Chapter Text
You have missed the bus. Of course. It is not often you are called upon to visit the offices where you technically work; as their best programmer you've been given permission to work from home. The next bus doesn't get here for another hour - God only knows why - which is how long it will take you to walk, if you hurry.
Huddling out of the wind in the bus stop, you fumble with your phone. Pulling it out, you groan in frustration. Of course! While you don't hate the cold, you could do with it never getting into the negatives. Sighing, you shove your hands in the pockets of your heavy coat and pull the mask of your hood up.
You have lived in this cold all your life and you know that despite your heavy winter coat - arguably too heavy for only the beginning of September - and thick jeans, the cold will have you if you stop moving.
You put your head down to cut the wind and trudge home. It's a path you know well. During the warmer months you walk everywhere. It's how you've decided to keep in relatively good shape considering the crap you eat and your long days of sitting and coding.
So intent upon not letting the wind freeze your eyes out of your skull are you that you don't notice the man until you walk right into him. You stumble back a step, beginning to apologize, then look up.
First, you notice the mask. Then, in a rush you register that you are face to face with a wanted criminal, a killer, a mercenary. The Reaper. He doesn't seem inclined to kill you for bumping into him, in fact he almost appears apologetic for bumping into you. Even the Reaper is just a man, you suppose.
In the next moment you are registering where you are - minutes from home - and the sounds of search coming from several blocks away. He seems to catch your eye and you can't help but notice the guns in his jacket.
Someone shouts. You grab his arm without thinking and pull him into an alley, going back out only to obscure your boot prints. God only knows why you are hit with the instinct to help a serial killer, but your instincts have served you well so far.
“I'll take you in the back way to my apartment,” you tell him. You wait, making sure you're both around the corner out of sight of the street. He steps closer and tilts your face up closer to his, gaze boring into your skull. He sees something then nods.
“Be quick about it,” he tells you and you can't help but chuckle, though the low gravel of his voice shoots through you like fire.
“Okay, but I'm not helping you clean up any bodies,” you reply just as grumpily. You watch the shock at your words wash through him with satisfaction.
You hurry. The back alleys aren't well traversed but the snow really stays on the rooftops this early in the season, leaving your passage mostly unmarked.
You stop in front of a large fence before a turn off into the main street; a maintenance alley in essence. You heave yourself up to unlatch the fence that is clearly not meant to be opened from this side. You have to pull it open but once you have a grip it slides right open and you usher the man through, relatching the gate behind you both.
This back area is lightly dusted with snow so you walk along the edges of the fence and the building. He doesn't, instead his body becomes insubstantial and he simply phazes over to the only door, somehow managing to look smug. You make a face at him and punch in the override code to allow entrance through this door if you're dumb enough to forget the door auto locks upon being closed.
You slip through into what is basically a boiler room mixed with a loading bay. Another door leads up into the main stairway of the apartment complex. Rather than start towards the door, you stomp snow off your boots and take off your coat, shaking the snow off of it. This area is colder than your apartment to be sure, but not only warmer than outside but out of the wind. He doesn't do either of those things, opting to stare at you thoughtfully instead.
“Something for you?” You snap, that intent stare making you uncomfortable. He says nothing for a moment, letting the tension stretch.
“Why did you do this?”
Again a shot of fire runs down your spine when he speaks. You shrug to mask the shudder his voice causes.
“I had a feeling.”
“A feeling,” he says skeptically. You can feel disapproval radiating off of him. Is he worried you might help a less polite murderer?
You laugh and put your hand up, you raise one finger.
“Feeling one. I startled and interested you too much for you to kill me.”
Another finger.
“You seem like you're kind of a jerk but not a total twat.”
Another.
“Last, you could have killed me and left, but you followed me, meaning one of two things. I know which I prefer but honestly I'm ready for death should you choose.”
You weren't sure what he was expecting but whatever it was, it wasn't what you had said. He is silent and unmoving for a moment, then takes his jacket off and shakes out the snow. You smile and head for the door into the stairway.
Immediately upon opening your door you are assaulted by your cat. The fool animal comes tearing down the hall and leaps up into your chest, forcing you to stumble back a step. You grumble in fake irritation, wrapping your arms around your cat and kicking the door closed.
“Hey sweetie. I wasn't gone that long. Are you out of food? Yeah, that's it isn't it,” you say into the cat's fur.
“Sit for a sec while I feed my cat,” you instruct the man. He waits patiently in the kitchenette area of your small apartment.
It's not tiny, just big enough for you, the cat, and all your computer equipment. There's a short hall separating the kitchen and living areas from your bedroom and bathroom. On the mid shelf of one of the bookcases in your room is a clear shelf with only a bowl of cat food and of water on the shelf. You pull the bag of catfood out from under your bed and refill the bowl.
You return to find him standing in front of a painting hanging in the small area between kitchenette and living area. A beautiful, stylistic piece of a person joining the two halves of the painting with a large purple shirt that flows into the starscape on the bottom half and golden hair that creates the sun of the blue sky in the top half. Over the face the word UNSTOPPABLE is painted in black calligraphy. Attached to one edge is a small, decorative pouch that contains offerings for the soul and a smudge stick. Presumably, he is staring at the painting, though you can’t see his eyes.
“Beautiful, isn't it?” You comment, apparently startling him given the tiny jerk of his shoulder. You walk up beside him and reach out, hovering a hand over the canvas carefully. “I'd be heartbroken if I lost it. It's the only piece I'm truly proud of.”
“You made this?”
“I did. For my ex’s memorial,” you reply, dropping your hand and turning away. “Want any tea?”
The sudden change in topic catches him off guard but he says nothing. There is no use forcing you to speak of something you don't wish to when it's obvious you have mostly healed. When he says nothing, you glance back at him, already putting water on to boil.
“I've got all kinds of tea. David's was having a sale and I can't say no to on sale loose leaf. I've also got a lot of hot chocolate,” you offer, pulling your favourite mug down from the cabinet. You pause with the cabinet door open, waiting.
It's been such a long time since anyone just offered him something to drink like it was nothing.
“Sure,” he says finally.
“Come see what I've got,” you say, jerking your head towards the pantry. He feels strange standing in your kitchen. Not because he's in some stranger's kitchen, but because for the first time in a long time, he feels almost human, comforted by the strange domesticity you offer. He drops a can of powdered dark chocolate mix on the counter beside the water kettle and you nod.
“What is your name?” He asks you after a long moment of awkward silence. You pull the kettle off it's heat and pour boiling water into two mugs. You stir the chocolate mix into the water and set it in front of him.
“Do you plan on knowing me long enough for it to matter?” You counter, timing the steep of your tea in silence. He frowns behind the mask, tapping the talon of one glove against the counter.
“Maybe.”
You smile crookedly, glancing at him sidelong before giving your name. He only nods thoughtfully while he watches you fish the leaves from your tea. He isn't expecting you to turn your back on him, sitting up on the bar with your tea in hand. As clearly as if you had told him, he knows you won't try to watch him, see him without the mask.
Emotion hits him so hard he almost cracks the mug as his grip instinctively tightens. He hasn't been treated with such casual respect and honest humanity for years even before his death and here is this stranger offering understanding as naturally as breathing. He pushes the mask up and savours the taste of chocolate.
He is gone when you turn to collect the now empty mug. You had expected this; you hadn't expected to wonder if he would ever return. There had been a strength in his arm when you touched him and a confidence to his straight back that reminded you how long it's been.
With a sigh to force such notions out of your mind, you put the dishes in the washer and resign yourself to a night of the coding you should have been doing instead of sitting in meetings all day.