Disclaimer: I don't own Chrono, but you don't need to keep rubbing it in! (sob sob sob)

Author's Note: This idea hit me after watching my friend Emily being assaulted countless times for this. . . Problem. So this is dedicated to her. Poke poke, darling. (;

Anyway, enjoy this bit of random and totally irrelevant stupidity. XD

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"Aaaa- aaaa- aaaacho!"

With the sound of her sneeze reverberating off of the stone convent walls, Rosette's bedroom door was smashed open- a fork of lightening from a nearby window silhouetting two very disgruntled, cold, and dirty exorcists.

"D-d-dammit!" the young woman cursed, shivering in her militia robes and tightly clutching a very painful wound on her side. Her arm, too, was bleeding freely- but she had refused to let Chrono touch her until they were back home. If they stood still for longer than two minutes, after all, they'd probably sink. "It's like Noah's flood has come back!"

Chrono blew his nose in agreement, his violet locks waterlogged and dripping rivers on the floor. "No kidding," he eventually snuffled, tossing the tissue into a small trashcan; not quite registering his Contractor's movements behind him. He began wringing out his braid as he turned to face her. "I though we were gonna drown in the ca-c-c- Christ!"

Wheeling away so quickly that his drenched hair swung straight out behind him, the little devil completed an embarrassed 360- the image of Rosette undressing behind him forever carved into his poor memory. His senses on overload and his face already hot enough to fry an egg, he somehow knew that even if he one day lost his mind, he'd never lose the half-second flash of her habit over her head; her shapely body covered in nothing but sodden bloomers and a clinging undershirt. Rivulets of rain trickled down her shapely legs, begging to be watched as they pooled beneath her on the floor. He twitched. "R-Rosette! WARN me or something next time, yo. . . !" He paused. "Wait a minute- why are you changing now, anyway! I'm still in the room!"

The normally fiery girl simply shrugged while tugging off her boots and knee socks, the torrents of the night having put out her red-hot rage. "I was cold and I wouldn't ever warm up in those." She gestured flatly to the pile of sopping rags beside her bed. "Isn't that what you're always telling me? First aid rule? Besides," she continued with a shiver, looking awfully pale to Chrono when he chanced a timid glance over his shoulder, face still dangerously pink, "I still need my bandages- and I can't get them on without moving my clothes anyway, right?"

"Right. . . moving them, not removing them," Chrono clarified dully, but slowly managed to accept this new situation. The only hard part was not watching her more than usual- he was sure her sudden calm would not last if she noticed him staring. . . His cheeks turned cherry-red again. 'I am so dead.'

"Stop complaining," Rosette commanded airily, wincing slightly as she lowered herself to her mattress, still clutching her side. Blood and muck had earlier seeped through her outfit and had thoroughly stained her attire. It looked bad. . . and soon worry had taken precedence over everything else. Chrono was beside her in an instant.

"Rosette?" he questioned gingerly, crouching on the floor next to her bed. "Rosette, are you okay?"

"Oh. . . Yeah, I'm fine," she grunted, winking. Her hand tightened. "I'm sure it looks worse than it feels."

He didn't appear completely convinced by this, but let it go; taking a moment to examine her arm. "Well. . . Nothing a few band-aids won't fi- fiachoo!"

WHUMP.

Rosette arched an amused eyebrow as the force of his sneeze sent Chrono flailing backwards, landing painfully on his rear. A muffled squelch accompanied his fall, a splattering of water flying from his clothes. ". . . Ouch." Shaking her head, she held out a hand. "All right, off with 'em."

"?" Blinking up at her, the demon cocked his head; giving a slight shiver. "What are you talking about?" he sniffled, running the back of his hand over his nose. Gallons seemed to weigh down his movements, and he felt as if he were still swimming outside. And so, in retrospect, he knew what Rosette wanted.

"Your jacket. Your socks and shoes, too. Come on, take them off," she demanded, wiggling her fingers expectantly; pulling a blanket over the undamaged half of her body. Her companion's ruby eyes widened.

"Ro-Rosette!"

"Off with them!"

She glared, a little rosy in the face.

". . .Okay," Chrono surrendered feebly, his will already weakened by his pre-existing and overwhelming desire to do just that. "Fine."

And so he stripped himself of his thick red coat and yanked off his black loafers, buckets of access liquid sloshing in their dark depths. Then came his socks and finally his black stretchy stockings, leaving him in drooping suspenders, shorts, and a drenched, see-through white shirt. Rosette found herself having a hard time not to stare at the crevices and creases of muscle and warm flesh underneath that flimsy top- but managed to restrain herself when remembering that if Chrono caught her, she'd never hear the end of it. Unless she killed him. Which she might have to do, in that sort of situation.

With a hacking cough, the boy tossed his flooded outfit into the corner with the girl's, leaving them both feeling rather bare. They contemplated this new and increasingly more awkward situation for a few moments, before remembering the more pressing duty of bandaging the sister- Rosette hissing in pain when a particularly agonizing throb ripping through her body.

"Oh, curses," she spat hoarsely, instinctively scooting to the right to give Chrono room on the bed. "It's deeper than I thought it was. . ." Her nails began to dig into her uninjured flesh.

The Sinner frowned, worry creasing his brow. "Let me see it," he commanded gently, crawling up to her and pulling a spare roll of gauze from the bedside table. Putting the foamy strip in his lap, the boy thoughtfully bit his tongue; tenderly taking the girl's arm in his own and dabbing the blood away with his wet sleeve. "Well, this one's not so bad, at least," he told her reassuringly, the pads of his fingers fluttering softly against her cold flesh as he began the familiar routine of wrapping up her damaged limb. "More or less a scratch."

"Hmm," she hummed her reply, legs crossed and head glaring the other way. Her second hand, however, remained tightly to her side, gripping her other injury. "Least that demon wasn't a poisonous one."

"We're lucky," Chrono agreed simply, leaving it at that. Tying the ends of the bandage together carefully, he smiled cheerily up at his Contractor. "All done! Next one, please."

Again, her eyebrow arched. She removed her hand. And pulled up her shirt to show him the lesion.

That was when the devil saw the problem.

The difficulty wasn't that the cut was deep and long and bleeding profusely- that was the be expected. Quite honestly, in and of itself it wasn't that horrifying of a gash and could be easily attended to. The trouble was the placement of the abrasion. It began at the bottom of her ribcage, and ran all the way up to the base of her breast, curving in to trace the outline of her. . . er. . . womanly appendage.

And with a hurt arm, it would be too difficult to use the gauze on herself. . .

Chrono gulped. "Um. . . All right. L-lie back, I guess. And on your side." Rosette complied without complaint, but her eyes spoke volumes- mainly volumes of warnings and threats. "Don't look at me like that," he whimpered half-heartedly, slowly and carefully pealing the moist undershirt up again to expose the teen's curved side. "I'm doing this to help you, not molest you!"

"That better be it, buster," she growled, but her pathetic round of sneezes somehow managed to take the intimidation out of her cold statement.

Deciding it would be best to hurry and just get this over with, the poor boy began to quickly bandage the wound, working from the bottom up- and trying his best not to observe the scenery during the ride. 'Lord have mercy, she's going to kill me. She's going to blast me into a million teeny-tiny pieces with her gun and feed me to the sewer crocodiles and then she's gonna kill them so she can find my body and drown whatever's left of me. . .' A droplet of sweat slipped down his worried brow, despite how positively frigid it was. Yes, she was going to kill him.

It certainly looked like she was ready to, after all; what with how red her face was becoming. Bright and strained as she bit her bottom lip, jamming her eyes shut. She squirmed. "Rosette, keep still," he reprimanded kindly. She growled. He continued, wrapping and brushing and carefully prodding once in a while- just to make sure things were going okay.

She jerked slightly, giving another wiggle. And this time, it was like she couldn't stop.

Chrono frowned. "I'm serious, Rosette. You need to stay still."

"I-I am!" she bit back, voice trembling as his fingers brushed her side for the umpteenth time.

"No, you're not," he retorted- deftly prodding his thumb into the skin just above her hip in emphasis. "You're twisting all over the place! Stop it- or I'll have to stop you myself!" He poked her once more. She all but jumped- worming and writhing like there was no tomorrow. So he did the only thing he could think of it order to keep her still:

He straddled her side, pinning her there with his thighs.

"What th- C-CHRONO!" she yelped, face magenta.

"What! I can't finish if you don't stop moving!" he snapped as he attempted- and finally succeeded in- applying the last bandages. When he did so he exhaled loudly, worn out. "Geez, Rosette- what's wrong? Do you have a fev. . . ?"

But it was then that he found himself trailing off, at a loss for words. What in Pandemonium's name was going on? Why had Rosette begun. . . Laughing? Laughing so hard and uncontrollably that he was afraid she was going to ruin her band-aids? She turned and fidgeted endlessly, reacting to every stroke accidentally brought upon her side.

Chrono blinked slowly, rearing back and pulling his hands away. "Uh. . . Rosette. . . ?"

"D-d-don't t-touch m-me!" she stammered through her giggles, gasping fruitlessly for air. "Can't- breathe. . . !"

The devil simply stared. 'NO WAY.' It couldn't be! "You. . . You're ticklish?"

"All over. . ." she panted, still convulsing from her laughter. "Especially the s-sides. . . And I hate it! And. . .Chrono. . ." Her eyes narrowed as she glanced up, shifting so that her back was pressed to the bed- her demon companion resting on top of her stomach. Neither seemed to have registered the new proximity when it came to body positioning- they both just noticed that it was suddenly much warmer. "What's that look all about . . . ?"

"Hm? What look?" he asked innocently, beaming brighter than the sun. Unfortunately, Rosette wasn't fooled.

"That look that screams 'I'm a suicidal idiot bent on revenge, Rosette!'"

"Oooooh. . ." Chrono nodded slowly, understanding. "You mean, this look?"

And with that he attacked her sides, grinning from ear to ear with 'the look' on his face as the teen girl beneath him gave a screech; trying frantically to wriggle away. Keen on self defense, she began batting at his hands, tossing her head, and tugging his braid. But the only thing any of those escape attempts accomplished was pulling out his ribbon. Bringing her legs up behind him, she then tried to knock him off using her kneecaps as a weapon, but this, too, eventually failed. Arching her back in a final effort to break away, she managed to grab tightly to Chrono's wrist; causing it to slide up her shirt. . .

When Azmaria burst through the door, in the midst of a cheerful: "Rosette, Chrono! You're back! Sister Kate wants to s. . . see . . ." Her voice failed. Their gazes locked.

". . ." Rosette and Chrono stared up at the girl from the bed, scantly dressed and tangled.

". . ." Azmaria stared back at them from the doorway, pink-cheeked and wide eyed.

Reality finally kicked back in.

"Eh. . . !" the devil choked.

"Er. . . !" the nun squeaked.

"Aa! S-sorry to interrupt! I- I'll just tell Sister Kate that you're busy. . . !" the apostle stammered, gaping embarrassedly before quickly slipping back out again, leaving the exorcists to. . . Do what they were doing.

That was the last time she forgot to knock.

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Yeah, that was pretty cliché, I know, but it was still fun to do. :) Took me a long time to come up with an ending I liked. . . Hope you liked it, too! Please R&R! Ja ne!