Summary: Hank McCoy's childhood friend was the first person to open his eyes to the dilemma that mutants have to face. She disappears for almost twenty years and is thought to be dead. In her memory Hank McCoy tries everything in his power to help all mutants. Takes place after the end of the show. Beast/OC.
The Plight of Van Gogh.
Disclaimer: I own only Quinn and her family.
Chapter One. Twenty-three Years Ago
"Hey, Beastly, what up?" Hank McCoy, age twelve, jumped noticeably at the startling sounds of a young girl's voice. He turned to the sound and found dark brown eyes staring at him from upside down.
"Quinn, what are you doing?" he asked. His only response was loud childish laughter.
"Just hanging around." she responded finally, laughter still in her voice. Hanging upside down in a high tree limb, she was just eye level with Hank, her long dark brown hair dangling from her blue scrunchy. She swung down and landed ungracefully onto the ground, falling into a pile of musty, dead leaves. Hank reached down and helped her back onto her feet, his large over sized hands almost completely covered her shoulders entirely. She dusted off her jeans, smile never leaving her face as old leaves fell back onto the ground.
"Is it just me, or are you excessively happy today?" Hank asked her. She spun around in a circle, her dark hair swing around in it's ponytail as she went. She then walked toward the bright sunlight that was being hidden from them by the thick cover of trees.
"I just turned ten yesterday. I have a new sketchbook. I'm gonna be happy no matter what!" She emerged into the clearing only a few steps ahead of Hank. She threw herself into the grass and stared up at the sky, basking in the warm sunlight. Hank moved to sit down beside her. Her smile failed her for a moment as her features turned to look like she was in a deep train of thought.
"Mom and Dad are fighting again." she told him randomly as she rolled over to face him. Hank's eyebrows knitted together in contemplation.
"Why?" he asked her, falling into the grass as well.
"My dad's got a new lady friend that my mom doesn't like. I don't know why mom would be so upset about that, but she is. She's furious. She wants to move in with Grandma, but Grandma doesn't have enough room for the both of us." she told him. Hank sighed. Quinn O'hara had just moved to Dunfee about four months ago. She arrived just as summer had started, and living in the middle of nowhere, she didn't really have the opportunity to make friends. The school year had just picked up, and as far as he knew, he was the only friend she had, even as her classes began. Her family was just her and her parents. In the few short months that the O'hara family had lived there, his parents decided it was best if he not go over to her house for various and sundry reasons. Hank had a very shrewd idea why her mom was so upset my her dad's new lady friend.
"I don't want to move. There's not a Beastly I can run around in the woods with there!" she told him playfully. She nudged him with her old tattered sneaker.
"Yeah. I don't want you to go either Quinn."
...
Five Years Later.
"Hank! I'm so tired of Dunfee I could vomit!" she told him angrily. They were back in the clearing, this time it was scattered in bright white stars. They both were sprawled out into the coarse grass looking upward. Her hair was tamed and pulled back out of her hair as she had large earrings dangling from her ears.
"I don't think that would be the most appropriate course of action. Your suffering from small town syndrome." he told her. She sighed deeply. He soon did also.
"I think I'm suffering from the sucky-parent syndrome," she said bitterly. Hank rolled his eyes.
"That too," Quinn laughed loudly. She gave another sigh and grew serious again.
"Hank, I need out. I have a feeling something's about to happen. I don't want to be apart of it either." she rolled over to her side and faced Hank.
"Just wait a few more years, you'll get into a good college and will be making millions off your paintings." A heavy set of clouds blew over and uncovered a brilliant half moon. Wind blew the thick blades of grass to tickle across their bare arms.
"I don't think my paintings will sell millions 'til I'm dead, Hank," she said laughingly.
"That's the way to be optimistic," he announced sarcastically. "Are you coming to the game tomorrow?"
"No." she told him flatly. "Last time I went the jocks threw my sketchbook in the mud and me on top of it. I was lucky that it only seeped through the cover and two pages."
"Oh, right. I just thought you might want to see me play." he said glumly. She smiled and laughed softly.
"Let me borrow your binoculars and I'll watch from the woods behind the stadium."
"Van Gogh, it's a deal," she reached out and they shook on it. He rolled over onto his stomach and turned to face her. Her eyes seemed to capture the light of all of the stars. Their faces grew close, their noses almost touching. His hand found a lock of her dark hair that had fallen from her ponytail and hung just in front of her ear. Their breath the began to mingle together in the autumn night. She placed her forehead against his. Her dark eyes closed as she slid closer, her knees pressed against his thighs.
"HENRY! Time to come inside! It's a school night." Edna McCoy called from across the McCoy property. They both jolted back as if they shocked each other with their pent up energy. Quinn jumped up and quickly disappeared into the trees.
He sat up and stared at where her body had left an imprint in the grass. He hung his head low in defeat and made his way back to his old farm house. His mind was whirring with all the possibilities of what could have just happened.
...
Later that night.
Quinn was sitting on her bed, leaning over her sketchbook, eyes narrowed in concentration. Wads of paper littered the floor with a couple of broken pencil leads. Quinn gave a groan and threw a pillow against the wall, knocking down some of the many doodles she had tacked up there. Something wasn't right with her sketch. It was of a snake, coiled up in a defensive position on a bed of rocks. Its looked extremely life-like, an achievement she was highly proud of, but something still didn't seem right well. She curled her bare toes, gathering up bits of the homemade quilt between them. She placed her pencil in her mouth and rolled the pencil between her teeth. The clock above her ticked away past midnight.
She set her index finger right between the snake's eyes. She held it there for a few moments and when she went to withdraw it intense heat shot through her fingers and travel throughout her whole body. She instinctively threw her sketchpad onto the floor. When she inspected her burning finger, nothing appeared the be wrong with it. She looked down at the thrown sketch book and sitting on top her sketchpad was a living and breathing rattlesnake, shaking its tail in attempt to frighten her off. She gave a loud scream and tried to skirt around it to the door as it tried to sink its teeth into her bare ankles.
Her parents came running down the hall to her room, obviously just startled from sleep. Her mom came to her and place her arms around her shoulders. Her father looked into her room and gasped. He ran back to his room only to return with a metal baseball bat. She closed her eyes and cringed as she stood in the hallway, when her father raised it above his head.
After her father dragged the now dead snake from her room, she felt numb and in shock. Her parents were livid as to how a rattlesnake ended up into the upstairs bedroom of their only daughter. She didn't dare tell them what really had happened. When the lights from her parents bedroom went out, she ducked out of the house, bare foot and in pajamas as her only protection from the November cold, to talk to the only person who would believe her. As she approached his house she scooped up a handful of pebbles and put them in the front pocket of her light blue tee-shirt. She then pulled herself up into the tree right outside his window. Her toes wrapped around the rough bark as found a spot in the tree outside his window and leaned against the tree trunk.
Tap. Tap. Tap. She threw the pebbles as gently as she dared against his window. His lights turned on and then his window was shoved open with a loud groan of crackling paint. He leaned out of the window, his bright blue eyes instantly finding her figure in the shadows.
"Quinn?" he looked surprised for a moment. He reached out and help pull her into his room. She climbed through the window, stepped onto his desk that was covered in advanced psychics homework, and leapt lightly onto the floor. In the five years that they had been friends, it was the first time she had ever been inside his room with the door shut. It was lit only by the light of a lamp next to his bed. His room was covered in football trophy's and posters, but what she saw that was truly him, was the bookshelves full of hardback books.
"Isn't it the male that is supposed to be one who throws pebbles at a girls window?" he asked with humor as he turned on a radio to cover up their voices. She just sat down on his bed and pulled her knees close to her. He sat down across from her on the carpeted floor. She sat in silence for a moment, debating how to tell him.
"I did something strange, Hank." He looked at her for a minute. He didn't respond, hoping she would continue on her own. She did after she rubbed her temples in frustration and threw her head back in anger. He waited patiently, know that in time, she would answer.
"I was working on a sketch for Mrs. Caldecott. Right? It was a snake, just a simple rattlesnake." she looked at him, she tried to emphasize the importance of the next part by motioning with her hands, "I brought it to life, Hank." He cocked his head to the side, his eyes were full of confusion.
"I think you seem to bring all you artwork to life, hence the nickname Van Gogh."
"Not like this, Hank, there was a living and breathing rattlesnake sitting on top of my sketchbook, in my floor."
"Really? In Dunfee, how? You turned a sketch into a real animal?" he brought his legs up off the floor and stared at her intently.
"Exactly.. My dad killed it with a baseball bat. Its corpse is probably dangling from our garbage can outside. I picked up my sketchbook right before I came here. There was a blank white spot on my page where the snake was." the room fell silent except for the feeble noise of jazz music playing over Hank's radio. "What am I?" He was silent for a moment, not knowing how to respond.
"I don't know what it means. I don't have the slightest clue, but hey at least I'm no longer the only freak show in Dunfee, Illinois." she smiled a little as Hank moved to sit down next to her.
"Your not scared of me, are you?" she asked and the tried to draw her body as close to her as possible.
"I could never be scared of you, Quinn. You're the best, and only real, friend I have. What ever is going on, we'll figure it out together."
"Thank you." she murmured to him softly, he just put and over size hand on the small of her back, pulled her to him and held her close for a long time.
After she stayed with him for about an hour, and significantly calming down, she opened his window back up. "Put this on, It is the smallest one I have. I don't want you to catch your death out there." He was holding a sweatshirt that the had just dug out of his dresser.
"Thanks Momma McCoy," she replied softly, but pulled the dark blue Dunfee High School sweatshirt on nonetheless. It fell almost to her knees and she had to push the sleeves way up. She smiled sheepishly before he held his hand out and helped her back on top of his desk. She swung out of his window and he watched her shimmy down the tree and run off into the darkness of the trees, cursing softly every time she stubbed her toe.
When she stepped back into the kitchen of her own home her parents were awake and sitting at the kitchen table. He father held a glass full of amber liquid and her mother was standing in the doorway, tears trickled down her face.
"Where the hell do you think you were?" he dad practically yelled. She felt fear build up in the pit of her stomach as he stood up. He slammed the glass down, liquid sloshing everywhere and stumbled to her.
"Outside." was all she could say, all she dared to say.
"Yes, we saw you run out into the woods with nothing but a tee-shirt and shorts on. Where did the sweatshirt come from? Huh?" he was right in front of her. He smelled just as drunk as he looked. She couldn't bring her to say anything. "You whore. Your screwing around with that gorilla of a failure." Her jaw dropped in shock of his accusation.
"I.. Hank.. We didn't.." she fell silent again. Her mom began to sob a little louder in the corner. Her eyes turned to her mother and then back to her father, just in time to see him raise his his hand.
...
Hank had spent the whole weekend trying to find a way to contact Quinn, but she wouldn't show up anywhere. She was absent from school on Friday, and didn't show up to the game. They always hung out on Saturday at the creek, but she never showed, not the creek, or the field, the forest, or the stables.
On Monday, he went immediately to her locker and saw her shutting it and turning in the opposite direction. He caught up with her and placed a hand on her shoulder. She turned around and she looked straight up at him. Her lip looked like it had been busted and a bruise just lightly dusted her left cheek. It didn't look fresh, like it had been healing for a few days.
"Oh, Quinn," his whispered, surprised that his voice didn't crack. He reached out to place his fingertips to her bruised cheek. She backed up and thrust his sweatshirt back into his arms. Her face was so full of spite it almost brought tears to his eyes.
"Save it, Magilla," she turned and ducked into her Geometry class as the bell rang. He just stood there as if he had been slapped. She has always called him Beast, or Beastly, but it was with a certain kindness that it had never once bothered him. She always said it was just who he was and that she liked him that way. As she stood in front of him and called him the nickname that every bully and jock the school contained had called him since first grade, he felt like the most alone and miserable human being in the world. He let his sweatshirt fall to the ground as he turned and headed through the now empty hallways for Advanced Chemistry.
...
Quinn had been on her bed crying for the past hour. Not because of her parents, she could deal with that. Not because she had once again brought something out of her drawings (a vase she had broken on accident last week was now sitting back on the mantle). But, because of the image of Hank's face was stuck in her mind, when he looked at her with such confusion and sadness.
She gave a loud groan and very much wished all of this would just go away, that she could leave her room, and apologize to her only true friend. She stared out her window, and saw Hank standing out in their field. He wouldn't want to talk to her, not after what she had done. Why had she done it? Oh yeah, he father said that if he ever saw the "monkey" around his land again he would pull out his shotgun. She released another guttural groan, grabbed fistfuls of her hair and fell face first into her pillow.
Ugh! She was so confused! She never before was afraid of her talent, but felt that if she so much as picked up a pencil, she would cause a minor Armageddon. She rolled off her bed and crawled to the other end of the room. What harm could looking pictures do? She pulled open a drawer in her dresser that was full of magazine clippings. It was filled to the brim with cut outs and doodles.
She pulled out an old clipping from a national geographic with a photograph of a stream of salmon. She thought that it was one of her favorites. It would make a nice color pencil sketch. Her sudden inspiration over came any fears she had had before. She walked through the hallway in order to get her large easel and stretch her legs. She looked down at the painting. It looked like a stain had gotten on it. She took her thumb and tried to rub it off. When she stopped, the growing familiar stab of heat went through her hand and she dropped the photograph. Fear shot through her as salmon began to emerge from the photograph, dozens came flopping out, and it wouldn't stop. A powerful gush of water sent hundreds of salmon down her hallway and down the stairs and they were to the middle of her shins now. She heard her mother screech loudly. She waded into her room and slammed the door behind her. Water leaked under the door and she heard salmon bang against the door. She did the only thing that seemed right. She began to pack her bag. She threw in clothes and art supplies. She looked out the window and salmon had worked their way into the yard, flopping back and forth in the thinning dying grass. She yanked open her window and busted out a screen just before salmon busted the hinges off her bedroom door. She ducked out of the room and climbed on the roof feeling the shingles against the bare feet. She sat down and quickly tied on a pair of sneakers.
Salmon were everywhere. On the roof, in windows, in the grass, her mother could still be heard screaming as salmon flopped all over the house. She threw her bag on the ground and climbed down the gutter. She was gone before her parents knew otherwise.
She grabbed her bag and ran. Ran as fast as she could. She emerged into the clearing in setting sun. Hank was still there. She threw her bag down and yelled for him. He turned and she threw her arms around him as best she could. She kept mumbling apologies over and over again.
He pried her loose and then inhaled. "Why do you smell like fish?" She gave one of her infamous belly laughs.
"Damn National Geographic." Hank just looked at her with an raised eyes brow. "Well, salmon are no longer and endangered species in this area anymore." Hank laughed loudly.
"I think I can still hear my mom screaming as six hundred salmon went down the stairs." Hank looked over her shoulder and saw the large camping bag. Quinn, realizing what he was looking at, gave a loud sigh.
"Hank, I can't go back," she told him, her eyes looking down at the grass surrounding their feet. He looked at her, his expression pained.
"Where will you go," he asked seriously. She just shrugged and turned her back to him as she shouldered her bag.
"I don't know. I like the south. I think I'll go there. Maybe someone out there knows what I am."
"So your just going to run away?" she turned and nodded.
"Exactly." A cold wind blew suddenly as the purple and orange like covered them both. Her long brown hair blew in her face.
"Quinn, its dangerous, I won't let you! You can't go. I need you here..." He took a breath before he went to keep on ranting. Quinn placed a finger over his mouth.
"I have to. I need to. I want to. I won't forget you Beastly. Your still gonna be my best friend." She leaned forward, kissed him on his cheek, and disappeared into the shadows of the woods before Hank could even murmur a goodbye. He stood fighting ever instinct to grab her and take her back, and make her stay, but he just sighed and stood still.
"And you mine, Van Gogh."
...
...
That's chapter one. Thanks to TruInsanity for hassling me to finish this. Oh, and in the comics, when Hank grew up, everyone in school called him "Magilla Gorilla" after the cartoon character, if you were wondering.
--- I just reedited this one. It's a little more convincing and realistic, RandR thanks!