Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2016 07:14:06 -0600
From: Kurt King <kingkurt1339@gmail.com>
Subject: The New Life of Xander King Chapter 4

	This story contains sexual acts between males below the age of
consent/age of majority (minors), if this offends you or is illegal for you
to read where you're at, please close this website and go elsewhere.

	This story is fictional and entirely the work of the author's
imagination. And resemblance to persons, places, or things, real or
fictional, are entirely coincidental, and any views stated do not
necessarily reflect those of any companies or organizations which do exist
in real life, nor necessarily reflect the views of the author.

	This story is the property and copyright of the author, do not
share, reproduce, repost, or any other such act which is illegal to do
without the author's permission without the author's permission.

	As always - donate to Nifty to keep the archive running!

	Thanks for all the feedback! A little note to respond to some
questions I was asked will follow after the chapter!

	In Chapter Three, it's the Fourth of July, and Xander ends up
spending part of the party lying in the grass with Turtle until Garret
shows up, then spends the rest of the day in his room. After that, Finn
finds out that Xander's a chronic runaway, and has run from every home he's
been put in, save the orphanage, and that it's nearing the longest time
Xander's ever stayed in a home before.

	Garret isn't the third main I've been referring to, the mains each
get their own POV in the story. I haven't decided how important Garret is
yet, but he'll be making appearances again later.

~~Chapter Four - TRENTON~~

[Finn]

	It happened. I woke up this morning and heard that Xander was
gone. They said that it was probably one of his walks, but I know better,
after reading the emails I got yesterday. He finally ran away. I had one of
the drivers take me over to my godparents' house and I checked his
room. His run bag is gone. No note, nothing. He didn't even take his
toothbrush and stuff, which is unusual, in all previous runs, he'd taken
them. Probably had some in his bag already.

	They immediately start sending out search parties. The police don't
care because it's not been long enough for him to be classified as a
missing person yet, but that doesn't mean my godparents and my parents
don't have their own resources.

	By lunch, no one's found him, and everyone's worried. I know he's
just run off, and from all the reports I got, he's always managed to get
out of town within four or five hours. I tell Dad that, and he asks for the
reports. They start checking everywhere they can, asking any workers at bus
stations and train stations and everything if they've seen him. No one
remembers seeing him, but that doesn't mean he hasn't passed through.

	Mrs. Scott is taking it hard, his disappearance. She's never been
able to have kids before, and just when she gets someone she cares for like
a son, he runs away, and she doesn't know why. She feels like a failure of
a parent, and she's not even been one for but two weeks. Mom's trying to
comfort her while the men are doing everything they can to locate where he
ran off to.

	A thought strikes me. I ask Dad if anyone checked the orphanage,
and he says that they didn't think about that. He and I get into a car and
rush to the orphanage. No one's seen him. I go to his room, his roommate's
got a friend over, and they're chatting.

	"Whoa, freak, slow down," the friend says.

	"You," I look at Xander's old roommate. "Has Xander been by here at
all?" If anyone's seen him, it's him. "Even just briefly?"

	"He run away again?" The roommate snorts. "You won't find him, it
always takes a few weeks before he's found.  He's a quiet kid, and I don't
mind having him as my roommate, but his constant disappearing acts are a
bit tiresome."

	"Answer the question."

	"He's gone," the roommate shrugs. "Why would it matter if he's been
by here or not?"

	In a heartbeat, I'm across the room, having the roommate up by the
throat, slammed into the wall. He turns pale as soon as he registers what
happened. I'm neither slow nor weak, and caught him completely by surprise.

	"Do you know how easy it would be," I say quietly and calmly. "To
permanently injure you? If you don't answer my question now, I'm going
to. Xander is missing, and we need to know where he's been."

	"He did," he whimper-whispers, and I relax my grip just a little,
so he can talk better. "He came by about four this morning, grabbed his
journal and the other stuff he had from the loose floorboard under his bed,
then left."

	"Other stuff?" I let go of him, and he drops to his ground. "Show
me the hole."

	The roommate moves Xander's bed and lifts up a floorboard that one
of the legs sits on normally, revealing an empty hole.

	"He had," the roommate says as I check to see if there's even just
something small in it. "Some toothbrushes and toothpaste and some cash
hidden in there, plus his teddy bear."

	"His teddy?"

	"We've all got something," he reaches under his shirt and pulls out
a ring. "That we've had since either we came in or were little. This was my
dad's ring. Xander had his teddy, which he's had since he was an
infant. Woe unto anyone who tries to separate him from it. He kept getting
made fun of at the homes he was taken to for having it, so he just kept
leaving it here until he returned. Every time he's run away after he
started leaving it here, he came back to get it and his journal."

	"Ever seen in his journal?" I ask. So Xander's definitely run away,
if he's taken those and his hygienic stuff. "While he's writing, or when
he's not around, out of curiosity."

	"No," he answers. "All of his journals have locks on them, and
while we all know how to pick locks," does that include Xander? "I've never
wanted to see inside his head. The thought of that just plain scares
me. You're freaky strong."

	"I workout and do martial arts," I say. "Deal with it. You said he
came by around four this morning?"

	"Yeah," he rubs his throat, looking at Xander's bed. "Was kind of
noisy as he moved his bed, woke me up. That's one of the few times he's
ever noisy, and it's always a forewarning that he'll be back here within a
month."

	"He's been adopted," I glare at him. "He's not being sent back."

	Around dinnertime, we're back at the house, and I'm walking through
the front foyer when the doors open, and a yawning Xander with a little bit
of dirt on one side of him, as if he'd been lying on the ground, walks
in. He's got his run bag on his back, and in his arms, he carries a teddy
bear that's probably a foot and a half, if that, tall, light brown in
color, and missing an eye. He's got a green and white checkered bow. The
bear, that is. Xander looks tired as he walks in, and completely ignores
me, making his way to the stairs, as if he hasn't been missing all day with
a record of running away, which the Scotts apparently knew. My parents,
too, but my records on what he did when he ran away was new to
everyone. He's had everyone in a panic, and I don't think he knows about
it.

[Xander]

	I fell asleep. It wasn't intentional, and I'm probably going to get
into trouble. I've just been exhausted, and I've been without Trenton for
too long, so I went to go get him this morning, and grabbed my journal and
the other stuff in the hole. Everyone leaves me alone at the house, unless
the twins are over. They won't leave me alone. So I'm moving my stuff
there, but keeping them in my bag.

	I got to the park and went on the trail, making sure no one was
watching when I branched off to go to where I hide my journals. They're in
a locked box. I sit down with my back against a tree and start
writing. This is my last journal. I end up filling the last few pages. I
lock the journal up and dig up the box and stick the journal inside with
the others. It's got room for more, but I don't have more. These are
special journals, and I'm not sure where HE got them from. I bury the box
again, then pull Trenton to my chest, and pull my knees there, too, closing
my eyes and relaxing.

	The next thing I know, my watch says it's quarter to four, and I'm
lying on the ground. I sit up and try to brush the dust off of me, but
without success. Well, I get some off, but not all of it. I guess I really
missed Trenton, I've not been able to sleep through a night before. Not
unless I'm hugging him against me, I always get nightmares. Horrible
nightmares.

	Once I'm brushed off as well as I will be, I pull my bag back on
and start the walk back to the house. When I get inside, Finn's in there,
so I hurry past up to the room, hoping he doesn't follow me. I can smell
dinner cooking, but I'll probably get yelled at if I go to the table with
dirt on me, so I take a shower first.

	The shower over, I dry off, then walk into my room and start to get
dressed, pulling on some clean underwear and pants, first. No one probably
noticed I'm gone, I'm not worth noticing, not unless I'm in the way.

	The door to the room flies open, and Mrs. Scott flies into the
room, not even stopping as she enters, and she wraps her arms around me
very tightly. I feel like I'm being crushed. I start fighting,
struggling. She's trying to break my back.

	"He doesn't like being touched!" A voice yells, and Mrs. Scott
relaxes her grip on me. I slip out of her arms and hide behind whoever it
was who spoke. It was Finn. "He doesn't like being touched."

	"I'm so sorry, Xander," Mrs. Scott says, looking past him and at
me. I doubt it, she was crushing me and I couldn't breathe. You don't do
that unless it's intentional. "I didn't know. You're okay," you didn't seem
to want me to be. "Where were you? We were so worried about you. I mean,
you'd run away so much before, we thought, I'd thought, I-"

	She starts crying, and takes a step toward me. I grab Finn's shirt,
pulling him closer to me. He can act as my shield, in case she tries to
attack me again. He got her to stop the first time.

	"I'm sorry, Xander, I didn't mean to scare you," she says. "I was
just so worried about you, when I found out you were okay, I couldn't stop
myself. I'm so glad you're okay, Xander. Where were you?" Her tone suddenly
shifts from sounding sorry to sounding demanding, intimidating. "You
disappear before anyone wakes up, then just show up after worrying us to
death? You better have an explanation, young man."

	"I'm sorry," I plead.

	"Aunt Linda," Finn says, but then he looks at me. "Xander, where
were you? Everyone thought you'd run away."

	"I wanted Trenton," I answer, looking past him to Mrs. Scott, who
looks angry. She's going to beat me. "Then I went to the park and fell
asleep. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. Please don't beat me! I'll behave! I
promise! I didn't mean to fall asleep, it just happened! I'm sorry!"

`"Beat you?" Mrs. Scott looks confused. "Xander, I'm not going to beat you,
though we are going to have to talk about some rules. After dinner, you're
going out with me, and we're buying you a cellphone. I need to be able to
reach you at all times. If something like this happens again, you need to
call me or text me as soon as you wake up to let me know you're okay. And
from now on, do not go on a walk or leave without first telling us where
you're going, we were worried about you, and what if something had happened
to you? What if someone kidnapped you, or worse, beat you and left you for
dead? What if we needed you, or there was an emergency? We need to know
where you're at, Xander, so we know you're okay, okay?"

	"Please don't beat me."

[Finn]

	It takes us awhile to calm Xander down. He was one hundred percent
sure that Aunt Linda was going to beat him. Like, completely and entirely
sure that Aunt Linda planned on beating him. Uncle Trey gives him a stern
talking-to after dinner, and Xander looks scared again.

	I go with them for the phone, partly so I can try to talk Xander
into a decent one, partly because there's something that's bothering me
about when he disappeared, but I can't put my finger on it.

	While we're looking at the phones, he's constantly trying to insist
on a cheaper phone, usually just a flip phone. I can see him eying the
better phones, though. Aunt Linda's trying to talk him into this really
expensive phone that he shows a complete lack of interest in, and genuine
lack of interest, not lack from its cost.

	As Aunt Linda distracts Xander and tries to talk him into the phone
she wants him to get, I walk over to the phone he's been eying. He's had
his eye on one specific phone, which means he knows a bit about it. I check
it out, it's a pretty decent phone.

	It's slim, it's not too big, but not small, either. I look up the
type of screen the thing says it has, and it's apparently extremely tough
and scratch-resistant, but very sensitive, despite its slenderness. The
phone itself is tough, and they make a case for it that's also extremely
tough, but gel-like and soft, with a stand built into both the back of the
case and the cover, the stand on the cover also acting as a clip for a
belt.

	All-in-all, it's a good phone, and I order the case. This is the
one that Xander's getting, because he wants it, even if he doesn't want us
spending that much money on it.

	"Steven," I grab the guy who was helping us for a bit until Xander
pushed him away (literally), and he looks at me. I keep getting weird
looks, and this guy looks a bit freaked out by me, especially when I tap
his arm. "I just wanted to apologize about Xander earlier, he's, um,
difficult. He's been through a fair bit, and is going through a lot right
now, and he's not in a good mood, either. So, yeah, sorry for him pushing
you, he just freaked out a little as you were talking. He's going to be
getting this phone. He really wants it, even if he won't admit it. Aunt
Linda doesn't have an issue with the cost, and will pay whatever it costs,
and the monthly cost. And again, Aunt Linda does not care about how much it
costs, she can and will pay it all. So I was wondering if you could do
something for me."

	A few minutes later, I grab Aunt Linda and tell her the plan, to
see if we can talk Xander into the phone I can tell he wants. While we're
talking, she catches him looking over in the direction of the phone,
quickly looking back to the flip phone he's looking at when he catches
himself. He really wants that phone, and the longing for it was clear on
his face when he looked at it.

	I distract Xander while Aunt Linda buys the phone, then we bring
him over and convince him that there's a really good deal on it, and that
while it's a good phone, the deal makes it so that we only have to pay
twenty dollars for it. As I suspected, he doesn't know that you have to pay
monthly fees for a cellphone, and actually buys the whole story. He reaches
into one of his pockets and carefully counts out twenty dollars, offering
them to Steven, the worker.

	"Your mother's already paid," he says, and Xander looks annoyed,
probably both that he wasn't consulted first, and that he called Aunt Linda
his mother.

	"You could just pay Aunt Linda," I tell Xander. I didn't know he
had money on him, even if it's got crumbs from his pocket's other contents
on it. "And we'll count it as you paying for it."

	Without hesitation, Xander turns and pushes the bills towards Aunt
Linda. She doesn't look like she wants to take the wrinkled, crumb-covered
bills, but she does. I'm confident she's going to ensure the pocket she
puts them in is been cleaned very, very well.

	After that, we leave, and on our way back to the house, I'm putting
our numbers in Xander's phone when I realize what it was that had been
bugging me about his disappearance.

	"Xander," I say, and he looks at me. "If you weren't running away,
why did you take your bag?"

	"Had my keys in it," his face reddens.

	"Your keys?" Aunt Linda asks.

	"For my journals," Xander mumbles quietly, to the point where I
almost didn't hear him, and I'm sitting right beside him.

	"What was that?" Aunt Linda asks.

	"Nothing," I say before Xander can repeat himself again, he doesn't
look like he's comfortable with people knowing about the journal. "You
grabbed your spare toothbrush and stuff, too, when you went back to the
orphanage."

	"Just in case," he mumbles.

	In case he did decide to run.

~~END OF CHAPTER FOUR~~

	Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!

	Below the big paragraph below is the little trivia bit about the
story, the following paragraph is to explain some stuff that some of you
might be wondering (I got a couple of emails that prompted this
message). You can skip over the next paragraph if you want, it simply
explains the wait of 5-7 days between chapters I mentioned in Chapter 3.

	I had a couple of people ask me why I'm only releasing every 5-7
days if I'm ahead in the story. So I was letting y'all know I'm a few
chapters ahead because of the number of people who say that they want me to
keep writing, to let you guys know that yes, I will continue the story of
Xander to its completion, which is at an unknown point as of right now
(expect at least thirty chapters – at least!). The reason I only want to
release once every 5-7 days is three-part. The first part is that not
everyone can read as quickly as I can, and I'm sure many of you have lives
outside of reading on Nifty, so I'd like for you to be able to read stories
from other authors in your spare time, not just mine. The second is because
I want to see your guys' (and gals') reactions to the story and hear your
feedback on the chapters, which usually dies down after around the third
day after the story is released. If you give suggestions, I will consider
them, but if all I do is write a chapter, edit it, format it for
submission, and submit it to nifty, then I won't get to see what you guys
think about the story until it's too late, especially if it's something
that works where it's at. The third part is that I'm busy in real life. I
work a single part-time job, but with longer hours than normal and a long
bus ride (an hour or so each way), and am constantly called in or asked to
stay late. I also have a need to eat, to sleep, to use the bathroom, and
all that other fun stuff. At the same time, I'm working on getting a book
published (a full book that I've been working on for a few years), and that
takes up time as well. In other words, I'm somewhat busy in real life. If I
just wrote a chapter, edited it, formatted it for submission, rinse and
repeat, I'd burn through the chapters I've saved up within a couple of
weeks, and run out of chapters and end up spending a week or more per
chapter, anyway. Some days, I can do two or three chapters, others, I can
spend two or three days on a chapter. Submitting a chapter once every 5-7
days more or less keeps the releases consistent, so that you, the reader,
don't get an influx of chapter releases for the story, then have to wait a
week or two before the next release. So as I said, submitting once every
5-7 days more or less keeps the chapter releases on nifty consistent. You
can expect one to show up every 5-7 days, roughly, instead of get one every
2 or 3 days for awhile, then go a week without a release, or even two weeks
or a month. I hope that explains why I'm only doing it once every 5-7 days
in a satisfactory way, because those are the reasons why. Sorry for the
lengthy explanation, I was trying to do it on each email that asked, then
went "I'll just post it with the next chapter".

	So in this chapter...Xander ran away. Sort of. Everyone thought he
did, but really, he was just napping by accident. Finn realizes at the end,
though, that Xander had considered it. So it's on Xander's mind, but is it
a thing he's not going to do, since he did come home instead of just
disappeared?

	I'm surprised that with all the emails I've gotten, including from
people in the system or who've been in it, that no one's asked him what his
'item' was. I know a few people from it, and they all had that one
thing. Xander's is Trenton, the teddy bear, modeled after a real-life teddy
bear.

	A little bit of info about this: this is the chapter that Xander
and Finn first did anything sexual in the original version of the
story. Now, I'm working on Chapter 11, and they still haven't done
anything. That doesn't mean that won't change before I post the next
chapter, or the one after, but for now, we're working on getting a little
more background to Xander. I can assure you, though, that there's activity
between Xander and someone in the near future, but I won't tell you who! Is
it Garret? Is it the third MC? Is it someone entirely new? Maybe all three?

	Trenton didn't exist in the original version. In fact, I'd never
considered giving Xander an 'item' until the first mention of his
teddy. Originally, I had Xander grabbing his notebook and his stash of
food.

	And yes, I'm going to keep teasing y'all with the knowledge that
there's POV you haven't seen yet until he shows up. No, nothing you say in
the emails will get me to stop. I can tell you that unless I end up adding
in more chapters between this one and that one that his introduction's not
far off.

	Thanks for reading, y'all, and sorry about the longer ending to
this, but I wanted to explain the wait, since I was getting emails asking
about it. Hope you enjoyed it, and hope it makes you want to read more!