"Sal Fisher?" An elderly woman, who's surprisingly shorter than me, calls us back.
Dad still hasn't woken up, so we once again struggle to walk him back there. "Is he okay?" She asks, concerned.
"Yes ma'am, he just went from being passed out to being asleep," I chuckle airily and sit him down in the chair next to me.
She furrows her brow and grabs a clipboard. "Would you mind answering a few questions for me, sirs?"
"Yeah, sure," I get comfortable because I can tell that this is gonna be a long process.
"What is his addiction, or problem?"
"Alcohol addiction," She writes something on her paper.
"Is there a known cause of his addiction?"
"Well...my mom passed away some n-number of years ago," Larry squeezes my knee.
"And he is your legal guardian?"
"Yeah. he's my biological father," More scribbles on the paper.
"Has he ever gotten physical abusive with you or anybody else?"
Oh god. I knew the question was gonna be asked, but I was dreading it.
"..." I hesitate, "Y-yeah.." I hold back tears the best I can.
Larry tenses up and sucks in a breath through his teeth. He doesn't say anything.
"Has he ever sexually abused you or anyone else?"
"God, no," I try not to think about the possibility of him doing that to someone, "He may be a drunk, but he would never do something like that," I say mainly to myself.
She nods and writes significantly more.
"Sir, what's your name?" She looks at Larry.
"Oh uh, Larry Johnson," He seems surprised, but sits up straight and looks at her.
"What's your relationship to Sal?"
He thinks for a second, "I'm his neighbour, but we've grown really close," He smiles, "almost like family,"
She, too, smiles and scribbles down something else. "Could I have your age and a good phone number?"
"I'm 16, and my mom's number is 606 310 7881; her name is Lisa Johnson," He sneaks a glance at my dad once more. "My number is 606 310 7818, if you want that, too,"
She nods and hums.
"If you two are alright with this, you can sign for him to be in our care," she pauses, "we normally don't allow minors to sign, but recently it's happened more often,"
I nod, and ask the question that's been on my mind, "How much money will it cost?"
"Well, we try to make payments that work for the customer, so we'll sort that out together," She smiles again and grabs a different packet of paper.
"You can read through this while I enter this into our computers, alright?" I nod and start reading it. She turns around to type into her computer.
There were a lot of questions on there that I didn't really know.
Age of patient, type of healthcare, income, and some things that I didn't even know what the words meant.
"Um, miss?" She turns back around. "I don't know what some of this is, or, like, the answer to it,"
She's silent for a long minute. "Some of that stuff is only necessary if another adult is filling it out, so just fill out what you know," She smiles again.
I'm able to answer the majority of the packet, at least.
I hand her back the packet and as she reads through it, she enters more information into the computer.
"Now, about the payment," She starts, "Being a child, you don't really have an income..."
Dad moves around a bit so I flinch, but he doesn't wake up.
"The smallest amount we'll accept, is twenty dollars a month, is that do-able?"
"Yes, that's..perfect, thank you so much," I have to control myself so I don't pull her into a bone crushing hug.
She smiles at us once again, "It's not a problem at all, anything to help,"
She calls in two of her co workers to take my dad to his room. As they drag him out, she starts talking to me again.
"We'll call you in if we need you to help the process, since you've stated that he is physically abusive," she stops to let me process it, "but other than that, we'll send you a letter every month so you don't forget about the payment,"
I smile wide, "Again, thank you so much, you can't tell, but I'm smiling,"
"Ah, yes, that reminds me," she leads us out to the front again, "we need a picture of you since you have no ID,"
My heart drops, "without..my prosthetic, you mean?"
She nods and has me follow her to a separate room.
"I thought you could be more comfortable in a private room," She flashes a motherly grin.
"Thank you," I start to unclip my mask, "this isn't for the faint heart," I laugh and she giggles a bit.
"I've probably seen worse, you're fine," She gets the camera ready while I get the latches done.
I set it down on the table with shaking hands.
When she looks back at me, her eyes widen for a second, before she just smiles and takes my picture--with and without my mask.
She leads me back outside and gets Larry's picture as well.
"I guess we'll see you two boys later, he's in good hands," She waves at us when we walk out.
Larry is silent on the drive home, which is weird, but I don't question him. He has his moments when he's like this and I'm fine to let him be.
I turn up the radio and almost fall asleep. After a while, I do doze off.
. . . .
I'm being lifted out of the car but I'm still half asleep. They hold me against their chest, bridal style.
I feel hair tickling my nose so I assume it's Larry and go back to sleep fully.
Larry's POV
He looks so cute in my arms. He's always cute when he's asleep.
What he said to the lady made my blood boil. One, because he wasn't comfortable enough to tell me, and two, that his dad was even doing it to begin with.
Someone like him doesn't deserve this. Nobody really does, it's just cruel. He's survived, though...that gives me a little more hope.
He moves around in my arms a little, but then goes still. His soft snores calm my neves a bit.
I need to ask him about his dad.
YOU ARE READING
The Blue Boy
Fanfiction[ DISCONTINUED ] Sal Fisher had recently moved into Addison Apartments. There, he has become good friends with Larry Johnson, Ashley Cambell(Campell idk??), Todd Morrison and many others. He never thought that he would find love, but he just might...
