I realize I updated fairly quickly to get the story off, so bear with me while I continue to develop it. I won't be updating as quickly as I see what reviewers are thinking, so if you really want to help then let me know how I am doing. Thanks!
"Forget me..."
Despite Gus's best attempts to keep his knowledge of the alleged tape out of the media's hands, they seized on it a mere hour after he made discreet inquiries into it's existence. An attorney for the Chaney family called, furious at him for ever implying that the Phillip Chaney Sr. might have such a tape and said his client was going to file a lawsuit for defamation of character if he persisted.
Gus snorted into the phone and hung up on him, but secretly he thought it was very telling that such a vehement response had been made – and so quickly.
Once word of a possible tape reached Erik's ears, the boy's entire demeanor immediately changed to that of a wild animal. Gus could almost see him panicking internally, though he said nothing, and he knew that if given the choice, the tape would never make it into his defense.
During the day Erik amused himself in his room, and at night he spent almost every second in Gus's shop. When Gus had tried to keep him indoors, it had been met with such disappointment on Erik's part that he had ultimately relented. Nothing interested him except for scribbling in his notebook, which was in no way what Gus had expected a teenager to be writing of. Instead of a journal filled with dark thoughts, Erik appeared to have a complete understanding of mathematics – in all forms. There were things written inside that made no sense to his untrained eyes, but Gus could tell that the boy went beyond simple human intelligence.
When Gus had asked him again about previous school's, Erik had looked away and said that his mother had home schooled him. Though he didn't believe it for a moment, Gus did not press. He was respectful to him and to Christine, and even to Detective Kohn, but never offered to start a conversation or to keep one going.
Now Gus had an even bigger dilemma to solve.
It seemed in addition to being masterful at basically every subject under the sun in a curriculum sense – Erik was a musical genius as well.
And dammit if his daughter didn't find that intriguing.
- - -
It started when Mrs. Anne Giry had come by to play piano so Christine could practice singing. Her own music teacher had refused to set foot in a house that held a potential murderer, and Gus could not allow Christine out of his sight. His only option was begging Sylvia's dear friend to perform the task, though he knew from personal experience that Anne Giry was not nearly good enough to ever play professionally.
Erik had stayed out of the way until Anne's fingers had touched the keys, and the first note that Christine hit that was slightly off, he had appeared in the doorway with an expression of disgust in his eyes.
Christine had immediately fallen silent, and her accompanist had glanced up with wide eyes at the boy she had recently heard so much about.
"You're welcome to sit and listen, Erik," Gus said cautiously.
"To that?" he asked scornfully. "Such music is not fit for human ears."
"Oh!" Christine had protested indignantly. "That is not nice!"
His eyes settled on her for a moment, then moved past her to the equally outraged pianist. "I was not referring to the singing."
Anne Giry stood, glaring at him. "You think you can do better?"
Without a word Erik crossed the room and sat at the piano only when Anne moved out of his way. Gus tensed as he plucked at a couple of keys, and then began to play in earnest, closing his eyes and not paying the slightest bit of attention to the book in front of him, nor the people who were staring.
He became a different person as he played, and Gus knew that with those notes, Erik was carried away to another world. One look at Christine's dreamy expression, and Gus knew that she too was carried away. Anne was staring at him with an expression between irritation and awe. Before the song was over, Gus guided her into the kitchen, leaving his daughter alone with Erik.
"You trust my judgment, don't you, Anne?" he asked quietly. "You've known me a long time. What do you think of him?"
"I think he's definitely strange, but I suppose that he could never help that. As for his innocence..."
"That I do believe in," Gus said with a sigh. "I just...don't know how I feel about him around Christine. She's very impressionable."
Anne leaned against the counter and stared down at the tiles on the floor. "Well, I certainly wouldn't want him near Meg, but I know why you've taken him in. I would just be careful, Gus. Even if you believe in his innocence...there is something about him that I don't quite trust."
Unsatisfied with the feeling that his daughter was going to develop some attachment to Erik, and the feeling would be more than strongly reciprocated, Gus could only agree with her assessment.
They listened as Erik finished the song, Christine asked him to play another, and they boy who seemed to obey no one readily complied.
#-#-#-#
"Where did you learn to play like that?"
Erik didn't look at her, feeling suddenly embarrassed at the way he'd taken over her music lesson. "I've always known how. Since I was very young."
Christine stared at him doubtfully. "Your apartment isn't big enough for a piano, and I can't see your neighbors listening as you played that way and not complaining.
Erik smiled secretly. "I haven't always lived here. My mother and I used to have a nice house in Los Angeles. Echo Park. We moved here when I turned nine."
"Why?" she blurted out, then flushed when he shot her a narrow glance. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be nosy."
"It's not something I care to discuss," Erik replied quietly. "Would you like me to play again, so that you can sing?"
"If you don't mind." She smiled at him slowly. "I'm supposed to audition in two months for the preparatory school, and I can't practice without music. Mrs. Giry is nice, but she isn't very musical."
"Why isn't your music teacher here for your lesson?"
Christine looked away quickly, "He couldn't make it," she lied. "Actually, Papa is going to hire someone else."
Erik didn't press her, and began to play again, wanting to hear her voice. Ah, how it lifted him. Her voice...his music. He knew that nothing would ever compare to the way it made him feel. Nothing, for he knew that Christine would never see him as more than a pathetic, ugly person, no matter how musically talented he might be.
He let her warm up, sing to her heart's content, and resisted the urge to correct her for anything he thought she was doing wrong. It was enough that she could look him in the eyes now without quickly turning away.
It was enough that Christine had smiled at him...enough that she stood so near he could see that she had freckles on her arms and face, enough that his music could reach her, even if nothing else ever would.
#-#-#-#
The sounds of crickets outside the little shop was distracting, but Erik continued to work steadily. By the time he left the Dally's, they would undoubtedly be surprised to learn that all of their lawn tools now worked, and if he found time, Gus had shown him an old Impala that had been his first car that needed rebuilt.
Not that he expected to be here that long, but the thought of spending the duration of the trial cooped up in the house with Christine, pretty might she be, and Gus, who seemed far too concerned with what he was thinking and feeling – terrified him. Nothing had prepared him for living with a girl, especially this one. He knew that his mother had once risen early, showered, eaten breakfast with a towel covering her wet hair...but he could hardly remember the days at the house in Echo Park.
Or rather, he could remember them if he tried very hard, but they were best forgotten. He could still hear the creak of rope and wood, the feet kicking violently above the floor the day his mother had decided to commit suicide. If the rope had not broken, she would have died, and God knows what would have happened to him then.
Some days he thought it might have been best. She would have stopped suffering...stopped being so sad, and perhaps a family could have fostered him that would have found him pathetic enough to love. Other days he was glad his mother had lived...so that she could suffer as he did, and her punishment was remaining his mother for trying to leave him that way. He had lost count of the times he had seen in her eyes the thought that she hated him...or that she had actually screamed the words. For much of his life she had kept him on a marionette's string, finding him repulsive when she was sober, then clinging to him endlessly as a drunk.
"Hello, Erik."
He turned sharply, a wrench held tightly in his hand as his gaze fell on a man in the shadows outside. "What do you want?"
"A conversation, nothing more."
The man stepped forward, allowing part of his face into the light. Erik was looking into the whitest reflection he had ever seen before, and eyes that seemed to be completely dilated, so they appeared black. Straight, blue – black hair fell nearly to his chest, and he was dressed all in black leather.
"Who are you?" Erik asked, turning back to the motor he was working on.
"I am Andras. I have come as a friend," the man replied, his voice soft and gentle.
Too gentle. He sounded like one of those preachers his mother liked to watch when she was feeling particularly religious, which occurred about once every two or three months.
Erik gave him a considering glance. This man was definitely not a preacher, but he could not overcome the sensation that he was peddling something. "I have no need of friends. You'd best leave before the officers come."
"Those incompetent fools? I wouldn't worry about them. You could walk out of here tonight, and they wouldn't know until tomorrow."
The man continued to stare, and Erik began to feel uncomfortable. There had been a few times in the past he had attracted the attention of people like this, and his mother had probably given him the best advice when she said that they were not drawn to him for the right reasons. Sometimes she could make perfect sense, even if she was attached to her delusions.
"What do you want with me?" Erik asked, turning around to face him. "Who are you?"
"I have been searching for someone like you, Erik. I can see greatness in you. I can see -"
Erik stood straighter, his irritation rising quickly. "Get out of here before I bury this in your heart," he said, raising the wrench threateningly. "I don't want you here. I don't care what you're offering, I don't want it."
"You don't want power? Money? I can't believe that," Andras replied, smiling at him. Ah, they all said this at first. They said it...until they finally admitted that indeed they did want those things.
"Get out!" Erik shouted.
The sound of the screen door shutting stopped any further threats Erik might have made to the man. He slipped into the shadows, but not before whispering, "I'll be here when you are ready, Erik Ramsey. You will join me, one way or another."
The words sounded more ominous than promising. By the time Gus made it out to the shop, Erik had resumed working on the motor, though his mind was racing miles ahead.