The boy on the doorstep of was barely keeping himself upright.
He swayed on the spot as his eyes blinked in and out of focus, the glowing NeuroPatch on his right temple faint and faded. Nicky held the door open and stared unashamedly, apparently oblivious to the fact that the kid probable need medical attention at the very least. Andrew was about to speak up and tell Nicky to snap out of it, for fucks sake, when Kevin clattered drunkenly down the stairs. " 'oo is it?" he slurred, before tripping over a discarded ice-cream tub left at the bottom, falling on his face and passing out. The noise seemed to startle the boy: he flinched violently, and staggered backwards into the cool night air. This finally alerted Nicky to the situation, and with a lingering look at the shadowy figure, he muttered "I'll go get Aaron," and stumbled off.
With Kevin unconscious and Nicky absent, the boys heartbeat was almost overpowering Andrew. It raced uncommonly fast, pounding so frantically that the NeuroPatch flickered in it's attempt to keep up. The speed made his fingertips go numb.
The kid stepped forward and leant against the doorframe, looking up to meet Andrew's eyes for the first time. Now Andrew understood why Nicky had been so transfixed, looking into this boy's eyes was the equivalent of staring into the Hawaiian sea, or a Arctic glacier, or a- fuck. This was not right. This was not, in Andrew's messed-up, tangled brain, allowed. Not one bit. The romantic, sentimental stuff was Nicky's job. This- this isn't- it's not supposed to be happening.
Depite this, though, Andrew could't look away from the clearwater colour, even when the boy rocked on the balls of his feet, eyes rolling back in his head. Andrew felt the change in his pulse a second too late to catch him as he fell face-first on the floor.
With an uncharacteristic gentleness that Aaron would have scoffed at, Andrew bent down and scooped the featherlight figure into his arms. The boy was dressed in torn jeans and an oversized hoodie with the price tag still on the label. Nicky would've been appalled. His bleached curls brushed Andrew's arm as they walked down the long, tiled hallway of Columbia house, and Andrew found himself wondering what it would be like to run his fingers through them. Now they were this close, the blood humming underneath the boy's skin roared like tidal waves in Andrew's ears, and it took him the entire walk from the front door to the makeshift hospital room to drown it out.
Aaron was waiting inside, watching disdainfully as Andrew placed the boy on their stolen hospital bed, then stood back and crossed his arms. After a long pause, he began to speak, though Andrew suspected that was only because Nicky had come back with a tray of surgical equipment. "I'm going to have to remove that NeuroPatch he's wearing, it's overloading and will probably kill him if I don't. He's too small and skinny, but I'm in no rush to remove his clothes, so he'll just have to eat loads when he wakes up."
Aaron cast Andrew an annoyed look, probably trying to tell him that this was a project they could't afford. The new boy would need feeding and constant watch while he slept, and that would take up resources they didn't have. But Andrew couldn't care less, and after glaring back he left the room to wait out the operation.
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heartbeat ~ a f t g
FanfictionAndrew could feel Neil's pulse ricocheting underneath the pads of his fingers. It leapt and bounced around his brain like drum beats, until he was sure the sound would never fade. - o r - AFTG au where the Monsters have sort-of superpowers, and K...
