Nightmare sipped uncomfortably at his drink, his hands cupped around the mug. "So. You're not going to steal all of my bone marrow?"

The man rolled his eye-lights, sipping some hot chocolate topped with whipped cream, chocolate shavings, and a mountain of marshmallows. "I may look like a witch but I'm not one."

"I thought witches were girls." Nightmare blinked, drinking his hot cocoa.

"Warlock, then." The man shrugged, lazily correcting himself. "Cross the warlock. You know what, Cross the ice cream man. That sounds a lot better than witch or warlock." He chuckled.

"That's even more creepy." Nightmare shivered. "Luring in kids with ice cream and telling them that you have more in your white van. Then you scoop them up and cook them in your witch oven-"

"I SAID I WAS A WARLOCK, DAMN IT." Cross glared at Nightmare, but Nightmare just shrugged. He sighed. "Anyways," Cross leaned on his ice-counter, watching his snowmen skate on it. "Where are you from, kid?"

"The city." Nightmare answered, slurping up a marshmallow. This cocoa was really good, way better than the crappy stuff they bought in the orphanage. It was always lukewarm and had cheap marshmallows in it. This drink was heaven compared to the ones they served back there.

"Uh-huh." Cross dipped a finger in his whipped cream and scooped a chunk off, eating it. "And why is a boy from the city so far in the woods?" 

"I ran." Nightmare answered plainly.

"Well, yeah-" Cross growled, rolling his eye-lights. "I could tell that much. Why, kid? Were you being chased? Were you exploring? What?"

"Oh. I was running away from home." Nightmare smiled as Cross stared at him with a confused expression. 

"Running away from home? Why?" Cross drank a bit of his drink. "What about your parents?"

Nightmare paused. "What parents?"

Cross opened his mouth but then shut it, blinking at him. "....uh... are... are you an orphan?"

"Was." Nightmare finished his drink, pushing his mug towards Cross greedily. "I ran away from the orphanage, so I guess I'm not anymore."

"That's-" Cross eyed the mug before getting up to make more. "-not how it works."

Nightmare shrugged. It seemed to be his favorite thing to do now. "That's how it works now."

"You must have SOMEONE which you can go home to." Cross started up the stove, reaching up into icy cupboards to pull out a box of chocolate. 

The other grinned. "Nope. Not a single person."

Cross turned. "No one?"

"No one."

"Not even a cousin? A sibling?"

Nightmare hesitated at this. "... no. Not even a sibling or a cousin."

"Hm." Cross dumped some more chocolate into the pot and stirred it a bit. "Well, that settles it then."

"Hm?"

The warlock turned with a smile. "I'll take care of you then."

~

Nightmare sat awkwardly on the soft couch, wrapping himself in a rather cozy blanket. "It's freezing."

"It's an ice castle, hun." Cross chuckled, conjuring up and shifting the ice before him. He was trying to decide what kind of coffee table he wanted to have in the living room, the block of ice shifting forms faster than what Nightmare could keep up with.

"Can't we light a fire or something?" Nightmare muttered, snuggling deeper into his fluffy blanket.

"Again," Cross set a hand on the block, giving Nightmare a look. "Ice castle."

"But it's magic ice." Nightmare stuck his arms out and waved them around. "I could take a hot bath in an ice tub!"

Cross scrunched his face up for a moment before he sighed, waving his hand. Shimmering crystal-like magic whirled out of his fingertips and surrounded the block of ice. It spun and spun until dispersing, the ice block now a neat, round coffee table. "It... it doesn't work like that!"

"It's not like it'll melt it." Nightmare scoffed, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out a small box of matches that he managed to snag from the orphanage kitchen. "Look." He pulled one out and had already began to strike it.

Cross went as pale as a skeleton could be. He lunged forward, reaching for the match. "Hey, stop!"

As Cross wrapped his hand around the match, it had suddenly caught on fire. With a loud yelp, the warlock withdrew his arm immediately and scrambled backwards. Nightmare sat there with the match in-hand before he threw it to the icy floor.
As he expected, the ice didn't melt. He huffed. "See? What did I say-" Nightmare stopped when he noticed Cross pressing himself against the far wall, staring at the tiny match with a heavy intensity.

"P-put it out." The words sounded so shaky coming from Cross that Nightmare couldn't believe the man was a scary warlock.

Nightmare tilted his head to the dying flame, so tiny now that it could really do no harm. "Uh, it's already dying."

"PUT IT OUT!" Cross suddenly screamed, startling the other. Nightmare stared at him wide-eyed now, confusion and fear on his face. Cross met his gaze with his own and took a deep, shaky breath. "Please."

Without another word, Nightmare tucked his blankets to the side and bent over, extinguishing the flame. Silence filled the room as he leaned back onto the couch, curling up in his blankets. It lingered for several minutes, both refusing to move. Nightmare finally spoke. "Are you afraid of fire?"

Cross, after inspecting the burnt out match from afar, slowly approached the couch and settled down next to Nightmare quietly. "...yeah." He didn't try to hide it.

Nightmare threw his matchbox onto the newly created coffee table, looking at the floor. "Why?" The warlock soothed the hand he had used to touch the match. Nightmare looked over and frowned. Cross burned himself. "You should treat that."

"Right." He rubbed his hand a little before slowly using healing magic to soothe it. Nightmare watched the green light dance off of his fingertips, fluttering over to the burn and caressing it gently.

When Cross was finished, he looked over at Nightmare for a moment before he held out his hand. The other stared at it, lifting a non-existent eyebrow. The warlock gestured to Nightmare's arm.
Nightmare tugged the blanket down a bit so he could hand over the appendage, looking to the side as Cross healed it carefully.

"Where did you get these scars?" Cross whispered, running a few gentle fingers down various cracks and poorly-healed bone littering Nightmare's arm.

"I had to keep my condition under control." Nightmare sounded like it was less of a big deal than it actually was. "It had already screwed up my life plenty of times before, so I had to keep it down by using any means I could."

"By hurting yourself?" Cross mumbled through a frown.

"It works." Nightmare looked at him with a eerily calm stare.

Cross broke eye-contact, a little unsettled. "It's not healthy."

"I know."

"Why not try something else?" Cross asked, running his hand along the cracks and trying his best to mend them.

"Like what?"

"Anything else." Cross blurted, shrugging. "I don't know... maybe try meditation or breathing techniques."

"That sounds stupid." Nightmare grumbled.

"It can help." Cross smiled.

((Part 3 is coming soon uwu))