*All characters are 18+*
Radon and Taylor ran, head down, through the thick filthy sleet. The icy rain had started out as clean white snow, but then it was stained by factory smoke and melted by the roads and buildings it passed. By the time snow got to the Bottom Tier, it was filthy mush that was more dangerous then snow. Snow was insulating, if you didn't have a home you could make a nest in the snow lined with blankets and be fairly warm. The sleet penetrated clothes and made icy rivers in the streets and thousands in the Bottom Tier died of exposure, hypothermia, and pneumonia.
Radon and Taylor were soaked to the bone. Their shoes were icy puddles in which they could hear, but no longer feel, their toes squishing in. They were very close to the nook.
Someone had been waiting for them. As soon as the two drenched figures were close enough to see, the electrified metal grate lost it juice and it opened slowly. The two half-drowned men darted in and the door slammed shut.
Taylor could barely see, but he felt a pair of hands wrestling with his clothing, tearing off layer after layer of coats and sweaters and scarves, all soaking wet. The air was warm, and thick with steam.
Suddenly Taylor gasped as a hot wet cloth was pressed against his numb bare chest. The skinny bundled-up figure had run over to Radon and was now tearing his clothes off with a frightened intensity. Little piles of bedraggled clothing grew on the clean concrete floor.
Taylor wiped his eyes with the steaming cloth, melting the ice that had formed in his eyebrows and warming his numbed (but thankfully not frostbit) ears. He could finally see.
He saw the cave-like chamber of his home, filled with the shelves of wood-growing mushrooms that saved him and his kin from starvation and sickness. He saw the five big buckets of steaming water that his new ward must've tended relentlessly, waiting for them to get home.
Then he saw his ward. Dressed warmly in tatty (but clean) sweater and corduroy pants, the young boy darted around them with a quick birdlike efficiency. He looked like a normal, if slightly feminine, boy, but he was not. Not quite.
"Warm up guys!" He said in an anxious voice. "It's freezing out there, so warm up and get to bed. I'll put these away and clean the guns and warm up some soup."
Taylor let out a chuckle that turned midway into a wheezing cough. A week ago the frail boy wouldn't have said shit if he had a mouthful, now he was bossing them around, and he sounded so damn cute when he did.
Taylor and Radon swabbed their shivering naked bodies with hot cloths and ran up the spiral staircase to get to the shared bed.
Kip had only been in the nook for eight days, and already the warehouse was showing his influence. The floors were swept, all of their blankets and clothing had been washed (a monumental chore, all the water had to be heated by hand and all of the clothes had to be scrubbed by hand). Kip had fixed the wobbling table with a chunk of wood and everything had a clean homier feel. His cooking was a lot better too.
The father and son dived under the clean covers to find another welcome surprise. Kip had seeded the covers with rubber pouches of hot water. The covers were nice and toasty already.
Radon looked at his father with his brows raised ironically. "Say it Dad."
It had become a joke. A thing they said so often about Kip that it was almost a motto.
Taylor sighed theatrically. "I *love* that Ladyboy. Happy?"
Radon chucked. "Always happy Dad; why didn't we bring him home the first time?"
The two men shivered back to warmth as the slender Ladyboy came up the stairs with two chipped bowls of stew. The stew had mushrooms (of course) chicken flavoring, rehydrated onions and carrots, and a liberal dosage of spicing. Kip had thickened the broth with flour, and the stew was making their mouths water.
Kip handed them their bowls and casually stripped down to his underwear so he could slip under the covers between them. He kept an ace bandage wrapped around his chest during the day to stop his breasts from jiggling, and he wore a pair of tatty briefs.
The two men devoured the soup, and Kip snuggled with them. The change in him was drastic, and fantastic. He had barely a shadow of his old bruises anymore, and he had managed to put on a little weight. His muscles and body had filled out, and he was no longer the fragile frame of skin and bone that he had been.
His hair had grown long enough so that you couldn't see his scalp, and he had confessed that he wanted to grow it out, but he had cut it short because of lice.
Soon the mismatched spoons were scraping the bottom of mismatched bowls. Radon put his down on the floor near the bed with a sigh of contentment and he began wrestling playfully with Kip. Kip giggled and whammed him in the face with a pillow. Radon did the same and the force was enough to knock the giggling Ladyboy onto Taylor's lap.
Taylor picked him up and nuzzled the side of his neck, where he knew the Ladyboy was sensitive and ticklish. Kip laughed helplessly, squirming as Radon joined the onslaught. He had never laughed so hard or so long in his entire life. When they stopped he went limp, still giggling breathlessly, gasping for air and suddenly so happy that he started to cry a little.
"Taylor? Radon?"
Both men were a little startled by the tearful note in his voice.
