An X-Men: Evolution story. All rights where they belong.
When he was young, his mother would call him her little piggy. He'd liked the name, then, because it made her smile—and, living with a circus, where he didn't quite understand why his mother never laughed like the people who watched them, anything that made her tired eyes light up was a good thing. She'd call him her little piggy Freddy, and he'd grin and oink up at her in his best imitation of a pig, and she'd smile and ruffle his soft, blonde hair, and things weren't great—weren't even that good—but they got on.
As he got older (and wider, and wider, and wider), the connection between the words the circus viewers would shout and his own self slowly formed. Freddy would be the first to admit that he wasn't terribly bright, but it had never occurred to him that people would be that mean—his mom liked his chubby little arms, like his round, porky belly, and so why wouldn't everyone else?
"You're beautiful, my little piggy Freddy," his mother had consoled, sitting on his bed beside him and holding him as best she could, pressing a gentle kiss to his brow. "The rest of the world doesn't see it, doesn't know you like I do, but you're beautiful, my boy. You always have been, and you always will be."
And, for a while, he could ignore it. Because his mother said he was beautiful, and no-one was as smart as his mother.
It had hurt all the more, then, when she'd sent him away.
"If you stay here, you will live in the circus forever. My Freddy, I have lived here all my life; I do not want that for you. You will go to school, you will make friends who see you as beautifully as I do, you will be smarter and better than I have ever been."
"But mom," he'd blubbered, wiping at the unending tears that rolled over his round cheeks, "I don't—you won't be there! I can't—I can't! I don't wanna go!"
"You can," she'd soothed, and kissed his forehead, and wrapped her arms as far around him as they'd go. "Oh, my Freddy, you can… Study hard, and do your best. I believe in you, my little piggy Freddy."
And he'd looked up at her, teary-eyed and runny-nosed, and nodded. If his mom believed in him, he could do it. He knew he could do it.
When he came to school, his host family had taken one look at him and told him to sleep in the basement.
"We can't have your fat ass breaking the ceiling, so don't even try going upstairs. There's a cellar door by the side of the house—use that, and don't let the neighbors see you."
At over four hundred pounds, Freddy could see why they'd protest, and he tried not to let it get to him, he really did. He set up what few things he had in the basement, and sure, the ceiling was a little low, but it was no trouble to bend down a bit when he walked. Lying down that first night on a mattress pad laid out on the concrete slab of the basement, he'd tried to focus on what a good time he'd have in school, on how much fun his mom said he'd have. But, then, that always brought him back to his mom, to how he'd left her with the circus, and he didn't sleep very well.
Breakfast left him hungry—a bowl of cheerios and a glass of milk wasn't enough to fill the stomach of a small growing teen, much less one his size—but he hadn't complained (his mother had warned him against it, and he'd listen to her, he would). His backpack hadn't fit, and so he carried it at his side and made his way along the streets, following the directions he'd been given to get to the school and not noticing the way people stared. The directions were confusing, and it was a bit of a struggle to follow them, but he made it to the school eventually.
His first day… it wasn't good. He'd gotten stuck in more doorways than he cared to count, and somewhere between breaking desks and the rounds and rounds of laughter, he could feel himself grow nauseated. Lunch came, and he realized he didn't have any money. Asking around had gotten him a few items—mostly thrown, with some barbed comment about his figure—and he'd sat on the ground in the corner of the lunchroom to avoid breaking anything else.
Coming back to his host family hadn't been any better. If anything, it was worse for all that he had to use their home, ask for dinner and a shower ("Go use the hose, you're not fitting in the bathtub!"), and by the time he got around to his homework he was crying too hard to see it.
The pattern, then, became this: out of the house before his hosts woke, steal food from the first student he saw, do as much of his homework as he could before classes started (never much, never enough to pull his grade over a D, and even then, just barely), beg around for his lunch, hurry home to wash off before his hosts returned, and try not to cry too much when they came down to taunt him during dinner. And, at all times, try not to break anything.
Of course, after a few months, it got easier. He was getting used to it. There was no point in writing home, his mother couldn't read, anyway, and what could she have done for him? He tried to keep a low profile, but how low could anyone keep when they were his size?
He tried to keep his spirits up, he really did. But the teasing and taunting and the noise got louder and louder by the day, and his head hurt. He couldn't keep doing this, but he couldn't go back—not with his mother so sure. I believe in you, she'd said, and he couldn't stand the thought of disappointing her, but it all seemed so hopeless. He couldn't pass his classes, he was always hungry, and everyone was so cruel…
It had seemed fate smiled on him when the Texas State Fair had called him up to follow a Monster Truck act. The money wasn't great, but they'd cover his trip there, and maybe—maybe he could figure out a way to make his mother proud without having to be around all those other kids.
His host family hadn't said a word when he told them he was leaving. The fair lasted nearly a month, and it wasn't like he could stay in school, anyway, with the grades he was towing. He'd had to walk to the airport, several grueling miles before dawn, and the sweat had been rolling down his face by the time he got there, but he'd made it.
He wouldn't be coming back to this town—he knew that much—but what waited for him at the fair as he found his strength waking was more than he ever could have imagined.
A new school, a place to live on his own, an indoor shower with warm water.
And then there was Jean.
She was honey and early Spring rain that pattered against glass panes, and his head didn't hurt so much when she talked. She didn't call him anything but Fred—and how long had it been since he'd heard his name on someone else's lips? She wasn't, he supposed, particularly beautiful. She wasn't Texan beautiful—blonde and tan and red, white, and blue. But… she was kind. And she was gentle. And for the first time since he left home, he felt like a human being, instead of a walking freak show, and he'd hoped so much—
But hope was for beautiful people. People who were wanted. And guys like him were never wanted.
And, anyway, he'd blown his chances. He knew what he did was wrong, but… it wasn't her he'd been mad at. He hadn't wanted to yell—not at her. It just came out, and he couldn't stop it, and it was almost an out of body experience as he tried to tell himself to stop, to walk away, to leave her be because this wasn't on her but it was like he couldn't hear himself.
And after that, it hadn't mattered.
The Brotherhood wasn't much, but it was better than life would have been with the X-Men. Here, at least, the status quo was set. Here, there weren't feigned polite smiles and chatter behind his back. Here, everything was out in the open, and it wasn't home, but he could manage.
There wasn't a light, wasn't really much hope of anything, but he'd make it through school. He didn't know what would come after that, but he'd make it… he owed his mother that much.