Oookay...so first things first before I forget...

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing or any of its affiliated characters (goddammnit!). I do own Sei. He be mine. No touchee. Kapish?

Anyway, I must admit that this is kind of fun. I enjoy reviews and pocky, for those who are interested in giving me any.

...Mebbe we should just go to the story. Ta ta!


"Shit! Dammit! Shitfuckshitshitshitshit…" Duo cursed. He cursed OZ and their bombs and guns, not to mention Heero, as he walked through the safehouse's back door with aforesaid boy slung over one shoulder.

Trowa and Wufei, who were just beginning cook dinner, looked up in alarm. "Oh, no! Heero! What happened, Duo?" Quatre, who was sitting at the table going over reports, exclaimed worriedly as he took in the blood trickling down past Duo's neck and down his back, mingling with his chestnut hair, which had pulled loose of its confines and hung freely. "Are you hurt, too?"

"Got shot in the leg, but it's not too bad," Duo grunted. He declined to hand his unconscious friend over to Trowa but limped up to the infirmary, with the rest of the pilots following. "One guy was a pretty good shot. He knew what he was doing, too. Clipped me one in the back of the calf as I was getting through the outer wall. The car was real close, though, so it wasn't so bad."

When they arrived at the clean white room, Duo finally placed the unconscious Japanese boy on the medical table and sat on one of the counters, in a corner out of the way. Quatre immediately tended to the wound on the longhaired teen's calf, removing the bullet and dressing it with clean linen bandages.

Meanwhile, Trowa and Wufei had gently but methodically stripped Heero of his clothes before gaping at the extensiveness of the wounds he had sustained. "Duo? How did…how did Heero come by these injuries?" Wufei asked in what he thought wasn't a shaky voice.

Duo hissed as Quatre dressed his leg wound. "His own bomb. Heero hadn't gotten away fast enough. Or maybe he didn't get away at all. I went back in after him when he didn't meet up with me outside. I found him in the ruins of the weapons building."

Quatre gasped in horror. "Another suicide attempt, do you think?"

"Yeah. I do think. I really don't want to, that's the problem." Duo turned his head to the wall so the rest of them wouldn't see the angry tears in his eyes. Why kill himself? Why now? They were so close, so close to ending the war…and Heero still didn't believe his life mattered or would ever matter, to anyone, no matter how many times Duo had insisted the contrary. Duo clenched his teeth. God dammit!

Sei startled them all. He stalked silently through the door with the graceful soundless tread of a hunting mountain lion. And with the same amount of politely lethal menace. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of blood, and his ears were laid back against his head. His eyes were strange, as if everything he looked at didn't really belong in the world at all, and contained all the pain and weariness of centuries.

He turned this wise, otherworldly, and ancient gaze on Duo, who, unwittingly, bristled angrily at the flatness in the wolf-man's stare. Sei spoke quietly. "Do not curse any god, Duo. You never know when they are listening."

He ignored the longhaired boy's stunned expression, as well as the equally stunned expression on the blonde tending him, and stepped forward delicately to where Heero was laying, still unconscious. Wufei glared at Sei, even as he gave ground to the demon. Sei ignored this as well.

Trowa, who was on the other side of the table and was working rapidly to wash Heero's insentient body and bandage the cleaned and disinfected areas, looked up at the winged man, but said nothing, just passed him a new washcloth and bowl of disinfected water. Sei nodded to Wufei, who shuffled forward tentatively, and the two of them worked side by side to clean Heero of dirt and crusted blood. There was silence for a while.

It was rather nice, Quatre found himself thinking. The quiet in the room was companionable, although not completely at ease; the winged wolf-demon unnerved them all in more ways than one, although if asked, none of them would have been able to explain it.

Finally, Heero was laying in one of the infirmary's small fold-out wall beds, bandaged snugly but still comatose. Duo sat on another cot with his back leaning against the wall. His gaze shifted surreptitiously from the sleeping form next to him to Sei, who was quietly washing his hands of blood and filth.

Without any prompting from the pilots, he began cleaning the bowls and tweezers and other equipment with boiling water and sterilizing them. As he worked, he kept his mouth closed. Duo dreaded that he was saving his words for a more opportune moment, and that those words weren't going to exactly be kind. The reserved silence was unsettling and almost tangible by now. Duo feared the storm he could feel was coming; he knew, although he couldn't understand how he knew, that Sei's taciturnity was actually a powerful rage that he was carefully holding in with great effort. When the storm broke, it would be the boundless claws-teeth-and-fire fury of a truly angry demon.

"So."

Ah. Here we go, thought Duo, trying to push the mind-numbing fear away and failing.

"So. Does this happen often?"

Unwisely—or perhaps ignorantly, unaware of any flash of comprehension like Duo's—Quatre answered. He tried to make his tone light and bantering, but no one was fooled; they could all plainly hear the strain in the little blonde's voice. "Oh, yeah. We're always getting hurt on missions. But we usually don't. And if we do, well, we know how to take care of oursel—"

"I mean the attempted suicide, you fool! Do you think I'm daft?" Sei rounded on them. Quatre immediately wished he hadn't said anything: the demon's eyes were flashing. Literally flashing, though it was actually more like glowing. The discordant green and violet would suddenly brighten violently and burn impressions of themselves in the back of one's eyes (1) before returning to normal again, only for the process to repeat a few seconds later. And here I thought that was only an expression in literature, the Arabian thought miserably.

Surprising everyone, including himself, Wufei endeavored to defend Heero's actions. "Yes? If you really were not daft, then you would see that it is actually none of your business. None of this is your business."

"Oh?" Sei mimicked Wufei. "And why isn't it?"

"You're only staying here until tomorrow," Wufei rejoined smoothly. "I hardly think you should be any more involved than you already are. Besides, why should you care about us?"

Heero startled them all, with the exception of Sei; they hadn't known he was awake and listening intently. "Yes. If I choose to die—" here the otherGundam pilots flinched inwardly "—then it is no business of yours."

For the first time, Sei was surprised. "What do you mean?" he asked, frowning.

Heero spoke the words that, although none of them would ever admit it, had rankled in their hearts—along with the contradictory feeling that harboring the demon was their destiny. "You are a stranger. You do not know us, any of us, at all. Stop pretending as if you know us."

"You asked me to stay here," Sei spat.

"Wrong. Duo asked you to stay. He did it without consulting the rest of us, which in any case was extremely presumptuous of him." Duo cast Heero a hurt look at this, even though he knew the Japanese boy was right. But it had just felt right—surely Heero had felt it too?

Heero completely ignored Duo's hurt-puppy glance and continued. "We don't want you here. You are ignorant of the danger, and thus you are a threat to us. Plus, you just simply don't belong here. You don't fit in. If you weren't still injured, I for one would be the first to throw you bodily out the door."

Heero had said all of this with the hope that the winged man would get out of the house and leave them all the hell alone—or at least get incensed enough to attack, so they could have a reason to chase him out. What he received was nothing like what he had expected to see: for a tiny, almost non-existent moment that seemed to last a century, Sei stared at him with…not anger, or even irritation. It was not even pity for Heero's wounds or his cold temperament, such as he saw in that annoying girl Relena's eyes. It was sorrow, and isolation. For that moment, he looked just as Heero had felt all of his life—as if no one cared about him, and no one loved him, and everyone just hated him. Heero could see clearly into the demon's eyes, and they were like mirrors of his own, only much, much darker; the depths of the loneliness and pain he had to bear were bottomless. Dimly, in a Dr. J-forged corner of his mind that was not suddenly overcome with horror and sorrow, Heero wondered exactly how old Sei was to have carried so much anguish with him until it had gouged such deep pits into his soul that there could never be any possibility for catharsis. After that deliberation, another distinctly more disturbing thought wended its way into his brain: what kinds of things had happened to him, to have him scarred so deeply?

Who is this man?

And, as suddenly as it had come, the heartbreaking stare had vanished, smoothed away as if it was a wrinkled bedspread unexpectedly straightened. It was still there, but it was firmly closed off in a way uncomfortably familiar to Heero; he saw that same expression in the mirror every day. Overwhelming guilt and sorrow smothered Heero and he gasped heavily, not realizing he had stopped breathing.

Sei blinked slowly, as if willing himself to court calm. "I see," he said flatly. "I will accede to your wishes and leave now." He turned away.

"No!" Duo burst out, earning himself uncertain glares from the others. They wanted the demon-man to leave…right? Heero, for one, was not so sure anymore. Quatre looked as if he wanted to support Duo, but wasn't certain whether to do it would be the best action or not. Trowa stared at Sei indifferently; he couldn't care less either way. And Wufei…well, at least Heero wasn't alone in his opinion. He could see the uneasiness written all over the Chinese boy's face.

"No!" Duo repeated. Sei stopped in surprise. He turned to look at them as Duo whispered, "Please." Heero felt his heart sink despite himself; he never wanted to hear Duo plead like that again. It seemed almost a demeaning of the cheerful braided boy.

Duo went on, a desperate note in his voice. "I don't get it, but…see…you belong here. It's like—I dunno—but it just feels better with all of us here…" he faltered and trailed off, and looked around at the others for help.

Unexpectedly, Trowa spoke. The words, concordant with his usual calm silence, were simple, but the air rang with them after they were said. "We are whole, right here."

There was silence. Duo nodded slowly, and a wide grin unfurled on his face as he considered Trowa. He met Sei's eyes and nodded again. One by one, they repeated the gesture of welcome and acceptance. First Quatre, then Trowa immediately, then Wufei, who flung a challenging look at the demon before nodding, and finally Heero, who took a long time to think before he gave his own silent consent.

As if it were some kind of demon's ritual the boys had unwittingly tapped into, Sei smiled sadly and nodded once, then suddenly shocked them by spreading his silver-black wings as far as the confines of the room would allow and gave them a grave gentleman's bow. And as if it was a signal, everyone relaxed. Heero sank back onto the pillows with a sigh of relief. Within a minute, his breathing went deep and even.

Sei's ears flicked toward the sleeping boy. "Perhaps we should get some sleep while we can," he whispered.

The boys all nodded to this and tiptoed out of the room, careful not to wake their friend. Sei followed them soundlessly, not needing to be cautious. He paused at the doorway and glanced back at Duo, who was staying in the infirmary because of his leg. The longhaired teen was snuggling into his blankets. When he was finished rucking up his bedding to his satisfaction, he looked up at the demon at the door. Their eyes met, and suddenly—

Thank you.

"Wha—?" Duo sat up quickly. He looked at Sei with a mixture of sudden fear and uncertainty. "You psychic or somethin'?"

That is correct. Don't worry about it, Duo. We'll all talk tomorrow. Get some rest.

Duo's brow furrowed. "Wait…doesn't that mean you could've, could've—possessed us and made us tell you to stay?" Duo's mind was racing, and his words, though soft so as to not wake Heero, became more and more panicked. "So—how could you? I trusted you, I—you—"

Sei smiled another sad, sad smile and gently cut through Duo's frightened tirade. "No, Duo. Relax. To use my abilities to influence others is against my principles. Though I don't have such a rule prohibiting listening in on people's thoughts." He turned away. "Good night, Duo."

"But…" Duo was floundering, and he knew it. "How can we trust you?"

Sei paused, his tail moving in a wolf's slow wag. "You tell me." He walked out without a backward glance.

Duo stared after him in fear and astonishment. Slowly, still giving the doorway frowns intermediately as though Sei were lurking just beyond, he settled back down to sleep.

It was as he was drifting off that he heard the words form in his mind. I know it's not much of a comfort to you, but try to take heart from this: that the laws of my people forbid me to harm any of you, since you are my hosts.

Yeah, that's a real comfort, Duo thought sarcastically.

The voice in his mind sighed. I know. You will have to make your own decision. I won't dispute it.

Wait. Why not? Duo asked the voice, suddenly curious. You could rip us to shreds with those claws and teeth, anyway. You wouldn't tell anybody, so no one would be the wiser. Plus, he added uneasily, knowing he was putting notions into Sei's head, if we told you to get out, you could rip us apart then, because we wouldn't be your hosts then.

It doesn't work like that! I'm not a barbarian! Sei drew back somewhat, offended beyond Duo's understanding.

And, just like the abrupt flash of a lightning bug on a warm summer evening, he was calm again. Never mind. Sleep, Duo.

Ok, yeah… The pain from his leg and the ordeals of the last couple of days were taking their toll. Duo was on the edge, where there was nothing before him except the deep waters of blessed sleep.

Just before he dived, he heard Sei whisper to him, and he could have sworn that with the words, a beautiful, ethereal music flowed around him and through him. We are pack.

That night, Duo dreamed of wolves, howling joyously as one.


(1) A rather accurate comparison is this: go outside and look directly at the sun for just a moment. When you close your eyes, you'll see a strange orb—where the sun was on your eyes a second before—on the inside of your eyelids that rapidly changes colors, which are usually some kind of bright neon. If the light was strong enough and you looked for long enough, you can see it when your eyes are open, too. If you disregard the pain (as well as the inevitable blindness) it's actually kind of fun.
Do you enjoy? Please R&R!

I've already got more chapters written, but I'm not sure if I'll keep going with this fic...should I? Let me know.