Handprints

Chapter 3: Shelter

Dee was lost and confused, wandering down the street in their burned clothes. No doubt making for quite the strange sight so late at night. They were too out of it to really care though anyways.
Dee flinched away from every car that passed by on the street, especially the cop cars that sped past with flashing lights and screaming sirens. They knew they were out after the Cyber curfew, they also knew that the police were far from kind to Cybers.
"what are you doing out here?" a voice called from inside as Dee passed by a building.
Startled, Dee turned to run away from the voice afraid that they would call the police on them.
"Dee, what happened?" the voice called again as a hand pulled at their arm, tugging them towards the building. There was something familiar about the voice but Dee's mind was filled with too much smoke and panic for them to have any sort of coherent thought.
Dee desperately tried to escape from the person holding onto them, they needed to get away from this person. Dee needed to get to safety.
"Dee!" the voice called again, the person grabbing their shoulders and shaking them. Dee forced themself to focus on their face. It was hard to see in the bad lighting but their features slowly came into focus. Dee slumped forward when they realized who it was. It was Doc, Doc was the one who was holding them. Doc would help them.
Dee slumped into Doc, letting their head fall onto his shoulder. Too tired and wrung out from the insanity of the night to care anymore.
Doc half dragged, half carried them into his shop. It wasn't safe for either of them to stay out on the streets for long at this hour of the night.
Dee let themself be guided up the stairs at the back of the shop, their feet dragging against the ground with every step.
At the top of the stairs was the living room of a cozy apartment. Dee would have been more intrigued about their surroundings if it weren't for how exhausted they were. Instead, they merely shuffled through the room with no real notice to what else was in it as Doc guided them to a doorway covered by a curtain.
On the other side of the curtain was a simple little bedroom with a bed against one wall and a night stand next to that.
Dee gratefully curled up under the blankets of that bed, not even bothering to take off their hoodie or shoes before they were unconscious once more.