this place. what's in here? there's a container of apples he stole from jiaoqiu's the last time and... that's... about it? hm. the idea of eating makes him feel a little nauseous, actually, and he makes a little bit of a face because he also really does not want to leave the safehouse right now, and he wants jiaoqiu to leave it even less. this is what it means to have other people around, a nasty little voice in his head tells him, and finally, he pulls his hand away to scrub at his face again, to shake that off. ]

I can get something. You don't even know where you are.

[ oof, elbowed.

he hums, watching therion for a moment. and then very carefully, he leans over and presses a kiss to his cheek, before turning to try and make something out of this blanket nest and air mattress. ]

Make sure it's spicy. [ like therion doesn't know. ] And be careful. I will wait here, if that's what you want.

Yeah, yeah. [ spicy, he knows. god. up he gets, then, pushing off the air mattress silently, making barely enough waves to jostle jiaoqiu. maybe getting back out into the night will be good for him. maybe he can try and canvas around, see if he can find signs of darius or any of the goons he's sure he has poking around on the other side of town - but jiaoqiu will be waiting, so he can't do that, either.

his cheek feels warm. therion frowns to himself, hard, then shakes his head harder and goes over to a wall, feeling around for something, then finds a seam in the drywall, pushes it open to reveal the studs below, and pulls out something out of a nook that looks suspiciously like a wad of cash, then shuts it again. it looks like he might just use the door, but he stops, checks the deadbolts - all three of them - and then turns and strides across the room to the small, barely therion sized window out to the train station below. truly therion in his enclosure behavior.

his head is a fucking mess. he turns at the windowsill to glance back - looking at the strange, out of place sight of jiaoqiu sitting in his terrible, shitty apartment for a long moment. it looks like he wants to say something, but then he shakes his head, pulls his hood up, and slides out into the night, closing the window just as another train rattles by so he disappears in silence.

if jiaoqiu wants to poke around this place, it doesn't seem like therion would care that much...? there's probably plenty to look at. ]

[ imagine i said he just curled up and went to sleep instead

he does think about it, tempted to just zone out, but he doesn't want to be in a state when therion comes back. especially after the look therion gave him before leaving - the paranoia is still there, and his goal, as always, is to ease it as much as possible. at least he knows that therion will come back this time. or - well, there's a very good chance.

so he'll arrange them a nest, and then crawls off the mattress and begins his life as a point and click adventure. what is there to look at? he does poke a little curiously at the seam in the wall that therion touched, but he's open to everything in this dinky little room. ]

[ I MEAN THAT WOULD BE VALID

it's point and click o clock!!! the room itself is just. small and dingy. there's the little bed area, and there's that seam in the wall, and the lil kitchenette, plus the backpack, and then the bathroom. just like a teeny tiny motel room in size. closest to the air mattress, there's a surge protector that still has the tag on it (oops) and a phone charger plugged into it, for the burner phone. there's also a little device plugged into this that is almost definitely ripping the wifi signal from somewhere. nice.

the seam in the wall is really hard to pick out now that it's closed, but since jiaoqiu saw him fiddle with it, he can probably poke it open. it's not particularly intricate - it seems like he did just very carefully loose a section of drywall from the wall that could be moved, blended the seam into the peeling paint so anyone who didn't know. what's in there is a big ole duffel bag and there's like

a lot of cash in there. a suspicious amount. thankfully jiaoqiu already knows he's suspicious so that's probably not that concerning, but he can definitely afford that five star hotel room! ]

[ good god that's a lot of cash.

jiaoqiu is not the type of person to have any desire for crazy amounts of money. he's really just not built to take. so what he does is just looks at the cash like holy shit to himself, and then closes the seam again. okay. well, it's good to know that they can go to the five star hotel, he's happy about that. and sort of... sad? a little. not because of the hotel, but because therion has this much cash stuffed away and doesn't do anything for himself with it. he could afford to stay in a better place than this, but he doesn't.

after their conversation tonight, jiaoqiu thinks he understands why he stays in places like this, just... it still makes him a little sad. makes his thoughts stray dangerously close to wanting to give therion a better place to stay, for as long as he can bear it. it's starting to not even be something he can lie to himself about anymore.

he is going to be nosy and check out the backpack. ]

[ yeah! he sure could! but why do that. why stay somewhere nicer, when you just have to leave it again? why allow yourself to have something nice, when it might just get stolen by someone else in the night? whether that's material objects, basic human necessities, or even the intangible things like connection. there's no point.

the backpack is old and beaten up - jiaoqiu can see there are several spots on it that are stitched together cleanly by someone who knew what they were doing, patched with sturdy material in several places. it's not very full - there's space in it likely for a blanket.

what remains inside of it is a few items of clothes - an extra pair of pants, a tshirt, a couple clean pairs of underwear. socks. there's a few papers tucked into a frontwards facing pocket that look like fake identification, marked with fake names. coins wrapped in gauze so they don't make noise. a small toolkit. a small first aid kit of bandages, gauze and small scissors, a medical needle and a tiny card's worth of catgut thread. just the absolute bare necessities, the basic things he might need to survive. near the bottom, there's something else - a small, thin black box. it's not wrapped or anything like that, but it was tucked away under the clothes. ]

[ both me and jiaoqiu make a sad face at this meta narration

he's careful not to jostle anything too terribly. he isn't really interested in being so nosy that therion gets upset about him going through his stuff - the black box is so, so tempting, and he stares at it for a long moment before putting the stuff in the backpack exactly where it came from. therion's trust in him is more important than satisfying his curiosity about whatever is in that box.

maybe somehow he can ask about it. but for now, he puts the backpack down, and wanders to the kitchen. he can't imagine that there's anything special in there but y'know. he is a chef. ]

[ what a nice boy............ too bad. the mystery of the black box remains.

the kitchenette is as empty as you'd imagine - nothing in the little cabinets. no snacks or spices or much of anything at all. there's a couple of very cheap glasses that must have been here when he first obtained this terrible little safehouse place, and there's a spot that's less dusty that indicates that's where the whiskey bottle he'd grabbed earlier sat. in the little fridge, there's like. a red bull and nothing else, except but there is a tupperware container of apples and homemade caramel - mostly empty. he does in fact eat your food when you make it for him.

though, opening a small cabinet drawer, he might notice the drawer has a false bottom if he's looking enough, and you guessed it! there's more money in there! he's like a squirrel. ]

[ it's silly maybe, but the fact that the apples and caramel are here, mostly empty, stops him in his tracks for a bit. he kind of just stares down at them, heart all tight and warm in his chest. of course he eats the food jiaoqiu makes for him, it's just... it's something, to see it in action. like therion doesn't eat the food he makes just to appease him, he takes it with him and enjoys it when jiaoqiu isn't around to watch.

he puts the apples back in the fridge, but it's like scraping a layer of dirt off his heart. he's less quietly, consistently miserable.

the money makes him laugh a little. he is like a squirrel. jesus.

but unless there's something else to look at in here - that black box is going to be vaguely on his mind forever - he's just going to go flop down in the nest of blankets and doze until therion comes back. as much as he can, anyway, considering the train. it's a bit easier to tune out over time. ]

[ nothing else exciting! imagine that there was a corpse. no, it's just this tiny, crappy little space and all his squirreled away thief shit and then that little black box. that's it of note!

it takes therion a while to come back, maybe longer than you'd expect. he's too jumpy and paranoid to go anywhere remotely near here or jiaoqiu's workplace, anywhere he might be followed, just in case, and he makes his way halfway across town, to a street food cart selling really spicy noodles for the late night crowd. it's then and only then that he loops back to the pharmacy, to check to make sure that no one is lurking around, or that darius didn't decide to come rob the place for whatever deranged reason. he checks silently and unnoticed on sushang, too. and then, once he's sure, he takes a completely different route back to the safehouse.

the food's tucked into his hoodie, kept warm against his chest. and jiaoqiu, while he's dozing, can hear eventually the sound of rustling plastic from outside, and then therion comes through that tiny little window, squeezing through like it's nothing. he's not trying to be particularly sneaky getting in - this is his own damn place, kind of - so he doesn't bother, and shuts the window as a train rattles by, then... glances over at jiaoqiu.

still here. he breathes out something he didn't know he was holding, and then gets embarrassed about it, and squats down by his head, then annoyingly rattles the plastic bag by his ears. good morning ]

[ suddenly this is a murdergame

no, he dozes for a while, buried in therion's blankets. it's kind of nice that they smell like him, even if it's faint. and when therion finally makes his way over, he is treated to the sight of jiaoqiu's ears perking up and his tail swishing lazily, like a sleepy old dog that's excited to see someone. his eyes take a moment to follow suit, gold slits peeking open and peering up at him from where his face is half smushed into the pillow and blanket.

a beat, and he does a stretchy. and then: ]

Hello. [ uwu ] Everything alright?

[ not the biiiig stretch

the entire way up the fire escape was therion preparing himself for what he was going to see, reminding himself that the person in his safehouse was allowed to be there, for some insane reason, that he trusts (?) him, mostly, that he's not an enemy (probably), but by the time he gets up and through the window, he doesn't have that reaction at all. he's just kind of struck by it in the worst kind of way, feeling that molten-lava-core curl up and burst and harden into rock and burst again, enough that it makes his chest briefly hurt. just. he looks so - comfortable. so... relaxed, smiling like that, so. so just a fixture, in a life that has never been anything that transient that he's feeling like it's hard to breathe.

he forces himself to suck in a breath, and just makes a noise, pushing the bag into his hands. there's the noodles that are violently red in a plastic container, still warm, and some kind of meat on a stick that went with it. there's just the one serving and some chopsticks, and he takes one of the two skewers and just sits, feeling Some Kind Of Way and very bad at handling it. ]

Mn. [ the grunt is an answer. he's not always a wordsmith. ] 's the only thing that was open.

[ not...entirely...untrue.... but that does leave out his canvassing like an obsessive crazy paranoid person which is exactly what he is. ] Eat.

[ jiaoqiu gets the idea that therion is flustered about something but he has no idea what, which is kind of funny. he hums low, and sits up, taking the bag that is pushed into his hands. the smell hits his nose first, and then the sight of the noodles gets him to make a little delighted noise. this looks like it'll be wretched, which is his favorite. little tail wag.

he takes the chopsticks, and expertly picks up some of the noodles to eat. he was correct, they're so obnoxiously hot that he can taste them, and it's the best. he glances at therion as he swallows.

offers him some noodles. ]

Thank you. [ for going to get food, but also, for coming back. ]

You cook all the time, it's fine.

[ don't thank him!!! don't have positive emotions towards him!!! as if he is not feeling all squirmy at that stupid little tailwag. he picks at the skewer in his hand, eyes the noodles, and shakes his head, though...he doubts he's going to get away with not actually eating anything.

but he sits properly, legs folded, and just kind of stares at him, belatedly reaching up to pull his hood down to his shoulders and shake out his hair. ]

You eat too.

[ he insists, pushing the other skewer of meat at him. he can have both of them, jiaoqiu is fine with the noodles. he's also fine with silence - though when therion pushes his hood down, it catches jiaoqiu's eye. instinctively, his tail flops over closer to therion, like - c'mere, he likes being within touching range. but also, a beat, as he finishes chewing, and then: ]

You're staring.

[ does he have something on his face ]

You've got chili on your face.

[ no he doesn't. he is just lying.

he looks down at the tail for a second, and does, eventually, shift a little closer. his tail is huge and takes up a lot of space, anyway, and also he's embarrassed at getting caught staring, so he takes his second skewer that he probably will not eat and then just sits, staring down at it. god. ]

[ instinctively he does wipe his face with his sleeve, even if he figures therion is lying.

he'll be quiet a little longer, eating the noodles, but once those are gone and therion still hasn't taken a bite of food, jiaoqiu hums. ]

Do I need to feed it to you to get you to eat? [ teasing!! but he doesn't wait for an answer for that one. instead, he sets the plastic aside and holds out his hands. stubbornly. ]

I'm cold. Be a good host and warm me up.

[ c'mere. just play along, this once. ]

[ god. okay!!!! fine. he ROLLS HIS EYES, it is the most dramatic gesture in the entire world, and after a long moment, unfolds and comes over closer....

and then grabs an extra blanket from his blanket nest pile and drops it unceremoniously on his head. this is because he's therion and has to be a brat about it. ]

Warm enough? [ lol. jiaoqiu can hear a snicker in his voice when he says it if he hasn't pulled the blanket off yet - however, his voice sounds closer, and he picks up the fluff of his tail to move it up and out of his way, crawling onto the shitty air mattress to join him - awfully close, really. ]

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