Can We Be Family? {Antisepticeye x Child Reader}

Chapter 2: Trash Heap

Antisepticeye offered out his hand to the still nervous (Y/n), who looked between it and his face apprehensively. Hesitantly, they took it. Anti's hand was soft but icy, unhealthily so, it made (Y/n) want to take their hand back from his grasp. But Anti had already pulled the child to their feet with the ease of lifting a doll, exhibiting a similar amount of care for them as well. There was nothing for (Y/n) to do but stumble and allow themselves to be pulled out onto the curb by the stranger and endure the wind that stung against their exposed face.

The two walked silently, (Y/n) hugging their free arm close and shivering quietly and watching the ground as they hurried to keep up with Anti's brisk pace. A pace that Anti had set unthinkingly as he scanned the streets. He knew that it was too late for most people to be out, but he was well aware of how suspicious he looked. He had opted to keep his hood down for the walk home for that reason.

"We're going to my house," Anti's accented, and somewhat harsh voice cut through the child's chattering teeth and noises of happy families, "I wasn't really out here to do anything," he then mumbled to himself.

Neither spoke after this. (Y/n) plodded along, allowing themselves to be led along lamely. Anti watched them like this for some time, wondering bitterly what he was to do with them. As much as he would like to let them stay the night and palm them off to the first person he found, but he knew it wasn't going to happen, but he struggled to see how he would find their family.

Anti was pulled from his thoughts by the sight of familiar houses lining the street. Spotting the small garden and neat brickwork of his home down the way felt like a blessing, he wasn't sure he could handle nothing but the sound of child's chattering teeth any longer. Reaching his front door, he opened it up to something that could hardly be considered a home.

The only thing that identified the space just inside the door as a living area was the couch that Anti quickly threw himself on. The rest of the space was littered with unwashed dishes, bags of rubbish, and clothes of questionable freshness. It was notable that, had Anti ever cleaned, the house would be a nice one, but as it was there was hardly a clear path from the door to the kitchen.

(Y/n) was left standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, clutching the sleaves of their tracksuit. Anti looked over them in the light, their damp 'white' tracksuit was closer to a brownish-grey and speckled with mud, their hair stuck down on their head in glistening (y/h/c) strands, and they had clean tear tracks running down their dirt face.

He had noticed their eyes wandering the room, avoiding his gaze, but he was willing to wait. He saw them stealing glances at him when he looked away. They were focusing on his eyes. Or, he supposed, one eye particularly.

"What happened?" Anti was caught off guard by the child finding their voice, but even more by the question.

He figured knew that they were asking about, but before thinking he spluttered out one word, "what?"

(Y/n) hadn't seemed to take any notice to his surprise, or the way he raised his hand to rub his neck, "to your eyes, why are they different?" they asked.

Anti still needed to stop and think for a second. He entertained the idea of telling them outright, but he figured that would only raise more questions. "Well," he started, "I like my eyes to be like this."

That was a boldfaced lie, but it's what he ran with.

With a sudden eagerness to change the subject Anti pushed himself upright and looked (Y/n) up and down once again. For once he agreed with the voice in his head, who had decided they were sticking around, this kid couldn't stay in the condition they were in. Though Anti's reasoning of not wanting the furniture to get dirty(er) was a bit more selfish than his companions.

"well," he said, "I guess I can't leave you filthy." He got to his feet and passed (Y/n), walking towards a near hallway, pausing for a second when he realised (Y/n) wasn't following, "you coming?"

(Y/n), who had been watching Anti pass, muttered a small, "oh," of realisation and quickly fell in place behind the Anti. They followed him down a hallway and into a bathroom that was much cleaner than the rest of the house. Anti did however scrunch his nose at the grime that showed his neglect for real cleaning.

Anti ran the water, gritting his teeth against the voice in his head rattled off things that he needed to do or get for the child, grabbed a washcloth and a towel. Throwing the latter in the direction of (Y/n) and wiping down the bathtub with the former.

The voice kept repeating one thing in particular "They need clean clothes, something warm."

It was right of course, there was no point in a bath just to get back into filthy clothes. So he began to run the water and as he left the room said, "get ready for a bath kid," over his shoulder.

He went to his bedroom and grabbed what he believed to be a clean t-shirt. It was dark green with the outline of Septiceye Sam – a green eyeball with an electric blues iris whose optic nerves serve as a tail – in silver foil on the front, it was far too big for (Y/n), but it would suffice, and his smallest jacket, a red one that he never wore that would also bury the small child. He knew that there was no chance that he would be able to find pants that would even remotely fit, so returned to the bathroom.

He walked in to see a pile of dirty clothes on the ground and (Y/n) attempting to tip a large bottle of bubble bath into the bathtub.

Anti quickly stooped down and grabbed the dirty clothes, noticing a small folded note as it fell out of one of the jackets pockets. The slight sound of the paper hitting the ground, even over the running water, was what alerted (Y/n) to Anti's presence. They spun around, hugging the soap close. Anti sighed, discreetly grabbing the note and walking silently towards (Y/n). He held out his hand for the bottle and (Y/n) complied, passing it over to him with their head bowed, avoiding Anti's gaze once again. Anti rolled his eyes at them and dolloped some of the soap into the water before turning off the taps and lifting them into the bath. He checked them over for injuries while washing them and found nothing overtly concerning, just a few small bruises as little kids often have. This was less out of his own concern and more to quell the insistent nagging of the voice within his mind that seemed to care about the child's wellbeing.

Finally being clean and in dressed in a t-shirt they wore like a dress, Anti decided that it was about time (Y/n) to go to sleep. He considered making them sleep on the couch, but the voice bugged him into reluctantly allowing them to sleep in his bed. He tossed them a Septiceye Sam plushie, threw the covers over them, and made his way to leave the room. He looked over his shoulder from the doorway

Anti looked at them quizzically for a second,unsure what had prompted the question. He simply responded with, "no," beforeturning on his heel and strolling out, leaving (Y/n) in the dark room alone.