Disclaimer: The Mobile Suit: Gundam Wing characters used
within this story are © Bandai, Sotsu Agency, Sunrise, etc. This work of
fiction is intended for free entertainment purposes only. It is not suitable
for readers under the age of 18.
Title: Undone, part 2/2
Author: Alleyprowler
Rating: R
Pairings: 3x2, 3x4, 1x2, 5+4
Warnings: Shounen-ai, angst, adult themes, Wufei POV.
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It rained the next day, and the next, and the next. Of course, that wasn't unusual for the time of year and the location, but I'm still wary of rain. Actually, all of Earth's meteorological temper tantrums make me a bit nervous. I wonder if I'll ever get used to it.I spent my days talking to Heero, reading, avoiding Duo and Trowa, and, of course, taking most of my meals with Quatre. He had rigged up a sort of shelter under Sandrock with ropes and a tarpaulin so that we could eat by the fire pit and stay more-or-less dry and warm while the never-ending rain poured down. I was really beginning to enjoy the ritual of eating out in the fresh air with a quiet, undemanding companion rather than in the cramped, Duo-infested kitchen back at the safehouse.
I don't know if Quatre felt the same way. I didn't know how he felt at all, which was odd, since he's usually open with his emotions. We talked about books, and music, and philosophy, and the war—neutral subjects, for the most part. If Duo or Trowa were mentioned, he would change the subject so smoothly that I hardly realized that he'd done it, but other than that, he talked about whatever I wanted to talk about. He was…passive.
Almost a week had gone by. One early afternoon I was about to leave the house with our lunches when Heero startled me by asking if he could join us. "Well, I-I don't see why not," I said, not very smoothly. "I'll make some more soup."
"Hn." Heero went to go change into more suitable clothing for the weather.
==========================================================Quatre seemed surprised to see Heero, but no more surprised than Heero was to see Quatre.
"Quatre?" Heero said in an alarmed voice.
Quatre stepped back. "H-Heero. What are you doing here?"
Heero ignored the question. "What's wrong with you? You look awful!"
Tact was never one of Heero's strong points. I stepped in between them. "Heero, Quatre's had a great shock, but he'll be all right."
He glared at me. "I'm not talking about his mental state. He looks ill." He glanced sharply at the blond. "How long has he had that cough?"
Quatre had come down with a cold after the first rainy day, and I'd pretty much tuned out his sniffling and sneezing and coughing. He had assured me so many times that it was nothing that I eventually went along with it. "I don't know. A few days, maybe." I said uncomfortably.
Heero frowned. "Quatre, come here." He ordered. I watched in dismay as Quatre dragged himself unwillingly around the fire pit to stand in front of Heero. He was trembling all over.
Heero brushed aside Quatre's dripping blond bangs, and then felt his forehead. He turned to me with a scowl. "And how long has he had a fever?"
My hand flew to cup his cheek, then slid over his rain-wet forehead. He felt hot. "Quatre, why didn't you say you felt ill?" I demanded.
He cringed away from me. "I thought you might make me go back to that house." He said in a small, frightened voice.
"You were correct." I said. I grabbed his wrist. "You are going to—"
"Wait." Heero said to me. He turned back to Quatre. "Why are you so afraid of going back to that house?"
Quatre's wide, frightened gaze went from me to Heero and back… "I just can't." He concluded. His shivers intensified.
I put an arm around his shoulders. "Quatre, I told you that you could stay in my room. No one will disturb you."
He tried to say something, but he nearly doubled over with a coughing fit. Heero glared at me.
"What's going on, Wufei?" He demanded. I could not answer.
Quatre straightened back up. He wiped his streaming eyes on his damp sleeve. "Heero, I wish I could tell you, but you have to ask Duo." He sniffled like a child. "It isn't my fight any more." He slumped against me. It took me a shocked moment or two to realize that he was on the verge of collapsing.
I met Heero's burning blue eyes. "It isn't my fight either." I said coldly. "It's up to Duo and Trowa to explain. Now help me get him inside."
==========================================================Since Heero's arm was injured, I carried Quatre all the way back to the house. Not that he was much of a burden. His emotional state had rendered his appetite nearly nonexistent, and he had lost weight that he couldn't afford to lose. Heero walked point, holding the flashlight and guiding me through the wet darkness of the forest. When we arrived at the safehouse he threw the door open rather violently, making a very shocked Trowa and Duo spring several feet into the air from where they had been sitting on the sofa and watching a vid.
I was gratified to see them jump. I was even more gratified to see they were seated at opposite ends of the sofa.
Trowa's mouth dropped open when he saw me and who I was carrying.
"Quatre?" He gasped. He rushed to his erstwhile lover and practically tore him out of my arms. "Quatre, are you all right?"
Quatre fought like a wildcat to remove himself from Trowa's grip while Trowa used his considerable strength and agility to keep him there. In the end, Quatre won and was dumped rather hard on his back. "Don't touch me," he said in his rapidly fading voice. Trowa looked stricken.
Duo crawled off the sofa and put his hand on Quatre's shoulder. "Hey, little brother—" he started to say, but Quatre pulled away from him as if his touch burned.
"No, Duo." He looked away. "No."
I gathered Quatre's shivering body up in my arms and looked down at Duo. "He is no longer your brother." I said. "You have betrayed him."
"You have no right to say that!" Duo growled at me. The fury in his voice was no act. His eyes were fiery with it. "You pompous, judgmental asshole!"
He would have attacked me if Heero hadn't restrained him. "I have no idea what the hell's going on here," he said, glaring at Duo and Trowa, "but you two are going to sit down like civilized men and explain it to me right now." He glanced up at me. "Take care of Quatre. I need to know what's going on."
I nodded. It was time for him to know.
==========================================================I got Quatre undressed, waited while he bathed, tucked him into my bed, and then I debated whether to go back downstairs or not. It didn't take me long to decide that my presence would be superfluous at best. It wasn't my fight.
Besides, I was tired. It was an emotional rather than a physical fatigue, but still, I stretched out next to Quatre without bothering to get undressed, and I closed my eyes. I was a little bit startled when Quatre pressed up against me, but I didn't move away. He was looking for warmth, comfort. The least I could do was give it to him. I turned to my side and wrapped an arm around him, and he tucked his head under my chin. We fell asleep that way.
==========================================================It was a strange feeling, waking up with someone in my arms. Strange, but not unpleasant. I've slept alone my entire life, even during my brief marriage, and I've cultivated a taste for solitude, so the unfamiliar warmth and pressure of a living body against mine was an entirely new thing. I began to understand why humans tend to pair up.
After a few minutes, Quatre stirred and rolled away from me. His eyes opened and he looked around the room. "What am I doing here?" He asked in a rusty whisper.
"Sleeping, for once." I told him. I lay a hand on his forehead. "You should know better than to go running around in the rain with a fever. You've made yourself very sick." I couldn't keep the scolding tone out of my voice.
He sighed. "I know I've been an idiot, Wufei. You don't have to remind me." His voice was gone; he couldn't raise it above that harsh whisper.
"If it's any consolation, you aren't the only idiot around here. In fact, you have some pretty stiff competition." I tightened my arm around him briefly.
He shook his head a little, not in denial, but in disbelief. "How did things go downhill so fast?" He wondered aloud.
"Shh. Rest your voice." I rolled off the bed with some regret and rummaged through my duffle bag till I found my medkit and a bottle of water. I gave Quatre some aspirin. "I'm hungry. I'm going downstairs. Do you want me to bring you anything?"
He shook his head. "I want to sleep a little more." He burrowed back down into the blankets.
"All right." Before I knew I was doing it, I leaned forward and kissed his forehead. I didn't think about it, I just did it.
When I pulled back, I saw that Quatre looked as shocked as I felt. That's when I knew exactly how out of character the gesture was—Quatre is used to being kissed.
What the hell just happened?
I felt a blush of confusion spreading across my cheeks. "Gomen, Quatre," I said, and fled like a coward.
==========================================================Why couldn't the scientists have let us stay in one of the Winner estates? The house we were quartered in was large enough so that we didn't get in each other's way, but it definitely wasn't large enough to have many hiding places, nor any alternate routes. If I wanted food, and I did, I was going to have to take the only staircase, walk through the only dining room, and go into the only kitchen. And of course, we being teenage boys, the kitchen is a very popular room.
I suppose I should have counted my blessings that only Heero was there. He was leaning against the sink methodically working his way through a bowl of the type of cereal that's all fiber and vitamins. We grunted morning greetings at each other.
"Where are Duo and Trowa?" I asked, rummaging around in the refrigerator for something edible and composing a mental grocery list.
"Duo's out riding the motorcycle and Trowa went back to his room after breakfast. How's Quatre?"
"The same. I'm going to have to go to town and get some medicine for him." I settled on an egg for breakfast.
"Hn." Heero crunched on another mouthful of cereal. He looked a little pale, and his eyes had a weird, staring aspect to them. He obviously hadn't slept well.
I found a frying pan and let it heat up on the stovetop. "How did your talk go last night?"
"They told me everything." He said. He crunched his cereal annoyingly.
I sighed. "And?" Getting personal information from Heero is like pulling teeth.
He shrugged. "Quatre was two days late from his mission. They thought he was dead. They were both upset, so they slept together. It won't happen again." He summarized it as neatly and as dryly a mission report.
"You don't seem angry." I commented.
"I'm not." He looked at me directly for the first time, and I could see the emotions shifting in his eyes, behind that cold mask. "I can't pretend to know what they were feeling, Wufei, so I can't judge them like you can."
I snorted. "So it was just a mutual pity fuck, then?" Damn Maxwell's corrupting influence on my vocabulary! I scrambled my egg viciously.
"That's right. That's all it was." Crunched Heero. "Trowa's depressed." He added.
Oh, was he now. Poor Trowa. I shoved the mangled egg onto a plate and began to eat it.
"I'm worried about him." Heero said quietly.
I glanced out the window, half expecting the Horsemen of the Apocalypse show up under a blood-red sky. "You're…worried?"
"Yes, I'm worried." He emphasized the last word just a bit. "He thinks he's lost your respect, and he thinks he's lost Quatre, period."
"He thinks correctly, then."
Heero shook his head slightly, as if he was trying to get his brain to settle down. "I'm worried because I know that if I ever thought I'd lost Duo, I'd…I don't know what I would do."
I sighed. "Drama doesn't sit well on you, Yuy."
"I'm not being dramatic, I'm being honest." He dumped his cereal bowl in the sink. "Look, Wufei, you've been isolating Quatre from the rest of us long enough. He only knows half the story, the half that's killing him. He deserves to hear Trowa's side. Now I know you're too damn stubborn to let Trowa or Duo anywhere near him, but what about me? Can I talk to him?"
I crossed my arms over my chest. "What are you planning on telling him?"
He unconsciously mimicked my posture. "Exactly what Duo and Trowa told me last night. I'll tell him about how scared they were, and how they were practically in mourning for him. About how they didn't have anyone to turn to for comfort but each other. About how they felt when Quatre came back and rejected them both. About how much they love him and miss him and want his forgiveness. Is that enough?"
I rubbed my fingers over my forehead. How could I say no to that request? "All right, Heero, you can talk to him, but don't upset him and don't expect him to talk back—he has laryngitis."
Heero snorted. "I'll try not to upset him, but expecting Quatre not to talk is a little like expecting Duo not to talk. Quatre just makes more sense."
That was true. We shared a smile, then we trooped upstairs to my room.
==========================================================I've known Heero a long time, but it still shocks me when I see him being gentle. I have to admit that Maxwell has had quite an effect on him.
He sat down on my bed next to Quatre and stroked his cheek very lightly to wake him up. He didn't stop when Quatre opened his eyes—Heero was almost petting him, trying to soothe him for what was coming, I suppose.
"Heero?" Quatre whispered when he woke up and focused.
"Hn. You're not supposed to talk, Quatre." Heero smoothed back the blond bangs and stroked Quatre's forehead with a callused thumb. "I know you aren't feeling well and I'm sorry I had to wake you, but I had some things I wanted to tell you."
Quatre nodded for him to continue, blinking the sleep from his eyes.
"First of all, I want you to know that I found out what happened. I had a long talk with Duo and Trowa last night."
Tears welled up in Quatre's eyes. I sat down on his other side and put a hand on his shoulder. "Quatre, hear him out. There's no need to get upset."
He looked at me for a long time, perhaps trying to gauge my sincerity, or perhaps just trying to draw reassurance from the only ally he thought he had, before he nodded at Heero again.
Heero licked his lips. "They told me that when you didn't return on time from your last mission, they started to panic. They didn't know about OZ's security upgrades. They thought you had been captured…or worse. There was no way to contact you, or even to find out where you had gone. They think very highly of your skills, so when you didn't return, they assumed something had gone very, very wrong. Do you understand?"
Quatre nodded. A tear spilled from his eye, and Heero wiped it away.
"So, you were gone, they were half-mad with worry, and they looked for comfort in each other. You are very important to both of them, and they thought they had lost you. They had sex, Quatre, and it was wrong, but it was what they thought they needed at the time. Do you know what I'm saying? They had sex, they didn't make love. Do you understand the difference?"
"Of course I do," Quatre rasped out, and Heero put a finger on his lips.
"You have to stay quiet or Wufei here will kick me out before I'm finished." He said, and Quatre smiled faintly. "When you found them, and then ran away, they were devastated. Part of it was guilt over what they had done, but most of it was because they felt rejected by you. They told me that they both love you very much, and it was hurting them to know that you were in pain, but they couldn't do anything about it. Wufei was trying to protect you, and wouldn't let them go anywhere near you. They had no chance to explain. Well, I made them explain it to me, and now I'm explaining it to you."
Quatre appeared to be thinking it over. Heero stroked his forehead gently and let him digest the information until he nodded again.
"Trowa is very upset." Heero continued. "He barely comes out of his room any more. Mentally, he's beating himself senseless because he thinks it's all his fault that you're ill."
Quatre shook his head.
"I know. I don't like it either. But he loves you, and we tend to take the blame when the people we love are hurt. You of all people should know that."
We all developed identical smiles. Guilt is one of Quatre's more well-used emotions. According to Duo, Quatre blames his own lack of effort for the reason there's no air in outer space. He might have been joking, but who knows?
Heero's next question shocked me. He turned to Quatre and stared into his eyes. "Would you like to go see him?"
For the first time in nearly a week, Quatre gave a real smile. He nodded shyly and started to sit up, but the color drained from his face as he did.
"I'll carry you." I offered. "You look a little wobbly."
He nodded at me gratefully and let me pick him up. He weighed far too little; we were going to have to fix that.
Heero led the way to the door of Trowa's room and knocked on it sharply. "Trowa, you have a visitor!" He called when the knock wasn't answered immediately.
There was a deep silence, then I distinctly heard the sound of a book being closed. The door cracked open, and one green eye peered out curiously. "A visitor?"
I stepped into his field of view. "Open the door, Barton. I'm sick of having my bed cluttered up with blond billionaires."
Quatre smiled and raised a hand to Trowa in greeting.
Trowa nearly tore the door off its hinges. "Quatre!" He grabbed him out of my arms and crushed him in a hug.
"Easy, Barton! He's sick, remember?" I said impatiently, although judging from the expression on Quatre's face, he didn't really mind.
"Oh, Quatre, I'm sorry. Are you all right?" He pressed his lips to Quatre's forehead. "God, you're warm. Let's get you to bed, love." Trowa paused to kick the door closed in our faces before he started his relieved babbling up again.
"Well, that's one down." Heero said.
==========================================================I'd forgotten Duo. That was bad. One simply does not leave Duo out of the equation; he's too much of a wild card. Heero and I sat at the table drinking coffee and waiting for him to come back from his joyride.
I suddenly thought about Trowa and laughed.
"What?" Heero asked me.
"Trowa, babbling," I said, and he laughed too.
"Maybe I shouldn't have told him to follow his emotions after all. He's turning into a lunatic."
I laughed harder.
"What's so funny?" Called a familiar voice from the front room. It was Duo.
"Nothing. It's just that Trowa is very happy and it's rather amusing," I snickered.
Duo entered the kitchen, trying vainly to smooth down his windblown bangs. "Yeah? T-bird's happy? What…" he stopped short and his violet eyes flew wide open. "Quatre?"
Heero and I both nodded and watched in alarm as Duo vacillated between breaking into a huge grin or bursting into tears. Eventually, though a miracle that only Duo could pull off, he did both.
==========================================================Before Duo had entirely managed to compose himself, Trowa came down the stairs carrying Quatre in his arms. "I don't want him out of bed," he said when he saw the hard looks Heero and I were giving him, "but he insisted on seeing Duo."
Trowa had bundled Quatre up in flannel pajamas and a too-large bathrobe that I expect belonged to the taller boy. Quatre was struggling to keep a pair of Trowa's fleece slippers on his feet, much to his apparent annoyance. It was hard to believe that the tiny, tousled boy was a fearless killer.
Duo looked up from where he was having his little emotional display and nearly broke down again when he saw his friends. "Quatre…"
Trowa sat down with the blond on his lap, and Duo rushed over to bury his head in Quatre's lap. "Oh God, Quat, can you ever forgive me?"
Quatre tangled his fingers into Duo's hair in response, and Duo really did break down all over again. He wrapped his arms around Quatre's waist and practically howled out his relieved tears while Quatre soothed him. It was quite an amazing display. I felt tired just watching it.
"Duo…" Quatre whispered. "It's all right. Calm down."
Duo's emotional tsunami calmed down to mere breakers. "You sure, Quat?"
Quatre nodded and smiled. Duo seemingly couldn't get enough of the attention he was getting, though, and he clung to Quatre like a braided limpet while Quatre stroked his hair and rubbed his back. I was wondering just how much that braided idiot could soak up when Quatre sneezed, sending Trowa straight into mother-hen mode.
"Okay, that's enough. Back to bed." He stood up, still holding Quatre, and Duo was dumped unceremoniously to the floor.
==========================================================I don't know how Quatre kept sane for the next two days. Trowa and Duo wouldn't let him get out of bed. They wouldn't let him talk. They practically force-fed him until he was something close to his normal weight. They flew into hysterics if he so much as sniffled. I, personally, would have snapped.
He bore it with his usual diplomacy, and eventually his fever broke and he was allowed to get up, but not to go outside. They had hidden his clothes. He was forced to wander around in pajamas and bathrobe, although he had managed to talk Trowa out of wearing the too-large slippers.
He found me in the front room, where I was trying without much success to light a fire. "Hi, Wufei," he said, sounding like his voice was changing all over again. It was cracking on every other syllable, but at least he could speak.
"So they finally let you out of bed?"
He let out a snort of laughter. "They mean well, but I was going stir crazy." He knelt down beside me and took the matches out of my hand. Examining my pile of paper, kindling and small branches, he made a few minor adjustments and then touched a lit match to a few places. In less than a minute he had accomplished what I'd been struggling with for over an hour. The fire had sprung to life.
"You will have to show me how you did that, Winner." I said.
He shrugged, and the shoulder of the too-large bathrobe and pajamas slid off his shoulder. "Nomadic heritage." He said, tugging the wayward nightclothes back into place. "Try doing it with half-dried camel dung."
I didn't want to ask. We sat in companionable silence for a while.
"Wufei?" He said after a few minutes of silent contemplation.
"Yes?"
"Thank you."
My heart felt full and warm. "You're welcome, Quatre."
~~END~~