A/N: I wrote this for my humanities course maybe a month ago, thought it might be good enough to upload. To my followers: sorry, but don't expect me to be back in any real capacity. This is just a blurb to let you guys know I haven't totally given up on my muse yet. I might slowly be stroking him back to life.
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He was deformed, damaged goods, and they knew that from the start; from the moment they picked him up from the doorstep of the orphanage, giving a quick glance up and down the street in hopes of catching sight of the perpetrator (though they knew they wouldn't) before carrying the sniffling baby inside.
He was so quiet, probably a troublemaker, and they guessed that the moment things started missing—the mystery of the batteries constantly disappearing from the television remote or the flashlights or the box down under the sink was one that baffled them for years, and they'd long since stopped trying to get a confession from any of the children.
He was solitary, even antisocial, and they noticed that pretty quickly; he didn't ever play with the others, always opting instead to erect small structures with Duplo blocks or Legos. The children all had their own rooms, and it was a good thing, too—he was borderline violent about those people he allowed in his space (or the lack thereof).
He was lazy, or at least only paid lackluster attention, and they figured that out when he brought home failing grades; all he did was come home and sit in his room. Or maybe he was even just stupid.
But once they were tired of conjecture, of tossing around bets to decide who would actually risk their life to go see what a destructive mess it must be, they all went—knocked on the door once, twice, and pushed it open.
He was sitting in the middle of the floor, beside the boy who was blind in one eye, surrounded by a small metropolis composed entirely of Legos, and on the blue slabs of street—the city was color-coordinated—rolled little machines made of miscellaneous metal pieces, pen springs, key rings, that doorknob that had mysteriously gone missing from a closet door in the basement and the screws that had held it in place.
Upon their entry the seven-year-old Hephaestus looked up (as well as the younger redheaded boy some of the older, meaner children had nicknamed Cyclops) at them, big green eyes saddening as he spoke, "Do you think my mommy will want me now?"