Childish

Starting Over

Jackie held Anti in his arms tight. They were both shivering from the cold AND what just happened.

The hero was both pissed off and highly concerned. This was all his fault. If he hadn't cut off Anti's lease, he wouldn't have felt he need to run away, right? Or was it his plan anyway?

It doesn't matter. Jackie was not only angry with himself for that but also that he hadn't taken his disappearance extremely serious as he would anyone else. He took Anti's glitching into account, not thinking it could be taken away again.

And now here was a traumatized kid in his arms still crying from almost getting raped by a gang of sick freaks.

'This is all my fault' he held Anti even tighter, leaping from roof to roof.

All he could do was just get home as fast as possible and hope that Chase and the others could make Anti feel somewhat better.

At least a little safe.

Finally at the edge of town, Jackie landed into the grass and went into a run towards the house.

Just a few more blocks.

'Shit, I guess I didn't even check to see if he was hurt' slowing down a little, Jackie muttered to him softly.

"Are you hurt? Did they cut or stab you? Shoot you?"

Anti held onto him tightly still but shook his head lightly, "Th-they hit m-me" he sniffled loudly.

"Okay. It's okay. Marvin has some bruise salves. You still got some burn balm, too, right? From burning your hands from the brownie pan? Silly kid. Always getting into trouble hehehe" he thought chuckling about it would help put Anti more at ease.

He was wrong.

"I-I'm s-s-sorry" the kid whimpered brokenly.

Jackie swallowed, running faster again. He wasn't exactly comfortable talking to Anti like this but he couldn't do NOTHING.

"It's okay, kid. You're not in trouble. You did nothing wrong."

Anti whimpered against his chest, ". . .I a-always d-do everything w-wrong"

"Anti . . . ." he shook his head but couldn't think of anything to say.

They were coming up to the house but Jackie felt a sign of relief as Chase ran out, seeing them.

"HEY! YOU FOUND HIM!" Chase bolted over to them but grew more worried the closer he got.

Seeing Anti tightly wrapped around Jackie like he was a safety blanket. . .

"What happened?"

Jackie didn't want to explain it more than once and especially not in FRONT of Anti, "Let's go inside first. Kid's cold and hungry and I'm sure Kallie and Sammy were worried about him, too"

Chase nodded, still sneaking peeks of Anti, "They go home with Stacey in the morning. They were afraid they wouldn't get to say good-bye to their 'cousin'" he chuckled lightly but knew the situation was way worse than Jackie was letting on.

Chase led the way inside, too afraid to even touch Anti in fear that he'd break, he was shivering so much.

He didn't look blue, though, from the cold so that was good.

Everyone was in front of Anti immediately including the kids were up in his face asking him all sorts of questions and he HATED it.