And that's…the story of how Gregory and Christophe first met. :3 These two are so damn cute…
Okay. I am horribly aware of how shitty my French is. The reason being: I DON'T SPEAK FRENCH. I've been using this online translator thing that...eh...apparently isn't very reliable. So I'm sorry. I'll try and use as little French as possible from now on, in order to keep you fluent people from suffering :P
Chapter Three
The days seemed to come and go at the speed of light in the Thorne-Delorne household, the trials and tribulations of everyday life adding flavor to the otherwise bland soup of their existences. Gregory and Christophe, though they didn't act very close, became very fast and very dear friends; in the brief moments during which they were alone, they would talk, though usually very little. The French boy told the British boy about the lack of caring in his life; how he could never remember a time when his mother had kissed him or told him that she loved him. For this reason, Christophe would often be close to Gregory, asking for the affection that his mother so ruthlessly deprived him of, and Gregory would give it to him without question. He would get up to kiss Christophe's cheek after his mother closed the door at night; hold his hand while they were sitting in the backseat of the car in the middle of traffic; stay up late and whisper happy stories about magic and rainbows and knights in shining armor to him until they both fell asleep. That was all that was necessary. Gregory taught Christophe how to draw, and Christophe taught Gregory how to take someone else's feelings into account, no matter how skewed and vague the feelings were. Christophe never said exactly what was wrong with him, or what anyone could do to make it better, but even on the nights when he started crying silently and crawled into bed with Gregory, the blonde knew that he was helping his poor friend by simply being there.
Christophe was sick, and his mother wasn't there to give him the care that he needed. She never would be.
Ms. Delorne watched the boys during the day while Mrs. Thorne went to work. She was an English teacher at a small private school, and though she loved what she did, she wanted to find a better school to work at. The children in her current school had almost no ambition to work toward good grades; she wanted a school where the children would yearn for knowledge and participate in class, as if they wanted to make something of themselves someday. So in her spare time, she searched for a new job, at a school with some prestige and promise in its background.
And the following July, just a little over a month before Gregory and Christophe were to start school, the Thornes and the Delornes moved to a small cabin in the middle of nowhere. Up in the mountains in northern Colorado, Katherine Thorne started teaching at the Yardale Private school, where children paid attention and made attempts to learn. She signed Gregory up to start classes there in the fall, and suggested that Nicole do the same for Christophe, but the Frenchwoman turned down the suggestion. She wanted to teach Christophe at home, she said. Gregory knew that she just wanted to have her son as close to her as possible, to keep him from drifting too far away from her and rebelling. But he said nothing about it, even after Christophe stopped climbing into bed with him, and he could hear the brunette whimpering pleas of denial to himself from his cot as he fell asleep.
"...Y-you can't go...I n-need you..."
The days in the mountains became longer and longer; each one was as cold as the winter days in New York had been, and Gregory didn't like the lack of seasons very much, at first. As the summer dragged on, Christophe grew more and more reclusive and distant toward Gregory, and there was a short period of time that lasted about two weeks when the two of them didn't say anything at all to one another, though they often exchanged glances, to acknowledge that each still appreciated the other's presence whenever something upsetting occurred. Gregory felt sick during most of that time. He would often find drawings of Christophe's; drawings of a woman with brown hair, lying in a pool of scribbled red blood. He went to great lengths to keep the pictures from being discovered by both his mother and Ms. Delorne. Any of his own drawings that included Christophe would be found with angry black marks on them if they were left unsupervised for more than five minutes at a time. Gregory hid his drawings for a few days, and eventually, he just stopped drawing altogether. Christophe broke all of Gregory's crayons in half a few days after that, and Gregory buried them all outside in the snow, along with his friend's drawings.
One early September day, Gregory went outside and started to build a snowman. Christophe came outside when he was almost finished and helped the blonde decorate the snowman with a hat and a scarf, and when Gregory looked him in the face, Christophe smiled. Gregory smiled back. Then Christophe leaned forward and pressed his lips softly into Gregory's, pulling quickly away once he had achieved his goal and staring down at his snow-covered knees without a hint of blush on his face. Gregory blinked at him, confused, and the brunette got to his feet and walked quickly back into the house, without a single word. Two days later, Gregory started school, and Christophe was alone at the house with his mother all day long.
Gregory quickly decided that he liked going to school. The children were nice, and the teachers were nicer. First grade was fun because it was basic and easy, and Gregory excelled with almost no effort because he already knew most of the material. His teachers liked him, and his classmates liked him, too. He easily rose to the top of the social ladder.
Although he enjoyed school, Gregory liked going home better, because being at home meant spending time with Christophe, who, by the time Gregory returned, often looked as though he desperately needed to be talked to. After Gregory's first full week of school, it became obvious to the blonde that his leaving every morning was having a negative effect on his brunette friend. He tried to convince the French boy's mother that Christophe needed to go to school, as well, but Ms. Delorne refused to relent. "'E will learn more eef 'e eez 'ear with me," she always declared. But Gregory highly doubted it.
Christophe had his sixth birthday in mid-September; only two weeks after Gregory began school. Mrs. Thorne gave him a bucket of plastic soldiers and baked him a chocolate cake, which he ate too much of and wound up vomiting into the toilet at three the next morning. He ran to his mother once he had finished and told her what had happened, and she told him that it was his own fault, and to go back to bed. Christophe washed his face off in the sink and said nothing to Gregory, who had been woken up by the toilet flush, once he came back to the bedroom. When they woke up later, Christophe was thrilled to find that it was Saturday, so he and Gregory played with the plastic soldiers all day long. Gregory said nothing about what had happened earlier that morning, and Christophe quickly forgot about it, entranced by their play-battles.
Gregory's birthday came a month and a few days later, in late October; nearly a year's anniversary of their meeting and coming together as a "family". Gregory received a set of Tinker Toys and had carrot cake for his birthday, which Christophe refused to eat any of. They built military bases for Christophe's soldiers out of the Tinker Toys, and Christophe started to smile a lot more often. Gregory was happy for that reason. Christophe seemed happy whenever he was involved in some kind of military reenactment, so Gregory played with him often, and they started to just leave the pieces out whenever they had to go out somewhere, and resume playing when they came back. What had started off as a one-day battle became a never-ending war, for Christophe's sake. Ms. Delorne was forced to vacuum around the pieces, and more than once she accidentally took up one of the little green men. These soldiers, when discovered, were immediately sent to intensive care (which consisted of a tent made of Tinker Toys with several tissues slung overtop of it, in which the soldiers would be wrapped in duct tape to cover their wounds). There were several soldiers who never left intensive care, such as the one that somehow wound up in the dishwasher one day and was horribly melted and warped by the heat, and the one whose arm Gregory cut off with Ms. Delorne's coupon scissors, proving to Christophe that you can, in fact, cut through plastic, if only you try hard enough. But these handicapped men only made the war more realistic, and for that reason, Gregory and Christophe never complained when they discovered that one of their soldiers had been chewed up by a dog, or run over by a car, or left out in the snow for so long that it had somehow managed to turn blue.
So the battles raged onward through the year, and made the days speed by; soon, Gregory had finished the first grade, and it was summer again. Christophe and Nicole both had learned much more English, and Ms. Delorne had gotten an evening job waiting tables at the TGI Friday's down in town. Christophe seemed a lot happier when his mother wasn't around, Gregory noticed, and this made him feel weird inside, like there was something wrong with it. Kids were supposed to like having their mothers around, he had thought. But apparently, because Christophe was different, he didn't have to like her. So he didn't.
Summer was better in Gregory's eyes because it gave him time to spend with Christophe; time to be close to him and to keep him happy. He could make Christophe laugh during the summer, when they were alone; this soft, smooth laugh that made Gregory's heart flutter for a reason he didn't understand, and the French boy would wrap his arms around him and hug him while he laughed. They would laugh together, and it made Gregory feel that, maybe, for those brief moments, everything was okay. Maybe Christophe was happy when he was laughing. Gregory hoped so.
They built a snowman together once they sensed that fall was coming again, and they smiled at each other like before, but there was no kiss from Christophe before the second grade. For some reason, this made telling time and adding three-digit numbers seem difficult to Gregory, as if Christophe's kiss last year had reassured him subliminally that things would be all right for him. He felt strangely alone at night, with no one there to hold his hand while he fell asleep, and he wished that Christophe would come back to him. It hadn't bothered him last year, but there was something about it that hurt him, now. Like something was…missing.
On a day just a week before Christophe's seventh birthday, when they were playing War, Gregory recalled that empty feeling, and for a moment he just sat there while Christophe made sound effects for his soldiers and hissed angry war cries. The brunette noticed after a few seconds that his targets weren't screaming and being blown to imaginary bits, and he stopped, looking up at Gregory with confusion apparent in his face. Gregory looked back, blankly for a moment, and then he lowered his eyebrows.
"…Christophe?" he asked slowly; the words were new to him, as well. He barely understood what he wanted to ask. "…Do you…love anybody?"
Christophe's eyes flashed for a second with thought, and for a moment, he looked as if he wanted to turn away, but he didn't. He looked at Gregory, long and hard, and he breathed out through his nose. "…I love you, Gregory," he finally said, his voice monotonous and nonchalant. He blinked and let Gregory calculate his answer, and the blonde smiled. Christophe smiled back. A minute later, the room was livened by the sounds of War again, and Gregory didn't feel so empty anymore.
That night, lying in bed, he considered the possibility that maybe that had been all that he was lacking; knowing that Christophe cared for him. It seemed entirely probable. After all, last year, the kiss had made him feel somehow closer to the French boy. Being close to him was a big deal, to Gregory, because more often than not, Christophe pushed everyone away and refused to be a part of anyone's life. Christophe had finally accepted Gregory as being worthwhile, and that in itself was a wonderful gift in the young Brit's eyes; he didn't know what he would have done if Christophe had actually ended up eternally hating him as much as he had seemed to when they had first met. He fell asleep thinking about that and trying to comprehend the strange feelings that he got when he imagined Christophe hating him.
When he woke up a few hours later, it was still dark outside, and he could feel the steady rise and fall of sleeping Christophe's chest, pressed gently into the folds of his pajamas. He could smell the gentle, innocent fragrance of the French boy's hair beneath his nose, and he could feel skinny arms wrapped around his body, trembling a little as Christophe dreamed. After a moment's contemplation, Gregory kissed Christophe's head once and whispered, in secret response to the boy's statement earlier; "…I love you, too…" before he closed his eyes—his cheeks pink for a reason ever known only to him and Christophe—and went back to sleep.
That was the first—and one of the only—secrets that the two boys ever shared with one another. The secret of love.
It was the one that Gregory would always treasure most of all.
…Turning seven was a big deal for Christophe. Though he simply would not eat a single bite of the strawberry cake that Mrs. Thorne baked him (from memories of last year's vomit, yes, but mostly because the cake itself was a violent shade of pink, and Christophe rather detested the feminine color), his mood was quickly brightened by the advent of presents. A deluxe radio-controlled camouflage army tank, complete with real-working missile launcher strapped to the back and all-terrain abilities was to be his pride and joy for years to come, shared only with Gregory and their little green men. It was the bane of Ms. Delorne's existence all throughout the boys' second-grade year, approaching her on her afternoons off of work while she sat in the kitchen and sipped coffee, firing little plastic missiles at her legs while the boys giggled and snickered down the hall, watching her irritated expression with great fondness. One day she grew overly exasperated with the damn thing and actually kicked it away from her, over onto its back, sending the six army men seated within it flying, and she heard Gregory squeal with delight as Christophe crooned something about "ze enemy eez retaliating! Send in ze reinforcements, General Zorne!"
It never occurred to anyone that Christophe's play-war with his mother would, over the years, blossom into something much more sinister and heart-wrenching.
Gregory's seventh was equally amusing to the boys, and proved to be equally annoying to Ms. Delorne in the weeks that followed. The blonde had been given a G.I. Joe action figure, which immediately became the detestable villain in the boys' war games. The Frenchwoman did not find it amusing, however, to discover the doll in nastily surprising places around the house whenever she was attempting to relax; in her favorite couch cushion, in the garbage disposal, in the toilet. She lost her temper when she found it in her lingerie drawer, dirty and tearing holes in her dainties with its sharp, mangled plastic body, and she saw her son and his Brit friend standing sheepishly at the door, grinning stupidly as little boys do. "'E eez a 'orny, bad man," Christophe said simply, as if that explained everything in the world. Gregory snorted with laughter. At dinner that evening, Mrs. Thorne looked on with a worried expression as Gregory sat staring at his food with puffy, red eyes, and Christophe ate like a zombie, his neck nicely bruised by the imprints of ten thin fingers. G.I. Joe managed to avoid Ms. Delorne from that moment onward, though the tank still paid her occasional visits. It was becoming dented from all of her kicks, but neither of the boys really cared at all.
Their first celebrated Halloween together (the previous year's having been too inconvenient, what with the language barrier and the lack of serious friendship between Gregory and Christophe at the time) proved to be quite interesting for everyone who lived within a twenty-mile radius of their cabin. Mrs. Thorne had helped the boys dress up; Gregory posed as a wizard, and Christophe went, quite miserably at first, as a werewolf, clad in a full-body suit of brown fur, sideburns, and fake plastic teeth. Gregory's occasional giggles seemed to soothe Christophe's distaste for the holiday once they were out of the house and trekking down the dark street, bathed in the guiding light of Mrs. Thorne's flashlight. Somehow, though, after the first few houses, the boys had managed to wander off. In truth, Christophe had gotten bored, and—seeing the older kids from down in town scaring the littler kids—had decided to play a trick of his own on Gregory's mother. Gregory had agreed and followed his friend deep into the woods.
They had quickly lost themselves. Mrs. Thorne panicked and there were quickly police and neighbors searching all over for the two boys, who hid from the flashlights inside of rotting, snow-covered logs at Christophe's insistence that the Nazis were coming for them. Frightened and cold, they had been found hiding in a crudely-made igloo five hours later, a wet, sleeping Gregory curled, trembling, against Christophe's furry body suit, with the makeshift werewolf's paws wrapped protectively around his only friend and his eyes glinting like the Devil's own. It was revealed the next morning that Christophe (who said this all with a smug smile) had planned for them to get lost like that all along. The only side-effect of the boys' little adventure that the French boy hadn't anticipated was that Gregory got pneumonia and didn't go back to school until early December. Christophe got a stern "lecture" from his mother and wasn't able to sit down without either crying out in pain or flinching until about the same time that Gregory went back to school.
Christmas came and went with its presents and its caroling and its church sermons and food, and more nonsense for Ms. Delorne to deal with from her son's end of the house, courtesy of Mrs. Thorne. A new set of little green men, decals for the remote-controlled tank, and a set of real-working camouflage walkie-talkies, the latter of which irritated the Frenchwoman most of all. The boys would speak into the accursed things at the most inappropriate times; mainly when they were sitting right beside each other, like at the dinner table or in the backseat of the car, to say completely pointless things, such as:
"Christophe? Over."
"Yes, Gregory, what eez eet? Over."
"…Peas are gross. Over."
Mrs. Thorne laughed about it and found it all terribly adorable and amusing, though Christophe's mother found her dislike for her "family" growing more and more with each passing day. The walkie-talkies disappeared mysteriously in late January and were never seen again, much to Christophe's disappointment (he had only just discovered how to make a fascinating noise—very similar to that of a dying giraffe—with his throat that only triggered violent seizures of hysteria in Gregory if the poor blonde boy heard it through the walkie-talkie). Regardless of where the devices had disappeared to, Ms. Delorne did not miss her son's giraffe noises in the least bit.
Christophe remedied the situation within a week by learning how to make realistic farting sounds by blowing into the joined heels of his hands, which reduced Gregory to joyful squeals nearly as well as the giraffe cries had. This new noise was much more offensive to the people around them, but it did create much fewer laughter-induced wetting accidents on Gregory's part, which, in turn, meant much less laundry for Mrs. Thorne. Valentine's Day, and Christophe came to breakfast at his mother's side with a darkening bruise on his cheek, muttering something about being sorry for his continuing rudeness. Gregory felt sick all day, looking at Christophe's bruise, and the chocolate they were given didn't help very much at all…in fact, it made things worse, if that were even a possible side-effect of chocolate.
He waited until they were alone in their room later that day, playing war, to attempt to do what he wanted to do. It was, after all, a day of love. Shouldn't Christophe be shown that same tenderness that Gregory had been bombarded with for almost every day of his life? Surely. Apparently, it was up to the Brit to fix things for his friend, however. So when they were alone; when they were lying on their stomachs, side-by-side, Christophe thoroughly involved in explaining an aerial assault about to be conducted by G.I. Joe and his followers; Gregory leaned over and pressed their lips together for one sweet, innocent moment.
Christophe was so shocked that he dropped his paper airplane right into the warpath. The two of them stared at each other for a good ten seconds after it was over, Christophe frozen tensely in place, Gregory smiling gently at his best friend, unafraid, unfettered, though a little shy, now; nervous about what he had done. "…Happy Valentine's Day, Christophe," he said softly, and began quietly setting up the soldiers for the airborne attack. French fingers found British after a short period of awkward silence, and both of them dutifully ignored the warmth in their faces as they continued their game, holding hands affectionately until Gregory's mother came to get them for lunch.
It was on that night that Christophe confessed to Gregory.
Gregory lie in his bed, awake, so awake, and he thought about Christophe as he often did while he curled his body beneath the sheets; how having the French boy's hand in his own after that gentle peck on the lips had somehow made him feel…complete. As if that little hand was meant to be there inside of his own. His face flushed dimly and he rolled over, knowing that his mother and Christophe's were both sleeping soundly in their own rooms; he could hear the distant snoring of Ms. Delorne that always signaled that the coast was clear. Gregory smiled a private smile as he heard the familiar sound of feet padding over the carpeting; then the unmistakable creaking and grunting that told Gregory that Christophe was making his way over the guardrail. Seconds later there was a body pressing against Gregory's, and he rolled back over and let Christophe in as he always did, because Christophe needed it so desperately. The bruise on the French boy's face was sickening evidence enough of that.
…The moment Gregory felt the tears on Christophe's face, he knew that something was wrong. Confused, he let the little fingers close around the front of his nightshirt, shaking and scared, and Gregory simply held Christophe against him, not expecting him to say anything at all…but the Brit was quite nicely surprised. A sharp sniff met his ears, and then:
"…F-Fazur eez not bad…'e eez good…b-better zan Muzar…she ch-chased 'im off…p-pushed 'im away from me…t-took me 'ere against my will…." He sobbed emotionally into Gregory's shoulder; murmured something in French that the blonde didn't catch. "…I 'ate eet 'ear…I 'ate zees kuh-cold…I 'ate M-Muzar…I want m-muh-my Fazur…I…I want to d-die, G-Gregory, I want to die…"
Gregory buried his nose in Christophe's soft-smelling hair, his lips on the French ear, his breath drying the drops of liquid pain. Baffled, unsure, he still knew deep down that there was something terribly wrong about his seven-year-old friend wanting to die, so he pulled the brunette as close to him as he could, not knowing in the least how he could possibly help to remedy the situation.
"…Do you know where your Dad is, now?" he asked quietly, his voice slightly muffled by auburn hair. Christophe shook his head.
"…Ze l-last time I saw 'im…'e was r-running f-from my Muzar, b-bleeding. She…" he grimaced and sobbed, burying his eyes in the soft, yielding flesh of Gregory's young neck. "…She 'ad stuh-stabbed 'im…I d-don't even know…eef 'e eez ah-alive…eef 'e even l-lived to see z-ze next day…"
Gregory felt, for a split-second, some of the pain that he had felt upon realizing that his own father was never going to come back stabbing his heart as icily and terribly as it had so long ago. He saw tears clouding his eyes and he blinked them away, stroking Christophe's face with shaking fingertips and forcing confidence into his voice, for his friend's sake. "…Don't cry, Christophe…I…I'm sure your Dad is out there still, looking for you…longing to take you home…"
Christophe never acknowledged that what Gregory had said might be possible at all, but within a matter of minutes, the French boy had calmed down, and they fell asleep with their hands linked loosely together.
In the weeks and then months that followed, the boys tended to be more and more stiff and mechanical around Ms. Delorne; now that both of them knew the degree of her insanity, Gregory had pleaded with Christophe to leave her alone with the tank. He didn't want the brunette to get stabbed, and this fear of the Brit's penetrated Christophe's wall. He agreed to stop bothering his mother with his remote-controlled tank; though a bit grudgingly, at first. Even into the later days of springtime, Gregory continued to see Christophe coming to meals with fresh injuries on his body, and he still heard him sobbing himself to sleep sometimes. It scared Gregory, how Christophe could act so strong and unfeeling during the day, and then each night his barricades fell apart and he could do nothing at all to stop the tears. He hated how Christophe had to be like that, and wished there were something—anything—that he could do to help him stop putting up his walls, just so it wouldn't be so painful for him at night.
Two weeks before Gregory's second grade year was over, Ms. Delorne brought up a strange and remarkable idea of hers at dinner. She had been doing some research, she told Mrs. Thorne, on a summer boot camp for young boys. Katherine seemed uneasy and opened her mouth to protest at the words "boot camp", but Ms. Delorne quickly handed her a brochure she had apparently sent away for and explained to her that those words were just there to make fathers more interested in the idea. It was for boys aged seven to sixteen, and for thirty days out in the Nevada deserts, the boys would engage in a number of character-building activities appropriate for their ages. It was strict, Nicole said, but it was well worth it; their boys would come back well-behaved and respectful…two characteristics that they were both rather desperately lacking, in her eyes. Still Katherine was hesitant. She wasn't sure, she said; Gregory had never been away from her for longer than a day at a time. How would he survive an entire month out in the wilderness without her was beyond her, she said.
"'E will be vith Christophe!" Nicole said, trying to be soothing. "Eet eez only two 'undred dollars, Katherine…zat will pay for 'is lodging, 'is food, 'is uniform, ze transportation from 'ear to zer…everysing zat zey will need will be provided, and ze two of us will get a month of relaxation out of eet, too." Gregory and Christophe exchanged several unsure looks during this discussion, and a few nights after Nicole had first mentioned it, Christophe climbed into bed with Gregory and sat, staring at him, until he sat up, as well.
"…I 'ave 'erd our muzars talking about sending us away again," he whispered, and Gregory felt his stomach knot uncomfortably. He, like his mother, didn't know how in all of creation he would be able to last a month without her. "…Your muzar seems very keen to ze idea, now. My muzar eez good at convincing people of zeese sings…"
"I don't want to go, Christophe," Gregory said; it was supposed to sound angry, but it came out as more of a cracked whimper of a statement. "I don't want to be all alone with strange people out in the desert. I would be too…afraid."
Christophe stared at him, his hair dangling in his face, his eyes huge and green and beautiful in the distant moonlight. Gregory stared back, his shoulders shaking a little even though nothing was final, yet. Then Christophe smiled, and the blonde felt oddly strong hands on his shoulders, squeezing in a comforting way.
"…Even eef we were sent avay, Gregory…we would still 'ave each ozar," Christophe murmured kindly, and the smooth words were soothing and warm to Gregory, who managed to smile shortly after hearing them. "And being togezar would not be so bad at all, would eet?"
"No, it wouldn't," Gregory agreed, something tight in his chest as he took in the way Christophe smiled so fondly at him. Had it really been only two and a half years ago that he had not known this wonderful boy at all…? "It would be…quite nice, as long as we were with each other."
"So zen do not worry, Gregory," Christophe sighed, sliding his hands over Gregory's arms and squeezing his fingers reassuringly. "Eef we are forced to go…I will look out for you. Je promets, mon chéri. I promise, my darling."
For some reason, that was comfort enough for Gregory. Three days later when their mothers described the camp to them and mailed in the checks and letters for their entry, Gregory was able to smile and nod interestedly throughout most of the conversation. And a month later, just after the fourth of July, when Gregory found himself sitting beside Christophe on a big yellow school bus and waving out the window to his weeping mother and a statue-stiff Ms. Delorne (who had a rather nasty smirk on her face), he was nearly able to convince himself that he would be all right, so long as Christophe was there beside him. He would survive. Both of them would rough it together. This would be fun.
This would be FUN.
…Four minutes later, as the bus rolled down the asphalt road, he started crying, and his only consolation lie in Christophe's softly shaking fingers and the pungent stench of car exhaust.