Trigger Warnings: Language, verbal abuse, implied self harm (emotional), religion, death. While I'm not religious, I want to wean people that this is themed (slightly) religiously.
Supernatural themes.
Chapter One: Happy Birthday- Stevie Wonder
January.
It was like being hit with a rock, Gaara thought. It had happened to him once, but he had fought back then.
He didn't fight this time.
His bruised cheek was smacked by course hands. When he didn't respond, his arm was twisted and jerked above him, forcing him to stand at an awkward position. He twisted his wrist and tried to free himself.
"How she ever gave birth to a child like you, I'll never know," he heard, and felt a wet glob of spit land in his hair. He didn't know either, he didn't know.
But no matter how bad he was, no matter how he misbehaved, she never would have treated him like this. His mom wouldn't let him do this. He moved forward and jammed his elbow into his father's gut, trying again to wrench his arm free. It came loose at an awkward angle. He was clipped again, this time across the forehead. If he hadn't missed, Gaara would have been unconscious. As it were, a sharp feeling stung across his forehead. He swayed. His mind raced around what to do. His father was already recovering.
He ran.
For the first time in his life, he ran.
He had no idea where he was going, or what he was going to do, but he ran. His head didn't turn back; his eyes clawing around the lifeless ground for routes ahead. His feet had never been used for anything so productive; his hands never to lift him to his freedom before. Birds scattered in the setting sun, and out of a little garden he ran into the street.
Cars honked; he didn't stop. Across the street, down a few blocks, through an alley. His breaths came out in huffs, and the little, well kept shops began closing themselves. He breathed in and out, and into another, well hidden alley he darted. He jetted out onto a rough street, worried that the man would have already gotten into his car in an attempt to run him down.
A large building stood with one wide wooden door ajar. He jumped through it.
It took him a moment to realize where he was. He kept turning back, checking to see if someone would be stepping out of the sunlight and menacingly into the doors. It wasn't until he slammed into a pew, tripping and hurting his knee, that he looked around.
It was a meager church, but since he had never been inside one, it was brand new to Gaara. Tall stained glass shined green and peach toned light onto aged wooden pews. The room smelled as though it was filled with wood dust and sweet hints of fresh wine.
"Excuse me young man... We are about to... Oh my goodness, child, are you okay?"
A kind, older woman with brown skin and sparkling hazel eyes was approaching him. Gaara backed away.
"Sorry, leaving," he said hurriedly.
"No, no, please stay," she fluttered about him,wiping his face with something Gaara hadn't seen her reach for.
"Are you being followed," she asked. Gaara didn't know. He looked back over his shoulder.
"Why don't you... why don't you have a seat for a while," she said, moving slowly to stand between Gaara and the door. He felt alarm beginning to rise in him. He moved to walk around her. She stepped back so that she was still in his way.
"I'm... my name is Marsha. I'm the pastor for this church. I won't send you away, I won't ask you any questions, just... take a seat, if you don't mind."
Gaara's eyes darted to one of the rows, and then back to the door. He stood in front of her for several minutes staring out of the door. When no one appeared, he sat hard on a bench.
"This is only for your own safety, and will be the only question I ask," she said, sitting across from him, "May I treat your wounds?"
Gaara noticed the sting across his forehead. He reached up to touch it and felt his warm fingers slide smoothly. He drew them back to look at the shining blood now covering his fingers. In the many minutes he didn't say anything, the woman disappeared and came back with a first aid kit. She moved around him, wiping his face. She gently pulled the collar of his shirt to check his back, but stopped when he moved away.
"Okay, alright," she said, holding up her arms, "I'm just going to fix up your face."
She began working on the wound in his head. Gaara wondered if she was unnerved that he didn't even flinch as she worked. He supposed she was, because when she was done she placed a wet cloth over his bloody hand. Gaara pulled the cloth- and with it the blood- away.
He looked around again. Now that he felt less alarmed, he assessed his surroundings more carefully. He reworked his initial assumption. The place was sad. The dying winter light cast shadows across the pews, making the floor look haunted. Even the lights hanging from the high ceiling could do nothing to offset the melancholy of the room.
Even more doleful, the altar which stood menacingly raised a few feet above the rest of the floor. Beside it were high backed chairs whose emblazoned red upholstery looked bloody. Upon the altar were candles, unlit but already well melted. They stood as tortured figures in twisted bodies.
The woman said, "I would feel better if you went to the hospital. I won't press the issue if you decide not to... but I'm no doctor."
He scowled down as she moved to put her things out of the way. Gaara didn't even know if he could go to a doctor. Unlike the pastor, it was their job to ask questions.
She scurried away, leaving Gaara to look about the windows again. The sun was going down, sinking and making the melancholy quiet sink into the wood. Gaara felt the same emotion that his father brought to him well up in him again. It was concentrated and sharp and quick like a punch to the gut.
He did the only thing he knew how to calm himself.
He hummed.
He strung sounds together, not really sure what he wanted to sing.
He focused again on the lit pews, finding comfort in the bit of warm light. He hoped the pastor would turn on the lights soon.
A tune came to his mind, reminding him of the bitter day. He thought it over cynically. He tried to focus, remember that he was okay, and sang quietly.
"Happy birthday to yah."
It was not a song he knew well. He liked a lot of Stevie Fushigi* songs, but never felt the need to learn that one. He kept imagining people without eyes smiling happily down at him and clapping along with him.
He didn't notice the woman standing in the far back of the pews, listening to him sing. She wondered how someone who sang so sweetly deserved to be beaten like that.
She wondered what the right thing to do was. She was not a saint, and her safety and the safety of her church came first. But the young man hadn't hurt her, vandalized, or even made a ruckus when he arrived. Wherever he had come from, she knew would be remiss to send him back there.
She waited until his singing grew a bit quieter and made noise so that he wouldn't be startled when she came up behind him.
"I... I'm going to guess and say that the place you have to go back to isn't safe. I won't ask, but I'm going to be leaving in about ten minutes," she said, feeling as though she was making some impersonal proposition. It didn't sit well within her.
"If you... need somewhere to go... I'll be waiting in my car."
It was the hardest thing she had ever done. Their city's crime rate was probably the lowest in the country, but that didn't mean she wanted to take chances. She knew how young men who were abused (or got into street fights, she couldn't ignore that possibility) tended to act out.
The young man didn't turn from staring at the candles but shifted. He said, "I have school tomorrow."
She looked him up and down, and said, "Well, that's alright isn't it? We'll get up early, make sure you have enough time to get there. I've to open the church at eight sharp either way."
"I don't have school clothes with me," he said. She nodded, realizing he was just a kid.
"I'm sure they'll allow you to wear your gym uniform."
"I," the young man paused. Marsha thought she understood. The young man had probably been raised not to talk to strangers, nor to go home with them. After a moment, the young man stuck his hand in his hair. When he pulled it up, Marsha didn't immediately understand what she was seeing. She squinted, and realized that something thin and clear was shining in the candlelight between the teen's fingers.
Was that..?
"Oh you have got to be kidding me."
Marsha felt rage build up in her more quickly than she had felt in her life. She moved around him and said in a stern voice on the verge shouting, "You listen to me. You listen. Never, and I mean NEVER let another person spit on you."
She was huffing as if she wanted to say more, and when she looked in the boy's eyes, they were wide. Fearful. She felt immediate regret. The hands that raised to shake him lowered. She opened her palms.
"I... We'll get you a change of underclothes on the way, a toothbrush and whatever you may need. Just... I can't, in good conscience, let you go back. If you... feel scared, you can't trust me, I'll just take you to the nearest precinct-"
"No. No police, I-," the young man said. He looked her in the eyes for the first time, and his purple cheek punctuated the crazed look in his bright green eyes. Marsha put up her hands. She did the best she could to show him with her eyes that she would care for him. His hands flopped.
"I'm going to close up... If you can, wait for me in the front."
She looked at him a bit longer, trying to read him. He had quickly turned back into a stone. She had already locked up the office, but she wanted to do the last minute closing steps.
When she came to the front of the church, it was almost dark outside. She realized belatedly that it was freezing. The boy didn't have a coat.
"Come on, come on," she said, waving him over as she unlocked her SUV, "You trying to catch the chill of death being out here without a coat on. Get in."
Immediately she turned on the heat once inside. The kid gave one last shift, looking into the car as though it were a spaceship. He glanced at Marsha through the tinted windows. She waved again.
"C'mon," she said again. Quickly and fluidly, he opened the car door and slid in. He was buckling his seatbelt and hunching over before she even had to say anything. She adjusted the warming vents to face him, and turned on the seat warmer.
"So," she trailed off and pulled away, "I'm just going to stop by the local Bullseye* and then we'll go right to my house. Sound good?"
The kid fidgeted and said, "Gaara."
"Excuse me," she asked, glancing at him and turning to get to a main road.
"My... name. I'm Gaara," he said. Marsha nodded.
"Nice to me yah, Gaara-san."
When they arrived at Marsha's surprisingly large house, it was barely six thirty. It was already completely dark. Dusky purple clouds hung, undulating in the sky like a wind worn tarp, threatening to dust its captives with snow.
Gaara hopped out of her car, absolutely sure that she would take him inside and lock him up. In the end, the one who would kill him would be her, not his father. He helped her get the groceries from the back, thinking of making a run for it when everything was successfully inside.
"C'mon inside, before you catch a cold. Letting the heat out," said Marsha.
It was lucky for her, Marsha's kitchen was only an entryway away from the front door. They loaded her things onto the small dining table.
Gaara stood awkwardly before the door jam in the front hall. His eyes wandered all over her kitchen, scrutinizing her cabinets and windows. Marsha put a wrapped bag in the fridge and turned to look at him. He looked like he was freezing.
"C'mon," she said, "I'll show you where the bathroom is."
She picked up a bag of the things Gaara had picked up in the store and led him deeper into the house. Her house was short and square, and her steps were right outside the entrance to her kitchen.
"Here we go," she said, opening the door and letting him pass. Her bathroom was simple and clean. A line of blue and green pebbled back splash went straight through the four walls, her vanity was a dusty cream color, and her water stool was lime green.
She turned on the bath and then turned to him.
"Just hit this button when it's hot enough for you. I... have a son about as tall as you, I'll bring you a change of clothes just now," she pointed. Marsha hurried past him. Gaara studied the room again, looking over everything once more, and through the small window above the tub. It was too small for him to crawl through.
He turned his attention to the filling tub. He put his hand in. It was boiling. He felt that, at least he'd be warm when he died. He shivered at the almost dried expectorant in his hair.
Marsha returned with a towel, a shirt and a pair of pants.
"Just holler down the stairs if you need anything," she said.
Marsha had bought food to cook from the store. Her fridge wasn't empty, but she didn't know what the kid liked. She had spent the better half of a half hour watching him look at rows of vegetables and herbs.
She wasn't sure she picked the right things, and she wasn't sure what she was supposed to make with any of it. Her sister was the cook. Hell, everyone in her family were cooks, except her.
"Should I just make a soup," she mused to herself, slowly turning around in a circle. She had done two full rotations when Gaara appeared in the door behind her. She jumped.
"You scared the-..!"
"Do you need help," he asked. She blinked at him. The ends of his hair was curling up, still dripping lightly into his face.
"Excuse me," she asked, unsure of what she heard. He looked carefully at the vegetables she had already washed.
"I... D-do... Do you need any help," he asked again. She sighed in exasperation.
"You got to dry your hair properly, young man. Can't have you dripping into the food," she said, grabbing a clean dish towel from the rack and rubbing his head.
"Sorry," he said.
"You don't have to apologize to me. S'you who's gonna catch a cold," she said, carefully wiping his face. She left the towel around his neck.
"So... What do you think we should make," she asked, really just unsure what to do. Gaara took a look around at the ingredients on the table.
"Do you have..."
He looked around again, and Marsha realized he was waiting for permission.
"Sauces and cans are in the cabinet above the fridge. Dry ingredients are in the cabinet next to that. There's... plenty of other stuff in the fridge. Just don't go in the brown bag."
Gaara slowly and carefully opened the cabinets and looked through them. One by one, he pulled things down. He checked expiration dates (which Marsha didn't blame him for, even if she was stung.)
"We can make Oden... without the fish," Gaara wrinkled his nose. Marsha chuckled shortly. The kid was cute.
"How about we leave the fish for me and you can have the vegetables," she said. He nodded.
"Alright master chef," she said, "show me what to do."
Gaara set her to wash the veggies while he cut. He prepared the stock while she peeled things and mixed sauces. It was a calm and almost quiet thing, with the directionless silences only being filled by Gaara's wonderful humming.
When the Oden was finally done, Marsha pulled down two bowls and small plates, chopsticks and forks.
They sat on opposite sides of the small table, and Marsha folded her hands together to give thanks.
"We give thanks for the food we're about to eat," she said, closing her eyes in prayer. She only paused shortly in the middle to peek at Gaara, who sat with his eyes turned down. At least he was respectful.
"Mm," she said in surprise at her first bite, "I didn't think it'd be this good. Good job, Gaara-san!"
"Y-you also helped," said Gaara around swallowed broth. Marsha took it as a compliment. They passed dinner in relative silence. When they were done, Gaara helped her wash the dishes.
"I know I said no questions," said Marsha seriously, making Gaara blink at her and then at the door, "but would you like some dessert?"
Gaara's mouth made a strange line, like he was biting his lip and wiggling it. Marsha took that as a yes. She took out the brown bag from the fridge and pulled out a small batch of cupcakes. Beside it she placed a quart of ice cream. It was vanilla and had swirls of chocolate and caramel in it.
As she took out new plates, Marsha said, "I know it's not my place, but I heard you singing at the church today. So since I figure you're not going to celebrate on your own, I could get something nice."
When she turned to look at him again, Gaara's eyes were big and shiny. He was staring at the dessert on the table.
"Thank you," he said.
"You're welcome."
Fushigi means wonder.
Bullseye is like Target. It's a recurring thing.
