I'm A What?!

A Step Backwards

     Gat was frozen as Tim made his way over to him. Even Cole was slightly scared of the look on Tim's face. Tim knelt down next to the chair and took Gat's face in his hand. What shocked Gat the most was how careful Tim was holding him.

     "What happened?" Tim's voice wasn't as soft as his grip. "Why are you crying?"

     "N-nothing happened." Gat gulped.

     Tim's eyes narrowed, and he turned to Cole. Cole also gulped and shook his head. "We've just been s-siting here. He was talking about his dad and started crying."

     Gat's eyes got wide, and he looked at Cole like he'd just betrayed him. He looked back at Tim and saw that his eyes had softened. He let go of his face and looked down at the picture on the table. Tim looked back at Gat but said nothing. He got up and sighed.

     "We have our next class together. You can tell me what happened there. Put your things away." He turned away and started to walk back out the door.

     Gat wasn't sure what just happened. Did Tim suddenly lose his mind? What was going on? He looked back at Cole who was now talking to Greg and sighed. Why was he mad at Cole? It's not like he was thinking about anything wrong that made him cry like that.

     "Let's go." Tim said when he saw Gat wasn't moving. Gat quickly put away the supplies he brought with him and picked up his picture. He didn't want it to get wrinkled after he'd worked so hard on it. He looked up at Tim for just a second and it was a little creepy how Tim seemed to read his mind.

     "Here." Tim handed him an empty folder from the supplies counter. Gat gave a small 'thanks' smile and carefully put the picture inside it before following him out the door.

     Tim had no reason to go to his locker, so they just went to Gat's so he could put his stuff away. When they got up to the locker, they could see and smell the fresh paint on it. The words were almost gone, but Gat knew they were there. Knew that they would always be there.

     He knew that he should just ignore them, but the one that hurt the most was 'murderer'. Sometimes he felt like it was his fault. Sometimes he felt like if he'd died, his family wouldn't be in the trouble it was in. He should have died instead of... no... he'd gone through all this two years ago. Everyone had told him it was in no way his fault. Survivors guilt is what they called it.

     "We're gonna be late." Tim's voice brought him out of his thoughts. "Just put it away so we can go." Gat nodded and quickly put everything back in his bag. He had seen the name of the next class too and was dreading it. Bonding. He didn't need to bond. He had someone he was already bonded to. He wanted his dad.

     Gatlin seemed to be down. Tim didn't know what made him charge into the room like that and demanded to know what had happened. When Cole had said Gatlin was talking about his dad, mixed with the picture he'd drawn of a man that looked a lot like him... Tim knew what he was feeling. For the first year after his father's death Tim had been the same way. He wondered how long it'd been since Gatlin lost him. Should he just ask? He didn't remember seeing anything in the file he read. There honestly wasn't anything about his family in the personal file. Was he even supposed to know? Was it something private?

     Before he knew it, they had walked into the cursed room. Everyone else was already in there. The Littles that weren't in 'proper' attire were now dressed up just as cute as everyone else. Tim despised this room. Every time he walked in, he hated it even more.

     He couldn't help but chuckle at the thought of Mr. Pova having anything like this in his house. He did say he was a Caregiver, did he have a soft side? He didn't seem like he did from the way he taught his class. He seemed like a natural hardass.