The first five years of his life, Jefferson understood only one thing. Misery.
The master of the house and his wife usually did their best to ignore him. The fear on their faces was evident whenever he got angry or upset and things happened. Once the bed rattled and the building shook. Another time, the dishes…the good dishes all broke. He didn't understand why they blamed him. He hadn't touched them, but whatever reason they chose didn't matter. It usually ended with him getting shoved in the small dark closet as punishment.
In the dark, he would curl up in the corner and keep his eyes tightly shut. At three years old, the dark terrified him.
One day, he would be adopted. One day he would be pulled into somewhere to work and the parents would find that they liked him and they would adopt him and he would be happy.
Jefferson wouldn't have known that good parents existed if he hadn't seen them out the window. The only parents he saw in the orphanage were the kind that grabbed the nearest kid that they'd liked only to return them when it was too hard.
Or the kind of parents that gave their terrified screaming children to the master or mistress of the house and left them here; never to return.
And as the hours passed, Jefferson tried to imagine the faces of who his parents would be but they never came. He could never imagine the kind faces of those parents that he would see outside when he was trapped in the dark closet. He only imagined the stone faced terrifying people that he knew would probably be the ones that he went home with.
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When he turned four, the magic that they said he possessed faded but the damage had already been done.
The master of the house still ignored and abused him when bad things happened. His favorite method to punish the orphans under his control was to slam a belt that he carried in his hands across their back. Jefferson seemed to get more of that punishment than the others, and sometimes the red welts across his back bled. It wasn't his fault but ruining the shirt he wore was something that got him punished again.
And the other children noticed it too.
In an orphanage, the children were thought of as burdens to society. Especially those that was too young to work. Resources were limited and the strong survived.
Jefferson was not resourceful, and he was not strong. The only thing that had kept the others from hurting him was now gone and the others knew it almost immediately.
He was beaten by the other children. It felt like it was constantly. They broke his nose once…broke a leg…broke his ribs another time…
And it was then that the mistress of the house decided that the faster she could give him to the first family that came along, the better.
But as it had been for the past 4 years….no matter how hard they tried to give him away, no one wanted him.
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He was five when the Dark One came.
The master of the house brought him to the front room where the man was standing and immediately Jefferson felt his blood run cold.
The…thing wasn't even a man. He had the eyes of a snake and the skin of some kind of creature that Jefferson knew was unlike anyone that he'd ever seen before. His teeth were rotten and disgusting and immediately Jefferson pulled back from the master's grip.
The children only came to the front room for a reason.
And Jefferson did NOT want to be here for that.
He broke free of the master of the house and ran back to the small dormitory. He didn't want to go with that scary man, he wanted to wait for real parents…he didn't mind staying here to wait…real parents would come…he just had to be good and wait…
The master of the house found him shivering under the bed.
Wordlessly, he grabbed Jefferson's shoulder and pulled him out from under his bed. Maybe he should've hid under someone else's bed, maybe he wouldn't have been found.
Jefferson tried to scramble away but the man gave him another hard tug. Jefferson saw the man standing in the room and gave a cry of fear and pain when he was given a good hard yank.
The man that had come to look gave the master of the house a dark look when Jefferson whimpered and without a thought he snapped his fingers and to Jefferson's fear, the master of the house transformed from a human into a cockroach all into a puff of purple smoke.
Jefferson, now free from the man's grip, fell down. Without seconds, he was scrambling up and raced to hide in the dark closet that had almost felt like a second home to him since he was two.
The man found him cowering in terror a few seconds later.
"Now, now," the man almost cooed and knelt down to Jefferson's level, "There's no need to be frightened."
Jefferson didn't say anything. Children should be seen and not heard, he knew that much, it'd been one of the first things that he learned.
"I'm not going to hurt you, my name is Rumpelstiltskin. They tell me your name is Jefferson and you're…unique from what the other children are."
"I'm different," he finally said.
"You're not different," the man said with something that sounded like snake talk, "You're special, they just don't understand that."
"I don't want to go with you," Jefferson said.
"Oh no, Jefferson, I have no interest in raising you. I'm here to talk you to a man that can teach you how to harness that magic that you're repressing."
Jefferson didn't know what repressing meant. But that wasn't what he was focusing on, "I'm gonna have a dad."
"Not a dad," the man said reluctantly, "More like a teacher."
"Why do you want me to be there?" he asked.
"Because you're going to be a portal jumper one day, Jefferson," the man said, his grin showed the blackened crooked broken teeth that made Jefferson look away in disgust and fear, "And one day, I'm going to need your help."
"Why?"
"That's my business," he hissed, "But one day, you'll be important."
Jefferson looked up, he didn't care about being important, "Will you find me a family?"
"I'll see what I can do."
Jefferson didn't rise up to immediately go with him, but he didn't fight Rumpelstiltskin as he put a firm grip on Jefferson's wrist and pulled him up.
Rumpelstiltskin stopped as if he sensed something and he looked at Jefferson, "My gods, boy. What have they done to you?"
Jefferson didn't understand if he meant that they took his magic away or the injuries they gave him but as they left the building. Rumpelstiltskin made sure to step on the cockroach as he led Jefferson out of the dormitory.