Staying Silent
Whyteroze28
Why is Hector Zeroni so quiet, and why does Pendanski seem to hate him so much? Zero/Stanley I hope you like the story, please R/R
I obviously don't own these guys, but I think they're so cute together
Chapter 8
"Twenty six letters." Hector sighed, digging another shovel full of dirt out of Stanley's hole. They were working side-by-side, and Hector was trying to keep his mind from returning to the conversation from the night before. "We can do five letters a day for four days, and then six letters on the fifth day."
"That's good math." he heard Stanley say, and he glanced up. They were both digging in the same spot, and their shovels clanged together for a second. But there was no mocking expression on Stanley's face, only a kind of surprise.
"I'm not stupid," Hector replied, and he heard the hurt in his own voice. He heard the footsteps getting closer, and he knew one or two of the other guys were approaching, but he just had to get the words out before they got too close. "I know everyone thinks I am, I just don't like answering stupid questions."
Suddenly, he saw Stanley look up, and watched as X-Ray and Squid stared down at him. He could see the puzzled expression on Squid's face, and he wondered for a minute if Squid realized he had handed Zig-Zag a ticking bomb.
"Hey, yo, Caveman." X-ray called. "Must be kinda easy, working with your own personal slave, and all, huh?" He narrowed his gaze to X-Ray, before turning away in annoyance. He guessed that X had decided Ziggy was right, or at least that he might be.
X-ray smiled at them mockingly. "What's up, stupid?" he said nastily, grinning at Hector. "C'mon, Squid."
"Whatever." Squid muttered as he knocked a shovelful of dirt back into Stanley's hole. But he gazed at Hector for a second longer, as if to express something. Hector wondered if the boy was having second thoughts.
He didn't dare look back at Stanley, but just stood there a minute, until the blood racing through his veins had slowed down. He knew Stanley was mad too, he could feel it, but there wasn't anything either of them could do. If they tried to take on X-Ray, the whole tent would take them down.
A few days later, after they had finally run through the whole alphabet, Hector was working his way down a list of words. He'd already done KING and LIKE, and was working on one he thought he knew. but was unsure why Stanley had put it there. He wanted to ask, as he wrote the letters. "M... O... M..." But he was still afraid that if he mentioned Pendanski, he would crack. But then, his thoughts went to his real mom, and he glanced over at Stanley, before fixing his gaze on a corner of the tent.
"We weren't always homeless." He kept his gaze fixed as he spoke, not wanting to see the pitying expression on Stanley's face that he felt sure would be there. "I remember we used to live in a lot of different places. And then… we didn't live anywhere."
He turned then, his eyes boring into Stanley's, as if daring him to say something. And then, just as quickly, he looked down, wanting to cover up what he felt had been a stupid mistake.
"It must've been hard." Hector looked up quickly. Stanley's voice didn't sound pitying... It almost sounded like... he was trying not to cry.
Hector tried to force the words out. "Yeah. My mom had problems, but she would try so hard to make a better life for us. She always used to say, 'I love you more than air'." He looked at Stanley, but the other boy's head was still down, and Hector knew he was trying to get a hold of himself. "She couldn't take me everywhere she went. I used to have to wait like on a porch or a playground." Then he sighed heavily. "Then one day she didn't come back."
"What happened to her?" he heard Stanley ask, and his voice still sounded a bit rough.
Hector sighed again, deeper, feeling the depression sinking all the way to his bones. "I don't know. That's what bothers me the most. If I could, I would hire a whole team of private investigators, just to find her. Or to find out what happened to her."
"I used to wait at Laney Park," he stated suddenly, remembering the park that had been his home for the first month or so of his mother's absence. He felt Stanley sit up, and suddenly felt sick. More connections, when he was trying so hard to push the boy away.
"Laney Park?" Stanley asked, and Hector frowned at his next thought. There was only one way to make Stanley stop.
"Yeah." he replied softly.
"I used to go to Laney Park all the time!" Stanley exclaimed. He was grinning, and Hector felt his heart break a little more. He knew that the older boy was just now getting that sense of connection that he'd felt when he'd first seen him.
"Oh, really?"
"Yeah!"
"I used to sleep in the tunnel next to the swinging bridge." He watched Stanley's face fall, and wanted to reach out to him, but knew that if he did, they'd both end up suffering for it. So he just looked at him steadily. "But no biggie," he replied, turning his attention back to the paper. He felt Stanley's gaze on him for another minute before the boy thought to look down and check his work.