wtf is a child doing here? | DOORS

part fourteen - comfort.

When Will wakes up, it's to the soft touch of velvet and dim lights. He yawns and stretches his limbs out from where he's laid down on his side, almost startling — before deciding that he ultimately didn't have the energy to do that — at the feeling of a hand resting on his shoulder.

Bleary eyes blink open, the dredges of sleep still present in his system. He murmurs something unintelligible at the blurriness before a chuckle resonates somewhere beside him, the sensation of something cold and wired pressing against his face and behind his ears gently.

Seek gazes down at him from where he's sitting on a rigid wooden chair next to the bed, something soft in his eye.

Are you all right? He asks him quietly, leaning forward on his knees with his arms crossed.

Will notices absently that Seek's arms seem to sink into his knees more than actually collide with them. Nonetheless, he nods heavily before yawning widely again, the breath being stolen from his lungs.

Good, you've been asleep for three hours.

That would explain why he still felt so tired; three hours of rest still wasn't long enough to process everything that's happened recently. The only thing he remembers is warm arms and a distorted hum ringing in his ears, the thought of climbing a bookshelf and hovering in mid-air coming to mind.

"Where's— what happened to...?" It just occurred to him that he hadn't gotten the other's name.

Seek stared at him for a moment as if he was debating something in his head, that gentle softness momentarily absent from his eye. Whatever it was that he was thinking about comes to a final conclusion, one that apparently has him sighing.

I'm assuming that you're asking about Glitch, correct? There's a certain... deadness in his voice when he speaks. Like he'd just stepped in something nasty and didn't want to acknowledge it.

Will nods, scratching the back of his head to get rid of the itch that had suddenly sprouted there. "He was very nice—" but not really because he pushed me through a wall, "—and he didn't hurt me."

Seek closes his eye slowly and the middle of his chest expands slightly, giving the impression of him taking a deep breath in. Will's seen adults do that when they were relieved about something, but he's also seen them do it when they were losing their patience, so the signals were a bit crooked and a small nervousness grew in him.

That is— the entity pauses like the words had gotten caught in the back of his throat (does he have a throat?) before swallowing down. That is very fortunate. He did not mistreat you?

There's a new sharpness in his eye that seems to zero in on this small question in particular, but Will brushes it off with an exaggerated shrug, the corners of his lips pulled down before they straighten immediately again. 

"He's okay. He made me fly in the air for a bit which was cool," he kneaded his hands into the smoothness of the blanket, a light flush colouring his cheeks. "I kind of almost fell and got hurt."

He what? Seek nearly tumbles over in his seat when Will finishes. He looks him over one more time before settling back, although the way the surface of his skin prickles says that he's anything but calm.

"It wasn't his fault," assured Will. "I was trying to climb a bookshelf, I think."

The upper half of Seek's eyelid turns downward into that similar expression that conveys a significant amount of disappointment and fond but weary exasperation.

You tried to climb a bookshelf, he states with no minimum of incredulity in his tone. Have you already forgotten your previous experience with a particularly fallen bookshelf that once had you trapped?

Belated realization dawns across Will's face, and Seek has to stifle the most irrational urge to facepalm through his face. He settles on looking up at the ceiling with his eye closed

"Of course I didn't forget!" The Child cries indignantly, an undertone of genuine hurt in his words. Something burns in the back of his nose and water builds in his eyes without him knowing. He doesn't realize how bitter his words came out and how his face soured. "I can't just forget something like that," he added quietly, eyes darting to the blanket as his brows furrowed in frustration when his sight became blurred.

He swallows back the saliva building up in his throat and stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the salted water now running down his face or the way his bottom lip is trembling. But the longer the silence goes on only makes it worse and doubles his anxiety.

Will thinks that he's done something wrong now, that maybe he's cried too much, whined too much, and said the wrong things. He's afraid that Seek will just walk away because Will made him uncomfortable, that he'll walk away just as those other adults did to him when he was being crushed under that bookshelf. The thought terrified him more than it should.

I know.

But then there are hands, warm and tender, that wrap around the back of his head and another around his shoulders, pushing him up slightly so that he's being cradled against Seek's chest.

I know, Will.

Seek croons a small methodical hum that vibrates in deep in his chest, something that makes Will borrow his head further into it. Warmth encompasses his body more than the blanket ever could. He wraps his own smaller arms around Seek's figure, the feeling of the entity's body unorthodox to his touch.

Seek doesn't seem to mind it though, in fact, he only brings Will closer.

I'm sorry.

—

A while later, Seek ends up holding Will until he drifts off into sleep again, this time with him settled over the blankets with his back up against the headboard with a head of curled locks laid out on his lap.

—

(it's just fluff, fight me.

explain to me how i have almost 30 pages for this story, man.

seek's got that Dad Thing™ going on now. 

i'm not good with interiors, the models in the background of the images are mine.

2 chapters ready, just give me time :) 

thanks.)