Safety in The Form Of a Knight (Madeleine x Espresso)

7: Shakes

⚠️This chapter contains implications of abuse, and self harm⚠️

Espresso opened the familiar beige door, and stepped into the house,

Latte turned around and gasped. "Espresso!" She ran over to hug him. "I missed you! But, it's only four o'clock, you usually don't get here until a while later."

He nodded, setting his backpack down next to him. "I was scared to go home... I got a 75% on a test.." He started to tear up, and he quickly wiped his eyes before any tears could fall.

Latte nodded, understanding. "I see. That's alright though, 'cause I got a 37% on my test, and my mama said that as long as I tried, it's okay. And I got a yummy popsicle! Here!" He grabbed his arm, dragging him to the freezer in their kitchen. "You can have one too. Here's a grape one!

She handed him a grape popsicle, and he started eating it. "Thank you Latte."

She smiled. "Of course Espresso."

Latte's mother stepped into the room. "I thought I heard you come in Espresso!" Mocha said, hugging him. "How are you?"

He smiled, as her warm embrace made him feel safe. "I'm okay."

Latte looked at her mom with an annoyed look. "Mommy, you'll never guess what happened." She said with a frown.

She let go of Espresso. "What happened darling?"

"Ms. Chestnut gave us homework, OVER THE WEEKEND!! Can you believe it?" She grumped.

Her mother laughed. "I'm sure it's not too hard. I'll help you both with it."

"We have to read an entire chapter about Cookie history. And it's BORING!" She ran out of the room to grab the book to show her mom.

Mocha turned to Espresso. "I heard Latte yelling about you guys getting bad grades on the test today, is that why you're here so early?"

He slowly nodded. "I was scared to go home to father.." He tried not to think about what might have have happened if he went to his house.

She hugged him again, seeing he was getting stressed. "It's okay Espresso. I'm here. We're here, and we love you... We love you so much."

...

He opened his eyes. He had that terrible nightmare again. He looked at his clock, it was 7:24. He had only gotten a few hours to sleep. He couldn't remember what the date was anymore, but that didn't matter. Espresso knew he was already days behind schedule. "No more resting." He thought to himself. "No more interruptions. I need to get to work." Despite all the recent events, he planned to forget everything and complete his work.

He grabbed the book he had set on his table a few days ago, which was sitting next to the many empty cups of old coffee.

Coffee.. He needed coffee..

He rushed to the kitchen to make a cup of hot coffee. He fumbled around the cabinet of his mugs when he found he only had one left, and he took a mental note to clean them later. His fingers wrapped around the handle of the cup, and he turned around, accidentally dropping it.

CRASH!

It fell to the floor, completely demolishing into a million tiny, sharp pieces. He sighed. "Shit..." That was the only clean glass he had. He thought about how he could've used one of the dirty ones, but God knows how long those have been sitting out for.

He began to walk over to the living room to grab an empty cup when he winced in pain. He had forgotten about the glass on the ground and had stepped in it. Pain pulsing through his body. "I-It's fine.. I'll just clean that later."