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Pushing the door open just far enough to lean inside, Austin looks around the bedroom. Predictably, Marko’s nowhere in sight, his blankets and clothes scattered all over the floor and his mattress pushed halfway off the bed frame. “Kid?”
Nothing.
“No one’s mad at you,” he says, and despite Jack curled up in the other room, sleeping off the ER visit and the painkillers, he means every word. He just wishes he knew how he’s going to explain this to social services at the next session. “Marko?” He takes a step inside, lifting up the edge of the mattress to get a peek under the bed.
Well, that’s one hiding place crossed off.
Careful to pick his way around the clothes on the floor, he checks the space between the dresser and the wall, under the armchair in the corner, and inside the upturned laundry basket. That just leaves the closet. He’s about to knock when something inside hiccups, then sniffles.
“Hey,” he calls, as gently as he can manage, and lowers himself to the floor with his back pressed to the wall. “Mind if I join you?”
Marko hiccups again, choking out something that’s probably supposed to be, “Go away.”
Austin reaches for the door handle but freezes the second his fingers touch the metal. Of course he knew from the beginning this would be hard—there used to be a whole division of foster care dedicated to ‘rehabilitating’ ferals, for fuck’s sake—but no one prepared him for the sheer number of times he’s been at a total loss for what to do. His hand shakes, and he pulls it back to his chest with a cut-off sob of his own.
The home visit is in five days. Their social worker will look down at the fourteen stitches in Jack’s hand and at Marko covering his mouth in shame, and she’ll take them away unless he can convince her he’s still a fit guardian.
He hadn’t even left the room for a minute when it happened. Honestly, he’s still processing it: slamming his laptop shut at the ear-splitting shriek and bolting to the kitchen to find Marko with blood on his teeth and Jack sobbing on the floor. His own voice echoes in his brain, shouting at the little chameleon—What did you do? Shit. Marko, go to your room!—even as his eyes well up with tears and he tries to comfort his brother.
Gulping down a breath, he leans his head against the wall. There’s no way to spin this, no twisting of the awful truth to make it seem better than it is.
God, he’s gonna lose them. He’s gonna lose them, and Marko will get taken away thinking he hates him.
From the other side of the wall, Marko’s hiccups turn to soft, wretched whimpers. Austin reaches for the doorknob again. “I’m not-” he starts, but it gets caught in his throat. He swallows, trying to collect himself before his composure breaks on him. “I know you didn’t mean to. Food is still touchy, right?”
“Go away,” Marko croaks.
Austin’s heart clenches as it dawns on him that the kid must have been crying since they left for the ER with how raw his voice sounds. Slowly, he turns the handle and opens the door a crack. “Listen-”
“Leave me alone!” Something slams against the wall inside the closet, and Marko starts to sob so violently he gags.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Austin scrambles into the closet, scoops him up, and rushes to the bathroom before he can manage to make himself sick. Once he’s got him settled on the tile, holding his hair back while retches into the toilet, he notices the bite marks covering his wrists and hands. Some are bruising, some pink and raised, and others crusted with dry blood and spit. He clenches his jaw, focusing on rubbing circles into Marko’s back until the scales trailing down his spine start to fade away.
Finally, he empties his stomach and sinks, trembling, into Austin’s arms. There’s bile dripping down his chin, tinged pink where it mixes with the blood he clearly tried to scrub off his face. He squeezes his eyes shut and tugs at his hair, trilling hoarsely in an attempt at self-soothing.
Austin keeps holding him, fighting the part of him that wants to open his stupid mouth. He leans over to yank the hand towel off the edge of the sink and starts wiping Marko’s face and throat clean. The kid swipes at him once or twice, making a sound somewhere between a hiss and a whine, but quickly gives up. From there, Austin shifts him into one arm and scoots across the floor towards the bathtub. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Hyperaware of the small, shivering body tucked into his side, he draws a bath. He holds his hand under the faucet until the water’s just above lukewarm—any hotter and it’ll wake Marko up, and it’s been a long day for all of them—then shuts it off. Truth be told, he still isn’t used to this part, to gingerly wrestling one or both of his boys out of their clothes and helping them climb into the tub when they’re too overwhelmed to do it on their own, but it means everything that they let him try.
Marko crosses his arms on the edge of the bathtub and rests his chin on them, eyes still distant and glassy. Austin helps him tilt his head back, one hand at his hairline to keep the soap out of his eyes as he pours water through his hair. His breathing gets slower as they go on, until he’s struggling to keep his eyes open while Austin finishes scrubbing his back down.
“Just a little longer,” he murmurs, half to himself. He gets up to grab a towel, coaxes Marko to his feet, wraps him up in it, and lifts him out of the bath and to the floor. “I have to clean your arms now, okay? It’s gonna sting.”
A tiny nod, almost a dip of the head.
He’s as quick about it as he can be, hardly wanting to look at the dozen-odd marks on those little wrists, each barely big enough to fill his palm. Then, he pins the bandages down and pulls the towel up over Marko’s head to dry his hair off a little.
Lip trembling, Marko mouths, “Sorry,” as Austin scoops him back up.
“Not your fault,” he says, and it isn’t. He knows better than to leave the kids alone when food is involved, but he’s gone and done it anyway, and now he has to handle the consequences. Although the thought of their impending home visit turns his stomach, the thought of anyone else trying to raise his boys fills him with an unexpected rage. Nowadays, ferals are a joke, a cheap way to get a rise out of any nonhuman who’s just a little too mouthy.
No, as much as he struggles to keep up with Jack’s communication issues and Marko’s reactive aggression sometimes, nobody else would be as patient with them. He just has to convince their case worker of that.
He carries Marko to the master bedroom, sets him on the bed beside Jack, who’s snoring peacefully thanks to the cocktail of drugs at the hospital, and tells him to wait while he grabs him clothes.
“But this is your bed,” Marko whispers, glancing furtively at Jack.
Austin ruffles his hair with a forced chuckle. “It’s just for tonight.”
If he only has five days left with them, he doesn’t want to waste a minute of it.