keep me company (i can get a little lonely)

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ALL CREDITS TO: sweetpotatoTM
SUMMARY: Michael—your father and I have taken Holly to visit Aunt Margie's new baby. We'll be back by next Tuesday. Love, Mom.
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Mike's parents and Holly go to Illinois while he's at school one day, leaving Mike alone in his house. Will he tell anybody what's going on?

TW:CHILD NEGLECT





Mike sighed as he kicked the door shut behind him.  God, he was so glad to be home—something he didn't say often, but today had just been so miserable that stepping through the front door was a relief.  He pulled off his jacket, tossing it onto the ground.

"I'm home!"  He yelled, swinging his backpack off his shoulders and pulling his binder out, before dropping his backpack on the ground as well.  He'd put this in his room so that he'd remember to study later.

Absent-mindedly, he walked into the kitchen, shifting the binder to be held loosely under one arm as he grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl.  Gross, why was it so bruised?  Actually, all the fruit in the bowl was pretty gross.  Two brown bananas, a single wrinkly pear—yeah, no.  Mike was not eating any of that.

He'd need to tell his mom to buy some more food—it was kinda weird that she hadn't already.  Mike plopped his binder on the counter loudly, turning to open the fridge.  Then he froze.  There was a note stuck to the fridge, written in his mother's familiar loopy handwriting.  Weird... Maybe it would say where the hell everybody was.  Because really, his house wasn't usually empty at—he glanced at the clock—3:37.

Mike swung the fridge open, absentmindedly scanning the note.  Michael—your father and I have taken Holly to visit Aunt Margie's new baby.  We'll be back by next Tuesday.  Love, Mom.   He froze.  Read it again.  His other hand dropped to his side as he stared at the note.

They'd... left?  Gone to Aunt Margie's?  But that was, like, three hours away!  And they'd be back by Tuesday?  Next Tuesday?  It was Monday.

They'd just... left him alone.

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"Shit—shit, shit, shit!"  

Pros of an empty house—no parents to tell you off for cursing when the fucking pasta wouldn't stop boiling over.    (The cons were literally everything else)  Mike turned down the dial on the stove, hopping back from the boiling flecks of the water shooting through the hair.  God, he should have learned to cook at a time that was less 'you haven't actually eaten all day and don't want to starve to death in an empty house.'   Because now the stakes were too high, and his abilities were incredibly limited.

"Oh my God—"  Mike groaned as the bubbling water started to pour over the sides of the pot again, cascading over the stove.  "You know what?  Fuck this!"

He stomped over to the phone, ignoring the hissing boiling sounds coming from behind him.  He was calling Nancy.  Yeah, it was a little stupid that he couldn't even make it two days on his own, but his pride could wait, at least until he'd eaten.

Mike punched in the familiar number of Nancy's dorm, leaning back against the corner as the phone started to ring.

And ring.

And ring.

...and ring...

"You've reached Nancy Wheeler, please leave–"   Mike slammed the phone back onto its cradle, crossing his arms tight against himself.  Of fucking course, the one time he actually tried to ask for help, there would be no response.

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