#i write with a split screen hence the unforgivable typos

[homochihuahua]

Yo people think of this

Dick a lone hunter. Living on the skirt of town, all alone and isolated with only his two hounds as company. His relationship with his extended family is strained, especially after the death of that boy Bruce took in his place. The one who would look at him with worship in his eyes, like he had been searching for something all his life and had finally found it. His demise. His passing had broken them all. Dick didn't form that much of a relationship with him to began with. Too angry at Bruce and too involved in his work and life to care for one more stray Bruce plucked from the streets. But god it had left him wounded. And while the wound had closed it has yet to heal even now.

Dick spends a relatively simple life now. Long gone the glory he once bathed in with his team to a life of tending to cold hollow house with no one to wait for him in it.

Dick first met him after slipping from a cliff where he got himself injured. Something near fatal if he didn't get help as fast as possible. Apparently he separated far a way from his hounds way too far for them to find him in the right time. Not like the poor animals would be able to think of bringing in human help before setting in to find their master anyway.

As he was finishing that thought, He appeared right in front of him. From the snow like a soft blotch of blood with his red fur, a fox. It looked at him and he looked back at it in return. Tentatively inching to where he lay, Dick gripped the knife inside his pocket, ready for the worst, if it decided to attack for whatever reason. But just a few inches from him the fox looked into his eyes. This close Dick can see them now a beautiful haunting teal colour, something he hadn't seen on any other creature before, almost otherworldly. And in it's gaze Dick found something familiar, he doesn't know how, but it feels like this fox recognised him. And Dick in turn recognised him too.

He went away after that, leaving him all back alone. Dick contemplated his departure, somehow feeling lighter of his impeding end. After some time, that couldn't be even an hour long if his estimations were right, Dick heard the sound of dogs and people. He screamed his lunges out for them, with as much strength he musterd after much blood loss. Harsh haltings and the sound of shuffling through the snow, Dick looked up in time to see some of the town's hunters with their own hounds and his, coming his way.

"Richard! Thanks the Deity we found you"

"How?" He managed weakly.

"Your hounds came back to town following a fox! Our own joined them and we followed them to get them back to home, because for some reason they weren't listening to orders.", "and we also worried of your dog, as we know of how well trained they are and how they would not dare leave your side... we worried something happened to you"

Dick didn't really pay much attention past the "Fox" he looked around willing to catch him again and he did. It looked at him from far away. Kept on looking for sometime and then trotted away.

Dick thanked the fox and he thanked the gods for sending him to Dick.

The second time Dick met him, was when he was nursing a heavy fever amidst a snow storm. Harsh knocking on his door had awaken him from restless slumber. He wondered what person out of their mind would be out and about at this time, or it simply could be someone seeking refuge at his shamble of a house. Either way Dick readied his hunting knife and riffle. He opened his door with a harsh gush of storm air entering his house blocking it from him, almost protectively, was a younger man. Dick's high fever faced with sudden cold made his mind all fuzzy and dizzy, because he recognised those eyes, and that face looked like it belonged to someone who never got the chance to grow into it. His illness took the better of him, Dick fell into a strong, warm, chest. Wide shoulders and powerful arms engulfed him, warmth seeping into his quivering body.

"Shush, I got you now"

Tears filled his eyes for some reason, from his illness, the cold or the unexpected surge of weird emotions, he doesn't know. He Couldn't have put his fingers on it even as his life quite literally depended on it. With this stranger at his doorstep, and him in such weakened state.

But Dick felt safe. This man would keep him safe.

Dick woke up. His hounds were laying by either side of him. He looked into his room to find doctor Thompkins in a chair by his side.

"Good morning Dick. How are you feeling? Last night must have been a hard one on you."

"I had a simple fever. What are you doing her Dr Thompkins ?"

"I am afraid it wasn't as simple as you'd like to believe.. if not for that young man taking care of you through it, you might have not gone through last night Dick.", "which, answering to your question, was the one to seek me after you had stabilised a bit. Quite the young man he was, to seek me and drag me through the storm to get to you"

Dick's braind was still fuzzy with the memory. He had thought it a hallucination and nothing more. No person should have had those eye. Especially not him.

"Where did he go" he said instead "I don't know. After he got me here he just left without a word, and you know me I don't ask unnecessary question and would rather spend the time and effort tending to my patient" a beat of silence "you don't know him either" a statement not needing a confirmation "you don't know who I know or might not know", "But I do Dick. Everyone dose know how isolated you are and it's a face I haven't seen around town before"

Dick didn't have anything to say to that. He only thought "Maybe it's an envoy from the deity, a guardian angel, if you Will" he declared. And even through the dizziness and fuzziness he felt, he could confirm. That the weight he felt propping him was very real and human.

"Don't be ridiculous, I never sought you as a religious person"

"Hmm" Dick allowed, signalling he wanted the conversation to end. which Leslie allowed easily.

As she finished with directing him to each medicine he was supposed to take, she made a promis to come check on him in the early evening then she left him to his cold empty house again.

Dick stroked his hounds thinking, yearning, was the fox only going to come to him in times of need? Did he only allow himself in Dick's life only when death was at his door steps waiting for him? Did Jason only come to ward the angels of death away from him, because he regarded Dick as something precious to him,but his anger for Dick's neglect and detachment of him made Jason punish Dick by never returning back to his life properly?

Dick left his hands to his eyes slowly. As the weight of his loneliness settled on his shoulders, the tears started to flood. He hoped his hands were enough to shield him from Jason's ever watching eyes, least he be watching now, and so he might blame Dick's pain on his own self.