A/N It's been a while but I've finally managed to update. This was beta-ed by valentine142 who is a complete babe to do that for me. Please read and enjoy and leave a review. This chapter came to 1,511 words, below average but above the minimum. Warning for bad language, mild injury and mentions of violence.
After several awkward buzzing attempts, the doorbell managed to ring; a thin reedy cry, barely audible over the heavy rain slapping against the concrete path.
Kendall shoved his hands into the pockets of his thin hoodie, well aware that it was useless protection from the freezing rain. He tried the doorbell again, rewarded this time by the sound of footsteps on the stairs and a beam of light as the hall light flickered on. The lock clicked and rattled before the door cracked open, Mizzy's disgruntled face peering through the gap. She looked at him up and down, narrowing her eyes, before the door shut again violently.
"Aw, c'mon," Kendall grumbled, pressing the doorbell again, with more force, stopping to cough harshly into his fist. He winced. It hurt. "Mizzy, please let me in, I'm sorry!" There was silence, and Kendall was seriously beginning to consider curling up under the porch, where at least he could be dry, and sleep there for the night, because the world was beginning to pitch and spin and he didn't think he could stand much longer. "Please?"
"Why should I?" Mizzy's voice was muffled by the door, but he could still hear the clipped tone. "It's eleven thirty at night. What if I'd been asleep?" The latch clicked, and she opened the door, just enough so she could peek round the door at him, regarding him sourly. Her bitter expression changed as her eyes scrutinised his face. "What happened to you?" Her eyes flickered over the blackened eye, the split lip, the rug burn on his cheek.
Kendall shrugged, but the nonchalant affect was lost under his violent shivering. "How the hell do you know where I live?" Mizzy hissed.
Kendall frowned at her. "I've been walking you home from school every day for the past two weeks. I kind of worked it out..."
Mizzy opened her mouth, but shut it again, obviously deciding against whatever she was about to say. "You can come in," she mumbled, swinging the door open. Kendall slunk through the door, careful to wipe his muddy sneakers on the doormat before entering the silent house. Mizzy quietly shut the door behind him, and they stood in the hall in silence for a moment, before it was broken by Kendall coughing violently into his fist.
Mizzy eyed him warily. "It's cold down here. The heater's on upstairs," she said, glancing at the staircase. Kendall nodded and dumbly followed her up the staircase, still shivering. He followed her into the bathroom, where she presented him with a large green towel. "You're soaked," she stated as way of explanation.
She pushed him down to sit perched on the edge of the bath, staring numbly round the pokey room. The walls were tiled in a lovely khaki yellow kind of colour, with the occasional garish yellow daisy painted on. The sink, bath and toilet were a kind of muddy green, and although kept spotlessly clean, still looked like they'd seen better days; possibly in the eighties, when it looked like the bathroom had last been fashionable. There was a large mirrored medicine cabinet mounted in front of the sink, which Mizzy was rummaging around in. After a minute, maybe two, Kendall was beginning to lose track of a lot of things, she sat down next to him, holding a bottle of antiseptic and a ball of cotton wool. Once the cotton wool was liberally doused in antiseptic, she dabbed it on his split lip and across the rug burn. Kendall hissed, and was rewarded with a rueful smile.
"Sorry, it's stings, doesn't it?" She frowned a little at the black eye. "I couldn't find any witch hazel to put on that – sorry. Does it hurt?"
Kendall shrugged. "Not too bad. Had worse."
She looked at him blankly. "Oh." Facing him, she pressed a kiss to her fingertips, before lightly touching them to Kendall's eyelid. "First rule of being a kid – a kiss makes any hurt go away, right?"
He smiled, a crooked smile that probably was deep and meaningful in some way, but completely lost on two teenagers stuck in their lonely little worlds, sitting on the side of a bathtub at eleven o' clock at night, in a particularly miserable spot of Mid-west America. If it were some kind of arty movie, they'd have been able to understand everything about each other in that smile, from that kiss, but it wasn't so they didn't, and quickly as it began the moment was over and they were apart again.
"I'm sorry." Mizzy whispered, looking guilty. "But I think you might have to sleep in the bath. We don't have a spare room, and you're soaking so..."
"It's okay. It's nice in here." It was a lie, and they both knew it, but hey, Kendall was grateful to be in a warm house, who cares if his bed was a bath and his blanket a towel. The radiator next to the door was emitting a lovely heat Kendall could just about feel start to thaw out his frozen fingers, and maybe it wasn't so bad after all.
"Okay. If you need anything, I'm in the next room." She padded towards the door in her fluffy socks, seeming reluctant and subdued. "Light off?" Kendall nodded, and she switched the light off with a click. "Goodnight, then," She left the room, pulling the door to behind her.
Kendall snuffled and coughed into the corner of the towel. It was getting hard to breathe. His ribs were aching, and his head was pounding, and he could not stop shivering. He felt like he should feel lucky – he had a roof over his head, he was safe here, and there was someone nearby who cared for him, if only a little. Yet he still desperately, more than anything else, wanted to be asleep in a nice warm bed, tucked up in the blankets, safe and warm under his mother's watchful gaze. He cursed himself for being greedy. You don't deserve that, his mind reprimanded him, Stop being so ungrateful.
He coughed again, harder this time, trying to clear his throat, but it didn't do much good as he found himself unable to stop, coughing and hacking relentlessly, only occasionally being able to suck in a few shallow, wheezing breaths.
He finally managed to stop, panting with exertion, before flopping weakly further down into the bath. His eyes were beginning to close of their own accord, and his head was slipping down the side of the bath, falling gently into sleep –
"Kendall?" Mizzy's voice at the door jolted him awake. "I heard you coughing, are you alright?" He wasn't entirely sure how she crossed the room and knelt next to the bath so quickly, but she did, and she was hovering next to his head looking nervous.
"I'm fine," he whispered, but his voice betrayed him, cracking and sounding squeaky and foreign.
"I brought you some hot chocolate. I thought it might make you feel better."
"Thanks,"
Kendall took the mug with bruised fingers, inhaling the chocolaty steam, taking a timid slurp. It was the powdery kind, and not mixed properly, but it was warm and perfect and soothed his raw throat. Mizzy was silent, carefully watching his face as he downed the drink.
"What happened?" Her voice was surprisingly steely.
"What do you mean?" Kendall mumbled, trying to avoid her eyes.
"You know exactly what I mean, so answer the bloody question," Mizzy hissed through clenched teeth, quickly going from sympathetic to furious. "So tell me before I hit you, what happened."
Kendall took a slurp of the hot chocolate. "Fell down the stairs."
"No you didn't."
"I did."
"Don't lie."
"Fine. Got beat up."
"By who?"
"Doesn't matter."
"Yes it does." Mizzy's hand shot out and wrapped itself round Kendall's wrist. "Who hurt you, Kendall?"
Kendall looked at her, straight in the eyes. "No-one."
"I'm just trying to help you-
"I don't want your help!" I don't deserve it.
Mizzy dropped his wrist and stared at him aghast. "Fine!" she screeched. "Fine then! Next time you 'don't want help', turn up at someone else's house in the middle of the night! See how they don't give a shit about you! But don't ever come to me ever again!" She marched out the dark bathroom, slamming the door behind her so hard a bar of soap fell off the sink onto the floor.
Kendall watched the door, mind-reeling. He knew he had said something wrong, but he couldn't work out what.
