Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Blue Eyed Angel ❯ Passion and Possession ( Chapter 4 )

Chapter 4

Quatre stayed in "The House" for about six hours trying to rest and gain control of his emotions. He didn't sleep. How could he sleep?

Treize kept coming in the room to check up on him. He stayed up all night as well. Quatre wondered if the man ever sleeps.

Once Treize came in and brushed his hand over Quatre's cheek. The child wasn't expecting it and flinched and reburied his orange cotton head and pink face back in the blankets. He did his best not to look at him.

He wanted out of this life. He was never coming back to this place. He needed to pull himself together and back to the real world. He couldn't handle a life like this.
He was tired and his legs were mushy and shaky but he tried to stand. He hurt everywhere when he tried to stand. He wobbled about trying to get dressed.

Treize was doing another check up just when Quatre had all his clothes on. "Are you getting ready to leave? Already?" He seemed disappointed. "It's the weekend, we're pouring with customers. Our usual bums get mixed with the guys that actually work for a living. You could make a fortune on your first day."

"I don't want customers," Quatre spoke to the floor. His voice was as frightened as he felt and reflected the fact that he was broken.

"Well, okay… do you need a ride?" Trieze was much calmer now that he tasted power.

He didn't want Trieze to know where he lived. "No, I'm taking the bus," he tried to half limp with his head bowed out of the room.

"No, please! I insist," Trieze followed him.

He was light and happy while Quatre felt heavy and sick. He wanted to attach large metal weights to Trieze's heart and slow him down. He wanted to put his pain on Trieze but than abandoned his thoughts because it felt like Trieze could hear them.

"No… it's okay," he sounded so weak. "I can handle it myself." He sounded so helpless.

Trieze wouldn't hear it. He dragged Quatre out past the main room with its screaming guest and aggravatingly loud music.

Treize rested his coat around Quatre's shoulders as he showed him away to the secret garage. Quatre didn't remove it because he feared Trieze's reaction.

***

"Stop here," Trieze dropped him off on a front porch that was at least three blocks away from his real house.

"Oh this one?" Trieze's heart filled with excitement now that he heard his new lover's voice again even though his question was ignored. "It's very nice."

Quatre nodded and without glancing once at him he stepped out of the car and stumbled into the yard. Treize opened his door a bit. "Do you need help?"

Quatre shook his head wanting him to leave quickly so he could go to his real home. He could see his sisters through the gates of the neighbour's yards. They were playing out in the road. They must have been bored all day because without permission to do anything but eat and watch T.V. "No, I'm fine…"

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah…" he said weakly.

"Okay," but he didn't stop watching him.

They stared at each other for a while. Quatre wanted him to leave. Treize wanted watch him. "I'll be fine…" Quatre spoke firmly. "REALLY."

Treize finally left but not before blowing Quatre boy a kiss. Quatre became worried. Treize thought they were dating, which meant he was getting possessive over him.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Days went by, almost a week then two weeks. Quatre was having such a hard time finding someone who would hire a kid 1-year underage of the working age limit. Even when he lied about his age he was in need of an ID, one that would lie with him.

He would pace the house in thoughts while Rue was off at someone's house, always staying the night with some friend. `I swear she doesn't even need a house!' But when she was home she had to take care of Pearl while he went out job hunting.

They only had to go with out water for one day before the bill came through. The only thing they drank now was bottled water from the seven-eleven that they bought to supply them for their inconvenience. Now, they would fill a bottle up when it was empty with sink water and leave it in the fridge to cool. Quatre enforced the rules of turning the faucet off while they brushed their teeth or scrubbed the dishes and take short showers hoping to lower the expense on the next bill as much as possible.

The groceries were running low. Once he had to ask his teacher for bus fare. She gave him the money but asked why. He simply said that he forgot his change at home and told he would pay her back. He had to borrow money from Rue to pay her back. The twenty-eight extra dollars from Treize was not helping them much.
He was at the end of his rope and thought several times he should go back to "The House" and beg Treize for charity. But then his conscience told him otherwise.

He hated this helplessness of his. He couldn't stand how pathetic he was. He was disgusted with himself. While he was walking home one day he thought about how he related an injured rabbit. Treize had cut his balance from under him and now he was just waiting for a lion to break out of the zoo and take him down. `At least that would be safer,' he thought to himself with life at The House in mind. He broke the silence around him with laughter finding the thought of a lion leaping out of nowhere and attacking someone sadistically humorous. He surprised Pearl and Rue who could not see his thoughts and did not know what on earth he was laughing at.

"You are the weirdest person I know," Rue told him once. "You smile when you hear a sad song. You start crying when you watch a funny movie. And you laugh just for no reason at all. Do you even pay any attention to the things that happen around you because you seem so unaffected by it?"

"Reading makes you smart," Quatre mocked the way she sounded like a psychiatrist by speaking like a moron. He meant to make her laugh but he only made her angry.

He thought about what she said. It was true. He was unaffected by the things that happened around him. He did cry once during the most humorous scene of a funny movie because his attention had trailed away to the saddest part of the novel he read at school. Even in the dark with roaring speakers and a screen bigger than his bedroom he still lost track. He thought maybe this was a sign of some sort of weakness. If he couldn't watch the events around him he would miss out on something important. He just knew that he trained himself to think this way. He trained himself to ignore the kids at school and now was unaffected by just about everything around him. His mind wouldn't loose focus to the world around him.

He got an unexpected visit from Ms. Po on during the past two weeks. Rue had to throw out her little white lies such as "He never leaves me home alone" or "I'm not aloud to drink coke after seven p.m." Quatre was thankful that his sisters felt the same way he did about going to an orphanage.

"Thank you," Ms. Po wrote down all the information on her clipboard with a smile. "Just one more question before I leave."

"Okay. Shoot."

"Do you have an occupation yet?"

He hesitated trying to think. He was taken back in surprise believing that it was too late and he missed the real date he was expected to have an occupation. He wanted to tell her he did but that would mean he'd have to get one tomorrow or tell the truth maybe they won't take his sisters away just yet.

"You don't have to have one yet," Ms. Po added. "I just thought I'd check on you."

"No," he confessed. "I don't."

"Well, We at The Clinic for Child Development would like you understand that you do have until the sixteenth of October to come up with one," she spoke with a half laugh like she was either trying to cheer him up or cheer him on.

He sighed with relief. It was only a few days away but there was still time. He just had to get the phone back. Ms. Po had written down that little detail.

"Thank you so much," Quatre told her lovingly, shaking her hand with enthusiasm. He was relieved by how well the visit went.

Everything raced through his head and badgered his brain. He couldn't take how he harassed himself. Sometimes he started sweating for no reason. Rue tried to ask what was wrong but Quatre would only say "Nothing" But he was stressed and there was no denying it.

The electricity bill was due soon.

He would cry at night. There was nothing he could do. He was helpless. He was going to loose his sisters! `NO!' his head screamed. He couldn't. He had to keep everyone together. He had to keep his sisters. He had to keep his house and family. He didn't want anyone to go to some orphanage or clinic or whatever they wanted to call it. To have his sisters put in homes with strangers.

He cried in his sleep believing he was running out of options. He tried to be optimistic and think about how he would be less stressed without his sisters and how he could probably visit them if they were put in homes nearby. But what if they weren't. What if his sisters got moved to another city, or another state, or possibly another country and all he could do was write to them and talk to them over the phone. He would hate himself for letting it happen. He had to keep them together.

The doorbell rang the day he would have to give himself in and say he couldn't take care of two younger human beings all on his own. He expected to find Ms. Po again cheerfully expecting to hear he had managed to get a job and then she would become as frightened as he was when he admitted he couldn't do it.

It was Ms. Po. He knew it was. He wondered if she was going to take Pearl and Rue right away and have them stay the night in orphanage or some government building or if they were going to spend the night in their house with a guardian stranger like they almost did before he begged the judge for his sisters.
But it wasn't Ms. Po. To his dread, it was Treize.

"You haven't come back," Treize tried to sound calm but the look in his eyes and the twitch at the end of his smile proved him otherwise. He was mad.

"I didn't need to," Quatre lied backing into his house a bit from fear. His big blue alien eyes wouldn't tear away from Treize. He was expecting him to try and hit him and he tried to prepare himself for it. But he didn't have the nerve. He was afraid of Treize.

Treize opened the door further giving Quatre a fierce death glare and stepping in uninvited. He slammed the door shut to prevent any witnesses. "You had me fooled. I thought that house a few streets away was yours." He smiled but it was a twisted smile. He was mad with possession. "It's a good thing I saw you walking home yesterday or else I would have never found you.

Quatre backed into the dining room wall, cornered. "I… I mean I… I didn't…" He couldn't talk. He was choking with fear. The night in The House kept returning to him and choked him.

Treize snatched Quatre by the wrist with one hand. The other pulled back around him, ready to strike him good and hard for disobedience! Quatre cried out in pain as his wrist was crushed. He squirmed trying to break away but he couldn't.
"Didn't I tell you…" Treize started with a booming anger rushing through his voice but he paused. Another pair of blue alien eyes watching him had caught his attention and interrupted him.

Little two-year-old Pearl was watching from the bottom of the staircase wondering who the strange man was. She was holding her little, white, teddy bear to her chin shyly thinking Treize was friend of her brothers. She swayed back and forth on her heals cutely.

Treize let go of Quatre his eyes captivating on Pearl. Quatre took his wrist and began messaging the feeling back into it and back further into the wall. "Now what's this?" Treize grinned. "TWO Angels?"

Pearl screamed and giggled and stomped her feet excitedly like he was her uncle coming for a visit. "That's my sister," Quatre confessed out of fear. "Pearl"

"Pearl, huh?" Treize crouched down to her and asked in a sweet calm voice that was not fake. "Well, how old are you, little one?"

"She can't talk," a third voice sounded from the top of the stairs. "But she just turned two month ago this Friday."

A sheet of long, whitish, blonde hair and a pair of glistening green eyes shined from the top of the stairs. "Oh," Treize was quite surprised. "There are two? And what's your name young lady?"

Rue giggled just as innocently as Pearl did. But unlike Pearl who had witnessed the bullying of her brother but didn't understand, Rue had missed the struggle and was complete oblivious to what had happened and was curious about Treize. "RUE!" her voice boomed energetically.

"Are they both your sisters?" Treize grinned; the presence of children seemed to have returned his sanity. His grin was no long traumatizing. Quatre nodded. "Where are your mother and father?"

Quatre lowered his gaze.

"They died!" Rue called down the stairs. She unlike her brother had no problem admitting it. "Someone robbed them and they got shot."

"That's terrible," Treize smiled sadistically as he spoke. "Who takes care of you?"
"Quatre does!" Rue seemed proud to have her older brother as a guardian now.
"So," Treize turned to Quatre. "THIS is why…" but he didn't finish his sentence.
Rue, always wanting to get in someone's business blurted out. "Why what?" wanting to know the end of the sentence.

"He came to me for a job but refused to take the one I offered him," Treize shrugged like it was no big deal.

"Refused!" The news seemed to scare her. "Quatre! How could you! We need it! Ms. Po is coming today!"

"Yes Quatre," Treize stepped coolly back to his new toy, purposely trapping and over shadowing him. "You do, don't you?" he leaned down and whispered to him intensely. "You need it very, VERY badly. I can help you…" His smug appearance was so overcoming.

Quatre looked for any excuse to refuse. He bowed his head and spoke to the floor but his words were Treize. "They're taking us away today. I can't do anything for you now. It's too late." He wanted to force some sort of regret on Treize.

"QUATRE! NO!" Rue was on the verge of tears. "We have a chance Quatre! She'll be here any minute!" It must have torn her apart to know she had no control over the situation and they were so close to loosing everything. She hated Quatre now. He was ruining everything and all he had to do was say `yes'. "Quatre! Please! Just say yes!"

Quatre kept his head bowed. "There's nothing I can do, Rue," he told her. "There's nothing either of us can do. It's to late." The tears were coming. `Please, Rue,' he wanted to say. `Don't hate me but I just can't do the job he wants me to do.' But he knew she'd ask `why' and he wouldn't be able to explain. He also feared Treize's reaction. He didn't want this man around his sisters. He was afraid of what he would say or do to them!

But he was spared another minute of the crushing reality when the doorbell rang. Treize refused to answer it though it would be in character for him to take the authority's edge. Instead he stepped aside and took up chair at the dining room table and allowed Quatre to answer it.

It was Ms. Po. Quatre felt his stomach drop.

"Hello Quatre," she said in her friend tone. She and he were getting used to referring to each other by their first names. "May I come in."

He wanted to say no but he stepped aside and allowed her anyway. She was surprised to find Treize there. She never saw any adult company in the house and was curious. "Hello," he greeted him.

`Don't get friendly with him, Sally,' Quatre wanted to say. `He hurt me! Stop acting so nice to him! All of you!'

"And who might you be," she asked him directly.

"This is Treize… uh," he just realized he didn't know his last name.

"I'm Mr. Khushrenada," Treize rose for a handshake.

"He's trying to give Quatre a job!" Rue rushed down from the top stairs, desperate to take control of the situation. "But Quatre won't do it because he thinks it's to late to get one! Tell him it's not! Please!" she begged Ms. Po. "All three of you are here! You can work this out now!" She turned to Quatre; there was a tone of blame in her voice. "We don't HAVE to go to a foster family and you know it!"

"Refused?" Sally broke the handshake with Treize to stare at Quatre astounded. "Why on earth would you refuse?"

Quatre knew she thought less of him now. She thought he would do anything for his sisters. He stumbled for something to say. "It's… It's too late. We don't have any paper work."

Sally seemed surprised that he would give up hope so easily and except defeat. "Well like Rue said we're here now and we can work this out."

Quatre stayed by the door.

"Now what kind of work is it Mr. Khushrenada," Sally got her clipboard ready.

"He's my personal secretary. It's a very important job and he's highly qualified."

`Stop,' Quatre wanted to say. `Stop! I'd rather get taken away!' but the sight of his sisters reminded him how much he would regret such a selfish act. He dreaded both futures and there was no escaping either of them.