The light blinded me as we spun in the air. I kept my eyes tightly shut as I clutched on to whatever part of Adrian I managed to grab. In the span of a few seconds, though it seemed much longer, the light vanished and both of us tumbled on a hard floor. After a few rolls on the ground, we finally came to a stop. I heard a pained groan from under me, and I lifted my head to see myself laying horizontally across the mortician's stomach.

A dizzy sensation overwhelmed me as I tried to get off the man, and I ended up slumping beside him as I tried to wait for it to pass. When my eyes opened again without the room spinning, I saw that we had landed back in the front room of the shop. I sat up placing a hand to my head, and I heard a chuckle come from the man beside me.

"Well, that certainly didn't go as I had planned," Adrian said as he also sat up and leaned against a coffin behind him. I pushed the hood off my head and groaned as I leaned on another coffin. When I felt like the world wasn't going to tilt on me when I finally stood up, I pulled myself up on the coffin.

I looked over at the reaper who had an amused but pained grin on his face. He had taken his cloak off and the right sleeve of both his robe and tunic were saturated with blood. The cloak was soaking up the blood so it didn't get on the floor. His left hand was putting pressure on the wound to his shoulder, and the other hand hung limply by his side. I couldn't stop the tears watering my eyes even if I wanted to. He sighed as he shifted a bit.

"Kitten, please don't cry. You know I can't stand to see a pretty lady cry. This little scratch is nothing. I'll be right as rain as soon as I get patched up." I held my tears back and helped him up. With me keeping a grip on him, we walked to the bathroom. Going into caretaker mode, I pushed him to sit on the counter. I assisted the reaper in taking his robe and tunic off, and I had to fight not to look at his bare chest.

I pulled off my cloak after I turned the water on. Once I got a cloth wet, I gently washed the blood off his arm, chest and shoulder. The wound was about as long as four of my fingers and still sluggishly bleeding. I bit my lip as I placed the cloth on the wound and put pressure on it. The man gave a small hiss as he tried not to tense.

"Hold this here. I'll be right back." When the silver haired man placed his hand on the cloth, I walked out to get some thread and a needle. I found it a little ironic now that I wasn't the patient this time. I just hope this is only a one time occurrence.

Finding what I needed in the messy room, I hurried back to my companion. The reaper was rubbing an ointment into the gash on his shoulder when I came back in the small bathroom. Still not looking at the bare chest, I set to work on his shoulder. The bleeding had stopped and I gave a sigh of relief. While Adrian had an advanced healing factor, a wound from a death scythe would not be quick thing to heal. I threaded the needle and was about to start when a hand gripped my wrist.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing? I can do it myself if I need to." I gave the man a smile as I pulled my hand loose from him.

"Granted I've never had to stitch a person, I do know how to sew. It's one of the few things my grandmother taught me, and she made sure I was good at it before she died. Don't worry! I promise it won't look too bad." With that said, I pushed the needle in his skin. I tuned everything out as I worked, not wanting to mess this up. It took a few minutes, but I finished without a single mistake. After I tied the thread off, I got the bandages sitting on the counter beside the mortician. He was inspecting the stitch work when I looked back at him.

"Very consistent and neat. You did a better job then I would have with my left hand. I'm impressed." I felt my cheeks flush at the praise as I wrapped up his shoulder. By now I could no longer hold my gaze from his uncovered torso. I kept sneaking glances at him until I finished. I tied the bandage and stepped back while Adrian moved his shoulder around testing his mobility. While he was distracted, I couldn't help but run my gaze over his body.

He was pale and his abdomen had a couple of large scars crisscrossing his skin. The longest one I saw was the one coming down from his left shoulder and stopped just before his abs. There were shorter scars that were scattered over his ribs and arms, and I'm sure his back had some as well. The silver haired man was lean, but he had toned muscles from years of reaping and battling demons. Adrian hopped off the counter and turned to look for his tunic and robe. That gave me a perfect view of his back.

Just as I suspected, there were more scars on his back, but they were small. This caused something to relax in my chest. No large scars on the back meant that this man was no coward. The silver hair covering part of his back drew my attention to the contracting colors of his pants. The leather boots and trousers looked to be almost a second skin on the man, and my mouth went dry as I watched the muscles on his back and those just above his remaining clothes stretch as he moved. I caught myself wondering if his unmarked skin was as smooth t it looked.

I felt my face blaze with heat as I stared at all that pale skin and my fingers were itching to touch. When I saw him turning around, I quickly averted my eyes but the blush on my face refused to go away. I reached to pick up the cloak I had set on the side of the tub, but the reaper had beaten me to it. When I looked at his face, a sly, knowing grin was on his lips.

"See something you like?~" The reaper asked me in a deeper voice. My blush darkened and spread up to my ears as a shiver ran down my spine. I swallowed as I nodded without thinking trying to get control of myself, but the half naked man was providing a large distraction. A smug smirk was my response as I realized what I just did. Not being able to come up with a comeback, I turned on my hill and all but ran out of the bathroom with the reaper's laughter following me.

I made my way up the stairs and into the kitchen. I had developed a habit of making tea whenever I was flustered or upset, and lately I've been flustered a lot in the past few days. As I went through the motions, everything seemed to sink in my head.

We weren't able to get Grandpa's death scythe, and Adrian was injured. I knew it wasn't a bad wound, but it still rattled me for some reason. Perhaps it was the realization that he wasn't indestructible, but I hated to see him get hurt. I didn't even notice my hands were shaking until a pair of black clawed hands covered my own.

The reaper took the kettle off the stove and set it to the side as he turned me around to face him. He has put a plain charcoal gray button up shirt on with the top three buttons undone, and I didn't know if I was relieved or disappointed over not being able to see that pale skin. My eyes were almost level with his collarbone and he lifted my head to meet his eyes. I was still trembling even when I looked into his chartreuse eyes.

It took a few seconds, but when he gave me a gentle smile, something inside me snapped. I felt tears fall from my eyes as I almost tackled him. Adrian took a step back to keep is balance as I just held on tight to him, but he let me hug him. I didn't cry for long, and I didn't sob at all.

I pulled back away from his chest, and I turned to finish the tea. The mortician wrapped his arms around my shoulders as I poured the tea in the only two cups he owned.

"Don't worry, kitten. I'm fine. That stuffy, young whelp just caught me off guard. It'll take more then that to bring me down." He rested his cheek on the top of my head as he spoke. I gave him a shaky nod as I put some sugar in the cups.

"I'm glad it wasn't a serious wound, but I don't like that you got hurt." I felt him shrug above me as I finished.

"Accidents happen, love. All I can do is try to be more careful. Now, put those thought out of your head and try to relax. Dispatch never saw who we were, so we don't have to worry about them coming after us." He picked up his cup and walked over to the couch I convinced him to buy. I followed after him and sat down beside him.

Adrian stretched out and put his head on my lap after he finished his tea. I ran my fingers through his hair as I felt the tension slowly bleed out of my body. I looked down at the reaper's face and saw him sleeping. My lips curled into a small smile, and before I knew it, I joined him in slumber.