Hope you don't mind more about the past this time about Ben's. XD But this does play a part in explain much about the story!

Chapter Twelve

-Steep trails upon dirt that muddy my knees, my pants, my feet. Trip and stumble, trip and fall, I cannot stand very long. I'm lost and I want to cry but I must get back up, I must walk, the wolf is at my heel but this wolf is just a faint memory I thought long ago locked and perfectly sealed away. I rather like my current tormentor, he's gentle as a butterfly with just a few simple cuts, this wolf though... This wolf has stolen something so precious to me that I will never get back: My innocence.-

Ben was freaking out.

No, Benjamin Kirby Tennyson, if that was his real name, was not freaking out. He was melting down, dotting the I's, crossing the T's, and crossing and scribbling and ripping the shit in every form of the way humans knew how. Ben was literally unsure what was happening. There before him was Luke but there before him stood the face of some ghost that in his nightmares he feared beyond just fear. There was the living embodiment of what fear should be. The face the one over him smirking down at him when he was so young. The person that he thought was just a vivid dream that was an imagine friend that helped him think two people did the terrible things to him not just one until one day he gave up and just could no longer believe or fight or whatever therapist or doctors or whoever you out there might call it.

Ben was stepping back because a breathe and a half later he was thinking back to that day and it hit him. Oh god did it hit him how stupid he was and is and always will be. He still was stupid. He had not told anyone how he had enjoyed his time with Luke in some 'fatherly' way but...

Now the thought was twisted back to that scene that had tossed him to hell. A single game of soccer he begged his grandpa Max to take him to. It was at the time his favorite sport because he could easily do it.

Ben remembered this and he wanted to cry. He remembered this life this frozen painful last moment of this beautiful naive life; God, did he not want to.

He got into an argument somehow and ran off screaming about how everyone was always against him. He was never understood because he was the black sheep and he didn't get straight A's like their precious Gwen. He always was furious with his cousin for her popularity. Her parents got her everything she ever could want and his would always compare him to her.

And...

Ben remembered that day he talked to his grandfather on the soccer field one on one for summer their first real time alone. He swore it felt that even his grandfather spent more time with Gwen than him, well Max did buy her that new computer the start of summer and Ben did only get a journal but he did use it he didn't have an issue writing down the rather lame adventures with his family- Gwen, Ben swore, was the only one other than Kevin that actually treated Ben like an actual person on some magnitude.

It was normal up until Ben asked a question, "So, Grandpa Max, my birthdays coming up next month and I wanted to give you a heads up on what I wanted." Ben was actually rather excited about this. He wanted it for a simple reason because he recently had been practicing. Gwen had said he had been good and so had a few other people who saw. It was just doodles but they were really dub to dream up: aliens.

So he wanted a sketch book some, pencils, and coloring pencils but when Max stopped the ball looking at Ben seriously Ben tensed wondering if he had done something wrong. He wasn't disrespectful in asking. He had done his summer reading, homework, and Gwen had asked first he was SURE of this so... What could be the problem?

"Ben, you know I'm strapped on cash this summer. We'll just have to make due with your birthday with a cake and-." But Max paused because Ben's mouth was open and Ben just stared at his grandfather for several long hard minutes until snapping.

The words were more to Ben like a slap in the face because he knew they were mere lies. He knew his grandfather had money but now obviously didn't want to spend any of it on Ben himself because, well: Black sheep, bad luck, unwanted... should he go on?

"Stripped on cash?!" He almost shouted hoarse upon the first sentence of his fury, "You went shopping for Gwen's gift last week at a fucking fortune store and you won't spent a few bucks on me?" Ben was at this point in tears being only ten and yet realizing that somehow he did something that just wasn't good enough for his grandfather who he had always thought liked him best over his cousin. He was not just hurt but he was livid, "First my parents and you too!" And Ben turned thanking the gods he was young and fast as he ran... Running was why he liked soccer, track didn't have the feel as soccer did nor did football in his young impressionable mind. Soccer... Everything just worked. Everything had worked, at least until that point.

Ben was ten when he met the man who changed his life for good. He was starving and it was dinner. He hadn't seen his Grandpa Max at all and he felt abandoned but somehow he expected this. He just kept walking until he walked into him. Officer Vilgax. He was nice, at least that was how it seemed. It didn't seem bad at all and he spoke to Ben as if he existed. The food that Vilgax bought was one that Ben to this day will never forget. He drooled over it and had the older officer laughing. He seemed so kind. So understanding.

When Ben opened up about his love of soccer Vilgax stated he didn't know much but he would play some. Since he was off work and didn't have kids he would keep Ben company until Ben was ready to go home. It was one of the nicest things that Ben had ever heard. So they played. Vilgax was terrible. Hours passed. Ben wore himself out that when he fell asleep he never knew what was happening until it was too late.

Ben just remembers hands, that face, that sadistic looks, pinned to the floor of some van or something after being hit from behind on the field. Maybe it was the field?

He just knew that it was painful. He just knew that he lost one thing.

He wasn't a person anymore.

"No, you... You're just m-my imagination...you d-don't ex-exist... Vilgax..." And it was Luke's turn to pale and stiffen as his eyes were on Ben's body and face staring and baring down at him.

Luke's eyes stared at Ben shocked that the name was known of the dead beat of an old man of his. For all Luke knew the bastard of his father was somewhere far away screwing around and ruining another persons life like he had his mother's and his. Luke's struggling grew slightly as Ben seemed to be lost in some kind of nightmare-ish trance. His eyes seemed so distant that he wasn't quite seeing Luke.

The cop had to get Ben's attention to focus on the here, now, and the damn bastard less fact that Luke was not his father no matter how much Luke looked less like him when Luke was sick, granted Luke probably looked like hell thus looked whole fucking lot like his bastard of a grotesque father.

"Ben." His voice was soft, soothing, he hoped it broke through this rabbit panic that had settled into Ben's once calm nice composure, "Come back to me, please?" It did, slightly. Ben stared at him, Ben panicked slightly but there seemed to be more than just panic there as there was more memories. Something painful. Something so raw, so emotional, so torn and angry, and something that seemed to be close to snapping and wanting to just give up and say 'I'm not worth it, I've never been worth it, have I'. It hurt Luke to see this. God did it hurt Luke to see anything like this on a kids face that had been through hell and who had been struggling and almost at the end thriving with bits of nudges and pushes to get back into a world he had never seen.

Bounding and striving and leaping with such vigor with smiles and color to his cheeks that this colorless 'thing' before him looked nothing like the kid he had come to know with in the last month... month in a half he had come to be the child's guardian from that sick bastard Albedo.

"Lu-L-," Ben struggled with his name because his throat was closing up but Ben was now walking towards him. The closer Ben got the more Ben was shaking though Luke got the sneaking suspicion it wasn't because of his resemblance from his dad this time, "Lu-L-k... My C...Cousin... G...Gwe...Gwen... D...Did..did Y-you li-like he-her as well when s-she came over?"

It was one of the oddest questions that had, in Luke's personal and work opinion while being strapped to a table in a madman's care with a rape victim who was on a verge of a break down on oh-so many levels while he personally was on a verge of some sort of illness break down... Why the HELL was he bringing his cousin into this situation?

"Ben, first of all, I've only met your cousin a handful of times, so honestly liking her is going too far. She seems to be a decent person so I would state she is alright. I would state I can tolerate her... we'll talk on this later, alright? But I like you?" he tried to make this not a question in case Ben was worried Ben felt he wasn't liked and emotionally was hurt. They had jabbed a bit about it and Kevin had stormed off that time when Ben had sexually come onto him. Ben didn't understand the difference between like emotionally and love sexually.

A therapist Luke was sure could sort this all out over time. Right now Luke had to sort our life or death and life seemed pretty goddamn good to him.

Ben's eyes cleared up more the thought that Luke liked, wanted him, seemed to make him focused, "Oh," Ben's voice gained ground and he flushed just a tiny bit gaining color to his once drastically pale cheeks that a few seconds before looked sunken in and hollow. "Can...I ask you another ...Q-Question?"

"You just asked one, but sure." Luke chuckled with a slight cough the fact Ben was seeming to come out of this phase seeming to be 'him' seeming to be right was making Luke relax and calming down. "Why did he do it? I ... I thought... I thought all this time... Why did he do it?" That first time was the only one that never made it through the monumental ones that came after Albedo's continuous ones. "I thought cops were suppose to protect us?"

Luke's stomach fell, "Ben, what ... do you mean?"

"Why did -." but Ben's attention changed to the door opening and Kevin walking in first with Albedo following behind gun drawn sipping some drink lazily before setting it on a counter sighing. His eyes darting to Ben then to Luke before smiling at the two.

"Sorry, it took so long, I had to show Kevvy here a pile of bones rotting out in back. Kev?" Albedo lowered the gun turned it so the butt was facing Kevin who took it hands just slightly shaking but it was just slightly, "Go mad with power boy. Take some of that 'Chemical X'." Albedo laughed and turned walking away to sit near his drink.