smiling critters

chapter 41 - reassurance

The moment anders pulled his son back up, he clung to him like a koala and was shaking like a leaf on a windy day as he tried to catch his breath.

“It’s ok, you’re ok. I’ve got you,” he whispered as he jumped down from the tree branch and immediately sat down to check if he had any injuries from the fall, but neil had different plans, because he separated himself from anders the second he knew he was safe on the ground.

“Snusken, i need to see if you’re hurt,” he told the american shorthair, who seemed to suddenly not trust him. It didn’t seem to ease neil’s worries, since he was still a good distance away from him. One of his friends, bryson if he remembered correctly, tried getting close to him, but he just hissed and attempted to hit him as he hid his other paw behind his back.

“Woah woah woah! You ok? You never hit!” kai asked as bryson backed away. Neil slowly backed away with his paw reeled back, poised to hit again, and dylan and hollie seemed to notice.

“Ok, how about we back it up?” Hollie shouted as she and Dylan pulled the hyline rooster away from Neil.

“should I try?” Dylan asked. Hollie shrugged and let go of Kai when they were a reasonable distance away. Dylan sighed and slowly walked up to Neil with some paw extended in offering. Neil backed away. Cautious.

“Neil, I promise I'm not gonna hurt you. I just wanna see why you don't want people touching your paw, Kay? I'm not gonna look if you don't give it to me, I just want your good paw. sound good?” Dylan asked, gently becoming him forward.neil seemed to relax a little and slowly lowered his paw and inched closer to dylan, laying his left paw on his. Dylan sat the both of them down as Anders approached.

“can I see your other paw?” Dylan asked, prompting Neil to hesitantly place his other paw into Dylan's. it was bleeding.

“you're gonna have to not try to pull away if I do anything to this paw cause I might try to pull back out of reflex and hurt you, ok?” Dylan lifted the hurt paw. Neil nodded and put his good paw in his lap as Dylan started to inspect his bloody paw with Anders.

“hmm, force hish clawsh out,” Anders instructed.

“will that hurt him?” Dylan asked.

“if noding happened to hish claw, den it should just be uncomfortable, it won't be painful.”

“ok, how do I do that?”

“press forward on his palm pad wid your dumb,” Anders instructed, demonstrating with his own paw. Dylan nodded and counted to three, presumably to let Neil brace for any possible pain that forcing his claws out would give him before doing as Anders demonstrated, making Neil almost pull his paw away, but instead he just got as far as he could as he tail began to aggressively flick onto the grass. Anders got close and closely inspected the paw. his middle claw was missing. he signaled for Dylan to let go of Neil's paw, which was right at Neil's chest as soon as he did so.

“Neil, what happened?” the cocker spaniel gently asked as Neil seemed to relax a bit and inched back over to them. He signed something in ASL, but anders couldn’t understand it, he didn’t usually work with deaf kids when he worked in america.

“Did you get what he said?” dylan whispered, prompting anders to shake his head.

“She said that his claw got caught on the bark and that he was trying to get it unstuck, but the branch ended up breaking before he could,” dylan translated.  from that little explanation, Anders could piece together what the injury on his paw was. The bone connected to his paw likely broke if the claw was jammed in the bark good enough to break off the claw, it wasn’t too crazy to think the bone ended up breaking too.

“Hmm, alright. I’ll grab roll ofv bandages and-”

“No need, i got some!” dylan smiled, waving a roll of bandages in his paw. Anders nodded and pulled out the small flashlight he used to check people for concussions. He let dylan bandage neil’s paw before checking his eyes. One pupil was slightly larger than the other, he had a concussion. He didn’t see him hit his head, but maybe he didn’t because of the adrenaline hearing him scream gave him. He let neil go and he immediately cuddled up to dylan.

“Alright, he hash a concussion. i dink i should take him home, i’ll get back to you all when i get him settled,” anders sighed and put his flashlight away.

“Can i come? I don’t wanna leave neil alone,” dylan asked, pulling Neil into his lap and picking up bridal style.

“alright, ish your moder ok wid it?”

“my mom's at work, but she’s usually cool with me going to other people's houses as long as I or one of the adults texts her that i'm there and whether or not i'm staying the night.”

“ok, how about all of you? Are you staying here or will you be going home?” Anders turned to the others. they all told him they'd be staying there, and that allowed Anders to go to Donna's house with Neil and Dylan.

Kai POV

Kai watched as Andy put a paw on Dylan's shoulder and walked away. and to think he actually had the money. wait, that shouldn't be what he's focused on right now. but if that's not what he should focus on, what should he focus on? the fact he's been seeing neil's dead mother for the past few days? He made a face and glanced to the others who were all talking amongst themselves before looking back at andy and dylan. Neil’s mom was there again, walking just behind the boys and trying to keep her tail wrapped around andy’s as he strode away. Now that andy was standing straight, kai could do a height comparison. Neil’s mom looked to be around 5’6 or so, at least based on how tall she was compared to dylan, who was about 5’4. He continued to stare at her to see if she’d stay there until they either got too far for him to see, or he blinked for too long or something. After a while of staring, kai began to zone out and lose focus of andy and dylan, and before he could zone back in, neil’s mom had disappeared. Kai stared at where she was, confused but also triumphant. That’s the longest he’d seen her, but that still didn’t answer the question of why he was seeing her. Had he reached his breaking point? Was he starting to hallucinate? Or was he finally getting his powers? Mom had she’d gotten her powers around high school, so he should expect to get his around that time too. Was that what was happening, he was starting to get his powers?

“Kai?” he heard someone ask as he felt a paw on his shoulder. It was bobby, and she had a worried look on her face. Kai gently rattled his head and looked at the others, they were looking at him too.

“Are you ok? You were being oddly quiet," Bobby smiled and took her paw off him.
“Yea, i’m fine! Just uh… got a little lost in my thoughts,” he scratched the back of his neck as he spoke.

“Oh damn, you were thinking? That’s a first,” hollie snickered.

“Hey!”

“What? think of how many times you’ve recklessly done something so unbelievably stupid and never learned from it!” she exclaimed. Kai went silent at that. From there the group tried to go back to doing what they were doing before when kai noticed andy had left his duffle bag on the bench with camila’s sketchbook resting on top of it.

“Oh, i probably should’ve reminded him to grab it before he left,” the young horse muttered as she walked up to him.

“There’s no need cammie, i’ll just dash over and drop it off at donna’s house, kay? No need to worry your pretty little head about it!” kai beamed as he picked up the bag and nearly dropped it due to the weight. It was a lot heavier than he expected it to be, and he was either really weak or the old man was stronger than he looked.it wasn’t unbearably heavy though, and he was able to get on his skateboard and start riding over to donna’s house to give the bag back.

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