emerson took a slow drag of his cigarette, the question only bringing him to look in the direction of the other man. exhaling smoke through his nose, he chuckled softly to himself before his head shook. the attempt at a crude pickup line almost went unnoticed by him, but that was due to his focus being elsewhere, as he was aware of how another individual saw him. he was seen in a way that made the muscles in his jaw tense. no matter how he clothed himself, in this case a t-shirt with a fresh set of gauze bandages around where there normally would be a branding scar in the shape of a snake, there was enough exposure to see how thin he truly was. he skipped meals more than he ate them, but despite the leanness of his skin as it stretched across his bones, there was still muscle, but it, too, was lean.
he considered his answer before he tapped his cigarette on his leg. “ i don’t eat meat. ” he responded. “ it makes me sick as a fuckin’ dog who just ate chocolate. ” he went for another drag from his cigarette before he stopped himself. “ shit can be real difficult when meat is all folks eat. so i fear i eat like a rabbit. ”
for him, curiosity was natural & human. even strays had their questions, & while silas encouraged it, he also warned against too many questions. emerson could never be that person. he had too many questions of his own to simply dismiss them or dismiss the questions of another, which is why he found himself still looking at kit, his green eyes burning a hole in him. studying & learning. then, he looked toward the dirt beyond the porch, the patches of greenery that tried to grow in places where it had once been stained red with blood. he brought his cigarette up for a second time & paused for a beat, “ was that all you wanted to ask? i ain’t an open book, but i ain’t against sharin’ things about myself, but it’d only be fair if you shared somethin’ too. ” he then took his drag.
emerson was aware that the world was rarely fair, but it was a shot in the dark with the attempt to get to know and understand kit better. more importantly, he needed to view him as something more than a potential stray. that would ease the pains of hunger that twisted in his stomach like a knife twisting in an open wound.
