A wave to wash away pain like dust.

That this place had someone who did that for anyone who lived here was -

Not surprising, exactly.  But not not-surprising.  It wasn't expected.  Adder didn't know what to expect of this place.  Did all group living places have things like this?  Was that the real reason most people not on the streets never seemed to be bruised or battered?

He paced, and paced, and paced until the endless prickle of stubby carpet on his feet numbed his soles. Then he dropped to all fours and paced until his paws were just as numb.

ENOUGH

His head hurt, and his feet hurt, and his mouth hurt, and his entire everything hurt. He didn't want to hurt. He didn't like hurting, even if becoming hurt was sometimes necessary. He didn't want to hurt. He wanted to not hurt.

He had a way to not hurt.  It just involved seeking someone out.  Someone he'd met before.  Someone who had treated him well, and offered him 'whatever he needed.'  Did that include whatever he wanted?  Adder didn't usually want things.  He needed them to survive or he dismissed them.  He passed them by without particular desire.

He'd survive if he continued to feel as he currently did.  He was healing, and he was in good enough condition to continue surviving without involving luck any more than he usually did.  But he...  well, he wanted to not hurt.  And as he accepted that want, it grew stronger, fed by his attention.  He had wanted things before, when he was very young.  Back in the haze of Before, the vagueness of a long time ago.  The memory smelled familiar in the way that Before memories did, anyway.

He'd thought that things from Before were all gone and dead.  Burnt or starved or frozen.  Gone, and he survived without them so he must not have needed them.

It was a human fist that ground into the wall, denting the painted drywall and bleaching his skin.  He couldn't keep track of his shifting like this.  He was too much in his head.  There wasn't enough of him to watch outside of him too.  He rested his forehead against the wall, ears low and skin wrinkling against the marred paint.  If he stayed in here any longer, he was going to wear himself out with nothing gained.  There was absolutely no point to this, no resources gained.  Only resources lost, and even if many resources were easier to collect here he still wasn't inclined to waste them.

He fought back his conflict and disorientation with will and forced resolve.  The way out of this tangle was to just go and do what he wanted without thinking about why.  Reaction was safe.  Reaction was easy, and he trusted his instincts.  Instinct had saved him so many times.  What to eat, what to avoid.  When to growl and when to just run because there was no such thing as shame in survival.

Adder made it halfway down the hallway before a burst of noise behind him wormed squishy cracks in his determination.  Turning around would only bring him closer to the noise and chaos, and send him back into that room and its turning roiling mess of Thought.  He didn't want to think, he wanted to do and to not hurt. 

Now he wanted two things.  But he couldn't think about that.  He had to simply do, so that he could not hurt.  Simple.  Simple.  Simple like instinct.

One foot on a stair, and he caught the scent he sought without clear thought.  Metal and... support?  Cafas was one of the harder scents he had ever tried to describe.  There weren't words, or if there were then he didn't know them.  Not knowing bothered him, but not as much as wanting to not hurt drove him.  He followed the scent with as much attention to the rest of his surroundings as if he walked with his eyes closed.  He could if he wanted to.  He'd walked this route enough, and anyway he could smell the walls if his nose got too close.  Everything smelled.

There was sound in the living room, and despite his resolve Adder's footsteps slowed.  How old was the scent trail?  It wasn't never-lose-sight-in-a-crowd recent.  He was pretty sure it was from today, yes, because the chaos of so many other scents would overlay it before it faded.  But if it wasn't right-away-recent, then Cafas might have come by here and then left again.

He didn't want to deal with other people.  Dealing with people, with new people, was stressful and made his head hurt and his heart beat faster and his skin prick with everything, and they were so loud and so smelly even if they didn't smell bad -

That was immediately-now-not-fuzzy-past-at-all Cafas smell! 

Training had never been something Cafas could do by half measures. He just didn't see the point of doing it unless you were going to give it everything you had. It made him stronger, it made him faster, it made him tougher, it made him... frankly exhausted after training. Which was why he had limped his way from the danger room to the lounge room to fall onto the couch and wait for the energy to return to his muscles.

It never took too long. It was amazing what his body had gotten used to. The stresses it continued to operate under. In no small part due to DocProf's continuously available healing. It kept his body in fantastic condition considering what he put it through on a daily basis.

That man is a blessing on this place.

Cafas was certain he needed to go see the old healer. His left eye was swollen nearly shut and, given the amount of blood he'd watched swirl down the shower drain, the brow was definitely cut. If his eye socket wasn't fractured, he'd be surprised. A few other minor injuries here and there too, but they were hardly worth the mention.

The X-man pushed off the couch languidly and began to limp in the direction of the infirmary. As the living room door swung shut behind him, Cafas caught sight of a familiar set of features. Adder appeared caught in indecision outside of the relatively lively living room. there was something else too. He seemed agitated. That made Cafas pause.

Oh man, what's happened?

"Hey Adder, what's up?" He tilted his head as he looked up and down the shifter, trying to get a gauge of the situation. He carried himself like he'd come off worse in a fight. Cafas very much hoped he hadn't.

Cafas was there, and suddenly Adder just needed to run and vanish back to his room and kick the closet door shut behind and shut it out shut it all out avoid everyone not have anything to do with any of them -

His want betrayed his need and stiffened his knees and ankles. He fought with himself so long that Cafas had time to see him and look at him and talk to him and he was still standing there when he could have been long gone, so far gone, back in quiet solitude with no one around, no stress or worry but that which he held in himself and he could just rip that to shreds in his head even if it never seemed to work when he tried. It would work this time, he just had to get away from this and Cafas and everyone else and then it would work, it would work just fine and then he wouldn't have to deal with any of this. It would all be fine, that vague satisfaction that sometimes dusted calm days.

His mouth was opening to mutter that there wasn't anything up that wasn't supposed to be there, but no that wasn't what he wanted to say or needed to say or was going to say no. He clamped his jaw shut again, and swallowed the wince from slamming his lips and tongue against the lingering blisters and fragile baby skin around his teeth and behind his lips.

Well, that had backfired, and also wore down his desire to flee. Mostly it just made him tired of all of this. Worn out, wrung out, grimy and exhausted and so empty of anything that might fuel any sort of energy.

But he still couldn't bring himself to do what he'd set out to do, even with everything that had been arrayed against it washed down to a cold pile of mud. He tucked his forearms around himself even though it pressed against his ribs. He was empty of everything and he still couldn't say anything. Maybe he just wasn't cut out for reaching out and involving other people in his life.

Maybe that was why he'd survived so well alone. Not because he didn't need other people, but because he couldn't do things with other people. Nothing personal, nothing that involved opening up even the tiniest bit. Just steal from them and snarl to keep them out of his way and fight to keep them from killing him. It was all distant and impersonal and external.

And even thinking about trying to change that ruined his ability to keep track of the external. His eyes were absently fixed on the ground and even his nose was vaguely dull, like when he got sick and could barely breathe through his mouth, much less his nose, only the only pressure was in his skull, pounding under his skin. Maybe that pressure came from his chest. It felt like everything was collapsing together there, crumbling into the emptiness he'd thought was in his mind and not in his heart.

Cafas gave him a second, but saw no reply forthcoming. Adder didn't seem like he could keep track of his shifts or his thoughts, which was not a good sign. The X-man sighed, trying to hide the pity he felt. Adder didn't seem like the type who could handle pity. "Well, I'm headed to the infirmary, come on." He couldn't be sure the wolf-boy had been looking for him, but he was in no state to be looking for anything other than medical attention.

Cafas slipped an arm gently around Adder's shoulders, coaxing the younger mutant into drifting along at his side. He was worried about the boy, but to all outward observation he seemed calm, if somewhat injured. His pace was steady and unhurried, though that was partly dictated by the fact Adder seemed liable to trip over his own feet if they went any faster.

"So, what's happened?"

He didn't exactly expect an answer, but he knew sometimes he just needed someone to talk to him. That's what the EMTs all seemed to do when someone was in shock. Cafas was no medical expert, but Adder seemed like he could be in shock. DocProf would know. It was his job to know, after all. He'd be able to fix it too, along with any injuries the boy might have. Cafas couldn't be sure that the Doc would tell him what had happened to get Adder into the state he was in, though. Possibly, if he thought there was still a threat to the boy.

Adder barely felt the weight and warmth of Cafas' arm, but reaction still had him flinch away. Not all the way, given how tangled everything inside was, so yet another thing failed.

He just failed at everything here. He wasn't supposed to be here, or anywhere like this. He was supposed to be on his own, and out there, not in a building. It was nice to come back to the same place to sleep and to kind of trust that no one would get in there and mess with anything. But if he was going to leave, if he couldn't stay here, he still couldn't have anything. He had to be able to run with it and never drop it.

He was walking. When had that happened? Cafas' arm was still around him. That must be why. Adder fought to focus on external details. Even out here he was drowning in his head. He'd come out here to avoid that! He'd gone looking for Cafas to avoid that...

He'd found Cafas, though, hadn't he? Even muddled his nose could confirm that; Cafas was pretty much all he could smell. An overwhelming amount of Cafas-smell, wrapping fluff around his brain and dulling everything else. Good. He wanted to be distracted from himself. He wanted to not be able to think, to be anchored in the moment by a single scent.

He could hear a little more clearly through that thought-numbing fluff, and words slipped out without effort this time. Then again, he was trying to say other things. He could say how he'd been hurt. That was all that had happened, after all. His head was all messed up but that was different.

"Stupid fire mutant tried to kill me, so I bit him," he said dully. There was no pride to it, though he was satisfied to have survived. There was no shame in surviving through random stranger-with-taser intervention, just in surviving. And it wasn't like he had to spend lots of time near the nurse. In and out of his life, the way things should be. "It burned me," he added for clarity. He'd missed that, hadn't he? Things were falling into the haze of Past too quickly. How long had they been walking?

Cafas had the injured wolf to the infirmary by the time he'd started speaking. It was a large house, but it wasn't that large. It sounded like he'd made the right choice of destination too. He squeezed the Wolf-boy's shoulder as he navigated the doorway. "Well, you lived through that mistake, and you'll learn from it. Now let's get you patched up." Perhaps not the most sympathetic, but Adder didn't seem like he needed sympathy, he seemed like he needed a doctor. Cafas' experience of the boy didn't lead him to believe he'd respond well to sympathy anyway.

The receptionist just rolled her eyes when she saw Cafas. They had a rapport. He was in every other day for some training related injury or other. When her eyes fell on Adder, the expression softened from exasperation to concern. "Could we see DocProf?" The woman shot Cafas a look like he was personally responsible for Adder's condition as she nodded, making a comment to similar effect on her way to DocProf's office.

I swear, you get one kid injured in training, suddenly every injured kid you walk in with is your fault.

Now, with the medical attention on its way, Cafas could focus on a part of Adder's comment that concerned him greatly. "Why did he want to kill you?" He sat the young mutant down in a waiting chair and crouched to remain on level with him. His tone was matter of fact, his face was too swollen for proper expression, he tried to seem calm, because one of them needed to be. "The fire mutant. Do you have any idea? Had you met him before?"

Adder huffed through his nose, but that pushed his tongue against the roof of his mouth and reminded him of what he'd just said. Actually, that part mostly felt itchy. How the hell was his mouth itchy?

Wait, patched up? Well behind when he should have noticed, Adder caught the gross sharp scent he still distantly remembered as 'doctor' somehow and wanted to leave before he couldn't breathe, but it was stronger away from Cafas so he didn't.

Now he had a headache and was fuzzy headed and couldn't think straight. What had he noticed? Sooomething about...

'Patched up.' That was it. Plus old-doctor-smell. This was the place the drunk Chihuahua had talked about? Adder's ears crept up. Things were working out even though he couldn't do anything and was a miserable failure at non-street-ness?

Somehow, he was reminded of salt softy drying off his fur, a little. He shook his head but nothing really changed. "That was why I was looking for you," he said quietly. Very, very quietly. But his ears were still closer to upright than they'd been, even if he let Cafas sit him down without really noticing more than that his weight wasn't on his feet anymore.

"I dunno. He was familiar-ish but. Like I'd passed him or something. Not really recently. He-" Cafas's face looked like his ribs felt. Adder blinked a few times, too lost to even wonder how long it had been like that without him noticing. Probably the whole time. That would be better than part of the time, anyway, since that would mean that Cafas hit something very, very hard and cleaned up without him noticing.

"What happened to your face?"

Coming to find Cafas? He'd just assumed Adder was looking for anyone. That he was actually coming to find Cafas was almost touching. He hadn't really expected to be who Adder turned to for help, not after how kind of distant he had been the last time they'd met. The calm facade cracked a little for a smile, but he got that under control.

"I dunno. He was familiar-ish but. Like I'd passed him or something. Not really recently. He-"

Well that didn't help overly much to determine motive. There was either something adder wasn't telling him, or the mutant who'd attacked him was fond of random acts of violence. Cafas wished they didn't have so many of them in New York. The confused blinking looked like something might have just occurred to Adder though, so Cafas waited patiently for further intel.

"What happened to your face?"

Nope, change of topic, and quite the blunt question. It was a wonder it had taken the kid so long to notice though. More signs of something being very wrong. With a burned mouth, Cafas had to wonder how long it had been since Adder had eaten. He opened his own mouth to answer, but was beaten to the punch.

"I would wager it's the same thing that happens to him this time every week. The "danger" room is never a more apt name than when an X-man enters it to train. I'll get to him in a minute, right now, why don't you tell me your name, and what happened."

Cafas took a seat himself and shook his head at the old man. His continued implications that Cafas was perhaps a bit dull were just the price the X-man payed for his continued healing services. The Doctor deposited an ice pack in Cafas' lap, which promptly found itself pressed against the insistent pain in Cafas' brow.

Footsteps. Adder's ears flicked with greater attention, and he leaned sideways a bit to see past Cafas. It was a bit easier to focus now, though whether it was from the passage of time or something else was way beyond him. He didn't want to start thinking that much again anyway. It would take too much thought to sort out, and then he'd probably be right back where he'd started.

Danger room? Adder frowned a bit, uncertain as to why a place like this would have a specific dangerous place, maybe to contain mutants who had lost control of dangerous abilities-

or that. Adder wasn't completely sure what the X-Men did but people around here tended to be in awe of them and they were considered in the same light as police by the nasty sorts out in the city. But he still didn't want to give his name to this new person who was all sharp and heat-absence-of-heat in his nose and made him want to sneeze, but if he started sneezing over this smell he might never stop and he couldn't breathe while he was sneezing. Or see. Or smell. He didn't like sneezing.

Maybe stinging heat-clean doctor guy wouldn't notice if he didn't say his name but answered the rest. Sometimes people didn't. It was worth a shot. "I bit a guy trying to kill me and he burned me," he grumbled. Hadn't he just said all that? Maybe it wasn't that recently. Bah. But this was the healer guy, wasn't it? Cafas clearly thought so. "...and choked me, and punched me." More than once, for the latter.

"I see." DocProf made some notes while examining Adder more closely. Cafas on the other hand was quietly seething. If he ever got his hands on that fire mutant... Actually, maybe best not to touch a fire mutant. If he ever found them though, he'd be having some stern words with them. Very stern.

"And your name? It is important to keep accurate medical records." DocProf was not easy to slip one past, and he was not the type to drop things when they were important. He was also not the type to keep his nose out of your relationships. Jerk. He was so lucky it had gone well. "Now, don't be alarmed, I'm going to heal your injuries." A gold glow came from the good doctor's hands as they ran over Adder's ribs. The old man frowned and shook his head. Cafas could tell senseless violence hurt the man.

"My file must be nearing a full drawer's worth by now Doc." Cafas put a hand on Adder's shoulder reassuringly while he joked. It could be jarring, the first time DocProf healed you. It had certainly alarmed and amazed Cafas. The amazement never really went away, though he did feel like he was taking the man for granted.

Maybe that's why he's always on about toning back my training. Doesn't want me getting injured without him there to fix me up.

"Now, I'll need you to open your mouth if you have any injuries in there." It seemed the Doctor was happy to largely ignore Cafas. He didn't blame him, he was only joking around to calm himself down.

Adder's ears dropped back a bit and he muttered a few less than polite descriptors of Doc Prof in the privacy of his head. "Adder," he muttered.

And then became very alarmed, both because he'd been told not to and because it was something worth being alarmed about. Being the target of someone else's mutant abilities had very rarely been a good thing in the past. The difference in situation was significant but IT WAS NOT THE MAJORITY it was time to back up except he was in a chair.

He may not have thought his escape out particularly well. He didn't make it anywhere. He didn't even make the chair fall over, and then it was too late and the sharp-fire-clean smell was stronger and his ribs

didn't... hurt?

At all?

Adder's ears quivered indecisively. Despite this kind of being exactly his goal, and the source of so much stress, he was still surprised. Apparently he hadn't actually fully believed that it was true, that he could just come and be healed and not hurt. He could want to not hurt and actually get that.

He could get something he wanted? Something he didn't need?

He glanced over at Cafas, thoroughly uncertain but already breathing without the subtle constraint of bruised ribs and abdominal tissue. He thought he was missing something, but couldn't catch it. If he caught it, he wasn't sure he'd know what it was anyway. He definitely wouldn't know what to do with it.

Sharp-fire-clean was talking; Adder's other ear flicked forward to listen. Mouth?

!!

The blistering was going to go completely away! Adder barely even hesitated to go along with Doc Prof's request this time, and even tilted his head back so that the damage to his upper gums was more obvious; the burns on his lower lip were more accessible to begin with. In his overflowing anticipation, he even wagged his-

tail.

...

Well, now the burns were back to their original spread?

Cafas blinked. DocProf blinked. Adder wagged. That was sudden.

Doc, ever the trooper, continued on, tutting and frowning as he ran his hands over and in Adder's mouth. He was gamer than Cafas. Sticking his hand into a wolf's mouth. He may feel somewhat responsible for the boy, but Cafas just couldn't see him trusting such an unpredictable person with his hands.

At least they knew he was happy? He had ceased retreating, and his tail was totally giving him away. Maybe that's why Calley had never shifted into a dog that Cafas could remember seeing. They were so guileless when happy. Calley had liked to pretend he wasn't happy. It had taken Cafas a while to figure out he was faking.

"Well Adder, that certainly seems like the lot of it." The good doctor leaned back to examine his witchcraft's handiwork. Cafas couldn't tell the physical difference, but the doctor could and that was good enough for him. "Uh, how you feeling mate?" Cafas wasn't sure what sort of reply he was expecting from a wolf. He asked anyway as a gold glow that could almost be described as reluctant spread over Cafas' eye.

There was an unpleasant grating sensation, then the pain stopped. DocProf knew better than to assume that was his only injury though. He gave Cafas a full once over. For his part the metal manipulator made it as easy as possible for him, and dropped the ice pack onto an empty seat. "Thanks Doc." The old man nodded to Cafas and turned back to Adder. "You come back if you ever get yourself injured again. Don't leave it that long any more. Especially when you don't have to." He gave the wolf a pat and collected his things.

"So. How you feeling?"

In all honesty, the last time Adder had had a hand in his mouth in this form was while he was very intentionally biting it. The last time he'd had a hand in his mouth at all, though, had been that nurse with the aloe-stuff. Gross slimy helpful stuff. And his ribs didn't hurt and he could breathe properly and easily now, and he didn't have to keep everything casually tensed.

And then his mouth didn't hurt anymore, and the hands were gone, and he could scrunch up his face and try to get the sharp-fire-clean-doctor's flesh-taste out of his mouth because honestly people tasted really gross even if those were undoubtedly the cleanest hands he'd ever had the now-debateable-misfortune to taste.

The voices were dramatically louder to his ears now, though still soft enough not to send those spikes of pain straight through his head to leave him rolling on the ground and whining. Instead, he just leaned back a bit and shook his head and shoulders, nearly knocking himself off the chair. He didn't hurt! At all at all! Now there was no reason not to go eat, other than Cafas talking - oh right, Cafas' face was messed up, that was why Cafas came here.

Free of its distractions, Adder's stomach reared its head and yelled at the world loud enough for Adder to hear it through his ears rather than just feel it through his body. He twisted his head around, tilting his head as much as simply turning to the side, and looked at Cafas. How was he feeling? He didn't hurt. And because he had wanted to not hurt. He didn't have a word for how he felt even if he'd been able to give voice to it. Instead, his tail gave another satisfied flop.

And then he got patted and scrunched up his face, ears flat and eyes glarey, and then snorted at sharp-fire-heat-doctor's back.

Oh, Cafas. He wanted more of an answer? Well he wasn't going to get one because Adder was -

wolf.

In front of Cafas.

...

His ears slid back a bit as full recognition set in. He had not intended to let Cafas, or much of anyone else, see both his forms. If people knew both of his forms then they could know when they saw him regardless, and he lost his ability to be faceless and nameless and just disappear -

Adder's fur shimmered a bit and slowly withdrew as he shifted back, human face carefully as neutral as he could make it. It was one of two expressions he'd really put effort into, or needed, in the less-distant-vague-past. He didn't need the other one right now; he wasn't trying to threaten Cafas without shifting.

"Fine," he said quietly. If he disappeared now, would Cafas forget about what he'd seen? Was there a chance of getting things back to how they had been?

Cafas did not speak wolf. Adder seemed... happy, maybe? That was the sort of energy Cafas was getting, but he just wasn't keyed in enough to be sure. What did a tail flop mean? Was a tail flop good? Whatever it was, it seemed like it might be the opposite of being petted. Now Cafas was just confused, surely being petted would be happy? Calley had enjoyed it.

No, sadly he had to ask again and hope for something more solid. Vocalisations. The shimmering shifting of fur to skin suggested he might be about to get one. Before Adder spoke though, Cafas could already tell something was wrong. Too many years of law enforcement not to recognise defensive, apprehensive expressions. Those he had nailed.

"Fine."

Well, whatever was causing him to look like that, he clearly didn't want to talk about it. The metal manipulator couldn't be sure why, but he was happy enough to let it be. Adder didn't seem to react terribly well to pressure. No, you had to simply feed the information to him in such a way that he'd decide to do something for himself. He'd probably deny being a typical teenager too, that was another favourite of the teenage rebellious phase.

When did I stop being in that?

"Good!" His face cracked into a smile to see the young mutant so recovered, "Now, let's get some food into you. Your stomach says it's hungry. Honestly, I could stand to eat as well." Training always drained his energy reserves. He didn't exactly carry much fat to help compensate either. Adder was similarly lean, though that struck Cafas more as malnourishment than hard training.

"Anything you want, or just hit the kitchen and see what's going?"

One of Adder's ears edged forward, letting some air in between it and his skull. The other followed until they were each at almost-emotionally-neutral resting position, and then Adder slipped onto his feet instead of the chair.

Had he actually managed to remain in it through two shifts? That was kind of...

It was probably the lack of food that was making his thoughts skip over everything like a freshly abandoned kitten on ice covered in catnip, wasn't it? It was so hard to eat with a burned mouth... but his mouth wasn't burned anymore. He could eat without issue, and he didn't have to avoid warm food for fear of making his mouth feel worse -

But Cafas had still seen him in both forms, well lit and isolated and undeniably him in both. Was there any chance that he'd forget? Would it be a better chance if Adder vanished right now, and avoided Cafas for as long an Ever as he could manage? Or was it as hopeless as staying dry in a rainstorm, and more worth making do?

Say, with food? Food with -

"Food with tea," he said abruptly. Tea like Maya had made. His ears crept a little higher.