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“Just take my hand—or fall on me. Whatever.”
Lucy staggers under the taller man’s weight. His arm is weakly draped on her shoulder as he leans against her.
She snaps her fingers, and within seconds a couch appears behind them. Sigma lifts his head—which feels like it’s spinning—to see what happened, but all he can process is Lucy’s lips moving as she talks to someone who’s not him.
“Thanks, Anne.”
It’s clear that Sigma is still in a daze from the scuffle he just got out of. When Lucy shakes him off her shoulder, Sigma wordlessly stumbles and falls onto the soft material. She’s sure he would’ve said something in any other situation, maybe a protest or an, “I can do it myself!”
Lucy crouches down to look for the first aid kit she always has on hand for herself (or a detective that happens to stumble in with an injury; you wouldn’t believe how many times she’s had one of those). Sigma stays silent as she does this.
“Hey, ‘you still there? Don’t tell me you fainted.” She says as a joke, certain he’s doing fine.
“It’s only a few scratches...” Sigma replies, having calmed down a bit, “I’m not gonna pass out or anything.”
The couch creaks as Lucy sits to Sigma’s left, with the first aid kit in her lap.
“It’s more than “a few scratches”. What happened? I was minding my own business, then I saw you out on the street like this!”
She reaches out, and tucks his long lilac hair away from his shoulders. It’s soft; he takes good care of it, she notes. She takes his left wrist and holds his arm out to clean the injuries.
“I don’t know how it happened. I was out to find clues in an alleyway—“ he winces at the cold liquid touching his wounds, “and it was supposed to be a quick job, but I was attacked. We fought for a while, before I managed to escape.”
Lucy lets go of his left arm and switches over to his right one. “Huh? Maybe someone didn’t want you finding the evidence there.”
Sigma turns his body towards her, to avoid straining his arm. “Maybe.”
A particularly painful sting urges Sigma to look down at the arm Lucy is cleaning. She reached a pretty bad wound; it was close to his elbow, he likely got it when he fell trying to dodge the attacker.
Upon closer look, Sigma notices his friend’s nails. They seem longer than usual, painted white with a few small pearls that make a heart.
“Did you get your nails done?” He asks.
Lucy stares at him like he insulted her in a foreign language.
“Yes I…did?” She replies slowly, giving him a look that says, “You got attacked, and you’re asking about my nails?”
Sigma hums, acting like they’re just two friends catching up over coffee. “I just noticed. They look good, I like the pearls. Where’d you go?”
“To get them done?“ Lucy slows down her movements, hand staying in place. She enjoys chatting with people like this—but talking about fashion with someone while tending to their wounds is unusual for sure. “They’re actually press-ons, I just got them at the mall yesterday. Cute, right?”
“They are. But what if they get caught on something, or fall off at work?”
“I don’t think they’re long enough to do that.” Lucy lets go of his other arm, looking up and down. “You weren’t stabbed or anything, right? I don’t see that much blood.”
“The most they did was punch me, I’m fine. I'll be bruised for a while, though.”
“Can’t you get Yosano to fix it?”
“And go through her treatment?”
The room falls silent.
Lucy slowly lifts Sigma’s arm to dab antiseptic-ointment on the wounds. He winces and fights the urge to pull his arm away. It doesn’t go unnoticed by the redhead.
“Don’t move, unless you want to get sawed in half.”
“You know about that?”
“How can I not? Atsushi tells me about it all the time. ‘Says he’s thankful that the tiger regenerates.” Lucy goes quiet for a minute before quickly adding, “The others mention it too—I hear them talk about it at the cafe. Strange things going on there, no offence.”
“None taken, because I agree.”
Lucy chuckles, looking down to focus on covering the injury with a gauze. She makes sure to stick the tape far from the wound so removing the gauze won’t hurt.
She notices a few scars on his wrists. Some more healed than the others.
The marks came from Sigma’s first few years of living. Most of the organisations he was in treated him roughly—like he was nothing but a tool, made to be thrown into a box with bits of metal. It wasn’t rare for him to be in handcuffs (they couldn’t afford to let him escape when he knew so much), and it left scars all over his wrists from how often it occurred.
Of course, Lucy is unaware of this. She knows about Sigma’s past, but there were some details he omitted when they began opening up to one another—the handcuffs were one of them.
Maybe she’s self-projecting, or maybe she has good intuition. Either way, Lucy feels like Sigma is growing self-conscious from the attention she’s giving to his arms (regardless of whether or not he knows she saw the scars).
So she distracts him. “How’s the agency going for you?”
Sigma looks up, his mood slightly improving. “It’s a nice job. It has its quirks, sure, but I enjoy working there. Even if we haven’t figured out how to use the info-exchange, I’m still given jobs based on my personal capabilities.”
Lucy hums and takes Sigma’s right arm, tending to the wounds there. “And your coworkers?”
“You’ve seen them.” Sigma answers with a half smile. “They’re kind people, just weird at times. Really weird.”
“I can see that.”
“Half of them look and sound insane. Need I say who?” Sigma states, making Lucy laugh. “Dazai never does his paperwork, and he’s always following me. I see him everywhere—and he keeps leaning on me, messing with my hair…”
Lucy listens to him as she checks for injuries on his leg. There are several of them, but nothing severe. She cleans those wounds too.
“You have a lot to say about Dazai.”
“Lots of complaints, yes.” Sigma corrects, “He mentors Atsushi, so he does have some influence on him, but at least Atsushi… ”
The two of them continue talking about Atsushi and the other detectives. It successfully takes Sigma’s mind off the injuries. He almost didn’t realise that Lucy had patched up the last wound on his leg.
“I guess that’s just how they are.” Lucy sighs. “Do you feel comfortable moving?”
Sigma bends and moves his arms around, before standing up. “It feels alright. Thanks, Lucy.”
“Yeah. See? It feels better walking like this, right? I can’t believe you were going to walk all the way back to the office with several open wounds.”
Sigma shrugs as he hears Lucy snap her fingers, returning them to reality. “Well…I’ve had worse.”
The real world is much more noisy. Cars driving by, people chatting all around them. Sigma would’ve been content staying in the bright pink room for just a bit longer, but he’s aware he should get back to work. He refuses to stoop down to the likes of Dazai.
Lucy glances at the watch on her wrist. “Oh, my shift starts soon. I’ll walk there with you. Plus if your attacker comes back, I can bring him to Anne.” She declares with a smile that’d be unsettling if Sigma wasn’t friends with her.
“I’d like to figure out who they are first, though…”
“And we can do that in Anne’s room,” Lucy retorts, “we’re safe in there.”
“I guess you’re right.”
The two begin to make their way back to the Armed Detective Agency’s office, talking about books, food, music and countless other things while they’re at it.
While they ran into each other in strange (and unfortunate) circumstances, they feel lucky to have been on that street at the same time.
“I’ll see you later?”
“See you. I’ll stop by for coffee.”