Happy birthday Aniratac! (it's not done, but you can't say that you are surprised, can you?) To celebrate this day, I'll be posting two chapters. We are closing in on the end, just three more updates after this.

Chapter 11

The next few days, Wufei tried his very best to ignore the creep. He refused to show him how much destroying his dress had hurt him. 'I'm going to nail him with my high heals if he tries anything. Hell, I should have done it right away.' He thought in annoyance.

It was just too bad that all the things that you wanted to do and say always came to you when it was far too late to do it.

He shouldn't have run. He should have looked up and told him what a fucking loser he was for trying to win popularity points by pushing others around. Should have sneered at him before kicking him in the crouch again. He should have kept walking, ignoring the mess. He should have poured his own glass of water down the idiots pants so that the fucker could walk around all day looking like he peed his pants. He should have slapped him. Should have accused him of wanting to see him naked. Should have made some use of all that Karate training and put him in an arm lock, force him down on his knees, twist his arm until the bastard cried in pain and make him apologize in front of everyone.

Wufei sighed.

Instead he had run away like a child and hid in the bathroom to cry his eyes out. He could hardly believe that he let the creep get to him like this. Shouldn't you get used to this kind of treatment? Shouldn't you just go numb?

He almost wanted to be as apathetic as his friend Shawn. But no, Shawn wasn't as uncaring as you could think, and he had the the self-inflicted scars to prove it.

Shawn had been a really happy kid in kindergarten, but when he met him again years later after transferring to Wufei's school, it had taken him weeks before he figured out why he recognized him. Because one thing was for sure, there wasn't much left of that happy kid. Instead was an apathetic, emotionally-stunned boy who used razors to be able to feel anything. They had tried to help him, tried to at least get some professional help, but the boy would just look at them before walking away. Shawn didn't hang out with the rest of them as much as before. All because of idiot bullies who were too fucking messed up to find something better to do than destroy other people. Wufei hated them all.

He was ripped from his dark thought as Tiddy hugged him from the back.

"Hey, babe. Want to come play in the snow with me?"

Wufei snickered. "God, you sound like a five year old."

Tiddy poked him in the ear, making him flinch violently. "Do not, come on, let's go build snow men."

Wufei smiled and let himself be lead away. Thank god that he had his friends, they would make sure that he never ended up that way.

-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-

The rest of the day dragged on in a mindless jumble that never seemed to end. Duo wished that he had the guts to put his head down on the desk and sleep his way through it all. The only bright moments had been when he had seen a quick flash of Wufei during gym class.

They were playing hockey, a game that Duo kind of knew the rules of, but had done everything he could to win. It wasn't just the fact that he was a competitive person, or the bet he had made with Simon over who's team was going to win. No, it was all because of the few seconds he got to spend on the other team's side of the rink.

Duo had worked hard on getting the puck into the goal so that he quickly could look over to the other side of the nearby football field where Wufei and his friends were building snow men.

Wufei really looked like a dark angel where he was walking around in the ankle deep snow with his long black coat billowing behind him in the freezing wind. Duo wanted to throw his hockey stick to hell for a chance to join in even though he knew that he wasn't welcome. The other boy had looked so carefree, and his happy laughter sent all Duo's senses to overload. But he really should have known better then to let his mind wander during a highly-testosterone-filled game.

Wufei was tackled by a tall emo boy, and the both of them tumbled down in to the snow with the other guy lying all over his angel. A second later, Duo was flying head first in to the rink, as he too was tackled. The helmet made a sickening sound as it hit the wooden wall, and pain radiated from his unprotected knees as they slammed in to the ice. Duo was not having a very good day.

-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-

Duos knees were almost black with bruises, and Solo gave them an impressed whistle when he saw them.

"Shit, what did you do D? Get hit by a car?" He asked as he looked down on the boy sitting on the couch with his pant legs rolled up as high as they could go.

Duo sighed and rubbed the edge of on of the bruises. "No, I didn't pay attention and got tackled during a hockey game. Did I ever mention that I'm grateful that you taught me how to skate? Because I am; today would have sucked even worse than it already did if I hadn't known how." Duo sighed.

Solo paused and took a closer look on his little brother where he was curled up with his knees up against his chest. "Did anything else happen today? Is everyone treating you alright?"

Duo looked miserable. "As good as you could expect when he hates my guts."

Solo didn't have to ask who 'he' was since he had heard quite a lot about Wufei Chang, thank you very much.

Everything from how dark his eyes were to how Wufei would never ever ever even look at him because the other boy apparently hated his little brother more than anything. Solo suppressed a sigh over the melodramatic performance that only a love sick teenager could play out. Had he been as bad as Duo when he had been a teenager? He couldn't have been. Then he remembered Sara Addams and her big green eyes and realized that he just might have been worse.

He moved to sit down on the couch where Duo was curled up. He didn't know why Duo always ended up there whenever something went wrong, but it did make his job a lot easier because he never had to try to figure out if something was wrong. He just had to see if Duo was slumped over the side of the couch to know.

He took a deep breath and tried to come up with something fitting to say. It was times like these that he really missed their mother. She would have known what to say while Solo was just fumbling in the dark. Most of the time, Duo and he had more of a friend-friend relationship than a parent-child relationship.

He was nineteen when their mother had died while Duo was just eight. By then, Duo's father was long gone, while his own had never been an issue in the first place. Duo had ended up in foster care since he was going to college on the other side of the country. Because of the physical constraints, they hadn't seen each other that often. That didn't mean that he hadn't fought like hell to get custody over Duo, but now that he had, he hardly knew what to do with all that responsibility. On most days, they worked together to make everything work, but it was times like this when Duo needed his support that he felt a bit lost. He tried not to let it show and he hoped that he wasn't going to give Duo the need of years of therapy.

He leaned back and watched Duo pull at the end of his hair like he always did when he really wanted to twist his braid around his hand. Solo had been devastated when Duo got back from the hairdresser with his braid in a plastic bag. He had tried to warn him that he was going to regret it, but Duo didn't listen. But what teenager ever does?

His brother was just trying to fit in. It wasn't all that strange, everyone did it. They tried different things, they experimented, hoping to find friends, belonging, love.

Solo silently cursed Duo's homosexuality. Didn't the kid have enough problems as it was? Did he really have to be shunned for falling in love too? Not that he would ever breathe a word about it out loud. Duo needed all the support he could get, and Solo was going to do everything he could to give it to him.

He pulled Duo's fingers away from his hair. The skin in the back of his neck was turning red from all the pulling, and Solo suppressed the urge to start pulling at his own hair. It seemed that bad habits ran in the family. "What happened?"

Duo shrugged. "Nothing happened." He mumbled and raised his hand towards his hair again. Solo batted his hand away. "Come on, tell me what happened."

Duo sighed. "Nothing happened. That's the problem, I walked around all day and nothing happened."

Solo didn't say anything, he just waited to it.

"He didn't even look my way! Usually, he would at least glare at me, and I would know that he knows that I exist. But today it was like I was air, no, less than air. Air is useful, I was like carbon dioxide. Only plants have any use for me, I should just move in to the forest." Duo whined in a pathetic voice.

Solo rolled his eyes at the drama queen act. "It's winter, there are no plants in need right now."

"Then, I'm totally useless." Duo groaned and tipped over to hide his face in the couch pillows.

Praying for strength, Solo responded in what he hoped was a comforting voice. "It can't be that bad."

"He wouldn't spit on me if I were on fire. He wouldn't press the stop button if I fell into a meat grinder, he wouldn't even feed me moldy bread if I were starving." Duo mumbled in to the seat.

Solo bit back his first response which would have been, "For fuck sakes! Have a crush on a nice guy then!" but he took a deep breath and reminded himself that he loved his brother even if he was a whiny bitch. "Well, basically you have two options then. You can forget about him and find someone else, someone who appreciates you or you can keep trying."

'Please find someone else.' Solo mentally begged.

Duo didn't say anything, he just rolled over to press his face in to the back rest with his knees still up against his chest. Solo sighed and stroked his little brother's stylishly shaped hair before leaving him alone to think.