There must be a trick to this.
He saw mothers do it all the time- the synchronised scoop wherein groceries could be deposited and a child clutched without breaking a sweat.
Perhaps it was an instinctive thing, but if so, it was one he lacked. Kurt squealed, the groceries fell to the floor, and Charles came down hard on his left leg, narrowly avoiding taking a header.
"Charrrrrrrrrrllllllllles!" Kurt shrieked. "Yaw cah buh, Charrrrrrrrrles!"
Charles had no idea what that meant.
"Moira!" He called as he kicked off his boots. "Moira, where are you?"
"She stepped out, dearie," A warm, motherly voice called from the upstairs apartment. The house was divided into three parts, all of which were accessible by a single staircase. "She starts class at 5:00 Tuesdays, remember?"
Shoot.
Charles gulped guiltily.
He had promised he'd be home earlier, and he had forgotten, and- well, Kurt hadn't been alone, exactly, but it was hardly fair to expect Mrs Kinross to care for him, the woman was nearing seventy- and, well, there was food in the fridge, and he'd locked everything remotely sharp or corrosive in the cupboard over the fridge in a fit of insomnia-induced anxiety, and- still, Kurt was four, (and why the fuck had Raven named her child after that man, was what he wanted to know? His thoughts twisted at the images a handful of possible explanations thrown by his head like sucker punches) and he was pretty sure that leaving a four year old alone, for all intents and purposes, was the kind of thing that got children taken away by CPS.
(Not that he would know. They had never bothered with him. Gleaming surfaces, expensive toys, and well-made clothing cover a multitude of sins.)
With effort, he extricated himself from Kurt's octopus like grip. He babbled happily.
Charles' mouth tensed with worry as he returned to the groceries.
He wasn't an expert; there were reasons he taught high school students and not kindergarteners (aside from the not insignificant pay increase) : he was rubbish with small children. But.. there was something off about Kurt.
Charles has always been smarter than your average bear, and of necessity considerably more independent, but he was certain he hadn't been that young at that age. Kurt... well, Kurt could barely talk, and his motions were clumsy, uncoordinated.
He would have to scrape the money together to take him in to see... someone. Surely one of the people he went to teacher's college with would know a child psychologist, or something. (That is who he should be seeing, right?)
He sighed as he carefully stacked the items in the cupboards.
A bag of beans, tinned tomatoes, crackers, peanut butter and whole wheat pasta.
Good, sensible foods, that all the websites said were perfectly suitable for a child of Kurt's age. (But were they talking about normal children? Kurt was different, what if he choked? And he was small, and slight, though still larger than he had been at that age- and he hoped that Kurt's size didn't speak to his previous circumstances in the way his did. Which it didn't. He thinks. Malnutrition is science, after all, and the ability of the hypothalmus and thyroid to produce growth hormone and thyroxine- that shouldn't be affected until puberty. Or was it even more important in babyhood?)
Milk, eggs, yogurt, chicken, potatoes and carrots- bland foods, without the garlic or spices that he personally favoured. They couldn't be good for a child's stomach, right?
He put the last of it away, and winced at the receipt in his hand.
It wasn't as though he was starving- granted, it was his first year of teaching, and the position was only part-time, (He told himself he didn't really mind, that it would give him more time to apply to grad school and to fill out his resume, and- now- to spend time with Kurt, but, like powdered milk, it was a comforting fiction.) and it rankled a little that after six years of schooling there were people working in coffee shops who's take home pay was higher than his- but things were tight. Especially now.
He should buy some things. Kids needed toys, right? The websites all said that children needed to be stimulated, that it was bad for their brain development otherwise, that they needed bright colours and soft fabrics and physical contact- children were expensive. The rickety child-sized cot, set up in what had been his and Moira's shared office, had cost him nearly sixty dollars secondhand. Mrs Kinross insisted on sending him home from every visit upstairs with bundles of books and so forth- but Moira was one of 6 girls, so she couldn't be much help on the clothing front, and Charles felt a little strange accepting help from an old woman on a fixed income.
The groceries unpacked, he turned to Kurt, forcing himself to resist the urge to bleach the countertops and the floor, to ignore the dust bunnies rolling under the cheerful red futon. That was a distraction mechanism, and he recognised it. (Contrary to popular opinion, if by popular opinion one meant 'Moira', Charles did in fact possess a measure of self-awareness.)
Instead, he knelt to the ground, biting off the curse that formed as he did so. The cool, wet day whispered through his bones, pulling at the fickle tendrils of memory that remained curled around his hip and shoulder, the echoes of fights long-ago and half-forgotten wounds.
(Which, again, was a comforting lie. They were forgotten only in the harsh light of day, and he knew it.)
He looked at Kurt.
Kurt looked back, his wide, amber eyes so like Raven's they made his chest ache.
Charles felt something stir inside him.
"How was your day, Kurt?" he enquired with a soft smile. "Did you and Moira have a good time?"
"Moi-wrah?"
"Yes, the young woman who was taking care of you? She's very nice, isn't she."
"Moi-wrah nice!" He declared with a grin. "Saw a fire-tuck."
"My goodness, did you really? A fire truck?"
"Yessss!" Kurt giggled, apparently shocked at Charles' lack of faith. "Wed!"
The knot that had been steadily growing in Charles since he had first laid eyes on the boy tightened.
There was something wrong here. No boy of four should talk like this.
"What else did you do?"
"Walk! Dogs an' boohs!"
Charles smiled and nodded.
Suddenly, without warning, Kurt flung himself against Charles' chest.
"Charles?" he asked. "Where Mama?"
Charles was torn between tears and a sigh of relief. He had hoped so desperately that it was the trauma of the sudden change that had meant that he had not asked after Raven yet, rather than an apathy on his part, or an expectation that his mother would not be there.
(After all, if a you leave a screaming child alone often enough, eventually it stops expecting someone to answer its cries.)
He hugged the boy uncertainly. (He was so fragile, so small- what if he broke him? What if he squeezed too hard and his bones simply shattered?)
Charles wasn't very good at hugging. He intended to get better, though, for Kurt's sake.
Perhaps he simply needed practise.
"Charles?" The boy was still waiting for an answer.
"It's just you and me now, I'm afraid, my dear," he buried his face in Kurt's hair, breathed in the smell of clean child.
"Whey go?"
"Where did she go? I wish I knew, Kurt, I wish I knew."
"I bad?" His smooth skin creased with worry. "Unka say Kurt bad. I stoopid. Make Mama go way. She angwy?"
Charles rubbed a hand across his face. Jesus. "No, Kurt, you weren't bad. How could a little boy like you be bad?"
(A ghost of another four year old boy watches the scene, one blue eye turned red by a fist and a burst capillary. He does not cry.)
"Raven- your Mama- I wish I knew what to tell you, Kurt. I wish I knew what happened myself. But I do know that- that your Mama loved you, because she loved everyone, and that she thought she was doing the right thing by giving you to me. It's not your fault. She was sick, Kurt. Sometimes people get sick."
Kurt nodded gravely, his eyes shining with tears. "Dat why Mama took medcine? Had lotsa medcine. Unka too."
Charles closed his eyes. Raven, Raven, my beautiful girl. Why didn't you come with me? I could have saved you.
I needed you.
Your son needs you, you selfish- He trailed off. Even in his mind, he could not bring himself to accuse Raven of anything, not when he did not know what had happened.
Just one of a thousand lessons learned too late to be of any use.
The house was cool, the November wind leaking through the closed windows like water throw a sieve. He would have to staple blankets up, or something.
He looked at the boy still clutching at his chest, face buried firmly in his armpit.
"Miss Mama," the boy declared quietly.
"Me too, buddy," he whispered. "Me too."
They sat like that for a long time, the small patch of dampness spreading from his armpit to the front of his shirt, snot running freely down the threadbare cotton.
Finally, Kurt looked up.
"Stowy?" He suggested hopefully.
Charles envied his ability to change emotions so readily, with no apparent repercussions.
"I'm afraid I don't know any stories, my friend."
"Stowy!"
"Alright," Charles said. He bit his lip in thought, tearing at the chapped skin.
"Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess, and she lived in the woods, where everything was green and she never had to do any chores. She had lost her parents when she was very young, and she had been on her own for a long time. It was a good life, but it was very lonely.
"Then, one day, she found a castle hidden in the woods. It was grand, and cold, and all of the animals warned her to stay away from it. So she did, until she heard a voice singing to itself in the middle of the night.
"She went to investigate, and saw a little boy much like her, wearing a crown and his pajamas. She thought he must have been very lonely, so she spoke to him. He told her that he was a prince, and very lonely, for an evil wizard had cast a spell on the queen and made her sleep, so she did not see it when he stole her crown.
"He became king, and forced the poor young prince out of his place, making his own apprentic eking instead. And so the prince was very sad, and very lonely, with noone to talk to.
"The princess was very happy to have met someone like her, and they rejoiced. They had a feast in the woods, and danced and drank ginger beer in celebration. Then they began to plan on how to get the kingdom back.
"They searched and searched for how to break the enchantment, until at last they found a beautiful girl sitting by a stream. She told them that she was not just a girl, but also a fairy, and that she knew how to break the spell.
The prince and the princess broke the enchantment, and the queen woke up. She was so horrified at what the magician and his apprentice had done, she had them turned to stone and sent them to France. She was overjoyed at what the young princess had done to help her and the prince, and as a reward adopted her into their family. Nobody ever had to be alone again, and they all lived happily ever after. The end."
Charles' lip tilts in a wistful smile. He had told such stories to Raven for years; yet another thing from Before that he had lost to the fire he had set in his memories, the smoke dividing the now from the past, the important from the unimportant.
"More?" Kurt said hopefully.
"You liked it, then?" Charles said.
Kurt tilted his head in thought, his mouth a serious line. "It wokay... Like pwincess!"
"But?"
Kurt frowned. "Where dwagos? I ly stowies with dwagos."
Charles chuckled. "Perhaps next time there shall be a dragon."
Kurt surprised him by giggling and clutching tighter at Charles, wrapping his faded blue cardigan around himself like a blanket.
The embrace was tight, close enough that Charles could feel Kurt's heartbeat in his own chest. It was oddly soothing.
They sat like that for a long time, pressed together on the floor, until Charles' bones ached.
Kurt fell asleep, his face buried in Charles' armpit. This was becoming a running theme.
Outside, the wind howled.