"One Way to Cure"
By: Setsuna-X

Summary: 3 months pre-game. Guy is still afraid of women and Luke finds a way to fix that with help from Natalia with an added bonus, of course.
Notes: This is shonen-ai (BL, yaoi, slash) with the pairings being Guy x Luke. This also has cross-dressing elements. No real spoilers.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or anything else to do with "Tales of the Abyss" - I just own the game.


Chapter 1-
Preparations
It was just another normal day in the Fabre Manor. The season had just turned into spring and Luke was once again left with nothing really to do. Guy had no real chores to take care of around the manor and decided to hang out with Luke in his room, just to read a book. The long haired red head was annoyed at being ignored and decided that it was finally time to test his latest experiment.

"Hey Guy," began Luke, laying lazily on his bed, his crimson-orange hair billowed underneath him.

"Hm?" questioned Guy from his place on the floor. The blonde was sitting on the floor with his back leaning against the bed reading a book. Luke crawled over tho where his friend was sitting, trying to get a look at what the older boy was reading. Unable to make any sense of the fon tech and fon machine gibberish the emerald-eyed boy gave up in a huff.

Before he could begin his experiment he had to make sure of one more thing. "Are you still afraid of women?" Luke softly asked nonchalantly into Guy's ear, still looking over the blonde's' shoulder.

"Ahh!" exclaimed Guy as he turned his head and saw that his masters' face was only a few centimeters away from his own. The blonde's' face became mildly heated, adding a pink tint across the slightly tanned skin. Blinking, confused green eyes met his gaze, wondering about the unnatural reaction. "Well," began Guy, scratching behind his head in confused manner, "Yeah, I'm still afraid of them. I mean, I can't seem to remember that one moment of my life."

"I see," said Luke simply, rolling off the bed and heading out of the room.

"Where are you going?" called Guy after him, wondering where the sudden questioning about the subject had come from.

"The bathroom," announced Luke flippantly, his long, red hair framing his body from behind as he swayed his way toward the general direction of the bathroom.

x-x-x

Guy sighed as he placed his book on the ground, no longer in the mood to read it.

'What was that all about?' he thought to himself, confused by Luke's actions. He knew that there was something going on in that pretty little head of his, but couldn't guess at all what it was. "Pretty?" muttered out Guy, surprised at using that word specifically to describe his friends face. He hummed lightly in thought, musing over how the word 'pretty' actually made sense in describing Luke.

Guy picked up his book again, deciding to wait until the red head managed to make his way back, but resolving himself to go look for the sometimes air-headed boy if he took too long. It wasn't his fault that he couldn't bear not knowing where the emerald-eyed boy was at all times, it just sort of happened that way after having to practically raise the boy since he returned from the kidnapping. Or so he told himself.

x-x-x

Luke, meanwhile, ignored his previously proclaimed destination and wandered his way out of the manor. He knew that he wasn't supposed to leave without someone accompanying him, but he wanted to drag in as few people as possible into his little idea. Besides, it wasn't the first time he did this anyway.

He walked over to the wall that lead out into the castle courtyard and crawled around the huge bushes aligned against the wall, acting as a barrier. Once he spotted the spot he had marked with a small smiley face did Luke begin pulling out part of the wall. He had found out that there was a small hole in the manors' outside wall, but instead of letting anyone know he decided to keep this as his own little secret passage in order to be able to sneak out every now and then. After he pulled away enough stones for his body through move through did he make sure the bushes covered up the spot. He righted himself into a standing position and snuck his way into Baticul castle.

He made his way over to Natalia's room, glad that there was no guard at her door at the moment, but knew he had to act fast before someone spotted him. He didn't want to get berated by his father or Guy. He knocked once, to at least give the Kimlascan princess some warning then quickly made his way into the lavish room.

"Luke!" exclaimed the strawberry-blonde girl as she spotted her friend, "what are you doing here?!" she half shrieked and half accused.

"Shh, be quiet will you?" berated Luke, smiling in satisfaction as the princess blushed at the command, knowing full well that a princess of a nation shouldn't act so brash and common.

"Well, what are you doing here? You know that you shouldn't leave the manor. What if people are looking for you?" she reasoned, glad to have regained her proper tone.

"Naw, I just told Guy I was going to the bathroom," said Luke, "but I need your help," the red-head interjected quickly, seeing as his friend was going to go into another tirade.

"Help?" echoed Natalia, "help with what?" she asked, confused as to what Luke would actually need help with. It wasn't everyday the emerald-eyed boy asked for help.

"Well, you see," began Luke awkwardly, not knowing how to begin his explanation. "You know how Guy is afraid of women and all, right?" he asked and continued upon the nodded confirmation from the Kimlascan princess, "I want to help him get over his fear."

"That's very admirable of you, Luke," said Natalia in slight surprise after his usually selfish friends idea. She guessed though that Guy was an exception to a lot of attitudes and things that Luke usually said or did. "How do you propose to do that? And why do you need my help?" she questioned.

"This is my plan: I need to look and act like a girl in order to help him overcome his phobia," stated Luke confidently.

Natalia just stared at the boy in front of her and after a while quietly shrieked "What?!" not really understanding the plan.

"I figured that since I'm male and Guy is afraid of women only then he wouldn't be afraid of me since I'm, well, a boy who just happened to be acting like a girl. Get it?" said Luke, hoping his explanation made sense. He supposed it did since Natalia seemed to be contemplating his words.

"I see," she said, "I guess that does make sense. And where do I come in?"

"Obviously helping me learn how to be a girl!" nearly shouted Luke, annoyed at the princess for not even figuring that out. Besides, he was also a little embarrassed about the whole thing but wanted to do something for his best friend.

"No need to shout," berated Natalia subconsciously, used to having Luke blow up on her every now and then. "Ok, give me tonight to come up with some kind of regime for the next two weeks, and then I'll meet you tomorrow in your room. Make sure Guy isn't going to visit you that day."

"Alright, thanks Natalia," said Luke as he began to make his way back to the door. I should go now before Guy notifies the whole Manor that I'm missing." Natalia nodded her head in agreement and went back to her reading that Luke had so unexpectedly interrupted.

Once out of the castle Luke made it through his secret hole in the wall and made his way back to his room, really hoping that Guy didn't grill him about his whereabouts. Going to the bathroom shouldn't have to take around a half and hour.

TBC


A/N: I just finished playing ToA all the way through and am getting ready to play a second time. After playing I realized I just had to get into reading some ToA fanfiction and figured that I'd like to try my hand in writing some ToA fanfiction as well. I don't think this is going to be overly long, but it will be a chaptered fic. Anyway, thanks to anyone who read.