Chapter Text
It’s late. The skies have long since gone dark, the moon and stars blotted out by rumbling thunderclouds that send sheets of rain pattering and pounding against the roof and windows.
Ordinarily, Ccino would be upstairs in his apartment, probably in bed with a book and a mug of tea, but that isn’t the case tonight. Instead, he’s down in the kitchen making scones, because cat shenanigans were greatly time consuming and he would much rather stay up late than wake up early.
All that to say, he’s downstairs tonight, which is how he hears a strange sound from near the back door.
Did one of the cats get out? I’m sure I locked everything up, but Blue’s always been an escape artist…
Quickly, Ccino pulled his scones out of the oven and turned it off before wiping his hands on his apron and walking over to investigate.
It was only after he was standing in the dark and the rain without a flashlight that he realized this was the type of behavior that would get him killed in a horror movie, a thought that was quickly overshadowed when he caught a glimpse of movement by the dumpster. Lightning lanced across the sky, lighting up the area for a split second, just long enough to see what was hiding amongst his trash. Who, actually.
It was a skeleton, seemingly covered in their own blood and half-collapsed half-huddling in the corner between the dumpster and the wall. Soaking wet, naturally.
“Hello?” he said cautiously, slowly approaching the injured stranger in much the same way as he would a stray cat.
The stranger’s head snapped up to meet him, and they snarled, struggling to their feet and nearly slipping several times and oh, wow, that was a very large knife in his face now.
“Come any closer and I’ll make you regret it,” they hissed, but any intimidation factor was ruined by the slight gurgle behind their voice and the way both they and the truly massive knife they wielded were shaking hard enough that it was truly a wonder how the weapon hadn’t clattered to the ground by now. Clearly, this monster was very imposing… when they weren’t two steps left of meeting one of the death brothers. As they were now, though, even Ccino could probably incapacitate them with relative ease. He wouldn’t, of course, but this person had no way of knowing that.
With that in mind, Ccino slowly raised his hands in a surrendering motion, doing his best to carefully project every movement. For good measure, he slumped his posture a little, making himself look a little smaller than he really was. He took two steps back, in spite of the urge to move forward so as to catch this skeleton if they fell over. That possibility was looking more and more like an inevitability, with how much the stranger was swaying on their feet and stumbling every few seconds to regain their balance with one hand braced against the wall.
“It’s okay,” he said, barely louder than the rain, “I’m not gonna hurt you. I don’t even have any offensive magic.” When they didn’t seem convinced, he added, “I don’t have any combat knowledge, either. The closest thing I have to battle experience is wrangling cats for bathtime, ha. And- and weapons? Absolutely not, I only ever use knives to cut things like bread and fruit. Some of my regulars keep trying to convince me to at least get a bat or something, in case of burglars or whatever, but I don’t have that either. I’d only ever wanna fight someone if they went after my cats, honestly.”
You’re rambling like an idiot.
“So, uh. I’m not a threat, I swear,” he finished awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck.
After a very tense moment in which nothing changed, the skeleton lowered their knife.
“Thanks,” they said at last, as if he’d even done anything, “I’ll be out of your way by morning. Go back inside, dry yourself off, and I’ll be gone before you come back out. Honest.”
Ccino couldn’t quite suppress his expression of consternation, illuminated by another flash of lightning.
“Or,” he hedged, “you can come inside with me and get patched up. I can offer you a warm meal and some dry clothes, if you want them.”
“I’m not gonna take your stuff,” the stranger said, almost sounding offended, “just go and take care of yourself. Save your kindness for the cats, or whatever.”
That was… sort of sweet. In a stubborn, aloof kind of way.
“It’s no trouble at all,” Ccino insisted, “and I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I knew you were stuck out here in the rain, injured and alone.”
They hesitated at that, truly considering his offer now.
“Fine,” they said, “but you’re gonna let me pay you back somehow.”
Ccino decided that the matter of whether or not he was owed anything was a battle for another day. For now, he would take this victory and appreciate it.
Convincing the not-quite-stranger-anymore— his name was Cross, he learned— to let Ccino tend to his injuries had taken a lot of needling and cajoling and a little bit of guilt-tripping for good measure. I just couldn’t live with myself if your injuries got worse because you tried to take care of them on your own and I could’ve helped, he’d said, which wasn’t exactly a lie, but maybe it was a bit much to hit his new friend with the puppy dog eyes. He couldn’t bring himself to regret it, though, because it had been the thing to really hit the final nail in the coffin of his insistence.
So here they were, sitting at a table in the cafe, Ccino cringing and apologizing every two seconds as he meticulously cleaned each and every cut, shallow and otherwise.
“Dude, it’s fine,” said Cross, who hadn’t so much as grimaced the entire time.
“Sorry—” Ccino caught himself, “I mean, uh. Ugh, I can’t help it, sorry, I just hate this part. I wish wound care could just be getting straight to making them feel better, instead of having to make them feel worse at first.”
Cross huffed, fixing him with a flat look.
“It’s not your fault that that’s how it works, you know.”
“I know, I know, I just feel bad,” Ccino said anxiously, trying to ignore Cross’ look that practically screamed Really? Do you actually know?
Ccino was the most relieved one when that part of the process was done, by a significant margin.
“Only you would feel guilty for administering proper first aid,” Cross said exasperatedly, upon noticing how Ccino’s expression was still pinched.
“I’m sorry!” Ccino practically yelped, painfully aware of the irony in apologizing for feeling guilty. Once he’d finished wrapping everything up, he reached out again, hands glowing faintly green. Cross stopped him, frowning.
“Don’t do that.”
Ccino balked, “Sorry, I should’ve asked—“
“No,” Cross interrupted, “I mean you shouldn’t be doing so much for strangers. First aid is one thing, but wasting your magic? When you already have a limited amount?”
Well. That was a fair assessment, probably. He would most likely say the same thing, if their roles were reversed.
“It’s not that limited,” he argued anyway, “and healing is simple!”
“And exhausting,” Cross retorted, “you can’t sit there and honestly tell me you wouldn’t be on the verge of passing out.”
He was right. Ccino couldn’t honestly tell him that. He could dishonestly tell him that, though.
“I would be fine,” he lied through his teeth, but Cross wasn’t having it.
“You’ve done more than enough already.”
This argument was going nowhere, so Ccino sighed and dropped his hands. It wasn’t like he wanted to force Cross into accepting something he didn’t want, anyway.
“Let’s get you some dry clothes,” he said, standing and gesturing for Cross to follow.
“You don’t have to—“
“I know, but the ones I have in mind are too big for me anyway. I never wear them.”
Climbing the stairs with Cross trailing after him, he continued, “Besides, what you have on looks completely unsalvageable. Even if I could sew it back together well enough to keep it from falling apart, those stains are never coming out.”
Cross made a vaguely acknowledging noise, unable to argue.
Once they were both changed into clean, dry clothes, Ccino ushered Cross to the dining room table.
“I hope you don’t mind leftovers,” he said, passing him a bowl of vegetable soup, “I figured it would be better to not have to wait any longer than necessary.”
Cross just looked at him, clearly debating whether or not he should tell Ccino off again for being too selfless.
“No, this is great. Thank you,” he ended up saying, though it was accentuated with a rather pointed look. Ccino suddenly found his own bowl of soup to be very, very interesting.
“Anyway, I don’t have a guest room, but the couch is pretty comfortable, so you can sleep there. Is that fine with you?”
“More than fine,” Cross said quickly, “but you seriously don’t have to be doing all this.”
“But I want to,” Ccino replied, just as fast. It didn’t escape his notice how Cross hurried to look back down at his dinner, looking… guilty, almost. He didn’t say anything else, though, so Ccino didn’t press.
As he finally bade his guest goodnight and retreated to his room, the only thing left he could do was hope he’d still be there in the morning.