4Hi guys! So, I absolutely love this series and we need more Henri and Four time because they are just adorable. Enjoy! Please tell me what you think of it, and any other little scenes you want to see them in :) Thanks to LBozzie10 for inspiring me to write this by whacking my leg with a notebook at lunch until I wrote something :D
"I don't want to go."
He was wearing a brand new pair of jeans and a t-shirt, Henri having burnt most of his other clothes while he was trying to figure out how to use a human iron. His hat was sliding over his face and his shoes were so shiny that he could see his tongue in them when he stuck it out and wiggled it at his Cêpan.
"Come on, Four, you were really excited. We bought all your new things!" Henri held up a handful of stationary, all carefully named with "Harry Fisher" in blue and green and red ink. His ward had been very specific about the colours.
"I don't want to." Four crossed his arms, sticking his bottom lip out in an attempt to look like the most threatening 5-year-old ever. It didn't really work.
"Come on, get in the car." Henri pulled the little red backpack, filled with Four's things, onto his own massive shoulder and gently pushed the child out of the door. "If we don't go now, we'll be late."
Four shuffled down the driveway, digging each of his heels deep into the gravel so that he was walking as slow as he could, until he was eventually standing still. Henri turned away from the car parked in front of the house and knelt down in front of him, staring for a minute into his icy blue eyes.
"What's wrong, Four?" He studied the kid's face as his bottom lip trembled.
"What if the baddies come when I'm in school?"
Henri sighed as he felt that familiar guilt, deep in his chest, that came every time he had to think about the horrors that the boy had to live with. Most kids would be worried about not making friends, or getting lost, but the poor kid had to deal with the idea of being murdered. Of course, he hadn't really explained what could happen if the Mogs caught him, (Four called them moggy cats, which he found hilariously sweet) but the 5-year-old had been tormented with nightmares recently where he'd seen visions of what could happen. He'd wake up screaming about baddies hurting him, with tears streaming down his face and his tiny body shaking like a leaf. Henri would hug him to his chest as the little Loric told him in a weak voice what he'd seen, and then he'd tuck him into bed and sit next to him until he drifted off again. He had to thank God that the visions hadn't been anything too horrifying, otherwise the poor child would never get to sleep at all.
"The baddies won't come to your school, I promise. They don't know where you go to school, and I will make absolutely sure they don't find out."
"No, Henri, what if they come and hurt you while I'm not there? I won't be able to protect you."
And then the guilt really hit him, as painful as a knife in the gut. That brilliant, selfless, wonderful child was not worried about himself at all. He was worried about him. He put his hands on the kid's shoulders and squeezed them gently.
"The baddies won't find me, Four, not ever. They won't hurt you or me, I promise. Ok?"
"Promise that they won't make you go away?"
"Absolutely promise. I am not going anywhere, Four, ever. I'll always be right here with you." He pulled the tiny 5-year-old into a massive hug and whispered to him, "They can't see me anyway. I'm invisible."
"Really?" Four's eyes widened in innocent shock as he pulled away and stared up at him.
"Really. Now come on, we have to get to school or your new teachers will be telling me off." He opened the car door and watched as he scrambled into his seat, helping him fasten the belt when his little fingers couldn't manage it.
"If you're invisible, how will my teachers see you to tell you off?" Four's eyes were big and round, staring up at him as he closed the door and clambered into his own side.
"Teachers are magic. They see every naughty thing you do. Even if you're invisible." He turned the engine on with a roar of old, decrepit machinery and pulled out of the drive, watching in the mirror as the little secret Loric played with the handles of his new bag. Today was his first day of pretending to everyone that he was really human. He remembered his own first day at school, when he had turned up practically bouncing off the walls with excitement and safe in the knowledge that he could be entirely himself without the risk of murderous aliens arriving to torture and kill him. Oh, God, he was so desperate for Four to have that kind of day. But wishing didn't change anything.
They drove in silence until he pulled up outside the school gates. He helped him get out of the car, walking right next to him until they reached a classroom with a red door and the word "kindergarten" in laminated multi-coloured letters. He couldn't stop the smile spreading over his face as Four was led inside by a small blond woman who was far too happy for her own good.
"Hey, good luck-"
And there was that word, right on the tip of his tongue but stuck in his throat. The one he was desperate to say, but couldn't and probably never would say because it really wasn't his place to say it. The one that should have been said by someone else, if it had been different circumstances. The one that felt just as true used by him as by someone else.
Son.