When he was little, they treated him like an outcast; like the type of child who was the monster under the bed that struck fear into the hearts of children. Perhaps he was, with his near transparent skin and odd red eyes. But that was never what he strove to be. Since the minute he was old enough to think about how the other children saw him, he has only ever hoped to be normal and kind, blond haired and blue eyed, just like his sweet baby brother. If Gilbert was the devil child, Ludwig had always been the angel.
It wasn't as if Gilbert enjoyed the bias people had against him. But after a few years in class, it became easier to just give in to the ideas and make no attempts to correct the thinking of the masses. When he got sad that his paper hadn't folded just right with the edges all lined up, he didn't hold back the shouts. Sometimes the teacher would make him sit in the hall and calm down, and sometimes they would ignore him. He didn't have to wonder for long about why he was the only one treated this way, and why when Bella shouted about her dolls being taken, she was simply given a new toy. Things are different for albino children.
It took Gilbert five years to make his first friend. A loud Romanian boy who sat in front of Gilbert was bugging a sweet little boy one day, threatening to chop his long hair off. As soon as the plastic scissors chopped it off, Gilbert was screaming. He threw a full blown tantrum in the middle of their fifth grade science lesson, and all three of them wound up in the office. After an hour of lecture on proper classroom behaviors, they were sent off.
"Thanks for yelling at that dummy for messing with me."
It was the first thank you Gilbert had ever received. It wasn't a surprise he never left the poor boy alone after that.
"You're welcome." He had answered, a grin spread out across his cheeks. "I'm Gil. Like the part of the fish."
"Beta."
"Like the fish?"
It wasn't hard to see why he hadn't made friends before. He never quite caught on to social cues and what you should and shouldn't say to kids. Luckily for him, Beta seemed to be the same way.
"Sorta! It's short for Elizabeta. But I like Beta better, so it's my name now."
Looking back, he always supposed he never questioned the boy, because in a way, they were both the outcasts. And outcasts always come together easily, because for once they get the feeling that maybe someone else might just understand. But Beta and Gil didn't understand the weight of words like "trangender" and "albino" and "gay" for years. For the time being, they were both just ordinary people to each other, because they were the only other people they ever really got to know.
In grade six a boy named Roderich came to their school all the way from Austria, and he was immediately cast off by the other children. Gilbert understood why now, seeing the wheels Roderich used to "walk" and the way he couldn't say words quite right. But he didn't say anything, because he knew how it felt for people to mention his skin. Everyone had their things like that. Beta had his name, Gilbert had his skin, and Roderich had his chair. They ignored all those things as children because it never seemed worth it to dwell on it.
"I'm Gil, and this is Beta."
"Roderich."
They spent an hour that morning arguing if they were allowed to call Roderich 'Rod' in a sad attempt to continue with their ocean theme. Gilbert joked that he could be the fishing rod that killed the nice little fishes, and Roderich naturally was appalled and offended. Unlike Beta and Gil, he possessed basic social skills and understanding of relationships. But seeing as how things were, they seemed to be his only options for friends. He didn't mind it after a week. They started to feel like a family, close knit and dependant on one another. None of them minded. They all knew they were the only love each of them would receive when they ventured into school.