Ok so it's been years and this has been in my drafts for far too long so here.
.
.
.
.
Despite having an unspoken rule of non-interference, often borderline fierce avoidance, with each other, that initial meeting on that cursed mountain wasn't the first time Skull had met the rest of the Arcobaleno. When you're the strongest like they were, fate had a way of crossing their fates together whether you liked it or not. When they do meet, it's a sight to behold. As opponents, scenes bleed red and ruin follows, as allies… Well, there were hushed rumors about what they could do, what they had done.
Skull remembers one of them, one of the missions that began their legend. He remembers being young, desperate and a scared. He remembers shame and despair but also of unending gratitude and a drowning hope.
It was a snow-white winter that fell over the dirt streets where Skull had lived. It was beautiful, but the cold was biting and the people even harsher. No matter where, how or when Skull begged, none would spare him a thing, not one bread, not one kopeks, not one sympathetic glance. Days in a days out, Skull had hungered for death because the starvation and apathy clawed away his guts and froze his thoughts. He thinks he may have died a few times, yet every time he would open up his eyes to the grey sky and looming clouds again.
Then one day, someone came to him. Someone small, but just slightly kinder than the rest. (It was Viper, he now knows.) Skull remembers a lot of things that day; he remembers the thick coat that fell onto his shoulders and the harsh question that changed everything. He remembers a stranger giving him a chance.
"Do you want to die now?"
The question resounded in the alley, echoing between the grim walls and cracked windows. It echoed around him and for all his hunger and frozen thoughts, he couldn't, couldn't move, just couldn't nod and say "yes" to end it all then. Instead Skull had sobbed a wet pathetic "no".
Viper brought him to a motel, a small dingy little thing that barely had half a dozen rooms and in a questionable area that Skull has ling since learned to stay far from.
At least it's warm and dry, Skull thought.
He stood in the middle of the room holding tight the thick coat, too nervous and confused at what the stranger wanted from him to huddle and wrap himself in that pathetically thin blanket on top of the bed. (He hoped it had nothing to do with the bed.) He wanted to ask what the stranger brought him here for, what job or use a half dead, barely moving and dirty orphan could have.
He remembers a before. Before he was too old and grown to be adopted. Back when he still had a chance for a life beyond the infested alleys and scraps of food. But that chance went to another and he doesn't know if he should curse them for being lucky or pity himself for being unlucky.
Then, just when he thought they would stand there in forever silence, the stranger spoke.
"A month," the stranger said while tossing a bag onto the floor and leaving.
"W-wait, what do you mean a month?" Skull asked, reaching out as if to stop the stranger from leaving, "wait! I don't understa-"
Then the door was already shut and Skull knew he wouldn't get an answer. Skull wanted to cry, wanted to screech in frustration and run after the stranger for clarification, but he didn't. After a few seconds to calm down, Skull picked up the plastic bag and climbed onto the bed. He found a whole loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter and a knife.
It was more food than skull had seen in a while now.
The first day skull ate half of what was in the bag, taken the first bath he's since being abandoned and slept like heaven's promised peace.
The second, he ate half of what was left and tried to leave but the door was locked.
The third day he realised 'a month' was probably how long he might have to stay in here and started to miss the open sky and clouds.