Lavender Snow

Lost

Cold.

Tommy opened his eyes.

He was lying in a collection of water. Or what he assumed was water. It seemed strange to him that so much water would be on a flat surface like this. Maybe an Elytrian had been using a water power. Fai only used—

Fai.

Fai.

Oh, fuck.

Tommy sat bolt upright, then winced and thought better of moving. He carefully scooted back until he was leaning against a pile of— well, he didn't know what they were, but they were at least cushier than brick.

Okay. Fuck. First things first. Where was he, and were there any Elytrians around?

The. . . water collection provided a decent enough reflection for him to see that he was in an alleyway, surrounded by red brick walls on three sides. Odd that someone would build apartments so close together. There was some sort of fabric above, too, making some strange drumming sound.

The water wasn't enough to see past the buildings. He glanced up quickly. It looked like something was leaking water, making droplets drip onto the street from. . . the sky? Okay, sure, why not. Perfectly normal. All fine. All good.

He clapped a hand over his mouth and bent over his knees, ignoring the pain. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Fai had dropped him off the bridge, and now he was somewhere or nowhere with weird water and everything hurt which was good, of course, he was safe, but he didn't even know what he was going to do— there was nothing to do, there was no one here, and if there was he'd be discarded anyways, and— and the note was right, the bridge was the end, and maybe he was dead, and no one would care—

"Are you all right?"

Tommy froze. Slowly, he raised his head just enough to look into the reflection of the water. Fuck. A man was standing at the mouth of the alleyway. No purple dragon under his eye. He was an Elytrian.

Do I have permission to speak? Tommy wondered. Playing it safe, he simply nodded and smiled at the ground.

"A-are you sure?" The man crouched down. Fuuuuuck. He was testing Tommy to see if he would avoid eye contact. Well, Tommy was an expert in this game.

Tommy nodded, closing his eyes and tilting his head back. The Elytrian hummed. "Mate, you're in an alleyway, in the rain, at night, sitting against trash bags. Do you need help?"

Tommy was baffled. Rain? What was rain? Trash. . . bags? Why would anyone put trash in a bag? Help with what? This man wasn't making any sense.

"Can you talk?" The man took his arm and he flinched, making a chirping noise instinctually. The man loosened his grip, but his hand ran down until he was holding his forearm. "What the— what are these marks? Mate, what's wrong with your wrist?"

Tommy opened his eyes, gaze flying to his wrist. There was nothing unusual about it. The scars speckling his skin looked no different than normal, so the man shouldn't have any concerns about it. . .

"Look, mate, I don't know what's going on with your wrist, or that tattoo on your face, but you can't just stay here. Do you have somewhere you can go, or. . .?"

Tommy shook his head. The man exhaled and let go of him. "Okay. How about— do you want to— to stay with me? Just for the night? You can, like, sleep in the spare room, it's just my wife Kristin at home."

Tommy nodded slowly. At this point, he was just tired. The man kept testing him with weird words and he didn't know the answers he was supposed to give.