The Floaters [cake au] ✔

⌛ ➈ : past. ⌛

Chapter 9: past.

After the whole skin carving debacle we cleaned up all the blood and put away the tools, before relaxing on the sofa for a while. Luke had bandaged up the mutilated areas and although I was still a bit faint, I felt a strange sense of happiness from what had happened. Luke was still pretty scarred though.

I laid down with my head on his lap and looked up at his cute little features. His thin lips, sharp lifted nose, and bright bluish grey eyes that were staring directly into mine. "Hey, you still haven't explained what happened with your family," I whispered, not wanting to sap the remnants of my energy. The doctors probably fed me around six hours ago so I was expecting another refreshment at some point.

"Are you absolutely sure you want to know? You might hate me," he replied nervously, clasping my hands in his. I smiled up at him.

"Of course I won't hate you. I'm not that irrational."

"Okay well... here goes. My family and I were going on holiday to my grandparent's house a few hours south by car. I was with my two brothers and our dog, Molly, sitting squashed up in the back of our family car... it was raining hard that day and I used to love the rain, so I opened the window despite my parents telling me off."

My hand found his and I gave it a little squeeze since I could hear his voice wavering. "You okay?" I asked softly.

"Y-yeah," he replied, wiping his face. "Anyway... the window was open, the rain was heavy, and soon the inside of the car began to get really wet. Jack got mad at me, so mad he decided to hit me, starting a typical brother fight – Ben didn't do anything because he was the oldest and was sick of us fighting all the time. Except, I was wildly throwing punches anywhere, and didn't even realise that I'd somehow landed a fist on my dad's cheek. He swerved and... and..."

"Luke, you can stop. I can work out what happened next."

"No... Jack... he..."

His words couldn't come out due to how hard he was sobbing. Weakly, I turned over and wrapped my arms around his body, whispering that it was okay into his ear repeatedly. I shouldn't have asked him in the first place – it was due to my lack of trust and belief in this poor innocent little boy.

After a few solid minutes of him crying and me comforting him, he continued what he was about to say. "My whole family died, except for me and Jack. Jack came up here with me, and started spreading rumours about me to all his new friends. They all bullied me until one day I found the science research centre, and the professor we saw earlier, Georgia, took me in. Jack passed to the other side eventually due to his real life injuries, whilst I stayed here by myself."

I stroked his locks of hair and leant my ear against his beating chest. "You've been through a lot, Luke. But I'm here now – you're not alone anymore, understand?"

Suddenly, he looked at me with the most gorgeous eyes I'd ever seen before – and from that point on, there was no use trying to resist kissing him.

I leant closer till our noses touched, before letting my lips brush against his, the warm air from his parted mouth causing all the tiny hairs on my body to stand on end. Under my fingertips, I could sense him quivering ever so slightly – bless him, he was probably so scared of me kissing him with no warning.

When we pulled apart, his eyes were still glossy from crying, but they had a new sparkle to them that I hadn't seen before. "Did you like that?" I asked, pecking his cheek. He nodded shyly, keeping his gaze firmly fixated on mine.

"You won't leave me, will you? For Jenna and her other friends?" he wavered.

"Of course not."

"Thanks, CalPal."