Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Beauty And The Beast ❯ Part One ( Chapter 1 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: Manga-Chick 
The Introduction of Quatre Winner
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Drama / / Supernatural | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 09.20.2005 | Pages: 4 | Words: 7.4K | Visits: 633 | Status: Completed
The Introduction of Quatre Winner
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Drama / / Supernatural | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 09.20.2005 | Pages: 4 | Words: 7.4K | Visits: 633 | Status: Completed
Horror, Suspense, supernatural activity, underage pilots, and Michelle’s favorite: Alternative Universe! Or, er, original. With borrowed characters...hm. Oh, and definitely out of character charas!
No Pairings–for now.
Stand Disclaimers Apply:I do not own Gundam Wing. There.
Um...rated ‘R’?
110101010101100 = means scene change
Italics means first person point of view. In this case, Quat’s (yay! My favorite torture victim!) Or, thoughts.
The song’s So Like A Rose, by Garbage
The Beauty and the Beast (Part One)
Sometimes, when they think I don’t notice, they stare at me. I can feel their eyes on me. It doesn’t make me feel good when they do. I can hear them talking. They get so loud. I wish they wouldn’t. I wish they would just leave me alone. Sometimes, they talk to me. But I don’t feel good when they do. Some of them make me cry. Most of them aren’t happy. I wish I could make them happy.
But I don’t know how.
----Baby thinks he’s dying
Lost inside his bedroom
Mommy won’t stop crying
And Daddy’s always working----
Lucrezia Noin peered over the bowed blond head, looking curiously at the crayon drawing that was being lavished on the recycled paper. She was a little puzzled at the drawing of a dark haired girl, with a sad face, sitting in the middle of red and green. She’d seen many weird kiddie drawings at her age, but this one was one of the weirdest. Being a baby-sitter to one of the strangest kids she knew certainly had its moments. It was her third time babysitting six year old Quatre Winner, and he’d already proved to be someone to keep an eye on at all times.
At first, she suspected autism. Then an early stage of schizophrenia. She wasn’t familiar with mental illnesses, but she was sure this kid had them all. The rest of his family was normal...why was this one so... off?
“What’s that, Quatre? Is that one of your sisters?” she asked, frowning as she tried to find resemblance to one of the many blonds that occupied the house.
The six year old shook his head. “No. Her name’s Maria. I don’t know her.”
Noin blinked, frowning as he added black to the picture. Something in her gut curdled with a sense of revulsion as she watched tiny hands manipulate the crayon. The girl, sad as she was, was sitting in green–but covered in red. The black was now being applied to various areas of her stick body and odd dress.
----There’s no going back
There’s no going back
There’s no going back
On this one----
God...this kid’s such a nutjob, she thought. She tried for an expression of interest, leaning onto the table so that his head brushed against her chin. She had come to find out that he liked contact with others. He smelled like all little kids did–of dirt and sweat, of baby lotion and sugar. His soft, bright white hair tickled the sensitive skin of her chin. Despite his odd tendencies, he was still just a kid. She couldn’t help but press a kiss on the nearly colorless strands.
“Now what’s going on with her? Why is she sad?”
“She’s sad because she can’t see her mommy,” he replied, his childish voice serious and heavy. “She tries to talk to her, but her mommy can never see her.”
Noin withdrew with a puzzled frown. His father had mentioned that he loved telling stories. She’d heard a few from him; they were just so strange. “Why? Is this a story of yours?”
“I don’t know how to tell stories.”
“Then...then why can’t...Maria talk to her moth–mommy? Why is she...like that?”
“Oh. Maria said that she died in a car accident. She got burned up.”
Noin stiffened, staring at the drawing with some horror. She couldn’t move.
Oh, c’mon! Her thoughts assailed her. Kids these days watch the sickest shit on tv! He must have gotten it from some stupid Japanese cartoon...
“That’s...er...”
“She said her daddy smelled funny. And he talked funny. And he couldn’t drive. She said that he wouldn’t let her put on a seatbelt. Daddy always makes me sit in a seatbelt. But she didn’t. And she died. She said it hurt. It still hurts.”
The black crayon covered most of Maria’s sad face. It covered most of her stick arms, and discolored her triangle dress.
----Baby wakes up with the sun
While everyone is sleeping
He thinks he’s going crazy
This could be the big one----
Noin felt sick as she stared at the drawing. Feeling an overwhelming sense of unease, she reached around him and withdrew the drawing. He looked up in surprise, frowning as she wadded it.
“Your daddy’s going to have a shitfit–er, I mean, going to be angry if he sees another one of these, kid,” she admonished. Her fingers seemed to burn with just touching the thing. It caused her to shiver forcefully. For a split second, she thought she could smell something burning.
She then tore the thing to shreds, trembling. “Let me make you a PB and J. Extra peanut butter, no crust, right?”
----Sleeping with ghosts
It’s such a lonely experience
The stars are out tonight
Only they can hear you breathing----
Fiddling with his crayon, Quatre frowned. Noin threw the shredded piece of ‘art’ into the trash, and smiled brilliantly at him.
He directed a frown up at her, young face shadowed. Tilting his head to the right, Noin stared down at him. It seemed odd, but it was as if he were listening to something. This made the hairs on her arms stand up on end. For her flesh to prickle with raised bumps. Her blue eyes scanned the room, taking in the sunny disposition of the modern and almost bare kitchen. The maid, Estella, had done wonders in cleaning up Noin’s attempt at making breakfast.
Then Quatre looked at her. “Maria says that you should not like your boyfriend. He isn’t good.”
Noin stiffened once more, staring down at him. the blond child slipped off his chair and scurried off with a nonchalant hum.
----You’re so like a rose
I wish you could stay here----
God...if I didn’t need the extra money...she trailed off, shaking her head.
110101010101100
One year later~
Quatre stared at the silent form. There was a continuous creaking noise that was created from the rope rubbing on bark. The soft whisper of the afternoon wind caused the lush grass to rustle, for the brush to catch on the breeze. There were smells that made him wince, but the face he stared at was much more distracting.
It was an accident, the swollen lips whispered. They’d never call him names again. It was an accident...It wasn’t my fault. A man made me do it...
The huge oak tree was a play thing for all the kids in the neighborhood–it held the remnants of a tree house project, and some streams of rope that hung randomly from the lowest branches. Next to it was a steep bank that rolled down to an ankle-deep stream. Some of the kids knew not to use the rope to launch themselves into the stream, but there was always an adventuresome kid that attempted to cross it with the use of the rope.
But this didn’t look like one of those times.
He heard Noin calling for him, the young woman’s voice filled with impatience and annoyance, but he was held spellbound by the figure before him. Fiddling with his walking stick, he took a couple of steps back. The smell was suddenly stronger.
“Quatre, damn it, I told you not to run off when I use the bathr–EEE-ARGGH!” Noin ended in a shriek, eyes widening with horror, hands flapping up to her face.
She stared in disbelieving silence at the kid that hung from the branch, a rope coiled around his neck. His face wasn’t recognizable–heat and the pressure of the rope had caused the skin to become purple and distended. The eyes were so swollen that they were puffy slits of flesh. The lips were malformed, jutting outward in darkened color. The rope around his neck was overlapped by the swollen flesh of his throat. Dried feces clung to pale legs; pee had plastered shorts to his crotch.
Visible skin from the elbows down were distended, deeply colored from the settling of the body’s blood in the extended regions. Dead bodies, as depicted in movies, were supposed to be clean and pretty. This corpse was not pretty–it was not clean. For a few seconds, she wasn’t sure if she were actually looking at one. Her sheltered mind refused to accept that this was a dead body. She wanted to think that she was looking at some sort of cruel toy that the neighborhood kids had concocted to terrorize her young charge.
She was nearly hyperventilating. She caught the smells–the hideous smells of death and rot. Staring for a minute more, she faintly registered that this kid was part of a group that commonly teased her charge for being so weird.
She looked at Quatre in numb shock; he merely studied the boy the same way one would study a piece of art on the way. Critiquing, casual, contemplative–there were no signs of horror or revulsion here. As if he saw this stuff everyday.
When he noticed her looking at him, he shrugged, and poked the dirt with his stick.
“He said it was an accident,” he explained, as if that would take away all her horror and shock of finding a dead kid. “A man made him do it.”
Noin looked back at the body, at the dried release of body substances; at the discolored regions. She took in the deformed head; the fat, swollen fingers. She felt the need to throw up. When she closed her eyes, she could still see the kid hanging there...swinging from that rope around his neck. Her hands were shaking as she reached out, gripping Quatre’s multi-colored shirt. Dragging him off behind her, she found herself weeping and wheezing at the same time.
110101010101100
“...dead. No, I don’t know who it was. The police are investigating right now,” Noin was saying to her panic-stricken mother.
By now, the entire neighborhood knew of the dead kid, and Noin had received calls from all of her friends, relatives, and co-workers from Sear’s. Her mother had just found out from the news program she listened to.
Noin adjusted her position, looking around the corner to see that the kid, his father, and a detective were still in the kitchen. Mr. Winner was talking quietly to his son, who answered in his odd way; the fuzz was taking notes on a small notepad. When the boy had mentioned what his invisible friend had told him, she had seen the glances exchanged between father and the law.
He makes up stories frequently, Mr. Winner’s sheepish expression said.
My kid does the same thing, the detective’s replied.
The stories of a seven year old weren’t taken very seriously when invisible friends were involved. Especially in this case.
She noted the crayons and paper that were being manipulated, and shivered at the thought of witnessing another gruesome scene from the imagination of that kid.
She then frowned at the words spoken over the phone. When she spoke, she kept her voice low, so that no one could hear her. “No. No, mom, everything’s fine...I mean, as much as they could be. Yes, the kid’s still weird...no. NO. He may be weird, but the little guy’s just–you can’t say that sort of shi–stuff, mom! There’s no way in hell this kid’s some kid of murderer!! Yes, I’ve seen ‘The Good Son”, and he–MOM! Just because he and that Culkin kid are both BLOND doesn’t mean that–no, I’m hanging up. See ya.”
Noin replaced the phone back on the receiver, her mother’s frantic words cut off abruptly. She ventured around the doorway, seeing all three males look in her direction. Self-consciously, she swiped her dark hair from her face and looked down at Quatre’s drawing.
This picture wasn’t of the dead kid–but a semi-normal scene of a boy on a bicycle; there were smiles and happy depictions of the sun and flowers. It sent a wave of relief through her until she realized that he was adding a dog to the scene; his jaws dripped red coloring, and his eyes, even through the scrawl was depicted from a seven year old, was menacing.
Mr. Winner saw this as well, and gently removed the drawing before the fuzz could see it. Carefully folding it, he shot Noin a look that she understood well, and began talking to the police officer. Quatre looked annoyed as he fiddled with his crayons, exhaling in an annoyed way. He left his chair and ventured over to the fridge. Figuring that she was still on duty as baby-sitter, Noin walked over as he opened the fridge, and withdrew a can of Mountain Dew. She took the can and replaced it with a Capri-Sun.
“I don’t want juice. I want pop,” he said in an annoyed way.
Noin wondered how this kid, who’d just seen a dead playmate, could still behave so normal. She wanted to throw up. She could still see that dead kid behind her closed lids whenever she blinked.
“No pop,” she admonished. “You’ll be bouncing off the walls at bedtime.”
“Dad always lets me have pop.”
“No pop. Here...grape or cherry?”
“That one.”
“No pop!”
“Uh! Dad will let me have it! You might as well as give it to me now! It’ll save yourself some trouble!”
“Well, he’s busy right now, so I’m still in charge. Here. You can have this and you can have...this,” she withdrew some Hersey’s Kisses from Iria’s ‘hidden’ stash behind the mayonnaise jar,“but this is if you take a Capri-Sun.”
“You must think I’m dumb, don’t you, Miss Noin?”
“Don’t–Argh, kid, I told you not to call me that! It sounds like you’re talking to my mother!” she grumbled, directing him away from the fridge. She crammed the Kisses into his hand and forcefully stabbed the straw into the packet of juice. “Go watch your Power Puff Girls, or Dexter, or whatever the hell it is you watch...”
“I don’t watch girl cartoons!”
The little boy grumbled things she couldn’t hear as he took the juice and sullenly walked out from the kitchen. Noin watched with a sense of humor as she crossed her arms over her stomach, and looked over at the two men. The cop was wrapping up his conversation, and Mr. Winner looked tired, so she followed after her charge.
The clock on the hallway wall read 6:05 p.m....normally, he let her go when the eldest sister came home from summer school, but Iria had called an hour earlier and said that she had to stay after due to detention. The other five were at various friends’ house–summer was meant for kids to have as much fun as they could before hiding back into school. But then again, this meant that the littlest one was without a baby-sitter while the father was at work.
Many adults had taken much effort to invent excuses as to why Quatre couldn’t stay with them–and kids his own age were repulsed by his oddness. His own sisters, eager to impress their peers and easily embarrassed by little, inconsequential things, did all that they could to escape baby-sitting him.
He was really an enjoyable, smart, talented little kid–just...odd. And extremely morbid.
Noin had gotten used to his ‘conversations’ with ghosts, and with the pictures. She’d looked beyond all that to see the kid as he really was, and enjoyed working with him. His father was extremely grateful for that–he paid her an astonishing amount to keep her with them. With the pay, she didn’t have to work full-time to help her mother out with the bills. Her part time job at Sear’s gave her simple spending money for clothes and other instances. Because of this generous desperation, Noin was pretty well off.
But back to the present---Noin did not mind the change in schedule–she really liked the Winners, and often stayed over longer than she had to.
It was just that today’s situation was more than unnerving, and she was unsettled by it. It wasn’t everyday that she saw some kid’s dead body hanging from a tree. With a low and tired sigh, she rubbed the back of her neck and joined her charge on the couch, where she watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the rest of the hour.
110101010101100
Sometimes, at night, they come into my room when I sleep. I’m not afraid when they do. They’re just lonely. They know I can hear them. They come in and talk to me, but sometimes, I get into trouble because dad hears me talking and comes in to growl at me. He’s tired, too, but he doesn’t listen to me when I try and tell him why I’m talking. He thinks it’s just another one of my ‘stories’. I don’t have stories to tell. I am just not good at them. But he doesn’t believe me.
One of them is named Freddy. He’s older than me. He’s meaner than the others. He’s always angry. He likes to make me cry. I don’t know why he’s so mean... maybe it just has to do with that hole in his throat–he says he can’t breathe good, and he gets so mad when I don’t do what he says. Sometimes, after he visits, I hide under the bed. Mostly because it feels like he’s waiting for me to come out of my room. Dad doesn’t believe me when I tell him this. No one does.
“Fifth Victim Found On Highway 190,” the headline read. The newspaper, sitting in disarray on the kitchen table, depicted what was the latest in the string of murders throughout the city. A serial killer was on the loose, prowling their nearby city with his menacing motives. But while all his victims came from the city and beyond, with only two bodies found in this general direction, the occupants of this suburban tranquility had no fear of the killer.
The death of the child had ran as an accident on page three. The parents were inconsolable. The tree was scheduled to be torn down later this week.
Noin looked up from her Vogue. The Winners had new neighbors. Noin stared across the street at the moving van and the snazzy Lincoln Navigator. Quatre was chasing after a lizard that eluded him from within the rose bush, and wasn’t interested in the activities across the street. Noin watched as a couple of kids emerged from the Navigator, along with two adults. One of the kids were Quatre’s age, and he was looking over the area with interest. The other kid was about fifteen, and was sullenly arguing with his father.
It was a lazy summer day, and despite the cool clothing she wore, and for the fact that she was sitting on the outside porch, Noin swore that she was melting. Brushing her short hair from her face, she stared at the activities across the street. The movers were already hauling expensive pieces of furniture from the van and moving them inside–the mother was directing them. The father was yelling at the teen; the teen was giving that hunched-shoulders, blank stare expression; the littlest one was looking around himself.
“Freddy! Stop it!” she heard Quatre yell angrily, throwing rocks at something beyond her sight. She rolled her eyes.
Freddy, Freddy, Freddy...this invisible friend was responsible for much of the broken objects in the house, and for the terrorizing of smaller animals. She’d learned that a few of his invisible friends had quite the intriguing personalities. Maria visited continually; Freddy terrorized; Marcus cried; Abigail laughed; Dillon negotiated. Noin had long since tolerated these ‘friends’ of Quatre’s for the sake of keeping herself sane.
She heard the startled yowl of a cat, and shifted in her seat to see a black cat streaking up and over the wooden fence, thoroughly terrorized.
“Stop throwing rocks at animals, kid,” she ordered, resettling in her seat.
“But–! Freddy–!”
“I don’t want to hear about Freddy! Stop throwing rocks. Look for that lizard.”
Quatre muttered something she didn’t hear, but admonished Freddy one more time before crawling under the rose bush. Noin lifted her eyes to see the blue-belly lizard, about half the size of her hand, skitter up the wooden fence and disappear. She smiled–kids lead such simple lives...
Looking up again, she saw that the kid from across the street had taken notice of Quatre, and was pointing in their direction. The father looked too hassled to deny his youngest, and waved him off. The mother was gone.
So, Noin watched the little kid check both ends of the street before running over. She lowered her magazine to her lap, picking at her nails. From what she could see, he was a little on the thin side, with gangly arms and stick legs. He was pale in a way that suggested many hours indoors, and had a very long braid that dangled carelessly from the back of his head. He had large eyes that held a light color, and a quick, ready to smile mouth. He was dressed all in black–black Yu-Gi-Oh shirt, black swimming trunks, black Nikes...he was already flushed with heat as he climbed the sidewalk and the small, thigh high fence that bordered Mr. Winner’s front yard.
“Hi!” he said to her, waving. Quatre crawled out from underneath the rose bush, and gave him an uncertain stare as the new kid walked over to him. “Hi! Hey, what are you doing? Are you looking for lizards? Can I help? I really like lizards!! Sometimes, I let them bite me. Hey, what’s your name? My name’s Duo!”
Noin chuckled at the manic, word a minute way of speaking the kid had. She flipped through her magazine, then looked back at the kids. She felt a little wary as she watched Duo pull out some things from his pockets, showing the mute blond what he had. Offerings were made in forms of taffys and gum, and she still didn’t relax as Quatre took them, and introduced himself. He appeared normal when meeting others for the first time–but once he started talking about his ‘friends’; that’s when the kids started in on the names and blank stares.
Chewing anxiously at her nail, she watched as Duo then looked off to the side with a surprise rise of his eyes. Both boys stared off to the side of the house, at a point Noin couldn’t see. Frowning, she shifted in her seat again, wondering what they were looking at. Then, Duo looked at Quatre with a curious expression.
“Who’s that guy? Hey, who’s that guy?”
What guy?! Noin rose from her chair, and crossed the porch, leaning over the simple railing to look around the house. All she saw were flowerbeds and more rose bushes. There was a wooden gate that was locked from the inside that led to the back–the side fence was seven feet high.
She felt prickles run up and down her skin when she heard Quatre answer, “That’s Freddy. He’s really mean. You...you can see him?”
“Yeah. Freddy? Why’s he mean? Hey, why’s he mean? What’s wrong with his throat?”
Noin slowly receded from the railing, and looked at the kid in black. The hairs on the back of her neck rose suddenly. Chills raced up and down her skin, despite the heat. She looked back at the kids, and saw Quatre looking at Duo with a sense of surprise.
“You...you see Freddy?” he asked.
“Yeah! What’s wrong with his throat? One time, when we were living in Virginia, my dad ran over this dog, and it looked like that. It was all nasty. I poked it with a stick, and it moved. It was still alive. But you could see its insides. It was cool.”
“Freddy said that a man cut him. But that was way before I was born. You can see him? For real?”
“For real. Hey, look! It must have climbed over the fence! I’ll go that way, and you stay over here, okay? I’ll chase it over to you. You’re not scared of it, are you?”
“What? No! No, I’m not scared of it!”
“Here, use this. Sometimes they like candy. It tricks them. Get it all sticky. Maybe it’ll get stuck on it like on the cartoons!” Duo said with a laugh, holding out his chewed gum.
Quatre gave him a puzzled expression, but took it. The new kid raced over the small fence and raced over to the neighbor’s lawn.
Noin moved away from the porch railing, and stared at her young charge. What she didn’t know, was that Quatre had just met a young boy that could see exactly what the blond could. She also didn’t know that with the arrival of the Winners’ new neighbors was the start of a summer of horror.
110101010101100
Duo sees what I can. He’s my age. He’s also HIV positive. He told me that he has to take medication to keep himself from getting sick. His parents don’t want him to go to public schools, because a lot of adults think that he is dirty and nasty. I don’t think he is. He is a good friend. He doesn’t make fun of me. And he sees all my friends. He even helps me yell at Freddy when he gets mean. I like Duo, because he likes what I do. His parents don’t let him go out very often, though. When they met dad and Miss Noin, they were very clear in explaining that he can’t do a lot of things that will make him get hurt. Sometimes, they let Duo spend the day with me. Miss Noin likes Duo, and doesn’t mind that she’s watching over both of us. I think she’s happy because she gets paid a lot. She tells her friends that she plans on moving to Hollywood with what she’s getting. I don’t know what she means by that, but she’s happy about it.
Duo has an older brother–his name’s Trowa. Trowa’s adopted. So is Duo, because his mom and dad can’t have kids of their own. But Trowa’s mean–he’s like Freddy. I don’t like Trowa so much. Sometimes, when it’s just us, he pokes at my hair and tries to trip me, or he spits into my pop and takes it from me. But Duo loves him–he just says that Trowa’s ‘troubled’----which was something he heard from his mom and dad one day. I don’t know what that means–but I don’t like him.
“...see?! See?! Use this to get your guy all powered up!” Duo was saying, showing Quatre how to play Super Smash Bros.
Quatre was having fun playing with Link–he knew how to make the bombs and make the boomerang work in his favor. Duo played Yoshi, and often made commentary with his character. Both boys were laughing as they played against each other.
Noin was talking on her cell with her friend, Chrissie. Slaving over the stove for their lunch, she kept an eye on them as she worked the Ramen. So far, both kids had stayed out of trouble. But this was only eleven-thirty.
“Ah, man! I keep doing that!” Duo laughed, tossing his arms up into the air.
“Oh, look! Look! I did it! I got the wand!”
“I’m going to get you! Look at me! Look at me! Here I come!! ROAR!! I’m HUNGRY for green guys!”
“Aiiiee! Don’t eat me! Stop eating me, Duo! STOP! Take that! Eat laser!”
“I call no guns! I call no guns!”
“Stop EATING me!! QUIT IT!!”
“Hey, you two, settle down!” Noin ordered, stirring the noodles. She heard the front door open and shut, and peered curiously into the living room. It was that boy–the oldest Maxwell, Trowa. For some reason, the kid gave her the creeps. It was probably the indifference in his face, or the cold look in his eyes. Whatever, Noin felt very uncomfortable being around him. She didn’t like the way he looked at the two boys–she felt that he were plotting some evil, nasty scheme against them. His mother had mentioned that he was currently being medicated for being manic-depressive.
“Duo, mom says you have to come home, now,” he said. He was only fifteen–but his voice was deep, like a man’s. Noin shivered again and whispered to Chrissie about his arrival.
“Wait. I’m almost done. Five more minutes.”
“No, now.”
“Hold on!”
Noin suddenly heard twin protests, and glanced into the living room again. Trowa had just switched off the game console, and was giving Duo a dirty look.
The braided boy rose from the couch. “See ya later, kitty! Wanna go catch fireflies tonight?”
“Okay.”
As the two boys left the house, Noin hung up with Chrissie, and walked into the living room. She looked down at Quatre, who was frowning at the blank tv screen, remote still in his hands. He looked up at her with a frown.
“Maria says that Trowa’s a bad person,” he said on a sigh, shrugging his shoulders. “But Duo says that he can be nice when he wants to be.”
“Either way, I think I agree with Maria,” Noin said, sitting on the couch beside him. She touched the Elmo band-aid that was visible on his left knee. “What happened here?”
“Trowa tripped me.”
“Why’d he do that?”
“Because. He’s mean. He doesn’t like me.”
“Why?”
“Because. He says I’m strange.”
“Duo’s just like you,” she reminded him, tweaking his nose.
“I like Duo. Duo’s my best friend. He’s never mean to me.”
Noin sighed, embracing him fondly. “That’s the kind of friends a guy should have, little man. Now, get up and get on to the kitchen table. Food’s ready.”
110101010101100
That night, Mr. Winner and Noin stood out on the front porch and watched the two boys race around the front yard. They were catching firebugs within glass jars. Noin smiled as Duo caught a bug, inadvertently smashing it between his hands. As the boys uttered drawn-out ‘ews’, movement across the street caught her eye. That boy, Trowa, had just emerged from his house, and was sitting on the steps on the front porch. He glared across the street, ignoring his father’s shouts from within.
“I’m sorry to say, but that boy makes me wary,” Mr. Winner said, frowning in Trowa’s direction. Noin glanced up at him, then looked back at Trowa.
She nodded silently, recalling the way his voice grew so cold whenever he had to talk to the two younger kids.
“His mother mentioned that he’s manic-depressive,” she said, frowning thoughtfully. “Duo told me that he takes medication to keep his moods under control.”
“They’re both adopted?”
“Yes.” Noin chuckled lightly, shifting her stance. If she stood a certain way, she could smell the Turkish spices of his cigarettes and the pleasant strength of his cologne. “Duo told me everything about that subject.”
“He sure talks a lot, doesn’t he? He’s a good kid...he and my son have a lot in common.”
“Too much, sometimes. They have invisible friends together.”
“‘Invisible friends’? Well...I’m sure they’re grow out of it...eventually...”
Noin smiled, then elbowed him companionably. “Says you, you bachelor. What was this about meeting a ‘client’ for work last Tuesday? My connections let me on a secret–you hid yourself away from the world at McGee’s downtown...I didn’t know lawyers met clients at bars...”
“So, what are you saying? That I’m making things up? A man likes to relax after a hard day’s work.”
“I’m just saying, like father, like son.”
Mr. Winner just chuckled. “There’s no way my son got so strange from my end.”
“That’s what all the men say. It’s always the women’s fault for being so perfect. Chauvinistic bastard.”
“Me? Blame his mother? No...never. She did everything right.”
“You loved her a lot, huh? I mean, I bet you were one of those romantics that we see on tv, in those Helzberg Diamonds commercials.”
“I took out many a loan for that woman. But it wasn’t jewelry and chocolates that she was attracted to...”
Noin rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t even go there, Mr. Winner, you sick bastard. I do NOT want to know about how happy you made her in bed.”
He laughed. “Noin, you have an overactive imagination.”
“Did you just insult yourself, sir?”
“No–no, wait a minute. For the record, she was very happy in that area. As indicated with all the kids running around here. That wasn’t the only reason, though...”
“Oh, yeah? Then what was it?”
“What do you think? The mustache gets all the women.”
“You’re so nasty, Mr. Winner.”
As they laughed, Noin realized that her playful comments were turning flirtatious, and felt her face redden in embarrassment. It would just not due to develop some sort of cliche crush on the older man, especially when she was watching over his youngest child. That was so Lifetime...
She watched as Duo and Quatre began climbing the wooden fence, abandoning their glass jars on the grass. From across the street, Trowa watched them, chin propped in palms. Suppressing a shudder, Noin called for the boys to be careful.
110101010101100
That night, after his bath and a thorough brushing of teeth, Duo looked up from his comic book as Trowa walked into his room.
“Hey, older bro!” he said cheerfully, lowering the glossy book to his lap. Trowa glanced at him, then looked around his room. It was customarily messy–in one corner, there were a stack of comic books. In another was a stack of clothing that had completely missed the open hamper. He was sitting on his futon bed, the mattress still folded in couch form. Ahead of him was his television, where he’d lost interest in “Inuyasha” and had taken up his G.I.Joe. “Whatcha looking for?”
“Do you have my skateboard?”
“No...Um, I saw that in the garage. Where are you going?”
“Out.”
“But mom and dad said that we have to stay in, now. It’s past curfew to go outside...”
“They’re not my real parents,” Trowa said snidely, frowning at him as he looked at the futon. He dropped to his knees to peer underneath. “I don’t have to listen to what they say.”
With a severe frown, he withdrew his skateboard from underneath. There were taffy wrappers on top, and he brushed them off with a glower directed up at Duo.
“Oh, hey, how’d that get there?” Duo asked nervously, judging his older brother’s mood as he sat back on the futon. Sometimes, and only sometimes, did Trowa scare him with those looks of his. As all little kids could, he was able to sense danger and unease as his adopted brother straightened from the floor.
“Stop touching my things, you little homo freak! You do this shit again, and I’ll make you sorry for it, got it?”
“Okay...I’m sorry. I’m sorry I lied to you. But where are you going?”
“No where you’re allowed...”
“Can I come? Please? I’m not tired, yet!” Duo said, rising from his futon and racing after Trowa as the older boy left the room.
Trowa turned, and shoved Duo back toward his room. If Duo hadn’t caught onto the doorframe, he would have fallen hard on the uncarpeted floor. With a glare set in his direction, Trowa continued down the hall, ignoring his mother as she called out for him.
With a sad frown, Duo clung to the doorframe as he watched his brother walk out the door, slamming it shut. Moments later, their father was stalking outside after him.
As the yells began on the porch, he sighed, hanging his head. He wished that he knew what to do when it came to his older brother–he couldn’t hate him for being the way that he was. Duo was so positive that Trowa was the way he was because he didn’t want to get hurt. Because he was too shy and too scared to really let people in.
Which was why, no matter how mean or awful Trowa was to him, Duo could never hate him.
110101010101100
As Trowa took to the street, ignoring his father’s shouts from the front yard, he breathed a sense of relief. The skateboard’s wheels coasted nicely along the wide sidewalk. Using the common fluid movements needed to manipulate the board on wheels, he rounded the block corner and began making his way out of the neighborhood. He had twelve bucks in his pocket, and he was seriously craving a Big Mac with fries. His adopted parents forbade greasy fast food, following a plan that was healthy and boring for both his and Duo’s diets. He was tired of tofu and grilled chicken, and was looking for something that would seriously stick to his ribs.
As he made his way toward the more popular part of town, he heard the sound of a running vehicle behind him. He glanced over his shoulder to see if it were his father or mother coming after him. In that case, he was going to pick up his ‘board and make a run for it. They may have adopted him and took him in, but they weren’t his real parents. He didn’t have to do what they said.
But it wasn’t–this was a black Mercedes Benz, and the windows were darkly tinted, preventing him from looking inside. It was rolling to a stop beside him, so he stopped his skateboard and stared with a questioning expression at the car. The passenger side window rolled down via electronics, revealing a smiling man inside. Trowa couldn’t see him very well–the shadows obscured all that he could see of the man’s frame.
But because he was feeling rather mutinous, he ventured close to the car.
“Want a ride?” the man asked.
Trowa thought this sort of behavior would drive his adopted parents insane. And he knew he could handle himself. This man didn’t seem threatening at all. So, in his first chance of serious rebelliousness, he nodded and got in without a second thought.
110101010101100
His eyes snapped open. With a start, his vision adjusted to the darkness of the room. The soft glow of his nightlight from the far corner of his room made it easier for him to see the boy, glaring at him from the right side of his bed. His throat was slashed straight across, a gaping wound of flesh and trachea that reminded Quatre of a plastic hose. The eighties style mullet was dark, clotted with blood at the ratty ends. His green and blue shirt was also darkened with his own blood, casting even darker shapes against his slender frame. His face, which was stuck in a constant scowl, was shadowed from the glow of the nightlight. Quatre stared up at him, too afraid to move. Freddy was much too sensitive, sometimes. All it took was a single look to set off the older boy.
Then the boy stepped out of the glow, and Quatre couldn’t see him anymore.
The ghosts came and went–but they were always there. Freddy frequented his side mainly because he’d died in the meadow. His murder had never been solved. Quatre didn’t know this–he only knew Freddy disliked him intensely, and did all that he could to hurt him.
The small child gripped his blankets, and tried to sink deep within his bed, nestling with the comfort of his pillow. He couldn’t see Freddy anymore, but that didn’t mean he was gone.
Then–the smell of burnt material and flesh. The press of weight on his bed.
Maria was there, whispering in his ear, her Spanish accented voice whispering of something terribly wrong and terribly painful. He didn’t understand much of her words, but he knew on some level that Trowa had been hurt.
Quatre stared up at the ceiling, her dark hair caressing his face. The ragged ends of her ponytail made his skin crawl, and he tried not to sneeze. He stared up at the ceiling and then glanced away as Maria crawled off the bed. She, too, was gone. Staring around his silent room, he counted the seconds of silence, and heard the wail of sirens approaching their area. Turning in his bed, hiding his face in case Freddy came back, Quatre listened to the sirens and hoped that Trowa was okay.
No Pairings–for now.
Stand Disclaimers Apply:I do not own Gundam Wing. There.
Um...rated ‘R’?
110101010101100 = means scene change
Italics means first person point of view. In this case, Quat’s (yay! My favorite torture victim!) Or, thoughts.
The song’s So Like A Rose, by Garbage
The Beauty and the Beast (Part One)
Sometimes, when they think I don’t notice, they stare at me. I can feel their eyes on me. It doesn’t make me feel good when they do. I can hear them talking. They get so loud. I wish they wouldn’t. I wish they would just leave me alone. Sometimes, they talk to me. But I don’t feel good when they do. Some of them make me cry. Most of them aren’t happy. I wish I could make them happy.
But I don’t know how.
----Baby thinks he’s dying
Lost inside his bedroom
Mommy won’t stop crying
And Daddy’s always working----
Lucrezia Noin peered over the bowed blond head, looking curiously at the crayon drawing that was being lavished on the recycled paper. She was a little puzzled at the drawing of a dark haired girl, with a sad face, sitting in the middle of red and green. She’d seen many weird kiddie drawings at her age, but this one was one of the weirdest. Being a baby-sitter to one of the strangest kids she knew certainly had its moments. It was her third time babysitting six year old Quatre Winner, and he’d already proved to be someone to keep an eye on at all times.
At first, she suspected autism. Then an early stage of schizophrenia. She wasn’t familiar with mental illnesses, but she was sure this kid had them all. The rest of his family was normal...why was this one so... off?
“What’s that, Quatre? Is that one of your sisters?” she asked, frowning as she tried to find resemblance to one of the many blonds that occupied the house.
The six year old shook his head. “No. Her name’s Maria. I don’t know her.”
Noin blinked, frowning as he added black to the picture. Something in her gut curdled with a sense of revulsion as she watched tiny hands manipulate the crayon. The girl, sad as she was, was sitting in green–but covered in red. The black was now being applied to various areas of her stick body and odd dress.
----There’s no going back
There’s no going back
There’s no going back
On this one----
God...this kid’s such a nutjob, she thought. She tried for an expression of interest, leaning onto the table so that his head brushed against her chin. She had come to find out that he liked contact with others. He smelled like all little kids did–of dirt and sweat, of baby lotion and sugar. His soft, bright white hair tickled the sensitive skin of her chin. Despite his odd tendencies, he was still just a kid. She couldn’t help but press a kiss on the nearly colorless strands.
“Now what’s going on with her? Why is she sad?”
“She’s sad because she can’t see her mommy,” he replied, his childish voice serious and heavy. “She tries to talk to her, but her mommy can never see her.”
Noin withdrew with a puzzled frown. His father had mentioned that he loved telling stories. She’d heard a few from him; they were just so strange. “Why? Is this a story of yours?”
“I don’t know how to tell stories.”
“Then...then why can’t...Maria talk to her moth–mommy? Why is she...like that?”
“Oh. Maria said that she died in a car accident. She got burned up.”
Noin stiffened, staring at the drawing with some horror. She couldn’t move.
Oh, c’mon! Her thoughts assailed her. Kids these days watch the sickest shit on tv! He must have gotten it from some stupid Japanese cartoon...
“That’s...er...”
“She said her daddy smelled funny. And he talked funny. And he couldn’t drive. She said that he wouldn’t let her put on a seatbelt. Daddy always makes me sit in a seatbelt. But she didn’t. And she died. She said it hurt. It still hurts.”
The black crayon covered most of Maria’s sad face. It covered most of her stick arms, and discolored her triangle dress.
----Baby wakes up with the sun
While everyone is sleeping
He thinks he’s going crazy
This could be the big one----
Noin felt sick as she stared at the drawing. Feeling an overwhelming sense of unease, she reached around him and withdrew the drawing. He looked up in surprise, frowning as she wadded it.
“Your daddy’s going to have a shitfit–er, I mean, going to be angry if he sees another one of these, kid,” she admonished. Her fingers seemed to burn with just touching the thing. It caused her to shiver forcefully. For a split second, she thought she could smell something burning.
She then tore the thing to shreds, trembling. “Let me make you a PB and J. Extra peanut butter, no crust, right?”
----Sleeping with ghosts
It’s such a lonely experience
The stars are out tonight
Only they can hear you breathing----
Fiddling with his crayon, Quatre frowned. Noin threw the shredded piece of ‘art’ into the trash, and smiled brilliantly at him.
He directed a frown up at her, young face shadowed. Tilting his head to the right, Noin stared down at him. It seemed odd, but it was as if he were listening to something. This made the hairs on her arms stand up on end. For her flesh to prickle with raised bumps. Her blue eyes scanned the room, taking in the sunny disposition of the modern and almost bare kitchen. The maid, Estella, had done wonders in cleaning up Noin’s attempt at making breakfast.
Then Quatre looked at her. “Maria says that you should not like your boyfriend. He isn’t good.”
Noin stiffened once more, staring down at him. the blond child slipped off his chair and scurried off with a nonchalant hum.
----You’re so like a rose
I wish you could stay here----
God...if I didn’t need the extra money...she trailed off, shaking her head.
110101010101100
One year later~
Quatre stared at the silent form. There was a continuous creaking noise that was created from the rope rubbing on bark. The soft whisper of the afternoon wind caused the lush grass to rustle, for the brush to catch on the breeze. There were smells that made him wince, but the face he stared at was much more distracting.
It was an accident, the swollen lips whispered. They’d never call him names again. It was an accident...It wasn’t my fault. A man made me do it...
The huge oak tree was a play thing for all the kids in the neighborhood–it held the remnants of a tree house project, and some streams of rope that hung randomly from the lowest branches. Next to it was a steep bank that rolled down to an ankle-deep stream. Some of the kids knew not to use the rope to launch themselves into the stream, but there was always an adventuresome kid that attempted to cross it with the use of the rope.
But this didn’t look like one of those times.
He heard Noin calling for him, the young woman’s voice filled with impatience and annoyance, but he was held spellbound by the figure before him. Fiddling with his walking stick, he took a couple of steps back. The smell was suddenly stronger.
“Quatre, damn it, I told you not to run off when I use the bathr–EEE-ARGGH!” Noin ended in a shriek, eyes widening with horror, hands flapping up to her face.
She stared in disbelieving silence at the kid that hung from the branch, a rope coiled around his neck. His face wasn’t recognizable–heat and the pressure of the rope had caused the skin to become purple and distended. The eyes were so swollen that they were puffy slits of flesh. The lips were malformed, jutting outward in darkened color. The rope around his neck was overlapped by the swollen flesh of his throat. Dried feces clung to pale legs; pee had plastered shorts to his crotch.
Visible skin from the elbows down were distended, deeply colored from the settling of the body’s blood in the extended regions. Dead bodies, as depicted in movies, were supposed to be clean and pretty. This corpse was not pretty–it was not clean. For a few seconds, she wasn’t sure if she were actually looking at one. Her sheltered mind refused to accept that this was a dead body. She wanted to think that she was looking at some sort of cruel toy that the neighborhood kids had concocted to terrorize her young charge.
She was nearly hyperventilating. She caught the smells–the hideous smells of death and rot. Staring for a minute more, she faintly registered that this kid was part of a group that commonly teased her charge for being so weird.
She looked at Quatre in numb shock; he merely studied the boy the same way one would study a piece of art on the way. Critiquing, casual, contemplative–there were no signs of horror or revulsion here. As if he saw this stuff everyday.
When he noticed her looking at him, he shrugged, and poked the dirt with his stick.
“He said it was an accident,” he explained, as if that would take away all her horror and shock of finding a dead kid. “A man made him do it.”
Noin looked back at the body, at the dried release of body substances; at the discolored regions. She took in the deformed head; the fat, swollen fingers. She felt the need to throw up. When she closed her eyes, she could still see the kid hanging there...swinging from that rope around his neck. Her hands were shaking as she reached out, gripping Quatre’s multi-colored shirt. Dragging him off behind her, she found herself weeping and wheezing at the same time.
110101010101100
“...dead. No, I don’t know who it was. The police are investigating right now,” Noin was saying to her panic-stricken mother.
By now, the entire neighborhood knew of the dead kid, and Noin had received calls from all of her friends, relatives, and co-workers from Sear’s. Her mother had just found out from the news program she listened to.
Noin adjusted her position, looking around the corner to see that the kid, his father, and a detective were still in the kitchen. Mr. Winner was talking quietly to his son, who answered in his odd way; the fuzz was taking notes on a small notepad. When the boy had mentioned what his invisible friend had told him, she had seen the glances exchanged between father and the law.
He makes up stories frequently, Mr. Winner’s sheepish expression said.
My kid does the same thing, the detective’s replied.
The stories of a seven year old weren’t taken very seriously when invisible friends were involved. Especially in this case.
She noted the crayons and paper that were being manipulated, and shivered at the thought of witnessing another gruesome scene from the imagination of that kid.
She then frowned at the words spoken over the phone. When she spoke, she kept her voice low, so that no one could hear her. “No. No, mom, everything’s fine...I mean, as much as they could be. Yes, the kid’s still weird...no. NO. He may be weird, but the little guy’s just–you can’t say that sort of shi–stuff, mom! There’s no way in hell this kid’s some kid of murderer!! Yes, I’ve seen ‘The Good Son”, and he–MOM! Just because he and that Culkin kid are both BLOND doesn’t mean that–no, I’m hanging up. See ya.”
Noin replaced the phone back on the receiver, her mother’s frantic words cut off abruptly. She ventured around the doorway, seeing all three males look in her direction. Self-consciously, she swiped her dark hair from her face and looked down at Quatre’s drawing.
This picture wasn’t of the dead kid–but a semi-normal scene of a boy on a bicycle; there were smiles and happy depictions of the sun and flowers. It sent a wave of relief through her until she realized that he was adding a dog to the scene; his jaws dripped red coloring, and his eyes, even through the scrawl was depicted from a seven year old, was menacing.
Mr. Winner saw this as well, and gently removed the drawing before the fuzz could see it. Carefully folding it, he shot Noin a look that she understood well, and began talking to the police officer. Quatre looked annoyed as he fiddled with his crayons, exhaling in an annoyed way. He left his chair and ventured over to the fridge. Figuring that she was still on duty as baby-sitter, Noin walked over as he opened the fridge, and withdrew a can of Mountain Dew. She took the can and replaced it with a Capri-Sun.
“I don’t want juice. I want pop,” he said in an annoyed way.
Noin wondered how this kid, who’d just seen a dead playmate, could still behave so normal. She wanted to throw up. She could still see that dead kid behind her closed lids whenever she blinked.
“No pop,” she admonished. “You’ll be bouncing off the walls at bedtime.”
“Dad always lets me have pop.”
“No pop. Here...grape or cherry?”
“That one.”
“No pop!”
“Uh! Dad will let me have it! You might as well as give it to me now! It’ll save yourself some trouble!”
“Well, he’s busy right now, so I’m still in charge. Here. You can have this and you can have...this,” she withdrew some Hersey’s Kisses from Iria’s ‘hidden’ stash behind the mayonnaise jar,“but this is if you take a Capri-Sun.”
“You must think I’m dumb, don’t you, Miss Noin?”
“Don’t–Argh, kid, I told you not to call me that! It sounds like you’re talking to my mother!” she grumbled, directing him away from the fridge. She crammed the Kisses into his hand and forcefully stabbed the straw into the packet of juice. “Go watch your Power Puff Girls, or Dexter, or whatever the hell it is you watch...”
“I don’t watch girl cartoons!”
The little boy grumbled things she couldn’t hear as he took the juice and sullenly walked out from the kitchen. Noin watched with a sense of humor as she crossed her arms over her stomach, and looked over at the two men. The cop was wrapping up his conversation, and Mr. Winner looked tired, so she followed after her charge.
The clock on the hallway wall read 6:05 p.m....normally, he let her go when the eldest sister came home from summer school, but Iria had called an hour earlier and said that she had to stay after due to detention. The other five were at various friends’ house–summer was meant for kids to have as much fun as they could before hiding back into school. But then again, this meant that the littlest one was without a baby-sitter while the father was at work.
Many adults had taken much effort to invent excuses as to why Quatre couldn’t stay with them–and kids his own age were repulsed by his oddness. His own sisters, eager to impress their peers and easily embarrassed by little, inconsequential things, did all that they could to escape baby-sitting him.
He was really an enjoyable, smart, talented little kid–just...odd. And extremely morbid.
Noin had gotten used to his ‘conversations’ with ghosts, and with the pictures. She’d looked beyond all that to see the kid as he really was, and enjoyed working with him. His father was extremely grateful for that–he paid her an astonishing amount to keep her with them. With the pay, she didn’t have to work full-time to help her mother out with the bills. Her part time job at Sear’s gave her simple spending money for clothes and other instances. Because of this generous desperation, Noin was pretty well off.
But back to the present---Noin did not mind the change in schedule–she really liked the Winners, and often stayed over longer than she had to.
It was just that today’s situation was more than unnerving, and she was unsettled by it. It wasn’t everyday that she saw some kid’s dead body hanging from a tree. With a low and tired sigh, she rubbed the back of her neck and joined her charge on the couch, where she watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the rest of the hour.
110101010101100
Sometimes, at night, they come into my room when I sleep. I’m not afraid when they do. They’re just lonely. They know I can hear them. They come in and talk to me, but sometimes, I get into trouble because dad hears me talking and comes in to growl at me. He’s tired, too, but he doesn’t listen to me when I try and tell him why I’m talking. He thinks it’s just another one of my ‘stories’. I don’t have stories to tell. I am just not good at them. But he doesn’t believe me.
One of them is named Freddy. He’s older than me. He’s meaner than the others. He’s always angry. He likes to make me cry. I don’t know why he’s so mean... maybe it just has to do with that hole in his throat–he says he can’t breathe good, and he gets so mad when I don’t do what he says. Sometimes, after he visits, I hide under the bed. Mostly because it feels like he’s waiting for me to come out of my room. Dad doesn’t believe me when I tell him this. No one does.
“Fifth Victim Found On Highway 190,” the headline read. The newspaper, sitting in disarray on the kitchen table, depicted what was the latest in the string of murders throughout the city. A serial killer was on the loose, prowling their nearby city with his menacing motives. But while all his victims came from the city and beyond, with only two bodies found in this general direction, the occupants of this suburban tranquility had no fear of the killer.
The death of the child had ran as an accident on page three. The parents were inconsolable. The tree was scheduled to be torn down later this week.
Noin looked up from her Vogue. The Winners had new neighbors. Noin stared across the street at the moving van and the snazzy Lincoln Navigator. Quatre was chasing after a lizard that eluded him from within the rose bush, and wasn’t interested in the activities across the street. Noin watched as a couple of kids emerged from the Navigator, along with two adults. One of the kids were Quatre’s age, and he was looking over the area with interest. The other kid was about fifteen, and was sullenly arguing with his father.
It was a lazy summer day, and despite the cool clothing she wore, and for the fact that she was sitting on the outside porch, Noin swore that she was melting. Brushing her short hair from her face, she stared at the activities across the street. The movers were already hauling expensive pieces of furniture from the van and moving them inside–the mother was directing them. The father was yelling at the teen; the teen was giving that hunched-shoulders, blank stare expression; the littlest one was looking around himself.
“Freddy! Stop it!” she heard Quatre yell angrily, throwing rocks at something beyond her sight. She rolled her eyes.
Freddy, Freddy, Freddy...this invisible friend was responsible for much of the broken objects in the house, and for the terrorizing of smaller animals. She’d learned that a few of his invisible friends had quite the intriguing personalities. Maria visited continually; Freddy terrorized; Marcus cried; Abigail laughed; Dillon negotiated. Noin had long since tolerated these ‘friends’ of Quatre’s for the sake of keeping herself sane.
She heard the startled yowl of a cat, and shifted in her seat to see a black cat streaking up and over the wooden fence, thoroughly terrorized.
“Stop throwing rocks at animals, kid,” she ordered, resettling in her seat.
“But–! Freddy–!”
“I don’t want to hear about Freddy! Stop throwing rocks. Look for that lizard.”
Quatre muttered something she didn’t hear, but admonished Freddy one more time before crawling under the rose bush. Noin lifted her eyes to see the blue-belly lizard, about half the size of her hand, skitter up the wooden fence and disappear. She smiled–kids lead such simple lives...
Looking up again, she saw that the kid from across the street had taken notice of Quatre, and was pointing in their direction. The father looked too hassled to deny his youngest, and waved him off. The mother was gone.
So, Noin watched the little kid check both ends of the street before running over. She lowered her magazine to her lap, picking at her nails. From what she could see, he was a little on the thin side, with gangly arms and stick legs. He was pale in a way that suggested many hours indoors, and had a very long braid that dangled carelessly from the back of his head. He had large eyes that held a light color, and a quick, ready to smile mouth. He was dressed all in black–black Yu-Gi-Oh shirt, black swimming trunks, black Nikes...he was already flushed with heat as he climbed the sidewalk and the small, thigh high fence that bordered Mr. Winner’s front yard.
“Hi!” he said to her, waving. Quatre crawled out from underneath the rose bush, and gave him an uncertain stare as the new kid walked over to him. “Hi! Hey, what are you doing? Are you looking for lizards? Can I help? I really like lizards!! Sometimes, I let them bite me. Hey, what’s your name? My name’s Duo!”
Noin chuckled at the manic, word a minute way of speaking the kid had. She flipped through her magazine, then looked back at the kids. She felt a little wary as she watched Duo pull out some things from his pockets, showing the mute blond what he had. Offerings were made in forms of taffys and gum, and she still didn’t relax as Quatre took them, and introduced himself. He appeared normal when meeting others for the first time–but once he started talking about his ‘friends’; that’s when the kids started in on the names and blank stares.
Chewing anxiously at her nail, she watched as Duo then looked off to the side with a surprise rise of his eyes. Both boys stared off to the side of the house, at a point Noin couldn’t see. Frowning, she shifted in her seat again, wondering what they were looking at. Then, Duo looked at Quatre with a curious expression.
“Who’s that guy? Hey, who’s that guy?”
What guy?! Noin rose from her chair, and crossed the porch, leaning over the simple railing to look around the house. All she saw were flowerbeds and more rose bushes. There was a wooden gate that was locked from the inside that led to the back–the side fence was seven feet high.
She felt prickles run up and down her skin when she heard Quatre answer, “That’s Freddy. He’s really mean. You...you can see him?”
“Yeah. Freddy? Why’s he mean? Hey, why’s he mean? What’s wrong with his throat?”
Noin slowly receded from the railing, and looked at the kid in black. The hairs on the back of her neck rose suddenly. Chills raced up and down her skin, despite the heat. She looked back at the kids, and saw Quatre looking at Duo with a sense of surprise.
“You...you see Freddy?” he asked.
“Yeah! What’s wrong with his throat? One time, when we were living in Virginia, my dad ran over this dog, and it looked like that. It was all nasty. I poked it with a stick, and it moved. It was still alive. But you could see its insides. It was cool.”
“Freddy said that a man cut him. But that was way before I was born. You can see him? For real?”
“For real. Hey, look! It must have climbed over the fence! I’ll go that way, and you stay over here, okay? I’ll chase it over to you. You’re not scared of it, are you?”
“What? No! No, I’m not scared of it!”
“Here, use this. Sometimes they like candy. It tricks them. Get it all sticky. Maybe it’ll get stuck on it like on the cartoons!” Duo said with a laugh, holding out his chewed gum.
Quatre gave him a puzzled expression, but took it. The new kid raced over the small fence and raced over to the neighbor’s lawn.
Noin moved away from the porch railing, and stared at her young charge. What she didn’t know, was that Quatre had just met a young boy that could see exactly what the blond could. She also didn’t know that with the arrival of the Winners’ new neighbors was the start of a summer of horror.
110101010101100
Duo sees what I can. He’s my age. He’s also HIV positive. He told me that he has to take medication to keep himself from getting sick. His parents don’t want him to go to public schools, because a lot of adults think that he is dirty and nasty. I don’t think he is. He is a good friend. He doesn’t make fun of me. And he sees all my friends. He even helps me yell at Freddy when he gets mean. I like Duo, because he likes what I do. His parents don’t let him go out very often, though. When they met dad and Miss Noin, they were very clear in explaining that he can’t do a lot of things that will make him get hurt. Sometimes, they let Duo spend the day with me. Miss Noin likes Duo, and doesn’t mind that she’s watching over both of us. I think she’s happy because she gets paid a lot. She tells her friends that she plans on moving to Hollywood with what she’s getting. I don’t know what she means by that, but she’s happy about it.
Duo has an older brother–his name’s Trowa. Trowa’s adopted. So is Duo, because his mom and dad can’t have kids of their own. But Trowa’s mean–he’s like Freddy. I don’t like Trowa so much. Sometimes, when it’s just us, he pokes at my hair and tries to trip me, or he spits into my pop and takes it from me. But Duo loves him–he just says that Trowa’s ‘troubled’----which was something he heard from his mom and dad one day. I don’t know what that means–but I don’t like him.
“...see?! See?! Use this to get your guy all powered up!” Duo was saying, showing Quatre how to play Super Smash Bros.
Quatre was having fun playing with Link–he knew how to make the bombs and make the boomerang work in his favor. Duo played Yoshi, and often made commentary with his character. Both boys were laughing as they played against each other.
Noin was talking on her cell with her friend, Chrissie. Slaving over the stove for their lunch, she kept an eye on them as she worked the Ramen. So far, both kids had stayed out of trouble. But this was only eleven-thirty.
“Ah, man! I keep doing that!” Duo laughed, tossing his arms up into the air.
“Oh, look! Look! I did it! I got the wand!”
“I’m going to get you! Look at me! Look at me! Here I come!! ROAR!! I’m HUNGRY for green guys!”
“Aiiiee! Don’t eat me! Stop eating me, Duo! STOP! Take that! Eat laser!”
“I call no guns! I call no guns!”
“Stop EATING me!! QUIT IT!!”
“Hey, you two, settle down!” Noin ordered, stirring the noodles. She heard the front door open and shut, and peered curiously into the living room. It was that boy–the oldest Maxwell, Trowa. For some reason, the kid gave her the creeps. It was probably the indifference in his face, or the cold look in his eyes. Whatever, Noin felt very uncomfortable being around him. She didn’t like the way he looked at the two boys–she felt that he were plotting some evil, nasty scheme against them. His mother had mentioned that he was currently being medicated for being manic-depressive.
“Duo, mom says you have to come home, now,” he said. He was only fifteen–but his voice was deep, like a man’s. Noin shivered again and whispered to Chrissie about his arrival.
“Wait. I’m almost done. Five more minutes.”
“No, now.”
“Hold on!”
Noin suddenly heard twin protests, and glanced into the living room again. Trowa had just switched off the game console, and was giving Duo a dirty look.
The braided boy rose from the couch. “See ya later, kitty! Wanna go catch fireflies tonight?”
“Okay.”
As the two boys left the house, Noin hung up with Chrissie, and walked into the living room. She looked down at Quatre, who was frowning at the blank tv screen, remote still in his hands. He looked up at her with a frown.
“Maria says that Trowa’s a bad person,” he said on a sigh, shrugging his shoulders. “But Duo says that he can be nice when he wants to be.”
“Either way, I think I agree with Maria,” Noin said, sitting on the couch beside him. She touched the Elmo band-aid that was visible on his left knee. “What happened here?”
“Trowa tripped me.”
“Why’d he do that?”
“Because. He’s mean. He doesn’t like me.”
“Why?”
“Because. He says I’m strange.”
“Duo’s just like you,” she reminded him, tweaking his nose.
“I like Duo. Duo’s my best friend. He’s never mean to me.”
Noin sighed, embracing him fondly. “That’s the kind of friends a guy should have, little man. Now, get up and get on to the kitchen table. Food’s ready.”
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That night, Mr. Winner and Noin stood out on the front porch and watched the two boys race around the front yard. They were catching firebugs within glass jars. Noin smiled as Duo caught a bug, inadvertently smashing it between his hands. As the boys uttered drawn-out ‘ews’, movement across the street caught her eye. That boy, Trowa, had just emerged from his house, and was sitting on the steps on the front porch. He glared across the street, ignoring his father’s shouts from within.
“I’m sorry to say, but that boy makes me wary,” Mr. Winner said, frowning in Trowa’s direction. Noin glanced up at him, then looked back at Trowa.
She nodded silently, recalling the way his voice grew so cold whenever he had to talk to the two younger kids.
“His mother mentioned that he’s manic-depressive,” she said, frowning thoughtfully. “Duo told me that he takes medication to keep his moods under control.”
“They’re both adopted?”
“Yes.” Noin chuckled lightly, shifting her stance. If she stood a certain way, she could smell the Turkish spices of his cigarettes and the pleasant strength of his cologne. “Duo told me everything about that subject.”
“He sure talks a lot, doesn’t he? He’s a good kid...he and my son have a lot in common.”
“Too much, sometimes. They have invisible friends together.”
“‘Invisible friends’? Well...I’m sure they’re grow out of it...eventually...”
Noin smiled, then elbowed him companionably. “Says you, you bachelor. What was this about meeting a ‘client’ for work last Tuesday? My connections let me on a secret–you hid yourself away from the world at McGee’s downtown...I didn’t know lawyers met clients at bars...”
“So, what are you saying? That I’m making things up? A man likes to relax after a hard day’s work.”
“I’m just saying, like father, like son.”
Mr. Winner just chuckled. “There’s no way my son got so strange from my end.”
“That’s what all the men say. It’s always the women’s fault for being so perfect. Chauvinistic bastard.”
“Me? Blame his mother? No...never. She did everything right.”
“You loved her a lot, huh? I mean, I bet you were one of those romantics that we see on tv, in those Helzberg Diamonds commercials.”
“I took out many a loan for that woman. But it wasn’t jewelry and chocolates that she was attracted to...”
Noin rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t even go there, Mr. Winner, you sick bastard. I do NOT want to know about how happy you made her in bed.”
He laughed. “Noin, you have an overactive imagination.”
“Did you just insult yourself, sir?”
“No–no, wait a minute. For the record, she was very happy in that area. As indicated with all the kids running around here. That wasn’t the only reason, though...”
“Oh, yeah? Then what was it?”
“What do you think? The mustache gets all the women.”
“You’re so nasty, Mr. Winner.”
As they laughed, Noin realized that her playful comments were turning flirtatious, and felt her face redden in embarrassment. It would just not due to develop some sort of cliche crush on the older man, especially when she was watching over his youngest child. That was so Lifetime...
She watched as Duo and Quatre began climbing the wooden fence, abandoning their glass jars on the grass. From across the street, Trowa watched them, chin propped in palms. Suppressing a shudder, Noin called for the boys to be careful.
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That night, after his bath and a thorough brushing of teeth, Duo looked up from his comic book as Trowa walked into his room.
“Hey, older bro!” he said cheerfully, lowering the glossy book to his lap. Trowa glanced at him, then looked around his room. It was customarily messy–in one corner, there were a stack of comic books. In another was a stack of clothing that had completely missed the open hamper. He was sitting on his futon bed, the mattress still folded in couch form. Ahead of him was his television, where he’d lost interest in “Inuyasha” and had taken up his G.I.Joe. “Whatcha looking for?”
“Do you have my skateboard?”
“No...Um, I saw that in the garage. Where are you going?”
“Out.”
“But mom and dad said that we have to stay in, now. It’s past curfew to go outside...”
“They’re not my real parents,” Trowa said snidely, frowning at him as he looked at the futon. He dropped to his knees to peer underneath. “I don’t have to listen to what they say.”
With a severe frown, he withdrew his skateboard from underneath. There were taffy wrappers on top, and he brushed them off with a glower directed up at Duo.
“Oh, hey, how’d that get there?” Duo asked nervously, judging his older brother’s mood as he sat back on the futon. Sometimes, and only sometimes, did Trowa scare him with those looks of his. As all little kids could, he was able to sense danger and unease as his adopted brother straightened from the floor.
“Stop touching my things, you little homo freak! You do this shit again, and I’ll make you sorry for it, got it?”
“Okay...I’m sorry. I’m sorry I lied to you. But where are you going?”
“No where you’re allowed...”
“Can I come? Please? I’m not tired, yet!” Duo said, rising from his futon and racing after Trowa as the older boy left the room.
Trowa turned, and shoved Duo back toward his room. If Duo hadn’t caught onto the doorframe, he would have fallen hard on the uncarpeted floor. With a glare set in his direction, Trowa continued down the hall, ignoring his mother as she called out for him.
With a sad frown, Duo clung to the doorframe as he watched his brother walk out the door, slamming it shut. Moments later, their father was stalking outside after him.
As the yells began on the porch, he sighed, hanging his head. He wished that he knew what to do when it came to his older brother–he couldn’t hate him for being the way that he was. Duo was so positive that Trowa was the way he was because he didn’t want to get hurt. Because he was too shy and too scared to really let people in.
Which was why, no matter how mean or awful Trowa was to him, Duo could never hate him.
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As Trowa took to the street, ignoring his father’s shouts from the front yard, he breathed a sense of relief. The skateboard’s wheels coasted nicely along the wide sidewalk. Using the common fluid movements needed to manipulate the board on wheels, he rounded the block corner and began making his way out of the neighborhood. He had twelve bucks in his pocket, and he was seriously craving a Big Mac with fries. His adopted parents forbade greasy fast food, following a plan that was healthy and boring for both his and Duo’s diets. He was tired of tofu and grilled chicken, and was looking for something that would seriously stick to his ribs.
As he made his way toward the more popular part of town, he heard the sound of a running vehicle behind him. He glanced over his shoulder to see if it were his father or mother coming after him. In that case, he was going to pick up his ‘board and make a run for it. They may have adopted him and took him in, but they weren’t his real parents. He didn’t have to do what they said.
But it wasn’t–this was a black Mercedes Benz, and the windows were darkly tinted, preventing him from looking inside. It was rolling to a stop beside him, so he stopped his skateboard and stared with a questioning expression at the car. The passenger side window rolled down via electronics, revealing a smiling man inside. Trowa couldn’t see him very well–the shadows obscured all that he could see of the man’s frame.
But because he was feeling rather mutinous, he ventured close to the car.
“Want a ride?” the man asked.
Trowa thought this sort of behavior would drive his adopted parents insane. And he knew he could handle himself. This man didn’t seem threatening at all. So, in his first chance of serious rebelliousness, he nodded and got in without a second thought.
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His eyes snapped open. With a start, his vision adjusted to the darkness of the room. The soft glow of his nightlight from the far corner of his room made it easier for him to see the boy, glaring at him from the right side of his bed. His throat was slashed straight across, a gaping wound of flesh and trachea that reminded Quatre of a plastic hose. The eighties style mullet was dark, clotted with blood at the ratty ends. His green and blue shirt was also darkened with his own blood, casting even darker shapes against his slender frame. His face, which was stuck in a constant scowl, was shadowed from the glow of the nightlight. Quatre stared up at him, too afraid to move. Freddy was much too sensitive, sometimes. All it took was a single look to set off the older boy.
Then the boy stepped out of the glow, and Quatre couldn’t see him anymore.
The ghosts came and went–but they were always there. Freddy frequented his side mainly because he’d died in the meadow. His murder had never been solved. Quatre didn’t know this–he only knew Freddy disliked him intensely, and did all that he could to hurt him.
The small child gripped his blankets, and tried to sink deep within his bed, nestling with the comfort of his pillow. He couldn’t see Freddy anymore, but that didn’t mean he was gone.
Then–the smell of burnt material and flesh. The press of weight on his bed.
Maria was there, whispering in his ear, her Spanish accented voice whispering of something terribly wrong and terribly painful. He didn’t understand much of her words, but he knew on some level that Trowa had been hurt.
Quatre stared up at the ceiling, her dark hair caressing his face. The ragged ends of her ponytail made his skin crawl, and he tried not to sneeze. He stared up at the ceiling and then glanced away as Maria crawled off the bed. She, too, was gone. Staring around his silent room, he counted the seconds of silence, and heard the wail of sirens approaching their area. Turning in his bed, hiding his face in case Freddy came back, Quatre listened to the sirens and hoped that Trowa was okay.