I do not own American Horror Story: Coven.

I simultaneously cheered and shuddered when Kyle killed his mom. What? You didn't?

Be Somebody

Kyle Spencer had always tried to be the right kind of person.

Ever since he was a little boy and started witnessing his mother and her drugs and suffering her incestuous pedophilic assaults, he promised himself that one day he'd get out and make something better of himself.

He tried to stay away from home as much as possible.

The little boy with holes in his clothes playing with friends at their homes after school. The hungry little boy doing his homework in the library until the janitor shooed him out. The sweet, thoughtful little boy volunteering to do chores for the neighbors.

Those kind neighbors who pressed dollar bills into his grubby hand even when he said they didn't have to.

But in the end, no matter how strenuously he avoided it, he always had to go home.

And she was always there.

To find and take the dollar bills for herself.

Run him down for his selfishness and greed. Then turn around and hug up against him, cooing about her sweet, precious baby boy.

And eventually the lights always went out.

And the shame, humiliation, and confusion began.

Kyle was always very grimly thankful to be an only child. He couldn't have stomached the horror of knowing there was another little boy or girl in the house suffering the same degradation he did night after night.

She might have even forced them to practice on each other for her own sick pleasure. The thought of which was always too revolting to bear.

And so the lonely, withdrawn, wisp of a boy had slowly, miserably, grown into a teenager.

A handsome, strong, teenager.

Which excited and delighted the woman all the more.

And he desperately sought even more ways of staying away.

Sports. Baseball, basketball, football, swimming.

It didn't matter if he actually cared about the activities themselves or not. What mattered was the time away from home they required to practice, to excel, to be the best.

And the scholarships of course.

College scholarships.

College.

Away from home.

Where you lived and ate and worked to make something of yourself.

His mother, she had no money to help him get into college. No money at all except for the monthly government checks that arrived in their rusted metal mailbox every month.

Government checks for herself. Her disability due to her 'headaches' and 'equilibrium issues'.

And Kyle's Survivor's Benefits he received from his father dying when he was young.

But not so young he wasn't aware that the death itself had occurred under questionable circumstances.

The money his mother took all for herself. And added it to the tens and twenties she got for turning tricks when he wasn't home.

And sometimes even when he was.

But no, none of her precious money ever made its way into his empty pockets, that was for sure.

It was all for Mommy. And Mommy's meth. And Mommy's cocaine. And Mommy's morphine.

Besides, she didn't see the point in him going to college. She told him time and time again that he could just stay home with her. And when he turned eighteen, he could apply for disability too for any 'conditions' he might develop from playing so many sports and overworking his body.

We could even go out to clubs, she'd say. And party like you kids like to do. We could just tell them all I'm your sexy, lusty cougar, she'd joke.

And he'd shudder and cringe. And she'd cry and scream (what, are you ashamed of me?!) hit him and slap his face.

And then want to kiss away the boo-boos, wherever she imagined them to be.

And coo that he didn't need college, that she'd be all alone if he went to boring, old college.

And the more she encouraged Kyle to stay home and forget all the collegiate silliness and the world outside her own, the harder he worked.

Got part time jobs, several of them for different days of the week and seasons of the year. Did his homework in the library. Tutored kids in Calculus, in English lit, in Chemstry.

Lived on soda and no-doze pills and desperate, scrabbling hope. Anything to keep him going until he could get away.

Girls noticed him and he noticed them too. They were young and attractive, with bright eyes and coy smiles. But he rarely could do more than manage to give them a goodnight peck at the door because whenever his body tried to react to a female, his mother's face would pop up behind his eyes and his stomach would turn sour and sick because he could almost feel his mother's groping, roving hands on his skin.

So Kyle Spencer got the reputation around school for being a really cute, sweet, romantic guy. An absolute gentleman who just wouldn't put out for the ladies. And might even be a little gay.

Which for him was much easier to joke off and ignore than any of them catching any whiff at all of the sick, twisted truth.

He pushed and strained to keep his grades high and he scored well on the SATs. He got academic scholarships and sports scholarships.

He signed up for grants and loans and anything he could get his hands on.

And got accepted to college.

College.

Away from home.

College.

Where he could reinvent himself.

Be somebody.

Somebody who wasn't trash and repeatedly raped and debased by his own mother. Somebody who wasn't forced as a child to dig through the garbage can for a half uneaten cheeseburger because she was passed out and hadn't gone to the store in weeks.

Kyle Spencer went to college.

And found himself able to become, for the first time in his short life, happy. Very happy.

At first for one simple reason that most people took for granted.

He could finally sleep.

Deep and still and quiet and alone. Sleep without fearing he would be joined in the middle of the night by her. And her sick needs, twisting him up like a thick, choking, suicide noose.

That was what he did for the first couple of months at college.

Put down the caffeine pills and just slept.

Went to class, went to work, ate, and slept.

So much so that the other guys thought he had some sort of medical condition.

He didn't.

He was just finally able to sleep. In peace.

And when he finally felt like he had caught up with all the good, rejuvenating sleep he had missed out on all those fearful, miserable years, he looked around to see what else college had to offer.

There was a lot, as it turned out.

He continued to work hard. Work study programs, summer jobs, winter jobs, spring jobs.

He never went home. He never called.

He pretended home didn't exist.

He kept his grades high, metaphorically clenching his hard won scholarships tightly in his sweaty, determined hand. He never worried when his newly made friends teased him about being the only person they knew to study harder than he partied.

Because Kyle Spencer was going to be somebody.

Somebody respected, with a good job. A worthwhile job in engineering where he could contribute something important and valuable to society. Where he could fix things and make them better for himself and other people.

He'd make good money and live in a nice house in a nice neighborhood where he could freely walk around without having to glance back over his shoulder all the time.

Or be afraid to go home at night.

And so when his buddies started tattooing themselves stupid, he went along for moral support and to enjoy the spectacle, since he couldn't talk them out of it anyway.

But he didn't crack to their pressure. Nope, not him. Nothing was going to stand in the way of Kyle Spencer achieving all his goals.

Definitely not some rash permanent ink scratched on his body. Because his future clients might not take him seriously if he was marked up in a moment of brainless, college-frat drunkenness.

And not booze. Well, not too much anyway. Not after that first big, liberating party. And the morning after when he'd been so sick he thought he might die.

Now he was much more careful. It really was amazing how little one could sip and pretend to be drinking a lot. Easy when everybody else was getting sloshed out of their minds.

Not drugs or unwanted pregnancies either. That was how his mother had gone down the toilet, according to her.

Nothing was going to stop him.

He was going to be free.

He was going get past the horrors of his mother and find a nice girl with a sweet smile and a kind heart and bright laugh. She'd forgive him for what his mother had done to him and they could love each other and enjoy each other without shame and humiliation.

They'd have kids and take care of them. Be good parents who raised them right and protected them the way parents should. Keep them safe. Untouched and undamaged by the world.

And they would be happy and free.

After college, he was going to get that job and marry that girl and have those kids and buy that house and be happy.

And free.

And proud.

He would.

Because after all he had endured, he was now finally in charge of himself.

And he was going to make it.

He would get all that.

In the meantime though, he was learning to have a little fun too.

Fraternities, now, fraternities were just the place to be. A pack of guys all looking out for each other and playing pranks on each other (and everybody else too).

A little wild. A little crazy.

But Kyle had fun.

And tried to keep the other guys from having too much of the wrong kind of fun.

In a totally bro way.

And the best part of it all?

They didn't know what he had been.

Only what he was now.

He could truly be anyone he chose to be.

And he was happy.

And he was even beginning to be able to get a little closer to the girls.

Being away from his sick, abusive mother was starting to heal him in all the right ways. He was feeling cleaner, stronger, more confident.

And he was grateful for that.

More grateful than he could ever truly express to anybody.

Kyle Spencer took a deep breath and stood up on the now stopped fraternity bus.

Time to pep talk the troops. Here we go.

"Okay, animals, all right, let's listen up, okay . . ."

The Kyle Spencer who was brought back from the dead with his head sewn onto a mish-mash of body parts from his dead frat brothers didn't exactly have direct access to all these thoughts and memories and feelings.

But the lost, fearful, ashamed little boy inside him did.

The desperate, confused teenager inside him did.

And the handsome, well-meaning college boy inside him did.

So when the sweet, ignorant witch Zoe took him home and abandoned him there, those inside his ravaged brain screamed out in sheer, writhing panic and terror.

And when his sick, needy, drug addled mother started in on him again, their terror turned to black, desperate rage.

And handed him one of his many sports trophies with which to bludgeon to death the woman who had given birth to him.

So his stitched up body and splintered soul would never have to suffer her torturous, shameful abuse ever again.

Kyle's mom? Pedophile crucifixions. That's all I got to say. Christopher Titus can tell you more.

Alright, peeps, I have now officially watched and written for each of the American Horror Story seasons.

And Freak Show is still my favorite, hands down. Oops, sorry, Jimmy.

Whatever your favorite is, I hope you've enjoyed this. If that is even the word for it.

Thanks to Jurani Keri, brigid1318, Jillow Bear, and rabraham7898 for taking the time to review. :)

Thanks to nacknack667, XOXO1989, and PJ-LK for adding your support to this story.

Everybody appreciates feedback. Leave a review if you like.