Without You (Adam Taurus x Faunus!OC)

Chapter 11: Running

<Adam POV>

The air around him was filled with ash. Everything was covered in a layer of grime, and with so many faunus packed into a tight place, Adam felt as if he was mining on the surface of the sun. The chain on his ankle was really starting to bother him, creating an unbearable itch in the area. 

To Adam's right, Ace was working with his pickaxe. He was clearly collecting much more Dust ore than Adam, likely due to the fact that he had much more experience with mining. Adam couldn't understand how Ace was able to handle it, though. Both Adam and Ace were given cloth bags to store the Dust ore that they excavated. Adam's bag was already starting to feel quite heavy, putting pressure on his back, so he couldn't even imagine how Ace was feeling right now.

The strange thing was, even though he was there, mining, holding a pickaxe in his hand, Adam still couldn't believe he had actually become a . . . slave. Just yesterday, he was in Patch, going through his same old routine. He felt like he was at the orphanage only a few minutes ago. Then that got Adam thinking, what would happen to all the other orphans? Were they going to go through the same fate? All those children . . . Jade, Ned, Cressida, Louis . . . were they all going to become -

'No,' Adam thought. He tried to think of something else, something to distract him from the orphans. He couldn't afford to get emotional right now. He almost dropped his pickaxe.

There was one thing he did know, though. His uniform may say that his name is 602 now, but he wasn't going to accept that. He wasn't some number. He was Adam. Adam Taurus. Son of a faunus and a human. He enjoyed gardening. He liked the smell of freshly baked bread. He liked the sweet, creamy flavor of a good old chocolate bar. His favorite flowers were the simple yet elegant, the fragile yet persistent, daisies.

Soon after, however, he picked up the sound of people approaching and noticed that another faunus was placed on Adam's left side. He took a quick glance, so all Adam was really able to see was the faunus' dog ears and long, blond hair. A ginger guard was placing a chain on the blond faunus' ankle. The girl then picked up a nearby pickaxe and went right back to work, acting as if she's been there this enter time. 

Adam didn't know if he was hearing things, but he could have sworn the guard whispered a quiet  "Thank you" to the girl, before pulling out a pretty small apple from his pocket. "Take care of yourself, now," he continued in the same low whisper, walking away from them to patrol other areas of the mine.

Adam couldn't believe it.

This whole time the humans were causing nothing but pain and turmoil for Adam, and now there was this man treating another faunus with such kindness. How? Why? 

At that moment, Adam felt like he finally had a sense of direction. He didn't know how he was going to actually to do this, but he had to find a way to become friends with this dog faunus next to him. He had to get close to her. Close enough so that the other humans would treat him and Parvy well too. It might not help them get out of here, but it would at least - hopefully - make being here more bearable.

He just couldn't do nothing.

<Parvy POV>

"Hey there."

"Oh!" Parvy exclaimed. "What are -"

Before he could say more, suddenly a hand pressed against his mouth, cutting his flow of words. 

Parvy looked at the person's other hand and noticed how it was clearly bandaged up. He looked back up and saw a pair of familiar yellow eyes. There was also the unmistakable curly orange hair.