New Candy From Loki - *Adrien Quinn, D3*

[Loki]

My name is Adrien Quinn, no middle name. I'm seventeen, and I live in District Three, asshole of the known world. If you want to know how I look, I take after my big brother Dean, except that everything that's built up and dangerous looking on him is somehow delicate and useless in me. He's all muscle; I'm wiry, almost skinny, even. Part a our shared looks is our blond hair (mine's longer, and lighter, and I didn't used to bother to comb it,) and blue eyes, but he looks fierce and projects an attitude of 'don't screw with me,' where I look.. something like a lost baby bird. I mean, not really, but kinda. This used to bother me a whole lot more than it does now, though. I guess, other than comparing myself to Dean, I'd say I'm pretty good looking for the kinda looks I got. At least I got a couple expressions besides 'scowl' and 'sneer' - which if you ain't family - meaning me, is all you'll see outta him. Me, I like to laugh, I'm a smilin' bastard, I can't even help it. Doesn't mean I don't hold everybody in contempt as the saying goes, I do, it just strikes me as funny.

I'm five-foot-six and Dean is six-foot-four; now that used to really bug the shit outta me. (I spent about two whole years when I was twelve and thirteen doing pull-ups on a tree branch, trying to stretch myself.) Right up until I noticed how stuff he'd get yelled at for right away, no one even notices me doing. I'm clever the way I move, like that, and sneaky. I don't get in half as much trouble. Otherwise, I used to think I was gonna grow up to be more like Dean (he's seven years older than me,) but, nope. I'm like him in other ways, though. We both got tempers, for one thing, and we're both some nasty bastards when we lose it. Dean, you can tell just looking at him, he can kick ass. Me? Not so much, if you don't know that my big brother taught me how to fight, and fight nasty at that. When Dean's nearby, no one messes with me, anyhow.

When Dean's not around, though, things get, I have found out, pretty bad. For one thing, we live on the poor side of a pretty rich town. My mom, she used to be one of the scientists who build things, she was super smart, and for that matter so was my dad: I can just vaguely recall this pretty white house we lived in. It had two stories, and stairs between them with this long wooden rail I used to slide down. And then there was an accident at work. An explosion, a fire. And my mom was killed. And the old man, he just totally lost himself. It was like he was a balloon and my mom's death stuck a pin in him, almost. He started drinkin', and he lost his job, which had us nearly all starving (I was eight, and Dean was fifteen,) and he got nasty; I'd have been one of those kids with the bruises they're always trying to hide if not for my bro. The first time the old man took his anger out on me, cursing and hollering and hitting with his fists, Dean took him on and busted him up some. After that there was a kinda peace. He'd drink and curse and complain, and we'd ignore him no one got punched or kicked much. Even when Dean would be gone for an evening with his a-hole buddies or whatever, I'd be safe, cause one thing I do gotta say for myself: I am fast.

Dean started taking tesserae so we'd survive, and it's sheer luck he never got called for those foolish damn Games, but he didn't, and when he hit sixteen, he went to work in a factory and after that at least we weren't starving. I was able to actually concentrate in school some, though I mostly reckoned it a waste of time, and I didn't fit in anyway. My friends had been the other kids who lived in nice houses, and now we lived in a shack behind a butchers. We just drifted apart, me and them other kids, and I didn't bother even trying to replace the old friends with new ones. I could, if I wanted to bother, I'm nice enough most of the time, I'm pretty easygoing, I'd say patient, too: I sure do have a temper, but it takes a lot to make me lose it. I look out for the littler kids, and I'll step in on a kid getting bullied (I no longer look so skinny when I'm threatening a ten year old, haha, though I'll get involved even if the bully is bigger than me,) so as a result I guess I have some friends in the younger kids, just none among my so-called peers. Been in a few nasty fights, though, and when I come out the winner, I was proud of myself.

My bro is the greatest brother a guy could have, but he can be wild and do some stupid shit. He's gotten in trouble with the peacekeepers before, over a fight that got out of hand: they flogged him. After that he seemed calmed down and sticking to the straight and narrow for a while, until one of his dumbass acquaintances got this idea about stealing metals from the abandoned end of a factory where it was sitting in storage. After a few weeks of this, someone got greedy, and they all got caught, and, Dean got sent to the Detention Center. I felt like my whole world had flipped all crazy upside down, because suddenly I was ON MY OWN. I was sixteen then, and I tried to get a job, but the best I could get was sweeping some floors; I moved out of that shack cause the old man started up real nasty again, and I started sleeping underneath this porch attached to one of the buildings, barely able to keep myself fed.

I'd probably still be there if I hadn't begun wandering the streets of the slum picking up any scrap I could find to sell at the not-so-legit market, when this old lady named Margit came up to me and asked if I'd like to work for her. I asked her doing what, and she said that if I cleaned up as fetching as she was guessing, I could wait on her guests. Her customers tended to be mostly men that visited a sorry group of women who worked by selling their sex. It wasn't bad, really, her girls liked me, and teased me, and I actually started learning to tease back; workwise, all I did was fetch and carry and tote things and do laundry. Not bad at all. After a few weeks, I found out what Margit really wanted me for; she explained it plainly: this gentleman doesn't fancy women, he prefers his own sex. I wasn't given much of an alternative unless I wanted to run out screaming from a decent life with decent food. I was scared to death, and the first time it hurt considerably, but it wasn't so bad, and I've gotten used to it by now. Him, and a couple more like him. Just proves you can get used to any damn thing.

Staggering off to school with half a night sleep is a bitch, though: so much for figuring I maybe could try and do better and then get a better job when my grades improved. I just hope if Dean finds out he isn't mad at me. Some days, any more, I don't about know who I am. I mean, when I was a little kid, I daydreamed about being a pirate (despite I've never seen an ocean - I was gonna be a river pirate,) but I sure never figured I'd be a prostitute. It makes me ashamed if I let myself think about it - I guess I figured I'd grow up normal like other people and have a home an family of my own someday. I guess that ain't happening, now, though.

Sometimes, my temper gets going just like that and I have to walk away from who ever is around me, so I don't go off and act in a way I'll end up regretting, like telling the old lady what she can do with herself and getting thrown out on my ass. (Then I feel like I owe her something, anyhow. I hate her but I feel all guilty and shit when I hate her. It's messed up.) For now, this is my life, and I gotta put up with it. Mostly, though, I hope I'm the same me I've always been, trying hard to hold on to myself, which is some crazy shit if you think about it. I picture myself like made of pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and I gotta make sure none of the pieces fall out even though someone is jiggling the puzzle all around.

Dean getting out of detention is a big deal to me, I haven't had word from him since his arrest, which was six months ago now; I tried writing the Detention Center to find out when he'd be released but i never got a reply. I tried writing him and never got no reply. I hope every day that this is the day they release my brother, and we can start new lives together. I try to save some money so that when he gets out, maybe we'll have a little to get us started, and I hope every day that the stories you hear about the prison aren't really as bad as they're made out to be, and he's going to be ok when he comes back to me. I am, I guess, busy with my life, now, though, and I can wish for Dean as much as can be, but I still gotta keep taking care of me, because, now, there's nobody else going to do a thing for me, except trample me down into the mud if I let 'em.