"Toro?" The boy was crying. Jim was unsure what to do with this new development. He had never seen a human cry before, and he was afraid that his internal structure had been damaged somehow. The boy hid under his blanket. Jim sat at the end of the bed. The blankets shivered.
"Toro, what is it?" A strange noise came from under the colourful sheet. Jim's brow furrowed. He had never heard that noise before. He mused that perhaps it was a noise only children made. "Come on lad, you cannot stay under there forever."
"Can." Jim tilted his head at the correction until he realized that it was not a correction so much as a contradiction.
"At least come out to eat something. You must be starving." Jim heated the plate of food carefully.
"Can't." A different sound this time, a sound he knew.
"Why are you coughing? Are you sick?" The sheet moved as the boy beneath it curled up and turned away from him.
"I'm not sick." Jim sighed with relief that Toro was not malfuntioning and then the confusion set in.
"Is something else wrong?" The ball under the blanket curled into itself and shook violently. Jim rested a hand where he estimated Toro's shoulder would be and blinked.
"What's happened? Did you get into a fight?" Toro peeked out from under his cocoon. There was bruising around one of his eyes. Jim recalled that humans referred to this as a 'black eye.' He wondered if they had such names for a bruise on the cheek as well.
"I didn't. I just... I wanted to fly and I tried to do what you told me but I fell out of the air." He was looking pointedly away, staring at a point on the wall as though there was something terribly interesting to be seen there.
"Toro... you're lying to me." He felt an odd sensation, as if he was choking. Toro's eyes were wet with tears still. They ran silently towards his bed. "What really happened?"
"Can I come home with you?" Jim blinked at the boy's panicked tone.
"I suppose you could, but aren't these people your family?" Jim asked. Family he certainly understood, at least well enough to get by.
"Kind of, but I... I want to stay with you." He sat up and took the plate of food. "You'd make a way better father than Pops and my real parents are gone, and they never formally adopted me, but you could! They'd probably even let you since nobody else could teach me to use fire like you or even handle me if I was on fire."
"You make a good point." Jim paused. "What about some flying lessons while I think it over so that this doesn't happen again?"
"Sure thing Pappy." Jim wondered why the boy's smile didn't look quite like the other smiles he had seen.