A/N: Yayness! An update! :-D At this point, I suppose I'd better explain how this story works. As the summary says, it is told in two plotlines. You know how the first chapter described Twitch's arrival at Camp Green Lake? Well, this, the second chapter, describes an episode in his past. (When he was seven, to be specific.) All the even-number chapters will be episodes from Twitch's past. They may be separated by months or even years, but they will be in order. The odd-number chapters will take place at Camp Green Lake, and each one will pick up exactly where the last one left off. At the end of the story, the two plotlines will meet. If there's any confusion about this, just tell me in a review or E-mail me at TwitchsCharade@aol.com, and I'll try to explain better. ^_^
Shout Outs
jazandsas~I'm glad you liked the story, and I think it's awesome that you like Twitch. :-) Twitch fans rule the world (along with short people). But, I'm sorry, hon...the kid is mine. *smiles sweetly and cuddles Twitchy*
Kirjava Deamon~Thank you for the compliments! :-) *blushes* Especially about the formatting...technology is not my thing, believe me, and I work hard to make my stories look nice and read easily.
trucalifornian~I updated!! *throws confetti* All right, so I took forever, but I have to get some credit. ;-) Thankee muchly for the review!! Can I hope for some more? *grins winningly*
Charm~*leaps upon and hugs* I LOVE YOU!! *falls and grins sheepishly* Sorry. It's just that your review made me insanely happy. Long minion-invaded reviews are the most wonderful thing on earth! Love 'em, love 'em, love 'em! And I love your Squid to death; he ties with Magnet for my second fave. And Scottish accents are extremely beautiful, as are most accents. Use those ties! Get me those spazzy fans! *squeals and jumps up and down in excitement* I LOVE TWITCH!! *coughs and nods* Well! On with the story.
Oh, one more itty-bitty note...*Twitch rolls his eyes* Can we get to my story here? *Charade grabs him and squeezes him so he can't talk* A-hem! The itty-bitty note is: I LOVE YOU ALL! I LOVE MY REVIEWERS! LOVELOVELOVE! REVIEWS MAKE ME SOB WITH JOY! SO...KEEP REVIEWING, MY DARLINGS!! *sets off a giant dynamite explosion and flies off into space to emphasize the point*
Chapter Two: Someday
Seven Years Before Arrival
"What is wrong with that kid?"
"I dunno, but somethin' sure is. Just look at 'im!"
"What is he doin'?"
"Why's he keep fidgetin' like that?"
"Can't he keep still?"
"That kid is on drugs for sure."
"Max! He's, like, six years old!"
Seven, actually. Brian frowned at his twitching hands, indignant at the miscalculation.
Meanwhile, the boy named Max was defending his conviction. "So what? I got this cousin, he's only five, an'..."
Brian did not benefit from the privilege of Max's young-junkie horror stories, however, for it was then that trouble arrived in a far more menacing form than curious whispers and subtle taunts. The crowd of younger kids nervously parted to admit a pair of much older boys. They appeared to be around seventeen or eighteen. One was black, the other white, both plastered in grisly tattoos, with cigarettes pinched between their fingers. Both were stocky and muscular, and both had their cold eyes fixed on Brian. Out of the corner of his eye, Brian saw several of the other kids make hasty exits. Hidalgo's Bar was a popular daytime hangout for all the youngsters in that run-down Texas neighborhood, despite the fact that most were under drinking age. But everyone knew that it was types like these new arrivals who really owned the hangouts around here, day and night. They also owned the streets.
"Hey, kid." The black boy spoke first, sauntering over to Brian and grinning maliciously. "What's with the twitchin', huh? You nervous or somethin'?"
"Nah," his companion corrected, snickering. "It's like that little kid back there said, man. He's on drugs. Where ya get 'em, kid, yer brother?"
Brian, who had until now indulged in a terrified silence, flared. "My brother don't do that stuff," he informed his tormentors, glaring. The thugs exchanged gleeful smirks.
"Oh, he don't, huh?" The first boy leered down at Brian. "An' here I heard he got busted fer possession just last week."
Brian stiffened. "Someone else slipped it in his pocket--"
At this, both gangsters laughed outright. "That what he been tellin' ya?"
Brian's twitching always grew worse when he was nervous. By now, his hands were shaking and twisting and darting all over the place. His feet scuffed the floor, and his head bobbed from side to side. Those kids who still remained in the bar had abandoned their conversations, smoking corners, halfhearted fights, and games of poker, blackjack, craps, and pool. They had gathered at a safe distance to coolly observe Brian's peril, with the detachment more innocent children might have used when taking a stroll through a zoo. Most of them were laughing at this point.
The bullies were enjoying the attention of their audience. Encouraged by laughter, they began to draw closer to their prey. In seconds, Brian found himself backed against the wall, twitching so violently that he felt as if he really was about to have a seizure, as people always seemed to expect him to.
"He does not do drugs!" This outburst caused most of the audience to jump slightly in surprise; they had figured the kid would remain scared and silent, as most victims did. But not this one; in fact, he was still talking. "Mark ain't never touched drugs in his life. He told me so. An' I believe him. An' whadda you know about it anyway? You don't know Mark like I do. He ain't yer brother. You just heard rumors is all. An' you better not go around talkin' about him like that 'cause he could take on both of you any time."
This last part was a blatant lie, and Brian knew it; his brother was twelve years old. While this seemed ancient to him, he knew it was a far cry from seventeen or eighteen. But another one of Brian's nervous habits, besides the increase in twitching, was talking. While he was normally a quiet kid, if he was placed in an uncomfortable situation, or asked a direct question about something that interested him, his mouth had a habit of taking off ahead of his mind. Then he would simply...babble. At the best of times, this was embarassing. At the worst, it could be deadly. From the look of two fists drawing back simultaneously, this latest blunder of Brian's was obviously going to reap very painful results.
Then the door opened, and one more figure came hurtling into Hidalgo's at top speed.
"Leave my brother alone!"
Now, in most cases, a slight-built twelve-year-old issuing such a command to two formidable thugs would be laughable. But Mark was not just any twelve-year-old. Stalking across the bar, furiously absorbing the scene of two teenagers pinning his little brother against a wall, he seemed to have a strange aura of power around him that belied his age and size. It was an aura little Brian had never had, and would give almost anything for. In most ways, Mark was just a taller and more muscular version of Brian; he too was small for his age, and had the same dark brown hair, blue eyes, and oddly angelic face. But one last characteristic, and one which seemed to make all the difference, was the air of authority about him. It put a swagger in his walk and a glint of steel in his eyes, and often it had the effect of commanding obedience in people much larger and older than he. It did now.
The two gangsters casually shoved Brian away, pushed through the crowd, and headed out of Hidalgo's as if it was what they'd meant to do all along. But Brian's observant gaze noted the quickness of their strides, a certain flicker of uncertainty in their eyes, and the way they shot a few too many mocking smirks over their shoulders. It was obvious that neither had any desire to turn his back on Mark. Brian turned to grin at his big brother with relief, gratitude, and admiration. He always came through.
Mark returned Brian's grin, then with a glare sent the bar full of kids back to their previous activities. He slung an arm over Brian's shoulders and steered him toward the door.
"Thanks," Brian muttered once they were out in the hot, sticky July heat.
"No problem, kid," Mark replied easily. "You okay?"
"'Course!" Brian answered firmly. "I woulda been fine anyway." The sunny grin still hadn't left his face, and with that, he went bouncing down the sidewalk at an alarming rate for such a small boy, launching into outrageous descriptions of what he would have done to the bullies if Mark hadn't shown up. Around his brother, it didn't take fear or a question to make Brian open up. His uneasy silence dissolved, and his mouth ran freely through a labyrinth of disjointed, scatterbrained chatter.
Mark, struggling to catch up even with his longer legs, had to laugh, although he was used to Brian's boundless energy and tendency to ramble. It also amused him how quickly the kid had recovered from his frightening encounter at the bar. He was always like that, his mood snapping back from any sort of negative incident like a rubber band, instantly returning to his usual cheerful disposition. As they raced along the sidewalk, Mark laughing, Brian yapping his head off and, of course, twitching, Mark didn't have to ask where they were going. If Brian was leading the way, their destination could be only one place.
Five minutes later, they arrived. A strong wind had stirred up, unusually cool for a Texas summer, and it provided relief from the sweltering heat of the day. It also whipped back Brian's hair and blew locks of it into his eyes as he tore up and down the highway. For that had been their destination, of course. It was Brian's favorite place. Mark called it his second home; perhaps it could even be considered his first home, compared to the tiny wreck of an apartment where the two of them lived with their parents. Here, Brian was in his element. He loved the cars that sped up and down the highway; loved them with a passion that few people loved anything that wasn't alive. He loved the speed of those cars, the breakneck velocity; he loved the smooth silent rolling or the squeals and screeches of their black rubber wheels; he loved the sun gleaming on their painted surfaces, in glorious eyesore shades of crimson or blue, silver or yellow, black or white, green or turquoise. Watching Brian race along the curb, race against vehicles he knew full well he could never compete with, Mark mused that his brother's obsession with cars was no surprise. They were just like him: always in motion. There was no time, not even in a state of sheer terror, when Brian's whole body would twitch as much as it did when he saw a really nice car. Mark knew that even at the age of seven, even in their poor and crummy neighborhood, Brian dreamed of someday being behind the wheel of one of those cars. He dreamed of the feelings such an experience would bring: sheer joy...sheer exhilaration...sheer freedom.
"Brian!"
At his brother's call, Brian reluctantly returned to Mark's side, but not before clutching after a gorgeous silver Eclipse with ghost flames on the sides. (A/N: Couldn't resist, Marcy-chan! It's your dream car! ^_^)
"Yeah?" the little boy hollered peevishly over the roar of the cars, his fingers still writhing.
"Someday," Mark murmured solemnly, leaning close to the younger boy so he wouldn't have to shout as well, "someday, kid, I'm gonna get us a car, an' take you joyridin'. You think these things're goin' fast?" He motioned contemptuously at the passing automobiles. "Well, that ain't nothin'. Once I get us a car, we're gonna burn up the road, an' show these suckers the true meanin' of 'speed'."
Brian's trusting smile lit up his face like the sun, and his eyes shone wistfully. "Wow! Really? What kind we gonna get?"
Mark coughed slightly. The truth was, he didn't know a thing about cars. "Uh, well...you pick, kid."
"A Mustang," Brian declared at once. "A Mustang convertible."
Mark nodded sagely and stuck out his hand. "Good choice. That's what we'll get, then. A Mustang convertible. Promise."
They shook on it as the sun, which had been steadily sinking lower in the sky, began to cast a blurry haze of orange, gold, and bloodred over the horizon. The colors reflected in the shiny chrome of the beauties zooming by, but for once Brian didn't ache with longing. Now he was certain that someday, he and his brother would go joyriding together in the best car of all. He was so flooded with happiness that he didn't even think to ask Mark about the things the boys at Hidalgo's had said, the things that had made him so mad, that had triggered a reaction in him which had almost gotten him beat up. What did they know, anyway? He had the best big brother in the whole world, and they were going to get a Mustang convertible, and "burn up the road"...someday.
