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"From the Shadows to the Light "Written By: Hemlock Inyx Category: Supernatural/Romance AU Pairings: 2x5x2 Rating: R Spoilers: Mild, if any. Warnings: OOC-ness, yaoi, vampires DISCLAIMER: This chick does not own any of the Gundam Wing characters because they belong to Bandai and Sunrise. I am borrowing them for this fict and will return them in good (if somewhat sticky) condition. I also don’t own Lynn Erickson’s Out of the Darkness, on which this fict is heavily based (well more like a fusion/translation). This fict is written out of love and not for profit, don’t sue. Thanks and enjoy! This is dedicated to: TJ Dragonblade for all her enthusathem for this fic. Thanks for being so crazy TJ. Summary: Chang Wufei had sworn revenge on the creature who had made him less than a man—had sworn to strike him down. Then he met nurse Duo Maxwell, who reawakened all the best parts of his latent humanity. But Wufei knew he was putting Duo at risk—and not only from himself. His old enemy Milliardo took an unholy interest in all Wufei’s affairs. Duo was a fighter, though. He believed in Wufei. He believed that Wufei could be cured of his "condition," that they could find a way to have a life together. But Duo hadn’t reckoned on Milliardo, who was determined to thwart Wufei—and Duo—until the end of time.
" From the Shadows to the Light " Chapter 8 Silence hung in the dusty room for an eternity, and then it was broken by the hollow sound of bare branches scraping at a window. Duo rose to his feet and shuddered, his heart pumping furiously, the blood rushing to his head, pounding in his ears. A vampire. Not possible, just not possible. Things like that--beings like that--did not exist. No, his mind screamed, but even as he was awash in denial, a part of Duo knew it was true. Everything pointed to it. From the moment he'd opened his eyes in this high-ceilinged mausoleum, everything he'd seen and heard, even touched—Wufei’s cold, cold hands and lips--told him that Chang Wufei was a creature not of this space and time. He stared at Wufei, logic warning him to run, to run as far as he could from this thing that stood before him. Run, hide, don't ever let him find him. Grotesque. But still he stared at him, unable to tear his gaze from his eyes. Grotesque, he thought again, but even as the word pulsed in his mind, he knew in his heart that was not the way he felt about Wufei. "Oh, God," Duo breathed. "Sit down," he was saying, his voice smooth, modulated, in complete control, but he shook his head warily. "Please, Duo," he repeated, and it seemed he'd closed the distance between them somehow, but he hadn't moved, surely he hadn't. Duo’s mind reeled, trying to fit what he'd told him around something familiar. And then, grasping at anything that would put his statement into perspective, he told himself that Wufei was no different than someone--anyone--who'd staggered into the ER, sick, disfigured, and he realized suddenly that his shock was mixed with a strange sort of compassion for him. He tried to swallow, but his throat was cotton-dry and his tongue felt swollen. And still Wufei watched him, the way a patient watches the nurse coming at him with a sharp needle. How had he not seen what he was? It was written all over him. He'd been so blind; it was written all over that artfully carved face--in the flickering flame of his eyes, in the way he moved, in the way his expressions chased themselves across his face, materializing under his supple flesh, and in the flare of his nostrils. And then he remembered Wufei’s many evasions. Lust. He lusted so openly. Why hadn't he seen it before? As they stood there facing each other, motionless, the scent of dust and old wood heavy in the air, Duo could feel it building involuntarily, that same, too-familiar ache deep in his belly. All Wufei had ever had to do was catch his eyes with his, and the response in him had been automatic. Had Wufei only been biding his time, drawing out the moment until he'd fulfill his...what? His needs? As if Wufei were reading his thoughts he moved even closer, and he spoke gently, calmly, his soothing voice penetrating his fear, carrying him along a dark, winding river of sound. "My Duo, my sweet, innocent Duo, do not shun me. This was destined, as was our first meeting. Don't you see...? There is no pain. Do you think I would hurt you? No pain, my sweet, gifted Duo..." And then he was only inches from him, his eyes so beautiful, so full of bottomless desire that his belly crawled with the ache, and he knew Wufei was not lying. No pain, no pain--he could submit. It would not be dark and terrifying. The submission, he knew suddenly, would be unspeakably pleasurable, his life flowing into Wufei, his to him, their senses on fire, there bodies pumping as one as he supported his weight, his lips on his .... He could almost feel it, the erotic surrender, to be his, wholly his. Wufei’s head bowed toward him, so slowly, his eyes ablaze, fixed on the beat, beat of his pulse against the thin sheath of flesh. "I will take you to heights such as you cannot imagine," he whispered. "Duo, my Duo..." He was so close. Oh, God, Duo thought, yes. And then something flared within him, an alarm, rocking him as he was closing his eyes. No! his mind screamed. Not like this. No! Duo put his hands between them and pushed at his chest. He was aware of the tremor in his limbs, of the blood rushing through him, pounding. "No," he groaned. "No, Wufei, not like this." He might as well have slapped him. Abruptly the fire died in Wufei’s eyes and he staggered back, his shoulders hunching as he whirled and grabbed the back of the chair for support. "My God, I almost..." he cried, and Duo felt tears rush to his eyes while compassion stabbed his heart. "Leave me!" he said. "That I could have brought harm to you! Leave me!" But Duo knew he wouldn't. Never in his life had anything been so clear. To turn his back on him was unthinkable. "I won't go, Wufei," he whispered. "I won't leave you." Suddenly he turned toward him and seemed to pull himself up, his body collecting strength from an unseen source. "You risk too much. I tell you, go, Duo Maxwell, escape while you can." "You won't hurt me," he breathed. "Just now you could have, but you didn't." "You are so sure of that," he snarled, and raked a hand through his hair. "Do not be too trusting, Duo. I warn you." But somehow he knew he was right. Wufei would not have harmed him. If he hadn't stopped him, Wufei would have found the strength to stop himself. Duo had to believe it. He simply had to. And what he'd said about their meeting having been destined... He had no idea how or why or what unearthly force was involved, but his words rang of truth. "I'm staying," Duo said firmly. "No one's going to hurt anyone, Wufei. There's only going to be honesty between us now." His eyes bored into him, searching, probing, and again he warned him, but Duo was committed now, and all the demons of hell were not going to drag him out of this. "I'm going into the kitchen," he told him, holding his ground. "I'm going to try to get this wine stain out of my uniform and make some coffee. And then I've got questions, Wufei, dozens of them. I’ll be back in a few minutes." He left him there, his knees watery and weak as Wufei watched his go, his face a mask of stone. When he returned ten minutes later Wufei had built up the fire and was standing near the tall window, gazing out, his posture unyielding. Duo sat on the sofa, stiff himself, and took a drink of the strong coffee. "So," he said after a moment, his eyes lifting warily to his back, "why me, Wufei? You could start by telling me that much." A deep sigh came from him, although his body did not stir. "Why you, indeed," he said, and he could hear the pain and self-loathing in his voice. "You said something about destiny," Duo prompted, wanting to hear it all and yet sensing he was treading on very thin ice. "I have no answer for that," he said after a moment. "I know only that I felt a strong need for you from the first moment you opened your eyes in this very room." "A need?" He laughed bitterly. "A need in my soul, Duo, a need I have never known before. Impossibly, it seems I have been lonely for a very long time and have not known it." He thought about that, Wufei’s suffering, and then he asked a question that terrified his and yet had to be asked. "How long?" Slowly, and in a tired voice, he told him. "My God," he whispered. "Yes," he said, still refusing to face him, "My birth was before the discovery of the New World." Duo sat there with his coffee cup clasped in his hands and tried to digest his words. Five hundred years! Unthinkable. "Have you nothing to say?" Wufei asked, and he could see the curl of his lips. "It's a little hard to swallow, Wufei. But I believe you," he said. "I think I've always sensed that, in fact. You...know too much." "Quite so," he muttered. So many questions battled in his head. Five hundred years... "How, how did you get like.., this?" "How did I first become a revenant?" "Yes. I mean, who were you? You said you'd been married." He laughed acidly. "And so I was, my dear--to the temple, you see. I was a...monk." Duo sat back as if pushed. A monk. Wufei a monk. "Rather ironic, wouldn't you agree?" he said. Duo swallowed. "It's...horrible. But how...how could it have happened?" "The question is not how," he said, "but rather who." And he told him that, too, the whole terrible story--his sister, his mother, Wufei himself, and his return to the temple, the confusion, pain and thirst. And then the remembering, the dawning of the knowledge in him of this Milliardo. "I went on my first quest, if you will," he said, "to find the evil one. Of course, I did not find him, but I was on his heels for a very long time. Everywhere I went there had been fear and mayhem. Oh, I knew I was close." "Milliardo," Duo whispered, trying the word on his tongue. "That painting upstairs, the portrait of the blond man..." "Yes. It is he." "And you've never once caught up to him?" "Oh, we have indeed crossed paths." "What happened?" "We struggled. Sometimes we fought physically and sometimes we used politics or finances, trying to ruin each other. But it's very difficult to overcome men such as ourselves, so we have always come to a stalemate." He shrugged eloquently. "But the time will come...." "yes?" He waved him off. "Let us just say the struggle will one day end in the vanquishing of either myself or my old nemesis. Perhaps both of us." Fingers of ice ran along Duo’s spine, and he began to ask him more, but Wufei skirted the subject, saying only, "The less you know of him the better." He told him a lot that night, at least about the places he'd been and the sights he'd seen. Eventually Wufei turned away from the window and went to stand by the fire, where he gazed into the red-hot embers, and he talked, opening up new vistas for Duo, but always, he realized, avoiding certain questions, questions about his true nature. So he asked. "Wufei," he said after his third cup of coffee, "do you, I mean, well, how often does this.., hunger come on?" Wufei turned and studied him and said only, "Periodically. I keep it at bay, but it is always there." "I see," he said, dipping his head, recalling the many times he'd caught his eyes on him, the look in them. And tonight, earlier... But it hadn't happened. Duo would never let it happen. "The man in the park, the one drained of blood," he ventured. "What's going to become of him now?" But Wufei shook his head. "He will recover." "He won't be a... ?" "No, I assure you he will not become as I am." "Then how did you, how did Milliardo do this to you?" "I am not a scientist, Duo," he said. "Perhaps it has something to do with the amount one.., drinks. The number of times. I only know when I must stop." "God," he whispered, "it's so...terrible. And what if you never, you know... ?" "Never gave into my hunger?" Wufei said for him, his tone biting. "I would grow weak. I have grown weak many a time. Forced abstinence," he said with his usual sardonic tone. "I have gone weeks, months, once I even went six years without.., sustenance. It is difficult, but I can control it most of the time, that is, if I do not have to exert myself to any great extent. It is like being an alcoholic, craving, only worse, much worse. And yet, if I do abstain, even though I have grown weak, I do not die. I do not die!" He took a breath. "Wufei, can you die? Are you really.., immortal?" "Ah, immortality," he said. "It sounds quite intoxicating on the surface, but in truth it is a living hell. And as for death, the old tales are accurate. I need only to walk out into the sun to end this cursed eternity.'' "Don't," he said. "Don't torment yourself, Wufei. I can't stand to see you suffering, to hear you..." "And I cannot abide your pity, Duo Maxwell." "It's not pity I feel. It's--something else." He looked at him for a long moment and then gracefully inclined his head. "You are indeed a man of compassion. I have thought long and hard on this as I have come to know you. A gifted man. A healer. I know you do not pity me. But as for understanding..." "Wufei," he said, "are you alive?" He laughed somberly. "I am flesh, as you can see, my dear Duo, and I am also blood." "Stop it," Duo whispered, Wufei’s bitterness was unbearable. "My apologies, that was crude, and I do not mean to be crude. To answer you," he said evenly, "I do live, yes, but it is not life as you know it. It is, rather, a dimension filled with shadows, a place of emotional detachment." "But you have emotions," he said, "and don't try to tell me otherwise. I've seen them." "Emotions. I suppose I do possess feelings of a sort, but they are always intermingled with the accursed need in me, the very hunger that is a lance in my soul." Duo stared blindly at the patterns in the rug. Of course what he'd just told him meant that his feelings for him were all a part of that hunger. Wufei wanted him; he needed him, and Duo knew in exactly what way. Oh, God, he thought. "You must know why you picked me," he whispered, his voice catching. Did Wufei know how much he loved him--had loved him? Or did he still? "You? It was surely your purity. You were a light in my dark world. You are still a light. I have never told any of these things of which we've spoken tonight to another soul. How could I? Duo," he said ardently, "I was a monk. You cannot imagine the guilt I suffered." "Suffered," Duo repeated. "The guilt is always there, but I have come to a kind of acceptance. I try to...atone for what I do. And, you see, mortal man is also cruel. I cannot tell you the atrocities I have seen." "Yes," he breathed. "So, I lost my faith, or rather, shall we say, I misplaced it. I know now the temple was not my true calling. I can never go back." He shrugged. "Wufei . . ." "There are men," he said in a low voice, "far worse than I in this world." "Oh, Wufei..." "We can only play the hand we are dealt," he said. Duo nodded slowly, his eyes moistening, though he couldn't let him see, he'd take it for something else. He forced a mild smile. "So, are there many others like you, Wufei?" "Yes," he said. "And?" "And what?" "Well, where are they?" "All around you. Most are reclusive, as am I. Some live apart from the bustling life in small groups. Their needs are individual, as are mine, I suppose." "How long have there been.., people like you?" "Since the earliest of times. I know of one who saw the pyramids of Egypt being erected." "Good grief," Duo said, trying to fit his mind around that--thousands of years. Inconceivable. It was like trying to grasp the concept of the boundaries of the universe. "Wufei," he said, "do you...well, do you sleep in a, you know, a..."' He laughed bitterly. And then he shook his head at him. "You have seen too many Hollywood movies, but to answer you, Duo, I sleep in my bed." Good, he almost started to say, but instead he said, "Oh, I see." They talked on into the night, Wufei cautious still, as if wary of Duo, and yet he learned. Oh, did he learn! He discovered that Wufei rarely went after humans, while others of his kind--vampires, he thought with a chill--preyed continuously on the weak and even looked forward to wars, all those battlefields strewn with bodies. "Ghastly," he said. "Wufei, you never... ?" "No. Never. That is Milliardo's territory. When ever there is bedlam, hatred or disease, you can be sure he can be found." And then he looked at him strangely. "Does this make me seem better in your eyes, Duo? Does it relieve you to know that I curse my needs and run from them?" Again, the bitterness. "Yes," he said, meeting his eyes. "Well, don't elevate me so highly," he said. "How quickly you've forgotten earlier tonight. Did you think I would have stopped had you not stopped me yourself?" "Yes," he said emphatically. "Then you are naive." He let out a breath. "I think it's you, Wufei, who's being naive now. You had all those weeks, all those times we've been alone in this house to... do that to me. But you didn't. In fact," he said, suddenly remembering, "it was you, not me, who broke us apart once before. Remember? I ran away. How do you explain that?" "Perhaps I was prolonging the conquest." "I don't believe that and neither do you," he said. "You never even touched me, for God's sake! It was driving me crazy. I thought..." "And what did you think?" "That you didn't want me in, you know, that way." He shook his head. "You realize, do you not, that thing of which you speak between two people has never been.., shall we say, mine to experience?" It took him a moment, but then he understood. Wufei had been a monk. Of course. And with that realization came a sadness. He'd never been loved physically, never experienced that. "I can read your thoughts," Wufei said, "and you pity me. But please, do not. I was destined for a life that was rewarding. I was educated. There were compensations." "Yes," Duo said quietly, "I can see you that way. I really can. No wonder at all you've chased Milliardo all these years. And your mother, your sister... "Yes," he said, "there is little wonder that I seek to destroy him." "Can you?" He hesitated a moment too long. "There are several ways. I could drag him into the sun, cut off his head, rip him apart..." "Put a stake through his heart?" "Superstition, mere superstition. It made people feel more secure. Alas, it does not work."' "So, is he stronger than you? I mean, if you haven't been able to destroy him..." "We are very close in strength. Our confrontations require some rest afterward. Were I to succeed in destroying him, most likely I would have to destroy myself, too." "Oh, God." "As I told you once before, I am really a coward at heart. I have little now, but should I die, I would have nothing." "But during the day you could find him .... " "During the day?" Wufei said, an eyebrow quirked. "Of course..." he breathed. "You can't be outside in sunlight. I forgot. You would have destroyed him if you could. I know you would have." "I am very glad you think so." "I wish you wouldn't do that," Duo said, standing, stretching his legs, aware of his eyes following him. "Do what?" "Be so sarcastic. So bitter all the time. I liked you better when you were.., you know, taking me to dinner and the theater and art shows. At least then you seemed to be enjoying yourself." "And now you are seeing my true nature," he said, "and it frightens you. Puts you off." "No. That's not true." "Oh? Can you stand there with the firelight catching in your hair, bathing you in red, for God's sake, and honestly tell me there is no fear in you?" He snorted in derision. Duo turned to face him, ready to deny it all, but the second his eyes met and locked with Wufei’s his resolve weakened. He was partially right, anyway. He could not lie to himself, or to him. The fear lurked, the tales of childhood, the ancient human fear of some-thing different. But this was Wufei, and he knew him. He knew what Wufei was, but then he'd always suspected, hadn't he? "I'm not afraid. I'm wary of relationships," he said slowly. "You're the first man..." "Man!" he said scornfully. "Yes, you're a man," he said, "the first man I've even had a real relationship with, an...understanding. We like each other" He bit his lip. "More than like." "Duo, do not tempt me. It could happen again," he said. It was seductive, to be wanted so, to cause that kind of craving, suffering. Duo had never been desired like that before, and he felt the allure of it. And how could he deny that he wanted Wufei in return? There he stood so handsome and wounded and God help him, he did want him; his belly coiled whenever he even thought about Wufei touching his, kissing him, their hands possessing each other. But did he, could he, conceivably want Wufei in this way? The very notion terrified him, but not in the way he was thinking. He was scared to death that if Wufei came close to him again, he'd be too weak to stop him. Maybe he didn't even want to stop him. Yes, he was frightened. Frightened of his own hidden desires. "Well, Duo?" he was saying. "Tell me that is not fear I see in those eyes." Duo took a breath and tried to tear his gaze from Wufei’s. He was taunting him, trying to make him afraid; in his own misguided way he was showing Duo his naked lust, how powerless he would be to resist it. "I'm not so fragile, Wufei. Remember, I told you that before. My fears are my own and they have nothing to do with what you are." He studied him for a very long time and then finally said, "If what I see is true, then so much the worse for us both." For all Wufei's caution, Duo found out more about his life and his existence, how he managed to go unnoticed in this crowded world where it often seemed as if everyone was constantly, as Duo phrased it, "in one's face." "In one's face?" Wufei said. "You know, getting into your business, your private life." "That is why I pay my agent so handsomely. He keeps my affairs quite private." Duo thought a moment. "Does your agent ever notice that you don't grow older? I mean, surely..." "Now, that is a good question. Were I to remain much longer in this city, he would certainly take notice." "So you'll be leaving," Duo said, and he realized the idea sat heavily in his heart. And yet what could become of their.., friendship? It was so unfair. For the first time in his life he'd met someone who truly meant something to him, with whom he could honestly spend a lifetime, and what was he? A vampire. A man who couldn't feel what he did, who could never share life with him. A monk. He'd been a monk, for goodness' sake! "So sad," Wufei said. "Never have I seen you so unhappy. Tell me your thoughts, Duo." He looked up sharply, tears threatening again. "Can you feel love, any love at all? Tell me, Wufei. You said you needed my company, that you'd experienced loneliness. But what about love?" He knew he'd exposed himself completely. He was desperate and didn't even care what Wufei thought anymore. He'd done this to him, opened up his elegant world to him, wooed him relentlessly. What had Wufei expected? "Love," he said under his breath. "I do not know. As I told you, I have great needs, but they are one with my hunger." He was sitting in a tall wing chair now, his knees splayed, his hands clasped between them. He looked long and hard at Duo. "I can say truthfully that when I leave here I will miss you, Duo. I will forever miss the light you shed on the world of shadows that is my domain. It seems as if I have glimpsed the sun after a long abstinence. Yes, I will miss you greatly." And then Duo did cry. He didn't care that Wufei was a grotesque creature, that he'd hunted the night streets and alleys and forests for all those years. None of that mattered. The only thing he saw was goodness and pain, so much suffering. He'd been given a gift of healing, and still he couldn’t do a damn thing to help Wufei. It was so unfair. Why ? he wanted to cry out. "Do not waste your tears on me," Wufei said, and he rose and began to pace the echoing room. "All I can do now is apologize to you. Apologize for seeking out your company. It was wrong. I knew all along that it was wrong. I was just..." "Just what?" Duo sniffled into a handkerchief. Tears were certainly not helping. "Just that my sense of emptiness became mixed up with the pleasure of your company, and then, of course, there was the.., need in me. I do not deny it. And that is why you should leave this house at dawn and never return. There is great danger for you here, Duo. The very notion that I could lose control and... But you understand that now. To think that I could rob you of your life, deny so many others the miracle of your gifted touch. This sickens me. And yet I know the time would come that my accursed need would overshadow all else. Do you see? The danger is too great." But he really couldn't see. He didn't want to. How could Wufei ask him to walk away and never look back? There had to be another way. What about the destiny he'd spoken of? This couldn't be all there was. "Wufei," he said pensively, "there has to be another way. An answer. I mean, if only there were some sort of cure for you, a way you could reverse what was done to you." He waved aside his words with a gruff gesture. "A cure, you say." "Why not? In all the years your kind have been on earth, maybe there was one of you who somehow reversed his destiny. It's possible, isn't it, Wufei?" He laughed, scoffing at his words, and yet when he stopped Duo saw something else in his expression, a hesitation, as if he were recalling something. "What?" he pressed. "It is nothing," he said, shaking himself free of the memory. "There was something just now, Wufei, I saw it on your face. You just remembered something. Tell me." He made an annoyed gesture. "Rumors, myths, that is all." Duo shook his head. "What rumors? About a cure, a way to reverse ..." "I said they are nothing but fairy tales. Myths." "You must tell me," he urged, his pulse beating a little more rapidly. "Whisperings, Duo, that is all. Whisperings among us that there exists a cure." "Where there's smoke," Duo said, "there's fire." "I did once know of a .being who... Ah, it is merely fantasy." "So is your very existence," he retorted. "Tell me about this 'being', Wufei. What harm can it do just to tell me?" He raised a dark brow at him. "Duo, Duo," he said. "You truly are an innocent." "Humor me, then." "If you must, then I will tell you. But I have never believed in these fairy tales, you need to understand that." "Fine. Go on." "His name was Heero Yuy. I first met him in Russia two centuries ago. He was, perhaps, the only one of my kind that I ever had true communication with. Like myself, Yuy lived a wealthy and miserable existence. We met and we spoke of it and found that we both abhorred what we were, the deeds we had done. We talked till dawn each night for the better part of a year about these things and were able to keep our hunger at bay. I again met Yuy briefly in Madrid, and we renewed our relationship. This was, I believe, in the year 1849. I recall this because be spoke of traveling to the great American West, to see for himself this rush for gold in the hills of California. As well, he told me of Milliardo, who had apparently been in California at the time of the Donner Party disaster, that terrible winter of '46 when the immigrants had been stranded atop a mountain pass and resorted to cannibalism." "You mean this Milliardo was there?" "But of course, my dear. He is often at the very root of evil." "But he couldn't cause all those snowstorms that trapped those poor souls." "No. His powers are not that great. Yet. But he is perfectly capable of breaking an axle on a wagon or destroying food stores. And I believed it when Yuy said Milliardo had traveled along with the emigrating party and caused the many delays in their journey that ultimately brought them to the depth of human despair" A frown contorted Wufei's features, but he quickly masked it. "At any rate," he said, "Heero Yuy was off to the West. The next time we crossed paths was some fifty years ago in Finland. It was during the Winter War of 1939 to 1940, the one fought against Russia. I had heard that Milliardo had gone to... to take advantage of the carnage, and I went to find him. He was gone, but again I met Yuy. And of all things, he had met a man." Duo cocked his head. "Oh," Wufei said, "do not ask me of their relationship, because I never asked myself. Suffice to say that Yuy was of the opinion that he could find this mythical cure and live out his life--his mortal life-- with this young man, Quatre Winner." "And?" "And I have no idea as to the results of Yuy's dream. So you see, Duo, it is all still whisperings. I was not surprised that Yuy would seek a cure, because the man had been--or has been--roaming the earth since the days of Nebuchadrezzar. He was most weary." "But what if he found a cure!" "Duo, I knew I should not tell you of this." "But what if he did?" "If he did, Duo, that was fifty years ago. More. To think that, first, he found this mystic cure, and that, secondly, he would still be alive to tell of it... It is really quite out of the realm of possibility." "Well," he said, "so are you." "Come now, be realistic." "Why? Why wouldn’t you at least try to find out? What can it hurt?" "Duo…" "No," he said, getting to his feet, refusing to be cowed by Wufei’s pessimism. "You said you're miserable. You told me you'd end your existence if you were not such a coward. Well, maybe you are at that." "Duo," he said again. But Duo was holding his ground. "It's worth a try," he said. "You talked about destiny. Maybe this is why we met." Wufei looked at him long and hard and then sighed deeply, suddenly tired. "You ask a lot, Duo Maxwell," he said finally. " And it is perhaps more than I am capable of."
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