Male!Cruella De Vil X Male!Child!Reader ~ Running

Chapter 5

The rocking of the train and the amount of walking you had done the day before worked wonders in lulling you to sleep. You had no idea how long you had slept for, but when you awoke the train was still moving. It was midday, roundabouts, and the lead was gone from your hands. Domino had fallen asleep on the floor, and was clearly snoring, which earned him distasteful looks from Curt whenever the man happened to look up. He was still sketching, but the loop of the lead was now around his wrist – he'd clearly taken it from you when you had fallen asleep.

It was another two hours before the train pulled in to a station, and Curt got to his feet, gathering his things and handing you back Domino's lead in a way that told you clearly that you were getting off here. Having no items of your own to gather, your preparation for getting off of the train simply consisted of standing up, and giving Domino a forceful enough nudge on the side with your foot that he awoke with a long sleepy yawn.

There seemed to be quite a few of the train's families alighting at the station, and you took hold of Curt's coat once more, wary of being swept along by the swarm of people moving along the station. It was quieter on the road, and you released him, the two of you stopping so that you could remove the muzzle and lead from Domino, and you silently returned them to Curt to put away in his bag. For some reason you felt reluctant to speak, as if he were a strict teacher that had commanded your silence. Though for all his complaints and annoyance he had done no such thing, and you hadn't had a problem with speaking to him before.

In your mind, something had changed between you, while you had been sitting on that train together, surrounded by families. Or perhaps even back in the department store, when the woman at the checkout had called you his son.

You pushed the emerging thought deep down in your mind. Curt was a criminal. You were with him only because he needed you. He didn't –

A cold thought stuck you then, as Curt turned to walk down the road, and you automatically followed after him.

He didn't need you.

Not anymore, at least. You were both out of London now, out in a world you knew nothing about, where you were more a liability to him than an aid. Arthur would be concentrating on finding you, leaving Curt to Alfred and Francis. While they could all be decent officers when they wanted to be, Alfred would be distracted easily, and Francis would be jumping at the chance to slack off now that he was out of Arthur's overly observant shadow. Arthur would have realised you weren't in your part of London anymore, maybe even realised that you were out of London entirely. It would be in Curt's best interests to ditch you now and be gone before Arthur could catch up. It wasn't like you knew where he was going.

For the past day and night, the goal had just been to get 'out of London'. Now you were actually out of London. What now? You couldn't even really threaten to call Arthur on him anymore – he wasn't right around the corner anymore; it would take him hours to get there. And you were wary of phoning the local police – Arthur had had a lot to say on the subject of police in the countryside, usually involving a lot of scoffing. In your sudden insecurity, you did the most natural thing that came to you.

Curt jerked in surprise, staring at you in wide eyes as you suddenly latched onto his hand, Domino staring at your joined fingers as if he took it as a personal insult, letting out an uneasy whine. Whatever the dog napper had to say died at the tip of his tongue and he simply stared at you for a few moments before tugging on your hand and continuing to walk, for only a minute before reaching a bench and releasing your hand as he turned to you.

"Sit." He told you in an authoritative tone, and you quickly complied, and immediately felt a little better for it. You were only just beginning to realise that your breathing had quickened and your eyes were pricking with unshed tears and you probably looked rather pale. "What?" He spoke in a crass casual way but was clearly asking you what was wrong, and suddenly it all became too much. You burst into tears, right there on the bench by the road.

People stared. Domino hopped up onto the bench beside you as you buried your face in your hands, openly weeping, and Curt spluttered, his body tensing with shock. He had clearly never been confronted with a crying child before, and now that it had happened he didn't have the first clue what he should be doing to make you stop.

"What do you want?" He asked, sounding a little hysterical as people started murmuring to each other. "Are you hungry? Tired? What?" You couldn't give him any kind of reply through your tears. "_____, what do you-?"

He'd never used your name before. Part of you thought he had forgotten it, or never bothered to learn in the first place. Hearing him use it for the first time, even in a voice that was frantic and nervous as it was, drew a startled gasp from you, and the sound broke through your weeping and reduced it to a dull sniffling, in turn making Curt halt in his words, trying to work out if the storm was over. Cautiously you took your hands away from your face to peer at him, to see that he was still stood in front of you, eyeing you a little warily, his face even more pale than it usually was. He seemed a little relieved now that you had stopped.

With a half choked whimper you launched yourself off of the bench at him, wrapping your arms around his middle and clinging to him tightly, burying your face in his stomach as he let out a small yelp and tensed up again, unsure how to react to this. People continued to stare.

After a little over a minute you pulled back, rubbing at your eyes with your hands. It was a long time before you were able to look him in the face because you were frightened of what you might see there. But there wasn't any disgust or anger in his expression, or even shock. His face was simply blank as he stared at you.

"Better?" He questioned, his voice as unexpressive as his face. You nodded, and he tilted his head in acknowledgement, before continuing along the road, and you took hold of his coat again in order to keep up.

Curt didn't ask for an explanation for your emotional breakdown on the road, and you didn't offer one, but you did notice that he became instantly wary whenever you frowned or pouted as you continued on for the evening. He took you into a restaurant for dinner (not a McDonald's, but you were happy either way), followed by a trip into the stores to buy some actual dog food when you mentioned you were worried about just giving Domino table scraps all the time (Domino, for his part, was unimpressed with this new product that he was now supposed to call 'food'). He even bought a large plush toy for you, simply because he noticed your gaze lingered on it for a few seconds longer than it had the others as you were passing a stand.

You clutched the large stuffed [fave/animal] to your chest as you followed him along the road until you came to another small inn. There was a stronger breeze here than in London, and it was colder, and for some reason tasted salty – though you had no idea why that might be. You followed Curt into the room he had booked – this time for a couple of nights, you noticed – and were so exhausted that it wasn't long after you had flumped down on your bed that you fell right asleep.