(Untitled)

[roulettespin]

Characters: Nero (roulettespin and anybody who wants to help put out a small grease fire?
Setting/Location: Kitchens
Date & Time: Day 2, late afternoon.
Warnings: Nero makes food.
Summary: It doesn't go so good.

Comments

[likeagoodson]

It was still a strange pastime to have acquired: his wanting to explore the majority of the Caravan and make use of whatever he found. Charley, however, hadn't discovered any one thing relevant to his interests whatsoever. The floors were monotonous - creative outlets had not been in mind when designing it - and those he'd seen wandering about appeared harmless enough. There was no excitement, nothing threatening or in need of his services. Bluntly speaking, without work or Master to (God, help him) annoy him per usual, he was bored.

Until, as things happened to occur, he noticed something acrid in the air.

Even if Charley hadn't been connected to Sacra, had not downloaded that particular sense, he would have smelled it. In fact, he saw it first: smoke creeping along the edges of the room as something - and hopefully, he thought a few moments later, not someone - caught fire. He reacted quickly, assessing the situation as he approached the person slowly being engulfed by it. Male, young.

"What are you doing?" he asked, more so a reprimand (read: slight) as he quickly removed the pan from the stove and dumped the...mess into the sink. The skillet followed, Charley preoccupied by the fact he was now attempting to smother the small flames with it. "This is dangerous."

Perhaps he assumed too soon things were more than ordinary.

[roulettespin]

What was he doing? Wasn't that obvious? He was cooking! And sure, all right, maybe it could've also been taken for starting a fire in the kitchen--there were bound to be a few screws loose in this circus of freaks that burning the place down was more important than having something to eat--but Nero wasn't one of them. And he resented the idea that he was doing this on purpose. Maybe because it would've been a little less embarrassing if he was.

"Making lunch! What's it look like I'm doing?" Nero shot back, reaching over to move the guy out of the way. Whoever he was. Voice sounded familiar, but a lot of voices did because of the chatter over the junogam--which Nero monitored but didn't eavesdrop on. There was a big difference. Somebody had to do it, and as far as Nero knew, Dante was off doing what he usually did when things got hairy: disappearing.

And on the off shot that all of a sudden Nero'd hear somebody new, somebody he recognized, somebody from back home...

None of that had anything to do with what was going on just then, though. Whatever this guy thought he was doing wasn't helping matters, and he hadn't turned the burner off yet. Nero reached for it, spattering as it was. Yeah, definitely it was because of getting butter down there. Something large and black and spitting was lodged in the center there, and Nero reached toward it with the spatula...

[likeagoodson]

As a matter of habit, Charley immediately moved to the side as he was prompted, expression a mixture of both concern and its unhappy counterpart: displeasure. He wasn't paying attention, reinforcing his momentary theory with a firm hand; granted, it hadn't been the best plan to initiate. The smell was beginning to settle, and it'd probably remain stuck with him for a few days yet. A rather disheartening thought. Even more so when he caught movement through his peripheral.

This was almost worse than the time Master had nearly drowned himself in the bathtub--as accidental as he claimed it to be.

"You shouldn't do that," Charley advised him, double-checking that the stove was now off. He put his hand out, almost instinctive in the way he touched the young man's wrist to keep the spatula from meeting the still-hot burner. "Your lunch is better off there until it...cools down."

And though he hadn't had any use for mundane human practices like cooking in a long time, Charley knew most of it was just common sense. Either this boy seriously lacked it or his curiosity was too strong to be considered normal. Safe, too. He did his best not to judge, but old habits were difficult to suppress.

As an afterthought, "We should open a window. It'll help."

[roulettespin]

The guy was talking sense, and he was trying to help. That was all well and good, but there was one little problem here: the touching.

Nero was jumpy about that shit on the best of days. His personal space was his and his alone, and anything from being knocked into on the street to having someone sit too close during mass could bring about the kind of over-the-top, knee-jerk reaction that a little age and the chance to mellow out might cure. But in a world like the one Nero was used to--knowing what he knew now, that sometimes he couldn't even trust the people he'd always believed in--he was a little more tense than he might've been. He had his reasons, even if they were nothing but excuses in the end.

Point being, some stranger'd just put a hand on his arm, and it was an instinct to grab that hand and throw him down; to get the upper ground; to keep his guard up; to stay alive. Sure, things on the caravan were a hell of a lot different from how they were back home, but that didn't mean Nero could let himself be careless. Trouble could find him anywhere, and it usually did, and there wasn't any way he was letting something that familiar--even something that simple--fly. Not when he didn't know the guy. Maybe not even if he had known him.

And even more of a problem: it was that arm. The one he was sensitive about anyway. It wasn't just that it looked weird--and it really looked weird. It was also that it felt weird; even the slightest touch reminded him of all kinds of things he just didn't want to think about, things he didn't think were natural, things that made him feel like some other person. A stranger to himself. He didn't like that.

Nero's whole body tensed and changed as he caught Cherry's wrist with his other hand. His grip was tight, though not as tight as it would've been if it was the other way around. They were lucky things'd shook down this way.

"I don't know you, so what the hell do you think you're doing?"