Thank you to everyone who sticks around and supports this fic. These are dark times on ffn net. I appreciate the small community that has remained. Thank you my dear reviewers and loyal readers that always come back, like James Birdsong, and special thanks to NonFunctioningAdultHuman for helping me conjure up wildly inappropriate jokes (it's all them, I swear) and plotlines for this fic. I rediscovered the joy of writing thanks to you. I hope you enjoy Kai's Frozen!- moment.

Flight Risk

The cold is a fickle thing. While you experience it, it is all-encompassing, every single thought tracks back to it, but as soon as you escape it, it becomes entirely illusive, you cannot call upon the feeling no matter how hard you try. After a while you forget just how bad it can be. Despite having endured it many times before, those years out of the abbey had softened me. I might as well be a novice to it. Yuri was right, I was a cushioned rich brat. As much as I tried to tell myself that I was miserable I knew nothing of true misery. Such as this cold.

My toes were stiff to move as crystals were growing on my wet socks. It was as though spikes tearing into my flesh, which had never felt as delicate and close to shattering as now. All I wanted was to pull my toes out and rub them between my fingers. Unsure how long we would be stuck walking outside in this cold I dreaded laying eyes on whatever would be left once I did.

Once we securely had escaped the woods, we rested on a toppled tree trunk to take inventory. Who would have thought my casual interest in fashion would come in handy in a survival situation? I always packed a spare pare of boots to go with my outfit, which I ended up giving to Dad as he was less used to physical discomfort than I was. Meanwhile, I stuffed my throbbing red feet into numerous pairs of socks, hoping to create a protective layer against the snow. It would not remain dry, but the wool would at least retain some body heat.

"Thank you, Kiki, you're more of a pack leader than I am."

"Your weakness got me sent to the abbey."

That remark was unnecessary, and I knew it as soon as I said it or at the latest when I watched its impact unfold on his face. His pathetic sorrow served to enrage me. I wouldn't go as far as to say grandpa spoiled him, but he certainly grew up more pampered than me.

"Let's get going. We need to find the road." I commandeered.

He kept quiet and followed behind with his head hung low, like cattle. It likely never dawned on him that we were in a survival critical situation here. Once the street came into view, I could breathe freely again, but only after we climbed up the embankment and our feet finally touched the road, I eased on him.

Ignoring my glare, he loosened the zipper on his coat and fanned the fabric to cool himself off. Amateurs should never rely solely on their perception of their body temperature in a sub-zero space, but considering his dreadlocks were glued to his forehead like wet carpet tassels, I allowed it for a now.

"I appreciate you taking the lead, but I can help."

"You've got nothing to offer."

He pulled a face, though not one of shame. He was mocking me.

"No need to be mean when you're already right." He said proudly and walked ahead of me, towards a snow-covered sign as though to prove his value to me. Using his sleeve, he wiped away the frozen snow until letters revealed themselves.

"The Airport is 5 km out. When I booked the transporter, they told me it would fall just short of the 10 km fare. By all means its a shorter distance if we backtrack to town."

He spoke calmly, too slow for my liking, I was buzzing with adrenaline, I could not say for sure if it was due to frustration or this wicket climate.

"What's the time?"

"They stole my watch."

Running the calculation in my head, the airport seemed feasible. Even if it was a risk with the rapid nightfall. The average person could walk 4 km an hour. Halve that to account for the heavy snow. But we were in good shape and decently equipped for the weather (Dad was after I gave him the shoes and I could manage), surely, we could knock some time off that. But even by the most generous estimate, we would still miss our charter. Though the weather was bad, so they might have to hold it for departure.

"Let's go towards the airport."

"Kai. No."

"It's doable. We have no money or way of calling for help. It's our best shot. If we don't get to the airport now, we might be stuck here for days."

"And if we continue walking through the snowstorm, we might get frostbites."

It was barely a storm.

"Oh no a frostbite." I howled.

"That's no joking matter, Kai. You might lose your toes, or feet. In fact, we should take turns wearing those shoes."

That would lose us even more time.

"We need to get to the airport."

"We need to get to shelter, no matter what it is." He decided sternly.

I was a little taken aback. Until now I had taken pride in being the survival specialist, but here I was trying to lead us astray. Who would have expected Dad to be making the reasonable calls here? As much as I was fighting it, I knew he was right. In situations like this, the safe choice was always the correct one. Any ounce of greed would swiftly be punished. When another gust of icicles hit my face, I humbly resigned.

Dad fixed my scarf until it covered the tip of my nose and then we marched onwards into pure whiteness, with only faint track marks on the snow-covered road guiding us. Even those had been faded by the wind in some corners. Chills came upon me, but not from outside, it spread from inside my gut, the ensuing light-headedness made it impossible to string cohesive thoughts together. Darkness was swiftly coming upon us and soon we would be left relying purely on touch.

"Speed it up." I shouted, my voice taking on an unmanly pitch.

He laid a hand on my shoulder. "It's under control. All we need to do is follow the path."

"There is no damn path."

Thank fuck that my dad had insisted on the shorter way. We were already scrambling.

"No need to panic. We will notice that we are going off track as soon as the snow gets too deep." He spoke knowledgably.

Of course we would. Palms propped straight against my ties, I let out a few deep breaths. Something dripped off the corners of my mouth and froze into icicles. Dad rushed to my side to shield me from the elements as I was panting like a dog. At some point he even stroked my back as though I was a literal dog.

"There minor texture differences in the snow. It will be more densely compacted on the road. We can feel it, even in the dark."

Lifting his heel, he took a forceful step, then released it with a crunch.

"Did you hear that?"

I had.

"Does that make you feel better?"

It did.

"Ok, ready to keep walking, kiddo?"

We had to. The state I was in, I had to rely on him for guidance, something that only exacerbated my helplessness.

"Do you know what you are doing?"

"I am not as useless as everyone makes me out to be."

Was I really underestimating him? By all mean, he was doing well right now. Too well for it to be the first time.

"Papa, can you tell me about your childhood?"

I had never outright asked him that. Sure, he would drop stories once in a while, nothing too significant, usually just shenanigans he got into. He never spoke about what it was like to grow up with Grandpa as a father. I suppose I never bothered because I had literally been parented by him too, and therefore had equated our childhoods to be the same. But Dad was the first pancake and I the "successful" second attempt. No doubt Grandpa had tinkered with the recipe.

"I don't want to get too much into it, Kai."

"Why not?"

"I know you think I'm soft, and compared to you I am." I looked away in shame. "But there wasn't a lot of wholesomeness, so I don't look back on it too fondly."

"Was Grandpa more controlling back then?"

"Less, he wasn't present much. There was a string of caregivers I would cycle through because he sacked them for minor discretions; Or for simply reaching the point where they had shown enough resilience and been there long enough that they deserved a pay raise. His take was that kids that young don't remember anyway and they will attach to any adult to comes into the picture. That worked for a short while, once I got older it became kids that age need to man up."

"That's horrible." I said aghast. I was by no means a qualified parent but even I could tell that was a bad idea.

When he smiled softly, I pondered if I might be the only person to ever have acknowledged his pain.

"What's drawing you to Judy then? Isn't she just a female version of him?"

"Judy hasn't committed genocide." He reminded me.

"She's got a child, and she ignores him. Max knows she will work overtime on his birthday, and he expects nothing less."

"That's quite a scale below genocide."

"Well, you weren't traumatised by genocide, were you?"

"Neither were you."

Truly, that should be the part about our upbringing that disgusted us the most, yet we had fully dissociated from it.

"I guess I like Judy because she is familiar. I've always been attracted to the type that is laser-focused on something important. When she spares just a snippet of her attention for me it makes me feel like I matter as much as the work that she is doing."

How incredibly sad. It made me feel gratitude that my own childhood had been more consistent, mostly thanks to him as he made sure to shower me with affection whenever he was around. And still, I was starving. I couldn't imagine the pain he was in.

"I always give you shit." I cried, feeling the sting of guilt.

"You're allowed to." He gave me a friendly bump in my ribs.

My lower lip trembled. I better not break into hysterics now.

"No, it's not ok. You constantly reassure me, and I still do it. And it makes me feel good for a moment, but then I get mad when you don't give me a fix fast enough."

"It's okay Kai, I understand why you need it more than others. I should be sensing it and giving it to you before you have to ask, but I seem to be lacking in that skill, I'm not very attentive. Even if you yell at me, at least you make me feel wanted. Even if I don't always know what to do with it. I'm not used to people actually wanting to have me around, part of me thinks that if I get too attached, people will be repulsed."

"Pa..."

"I shouldn't be dumping this on you."

No, it was a good thing, right? Even if I could not comfort him, at least it validated my own emotions.

Nonetheless, because he was sporadically giving me the thing my grandfather was denying, I could not fully accept it without doubting its authenticity. If it was real, then why wasn't Grandpa giving it?

"I think we both need more reassurance than the average person." I concluded.

"Ironic, isn't it? All my father wanted was to raise stone-hearted robots that make emotionally unattached decisions, but we ended up the exact opposite."

That was the shameful truth. I was entirely driven by emotion, every single one of my actions was a reaction to what I was feeling. It was not possible for me to uncouple my feelings from whatever task I needed to complete and if my feelings wouldn't allow it, it wouldn't get done.

"How do we heal?" I asked. This couldn't go on forever, could it? There had to be an out.

Dad looked disappointed, though not in me. It seemed to pain him to let me down.

"I don't know, I will try to find out for you."

A bright halo encapsulated the back of his head, growing in brightness and luminosity. Headlights! Despite his protests I dashed towards the middle of the road, where the centre meridian should be, wailing my arms to flag it down. The driver showed no intent to slow down, at the last minute I had to dive into a pit of snow to avoid it. A pained cry broke the sky, Dad was calling my name, and then the sounds of metal sliding, bumping up against something, as though someone had braked really hard.

A door slammed, glass shattered, then there was animated shouting. To my own bafflement, Dad could hold his own against a beer-bellied drunk guy. But for how long? Leaving behind a silhouette in the snow, I shook the remainder off and ran up to aid him. Usually, he was the one keeping it cool in social situations, right now, he was gripping the big guy's wifebeater. The guy swung a broken vodka bottle at him, which slips his grip and shattered at his feet in a pathetic pile.

"Dad. What are you doing?"

"This careless drunk almost killed you." He said as though that answered the question.

The big guy rolled his neck to size me up, then raised a limp arm at me.

"Aren't you that kid from the Beyblade championship?"

Luck strikes at the most unexpected times. Unbelievable! All the scandals in the paper ended up doing us a favour! I was a household name now, though my name wouldn't be showered in praise.

The man agreed to give us a ride, which we accepted, despite his evident intoxication. These were dire times, I even traded my Walkman. Way at the start of our relationship, Wyatt had made me a mix tape. It was a compilation of mainstream pop punk hits, which he assumed I liked, but a romantic gesture, nonetheless. It was sweet to think he had gone through the effort of taping all these different song from his dorm radio. Took him several weeks to compile because the DJ rarely played English music. While I enjoyed Japanese lyrics no less, Wyatt was peculiar about sending the right "message".

Yes, they were all romance schlock, and I wish I had appreciated that more. Not just his choice of songs, but that time when his devotion for me was unhinged and unquestioned.

Our driver got to have the Walkman, but I kept the tape.

-x-x-x-

By the time we got to the airport we were pay past our deadline, but with a little luck we could still secure a commercial flight. Even if we only got to Moscow that would be a step closer. At least we could show the Smithwrights our intent.

What was my intent? I wasn't entirely sure. All I wanted to do was help Wyatt though I could only hope he'd let me.

Nothing would get resolved if we didn't find a ticket counter right now!

"Where do we go?" I asked, upon which Dad activated his superpower of reading Cyrillic.

"We could follow the sign that says "Mr Hiwatari"."

Indeed, there stood a man, dressed in a suit entirely inappropriate for the climate, holding up a sign with our name on it. In fact, I recognised him as one of the drivers from Wyatt's Parents' Estate.

-x-x-x-

"Are you wearing tramp shoes?" Was the first thing Mr Smithwright said to me.

"We got mugged."

He looked at us as though he was questioning the validity of that statement. To him, we probably didn't have anything worth taking.

"That's why we could not call you. Sorry." Dad said a little too casually for Mr Smithwright's liking.

He took his polished blackberry out of his suit pocket in a slick move and left us waiting a minute while he did God knows what on there.

"Heidi predicted this. She was right to insist I come pick you up."

"Quite the customer service we are getting. If it's always this consistent I'll be choosing your airline next time I book." Dad joked.

Mr Smithwright shot him an icy glare. "Let's get going and clean up this mess. Can't wait for this to be over." As he shook his head, his bangs came loose, and for a fleeting moment he looked an eery lot like Wyatt. "You spend 18 years raising these little shits and you think your job is done and they do something like that... I'm sure you can relate, Danila."

Dad who was standing behind me, protectively wrapped his arms around my chest like a papa bear. "Actually, no. I'm surprised to see you came to handle it yourself, Wyatt."

Even though by now I should be used to it, it still made me flinch whenever someone used Wyatt's name to address his dad. It technically was his name first, but in my eyes, he was appropriating it.

"Only to disown him in person."

"You are going to disown him?"

I didn't expect to lash out at him like that. I swallowed hard. Poor Bryce, this would break him.

"Let's discuss it on the plane. I'm sure it's a disappointment for you too, Kai."

Was he blaming me for taking the lid off Pandoras box? I could understand their initial reaction to Bryce's coming out, but surely, they couldn't still believe my presence was the determining factor in him leaking a sex tape.

"The only disappointment I feel is towards your parenting." I barked.

"Kai." Dad reprimanded me, he chuckled to play it off as nothing but a childish indiscretion, then tipped his head towards the runway as to remind me not to screw up our only ride out of Russia.

-x-x-x-

Mr Smithwright decided that he did not want to be interrupted by my nonsense. He rudely told me so when I asked to be briefed on his plan for Wyatt and me. His loss. Nevertheless, it enraged me, how could he be so cold in this situation? So entirely unwilling to get his son's perspective on a mishap that was entirely uncharacteristic of him? Was he not the least bit curious? How could anyone be so uninvested in his children? No, he was invested, that was the issue, he viewed his boys as literal investments without aspirations of their own.

Had any of that thinking rubbed off on my Wyatt?

This should be a lesson to not rely on others, I had counted on using intel gathered from his Dad to be of help to him, I was back to zero now. What reason could I give to validate my presence in his life? All I could do is make him feel safe, assure him I would be down to play along with whatever his father had planned. If that's what he wanted. But what if he didn't?

A hand rocked my shoulders.

"Kiki, go take a shower. It feels amazing."

It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone anymore that this wealthy family's private jet had a fully decked out bathroom, with soft towels and delicate French soap. It was pompous and gorgeous, and everything I could hope for. The showerhead was majestic, taking up a fair chunk of the ceiling. As the hot water enveloped me in a loving hug, I realised that I wasn't unloved, just cold. All my discomfort came down to one core misery.