Chapter Text
His cheek burned from his momma’s hand as Logan stumbled backwards away from the couch she’d been sprawled on since she’d gotten home from work.
“MOVE.” She commanded, hand already raising again though her eyes never wavered from the moving pictures on the TV in front of her.
“Yes, Momma.” He choked out, retreating out of her sight, covering his mouth with his hands to keep himself from making any further noise to distract her from her show. Breath hitching he went to the one space he knew she wouldn’t venture into.
That still didn’t mean he was allowed into her sewing room, even though the only time he ever saw her within it was when she was dragging him out of it.
Tearing one hand away from his mouth, keeping the other firmly over his lips, Logan reached up, turning the handle so he could disappear inside.
He didn’t yet have the words to say how the smell of bundles of dust covered cloth calmed him as he went straight for the window on the other side of the room, but it helped so much. Carefully he wound his way through mounds and mounds of patterns, his fingers brushing across the different textures helping to further soothe him and chase the tears from his eyes.
Pulling his other hand away from his mouth once he was certain he wouldn’t make a sound, Logan reached up to the window. He wasn’t strong enough or tall enough to be able to push it all the way up, but if he stretched on his toes and pushed with all his might, Logan could get it to slide upwards enough to give the outside sounds a chance to come inside and drown out the dumb show his momma had been watching since the sun had set fiveever ago.
Keeping a wary ear out for her screeching laughter, he rested his nose on the edge of the sill, eyes closing as the fresh breeze swooped into the room, stirring the stuffy air.
He’d known it was trouble bugging momma when she was watching her shows, but at the same time, the moon was rising overhead and she hadn’t brought them anything to eat since yesterday.
A whimper escaped him before he could stop it as his stomach twisted, feeling like it was trying to eat itself.
Dropping to the floor Logan curled up, carefully leaning against a tower of cloth with varying star patterns on it, a trembling hand raising to his sore cheek.
He’d figured out how to cook for himself around the same time he learned to walk, but you couldn’t make something out of nothing and they had nothing.
He’d tried to tell momma before that she needed to go get more food, but she’d hit him then too. Not realizing that the fridge had been empty since the last time the moon was full. That the cupboards had been bare as of three days ago. That her leftovers for him were hardly ever edible when she dropped the random boxes on the counter after work.
Logan swallowed, dropping his hand to the space between the wall and the tower of cloth, pulling out a thin worn picture book from its hiding place. His one treasure in this house that contained no other signs that he lived here.
He flipped open to his favorite page, his hair shifting in the slight breeze coming from the window as he rested shaking fingers on the picture of the white and black bird -a stork the TV had told him once during a commercial- carrying a human baby.
“The stork brings the baby to deserving parents.” He whispered, quoting the words from memory. “All the lost, forgotten, and alone. The stork comes and takes the babes from their unhappy places and brings them to daddies and mom--” He cut off, breath hitching as he scrubbed at his eyes with an arm. “Mommies who will love them very much.”
If only that were true.
Logan bowed his head over the book, shoulders shaking, trying to keep quiet so his momma wouldn’t find him in here again.
Even if it were true that birds could do that, it was too late for him.
The Storks only helped babies.
And Logan...Logan was almost five.