Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Uno took great pride in his unerring intuition. His hunches were always correct. Usually that was a good thing.

Today though, he wished he’d been wrong about the terrible turn the weather would take.

Uno and Nico huddled in the relative shelter of a bus stop, one little umbrella propped in front of their shivering forms. When they’d gotten here, the wind was blowing against the back of the structure, but the wind wasn’t satisfied to blow in one direction, and within minutes the bitterly cold gale was whipping right into their face.

The tall gambler groaned and pulled his knees up against his chest. “Geez, this is awful. It’s barely September. Since when do we get sleet in September?”

“Rock says t…t…the weather is just c...c...c…crazy around here,” Nico murmured, teeth chattering noisily.

“Crazy is right. It was 65 degrees a few days ago!” Uno hunched himself down lower as another gust of wind attacked them head-on, blowing icy rain into the shelter. He considered himself the most cheerful of the bunch – well, maybe except for Nico – but this was more than he could laugh off. He was wet, cold, tired, hungry, and annoyed with Rock’s blunder that had started this whole mess. Honestly, if it wasn’t for him and that guy who’d called the cops, they would be in a nice, dry home by now, maybe watching some TV or playing a quick hand before going to sleep.

He sighed and tilted his head up, gazing through the smudged plastic at the stubborn gray clouds milling overhead. It didn’t look like the storm was going to let up anytime soon, and while he hated the idea of staying here any longer, he wasn’t quite ready to go out into THAT without a good raincoat.

Which, conveniently, was on Jyugo at the moment, wherever he and Rock were.

Splitting up had seemed like a good idea at the time. But only now did Uno realize that Rock had their funds, Uno’s new shoes, and their dinner – or did he drop the bag of takeout when they’d started running? Maybe. Knowing Rock, he might go back to pick it up. Anyways, those two had all the important things!

Count your blessings, Uno. They have all that…and a raincoat…but you’ve got an umbrella and the kid’s meds, which is…pretty good?

Uno glanced over at the young otaku and was immediately concerned. It was difficult to tell, Nico’s skin being so dark, but he looked like he was freezing.

“You okay, Nico?”

Nico kept his thin body hunched in his equally thin clothes, shivering hard, and didn’t look up at Uno. “I’m really cold…” he got out between oddly-colored lips.

“No kidding.” Uno frowned with worry. Considering that his own ears felt ready to turn to ice and drop off, he could only imagine how the cold was affecting the sickly teen.

As frozen as he was, seeing Nico like that awoke old, old memories. Back in the day, he’d been just as bad off. It was like looking into a mirror, kinda. Didn’t seem like that long ago that he was just an underweight kid shivering in the house his father never remembered to heat up.

He’d have given a lot, during those dark nights, to know that there was somebody who cared about him…

Uno shrugged off his jacket, exposing his tattooed skin to the unforgiving wind, and wrapped the jacket around Nico’s trembling shoulders.

“Put this on. It’s warm.”

Nico looked up at him with surprise in his one exposed eye. “Oh…t…t…thanks! Won’t you be c…cold, though?” He asked, already drawing the oversized clothing over himself.

“Ehh, it’s not too bad,” Uno lied with a smile, like he always did. In reality, he was already chilled to the bone. “You need it more than I do. Anyways, I think the storm’s letting up.”

“That’s good.” Nico shuffled his arms deep into the too-long sleeves and ducked his head down so only a little of his green hair peeked out under the cloth, like a pineapple’s top. Uno leaned back against the glass, shifting the umbrella to his other hand, chuckling at the comparison between Nico and a pineapple.

“What’s funny, Uno-kun?”

“Ah, I just thought of something weird, that’s all.” He smiled and watched the wind whip a little decorative tree forward and backward and waited for the deluge to die down.

“Yes, the rain stopped! Let’s go, Nico. I think we only have 5 minutes before it starts up again.”

“Okay! I know where Rock’s place is. If we run we can make it before the rain comes back!”

Nico led the way, still wearing Uno’s jacket. It was way too big, and he was just about swimming in it, but he seemed warmer, running so energetically with those sleeves flopping over his tiny hands.

He looked rather like an octopus, Uno thought with another secret chuckle.