Written for the prompt: How about some pining!Britt. Britt is completely in love with Kato, but Kato is dating someone else.

Britt took another long swallow of the amber liquid, strait from the bottle. The taste was still as strong as the first but the burning went away after half of it was gone. He was so far gone, that he didn't even protest when Lenore wrenched the empty bottle out of his hands and forced him to stand up.

It was a bit of hell getting him into bed but she did it. She was just about to the door to leave, when she heard him say the same thing he had been saying for a week or so now, every time she poured him into bed.

"I was a day to late,"

Lenore was waiting in the garage's side room when Kato came in. There wasn't even a mild look of shock on his face.

"He got drunk again didn't he?"

She tossed him the empty bottle.

"That would be a yes," He sighed. "Why is he doing this?"

"I have no idea, hasn't he said anything to you? Because all I get when I ask is, 'just something I'm dealing with' "She said, imitating Britt's voice.

"He just kind of pretends that I didn't say anything or tells me I was speaking Chinese, which I wasn't, I think just to confuse me,"

"Well he has been saying something, every time I put him into bed," She bit on her thumb nail.

"What?"

"He says 'I was a day to late,'"

"A day to late for what?"

"That's what I'm not sure of,"

Kato paced for a few minutes, thinking. "Well what if I stayed in with him tomorrow, see if a boys night will get him to open up,"

"Don't you have plans with Michael?"

"We've been seeing each other for about a month now and my boss, greatest friend is having some sort of crises, I think we can be apart for a day,"

"Ok," She stood to leave. " Just…" She put her hand on his shoulder. "Get our old Britt back,"

The next morning, Britt woke up with a groan. He reached with one hand for the aspirin and water he knew would be on the bed side table.

Grabbing them, he took the medicine and curled deeper under the blankets, not wanting to face the world.

Once the med's kicked in, he was more or less ready to come out of his cavern of blankets, still he didn't want to. Mostly he didn't want to have even the possibility of seeing Kato and his man. Britt sighed, no one should be worth destroying his liver for, but Kato was, even if they could never be anything but friends.

Britt sighed again, a tear escaping, as he thought about what was going on around him.

Kato had met Michael about a month or so ago and once they had a few dates they were now inseparable.

For the first couple weeks Britt was ok. Well not ok, ok but getting along. He figured Kato would be sick of this guy soon enough but that didn't happen. What really was the straw that broke the camels back was hearing the two of them go at it, in the little side room off the garage. That was when Britt realized Michael wasn't going anywhere. That night Britt drank more than he had in a while. Each night it became more and more. Soon it would be not just one whole bottle but two.

More tears started falling as Britt curled into a tighter ball.

"So close, so close, so close," He muttered, more tears falling.

And it was close.

Because a month or so and a day ago, Britt decided to tell Kato his feelings. That he loved the Chinese man. He however was stuck in an air port and felt it was to special to say over the phone. He had to go to some conference thing out of state and the weather took a turn for the worse as the time drew near for him to board. It took forever for the storm to clear up. He didn't get back in town until two days later.

The day after Kato met and fell for Michael.

One day to late.