Closed RP Body Heat

[David Hartwood]

It was twenty-eight degrees outside in Pittsburgh, and David was not pleased. He sighed as he trudged through the snow, as it fell lightly around him in a powdery cloud that lowered his already low body temperature. He was wearing two thermal layers, a button down, a sweater, a scarf, gloves, a coat, and a leather bomber over the top, and still he was cold. Too cold. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to start getting too stiff. He needed to get back to his car and get the heater going. Once he could get that, his temperature would rise back to normal.

For not the first time as he walked, he felt a bitter pang as he registered the heat of everyone walking past him. He kept his eyes down as he slipped between people on the surprisingly crowded street. But it was almost Christmas, so it made sense for everyone to be out and about. A shiver ran through his body as he tried to warm up, but the human functionality had no effect on his reptilian thermoregulation.

He was almost back to the parking lot when he saw her. Well, felt her. Her temperature was low, even more so than his own. Dangerously low. He turned his sharp eyes onto her and watched as she stepped under the awning of a building, curling in on herself. She had nearly shimmering dark hair, nearly black in tone. Something about her was… off. He couldn’t quite place how he knew. Maybe it was her scent. She smelled so strongly of animal after all, that he was able to pick it out even in this hellscape of scent.

She was like him.

He knew it the same way he knew she would know when she saw him. He turned his face away. She looked young, maybe mid-teens, and he wasn’t about to mess with that. He paused and sighed. Her warmth was so low… and she didn’t look like she entirely knew where she was going… and people were starting to disperse enough that the general warmth of the street was lowering… and the sun was going down.

David turned and started walking toward her with an annoyed huff. Why was it always him? He felt like every time he left his apartment now, he bumped into someone. First Obsidian had hunted him down, then he’d met Alissa (not all that bad, really), and now this young, reptilian girl. As he got close he put a polite smile on and sighed one last time. He flicked his eyes up from the street so that she’d see them, blue and fucked up as they were, when she looked at him. “Hey, kid. You look cold. And maybe lost. Do you need some help?”

 

[Katpride]

Adelyn should have listened to her grandmother. Grammy had tried to get her to take another coat, but Adelyn really did think that her winter coat would be enough for what was supposed to be a quick run to the store. It’s always worked for her before, but she supposes she’s still not used to her new lizard-y sensibilities.

She has the bag of groceries - a quarter gallon of milk, loaf of bread, and some sweet bread and candy secreted away beneath the other loaf - clutched in her fist, but now her fingers will hardly even move. Even her gloves aren’t enough to keep her heat in, and she’s lost feeling in her nose from how it keeps popping out from her scarf.

“Grr,” she growls quietly, frustrated to find tears stinging her eyes as she steps under the awning of some darkened shop. She’ll just warm up here for a moment and then keep on walking home. Yeah.

She sniffles and wipes at her nose with her sleeve, bumping her sunglasses up while she’s at it. The last thing she needs is for someone to see her eyes and cause even more trouble for her.

The wall against her back does nothing to warm her. It might even be making her more cold, but her legs don’t seem to want to hold her up. Maybe she could get away with just a little nap. The snow would keep the milk cold, right?

It takes her too long to realize someone’s talking to her. She breathes in sharply, cold air burning her nose, and tries to bury her face in her scarf even as she finds some last vestige of energy and works to get her legs under her again. She doesn’t look up into the stranger’s face, too afraid that he might be able to see her eyes through her sunglasses at this distance.

“I’m okay!” Even as the words leave her lips, her left heel slips on the snow and she nearly drops her grocery bag trying to catch herself on the wall. No, no, no, if she falls on the ground she is just going to give up and live out here on the sidewalk until she freezes into a human-shaped popsicle.

Her breath is coming faster now, but she’s not any warmer. This sucks! Her footing still a little unsure, Adelyn clutches her knitted grocery bag close. “I know the way, it’s just… well, it’s colder than I thought it would be. I’m not from around here.”

The last sentence is thrown on like a lifeline. It worked with the cashier, earning a laugh and a swift end to the conversation, so she deploys it with (what she hopes is) tactical precision.

 

[David Hartwood]

So she wasn’t lost. That much was good, at least. For a moment he thought about leaving her there. But she’d most definitely freeze to death if he did that. So instead, David nodded his head and started to strip out of his leather bomber. She had yet to look up at him, but the signs were there. And she’d recognize him when she looked up and saw his eyes. Hopefully, it would be enough to keep her from freaking out from what he was about to do.

The jacket slid off his shoulders easily and he picked it up in his hands, then swung it around her shoulders. As it settled around her narrow frame, practically engulfing her, he started speaking in a soft, low voice, meant for no one but her. “If you’re not from around here, you need to be more careful. You’ll freeze to death with what you are. We have to take extra precautions and wear more layers than expected. And we should never go anywhere cold without a safe place to go back to nearby.”

It wasn’t a scolding so much as a helpful tip given from one reptilian to another. Maybe she was from down south or out west, where it wasn’t as cold during the winters as it was in Pittsburgh. He bent over slightly so he was roughly the same height as her and looked for her eyes behind her glasses. He sighed softly and shook his head. “Normally, I wouldn’t offer this, but do you need a ride back home? It’s getting dark outside, and it’s only going to get colder out here.”

 

[Katpride]

Something floats over her shoulders in a small rush of displaced cold air, and then she’s blanketed in warmth. It’s not very warm, not like when Todd gave her his jacket, but warmer than she is now, so a definite improvement nonetheless. Adelyn blinks and looks up, shocked into forgetting her defensiveness, and sees… Well, she wouldn’t have recognized it if she hadn’t been reading so many books about lizards, but this man’s eyes… They’re not like hers, that’s for sure, but they’re also not normal, and that makes a whole world of difference.

She can’t help it; she perks up a little. She nods along to his advice, still staring openly. “We,” she breathes, low and under her breath. There’s something there, something special. Community, understanding. It’s still a rush to her, to meet metas that aren’t part of her immediate family.

There are so many questions on the tip of her tongue, but she visibly reigns in her excitement. “Yes, please. I could use a ride.”

She doesn’t want to stay out in this cold. A car sounds really, really nice, even if it is being offered by a relative stranger. She’s pretty confident she can protect herself, if something does end up going wrong. And what’s more, her instinct is to trust this man. Her instincts have never steered her wrong before.

She tugs the edges of his jacket together, bundling her fist in the fabric to complete her cocoon. Her grocery bag bumps against her chest, but the cold milk is kept off her skin by a few layers and that’ll be fine enough until she can set it down. “Where are you parked?”

 

[David Hartwood]

Her use of the term “we” hit him a bit harder than he would have liked to admit. He knew what it was like to be alone in the world, alone and different. Having someone else like her, even if they weren’t entirely the same, was going to be a big deal. It was a big deal for him as well. He’d never met another meta who was reptilian or even animal in a way like him. With all the diversity in metas, you’d assume he would have met one. Never, though. Never.

So with that in mind, David smiled softly as she looked into his eyes. He looked back at hers and saw not a reflection of his own, but eyes just as different. Something that marked her as other to people who saw them. White and milky and no iris or pupil to speak of. They even seemed to glow a touch in the dying light. It made him sigh, softly. Her excitement was contagious, and he couldn’t help the way his lips quirked up at the edges.

“I’m parked about three blocks down this way. Do you think you can make it that far? I don’t want to be insulting or demeaning, but I will carry you if you need me to.” He kept his voice just as quiet, even as the crowd continued to thin out behind him. She had bundled herself tight in his jacket, which was good. He doubted he was much warmer than her, but anything to help keep in her warmth would be good.

As he spoke, he buttoned up the remaining coat he wore, which had been hanging open. Without the extra layer, he had to make sure he retained more heat. He couldn’t also freeze, especially if he had to carry this girl. “Once we get to the car, I can get the heater on and warm you back up.”

 

[Katpride]

“Oh, um.” Adelyn looks away, pressing a hand against her cheek and surprised at the faint warmth radiating from her face. She tugs her scarf a little higher, pressing it under the bridge of her sunglasses. They’ll fog up as she breathes, but maybe it’ll stay put for longer than a few minutes. “No, I can walk.”

She proves her statement by taking a few steps in the indicated direction, rejoining the slow flow of people. She’s still quite stiff, but having a closer goal gives her a little more energy.

As they walk, she glances at him without moving her head, a sidelong glance disguised by the unshifting nature of her eyes. He’s being very kind, and she feels kind of foolish for not having thought of these things herself. She’s sure her Gramps would’ve driven her down here himself, if she had thought to check the weather before she left. Or picked her up, if she called him instead of being so stubborn.

“What brought you out here?” she asks, to pass the time. She’s gotten a little better at walking in groups, and fewer people bump into her when she angles her shoulders and edges a little closer to… oh, she doesn’t know his name. Maybe she should’ve asked that, instead.

 

[David Hartwood]

She was blushing, which was a good sign. It meant she still had enough functionality in her body to generate some heat. He softly breathed in and out, not quite a sigh, as she started moving. She moved stiffly alongside him, keeping close to his side to avoid the ever-shrinking crowd. He started to lead the way back to his car, which was parked in the general parking lot up the street a way.

He looked down at her when she asked her question and he smiled a little softly, a little neutrally. “Oh, I was out here for work earlier today, so I figured it might be nice to pop into some of the shops. I’m not from around here, either. I just moved.”

David paused as he looked down at her, blinking. He kept moving alongside her as he replayed their conversation in his head. She– she hadn’t given her name, had she? Nor had he, for that matter. The general sense of “alikeness” had bypassed the need for a real introduction in the moment. His smile turned a little warmer than the neutrality he had been trying to maintain, and he extended a hand to her, gloved as it was, as he walked.

“I’m David, by the way. David Hartwood. What do I call you?” He was glad he could wear gloves pretty much year-round. His sharp nails had gotten him some stares as a kid before he realized that a simple pair of leather gloves solved that problem in his late teens. You’d get questions about being hot in the summer, especially paired with the long-sleeved shirt to hide the scaling down his arms, in patches that had stopped growing when he was also a late teen. But he was much more willing to take those questions than the borderline disgusted stares he got from what he really was.

 

[Katpride]

Adelyn nods, then has to adjust her scarf again when it threatens to slip off her nose with the motion. His answer makes sense, but raises new questions. Where was he from? Did his family teach him how to take care of himself as a lizard in a way that her family didn’t? Not that she blames her family for her own lack of preparedness, since she’s only ever Shifted into other mammals in the past. But maybe she could ask for a few pieces of advice, since he seems to know what he’s doing.

She’s so wrapped up in her thoughts that she almost misses the hand he offers, but her brain moves her hand to shake his before she even consciously registers it. The sound of her leather glove creaking against his own makes her smile, even as it brings even more questions to her mind.

“You can call me Adelyn! That’s my name, after all!” She laughs, the warmth of her breath reflected back at her skin by her scarf. She gives his hand an enthusiastic shake, three waves up and down like her poppa taught her and then an extra two because her hand is jittery. “I like your gloves!” Then, because she can’t resist, “Where are you from? On account a, I’m from Oregon, and I ain’t never met anyone like you that wasn’t at family reunions.”

Oh sure, there are other metahumans in the Pittsburgh area, but none of them have looked anything like her. Maybe the Hartwoods are some distant branch of the family tree, and they grew out of the white eyes but not out of weird eyes altogether. Wouldn’t that be such a coincidence?

 

[David Hartwood]

The smile on his face cracked into a grin at the enthusiastic shake she gave him. He chuckled a little, low and soft, after she complimented his gloves. They were older winter driving gloves from the fifties, and they had weathered years with him. And still, they were in good condition, still thick, and his nails had yet to pierce them. He’d be very disappointed when they finally did. It would be hard to find leather gloves this good again. At least ones that fit his bigger hands.

Then, he almost paused, nearly skipped a beat in walking. He replayed the last statement in his head and turned his eyes a little sharper on her. It wasn’t a bad sharpness, just an intense attentiveness. “Your… whole family is like you?”

It might have been a rude question, but now, he was wondering. On the opposite coast from where he was raised was an entire family of metas like them? Animal and different? He looked away from her for a moment, a crease between his brows deepening as he thought. Where were his parents from? Where had they lived and grown up as kids? Were either of them from Oregon? He couldn’t remember. They’d both been dead by the day he turned eighteen, and he had nothing of theirs but a few photo albums and some old paperwork and a bank account that had been started in his name as a kid.

“Sorry, ah. I’m from New York. I grew up in Auburn, then I moved to NYC when I was an adult. I don’t know where my parents are from. We’re probably not related, I think.” He said it with a kind of heaviness, his eyes softening and turning down at the corners.

 

[Katpride]

“Yours isn’t?” Adelyn asks before she can help herself. She’d just… assumed. How else would he have meta powers? They don’t just grow on trees. Do they?

Then again, she thinks, something uncertain twisting in her belly, did she ever ask Todd or Sam or Eli if their families were like her own? Surely it would’ve come up, right? She can’t seem to remember, no matter how she casts her mind back.

“Hmm,” she hums, brows furrowed. “That is pretty far away.”

But the way he said it… Adelyn looks away, to the street and a car trundling by, then back to David. Her steps seem to have slowed, and she makes an effort to catch back up. “Um.”

She has to take a deep breath before continuing. Her hands twist in the hem of her coat, uncertainty written in the tense set of her shoulders. “I’m sorry for making you sad. I didn’t mean to, um, bring up bad memories. I just thought your family might be like mine. I guess that’s silly of me.”