It had been stormy for quite a while, longer than Astaroth could ever remember. He was soaked to the bone when he finally got home that evening, but all that was easily cured by a long, hot shower. He left his water-logged jeans and his coat hanging over some chairs to dry and opted for his flannel pajama bottoms and a t-shirt instead. And a hoodie. One that didn’t fit, actually, but it was great for keeping warm. And with all that taken care of (and cold bad feet ignored, because secretly, socks were something that Astaroth just couldn’t deal with), he could settle in to his couch and eat dinner.
…oh right. Dinner. Astaroth ran a hand through his floppy wet hair. What was he going to do about dinner? It had been a long day, and honestly, there was no need to actually make dinner. (Rather, Roth just had no desire.) Huh. The blond shrugged and padded across the linoleum floor to his small fridge and pulled open the freezer door. If he was lucky, he thought ahead at some point and saved himself some leftover. Except for that fact the he rarely thought ahead when it came to little things like that and thus, had no leftovers. Of course.
Sigh.
And there weren’t any of those frozen dinners, were there? No. So with great dismay, Roth did the next best thing. Order take out. It wasn’t like Roth didn’t like take out (quite the contrary, actually), he just didn’t like putting out money when he should have just made dinner himself. Oh well. He’d have to remember that next week when Ace tried to drag him down to the bar again. (And seriously, the dives Ace frequented were not places Roth wanted to be.) With another great sigh, Roth left the small kitchen and settled himself on the couch in the small living room and flipped on the TV. Maybe there would be a good movie on, or who knew, he could really go for one of those marathon things of-
…huh?
Was that the doorbell? Roth shook himself and blinked blearily. When did he fall asleep? Why was the door- Oh. Oh! Roth leapt to his feet and trotted to the door, grabbing his wallet off the small table beside the doorframe. He buzzed the guy in and waited outside his apartment as the man came up the stairs. He gave the delivery boy his money, took his food, and decided maybe he should tip a little extra. After all, the poor sucker had to be out in the rain. Yeah, sure, he had a car or whatever, but who knew how long he was actually waiting to be buzzed in before Roth woke up.
It sure would suck to be outside on a night like this, Roth decides, slurping up a nice hot noodle. Glad he wasn’t outside, that was for sure. And he was pretty sorry for whoever was, delivery boy included. But wait. What about that…boy? The thing? The thing he gave the dream catcher to? It was outside in the rain, wasn’t it. Roth paused, looking down at his little white-and-red box. That kid was still outside and now he was sitting in here, stuffing his face on takeout. What kind of person was he, anyways?
The jerky kind. And, contrary to popular belief, he absolutely would not take after his b***h of a sister. He actually had a heart, you know? (How would he have gotten into this mess in the first place otherwise?) Roth just groaned to himself and pulled on his boots, wincing as the wet sole squelched against his bare feet and reached for his jacket. Great. The damn thing was still sopping. Well. It wasn’t like he was going to be getting any drier outside anyways. He could just run down to the place he found the kid, and if he wasn’t there (he wouldn’t be there, right? He’d have enough sense to go back home…right?), he’d come straight home. (Roth didn’t really want to consider the fact that the poor thing might still be out there.)
One run and many, many raindrops later (we’re talking hundreds, thousands of rain drops later here), Roth arrived at the place he had spent most of his afternoon and the beginning of his seemingly-endless night. And, to his not-very-great surprise, there was the kid, just where he left him…absolutely soaked.
“Hey. Hey kid!” Roth trotted to his side, brushing his hair out of his face. “Why don’t you go home, huh? The weather is terrible.” He frowned, burrowing into his coat as a gust of wind picked up. “Come on, kid. Say something.”
But there was nothing to be said. The Herald watched Roth intently, blinking slowly as he spoke. He had no where to go, and thus, would not be going anywhere. So he shrugged and shook his head.
“Oh my god. What are you, crazy?” Roth cursed mentally. He couldn’t go home and leave this kid here in good conscience. He sighed and grabbed the kids arm. “Fine. Whatever. You’re coming home with me, and tomorrow we can find out where you belong.” Because if someone was actually missing him, they’d probably be looking for him, right. “You have a name?”
The kid said nothing as Roth dragged him to his feet and began hauling him down the street. “Fine. Well. I’m going to call you…..” There was a long pause. What ‘was’ he going to call this fruity little kid? “Uh.”
Roth blinked and shook the water from his face.
“I guess I’ll just call you Micah. And I don’t care if you don’t like it. Because you can just tell me your name if you don’t and we’ll use that instead, but right now, I just want to get home. So come on!”
But Micah didn’t want to come. He pulled away and quickly returned to his post, sitting and staring at Roth. The blond groaned and shook his head. “Why? Why does this sort of thing happen to me? What is wrong with the universe, what did I ever do to deserve this?” he asked nobody in particular. Of course, nobody in particular answered, but Roth probably would have been rather frightened if someone actually had.
So he sat next Micah, whom he had just dubbed, and pulled off his coat. It was still wet, but at least it was drier than the kid. And it would keep the wind out. He draped it over the boy’s shoulders and pulled up his own hood. “Fine. We’ll wait here for another hour. And then it will be midnight, and if whatever your waiting for doesn’t show up, we’re leaving because it will be tomorrow and this is just mad.”
Well, tomorrow came and went, and nothing ever showed up. Roth decided he should probably take Micah home now. Micah decided nothing.
