It was a little known fact that art appealed to the boy.

Nobody except his long-dead sister and his brother knew that fact, and they had swore on thier lives to never tell anyone. They swore that back when they were mere children.

They made the childish promise in the midst of when it all what happening.

The nostalgia of the sweet, childish promise rushed back to him again once it all began again.

The situation started when the lion learned that his brother was in a coma, and has been for the last couple of years. The boy had recently discovered this while in the hospital with a broken leg. It was a shock to him to learn that his brother, his strong, fun lifeline, was in a state of sleeping awareity. As a result his habit formed again, the act of drawing and painting.

Most would say it's a rewarding, fun habit, but to certain people it was a horrible habit, one that he deserved to be shamed and humiliated out of.

It was a shameful act of pride to some, though it was merely a hobby.

Disgusting.

Sinful.

"Some people" included his family, a group of over-zealous religionists.

His father hated any and everything that made him proud. This only he knew. The abuse he had recieved varied on many diffrent degrees, from physical to emotional and everything inbetween. His father hated the fact that he had children, and the fact that the lion teen was born out of wedlock angered his father, resulting in years of abuse.

In the family, he was the middle child. Younger and older by two years, he had lived in Hell with his older sister and younger brother. His younger brother was the only one that wasn't abused in the family until the lion left, right after his sister died.

The middle child recieved most of the punishment his mother and father lashed out because in thier eyes he was an illigitimate boy, the very figure of something to be hated. He was beaten daily until he was bedridden, and when he was bedridden he recieved awful, hateful words that destroyed his confidence and self-esteem, not to mention the fact that it convinced that he was an illigitimate bastard.

He never knew his sister personally, for she was away from home the majority of the time. That prevented major abuse in her later years. All he knew about her was that she isolated herself in her own mind and eventually killed herself- resulting in his immediate leave.

When he left he didn't look behind him. He left everything, his brother, his sister, his family, and the very thing that served as an outlet for him other than blading.

Here he was now, though, splattering his soul all over the alleyway walls. The spread his scarlet blood all over the alleyway, smearing it and splattering it like it was all over the walls so many years ago. He mixed his blood in with his blue sadness and threw the paint at the wall.

He screamed as he did this, letting out all of his inner rage that he has held in for so many years. It seemed as if he had nobody to rely on.

He screamed and shrieked while splattering the colorful liquid on the wall. He screamed at his father, at his sister, at his brother, and at himself for being the coward he was.

He felt unimaginable black guilt that poured all over him for leaving when his brother needed him most. Tears were flowing down his eyes in a clear stream, down his scars and in the paint, creating clear splotches in the oily substance. The guilt was wracking him, the filthy, dirty feeling of regret tugging at him.

His screams caused onlookers, dirty gazes of judgemental people. They gazed at him, seemingly questioning his state rational mentality, until they finally passed on. To the lion, they were a cruel metaphor of what everyone in his life represented. He yelled and began to hit the wall out of anger. His guilt had produced vivid flashback in the innocent disguises of dreams, repetitave dreams that wouldn't stop no matter how hard he tried, no matter what methods he used to put himself to sleep.

He stayed awake, depriving himself of sleep for several days before he finally snapped and started acting out his rage as he was now. His exaustion was extreme- and it wasn't until his voice became raw and hoarse did he breathe-did he stop to come to the self-realization that he was caked in paint, dried and fresh, and that the only part of him relatively clean were the tear trails on his cheeks.

Shame and embarrassment greeting him and his cheeks flushed a vibrant red. Nothing could take away the shame that he felt at himself. He felt no confidence, no pride, no arrogance. Nothing. Nothing but the empty guilt that fed off of him, gnawing at his confidence and his steadily balanced web of peace until he finally felt nothing.

And it had suceeded, for when he stumbled to the very edge of the alleyway, dizzy, and collapsed, mentally and physically exausted, he felt nothing.

Absolutley nothing.

"Daddy look, I won first prize in the art show 'cause I drew my lion and tiger real cool! Look, look!"

His father glared at him through the bottle of beer he was downing. The boy just smiled and hugged his picture, feeling the crispy paint crinkle slightly.

"What the hell is that supposed to be?" He growled, putting down his bottle. The boy smiled up at him.

"A lion and a tige-Owh!" He cried out as he was hurtled to the ground. A huge bruise appeared almost immediately, and tears propped themselves in the boy's eyes immediately.

"Duh-Dada! Wh-why did y-" He was cut of again by a kick to the jaw, rendering the boy speechless. He spat blood from his mouth and started sobbing, trying to shield himself from further harm.

"What the HELL do you think you're doing?! You sinful bastard!" A kick to the stomach earned a scream from the little boy. He lost his breath momentarily and choked while gasping for air.

His father smirked. "You sinful little shit...Pride is the worst thing you can have." His father grabbed the beer bottle and broke it over the table, shattering the brown glass and scattering it all over the floor. The boy coward as he saw his father pick up a piece of glass.

His father picked him up and dug the glass right below his eyes, making two T-shaped wounds in his face. He screamed, cried, kicked but he couldn't avoid the fact that they were there, and that they would always be there. He sobbed.

"You sinful fuck! Think about those next time you decide to roll in your filthly pride."

He thrashed around in the alleyway, feeling his face burn. Involuntairy tears flowed from his eyes and he gripped the thing that was nearby tightly.

That particular thing that he gripped was a soft and warm, and he readily rested his head on it. The calm washed over him as he fell into a deep, peaceful slumber.

The red-head ran his hand through the lion's wild hair, combing out the dried flakes of paint. The ginger had been watching his whole breakdown from afar. He watched the lion splatter the alley with vibrant colors while screaming and punching. The redheaded boy didn't qustion or judge what the lion did, for he knew that something was coming, and it was approaching soon. He felt it once he was woke up multiple times by the green haired ones efforts to keep awake.

Now that it had happened, he couldn't help but to feel pity for the green lion boy. It seemed as if he had no one left, no one that was a true friend to him. The red headed boy, of course, saw him more than that. In the emotional state he was in now, though, it would be unfair to tell the lion boy now.

All he could do was heal the trauma the only way the wild one would accept it: Silently and from afar. And even then it might not be enough.