TW: homeless children, sick children.
Pac is thirteen, and Mike is finally asleep. His best friend got sick a few days ago, the pair having been caught out in the rain. Pac had avoided the worst of it, only to be up all night anyway, keeping track of Mike's fevers.
It broke last night, but then they had had to run - the owner of the cafe they were sheltering behind had returned from her holiday, and released a pair of dogs to scare them off. Thankfully they did not get close to either child, but the running and the searching for another place to sleep had it return.
Maybe it would be better, to try and beg there way into the keeping of another orphanage?
... Pac takes four seconds to remember why that is a bad idea.
Mike whimpers, sweating more than their water supply allows for as he shifts under stolen blankets. Pac brushes his forehead, and gently, mentally shushes him.
Pac is thirteen, which means that Mike is eleven, which means that Pac has to be the one to look after them both.
The dogs? He would have fought them. When they steal? Pac is the distraction, the one starting a showpiece of a fight as Mike scoops up the bags. When they are sick?
When they are sick, Pac pretends he does not feel his own fever, and dedicates himself to looking after Mike.
He isn't really sure what to do, but he knows someone is supposed to watch people with fevers when they sleep. They don't have enough water to waste on wetting a rag, like people do in books, but he puts one on Mike's forehead nonetheless. Mike gets the blankets, and the cushion they found lying in a puddle, and the driest spot under the overhand. Pac, meanwhile, has scraps of fabric, and cold concrete, and a very sick best friend.
It is very hard to stay awake, sick and exhausted as he is from days of looking after Mike. He would give him the world - has given him the world - but it is very hard to keep his eyes open.
Pac needs to do something, else he will fall asleep. And he is not sure why that is bad, but he knows that it is.
... One of the bags they stole was not a bag at all, but a sewing box.
Inside are threads, and needles, and buttons, and little scissors and offcuts of larger pieces of fabric.
Really, Pac should use them to fix their clothes, or save them for when things are even worse. He remembers just enough of the right classes to know that both he and Mike have growth spurts still to hit, and that will mean needing to lengthen their clothes.
But...
Pac is thirteen, and Mike is eleven, and also in the sewing box are a couple of small glass circles, like teddy bear eyes.
Pac looks at the missing button on his coat, then looks at Mike, sleeping and distressed and reaching for something that is not there.
Pac picks up the fabric, and begins to sew.
Sewing is not one of his greatest skills, but Pac knows a little about it; when Sister Isabela has been in charge of discipline, she had tended to making him help her with repairs rather than the usual punishments. Pac had been in trouble a lot, and so he had learnt to fix many things - clothes and buttons and electrical sockets and plumbing and all sorts. He had not been allowed to help fix the gas stove, but he had been made to watch it happen.
Fixing things is not quite like making things, but... but Mike is eleven, so Pac has to look after him, and the books he learnt to read from say sick children are supposed to cuddle toys.
Pac thinks it might be wrong - even before his parents hated him, he did not get to cuddle toys, and the Nuns and the Priest certainly never gave them any. Still, he has no water to make the rags wet, and he needs to steal some energy drinks in the morning and force Mike to drink them, and it's late and if he does nothing he will fall asleep too.
So, he grabs the scraps of fabric, and the needles, and the thread, and does his best.
None of the scraps are the right shape, and he is scared to cut them. Working fabric in 3D is very different to flat, but Pac does his best. The head is two approximately round shapes stitched together, with bits poking out for ears. It has a body and two arms and two legs, even if all of the limbs are different sizes and the stitching stretches a bit too much. It is a patchwork of colours - and an actual patch where some of the fabric tore, Pac does know how to patch things - stuffed not with proper stuffing but instead the remaining fabric scraps.
It is an ugly, ugly thing.
Pac, desperate for some way to help, tucks it under the blankets with Mike anyway.
In feverish sleep Mike clings to it, and clings to Pac's sleeve too. In the morning, still sick, Mike holds it even tighter when Pac has to go.
Pac comes back to their camp with a bag of stolen energy drinks, and a few sandwiches grabbed from the same rack, to find that Mike has named her Alegria.
Alegria does not survive the winter.
But two boys do, and that is what matters in the end.
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the men and boys are innocent too.
we cry "the innocent women and children" to appeal to the masses, to try and force their sympathy, but the men and boys are innocent too.
I have seen sons crying out for their mothers, their fathers, their siblings. I have seen them break down at the loss of their families. I have seen them cling to their dead and grieve.
I have seen fathers cradle their dead children, seen them kiss their faces and hold their little hands. I have seen them faint with grief when asked to identify the dead. I have seen them carry their sons and daughters. I have seen them fasting to provide what little they can for their families.
I have seen men and boys digging through the rubble with just their bare hands, I have seen them comforting strangers, playing with children, rocking them, hushing them, even if the face of such imminent danger. I have seen them cry, seen them grieve, seen them break down into each other's arms, seen them be selfless, beyond selfless, becoming something I don't have a word for.
I have seen the men who are doctors refuse to leave their patients, even when they have no medicine or supplies to give them, even when they're threatened with bombings. I have seen fathers who have lost all their children pick orphans up into their arms and proclaim them their child so they are not alone. I have seen men and boys digging pets out of the rubble.
the men are innocent too. the men and boys are being hurt and killed too. the men and boys are grieving too. the men and boys are scared too. the men and boys are fighting to save their people too. the men and boys deserve to be fought for too.
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