Austin did his best to retrace the path he and Cafas took in reverse back to the bedrooms. There were a couple of wrong turns here and there, but he was quick to rectify his errors and soon found himself back in the same hallway in which Adder had abandoned him. It wasn’t too much trouble, just that the hallways all looked so similar. Austin wasn’t worried for his ability to quickly learn the layout, he just knew the first few days would hold lots of frustrated navigating.

He paused to study the key, before slowly making his way down the hall looking for the matching room number. The building was mostly dead by this time of night. The hallway made no sound save for the heavy footfalls Austin made in stumbling down the rows of doors in his exhaustion. He felt as if he were about to collapse, and the only thing that mattered to him at this point was a bed.

Austin stopped, turning to his left as he did so. Wasn’t this the door Cafas had been looking at when Adder was mentioned? It couldn’t be. Hesitantly, Austin raised the key to the lock. It stuck slightly at first, but after a small jiggle the key found its way into the hole. There was no way it could be Adder’s door. His key fit in the lock.

Austin sighed heavily. He could already feel the soft pillows and warm sheets surrounding him in his anticipation. He twisted the key and pushed, feeling the door tug back on him subtly as the air pressure in the room changed. He made his way through the doorway, shutting the door as quietly as possible before turning to face his new bedroom.

It was fairly spacious, with a single queen sized bed in the center of the room flanked by a nightstand and a dresser on the left and right, respectively. A sleepy smile crossed Austin’s face, and he absentmindedly began removing his worn out sneakers and stepping over to the bed when he realized something abnormal. Cocking his head to the side, he wondered at why his bed was stripped of all furnishings. He turned in a lazy circle about the room, but his pillows, blankets, and sheets could not be seen anywhere.

“Are you kidding me?” He mumbled. However, he was too tired to let that stop him. He nonetheless stepped forward and flopped lifelessly onto the bed, sighing happily in the relief it granted his tired feet. It didn’t matter tonight. He could take care of the sheets the next day.

It was getting late, and he'd had a sufficiently dramatic day. And enough crowds to hold off on dinner until the horrible rush had completely finished, lounging in a dead end of the maze that got a lot of sun during the afternoon and proved to stay pleasantly warm well into the evening. The heat faded after a while, though, and the white-and-gold wolf padded back inside with even less notice than when he had arrived. It was reassuring, not to be stared at or chased after. Sometimes little kids tried to catch up with him and pat him, but there weren't that many younger than their preteens. It was mostly the really little ones that ignored his warnings.

Into the darkened and quiet kitchen, and onto bare human feet to pull the fridge door open with fingers rather than claws. There were the sausages he had been smelling all afternoon. An entire container of them. The fat had just started to set, and he set the container on the counter, two sausages lighter already, while he poked through the rest of the fridge.

He chewed slowly, by his standards, as he shuffled through containers and plastic wrapped stuff. Oooooh peeled eggs. He hadn't had those in almost-forever! It wasn't actually forever because he knew what they were by sight and scent, and he quickly put a bunch of the hard-boiled wonders of nutrition in with the sausages. He didn't take all of them, because there were like fifty eggs and that was excessive even for him, but more than he would have been able to carry in one hand. Nothing else in the fridge interested him so he put the eggs back, collected his wonderful dinner, and headed back to his closet before anyone could come in and bother him.

He fished his door key, strung with a braided bit of various discarded string pieces, out of his jeans pocket with one hand while he balanced the container with the other. Into the lock -

He had left it locked. He always left it locked. He always left it locked.

It wasn't locked right now.

Hand still on the knob, he sniffed at the door frame. He needed the boost in this form, if he wanted to be sure. Someone had been inside recently, definitely. recently enough to still be inside. Someone new-familiar. Not nasty. Not someone like Cafas. Hmmmmmm-

Ah. Not-jock. Not-jock-Austin.

...

Why the #%^* was not-jock-Austin in his room? This needed resolution. Adder slipped the door open gently, fully aware of how it was more likely to squeak at certain points and how to avoid the noise. He moved inside.

And may have kind of yelled at the kid he'd so recently brought to this place. "What are you doing in here?!"

Austin flopped lifelessly onto the bed, sighing happily in the relief it granted his tired feet. He lay there motionless for he didn’t know how long. He just knew it was worth the wait. He listened to the sounds of the silence and let his eyes grow heavy. Sleep was just descending when he thought he heard the door open gently behind him. He tensed for a moment, then dismissed the thought as ludicrous. That is, until he heard a voice recently made familiar.

“What are you doing in here?!” Adder yelled behind him. Austin jumped up faster than his legs could process, and he ended up halfway fallen to the floor, catching himself on the nightstand. He looked in a tired stupor to the shorter teen, his ears standing upright at full attention. He couldn’t tell exactly through the darkness, but he looked angry. Angry Adder did not look like someone you’d want to cross. But why the heck was he angry? And in his room?

“Jesus Christ! Adder?!” He yelled back in shock. “What are you doing?” He whispered fiercely. It was then that he registered that Adder had asked him a question.

“What do you mean what am I doing in here? This is my room.” He whispered to the wolf-boy. “Why are you here? You woke me up.” He said, as if it should make Adder guilty. It was then that he recognized the massive amounts of food in Adder’s hands. “And why do you have all those…eggs?”

..........................

Adder seriously wanted to laugh at not-jock-Austin's reaction. He was so uncoordinated. A starving puppy that made it into an unexpected growth spurt wasn't that ungainly. This was ridiculous. And briefly entertaining.

That didn't remove the issue, though.

"This is my room," he said firmly. No argument on that, although there wasn't exactly any indication that he lived in the bedroom part. It still smelled like him and no one else was supposed to be in it because it was his. He also didn't speak especially quietly, though he wasn't yelling now. It was a pretty quiet room.

"To eat." Why else would he have food? Food was for eating. The complete change of topic, paired with the moment of amusement, caught him off guard enough to earn a straightforward answer and not snark. "I have sausages too. The official meal times here are really loud but there's always food left over."

He snorted at the intruder on the bed he didn't use and padded over to the closet with its not-quite-completely-closed door: he liked to leave it at a memorable angle so it was more obvious if anyone had gone poking. There were mutants he couldn't smell well, after all, and some could poke from a distance. And there were so many kids here. Bleh.

Adder leveled a squinty glare at not-jock-Austin, then tucked himself into the closet and slid the door closed with a foot. He'd deal with this mess after he'd eaten.

“And why do you have all those…eggs?” He asked, eyeing the massive amounts of food in Adder’s hands. The question got Adder completely lost, and it showed on his face and in his suddenly non-confrontational voice.

“To eat.” He said simply. Austin face fell into an exemplary “no sh*t” face. Still, Adder continued with his beginner level explanation of the food in his hands. “I have sausages too. The official meal times here are really loud but there’s always food left over.”

Then, without another word, Adder snorted in his direction and padded over to the closet. He stopped, turning to cast Austin a not particularly friendly glare, then slipped inside the closet and shut the door. Austin was left, standing in the same spot, mouth agape at what he just witnessed.

“Uh…” Was all he could process enough to say. Was that normal? No, of course it wasn’t normal. A kid you just met coming into your room in the middle of the night with armfuls of food claiming it was his room before sliding off to the closet was definitely not normal. But, was that normal here? He hoped not.

For a moment, Austin considered letting it slide. He was tired, and he had confirmed that the bed was every bit as comfortable as he had dreamed. Still, there was a kid in his closet, and Austin knew that no matter how hard he tried he wouldn’t be able to find any peace knowing that.

“Wait, what? Adder what the hell?” He said, crossing to the closet and gripping the doorknob. However, before he opened it he took a split second to consider his actions. That probably wasn’t the best approach if he wanted to achieve the desire result, or stay on Teen Wolf’s good side. He sighed, releasing his grip from the handle. Austin took a step back, and raised a hand to knock lightly on the closet door.

“Hey buddy, wanna come out so we can figure out what’s going on? This is probably just a mistake on Cafas’ part.”

Once inside the closet, Adder dropped onto his mound of bedding. Finally. It had been a very long day. And the sausages were good.

Not-jock-Austin hadn't processed the situation, though, and Adder huffed at the squalling. Wasn't that a stereotypical reaction. He finished that sausages, licked his fingers, and went for an egg next, ears flicking as it popped apart under his teeth. Best way to eat eggs ever. Much neater and much less chance of waste. Also, raw eggs were super slimy and it always felt like there was some still clinging to the roof of his mouth and his teeth afterwards.

Not-jock-Austin was now knocking. Couldn't he wait until Adder had eaten more? He ate another sausage to spite him. Wait, Cafas? Cafas put not-jock-Austin in here with him?

He would have grumbled out loud at that if his mouth weren't full of sausage. Two sausages in a row this time. Omnomnom sausages. If Cafas thought that Adder should be stuck with a roommate like most of the other people here, judging by their chatter, then he must have a reason. Cafas did things that turned out well, other than the whole beating himself up stuff that Adder was still hesitant on.

Adder swallowed, then reached up with a foot and opened the closet door. "Cafas probably has a plan," he said simply, and ate another whole egg, never looking away from his new roommate or whatever. Or really blinking.

Austin waited. Was Adder even listening? Probably, he was just choosing to ignore him. In the few hours they had known each other, he had very quickly exhibited to Austin his uncanny ability to annoy.

After a considerable amount of time, the door creaked open, and Adder’s foot could be seen pressing lightly against its frame. “Cafas probably has a plan.” The wolf-boy said simply, popping an entire egg into his mouth without breaking eye contact with Austin. It was…unsettling. Did this guy even understand the concept of social norms?

It became apparent that Adder was not going to make the next move. When Austin recognized this he sighed in exasperation, scratching the back of his neck as he thought of what to say.

“So…what? We’re roommates then?” He watched Adder’s demeanor with intrigue. Pretty much everything about this guy was weird. Granted, he was like half wolf or something.

“Well, I’m tired, so we can figure whatever we need to out tomorrow.” He moved to make his way back to the bed, but stopped. Turning back to Adder, he asked, “Um…are you just going to sleep in the closet?”

Did trying to figure out if someone would make an annoying amount of fuss if he lifted their wallet for a few paces before dropping it sans cash count as understanding social norms?

Didn't asking the question answer it?

If Cafas stuck him with the people he led back here, was it to keep him from bringing more people back or because Cafas had something more complex in his head? Stop-Adder-from-bringing-people-to-the-mansion seemed to go against general Cafasness. Hm. So he was supposed to think that this whole roommate thing wasn't horrible?

Eh, he could always move. He'd even found a few other reliably unscented hiding holes now, so he'd just have to see about hauling all this nice squishy stuff over to one.

"Of course I'm going to sleep in here," he answered with all general seriousness. Where else was he going to sleep? In some big open area? As if. "If you want to sleep in the open, have at it. Just make noise if you get attacked or something."

Not that he expected violence in this place. Other than squealing children trying to touch his fur and shrieking in his ears. His poor ears. Sausages made him feel better. Sausages were good.