A/N: This is part of my nameless boys story- along with Trapped Inside Pain, Just Stop, and Believe It. It’s mostly bits and pieces of their lives, some chapters focused on one of them specifically, others focused on their relationship.

3-30-05: I decided to give this chapter a quick revision. Not much in the way of changes, really, just a small edit or two, here and there. Basically, I wanted to make it sound more like a fucked up fairytale.

Entire story warnings: (some, but not all of which, are present in this chapter) Cutting, drug and alcohol abuse, child neglect and abuse, homosexual relationships, sex between minors, foul language, severe depression and other mental illnesses, suicide, and general angst.

Disjointed Fairytale
by Princess Kat-chan

-part one: once upon a time-

Once upon a time, there was a boy who was truly alone. His parents neglected him, and his brothers ignored him. He had no real friends, and no real enemies. He was invisible, as long as no one was looking.

He was never comfortable. Never stationary. He twitched and fidgeted and moved around constantly. He gnawed on his nails until his fingers bled, picked at his scabs to make sure there were scars to hide. He talked to himself when his parents fought, and sometimes when they didn‘t. He whispered broken lullabies and rocked himself gently, cowered in the corner of his doorless closet, where he was safe from his father's angry voice. Where he could pretend he didn't hear the accusations, the insults, and the crack of knuckles against jaw.

But the boy was afraid of the dark, and the shadows would chase him out of his small sanctuary. They’d nip at his ankles and grab for his hair, and sometimes- just sometimes- they’d crawl under his skin and he’d have to tear himself open to bleed them back out again.

He would run away once every few months, and he’d stay away for days, sometimes weeks. He'd tell himself that anywhere was better than home, and he’d stay with those friends that weren‘t really friends- the ones that would push him around and force him to do all kinds of things he didn‘t really want to do. The ones that had bags under their eyes and trackmarks on their arms. The ones he found himself a little too much like, sometimes.

There was more stress in his life than he knew how to deal with. It was hard being invisible, after all. The relief of a blade sliding against his flesh, or a needle just under the skin was never quite enough to quell his tremors and conquer the monsters that haunted him constantly. And when the bliss of pain stopped working, he stopped feeling. His gaze grew empty, his voice hollow.

And there was only one person who cared enough to take notice. Who cared enough to try and piece him back together. His Prince Charming. His knight in shining armour. The one who was supposed to come and rescue him from his personal prison. And for a little while, the boy thought he might have been happy, hidden from the shadows in the comfort of his knight’s arms, but it was not meant to be.

The boy sank deeper and deeper, consumed by the darkness he feared. He couldn’t see his knight through the haze of pain and terror. He fell so far that he didn't give a damn if anyone ever pulled him out. He didn't care anymore, because he didn't feel anymore. He’d become so scarred that his flesh didn't seem human, and he thought that was fairly appropriate because he didn‘t feel very human anymore, anyway. He felt something more like an empty shell, a ghost of what he wished he could have been.

His knight tried to save him, but hope was fading fast, and the boy who was truly alone pushed him further and further away. It was hard for the poor knight to go on trying, when he couldn’t find any reasons to bother. And then the worst, most unimaginable thing possible happened.

The boy who was truly alone gave up entirely.

-end part one-