TRIGGER WARNING: EMOTIONAL ABUSE/MANIPULATION

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED...

Marucho woke up the next morning and just sat on his bed. He held a pillow tightly to his chest. He didn't want to get out of bed. He didn't want to have to explain himself. He didn't want to just get ignored or shoved off again. He's never talked to anyone about his side of the story. No one has ever asked him to tell them how he feels.

His dad used to, but it only ended in mocking and making fun of his way of thinking. He never really told about his day or how horrible his hospital visits were. No one cared. What reason would they care? As a person, it's never your job to care about someone else's feelings. They weren't yours, so you really shouldn't. That's what his mother taught him. Because she would always ask her co workers how the family is or how the work was. But she never actually cared, she was just being 'nice.'

No person cared about another person, only reputation mattered. And he guessed that's why his mom didn't want him to go to school. She had a reputation to uphold, and having her child be shown to the world would surely ruin it. Especially since that child was an idiot.

Marucho knew that him and Allie were monsters then. Because Marucho actually cared about Allie, he cared to hear and learn everything about him. And Allie felt the same, probably. Humans didn't have those kinds of emotions. Survival is a selfish act, you can't think of anything but yourself when you want to survive in this kind of world. That's why Marucho and Allie could never survive.

Because they cared for something other than themselves. What did Frederick gain from knowing his side of the story? Would it be the same as his dad, gaining laughter from joking about his problems? Or would she be more like his mom, not really caring but asking anyways? He was scared to find out. He just wanted to sit on his bed the entire day, the entire week. All year. As long as he got Allie's letters, everything would be okay in the little den he had.

Unfortunately, he did have to eat. Meaning he had to get out of his room and go to the kitchen. He could just skip breakfast, he could eat at lunch. He moved the curtains and tried to find the sun to see the time. It was already past breakfast anyways. He only had a few more hours until lunch. He closed the curtains again and picked up his book, pen, ink, and paper. He would also need to go out and get more paper to write on. He needed to learn how to write smaller. So, he started today, learning how to keep more than four sentences on a paper.

He would have stayed the entire day there, not caring about the grumbling or ache of his stomach. But a knock echoed through the quiet room.

"Marucho, are you awake?" Frederick asked. Marucho thought of just ignoring her, but that would just make her see for herself.

"Yeah." Marucho replied.

"Do you want to come eat something?" Frederick asked. Marucho knew it was a trap. A trap to make him come out and eat so that she could bring up the talk again. He really should just stay in his room. Write all day until it was perfect. But she would just drag him out anyways. He sighed and put his book down.

"Sure." He replied.

After everything was put on the floor, he stepped out of the room. The hallway was bright from the sunlight coming from the living room. He walked through, waiting at the end to make sure the coast was clear before stepping out. He saw spaghetti on a plate on the table with a bread stick. He took a seat at the spot and looked around. Frederick wasn't there. She was just outside his room a minute ago. Where did she go?

He didn't worry about it too much and started to stuff food in his mouth before she came back. He was only on his third fork full when she appeared from her room with a notebook. Marucho chocked on his food and Frederick rushed over to pat him on the back. He laughed at the thought of her taking notes like it was a therapy session.

"Are you okay? What happened?" Frederick asked. Marucho coughed out the last bit and smiled.

"You're not going to take notes." Marucho said.

"Yes I am, why wouldn't I?" Frederick asked.

"Why would you?" Marucho asked.

"Well, I want to have your side of the story written down so that I can remember it better." Frederick said.

"Why do you care about my side of the story? You already heard Tate's." Marucho said.

"Is your story the same as Tate's?" Frederick asked.

"Well no, but-"

"Then I want to hear it." Marucho pouted. She didn't even answer his question.

"Okay, so eat and then we can get started." Frederick said. He ate his food as she flipped through her pages to try and find a good place to put the notes she would be taking. He finished quickly, cursing himself for eating the first half quickly before Frederick's inevitable appearance.

She took his dishes and put them away. He couldn't run, even if he wanted to. He felt like he was tied down. He wanted to be heard. She came back to the table, pleasantly surprised to see Marucho waiting patiently in the seat in front of her.

"Okay, let's start by why you wanted to run away in the first place." Frederick said, clicking her pen in her hand.

"I didn't want to go to the doctor's." Marucho said.

"Why?" Frederick asked.

"I didn't want them to see the diamonds." Marucho said.

"And yet they saw anyways. If you had just listened to me in the first place and went when I told you to go, this whole situation could have been avoided. But no. Mister spoiled brat wanted to fight with me. Just do what I tell you to do, and that's it."

"Why didn't you want them to see your diamonds?" Frederick asked. "They're beautiful."

"I didn't want them to take from me again."

"We give you the world, and all you have to do is go to the doctor and have them mess around with you for a bit. We let you sit at home and play and we buy you everything you want. You have a great life. Stop being so ungrateful."

"I understand. I wouldn't want them to do that to me either. So why didn't you just tell me?" Frederick asked.

"I didn't trust you." Marucho replied.

"Didn't trust me? I'm your mother! You should trust your mother with everything. I've raised you since you were a baby. I know everything about you!"

"I'm sorry. Could you tell me why you didn't trust me?" Frederick asked.

"Because you said Allie was a demon because of how he looked." Marucho said.

"Of course he's a demon! Did you not see him? He isn't as valuable as you are. Even if you aren't human either."

"So, you thought that I would call you a demon too when I saw you?" Frederick asked.

"Yeah. Then I would be doing the same thing as I did in the town I came from." Marucho replied. Frederick nodded her head. Marucho was confused. There was no yelling, she didn't call him names. He was being spoiled, and she was just letting him continue. This isn't right. There has to be some ulterior motive. Is this blackmail? Or is it to prove that Allie was brainwashing him? He didn't know. But he also didn't stop talking.

"So, what happened when you ran?" Frederick asked.

"I ran to the farm where Allie was. I didn't think I had anywhere else to go. If I didn't run to him, I would have ran to another town." Marucho said.

"Another town? Away from us? Your own parents? Why would you want to do that; that's silly. You know we love you with all of our hearts. You need to stay here with us. That's what good children do."

"And when you got there?" Frederick asked.

"When I got there, Allie wasn't in the barn. I thought that he was gone. That he had gotten punished severely and was gone forever. I started crying." Marucho said.

"Weak. Men don't cry. Are you bleeding? Did a family member die? No. Then there's no reason to cry. I'll give you a reason to cry if you want."

"But he was just doing chores, so I really shouldn't have been crying about it. He walked in on me like that." Marucho said, chuckling a little in embarrassment. He really shouldn't have started crying.

"No, it's good that you cried. You really cared about him, right?" Frederick asked. Marucho did care about him. But he shouldn't have cared enough to cry about him, right?

"Listen, we're family. You have to learn to forgive family. Because at the end of the day, your friends will all leave, but your family is there forever. So just forget about them, you have us."

"Yeah. And I still do." Marucho said.

"What happened that made you care about him so much?" Frederick asked.

"He got in trouble just to spend time with me. He gave me most of his food for the day. And he only had enough to live off of. He cared about me."

"They could never care about you as much as we do. We have a parent-son relationship. Nothing could be more than that."

"He cared about you?" Frederick asked. She was reasonably shocked, she probably didn't think Allie could care about anything. "He did. More than anybody."

"More than us?"

Marucho cringed at the words in his head. "More than even my family." Frederick frowned at that.

"That book you brought home. How did you read that?" Frederick asked.

"He taught me. It must have been really annoying for him too. I asked him what each and every word was repeatedly." Marucho said. He laughed at the memory. Allie being ever so patient with him, getting excited every time he got a word right.

"Such an idiot."

And Marucho knew he was an idiot. That's why he wanted to learn and not be the idiot he was. "He taught you how to read?" Frederick asked.

"Yeah, and he was so excited about it too. He spent all of his time just being with me." Marucho said.

"All of his time?" Frederick asked.

"Yeah, we even slept together because I would get really Allie nightmares." Marucho said with a smile. Frederick's eyes widened.

"Oh, I didn't know you liked him like that." Frederick said.

"Like what?" Marucho asked.

"Well, you two care for each other, right?" Marucho nodded.

"Well, when you care about someone enough, you start to feel a good feeling. Have you felt that?" Frederick asked. Marucho smiled widely in embarrassment, covering it with his hand to not make it so obvious.

"So, you like him like that?" Frederick asked. Marucho turned away from her. He heard her laugh and write in the notebook. Was that the only note she's taken? He looked down at the table, blush slowly removing itself from his face.

"Okay, now how did you start speaking?" Frederick asked. Would she believe him? Probably not. But did that really matter? If she didn't believe him, then there would be no harm, right?

"We are the only ones that you can trust. Don't tell anyone else. They won't believe you anyways. Because people are cruel. You won't meet a man that's nicer than I am. Your mom can vouch for that."

But Marucho had already met a man nicer than he was. Of course, not all men were nice; like Ricky Steamboat wasn't. But there was at least one nice 'person' in this world. Frederick could be another one.

"Allie woke up before me, I don't know where he went. But when I woke up, he wasn't there. Instead, Tate was there. My hands and feet were already tied together. She picked me up and I started to struggle. I hit her and she dropped me. I tried calling for help but that diamond growing in my throat stopped any noise from coming through. Eventually, I coughed it out, and then I fell asleep." Marucho explained.

He looked up from the table and saw Frederick's emotions written clearly on her face. She was confused, and most likely felt betrayed. She was conflicted, not knowing who to believe.

"But what about you being dead?" Frederick asked.

"Funny thing. I have no clue." Marucho replied.

"What? Then how did Allie know you were alive?" Frederick asked.

"I told him." Marucho said. Frederick looked even more confused than she already was.

"You're going to have to explain this to me a little bit better." Frederick said. Marucho sighed.

"Okay, so it's a cool trick I learned that would freak all of the nurses out. I would stop my pulse. They would go crazy and it was so funny." Marucho explained.

"You stopped your pulse?" Frederick asked.

"Well, that's what they told me I did. I have no idea what I did. I just did it." Marucho said. Frederick scribbled in her notebook. He could hear her writing question marks.

"Okay, so you told Allie that you were alive?" Frederick asked.

"Pretty much, yeah." Marucho responded. Frederick nodded.

"Is that all you had to ask me?" Marucho asked.

"Yeah, you can go now." Frederick said, not looking up from her notes.

Marucho sat on his bed. He thought about what Frederick had said about his and Allie's relationship. He fell back onto the bed and smiled. Did he like Allie? He did feel love for him. But didn't best friends usually feel love for each other? Marucho really didn't know. He didn't love him like he loved his mom or his dad.

He loved him like he wanted to be with him all the time. He wanted to make him smile, he wanted to laugh with him. He wanted to hold him, he wanted to be held by him. He wanted to fall asleep by his side. He wanted to fly with him, walk with him, talk to him. Marucho wanted him. Was that something that a friend would want from another friend? Allie thought it was friendly, right?

Marucho rolled to his side and pulled the covers over him. He giggled at the thought of loving Allie. What would that even mean? Would they be able to live together? It would be cool to live with Allie. Marucho would have to ask him in the next letter he sent out. First, he had to get one back.