Scorpio

THIRTY - Lost Boy

"The thing is..." Alycs paused. It was now or never. "I'm exactly like you."

*******

Estella stared at him for a second, before dropping her gaze to her hands. "I can't say I understand," she said, fiddling with the kangaroo pouch of her hoodie.

It was as if Alycs had suddenly sprung the 'Luke-I-am-your-father' line on her and expected her to have an epiphany - a hug, hallelujah to the Lord, complete and utter forgiveness - she wasn't even sure what she was forgiving him for, anymore.

Estella glanced up, waiting for the teasing grin, some sort of punch line - but Alycs only stared back at her, his face stoic and almost stricken.

Then he started to glow.

Spreading from his chest, a thin blue light seeped out from between the zipper teeth of his vest, flooding along his arms like fireflies alighted, flushing up his neck, across his cheeks, up to the very tips of his ears. His eyes flicked shut, then opened, a soulful, pulsing cerulean like spotlights of a UFO.

He was still Alycs, just - blue.

"So you're saying you're...like me," Estella echoed, once she found her voice again. Alycs nodded slightly, almost timidly.

"...how?"

Alycs sighed, looking down, and Estella scooted closer, hoping to offer comfort even though she didn't fully forgive the guy quite yet for making her feel like a lunatic. But he needed it, she could tell.

"My dad left my mother and sister before I was born," he said, his voice distant. "My mother was an alcoholic; Li, a street fighter. It was just enough to keep us alive, but...barely."

His hands clenched slightly in his lap. "She sent me to school, Li - mostly so I wouldn't have to see my mother when she inevitably went pounding on the door, demanding money for smokes and the like...and nor would I get to see my sister in the daylight as a supernatural reincarnation, with lashes and bruises straight out of a horror show. Li would spend her mornings stitching herself up and getting groceries if we had enough money to spare, and I would spend mine going to school."

The patchwork colours on his skin seemed to shift, painting him like the northern lights. They lit up the shadows his creased brow and overgrown hair often caused, and making him seem so much younger, so much smaller.

"Everyone stayed away from me at school - I had no friends, nothing, because all the other kids liked to gossip with their comfortably well-off parents about how me and my sister were messed up. Heck, even the so-called superheroes of my universe didn't like us." Alycs snorted lowly, the sound both uncharacteristic and saddening. "I wanted to leave...so badly. I thought, 'anywhere would be better than here'."

Estella hummed softly. "So you packed up and left?"

Alycs shook his head. "I didn't mean it in that way, Stel," he whispered, glancing over at her.

The implications of what he was trying to say hit her.

Oh. Oh, no.

"I waited until Li left for her fights - I made all the calculations: how much we owed in rent and bills, how much she could save without me in school, how much was needed in basic necessities, the places she could live, the life she could lead." Alycs' eyes were glossy, and Estella's palms tingled with the ache to offer him some sort of comfort.

"I... got on top of the tallest building in the city... People working late barely spared me a glance, thinking I was the son of some hardworking father or something. I walked right up to the edge, and instead of looking down, I...looked up."