Macbeth Quote: Act 5, Scene 5, lines 19-23, & then same scene, 23-28. It’s when Macbeth finds out his naughty lil’ wife’s dead; one of my favorite speeches in the whole dang play.
Irregular Warnings: French (translated at the bottom), Trowa Humiliation, Macbeth Quoting, More Profanity Than Normal, and Scary Heero Poetry.
Prodigy
Chapter 3
Bitter Nothings
x---x
Quatre gaped as a tall, beautiful brunette with intriguing hair and hypnotic green eyes stepped into his room as casually as any principal. The teacher barely looked up from the slight squeak of the door. Finally, the teacher looked up, and Trowa spoke.
“Je recherché Quatre,” he said, and the small blonde teenager quickly stood up.
There were many, many reasons Quatre was surprised with his new acquaintance. One was that he’d showed up in the middle of class, during a test no less, and speaking in French! Of course, they’d been speaking in French when they’d met yesterday when Quatre had (rather embarrassingly) become lost after taking a brief detour to the bathroom.
The brunette with twinkling green eyes had smiled at him, and put him on the right path. Why had they been speaking French? Quatre had been busy cursing the building quite fluently in the smooth dialect.
“Trowa? Pourquoi êtes-vous ici?” Quatre asked, close to screaming from panic. Had he insulted Trowa in some way? Was he here to kill the heir to the Winner fortune? Or, was he a stalker?
“J'ai apprécié notre conversation hier. Voulez aller au dîner avec moi,” Trowa stated calmly, and Quatre’s mouth, once more, dropped open.
Sure, Trowa was gorgeous. Of course Quatre had also enjoyed their twenty-minute conversation about the evils of city plumbing. But, was this really worth interrupting his time? Was there some ulterior motive, or was Trowa really attracted to him? Quatre blushed, just as the teacher spoke up.
“Excuse me sir, but please. We speak two languages in this room: English, and Spanish,” the teacher droned on, and for the first time Trowa noticed the sombreros littering the walls, maps proclaiming “Espana” stapled to the dilapidated building’s fading cream wall.
He blushed. The sign outside had said “foreign language”, and he’d assumed Quatre would be in French class. Apparently, the lovely angel was trilingual, at least.
Said angel giggled a little at the older boy’s look of surprise.
“Oui, Trowa. Au revoir,” Quatre chuckled, pushing the tall brunette out the door. He was about to say something else, but Quatre cut him off. “Au REVOIR!”
“But I don’t know your-” Trowa’s indignant outcry was cut off as the door clicked shut, the blonde blushing furiously. He shook his head. “I don’t know your number.” With one last, regretful glance at the door, he turned tail and trudged out to his little red sedan.
Just as he sat down in the driver’s seat, another body thunked down in the car. Quatre smiled up at him, a rapidly-scribbled note in his hand.
“Sorry about that. Here,” he said, and handed over the note (with, Trowa added with smug satisfaction, digits at the bottom). “I’m free after six, but I have to go to class now, so I hope to hear from you.” Trowa nodded, but the blonde stayed in the car. “You probably have to get going, then.” Again, he nodded.
Quatre nodded.
Trowa nodded.
“…Well, goodbye, then,” Quatre said hesitantly, and as his hand reached for the door handle Trowa, panicked, clicked on the lock. The blonde tried again, but it stayed in place with a stubborn horizontal set. Aqua eyes finally met emerald. “I’m locked in.”
For some reason, Trowa was panicked at the thought of the blonde leaving his car. He’d only spent a half an hour total with the boy, but it felt so comfortable whenever he was near. In those thirty minutes, he’d spoken more than in the last thirty days. Trowa sighed.
“I know. I locked it,” Trowa muttered, and Quatre laughed. Without any sense of hesitation, the blonde leaned over and kissed Trowa on the cheek.
“I’ll see you tonight, Trowa,” he said, still chuckling silently. Trowa, still floating around the confines of his little red sedan, pushed the unlock button. Quatre got out, waving. “Au revoir, Trowa!” He walked back into the school, and Trowa couldn’t help but grin.
“Au revoir, Ange.”
x---x
Creeps in this petty place from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.”
Heero cast a wayward glance to the braided boy yelling out the window and shaking his fist as he drove one-handed down the avenue. As an afterthought, he took a quick look at the speedometer, which was happily twitching at about 95 mph. Then, his gaze swiveled back to the wayward scrap of paper shoved off the passenger seat, a normally well-hidden hint to the unashamed underachiever’s mental prowess.
“Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
Heero ignored the indiscernible loud rock song, opting for deep contemplation of the road-ragedly inclined boy driving them to the lab. Why did he choose to write this quote down? What made it special to him?
And why did it speak to Heero, too? The one subject he had never excelled in was English; literary analysis had always left a sour taste in his mouth. Whether it was from the wishy-washy “themes” of his classmates or the political soapbox everything turned into for his professors, he couldn’t tell. It just made him feel surrounded by brainless goons with books instead of steel bats, still intent on clobbering your face into the cement, hardback or paper.
A smirk rode up onto his lips as Duo nearly crashed into a semi, waving his middle finger casually into the sky.
“You hungry,” Duo suddenly yelled out, and Heero had to blink for a moment. A quick look down at his watch flashed 11:23 AM. He shook his head.
“No,” he stated. Duo chuckled.
“Well aren’t you the conversationalist,” he laughed out. “Thought you were gonna jump out the window with excitement there!” Heero frowned.
He did not like this boy.
He was sarcastic. He was smart, but didn’t have the brains to use his intelligence. He was happy and bouncy, but carried depressing, hand-copied Shakespeare quotes in his neglected black backpack. But most importantly, he was always smiling, and that made him beautiful. And Heero did NOT like beautiful, funny, intelligent, happy-yet-deep people.
Because he didn’t like Duo. And what Heero Yuy didn’t like, he blew up.
He blinked. And the equation! The boy had death sentence written all over him! Wufei had received a broken arm just for looking at the damn thing. Duo had not only read it, but SOLVED it!
And here he was, pulling into a random diner with the boy who should be his mortal enemy. Finally, his nemesis appeared, and all Heero could think of was how pretty his eyes were and that stupid last sentence.
He didn’t even realize he was growling.
“Pyro! Outta the car,” Duo snapped. Heero glared at the braided boy and climbed out, pocketing the quote as he slammed the door. That action earned him a vibrant glare. “You hurt my baby, you die.” Heero smirked.
“Go ahead and try,” he said. A little-known fact was that Heero Yuy took a bit of his lab with him no matter where he went. More specifically, a couple strategically placed vials of acid, two detonators, and one lovely loaded black pistol with some minor yet effective modifications. Duo smirked, and the glare returned to grace the scientist’s blue eyes. “You solved my equation, and have some explanations for me, I assume.” He chuckled.
“Well, I think I already told you about ClO3, but your handwriting could definitely use some flare,” Duo began, grinning. “It’s like reading microdot! I mean, exact right angles, with all the letters the same size, and all your little degrees exactly-”
“Shut up,” Heero stated. There was no malice, no emotion. It was just a warning. Duo shrugged.
“Whatever. I’m eating, whether or not you get all pissy about it,” he said, suddenly chipper. Heero had to wonder if the boy was bipolar like Une. “Unless you’d like me to tie you to the bumper and drive away? It’s awfully tempting.” Heero gave him another glare, but the violet-eyed idiot seemed impervious.
“Just go,” he snapped, and Duo smiled and walked inside, Heero not far behind. He wasn’t hungry, but he’d eat anyway.
To Heero’s moderate surprise, the waitress greeted Duo by his first name, and he ordered “the usual”. It was also, in an interesting turn of events, a biker poetry diner, however that had happened. A leather-clad man sat on a stool in the corner, speaking gruffly yet rhythmically into the microphone.
Wheels revolving and I spin,
Drown without, drown within.
The Man pulls down, and I pull up,
Falling in my lover’s cup.
Heero quickly ignored it, and ordered a random sandwich on the menu. Duo was giving the young doctor an appraising look.
“So, what’s the deal? I explain the answer, and you take the credit,” he asked, and Heero shook his head. “What, then? You just get a free lunch and an answer, and I get a bit of credit?” Heero frowned. What was he doing, anyway?
“Mutual credit means mutual danger,” Heero stated. “We both know what that formula could do to the world. An explosive like this could make a country a major world power, and you know the final stage’s formula. You’re stuck with me.” Duo snorted.
“Sure. Mongolia’s gonna come and tear down my apartment’s walls so I write down your answer,” Duo asked incredulously as the biker continued his sonnet. Heero finally caught his violet eyes.
“Yes, if it ever gets out of my lab,” he said, and Duo’s mouth dropped open.
“Fuck. I gotta get more knives,” the braided boy muttered. “HAVE you told Mongolia?”
“Hn,” he said, amused. Maybe blowing the boy up was a bad idea, even if he did have an affinity for biker beatniks. “I’m not an idiot.”
“Could have fooled me.” Heero’s napkin landed in Duo’s newly arrived soup, accompanied by a smirk. “Bastard.”
“Baka.”
“Robot.”
x---x
A/N: The following part is purely frivolous fun that’s not officially part of the Prodigy plot (as in it doesn’t really happen.). Don’t pay attention if you don’t wanna; nothing special happens ‘cept funniness. I just really wanted to add this in. Ha. Pyro-Heero reciting poetry! Yay. (My style goes a bit downhill, though, but that’s cuz I was laughing so hard when I wrote this part.)
x---x
Heero was done with the playful (and extremely intriguing) boy. He grabbed Duo’s braid, and dragged him out the door. “Damn it! Get off me!” The bikers were on their feet and looking menacing, but the Japanese-American scientist was too pissed to care.
Duo looked around helplessly. Finally, his hand crept down to his feet, and a knife was at Heero’s throat. But, Heero just kept dragging him.
“Fuck! Heero, get off the damn braid,” Duo was screaming. Heero threw him out the door, and then cursed.
Blood was dribbling down his neck, and Duo (who he’d accidentally thrown into the second set of doors, which were pull instead of push) was unconscious on the floor.
The hostess behind him sighed. “We’ve got a back room you can use,” she grumbled, motioning behind her. “He’s spent the night here before, and you’re just nicked.” Heero was about to protest, but the orange-clad woman held up her hand to stop him. “Shut up and take the charity!” Heero glared, and she glared back, finally grabbing the unconscious teenager. “Go recite poetry.”
The woman walked away, leaving Heero to stare indignantly and ridiculously angrily at her back. But, she was dragging Duo almost effortlessly through the kitchen. Every inhabitant of the diner was staring at him. Finally, the previous performer stood up, offering the mike. Heero glared at him.
“When Lisa says recite, you recite,” he stated, as if it were the Golden Rule, and every head in the place nodded.
“No.”
A biker (or five) grabbed the bleeding boy and hauled him onstage. The surly biker holding the mike shoved it into his hands. “RECITE.” He said it like the scientist was deaf. Heero glared at them, only to realize they’d made a human wall almost seven feet tall around the small stage. There was no escape.
Heero cleared his throat, cursing the day Duo Maxwell was born.
They’d know Shakespeare; that was all he had, sitting in his back pocket along with his wallet. God, he was going to strangle that idiot when he woke up. The human wall was waiting patiently. So, Heero Yuy did the thing he hated most in the world.
He made up poetry in his head right then and there, and spilled it on the waiting, angry mob of forty-year-old, fully armed biker beatniks.
Dipped down to the surface of my soul,
And ate me.”
He moved towards the end of the stage, but the human wall seemed reinforced now. He was tempted to kill them all with the vials stuck in his socks, but decided to keep them for Duo’s awakening. He smirked. Poetry? He’d give them poetry.
Bastards.
He grabbed the mike almost violently, slammed his bottom on the stool, and began.
“You hate me, I hate you,
Yet we’re the same- one and two.
One for nothing, all alone,
Two too many, can’t find home.
Hate and love, love and hate,
Who can really trust in fate?
Lies don’t kill, believers do;
Now let’s go fight- one and two.
Love to kill, afraid of dying,
Close to laughing, almost crying,
Kissing, missing, wishing.
Mutilate their bodies,
Drown out their screams
With each other’s soul.
I hate you, you hate me.
What a perfect pair we’d be.”
The mike fell to the stage with a thud as he strode off unhindered.
x---x
French Translations:
Je recherché Quatre: I’m looking for Quatre.
Pourquoi êtes-vous ici?: Why are you here?
J'ai apprécié notre conversation hier. Voulez aller au dîner avec moi: I appreciated our conversation yesterday. Please go to dinner with me (Roughly).
Ange: angel.
(I’m assuming you know au revoir.)