Chapter Text
He was on the corner of Hasson and Rust street again. Right outside the Axalon Apartments sign, with kudzu snaking up and strangling the dingy thing. God, the landlord really needed to replace it - an eyesore really.
Know what else was a pretty bad eyesore? That friggin’ kid.
He stuck out awful against the dank green and the oppressive, muted colors of the cracked streets with chunks missing entirely out of the asphalt- that looked like a new pothole, gotta watch out for another one, dammit, my tires were already wrecked - and the neglected buildings with cracks tracing the mortar grout of the brickwork were background noise to this part of town.
This kid practically beamed all the time an’ God was he bright lookin’, dressed in some real eye-burn-orange mos’ of the time. I remember him explainin’ to me that he was trainin’ for track season or whatever, that he was on the track team, that a lot of the lightweight clothes he wore to practice were orange, and that orange was his favorite color, but he also liked yellows and greens and blues, and I don’t know why I remembered what his favorite colors were.
Because it don’t matter no way.
He didn’t deserve to be in a place like this , where people strung out on heroin drifted or people coming to sling - peddlin’ out laced toxin an’ all that shit. The Preda have been encroachin’ closer, too . It makes my trigger-finger friggin’ itch… makes me nervous . I don’t want to see another kid just become another member of the Preda is all. We really needed a clean up around here. The fat cats livin’ real cushy don’t care about some fuck-ups livin’ n some squalor. As long as they can’t see us, we don’t exist.
Can’t take care of a problem that don’t exist, right?
Jeez, didn’t this kid have places to be? This is gettin’ stinkin’ ridiculous. Shoulda never been nice to him, now he’s followin’ me around like a lost pup or whatever. Alls I did was just give him a ride. A ride and like, a piece of gum. It was touching down in the 40s, now, with Fall going and Winter comin’. An’ he was an idiot just runnin’ around on Main in a flimsy muscle shirt and runnin’ shorts with cheetah print sliders underneath ‘em. It wasn’t even actual cheetah print, it was just yellow and the print itself was blue. Christ Almighty, an eyesore. I’m tellin’ yeah, he was a real eyesore.
An’ I stopped by Freddy’s ‘n got him a burger.
But, only because his stomach was growling, it was irritatin’, an’ I was gettin’ hungry, too. Been a while since I’ve been down to Freddy’s anyway. Wouldn’t have killed me to spare a couple bucks for him. His face lit up when I had offered. His face, dotted with freckles and even more freckles, split with the most pleased, toothy, grin I ever did see, and he said,
“ Aw yeah! Thanks, you’re a real cool cat.”
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, who still says “cool cat .”
I had shrugged it off at the time, just a one-time thing, no big deal. Then the kid kept comin’ around. He made it a point to start running near Hasson and Rust, so that he could stop by and yammer on to me about whatever made him excited that day or what he did today and sometimes what he had learned in school:
“Hey, Ratts,” - he called me Ratts, his little nickname for me. Guess we on a nickname basis now, huh, “...did you know...” Kid, I ain’t know nothing no how, “...that caffeine doesn’t give you energy! It just, like, kinda blocks the parts in your brain that makes you think you’re tired. Or, uh - something like that!”
“Yeah, real intersestin’,” I muttered and sent him a look that should’ve clued him in to scram, but he just took that as an invitation and he leaned in closer to me from his place off the wall of the tobacco outlet - he had followed me there, was right next to Freddy’s - and flashed me a grin and exclaimed,
“Isn’t it though! I mean, I always thought that, like, it gave you energy. I kinda understand now why I crash so bad now!”
I huffed and took out my smokes, and packed them against the palm of my hand, - one, two, three times, and took off the wrap. Popped one out, popped it in my mouth, and covered the end with my spare hand as I lit it up. Or attempted to at least. Cheap ass lighter, needa new one. This one was running out of fluid anyhow. On the fourth attempt of striking, the end of the cig lit up and I inhaled, let the gray smoke fill up my lungs, swirl around a little. Then I blew out, watching the smoke dance and lilt through the air in front of me. I looked over to Cheetor, and he just blinked at me and smiled.
I thought he was gonna be quiet. Boy, am I tired of being wrong. He leaned back against his little spot on the wall, with his freakishly long legs out in front of him and his back leaning against the brick. That’s gotta be uncomfortable for him, wearin’ that flimsy muscle shirt he usually wore when he went runnin’. The brick was cold and it was prol’ly sappin’ his heat. Not to mention the brick at this outlet was particularly rough, old building ‘n all. He flung his equally freakishly long arms over his head to cross ‘em over himself, and looked down at me and just really started in on me with how his day went, and what he was excited about, and what he learned about that day, and I just inhaled, in exasperation, or out of habit, I ain’t know, but didn’t care, and blew out, watching the smoke rock out in front of me again, with Cheetor’s voice cast as background noise.
Look what you did, Rattrap. Look what you did. You were nice once, and now y’er babysitter.
“... but like, my Dad said - OH HECK YEAH!”
The kid frickin’ shouted and I jumped, nearly droppin’ the cigarette out of my mouth, but instead my teeth clenched and squished the butt of the cig. Damn it, I hope I could still smoke it. I inhaled and was a little relieved I could, didn’t wanna waste anythin’. I looked to the left of me to see what the hell that kid’s malfunction was, but he was already haulin’ ass towards an ice cream truck, that already had little kids mobbing it, and here comes this 6-foot-3-spindly-ass-teenager barrelin’ towards it.
Christ, gonna have to put this kid on a leash now, huh?