So...this one is centered around a very sensitive subject, depending on who you are and your background. It's not a very happy story, but I'll try to at least give it a happy ending, whether it be realistic or not.

However, if you are particularly sensitive to topics such as child abuse, rape, or drug abuse, it's your choice if you still wish to read it.

It's a bit shorter than what I normally write, but I didn't really know how to go about writing something like this. I feel like I could've made it better, had I taken a different approach to writing it. But, in any case, I hope you enjoy.

For the longest time, Aidan hated Rory. Aidan was a good kid that came from a rich family and Rory was the bad boy that got into fights more often than not, so you can probably see why he would hate him. All the girls flocked to him because they found his dark and sadistic ways attractive, whilst the guys envied him. He broke the hearts of girls without a single care, and he’d randomly disappear for days, sometimes weeks, and absolutely no one would know where he was. In Aidan's eyes, Rory was worse than scum.

But that was before Aidan came to know Rory personally. That ignorant hatred for the bad boy was just that; ignorant. Aidan didn't consider the possibility that Rory may not have known any better. He didn't consider that Rory probably didn't have the same luxuries he had; didn't have the same, loving parents that he had.

Parents are supposed to love their child unconditionally, right…? They are supposed to love their child, not beat them, not torture them, not rape them.

Aidan didn't consider the possibility that maybe it wasn't Rory that was bad...maybe it was the monsters that raised him.

It had been an extremely cold November night when Rory was found by a concerned neighbor, beaten almost to death in the shed behind his house, completely naked with nothing but a thin sheet to protect himself from the bitter cold. Had he not been found when he was, he would have died in that shed.

As to be expected, the police had been called and Rory had been rushed to the local hospital, where he later flatlined for fifty-six seconds before the doctors and nurses were able to get his heart beating again. Rory's house was searched, but his parents had already fled the scene. The police found drugs stashed all around the house; Cocaine, Methamphetamine, Diamorphine, Desomorphine, and at least four dozen bottles of prescription sleeping pills, painkillers, anti-depressants, and Ritalin--all of which were prescribed to Rory, but there were no traces of any of them in his system.

Rory spent almost two weeks in the hospital. Almost every bone in his body had been broken at some point in his life, and he’d never gone to a hospital for it, so several of his bones weren't able to heal correctly; some were so bad off that the doctor had to rebreak them.

By the third week, Rory's parents were found, though only his mother was actually alive. His father's cause of death had been an overdose on Desomorphine--or Krokodil--and when the two were found, his skin had almost completely rotted off from the drug, and she wasn't far behind him. His mother was taken to the hospital and treated, before being put behind bars to await the trial that was sure to come.

Being only sixteen and having no way to support himself, Rory had been sent to a shelter home where he was to stay until the police found somewhere for him to live until he turned eighteen. Surprisingly enough, Aidan's parents took him in out of nothing but pity.

And now, here he was, sitting directly across from Aidan at the dinner table. Rory hardly ate anything; he just stared down at his food with a dead look in his fiery amber eyes. Aidan had never noticed just how unhealthy Rory actually was until that very moment, he’d always been too busy hating everything he did to notice. He looked like a skeleton, to say the least. His skin was deathly pale, which made the already dark circles around his lifeless eyes appear even darker. His light brown hair was styled in some sort of awkward mohawk, that looked like a toddler took scissors to it. There were scars and bruises littering the parts of his underweight body that wasn't concealed by the extra large hoodie and sweatpants he wore; he was constantly shivering. The doctor had said it was a result of trauma, whether it be mental or to his nerves. Either way, he still continued to shiver even when the a.c. was turned up to 80°.

Aidan noticed that Rory had a tendency to twitch his right eye; only his right, never the left. He wondered if Rory was even aware he was doing it.

“So, Rory, tell us about yourself.” Aidan's mother broke the awkward silence with her naturally cheerful voice. Rory looked up slowly, his right eye twitched and he dug his nails in the cast on his arm absentmindedly.

“There's nothing to tell.” For the first time, Aidan heard Rory's voice, and it was just as lifeless as his eyes.

“Well,” her smile faltered slightly, “there must be something, yes? Any hobbies?”

“You already know my name, my age, and how I lived up until now. Those are the only significant things about me, it would seem.” Though Rory’s choice of wording seemed sad, the blank tone remained, letting on not a single hint of any emotion.

Aidan wanted to hug him and just hold him and tell him that everything was going to be okay now, that those scary monsters could no longer hurt him, they could no longer torture him; but that wouldn't be the complete truth. Even though they can no longer cause him physical harm, they'll most likely continue to torture him mentally.

He felt ashamed that he ever thought so badly of Rory. All he knew was violence because that's all his parents ever showed him, so it's to be expected for him to think that it's okay to bash someone's head into a wall for no reason. He broke the hearts of all those girls because he never knew love, so therefore, how would he know how to reciprocate it?

Aidan could only hope that Rory would one day be able to carry out a normal, happy life.

° Present day ~ Two years later °

Aidan awoke to the sound of his bedroom door opening and his mother shouting ‘good morning’ at an unnecessarily loud volume. Why she felt the need to do that, he didn't know.

Aidan opened his pale green eyes to glare at his cackling mother as she turned around and left the room. His glare softened and he smiled sleepily as he saw Rory standing in the doorway, holding his pet cat, Stan. Aidan adopted Stan and gave her to Rory the previous year for his seventeenth birthday. Despite the cat being a female, he insisted on naming her Stan.

Rory was doing better than he had been two years ago, but he still wasn't completely stable. He sees a therapist twice a week and regularly goes to the doctor for checkups.

“C’mere,” Aidan opened his arms for the cat wielding boy and Rory smiled faintly. He gently set the fat cat down and curled up beside Aidan, like he did every morning since he graduated from high school.

Aidan wrapped his arms around the slightly smaller male and placed a firm kiss on his forehead. Rory looked up at him with his vibrant amber eyes; his right eye twitched and he rubbed at it with his closed fist. It turns out, Rory was completely aware of the twitching all along, but it wasn't really something he could control. Apparently his father did the same thing, just not as noticeable, which caused him a great deal of distress.

Rory still wasn't very open about his parents or his thoughts and feelings, but he did confide in Aidan once about his fear of becoming like his parents, and every time he says or does something like them, he feels like he's slowly turning into them. He won't even look in the mirror because he claims that he has his mother's eye color, and he's terrified. He's terrified of his own reflection.

Aidan leaned his forehead against Rory's and closed his eyes. He felt Rory's cold hands slide up the back of his shirt and rest on his upper back. He did that a lot, his only reasoning being that his skin was soft, warm, and free of scars.

They lay in silence, as they often did, and Aidan placed his hands on the boy's hips. He ran his finger across a rather long scar that stretched from his right hip to his left, though it disappeared beneath the waistband of his sweatpants. The scar had turned white, as Aidan recalled, but it still remained very prominent against his pale skin.

Rory whimpered, burying his face into the crook of Aidan's neck and unknowingly digging his nails into his back slightly, though not enough to break the skin. He hated when anyone touched that scar; it had a particularly painful memory that he rather not relive.

“I’m sorry,” Aidan murmured, moving his hands to cup Rory's face. He placed a gentle kiss on the boy's lips. They weren't together and he doubted he would ever return his feelings, but Rory liked kisses, so he’d continue to kiss him if it made him happy.

He’d do anything to make Rory happy.