What the Camera Doesn't See
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Title: What the Camera Doesn't See: Part III
Author: Genji
Warnings: Look at part 1.
Disclaimer: I don't even dream of owning them, because when I'd wake up I'd be disappointed.
'thoughts'
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Written story
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{Written Words}
"Dialog"
*emphasis* think italics
~*~ Change of scene
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Laughter shall drown the raucous shout;
And, though these shelt'ring walls are thin,
May they be strong to keep hate out
And hold love in.
--Louis Untermeyer, Prayer for this House
~*~
Quatre threw down the sack of groceries on the table and picked up the cat that had been trying to trip him since he had walked in the door.
"Yeah, I know, I'm late, aren't I, Riyad? It's not my fault. Duo doesn't know when to quit. We beat him again and again and again. I don't know why he doesn't ask Wufei or Heero or Zechs or someone to join him. It's too easy to trounce him in the first five minutes, and then he's running around trying to catch up. Trowa offered to sit it out, but Duo said he could win against the two of us. He says that every time."
The gray and black feline purred. Quatre smiled, "Has he ever beaten us? Is that what you're asking, Riyad? Yeah, once. I thought he'd quit while he was ahead, but no. He must continue to challenge us. I hear there's a betting pool among the crew. Something about how long it will take for Duo to realize it's hopeless. I wonder how long I would put my money on. Anything happen today? You didn't like that letter last night, did you? No, neither did I." Quatre put the cat down and started putting the groceries away. Riyad streaked off in the direction of the bedroom.
The doorbell rang. Quatre emerged from the kitchen and walked the short distance to the door. He opened it to reveal a non-descript female holding a package wrapped in brown paper. She thrust a clipboard at him. He signed it and she goggled upon seeing his signature. But her job wasn't to make small talk with the customers. She handed over the elongated box and took her leave, shaking her dark head all the way back to the delivery truck.
She didn't notice a figure sitting on a nearby bench, reading a newspaper. By means of a hole punched through the gray material, one clear eye watched the brown-uniformed woman depart. Ideas were already forming in the figure's head, as numbers flowed from a pen that one of the hands held. The entrance code appeared on the edge of the day's newspaper. The paper was then duly folded and slowly the person who had spent the afternoon on the bench walked away, just another pedestrian on the sidewalk.
~*~
Trowa smiled as he coasted to a stop in the black Beamer. He got out of his car, touching the paint affectionately before stepping out of the caged in area and closing the sturdy gates. He locked them with a simple padlock and shook the doors to make sure his transportation was secure.
His garage was simply a slab of concrete surrounded on three sides by sturdy mason work. On the fourth side was a hinged gate forged of wrought iron. If he walked down the dimly lit corridor that passed by each of the cages containing the other lodgers' most prized items, he could enter through a dank hole in the wall, which although locked did not provide that much security, since anyone with patience and a lock pick could get in. A surfboard was leaned up against the bars haphazardly; it fell down mysteriously, as if the force of gravity had proven itself too much to bear.
Trowa ignored the aura of doom that always seemed to pervade the cool depths of the garage, and walked out of it, into the early summer twilight. Instead of going in the back way, like he normally did, he chose to use the front entrance. He strode up to the main door and then paused, his finger hovering over the keypad. Across the street came the roar of the pounding waves. Trowa turned away from the door and walked toward the sound. Crashing waves pulled him away from his original destination.
Jaywalking across the street, he made his way to the boardwalk. The sun felt good as he leaned over the rail watching the last few families pack up to go home. On the beach a kid was trying to get a kite off the ground. He ran and ran and ran, but the tail simply dragged in the sand. Trowa watched with a hidden smile. His mind drifted back to Roanoke High, where he had met Quatre. He had met them all there, more specifically during rehearsals for the play, 'The King and I'.
His best friend Adrian had convinced Trowa to join him backstage. Adrian had spent his entire high school career there. Whether it was for a simple band concert that needed the lights adjusted, or a full-scale production of 'Mame,' the dark teen had been on hand. Trowa had been new at the school, and had fallen into the Mexican's company. Thus, under his friend's prompting he had joined the crew. The set was constructed first-- Adrian had signed Trowa up without his knowledge. But Trowa never complained.
Adrian had been a good guy. He had a perfect life-- on the outside. He was always up for a night of just driving around or fishing, a game of hoops or hockey, talking all night about chicks or cars or nothing at all. He hadn't been above lending Trowa his homework when the green-eyed senior had stumbled over a calculus problem 'Ms. Fish' had sprung on him the first day Trowa had appeared in the senile woman's class.
Adrian had always put the needs of his 'gang' before his, and eventually living for others led to a severe bout with depression. But no one noticed. He acted normal in front of the guys, because his own problems were irrelevant. It was this attitude that led him to eat a slug from a .45 Colt.
Trowa had been bereft for weeks on end. He reverted to his anti-social behavior that Adrian had worked so hard to have him discard. Three words had woken him up from his perpetual stupor. "You OK, man?" A violet-eyed senior from properties asked him, before handing him a book that needed to be out on stage for that particular scene. They had been said in the same way Adrian always spoke them when they had spent the night in silence by the creek.
"You OK, man?" the self-dubbed prop master had asked again.
There was a growl from behind a black speaker, which during show time would make it possible for those in the wings to hear their cues as they occurred on stage. A tousled head appeared from behind it. Underneath the untamed bangs, fierce blue eyes glared into the braided teen's back. Speaking around the pliers that were clenched in his teeth, the new arrival had growled, "Leave him alone, Duo," before returning to rewiring the ancient piece of equipment.
Of course, Duo did not heed his friend's order, but started talking non-stop about nothing in particular. And, for the first time since Adrian had died, Trowa felt the grief ease from his shoulders-- just a little bit. Duo had shown him around to his friends like a prize, but that was just the teen's way.
That was how he had met them all, all four of them. No, Relena had been there also, though she was more of an enigma to him. The girl had played Ana starring across from the high school basketball captain. As a rule, cast and crew didn't mix-- at least not normal cast members. The priests were different. They sat in the hallway and sang along with every song. Duo would join them, sitting on the speaker and belting out in a mockery of the king, "Shall we dance? One, two, three. Shall we dance? One, two, three..."
Heero would then have come around, yelled at the properties personnel and dispelled the singing monks with a single glare. Of course, the orange robe clad teens always came back. It was too much fun to be dispelled by a single indifferent AV crewman and a couple of irate directors who refused to leave the audience and sent their unwilling minion in their stead.
Trowa smiled slightly and shook his head. The last rays of light were dancing on the horizon and the moon had risen early, casting its own faint glow in the growing darkness. The kite had been packed up and the beach was now deserted. Trowa pushed away from the railing and turned back across the street.
The white building loomed up against the other shapes hidden from the light of the dying celestial fire. A short apartment building, compared to the newer addition to the neighborhood, Trowa's room was the second from the top. The fourth floor, room 12D faced the sea, and in the morning he could look out onto the stormy water as the coffee percolated in the tiny kitchen.
The inside décor itself was an interior decorator's worst nightmare, but the youth didn't care much for appearances, having been disillusioned at a young age about life. Not that he let it pass through the façade he had created for himself, but deep down he knew that beauty was only skin-deep. The apartment was serviceable, and almost cozy. The typical bachelor pad with dirty dishes sometimes filling up the sink, and the couch was worn to the point where there were holes in it. The actor had a sneaking suspicion he shared that piece of furniture with a small guest, but as long as the rodent was quiet and didn't do any further damage, Trowa let him be.
The uni-banged boy arrived at the door once again, and this time he punched in his code and slid into the unlit atrium.
~*~
Trembling hands put down the binoculars and scribbled a series of numbers down on a pad of paper. The solitary figure moved away from where it had been leaning against the building and walked away. With staccato-like steps the slip of a person slid into the shadows and was gone.
~*~
Krista chewed on the end of her pen. It was the AP Bio final exam and all she could remember were scenes from the fics she had read instead of studying the night before. Her eyes darted over to her friend's paper and, with practiced skill, she put the answer down in her own words. As she finished the exam, she caught sight of the miniature drawings in the margins of Morganna's paper. A one-eyed Trowa was being pursued by a chibi-Quatre. Chibi-Duo sat in the corner, holding a teddy bear, and the beginnings of a sulky looking Heero were taking shape under the direction of a skilled fountain pen.
"Time's up," Mr. Stratinski announced, and there was a general shuffling of papers as booklets and answer sheets found their way to the front. The teacher, who had caused more GPA's to drop than flies in winter, gathered the papers, and started on the monologue that the seniors knew all too well, since each of the teachers said it at the end of the final. The graying woman in the corner of the room raised her eyes to heaven. Obviously she'd been proctoring this exam for too many years.
The class fidgeted as the five-minute lecture continued. Krista caught Lucie's eye and mouthed, "The Tree when he frees us from this hell-hole." Lucie nodded and leaned across the aisle to poke Ida, who sat next to the blond, not by any accident.
Krista scribbled her message onto her hand and waved it in front of Morganna's face. The braided beauty nodded, and shoved the hand down as Stratinski concluded with, "Therefore, if you ever go to jail, I won't be the one to vouch for your character." The class nodded and raced out of the stuffy room for the last time.
The Tree, as the huge maple in the back of the school was known, gave a welcomed shade in the searing early summer heat. The four girls raced, whooping to the gathering place. They had fought for the rights to hang there countless times, especially those from the freshmen class, who didn't respect the upperclassmen's prerogative.
"Where's Elly?" Ida asked, scurrying up to her place in the branches.
"Job. She had her science final this morning," Lucie informed her friend.
Ida grunted, and reclined against the thick trunk.
"So, whatcha gonna do this summer?" the blond girl asked, settling on the ground.
"Destroy any brain cells I have left which high school and that formaldehyde in Bio didn't kill off already," Ida said cheerfully. "Wanna join me?"
"I got the tapes for Escaflowne. Kris, your Internet is good for something," Lucie remarked with an air of satisfaction. She had always had this mistrust of computers, since if she couldn't see how it worked it was, in her words, 'evil'.
"There's better stuff than just cheap tapes. Much better stuff." Krista licked her lips and flopped down on the grass. "Morg, I gotta send you some of the fics I read last night. Good stuff."
"Oh, so that's what you were doing that led you to reading my answers on Stratinski's test."
Lucie laughed. "See what happens when you read that crap?"
"Yuri's much better," Ida muttered.
Krista laughed. "One of these day's I'm gonna show you what you're missing, Luce. I personally wanna see 1 x 3, but it's always 3 x 4 or 4 x 3, and 1 x 2 and 2 x 1. Sure, I love 1 x2 or vice versa but let's have 'em switch up a bit. I'm sick o' that little 'oh my heart hurts' routine Quatre always plays. Kill 'em before they kill you, that's the way."
Morganna grinned, "But Q-man's rich. I'd like some of that action. Plus, they've gotta have a sensitive character to play upon the emotions of. I'd just have fun screwing with his head, just to hear him scream. Sadistic? Well, I don't see that I have a chance, and we're all entitled to our fantasies. Right, Kris? I bet he's the only one that would probably actually care about his mate. I find it hard to believe the others are human, with the exception of Duo, and even he's crazy."
"But that makes the other so much more enticing. I wanna break down their emotions, anything to get a rise outta them. Wufei would be an interesting subject to study, he seems so confuzzled," Krista countered.
Lucie rolled her eyes. "And I thought that *I* was crazy! Really, isn't it just enough to see 'em up on screen? They're all such cute guys, what more could you want?"
"But Luce, the imagination is a wonderful thing. And there are some great writers out there. It's a shame that you don't try it out. I'm thinking of writing a couple things myself."
Lucie laughed. "Kris, you writing? This is coming from the girl that hated English for years on end? As for missing out on some great stories, my mind is satisfied just watching the series." She trilled her tongue, "Rrrrrrr..."
"I may so try. An' I'll write a 1 x 3 lemon, an' then maybe a 4 x 3 just for you, Morg. Ida, you got any requests?"
"Sally x Noin."
"Noin?" Morganna asked, confused.
"Purple hair, lieutenant, sorta like a female Trowa," Krista explained.
"Mmm...I saw some pics, not bad looking. She's supposedly a strong female character." Morganna tried to redeem herself.
"She carries a gun," Ida remarked with decided finality.
~*~
© 2001 by Genji. Please do not remove without permission.
