Whatever It Takes {MxM} *COMPLETE*

{9} - Waited Long Enough

Rafe cleared his throat but refused to turn for fear one glance at the angel on the bed would soften his resolve to get answers, would make him want to forget the questions and pounce on him just as he always did. Shit! He became no better than a rutting dog whenever he came too close to the temptation that the fragile man presented.

"You should have told me this morning as soon as I awoke, Andre." He said hoarsely, surprised at the husky timbre in his voice. If he couldn't regain control of his thoughts this conversation was pretty much gonna go downhill real quick.

 "You should have told Preston and Sheldon and anyone else who would listen to you. Why did you keep it to yourself? Didn't you think I deserved to know? I was scared for you. I'm still scared for you. Damn you for making me feel this way. Damn you for stealing my heart and not sparing me a moment's thought."

He put his hands to the door and pressed his face to the solid wood, his heart and mind in a turmoil the likes of which turned his stomach and caused nausea to broil over in his stomach despite being hard and horny just moments before. 

He hated this. Hated the fact he had fallen in love with someone forbidden to him, hated that he had so little time to have Andre to himself, hated that he was so damn smitten, he would jump from the hospital roof if Andre so asked it of him right this minute.

He hated it dammit!

"The day before you even came into my life, I was swept unconscious by a pain the likes of which I thought would kill me." came the quiet whisper.

He turned from the door and leaned against it, his eyes focused on the soft troubled planes of his love's face. He would listen from afar for to be close would gain him nothing but a resounding slap due to what he intended to do to Andre once he could get close enough to touch him.

"Before I passed out however, I was able to finally get through to the nurse's station after days of trying fruitlessly. It was a long shot for me to beg for help and actually receive it but I was so desperate I knew I had to try or I would die. Wanda refused me, turned me away. Called me a sinner. Obscenities I don't much care to repeat while I begged and pleaded with her to save my life.

Then, it was as if a distant calm had come over me, a desire to truly let it be the end, for...what was a life lived if I had no one in it worth living for? What was the point of living if everyone wanted me dead? I threw my head back as I felt the claws of darkness reaching for me and I screamed out thinking that was the end...but I awoke not too long after, a fretting Wanda right by my side.

She said she had feared for some time now that my symptoms weren't really consistent with the cancer I had. She was freaked out and fidgety and she kept babbling about how she shouldn't be helping me, how she could quite possibly be disposed of as well. And she said if I so much as hinted at the fact that she was ever here, she would come back and end me herself."

Rafe absorbed every word his angel spoke and though he already suspected something wasn't quite clicking with the whole cancer story, he couldn't bring himself to believe Wanda was in any way involved in poisoning Andre even if her words were suspicious.

But...someone quite close was indeed getting that poison to him somehow and unless he found out who it was, he might lose Andre before he could even save him. He had to report to work every day and every minute he was away from Andre was another opportunity for that person to dose him just a little more.

So what could he do to protect him?

Andre shifted and drew his knees up, resting his face on them as he kept his steady gaze on Rafe. "I suspected that she herself was the guilty one and that in her guilt over what she was doing, she came to save me in the end but then...last night she was different. She didn't care about being seen with me and she didn't shy away from me and refuse to touch me.