Quatre Winner\'s Diary

April: April\'s Fools

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Saturday, April 26th
9:47 am

Ah, blessed peace and quiet. The phone\'s unplugged. The TV\'s off. All my plans for the day are set, so my cell\'s been turned off. The police finally removed the reporters from the fire escape. I don\'t have a headache. And Duo\'s being let out of the ICU today, which means I’m getting him out of that hospital and over to the clinic.

I don\'t care who I have to threaten, Duo is being moved. For sanity\'s sake he needs to be somewhere where the people who care about him can look after him. A place where the press can\'t go, no matter how well disguised they are. Where the nurses aren\'t going to look into the room and say, \"oh poor baby.\" And where Heero can stay at his bedside.

I have it all worked out for Sally and Wufei to take care of him, which seems to make both of them happy. Wufei because he wants to be able to help and Sally because it\'s making Wufei happy, but she\'s not going to tell him that. She doesn\'t want to \"inflate his ego any more than it is.\" I really give them a month, and that\'s before she asks him on a date. I love \'Fei dearly, but he can be such a chickenshit sometimes.

I really love having all this power to effect things. If I say I want Duo at the clinic, then I just get the WE HMO plan to say he needs to be moved. Simple as that. If I want a visitor at his beside 24/7, they roll in a cot and bring meals for two. If I want visiting hours to be extended, they are, no questions asked. Why? Because I sign the paychecks.

11:53 am

Heero got here a little while ago. He\'s taken it upon himself to work as a bodyguard. I didn\'t ask him at all. It\'s almost as if he owes me something. I hope it isn\'t this whole hero thing that the news keeps talking about. I didn\'t do anything special.

I just can\'t help but thinking that if I got there sooner, maybe Duo wouldn\'t have been outside. Then he wouldn\'t have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. None of this would have happened and everyone would be happy.

Of course when I told Heero this, he had to be logical about it all. \"If you had arrived sooner then if might have been you.\" I really hate it when people are right.

\"I know but still…Duo doesn\'t deserve this.\"

\"And neither do you. No one deserves to go through this, but it happens.\" He was resigned to the situation, all too wholly resigned…

\"Still…It\'s frustrating!\"

\"I know...\"

\"You\'re not the one with an entire press corp following you around!\" Okay, I snapped. It\'s been a long weekend and it\'s only Saturday.

\"No, I just can\'t see my boyfriend.\"

\"Well neither can I! There are thirty people with cameras outside my building and a set of sisters waiting for me to fuck up so they can exploit the fact I\'m gay! It\'s not like I can just have him over at any time. There were people climbing my fire escape this morning! I don\'t have much privacy right now!\" I know I was yelling pretty loud, but I had some frustration to work out. Trowa decided after the group of reporters at the hospital, it would be better if he stayed at his place last night, which just made me madder at the whole scenario.

\"So now you\'re ashamed of Trowa?\" he yelled back. At that moment, I don\'t know if I could say anything nice about Heero, except he can be damn intimidating at times and, of course, that was one of those times.

\"That\'s not what I\'m saying at all!\" I wasn\'t in the mood to be intimidated. I wanted a fight. Blame it on the testosterone, but I needed to vent. I think he needed it, too.

\"Well then you\'re ashamed of being gay? If you\'re ashamed of who you are, then you\'re just as bad as the men who did that to Duo.\" Okay. That definitely was the last straw. I was already wound a little tight, although I was trying my hardest not admit that to anyone, including myself.

It might not have been the smartest of moves, but...I jumped him. Drove right in and tried to knock him out. I say tried because I got one punch connected before I met the ground and Heero had both of my hands pinned to it, sitting on my stomach.

The whole fight didn\'t take long. It wasn\'t really fair to begin with. I didn\'t have his strength or experience. That would be my third physical fight ever, including the one I couldn\'t remember on Friday.

After giving me a minute to calm down, he asked me if I was finished. I told him no, because I wasn\'t finished. I had more I needed to say to him, but I wasn\'t going to try and hit Heero again...that would just have been stupid.

After a few more minutes of being pinned to the ground I finally got fed up with the silence and his accusing eyes staring down at me. I felt guilty, especially about the darkening bruise forming around his eye. \"I\'m not ashamed, you know?\" I asked him, getting only more silent stares in return. \"It\'s just more complicated than coming out to your family and friends. If I tell the world I\'m gay, it could hurt business. That means I\'ve let down the millions of people that depend on me everyday for their livelihood. There\'s more riding on my image then just personal pride. I represent enough people to make a nation-state of it\'s own. I just have to wait until the timing is right.\"

\"And when will the time be right?\"

\"When my PR people tell me.\" He started laughing. It was kind of creepy. My boyfriend\'s best friend was sitting on my stomach, pinning my hands to the floor, and laughing. Somewhere in there something was wrong, but really at the point I thought it was annoying. \"It\'s not funny.\"

\"Yes it is Quatre, but not for the reasons you think.\" After he finally regained his composure, he finished explaining. \"You are a strong, independent man, but you\'re still allowing people to make you decisions for you, like a child. \" We spoke along at vein for a while with me trying to convince him otherwise and being proven completely wrong; especially when it came to my father. There\'s something else I have to work on. The list keeps getting longer.

I sent him off to get a shower after that. And I\'m going to order out for something to eat. Duo would kill me if I allowed Heero to neglect himself. Besides, I owe him for the eye. It really doesn\'t look all that good.

Oh Allah help me. The doorbell\'s rng. ng. I hope it isn\'t another reporter. I’m really not in the mood right now.

6:12 pm

Oh can this whole sordid mess get any worse? I really don\'t think it can, unless someone jumps me on the way home, although I have to agree with Duo\'s methods to get through the whole ordeal. I\'d rather be sleeping, too.

After the grannies brought over some tater tot hotdish [1] (that\'s who was at the door), Heero and I finally got to have the \"not fighting with Duo\" talk over a couple of delicious bowls of the casserole. I found out what their last fight was about. And I can say for sure that it wasn\'t a fun one.

I understand why Duo ran to a bar, and especially why he called me. If I had something like that thrown in my fay Try Trowa, I\'d run too. And as for me, I was his alibi. Oh not for where he was that night; no, for what had happened two weeks prior. It\'s now very evident that everything is my fault. This whole fucking mess is all my fault.

Heero accused Duo of cheating on him...with me. Somehow, a kiss back in January and a week of working late constitutes an affair. In his head, Heero had this huge story concocted about the reasons why I wasn\'t talking to Trowa, because the truth sounded a little too unbelievable. The truth is a little far-fetched, and makes me seem like a pre-teen girl, but it\'s what really did happen.

Maybe I should thank Heero. At least in his fantasy I had the guts to sleep with someone. I portray the image of not being a complete coward. That\'s nice to know, but it still doesn\'t make up for the complete lack of morality he thought I had. I wouldn\'t ever cheat with someone else\'s boyfriend. Of course it\'s was the same assumption about Trowa that led to the whole mess, so I can\'t say I\'m disappointed in Heero. I made the same mistakes.

I was really happy to have the chance to talk this out with him. It cleared a lot of things between us, and he had some very insightful things to say. He completely dispelled the myth of you first being someone you will always be romantically in love with, because he feels no romantic inclinations about Trowa.

Yeah, I know it shocked me too. They weren\'t aple.ple. It was right after Trowa and Ralph broke up, and he wasn\'t feeling all that wonderful about himself. H, be, being a good friend, was trying to make him feel better. They went out and got drunk and woke up the next morning \"embarrassed as hell.\" Those were Heero\'s exact words. Neither one regretted it; in fact, it was repeated several times sober after that morning, but there wasn\'t anything past good friendship between them. It just cements one thing in my mind: I\'m glad I never went into the military.

So why am I not sitting in the back corner booth of a greasy spoon? Because of what happened afterwards. We made it to the hospital all right. No problems there. Everyone was a little shocked at Heero\'s eye, which in turn made both of us uncomfortable.

Duo still hadn\'t woken up. It\'s not a good sign, but really doesn\'t mean anything too bad. He still was leaving the ICU. Everything was going according to plan until my father and Howard showed up.

They finally made it into town. Sometimes I wonder when Dad\'s flying his plane. Piloting is one of his hobbies, but mostly so he can visit Howard in Florida. Duo and I were mortified when our fathers met and hit it off. Especially after watching those two together. It is truly frightening, but that still isn\'t why I\'m hiding in a diner.

It\'s always good to see Howard. He\'s like a second father to the three of us. He even offered to adopt Wufei so he could stay in the states after graduation. \'Fei\'s parents wouldn\'t hear of it, though. Every greeting from Howar a h a huge hug that cracks your ribs and lifts you off the ground at the same time. He\'s surprisingly strong for an old man.

Considering the circumstances, Howard\'s sedate greeting wasn’t a shock. Neither was the huge, fatherly hug he enveloped Heero in…well to everyone except Heero it wasn\'t a shock. No, the shock was the man standing next to my father.

Uncle Rashid isn\'t a small man. He looks like a bear and is just as protective. This is why Dad hired him as head of security for our households. While I love mother Shahar\'s older brother like he was blood, I knew that this wasn\'t exactly a social call.

My father wants me to have a security team. A hand-chosen set of bodyguards. Well chosen by him and Uncle Rashid, but still hand-picked to guard me. As well as I understand my father\'s motivations and appreciate the gesture, this really wasn\'t a decision he should have made without me. A suggestion would have been nice, and then allowing me some time to take matter into consideration, but this is my father. He\'s not used to people saying no to him. Which is just what I did.

Naturally an argument ensued where I asserted that I wasn\'t a child anymore and if I was going to get people to respect me, I needed to be allowed to make my own decisions, and if he wanted me to have bodyguards, he should have given me the opportunity to contemplate it instead of taking all the power out of my hands. He retorted with a slightly more politic version of \"I\'m your father and you are going to do what I say\" before calling the conversation over and telling me that they\'d be in the office on Monday. That\'s when I left.

Thinking back, the ICU waiting room wasn\'t the best place to have that argument. It was fairly public. And I should learn to choose my battles better, but what Heero said earlier made a lot of sense. So I took charge of everything else I could. I went and spoke with one of the hospital administrators, telling them that Duo would be moved to the clinic on no uncertain terms and left from one of the less-used exits coming here to this hole in the wall diner and drinking enough coffee that the waitress has cut me off. Four hours may be long enough that they aren\'t looking for me anymore. I might be able to go home again, but I don\'t want to go there. I want to see my fish.
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1. I would like to say, I have no idea what goes into this. I can\'t actually imagine what it is. I may have gone to a Lutheran church with a decent Scandavian population, but I swear no one made this. I think it\'s native to Minnesota. If you\'re dying to know, ask Kistunehi. I\'m sure she\'ll be more than happy to answer.