Author's Notes: shamefaced Well… Hi again, everybody. Since it's been… well, forever since I wrote in AM, I'm going to apologize to the fandom at large by throwing a great deal of fic at you all at once. SHAMELESS PLUG TIME SWWF is done and posted; Date Match had been redone; and this fic had a companion piece that will be up as well. Anywho, this ficlet was originally intended to be a re-vamped version of Famous. (Which has been taken down. My early angst attempts were not pretty.) Fortunately for me (and possibly you), instead of sticking to being one short ramble, it split into two stories. This one, and another called Need (Although this one should be read first.).

Disclaimer: I have no ownership of rights to anything. Which is tragic, really.

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: Implied rape, possibly offensive to people practicing religion.

Feedback:Please feed the author.

Nothing

Ever since he was a little boy, Alex knew he was different.

He had parents like all the other boys and girls in his neighborhood, but even back then he was sure something was wrong with his.

All the children had pretty mothers who braided their daughters' hair, and tended to their sons' scraped knees. They didn't have mothers who had purple marks around one of their eyes when they came down for breakfast in the morning. Their mothers didn't hit them those mornings, blaming them for something they couldn't understand.

All the other children had handsome fathers who took their daughters to the fair, and coached their sons' baseball teams. Their fathers didn't scream at their mothers, yelling at them for something she seemed to always do wrong. Their fathers didn't hit their mothers when she would yell back.

He was pretty sure that their mothers wouldn't turn on them then, yelling at their son in the same way his father did his mother. Screaming at him for ruining her life, for keeping their father's love from her, steeling it all for himself.

Other children didn't remember their parents' deaths without grief.

Other children weren't supposed to be grateful for the fact that they would never have to be hurt again. That they would never have to listen to the screaming battles, or witness the drunken brawls. That their fathers couldn't hurt their mothers anymore, and that their mothers couldn't hurt them.

But he was normal in some ways. He hated the orphanage he lived in, with the Sisters and all the other little boys. And like all his fellow orphans, he wanted a family and a nice, safe home more than anything.

The Sisters claimed to be followers of their God, and were acting in His name. From the time that Alex lived there, he learned to hate God.

Because the Sisters hurt him often, when they felt he was wrong. And if their cruelty was in His name, then He had to be the wickedest thing ever.

He had learned this when he was seven. One day, Alex and the other boys were playing kickball in the yard. His friend, Charlie, had kicked the red rubber ball so hard that it had gone straight over the chainlinkfence, and onto the street. Alex was closest to it, and had volunteered to go retrieve the ball.

He had gone down a back alley, and had run into someone. A man.

And this man, a burly, dirty, sickly looking creature had grabbed him by the arm, and forced him to his knees. He remembered his callused hands, grabbing, going through his pockets, looking for money. His thick, yellowish fingers harshly wriggling through his clothes. But, then he had started to touch him… Touch him in his most privet, tender places, where his skin was unmarked in youth; soft and smooth.

He had cried after. Had scooped up the ball and ran back to the orphanage yard where the children played.

He hadn't rejoined the game, only throwing the ball to the pitcher, making sure to hide his tears and had run up the worn, stone steps, and into the orphanage, searching for a Sister.

He had found one soon hereafter, had poured out his story between raw sobs.

But what the Headmistress of the orphanage did was far worse than the man. She had scolded him. She yelled at him.

Like his mother did.

She had wailed on and on about him being a greedy, selfish little boy, for not wanting to give something to someone in need. For not being willing to give a hand up to someone who may have stolen to feed his starving children.

He found this all very funny now.

Then, after she had finished yelling, she got out the belt. Had told him sodomy was a crime against God, and that he should be punished for both it and his greed.

But he had learned something very important that day.

He had learned that if he told about his hurt, he would be punished. So to stop the punishments, he needed to hide his hurt.

And that's what he had done.

He had locked away all his worries and woes, and had put up a front. Pretended that everything was okay, that he was a happy little boy who didn't long for a new life. One filled with a sweet, gentle mother who would walk him to school, and smelt of fabric softener, Who would be standing over the stove when he came home for supper, and he would come home for supper, and she would be standing over the stove. And a kind, caring father, teaching him to play baseball in the backyard, taking his training wheels off when he was ready, and telling him bedtime stories of pirates and superheroes and astronauts.

Sometimes, he remembered his parents, as the years dragged by, their memories floating to the surface of his mind through small things; the smell of that minty gum that his mother would chew, the whiff of his father's cologne.

And sometimes he had wondered. What would they think of him now? Would they be proud of what they had helped turn him into? Or just ashamed that living had gotten the better of him?

But when he thought about it, he couldn't care less.

Still time had slid by, rolling along without him, his detachment from the world, making reality seem like the untouchable, distant moon.

In his teen years, his body seemed to have surrendered to nature, and he had been vaguely surprised to look down one day and see a flat stomach and long legs. His voice had changed, stubble appearing on his cheeks in the morning, and he now towered over most of the other boys. He had always been good at sports when he was young, running especially, but now he was nothing short of fantastic.

His high school coach had told him to sign up for the football team, and he had done so, helping win many a game. But still, he was detached. He had gained many friends, a British immigrant who called himself Grinder being his closest, and it had been him to first point out them.

They where a girls.

Dozens of girls who seemed to hang around him, blocking his way in the hall, disturbing his lunch and generally making nucences of themselves. In a fit of annoyance he had burst out to Grinder, demanding to know why they insisted on following him around at every turn.

And his friend had laughed. Laughed and told him in a high, faux-womanly voice how handsome he was, with that thick, dark, hair and those big, blue eyes.

He had laughed along with the rest of his friends, but had wondered how he had missed something so blatantly obvious. Because he had certainly noticed them now, after he had been told. Had he become so detached that he didn't even notice his surroundings anymore?

Yes, he had.

Onthe walk home to the Orphanage where he was doomed to live until adulthood, he had realized something. He didn't feel happy about that fact, or sad, or angry or… anything.

In fact, he felt nothing.

Somewhere along the way, he had grown into the front, or it had grown into him. And he didn't care. The pretending was over;something had broken, quietly, deep down, without him noticing a thing.

It was beautiful, the way everything had been instinctually locked away; leaving him with a calm abyss that took no effort to maintain. It was wonderful at first, a total bliss… to have no feeling of sadness, no feeling of pain; just a bright, cold sanctuary from the world.

But it couldn't last. He had soon discovered he could no longer feel anything. No happiness. No fulfillment.

There was no joy left in life.

The heaven had turned into hell.

But still, he had moved on. Because moving on was something. Something he could hold on to. Something constant. Something that he could use to fool himself with. And he had reveled and despised it all at once. The mind-dulling grind of life was all he had. All that was truly his own. And that blankness had stayed with him.

Will stay with him.