Lil and Quatre backdated

[ax_kai]

Lil teaches Quatre to knit and a bond is formed!



This might not have been the best room to find some peace and quiet. Other kids came in, made noise, demanded a wave... Lil would have been better off staying in her room. But she'd thought a little bit of exploring was in order, so after a brief reconnaissance she'd ended up in the rec room, staring intently at her knitting and trying to make the clack of aluminum needles loud enough to warn off others. She should have brought her MP3 player. Piping a bit of Willy Nelson into this place probably would have driven the whole lot off.

Quatre hummed softly to himself as he made his way passed the rec room, stopping when he saw a brown mass of curls from over the couch's back. He tried to recall anyone he had met with such curls, but couldn't bring anyone to mind so of course he would have to go introduce himself. Quatre made his way over, making sure he made noise so she wouldn't be startled or anything and offered a small wave.

"Hello." He smiled and glanced down at what she was working on. "Oh! You knit? That's fantastic."

She need a sign obviously. Maybe a t-shirt with a hand flipping the bird to anyone who looked at her. Maybe she needed to so something like Joe Kalvak back home and start wearing black leather with spikes. Everyone had left Joe alone when he'd started doing that. Except her mom had specifically told her to make friends. Please, she had said.

She looked up and gave the boy a thin smile. "Yeah, I knit." She held up the work. Four pointy needles and a tube of red yarn with a fifth needle in her hand. "It's gonna be cold here at some point, right? Might need a hat."

"That's amazing!" Quatre gushed, looking at the four needles in the tube in fascination. "I'm always impressed by people who can make something from just string. My cousin tried to show me how to crochet, but I could never get the hang of it."

"Me neither. I never knew what hole to stick the fucking hook in." Lil held up her work. "But this isn't so hard, and I like how it looks better anyways."

"How do you keep track of so many needles and loops?" Quatre asked, moving to sit on the couch, but giving her plenty of room so she didn't feel like he was invading her space.

Lil shrugged. "I don't need to keep track of it all. It's always just two needles and one loop - just the stitch you're working on. Unless you're doing cables or... " But Lil stopped before she went off into the weeds. The kid did seem interested though. "So, you never tried knitting?"

She had started to lose him when she started to talk about what she had to do, but he smiled and shook his head when she asked. "No, I have thought about it, but whenever I think about trying I always tell myself it would be too difficult."

If Lil had one virtue, it was that she never talked herself out of something before trying it. Sometimes it didn't always work in her favor, but... well, never mind that. If she had one pet peeve, it was that lack of impulse and determination in others and the need to correct that in this boy seized her. She reached into a bag she had on the seat next to her and pulled out a ball of green yarn and a couple double-pointed needles. They were no good for a beginner, but she dug out a pink eraser, snapped it in half and stabbed each piece with one of the needles. "Tada!" She said, holding up the improvised straights. "You're gonna learn how to knit now, um... You got a name?"

Quatre stared in surprised as she started stabbing needles in erasers and such, then handed them out for him to take. He took them after a moments and looked down at them like they were the riddle of the sphinx, then turned to her when she asked his name. "Oh, Quatre. My name is Quatre, and yours?"

"Lil." She barely glanced up as she grabbed the yarn and cast on; a good dozen stitches should be enough to give him a start. She shimmied a little closer to him so she could show him what to do with the needles. "So, are you French or something?"

Quatre made sure to focus on what she was doing, eyes watching every move her quick fingers did and he tried to memorize it. "Lil, I like it, and no. I'm not French in the slightest, I was actually born in Kazakhstan, but I think my father wanted to give me a name close to my mother's in her memory."

"It's nice, just means 'four' in French, so it's a little odd. You're working the stitches left to right. Put the right needle in the loop here, hitch the yarn around the back, pull in through and slip it off the left needle. That's a knit stitch - easy peasy." Lil passed the needles to Quatre. "Lil's short for Lillian, but honest-to-god, if I ever hear someone call me that, they're gonna be planning their funeral."

He did his best to follow her instructions and smiled a little when he heard her threat of death at being called by her given name. "Then I shall remember it to be Lil and nothing else." He made his first few stitches, surprised that they were working even though his gloves slipped against the smooth needles occasionally. "Where are you from?"

"Yellowknife, way up in northern Canada." She watched him work for a bit, impressed with how quickly he was catching on. "What about you? Where'd you come from? And, um, do you need to wear the gloves?"

"Oh. Well, I was born in Kazakhstan, but my family moved around a lot. Right now, my father and my second oldest sister are in India." He stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth as he focused on one particular stitch, going quiet until he figured it out.

"The gloves..." he answered after a bit. "I don't need to wear them, but they make it easier in case of an accident or something. I'm an empath, so I can feel what someone’s emotions by touching them."

Lil was leaning away from Quatre before she even realized it. She hadn't met a kid yet whose power had seemed threatening to her but now for some reason, Quatre had scared her in that moment. Who knew why? It wasn't like she was some deep well or angst or anything. "You've got good tension," She said to cover her discomfort. "That's the trickiest part for a lot of people." The empathy thing she'd ignore for now.

Quatre noticed her discomfort immediately, having seen it on most of his family's faces for the first couple years since he manifested, but for some reason it didn't make him feel sad. He understood the fear people had of his powers and he let them feel what they wanted about it, he just hoped she wouldn't try to distance herself from him because of it.

"Really?" He replied lightly, turning to give her a smile. "Maybe I should have tried this years ago, though I think I like you as a teacher better than any of my cousins or sisters."

Lil rolled her eyes, even as she smiled. "Yeah, yeah. You just pay attention to what you're doing. You're comin' up on the end of the row so you gotta flip it, then just start again like you did when I first passed it to you." She watched him work, nodding as he managed the first turn without much of a fuss. The kid was quick. "So, you come from a big family then?"

"Flip it..." Quatre repeated quietly to himself, coming to the end and hesitating for a second before flipping it in the way he hoped she meant. "Yes. Well, my immediate family isn't too big, it's me, my older sisters and my dad. But my extended family is..." He paused for a second to count in his head. "Twenty-nine cousins, six aunts and uncles and one grandfather."

He had flipped successfully, or so he thought, and started his next row which looked slightly weird compared to the top row. "What about you? Big family or small?"

"Tiny. It's just my mom and me. Dad buggered off down south years ago." And that was fine with Lil. He and her mom only ever fought anyway, didn't matter if he was drunk or sober.

Since Lil didn't seem too upset or mad about her father Quatre chose not to offer any sympathies since it wasn't needed. Instead he just smiled and nodded, messing up a stitch so he had to unravel it. "Do you miss her? I miss my sisters and cousins."

"Yeah. I mean, she's not the perfect mom or anything, and sometimes we don't get along very well, but she does her best. She's sort of my best friend right now, so... "She trailed off. Leaving her had been the hardest part of this whole thing, and still hurt a little to think of. Thankfully she had Quatre's quick work to be impressed with. "Good job there. That's how you'll learn the most important stuff - fuck up a stitch and have to rip it back."

Quatre beamed when she praised him, even if it was for a mistake, and continued to try doing the stitches perfectly. "I understand that. My oldest sister was one of my best friends, so when she got married and left, I became extremely upset even though I had my other sister and cousins. I learned after a while that just because she was far away didn't mean we still couldn't talk and be there for one another. It also makes the time we do have together much more special."

"That's a good way of looking at it I guess. I gotta know though, how many sisters do you have? I mean, you've practically got a whole village of cousins, right?"

"Ha! A village would be correct, but I have only two sisters." Quatre smiled and made another loop, though it wasn't as tight as the others. "They are both older than me. Iria is a doctor and lives with her husband in Egypt, while my second sister, Katherine, is in India like I said helping my father."

He turned to look at her perfect knitting. "Can I ask what your mutation is?"

"Oh geez, sorry. You told me about yours an' everything. I'm invulnerable. Nothing seems to hurt me. It was actually a bit of a pain when I started knitting." Lil held up a hand and wiggled her fingers. "I don't feel stuff as well as most people 'cause of that, so it took a while to get my tension right and all that. Drove Mom crazy." Lil chuckled at the memory. No better way to drive her mom off the edge then just be frustrating in some way. But once they'd figured out what was going on she'd been all apologies, and to make up for it, they'd had ice cream for supper that night.

Quatre grinned widely when he heard her chuckle, liking how it sounded when she laughed and hoped he could make her do it again. "Invulnerable? That sounds very exciting. Nothing can pierce your skin?"

"Nothing so far. Can't get hit hard enough. Also, can't get burned or frozen or electrocuted... As far as I know anyway." Lil reached into her bag for yet another needle. Time to start some cables. But damn, this boy was easy to talk to. "It's not all that exciting really. I mean, I've been like that since I was a baby so it's just ordinary for me. Being tall has always been more of a hassle."

Quatre was truly amazed by her mutation, the idea of never getting cut or scraped or even burnt sounded great. He smiled a little at her complaint about her height, having the exact opposite problem. "Should we trade? Being a sixteen-year-old boy and only being five three is not very fun."

Sixteen? He was the same age as her. Lil had assumed he was younger and probably for exactly the reason he'd just stated. "Naw, I think I'll keep mine. It was a pain back home, but here it doesn't seem so weird. You and I might not be the height people expect, but it doesnt' seem like such a big deal once you meet folks with wings. Or fur."

"Oh! Have you met Shen? She has the brown wings and short hair? She's really nice." He hadn't met any of the others with wings or any with fur, but Inu-Yasha had animal ears so did that count as partial fur?

Lil shook her head. "But I've met Tamara. I think if I had wings, I'd want ones like hers." Probably not all the pain Tamara had gone through to get them though.

"I don't think I have met her." He tried to think through all the faces and such that he had seen in halls and in classrooms. A pretty Asian girl came to mind with her large bat like wings and Quatre nodded. "Oh! I think I have seen her though. Yes, her wings are very interesting. You would rather have skin than feathers?"

"You sure like to give down the rabbit holes, but skin. Seems like feathers would be a lot more fuss to take care of." Damn, a mistake she'd have to go back. This wasn't complicated, but the chatting was enough to distract her. She put her work down and looked over at Quatre's progress. "Jesus. You look like you've been doing this for a long time."

Quatre blinked and looked down at his work when she brought attention to it and smiled a little as his cheeks reddened. "Ah, well, once you told me how to start, I just kept doing that. The task repetitive, kind of like paperwork. Now, if I tried to make something like you," He nodded to her work. "I believe I would get lost in a heartbeat."

"Well yeah, but you can learn everything in knitting the same way. When you want, I can show you how to purl, increase, and decrease. Once you got those things, you can do some really fancy-ass stuff." She held up her hat, with all the needles and cables. "There's nothing more than those four things going on with this. It just looks impressive 'cause people don't know shit about knitting."

Quatre laughed a little at her words and nodded at the offer for more lessons. "I would enjoy that. A new skill set is always a good thing and I'd get to spend more time getting to know you."

Lil smiled. "See, I was lookin' to spend some time alone and the you came and interrupted me and now we're knitting and talking about getting together again." This school... she'd arrived determined to stay wrapped up in her own business but time and time again people had come along who wouldn't let her do that. "This afternoon turned out a whole lot better than I thought. Look, I got plans for that yarn, but if you pick up some of your own, come see me and you can borrow the needles. Or maybe I can help you buy some straights."

"I'm going to assume straights mean needles, right? Unless there is a whole other side of knitting I'm not aware of." Quatre laughed, handing his meager work back over to her. "But I can do that. I think they have a craft store in town I could go to."

"Whoops," Lil said when she finally worked out what Quatre was laughing about. "Yeah, straight needles. Find some yarn you like, and the label will tell you what needles you might need." She didn't rip back his work yet. It seemed like a cruel thing to do in front of him, and instead just stuffed the whole mess back into her bag. "It'll be nice to have someone to knit with again."

Quatre nodded, happy that he had made a new friend and learned a new skill all in one afternoon. Multitasking. "I look forward to it!"