Your parents had been hipping up the move from your house in the little town you had grown up in to the big city, it was a big change to a young child like you, leaving all you knew behind for the flashier bigger things out there. Your parents talked to you about how this will be a good change, and how you won’t have to be scared about anything. As they will always be with you.
After a road trip you reached your new house, a nice apartment complex near a park so you can go out to play.
You brought some boxes in the car, just the immediate thing you would all need, clothes, some of your toys and blankets, but all the other things were coming in a moving truck.
It was strange it hadn't arrived yet, and an hour later your mom received a call, there was a problem with the truck and they needed to come.
They said it will be fast, at worst some hours but that they will be back.
With that and a kiss on your forehead they went, leaving you alone, that's how you spent time trying to organize the few things you brought, and just exploring, you ended up playing around until you just fell asleep where you stood, not noticing how late it truly was.
You woke up and were a bit upset as it didn’t seem like your parents came in all night. At first you didn’t want to go outside, as you didn’t really know the place or anyone for that matter, you didn’t own a cellphone so you couldn’t call your parents, so you decided to wait. But when the snacks started to dwindle you felt that worry gnawing at you again. That’s when the memory of the nice old lady at the reception that gave the keys of the apartment to your parents came to mind, maybe she could help you?
After hypping yourself up, grabbing maple, your childhood plushie, with you and going on your way. The front desk was empty, a little sign that said out for lunch looking at you
You sat and waited there a bit more, feeling the tears pricking at your eyes at your impotence in the whole situation, but you refused to cry, you were a big kid, and big kids don’t cry for silly things. When the lady came back she was surprised to find you there, asking for your parents.
And from there your memory became a bit fuzzy, the lady asked you some questions and when you ran out of answers she made some calls, at first no one picked up, she was getting a bit worried when the third call fell too. So she just told you that she would call some nice people that would help you figure out where your parents went.
After that you went to the police station with the lady’s friends and after more questions, you waited some more, you didn’t fail to notice that they started to look at you differently, at the time you didn’t recognize the emotion, but now you could say that it was pity mixed with worry. Someone telling you that your uncle would come to get you
He came in frazzled, took you from the police station, and strapped you on the car.
Not remembering how or when things happened, just the frantic ride to the hospital, being dragged towards the visitors lounge and tried to just leave you there.
You were nervous, you tried to tell your uncle that you didn't want him to go, that you didn't want to be alone anymore, but he did not pay any attention to you, just telling you to behave
So you stayed there, hugging your plushie, petrified and not knowing what was going on
That's when you saw in the back a doctor guiding your uncle somewhere.
Immediately you followed trying to get his attention, somehow no one noticed the child walking deeper into the hospital and arriving to an open room
Your next memory was crying uncontrollably, wailing and asking for your mother to wake up, her face bruised and covered in bandages. You were asking everyone where your dad was, and to make her wake up.
They had to hold you back because you kept trying to crawl up her arms
When they told you the news you were inconsolable, crying and screaming for your parents. Your uncles and aunt had no idea how to calm you down so you only stopped when you got too tired and fell asleep between hiccups
Just like that your reality was put upside down
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Logistics were a pain, the first few weeks you were sleeping in your aunt's house, because they just couldn’t leave you alone in the apartment, but you had to take the living room as she didn't have a guest room and her and her partner rather liked the apartment so were unwilling to move somewhere else.
It wasn't ideal not only because you were uncomfortable but because you started to have nightmares often waking up and going to her room to ask if you could sleep in her bed, the first time she gave you an unenthusiastic go ahead, but the next few nights she told you that you were too old for this, often sending you back out letting you sleep with a lamp turned on, but not much more. You didn't get that much sleep, resulting in you often falling asleep in the middle of the day at random intervals. You also became way more clingy, often asking her where she was going if you could go with her or crying until she came back.
Everyday her responses became colder and shorter, locking her door at nights so you couldn’t even enter to try and wake her up.
It came to a head when you had a bad nightmare the night before, which ended up in you wetting the couch you were sleeping in. You felt extremely ashamed and uncomfortable, you hadn’t done this since forever, outgrowing it long ago.
The next day they saw what you did and your subpar try to clean it up.
She gave you to your uncle, saying how she couldn’t do this anymore and you were a lot for her right now and you didn’t fit well in her lifestyle.
With your uncle it was different, but not much better. At first it seemed like a better fit, he was single and had a spare room, you weren't as stressed out with him leaving you alone because he worked from home, but his apartment didn’t have any space for you to move around or play, What also put you on edge was that he often brought people to his office to have meetings, making you nervous about all the strangers that came in.
That also made it difficult because when you went to him to be near him he often just shooshed you away telling you he was busy, he also had pre-made meals delivered home as he didn’t have time to make food or even eat with you.
He became colder with you too when you became “clumsier” suddenly, often telling you to be more careful and not to waste things. It worked at first so he talked more to you, but it ended up making him colder, cut you even before you had a word out and to lock your door from the outside when you woke him up one too many times.
It was like that for almost a year, when the talk about maybe having you move back to the apartment would be best for you, they would pay for help to come to the apartment, clean cook and keep an eye on your necessities
And after the constant rejection from your aunt and uncles you also thought that that would be for the best, at least you would be close to your parents things, being able to sleep holding the things that kept their perfumes a little longer
Your psychologist could see how emotionally unstable you were, and recommended that for the time being you will do better in an online school or give you a gap year if you weren't improving
You got used to that life for a bit, actually the online school let you fly through your courses, even being able to go into an older grade faster.
But as the months passed you realized you started to miss having other people around you, someone to just talk to. The loneliness was too much some days, realizing you were in the apartment where your parents' presence was disappearing a little more everyday only made you sadder.
It was one day when you were hanging out in the park near your house, it was almost time for you to come home when an old lady came to talk to you, she asked you if you shouldn't be in school and if your guardians knew you were skipping class.
After the impromptu interrogation, and you trying to explain that you weren’t skipping, she let you go. But that made you think.
School didn't sound that bad anymore. It still made you anxious at the thought of such a different environment. But you were missing having people to talk to, to play or that took care of you.
So after some consideration you called your uncle about it,it only took 4 calls to contact him, and you asked if he could enroll you in school.
Surprisingly you met some resistance, he asked if you were sure, if you were ready, that your psychologist hadn’t given you the go ahead, they haven’t taken you to your appointments in some months so you told him that it didn’t really give them the opportunity to give you any type of clearance. Thankfully you managed to convince him so now you just had to wait.
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You had been enrolled and going for a bit at your new school, it was both refreshing and overwhelming. Your uncle moved some strings to get you in some fancy private school, it felt like walking in a completely different reality.
Your classmates talked about vacations, places they traveled to and the things that had been bought for them. You in comparison had nothing interesting to tell or any cool to show, so you found yourself often staying silent or going on your own.
It was strange how difficult making friends was, you remember being very social and easy going, not having trouble just talking to others.
Now you were meeker, silent and shy, always nervous of how you came, not wanting to show how anxious you were or being so clingy like you were with your uncles and aunt, scared of rejection so not trying felt… better.
That’s what you told yourself, just being around others was enough, you didn’t need to interact, just being present was everything you needed.
So when the nice guy that gave you the school tour came to sit next to you, and you ashamedly remember how you info dumped more details about you without much prompting, you never described yourself as a nervous talker but that day it felt like everything was flowing out of you, you were very nervous.
Caspian was very patient with you, sharing his food, telling you stories and just helping you pass time, it was just so easy to talk to him about anything really.
You found yourself being fond of his company, looking forward to hang out with him every break
You ended up getting too comfortable with him, found yourself thinking more about him, where he was, if he was okay, and the like.
It all came to a point when the whole weekend you thought about him being okay, if he was home, if anything bad happened, if you would even see him the next day
You were being clingy again
You hugged yourself in an apartment that slowly felt too much, too empty, too cold, too foreign.
Trying to remind yourself that people liked you better when you were out of the way, when you didn't ask for much. That you being so needy will only push others again, leaving you alone.
The next was spent trying to hold everything in, and you did a good job for most of it. It was so silly what shattered all that effort. The day was over when you were going to the exit to look for Caspian, you just stumbled on pick up time.
Parents taking their children's hands, walking together to their cars and just smiling
You didn't realize you were crying at first. When your vision blurred too much you finally saw that the damn was broken. Not wanting to cause a scene you went to hide in the same spot you usually had lunch in, and tried to hush your crying.
It really shouldn't have been a surprise that Caspian found you, he started to take you to the bus station everyday and this spot was where you would have lunch most days.
A simple “What happened Bunny?” And now you were sobbing and spilling everything.
About your parents, your aunt and uncles, about how cold and lonely your apartment started to feel, about how awful it was to wake up from a nightmare completely alone, how worried everyday you were about his safety, how ashamed you were about not being more mature and often finding yourself crying about anything, about how scared you were of him leaving you behind once he saw how much you were, how needy, how clingy, how ungrateful, how broken, all your ugly parts that these days felt like all of you.
It got to a point that you were in hysterics hyperventilating and brokenly apologizing for it, fully expecting for him to tell you that he couldn’t deal with you and leaving you there.
So when warm hands brought you closer it surprised you, carefully tucking your head under his chin, letting you on his lap and hugging you. That broke you a little more, but you let yourself cry out into his chest, holding on for dear life because now he felt like a lifeline and if you let it go you would be swept under.
He carried you somewhere after that, his voice was nice, and it helped you calm down a lot it was very silly how crying all out made you so tired.
Things changed after that
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The sound of the door opening took you out of your thoughts, Caspian stood there ready to go to bed after his bath. You were already ready to sleep, comfortable in your soft piyamas while absentmindedly playing with your childhood plushie, Maple.
It has been what? A year and a half after you started living with the Moores, Dad, Raymond, helped you figure out things and make your move to their house more smooth, sitting with you to go through your and your parent’s old stuff and see what you wanted to keep. It wasn’t much, most memories too painful to dwell on and as they told you best to be left behind, you just took some mementos, your mom's jewelry box, and some of your dad’s accessories too, one or two sweaters from both and that was it. The rest was left for your old family to figure it out.
At this point most of your stuff that you brought over had been upgraded as they called it. Now most of your piyamas were an extremely soft material, some with a bit of a childish design, but you liked them, they were very cute, Dad and Cas agreed with you.
They had been nothing but great to you, indulging the things that you needed and never mocking you for it, even when you asked if you could sleep with one or both of them they just waited for you with open arms.
For your peace of mind they helped you set up a monitoring app, it sadly was set up for parents to monitor children so you and Cas had to accept some phone restriction for the app to start, but it let you see where they were, send messages or calls at any moment.
Cas let you tag-on to hang-out with his friends in and out of school, you even got to enter the student council to be near him more!.
As Cas turned off the lights of the room and walked to the bed, Dad entered the room and after pressing a soft kiss to your forehead took a sit and opened the book where he left the night before. Cas proceeded to cover you both with the covers while the soft voice of his Dad enveloped you.
THIS HAD BEEN COOKING FOR SO LONG THAT ITS ALMOST CHARRED, EITHER WAY I HOPE YOU ALL ENJOYED!
Now I can most abou them now that their story and background has been set :)
