[BL] Traded to the Beast

The Unwanted Twin

ELIAS POV

From the very beginning, I think the world decided I was second.

They say Alex and I were born minutes apart, but in my mind, those few minutes stretched into years,into something vast and unbridgeable . A lifetime of difference packed into thin hospital blankets and whispered judgments. I don’t remember the warmth of a first touch or the comfort of a lullaby hummed just for me. What I remember,what settled into my bones long before I could speak,was being set aside.

I learned that memory doesn’t always come in images. Sometimes it comes in feelings that never leave. The hollow sense of being unnecessary. The quiet certainty that even when I cried, I was doing it alone.

The nurses adored Alex.

I remember their voices before I remember their faces. Soft, reverent, almost musical as they hovered over his crib.

“Such a beautiful omega…”

“He’s so strong already.”

“A dominant omega, can you imagine?”

Their hands were gentle with him. They adjusted his blankets, brushed their fingers through his dark curls, smiled like they were looking at something rare and precious.

When they looked at me, their smiles didn’t twist into cruelty. That would have hurt less. No,what I got was worse. Indifference. A glance that slid past me as if I were part of the furniture. Something present, but unimportant.

I was fed. I was cleaned. I was kept alive.

But no one lingered.

At home, the difference became impossible to ignore.

Alex was dressed like a promise. Lace-trimmed clothes. Soft fabrics that never touched the floor. Tiny ribbons tied carefully around his wrist, as if the world needed to be reminded that he mattered. That he was special.

I wore whatever was left.

Hand-me-downs folded without care. Clothes that smelled faintly of dust and old drawers, of a past that wasn’t mine and never would be. If something was torn or faded, it came to me. If something fit awkwardly, that was my problem.

Relatives visited often in those early years. They came bearing gifts,wrapped boxes, pastel ribbons, soft toys that jingled when shaken. They gathered around Alex like moths to light, lifting him up, passing him from arm to arm.

“He’s gorgeous.”

“Look at those eyes.”

“You’ll break hearts one day.”

Someone would laugh. Someone would kiss his cheek.

And me?

I stood in corners. Behind chairs. Near doorframes. Small hands clenched at my sides, watching as love moved freely around me but never reached.

Sometimes, a relative would pause, frown slightly, and ask, “Oh… and this one?”

My mother would glance at me briefly. Just long enough to acknowledge my existence.

“That’s Elias,” she’d say. No pride. No warmth. Just a name. “His brother.”

Never my son. Always Alex’s extra.

I learned early how to make myself quiet. How to take up less space. How to disappear without anyone asking where I’d gone.

“Your brother is a dominant omega,” my mother would say proudly, smoothing Alex’s curls, her voice filled with a hope so bright it hurt to hear. “He’ll be chosen by a powerful alpha. He’ll change our lives forever.”

She never turned to look at me when she said it.

Not once.

I didn’t know what a dominant omega truly meant back then. I didn’t understand hierarchy or fate or bonds. But I understood tone. I understood the way her eyes lit up when she spoke about Alex,and the way they dulled when they passed over me.

So I learned something important, something cruel.

I was not an investment.

Not a hope.

Not a dream.

I was the extra child that came with Alex.

As we grew older, the gap between us widened.

Alex laughed easily. His smiles were effortless, practiced without effort. People responded to him instinctively, like his presence pulled something warm out of them. Teachers praised him. Neighbors commented on his beauty. Even strangers seemed drawn to him.

I existed beside him like a shadow,always present, never noticed unless I stepped out of line.

When Alex cried, my mother rushed. When I cried, she sighed.

“What’s wrong with you now, Elias?”

“You’re too sensitive.”

“Why can’t you be more like your brother?”

My father was worse in his own way. He didn’t pretend to care. He looked at me like a disappointment that had somehow learned to breathe.

“Too quiet,” he’d mutter.

“Too plain.”

“Too weak.”

I tried, once. I tried to speak louder, to laugh when Alex laughed, to show excitement when others did. But it felt wrong,like wearing someone else’s skin. The harder I tried, the more invisible I became.

Eventually, I stopped.

At night, when the house grew quiet and the walls felt thinner, I would sit on the edge of my bed and stare at my reflection in a dull, warped mirror. I searched for something ,anything that might explain why I was so easy to overlook.

Was my nose wrong?

My eyes too soft?

My face too forgettable?

I tilted my head. Squinted. Pressed my fingers into my cheeks, as if shaping myself into something better.

But no matter how long I looked, I never found it.

There was nothing special staring back at me. Just a boy with tired eyes and a mouth that forgot how to smile.

So I stopped looking.

I stopped wanting things I couldn’t have. I stopped expecting warmth where there had never been any. I learned to accept scraps of attention with gratitude and swallow disappointment before it showed on my face.

Hope became something dangerous. Something foolish.

And then came the whispers.

Adults thought children didn’t listen. They were wrong.

“He’s just… ordinary.”

“All the luck went to the other twin.”

“At least one of them turned out well.”

I learned to stay silent when they spoke. Learned that answering back only made things worse. Learned that my worth was measured not by who I was, but by who I wasn’t.

Not Alex.

Never Alex.

Sometimes, late at night, I would hear my parents talking in low voices behind closed doors.

“We’re lucky, you know,” my mother would say.

“With Alex, our future is secure.”

“And the other one?” my father would ask, dismissive.

A pause. Then..

“He’ll manage.”

That was all I ever was.

Something that would manage.

I learned to take care of myself early. To tie my own shoes, tend my own scrapes, swallow my own tears. When I got sick, I lay quietly, afraid that making noise would only annoy them.

Pain became familiar. Loneliness even more so.

Alex never noticed. Or maybe he did, and simply didn’t know how to reach me. He lived in a different world a brighter one. A kinder one.

Sometimes, I wondered what it would feel like to be chosen. To be looked at and seen. To have someone’s eyes soften when they met mine.

But wanting that hurt too much.

So I buried it.

I told myself I didn’t need anyone. That I was fine alone. That being forgotten was safer than being rejected.

And in that silence,somewhere between being ignored and being erased,I taught myself the most dangerous lesson of all:

That love was not meant for me.

That I existed on the edges of other people’s lives.

That I was born second… and would always come last.

I didn’t know then that this belief would follow me into every room, every relationship, every choice I would ever make.

I only knew this: