Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Pull Up For The J! ❯ Bullet In The Head ( Chapter 2 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: Manga-Chick 
Meeting new friends was always something of a complication for Quatre
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Comedy / Drama / Hentai | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 09.21.2005 | Pages: 2 | Words: 7.3K | Visits: 250 | Status: Completed
Meeting new friends was always something of a complication for Quatre
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Comedy / Drama / Hentai | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 09.21.2005 | Pages: 2 | Words: 7.3K | Visits: 250 | Status: Completed
Chapter Two~
“Bullet In The Head” Rage Against The Machine
Sophia Darken Academy was a private institute, located in Marysville, a suburb off of New Park City. Consisting of three main buildings, of which included the main office/school building a dormitory that housed nearly fifteen hundred students, and the gym, the academy was a boarding school for the rich and famous, the elite and the royalty. Housing residents from Earth and from the simple reaches of outer space, Sophia Darken was infamous for its high-priority security measures and more interesting pupils. Though confidentiality contracts forbade anyone from disclosing which student was a crowned heir, or universal politician’s offspring, and which one was a simple Earthling, everyone had a pretty general idea who was who. Schooling nearly two thousand students, fifteen hundred of them being residents, the school’s range of study ranged from the very basics to college honors. The athletics were widely prized as well, ranging from fencing to ballet, to martial arts to football, to swimming and to tennis. Sophia Darken Academy, was, in opinion, quite the rich kid’s kick.
Even so, right now, only forty students remained to take advantage of the summer school program that was currently in effect. Mostly to help those that were failing and in danger of being held back, as Quatre was. He was simply horrible with doing his homework, and was one of those students in position to fail. But as of lately, because there weren’t any distractions to mar him from his grades, his grades were steadily improving and he was going to be able to move on to the junior level. A month and a half had passed since he’d left Trowa at the airport, and despite Trowa’s constant calling while he was away, Quatre just felt lonely without his reassuring presence around him.
The former goth had been with Quatre since the blond came to Sophia Darken last year, at the end of August. Though the relationship had started out rather reluctantly, due to Quatre’s own reluctance to admitting that he was gay but acceptance of what he felt for Trowa, it had been pretty sturdy. There were a few rough patches here and there, but due to their own determination (most of which was Trowa’s and his own stubbornness), they’d emerged their sophomore year together strong and steady. Quatre really enjoyed their relationship to a very strong extent –Trowa was a comforting presence for him, simply because he was abruptly transferred from his hometown of Laramie, Wyoming, due to a rather humiliating experience with his best friend.
His father, who visited him very rarely due to his constant monitoring of his oil business in Saudia Arabia, had been ashamed upon finding out that Quatre and his best friend, Jamie Anderson, had engaged in a tryst of sorts, and had uprooted him from his home and transferred him to California in an effort to keep his son from being gay. It didn’t turn out that way, though. Quatre found Trowa, and the boy, never quiet around Quatre for even a single moment, had raised Quatre’s awareness of himself and instilled a sense of security into him. Trowa was Quatre’s rock–steady, strong, and had proven more than enough times his love for the blond. Of which, Quatre was very grateful and very lucky to have found someone like Trowa to help him through the adjustment of a massive city and its strange inhabitants.
Along the way, he met a few friends here and there, had played basketball on the school team (of which he was constantly locked in battle over his clashing with the two girls on the team and the fact that he couldn’t get along with his teammates), and his father lost custody over him due to an incident over Christmas break in Laramie. Which was fine, really, because the two people that raised him while Ramid was away were the two people that Quatre considered parents, anyway.
But his past year at Sophia Darken was absolutely great. He couldn’t ask for a better year! He had Trowa, he got to play basketball (his first love and immense passion) and he didn’t have to worry about his father breathing down his back over image and reputation.
Quatre loved it here at Sophia Darken. He may have been homesick the first few months, but with Trowa there beside him, he got through it eventually. He was incredibly lucky to have someone like Trowa– he was very grateful for meeting the former goth. Without him, he wasn’t sure what he would be like, or where he would be!
Sighing, Quatre emerged from the blankets in his bed, blinking fuzzily. He heard his phone ring then, and threw himself off his bed for the phone that lay on top of his empty desk. Answering it breathlessly, he sighed when he heard a recording of Trowa saying the usual “Good Morning! You’d better be getting your homework done, and you’d better be passing! I will not come home to a loser sophomore boyfriend that was too stupid to pass! Bye! Love you!”
The recording was there to make sure that he was up and out of bed, and Quatre hung up, gathering his toiletries and things so that he may get ready for the day. Today was Friday, and he was looking forward to another boring weekend. Great.
#20#20#20#20#20#20#20
“‘Ey mambo! Mambo italiano. ‘Ey mambo! Mambo italiano! Oh ho ho!’ And...some words I don’t happen to know...’Momma said stop it or momma will tell the poppa!’ Or...something among those effects! ‘‘Ey mambo–!’ Ow!”
“Christ...don’t you ever shut up?”
“Naturally not.” Felicia Passage grinned at him as she rubbed her arm faintly, where Quatre had hit her to make her shut up. She then frowned heavily, snapping her gum as she stared at him while he paid more attention to his phone than to her. The pair were sitting on the wall that separated the main school campus from that of the dormitory, passing time by catching up on each other’s life. It was late Friday afternoon, and summer school had just finished for the day.
Quatre looked up from his phone, where he’d spent the last twenty minutes text messaging Trowa a rant-and-rave about his day, and grinned at his female friend. It was by some odd thing that he ran into her–she had returned to the school to get something from her room, and had run into him in the front lobby of the dormitory. He hadn’t let her know his phone number simply because he knew that he would get into trouble with her–if Trowa found out he had been hanging out with her...by God, the former goth would rip right over from Spain and sock him one. Well...on second thought...that was rather appealing...
Excitedly, Felicia had done her usual pounce and hug thing, laughing with joy at seeing him in well over a month, and despite himself, he’d been somewhat happy to see her as well. He was just so bored here, with not much to do, and seeing her made him happy.
She had decided upon a change this summer, and had changed her appearance drastically–last year, when he met her, she wore men’s jeans and boyish t-shirts, her eyes heavily lined with black kohl and her lips colored with red. Her hair, shoulder length and very straight, was now longer, dancing against her back in a one length cut. Instead of the natural dark brown that was her customary shade, there was a very bold magenta streak that drifted away from her left temple, the bright color contrasting with her natural color.
She lined only her top lid, her lashes long and fluttery, her lips a muted berry color. She looked more of a girl than she had last year, and Quatre felt weird around her. Simply because the tomboy was more the gender she was supposed to be, and not the manly boy that she tried to be. Her outfits had changed drastically as well, and today, she was wearing a very modest gray shift, the hem ending at her knees, her feet encased into rather chunky high heels, and pearls in her ears. Her hair was curled and lightly piled on top of her head, a single ribbon bow set expertly in her hair. She resembled one of those 1950's housewives that one commonly saw in dated books about that era. It was more than unnerving when the girl opened her mouth to speak, sprouting the usual bad grammar and boy-style expressions that made him question her own sexuality as well. She may be pretty, but she seemed so...butch.
He eased away from her as she burst into song once more, surprisingly in tune and surprisingly able to carry a song with its rightful lifts and lows. He pressed the number to speed dial Trowa’s cell, and set the phone against his ear, waiting to hear the familiar baritone. But when it simply told him to leave a message, he sighed and hung up. That was his fifth call, and he wondered why Trowa wasn’t answering. It just wasn’t like him to ignore his calls...when he thought about it, through, Trowa hadn’t bothered to call him in the last couple of days. It was strange, but he figured Trowa was finally able to let go and do his own thing. Quatre had to admit, receiving constant phone calls from him was kind of...well...suffocating. But there was something bothering him about Trowa’s absence, and he couldn’t help but feel, well, deceived.
“C’mon, Quat,” Felicia whined, jumping off the wall, smoothing her shift. “Let’s go party. We’ll go get drunk, get laid, and I’ll have you back by supper!”
He snorted, redialing Trowa’s phone and setting it against his ear as he looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Whatever, Leash. How about you go get drunk, you get laid, and I’ll be here for supper?”
“How about you be the one I get drunk with, I get laid by, and we’ll have supper in bed?”
“God...you’re such a whore,” he answered, looking at her in disgust.
She laughed, tilting her head back. He knew she wasn’t flirting with him in any way–for one thing, he was gay. For another...she just didn’t do white boys. She reminded him of this constantly, and it was with the same confidence that he wished Trowa would understand when Quatre continued to insist that there was nothing going on between them.
“C’mon!! Let’s just go! We can have fun out there! I’ll introduce you to more hot homos, and you can have fun while Barton-Fartin’ has fun in Spain...meeting incestuous relatives.”
“Ew. Gross.”
“Mucho Grande!”
“You don’t even know what you’re saying,” Quatre grumbled, hanging up his cellphone and jumping down from the wall to walk with her.
“Nat-er-url-really.” Felicia sighed, tucking a loose curl behind her ear, and performing an effortless cartwheel across the sidewalk. Quatre covered his eyes at the flash of what looked to be hot shorts underneath the gray shift she wore.
“GOD! Hello! Wearing a dress means you don’t do that shit!”
“Ah, you’re no fun..” Felicia muttered, straightening her shift. She then threw her arms out at the air polluted sky, giving off a blood curdling scream customary of her native ancestry. Quatre winced and ducked, fearing arrows and tomahawks, and imminent scalping. She turned, facing him, arms swinging. “Man, it’s so QUIET here! Dude, you’re so boring! Have you finished your homework?”
“Yeah...duh. I’m only here twenty-four seven,” Quatre answered, straightening and redialing Trowa’s number. “I have nothing else to do...”
She rolled her eyes and stomped over to him, reaching out to grab his middle. Reflexively, he laughed and pulled away, rubbing his stomach. “And eat! You gained, like, ten pounds since I last saw you!”
“All I do is homework!” Quatre complained, reaching down to jiggle his belly and frowning at the results. “And plus, they’re serving better food.”
Felicia snorted, hands on her hips as she took in his appearance. He was wearing bigger pants to accommodate his new size, and larger t-shirts to fit the widening of his shoulders and chest area. She shook her head from side to side, shifting her eyes from his frame to his face. He had a slight double chin, his cheeks were fuller, and his hair a little shaggier, but he was still the same personality that she left behind when she went home to her uncle’s house for the summer. She threw her arms around his neck with a happy laugh, feeling the increased bulk of his body against hers.
“I still love you!” she declared as he stumbled, having to unexpectedly hold her weight.
He shoved her off. “Stop touching me! You’re just feeling my fat!”
“I love you even if you’re fat...And you’re not fat. You’re pleasantly chubby,” she corrected, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “You’re only preparing yourself for winter!”
Quatre laughed. “Winter’s like, ten months away!”
“And for this reason, you’re here in summer school...fuckin’ idiot,” Felicia muttered, shaking her head at his answer. Then she dropped her shoulders giving him a pained look. “But seriously, you don’t want to stay on campus forever, do you?! Turning to more food for comfort? Having no one to talk to?! Aren’t you tired of Rosy Palmer and her five friends yet?!”
Quatre looked up from writing a text message to Trowa, complaining about his boredom, then shoved strands of hair from his face. He thought about that last question, frowning. “Well...no...but... you always get me into trouble!”
She brightened, feeling that he was giving her some leeway. “I promise I won’t! Look, we won’t have to go far! There’s this party down in–!”
“No! Every time I get near alcohol, I just get...really bad,” he finished lamely, finishing his text message and ending it with his usual “I Love You.”
“Well, you don’t have to drink! Just come out and socialize,” she said, hands on her hips. “C’mon. It’ll be fun...”
Quatre looked up from his phone, redialing Trowa’s number. When he received the answering service, he hung up, sighing. “Fine. Fine, I’ll go with you.”
Felicia squealed with joy. Quatre often found it strange that even through the girl exhibited girlish behavior in the form of giggles and shouts, she just...well, she just didn’t sound like a girl. More rather, like a boy trying to sound as a girl. He couldn’t explain it.
“Gooders! Here, give me your number, and I’ll call you before I come pick you up, ‘k?” she said, withdrawing her own cellphone from the pocket on her shift.
Quatre stared at her cellphone, which, at one time, she’d explained that it was custom made for her taste. It cost well over two million, and it was a costly birthday present, but judging from the wear and tear on the expensive metal that weighed less than an ounce, he figured it was a well loved gift. He gave her his number, which she saved under the name, “Fun Bucket”. Wincing at the name, but shaking his head, Quatre figured he may as well as go out and ‘socialize’. He knew his low tolerance to alcohol, so he figured he just won’t drink. After all, it wasn’t as if he were going to get into any trouble or anything. Just...hang out. Socialize.
Thinking about it as Felicia said her goodbye, picked up the bag she’d used to get whatever she’d needed from her room, and ran off to her waiting limo in the parking lot, Quatre figured there was no harm in socializing. No harm at all.
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The crowd was rip roaring drunk. Beer sloshed over plastic cups, Cruiser was sprayed through guffawing mouths, and both cigarette and various drug smoke clogged the mansion’s air. The two girls were tearing at each other, squealing curse words and derogatory names, and as they tore through the living room, the crowd followed, cheering for their respective fighter.
One girl, a brunette, reached out and grabbed a hold of the other girl’s shirt, tearing the flimsy fabric and prompting the male population of the crowd to cheer as a bra was exposed. Brown hair was ripped out in fistfuls by the blond, who retaliated the move by ripping at the brunette’s tank top. As breasts were exposed, the crowd went wild.
Quatre, at the very front of the crowd, covered his eyes as he laughed. Both girls went down to the floor, screeching as the crowd surged forward, causing him to spill his beer over the cream colored carpet. Drake Bellows, choking on his cigarette and standing at his side, waved money in the air, looking to make a bet over who won. As the girls rolled over each other, continuously shouting and throwing punches that sounded as if they hurt, Quatre pushed his way through the crowd to get a refill on his spilt drink.
He spotted GoDarun talking to a rather bookish babe that was sitting on the counter in the kitchen, and as he refilled his beer from one of the nearest kegs, he grinned at the shy alien as he looked over in his direction. He hoped Go scored–the guy was much too quiet and seriously too shy to even drag a mere greeting out, and from the sounds of it, the girl was doing much of the talking. The boy was dragged to these things merely because his two ‘friends’, Felicia and Drake, made him. Go didn’t belong to parties–he belonged to book clubs and anime fanfreak groups. He just didn’t fit in with this scene. Quatre felt sorry for him, but them’s the breaks.
Quatre wandered out from the kitchen, sipping his drink, wondering what else he could do. Tonight he was wearing a dark blue polo shirt over his dark blue jeans, and he thought he looked pretty smashing despite his weight gain. It wasn’t even that bad, he thought. He merely gained thirteen pounds, and it wasn’t as if the world was ending. Simply, he just looked a little different. It wasn’t as if he were piling them on from the lack of exercise–he still played ball on the outside courts (the gym was closed for the summer for renovation) and he still ran. Perhaps his body was just piling on what was meant to fit over a taller frame, and his growth spurt was just waiting at the edge of the stage to appear. Whichever, he really didn’t care. After all, he figured he would lose it all before Trowa came back.
He walked into the living room, where a bunch of college students were watching the brand new Angelina Jolie movie, and saw no one he knew, so he walked out the open patio doors. He saw a few familiar faces, but no one to talk to. He walked off the patio setting, carefully stepping over a pair of guys that were madly making out, and ventured toward the pool area. The mansion belonged to whatever college student’s parents, of whom were conveniently out of town for a month or so, and it was filled with partying college students and a few high schoolers. Quatre had felt a little intimidated at first, because all he’d seen when they arrived were older kids. There weren’t that many high school kids, but that didn’t stop both Felicia and Drake, both of whom had disappeared immediately upon entering the mansion. The pair of Native Americans were hard partiers, and while Quatre liked them both, he didn’t approve of their choices in life. But whatever worked, he supposed as he and GoDarun were left to fend for themselves. Go had disappeared at one point, and Quatre had found himself alone in the living room when the girls had started fighting over some guy, and he was drawn to the fight with the rest of the partiers, Drake included.
Quatre really wasn’t one to party–but it was a great setting to relax and meet with other people. College students seemed to get along better with him, easing carefully with his somewhat abrasive personality. The girls merely laughed at him whenever he said something accidently insulting of their character, and the guys merely invited his opinion on some things. While he avoided the drug aspect of the place, of which were circulating without trouble, Quatre was drawn to the alcohol, though he avoided the Cruiser. Cruiser, an alien import, was designated to give its drinker a fairly nice buzz without the aftereffects. Unfortunately, Quatre had had a very bad experience with the drink last year, and therefore avoided taking any.
So he stuck to beer, which was a safer choice than some of the drugs and drinks floating around. He heard the cheering crowd venture into the front lawn, and heard Drake’s bellows, so he figured he would once again join the herd.
But before he could, he cut through a group of students that were laughing amongst each other, and when he was about to venture out, he heard a startled exclamation in his direction. So he turned and looked, seeing a familiar grinning face hurry over to him, holding aloft a pair of extremely baggy jeans.
Quatre had to grin, because he hadn’t thought of ‘Earl’ in such a long time. He’d ‘met’ the guy last year, when Quatre found himself arguing with a goth gay boy in a dress over Trowa. He was pretty drunk at the time, but while he’d found himself in rather gruesome combat with the goth boy over Trowa, Earl (he wasn’t even sure if that was his real name, he’d just pegged the moniker over the guy because for some reason, he thought of that Dixie Chicks’ song whenever he looked at him) was trying to set him up with some friend of his. It was pretty funny when he thought about it–it must have looked so strange to the people watching the fight.
“Hey,” he greeted as Earl met up with him, reaching out to slap him heartily over the shoulder. He was still dressed in extremely baggy clothes, with the same close cropped hair and bling-bling in his ears and around his neck. He was just without the pair of chicks that he’d been in the presence of last year. It wasn’t that Earl was great looking–merely, he seemed to have a way of speaking that drew people in. And persuading.
“What’s up, man?! Shit, I haven’t seen you in ages, boy!” Earl exclaimed, holding a cup of Cruiser and smelling expensively of some Tommy Hilfiger scent.
“Yeah.”
“You ain’t fightin’ with anybody tonight, are you?”
“NO! There’s no reason to!” Quatre said on a laugh. “I’m just hanging out with some of my friends.”
“Oh, yeah? Who?”
“This guy named Drake Bellows, and Felicia Passage.”
“Oh. They’re cool. A little rough around the edges, if’n you know what I mean,” Earl snorted, sipping his Cruiser. Then he brightened. “You single?”
“No, I–”
“My friend’s here! He still ain’t hooked up with anybody yet! You guys should talk!” Earl exclaimed excitedly, scanning the crowd outside.
Quatre shook his head repeatedly, inching away. “No, no, that’s all right. Really, I’m in a relationship, and he’s just–”
“Hey!” Earl shouted back at his friends. “Where’s Travis at!?”
Quatre hurriedly raced away, not wanting to be setup by anybody. Once he reached the front yard, though, he saw that the fight had been broken up, and the blond was the victor. She shook her arms victoriously over her head, cheering for herself. Quatre caught up to Drake, who was talking to some kid heavily into a metal death band. Drake Bellows, the entirely thin Seminole with an unruly goatee and strangely hypnotic blue eyes, had decided on a change as well. Last year, when Quatre met him, the boy had neon blue hair that was fashioned into spikes that shot out all over his scalp. This year, he’d forgone the hairspray and gel, and let the fading neon blue color over his naturally black hair sprout out from his head in a somewhat chia pet impersonation. He’d grown a couple of inches, but was still shorter than Quatre was. He was still entirely thin, the bones of his face and hands prominent as he smoked his possibly thirtieth cigarette since they’d arrived. The kid chain-smoked like a mad man and was kind of hard to imagine without a cigarette in hand.
“Who won?” Quatre asked, despite the obvious.
“Brenda. She tore Anna’s ass, man!” Drake exclaimed, looking at him. His voice was very gravelly, deep, and when he spoke, his features shifted comically. Drake was a bundle of nerves, and had enough energy to power up the entire city. When the boy wasn’t standing still, he was either jumping madly in place, swinging his arms, running here and there, or shouting. Drake loved to shout, which is why Quatre thought that his last name, ‘Bellows’ was entirely appropriate. “Where the fuck were you?”
“Around.”
“Let’s get some weed, man,” the metal kid drawled, looking around. When Drake agreed, Quatre figured he look elsewhere for someone to hang out with, because while he wasn’t into drugs. He walked off, finishing his beer and tossing the cup off to his side. Only, the cup didn’t fall onto the lawn like he wanted it to–it bounced off someone’s head.
He grimaced and turned to apologize when the boy turned around, glaring at him. Quatre then paused, blinking as the boy performed a double-take. The features of the boy were vaguely familiar–the wide eyebrows, the dark spiky hair, the wide shoulders, the annoyed set of his mouth...the boy was looking at him, trying to place him as well, the girl he was talking with looking from one to another with a raise of her eyebrows.
Then she pointed excitedly. “Dude!” she exclaimed, pointing at Quatre. “That’s the dude that rocked your ass last year on the court!”
Then Quatre remembered–the boy was #32 for Sageville High, the one that had played roughly against him and ended up being removed from the game on a technical. #32 recognized him as well, a mean expression flittering across his face. The boy had been so hostile to him on the court, that they’d engaged in a sort of trade-off in insults, and Quatre, knowing that the boy was some homophobe due to the constant accusations the boy had thrown at him, had thrown kisses and the such to throw off the boy’s game. It had worked, but now that they were off the court and away from any school campus, he had a brief wonder as to what the kid could do.
Quatre held his hands up in surrender. He really wasn’t one to back down from a fight, but he was sure he didn’t want to fight right now. Despite himself, though, he kind of wondered what the kid would do if he socked him across the face for bruising his ass last year. At the memory of it, his ass hurt, cheeks clenching reflexively.
“Sorry,” he apologized for the cup.
“Fuck you.”
He frowned, lowering his hands as the girl frowned at the boy’s hostile glare and words. “I said sorry. It’s not like I hurt you or anything!”
The boy faced him, holding his own cup of beer, the girl looking nervously from one boy to the other. Quietly, she inched a little between them, but the boy pushed her out of the way. “I don’t appreciate being used for your garbage can, bitch.”
Quatre glared at him, raising an eyebrow. The boy was looking for a fight. Fine, then. “Just because we stomped all over your stupid ass on the court doesn’t mean you can talk shit off of it. Fucking sore loser.”
“What’d you say?!” the boy growled, dropping his cup of beer and inching into his space. Not one to back down, Quatre squared off against him, the girl murmuring slight pleas as she tried to inch between them once more, hands on the boy’s chest.
“You heard me, asshole. What are you, deaf, now?”
The boy’s fists clenched at his sides, and he glared down at Quatre, standing a mere two inches over him. It wasn’t that much of an advantage, but it was enough to make Quatre frown. “Are you trying to start shit, homo?”
“‘Homo’?! You’re the one getting all turned on by me, fucker. Always trying to cop a feel and shit,” he growled right back as attention from various partiers standing on the front lawn and porch was drawn to their confrontation, small shouts of ‘fight!’ ringing through the air.
The boy sputtered with disbelief. “I did not! Motherfucker, take that shit back! I ain’t no Goddamned homo!”
“Fuck that bullshit! You act like it!”
“You don’t fuckin’ know me!”
“I know a homo when I see one, motherfucker!”
“Dick face!”
“Cock head!”
“Shut the fuck up, you fuckin’ fag!”
“Make me!”
The boy swung heartily at Quatre’s head, and he ducked quickly to avoid being hit. During the throw of the boy’s fist, he slammed his own fist forward, catching the boy in the gut. The crowd that had gathered to watch the girlfight now gathered around them, cheering and yelping in reaction as the boys tore into each other. The boy’s friend tried to break them up, but she merely received a stray fist in the face, so she was pulled out from the fight to get doctored by the others.
The boys, in their relative fury to pound the other’s face into the grass, made their way from the lawn to the ‘parking lot’,where the partiers had parked their various vehicles in the driveway of the mansion, and on the lawn. The fight then escalated to more dangerous measures. Quatre could feel his nose bleeding from a good whack to the face, but he didn’t bother with cleaning himself off as he grabbed the other boy’s hair, and slammed the boy’s face off the hood of someone’s car. The boy, dazed, stumbled to the pavement, bleeding from an open cut on his forehead. He rose from the pavement to slam into Quatre’s knees, knocking him to the street as the crowd roared. Faintly, as the boy pinned him to the street to punch away at his face, Quatre heard his friends screaming at him to ‘kick his ass’, and he knew he couldn’t lose to this loser in front of them, so he reached up, dug his fingers into the boy’s eyes, then heaved him off when the boy was forced to stop punching him.
Quatre then pinned him to the street and dug his fingers into the boy’s dark hair, and prepared to slam his face into the street when someone gave a good yell of surprise, jumping into the fight to pull him off of the boy. As they struggled to reach each other once more, Earl, who was holding Quatre back, roared in fury, “I said TALK to each other, not pound each other’s faces in!”
Confusion set in as both Quatre and the boy, currently being held back by another college student, looked at Earl in silence. Earl shoved Quatre onto the lawn, and got into the other boy’s face, roaring, “What the fuck, man?! You ask me to set you up, and you end up beatin’ on the guy I was trying to hook you up with?! What the fuck?!”
Blinking, wiping at his nose, Quatre stared at the boy in dawning realization while the boy looked at him with the same expression. Then Quatre laughed, pointing at him. “Ha! Ha! I told you you were a homo, fucker!”
“Fuck you!” the boy shouted, reddening considerably as the crowd laughed.
Earl pushed on Quatre, growling about cleaning each other up. “Damn it,” he muttered as Quatre tried to staunch the blood flow with the sleeve of his polo shirt. “See if I try settin’ up anybody else again...”
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“Wah!! !” Felicia cried in mourning as he cleaned himself off in the bathroom, muttering about vengeful homos as he washed the blood from his face and hair. She was sitting on the counter next to the sink, bemoaning her failure to seeing him fighting. He had no idea where she had been, only that she popped up when he began cleaning his face. “I can’t believe I missed this shit! How could you?!”
“It just started...I didn’t even do anything,” he muttered as he dried himself off with a towel.
She laughed uproariously, not believing that for one bit. “Fuck that bullshit, Quat! You always start shit!”
“I swear! I didn’t this time!” He looked at her grinning. “I won, though. I really would have fucked him up if Earl hadn’t come along and interrupted us.”
She blinked, looking at him curiously. “Huh? Earl? He’s here?”
“Yeah. I guess the guy I was beating into the ground was the guy he was trying to set me up with,” Quatre ended on a laugh.
She stared at him in surprise, mouth forming an ‘o’. “No way! Really?!”
“Yeah!”
She laughed. “Dude! No way!”
“Yeah!”
“Was he cute?”
“Felicia...shit.” Quatre shook his head as he flicked off the lights and left the bathroom, Felicia following quickly. “No. He really isn’t. Well...I don’t know. Kind of, maybe.”
“Either he is or he ain’t, Quat. Are you going to hook up with him?” she asked excitedly.
“No!” he exclaimed, looking at her in shock. “I’m in a relationship, Felicia! I’m not cheating on Trowa. Besides, no. I wouldn’t...no. I can’t do that to him. Besides, if I were to cheat on Trowa, it wouldn’t be with that jerk.”
“Quat...would you ever if you had the chance?” Felicia asked, eyes wide as she followed him downstairs.
Quatre snorted, the thought entirely inconceivable. “Felicia! What the fuck?”
“No, seriously! I mean, if you could get away with it, would you?”
“NO! I wouldn’t want that to happen to me! Why would I do that to him?” he asked in incredulous horror, looking back at her with his eyes wide. “Besides, he would never do that to me...I mean, I wouldn’t even count that thing with Middie as ‘cheating’. Rather...never mind.”
“So...even if you could, you wouldn’t?” Felicia asked as she snagged someone’s box of cigarettes that sat on an end table in the living room, and pulling one out. She paused in walking after him, cupping her hands around the cancer stick. Quatre blinked, because when she removed her hands, he saw no presence of a lighter to get that thing going. He wondered about this as she dropped the box over her shoulder and re-joined him. He searched her hands for the lighter that she’d used to lit her cigarette, but immediately lost interest when she blew smoke into his face, and gestured with her chin, her eyes shifting to look beyond his shoulder.
He turned, and blinked again when he saw the boy from earlier standing there, looking apologetic. Quatre turned warily, wondering what he wanted, and wondering if they were going to fight again. In glee, Felicia removed the cigarette from her mouth and looked in interest as she waited for words or fists to be exchanged.
The boy, working his lower jaw with a confused expression, took a deep breath. Then he held out his hand, looking Quatre in the eyes with a sincere expression. “Sorry about that,” he apologized, rather gruffly. “My name’s Travis. But I go by my middle name, Justin.”
Quatre stared at the hand, then at Justin. Wondering what kind of trick this was, he cautiously went with it. He shook the hand lightly. “Um...Quatre. Winner.”
Justin shrugged a shoulder as he pulled his hand away, sliding it into his cargo shorts pocket. There were faint splotches of blood on his maroon t-shirt, and some on his shorts, but not entirely noticeable. Quatre was sure he was decorated the same way, so it didn’t really matter. “I–I’m really sorry about things. I mean...I’m kinda embarrassed that... things went down the way they did.”
“So you are a homo.”
“Er...I dunno.”
“You’re the one Earl was trying to set me up with?”
“I guess so. Last year, I kept missing you whenever I showed up. So...I don’t know. Earl kept telling me about this one guy with white hair, and...I don’t know.”
“Psst. I’m leaving,” Felicia hissed to Quatre, hurrying off and leaving him behind, rather disappointed that they weren’t going to fight.
He grimaced, unsure if he wanted to stay and talk with the guy that had been so vicious to him, but figured What the hell. The guy lived in Sageville...and it wasn’t as if he were going to see him everyday. Quatre turned back to him, and shrugged, hands sliding into his pockets. Plus, it wasn’t as if he were going to cheat on Trowa. Just talk to the guy. That didn’t constitute as cheating, right?
“Well...you got a good right hook,” he then said, smiling slightly.
Justin turned faintly red, and shrugged a shoulder. “Er...thanks. Good uppercut.”
Quatre chuckled, hands in his pockets. He wasn’t sure what to say to the guy–it was under awkward circumstance that they were talking...Justin looked just as awkward, faintly embarrassed as he looked around, wearing a plain band-aid over his right eye, a bruise under his left eye. He then shrugged again. “Anyway...want a beer or something?” he asked timidly, scruffing the carpet with the toe of his shoe.
Quatre shrugged and nodded. He wasn’t cheating on Trowa in anyway–he’d just let the guy know that he was in a relationship, and that was that. He wasn’t interested. As he followed Justin to the kitchen, he looked around nervously, hoping that none of Trowa’s friends, if they were here, would call and let the extra-paranoid ex-goth know what he was doing. Trowa’s first boyfriend, a boy named Ralph Curt, had cheated on Trowa their freshmen year with a girl from a nearby military academy, and was extra cautious when it came to possible cheating situations with Quatre. Trowa was so paranoid that Quatre would cheat on him that he actually came to dislike his friend, Felicia, because he was convinced the girl was after Quatre.
Quatre knew nothing was going to happen between him and Felicia–for one thing, he was gay, for another, she was a Native American and ‘hated’ white boys in that intimate sense. It was so utterly ridiculous to think of hooking up with his female friend that he felt instantly annoyed whenever Trowa brought it up. But he couldn’t help but agree that Trowa had some rights to be paranoid, simply because once a person was cheated upon, they never really got over it.
But he could never do that to Trowa! Ever!
And with this guy? Quatre studied Justin as the guy poured him a cup from one of the opened kegs. The guy stood at five foot ten, had a very sturdy frame in wide shoulders and broad chest, muscular legs that suggested plenty of running, and somewhat pleasing features. He had an oval face, his nose straight and short, thin lips, black, wide eyebrows and squinty eyes. His hair, dark brown and styled in a spiky fashion, wasn’t marred by thick gel and hairspray like most of the guys Quatre knew. He also had a pleasant baritone, and he was somewhat confrontational–but what confused Quatre was that this same boy had so much animosity toward him on the court that he wondered what this sudden change in the boy meant.
Justin seemed genuinely interested, but why the extreme dislike? Maybe he had troubles adjusting to his own sexuality, and had disliked Quatre because he was attracted to him? Which was a possibility, and something he would find out. After all, he’d had a bad coming out experience as well, so he had to give the guy that much.
He took the cup offered to him and swallowed some down. He wasn’t drunk, nor was he buzzed–and he planned on staying that way, to keep from fucking around. He knew what alcohol did to him, and he didn’t want to lose that much control.
Justin took his own cup, and gestured that they take a walk. As Quatre followed him, figuring that nothing was going to happen anyway, he really hoped Trowa didn’t know about this. He hated having to deal with Trowa’s insecurity and doubts, and this separation would really drive home some problems. He shook his head and resolved to deal with it later. After all, he wasn’t cheating on Trowa–just talking. There was nothing wrong with talking, right?
“Bullet In The Head” Rage Against The Machine
Sophia Darken Academy was a private institute, located in Marysville, a suburb off of New Park City. Consisting of three main buildings, of which included the main office/school building a dormitory that housed nearly fifteen hundred students, and the gym, the academy was a boarding school for the rich and famous, the elite and the royalty. Housing residents from Earth and from the simple reaches of outer space, Sophia Darken was infamous for its high-priority security measures and more interesting pupils. Though confidentiality contracts forbade anyone from disclosing which student was a crowned heir, or universal politician’s offspring, and which one was a simple Earthling, everyone had a pretty general idea who was who. Schooling nearly two thousand students, fifteen hundred of them being residents, the school’s range of study ranged from the very basics to college honors. The athletics were widely prized as well, ranging from fencing to ballet, to martial arts to football, to swimming and to tennis. Sophia Darken Academy, was, in opinion, quite the rich kid’s kick.
Even so, right now, only forty students remained to take advantage of the summer school program that was currently in effect. Mostly to help those that were failing and in danger of being held back, as Quatre was. He was simply horrible with doing his homework, and was one of those students in position to fail. But as of lately, because there weren’t any distractions to mar him from his grades, his grades were steadily improving and he was going to be able to move on to the junior level. A month and a half had passed since he’d left Trowa at the airport, and despite Trowa’s constant calling while he was away, Quatre just felt lonely without his reassuring presence around him.
The former goth had been with Quatre since the blond came to Sophia Darken last year, at the end of August. Though the relationship had started out rather reluctantly, due to Quatre’s own reluctance to admitting that he was gay but acceptance of what he felt for Trowa, it had been pretty sturdy. There were a few rough patches here and there, but due to their own determination (most of which was Trowa’s and his own stubbornness), they’d emerged their sophomore year together strong and steady. Quatre really enjoyed their relationship to a very strong extent –Trowa was a comforting presence for him, simply because he was abruptly transferred from his hometown of Laramie, Wyoming, due to a rather humiliating experience with his best friend.
His father, who visited him very rarely due to his constant monitoring of his oil business in Saudia Arabia, had been ashamed upon finding out that Quatre and his best friend, Jamie Anderson, had engaged in a tryst of sorts, and had uprooted him from his home and transferred him to California in an effort to keep his son from being gay. It didn’t turn out that way, though. Quatre found Trowa, and the boy, never quiet around Quatre for even a single moment, had raised Quatre’s awareness of himself and instilled a sense of security into him. Trowa was Quatre’s rock–steady, strong, and had proven more than enough times his love for the blond. Of which, Quatre was very grateful and very lucky to have found someone like Trowa to help him through the adjustment of a massive city and its strange inhabitants.
Along the way, he met a few friends here and there, had played basketball on the school team (of which he was constantly locked in battle over his clashing with the two girls on the team and the fact that he couldn’t get along with his teammates), and his father lost custody over him due to an incident over Christmas break in Laramie. Which was fine, really, because the two people that raised him while Ramid was away were the two people that Quatre considered parents, anyway.
But his past year at Sophia Darken was absolutely great. He couldn’t ask for a better year! He had Trowa, he got to play basketball (his first love and immense passion) and he didn’t have to worry about his father breathing down his back over image and reputation.
Quatre loved it here at Sophia Darken. He may have been homesick the first few months, but with Trowa there beside him, he got through it eventually. He was incredibly lucky to have someone like Trowa– he was very grateful for meeting the former goth. Without him, he wasn’t sure what he would be like, or where he would be!
Sighing, Quatre emerged from the blankets in his bed, blinking fuzzily. He heard his phone ring then, and threw himself off his bed for the phone that lay on top of his empty desk. Answering it breathlessly, he sighed when he heard a recording of Trowa saying the usual “Good Morning! You’d better be getting your homework done, and you’d better be passing! I will not come home to a loser sophomore boyfriend that was too stupid to pass! Bye! Love you!”
The recording was there to make sure that he was up and out of bed, and Quatre hung up, gathering his toiletries and things so that he may get ready for the day. Today was Friday, and he was looking forward to another boring weekend. Great.
#20#20#20#20#20#20#20
“‘Ey mambo! Mambo italiano. ‘Ey mambo! Mambo italiano! Oh ho ho!’ And...some words I don’t happen to know...’Momma said stop it or momma will tell the poppa!’ Or...something among those effects! ‘‘Ey mambo–!’ Ow!”
“Christ...don’t you ever shut up?”
“Naturally not.” Felicia Passage grinned at him as she rubbed her arm faintly, where Quatre had hit her to make her shut up. She then frowned heavily, snapping her gum as she stared at him while he paid more attention to his phone than to her. The pair were sitting on the wall that separated the main school campus from that of the dormitory, passing time by catching up on each other’s life. It was late Friday afternoon, and summer school had just finished for the day.
Quatre looked up from his phone, where he’d spent the last twenty minutes text messaging Trowa a rant-and-rave about his day, and grinned at his female friend. It was by some odd thing that he ran into her–she had returned to the school to get something from her room, and had run into him in the front lobby of the dormitory. He hadn’t let her know his phone number simply because he knew that he would get into trouble with her–if Trowa found out he had been hanging out with her...by God, the former goth would rip right over from Spain and sock him one. Well...on second thought...that was rather appealing...
Excitedly, Felicia had done her usual pounce and hug thing, laughing with joy at seeing him in well over a month, and despite himself, he’d been somewhat happy to see her as well. He was just so bored here, with not much to do, and seeing her made him happy.
She had decided upon a change this summer, and had changed her appearance drastically–last year, when he met her, she wore men’s jeans and boyish t-shirts, her eyes heavily lined with black kohl and her lips colored with red. Her hair, shoulder length and very straight, was now longer, dancing against her back in a one length cut. Instead of the natural dark brown that was her customary shade, there was a very bold magenta streak that drifted away from her left temple, the bright color contrasting with her natural color.
She lined only her top lid, her lashes long and fluttery, her lips a muted berry color. She looked more of a girl than she had last year, and Quatre felt weird around her. Simply because the tomboy was more the gender she was supposed to be, and not the manly boy that she tried to be. Her outfits had changed drastically as well, and today, she was wearing a very modest gray shift, the hem ending at her knees, her feet encased into rather chunky high heels, and pearls in her ears. Her hair was curled and lightly piled on top of her head, a single ribbon bow set expertly in her hair. She resembled one of those 1950's housewives that one commonly saw in dated books about that era. It was more than unnerving when the girl opened her mouth to speak, sprouting the usual bad grammar and boy-style expressions that made him question her own sexuality as well. She may be pretty, but she seemed so...butch.
He eased away from her as she burst into song once more, surprisingly in tune and surprisingly able to carry a song with its rightful lifts and lows. He pressed the number to speed dial Trowa’s cell, and set the phone against his ear, waiting to hear the familiar baritone. But when it simply told him to leave a message, he sighed and hung up. That was his fifth call, and he wondered why Trowa wasn’t answering. It just wasn’t like him to ignore his calls...when he thought about it, through, Trowa hadn’t bothered to call him in the last couple of days. It was strange, but he figured Trowa was finally able to let go and do his own thing. Quatre had to admit, receiving constant phone calls from him was kind of...well...suffocating. But there was something bothering him about Trowa’s absence, and he couldn’t help but feel, well, deceived.
“C’mon, Quat,” Felicia whined, jumping off the wall, smoothing her shift. “Let’s go party. We’ll go get drunk, get laid, and I’ll have you back by supper!”
He snorted, redialing Trowa’s phone and setting it against his ear as he looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Whatever, Leash. How about you go get drunk, you get laid, and I’ll be here for supper?”
“How about you be the one I get drunk with, I get laid by, and we’ll have supper in bed?”
“God...you’re such a whore,” he answered, looking at her in disgust.
She laughed, tilting her head back. He knew she wasn’t flirting with him in any way–for one thing, he was gay. For another...she just didn’t do white boys. She reminded him of this constantly, and it was with the same confidence that he wished Trowa would understand when Quatre continued to insist that there was nothing going on between them.
“C’mon!! Let’s just go! We can have fun out there! I’ll introduce you to more hot homos, and you can have fun while Barton-Fartin’ has fun in Spain...meeting incestuous relatives.”
“Ew. Gross.”
“Mucho Grande!”
“You don’t even know what you’re saying,” Quatre grumbled, hanging up his cellphone and jumping down from the wall to walk with her.
“Nat-er-url-really.” Felicia sighed, tucking a loose curl behind her ear, and performing an effortless cartwheel across the sidewalk. Quatre covered his eyes at the flash of what looked to be hot shorts underneath the gray shift she wore.
“GOD! Hello! Wearing a dress means you don’t do that shit!”
“Ah, you’re no fun..” Felicia muttered, straightening her shift. She then threw her arms out at the air polluted sky, giving off a blood curdling scream customary of her native ancestry. Quatre winced and ducked, fearing arrows and tomahawks, and imminent scalping. She turned, facing him, arms swinging. “Man, it’s so QUIET here! Dude, you’re so boring! Have you finished your homework?”
“Yeah...duh. I’m only here twenty-four seven,” Quatre answered, straightening and redialing Trowa’s number. “I have nothing else to do...”
She rolled her eyes and stomped over to him, reaching out to grab his middle. Reflexively, he laughed and pulled away, rubbing his stomach. “And eat! You gained, like, ten pounds since I last saw you!”
“All I do is homework!” Quatre complained, reaching down to jiggle his belly and frowning at the results. “And plus, they’re serving better food.”
Felicia snorted, hands on her hips as she took in his appearance. He was wearing bigger pants to accommodate his new size, and larger t-shirts to fit the widening of his shoulders and chest area. She shook her head from side to side, shifting her eyes from his frame to his face. He had a slight double chin, his cheeks were fuller, and his hair a little shaggier, but he was still the same personality that she left behind when she went home to her uncle’s house for the summer. She threw her arms around his neck with a happy laugh, feeling the increased bulk of his body against hers.
“I still love you!” she declared as he stumbled, having to unexpectedly hold her weight.
He shoved her off. “Stop touching me! You’re just feeling my fat!”
“I love you even if you’re fat...And you’re not fat. You’re pleasantly chubby,” she corrected, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “You’re only preparing yourself for winter!”
Quatre laughed. “Winter’s like, ten months away!”
“And for this reason, you’re here in summer school...fuckin’ idiot,” Felicia muttered, shaking her head at his answer. Then she dropped her shoulders giving him a pained look. “But seriously, you don’t want to stay on campus forever, do you?! Turning to more food for comfort? Having no one to talk to?! Aren’t you tired of Rosy Palmer and her five friends yet?!”
Quatre looked up from writing a text message to Trowa, complaining about his boredom, then shoved strands of hair from his face. He thought about that last question, frowning. “Well...no...but... you always get me into trouble!”
She brightened, feeling that he was giving her some leeway. “I promise I won’t! Look, we won’t have to go far! There’s this party down in–!”
“No! Every time I get near alcohol, I just get...really bad,” he finished lamely, finishing his text message and ending it with his usual “I Love You.”
“Well, you don’t have to drink! Just come out and socialize,” she said, hands on her hips. “C’mon. It’ll be fun...”
Quatre looked up from his phone, redialing Trowa’s number. When he received the answering service, he hung up, sighing. “Fine. Fine, I’ll go with you.”
Felicia squealed with joy. Quatre often found it strange that even through the girl exhibited girlish behavior in the form of giggles and shouts, she just...well, she just didn’t sound like a girl. More rather, like a boy trying to sound as a girl. He couldn’t explain it.
“Gooders! Here, give me your number, and I’ll call you before I come pick you up, ‘k?” she said, withdrawing her own cellphone from the pocket on her shift.
Quatre stared at her cellphone, which, at one time, she’d explained that it was custom made for her taste. It cost well over two million, and it was a costly birthday present, but judging from the wear and tear on the expensive metal that weighed less than an ounce, he figured it was a well loved gift. He gave her his number, which she saved under the name, “Fun Bucket”. Wincing at the name, but shaking his head, Quatre figured he may as well as go out and ‘socialize’. He knew his low tolerance to alcohol, so he figured he just won’t drink. After all, it wasn’t as if he were going to get into any trouble or anything. Just...hang out. Socialize.
Thinking about it as Felicia said her goodbye, picked up the bag she’d used to get whatever she’d needed from her room, and ran off to her waiting limo in the parking lot, Quatre figured there was no harm in socializing. No harm at all.
#20#20#20#20#20#20#20
The crowd was rip roaring drunk. Beer sloshed over plastic cups, Cruiser was sprayed through guffawing mouths, and both cigarette and various drug smoke clogged the mansion’s air. The two girls were tearing at each other, squealing curse words and derogatory names, and as they tore through the living room, the crowd followed, cheering for their respective fighter.
One girl, a brunette, reached out and grabbed a hold of the other girl’s shirt, tearing the flimsy fabric and prompting the male population of the crowd to cheer as a bra was exposed. Brown hair was ripped out in fistfuls by the blond, who retaliated the move by ripping at the brunette’s tank top. As breasts were exposed, the crowd went wild.
Quatre, at the very front of the crowd, covered his eyes as he laughed. Both girls went down to the floor, screeching as the crowd surged forward, causing him to spill his beer over the cream colored carpet. Drake Bellows, choking on his cigarette and standing at his side, waved money in the air, looking to make a bet over who won. As the girls rolled over each other, continuously shouting and throwing punches that sounded as if they hurt, Quatre pushed his way through the crowd to get a refill on his spilt drink.
He spotted GoDarun talking to a rather bookish babe that was sitting on the counter in the kitchen, and as he refilled his beer from one of the nearest kegs, he grinned at the shy alien as he looked over in his direction. He hoped Go scored–the guy was much too quiet and seriously too shy to even drag a mere greeting out, and from the sounds of it, the girl was doing much of the talking. The boy was dragged to these things merely because his two ‘friends’, Felicia and Drake, made him. Go didn’t belong to parties–he belonged to book clubs and anime fanfreak groups. He just didn’t fit in with this scene. Quatre felt sorry for him, but them’s the breaks.
Quatre wandered out from the kitchen, sipping his drink, wondering what else he could do. Tonight he was wearing a dark blue polo shirt over his dark blue jeans, and he thought he looked pretty smashing despite his weight gain. It wasn’t even that bad, he thought. He merely gained thirteen pounds, and it wasn’t as if the world was ending. Simply, he just looked a little different. It wasn’t as if he were piling them on from the lack of exercise–he still played ball on the outside courts (the gym was closed for the summer for renovation) and he still ran. Perhaps his body was just piling on what was meant to fit over a taller frame, and his growth spurt was just waiting at the edge of the stage to appear. Whichever, he really didn’t care. After all, he figured he would lose it all before Trowa came back.
He walked into the living room, where a bunch of college students were watching the brand new Angelina Jolie movie, and saw no one he knew, so he walked out the open patio doors. He saw a few familiar faces, but no one to talk to. He walked off the patio setting, carefully stepping over a pair of guys that were madly making out, and ventured toward the pool area. The mansion belonged to whatever college student’s parents, of whom were conveniently out of town for a month or so, and it was filled with partying college students and a few high schoolers. Quatre had felt a little intimidated at first, because all he’d seen when they arrived were older kids. There weren’t that many high school kids, but that didn’t stop both Felicia and Drake, both of whom had disappeared immediately upon entering the mansion. The pair of Native Americans were hard partiers, and while Quatre liked them both, he didn’t approve of their choices in life. But whatever worked, he supposed as he and GoDarun were left to fend for themselves. Go had disappeared at one point, and Quatre had found himself alone in the living room when the girls had started fighting over some guy, and he was drawn to the fight with the rest of the partiers, Drake included.
Quatre really wasn’t one to party–but it was a great setting to relax and meet with other people. College students seemed to get along better with him, easing carefully with his somewhat abrasive personality. The girls merely laughed at him whenever he said something accidently insulting of their character, and the guys merely invited his opinion on some things. While he avoided the drug aspect of the place, of which were circulating without trouble, Quatre was drawn to the alcohol, though he avoided the Cruiser. Cruiser, an alien import, was designated to give its drinker a fairly nice buzz without the aftereffects. Unfortunately, Quatre had had a very bad experience with the drink last year, and therefore avoided taking any.
So he stuck to beer, which was a safer choice than some of the drugs and drinks floating around. He heard the cheering crowd venture into the front lawn, and heard Drake’s bellows, so he figured he would once again join the herd.
But before he could, he cut through a group of students that were laughing amongst each other, and when he was about to venture out, he heard a startled exclamation in his direction. So he turned and looked, seeing a familiar grinning face hurry over to him, holding aloft a pair of extremely baggy jeans.
Quatre had to grin, because he hadn’t thought of ‘Earl’ in such a long time. He’d ‘met’ the guy last year, when Quatre found himself arguing with a goth gay boy in a dress over Trowa. He was pretty drunk at the time, but while he’d found himself in rather gruesome combat with the goth boy over Trowa, Earl (he wasn’t even sure if that was his real name, he’d just pegged the moniker over the guy because for some reason, he thought of that Dixie Chicks’ song whenever he looked at him) was trying to set him up with some friend of his. It was pretty funny when he thought about it–it must have looked so strange to the people watching the fight.
“Hey,” he greeted as Earl met up with him, reaching out to slap him heartily over the shoulder. He was still dressed in extremely baggy clothes, with the same close cropped hair and bling-bling in his ears and around his neck. He was just without the pair of chicks that he’d been in the presence of last year. It wasn’t that Earl was great looking–merely, he seemed to have a way of speaking that drew people in. And persuading.
“What’s up, man?! Shit, I haven’t seen you in ages, boy!” Earl exclaimed, holding a cup of Cruiser and smelling expensively of some Tommy Hilfiger scent.
“Yeah.”
“You ain’t fightin’ with anybody tonight, are you?”
“NO! There’s no reason to!” Quatre said on a laugh. “I’m just hanging out with some of my friends.”
“Oh, yeah? Who?”
“This guy named Drake Bellows, and Felicia Passage.”
“Oh. They’re cool. A little rough around the edges, if’n you know what I mean,” Earl snorted, sipping his Cruiser. Then he brightened. “You single?”
“No, I–”
“My friend’s here! He still ain’t hooked up with anybody yet! You guys should talk!” Earl exclaimed excitedly, scanning the crowd outside.
Quatre shook his head repeatedly, inching away. “No, no, that’s all right. Really, I’m in a relationship, and he’s just–”
“Hey!” Earl shouted back at his friends. “Where’s Travis at!?”
Quatre hurriedly raced away, not wanting to be setup by anybody. Once he reached the front yard, though, he saw that the fight had been broken up, and the blond was the victor. She shook her arms victoriously over her head, cheering for herself. Quatre caught up to Drake, who was talking to some kid heavily into a metal death band. Drake Bellows, the entirely thin Seminole with an unruly goatee and strangely hypnotic blue eyes, had decided on a change as well. Last year, when Quatre met him, the boy had neon blue hair that was fashioned into spikes that shot out all over his scalp. This year, he’d forgone the hairspray and gel, and let the fading neon blue color over his naturally black hair sprout out from his head in a somewhat chia pet impersonation. He’d grown a couple of inches, but was still shorter than Quatre was. He was still entirely thin, the bones of his face and hands prominent as he smoked his possibly thirtieth cigarette since they’d arrived. The kid chain-smoked like a mad man and was kind of hard to imagine without a cigarette in hand.
“Who won?” Quatre asked, despite the obvious.
“Brenda. She tore Anna’s ass, man!” Drake exclaimed, looking at him. His voice was very gravelly, deep, and when he spoke, his features shifted comically. Drake was a bundle of nerves, and had enough energy to power up the entire city. When the boy wasn’t standing still, he was either jumping madly in place, swinging his arms, running here and there, or shouting. Drake loved to shout, which is why Quatre thought that his last name, ‘Bellows’ was entirely appropriate. “Where the fuck were you?”
“Around.”
“Let’s get some weed, man,” the metal kid drawled, looking around. When Drake agreed, Quatre figured he look elsewhere for someone to hang out with, because while he wasn’t into drugs. He walked off, finishing his beer and tossing the cup off to his side. Only, the cup didn’t fall onto the lawn like he wanted it to–it bounced off someone’s head.
He grimaced and turned to apologize when the boy turned around, glaring at him. Quatre then paused, blinking as the boy performed a double-take. The features of the boy were vaguely familiar–the wide eyebrows, the dark spiky hair, the wide shoulders, the annoyed set of his mouth...the boy was looking at him, trying to place him as well, the girl he was talking with looking from one to another with a raise of her eyebrows.
Then she pointed excitedly. “Dude!” she exclaimed, pointing at Quatre. “That’s the dude that rocked your ass last year on the court!”
Then Quatre remembered–the boy was #32 for Sageville High, the one that had played roughly against him and ended up being removed from the game on a technical. #32 recognized him as well, a mean expression flittering across his face. The boy had been so hostile to him on the court, that they’d engaged in a sort of trade-off in insults, and Quatre, knowing that the boy was some homophobe due to the constant accusations the boy had thrown at him, had thrown kisses and the such to throw off the boy’s game. It had worked, but now that they were off the court and away from any school campus, he had a brief wonder as to what the kid could do.
Quatre held his hands up in surrender. He really wasn’t one to back down from a fight, but he was sure he didn’t want to fight right now. Despite himself, though, he kind of wondered what the kid would do if he socked him across the face for bruising his ass last year. At the memory of it, his ass hurt, cheeks clenching reflexively.
“Sorry,” he apologized for the cup.
“Fuck you.”
He frowned, lowering his hands as the girl frowned at the boy’s hostile glare and words. “I said sorry. It’s not like I hurt you or anything!”
The boy faced him, holding his own cup of beer, the girl looking nervously from one boy to the other. Quietly, she inched a little between them, but the boy pushed her out of the way. “I don’t appreciate being used for your garbage can, bitch.”
Quatre glared at him, raising an eyebrow. The boy was looking for a fight. Fine, then. “Just because we stomped all over your stupid ass on the court doesn’t mean you can talk shit off of it. Fucking sore loser.”
“What’d you say?!” the boy growled, dropping his cup of beer and inching into his space. Not one to back down, Quatre squared off against him, the girl murmuring slight pleas as she tried to inch between them once more, hands on the boy’s chest.
“You heard me, asshole. What are you, deaf, now?”
The boy’s fists clenched at his sides, and he glared down at Quatre, standing a mere two inches over him. It wasn’t that much of an advantage, but it was enough to make Quatre frown. “Are you trying to start shit, homo?”
“‘Homo’?! You’re the one getting all turned on by me, fucker. Always trying to cop a feel and shit,” he growled right back as attention from various partiers standing on the front lawn and porch was drawn to their confrontation, small shouts of ‘fight!’ ringing through the air.
The boy sputtered with disbelief. “I did not! Motherfucker, take that shit back! I ain’t no Goddamned homo!”
“Fuck that bullshit! You act like it!”
“You don’t fuckin’ know me!”
“I know a homo when I see one, motherfucker!”
“Dick face!”
“Cock head!”
“Shut the fuck up, you fuckin’ fag!”
“Make me!”
The boy swung heartily at Quatre’s head, and he ducked quickly to avoid being hit. During the throw of the boy’s fist, he slammed his own fist forward, catching the boy in the gut. The crowd that had gathered to watch the girlfight now gathered around them, cheering and yelping in reaction as the boys tore into each other. The boy’s friend tried to break them up, but she merely received a stray fist in the face, so she was pulled out from the fight to get doctored by the others.
The boys, in their relative fury to pound the other’s face into the grass, made their way from the lawn to the ‘parking lot’,where the partiers had parked their various vehicles in the driveway of the mansion, and on the lawn. The fight then escalated to more dangerous measures. Quatre could feel his nose bleeding from a good whack to the face, but he didn’t bother with cleaning himself off as he grabbed the other boy’s hair, and slammed the boy’s face off the hood of someone’s car. The boy, dazed, stumbled to the pavement, bleeding from an open cut on his forehead. He rose from the pavement to slam into Quatre’s knees, knocking him to the street as the crowd roared. Faintly, as the boy pinned him to the street to punch away at his face, Quatre heard his friends screaming at him to ‘kick his ass’, and he knew he couldn’t lose to this loser in front of them, so he reached up, dug his fingers into the boy’s eyes, then heaved him off when the boy was forced to stop punching him.
Quatre then pinned him to the street and dug his fingers into the boy’s dark hair, and prepared to slam his face into the street when someone gave a good yell of surprise, jumping into the fight to pull him off of the boy. As they struggled to reach each other once more, Earl, who was holding Quatre back, roared in fury, “I said TALK to each other, not pound each other’s faces in!”
Confusion set in as both Quatre and the boy, currently being held back by another college student, looked at Earl in silence. Earl shoved Quatre onto the lawn, and got into the other boy’s face, roaring, “What the fuck, man?! You ask me to set you up, and you end up beatin’ on the guy I was trying to hook you up with?! What the fuck?!”
Blinking, wiping at his nose, Quatre stared at the boy in dawning realization while the boy looked at him with the same expression. Then Quatre laughed, pointing at him. “Ha! Ha! I told you you were a homo, fucker!”
“Fuck you!” the boy shouted, reddening considerably as the crowd laughed.
Earl pushed on Quatre, growling about cleaning each other up. “Damn it,” he muttered as Quatre tried to staunch the blood flow with the sleeve of his polo shirt. “See if I try settin’ up anybody else again...”
#20#20#20#20#20#20#20
“Wah!! !” Felicia cried in mourning as he cleaned himself off in the bathroom, muttering about vengeful homos as he washed the blood from his face and hair. She was sitting on the counter next to the sink, bemoaning her failure to seeing him fighting. He had no idea where she had been, only that she popped up when he began cleaning his face. “I can’t believe I missed this shit! How could you?!”
“It just started...I didn’t even do anything,” he muttered as he dried himself off with a towel.
She laughed uproariously, not believing that for one bit. “Fuck that bullshit, Quat! You always start shit!”
“I swear! I didn’t this time!” He looked at her grinning. “I won, though. I really would have fucked him up if Earl hadn’t come along and interrupted us.”
She blinked, looking at him curiously. “Huh? Earl? He’s here?”
“Yeah. I guess the guy I was beating into the ground was the guy he was trying to set me up with,” Quatre ended on a laugh.
She stared at him in surprise, mouth forming an ‘o’. “No way! Really?!”
“Yeah!”
She laughed. “Dude! No way!”
“Yeah!”
“Was he cute?”
“Felicia...shit.” Quatre shook his head as he flicked off the lights and left the bathroom, Felicia following quickly. “No. He really isn’t. Well...I don’t know. Kind of, maybe.”
“Either he is or he ain’t, Quat. Are you going to hook up with him?” she asked excitedly.
“No!” he exclaimed, looking at her in shock. “I’m in a relationship, Felicia! I’m not cheating on Trowa. Besides, no. I wouldn’t...no. I can’t do that to him. Besides, if I were to cheat on Trowa, it wouldn’t be with that jerk.”
“Quat...would you ever if you had the chance?” Felicia asked, eyes wide as she followed him downstairs.
Quatre snorted, the thought entirely inconceivable. “Felicia! What the fuck?”
“No, seriously! I mean, if you could get away with it, would you?”
“NO! I wouldn’t want that to happen to me! Why would I do that to him?” he asked in incredulous horror, looking back at her with his eyes wide. “Besides, he would never do that to me...I mean, I wouldn’t even count that thing with Middie as ‘cheating’. Rather...never mind.”
“So...even if you could, you wouldn’t?” Felicia asked as she snagged someone’s box of cigarettes that sat on an end table in the living room, and pulling one out. She paused in walking after him, cupping her hands around the cancer stick. Quatre blinked, because when she removed her hands, he saw no presence of a lighter to get that thing going. He wondered about this as she dropped the box over her shoulder and re-joined him. He searched her hands for the lighter that she’d used to lit her cigarette, but immediately lost interest when she blew smoke into his face, and gestured with her chin, her eyes shifting to look beyond his shoulder.
He turned, and blinked again when he saw the boy from earlier standing there, looking apologetic. Quatre turned warily, wondering what he wanted, and wondering if they were going to fight again. In glee, Felicia removed the cigarette from her mouth and looked in interest as she waited for words or fists to be exchanged.
The boy, working his lower jaw with a confused expression, took a deep breath. Then he held out his hand, looking Quatre in the eyes with a sincere expression. “Sorry about that,” he apologized, rather gruffly. “My name’s Travis. But I go by my middle name, Justin.”
Quatre stared at the hand, then at Justin. Wondering what kind of trick this was, he cautiously went with it. He shook the hand lightly. “Um...Quatre. Winner.”
Justin shrugged a shoulder as he pulled his hand away, sliding it into his cargo shorts pocket. There were faint splotches of blood on his maroon t-shirt, and some on his shorts, but not entirely noticeable. Quatre was sure he was decorated the same way, so it didn’t really matter. “I–I’m really sorry about things. I mean...I’m kinda embarrassed that... things went down the way they did.”
“So you are a homo.”
“Er...I dunno.”
“You’re the one Earl was trying to set me up with?”
“I guess so. Last year, I kept missing you whenever I showed up. So...I don’t know. Earl kept telling me about this one guy with white hair, and...I don’t know.”
“Psst. I’m leaving,” Felicia hissed to Quatre, hurrying off and leaving him behind, rather disappointed that they weren’t going to fight.
He grimaced, unsure if he wanted to stay and talk with the guy that had been so vicious to him, but figured What the hell. The guy lived in Sageville...and it wasn’t as if he were going to see him everyday. Quatre turned back to him, and shrugged, hands sliding into his pockets. Plus, it wasn’t as if he were going to cheat on Trowa. Just talk to the guy. That didn’t constitute as cheating, right?
“Well...you got a good right hook,” he then said, smiling slightly.
Justin turned faintly red, and shrugged a shoulder. “Er...thanks. Good uppercut.”
Quatre chuckled, hands in his pockets. He wasn’t sure what to say to the guy–it was under awkward circumstance that they were talking...Justin looked just as awkward, faintly embarrassed as he looked around, wearing a plain band-aid over his right eye, a bruise under his left eye. He then shrugged again. “Anyway...want a beer or something?” he asked timidly, scruffing the carpet with the toe of his shoe.
Quatre shrugged and nodded. He wasn’t cheating on Trowa in anyway–he’d just let the guy know that he was in a relationship, and that was that. He wasn’t interested. As he followed Justin to the kitchen, he looked around nervously, hoping that none of Trowa’s friends, if they were here, would call and let the extra-paranoid ex-goth know what he was doing. Trowa’s first boyfriend, a boy named Ralph Curt, had cheated on Trowa their freshmen year with a girl from a nearby military academy, and was extra cautious when it came to possible cheating situations with Quatre. Trowa was so paranoid that Quatre would cheat on him that he actually came to dislike his friend, Felicia, because he was convinced the girl was after Quatre.
Quatre knew nothing was going to happen between him and Felicia–for one thing, he was gay, for another, she was a Native American and ‘hated’ white boys in that intimate sense. It was so utterly ridiculous to think of hooking up with his female friend that he felt instantly annoyed whenever Trowa brought it up. But he couldn’t help but agree that Trowa had some rights to be paranoid, simply because once a person was cheated upon, they never really got over it.
But he could never do that to Trowa! Ever!
And with this guy? Quatre studied Justin as the guy poured him a cup from one of the opened kegs. The guy stood at five foot ten, had a very sturdy frame in wide shoulders and broad chest, muscular legs that suggested plenty of running, and somewhat pleasing features. He had an oval face, his nose straight and short, thin lips, black, wide eyebrows and squinty eyes. His hair, dark brown and styled in a spiky fashion, wasn’t marred by thick gel and hairspray like most of the guys Quatre knew. He also had a pleasant baritone, and he was somewhat confrontational–but what confused Quatre was that this same boy had so much animosity toward him on the court that he wondered what this sudden change in the boy meant.
Justin seemed genuinely interested, but why the extreme dislike? Maybe he had troubles adjusting to his own sexuality, and had disliked Quatre because he was attracted to him? Which was a possibility, and something he would find out. After all, he’d had a bad coming out experience as well, so he had to give the guy that much.
He took the cup offered to him and swallowed some down. He wasn’t drunk, nor was he buzzed–and he planned on staying that way, to keep from fucking around. He knew what alcohol did to him, and he didn’t want to lose that much control.
Justin took his own cup, and gestured that they take a walk. As Quatre followed him, figuring that nothing was going to happen anyway, he really hoped Trowa didn’t know about this. He hated having to deal with Trowa’s insecurity and doubts, and this separation would really drive home some problems. He shook his head and resolved to deal with it later. After all, he wasn’t cheating on Trowa–just talking. There was nothing wrong with talking, right?