…But the poor duckling, who had crept out of his shell last of all, and looked so ugly, was bitten and pushed and made fun of, not only by the ducks, but by all the poultry.

“Wynnie, Wynnie, Wynnie. When are you going to learn that it’s pointless to try and run when we’re trying to beat the crap out of you?” Wynn felt the pressure of the knee digging into his back increase. He gasped for breath, his ribs and lungs competing for the scarce space between his spine and the cement.

“I dunno, fellas, probably about the time you all beat the survival instinct right out of me.” He gasped. “And for your information, the name is Wynn. W-Y-N-N. Not Wynnie. Now can we get on with this? The sooner you finish making me wish I was never born the sooner I can go home so that my stepmother can start making me wish I had never been born.”

“You’ve got a pretty mouth there, Wynnie. Does it do anything other than say such nasty things?” one of the boys asked Wynn lewdly, punctuated by another knee compression. The air went out of Wynn in a pained “whoosh.”

“Well, I eat with it. And when a giant gorilla isn’t on top of me, I use it as part of my air intake/outtake process.” he ground out. This earned him a kick to the ribs.

“Well I guess we’ll just have to teach you to do nicer things with it.” This statement was punctuated by the sound of a zipper lowering. Wynn started to panic. The brutes who usually beat him had kept to physical abuse, never bordering on anything sexual. But then again, they usually beat him behind the school, after class and while there were still people around to hear him if he screamed loudly enough. But this was in the drama room. And it was eight o’clock at night. He didn’t know how they had done it, but they had managed to evade notice by anyone in the building between the end of school and the end of play practice, where Wynn was always the last one to leave. He doubted anyone was around to hear him scream.

“I swear to God, anything you put in my mouth you’re going to lose about five milliseconds later.” He hissed desperately. “And then I’ll tell everyone in the school that not only did you rape me, you’re a bunch of homos who need to use violence to get it up.”

“You’re the only homo here, homo! And it’s not rape!” Another kick to the ribs.

“I’m not the one looking for a blowjob here, now am I? And what else do you call it when you try to get sex from an unwilling person, you slack jawed moron?”

“Hey, man, what if he’s right?” The chicken of the group spoke up, like he always did. He’d stop the others, after Wynn had gotten a bruised rib, but before he’d get a broken rib. “I mean, I’m no fairy. I don’t want anyone to think that!”

“Aww, but if you don’t want to be a fairy, then how will you ever earn your wings?” It was The Voice. The voice of the person Wynn hated almost more than anyone else in the world. The Voice came from the doorway, in the familiar drawl that made Wynn want to punch somebody, or something.

“What the hell are you doing here, Reed?” for once Reed and one of his attackers were asking the same question.

“Darcy wants you home for dinner, Wynn. Now why don’t you all be good boys and let the little pansy up? I’d hate for anything to mar your sterling reputations, or your standing in the popularity hierarchy. Now get.” The knee was slowly removed from Wynn’s back, and the group of bullies slowly trailed out the door, muttering all the way.

“You got lucky this time, Wynnie. See you tomorrow at lunch, Reed.”

A tanned hand with perfectly manicured nails was shoved under Wynn’s nose.

“Come on, you social reject. Get off the floor before you ruin my shirt. I can’t believe Consuela put that in the wrong closet, as if you have any fashion sense.” Wynn glared at the boy above him, before reluctantly taking the offered hand and pulling himself slowly to his feet. If there was one thing that Wynn Fairfield hated more than his brother, Reed Fairfield, it was being rescued by him.