A/N: A random little drabble I made while listening to the music on my Ipod. The song that inspires this is entitled 'Restless Heart Syndrome' by Sugarcult.

I wanted something different for a change and decided to do this one in the point of view of the people around them, not just one. Will be AsuCaga.

Will probably be a drabble collection. I don't know...

I only own Desmond, the vaguely mentioned coffee maker and the unnamed officers. Nothing else.


Denial is a Poison...


That burns your throat.

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"I'm fine."

Always those words.

Never anything more.

Day in, day out, even amidst the darkness of the late evening, those words never fail to leave his lips.

Apprehensive eyes watched as black liquid slowly filters out of the pot and into a mug. Steam rises and the five men and three women in the room bite their tongues as they wait for the tenseness in the air to disappear. Ignoring the answer to a question that had an all too apparent reason for not being taken seriously, another one was thrown.

"B-but Admiral-… Are you sure that y-?"

"Yes." And the blue haired man walks away bitter and irate, scalding hot drink in hand, pretending as if the lower officer's worry for his wellbeing was that of ill will and not actually concern. The door shuts heavily behind him leaving everything, and everyone, inside the break room to descend into an irreproachable silence in the wake of his leaving. Men, and women, clad in white and blue release the breaths that they never even knew they had been holding as the sounds of his footsteps slowly fade.

And in that brief respite, their eyes turn to the impulsive officer who approached the admiral and voiced his question despite the suffocating atmosphere around their superior, wondering whether or not it was his curiosity, or his stupidity, that got the better of him.

In an attempt to defend himself, the young officer simply flails his arms around in mock gestures that would solidify his argument. "That was his seventh Cup o' Joe in the past hour and a half! Coordinator or not, that isn't normal! How can you not be worried about the guy?"

Many answered with a sigh and fake coughs followed by mutters of 'idiot', some merely laugh at the knowledge that he actually had been keeping count, but only one gave him their reason why. Another officer,much older than he, jaw defined and shoulders leveled stood from one of the couches and looked at him with near emotionless eyes. The sign of a soldier that's been to battle.

"Because Admiral Zala said he was fine, and questioning a superior officer is not in our job description." They knew this all too well.

Still, the much younger officer persisted to make them see what they saw long ago. "Coffee-holic isn't in his either. But it's like he runs on the stuff! Aren't any of you even the least bit concerned?"

"Just leave it be, Desmond." And he cringes at the sound of his name. "It's the same every single day. You should be used to it by now"

Everyone in the room agrees, except for the young, impulsive officer. He still wonders why their most applauded Admiral seemed to enjoy poisoning his body with caffeine in some sort of slow suicide. He wonders why someone so acclaimed as Athrun Zala could look so weary and beaten up without bruises and cuts. But, most of all, he wonders why no one seems to care. He avoids the gazes and trembles in anger. "I'm not used to it. I can't be used to it because whenever he comes in here… Every single time... I don't see a renowned war veteran that I used to idolize, I see a sick man with problems no one even tries to help him with!"

His outburst startles no one. Agitated, he storms out of the room, feeling disgusted by his colleagues' indifference.

And as the sound of his footsteps fade into the distance, the inhabitants of the break room just sigh and go about with their previous business, knowing full well how futile it was to actually try and understand what exactly plagued their admiral in those moments of ritualistic caffeine consumption.

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Written-Sin: Forgive any errors. Was written at night before going to bed. My muse/plot owl... man... thing is a total bastard and works when I don't want it to but not when I need it to...

Naigus: Yes, blame the imaginary fowl, human hybrid that you created for all your writer's block.

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