Cancel
by Alleyprowler
Pairing: 4+5
Rating: T (language)
Warning: Deals with addiction and all that it implies.
Summary: After thirteen years with the Preventers, Wufei has all but given up on himself.

The knocking wouldn't stop. Wufei, who was lying on the sofa playing dead, finally cracked one eye open and then immediately shut it again. "Go away. I don't have the money right now," he croaked in the general direction of the door. God, he hurt.

"I don't want money," said a familiar voice. "And I don't want to break your door down, but I will if I have to."

The voice was familiar, yet difficult to place. His brain wasn't ticking over normally yet. Not that it ticked over in anything resembling 'normal' these days anyway. "Quatre?"

"Yes."

Ye gods. Of all the people to see him in this condition... "Look, I'm sorry, but I'm not really up for company right now."

"So I've heard."

Wufei wondered what the hell that was supposed to mean, but then a fresh wave of nausea rolled over him and he couldn't think anything at all. He hung his head over the edge of the sofa and retched.

"Wufei?" Quatre sounded alarmed.

Wufei wouldn't have answered even if he could. Quatre had no business here--nobody had any business here. He coughed and retched again, hoping against hope that this time something would come up--

The metallic clicking and ratcheting noises he had been hearing and dismissed as unimportant culminated in the familiar sound of the apartment door opening. The hinges had been a little squeaky ever since that time he had chucked a bottle tonic water on it in a fit of uncontrolled rage.

Wufei fought down the nausea enough to raise his head and glare blearily at the Quatre-shaped silhouette in the doorway. "You didn't set the deadbolt," Quatre explained, as casually as if he had been discussing the weather.

"Fuck."

"It's okay, I don't think I damaged the door lock. Did you throw up?"

Wufei pulled himself back onto the sofa and closed his eyes. "I don't throw up."

"That might be a problem," Quatre said. He sounded very close. Wufei felt a cool hand stroking back his hair and nearly jumped out of his skin at the unexpected touch. Quatre chuckled. "No offense, Wufei, but it smells like there still might be some blood in your alcohol stream. Mind if I open some windows?"

"Just close the damn door."

Quatre closed the door, locked it, bolted it. He opened the windows without pulling back the curtains or raising the blinds. Wufei felt a tiny bit of gratitude over that.

"I'm just going to put some things away," Quatre said, and there was a rustle of plastic.

"What things?"

"Some supplies, food..." From the kitchen, the sound of the refrigerator door opening. "Which it looks like you needed. Oh my God, what is that?"

The kitchen was a mess. Wufei knew that, and knew he should have felt ashamed of it, but he couldn't work up the energy. Besides, it was Quatre who had barged in on him. He deserved whatever he got.

Water ran in the sink, making Wufei realize how horribly thirsty he was. He tried to remember the last time he had drunk something that wasn't flammable and couldn't...but then again, he couldn't remember much of anything since he'd been suspended. Not that he particularly wanted to.

"Here, take these," Quatre said. Wufei opened his eyes and saw him holding two pale pink pills in one hand. In the other a glass of greenish-yellow stuff that was either a sports drink or antifreeze.

He accepted both without bothering to ask what they were, reasoning that if Quatre was going to kill him he would have found a quicker and more surefire way than poison. He guzzled half the drink, took the pills, then chugged the rest in a couple of sloppy swallows.

Then he leaned over the edge of the sofa and lost it all.

Quatre leaped out of the way with remarkable agility. That was the only concession he made to the fact that Wufei was turning himself inside-out all over the bleached oak flooring. Wufei wished he would yell, get angry, be condescending, or something, but he just stood there and watched quietly for a moment before heading back to the kitchen.

The cramping eventually stopped, but Wufei didn't raise his head. He didn't want to. There was something horribly fascinating about seeing the two perfectly-preserved pink pills in the middle of the mess. Aside from being a little wet, they might have just come out of the bottle.

"Okay," Quatre said, coming back from the kitchen with more pills and more of the fluorescent drink, "let's try that again. Slower, this time."

Wufei drank again, slower this time. His stomach was strangely calm. What he had told Quatre earlier about never throwing up had been true. He had no recollection of ever having done so, anyway. In spite of the immense relief it had given him, it wasn't an experience he was eager to repeat.

Quatre found the paper towels. Without a word, or even a wrinkle of his nose, he got down on his knees and began to mop up the mess.

"Why are you doing that?" Wufei asked, wondering if he was asleep after all and was having a bizarre dream.

"It'll eat through the finish if I leave it," Quatre said.

Ask a stupid question... Wufei tried another one. "Why are you here?"

Quatre merely gave him a solemn look before gathering up the soiled towels and heading back to the kitchen, where he proceeded to make cleaning-up and putting-away noises.

Maybe that was okay. It was a fact that the kitchen was not as clean as it might have been. It was also a fact that Wufei hadn't felt like cleaning it up lately. It didn't seem to matter much. When he bothered eating at all, it was usually takeout or something he could shove in the microwave. Once in a while he bought groceries just for the sake of form, but they usually ended up getting thrown out. Or, more and more often, they simply rotted into a gluey sludge at the bottom of the refrigerator.

It was fucked up. He knew it was fucked up. He knew he was fucked up. He just didn't care.

"Wufei..."

Wufei turned his head. Quatre was drying his hands on a dishtowel. His sleeves were rolled up and the front of his shirt was waterspotted. Wufei could hear the chug of the dishwasher coming from the kitchen. How long had he been dozing?

"Have the pills kicked in yet?"

"Huh?"

"Your stomach. How are you feeling?"

"Better," Wufei said with some surprise. Here it was only a few hours past noon and he felt almost human. That had to be a recent record.

Quatre seemed pleased. That was funny. It wasn't he who had had the boulders rolling around in his skull and the uneasy stomach, after all. Why should he look so pleased? If he had simply looked happy Wufei would have written it off as a usual Quatre-expression, but pleased? If that expression was meant to set Wufei as ease, it was achieving the opposite effect.

He wanted to get up, if only to see what the hell Quatre was up to, but when he started to sit up his back and right side nagged at him fiercely. He lay back down, grimacing. It felt like a pulled muscle. Vaguely, he wondered when and how he had done it, but he supposed it didn't really matter.

"What do you want to eat?" Quatre called from the kitchen.

Wufei sighed and threw an arm over his eyes. "Quatre, you don't have to cook for me."

"It's no problem. I scraped that, er, whatever it was off your stovetop. I could make you an omelet."

Wufei's stomach burbled. He slapped it. "We can order takeout if you're hungry."

"The last thing you need right now is lots of salt and grease. You need some real food. I brought some chevre and fresh mushrooms. Or cheddar and green onion if you'd rather."

The man was an unstoppable force. "Toast." Wufei said.

"Toast?"

"You put bread in the white box with all the crumbs around it, and about a minute later, toast comes out. It's like magic."

Quatre snorted in what might have been amusement, but when he came back from the kitchen it was with nothing more elaborate than a couple of slices of toast on a plate. Wufei thanked him and watched warily as his erstwhile houseguest circled the room looking for a clean surface to sit on.

"Just throw it on the floor," Wufei advised as Quatre contemplated a leather armchair covered in old newspaper, greasy food wrappings, and a pair of gym socks.

Quatre peeled a sock off the seat of the chair--it was stuck, somehow--and decided to sit on the floor instead. "Wufei, I'm sorry if this is an embarrassing question, but do you need some money?"

It was a good thing he had waited till Wufei was finished eating before asking such a thing. "Of course not! Why would you think I needed money?"

Quatre regarded him solemnly. "When I came to the door earlier, you said something about not having the money."

The towering rage Wufei had been building up to collapsed like a house of cards. "Oh. I did say that, didn't I?"

"It's okay if you need some. I can make a blind transfer and no one would know where it came from."

Wufei tried to draw himself up indignantly, which was difficult to do while he was half-reclining and covered with toast crumbs. "I don't need your money. I've got plenty of my own."

"Okay." Quatre rested his cheek on his fist. "I'm sorry if I insulted you, but it worried me when you said that."

"Thanks for your concern. There are just a few creditors I've not gotten around to dealing with...yet." How many months had he been neglecting that credit card? Was it three? Four? Had he even kept up with his taxes? "But I'll do that today."

Quatre smiled. "That's good."

"I'm glad it meets with your approval," Wufei said sourly. He didn't want to deal with his finances. Hell, he'd had a hard enough time dealing with breakfast. But now that he had said he would do it, and he supposed it needed to be done anyway... Shit, this was going to be more of a reality check than he wanted right now.

Slowly, so as not to interrupt the temporary peace he had made with his body, Wufei hauled himself to his feet. The toast stayed put. Quatre watched him with interest, but kept his butt on the floor and held his tongue. Thank goodness for small mercies.

"I am going to take a shower first," Wufei said, "and then I'll get it all straightened out."

"Okay."

"Don't interrupt me while I'm working. And don't clean anything."

"Whatever you say, Wufei."

It took three long, frustrating hours for Wufei to square things with his bank. Three hours in which he uttered the phrase "I ordered what?" too many times, followed by calls to various retailers canceling whatever idiotic purchase he had made. Then he canceled two of his three credit cards, just to be on the safe side. That was a nightmare all on its own, and by the time he was finished, he had a nasty headache.

He staggered out of the spare room he used as an office and into his bedroom, hoping to get some rest, but was thwarted by Quatre, who was stripping the sheets off the mattress.

"Oh, for the love of--Quatre, what are you doing?"

Quatre smiled over his shoulder. "I was bored and there was nothing on TV. Where do you keep your linens?"

If Wufei had possessed the energy to do so, he would have snapped Quatre's neck. "You mean you haven't snooped around enough to find that out yourself?"

Quatre gave him a mild smile as he bundled up the sheets. "Okay, you can make the bed. I'll just wash these."

"Why are you doing this?

"It looked like you needed a hand, and since you weren't feeling well..." Quatre shrugged eloquently. It was a 'you're living like a pig' shrug. A 'you obviously can't take care of yourself' shrug. A 'you're a hopeless drunk' shrug.

Wufei could feel his pulse beating angrily in his temples. He seemed to feel that a lot these days. "I don't need it," he said in a low, slow voice.

"Need what?"

"I don't need looking after. I am fully capable of looking after myself."

"I know you are, but...Wufei, you're upset. Do you need something to drink?"

"No, I don't need something to drink! And I don't need you hovering around like some interfering maiden aunt. Go find something else to do. Go!"

With a final, significant smile, Quatre left the bedroom.

Quatre rapped on the door once. "Wufei, it's time to eat."

Oh for fuck's sake. Why was he still there? Wufei had been wallowing in guilt and heartburn for the last hour or so, quietly resolving to prove himself right, that he did not need to drink, only wanted to very badly. There was a difference.

"I'm not hungry."

The bedroom door was locked, but that meant nothing to Quatre. Half a minute with a twisted paperclip and he was in and crouched down by the bed. "Do you feel okay?" he asked, kneeling down and brushing his cool hand over Wufei's forehead.

"I'm not sick."

"That wasn't what I asked."

Briefly, Wufei wondered how the blond would react if he bit him.

"Wufei, talk to me. Why are you in bed at seven o'clock?"

"Because that's what I do when I'm depressed." Wufei closed his eyes and rolled over, pulling the blanket with him.

There was a sigh, then a couple of clunks as Quatre toed off his shoes. Wufei knew what was going to happen next, but he didn't do anything to stop Quatre from climbing into bed and curling up behind him. Wufei let him. He didn't know why--normally anyone who tried to do that would get the edge of his hand through the throat. Not that anyone had ever tried before.

"Do you know what I do when I get depressed?" Quatre asked after a quiet minute or two of blessed silence, in which Wufei had become used to the warmth and weight at his back.

"Probably something sensible."

"I lock myself in the basement and throw darts as hard as I can at a blown-up photo of Wing Zero."

"Why the basement?"

"It's soundproof. I yell when I throw the darts."

"You're strange, Quatre, did you know that?"

"The point is, there are ways of dealing with depression and frustration that can actually do you some good. You used to be pretty good at martial arts. Did you keep up with that?"

Wufei turned his head to scowl at his bedmate. "Can't you see what kind of shape I'm in these days?"

"I never really developed a feel for hand-to-hand combat," Quatre said as if he hadn't been on the receiving end of a really piercing gaze. Or maybe Wufei's eyepower wasn't up to par. "You'd think with all those older sisters I'd have learned something, but I could never get over my squeamishness about actually punching someone. All I feel comfortable doing is blocking, dodging, and running really fast."

"Hm," Wufei grunted noncommittally.

"You could teach me."

"Right," Wufei snorted.

"What, you think I can't learn?"

"I'm sure you can learn. You're not the one with the pickled brain, after all."

"It must be tiring to carry around so much self-pity all the time," Quatre said in a carefully neutral tone.

Now that was fucking rich. "Oh? And I should be proud of myself...why?"

"Because you're Wufei Chang."

The prickling behind his eyelids was probably due to fatigue and sensitivity to the light. Probably. Wufei blinked the irritation away.

"Well," Quatre said, sitting up, "I'll put your dinner in the refrigerator for you. Have a nice nap." And with a quick pat to Wufei's shoulder, he was gone.

It was all very well and good to lie in bed and mope, but even with all the things he needed to think about, Wufei could only do so much before he got bored. He could not sleep. Concentration eluded him. His body, in a twitchy state from what he supposed was withdrawal, was screaming at him to move.

So he moved. He stumbled when the floor wasn't where his feet expected it to be, but he managed to catch himself on the edge of his dresser. Shit. If it wasn't his balance, it was his eyesight, and if not that, it was his stomach. Whatever happened to those days when his entire body agreed with itself?

He batted the answer away and concentrated on making it to the door without tripping over his own feet. He knew it all too well.

Quatre was in the living room, sprawled out on the lounger with a book open in his lap. He looked up and smiled as Wufei came in. As if he was genuinely happy to see him. "Hi. Ready for some food?"

Wufei shrugged. "I suppose so," he said. He held up a hand when Quatre made to extract himself from the lounger. "Never mind, I can get it myself."

"Okay," Quatre said, and went back to his book.

The fridge had been cleaned. Not just cleaned as in denuded of all the former food products which had been taking on a new life, but cleaned of the cold beers he used to settle his stomach in the mornings. Wufei couldn't believe it. It was one thing to clean a man's fridge, but to throw out his beer?

In something close to panic, Wufei whirled around and tore open the doors to the pantry. The bottom shelves were empty. That could not be. He began to shove aside boxes and cannisters and bags of stuff, searching for one bottle, just one, but there wasn't even any fucking cooking sherry. Outrageous!

"Wufei?" Quatre had padded silently into the kitchen on stocking feet and was staring at him as if he'd gone mad.

He exploded. "Don't tell me you threw it all out, Winner. How could you--hundreds of credits' worth--unbelievable!--did you at least do it where the neighbors couldn't see?"

Quatre swept hair out of his eyes; a nervous gesture. "I didn't throw anything out, I just put it where you weren't likely to see it. I thought it would help."

It was as if a switch had been flipped in Wufei's head. His panicked, ratlike anger evaporated all at once and he was left wondering why Quatre was cowering against the wall like that. Then he realized that he actually had Quatre cornered and, while he wasn't exactly looming over him (he wasn't tall enough to do that), he was brandishing a large box of cereal at him rather threateningly. "Oh."

"It's in the utility room, behind the water tank. I can get it if--"

"No." He stared at the box in his hand stupidly. Had he just been about to brain Quatre with a box of corn puffs?

"Wufei, I don't mean for this to be a torture for you. If you really need--"

"I said no." He was perspiring. Shaking, too. He set the cereal box down on the counter and wiped his forehead. Was this what it felt like to go mad? If so, he could see what all the screaming was about.

He felt a hand press against his back and another hand rest lightly on his upper arm. Apparently Quatre was done doing his cornered-animal imitation. "Wufei, are you all right?"

The only answer Wufei could give was a gruesome-sounding gust of dry laughter. Human speech was not capable of communicating how not-all right he was. The only reason he wasn't falling apart at the seams was that he didn't have the energy to do it, so he simply let Quatre lead him to a chair and sit him down. He thought Quatre was muttering something about malnutrition and blood sugar, but he must have misheard. Surely he was talking about straitjackets and padded cells?

But no, apparently it had been about food after all because a steaming plate of it materialized on the table before him.

"Please try to eat," Quatre urged, setting down a knife and fork. Wufei stared at them, shook his head a little and picked up the fork.

It was odd to have a stomach full of actual food rather than liquid fuel at this time of the evening. Wufei couldn't decide whether it was an improvement or not. He felt somewhat bloated and uncomfortable around the middle, but the shakes had stopped and his mind felt clearer. Not calmer, but clearer. There was a distinction. Before, he had felt unbridled; now he felt unbridled with an edge.

When he was finished, he cleaned up after himself and walked slowly into the living room, taking deep breaths. Quatre was sitting rather stiffly on the edge of the lounger with a bulky black backpack at his feet.

"You're leaving?" Wufei asked. Somehow he had gotten it into his head that Quatre was going to be staying overnight. That had been his entire reason behind his vow to lay off the booze for the night, in fact, and if Quatre left, then there would be no point. No point, and worse, no one to make the point to.

Quatre nodded. "I have a reservation at the Summit."

"Cancel it," Wufei blurted out before his brain caught up with his tongue. The startled look on Quatre's face let him know how vehemently he had made his declaration, and he felt himself grow warm with embarrassment. He scrambled around furiously to come up with an explanation. "It's an overpriced fleabag," he said. "It ought to be condemned."

"It looked fine to me," Quatre said uncertainly.

"Trust me."

"All right...Wufei, are you okay? You look flushed."

Blushing, for heaven's sake! Wufei tried to lower his blood pressure by sheer force of will. "The food was a little spicy."

"I'm sorry. I tried to keep it mild."

The look of contrition on Quatre's face made Wufei look away. "It's all right. And you might as well stay here tonight."

There was a very uncomfortable beat or two before Quatre asked, "Are you sure?"

"Yes." Of course Wufei was sure. He needed a witness. He needed a safety valve. He needed a goddamn minder, and Quatre had practically presented himself wrapped up in a bow. There was no way he could leave now. "Don't worry, I'm not going to get smashed and make an ass of myself."

"I wasn't worried about that. I've been imposing, and I thought you might need some time to yourself."

"You're not imposing."

That's good to hear," Quatre said, taking a step toward him. Wufei resisted the urge to take a step back. It was a habit these days, keeping an arms' length between himself and others for fear his breath would give them a secondhand high.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Quatre placed a cool hand on Wufei's cheek. "You're sweating a little."

"I'm fine, I said." Wufei swatted the hand away. "I just need to wash my face."

"All right." Quatre sat back down and began to toy with the TV remote.

Wufei went into the bathroom (which had been cleaned, he noticed) and turned the cold water on full blast into the sink. He really was sweating, curse his traitorous body. It was clamoring like a child for some sweets. The shaking he could hide just by keeping his hands by his sides, but the sweating--or worse, the dry heaves or the giant hives he sometimes fell victim to when he couldn't get a drink--were impossible to disguise. That was why he had stopped working overtime, stopped going to after-hour functions, eventually stopped going out altogether. A man should suffer in private.

He washed his face and brushed his teeth, being careful as always to avoid looking in the mirror. He rarely looked at it these days, not even to shave. He could not unsee the little snarls of burst capillaries in his cheeks and nose and the yellowing of his sclerae. He could, however, avoid another look. There was no sense in torturing himself further.

Quatre had the news on the TV and was chewing on something crunchy when he came back to the front room. "Better?" he asked.

Wufei merely grunted in response and lowered himself into a chair.

"Want some apple?" Quatre asked, offering him a plate with peeled and sliced fruit on it.

Wufei grimaced at the sight of food and put a hand over his griping stomach. "No."

"Sorry," Quatre said. He looked like he wanted to say more, but he closed his mouth and turned his attention back to the TV.

"I know what I look like," Wufei said.

Quatre pressed the Mute button for the television, but remained mute himself. He was all eyes, leaning forward slightly in his chair in what seemed like a silent invitation to confess all.

Confess. What a word. "I look ten years older than I am...hell, I feel ten years older than I am, and I know it, and I know why, and I can't stop it," he began, and then the whole mess came out. Sometimes the words came so fast that he was practically tripping over them, and sometimes they came with great reluctance, but they came anyway and would not stop coming.

In no particular order, Wufei went over a sketch of his life since he had joined the Preventers thirteen years previously. How he had quickly lost his idealism and become first embittered, then jaded, and, ultimately, too callous to feel.

He talked about the long, lonely period where he had jumped into bed with anything that had a pulse, and the even longer, lonelier period where he had sworn off sex altogether. He said some very bitter things on the topic of relationships, then took them all back because he had to confess he didn't know what the hell that really meant.

He talked about his work, about how he had alienated Sally Po to the point where she quit the force and gone to work on the Mars terraforming project just to get as far from him as humanly possible. The endless string of partners who had followed her, the longest of whom had lasted only three months. The disciplinary problems, the reprimands, the transfers, the ultimatums.

He talked about the counseling, the therapy, the various disciplines had tried. The flirtations with various forms of spirituality, each of which had turned out to be as deep and meaningful as his sexual encounters. The devastating conclusion he had made--that he had no soul.

He talked about the various ways he had tried to make himself feel less, or feel more, or feel normal. The licit and not-so-licit drugs. The tests of his physical endurance. The borderline-suicidal stunts he had pulled. The edges he had walked.

And then he ran out of words and the only thing he had left was the pacing, the endless back and forth across the worn path in the floor. His breath came streaming out of his nostrils and his mind racing faster and faster, trying to catch up with his feet.

Then he felt a pair of arms go around him. Strong arms. Warm, solid, real.

They stopped him in his tracks.

"Wufei, let's go to bed," Quatre said.

Wufei nodded and let himself be led.

Too few hours later, Wufei woke up from a thin, confused sleep and turned his sandblasted eyes at the shades. The colony light was pink, shading toward yellow. It was early, but not so absurdly early as to lie around in bed when he knew he wouldn't be able to get back to sleep.

He wanted to. He longed for sleep. He craved it much more than he had ever craved anything in his life; a long endless sleep with no dreams and no desires and no sense of his body...of himself.

But that wasn't going to be. The daylight was real. He felt thirsty and feverish, and it didn't help that Winner was half draped over him. He sidled away from the warmth and carefully moved the foreign arm from around his waist and back to Quatre's side where it belonged. Quatre slept on, oblivious, as Wufei slid out of bed.

He downed a couple of glasses of water, but it didn't help much. He put on some coffee he didn't want and began to pace the length of the kitchen restlessly. There was a sensation in the very center of his body, something like hunger and something like sickness, although it was neither of those. It was need.

Wufei had been ignoring it, suppressing it, and trying to purge it ever since Quatre had walked through his door. He didn't want to fight it anymore.

With a horrible sense of inevitability, he crossed the kitchen and opened the door to the utility room. It was dark, but he found the shelving with his hands. Some stuff clattered to the floor as he searched, and something broke open and let out the eye-watering odor of solvent, but Wufei soon found the clinking cardboard box. It was packed full. He groped for a bottle and pulled out brandy, which was good.

The coffee was almost done. Wufei poured some into a mug, not caring if it was slopping over onto the counter. He poured in the brandy, being a little more careful about it. His hands shook badly, and he had to use both of them to bring the mug to his lips. He drank.

It burned like a fire which warms but does not consume. The shakes stopped immediately. His heart settled into a more peaceful rhythm. The knotted muscles in his neck and throat and shoulders melted away, his lungs opened, and he took in such a breath that it seemed to flutter the curtains. Suddenly, color returned to the world, along with a calm silence in which he fancied he could hear every cell in his body sigh with relief. He drank again.

"Wufei?" called a sleepy voice from the direction of the bedroom. "You makin' coffee?"

Wufei froze with the mug at his lips. Quatre shuffled in, brushing his hair out of his bleary eyes. They were blue, Wufei saw, or maybe green. Funny how he had never noticed that before. "Did I disturb you?" he asked, striving to sound casual.

Quatre shook his head. "No. I needed to get up anyway." His sleepy eyes homed in on the coffee maker...and presumably at the open bottle beside it. "Is it all right if I have some?"

Wufei's heart gave a huge, whacking thump in his chest. Was Quatre asking for coffee, brandy, or both? "Er, sure. The cups are over there."

"Thanks." Quatre took a mug from the shelf and poured it full of coffee. "It smells good," he said.

"Thank you."

He waited for Quatre to make some remark, or at least to acknowledge the bottle with a look. Sleepy or not, the man could not be totally oblivious. But Quatre seemed content to stand there and quietly drink his coffee. It was quite unnerving.

"D'you mind if I use your shower?" Quatre asked at last.

Since that was the last thing Wufei had expected to hear, he gaped stupidly for a moment before stammering out an affirmative.

Quatre took a long time in the shower, long enough that Wufei had time to down another coffee, another brandy.

When Quatre finally came out, he was dried and dressed in a pressed shirt and trousers. He had his backpack in one hand and his old clothing in the other. He gave Wufei a tight smile as he passed into the front room and began to pack his things in the bag.

"Don't you care?" Wufei suddenly blurted out when he couldn't stand the silence any longer.

Quatre stopped packing and sat up slowly. He was obviously shocked. "Of course I care," he said in a quiet voice. "I care more than I can say."

"Then why haven't you said anything?"

It was strange, commented a distant, cold part of Wufei's mind, how Quatre could smile while tears welled up in his eyes. He hadn't thought such a feat was physically possible. He watched as Quatre rose, took slow steps toward him, then placed a careful hand on his shoulder.

"I've been saying things to you for years now. You didn't want to listen."

What the hell was he talking about?

"That's okay." Quatre's hand was very warm against his skin. "I thought that actions might get through to you, but I suppose you're not ready."

This was, bar none, the most bewildering conversation Wufei had had in recent memory. "Not ready for what?"

"I can't fix you, Wufei. That's not within my power."

"Then what were you doing here?"

Quatre crouched down to Wufei's eye level and stared at him mournfully. He cupped a hand around the back of Wufei's neck and pulled his face slowly, gently, yet inexorably forward. "I was hoping," he whispered, his lips bare millimeters from Wufei's ear, "that you would ask me for the one thing I can give you."

A mere few measures of brandy could not explain the flush Wufei felt throughout his whole body, nor the pounding of his pulse. He could barely hear himself as his blood thundered in his ears. "What can you give me?"

"Help."

And before Wufei could recover himself, Quatre was gone.

End