The sands and dust of Death City swirled in a maelstrom of beige and brown, shot out of the air and swept off of the street by the driving rain. Wind roared around them as lamplights down the mist-covered streets swayed and clanged like tree limbs in the deluge.

"I-I thought it wasn't supposed to rain in the desert..."

"What?" Maka almost shouted, turning a cheek towards Crona, lending an ear angled away from the hissing winds as they stomped quickly through the storm. Before Crona could respond, the hood to his jacket flapped away in the wind as he felt a familiar, dull pain, the skin on his back splitting open cleanly.

"HE SAID WHY THE HELL ARE WE RUNNING THROUGH A FUCKING HURRICANE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAMN DESERT, YOU DEAF COW!"

"R-Ragnaroook!" Crona whined, trying to reach behind him and reclaim the hood keeping him relatively dry in the rain, now flapping and fluttering like an open parachute behind the inky-black growth now leering over Crona's head while rain quickly drenched his lavender hair.
"Ahh, shut your trap! You know how cold you get when you're out in the freaking rain?! I feel that on the inside, dingus!" He shivered dramatically, sputtering in his rant as the winds picked up, "Not my fault you can't speak up for yourself!"

A wet, gloved hand knocked the demon into a spin, Crona wincing as he heard the sharp crack over his head, like thunder. She'd never risk a prize book to water damage, but the surprising lack of a traditional Maka-chop left Ragnarok wholly unprepared for the smack. He spun into a near vortex of defeated black blood, spiraling back down into his Meister's back. Ragnarok felt much colder when he rejoined his blood. Crona shivered in a way that rattled him to the bone. Had Ragnarok slid back inside sopping wet, or did him coming out during the rain invite more water to rush into his body? He felt funny, an "I don't know how to deal with being cold on the inside" kind of funny. He'd felt his blood run cold in particularly tense moments, just like they'd say in melodramas, but this was...really cold. Crona stumbled against the current as he tried to continue his march uphill. He hated this flushed, overwhelmed feeling he got whenever he was anxious, but now he felt thoroughly soaked in the hissing rainstorm, the burning flush of anxiety meeting the icy bath of rain.
"Why did he even come out if he didn't want to be cold or wet..?" Crona mumbled to himself. He looked upward and saw Maka looking over at him with a mixed expression. He shifted his feet loosely on the ground, almost feeling a river of water carry away his heel before he noticed, more clearly, the gloved hand reaching through the haze of downpour to grab his.

He knew that she always liked to guide him, that she felt a sort of friendly need to lead, just as Crona felt a need to protect and listen to Maka. Right now, though, he mostly felt ashamed, and her face didn't help. How could he tell the difference between a polite smile of comfort and a pained smile of pity? Even now, it was hard to focus on her gaze when rain stings his eyes, but from his point of view she looked upset in at least five different ways. Aside from Ragnarok's rude comments, she was upset that Ragnarok had decided to burst out and take away Crona's last refuge of warm, dry cloth in his hoodie. She also felt for the slight pains and jolts that accompany Ragnarok ripping through his skin and his blood turning steely. She could see the pain and embarrassment that accompanied every visit, and couldn't imagine the tension and discomfort of having a shapeshifting bully living as part of your own blood. Beyond that, though, she recognized that even without Ragnarok's interruption, he still didn't enjoy walking uphill in the rain. Was her stretched hand an offer of help or just an attempt to pull him along faster? After all, why was he standing there in the rain just looking at her, frozen in place?
"Hey," she started, that polite little smile pursing as she called beyond the din of the storm, "I know it's a lot," she punctuated that last word in a way that made Crona blush. How easily she could see through to the core of his anxieties, and what little she needed to say to empathize with him. It was almost magic…
"I-I'm s-sorry for him-" Crona started
"Don't." She smiled a little wider and waggled her wet gloved hand in front of him, "I know it's a lot, but it'll be all better once we're home."

He shivered again and bit his lip, finding the strength to reach out and hold onto her hand. As they touched he thought about her strong yet soothing words. "Once we're home." Not, "once we're back at my place" or "once we're out of the rain..." He suddenly felt Maka twist on her heel, drenched ponytails whipping in the air as she turned around and started off in a march up the rest of the hill, Crona stumbling along behind her, still shaking off rain in wobbly shivers.

'Holding her hand always helps when I don't know how to deal with something,' Crona thought, 'I can't deal with being in a hurricane, but I can deal with walking down the street with her. I don't have to open my eyes or listen to the weather. Just walk...and hold on.'

Little by little the rain was tuned out from his ears, the roar of rushing water sounding faint and pleasant, like the crashing of distant waves. He could still feel her hand in his, guiding him, but the slog through the deluge was different. In his mind's eye, Crona was elsewhere, on the beach, running against the tides up and down the wet sand. Before he never had any reason to like the sand, no reason to do anything other than sit still in his circle. He never knew just how fun frolicking in the water was. The sun radiated overhead with joy, and Raven was nowhere to be found, no maddening shadow to question and play games with his psyche. Instead, a childlike Maka was kicking up sand and romping down the beach without a care in the world, doing her ample best to imbue Crona with the same carefree sense of fun. This felt so much better than the other daydreams...in the back of his mind, he could hide in a warm, friendly corner, a hot and sandy shore with his best friend. Meanwhile, in reality, the roar and wetness of water was there, the frantic running was there, and Maka was there holding his hand. And...also laughing? Laughing on the beach with nothing to do but sprint into the dipping western sunlight made sense, but why would she laugh in this storm?

A crack of lightning broke through his daydream. He blinked to find no rain stinging his eyes, hearing a gentle drumming of the fierce downpour against a canvas awning. He glanced this way and that to see that they had reached a long storefront development that he remembered from a sunnier day. He went there to eat with Soul and Kid as a "guys' outing" while Maka, Liz and Patti surprised Kim with an impromptu birthday party. He glanced in the dim night at the long stretch of awnings that now shielded him from the rain, extending past multiple developments and kiosks down the street and around the block. He glanced in the storefront mirror, his stomach secretly reminiscing about something called "bisque." He remembered eating while Kid fretted over finding the perfectly symmetrical lunch item and Soul claimed coolly that he had already eaten before Maka left for the party. More specifically, he remembered the server staring daggers at him wondering if any of the teens at the table would actually order something to eat. Bisque was the soup of the day, so Crona only muttered a request for a bowl out of simplicity and not specificity. Whenever he did commit to a social outing, he always felt like he was burdening or inconveniencing anybody and everybody. When the waiter brought him his food, he felt a need to dive in, if at least to have something to do besides sit there across from Soul in silence. Well, silence, while Kid still worried over the menu. At times it seemed like he needed Liz and Patti to calm him down, and neither of his lighter-haired companions knew how to deal with his obsessive-compulsions.

It felt so weird to be the only person eating, but it was so warm and nourishing. It reminded him of a phrase he heard, "comfort food." Patti and Liz were arguing about what was most important to comfort food: that it was easy and recognizable, or that it's something that comes from loving family? They could both concur that "comfort food" is something that "warms the soul and lifts the spirits" that specifically connects to your own childhood. Crona had thought about that for most of the afternoon. Thin gruel and the hard crackers that Stein laughed at and called "moldy hardtack" weren't very fun to eat when he was a child, and Lady Medusa never handed out such food in a way that was even remotely "loving."

There were a lot of new foods that Crona had tried and had yet to try, and Stein was very blunt when he discussed Crona's adverse development. It was hard to say, for a long time, if he really had any happy memories to connect with things like favorite foods or books or music, but that overwhelming flavor sensation known as "bisque" seemed to leave a mark on his psyche and soul. Soul was surprised at how quickly he had inhaled the bowl, noting that he personally "would never try some cream soup like that...least, not around the house with that damn cat around." Even Ragnarok was shocked at how little he had managed to steal.

Crona was jerked out of his longing for memories of soup by the sound of Maka's shrieking laughter. When he blinked at his reflection in the window, he saw what kept her running to the end of the street. Maka had given Crona more than enough room under the awnings but left herself only halfway covered, with the awnings dumping and splashing waves of rainwater over her head. She was running faster and faster as water splashed chaotically in cascades around her. Crona couldn't help but stare at her as she charged ahead fearlessly. Soon the covers of canvas ended and they were both back in the storm in full, and Crona found himself wanting to stay closer and closer to her. After their detour around the shopping center, it seemed like mere minutes until they were back at Maka's residence. Maka was laughing with a twinge of anxious glee that reminded Crona of the "crazy-giggles," as Ragnarok called them, as she fumbled in the dark for her keys, the ring slipping around her gloves this way and that. The door clicked open and she fell inside, beckoning Crona to follow as she kicked off her boots. Crona followed suit and dutifully closed and locked the door behind him.
"Sooouuuul," she called into the living room, "I'm hooome!"

"Right on, you guys didn't drown!" He shouted from the couch. The television was blaring a weather report about heavy rainfall and flash-flooding in and around Death City. Low points in town with poor drainage were nearly two feet underwater, and Maka felt relieved that their trek uphill to their flat was relatively peril-free. Crona, however, was transfixed by the news reports of people evacuating the suburbs around their part of Nevada, about mudslides across interstate highways...it all became too much of a distraction to focus on Maka and Soul's conversation.

"He's staying the night, then?" Soul pointed a thumb at Crona with a flex of his arm.

"Yeah, how'd you guess?"

"Lord Death tried to reach you maybe ten minutes ago. Scared the hell out of me when I was in combing my hair." he scoffed.

"I'll call him right now," she chattered a little, still drenched with water, walking to the bathroom quickly and clicking the door shut before Crona could really notice her leaving.

"Wicked-bad out there, right? I was scared to even ride my baby in that kinda rain."
Crona didn't respond to Soul's attempt at conversation. This was his first time in a really dangerous storm. Ragnarok called it a hurricane, but hurricanes don't come this far inland, right? It's just a freak thunderstorm. Besides, Black Star told him that hurricanes were just "wet ocean tornadoes," like they weren't anything to worry about anyway. Soul turned from the couch to look at him and realized just how dripping wet he was.
"Oh! Jeez, man, well, you look cold. Want me to get you a towel or something?" Soul knew better than to wait for a response on that, venturing over to their linen closet and grabbing a large beach towel. As Crona took it shakily and began to dry his hair, the lights dimmed and the TV died as lightning cracked explosively overhead, shaking part of the house and causing Crona to bury his head deeply into the towel. He continued to hide in the cloth as Soul reassured him that it was just a slight power surge and nothing to freak out about. The bathroom door clicked and swung open, but Maka didn't sound done with her conversation. It was hard to follow as the TV returned to life.
"Crona? Someone wants to speak with you..~" She grinned as he jerked his head up out of the towel and waltzed over to the bathroom. Crona first noticed the plush white towel tying up her hair, ponytails undone and all her sandy-blonde locks hidden away. Her face was still damp, and she had removed her socks as well as her jacket and tie. She stepped out of the lavatory and showed Crona in, with Lord Death peeking out at him from the sink mirror.

"Howdy, Crona~!" He chimed in cheerily, "Boy, it's really coming down! Sid and Stein were right to want to inspect the grounds," he continued, his mask wavering into a frown, "It's leaking in the lower levels and, well...sorry, bucko, but your room's been flooded."

There was a growing void in Crona's gut. He never had his room flood before. It felt strange not being there to see it. Lord Death let him know that Sid had taken great care to move all his possessions (as scarce as they were) into a dry storage unit on-campus.

"But," added Stein from behind, "This storm is something intense. Slow-moving and part of a larger patch of bad weather moving west-to-east right over the city. It may take some time to repair all the damages."

"Sooo…-" Death murmured, only to be interrupted.

"So THEY thought it would be a swell idea to have you shacking up with my precious little-"
"PAPAAAAA!" Maka dove into the room looking reading to smash the mirror, barking and shouting at her father who managed to sneak into the Death Room and overhear Stein's plans for Crona's emergency residence.
"It's bad enough having one weirdo guy hanging around my daughter all night and day, but not this too!" Spirit wailed before a swift Death Chop cut his sobbing short.
Crona's matter was settled. He was to stay with Maka and Soul as not only was his room flooded, but most of the Academy staff and students had been ordered tmo evacuate until further notice. Only Lord Death, Spirit, Stein, Marie, Sid and Nygus remained at DWMA, and they would all be in touch in case either of the meisters needed anything. Marie seemed especially worried and asked that Maka be sure Crona knows he can reach her and Stein any time he wants. Maka had secretly agreed wholeheartedly to the entire idea beforehand, also hoping to minimize for Crona's sake any and all of Stein's talk about "natural disasters" and "states of emergency" in and around Death City.

Crona slinked out of the bathroom, wholly uncomfortable with the notion of sticking around for more of their aggression, familial rabble-rousing that she claimed was more normal than he thought. Coming from someone with a background like Lady Medusa, however, Crona failed to notice the irony in finding a parental relationship too strange to handle. Backing out of the bathroom, he almost ran into Soul, causing him to jump and turn white, causing the albino pal to smirk in a toothy grin and try his best to chill his friend out and remind him of the towel. Crona grinned in politeness and graciousness and meandered back to the living room. As much as he dried himself, he still felt water dripping around him. He was cold and wet, from the inside-out. He wrapped the beach towel around his soaked outfit and cocooned himself on the couch.

He fretted and worried to himself about the weather only getting worse and worse. Unless the winds changed, it would be raining on Death City night and day! And now all of his things were out of his room, even his most personal belongings. He didn't even ask if everything was safe. Another crack of lightning made him tense up, and he couldn't shake this damp, frigid feeling. He felt funny, and the more his head swam the more airheaded and flushed he became. He felt his damp robe and towel cocoon cause him to sweat. He shivered all over, secretly hoping that for all his sweating this strange feeling would dissipate from his insides. That's when he felt, almost as small as a pinprick, Ragnarok slithering out in a withered form, crossed eyes bugged out of a frail and fragile stream of black blood.

"T-This is the c-c-cow's f-fault!" The demon sword hissed in a tiny little soprano voice unlike even his pint-sized image the Meisters and Weapons around them had gotten used to.

Crona winced, "H-How is it M-Maka's f-fault..?"

"She suckerpunched me in the rain! You're not having your usual dumb Crona shakes, I'm getting sick in there! Ask that cow how the hell you get water out of your bloodstream."

Ragnarok's balloon-like head descended down the smoky trail of black blood into Crona's body, prompting a deep shiver that made his teeth chatter. He listened to the hum of the television, the weather report playing a collection of smooth-jazz music over radar images of nearly the half the state of Nevada covered in rain clouds, the most intense scattered around Death City, Carson City and Reno. Crona still felt weak and found him and his cocoon slumped over and his eyes felt heavy. His head still swam with the fresh memories of slogging through what were apparently flash-flood conditions. It was terrifying, not seeing two feet in front of you and being constantly startled by the rumbling thunder and crack of lightning. Yet, he could lose himself in his imagination, he could forget all about the dismal weather and dangerous conditions, knowing that Maka would show the way for him regardless.

"Crona!" He jerked upright in a dizzy haze.

"M-Maka..?" He rubbed his eyes and blinked awake, before his complexion drained quickly.

Maka stood in front of him wrapped up in a plush and soft bathrobe tied tightly around her frame, her hair down in sandy waves. As casual as she looked, her expression wasn't a pleasant one.

"You're still dripping wet, Crona!" She sighed, "I'm sorry, I just thought you would've wanted to get out of those clothes and jump in the shower. You'll be staying here for a while, so Soul's been looking for something of his that might fit you..."

She trailed off as she looked up and down Crona's body as he unwrapped the towel from around himself, briefly wondering if anything of Soul's would actually fit his lithe, feminine figure. His soaking wet clothes clung tightly against his body. Maka shook herself out of her visual inspection, shutting her eyes tight and opening them again, a plain smile on her face. Crona could never tell if she actually got over things that irritated her or if she just pushed them to the back of her mind and wore a smile.

"Anyway, we should have something for you to wear, and I really don't want you to catch a cold!" She reached a slender hand down to pull him up, and she realized quickly how heavy he was with rainwater as his socks made a spongy squishing sound against the carpet. It wasn't any time for Maka to be a neat freak, or at least that's what she kept reminding herself.

"I'll get you a fresh towel while you get your water ready, okay?" Her voice was gentler now, goading and politely pushing Crona into the bathroom while she took the drier parts of the beach towel and scrubbed it obsessively into the couch and then the carpet.

When the door clicked shut, Crona felt a whir of silence in the room. Ragnarok must really be sick, he usually wastes no time when appearing to torment him in the bathroom. And now he was in somebody else's bathroom! Taking a shower! Exposing himself! What if somebody saw him through the window?

When Crona glanced at the window, he saw a sad silhouette of an animal curled on the sill outside, just barely missing the brunt of the rainfall as it slid off the roof above. That scant space of safety reminded Crona of Maka's sacrifice in the waters before, keeping him dryer regardless of how comfortable she got. She seemed to enjoy that kind of chaos sometimes. Yet, as Crona noted, she had her own rules. She cleaned up quickly and well, wanting the order of cleanliness to promote some kind of general security in her life. It was one of the reasons he didn't mind being at Maka and Soul's house and not, say, Kid's. Order is nice, but Kid's obsessions scared even Crona sometimes. He wouldn't know how to deal with making sure a bathroom is perfectly symmetrical, or the silhouette out the window. Speaking of…
Crona hanged his hoodie and outer shirt on the wall and let his pants crumple to the floor, feeling nude in his still-damp undershirt and boxer-shorts that stuck to him like flypaper. Powering through the anxieties surrounding possible peeping toms, he opened the window to see what the water-logged animal was doing there. She pounced into the room, first onto the toilet, then into the sink, shaking her fur out into a poofing damp fuzzball. Crona didn't realize who it was until he closed and locked the window.

"T-Tha-a-a-at was me-e-e-ean, Soul!" Blair shrieked, "I toooold you I was going up on the roof for a nap and to wake me in, like, an hour!"

She huffed and strutted around the sink with eyes closed in indignation and purpose in her paws before rubbing her fur into the porcelain, batting at the knobs while she made herself comfortable, curling on her back and idly drinking from a dripping faucet. Crona was almost frozen in fear, but tried his best to inch over to his clothes. That was when Maka called out to him.

"Crona..? I've got some extra clothes for you!"

Blair and Crona blinked simultaneously. He hastily tried to put on his soaked skinny-jeans, only succeeding in yanking them halfway up his calves and tripping over himself, sliding onto the floor weakly as the cat purred at him.

"Ohhhh, it's you~!" she cooed, raising her head up and accidentally bumping it on the faucet, "Ahn! O-Oww..~"

She shook her head quickly and started again, "Well, that makes a lot more sense, now, doesn't it~? Little swordsman's much more likely to come to Blair-Mama's rescue than mean ol' Soul~"

Crona tried to ignore her strange words and unlocked the door shakily, stumbling outside with a bundle of his clothes in his arms. Blair transformed into her human guise to follow him, only to awkwardly slip out of the sink in her feminine form and faceplant on the tile.

Maka almost fell over when Crona collided into her, nearly crying. His first instinct, as had been in the past, was to cling to her in confusion and fear or sprint past her while she dealt with Blair, but this time was different, and he almost forgot why.

Crona had clung to Maka nearly-naked with the rest of his clothes on the floor bundled around them. Maka didn't even notice it until after she chopped a book sideways across an incoming Blair, sending her bouncing against the wall slightly down the corridor, rolling away in her feline form. With that incident behind them, Maka turned her attention to the frightened boy at her feet who was much less clothed than she remembered. She let out an embarrassed smile, but when Crona had noticed she had finally noticed that state of undress, he fell into a panic.

"I'msosorryMaka!" he shouted, "I didn't mean to do this I just opened the window and she was saying all these weird things and I couldn't put on my pants and I just-"

He started to hyperventilate and feel flushed, trying to scamper back into the bathroom to hide; Maka would have none of it. She had come this far into the night without him having an episode over any of the other crazy circumstances they were under, and she wouldn't let Blair or Crona's own insecurity ruin that.

Crona tried to slam the door shut when it was stopped dead.
"Hey! Dummy!" Maka teased. Crona froze a little again and backed off of the door. Maka gave out another one of those giggles as she pushed past the door and shut it behind her gently, reaching out to grab Crona softly by his bare shoulder, the sleeve of his undershirt falling away as he shook in front of her.

"Hey. Relax." She commanded, her eyes gleaming a little in the fluorescence of the bathroom.

"Stay with me, Crona." She knew how to mix her requests when he was close to a very bad episode. If she was going to make a point, she needed him to not dissociate in the bathroom.

"I want you to think about something. Look at me." She moved her hand up his neck and poked at his cheek with her thumb, making him glance up into her eyes.

"Now, really, look at me." She continued, backing away from him a little and swaying slightly in her bathrobe.

"We're in my house, I invited you in, you'll be staying with us, right?" She asked the obvious to get Crona nodding in agreement, even if he didn't have the strength to speak.

"We're friends, Crona. We're both human, anyway. And we're not strangers..." She pressed her arms together to hold her hands over her stomach, secretly pushing up her bosom a little. Maybe she wanted to seem more alluring, maybe thinking in the back of her mind that perhaps it would put him more at ease if she were easier on his eyes. Then again, it might just make him uncomfortable.

"Everyone needs to undress sometimes, of course. But there's nothing wrong or indecent about your undergarments. And besides, did you notice how little I'm wearing?" She blurted with an odd giggle, her face flushing again, "M-My point is...we're both friends and we shouldn't mind being ourselves with each other...even if that means being more vulnerable, right?"

That was one note that Crona could speak on, "Y-Yeah...I mean...I-I always feel vulnerable but...y-you make it seem okay, l-like you understand it. Y-You make me feel like sometimes...i-it's nice to be vulnerable. I-I don't know what makes you so different f-from miss Blair...y-you don't make me feel all weird and nervous w-when you want to talk to me...or t-touch me."

He didn't understand why her eyes changed their gaze at that slight ramble, but he apparently said something nice as she opened her arms and pressed her warm body into Crona's chilled, damp self in a snuggling hug.

"You're right, Crona." She muttered, giving him a squeeze, "It's good to be vulnerable around the people you...care about. And you don't have to be afraid of what you wear around me. I'm glad I can make you more comfortable."

Her words were cleverly constructed. After so long of knowing Crona so intimately, he was still amazed at how she could communicate things to him.

She stood up straight and smiled deeply at him, sliding her arms down to hold his hands. He felt so...complete. She held his arms in place in a way that kept him from trying to bashfully cover over his scant clothing. He felt like a whole new level of relief and joy had been accomplished in her company. His whole body felt funny beyond the chills and dizziness from before. As he gazed in her eyes and squeezed her hands he felt his pulse pick up and thump loudly in his veins while a strange sensation radiated from within him.

"Now," she finished her speech, squeezing his hands and dropping them before booping him on the nose with a gentle fingertip, "Wash up, get warm, and get dry. We'll hang out some before bed, okay?"

She frowned a little and started to almost look around Crona's body.

"Hmn, I guess I hit Ragnarok pretty hard. He's been pretty quiet...Maybe he just wants to spite me." She noticed Crona's face redden and shifted gears, "But maybe a shower is just what he needs, too! Eheh..."

She gave him a final hug while he stood in a slight daze, "I'm really glad I could help, honest. You aren't a bother, really." Her embrace was like her words, gentle and soothing, warm to the point of burning. But then she made a sound as if something did bother her.

She let go of him and her face flushed. She looked into his eyes before flitting down to somewhere closer to the floor, letting out a quick, shy giggle, looking away into the mirror, "W-Well, I've got to fix my hair, I look awful!" she chided herself, "You wash up and, ah, I'll be around whenever you're done."

Crona blinked as he finally noticed her exiting, wanting to tell her something along the lines of how nice her hair looks already, but she closed the door for him, leaving him the towel and extra clothes she brought on the sink. Crona wondered why she looked at him like that, it was almost like she was glancing at…

He blinked and looked down at his own underpants, almost fainting in anxiety as he wondered to himself why his body would stir like that. It wasn't the lewdest thing in the world, but still his groin felt hot and pulsing with his heartbeat. He didn't have the time or the mental fortitude to deeply analyze the way she looked at him, nor the ability to understand the strange so he gave up, and turned on the shower, fully stripping nude after carefully locking the door.

Before the room fully steamed with hot vapor, Crona had a chance, without Ragnarok's bullying or abuse, to truly look at himself. His body confused him sometimes, but it was the only body he ever had. He flashed another nervous frown at his own privates, modestly cupping him hands over himself as he focused on other, less nerve-wracking parts of his body. He wasn't built like Soul, or Maka, for that matter. Part of him worried about how he would look in whatever clothes she picked for him.