L'aire (BoyxBoy) (Watty's 2018)

One

I don't belong here.

Those are the words that reverberated so loudly inside his head. It didn't matter that he was surrounded by his brothers, identical in every way save their eyes and specialties. It didn't matter that they constantly tried to include him in their conversations, picking topics that he was familiar with as to not ostracize him from the group. It didn't matter that everyone he knew at this family gathering seemed genuinely interested in learning about what he had been up to all these years he had been gone, and they went out of their way to seek him out in an attempt to pull him back into the family he was forced to leave behind all those years ago. It didn't matter.

He didn't belong there.

He didn't fit in with his brothers that were so charming and loud, outgoing in the way they interacted yet not in an obnoxious way. He didn't feel the same push to interact with others the way that they did. He didn't thrive through the constant conversations and social obligations in the way that his brothers did. He wasn't fueled by the constant praise and admiration that seemed to follow the quints everywhere they go. Sure, he was successful in his own way, but what he had accomplished was nowhere near what his brothers had and he was okay with that. He way okay with not being in the limelight, content to sit along the sidelines while his brothers reveled in the light, soaking it up like a plant and converting it into energy for next interaction with the family. He just wanted to hide in the corner of the room, quickly tiring from the light instead.

All night he had been pestered about his new business. Though he had started the business nearly five years previous and it had already become quite successful, his family hadn't thought to ask him about the specifics about what it is that he actually does when he's not at home with the family. Some would think that neglectful and possibly a sign of disinterest, but he knew that his family was just not quite sure how to broach the subject with him. They're never quite sure how to broach any subject with him, which is understandable considering the circumstances. They try so hard to make him feel as if he is a normal part of their family, when everyone knows that he is anything but. Even if he weren't one of the infamous quints, he stood out as the only one of his kind to be differently abled.

His kind, his family's kind, didn't get sick. They didn't have diseases or deformities, they rarely even were able to get injured and even then they healed so fast that it didn't even matter, so when he was born everyone was shocked to discover that he was utterly and completely deaf. His family, luckily, quickly recovered from their initial reactions and started vigorously developing a plan of action to make his life as easy within the family as possible. Because there had never before been a child of his kind that was deaf, there existed no non-auditory form of communication in their language. His parents having lived a very long time had a wealth of knowledge and began teaching classes on a language that used hands instead of spoken words in order to help bridge the eventual communication barrier they knew their son would face.

Every single person in their family, every grandparent, aunt, uncle, and cousin, took these classes and learned how to sign, just for him. They integrated this signing language into their schooling system, just for him. When he eventually moved out of the house, they made sure that where he would be living was aware of his "condition" and would be able to communicate with him. If not, his family would often send one of his brothers to be a translator. He often thought that the gesture was sweet, but completely unnecessary. He had learned to speak just fine through careful observation of his brothers, and as he aged he became a master of reading lips. As long as someone was facing him, he was able to hold a verbal conversation without having to rely on others. This revelation and the building frustration with the way his family tended to coddle him was what eventually drove him out of his house, away from not only his family, but his own kind as he ran to a place so incredibly far from anything he had known.

This place, he discovered had a species with similar features to his own kind, and that made it easy for him to blend in. His dark brown hair, grey eyes, and pale skin barely stood out amongst the people he found himself surrounded by. At first he tried to blend in completely by ignoring his deafness, pretending to be able to hear just like everyone else could, but he quickly found that he hadn't quite thought his plan through. Sure, he could hold a conversation with is own people without having to sign, but that was because he had a life's worth of practice with exactly one language. He had been so sheltered by his family in an effort to protect him and make him comfortable in their world that he hadn't even considered the possibility that the people he found wouldn't be able to speak in his native tongue.

He was once again at the mercy of his deafness. Even if he didn't speak the language, he thought that he might be able to use context clues to inform what the people around him were saying if he were able to hear them, but as he was he felt like he was stuck in a vacuum of silence. Surrounded by people and yet unable to communicate with them. Completely alone in a crowded space. In general, he was never one to panic or be overcome with anxiety even in stressful situations. When faced with adversity, he just because exhausted. He longed for a comfortable bed in an empty room where he could wallow In the failure of his half-formed plan and storing up energy to change his course of action.

As he walked around the social hub he thrust himself into he realized that there would be no way he could find a place to stay in for the night. For one, he couldn't read any of the signs that designated what storefront was what, and even if he was somehow able to find an inn of some kind he couldn't communicate with whoever was inside to express what he wanted, not did he have any form of currency that he could use to pay for the room. He was no stranger to sleeping outside, he often fell asleep under the stars in an attempt to get some time alone when he was younger, but the area he landed in seemed to be deep in the heart of the city and there was no wooded area for miles around in which he could take refuge. The next best idea he could come up with was to find an empty building in which to take shelter for the night and continue on with his life in the morning.

The sun had long past set and he found himself still wandering, lost in his thoughts as he searched for shelter. The buildings that surrounded him slowly lost their shine and shimmer, becoming rundown and increasingly more broken until he came across a place that he thought would be perfect. Before him stood a house that once must have been quite the sight to see, but had long since been abandoned for the newer developments in the city. The cast iron gate was rusted and falling apart, parts of his having completely broken off leaving gaping holes in the structure. Every window on the front of the house was smashed in, and the paint had been worn away with the elements.

As he entered he noticed that the lock on the front door was engaged, but the door opened easily anyways. There was a huge chunk of wood missing from the doorframe, and he assumed that in a previous life the door had been forcefully opened and no one had bothered to fix it. No one had bothered to fix anything in this house. Inside there were signs of a struggle, tables flipped over, vases smashed with flowers that have turned to dust over time sprawled below the pieces. Paintings were slashed, clothes shredded, and there were holes all throughout the walls of house that looked as if they were made by a fist. Every room was destroyed in what seemed to be a fit of anger, except one.

Amongst all the chaos, the master bedroom remained intact. Hidden away in the back corner of the second story of the house, the room served as a window into the past. He knew nothing about this world he had come to, so he had no way to gauge just how long the room had been sitting immaculately untouched save for the amount of dust that littered every item in the room. That wasn't what mattered to him in the moment though, what mattered to him most in that moment was the fact that there were bones tucked into the bedsheets as if the skeleton was trying to take a nap, much like he was dying to do himself. It didn't seem to him that there had ever been a body in the bed, just the bones, so he spoke a few words of apology to the spirit still attached and carefully moved the bones to a love seat that sat on the corner of the room. He made a mental note to cleanse the bones in the morning before laying them to rest as he shook the dust off the sheets and settled in for his first night in a new world. 

Unedited