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A Stagnation of Love (rewrite)	By : shinigamiinochi Category: Gundam Wing/AC > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 2207 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing AC or the characters from it. I am making no money from this story

Chapter List
- 7
- 8
- 9
A Stagnation of Love

Chapter 3

Part 3
　

　

　

Now that I had learned how Quatre really felt about Trowa, every time I saw the two of them together, I wondered how I could have been so oblivious and stupid the very first time I had witnessed the two of them talking. Quatre had seemed a little bit bolder after confessing to me. It was like sharing this secret between us had given him some kind of confidence in himself and he stopped worrying so much about Relena and Trowa being embarrassed just to be seen with him. Trowa, to his credit, didn't seem to care all that much about Relena's attempt to humiliate Quatre in front of him.

I wondered if he really understood what was going on. The second Quatre had confirmed my suspicions that he liked Trowa a lot more than he would just a friend, I had gained a whole other suspicion. I remember Relena's smug look when she had made Quatre throw up, and I remembered how, that time and every time she had bullied him in front of Trowa, she would look for the upper classman, make sure he was watching. I had begun to wonder if she knew how Quatre felt, if she even just suspected that he loved the other boy, if there was something more sinister in all the times she called him a faggot.

Just the possibility that Relena could know that chilled me to the core. The bitch was in the unique position to do an incredible amount of damage to my best friend just be suspecting it. She could tell everyone that she knew for sure, and she could tell everyone who is was that Quatre had a crush on. Regardless of how Trowa felt, it would be devastating. If she was just doing it to mess with Quatre and try to keep him from making a second friend, that was just the usual shit from her. But if she knew that Quatre had a crush on Trowa, and she had done all those things to hurt him... I hated her more than I ever had for that.

If it was true, she was trying to hurt Quatre right in the one part of him that was the most vulnerable, the easiest and deepest to hurt. I wanted to believe that it wasn't true, that she couldn't possibly be that horrible and cruel, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought that it had to be true. She was like a hyena, cunning and relentless. Worse, it wasn't that she didn't give a shit about Quatre's feelings, she cared very much about them. She liked hurting us, so why wouldn't she go this far?

With those thoughts circling around in my head, every time I saw her, every time I heard her voice or her name was brought up, I felt this indescribable wave of rage in me. I had been feeling that anger more and more lately. It was like a sea of fire in my gut and every time I saw Relena Darlian's smile or heard her voice or that sinister, disgusting laugh of hers, that sea rose a bit more. It terrified me.

I had never been like this before I had met Relena. Or at least, that's what I told myself. I still remember how I was the night before I went to school for the first time, how eager and excited I had been just to meet other kids my age. My ribs had hurt and I was exhausted, but I hadn't been angry at my father for it, only focused on the possibility that I was going to make a new friend, that my life might get a bit better, before Relena had shown me how that reality was harsh and cold, not like the shows I saw on television.

Before, every time my father had hit me, I had felt so miserable, disappointed in myself that I wasn't good enough, that I was infuriating my father, making him angrier and more stressed. When he hit me, I didn't need him to tell me it was my fault, I just knew it and it would depress me. I still feel that way now, but lately when he strikes me, I feel this intense anger and hatred for him in my gut. I never used to hate my father before I met Relena. Sometimes I wonder if that's just a coincidence, if I grew into that hate or if she had brought out something horrible in me.

I love my Dad, even when he beats me and calls me useless, I still love him, but the older I get, the more polluted that love gets. When I think about that, I find myself wondering 'am I becoming him?' and that thought terrifies me. Is temper genetic? My father gave me the shape of his eyes and nose and mouth... did he give me his anger, too? Will this rage in me just keep getting worse until I lash out at someone the way he does?

I wanted to believe I could never do that. I couldn't hurt someone I loved. Just the thought of hitting Quatre just because I was frustrated made me feel sick, but I remembered how angry I had felt when I saw him not stand up for himself, and I remembered how I lashed out at him in the hospital because of that frustration. And then I asked myself exactly how that was any different from my father telling me I was worthless because I broke a dish or forgot to take the trash to the curb for the week. My stomach twisted at that realization, but it didn't stop the anger that was festering in me.

I tried not to think of those things. I tried to focus on the things that were good in my life, even if there weren't many. When I felt frustrated at things at school, I thought about Quatre and how he was always sticking by me no matter the stupid shit I did. When I felt sad about how my parents treated me, I would look at the last piece of birthday cake in the freezer and remember everything he had given me. And when I felt scared about my future, I would think about the secret talks we had had.

Thinking about him would make me feel better, for a time, but that anger was always there, simmering beneath the surface, threatening everything I wanted to be. Some nights after a beating, I would curl up on my mattress and chant in my head 'not like him, not like him' and cling to all of Quatre's patience and understanding and kindness, all of the traits I fought so hard to instill in myself. But in those moments, no matter how hard I remembered those good things, they wouldn't touch me and I could feel it all slipping away, like the good parts of me were grains of sugar I was hopelessly grasping at, and my father was the inevitable conclusion no matter how many of them I gathered.

The only times I didn't feel tortured by that was when I was with Quatre. The painful, almost ironic thing about our recent talks was that our moments together were getting spread farther and farther apart. I'm not trying to sound melodramatic, or make it seem like I'm this terrible person who only gives a shit about himself, or that, for all my instances that Quatre is the only good thing I had, how ready I was to chain him to me and make him as miserable as I was. Quatre and Trowa were spending more and more time together, and I was very happy about that. Do not, for a minute, think that I'm so selfish that I wasn't happy for him. But I also felt very sad. For a thirteen year old, that was, and is, confusing. I don't know, maybe when you're older it's something you can understand, but I don't think that I want to.

I think I've said it before, but I was never really afraid of losing Quatre to Trowa. Like the idiot that I am, I guess I just assumed he would always be there for me. Maybe that's where I really fucked up, thinking I didn't have to struggle to keep my best friend. So I wasn't really jealous of Trowa, but I did feel sad realizing that Quatre was growing without me, that I likely would never feel what he felt for our older classmate, and how inadequate I was. Trowa was quiet, but he wasn't an outcast like I was. If Quatre had only been interested in Trowa's friendship, I would have been jealous because there was no way I could measure up. Oddly enough, it was because of Quatre's crush that never happened.

Mostly, when Quatre left me to go talk to Trowa, or he would tell me about going to his games, I would feel very lonely. It made me realize what little I had. Quatre was my only friend, but that fact had never really hit me until those moments, that when Quatre went off with Trowa, I had nothing else. It made me feel pathetic. Seeing them together, I realized that I was the true outcast, the true loser in our friendship. I was the one incapable of making friends, not Quatre. He might think he was the same, but he had made friends with Trowa easily, even if they were awkward. If Quatre put out the effort, he could have other friends. He would never be popular, he was too shy, and Relena was too popular for our classmates to want to cross, but he could make at least one or two other friends besides me.

That he didn't even try seemed worse to me than my being a social leper. I'd never know what my life at school would have been like if Relena hadn't started to pick on me, but for Nate, she really had stolen his social life from him. Or maybe his shyness was something else, maybe it was even because of his parents.

In any case, even though I felt sad, I never begrudged Quatre his budding friendship with the basketball player. For one, Trowa had no clue Quatre was sweet on him and it seemed to me that, with the possibility that Relena was wise to Quatre's feelings and how close they were getting, it was just a matter of time before Trowa figured it out. He was somehow even denser than I was, but how long would that last? For that matter, how long would their friendship last? How could I possibly be frustrated with their closeness when it might not even last for much longer?

Beyond that, Trowa made Quatre smile, really smile in a way that was somehow brighter than his usual ones, he made him happy, and that in turn made me happy. Like I said, it confused me. In equal parts, it made me miserable and at the same time, I felt protective of their relationship. I guess that sounds stupid saying it like that. Quatre couldn't even muster the courage to tell Trowa how he felt, and I wasn't entirely sure that was a bad thing since I didn't know the eight grader well enough yet, so it wasn't like they were dating.

Some idiotically unrealistic part of me held on to this one, singular, dream-like hope that one day Trowa would figure it out like I had on his own and would reciprocate, even as the realist in me informed the likelihood of Quatre getting a crush on one of the only other gay kids in school was as likely as me winning the lottery. That part of me pointed out that, with or without Quatre's terrible luck, the most likely scenario was that Relena would clue Trowa in and he would freak out. And I wasn't too young or oblivious to know that that would break Quatre's heart.

With that terrible thought in mind, I quickly became both a sort of guard dog and whipping boy for my best friend. I don't know if that was the right thing to do or if it might have been kinder in the long run for them to have gone their separate ways, even if that would have hurt Quatre. Whenever the two of them met in the halls and struck up a conversation, I would stand watch. Whether she really realized Quatre's true feelings or not, Relena seemed dead set on making Quatre's life hell in full view of Trowa. She hadn't done anything so awful as making him vomit in front of him again, and part of the reason for that was my constant interference.

Whenever I saw her striding over towards them, I made sure to always be in her way. I would bump into her, 'accidentally' trip her, spill soda on the floor, or just full out glare at her until she or Dorothy saw and decided I needed an attitude adjustment. One time I pretended I didn't see her and walked into her, dumping chocolate milk on the white dress she was wearing. That one worked pretty well. She was so enraged that I had ruined her clothes, she didn't give Quatre and Trowa another thought.

Unfortunately, Zechs also saw it and beat me up for it. Quatre figured out what I had been doing and freaked out about it, my assurances that it wasn't anything different than I got at home not helping one bit. But Relena and Zechs never figured out exactly what I had been up to. Thanks to a few of their 'pranks', I already had the reputation of a klutz and I let that work for me for once. I didn't stop looking out for them, even though Quatre demanded me to for my health. It made me feel better, to do just this one little thing to help him. I was a useless friend, but I could do at least that much for him.

One day Quatre wondered away from me when he saw his crush in the hallway to talk to him about one of his basketball matches. Like I always did, I stayed far away enough that neither of them would notice me, but close enough that I could keep an eye on them. Almost instantly, my best friend's face broke out into this brilliant smile the moment he started to talk to Trowa, a smile that seemed solely reserved for the other boy, and the taller teenager smiled back in turn, his more reserved and still pretty shy, but I never saw him smile like that around anyone else, either. I was too far away to see it, but I knew that both of them were blushing.

I suddenly felt this intense frustration watching the two of them. A part of me just wanted to smash their heads together or yell at Trowa that Quatre liked him and get this dance over with. That part of me, the angry part, pointed out to the rest of me how disgustingly pointless this whole thing was, that my best friend was setting himself up to get hurt by seeking Trowa out like this. Just what did Quatre want from all this? He smarter than I was, even if he could be a bit naive at times. He knew that the best he could hope for was a tentative friendship with the other boy. What he wanted, what he really wanted, wasn't going to happen. So why bother with all this? It had to be painful for him, so I had a hard time understanding why he did it to himself. But at the same time, I did understand. It made him happy, and Quatre wasn't a pessimist like I was, but that fact only made me constantly worry about him.

"It was soooo disgusting," a familiar, feminine voice made my hair stand up and I felt a chill go through me, "He threw up everywhere! I'm surprised that the cafeteria still doesn't reek!"

A laugh that I often heard in my nightmares rang out in the hallway around the corner from where I was standing and I felt something deep in me shake, not with fear, but with rage.

"And the second he saw that poor Trowa had seen him, he started to bawl and ran out of the room like a girl! Of course, if it had happened to me, I would have been too ashamed to stick around, too. I mean, really, he has no self control, he never has since we were kids, but I never thought he would just throw up like that."

My hands curled into fists and I felt that rage in me rise up, hot and bitter in my stomach and throat. It wasn't enough that she had embarrassed Quatre in front of someone he liked, she had to keep going over it, pecking at it like a vulture with a large, rotting carcass, and to lie about it, too, lying about what really happened and what she had done...

"He's so pathetic," I heard Dorothy chime in with that airy, all too fake laugh of her own, "How on earth can you stand being friends with him?" she asked as though she truly pitied her best friend, and knowing the bitch, she probably did.

"Well," Relena said haughtily, "Quatre has never had any real friends, even when we were little. If it weren't for our parents setting up play dates for us, he'd be worse than he is now. I mean, we're almost in high school and look at the trash he hangs out with! He's still the little cry baby he's always been, too. I just feel so sorry for him, I just have to stay friends with him and help him out every now and again. We have to do things we don't like doing sometimes to help people like him, even though I'm sad to say my friendship with him hasn't helped him grow up so far," she said in a suffering tone.

Something inside me broke and I could actually, literally feel a bit of the rage I had forced down inside me trickle out. Just a small part of it, but it took complete control over me. I didn't even have the chance to ask myself what it was I was doing before I was walking around the corner towards the voice that I hated so much. I saw her, dressed in a brand new, pink and cream blouse and an equally new pair of jeans that I had no doubt together cost more than I make in two months, standing with Dorothy and two girls that didn't usually hang out with her. They were looking up at her adoringly, like she was some kind of fucking saint, no doubt feeling blessed to just being talked to by the most popular girl in school, and nodding at her every word like it was gospel.

People say when they're really mad, they see red. I saw white. Just this brilliant white, like I had been staring at the sun for too long, and I felt so angry, I thought I was going to throw up. Her saying those things, those lies wasn't anything worse than what she had done to Quatre and myself before. Those girls looking at her like that wasn't anything different than I had seen from our classmates before. They knew how horrible she was to the two of us, but she was rich and pretty and popular and that was all that mattered to them. That and that she only treated us like that, not them, and how fortunate that was. It wasn't anything different than any other day at this school, but for some reason I can't figure out, for that one moment, I lost control.

I strode up to her, past those two girls, grabbed her by her new, expensive blouse, and before she or Dorothy could do anything, I pinned her against the lockers. I didn't shove her. I didn't hit her. I could have and I don't know why I didn't, maybe I had just that little bit of self control left, I just pinned her there with one hand. For the first time since I had met her, I realized just how small Relena was. We were practically the same height, but that wouldn't last. She had already gone through a growth spurt and I wasn't anywhere near done with mine, I somehow knew that I would end up taller than her, although it might not be by much.

More importantly, for the first time in my life, I realized how strong I was. With just one hand on her, Relena couldn't move. If I wanted to strike her, there would be nothing she could do to defend herself against me. My father had always made me feel so small and weak, but I wasn't. Not here, in this school, among kids my own age. Physically, I was stronger than Relena and that had never dawned on me before. If I punched her now, punched her like my dad was always doing to me, would she stop hurting my best friend? If I broke her nose and some teeth, I thought with a kind of sick glee, she wouldn't be nearly so pretty anymore. Would she stop then?

I felt this... power then. A kind of almost hysterical joy realizing that I could do it, I could beat her up. I could take out all my rage on this one girl, I could hurt her and right then, I really wanted to. I wanted to just fall into that power and control and forget all my common sense, all my reasons why the thought of doing this had scared me before.

"Shut up," I growled at her, "just shut up and leave him alone."

When I had grabbed her, Relena had stared at me in shock, and that reaction had made me feel incredibly good, like I was getting one up on her for the first time, but now she smirked snidely at me and I felt all of that confidence melt away inside of me, but none of my rage.

"What exactly are you going to do, Maxwell?" she taunted me, not in the least bit scared of how close she was getting to me lashing out at her and I felt this absurd fear that she knew me better than I did, "Hit me? Prove to everyone that you really are trash and hit a defenseless girl for no reason?" she snidely batted her eyelashes at me and pretended to be frightened, a ridiculous motion considering how far from a defenseless girl she was and she knew it.

She wasn't scared of me. Through her sneer and through that fake fear, I saw hatred on her face, the same hatred I had put there when I had been repulsed by her kiss a year ago. She hated me. She hated that I had put my hands on her, that I had dared fight back against her, but she was far from scared I was going to hurt her. She still had the same amount of control over me that she always had since the fourth grade.

"No," she sneered, "you aren't going to do a thing to me. You're too pathetic to hit anyone, even a girl! You're more pathetic than Quatre will ever be. You're not even man enough to defend your friend against someone who can't fight back."

Just like that, with those biting words, I felt my rage sink back down into my gut where I still felt it strongly, but it just left me feeling weak and useless and that strength I had so briefly felt vanished with it. She was right. I was too pathetic to stand up to her, I was too scared of myself to ever hit her, regardless if she was defenseless or not. She was a horrible person and I hated her for what she was doing to Quatre, but even to protect him, I could not strike her. I couldn't strike anyone, and that I had thought I could was laughable. I should have felt good about that, that I had some semblance of control over my actions and hadn't hit her, but I didn't. I felt weak and useless, a pathetic excuse for a human being. I didn't want to be violent like my father was, but this inability to stand up for the things I wanted to stand up for was worse than if I had gone off and punched her.

As I came back to myself, I realized that Dorothy had grabbed my arm and was trying to get me to let go of her friend, her pale blue eyes glaring holes in me for daring to lay hands on someone as esteemed as her best friend and the other two girls were staring at me with the kind of fear I had wanted to see on Relena's face, not theirs. I let go of Relena and pulled my arm from Dorothy's grip, her nails scratching me. Relena smirked at me and even though our eyes were level with each other, I knew she was looking down on me from a great height. She dusted off her shirt, like my hands touching her clothes had left some kind of invisible filth on them, flicked her long, light brown hair shoulder and strode off like nothing at all had happened.

I felt hollow.
*****
I expected some kind of heavy retribution, if not from Relena, then from Zechs. He had beaten me up once for not showing an interest in his sister, and dozens of times before for the tiniest of infractions, so I was sure he was going to do something especially nasty for not only assaulting her, but having the gall to stick my neck out and fight against them, me, a lonely worm that should be grateful to be allowed to live in their presence. For the next two days, I felt like there was an anvil hanging over my head and I was extra vigilant about Quatre, not wanting him to be collateral damage for my stupidity, but that anvil never fell. It made me incredibly paranoid, but Relena didn't so much as glare at me more than she usually did. It made me feel even smaller and weaker.

I didn't tell Quatre about what I had done. I probably should have. Our collective bullies often went after him if I did something to displease them, but the more time passed with no backlash, the more I assured myself that he didn't need to know. Mostly, I was too ashamed and frightened of myself and I didn't want him to find out how close I had come to being expelled.

It kept me up both of those nights and turned my stomach into a ball of constant anxiety, but I was able to keep Quatre from finding out that something big was bothering me and giving me nightmares. Usually he would have realized something was wrong in a heartbeat and confronted me about it, but he was too preoccupied with Trowa and whatever else was going on at home, plus the fact that our regional tests were coming up, to read between the lines.

February was unseasonably warm for us, enough so that Quatre and I often went to the small courtyard behind the town library to study. Regional testing was a big joke, at least that's how I saw it. It was supposed to be prep for the real tests like MCATs and SATs, a way for the school system, namely our teachers, to see who needed help and what subjects needed priority, but for those of us who actually had to take the stupid things, it was more like a competition between schools in the region. When we were all done, they would post our scores for everyone in the school to see and we would see where we ranked in the region.

I never understood what was the point of it, but Quatre said that schools that got better scores got better funding, more perks, while the worse schools, instead of trying to fix the problem, tried to push it under the rug so their funding wouldn't be effected. I had told him how stupid I thought that was, that wasn't the entire point of a school to educate kids? What exactly was the point of giving money to schools that were already doing just fine and ignoring schools with kids that obviously needed help? That concept seemed utterly ridiculous to me as one of those kids with less than stellar grades. I already felt like school was a huge waste of my time.

There were some things about school I liked. I liked meeting Quatre, and Mrs. Khushrenada wasn't bad. Some of the subjects were fun and I got to read books and learn things I wouldn't have otherwise, but placement tests were useless to kids like me. I wasn't going to college. The only future I had was here in Nausten, in a factory or some other position where my boss wouldn't give a fuck how well I had done on my SATs or that the best I could do in middle school was a C+ average.

It just felt like I was waiting, stuck in place like a fish trapped in stagnant water while all my classmates swam past me, leaving me behind. So hearing just how little my test scores mattered, how if I did a shitty job I would just get swept under the rug anyway, frustrated me. What was the point of anything? What was the point of studying for a test that was nothing more than a competition to see how well I could memorize useless facts?

It made me want to not even bother, to just drop out and try to figure out what the point of my life was, if there even was one. But I knew I could never do that. As much as my father called me stupid and useless, and as little interest he had shown in my grades, he would become enraged if I dropped out. I felt obligated not to, really. My mother had had to drop out because she had gotten pregnant and my father had been forced to take a full time job after my grandparents had kicked the both of them out of their homes. What right did I have to do the same by choice when they hadn't even had the chance? I would only feel guilty and ungrateful. My parents had sacrificed for something they hadn't even wanted, so I guess I could sacrifice for something I knew I would never get.

I also knew that if I did drop out, the one person who would be even more furious than my father would be Quatre. My best friend would never accept it. He would drag me back to classes kicking and screaming if he had to, and he wouldn't care about my reasons for it. Quatre always childishly believed I had more choices for my life than I actually did, ever the optimist. And, honestly, I didn't really want to give up on school. I wasn't naive about it like Quatre was, I understood my chances.

I could save up every penny from now until I graduated when I turned eighteen and I still wouldn't have enough money for four full years of college, even the cheap state ones. And even if I could, how could I maintain two jobs like I was now and take college courses? Would I even be able to get two jobs or even one? And what would it get me? A diploma from a third rate college. Who the hell would want to hire me? I'd still wouldn't be good enough to get decent grades and I wouldn't have Quatre around to tutor me.

I might be able to get financial aid, but a scholarship was out. They made scholarships for the special kids, the ones with great grades, the overachievers, the ones with gifts. They didn't make them for barely average kids like me. I didn't even know what I would want to major in, to study. I wasn't good at anything, I didn't have any skills that mattered. So what would be the point of leaving Nausten to go to school? I would just end up back here or someplace just like here. At least I knew Nausten, at least here I had some hope of seeing Quatre again after he graduated. He would come back here for the holidays. Better to use my money, if my dad ever stopped taking most of it, on a place to live when my parents kicked me out.

But my staying in middle school, and expecting to go to high school in two years, wasn't all just guilt or just spinning my wheels. There was a part of me that didn't really want to quit at it. I don't know if that part of me just wouldn't give up hope that I would get the chance to use my education for something, if I just didn't want to give up, or if I wanted to prove myself, if only I could figure out to whom. I still studied frantically for my math tests, I still felt anxious every time I got a quiz grade back, and if I laid up at night telling myself that it was all completely pointless, it was only after I had stayed up late finishing all of my homework. I had at least that going for me, I always got my work in on time. Even if the work itself was nothing to be proud of, even if I was sick with the flu or in the hospital with a broken arm, I made sure my work got turned in when it was supposed to.

So, even though I felt like it was all useless and my time would be better spent at work or even watching ducks at the park, there I was sitting in the courtyard with Quatre, staring at math equations until I felt like my eyes were going to bleed for the third day in a row. Quatre was flipping through some vocabulary index cards he had made. We were going to quiz each other before we went home. I was as good at vocabulary as Quatre was at math, but my best friend seemed to struggle remembering a lot of the words. It was too bad I couldn't get a job in reading, spelling, or vocab, then I would be all set.

An obnoxiously cheery sound came from Quatre's pocket and he, with all of the bored, almost mechanic motions of someone who had done an action so often it could qualify as a ritual, dug his cell phone out without even looking away from his index cards. Even when he glanced at the display, it was with this nonchalant, half minded look. Then he flipped open his phone and read what I knew had to be a text message and just like that, his bored expression melted away into a smile that I can describe as beatific, like something you would see in a classic piece of art.

I propped my head up in my hand as I watched him, my best friend's expression more fascinating to me than some math equations. No one needed to tell me who had texted him as I watched Quatre put his index cards on the ground and text back, his fingers flying over the keypad with as much agility as a fiddler's across violin strings. Any concern he had had about studying was long gone along with everything else in the world with the exception of whatever Trowa had texted him. Quatre's cheeks were flushed with excitement and a gun could have gone off right next to him, but he never would have noticed.

I wondered what it was like, to care about something, to love and feel that kind of excitement for something so much that the entire rest of the world just faded away around you. I almost wished I had something like that in my life, but at the same time, seeing Quatre like that made me sad because I was sure that feeling was wonderful, but what on earth did you do when that thing was gone? It seemed to me like finding a new food you fell in love with. At first, all you wanted was that food, but you couldn't eat it all the time and foods you used to like before seemed tasteless in comparison.

Quatre finished typing and sent his message, starting at the screen with a kind of scary concentration and chewing his lip anxiously, something he hardly ever did unless Trowa was concerned.

"Why don't you just tell him that you like him?" I asked.

It wasn't the first time I had asked him that question, but he always would just brush me off or act like it was an obvious question. And it was obvious, and I certainly understood him being afraid of people finding out he was gay, but his answers never helped me to understand why he was hanging out with the older boy if he was never going to act on his crush on him. Quatre's head shot up and he looked at me like I had just asked him if he was sure he wasn't adopted or he was sure if his headache wasn't a sign he had brain cancer.

"I can't do that," he insisted with a tremble in his voice, shaking his head frantically, "Trowa doesn't like me like that, I know he doesn't. I mean... I read this article in a magazine once. How many people in the world do you think are gay, Duo?"

I shrugged. I had never really thought about it.

"Thirty?" I guessed, figuring that if homosexuality was such a big deal, such a threat to people, it had to be around that much, but I also sucked at statistics.

"Seven percent!" he exclaimed like it was this incredible, astounding thing, "Just seven! That means that there's a ninety-three percent chance that Trowa is straight! I'm probably the only homosexual in the entire school, maybe even the entire town!" his voice cracked with emotion just then and I felt startled, not by how passionate Quatre was talking about this, but the incredible loneliness I heard in his voice, a loneliness a whole lot worse than what I had thought was there.

"Trowa isn't like me," he murmured dejectedly, "And I don't need him to tell me that, I just know it. All the girls in his grade adore him, he could date any one of them if he wanted to. I used to hope that because he isn't dating any of them, that that meant he was... different. But when I actually got the guts to ask him why he didn't have a girlfriend, he just said it was because of basketball. He's starting to build up his skills and reputation, and he as a real good shot at going to a good college if he keeps at it. He doesn't want any distractions during the season, but when it ends and if he finds a girl he likes..." Quatre trailed off, looking absolutely miserable at that idea, "Besides, even if Trowa is gay, there's no reason for me to think that he would want to date me. And he has his reputation to think of. I wouldn't blame him for pretending to be straight if it makes his life easier and gets him a future. If I tell him I like him, he'll just be disgusted and I'll have given up my secret for nothing, worse than nothing."

I couldn't stand how pained my best friend looked as he spoke, like talking about these things were causing him actual, physical pain.

"He wouldn't tell anyone," I tried to assure him even though I was just guessing based on what little I knew about the upperclassman, "Trowa's not the kind of person who would spread that around."

My assurances seemed to do very little towards putting Quatre's mind at ease.

"I don't even think I would care that much if he did," he confessed softly, shocking me. The fear of being outed as a freak was a constant one in my mind, "I used to care. I used to be terrified that my father would find out, or Relena or Zechs or one of my sisters. But now, even though it still frightens me, it's not what I'm really scared of. Relena is already sure that I'm gay and Zechs already treats me like he knows. My father would just insist it was a bad rumor. I could scream at him with a megaphone that I'm a fag and he would just deny the whole thing. He would rather be ignorant than have to deal with it," he glanced at me shyly, "I was more afraid of losing you anyway and you're ok with it."

I smiled at him, feeling oddly sensitive that I was more important to him, or at least my view of him was, than his family. It wasn't an entirely pleasant feeling. It made all the ways I was failing him as a friend more painful, and it made me feel more protective of him, as well as make me feel that I had a huge responsibility to him, to keep his secrets and make sure he was happy.

"Now, what I fear the most is Trowa hating me," he said sadly, "If he is ever repulsed by me... I don't think I could handle it."

"But what different does that make?" I asked, perplexed.

Back then, it had been an innocent question that I had been confused about. Now, looking back and remembering my own words, I loathe myself for them. I want to scream at myself to shut up, shut up and just listen to what he was saying.

I have always had an impeccable memory, if this journal is any indication. I can't remember math equations worth a damn, but I can remember conversations, exact words that were said and how they were said with perfect clarity, years after they had been said. Quatre called it my recording gift, I called it a useless skill. I wish I didn't have it. It makes recalling things for this journal easy, but when you don't want to remember something, some terrible thing that you did and you have a fucking tape recorder in your head that gleefully reminds you of it all and won't let you lie to yourself, it's like a curse.

I can remember everything that led up to that day at the train station, every single conversation we had up to the last time Quatre spoke to me. I can pinpoint, with horrible accuracy, every moment that I fucked up. In that moment, sitting in the library courtyard with him, Quatre told me all that I needed to hear to avoid what happened. Just one sentence and I focused on the wrong one. I asked a stupid question and all of my best friend's fears, his warning, like a fucking caution from the gods, went right over my stupid, ignorant head. It's terrible enough that when I remember it, when I realize just how thoroughly I let Quatre down, how completely I fucked up, I want to take a screwdriver to my skull, to either gouge out that part of my brain that lets me remember this shit or rip out all my inadequacies as a human being.

"You won't tell him you like him," I continued in my ignorance, "and you're sure he doesn't like you, so why does it matter if he hates you? Why even hang out with him and try to be friends? Even if he does want to be friends, he's going to find out you like him eventually, and he's going to high school next year. You'll barely see him at all for an entire year, and by the time we get to high school, he might not want to hang out with you anymore. Wont it be less painful to not be around him anymore, even if it's because he hates you, instead of spending all this time with him?"

Quatre looked down at the ground and I immediately wished I hadn't said those things, even if he was well aware of them and had thought of them himself, I wished I hadn't rubbed salt in his wounds like that. He didn't cry, not even silently, although I had wished he would. The sadness and depression I saw in him in that moment was too deep and powerful for tears. It was disturbingly adult, the kind of sadness that I was somehow aware that a person with a crush couldn't feel, only someone who was in love. And just then I knew this... thing, these feelings my best friend had were so much deeper than I had thought and they weren't just going to fade with time.

"You wouldn't understand," he murmured, and I didn't.

I didn't understand why Quatre would willingly put himself through that much pain, but I was then sure that I didn't want to understand it. I had envied him for finding someone he liked, but if love could make a person that depressed with longing, I didn't want anything to do with it.

"I love Trowa," Quatre said with that soft, serene smile, somehow not losing an ounce of that sad expression either, "Just being around him makes me so happy. His smiles, his jokes, just hearing the sound of his voice, even when he isn't talking to me, makes me delirious. When I think about going to his games or I know I'm about to see him, my heart beats so fast I worry I might die. And when I see him and I know I'll never be able to kiss him or hold his hand, I just feel sad, like nothing in the world matters and I'll never feel a good feeling again. So yes, being around him hurts, it hurts more than I hope you'll know, but it also makes me feel happy like nothing else has in my entire life," he smiled at me and this time, it was the smile I was used to, "Don't worry about me, Duo, I'll be fine. I'm not delusional and I'm not lining myself up to being let down, I know Trowa will never like me like I want him to. But I still want to be friends with him, even if it's for a little while. I just... want to be close to him while I can."

Despite his assurances, I worried about Quatre. I worried about him a great deal, even more than I worried about my own lack of romance and interest in that sort of thing. I had known for awhile that my best friend was sad and lonely, and I had just accepted that as face because, well, wasn't I sad and lonely, too? I hadn't realized just how powerful Quatre's sadness was, and I hadn't realized how focused it was on just one thing. Worse, how Quatre had focused all those negative things on one person. How could I possibly not worry about him?

"Just promise me one thing, Duo," Quatre urged and the desperation in his voice was disturbing to me, like he was asking me to donate one of my organs so he could live, "Promise me that if you find someone you love, you won't give up on them no matter how much it hurts you."

That promise alone should have clued me in that something was very wrong, something I wasn't seeing. I wanted to protest 'how can you make me promise something like that, to go after something that'll just hurt me, when you won't even do it for yourself?!'

But it didn't dawn on me that my best friend's desperation and this promise were troubling. I had thought he was just being emotional and didn't question where those emotions were coming from. For all I insist I'm mature and grown up, when it really matters, I'm just a child. So I didn't say anything and when he reached out his pinky to mine, I hooked it with my own. What damage would it do to make my friend happy? It wasn't like I loved anyone like he did, and in that moment, I was sure that I never would. Love wasn't meant for me, my parents had proved that. Quatre's love was all that I needed.

"I promise."
*****
For awhile, I just assumed that Quatre's friendship with Trowa was this big, secret thing between them. Well, not secret exactly, as you would have to be completely blind not to see how close they were getting. But every time Quatre went off to talk to him, I just slunk behind. I had assumed, especially after I had figured out Quatre had a crush on him, that Quatre wouldn't get me involved and he just wanted to be alone with the other boy. I was fine with that. I guess I could have felt jealous about not being included, but Trowa wasn't my friend and I wasn't his, I don't even know if he would like me. He seemed like a really nice guy, but I didn't really know him. I could have tried, but I wasn't sure if Quatre wanted to expose the two of us to each other, and it wasn't like Trowa went out of his way to talk to me, either.

Mostly, I felt incredibly awkward around the older teenager. My best friend was in love with him and I was keeping it a secret. So I felt content to stay away from Trowa at the same time I felt entangled in their friendship, like I was caught in the crossfire. I had put my neck on the line for them again and again, always looking out for them, but neither of them were aware of that. So I was a bit surprised when Quatre called my house one Friday, just a couple of hours after school had let out.

My father and I had been fighting again. Big surprise there. He had wanted me to pull double shifts at work Saturday and Sunday to help pay the electric bill at the end of the month since the pizza place had taken me off my Friday shift that day. I informed him I needed to study for my nationals and what had begun as a rarely civilized conversation between us quickly turned into a screaming match thanks to my dad having been heavily drinking for the past couple of hours, his rage at my disobeying him, and my frustration to the point of tears that I couldn't even put this much effort into trying to get a decent grade and being unable to make him see reason. When the phone rang, he hadn't quite come to striking me yet, miraculously, but it was becoming a very close thing.

I hated it when my father drank like this. He wasn't one of those guys that's a perfect saint until he starts drinking, he's hot under the collar and stubborn when he's sober, too, but when he gets as drunk as he was that night, he becomes a monster. If he had been sober at that point, I might have gotten him to understand that I really needed to study, that it might even help my regular grades. He would have been annoyed that I was disobeying him and he might have even struck me, but he would have at least remembered that he gave a shit about me getting through high school enough to negotiate with me. At the very least, he wouldn't have looked at me with such naked hate when I told him no. Anger, yes, and I could somewhat deal with that anger since I was being disobedient, but not his hatred for me. That hurt a hell of a lot more.

When the phone rang and he turned away from me where we had been fighting in the kitchen, I was grateful just to not have that look directed at me anymore.

"Pick up the fucking phone," he snapped at me.

I felt that anger in me rise up almost like it had with Relena, and feeling incredibly spiteful and mad, and even petty, I let that anger take hold. I turned and began to walk to the steps that led up to my bedroom. Without any warning at all, something hit the back of my head, making sharp pain flare there, and I stumbled to my knees in shock.

"I SAID PICK UP THE FUCKING PHONE, YOU PIECE OF SHIT!" he roared at me and it still took me a minute to realize that he had just thrown the phone at my head with deadly aim for someone that inebriated.

I picked up the phone with shaking hands, glad that it was such a cheap, flimsy thing and not made of anything harder than crappy plastic. I was amazed it wasn't broken, still ringing away, although the battery cover had flown off and disappeared somewhere. One edge of the wireless phone was streaked with blood, but I was familiar enough with scalp wounds to know that wasn't anything to worry about.

I hit the power button in it and said 'hello?' into the receiver with a stammer. Smug that he had won again, my father strode back to the television. I wasn't sure which one of us was more childish.

"Hi, Duo," Quatre's voice was a freaking godsend and I was actually glad that my father had refused to answer the phone, not knowing what I would have told him about one of my friends calling the house.

"Hi," I said dumbly, feeling both happy that it was him on the phone and not a telemarketer or my dad's cop buddies, but also worried. Quatre never called me, he was always too worried about getting me in trouble.

I got up off the floor and walked up to my bedroom, my head wound forgotten for the moment.

"What's up?" I asked, shutting my door. I didn't want either of my parents to hear so I kept my voice down. As far as they knew, I didn't even have any friends and if this was something... sensitive that Quatre wanted to talk about, he didn't need any eavesdroppers. We both had enough problems.

There was such a long pause over the line that I almost demanded to know if he was hurt.

"Nothing much," Quatre said, sounding far too nervous for it to be candid, "Um... I need to ask you a favor. A really, really, really big one."

"Ok," I said nonchalantly, but the way he was talking, I was getting more concerned by the second. Quatre never asked me for favors.

"Can you meet me someplace?"

"I can try. Where?" I didn't really care where, I was just happy to have a reason to get out of that fucking house and away from my father.

There was another lengthy pause and I was starting to feel frustrated. I couldn't think of a single thing he would ask me to do that would have him this on edge. After all these years, he had to know I would do anything he asked of me. Hell, if he asked me to steal something for him, I'd do it in a heartbeat, so what could be so terrible that he didn't even want to ask?

"Look, I know you'll say no, but this is incredibly important to me, you don't even know how much-" he began to stammer.

My head pounded where the phone had struck me and I distantly realized I could feel blood tracking down my neck.

"Just spit it out, Quatre," I said more brusquely than I had intended.

Instead of being hurt by my snapping at him, it finally stopped Quatre's pussy footing around the problem.

"Can you come to Trowa's game with me tonight?" he blurted out in a pleading tone.

Even though Quatre wasn't anywhere near me, I physically balked. My mind could not process what he had just asked me. I almost shot back that he was right, I didn't want to go. Going to Trowa's games was his thing, not mine, and I hated watching stuff like that. But that might have just been the mood I was in.

"Why the hell do you want me to go with you to his game?" despite trying to control my bad mood, I couldn't stop being a bit short with him, "I thought you hang out with him after those things."

"I do and that's the problem," he sighed heavily, "I'm nervous."

"Quatre," I said sharply and felt like I was scolding him, "what are you talking about? You've been going to his games since the season started and how is it any different than when you talk to him at school? What exactly am I going to do there? I don't even like sports and Trowa barely knows me."

"He..." I could practically hear him squirm, "... he invited me out to dinner afterwards."

"Oh..." I said, my eyes going wide as a piece of the puzzle slid into place, "You mean... he asked you out on a date?" this time it was excitement and not frustration that I had to fight to keep Quatre from hearing.

"No, as a friend," he said sadly before gaining his nervous energy back again.

"Then what's the problem?" I was perplexed by this entire conversation we were having at that point, "Go hang out with him at some fast food place for a few hours, what's the big deal?"

"It... it'll be the first time we'll be alone together," he said hesitantly, "Besides talking to him at school or at one of his games, I never see him anywhere else. This will be the first time he's ever... you know... sought me out, actually said he wants to hang out with just me. And I don't trust myself."

And suddenly I understood. Quatre was scared to be alone with Trowa. At school or at his games it was ok because they were always surrounded by our classmates and he was always worried that they even knew they were becoming friends, let along that he had feelings for Trowa. But if the two of them were alone together, did Quatre really think he couldn't control his behavior?

"It will be fine," I tried to assure him, "What do you think you're going to do, accost him? You said yourself that you could never tell him how you feel-"

"I might have decided that," he said painfully, "but if I'm alone with him... I'm worried that what I want... what I feel..." he struggled with his words in a way I had never seen or heard from him, who was always so much easier with his words than I was, "I'm scared that I'll do something and then he'll figure it out, or I won't be able to stop myself from telling him. I don't trust myself not to do something stupid, but I know you'll look out for me, you won't let me do something like that, and if you're with us, if anyone does see us, they won't... assume anything," his voice cracked with emotion, "Please, Duo, I know it's so much to ask of you, but you're the only one I trust. You're the only person I know will protect me from myself."

It was an incredibly manipulative thing to say, and I wondered for only about a second if he had done that on purpose before deciding that it didn't really matter. I had already decided to help him before he had said it.

"Fine," I sighed, "I'll go, but you're paying for my dinner."

"Oh, thank you, Duo, of course," he said in a rush, his voice airy like he couldn't breathe.

"You put too much faith in me," I muttered, feeling responsibility weighing on me already.

"No, I don't," was all he softly said before hanging up on me, stopping any protests I could have about that faith.

I turned the phone off and rubbed tiredly at my forehead. I suddenly felt about five times older than I was. I wished it really had been a telemarketer that had called me and wondered what the hell I was going to do. What would Trowa think of me showing up with Quatre for the very first time? Probably nothing, he seemed kind of oblivious about a lot of things. I took a deep breath and told myself everything was going to be fine. I would watch a basketball game for the first time in my life and maybe that wouldn't suck as much as I thought it would, then I would go out for a free dinner. And maybe nothing would happen. Maybe I wouldn't let my friend down like I seemed to always do and it would just be a nice night. How worse could it be than staying here and dealing with the hurricane that my father was quickly becoming?

I needed fresh air. My head hurt worse then, but it had nothing to do with getting hit by the phone. I pulled off the clothes I had been wearing all day, and if I was being honest, the day before, too, and I realized that Quatre hadn't actually said where they were going out to eat. I had just assumed it would be some fast food place because that's where I would go out to eat, but I didn't know if Trowa had the means to go out someplace nicer. Were they just going through a drive thru and were planning to eat in the car or was it going to be a sit down place, a place where there were actually waiters and my typical ratty jeans and a t-shirt would be frowned upon?

I shook my head at myself. Looking at my clean shirts, I felt unbelievably ridiculous. I didn't even know what Trowa liked to eat or really anything about him besides that he was quiet and good at basketball, but Quatre expected me to hang out with him for a few hours. I sighed again and put on a pair of jeans that didn't have any holes in them and a long sleeved shirt in case it was cold in the gym. It wasn't like I had anything nicer to wear anyway.

As I walked downstairs and hung the phone back up on its cradle, I realized how stupid I was being. I was over-thinking this whole thing and I wasn't the one who had a crush on Trowa. I wondered just how much of a wreck Quatre was right then. I almost managed to make it out the door without anyone realizing I was leaving. Almost.

"Where the fuck do you think you're going?" my father sneered from the kitchen doorway, a fresh beer in hand.

"Nowhere," I growled at him and made a go for the door.

He had that mean look in his eyes that told me he was looking for an excuse to strike me. That was bad because, even though he usually didn't care where I went and I didn't have a curfew, he wasn't going to let me leave the house no matter what I said. But it was also good. It meant he wasn't quite yet in that horrible way he often was when he was drunk when he didn't need a reason to beat the shit out of me, and if I managed to get outside, he wasn't going to fly into a rage and chase after me. Whenever his drunken moods went from mean to crazy rage, he didn't care how much damage he did or how saw him do it. It wasn't like our neighbors were going to call the cops on him.

"Get back here when I'm talking to you!" he snarled, slamming his beer can on the table next to the door, and grasped the back of my shirt just when I touched the door handle, pulling me back.

When I felt him grab my shirt, rage that was a disgusting mirror of my father's filled me and I shoved him away, something I never would have been able to do had he been sober and I only managed because I startled him.

"You're drunk," I snapped at him.

In my head, I had only said that in a last ditch attempt to diffuse the fight, to try to make him understand that he was acting crazy, but I was unable to stop the judgment, derision, and disgust in my tone. Pure, terrifying rage filled the face of the man that used to take me on walks and tell me bedtime stories. He didn't even yell at me, which was even more frightening. His right hand just balled into a fist and lashed out at me, but it was slower than usual and I managed to dodge it, realizing far too late that it had been a feint before his left hand clenched around my wrist like a bear trap.

"Let go!" I yelled at him powerlessly, trying to wrench my wrist out of his grip, but it was like trying to get bone from a stubborn dog.

That mean look on his face turned calculating and without so much as a single word, he twisted my wrist. I cried out as agony shot through my hand and arm. I pulled against him, desperate to free myself, but he kept twisting more and more, and it dawned on me, looking at his cold, hate filled expression, that he meant to break my arm simply out of spite. I was going to spend my night in the hospital instead of at a basketball game, and there was nothing I could do. I couldn't fight back against my father anymore than I could against Relena and Zechs, the result would be exactly the same. If I tried to kick him, and he would be expecting that even though I had never hit him before, he wouldn't just break one arm.

He gave another twist of my wrist and I could literally feel the strain on my bones, I could eel how thin my wrist really was and how strong my father was. I clung to my anger at him and let it consume the fear I felt, knowing how much a broken wrist was going to hurt, and faster than my father could react, I kicked the open beer can on the table at him. He had been prepared for my kick, but not for a splash of beer in the face. He was slow to react to it in his alcohol stupor and let go of my wrist for no more than a second and a half, but I was reacting faster than him and it was plenty of time to slip my arm from his grip before he clench down again.

I flung the door open and ran out into the night, not even bothering to close the door behind me. I ran faster than I ever had, my heart pounding in my ears. I could barely see where I was running in the dark, even though it wasn't even seven yet and the street lights and neon signs lit up, my vision a haze of pain and panic. Could I hear footsteps behind me? Was he chasing me? I didn't dare look back.

I ran and ran, sure that at any moment I would feel that hand grab the back of my shirt again, but I never did. I ran until I felt like I was breathing fire into my lungs and my heart was going to explode. I stopped there on the sidewalk panting, and only then did I look behind me, but there was no one there. My wrist throbbed in agony as it lay limp at my side. He might not have succeeded in breaking it, but I wasn't going to be able to do anything useful with it for a long time.

I started to cry. I wasn't sure what it was exactly, my tiredness, my fear, the pain, or the sudden depression that swept over me, but I cried for a good fifteen minutes before I was able to stop it. I wiped at my face when I was done, my skin soaking wet. I felt hollowed out, but my crying fit was long gone. I walked again towards Quatre's house and hoped I didn't look anywhere near as shitty as I felt.
End Part 3
Author's Note: I am aware that this is a terrible place to end this part, but there will be no updates of this story until November. I am going to spend the rest of this month and all of October working on Beyond the Looking Glass, like I always do this time of year. November is National Novel Writing Month and I will be working on A Stagnation of Love during that time so updates will probably be more frequent.
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A Stagnation of Love (rewrite)