James eagerly went inside, glad to have a roof over his head tonight and someone who cared - even if that person had been emotionally bribed into doing so. "Shall I make porridge?" The boy offered.

[cw: references to alcoholism. ok i think we got all of them now]

"It's late," Anthony said. Truth be told, he didn't really have any preference, but he just wasn't really in the mood for eating...anything, really. "don't you want to...go to sleep, or something?" A new weight had been added onto Anthony's shoulders as soon as he had arrived back home. With a sigh, he quickly set himself to gathering up all or most of the bottles that were laying around, and placing them somewhere out of sight. The subtle smell of alcohol still remained, but he couldn't do anything about that.

To James, sadly, this was a perfectly normal sight. "I can make you some food first. It's important to eat and drink water when you're drunk." He nodded to affirm his own statement.

"I'm not drunk—" Anthony started off again, but figured that there was no convincing this kid otherwise. "you know what? Sure. Do whatever you want to do." He wasn't about to question why this kid knew so much about being drunk. Not today, at least.

"Okay...." He patted Anthony's arm. "I'm gonna look after you." And he disappeared to the kitchen to look for oats.

Anthony didn't like the idea of this kid....helping him. If he's a parent he should be helping and taking care of his kid, not the other way around. But, right now, he was a bit too tired and in a bit too much pain to care about that. He kicked off his boots and sat down, trying to figure out how to nurse all his little wounds. That took priority over helping James.

James lit the stove. He couldn't find the fire poker and so he used a wooden spoon to stir up the flame. He put the spoon on the coal rack and began putting oats and water in a pan, quite unaware of how the coals started glowing. Then a cloth, nearby caught flame. "Uh oh...." James muttered when he turned around and saw the fire.

Anthony had, rather naively, trusted James entirely. He was entirely ready to just take this time alone to reflect and take care of his own damn self — at least, until he felt the subtle smell of smoke in the air. Anthony considered for a moment whether it was just a hallucination or something he was making up. And then he remembered how he had given a child free reign of his kitchen. His kitchen, a place where you could easily set multiple things on fire. "...James?" he called out, to try and make sure everything was okay. He was hoping everything was okay.

James took the pan with oats and water and poured it over the cloth and coals. The upper part of the cloth, however, was still burning, and now part of the wooden wall caught fire. "Fire!" he shouted back, when Anthony called out to him.

Oh, shit. Anthony quickly put his boots back on, and ran to the kitchen. It was painful, but it was going to be even more painful if this entire place burned down. Sure enough, there was fire. Not a lot, but more than enough to freak Anthony out. It took a moment for him to actually comprehend the fact that there was an actual fire in his house, but when he did.

"Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," he whined, immediately going off in search of some water, or actually anything he could possibly douse a fire with. It was good for him, then, that he quickly got himself some water he immediately splashed over the wall.