requested
C00lkidd scratched absentmindedly at the side of his arms, the skin there cracked and reddened — dry to the point of peeling. It was the kind of thing 007n7 used to tend to, gently applying cream to ease the discomfort. But he wasn’t here now. And hadn’t been for some time. In his absence, C00lkidd reached for the next best thing.
He tugged at your sleeve, grime-caked claws snagging the fabric like the child he is— clingy, desperate, searching for something familiar. Something safe. Something that, deep down, he knew he would never truly have again. His father had become a distant figure, more memory than presence. So instead, he clung to you.
A replacement. A pawn Spectre had placed at his side to keep him stable and compliant.
The smile on his face never quite reached his eyes. It felt too practiced, as if Spectre itself had etched it onto his face like a grotesque mask. Everything about him seemed forced, unnatural. Even his body looked wrong—stretched thin, bones jutting out beneath his skin in sharp relief, ribcage painfully visible. And taller now. Almost taller than you. A child still in age, but warped by suffering.
You hadn’t asked to be here. Your presence wasn’t voluntary. Yet here you were, trapped beside this broken creature who still saw the world through fractured glass, colors and sunshine where there was only shadow. His mind refused to let go of what it meant to be loved, and so he projected that yearning onto you.
C00lkidd missed his father. That ache bled into everything he did. And so he looked to you. to care for him, to hold him, to see him. Even when you hesitated. Even when he repulsed you, not with who he was, but with what he had become: monstrous in appearance, filthy and malformed by grief and torment.
“Please?” he whispered, voice trembling with the unbearable weight of neglect. C00lkidd froze, his smile faltering. His eyes widened, the hollow black pools staring at you with childlike innocence.
The child was begging now. Pleading for a moment of your time. Not because he was selfish, but because he had been left alone too often, and for too long. His father was always too busy. Always gone.
How he wanted to throw a tantrum. To stomp his feet and shove you and yell that you weren’t being fair, that his father always held him when he cried, he always did, why couldn’t you do the same? He wanted you to hold him and make it better like his father used to.