Slums And City (BxB)

Chapter 2

For the second time that night, I barged into the repair shop. The lights were no longer on and all was silent except for the muffled cries of the child in my arms.

"Cue! Hey, Cue!" I called, my voice shaking.

This time it didn't take a minute before I heard him coming down the stairs.

"What the hell do you w-" but he cut himself off when he reached the bottom of the stairs and saw the naked child in my arms.

"What the hell?" He said.

"Exactly what I said." Cue looked up at me, eyes wide, begging for an explanation.

" I found him in the rubbish pile next to your shop." I said quickly.

"Why the hell did you bring him here!?" He asked.

"Where else was I supposed to go!?"

Cue looked back at the child whose tears now rolled silently on his reddened cheeks. He began to hiccup and I jumped. I pulled the kid away from me, suddenly aware I was holding a child I had no confidence was safe in my arms, and pushed him unto Cue.

"Hey!" He protested but grabbed the child nonetheless.

"You're older." I said meekly.

Cue frowned and looked around the shop, back at the child, then at me, before sighing.

"Wait," he said as went for the stairs "I'm not dealing with this alone."

I let out a breath of relief seeing as he was agreeing to help me and stayed put. I was going to have to call my sister and tell her I'd be home late. She was probably already worried, or just hungry.

I fiddled with my braids as I waited for Cue to show. Using common sense, it was obvious that the kid had been abandoned and the normal thing to do would be to get him to the authorities. Unfortunately, abandoned kids weren't a rare occurence around here and thanks to that I already knew it was no good to try to get the police involved. All they'd do is get him into the crass orphanage by the bayside that no one adopted from. It was like a pound for kids, they were jamed in the small space there was , in unsanitary conditions and when space got really too tight, the oldests were returned to the cold stare of the streets. 

I wasn't willing to keep the kid or anything of the sort, however, I wasn't heartless enought to abandon him to the orphanage. Before I could think of an alternative, Cue was on his way back down with a medium-sized basin and a blue towel. He handed me the child that oogled us with his thumb in his mouth.

"Come," He said motioning towards a door behind the counter "We're going to bathe him."

"Are we bathing him outside?" I asked "He's gonna get sick."

"I know, we're not going outside, idiot." He rolled his eyes "We're going in the kitchen, we have spare wat-"

He cut himself off as his eyes widened. I was about to question him about it but when I felt something warm trail down my shirt I got an answer before even having asked. I looked down to find that the kid had found it appropriate to release his bladder while pressed against me.

"Oh God, gross!" I cried, immediately pulling the child away from me.

Cue burst out laughing . My instincts told me to just drop the child but I knew I couldn't.

"Stop laughing and help me!" I shouted.

"Nope, no way I'm getting close to that" He said wiping his tears.