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You Who Would Have Saved Me


Kyle was a pretender and a damn good one. Perhaps he was better than Jarod, but after the damage his mind no one really wanted to find out. Dr Raines had taught him to hate, to turn all other emotions he felt into it. He'd even taught him how to do it in others.

It angered him, to feel the happiness almost leaking off them. They delighted in simple things that he hadn't known until he was in his thirties.

The unfairness of it all angered him even more.

People sensed it from him; it emanated just like he sensed their happiness. Some didn't notice it in the normal way; rather they became disquieted around him, and avoided meeting his eyes. Lest they see their future in them. Others openly avoided him - they were the smart ones.

Angelo did none of this; he emanated no happiness or pain. He absorbed it all and in return gave a part of himself back. It amazed and confused Kyle.

They had their first meeting of sorts as he dashed between the air vents separating his and Jarod's room - air vents he would later use to visit Kyle in SL-27. At that time he was still Timmy. Raines had not destroyed him then; they had nothing in common but their imprisonment.

Kyle must have been ... fifteen when the now-Angelo made his second visit. He paused from his task of scratching hopelessly at the door and stopped screaming. The first time in a long time.

From the boy who sat on the other side of the vent came:

"Pain?"

Kyle nodded, raising his bloodstained fingers for effect.

"Not that pain?"

Another nod. The fingers hurt in a slow throbbing way but something else - something inside - gave the real pain.

"Stop pain?" Angelo - though he only found out his name later - asked.

Crossing the room with speed he usually reserved for 'special projects' Kyle felt something akin to hope.

"Could you?" he asked breathlessly.

Angelo poked his fingers through the grating in reply. Kyle barely hesitated before touching the tips of his fingers to the other boys.

The feeling that followed was painless, though if he ever tried to explain it no one would believe him. To describe in mundane words; Angelo took all his negative emotions and put them somewhere that Kyle could not feel and in replace he put … friendship, love, happiness, amusement and forgiveness. It was like SL-27 never happened, Raines never happened, he still had a family - one that loved him regardless of his sins.

And he knew the boy's name.

He was Angelo; once he had been Timmy. He had been stolen like Kyle imagined he had been, Raines had put him in a chair, and there had been pain. So much pain. And then nothing. How he knew this he had no idea.

But for all Kyle's genius he could not find a word to describe how wonderful he felt then, though at the time he didn't really care.

Then all too soon the contact broke off, leaving only a lingering feeling of loss and Kyle slightly dizzy.

Angelo cocked his head to one side. "I decide who lives and dies," he said in an almost flawless imitation of Kyle's voice.

"Dr Raines taught me that," Kyle defended, though he was not sure of why he was defending the man responsible for his imprisonment.

Angelo paused for a moment, munching on a Cracker Jack. He then shook his head. "No one decides who lives and dies," he announced and dashed off into the vents again leaving the half-full box behind.

In the years to come, even after he spilled someone else's blood for the first time, Kyle remembered munching on the sweet, thinking about Angelo's words and still now he wondered.

End.









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