In the two weeks before, there are signs and wonders.
A cat gives birth to a two-headed kitten. A river runs backwards; children playing in the ocean taste the water and find it sweet. For half an hour in the night, the moon stands still in the sky.
On Thursday evening, there's a streak of light -- like a shooting star, and then like a road flare, burning potassium-bright in the center of an acre of blood-red snow.
"...stands before God."
His eyes keep searching the room for something that isn't there, pupils hugely dilated.
"I'm just gonna call you Stan. And you, my other mysterious stranger?" They wonder what, exactly, Stan is looking for.
Unfortunately, mysterious stranger #2 is still a little too passed out to offer much in the way of information.
They get the smelling salts out, because they're not going to strip this stranger to check for wounds in need of dressing without consent if they can help it.
They grab a trash can and hold it under the boy's face, patting him gently on the back. Better out than in, they think.
It’s out, to the extent that it will be, in a minute.
He groans, and curls in on himself a little.
“Wh…hi. ‘S this hell?”
"Not as far as I know." You belong there?, they think to their self. "You good for fluids? We've got some tea on, and I could rustle up something stiffer if it would help."
“…yeah — yeah, sure —”
He pauses, struggling to gather his thoughts.
“—did a…did somebody come in with me?”
"More of a something right now - he seems about as delirious as one can be without actually falling over. I had to hold his hand all the way here."
A silent and wide-eyed Linaea hands them a mug of some gently steaming liquid, and they pass the chamomile on to Z, wrapping his hands gently around the cup to warm them.
—and as soon as he sights the other one, he does his level best to scoot in his direction.
(This is…not great. He keeps almost spilling tea on himself.)
"Heartsong -- sweet soul -- treasure in the field--"
He's reaching out, although he still doesn't seem to know how to move.
"You're safe here. Promise. And your friend just won't sit down, there's plenty of room. You can relax, both of you can stay here as long as you need to."
They pause, trying to figure out a polite way to put this before deciding as usual to go with the direct route.
"I'm going to need you to take off your clothes, though."
“Oh — uh — sure…”
He wriggles out of the bundle of cloth, a little bit, letting it fall around his elbows.
There are jagged, thick scars down the insides of both forearms, and his body is a mess of bruises — there’s a spot on his chest that looks unfortunately caved-in, where the ribs have snapped — but the rest of the skin is near-perfect.
“…I think I’m maybe not wearing any?”
(He’s still watching the other stranger.)
Oh. They're regretting suddenly having not checked him for injury before moving him, despite how ridiculous playing nurse in the snow might have been.
"Are you having any trouble breathing?" They'd be surprised if he wasn't, but a punctured lung is nothing to fuck around with.
“Uh…a little? Like, medium. Kinda distracted by how I’m, like — alive. On Earth. —Dude, you can come sit down.”
That last is directed at the other stranger.
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