ELLERSHOUSE

Chapter One:

QUATRE

It was a disturbingly normal Thursday when Quatre made his daily commute; a one mile trek from the Winner family home to the steps of the regional public school. His final year couldn't go fast enough for Quatre Raberba Winner both his home and school lives were secluded, lonely and dull. For starters, his parents were basically out of the picture, the school children believed he was a spoilt rich kid and he was above average intelligence. This made walking to the doors of the school a more mundane task than ever. The school work alone was of little to no challenge and any homework given he could fly through in a matter of minutes.

The soles of Quatre's worn sneakers scuffed along the pavement as he slowly made himself hurry. The only thing worse than school is having to stay late after everyone else had gone home. It was a crisp and cool, yet sunny day in October and the leaves had just begun to change. Some had already fallen to the pavement, made flat by the hundreds of cars that drove over them. The down town core was as stuffed as ever with pedestrians and drivers all trying their best to make it to work on time.

Beep Beep!

Quatre lifted his head from the leaves and watched as the black mustang flew around the corner, the white flash of a hand out the window waving out a hello. Or a goodbye, I guess. Quatre didn't bother waving back at Duo-he preferred walking to what would happen to him if he showed up in an expensive car.

Duo Maxwell had come to live with the Winner family when he was eleven years old. One day Quatre's parents came home with a sickly, skinny child and dumped Duo on the carpet in front of him. He remembered the wide violet eyes and the mistrust that was brimming there. Helen, the family nanny, tried to get him in the bath but Duo refused. Dressed in his skivvies only, Quatre watched from the open doorway as Helen tried to coax the long haired boy into the warm water. From the look of his skin he hadn't seen a bathtub in a while- if ever.

Duo stood with his arms crossed, a little scowl on his damp skinny cheeks. Quatre had walked in and quietly got undressed and stepped into the soapy warm water. To this day he isn't sure what made him do it but Duo relaxed enough to take his hand and step into the water, sinking down enough so Helen could properly wash his dirty and bruised skin. His hair was matted and greasy and Quatre took to washing it the best he could while Duo sat there, knees to his chest. Helen had made the comment about cutting the mats out of his hair and Duo scowled so fiercely and guarded his hair so efficiently that Helen dropped the subject and to this day has never come up again.

Quatre was sure if his parents had fostered Duo instead of adopted him they would have promptly returned him as quickly as an undersized suit. Fortunately for Quatre, Duo was a permanent thing. He always wondered why his parents had adopted another son. Was he not good enough? Was Duo there for him so he wouldn't be alone as often? Quatre's parents were almost always away on business. His father was the CEO of a multi-million dollar company and his mother spent nine months out of the year at sea as an intelligence officer with the military. He also isn't sure if they fell out of love or just never loved each other in the first place. Quatre could count on one hand how often his father was home each month and even less for his mother. He wasn't even aware when her next dry dock would be.

Regardless, if Quatre had no one else, he had Duo. Quatre refused outright once he graduated junior high at a prestigious private school that he would only attend the region's public school. He had many reasons for this-most stemming from his hatred of high and mighty children accustomed to getting whatever they want. Quatre believed that humans are all alike, all the same. That no one's self worth is more than anyone else's. Besides, the Darlian family ruled the school and spending one more moment listening to Relena talking about the newest designer shoes, Quatre was sure he would stand on his desk and scream.

Duo was there there when Quatre fell out of the tree in their yard that had just begged to be climbed when he was fifteen. He was there at the doctors office when Quatre received his first prescription for his asthma, had been there to take him to the emergency room at Queen Elizabeth II hospital in the first damn place. No one else but Helen was around and she was only there from nine to five and anything else once the two boys turned twelve they were on their own for. Duo once made the joke that once an orphan, always an orphan-which Quatre didn't find any comedy in at all. Duo should have had a loving family adopt him. The normal mother than cooks a turkey dinner for Thanksgiving and Christmas or that shows up for their birthdays. They had both been orphans growing up, in a sense.

Duo was also there one one of those rare nights last year when both their parents were home, holding Quatre's hand tightly while Quatre summed up the courage to tell his parents he was gay. When his parents packed up his suitcase and paid for an overpriced clinician from a religious camp to pick Quatre up and take him away, Duo was there at the door to slam it firmly in their faces.

Duo was the only shimmer of light in Quatre's lonely world. As children they became very close-Quatre by taking care of Duo at night when the nightmares from his youth were the most severe and Duo- by keeping Quatre's spirits high enough that they may get out of this godforsaken city someday. Quatre had struggled with self-harm in his early teen years and sometimes even now, when he was really depressed, he would revert back to it as a coping mechanism. Duo knew about the injuries being in the past but did not realize that Quatre would still sometimes need to release his pent up frustration and stress in the only way he knew how.

Quatre could see the brick of the school as he rounded the corner. Citadel High, a brand new amalgamated school. The city took the two worst rivals, bulldozed their crummy schools, and shoved them all together into one. The disciplinary rate was almost outrageous. People still held past grudges and most of the innocent students like Quatre would get into the midst of things, unintentionally.

Quatre thought that maybe he would get a reprieve today, that his school yard bullies would be absent today. No such luck, his heart sank as he shifted his backpack and tried to get lost in the sea of bodies climbing the concrete steps. There, at the top, stood Dorothy and her clones. Quatre could take the physical abuse from the jocks but the sharp words that came out of Dorothy's mouth could make a sailor cringe.

He knew the exact moment he was spotted. Her face scrunched up as if she smelled something rotten and spoke loudly enough for everyone in the entire courtyard to hear.

"Well, well, Quatre Winner-and what do we have here?"

Her long arm snaked out and grabbed his black earphones out of his ears, violently detaching it from his Ipod. He was happy the Ipod itself was tucked safely into the pouch in his backpack.

Dorothy's group snickered while people stopped to see the commotion. Everyone knew the Winner kid was the richest heir in town and they also knew he had no friends to back him up and no backbone to fight back for himself. Everyone also knew that Duo Maxwell-Winner was his adopted brother but he always hung out with the rest of the jocks on the second floor, near the offices.

Quatre suddenly found something very interesting on the ground at his feet, his face aflame with embarrassment. This was a game he wasn't going to play. Sometimes he pictured himself growing so angry he punched Dorothy right in the eye, splitting the skin open like he's always wanted to. Today, he just tried to sneak around them politely. He could deal with the loss of one set of headphones even if it meant he had to wait until the end of the day to get another.

Dorothy let him get to her elbow and he thought he was in the clear when she reached out and grabbed the hood of his blue sweater and yanked, hard.

Quatre choked for a moment before losing his balance and falling flat on his ass in front of 50% of the student body. It was like a chorus of laughter that penetrated his head, likely to remain there for a long time-nagging at him.

"What a loser."

"Not so rich and perfect now, Winner."

Students that he never even met spat out insults from all around him.

Dorothy's laugh, above all others, infuriated and berated him. His puffer had fallen out of his pocket and when he got the nerve to stand up and leave she was spraying the medication into the air, following him through the entrance into the school-laughing all the way.

They gave up the chase by the time he got to the men's room and Quatre's hands shook as they grasped the sides of the sink. He took in deep breaths, trying to calm himself. If he got worked up enough his asthma could flare up and like hell he was finding Dorothy begging for his medication back. He looked in the mirror at the blue eyes and blond hair-his face had no sign of malice or any other reason he could possibly think of for why the students would act like they do. It was the Winner name that tagged him as different as much as the different coloured nail polish he wore on each finger.

Quatre gathered his wits and made his way out the steel door into the now empty hallway towards his home room. He was late, he knew, and there was no leniency here. Give a student an inch and they take a mile, it seems to be the school motto. Detention after school was going to suck, especially without his beloved headphones.

The can of blue spray paint in his bag tinged as he walked and his spirits rose. If anything at least he had something to do over the lunch hour. Quatre was somewhat of a secret graffiti artist-tagging almost everything he could get his hands on and lately had been trying his hand at larger portraits.

He grinned as he walked into class.