Sheltered

1

I'M SO SORRY FOR DISAPPEARING FOR MONTHS!! OTL
Anyways I'll keep posting this as I update and I'll probably rewrite Butler's Toy because it's embarrassingly bad.

—

Autumn was already in full swing. Meeting deadlines was hard enough without the gloomy weather weighing down on his vision, but the storm outside Sebastian's London townhome showed no sign of letting up anytime soon. He glanced over his week's work and sighed, this would have to do. Perfectionism wouldn't get him anywhere in his line of work, at least not today. The world of journalism was quick and fleeting, anything he wrote would be forgotten in a week's time with no regard to his perfect wording- or lack thereof. He clapped his laptop closed and pushed his office chair away from the shitty Ikea desk. Standing up with a stretch, he took a look around at his surroundings to place him back into the world of the living. The decor in his office was objectively tasteful; all of the furniture fit into a neutral color scheme and was simplistic in design, it was so minimalistic that it almost looked expensive. The space was completely devoid of personality, sure, but any time he was in there he would have his nose buried in his work anyways, and the large window at the far end of the room usually made up for the lack of color or flare. But in these colder months, it just added to the dull, grey backdrop.

Judging from the darkening sky and a quick glance at his phone clock, it was well into the evening already— 8:00 pm. It was too late to start planning out an entire meal, and his distaste for "low quality food," as he so pleasantly put it, prevented him from just eating a premade microwave dinner like any sensible person would. He closed the office door and left it to be forgotten until the next weekday while he made a beeline for the fridge. Taking the soup from a few nights before, he poured it into a small pot before turning on the gaslit stove, leaving it to heat up while he wound down from his workday. As he started to undo the top buttons of his shirt, his ears perked up at a strange scuffing sound near his door. He excitedly headed towards it; was it the same black cat he had seen earlier this week? He left food out for her each morning, but it was rare for her to make an appearance. But he assumed it had to be her, the dish was always empty the next day. The scraping was followed by a quick few timid knocks on the door. Definitely not the cat, unless she had suddenly evolved.

Sebastian took the last few steps before unlatching the lock and taking a look at his new visitor. Standing in his doorway was, to put it lightly, the filthiest looking child he had ever seen. Aside from the sullied clothes and being soaked to the bone, his skin looked grey and was smudged with dirt, only barely showing pale pink where the rain had washed away the top layer of mess. His hair was a rat's nest that was just as dirty as his skin. It looked black... no, maybe a dark grey? It was impossible to tell underneath god-knows-what was covering his head. The only thing setting this poor child apart from a freshly dug-up corpse was his bright blue eye, which seemed to stare straight through Sebastian. The uncomfortable silence was broken by a quiet voice.

"Do you have something I can eat?"

The boy was no longer staring up at him, opting rather to play with the fraying hem of his shirt and look down at the wooden floor. Sebastian stood dumbfounded for a moment before taking a step back to invite him inside. Warily, the boy stepped into the foyer— not taking his eyes off the tall man for a single moment. He left a dripping trail walking into the room, a puddle starting to form around his bare feet. Sebastian closed the door behind him, not wanting to let any of the warm air out. At the sound of the latch, the child jumped and immediately turned around to look behind him.

"I'll go get a towel." The boy stood stiffly in between the kitchen and the living room, showing no sign of actually hearing Sebastian. He repeated himself. "Excuse me for a moment."