Today's prompts:

orange-icebreaker (Dante): the title sentence p much
myself (Spades): hiro gets a cat and tadashi is like thIS IS A BAD IDEA but they keep it anyways

"This toaster-oven... Looks like a potato." Hiro announced flatly.

Tadashi paused mid-button press, raising an eyebrow.

"Seriously. It totally does!" The younger brother insisted. "Look at it. It's all brown... And it's white on the inside... And the edges are round."

"I don't see it." Tadashi disagreed, setting the popcorn to 2 minutes.

"Just look at it!" Hiro exclaimed, flailing his tiny arms about. "It's... It's lumpy!"

"No, it isn't."

"Yes, it is! Look at the top, it's all wavy. Toaster-oven tops aren't supposed to be wavy!"

Squinting at the appliance, the elder brother shook his head. "I'm pretty sure potatoes don't have handles. Or doors. Or buttons."

"Potato batteries have buttons." Hiro proclaimed, as if this was an obvious fact known to anyone who could add two and two together.

Tadashi frowned. "I don't think they do. Why would you need buttons on a battery, anyway? It's not like you can interact with it."

Throwing his itty-bitty hands into the air out of frustration, Hiro hissed, "Interacting with you is impossible!" before stomping out of the kitchen.

The oven dinged, helpfully notifying Tadashi that its purpose had been fulfilled.

As he filled up a large bowl with the popcorn, he mused that teenagers were weird.

Another few rounds of bot fights gone hours too long, another group of back-alley slackers duped, and, to Hiro's endless frustration, another thousand sheets of rain pounded into the fibers of his hood as he continued his trudge homeward. Uneventful, sure, but the circumstances weren't exactly favorable for his health.

With a sigh, the teen brought a trembling hand to the pecks of bluish-brown promising to flourish upon his cheek. The monkey of an adult just had to lash out after getting so severely punished by the wits of some wet-nosed kid, an act that Hiro had down to a science, and so in his fury hooked worn knuckles into the dip underneath the teenager's left eye. Luckily, the lack of audience blessed Hiro with multiple exits that his short height gave him access to, allowing quick escape after a round of ducks and dodges from the enraged imbecile. Perhaps fate had decided to spare him once more. Most likely, he just needed to stop being so damn sarcastic.

The moisture soaked down into his mop of obsidian locks from the fabric above, the cold snaking its tendrils down his spine. He made an unsuccessful effort to suppress his shudder, shoulders heaving. In a futile attempt to battle the chill, the teen pulled the lapels of his hoodie tighter around him as though to make a living, breathing Hiro burrito, but in the end it only served to compress his lungs to the point of breathing difficulty. He tried to find anything to think about, anything to distract himself from his pain.

At once, Tadashi popped into his consciousness. Oh, right. He would see the bruise, wouldn't he?

The teen set to brainstorming how he could style his hair so as to hide the flourishing bruise, how to conceal the evidence that he had, in fact, gone to yet another illegal bot fight and ended up hurt because of it. A hand lilting upward to brush against his bangs, he sighed once more as he came to realize it wouldn't work. Tadashi had this... way of knowing, to put it in simple terms. Regardless, the fair mop framing his face wasn't nearly long enough to cover the wound. Great.

The wound. Already, the sting rooted itself into the flesh beneath his skin, and even though he was no doctor, Hiro could tell that he needed ice and he needed it now. Alas, all he could supply at the moment was the icy temperature of his fingers, shaking violently as he pressed them against his injury. He silently begged the cosmos to shorten the length of these blasted alleyways, to make this awkward shuffle home at least a little less of a tiresome affair, but to no avail did the buildings around him ever grant this wish. Tadashi kept surfacing in his mind, but he ceaselessly pushed the sibling away as his march through the endless slum drew agonizingly long. Was this the stars' punishment for continuing his fight streak? Did the universe take pride in his suffering? With every minute, this answer became ever the more believable.

Boy, pain sure made brooding difficult.

"Mrreow?"

Hiro stopped cold in his tracks. As he paused, balking there in his sorry state, he remained too groggy to process the muted cry from behind, deciding to discard the noise as the confused babble of his mind. Before he placed another foot forward, however, another tiny mreow? emanated from the direction of his rear.

"Hmm?" he rasped in whatever shreds of curiosity he had left. Stumbling over his own two feet, he shuffled his way around to face the sound, eyes scaling the path ahead for its source. Immediately, a small puff of grey skittered from behind a dumpster and sat itself right in front of him. Two blue orbs ogled him from behind a sheath of fur with a hint of fear, and he couldn't blame it, not really, as he likely had a scowl on that could incinerate everything within a five-mile radius.

"Hey there, little guy," he ventured. The curious blob of grey tilted its head to the side.

Deciphering its lack of movement as a distant consent, he inched forward at a snail's pace, careful to keep his gaze on the creature but away from any actual eye contact. It didn't budge, though its pupils - okay, it had eyes, not weird blue orbs - retracted sharply. Hiro extended his arms outward, gently reaching towards what appeared to be a kitten.

"Are you okay?" he ushered, now only a foot away from the fluff. It continued to eye the teen warily, silent.

At last, it let out another mewl, tiny mouth revealing the beginnings of baby teeth, and the boy's heart simply melted out of his chest. He couldn't help but to scoop up the kit, cradling the feline as though a simple touch could shatter it to pieces.

"Don't worry, it's nice and warm at home," he cooed, and the kitten's only reply was to nuzzle into the palm of his hand.

To say he was concerned would be an understatement.

No, Tadashi was in a full frenzy of sheer panic.

It would be normal for Hiro to be out late, sure, but with every glance at the analog on the wall, it told a tale of ever growing numbers of hours stretching past the geometrically erect 12 at its top. As the fretting brother dipped his head back against the wall, diverting his attention to the syncopated rabble of rain against the roof, he felt every nerve alight on fire in a way he was all too familiar with.

It was an experience that surfaced at the most odd of moments, with no warnings or signs that built up to its appearance. He could be simply skimming over notes in the lab over some takeout, or, like one time, assisting Aunt Cass in the kitchen, when all of the sudden a surreal chill would scrape against his spine and he knew that Hiro needed help. Soon, he would find himself racing to the side of his brother, and somehow his instincts would prove to be correct as, just as predicted, the boy would be dealing with a malfunctioning three dimensional printer or, on more unfortunate occasions, under assault by bullies after school. Tadashi still found himself breathing in shallow quips at the memory of a petrified Hiro, surrounded by tall, oh god, much too tall high schoolers that left the boy retracting into himself until he appeared only two inches tall under their predatory gaze. He had never seen his sibling look so punished by the world for trying to grow despite his size.

In fact, the college student would be rushing to the aid of his little sibling right then had he not been banished by Aunt Cass to the restraints of the brothers' shared bedroom, doomed for the accidental blowing up of the cafe's front walls and door. For the few regrets he slew onto his shoulders, that experiment was amongst one of them.

And so Tadashi was left boring holes into the wall across from his bed, leaning his scalp against the surface behind him and counting the droplets of rain as he awaited the return of Hiro.

Knock, knock.

"Door's open," he called out to the visitor. An elongated, chalky cry from the hinges announced their entrance, followed by a short period of heavy panting until the repeat of the noise indicated its close. Heaving once more filled the space of the room, earning a glance from the brother, only to find himself near-horrified by the sight.

It was Hiro. Hiro, reduced to a shuddering pile of soaked clothes, soaked hair, soaked everything, caught in a violent shiver as he clutched a ball of grey fluff to his chest. The teen's body wracked itself from pure lack of heat, and Tadashi found himself diving to catch his mess of a brother as he stumbled to the ground. As soon as his brother was there, the younger sibling buried himself into his embrace in an attempt to regain some semblance of warmth. A soft mreeow was muffled against his chest- wait, what?

"Hiro, are you okay?" Tadashi murmured, more to himself than to the boy. Shifting him until his head rested against his shoulder, he used his then free hand to pull back the hoodie crumpled over his face, brushing away the bangs that clung to his forehead to check for any injuries.

His heart stopped.

A grotesque-sized blob of bluish-purple exploded outwards from underneath his left eye, greens and browns dotting the mass like kaleidoscopes of a nebula. The bruise continued like tree roots into lines that snaked across his face, likely the veins underneath his skin, and eventually faded as the paths drew deeper into his flesh. The sight alone brought pain to the older brother, and from the looks of it, the wound was probably infected.

"Mreeoww," cooed the furry puff. The noise drew his attention away from the monstrosity covering his brother's face, gazing downward to see a kitten, maybe four weeks old at most, staring right back at him. Its eyes were the deepest indigo Tadashi had ever seen, its pupils retracted into thin lines under the harsh lights of the bedroom. Two ears, perfectly equilateral triangles that popped out of its skull, somehow perked up even more than they already were, and to be quite frank it was infinitely endearing to him. It followed his line of sight as he returned his focus to the sibling violently trembling in his arms.

I need to know what happened.

"Hiro," Tadashi blurted, albeit quietly. The teen's breathing was dangerously rapid, expression in a pained daze. He still, however, did his best to rotate his head enough to see his brother's face at the mention of his name.

"Wha, i..." sputtered Hiro in reply, unable to form his mouth around the words he wanted between his shallow gasps. He felt so... tired.

Tadashi flinched, ticking off the symptoms in his head. Shivering, lack of coordination, faster breathing, fatigue... Trying to avoid as much movement as possible (just in case, of course), he pressed two fingers against one of the younger's wrists, checking the pulse to see if it was elevated above normal. Indeed, it had increased rapidly, further confirming the brother's conclusion as to his sibling's prognosis.

Hypothermia. Unbelievable. And what about that massive bruise on his face?

Comfort fills many roles in a person's life.

Hiro was unaware of ever falling asleep, his trip home an erratic haze that went further out of focus the colder he got. As he huddled there in the sturdy arms of his brother, he tried to recollect the previous events that led up to... well, this.

Attempting to collect his thoughts, he figured he'd start from the beginning, roughly half-past seven that night. It started out well enough: he was probably a good number of blocks over from the cafe, buried deep within the maze that was the network of alleys littering Sanfransokyo. He knew this particular set like the back of his hand, as bot fights tended to frequent the area. In his torrent to escape from the clutches of a defeat taken too far, however, he had dashed north instead of southeast. And thus, as soon as Hiro had double, triple, quadruple checked that he had outrun his assailant, he came to realize that he registered no recognition of the graffitied walls around him.

Hiro had silently cursed to himself. He just had to screw up and get lost in the middle of the night, likely scaring his aunt and brother half to death. Why did his phone battery have to die at a time like that?

Huffing in the resolve that this was going to be a particularly long trip home, the teen set forth in what he hoped was the direction of south. Or should he go east? The crumbling cement had about as many memorable features as an egg. Hiro desired more than anything to have at least some idea of where he was; a landmark, or perhaps a street sign would be just as helpful. He wasn't sure if he could even reach a proper road from where he was.

From about that point on, the events became a bit clouded as to their order. The teen remembered his frustration at the rain, more for the unbearable cold that clung to it than the precipitation itself. At some point, in between his attempts to mull over his injuries and the less-than-eventful attempts to brainstorm how to avoid his brother discovering said injuries, a little grey fluff had quickly stolen his heart and his attention from his misery. He sheltered the stray kit from the heavenward dousing in what little protection his hoodie could offer, but then after that... his recollection could be comparable to a sports montage in terms of choppy time flow and the surreal disconnect from universal standards.

Memories gurgled to life and died just as quickly.

Spurts of vengeful car honking filled the din of his ears like cotton, fading in and out sporadically, accompanied by the pitter-patter of rain against the asphalt. An unmeasurable amount of eternity later, Hiro found himself in front of the Lucky Cat Cafe, but something about it was off - something was missing, but of what he couldn't be sure. It was like he was walking through an entrance that was a little too open, a little too far over to be the front door. Alas, before the teen could contemplate it any further, he found himself at the top of the stairs, heaving and caught in a tremor that wracked his entire body.

Why was he so tired? More importantly, why was it so hard to keep his balance?

Rooms melded into each other, one door identical to the other, and after some reprehensible stumbling his hand caught on the correct bedroom door's handle. At that point, being awake no longer paralleled awareness of reality. The cold had taken over his body completely; temperature dominated his existence. And so, finding himself in the clutches of warmth had him clinging to the heat source like a lifeline, soft kitten caught in the middle like a cat-Hamada sandwich.

Sleep captured his mind, and the memories faded all at once to comfort's role of endless darkness.

The first thing Hiro registered was a slight, warm weight on his chest.

"Mreeoowww.."

Well, that, too, but let's not get technical.

Eyelids seemingly glued together, it took the teen all of his energy just to pry them open enough to see his surroundings, and he found himself staring up into ceramic tiles. The ceiling itself gave away his location; he was in bed, lying beneath a sea of blankets that, given the caress of fabric that brushed against his forehead, covered everything except his eyes, nose, and mouth. Tilting his head down so as to bury his chin into his collarbone, he found himself gazing straight into the iridescent oceans that the kitten had for eyes.

"I'm thinking of naming him Barry. You can name him, though, since you're the one that dragged that guy in here in the first place."

Hiro flipped his head in the direction of the voice, drowning in the blankets that greeted him. As expected, there was Tadashi, hold a mug of something that was warm and tantalizingly filled with a delicious aroma, the scent worming its way across the boy's nose. The older Hamada chuckled, and Hiro couldn't help but send a glare at his amused brother.

"Glad you're finally up, bonehead. That cat near drove Mochi straight through roof." Tadashi was already assisting the younger sibling in sitting up before handing him the mug. "Poor Mochi's been hiding under my bed all day."

Hiro laughed, softer and a bit raspier than he had anticipated. "Guess Mochi's had a rough night, too, huh?"

Tadashi grinned, though his expression sobered a bit. "Speaking of which... what happened? Why were you in so late?"

Hiro made move to turn his gaze back up at the ceiling, or really anywhere that wasn't meeting eye-to-eye with his brother, but one look from Tadashi and the teen's head remained flopped against the barrage of duvet. Silence cultivated in the space between them, hungry and awaiting noise's intrusion with bated breath. Hiro could only sigh. He'd have to tell the truth, wouldn't he?

"The guy I was fighting-" no need to elaborate what kind, as it was quite obvious -"started throwing a tantrum and.. uh, hit me. I escaped quickly, though!" he reassured the older brother, whose eyes widened drastically as his sentence had progressed. "The problem was that I kind of didn't pay attention to where I escaped and..."

The teen trailed off, occupied by the ache that was resurfacing on his cheek. Tadashi shook his head; he pieced enough together to understand how Hiro had ended up the way he did, but there was still one detail that struck him as odd.

"Where'd you get the cat?" pried Tadashi, doing his best not to show how absolutely in love he was with the grey fluff. Alas, his cracking voice betrayed him. Drats.

"Oh, him?" Hiro glanced back over at the blue-eyed poof, currently curled into itself as it slumbered away in content on his chest. "I'm not sure... he ran out from behind a dumpster and kept meowing at me until I picked him up."

"...Oh," Tadashi stuttered, failing to think of anything else to add. Shouldn't he scold him for being out, or comment how he was still, in fact, participating in illegal bot fights? What about the cat? It wasn't exactly responsible of him to drag a stray animal into the house, with god knows how many pathogens and other obscenities flung in along with it. And yet, as he lamented on his lack of discipline, the overjoyed look on his brother's face as the kit padded up his chest to boop his nose with its own crumbled any remaining restraints he had against just keeping the damn thing.

"Tadashi?"

No response.

"Hey, earth to Dashi? Come in, general Fuzz!"

Oy! The older sibling snapped out of his reverie in a flash. "What's up, bonehead?"

Hiro rolled his eyes for the second time that day. "I think I thought up a name."

Tadashi grinned. "And what exactly would that be?"

A massive, almost maniacal beam lit up the teen's features. "R2D2!"

The other sibling stared aghast at his brother. Oh, god. He really was as nerdy as him.