Overseas

Hermit Crab Habit

The markets were packed.

Tord had been trying to get along the crowded streets full of different booths, but it was hard when everyone was jabbing him in the side, each time he tried to sneak by people in his way.

It was also hard when the high frequencies of everyone's voices put together made his headache intensify. He could feel his forehead heating up with each sudden playful shout of a child running around. Things were starting to ring instead of make any sense.

One more step and Tord was practically kicked to the ground. Grabbing the nearest thing to attempt to steady himself, he fell on all fours and scrambled to push himself up and apologize to the stranger that he happened to take hold of, causing them to fall with him.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to--"

He cut his blurted sentence short, and instead stared in shock at who coincidentally happened to bump into him. Literally.

"You again?"

Tom stood up and brushed himself off, leaning forward to pick up the bags he had dropped.

"A little help would've been appreciated."

"O-oh, right, sorry."

Tom chuckled. "It's alright."

Tord, again, nipped at his bottom lip anxiously. He carefully leaned forward to grab up the last of Tom's bags and hand it to him, once he pushed off of the ground as well. Tom didn't say a word.

"So, um, what was that yesterday?" Tord asked unconsciously while looking around at the faces in the crowds.

"What was what?"

"You just left so suddenly."

When Tom fell silent, staring, Tord started to feel himself grow even more nervous, and his body started to buzz with the familiar self conscious feeling.

"Home?" Tom finally shrugged in a tone that shouted 'isn't it obvious?' When the words processed in Tord's mind, he mentally slapped himself, and felt stupid for not realizing something like that sooner.

"Right..."

"So what are you doing here? It doesn't look like you're in a rush to buy anything."

"Why would I be in a rush?"

Tom let out a sudden deep, hearty chuckle that made Tord flinch in surprise. When he simmered down, Tom's smile stayed plastered in its place.

"Because everything will disappear by noon. People are crazy when it comes to sales, and its not like there's a lot of everything."

Tord gulped, peering back into the slowly churning tide of various figures crawling about. Now that Tom said it, Tord did notice everyone in a rush, competing to get the next item in line before the other. Loudly. Invading personal space.

"I can't." Tord averted his enlarged gaze to his toes.

"Sure you can."

"Sure, I can--with an apostrophe t."

Tom's leer stretched much wider. Wondering.

"Why can't you?" Tom pried at a different angle. Tord went dead cold, and his hands stiffened into his sides as he stared wide eyed into Tom's voids of inky black.

"I-I...I just can't..."

Tom didn't break their stare-down, and after a while of painful silence and still movement between the two, seemed to 'roll his eyes' with a click of his tongue. Tom turned himself around beginning to leave.

"Whatever you say, shy guy."

Tord's shoulders went slack, and he sighed, but instead of following Tom deeper into the crowd to get wjat he might've needed, he took a glance at his walking figure and shook his own head, before pulling his black hood up from under the extra thin tan coat and turning his back to head the other way.

When Tom began to wait in a line for items of food, he turned around in curiosity, and skimmed the crowd with his eyes seeing Tord having disappeared. When he finally spotted him at the edge of the crowd, walking off with his head shrouded in an onyx hood, he huffed, tilted his head, and then reluctantly turned to move the way he was going again as the people in front had moved on. His thoughts were clouded with questions, and he tried to hypothesize what could have drove him off in such a rush.

In the end, Tom let the odd actions slide, and had the possibilities slip from his head for now.

Tord, on the contrary, was having difficulties with trying to get away.

He felt himself shrink more and more with each increasing noise. His ears were becoming sensitive, further, along with his re-opened self consciousness, and he knew he needed to get back home soon. Especially when he felt his forehead bead with cold sweat.

He knew what it was, but it was too much to handle alone, in public, with a crowd watching his every move. When he'd get to the apartment, it would be sorted much easier. Which is why he was in such a hurry.

Though, on the way out, he managed to grab and pay for a bag of vegetables. It wasn't much. At least it would keep him fed for a bit. Maybe a week.

Not that it really mattered.

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