A/N: Hello everyone! :) This is my second fanfiction based off of Monsters University. It centers around Chet (I love him!) and his relationship with Johnny and the other members of the Roar Omega Roar fraternity. I gave Chet a bit of an abusive back story, so be warned that this chapter is a little "dark". It's not descriptive enough to be rated M though, so here's your warning, lol. I started writing this wayyyyyy before Monsters University came out, so I apologize for any inconsistencies in Chet's character. Um, I think that's all! Oh wait, it's not. I forgot to tell you that this is told in Chet's POV. Okay, I really think that this is it for now. xD Please read and leave a review even if you hate the story. :P I take bad reviews along with the good.

Chapter I

Life's a funny thing. Sometimes it makes you feel great and on top of the world and at the other times it makes you feel, well, not so great. I've had my fair share of great and not-so-great experiences. You might think that my life would be pretty up and up since I'm the son of the great Gregory Alexander. Say, that rhymes! Heh, I'm a poet and I didn't even know it! Anyway, Gregory Alexander was one of the best scarers at Monsters Inc. back in the day. I say back in the day because daddy dearest doesn't work at Monsters Inc. anymore. Nope, he prefers to spend his days curled up in the shed behind our house with a bottle of booze in one hand and my sister in the other. Whatever happened to the great Gregory Alexander, huh, dad? Did all the booze kill him or was it something else?

Guess I'll never know what daddy's real problem is. The only things I do know about him are that he used to be one hell of a scarer and that he's definitely no scarer anymore. See, to be a scarer, you have you be scary. …You probably could've guessed that for yourself, huh? When I mean scary, I mean really scary though. You have to be the best of the best monsters in the monster world in order to become a scarer at Monsters Inc. My dad was the best of the best and so were his dad and his granddaddy. The Alexander name is well known, I guess, and according to my parents, my siblings and I are supposed to "uphold the family name". That's pretty fancy speech, but I think that the gist of what mother is trying to tell us is that we're expected to make the family proud.

Daddy doesn't make the family proud anymore. We all pretend that everything's great with the Alexander family, but we've all just been lying to ourselves for years. If you live a lie for so long, it becomes the truth after a while, you know? Mother, my sisters, and even myself have been living a lie for years. Daddy quit Monsters Inc. a long time ago. Our family was rich and there was no need for him to keep working, so why should he, right?

Life started going downhill when daddy quit Monsters Inc. It's like he just didn't know what to do with himself afterward. Mother would spend her days cooking, cleaning, and doing all of that sort of stuff while dad would get bored and depressed. He'd sit on the fancy burgundy sofa in the living room and stare into the fire for hours on end. Nobody knew what he was thinking, and to be honest, nobody wanted to.

The day daddy took up booze is a day we all remember well. I was five at the time. Um, I think I was five. Maybe I was six? I dunno, it was a long time ago, let's just put it that way. Anyway, I hadn't seen daddy all day and asked mother where he was. She got this kind of weird look on her face. I remember thinking that it was an expression that I had never seen on her face before. Finally, she told me, "Your father is relaxing in the shed behind the house. Stay inside and color with your sisters, won't you?"

At the time, coloring sounded real fun, so I nodded along happily and soon forgot all about daddy while I was scribbling away with my orange and red crayons. Dad wasn't about to let us forget about him for long though. At the end of the day, the door to the house burst open and daddy came barreling in fiery-eyed and practically steaming with some sort of built up anger stored up inside of him for too long. I remember him grabbing my mother and throwing her against the wall. He then slammed the side of his claw into the side of her face. I dropped my crayon and stared at the two stupidly while my sister, Lily, scuttled forward to try and intervene. Daddy wasn't about to let a little crab a third of his size tell him what to do though. He smacked Lily and sent her sprawling onto her side before towing my mother into the bedroom. A lot of screams came from their room that night. The next morning, mother was black and blue all over.

The abuse started when I was so little that it was just something I sort of got used to while growing up, you know? It wasn't unexpected to see mother with swollen eyes or angry red marks splotching her skin. I remember getting older and asking mother about the whole situation when I was about ten and finally realized that something fishy was going on.

"Mommy, why do you let daddy beat you?" I asked, the words pouring out of my mouth before I could stop them.

Mother sighed and gave me a sad sort of look before glancing around to make sure daddy wasn't around before she replied to me, "It's not exactly a choice, Chet. When I married your father, I promised to obey him in anything and everything. It's my duty to do what's expected of me."

My foggy little ten-year-old mind took a while to process this before I gave mother a confused look and said, "So when you get married, you're supposed to let your husband beat you?"

Frowning, mother shook her head to that, probably starting to get fed up with my stupidity as she replied, "No, that's not at all what I mean. What I mean is that I'm to be a submissive wife and do whatever your father tells me to do and I'm also supposed to bear him children like all wives are expected to do."

"So when you get married, all you're supposed to do is pop out little crab babies?" I asked in confusion, still not really getting what mother was saying.

Giving me an exasperated look, mother sighed and shrugged her shoulders before admitting, "In a sense, yes, although that's not the way I would've worded it. Giving your partner children is the very best way to show honor to him. I will remain by your father's side until the end of his days and you should always obey him without question as well. Do what's expected of you and all will be well."

I listened to mother that day and didn't really get what she was saying. All I got out of the conversation was that she thought that it was her duty to populate the planet with little crab babies. Funny thing is that she and father had a lot of little ones, but there are still only three kids in our family. See, crab kids don't typically live to reach five years of age. We're prone to illness and just bad luck in our case. Little Pip, mother's most recent child, wandered out and got hit by a car. Sally drowned in the toilet. Molly burned herself on the stove because daddy left it on in one of his drunken hazes. You get the point.

Life went on despite all of the weirdness and I grew up as a pretty happy kid. My mind worked slower than the minds of my siblings, which is probably why I was happier than them. I never asked to be smart. I was fine just being a carefree, happy-go-lucky kid.

'Course, things weren't always happy-go-lucky around here. I must've inherited daddy's loud mouth because I've always had a hard time holding my tongue. I say whatever pops into my head without a moment's thought. Probably not the best thing to do when your daddy's on booze, right? I've gotten slapped a few times, kicked several times, and pummeled almost daily, but hey, I'm alive and that's what matters, right? Mommy says that we're supposed to do whatever daddy wants us to do. Guess we're just born to please.

I put up with all this until my sixteenth birthday. Strange stuff started happening around the house then. Instead of dragging my mother to the bedroom and proceeding to make her his punching bag for the night, my father started paying nightly visits to Lily. Mother started getting depressed (I dunno why, I would've thought that she would've liked the break in abuse) and Lily started sporting the same swollen shut eyes and purple splotches that my mother used to wear. Lily got pregnant that year. It never crossed my mind that she never had a boyfriend. Lily's kid died and she went with it. We all mourned for Lily – even daddy. I thought that he might be starting to act a little more human and a little less like an insane drunken crab most of the time, but that was only because I didn't realize that what daddy was really mourning was a fuck buddy.

Instead of going back to beating mother, father took out his torment on Jacky, my younger sister. It was around this time that I realized what daddy was really doing to Jacky on those nights when her hellish screams cut through my bedroom door and started haunting my sleep. I want from a pretty happy kid to a not-so-happy kid. See, I was closer to Jacky than I was to Lily. She told me things like what daddy told her to do and just what he did to her to make her scream.

Jacky's lucky because she's going off to Monsters University in a month. She keeps that in the front of her mind and says that it's the only thing that gives her hope. Once or twice, she's told me about how she wants to just run away from here, but how she knows that would be dumb because she'd just end up dragged kicking and screaming back to daddy's glowering face.

I nod and pretend like I understand, but I can't. I go through the smacks and the beatings, but Jacky goes through something more, something that I'll never have to go through. …I think.

It's just a normal day around here at the Alexander house at the moment. Mother looks tired as usual, Jacky looks like she wants to die (I dunno how else to put it!), and I'm just here sitting on the couch and wishing that there was something that I could do to help my sister. I'm no miracle worker sadly, and have no clue what I can do to make her happy again.

Suddenly, the door bangs open and daddy comes barreling in. That's a surprise because daddy never comes in before dark. He's always out in the shed with his bottles of booze until night falls, so something must be up. The only question is what exactly is up?

Jacky stiffens and immediately crouches low on the couch in an attempt to make herself invisible as daddy stalks across the floor and barks at my mother, "Teresa, I've got important friends coming over for lunch. Make 'em something good to eat and be snappy about it!"

Mother glances at the clock and notices that it's already past noon. How's she supposed to make something for lunch when it's already lunchtime? I point this out since mommy never talks back to daddy and say, "But it's already lunchtime."

"Shut up, Chet," father snaps, his crab claw slamming into the side of my face as he stalks from mother to the fancy dining room table. It's funny the things we Alexanders do to keep up appearances. You'd never guess from all the intricate furniture and ornate decorations that our lives are completely messed up.

"Shutting up," I reply obediently, head still smarting from the smack. Hey, maybe that's why I'm not too smart! I got one too many hits with the crab claw, you know?

Jacky sends me a sympathetic look. I dunno why she's feeling bad for me though. We both know that she's got it a hell of a lot worse than me. What she goes through every night, well, I don't even want to think about it! Jacky looks not too happy about daddy's friends coming over. She starts to stand up and edge in the direction of her bedroom.

"Just where do you think you're going?" father bellows at her from across the room. "Sit back down!"

Jacky sighs, but does as she's told. Yeah, that's how things work around here. We all do as we're told. Now it's my turn to send Jacky a sympathetic look. I feel bad for her – I really do! Jacky's pretty for an eighteen-year-old oval-shaped crab. She has a pink exoskeleton and a long-lashed eye the color of sky blue at the center of her head. Her lips are the colors of roses and her teeth, unlike mine, are all nice and straight. Daddy's knocked out a few of my teeth. Guess he doesn't think that it matters so much what I look like. Um, back to my original point. Jacky gets hit on a lot by daddy's occasional "guests" so it's really no surprise that she's looking for a way out.

Mommy bustles around in the kitchen for a while and Jacky and I just sit tight until a sharp rap sounds at the door. Father immediately gets up from his chair and scuttles across the room to get the door for our guests. He flings it open and tries not to slur as he exclaims, "Ah, John Worthington! It's been too long, my friend! I see that you've brought your son along. Come in, come in!"

I note a large, gray-colored monster with two large horns on either side of his head smile a sharp-toothed smile at my daddy before he enters the living room followed by a smaller version of himself. John Worthington's son looks just like him from the bushy eyebrows to the sharp fangs all besides for the eyes. His son's eyes are a stunning shade of violet. Yeah, violet! Have you ever seen violet eyes before? Of course you haven't! Violet eyes don't exist…or do they? I start second guessing myself as I look at Mr. Worthington's son.

I'm still trying to figure out the eye color thing when Mr. Worthington's son actually turns and looks at me. He gives me a short once over and then actually sends a lazy smile in my direction. Whoa, nobody's smiled at me before, not like this anyway. My face immediately lights up and I scuttle forward excitedly, raising a claw in greeting as I say, "Hey, I'm Chet and-"

Father steps in front of me and gives me the "shut up" look as he clears his throat and says in a stern tone of voice, "These are my children, Jacky and Chet Alexander. Forgive Chet, he's a little…long-winded."

I dunno what "long-winded" means and stare at father blankly as John Worthington's son smirks and actually has to conceal a laugh as he looks from me to my father. I don't get that he's laughing at my stupidity and immediately start beaming. Someone thinks that I'm funny! Nobody has ever thought that I'm funny before. I think that I might really end up liking this horned guy!

Review please? :)