Author’s note:

This story will eventually contain light slash.

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Si Quaeris Homo Amoenam, Circumspice

Prologue

My name is Alex Slowman and I aint so slow. I'm just your complicated idiot. I should try a simple life. But Freud says that'll cause too much anxiety in itself. So here I am, complicated, and I'm doing well as a complicated idiot.

Now, I've just graduated first in my class in Carson City, Nevada. I'm proud of myself, at least but I don't got time to boast. Complicated idiots need academics, and lots of it. And I should know being one.

"Get up boy and get over here! ya damn fairy..."

"Ma foid"

"Stop mumbling and get in here!"

"I'm coming."

I leave the outhouse and walk in the door to the kitchen.

"What?" I grumble at my stepmother.

"I'm going to work. Get your siblings off to school." It's Saturday, but why sweat the details during family time.

I see her traumatizing little tusch walk out of the door in the smallest skirt you've ever seen on a married woman. She's a paid dancer. Only eight years older than I probably am, and three children more than I have. She had her first child at sixteen, married my father, who had me, and had another child at twenty-two.

I believe my father is infertile. He's told me so and he's told his other children by the other women whom he pays child support. Maybe that's brought me to look for acceptance in men, but his other children are nothing like that. Because I tell them they've got it as long as they make something out of themselves and then they've got it from me and even after that.

"You're goin' to college, right?" Us complicated people are born obnoxious. This was four year old little Xavier speaking.

"Yes, soon."

"Good."

I probably should have told him earlier. I've only discussed it with Maude, the oldest at ten.

Slowly the children came into the kitchen on this Saturday morning. They are all very sober. I've never seen them with their eyes so mournful. They saw me get my diploma last night. They all walked to my school, not one of them getting hit by any moving vehicle. I was shocked to see them there. I would like to think theat their grogginess is due to them staying up late. They know my diploma's the only reason I've stayed here so long and they know that I'm leaving them and that I should feel guilty for that. Little Xavier sits on my foot and wraps around it, still reading his book. I drag him over to a chair and pull him up on my knee.

"What you got there?"

He turns the book to face me. It says Politically Correct Nursery Rhythms. I had gotten him this book as a joke. As it turns out they have a pretty nice vocabulary set up in the book so I've been explaining the words to him for a year now. I believe he gets it all by now.

"Would you like me to read it to you?"

I can feel Xavier nod. He tucks his head under my chin and becomes extremely quiet, if only to be babied. Except for Maude, who started frying eggs.

"Once upon a time there lived three anthropomorphic bears that lived in an anthropomorphic house inside of their natural habitat..."

As I continued to speak Xavier put his hand on my arm, in obvious observation. My skin is fairly freckled, his is much darker thoughwe're both indoor people. He's known we're not actually related for a while. It was never really explained and I don't plan to do that now. We'll discuss this when we're both old.

My father has red hair. Their mother has blonde. Maude is the only child with blonde eyes are a simply intellectualblue, mine are a stormy gray. I can't hide the slightest emotion with them. It's why the children know I should feel guilty. It's also why I'm going into the medical field.

"The-" a plate was dropped loudly in front of me by Maude. She seems angry. "End."

"I need to talk to ya'll. Would you sit down Maude?"

Maude finishes putting the plates on the table. She then sits down on the chair across from me on the man-made table. Xavier else sits on the bench along the lengths of the table. No one's touched their food. I sigh, I know I'm in trouble.

"Look, you know I need to do this. You knew this was going to happen eventually."

"No! You don't need to go. How are going to survive without you to keep us safe? You're like a father to me Alex, the only one I know. And now you're abandoning us!"

Maude was crying. I hate to see her cry.

"Maude, I can't live like this forever."

"But can't you stay for a while. I may be able to let you go but Xavier can't. They need you."

"No. Ya'll can't live like this either. I need to get out there and make some money so that you can all make it to college."

"It's alright," Xavier says.

"No Xavier, it's not. If I don't go to college there's no way either of you will be able to go either. College is too expensive for minimum wage."

"Then how are you going?"

"I know how. And it will make it easier for all of you. Or at least I think I know how. But I have to do this for all of us. Because the only way for us to survive is to cheat society. The rules are the poor stay poor and the rich stay rich. Now we were born poor yet we must get rich. Or at least get to the point to where we can survive. I'll still be sending all of ya'll money so you can buy food and maybe even some luxuries. And some I will put into an account for Maude's college fund. Didn't you say you wanted to go to Yale, Maude? Even if you get a scholarship where will you live?"

"All a part of my master plan. I may even tell it to you some day."

"You better not do what I think you might do."

"Look, I'll do what I have to. I may have to take more than one job."

I shot her a grim look, scared that she knows, and she shot me one back, though I know she can't possibly know. Then she breaks out laughing and I could breathe.

"I'm just saying, you wouldn't get much even if you did what I thought you might do."

"Right, right."

TBC

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A/N

Yerp, that's it for now. I hope you like it. Comment please.

Hints on predicting my plot:

a.)This prologue is a sort of a meet the main character type of thing: It sums up his personality.

b.)So any hints you may get to his character, know they're true. But he cannot tell the future. So the actual plot may not be the same, only the aspirations.

c.)Take all hints in the story keeping in mind any psychology text you've read.

d.)I'm Freudian, by the way. So it may involve some of his stuff. Actually it does, especially if the main character been a woman.

e.)Look beyond the surface.

f)Take facts, not opinions of course. Cuz peoples have layers.