Young Writers Society

Resh stumbled across the sidewalks of an unfamiliar, busy city- not New York, he knew that much- it wasn't as busy as that, or nearly that big, but it was perhaps even more overwhelming.

He was getting some very strange looks, which may have been due to the fact that 1, he was wearing a form fitting blue suit (very obviously a superhero costume), and 2, said suit was in tatters some places.

There was a very logical reason for all this, of course.

Resh (as SubZero, his alter ego) had been fighting a particularly nasty villain- one of the mind-game playing sort- and had been losing by far.

The moment his luck had turned around and he'd gained the upper hand, successfully grabbing the villain, a strange twisting feeling had taken over him. Everything had rushed around him, and he'd been... okay, there was no better word for it: he'd been poofed to somewhere else entirely.

Now he was desperately trying to gather his bearings again, and figure out where he was. Swimming upstream in a crowd of people was not the best way to do this, but he'd also hit his head on his landing in this city, and couldn't seem to gather a strong enough thought to get himself out.

He stopped for a moment in the middle of a sidewalk, which caused even more jostling than before. However, he was too busy patting at the side of his head to pay much though to this.

A warm trickle had been stimulating his ear, and as he pulled his hand away, it was apparent why. His fingertips came away red.

He cursed softly and dropped his hand once more, turning his head to gaze absently. He should really get that looked at, but first, he had to find a way off this sidewalk, and then figure out where he was, and then...

There was a park across the street! Resh's head cleared a little and he let out a little sigh. Perfect. He could regroup there, where he could think clearer.

Without thought, hesitation, or caution, he pushed past a few people and moved to step out into the street...

...directly into the oncoming traffic.

Working at the local bookstore had its perks. It was close to the park, and had relatively early closing hours - he could enjoy the late afternoon and early evening strolling through the towering trees and picturesque scenery, trying to forget about the endless stream of worries that were bombarding him. He needed to get new potions soon, and he needed to get Lucifer to check the enchantment on his necklace. The combination would hold for at least another week, but he was going to need more than that if he wanted to keep this lie up.

He came to a stop on the sidewalk. His face was in a book, like it always was as he departed from the bookstore, but he was aware of everything around him. It was hard not to be, after having honed his instincts over the years. So when the man that had to be cosplaying started to step out into the oncoming traffic, he didn't really think - he just reached out and pulled him back onto the sidewalk.

Maybe he pulled him a little too close. They were close enough that he could smell the man's breath, and close enough for him to see the blood trickling down the side of his head. He didn't check. He wanted to, just to see how bad the injury was. But he had always promised never to look at the statuses of strangers - or the people he knew well - so he did the next best thing.

He started pulling the man in the opposite direction of the park, towards his apartment down the street. He knew he shouldn't be bringing strangers home. But this man was injured, and he clearly needed some help if he had almost stepped out into the road.

Resh looked around blearily for a second, startled. He had been about the walk to the park- what had stopped him? Oh. He looked over- someone had grabbed him, and way starting to pull him back across the sidewalk he had been meaning to get away from only a moment before.

"H- Hey!" he finally spluttered, when he had found his voice. He attempted to dig his heels into the sidewalk, but instead tripped and had to do his best to not fall down. "What the hell are you doing? G- get off me!"

Was he being kidnapped??? Maybe someone had recognized him after all!

He tried to tug his arm away from the dark-haired man and struggled some more, but it was no use- he seemed to be intent on kidnapping him.

After a blink and the shake of his head, he did the only thing he could think of and transferred a shock of cold into man's hand. It wasn't enough to ice anything, but he hoped it would be enough that he would let go of his arm.

Some people turned when they heard the stranger's cries of protest, but none tried to interfere. He wasn't sure if he should be relieved or disappointed. He settled for a strange mix of the two. It was only when the arm he held abruptly turned cold that another emotion overtook him - surprise.

This man looked like a superhero, and he apparently had sole kind of power. The power likely would have affected someone else more, but he was used to unusual sensations.

"I'm trying to help you," Griffith said, exasperation slipping into his voice. "You're bleeding, and you almost walked out into the road when cars were coming. I don't...I don’t know who you are or what happened to you, but you need help."

He kept his voice quiet as they pulled away from the cluster of people. He didn't want to draw attention from the few people they passed, but it was nearly impossible when the angry man he had rescued was dressed like he had just come from Comic-Con.

He opened his mouth to protest, shocked that the man had had almost no reaction to the change in temperature, but then what he had said actually sunk in. A frown pulled at his mouth, and he looked over at the street.

"Cars were..." he murmured, and then shook his head aggressively to clear it. That turned out to be a bad idea- drop of blood landed on his arm, and his head spun even more.

"You don't- I don't need your help." he nearly growled, pulling his arm back once more. "I can fix this myself."

Though that was a complete bluff and he knew it, he lifted his hand and pressed it to his head, chilling and effectively slowing the blood.

"Tada- all better." he said, keeping a straight face. "You can let me go now."

In his sluggish thoughts, he was already planing out what to do next- he would have to go somewhere like a walk-in clinic, maybe. There was no way he was going to go home with a random man who had grabbed him off the street. No way.

Before said man could answer, he gave a firm nod of acknowledgement and took a step back.

Once again, he underestimated the ability of his own feet to get tangled. This simple step brought him into a violent stumble directly into the chest of the man who had rescued him.

He looked down at the man.

It was strange being so close to someone. He couldn't remember the last time someone other than those two had been this close to him. For a moment, all he could do was stare at him. He had instinctively caught him, but it was only now that he was starting to realize just how...suggestive the pose was. It made like them seem like they were something other than strangers, and maybe even something other than friends.

He hurriedly took a step back, warmth rushing to his cheeks as he helped the man get back to his feet. He could feel the eyes of everyone else on the street following them as he grabbed onto the man's arm again and brought him into a nearby empty alleyway.

He pulled him behind a dumpster. The stench was horrendous, but he didn't care. He was just happy to no longer be the center of attention.

"I'm not trying to hurt you," Griffith said. He ran his fingers through his hair - a habit that he picked up lately that was bound to make things awkward when he didn't look like this. "I really don't want a stranger in my apartment, either. But you can't go anywhere looking like you do right now, and I really wouldn't be surprised if you had a concussion."

He let go of the man's arm.

"You can try leaving, but you're not going to get far," Griffith added. He gestured back out at the street. "The only medical place here is the doctor's office, and he's going to ask a lot of uncomfortable questions if you walk in looking like that. And I don't know why you're wearing that outfit, but you can't just go wandering the streets looking like a superhero. It's not going to end well."

As much as he hated all of the contact and being pulled places, Resh had to admit that he really needed the support, and that he would have fallen face first without it. He was leaning back against the dumpster and ignoring the stench, both because he needed it to stand and he wanted to minimize how much the stranger put his hands on him.

He let out a little breath, puffing his cheeks for a moment and letting it go. Finally, he looked up at the man. The defensiveness in his eyes had faded into simple fatigue, and he responded accordingly.

The stranger was right after all, and even he wasn't stubborn enough to keep insisting that he wasn't.

"Alright." he mumbled, tugging at his suit, which was doing that annoying thing of riding up on him. "Yeah. Okay. Y- you're right. Take me to your apartment."

He gave a little tilt of his head then, and a frown, think of something.

"It doesn't make much difference I guess, but... can you at least tell me your name, first?"

His name should have been one of the first things that he mentioned, but he always forgot that people couldn't recognize him based solely on his appearance now - it was a perk of the time that had come before this that he never really put much thought into.

"It's Griffith," he said. "Griffith Sallow."

The name felt wrong coming off of his tongue, but he was beginning to grow used to lying about it.

He gave the man a small smile, grateful that he didn't have to fight him anymore. "If you don't mind me asking, what's yours?"

Resh glanced the man up and down, and a tiny sardonic smile flitted over his lips. He brought a hand to his head and ran his fingers through his tangled hair as he appraised Griffith.

"Y'know, that seems fitting." he commented. "With the look you have going on, I mean."

It was then that the follow-up question registered, and his brow knitted, unsure of which identity to give him.

He was technically SubZero right now, and he knew that stating his actual name in this situation would normally be a really dumb thing to do. However, he was in a different place now, apparently. One where superheroes didn't seem to exist. He didn't think it would hurt much to let his identity be known. Plus, he had a feeling it would be pretty weird if he gave the name SubZero, in this case.

"Uh- call me Resh. Morris. That's my last name. Morris, I mean- not Resh." he stumbled over even this basic statement, and sighed deeply. Maybe he'd hit his head even more than he'd thought.

"Oh, right." he mumbled a second later, mostly to himself. "I'd probably do better without this, too."

Carefully, he reached up and slipped off his mask, wadding it up and stuffing it into a pocket.

Resh.

He had been around for a very long time, and had been to numerous places, but that specific name was one he had never encountered. He liked the sound of it; it reminded him of a name a book's protagonist might have.

And then there was his face. Griffith tried not to focus on it for too long, but the sight of it made his now very existent heart flutter for the briefest of moments. He turned his back to Resh and ignored the warmth quickly spreading across his cheeks - he was so used to it not being there that it was easy to forget it existed.

"We're almost at my apartment," he said. Dante said his face was surprisingly expressive - he guessed it was a side effect of not being able to easily display emotions for so long.

When they finally arrived, Griffith wisely led him up through the fire escape. It was hard to tell what people would think of him if they saw Resh with him in the hallway, so he decided to ignore the anxiety-inducing possibilities and sneak up instead.

The fire escape led up to his small little porch. It wasn't hard to climb off of it, and he had the key to the door that led into the apartment itself. He hopped off of the fire escape onto the porch, then slipped inside the apartment after the key was turned in the lock.

His apartment wasn’t anything special. Just a little living room and kitchen, with a small bedroom off to the side. It probably wouldn't have looked so small if it wasn’t for the plethora of books and bookcases that filled it.

"I'll go get my first aid kit," he said. He pointed at the couch. "You can sit down there, if you want. And I'll try to find something else for you to wear."

Resh didn't have to be told twice- the walk over had been a serious struggle for him- he plopped back on the couch and closed his eyes against his now pounding head. He did manage to let out a few grunts, which may have been "yeah" or "okay".

It wasn't until Griffith had left the room that he thought to peek his eyes open and mumble a little "Thank you."

After a few moments of recuperation, he let out a breath and a little groan and sat straight again, managing to blink and look and the room a bit.

His gaze was drawn to the shelf and the plethora of books- it grew soft. For a moment, he remembered a time that he had read constantly. A little smile twitched at his lips. After a moment of reminiscing, however, he cleared his throat and stretched with his arms on his knees.

"H- hey," he called in the general direction of the bedroom, wincing as his voice cracked.

He waited a beat, and then thought better of what he was going to say, pressing his lips together.

"Um- nevermind!" he called again. He winced as he pulled himself onto his feet, and headed over to the kitchen to get himself a glass of water. He didn't want to be an invalid or be asking for things that he could do himself.

Griffith could hear Resh getting up and moving around in the next room over, but he couldn't go and check on him - he was too busy fighting his dresser. It was something he had never anticipated to be a problem when he started living like this, but clothes came at a terrible price. He needed more drawers, or needed less clothes; he never could really tell. Whatever was the best solution, he was still faced with the present problem of trying to get the clothes out of the drawer.

The first aid kit was already out on his bed. He kept that on his nightstand, just in case something went wrong. He had out a pair of jeans, socks and sneakers, but he still hadn't be able to get a shirt free.

He tugged a little harder.

It was almost there, but not quite. He tugged a little harder. Still nothing. Frowning, he pulled the hardest yet - tapping into the well of strength within him - and the shirt came free.

Along with something else.

His eyes widened in horror as his arm hit the ground with a soft thud. It looked almost fake when detached, but the twitching of his fingers suggested otherwise.

He hurriedly scooped his arm off of the ground and tried attaching it back, shoving it repeatedly up against the shoulder it had come off from. His gaze kept glancing towards the door; hopefully Resh was too busy doing things out in the other room to have heard the sound.

The arm suddenly reattached.

He let out a sigh of relief, rubbing the area it had popped off from as his body readjusted to having two arms instead of one. Then he scooped up the clothes, shut the drawer with his foot and grabbed the first aid kit before returning to the living room.

He placed the clothes down on the couch and brought the first aid kit to the counter.

All of this - though he hadn't realized it - was done incredibly quietly. If Resh had been too distracted by his current plan, whatever it was, he wouldn't have noticed that Griffith had left the room and joined him over in the kitchen.

"I found some clothes for you and got my first aid kit," he said, watching Resh as he tried to figure out what the man was doing.

Resh jumped enough to hit his arm on the counter as Griffith suddenly spoke behind him. He turned, cursing softly and nursing his wrist.

"Ow." He sucked in a breath and looked up at Griffith. "I didn't hear you come in."

He glanced, unfocused, at the clothes and first aid kit before nodding slowly.

"Oh- yeah. Uh, thanks. I was just trying to find a cup- for some water. Where?" He tilted his head, not bothering to make an effort for coherent sentences, and scooped up the clothes as an after thought, holding them to his chest.

The act of grabbing the clothes shifted his direction of thought for a moment, and he suddenly felt very suffocated in his suit. A hand pawed at his back and struggled to undo his zipper- enough so that the material wasn't so tight on his neck.

Either the concussion was worse than he thought, or Resh was very unused to being in a situation like this. He didn't know which one he'd prefer. He knew how to deal with the concussion, but it was also the one he'd have to be a little more creative with - he couldn't let Resh know his secrets, especially when they only just met.

He didn't tell Resh were the cups were. He had other things he was focusing on, and he wasn't sure if he trusted him with the glass. The only exception to his glassware was - ironically enough - a Captain Marvel souvenir cup that Dante had forced him to buy when the three of them went to the movies the month before.

He filled it up with water in the sink and turned back to Resh. After a moment of hesitation passed, he grabbed the top of the cup (straw included) and stuck it on before handing it over to him.

"Here you go," he said. He felt a wave of embarrassment wash over him when he realized Resh would probably be judging his choice in movie souvenirs, so he hurriedly added, "My friend forced me to get it when we went to see the movie - I thought it was a good cup for you to drink from, since I'm not sure how bad your injuries are."