Feelings of Aggression
By Chash
[soundtrack—"Gunning Down Romance"
by Savage Garden]
Not mine, don't sue.
Quatre
Winner was not, in general, taken to fighting.
He didn't like it on any level.
He hated the idea of killing. He had
fought in a war, yes, but it was not because he had liked fighting. It had been necessity back then.
He heard
the slam of a body into a wall, and a dull thud as it crashed to the
ground.
It was
necessity now, too, just in a different way.
The only way to get out the frustration was to fight. He didn't kill, he just fought. It was a way to avoid thoughts.
He'd never
done very much hand to hand combat in the war, and most people assumed from his
slight frame and pale skin that he was weak.
Most didn't know he had ever been in a war, and even those who had been
with him hadn't known that he had been a talented hand to hand fighter as
well. What would they think if they
found out that the little pilot, whose hair Duo had loved to rustle and who they
all regarded as a child, could give Heero a run for his money one on one?
Quatre used
to hate fighting with his hands. He
hated seeing blood on them, staining them red.
Fighting in the back alleys with gangs when they tried to rob people,
though, this was not like that. This was
doing good. As
a bonus, it got the agitation out of him.
"Hey, blondie, this is my gig," commented a voice in slightly
accented English. He turned to see a
tall, buff boy of about seventeen looking at him with an irritated
expression. His arms were crossed over
his reddish wifebeater [1] and his hair, also red,
was held up against his face by a pair of goggles. He wore black pants with denim shorts sewn
around the top. In short, he looked like
the type who robbed people and assumed he could take Quatre after wards.
"Excuse
me?" asked Quatre, giving his best innocent ten year old impression. It annoyed him that he was sixteen and could
pass for ten if he tried, but sometimes it came in handy.
The redhead
laughed. "Don't play innocent with me,
kid. I know you did this," he gestured
to the unconscious thugs surrounding them.
"No,
really, I just came…" he trailed off and looked up. The redheaded boy didn't believe a word of
it. "Fine, I did. What's it to you?"
The boy
smirked. "Thought so. I've been looking for a good fight. Care to help out?"
Quatre
turned. "I don't fight for kicks."
"Yeah? How 'bout if I
hit you? Are you going to defend
yourself?"
He started
to walk away. "I don't feel like
fighting you." He heard the sound of a
kick being aimed and ducked. The black
leg swept over his head. "Not
interested," Quatre repeated.
"You are
good."
He
shrugged. "I'm done for tonight." That was true. His purpose in fighting was to forget. He'd already forgotten for tonight. Now he could go home, exhausted, and fall
asleep without thinking. It wasn't the
best way to deal with emotions, but for now it had to do. He couldn't stop the dreams, though. The dreams told him what he wanted, what he
desired. He couldn't keep them away, no
matter how tired he got from the fights.
Another
kick came at him, this one aimed for his back.
He dodged easily and kept walking.
"Don't turn
your back on me. You need a fight, I can
sense that."
"I already
had a fight."
"With common thugs.
You need a real fight," Quatre grimaced. "It'll make you forget about
him."
Quatre
turned now, just in time to see another kick aimed at his head. Again he ducked, and watched the redhead
jump, swinging another kick at him as he landed on the foot raised for the
previous kick. Quatre jumped out of the
way easily and watched the redhead land on the ground with a smirk on his face.
"Wondering
how I knew?"
"Knew
what?" asked Quatre. He refused to give
away weakness.
"Don't play
dumb with me, blondie, you're worse at it than you are at playing innocent."
"So what if
I am trying to forget? This won't help."
"If ya go
home now, you'll just think about him the whole way. So you might as well take a little time for
me to knock you out cold, then you'll skip the whole walking step and get
straight to unconscious," the redhead winked.
"Besides, when you're unconscious, you don't dream."
It was
tempting, somehow. But he hated fighting,
and fighting without cause didn't appeal to him in the least.
"I'll
pass. I have an early day tomorrow."
Quatre
started to walk away. He was surprised
when he heard no kicks. All that was
audible was the patter of his steps and the boy's on the ground. That redhead must have given up.
Under a
streetlamp, he stopped and looked up.
There was an apartment on the fourth story of on of the buildings, its
window open and pouring out yellow light.
Somewhere in there was Trowa, sleeping or awake, Quatre didn't
know. He knew he shouldn't walk home by
that route, but he always did. Even
though he got home well past midnight, sometimes when the day was dawning,
Trowa was always awake. It worried
Quatre, although with his own sleep habits, it was rather hypocritical of him
to object to anyone else's.
"So are you
like Batman, or what?" asked the redhead.
Quatre spun in the direction of the voice and saw the boy leaning
against the window of a closed shop, arms crossed over his chest. "I know you're Quatre Winner, which means
you're the rich boy, but you also fight thugs by night. So are you Batman?"
"Who are
you?"
"Me? Oh, a more advanced form of thug. I don't beat people up or anything, I just
fight on the streets for the hell of it.
Or to forget the fact that I'm a miserable moron in love with some guy
who hates my guts. Pick one," said the
redhead with a shrug.
Quatre did
not show the amazement. "Don't care."
"So," the
redhead looked up, "does he live in that lit window?"
"How do you
know my name?"
"You don't
wear a cowl and you're famous. I may
have taken a lot of hits to the head over the years, but I ain't
stupid."
Quatre
looked up at the window again. The light
was still on. He could have stopped by
to say hello. They talked in the day,
and Quatre thought of it as a fight.
Block all those things that might get through and make Quatre finally
tell him. It was always a fight.
He hated
fighting.
"Why are
you still here?" asked the redhead. "You
could just go up and talk to him."
The door to
Trowa's apartment complex opened and one of Trowa's friends, Kazama, if Quatre remembered correctly. Next to him, the redhead lit up.
"Well, this
is my stop, blondie.
I'll wish you good luck with yours if you'll wish me good luck with
mine."
Quatre
shrugged. "Good luck. Who are you anyway?"
"No good
street punk," he looked after the black haired boy who may or may not have been
called Kazama.
"But hey, I can dream."
With that,
the redhead jogged off after Kazama. Quatre could hear him yell at the boy.
"Hey, Kazama, aren't you afraid someone's
gonna mug you at this hour?"
"Urusei, yarou."
[2]
The light
was still on in Trowa's room. Quatre
looked up. It would be so easy to go up
and talk to him. He could say he saw the
light on.
"Quatre?"
asked a voice behind him. He knew that
voice.
"Hi,
Trowa," he said, without turning around.
"Damn, I
left the light on again."
"What are
you doing out here? It's cold and
late. Here, you should come in and stay
the night. It's too late for you to walk
home alone."
Quatre
smiled. "Batman keeps the streets safe."
He felt
Trowa's hand on his forehead. "Are you
okay, Quat? You're talking about
Batman."
"Maybe I
should stay the night," murmured Quatre.
Trowa was standing next to him now.
"Yes, you
should."
He followed
Trowa out of the streetlight and up the stairs into the golden glow of the
apartment.
Owari.
Short and pointless, just the way I like 'em. For the record,
the redhead was Hwoarang from Tekken 3. The guy he's chasing after is Jin Kazama, also from Tekken 3.
Inspiration came from there, so I thought I'd put those two in.
[1] To those of you who aren't constantly told that guys
don't wear tank tops, it's a tank top. I
have crazy friends.
[2] To the best of my knowledge, this is about as close as
you can come to saying "shut up, asshole" in Japanese.
