Summery: His family gave up on him when he was twelve. He had given up on them years before.
Warning: rambly, run-on sentences. And maybe some incomplete ones as well.
A/N: short, introspective. I just needed to write something. Sunset and Thirteen should be updated soon. I promise. (I've been reading too much star trek 2009/aos/reboot stuff and I'm just in the mood to write half-broken, vulnerable, but still kickass and strong characters). I may make this into a collection of Odd-centric stories, I may not. Also, title: I have no idea where I got it, and I may change it, but I like it for now. And many thanks to Soul Jelly for her wonderful help. Anyway, enjoy!

The Della Robbia household is a mess of noise and color and motion. There is a constant flurry of activity and a speed to everything that gives him headaches and makes him nauseous. Being the only boy, his room is hardly bigger than a closet and the light is dim and the window is frosted over with dust and dirt and smudged finger and face prints.

It's his though; and he'll take whatever he can scavenge.

He paints his walls whatever color he pleases and changes it at least once every other month. Sometimes it's splotches, sometimes it's solid, and sometimes he reverts the walls back to their original white. Sometimes he draws scenes of forests and glaciers and deserts and mountains.

His sisters think the sketches are gorgeous and they'll never understand why he covers them up in yellow and blue when the next month rolls around.

He can't understand it either. He doesn't even know where the motivation comes from. It's not the giant, brightly yellow tinted room that resides in his mind, where the ideas seem jump into existence. It's like they come from memories of something that hasn't happened yet.

He doesn't question it.

Just like he doesn't question holidays locked in a bathroom or when a prized set of paints disappears never to be seen again.

Or how one day, he walks home carrying a dog and his parents don't question it either. They don't even bat an eyelash. Just tell him that he has to responsible for feeding it and walking it and making sure it doesn't infect the house with flees.

He, Odd tells them, not it. The dog is a he.

It's amazing, Odd considers, how in a household that is cramped and crowded and altogether a bit overwhelming, he can be very much alone and doesn't even realize it until he has someone.

People don't understand why he loves Kiwi so much. He doesn't need them to.

He's good at art and he's good at smiling and he's good lockpicking but somewhere around the age of eleven, his parents notice that he isn't living up to his 'potential' and try to talk to him about it.

He's not used to a sudden caring routine, but he doesn't withdraw. Odd Della Robbia doesn't withdraw. He laughs louder and smiles more and tries harder but it doesn't work. His parents talk to him some more. That doesn't work either and Odd wonders why if he's doing everything right, it feels like everything is opposite of how it should be.

His parents don't scream and they don't yell. They lavish him in praise and tell him that Kadic is the best opportunity and they care about him so much they're willing to cough up the money needed to attend.

Odd doesn't say anything. Just smiles and nods and feels like he's signing his life away.

He isn't.

The bus to Kadic is freedom like he's never experienced. He feels the suffocating weight leave his chest and his smile widens without effort. He's ready to be himself in the same way he always has and know that he's accepted because of it, not in spite of it. Unconditional love can be amazing but Odd is a people-person and he wants the reassurance of friendship that can end like it begins, of friendship that isn't dependent on having the same last name and genetic code.

He makes friends and he makes acquaintances and he makes enemies and they're all on his own terms.

The headaches and nausea return only when he's in a different world and has taken the swirling transporter which is closer to his home life than the easy banter and fights for showers that dorm life ensures. Or when he's seen the future in quick scenes (there and then gone), but even that's reminiscent of drawings of other worlds on bedroom walls.

His parents visit and they're as supportive as ever. He always thought it was funny how they could be the most supportive parents he's met and still do the least amount of actual supporting. But they're both performers and it's what comes naturally to them. Him too, he thinks.

Because maybe he is performing. Maybe he's pretending to be a hero. Maybe he's pretending to be an at-least-he's-passing student. But he still feels more real than he did in the house he had been stuck in for twelve years.

It's funny, because as much as he thinks that sending him to Kadic was his parents' way of washing their hands of him as much as they could while still caring, he's never felt betrayed by it.

It's hard to feel betrayed by something you had never really needed in the first place.