hate_gettin_older | [milliways: kidplot]

Curtis's frown deepens in puzzlement. He glances over at the rest of the bar, then back to the kid, and lowers his voice.

"Are you playing hide and seek?"

If so, then Curtis promises he didn't see anything! He'll even say those exact words if anybody asks him.

... Uh.

"Yeah," he mutters, trying hard to conceal the rush of wild hope that the Front kid might actually believe him.

Curtis beams. "Okay," he whispers. "I won't tell 'em I saw you. Promise."

His loyalties have been decided! If the seeker'd found him first, things would be totally different, but as it stands: he's got your back, dirty kid under the table.

Satisfied, he heaves himself back upright to continue eating his burger. After a few minutes, he starts swinging his legs again, but in much smaller arcs this time so he doesn't hit Edgar.

And -- there's no good reason for him to trust a Front kid, but when he says promise, somehow Edgar does actually feel reassured.

... and promptly feels guilty for lying to him.

He chews his lower lip, watching the kid's feet swinging.

"Hey," he whispers, after a long moment.

His feet tuck underneath the seat of his chair; in the same movement, Curtis swings to the side to peek under the table.

"Yeah?"

"No, don't bend down, they'll fuckin see you talking to me!" he hisses frantically.

His eyes go wide as he realizes his mistake -- already, he's swinging back up, leaving a little trail of "Sorry! Sorry!" in his wake.

Curtis scrambles for a couple of french fries as he tries to assume an air of nonchalance. (Or what a ten-year-old considers nonchalance. It's gonna involve some too-casual whistling any second now.)

It's a little weird, really, that a Front kid is apologizing to him. It gets more unnerving the more Edgar thinks about it, so he shakes his head and stops thinking about it.

(But this kid doesn't feel like Front, somehow.)

"Where'd you get that food?"

"At the big counter over there."

Curtis almost points, then remembers at the last second and studiously nibbles on a french fry instead.

"Nobody's there, but stuff'll just show up if you ask for it." That half-excited, half-nervous grin comes back. "They've got everything. And it doesn't cost nothing."

"... if anybody asks for it?"

There's a faint roaring in his ears, like wind battering the walls of the train.

"Yeah." He slants a look toward the bar. "Doesn't look like any grown-ups care anyway."

Probably because the kids definitely outnumber the grown-ups right now.

He has to swallow again.

"Not even the guards?"

A long pause.

(Curtis wants to look back under the table so bad. Just staring at the table in total confusion, like he's got X-ray vision, isn't as satisfying as staring at an actual person.)

Low, "You mean like cops? There's none of 'em around either."

Why would this kid be worried about cops?

...Wait.

"Are you in trouble?"

Edgar, meanwhile, is staring at the narrow slice of floor visible from under the table, in a total confusion of his own.

"None of them around? Like, just now, or ... ever?"

"I dunno. I haven't been here that long. But I can't see any."

Okay, if they're actually gonna be talking a lot it'll be easier if Curtis isn't on a chair. After a surreptitious look left, and another right, to make sure nobody's watching him, Curtis grabs his plate and slides under the table next to Edgar.

And his second glance at the Front kid's face is very brief, as his gaze is almost instantly riveted to the plate.

It takes every bit of self-control he's got to keep himself from lunging and grabbing the food.

Up close, a couple more details are starting to click together. Not just that the kid's dirty and smelly, but he's skinny, too, like Curtis hasn't seen except in pictures. And he's got such a hungry look on his face as he stares at Curtis's burger.

He's homeless, Curtis realizes, stunned. He's like the homeless people downtown.

(But he's just a kid, kids aren't supposed to be homeless -- )

Curtis sets down the food. Carefully, he tears the burger in half, making sure only one of the pieces has any teeth marks on it. "Here," he says, offering the unbitten half to Edgar. "You can have some of the fries too."

For a split second he's frozen, stunned --

-- and then he snatches the proffered piece of food and tears into it ravenously, oblivious for the moment to anything else.

It's hot, and layered in a bewildering complexity of flavors and textures, none of them anything like protein block, and there's some sharp and stinging taste buried in it somewhere but he can't make himself care.

(The half-burger is vanishing with alarming swiftness.)

Curtis puts down his own half-burger and draws his knees to his chest, watching the other kid in silence. He's not smiling any more. Not even a little.

Maybe he should give him all the rest of his food -- even the candy and the bitten parts of the burger. He can probably get more for himself from the counter, right? They don't stop giving you stuff after you ask for food?

Maybe he'll just share for now and show the other kid how to get his own food later.

"My name's Curtis," he says after a minute. "What's yours?"

Edgar chokes, and just barely keeps himself from spewing out a mouthful of whatever-this-is. The near miss horrifies him a little, and for a moment he just concentrates on chewing and swallowing. It would be the worst kind of waste to lose any of this.

It's a coincidence, he tells himself firmly as he finishes chewing. That's all.

(Curtis -- his Curtis -- isn't going to know where he is. He'll be worried, maybe even scared. He'll be angry.)

"'M Edgar," he mumbles, not looking up.

Curtis tilts his head, frowning even harder.

"What's wrong?" he asks, smaller than he means.

What'd he say to make Edgar almost spit out his food?

He's got a ready-made excuse, but ... how to word it?

"There's, uh --" One foot jitters up and down with nervous energy as he gropes for unfamiliar vocabulary. "Something stings. In the food? Sharp, like."

"Oh." Still uncertain, but rapidly regaining his footing. "'S probably the mustard. Or onions."

Curtis hesitates.

"You want me to get you another one? I can get it without the onions and stuff. And I've got candy up -- " He untucks himself and stretches up, face disappearing above the table. Two seconds later he's back with the bowl in both hands. "Here."

Edgar swallows the last beautifully greasy fragment of food as the Front kid reappears, and eyes the bowl of brightly colored objects with some curiosity. "What is it?"

"Dunno. Lots of stuff." He pushes it closer. "Go ahead and look."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject