Look After You

Chapter 17

Xander came home that day from school with a smile on his face. He walked into the house and saw Beckett already home, smoking a cigarette. "Hey, you're off from work early," he notes.

Beckett shrugs. "Yeah I finished up a job I was doing earlier than I thought I would." Beckett often stayed late to work on cars at the shop and it fascinated Xander. He himself loved to build things and draw and being able to fix a car just seemed like such a cool thing to be able to do. When he was older he had considered being an architect but then he realized his poor performance in school probably wasn't going to land him into any good college for architecture.

Xander nods and grins a bit as he reaches into his backpack to pull out the test from earlier. "Guess what?"

"Hm?"

"Remember that test I was studying for the other day? Well we got them back," he says. He holds it out to Beckett. He looks down at the paper and moments later a huge smile spreads across his face.

He loved impressing his brother and having Beckett be proud of him. It made him feel good about himself.

"Xander this is awesome. Congrats, man!" He says, ruffling his younger brother's hair.

Xander smiles bashfully and takes the test back from him. "Thanks. Got the highest score out of everyone," he says and stands up. "Is mom in her room? I wanna show her." Beckett nods so Xander grabs his backpack and walks to her room.

He gently pushes open the door and pokes his head in. "Mom?" He whispers.

"Hm?" She mumbles. The room was mostly dark but a bit of sunlight slipped in through a crack in the blinds. Xander could see his mom bundled up in the blankets and assumed she had been sleeping.

"I'm sorry I didn't mean to wake you." He steps into the room and closes the door behind him.

Lauren rolls over on the bed so that she was on her back facing him and smiles tiredly. "It's okay I've been sleeping most of the day anyways. Figure it's from not using in almost three days now."

Xander nods and sits down on the edge of her bed by her side. "You feeling any better though?"

She nods. "I'm shaky and feel kind of nauseous but mentally I'm better. I've been thinking today and I think I'm going to get back into painting again. I need a distraction for when I wanna use."

Back before she was totally hooked on drugs, Xander had learned how to draw from his mom. She was a phenomenal painter and sketched pretty good as well. Xander was very talented at it as wall and he credited his mom for that. She used to paint all the time and many times the kitchen table would be filled with new canvases or paint pallets waiting to be washed.

"That would be awesome. You know I still sketch sometimes. I could help you get back into it," he offers.

Lauren smiles and nods. "That sounds lovely, Alexander. Maybe we could start this weekend. We could go to the store to get some new supplies."

Xander nods right a way. The last time they had painted together he was pretty sure he was only nine. He could remember painting a truck on his canvas that his mom had bought especially for him while his mother's painting was much more detailed. It was a picture of Xander himself. He was sitting on a swing in the park as he was up in the air with a big smile on his face. It was also the same picture Lauren had hung up on the wall in the living room. The glass had been broken off of the frame by now from a previous incident with his dad, but still the picture and wooden frame still hung from its crooked spot on the wall. And Xander was glad that it was still there cause it reminded him when things were slightly better than what they were now.

"That sounds perfect, mom. Nolan's birthday is coming up soon. I wanna paint him something," he says. Xander had come up with painting a starry night on his canvas. He wanted to paint it a dark navy color while stars and constellations filled the sky. And he was going to make sure he most prominent constellation of them all would be Orion, the one Nolan had talked about so excitedly that one night. He knew it wasn't much but he was hoping that Nolan would like it nonetheless.

She smiles. "That sounds perfect. I bet he's gonna love it. I'm not sure what I'll paint yet. But I'll figure it out."

Xander smiles and sets his backpack down. He wanted to show his mom his test but they could wait. "I'm gonna make dinner tonight for us," he says suddenly. Xander barely knew how to cook, but he wanted to take care of his mom.

She smiles softly. "Sweetie you don't have to do that."

"But I want to. I mean it'll probably just be hotdogs and fries but I can make some for all of us. I'll even cut Theo's up for him like he likes it," he smiles.

Lauren grins and kisses the side of her son's head. "Xander... That would be a huge help if you could do all that but if you don't want to you don't have to."

He shakes his head. "I promise I want to."

Lauren smiles and nods. "Okay, thank you. I really appreciate it. If you need help with it I'll be glad to come out and help. If not though I'm going to stay in here for a bit and relax. I need to take an Advil or something for my headache," she says and rubs her forehead.

"I'll get it." Xander gets off the bed and goes over to his mom's bathroom. He opens up the bottle of Advil and puts one of the pills in his hand before grabbing the cup and filling it up. "Has your head hurt all day?" He walks out of the bathroom and back over to her, offering her the drink and pill.

"For the most part, Yeah. But I've also been sleeping a lot too so I was able to ignore it them." She takes the items from him and swallows the pill down with some of the water.

"Okay well tell me if you need anything else. I'm gonna go out to the kitchen and start dinner." He says and stands up.

Lauren nods and smiles softly. "Thank you, Sweetie." He gives her a small smile back before making his way back out to the kitchen.

"I'm making hot dogs for dinner," he says to the rest of them who were now all sitting in front of the tv. Theo on the other hand was on the ground, coloring in his coloring book that was full of pictures of animals.

Beckett glances back at him and nods. "Need any help at all?"

Xander shakes his head as he grabs a pot from the cabinet. "Nah, I got it." Xander fills up the pot and sets it on the stove to begin dinner. That night they all ate together as a family, other than his dad of course. But it was nice. It had been more than a year since all of them had eaten together and Xander had missed it greatly.