Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Salt water kissing his calves, he shoved bladder wrack and seaweed aside, calloused hands searching their way past floating, old, broken wood, ripped nets and rope, and torn pieces of plant in various dark shades of green and brown. Slowly progressing through the scattered parts of a wrecked ship, saddle brown wool pants rolled up to his knees, bare feet on water-round stones, sack tucked under his belt, he hoped for something of value somewhere in all that garbage.

The splintered prow offered nothing. Sun heating his hunched back, he continued on, the small, rolling waves crashing onto the shore in a sound like his heartbeat. The sunlit water glittered at him, glowing faintly gold, and he took a second to regard the way the clear water played with the brown and gray and white and black rocks, how it distorted their shapes, before he picked up his search.

A fruitless endeavor; the wrack contained only glass shards, strange objects of various metals and broken wood. He grimaced, gaze tracing the razor teeth edges of the hull, and decided to try his luck for one final time and inspect what lay beneath the torn fabric of the sail. It shifted beneath his hands, slick with salt water and the memory of a storm.

The sea reached shy fingers for his knees and thighs as he heaved the thick sail and its adornment of ripped algae aside, advancing into her embrace, watching his steps. Rocks trickled out into the soft waves of bright sand, yielding beneath his feet, and he scanned it for the promising gleam of gold.

But it was not the ground that eventually lured him closer with a treacherous glint in the sun. Excitement lighting up his chest and face, he shoved the rest of the sail aside, now waist-deep in the water, pants uselessly clinging to his skin. That golden sparkle belonged to a silver locket, resting on a large piece of the hull, mostly buried under a heap of wreckage and some kind of odd black algae he didn't recognize, and he stopped to run his finger over the intricately engraved dance of moon and stars.

Delighted to have found something of such high value, he turned it around; the back read 'This too shall pass', though etched into the metal rather crudely. When he opened it, he found it empty. How strange. It had seemed a dear possession.

When he moved to take it, and it refused to follow his wishes, he figured that it must have caught on something, and, afraid to damage it, began carelessly throwing the pieces of the heap aside. Turning his head back, he checked the shore for any sign of Rafiq, but could not find him, so he brought his gaze back to the matter at hand.

He flinched back, a terrified gasp escaping his lips. The chain had not caught on anything, no, it was far worse than that.

It was still attached to the neck of its owner.

He pushed his shock aside, hurrying to touch the pale, damp skin, almost recoiling from its cold, searching for a pulse. Though he doubted the person to be alive after the might with which the ship had crashed against the black sandstone cliffs last night, he needed to assure himself that this was a corpse before riding into the village to inform of this.

Miraculously, a weak thumping pulsed through those veins, and he cursed quietly as he roughly freed the body of the rest of the wreckage. Turned out that that black algae had been hair. He shuddered and made the sign of the cross, removing a blue metal box that must have been clutched to their chest before he heaved them onto his back.

Deeming the box important to them, he took one of the two handles and hastily returned to the shore, letting the water carry some of their weight until it receded too far below his waist to be of any real help. Almost dropping them onto the sandy beach, he laid them down, discarding the box for now, and examined the damage done to them.

Though blood crusted their pale face and once neat clothes, they did not appear to have suffered any lethal injuries, and he cursed again when he leaned down to listen for their breath and there was only the faint, weak breath of someone on the brink of death. Had they gotten water into their lungs? But then they would have drowned already; what was the problem?

He repeatedly slapped their cheek, with just enough force to hopefully wake them up, kneeling beside their unmoving body, praying to God that they would open their eyes. And yet when they did, drawing in a deep, gasped breath, he flinched away from them.

"Are you alright?" he asked, frantic, pleading, worry carving a frown into his features as he looked back at those shock-widened eyes. What a stupid question. "What is it you need?" Damn his lazy self, he should have gone to investigate the shipwreck sooner, should have found them sooner.

The stranger did not speak, or react, they simply stared, their fearful eyes so terribly wide, as he attempted to read their mind in a panicked effort to avert their fate from death. Surely they were thirsty after such a long time buried under wood in the hot sun? Surely they were hungry? Hands shaking, he scrambled to loosen a flask of rainwater from his belt, his trembling fingers struggling to open it.

Only their eyes moved, any thought hidden, though their expression - without changing - became desperate at the sight of the flask. Those jarring eyes closed as he poured the water into their open mouth, only small amounts at a time, watching the weak motions of their throat as they drank. Could this be enough to save them?

Without any warning at all, their body slackened, and they did not react when he lightly shook their shoulders. Once again, cold tendrils of panic curled around his heart, but the slight heave of their chest assured him that they lived, had merely lost consciousness. He would have to carry them to his house, take care of their wounds, nurse them back to health once they awoke, because he feared that they might not survive a journey to the nearest monastery.

Returning the flask to its place on his belt, he considered them; their torn clothes would need mending, and he would need to stock up his supplies to feed another mouth. But for now, he took a deep breath and lifted their heavy body off the sand, arms protesting at the weight of thick, soaked fabric and a human being. Over a decade of hauling heavy crates had steeled his muscles, but not so much that he did not almost buckle halfway up the rough stone cliffs.

Knowing that he would not be able to hold them much longer, he hurried, nearly running up the path he had searched for himself a lifetime ago, legs and arms hurting, and yet he sped up when he had reached the top of the cliff and his house came into view. Rafiq dashed towards him the moment he spotted him, excitedly inspecting the stranger, and he winced and grimaced as he was forced to slow, treading down the tongue of land on his way to his house at the forest's edge.

Without much concern for his shoulder, he finally barged through the door, welcomed by the cool of his little house, huffing out a breath of relief as he lowered them onto the sunlit bed. Lifelessly, their head tipped away from him, arm dropping off the edge, fingers hitting the floor with a quiet thump. He told Rafiq to wait outside, then, muttering curses to himself, began a more thorough examination of their state.

"I apologize," he said to their unconscious form, "I do not mean to intrude. I merely intend to care for your injuries."

They did not react.

So he took a deep breath and began to free them of their many layers of wet fabric. The navy wool jacket with its silver buttons, the beige sheep's wool pullover, the white linen shirt, the white cotton undershirt, the shoes, and, after some hesitation, the pants, though he left them at least their undergarments, as he could not find blood on them.

The wet, bloodied clothes in a heap on the floor, he took a closer look at them, trying not to recoil at the sheer amount of dry and - most worryingly - fresh blood. He would need to change the sheets later, too. But first, he found the softest cloth he owned, brought a bucket of water from the large rainwater tank at the shed in his garden, and cleaned the blood and saltwater off their skin, cautious to touch them as few as possible.

The water in the bucket colored a bloody pink, he finally brought his attention to the wounds. It seemed that something had slashed across their back, tearing their skin in an ugly cut, and the force of it had thrown them off their feet, where something else must have hit their head and made them unconscious. The cuts and bruises on their hands must have come from that strange blue and rusted metal box they had held in their arms.

How far out on the sea had they been when the storm had hit the ship? Had they been on their way home? A business journey, perhaps? Were it not for the utter absence of valuable things in the wreck, he could have thought them a merchant, though their clothes were not fine enough for one of any significance. Were they not all bent and shattered, the strange instruments might have given him a clue to what they were.

Not that it mattered; right now, they were a stranger in need of help. He consulted his worn book on medical aid, with apprehension realizing that the wound on their back would need stitching. But he knew his way around needles well, did he not? Surely skin would not be much different from leather?

It turned out that that was true. Though the skin yielded beneath his sharp, alcohol-drenched needle, softer than leather, easier to pierce, and his heart beat quick in a far greater deal of anxiety as he left whiskey stains along and in the water-clean wound, praying that the stinging pain would not jolt them awake and interfere with his attempt at saving them. There was something grotesque about sewing their back shut as though they were merely one of Rafiq's dolls.

Relief fluttered through him when he tied a knot into the alcohol-wet thread and cut the rest off, regarding the neat but slightly bloodied seam stretching across their bone-white back, an ugly interruption in the smooth, slight ridge of their spine. He felt sorry to cause such a thing to something so pretty, but he supposed that a sewn scar would be less jarring than a poorly healed one.

Involuntarily, his gaze wandered to the clasp of the necklace, the thing whose glint had ensured that they were found. Would he tell them? That it was their empty locket that had lured him to them? That it was his greed that had saved them?

He did not know why he did it, but with the lightest touch, he brushed strands of their black, wet, unusually long hair aside, almost tenderly, to reveal the back of their neck and how the silver chain rested against it. Faint moles decorated the pale skin, and he marveled when he realized that they formed the constellation of Aries. What an intimate thing to know about someone; that their nape bore the stars.

With a slight shake of his head, he returned his attention to tending to their injuries. Washing salt water and potential dirt out of the smaller scratches, pouring drops of alcohol onto them, with considerable effort binding up the sewn wound across their back. He wished that they were awake and could sit up on their own, or that the monastery was not a day's journey away.

But he managed even with the problems presented to him, a new wave of relief flooding his heart when he finally bedded them onto their back. The obtrusively white bandages stretched across their pale chest, and as he sorted their hair from their face and neck and shoulders, he thought that he would have to feed them hearty meals for at least a month to get rid of the way their ribs rippled their skin from beneath. And surely some more sun would do them no harm.

With a sigh, he draped their arms next to their worryingly slightly stirring torso, halting when something that was not the locket gleamed in the sunlight falling in through the window. During all the trouble with their life, he had not paid attention to their hands; now he spotted a golden ring snug against their left ring finger. How odd to find a married person whose locket did not bear the memory of anyone at all.

But as curious as he was, this was not something to dwell on. And yet as he washed the blood and salt from their clothes, and as he hung them up to dry alongside his own, and as he watched Rafiq herd his little flock of sheep to a more nutritional pasture, he could not help wondering how someone like the stranger had ended up on his shore.

He told himself, again, that it did not matter, as he would care for them until they decided to leave no matter who they were. Was that not his duty? To care for a person in need like the good Samaritan had?

So he made a list of things he would need that he did not have or could not make, and he gathered his worn leather bag, hesitant to leave the stranger for even an hour. But he snaffled his mare, climbed onto her broad back, and rode into the village.

Chapter Text

The stranger did not wake for two days.

The first day, the man awoke from his makeshift bed of woolen blankets and sacks stuffed with straw, and recoiled when he saw their pale, lifeless form. They had not moved at all, and for a moment he feared that they had died; but their skin was warm under his shy touch, and their pulse thrummed along their white throat, and he imagined that their breath was less weak.

In the morning, he prayed for them, kneeling on the rough wooden floor, facing the nook in the wall that bore his shrine, and he changed the stranger's bandages and cleaned the old ones. Rafiq brought the sun with him when he opened the door, and the two of them ate in silence. Over the course of the day, they brought the chopped up pieces of the shipwreck into the barn behind the stable, and by the time the diffuse gray of the cloudy dusk came, they had sorted half of the ship into neat rows.

By the dimming light of the day, he picked a splinter from the heel of his hand, then tended to his chafed hands with a salve made of beeswax and St. John's wort oil. He lit a lantern when the light slipped away, cared for the stranger's injuries, and briefly searched his mother's book on medical aid for some sort of diagnosis of their state. He could not find any, and so he ate and mended their clothes as the night crept in.

The second day, he remembered to wear his thick leather gloves while handling the wood, and he prayed twice, once in the morning, once in the evening, for the stranger's recovery. His worry for their life lessened, as they now simply appeared to be asleep, and so he no longer checked on them every hour.

Every now and then, the sun peeked out behind the clouds, and then he stood in the calm of his little bay and let the warm light soak him. With Rafiq's help, he had brought most of the wreck into the barn by late afternoon, and his arms hurt with exhaustion. He was glad that the ship had apparently lost so much of itself out in the sea that it had barely been able to float when it had crashed against his cliffs. That the stranger had survived this could be nothing but a miracle.

In the evening, he let his gaze wander along the black sandstone edges of his bay, watching the sea lick at the rough shapes of the rock, forgetting his mind for a while. Soft waves visited the shore in a rhythm that echoed in his bones like the steady flow of his blood in his veins, and he stood and bathed in the might and vastness of the dark sea, listening to her soughing gospel, something in his chest whispering to him to heed its relentless call and disappear.

But, like every time, he turned away and slunk up the path along the cliffs, accompanied by a tender ache that almost made him return to the sandy beach and stay forever, watching the sea. Instead, he held the handle of the blue metal box the stranger had clutched tighter and exposed himself to the tearing wind that lashed over the tongue of land, whipping the tall grass and hissing through the low bushes.

That night, Rafiq curled up next to him as the wind howled and cried, and as the sea raged, and as fat raindrops pounded against the windows and onto the roof, and as thunder ripped the sky apart, and as lightning sent its bolts of flashing white. He slept better for his company, assured that his best friend was safe. And perhaps the warmth of another body beside his made the thunderstorm less threatening.

The next morning, he woke to fogged windows and a creeping cold in the crevices of his house. Worried for the stranger's health, he gingerly draped the blankets of his makeshift bed over theirs, then lit the hearth and crouched on the wolf hide before it, holding his palms to the flickering warmth of the growing fire, mindlessly watching its dancing form stretch and flirt with the wood. Soon, he would have to wander into the persisting rain to check up on his mare, and his sheep, and his fowls, and Mawja, but for now he could sit with Rafiq and enjoy the quiet morning.

With a soft sigh, he eventually heaved himself up, observing the paths of the rain pattering against the window across from the bed as he ate. Cloaked in his canvas coat, pants rolled up to the mid of his calves, feet bare, he then left his house, the ground cool beneath his soles. He took a deep breath of the rich, heavy air, that smelled so wonderfully like rain and wet soil and living things, smiling lightly as he quietly called for Rafiq to follow him.

First, they made their way to the stable, grass glistening in the dull gray light of the remnants of a spring storm, and he kept his gaze trained to the ground to avoid stepping on any of the small animals that so delighted in the moistness of rain. A large puddle numbly gleaming farther off into the meadow lured Rafiq away from the path, so he was alone when he opened the wooden door to the stable and entered its humid warmth.

His mare observed him tread down the hard-packed soil floor of the stable, but seemed only concerned with food, otherwise unharmed. His sheep ignored him, as usual, except for the three lambs that eyed him from behind their mothers, with a mixture of curiosity and fear; he stayed to watch them for a while, with their long, spindly legs and fluffy fur and cute little faces, so young and unsure, but they had their family.

He did not envy them, for this pain had grown too old and familiar to influence his heart so directly, but for a brief moment, he let himself remember how warm everything had been on those mornings after a storm, when his mother allowed him to stay cuddled up in the blankets of her bed as the smell of warm breakfast filled the house. When he crept up on her and she had pretended to scare when he hugged her, and when she had absentmindedly caressed his head while she stood at the range.

Perhaps these lambs felt the same warmth now, pressed up against the soft sides of their mothers. Or perhaps they did not feel anything at all, a mindless existence of the moment, and would never know how lucky they were.

Sighing, he returned to his task. As expected, Mawja only let him see a blink of her black-rippled gray fur among the sacks of wheat, and his fowls protested when he entered their little shack, the high chirping of the chicks fluttering through the stuffy air. The patter of the rain grew heavier as he inspected the nests, delighted to find a few eggs. Those would be a fine addition to dinner.

Back in the rain, he briefly let his gaze wander around his garden, squinting against the wind and drops of water flung at him, glad that none of his cultivated plants or trees had suffered any damage. The last oranges and their vibrant colors sat among the rich greens and browns of the garden like jewels, and he picked a few to eat while he waited for the rain to move on. Perhaps he could try his hand at painting the diamond droplets on the windows.

Rafiq joined him on his way back to his house, thoroughly wet, dirty, and happy. He slipped past the man when he opened the door, and the man smiled to himself, shutting the rain out as he closed the door behind himself. Placing the oranges and eggs onto the table, he listened to Rafiq's steps on the wooden floor, then pushed the hood off his head and turned to face the rest of the room.

His smile faded, replaced by something like disbelief. On his bed, bathed in the diffuse light falling in through the window, sat the stranger, staring at him with a terror much like the one they had worn on the beach, their hair falling over their pale shoulders in slopes of messy black silk, one hand pressed to the bandages stretching across their chest, clutching the locket. They seemed to hope to hide themself with the blankets, though frozen in shock, like a frightened rabbit.

Hesitantly, he began to open his coat, uselessly attempting to find a way to ensure them that he was no threat. "Good morning," he greeted eventually, unsure. His gaze darted to the window, then back to their ghostly form. He was not quite sure how to interact with them. "How do you feel?"

They did not speak.

"Ah, my apologies." He managed an apologetic smile. "I shall explain in a moment. Surely you are thirsty? Hungry?"

They did not react.

"Do you understand me?"

Slowly, they nodded, their hand creeping to the hems of the blankets to pull them closer to themself. Without averting their wide eyes from him, they cautiously moved closer to the wall, away from Rafiq and his curiosity.

The man called Rafiq to his side, slowly taking off his coat, avoiding quick movements like he would if he were trying not to scare an animal off, or unleash its aggression upon himself. "Yes, I suppose you will need to know why you are here to be able to relax," he muttered to himself, attempting to hold himself as harmlessly as possible.

"Your ship wrecked on my cliffs," he told them, "I found you half-dead among the remains. So I carried you here, and tended to your wounds. I am terribly sorry to have undressed you, but I fear you would have died had I not cared for that wound in your back."

"You are free to go, if you please," he added when they only shrank slightly, "I shall not force you to accept my help. I have mended your clothes-" He gestured at the neatly folded stack beside the bed. "-And saved most anything that seemed to be of importance from the wreck." He indicated the blue metal box on the table. "Though I do advise to rest, so you may recover swiftly, I shall gladly show you to the village, if that is what you wish."

The stranger relaxed at this, though not entirely, still watching him warily from their place on the bed. Despite their sickly pale skin and gaunt figure, an inexplicable beauty clung to them; a wonderful contrast of sharp and soft features, constellations of pale moles dancing across their skin, their black hair framing their face like the night sky the stars. The chain of the locket gleamed at him when they moved.

"May I offer you some water?" The fire crackled in the hearth, and in the silence that followed, the house sighed, and the rain pattered, and the flames tenderly sizzled to themselves, and the wind whispered to the stone walls. "It is clean, if that is your concern. I have drunken of it for near three decades and am in good health."

They hesitated, lightly touching their throat, before they nodded slowly. He fetched a bottle of water for them, keeping his distance, handing it to them with an outstretched arm, finding himself to shy away from them. Already, this must have been the longest interaction he had had with another person in years, and he did not quite know how to feel about that, or how to proceed.

To busy his hands while he watched them greedily gulp down the water - fairly uncaring that they spilled a few drops - he took to peeling an orange. They only stopped once to cough, flooding his chest with a new wave of worry, but soon enough they caught themself and emptied the bottle entirely. Their insatiated eyes snapped to the fruit in his hands as they lowered the glass bottle, and the hunger in those dark brown eyes was old.

He split the orange, picking the white parts off the tender flesh, again keeping his distance when he gave one half to them. They waited for him to eat a slice of his half, observing him warily, cautiously digging their fingers into the gaps between two slices of their own half. When they did eat, it was well-nigh reverently, sighing softly, eyes briefly fluttering close as bliss visited their expression.

How peculiar. He regarded them, how they treasured each slice, how they licked the sweet juice off their fingertips and lips, how they shrank when they realized that he had seen them indulge in such a simple pleasure; like a caged animal, perhaps, that had been denied joy for so long that it felt guilty for savoring it. He found himself intrigued with them, then, and their history, their character.

He picked up another orange, and hesitated. "Would you like to peel one yourself?" When they glanced between him and the orange, unsure, he tossed it to them. They caught it with a soft gasp of terror, their wedding band gleaming in the numb light, and regarded the fruit with wonder, like they could not quite believe that they really held it in their hands.

Then they looked up at him, lightly tilting their head, the wariness replaced by confusion and curiosity. Did they not know how to peel an orange? They must be from far north, then; this explained the pallor of their skin, too. How, in God's name, had they ended up at his shore?

With a kind smile, he picked up another orange and demonstrated how to pry the deep orange skin from the desired flesh, slowly so they could follow, and they watched with great interest until two more halves of the fruit lay in his palms. They translated this new knowledge into action with a surprising efficiency, and something like a smile briefly tugged at the corners of their mouth when they had freed their own halves, the unwanted parts constructing a nice heap on the blanket.

For a moment, he regarded them, glad to find them in good spirits. It would make everything easier, undoubtedly, but he thought that his delight over their apparently pleasant mood rooted in something different. Not simply compassion; something he did not know yet. Perhaps it had merely been so long since he had seen another person in a joyful sort of state that he felt especially warm.

"You must be hungry," he stated eventually, drawing their gaze back to himself. "I can offer smoked fish, fresh eggs, bread, pickled olives, butter and cheese - though I'm afraid they are made from sheep's milk - jams, and oranges, of course."

They hesitated, but nodded. Good. He did not like how thin they were, how pale; it spoke, to him, of a lack of nutrients that would slow their recovery. A matter that need be solved immediately. He brought all he had mentioned onto the table, to the silence of the mellowly crackling fire, and the softening rain, and the quiet rustle of fabric, and the creaking of the floorboards beneath his barefooted steps, and the occasional sound of something meeting the wood of the table, and then the hesitant, shying creaking of another set of steps.

He turned to find the stranger dressing, already having put on their pants and shoes, about to slip into their undershirt. "Oh," he said, and averted his gaze, "I advise not to wear too many layers just yet, I shall care for your injuries after you have eaten, if you'll allow it."

The wariness returned to their eyes as they paused mid-action, seizing him up; but they must have deemed him harmless, with his pants rolled up to his mid-calves, and his dirty, bare feet, and the sand-colored knit pullover, and the stubble of a beard he had neglected to shave, and his hair slightly messy from the wind and the hood of his coat, because they dropped the shirt and instead picked up their woolen jacket.

Cautious, they took the second stool, one he had no need for, but had never had the heart to get rid of, and sat as far away from him as the table allowed. While they surveyed the food, Rafiq got up, stretched, yawned, then trotted to the man and sat down next to him, put his head in his lap, and looked at him with his big, pleading eyes. The man chuckled and began to scratch him between his ears.

The stranger ate, and he thought to himself that they truly must have been ravenous. He had never seen someone eat so much in such little time, with such bliss, but he did not have many people to compare it to, did he?

The mystery of their origin solved itself when he noticed that the mild spices he had used to give his food some flavor apparently gave them trouble. British, then. That certainly explained how they had ended up here.

By the time they had finished eating, the rain had subsided to a mere drizzle, and the table bore considerably less food than before. He would have to make twice the amount of food, he realized, if he wanted both of them to eat well. It would be manageable, though perhaps he ought to teach them how to do all of it themself, so they could help him.

He stood up and wordlessly handed them another bottle of water, which they accepted gladly, though with a somewhat apologetic expression. Did they feel guilty for having eaten so much? He was not sure. "Are you all right to allow me to tend to your injuries?" he inquired once they had set down the now half-empty bottle, and they nodded cautiously.

As they removed their jacket, wincing, he brought two more oranges for them, at the sight of which their eyes lit up with joy and greed. 'They must have eaten very few of them, to hunger for them like this,' he thought to himself, somewhat amused. But this amusement left him when he positioned himself behind them to face his daunting task; somehow, it had been easier when they had been unconscious.

Carefully brushing their long hair over one shoulder, he inspected the bandages, breathing a sigh of relief when he found them almost entirely clean. Cautious, touching the stranger as few as possible, he took the bandages off, recoiling lightly whenever his fingertips or knuckles brushed their skin. He had not minded it as much when they had been unconscious, but now that they sat before him, tensed up, gooseflesh painted over their arms, peeling and eating oranges, he shied away from it. Strange.

Once he had uncovered their sewn wound, he discarded the bandages on the table, then opened the cabinet with his various medical supplies and retrieved the salve he had used on his hands just the other day. He showed it to them before he returned to his place behind them, much like he would introduce something new and or startling to an animal. "Beeswax and St. John's Wort," he elaborated when they gave him a wary, questioning look, "It aids the skin in healing."

When he brought the half-empty bottle of whiskey, their eyes grew wide, and they shook their head.

"The wound is not yet healed. I have sewn it, but I must disinfect it still," he insisted, "If I do not, and it inflames, all this might have been for naught."

Their eyes widened further, the fear resurfacing.

"Ah. I should have mentioned this, I suppose." He chuckled awkwardly. "Forgive me. There is a rather large cut across your back, from here-" Lightly, he touched the skin just below their right shoulder blade. "-To here." Briefly, his fingertip gingerly met their back just on the left side of the spine, barely above their waist. They froze in horror. "I believe you are lucky that your position somehow pressed it together, so that you did not lose as much blood as you might have."

"I sewed up your wound, rather neatly if I might add. I must say, it was rather fortunate you could not feel it; it would have hurt hellishly, I'm sure." He supposed that this would have been an appropriate time for an encouraging touch to their shoulder, but he could not find it in himself to do it. "Is it all right if I disinfect it now?"

They hesitated, considering, then nodded slowly. The apprehension remained as they closed their eyes, and he apologized wordlessly before he opened the bottle of whiskey and, with the soft cloth, stained the wound and the skin surrounding it with alcohol. They jolted when the alcohol made it to the small parts that had not yet closed entirely, and he winced with them.

When he was done, he tidied the cloth and the whiskey away, allowing the remnants on their skin to dry before he would apply the salve. A tremor caught the stranger's body, and he hurried himself.

Still, he hesitated, salve on the tips of his index and middle finger, hovering a short distance from their skin. With a deep breath, he made himself touch them, gently spreading the salve over the wound, watching it catch on dried blood and the thread woven through their back. He was glad for their silence, for he did not think that he would have been able to entertain a conversation.

They sighed and miraculously relaxed. Though not much, he counted this as progress; perhaps they would one day lower their guard around him, if he kept doing whatever it was he was doing. He had to admit that he was not sure about this - what was it that assured them that he was no threat? The oranges? The salve? He did not know.

As they ate the second orange, he tended to all wounds and bruises that needed his attention, then returned everything he'd used to its place. "It needs air for a while," he said when they looked at him with a question in their eyes, hand on their jacket. He stood an arm length from them, hands some distance from his abdomen as if expecting something, though he merely did not know what to do with them. "Please sit by the hearth. I can not have you catching a cough, or a fever, too."

They nodded, averting their gaze to the rest of the orange left in front of them, their thumb tracing the moon and stars of their locket. But they did not seem finished with this affair yet, so he stayed where he was as they hesitated and considered and what-not. Eventually, they briefly made eye contact with him, then rested their gaze on his hands and slowly reached out, their fingertips brushing the back of his hand.

He flinched back as though he'd been bitten. When was the last time another person had touched him? His mother's hand on his cheek before she left him?

His heartbeat raced and stumbled, and something old and hard and sharp constricted his throat, and he was twelve again, tears streaming down his face, holding her tight so she would never go, wishing she would kiss his head one last time, his young heart torn, feeling betrayed, and alone, and so, so terrified, and suffocating, and his mother had caressed his head and spoken to him, quietly, and he wished he could remember what she had told him, but it was all so hazy, and yet so unbearably clear, and-

He choked out an apology, and an excuse, and left his house.