“Where do you live?” He asked the wet, begrimed face of the surprisingly tall oldster.

The man’s face was lined and drawn from age and, Jason guessed, from whatever had befallen him. His hair was grey and scraggly, falling limply in a sodden tangle around his head. His eyes appeared glazed and unseeing, or perhaps seeing somewhere Jason couldn’t see. Concussion was a strong possibility, Jason thought, looking into the man’s eyes, which weren’t entirely tracking.

“Where do you live?” he said again, a little more urgently, giving the man a small shake.

The man’s eyes seemed to focus on his face for a moment. Perhaps he’d fallen and hit his head, Jason thought, studying the disheveled figure in front of him. The cosplay-style clothes meant he wasn’t one of the city’s many homeless, so concussion or mugging seemed the likely cause of the fellow’s condition.

“Shhcathor.” He muttered bleakly, his voice slightly slurred.

“Where?” Jason replied, not understanding what the figure before him had said.

The old face stared at him for a moment, then lost focus as he mumbled something unintelligible, his body starting to shake in cold or shock, perhaps both. Perhaps he was just a drunken bum after all. Every city had them, Jason knew, so maybe he’d stolen the fancy clothes he was wearing under the dirt-smeared coat.

“No home, huh? What about I take you to one of the homeless shelters.” He suggested.

He had a vague idea there was one a few blocks over, not that far beyond where he’d parked his car in the basement car park of his friend’s unit complex. It was handy that Joe did not have a car at the moment and didn’t mind Jason using his allocated parking spot whenever Jason needed to come into the city proper.

The fellow shook his head, then seemed to focus, but as he did so, he became agitated, muttering something. He then grabbed Jason’s arm in a surprisingly strong grip and jabbed Jason in the chest with his finger saying something Jason couldn’t understand as he did so. The language sort of sounded like Greek or maybe Jewish? What was certain was that Jason had no idea what the fellow was trying to tell him, except he didn’t seem keen on the Shelter thing.

“All right, no shelter.” And the fellow lost some of his agitation but then jabbed Jason in the chest with his finger a couple more times, accompanied by some grunting words

“Oh. No way, man, not taking you home with me!” He spluttered as he finally realized what the old man was trying to get across to him.

The man wobbled, jabbed Jason’s chest feebly a couple more times, and then the oldster’s eyes rolled up, and he slumped limply against a surprised Jason, who somehow managed to hold on to the fellow rather than dropping him on the ground.

“Oh hell,” Jason muttered, desperately holding the old fellow up.

He maneuvered himself into a position where he could get an arm around the relatively thin old man and hold him up by having him half lean against Jason. A quick glance around showed a couple of unsavory-looking types a bit further down the road, but, fortunately, they were on the other side of the street and seemed content to stay there. He found he couldn’t bring himself to abandon the old man in his current state, so Jason began hobbling up the road towards where his car was parked while supporting the old man, who sometimes helped and other times dragged, making it slow work getting his car.