A/N: Don't ask where this came from. The entire monologue by Bobby is from A Chorus Line, as is his character's name, and the song "And" is from there too. Hahah. I love his monologue. So yeah anyway, read and review!

And

Prisoners

It was late in the middle of November, and it was confusing as to why we were out here. I'd been taken from my home in a rickety van, as far as I was concerned, and was surprised to have woken up with my clothes on. The girls around me were crying, and the other guys were kind of nervous, but I was just pissed—I wanted to go back to bed. I had no reason to be standing outside in this weather, no reason to be surrounded by these people who really needed to shave.

We were all being moved into a large building, herded like cattle. Around us were electrically charged—so far, two kids had attempted to escape and had been fried, nearly catching on fire. I was just doing as I was told in hopes that I'd get out faster. I felt like I was in the reincarnation of the Holocaust, even though I'd never had a religion myself. Sighing, I watched as my own breath rose toward the sky before me, as so many other kids' did around me.

We entered a dimly lit room, and were snapped into a line. The girls were behind us, comforting each other, but we stood tall in the front row. "Girls, shut up!" Someone cried from down the hall, and when they entered the room, I'll admit, I was a teensy bit horrified.

It was a man, clearly, who had metal all around the back of his neck. He looked half wolf, half human, and two large wings were attached to his back. "I'm an Eraser, a flying one, in fact. Many of you will join me... if you live," he finished, and snapped his fingers. Two more 'Erasers' came out from where he had, and detached his wings. The girls behind us were silent, and our entire line went rigid in fear.

"Who's up?" the wolfman asked, and his other, seemingly fully wolf pals, nudged the first boy in line's sleeve, and he walked up and stood on the "stage" they'd arranged for us.

"Tell us about yourself," a human asked, and he was a man, clearly getting up there in age. It didn't sound like mockery in any way... he sounded like he sincerely wanted to hear what the boy had to say. For some reason, I found it hard to believe that this man was on their side. The boy introduced himself as Bobby.

"Well... to begin with, I come from this quasi-middle-upper or upper-middle class, family-type home. I could never figure out which, but it was real boring. I mean, we had money—but no taste. You know the kind of house... Astroturf on the patio? Anyway, my mother had a lot of card parties and was one of the foremost bridge cheaters in America. My father worked for this big corporation... they used to send him out into the field a lot—to drink. Better that than to find him lying on his office floor... but he was okay... I was the strange one."

"How strange?"

Bobby paused for a moment, and then smiled. "Real, real strange. I used to love to give garage recitals. Bizarre recitals. This one time, I was doing Frankenstein as a musical and I spray-painted this kid silver—all over. They had to rush him to the hospital, 'cause he had that thing when your pores can't breathe..." The man's eyes went wide, but the boy was still in his little dream sequence. "He lived 'cause luckily I didn't paint the soles of his feet, and..."

Suddenly, I was nervous—what was I supposed to say? And then I was singing, but nobody else noticed besides the boys and girls in line near me. "And... what if I'm next? What if I'm next? What am I gonna do? I haven't got a clue. I gotta think of something... what does he want? What does he want? Stories from the past, I better find one fast..."

We all started to sing. "What should I say? What can I tell him?"

Our voices died down, and we could hear the boy again. "...as I got older, I kept getting stranger and stranger. I used to go down to this busy intersection near my house at rush hour and... direct traffic. I just wanted to see if anybody'd notice me. That's when I started breaking into people's houses." He stopped speaking for a moment, and then saw the look on all our faces. "Oh! I didn't steal anything—just rearranged their furniture. And..."

Behind me, a pretty young woman about my age started singing. "And... orphan at three, orphan at three, mother and dad both gone, raised by a sweet ex-con. Tied up and raped at seven... seriously! Seriously! Nothing too obscene... I'd better keep it clean."

I turned around. "What should I say? What can I tell him?" We sang.

Bobby was talking again. "... School? You want to hear about school? I went to P.S. Shit. See, I was the kind of kid that was always getting slammed into lockers and stuff like that. Not only by students—by the teachers, too. Oh, and I hated sports, hated sports. And sports were very big. I mean, it was jock city, but I didn't make one team. See, I couldn't catch a ball if it had Elmer's Glue on it. And didn't my father have to be this big ex-football hero, he was so humiliated, he didn't know what to tell his friends, so he told them all I had polio. On father's day I'd limp for him." He did a short demonstration... I smothered a chuckle. "And..."

Behind me, a very tall girl started to sing. "And... God, I'm a wreck, God, I'm a wreck, I don't know where to start... I'm gonna fall apart. Where are my childhood memories? Who were the boys? What were my toys? Gone beyond recall! And why am I so tall?! What should I say?"

Once again, all of us as a whole were singing. "What can I tell him?"

"And..." the tall girl began.

"And..." the tied up and raped girl and another shorter girl started.

"And..." I added.

"And..." everyone else joined in.

We stopped, and only the boy's voice was heard. "... and my mother kept saying, 'If you don't stop setting your brother on fire, we're going to have to send you away!' And I was always thinking up these spectacular ways how to kill myself. But then I realized—to commit suicide in Buffalo is redundant!"

Bobby smiled and walked off the stage... the door was instantly open and he was set free, wherever we were, to try to find his way home. I was called next, and I had to come up with an idea of how to save myself...

Something hit me.

A/N: This is from A Chorus Line. It's not on the soundtrack... but I needed to include it, because I could just see this happening. Haha. So next will probably be "I Should Tell You."

Review!