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ISOLATION SHOULD BE A DEADLY SIN. IT'S A NATURAL INSTINCT TO CRAVE the touch of another, the intimacy of a soothing stroke against the flesh of one another. Contact is what bridges the gap between two individuals. It connects us, and brings a new sense of familiarity in times of trouble.
As a child that physical contact was rarely pleasant, in that it usually arrived through a callused hand smacking him across the cheek, or the cool metal of a belt buckle hitting his pale skin.
When he reminisced on the concept of touch, as a child, he thought fondly of the moments that were few but all that much more precious. When his mother would smooth a bandaid across a scratch with her delicate fingertips, or their hands interlocking with each other's on the short walk they would take for a rare escape to the walk along the shore in the morning.
Donald ran a hand through his shaggy dark curls, having not had a haircut the past few months. The past few days were worse than the normal.
Thinking to himself as he sat at the foot of the academy's grand staircase, he knew he had never allowed himself to form any meaningful kind of emotional attachment to Reginald Hargreeves. Whilst he was thankful for the older man unintentionally saving him from an abusive household, he reminded himself it was for his own personal benefit, not kindness.
Reginald Hargreeves collected supernatural children like China dolls, for display only, and never to be touched with genuine affections.
"Master Donald? Your sister's car has arrived," Pogo spoke gently, as not to startle the last Hargreeves child from his thought process. Through the years, Pogo proved to be Donald's only form of a confidant.
Donald nodded to the monkey man and let his slender hands fall to his knees. "Thanks, Pogo," he spoke, his voice slightly wavering with tones of undetectable emotion.
The days following his "father's" death were the loneliest. Though they shared no conversations besides interrogation like questioning about his powers during experimentation, Number Eight missed just knowing another human was in the home. He was as close to isolation as he could imagine without being cast into some alternative universe in which he was the last boy alive.
It took his adoptive father's death to bring his family back to him. Disgustingly enough, he felt a sense of relief after his father's passing. No more blood-based scientific lab testing, pulling blood bags from his body on the daily.
The monkey leaned into his cane, addressing the boy stuck in his teenage form. He knew the boy was hesitant to let his siblings back into his life, after they left him so long ago. "You do not have to worry, Master Donald. Your siblings were fueled by the freedom adulthood offered, and had no intent to hurt you. But you are vastly more mature than nearly all of them."
