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Turned On	By : blackwaltz0 Category: +M through R > Phantasy Star Views: 2172 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Phantasy Star, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 11
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(A/N: The song 'Danny Boy' is an Old Irish folk song about love and loss. Although the song is meant to be sung by a young woman, it is actually more traditional for a man to sing the song. That's why I thought it would be perfect to use in a shonen-ai story. I did not write it, I'm merely borrowing it for use in this fic. If you're familiar with the song then you might notice that Chaz's version is slightly different to our own Earth version. I guess some things get lost in translation, or maybe Chaz just can't remember the verses right. :x)

There was a dull thumping running through Chaz Ashley's ears. It had a beat to it, a long rhythmic pounding that reminded the boy of his own slowing heartbeat. Thud, pause. Thud, pause. If he was dying of hypothermia then that was what his heart would sound like. Chaz was still sleeping and could not properly scrutinize his own dream-thoughts, but he was curious about that sound. What was that? He could only wake up and find out.

He opened his eyes. A couple of years ago he had caught an ear infection so bad that his ear canal had bled as openly as a wound, except that it had wept pus instead of blood. Not a very charming thing to think about as one wakes up, but the dull distant thudding that Chaz could hear reminded him of that constant, painful rush of blood and sound to his head. Gods, he felt so groggy and stiff. Chaz briefly felt a bit of a phantom pain in his ear, half thinking and half dreaming about that memory.

Chaz rose from where he was lying and carefully checked on Wren. He looked to be asleep, almost peaceful-like. This would have struck Chaz as odd usually, because Wren didn't really sleep, but Chaz was only half aware of himself and was not thinking clearly. The hunter smiled at his friend but did not disturb him, clambering up onto his feet.

It was strange how innocent and handsome Wren would appear when he wasn't acting so boring and monotonous. There was so much potential in him, as the android had been beginning to show himself. Chaz wanted to be there when Wren first found something to laugh about, or something to cry over, if he could, or possibly figure out how to love and be loved in return. Silly thoughts. Romantic thoughts. Chaz's thoughts.

That would be nice. Chaz stretched, trying to flex all the stiffness away. He felt so cold and also so tired too, the rest he had taken earlier speeding up time but failing to restore his stamina. It was impossible to get a full and worthwhile sleep in the cold. He didn't know how the dezorians managed to do it. Chaz couldn't rub his arms briskly because his wrist hurt too much, and still there, not fading from his ears was the slow thudding of the dream.

It couldn't just be a dream if he heard it in his wakefulness too. Chaz looked around for the source of the sound but couldn't catch anything new, all he could see were the towering cliff walls of the tunnel, growing darker as the daylight began to fail. Geez, was it that late already? They were running out of time.

He knelt and patted Wren gently against his face to wake him up. Chaz got no results worth mentioning. The android didn't seem to want to wake up. He smelt a little bit like burnt plastic and didn't even respond when Chaz cooed; "c'mon, get up, you're gonna be late for school," to him. There was no way to check if Wren was dead or not because he didn't have a heartbeat or a pulse. He had certainly stopped breathing though, that Chaz could see, but that didn't really mean anything at all. Had Wren died in his sleep while Chaz had been snoring away?

"No wonder you wouldn't tell me about your damages, you lying bastard." He hissed through gritted teeth as he removed his hand from Wren's neck. The warmth that had been present in his body for most of the day was long gone. It was a miracle that Chaz hadn't frozen to death himself. Except that Wren hadn't really frozen to death, Chaz told himself sternly, he was only frozen on the inside. That was repairable, he hoped. Just like when the ice digger was turned off for too long. There was no difference.

But Wren was more sophisticated than the ice digger, more delicate. Thinking about all this stuff was useless, it didn't help in any way. A particularly powerful thud rattled the foundation of the platform that Chaz was standing on. He felt the vibration in the very soles of his boots. What the hell could make such a racket? The answer smacked Chaz full in the face. His eyes filled with hope. He had been thinking about that thing only seconds ago. The ice digger!

Chaz abandoned Wren where he was for the time being and ran towards the edge of the platform, dropping to his knees and peering out over the cliff. A rush of anxiety hit him out of nowhere. The last time that he had been this close to a cliff edge the unthinkable had happened. This time there would be a� how deep was it, three thousand foot drop to the bottom. Chaz didn't feel safe anymore but he looked down anyway, cradling his hurt arm against his chest.

Flakes and slivers of ice were rattled off the side of the platform each time Chaz felt the consecutive vibrations of the impact below him. Oh, please let it be a rescue, Chaz prayed as hard as he could. Please let it be Rune, Rika and Kyra in the digger. Wren's hurt, and I'm hurt and I hate this place so much�

Part of the platform beneath him shattered. Chaz flopped stomach-down on the floor and held his hands over his head, waiting for something horrible to happen, like, say, the floor right under his body disappearing. The cliff was much tougher and thicker than that however and Chaz was safe. The front of the ice digger protruded from the hole it had made, the twin drills still spinning but slowing down with time. They were letting out a high-pitched whine that was augmented by the acoustics of the cavern. Only a couple more meters and the vehicle would overbalance and tip over into the pit.

When the sound died down Chaz herd somebody sneeze. The hunter peeked out over the edge again. There was somebody crouching on the roof of the ice digger, with something that looked like a walkie-talkie pressed to his ear. Chaz had never been so relieved to see Rune in his life. The esper was rubbing his temple like he had a headache and talking confidently into the mechanical contraption. He paused for half a moment, listening, then started talking again, leaning over to check the treads on one side of the digger. He was probably telling the driver to move back as they had come to a dead end.

"Rune!" Chaz cried, his voice echoing through the tunnel.

The magician looked up immediately and spotted Chaz's pale face peering from the upper cliff. He looked startled, but the he said something hasty into his radio and then put it down. Rune stood, cupped his gloved hands around his mouth and shouted back. "You little shit, we've been looking for you everywhere! Are you dead? How are ya?" His words were rather harsh, and Rune once again looked bugged by Chaz, but he was also relieved to see that the boy was healthy enough to shout.

"I don't think I can last out here much longer! It's too cold! Can you guys bring the digger up here or should I jump?" No, Chaz suddenly thought of Wren again. He couldn't leave the android out here by himself, damaged, while he got to safety. It wouldn't be right. Besides, judging from the distance between Chaz's ledge and the digger he'd probably break another bone by jumping. "Wren's here with me but he's not moving anymore! I think there's something wrong with him!" He added.

Chaz watched Rune relay all of this information to the people inside the ice digger. He was most likely talking to Rika. He wondered how the girl would have responded to the knowledge that he was still alive. Rune listened, nodded once, he was getting pretty handy with that radio Chaz reckoned, and then he put it away and got back into a crouch once more. "We're going to come up there! It should take about half an hour! In the meantime just do whatever you can to keep warm! Run around, go nuts, whatever! Just keep your body temperature up! See you in a while!"

The ice digger kicked itself into reverse. Chaz clung onto the ground again as the platform shook with its departure. Rune must have had a death wish to ride on the roof of the machine like that, but he guessed that must have been the only effective way to search for lost bodies. The youth shuddered and stood up again, backing away from the edge. He had to do what Rune had told him to do. He had to keep himself warm.

His muscles seemed to groan in protest to that thought. Chaz felt dog tired already. It would be like those times when he had done something seriously wrong, like stealing food even when they had plenty of it at home. Alys would double his training regiment and make Chaz train until he nearly dropped from exhaustion. It had been the tough love that had worked. Now he had to do the very same thing for himself. Punishment for slitting the Xe-A-Thoul's throat, maybe. But the reason didn't matter, he just needed to move.

He scanned his surroundings carefully, wondering how many laps of the platform he could make before his leg muscles thawed out. Only one way to find out. At least his armor wouldn't weigh him down. Chaz started to run and met ample resistance with his body at first, it hurt and the snow was kind of hard to run in, but then it started to slowly get easier. His throat felt a little raw from breathing in all that super cold air but he could ignore it, focussing only on the beating of his heart.

The faster it beat the more blood that was circulating throughout his body, and that meant more warmth. After ten minutes Chaz's body was tingling all over and that was good, for that meant he was gaining some feeling back once more. He thought of the ice digger burrowing through the ice beneath him like a giant steel behemoth-mole. Hopefully Rune had climbed inside again before Rika had started to drill. A piece of ice-shrapnel to the head would equal an instant lobotomy. Poor Rune. He sniggered a bit at the thought.

Chaz stopped and jogged on the spot for a couple of minutes. It was working, but he certainly hoped that he wouldn't have to fight any big bosses for awhile. He'd be too sore for that. The shadows were lengthening now, it was no longer daytime. He had entered into a dark kind of twilight that was curtained by the tall tunnel and Dezoris' storm. Chaz's breath came out in cloudy puffs around his face. He wished that he had somebody else to talk to. It was lonely here by himself.

Wren had not moved since Chaz had awoken. He could kind of see now why Raja had mistaken him for a life-sized doll when the dezorian had first met him. There wasn't really much of a difference now. The youth wondered when Wren was deactivated if he entered a state of consciousness that was akin to palman sleep, or if that part of him just ceased to exist, leaving only an empty shell behind. A temporary death. No wondered the android seemed to prefer staying up all night rather than having to go through that. "Wren� just another machine." Chaz said quietly, standing still.

There was another great pounding thud, this time coming from much closer by. The ice digger was trying to break though that final wall of ice. It also sort of sounded like Rika wasn't using the drills properly, like she was smashing rather than breaking. Still, she would be doing a far better job than anybody else considering she hadn't known how to drive it in the first place. Chaz felt vulnerable standing out in the open like that so he ran over to his unresponsive friend and crouched beside him, unsure whether he was using Wren as a shield or if he was getting close to him because it made him feel safer.

Thud! That was all it took. The ice digger burst onto the scene. The sound was calamitous. Chaz was ashamed to discover that he cried out a little in fear of the sound. Actually, something that Chaz hadn't thought about was exactly where the ice digger would choose to appear. It could have run both him and Wren over, but they had been pretty lucky as it had appeared far off to their left. Fragments of crushed ice fell off its hull as it vibrated and lulled to a stop. The drills slowed down too. Chaz smiled in relief and staggered back out into the open again. This was their rescue.

The door slid open and the digger's ramp extended from the hull. Rika was in the doorway but seemed too impatient for the ramp to straighten itself out. She jumped straight from the doorway instead. It didn't seem like Rika had any limit to her grace. She landed splendidly and hugged the blanket she was carrying in one arm to her side. It was baby blue and white with dezo penguin print, Rika's blanket that she had bought during their first visit to Zosa and could not be separated from it. "You're safe!" Chaz called out to her, feeling like he would tear up at any moment.

"Chaz." Rika said as she caught up to him, standing only a foot or two away from her leader. The numan girl didn't say anything else except for his name, and really that was enough. She gathered up her blanket and self-consciously wrapped it around the hunter, turning it into a funny looking cloak. The blanket was fluffy, soft and oh so warm. Chaz's attention was diverted from its warmth as Rika pressed herself up against his front, offering herself up for a hug. He wrapped his arms around her gladly. Gods, she must have been so worried. "Chaz." Rika repeated, but now she sounded happy.

"I'm fine. Really, I am." Chaz reassured her soothingly, trying to mind his broken wrist and hug her at the same time. When he had fallen he didn't think he'd ever be able to touch Rika again. He smiled and gently tightened his hold on her slender waist. "I'm so glad to be alive." He admitted honestly, smelling her bright pink hair. It smelt of travel, so many miles of travel, and a little hint of snow blossoms. Maybe this was the time to tell her how he felt.

He was about to open his mouth and do just that when somebody sneezed very loudly behind them. Sounded like Rune. The blue-haired Lutz seemed to be catching a cold. He appeared and Rika bashfully pulled away from Chaz, the barest traces of a blush on her face. Rune's damned sneeze had ruined the moment. That was just like the magician. He thumped Chaz hard on the shoulder and smirked at him. "I guess you're a lot tougher than I thought you were. Get into the ice digger, it's warmer in there."

"But what about Wren?" The young hunter protested, turning towards the deactivated android. Kyra was already standing over him and looking at him like he was a rare kind of specimen. Chaz was worried about his friend, but that offer of warmth was looking mighty fine right about now�

Kyra straightened up and showed the item she held to Chaz, grinning in an overly zealous way. "Don't fret, I already brought a repair kit out here. Rika can look at him while you're inside. I'm gonna help. You and Rune need to take it easy now." Kyra's eyes practically sparkled as she continued. "You should have seen how hard Rune worked to find you guys! He had to scout out and climb through new places before we could drill on. He was out in the cold for hours on end! You should thank him."

Rune didn't seem too impressed at having his exploits repeated back to him. Perhaps experiencing it once was enough. Chaz would thank him later in private. The esper touched the boy on the shoulder lightly where he had previously thumped him. "C'mon, I'll make you some cocoa." He said.

Chaz looked a little stunned. Having Rune offer to do something like that for him was even less likely than falling in love with Wren. The only way Chaz could explain it was that it was Rune's way of saying he was glad to see that Chaz was not dead. But he had to decline that invitation. He was just too concerned about his friend. "I'm not going anywhere until I find out what's wrong with Wren." He announced, hating himself for sounded like so spoilt.

Rika was already beginning that task, opening up the repair kit that Kyra had handed to her. She looked at Chaz in a manner that melted his heart, lifting a strange tool out of the kit. "Please go with Rune. I'll come and get you as soon as I figure out what's wrong with him. Promise."

He could say no to Rune, but he couldn't say no to Rika. It was like a force prevented him. He could trust Wren with Rika anyway; she knew what she was doing. This wasn't the first time that Wren had broken down after all, it was just more severe than the other times and hit him closer to his heart. As time went by Wren just seemed to sneak nearer and nearer to the place in his heart where Rika needed to be. It was just like that old fairy tale from long ago, the one about the tortoise and the hare. It didn't take a genius to figure out who had become who.

The reverent Lutz took Chaz by the hand (thankfully the unbroken one) and started to pull him towards the ice digger. He was not going to hang out in the cold for one second longer. Chaz allowed himself to be pulled and led up the ramp into the blissful heat of the digger like an obedient child. Now he just wanted to sit down, drink something warm and then sleep forever. Rune's thoughts were pretty much the same. One thing was certain, there was no way in hell they were getting to Meese today.

He nearly tripped over the bird's nest that somebody had for some reason dragged inside the machine. It wasn't the entire nest, as that would have been too big to fit inside the doorway, but it was a sizable fragment of it just left lying on the floor. Rune said something about free kindling as he disappeared into the storage bunker to get the portable hot plate and ingredients for the cocoa. Chaz slumped down onto a seat and wrapped Rika's blanket more tightly about himself. It felt nice to forget about things and just have to others do everything for him. He was glad he had such great friends.

"I guess the question we're all asking ourselves is how the heck you managed to survive." Rune called out from the bunker room. The ice digger had a rather small interior so Rune didn't have to shout. There were a couple of minutes of silence that Chaz did not fill in so Rune elaborated a little. "Care to tell us how you did it?" He pressed.

Chaz was watching Kyra and Rika working on Wren from the side windscreen of the vehicle. It was dark, so he couldn't see much, but looked like they were carefully taking Wren apart from the inside. Whatever had broken in him was somewhere in his body, way down deep. Kyra was creating a bit of light for Rika to work under using one of her esper abilities. Chaz fancied that he would have liked to help them, but he also didn't want to move anymore. "Uh, I don't really know. I think I used a technique to stop myself from falling so fast. The rest is kind of blurry."

"Well yeah, I already assumed that. What I meant was how you survived in below freezing temperatures for five hours by yourself? I didn't think you Motavian palmans knew how to do that. Dezorian palmans don't even know how to do that!" Rune reappeared with two steaming mugs of drink and handed one to Chaz. The chipped white enamel was hot to the touch. Chaz warmed his hands on it gratefully. The magician sat down beside the boy. "You got a tech none of us know about yet?"

The youth looked down into his drink and blushed a bit. They had all saved each other's lives countless times but what the android had done for him was different to those rescues in combat. It was more personal to him and he couldn't tell Rune about it. The esper just wouldn't understand, but he had to give some kind of excuse for his survival. "Wren saved me. He treated my wound and wouldn't let the cold get to me. I still kind of broke my wrist though. When he stopped working I just had to fend for myself. Then you guys came along." He had to omit and distort some details, but overall the explanation sounded pretty good.

Rune had a short, private moment of thought. He didn't know whether to tell Chaz about his great importance to Algo yet. He knew that when the time was right he should tell him everything, but was this the right time? No, it didn't really feel like it, but Rune had to tell Chaz something to remind him of his leadership. Pointing the boy in the right direction was a tiring task, he wondered how Alys had done it so well. "You're not supposed to die here. Keep surviving and fighting, because this party needs its leader and that happens to be you."

Taking a sip of his drink Chaz looked amused. It wasn't often that Rune talked to him without being mean at some point. "Why me?" He asked. "Why does it have to be me? Why am I the leader?"

The Lutz reached over and poked Chaz on his silly little button nose. "Because you're the only swordsman we have, that's why!" He announced with an arrogant smirk. Chaz looked surprised then shoved Rune's arm away, annoyed. He totally forgot about his hurt wrist and gasped sharply as he used it. Pain erupted from the bone anew. The hunter shot Rune a filthy look that did not harm the esper at all.

The door of the digger opened and Kyra popped her head inside. She appeared to be pretty cheerful, noticing Rune's smug face and Chaz's withering expression that was directed at him. "We've figured out what's wrong with Wren. Rika says he's fixable, but I need a torch or something because I can't keep conjuring light forever. We also need that kindling, somebody who can cast a good foi technique and some spare blankets." The girl now seemed apologetic. "Rune? I know you're supposed to be resting but can we borrow you for a bit?"

She got a groan as a reply but Rune got up anyway, putting his drink to the side. An esper's work was never done. Chaz was just glad to know that Wren was going to be okay again. He stood up too, wanting to help as well. The two espers moved closer together and bent to pick up the kindling, moving it outside. Chaz couldn't help them with that but he could at least go and find those extra blankets. He went to the storage bunker and edged around the mess Rune had made while preparing the drinks, searching single-handedly until he found some decent-looking blankets packed away behind some cases of dried rations.

Chaz crammed them under one arm and took a torch from off the top of the tool shelf. He had to stretch pretty far to reach it. When he turned the torch on with the flick of his thumb the light didn't come on, but the batteries had only recently been charged so he knew that the tool was not out of power. He tapped it against the side of his leg a couple of times and the light clicked on faithfully. Satisfied, Chaz crept out of the warm ice digger and went back into the cold again.

It was a physical shock to feel the temperature drop so suddenly. He descended down the ramp to the ground and walked towards the place where he had left Wren earlier. Rika was putting him back together again while Kyra and Rune bickered over the best place to leave the kindling. For a moment Chaz felt like a stranger walking into the midst of some crucial operation. He shined the torch in Rika's general vicinity, hoping to give her some light to work by. "So what's wrong with him?" Chaz asked softly, remarking to himself how the torchlight and the shadows made Rika look wiser, and stronger.

Rika spoke like a professional surgeon, or like a mechanic who was about to hit Chaz with a hefty bill. "I think the fall disconnected his regulator from his heating system. Without it the system ran unchecked and eventually burned itself out. The regulator just had to be reattached but the parts that got wrecked had to be replaced. Luckily the repair kit had spares of those parts in it." The numan girl turned to him and smiled, but then held a hand over her eyes as Chaz was shining the torch right at her. The youth pointed the beam of light at the ground and Rika relaxed.

"So he'll just wake up by himself now?" Chaz looked hopeful.

It was strange how Chaz seemed to have more life in his body when it came to the subject of Wren. He was looking a little healthier now that he had spent a bit of time in the ice digger with Rune. The girl held up a chunk of charred metal that she had removed from the android's body, like it was the thorn that had been plucked from the lion's paw. "Well, yes and no. Without his heating system working for so long in such a low temperature Wren has sort of frozen up. We have to thaw him out so he'll awaken and activate his renewed system on his own. That's what the blankets and kindling are for."

The two espers in the background appeared to have compromised on a location for a fire. Rune raised his hand and threw a foi technique into the kindling, the mass of twigs and dried leaves immediately bursting into flames. Rika pressed the back of her hand to Wren's forehead as if she were checking his temperature. She probably was. Chaz admired her then for her resourcefulness, for driving the digger on her own and repairing Wren's broken body. "You're very smart, Rika." He stated with respect.

In the shadows Chaz did not see Rika blush. She had been praised by many people but with Chaz it was� special. "That's enough." She demurred, self-conscious. "You brought some blankets, didn't you? Spread them over Wren so he'll stay warm. Then we should all go into the digger where it is safe."

Taking the blankets out from under his hurt arm Chaz accidentally dropped one while he fumbled with the other. Simple tasks were a dozen times harder to accomplish with only one workable hand. Rika saw the pain that Chaz was experiencing and rose, walking over to her friend. As gently as she could she took Chaz's broken wrist. It looked inflamed and very swollen. The numan didn't even need an X-ray to see how the bone had broken. "Rika�" Chaz whispered as he allowed the girl to tenderly touch the injury.

She used her gires technique on the wound. It felt like Rika had gotten even better at using that ability since last she had treated him. Warmth flared up in his wrist for one breathtaking moment and there was a brief sparkle of light. Chaz experienced a bizarre bonding sensation inside his wrist, all the pain draining away. The swelling and the inflammation had yet to fade but that didn't matter; the bone had mended. Chaz smiled widely and twisted his wrist in nearly a full circle. There was barely any pain. "Thank you!" He cried with all the gratitude he could muster.

Smiling prettily Rika only knelt and picked up the blanket Chaz had dropped. It was a dull green, standard army issue by the looks of it. She straightened the cloth out and draped it over Wren's immobile body. Chaz followed her example with the one that he also was holding. He could make a silly joke about having to tuck the big android into bed at night but Chaz yawned instead. It was contagious, Rune ended up yawning too. Kyra was practically leaning against the Lutz because she was so tired, her previous energy spent.

Rika gazed at the three professional warriors who were looking about as threatening as a trio of six year olds trying to stay up past their bedtime. The sun had barely set but these guys looked done-in for the night.

She led them, like the sleepyheads they were, back to the ice digger.

��

Life wasn't fair. The most horrible twist of fate for that entire day occurred not long after Chaz had found himself safe and sound. When everybody had finally retired for the night and had stumbled off to their own respective bunkers, Chaz found that he couldn't sleep.

He had hunkered down on one of the two long blue couches in the bridge area, all wrapped up in Rika's dezo penguin print blanket. It was great to lie there surrounded by something that smelt so much like the woman that he loved, but he still couldn't sleep. It was enough to want to make Chaz cry out of frustration. He had been tossing and turning for hours, listening to his friends snoring in the other rooms. The swelling in his wrist had gone down a lot but Chaz didn't care about that. He just wanted to sleep, to enter the calm oblivion that would grant him the next day.

He recognized the symptoms. This was exactly the way he had felt last night while waiting for Wren to come back to the inn. Maybe a part of him was too worried about the android outside and unconscious by the fire to sleep. Damn that infuriating Wren, and damn his own subconscious for thinking in that way. Well, he thought to himself as he sat up and ran a hand through his messy blond hair, so much for me sleeping tonight.

Chaz stood and stretched, rolling his shoulders to work the tension out of them. He picked up Rika's blanket and walked through the dim interior of the vehicle to her bunker, not bothering to knock. He may not have been able to sleep but that did not mean he was a hundred percent awake either. He was not quite sure what he would see in there, all that had occurred to him was that he should return the blanket he had borrowed from her. She would be sleeping without one.

He eased the door open and a small slitted window from Rika's bunker shed a little light within the shadowed room. The girl had not become used to sleeping in a hammock like the rest of them and had adapted herself to sleeping on the floor instead. She was curled up on a thin foam mattress like a cat, using her hands as a pillow. Rika was wearing purple flannel pajamas. They looked so adorable on her. She was beautiful.

Instead of fawning over her like Chaz would have done a week ago the boy tiptoed over to her quietly and got down on his knees, carefully covering her with the blanket he had borrowed. Even inside the digger it still was a little too cold to sleep without one. Rika sighed and rolled over unexpectedly, some of her bright pink hair fanning out around her face. She didn't stir any more than that. Chaz was tempted to give her a tiny kiss goodnight but decided against it. If she woke up while he was kissing her there would be no way for him to explain it, other than the truth, that he loved her. He just couldn't say that to her face.

He had better leave before she woke up anyway. Chaz was done here for the night. Without making a sound he sneaked out and closed the door behind him, chancing one last peek before he did so. It was a shame that Rika didn't sleep in the nude, but Chaz turned bright red for even thinking such a thing. It was impractical anyway, Dezoris was too cold. On Motavia, however�

Chaz was already walking back to the bridge. He didn't know what he was going to do with the rest of the night but the hind part of his mind had already figured that out for him. Like a sleepwalker Chaz went to the doorway of the vehicle and opened it with a touch of his fingertips to the control panel. The ramp extended out and a rush of cold air swept into the ice digger, but Chaz had slipped out already with the speed and stealth of a thief on duty, closing the door as fast as he could. All was darkness around him, save for a little patch of light up ahead that was forged by a burning fire. The gulf between Chaz and the light seemed infinite.

He raised the torch that he had brought with him and turned it on. This time it didn't require any rattling to make the light appear. Chaz used it to navigate down the steps of the ramp and then through the cold clinging snow on the ground. It was so chilly, but that didn't stop Chaz from reaching his destination. Wren. The silly android that he cared about too much to let him rest.

Wren still looked asleep. There wasn't any way for Chaz to tell how much progress had been made in the thawing-out process apart from finding some way to get inside him. Chaz's heart softened as he gazed upon his friend. It was like he couldn't remain angry or annoyed around him anymore. It was the same when he was around Rika. Chaz clicked his torch off. The light and warmth from the fire was enough for him. "Hi Wren, can I sleep with you tonight? I'll take your silence for a yes."

And he got what he was expecting, silence. Chaz grinned and tossed his torch to the side. The young hunter moved towards his friend and crawled under the blankets with him, a little surprised at how warm it was under there. He was trying to find the comfortable spot he had snuggled with Wren earlier in the day and eventually he found it, much to Chaz's delight. He supposed that it was stupid to want to find comfort with a person who wasn't really a person at all, but as long as Wren made Chaz feel better who really cared about that?

Besides, he was paying Wren back for the warmth that he had given the youth previously. It had saved Chaz's life and now Wren needed the very same thing to get his own life back. Chaz wasn't necessary for this to happen but it would speed the process up quite a bit. He pressed his head against Wren's chest plate and sung himself a song to help him sleep. Now that he had no parents and no mentors to do it for him he had to sing to himself.

"Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling,

from glen to glen, and down the mountain side

The summer's gone, and all the roses falling,

'tis you must go, 'tis you must go and I must bide.

But come ye back when summer's in the meadow,

or when the valley's hushed and white with snow

'Tis I'll be there in sunshine or in shadow,

oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so.

But if you come, and all the flowers are dying,

if I am dead, as dead I might well be

you'll come and find the place where I am lying,

and kneel and say an 'Ave' there for me.

And I shall hear, though soft you tread above me,

and my grave shall warm and sweeter be

If you will bend and tell me that you love me,

then I will sleep in peace until you come to me."

Maybe his mother had sung it to him long ago. Chaz didn't even remember where he had first heard it, but it calmed his fears and helped him to sleep better at night, almost like a charm against the darkness and its fears. He had taught it to Alys when he was a child and she had sung it to him sometimes, in that low and strong voice that she had. This tune, it was all that he had left from his past. Chaz relaxed, on the very verge of sleep.

"I like that song." Wren said.

Chaz looked up. Wren was smiling down at him. It was one of those special smiles that made Chaz wonder if there was something more to Wren than what met the eye. He put his hand on Chaz's shoulder as the boy was about to speak and hushed him. "Shh. Go to sleep. You look exhausted. We can speak in the morning."

Suddenly Chaz felt like crying. Out of relief, but also out of Wren's kindness to let the boy stay with him. He nodded one short 'yeah' and rested against his friend again, closing his eyes.

Less than five minutes later the both of them were asleep.
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