Title: Little Boy
By: cassie_jamie
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Pairing: Speed/Eric, but story is Eric-centered.
Rating: R
Summary: He is a deluded soul, who will forever be weaker than those around him.

****WARNING****: This story deals with previous abuse of a child by a Priest. The main discripter I used for Eric, in place of his name, was "The good little Catholic boy". There is no rape "scene" like I said in a post before.

Just wanted to give a heads up.

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He's a good little Catholic boy, brought up well. He's polite and modest and helps out at the Y on his days off, teaching anyone and everyone who wants to learn to swim the basics. His older sisters depend on him to babysit on short notice; he does even when he's pulled a double shift and still reeks of the lab.

He's a good little Catholic boy who listens to his father's advice. He lets his mother kiss his cheeks in public and eats the foods she makes for him, answers her endless questions about every facet of his life. He contentedly enjoys their Sunday excursions to the big church where he holds a child through the entire ceremony without complaint and then watches the parishioners' children as well when they go for their own communion because no one else will.

(How do you ignore it? Ignore the life you were brought up in?)

(Help me run away from mine.)

Voices play in the Catholic boy's head, a faint memory of true happiness that he avoids because good Catholic boys do what the Lord says. And the Lord says he cannot sleep with his best friend. His father tells him the same thing and offers that it's just a phase that he'll outgrow because everyone knows that boys marry girls.

It's phase that began when he was old enough to understand that boys were attractive too and now he's more confused then he was back in high school because he doesn't know what to believe.

The machinery whirrs in soft purring as though it were the large cat Marisol owns and he blinks to keep the tears at bay since big boys don't cry. Tears are not for pain; they are for repentance and benediction. And he shouldn't shed them in for the vain and temporary present – only for the insufferable past when the days are long and sentimentality is in the choking air.

That's what the Priest said that day.

The good little Catholic boy sighs away a tempting sob as long- forgotten memories surface and play like a noir before his vision. The glass walls of the lab become the screen, the cabinets turn to furniture that never stopped stinking of new leather. He wonders why he can't remember color, but the textures are recalled with perfection.

(He only wants them to go back into his mind.)

Years spent removing the traces of his touch, worthless. All returns – each sense overloads with vividness and he lets the sob go. Blurred images, flesh sounds that he identifies with trained precision as though he were clinically processing a scent, and the scent…the perplexing scent of Chlorine that he never figured out.

Minutes pass while he subtly gets himself under far better self- control, his back hunched to the door, and pretends that no one will see him even with the hustle continuing in the corridors.

Another voice takes the hurt in soft whispers, arms strong as they hold him close. The whispers turn to murmurs, murmurs to a soft tone which pulls him swiftly into reality. Cold walls and a worried- looking boss greet him as he opens his eyes, and his skin itches as though it were dotted with healing papercuts.

The good little Catholic boy tugs away from the well-known body.

Rather he tries yet is kept within the confines.

He demands to be let go. Demands to be freed because he knows that he just needs some solitude and he'll be fine just like the other times his brain ganged up on him.

No, the Catholic boy is told, because his best friend knows more than he appears to. He won't let the pain go on anymore; his flesh is dotted with scars of old and the best friend wants it to discontinue.

Broken and dejected, the boy slumps back and contacts solid, lean chest. He allows his head to fall forward, listens to the redhead talk, and cries inside because tears outside are an obvious signifier of weakness.

(He doesn't want to be weak.)

He wants to be desirably strong, but his heart scolds him with a `tut-tut' to remind him he is anything but. He is a deluded soul, who will forever be weaker than those around him.

(Always.)

There's a crowd forming outside the confines of his haven; the wisp of blonde hair startles him and he tries to scrub the droplets from his cheeks because she doesn't need to see him breaking down. Good boys don't cry in front of ladies and he gathers himself back inside his heart, binding the cracks in his soul temporarily. The drops are crammed back into his ducts; imagining the moisture being reabsorbed into his body with scientific thoughts because maybe if he is more professional, they'll leave him be.

He stems his silence, opens his mouth. And as though nothing had happened, he speaks. Tongue clicks against the roof of his mouth as he sounds the syllables into words.

Shaking of heads warns him lightly of the answers to his questions. But he knew what the inevitable consequences would be for his lack of self-diligence.

The Captain, concerned, is taking in the sight of his geek crew and sighs. The good little Catholic boy can hear the dejected resignation in his voice and he wonders if it will lead in a worse direction…

He manages to get free of the finally-lax hold.

Proclaims for the world: I am fine. I am perfectly fine. And brightens his face, forces a smile.

He is met with hardened, resolute – haunted – eyes. Eyes that inform him they know his secret; he pants – how could they know? Who would tell them his family's black stain?

Oh, the legal records. The damned paperwork that was filed by the same lawyer they are investigating now for murder.

(Forgetful one. Never remembers anything important.)

The good little Catholic boy wishes he could just puddle to the floor than slip through it like that television show he used to watch; wants to disappear into thin air so they couldn't look at him with pity as they are now. Doesn't want it and doesn't need it. He wants to go home and restart the day without the reminder of a wound thought closed.

But the fact remains that he's standing in his place of business with his coworkers, who stare at him with blatant remorse as though it were wrong to know him.

The environment grows heavy and the Catholic boy slides to the safety of the linoleum.

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