Well, this is just the results of my sugar-infested bloodstream and boredom... I'm almost happy to be going back to school tomorrow (oh the horror *eyeroll*)

Anyway... Usually I don't write het fics, but I might have to write something pairing Abel with Asta eventually just for the heck of it. Poor Abel.

Warning: Uh... adultish content? There's no sex, but they do talk about it

Disclaimer: None of these people belong to me (*sadpasta*), they all belong to Sunao Yoshida and the other people who do the manga and the anime stuff, so yeah...

Abel was quite minding his own business, strolling back to the suite of the Duchess of Kiev from his sister's quarters. He'd accidently fallen asleep there last night while catching up with his sister (after all, seeing her after several hundred years… well, they had a lot to discuss) and, feeling a bit embarrassed, decided to flee the scene before his sister awoke and decided that climbing into her bed at night made good blackmail material. However, he was quickly distracted by a flurry of whispers and peering, speculative eyes which washed over him.

"Did you see—?"

"I heard last night, didn't you?"

"Yes! The Empress! Why, I never—"

Glancing about, Abel wondered what all these gossips were whispering so avidly about. They seemed to have gathered in a flock of lace-infested colors and jewels to spread the most current rumors amongst themselves, probably in order to humiliate whatever latest rivals were prancing about.

But Abel's brow furrowed when he caught whispers of the Empress… Surely his beloved Seth wasn't having a man over at night! Besides… last night she'd been with him for most of the night catching up, hadn't she?

He frowned.

"There you are, you idiotic terran!" Spinning around, Abel came face-to-face with an evidently displeased Duchess of Kiev. Astharoshe did not seem particularly happy with him at the moment, her claw-like fingers clasping the front of his dark servant's garb."I need to talk with you. Now."

That sounds serious, he thought grimly to himself. Helplessly, he was dragged (almost literally) down the hallway towards the Duchess' private suite, wondering when Asta would develop manners befitting a young lady of her status.

"Asta," he stammered out nervously, fingering the collar of his outfit as he slammed the door behind them. "W-what's the rush? I haven't even done any—"

"Haven't done anything?" she shouted, startling him into backing away a few nervous steps. "You stupid terran! I thought you were a priest or whatever!" Her eyes were very wide and accusing. "I can't believe you did that!"

"Did… what?" Now he was just lost.

Her mouth popped open audibly, rosy red lips parted into a disbelieving O. "You… you… You slept with the Empress!"

For a few minutes her words did not register. Abel stared blankly at her face. What idiocy was she spouting now? Of course he hadn't slept with the Empress! Not only would that be utterly inappropriate (He was, after all, a Catholic priest, and he had taken a vow of chastity along with his vow of poverty.), but Seth was his sister.

"I did not— what are you talking about, Asta?"

Twitching, her eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. "I thought I could trust you…"

"You can!" Abel backed away very quickly, seeing her hand reach for her goddamned spear. "I have no idea what you're talking about, Asta!"

"So you're telling me," she spat, "That you didn't spend last night in the Empress' chambers with her… without a chaperone?"

"W-well, I— N-not exactly, but…"

She stepped closer. "You're telling me that my servant was not sleeping in the same bed with the Empress as well?"

Well… he had been, but it was completely platonic! "I— Well, maybe I was, but I don't… I'm not… She's…"

Obviously, Asta was losing her already sparse temper. "I'm going to kill you, you stupid terran! What did you think you were doing? Are you trying to get yourself killed? Half of the palace already knows about it! The rest will know before sundown."

"I didn't sleep with her… like that," he finished weakly.

"And what was all this moaning and name-calling I keep hearing about, then? The Duchess of—"

"I don't know what the Duchess of something or the Countess of so-and-so told you!" he exclaimed. "I quite assure you, Asta, I did not copulate with the Empress. Surely you don't think that'd I'd…" It was just… just so wrong.

"And if you weren't then what were you doing there, priest?"

Gulping, Abel managed a pathetic smile. "Well, you see, we're kind of… ah… old friends you could say." Even to his own ears that didn't sound like a very good excuse.

"Uh huh…" She didn't believe him.

"No, really!" he continued. "Ask her if you want to! I'd never do something like that! It's just… not right! I'm a priest."

"That just makes it worse, terran."

He wanted to resentfully inform her that he did indeed have a name and that it was Abel, but he didn't think she'd take well to the teasing at the current time.

"Don't lie to me," she hissed.

"I'm not lying!" he wailed. It was the truth! Well, not the whole truth, but she'd never actually believe him if he told her that he was a nine-hundred-some-year-old vampire that eats other vampires whose baby sister was the Empress of the methuselah empire. That sounded positively ludicrous!

"I'm not—"

"That's enough, you two."

Both Abel and Asta nearly toppled at the sudden appearance of none other than the Empress herself. Relieved, Abel gave a half-hearted wave in his sister's direction, a grin weakly etched across his pale features. "Oh, hello Seth," he murmured.

"Hello to you, too, brother," Seth replied, rolling her eyes. "I heard about the rumors and decided not to let my children slice you into little bits."

"How kind you are," Abel muttered, pouting.

"My Empress, what— surely he's not… But… He's a terran!" Asta seemed a little at a loss for the moment. Her wide eyes swiveled from Abel to the veiled Empress and back again. "He's not even a methuselah!"

"Uh, well, actually…"

"Now's not the time," Seth chided, smacking him lightly on the shoulder. "I'm not sure how this got out, but unfortunately I cannot allow it to continue. Things are getting a bit ridiculous. I did not scream about anything last night, nor did the guard actually witness my brother and me fornicating in my bed. In fact, we were having a nice peaceful chat until somebody fell asleep and wouldn't wake back up. The most ridiculous, however, is that I've had a lover for months and am now with child."

"With… child…" Abel's stomach churched. "Seth… Don't even joke!"

"I'm not joking…"

"So… basically… everyone thinks that the lowly terran servant of the Duchess of Kiev has been sneaking into the Empress' bedchambers for months, is her secret lover and that we're expecting our first child." Abel lifted his hands, rubbing hard at his now-throbbing temples. Today was not a good day.

"Precisely," Seth said with a grin. "I know just what we need to do to fix this, though, if you'll just follow me please."

"Uh… I don't think so…" As a rule, Abel was not going to let himself play into one of his sister's little schemes again. It was bad enough when they were children and she had him blamed for sneaking into the cafeteria storerooms for extra chocolate chip cookies… or the time she'd convinced everyone that he and Cain had stolen a month's worth of extra-large condoms and had a list hidden in their sock drawer of all the ladies they would deflower by the end of the month. That hadn't been a fun day either.

"Aw, c'mon," she whined. "I won't let them do anything bad to you, I promise!"

"Define 'bad'…" Sighing, Abel nervously looked over at her from the corner of his eyes, while Asta was just staring at them as if they'd just beamed through the atmosphere and claimed to be migrants from Vega.

"Oh, hush you!" She grabbed his hand, dragging him towards the door. "We need a plan! This is going to be so much fun!"

Oh dear God, why do you hate me so?

And so that was how, later that day, Abel found himself perusing the gardens with Seth on his arm, pretending to admire the exotic flowers which bloomed there in droves, their brilliant colors bright against his sensitive eyes in the broad daylight. They were supposed to be alone—it was the Empress' private garden, after all, and a beautiful one at that—but both he and Seth could easily hear the patter of footsteps which mocked them from a few feet away and see the glimmer of hiding, spying eyes. Both pretended not to notice a thing.

"Beautiful day, isn't it?" Seth said in a ridiculously breathless voice, which made Abel want to roll his eyes. She leaned against his side, arching up on her toes. "It's so romantic, isn't it, Abel?"

Forcing himself to melt his face into the most ridiculous grin (Cain often had told him that he looked like a lovesick fool when he thought about food, so he imagined a steaming cup of milk tea with thirteen lovely spoonfuls of sugar) plastered onto his face. He must've looked goofy to make her giggle genuinely. "Yeah…" Letting his eyes fall into a downcast position, he pretended to look shy.

Seth pulled them to a halt, spinning around to face him. Abel found both of his now-ungloved hands captured in her small, seemingly delicate grasp. "Won't you look at me? You're pretty cute, you know."

"R-really?" he stuttered, eyes wide and flattered at her compliment. "You're looking rather glorious yourself, Seth."

Giggling like a lovesick teenage girl, Seth fluttered about, batting her eyelashes teasingly. "I haven't gotten to see you in forever Abel. I'm so glad we got to catch up last night. I really missed you."

"I missed you, too." He leaned closer, squeezing her hands. His words were the truth, and sounded more sincere to his paranoid mind. "I'm glad to be back."

"You didn't run into too much trouble, did you?" Seth knew he hadn't, but she asked anyway, diverting them away from any more false, sickly romantic and sappy interaction, which Abel avoided at all costs. (Noelle had been bad enough…) "Are negotiations with the Vatican going well, then?"

The twittering behind the rosebushes paused and floundered. Abel could almost hear the gears turning in their eavesdroppers' heads. "Everything is going quite well, Seth."

"Excellent…" She let her face fall into a downcast expression. "I suppose… that you'll have to leave again soon, won't you?"

Equally saddened at the prospect of leaving his living, sane sibling once more, Abel's expression was not at all feigned. "Yes, I will have to go back fairly soon. The Duchess of Kiev will only host me so long before she gets sick of 'the annoying terran' after all."

"Aw… are the poor terran's feathers ruffled?" Seth teased, poking him in the nose and causing his eyes to cross for a moment.

Abel caught her hand once more, folding his expression back into seriousness. "Be careful while I'm gone," he warned. Cain was, after all, still quite on the loose. Who knew what the bastard was up to now? Leaning down (quite a ways, too, because she was rather short, now that he thought about it) Abel pressed a kiss to each of her cheeks, which she did in turn. "We wouldn't want anything to happen to our dear Empress, would we?"

"Of course not, brother dearest," she chirped back, swatting him playfully over the head. "I just wish that people would stop with those stupid rumors. They're so scandalous! I mean, really… you and me…? That's just preposterous!"

Abel made a face. "Like I would ever do something so horrible to my baby sister!" he exclaimed, sounding almost disturbed. "There better not be anyone else doing that to my baby sister either…" he growled warningly.

She hit him again. "Since when is it your job to make sure your nine-hundred-year-old sister is a virgin?" She mocked gasped. "That's none of your business, you pervert!"

"P-pervert!" he gasped out, looking scandalized. "I'm a Catholic priest, Seth!"

"Oh, stop being so serious," she muttered, poking him, "Or I'll tell everybody about the time you and Cain had that bet about whose—"

Abel slapped a hand over her blabbing mouth, scowling. "I don't think anyone needs to know about any bets I made with Cain," he said weakly, remembering many an unpleasant incident that had resulted from their teenage shenanigans. If anyone found out about that, there really would be a scandal at Court.

"Bet they wouldn't believe that my prude of a Catholic priest brother once had an entire shouted conversation about one of the nurse's boobs over the loudspeaker. I heard they were pretty amazingly large—"

"SETH!"

"—which makes me wonder why I haven't heard about how large the Duchess of Kiev's boobs are yet. Don't tell me an old pervert like you hasn't looked."

Abel's cheeks burned. He was quite sure that Asta was around here somewhere listening. "Well, I— that… that's none of your business!"

"If you say so, then… You aren't sleeping with her are you?"

Mortification flooded through him from head-to-toe. "I'm not having this discussion with you…" But he had thought about it… more than once… maybe.

"Oh, I see…" Seth grinned mischievously. "Not expecting any brats, are you?"

"I'm going to strangle you," he threatened rather unthreateningly. "And then I'm going to resurrect you and strangle you again…"

Why did I sign up for this again? Oh yes… to save my baby sister's reputation.

He was beginning to regret being so compassionate.

"You'll have to catch me first, brother!" she called in a sing-song voice, swishing her skirts about playfully. "If you can, that is."

Without hesitation, he darted after her, only to have her prance around him. Losing his balance, the priest found himself lying face-down in the newly trimmed grass. "Asta's going to kill me…" Rumors of their unborn children would be circulating by tomorrow morning.

"Priest, what's the meaning of this?" The shriek made the fidgety, silver-haired man jump in fright.

"W-w-what are you talking about, Asta?" he asked quickly… too quickly.

"Oh, I think you know exactly what I'm talking about." A slender hand wrapped around his throat, lifting him right off his feet. With wide eyes, he stared down at the Duchess of Kiev, who looked like she was about to have a heart attack. "This morning I go call for breakfast and the first thing I'm asked is 'The morning sickness isn't bothering you, is it Mistress?' and the second thing said is 'I've had this specially prepared for you; I heard it should help you keep up your strength'." The last part was hissed. "What. Did. You. Tell. Them?" Each word was punctuated by a rough shake. "That I was having sex with you? Everyone thinks I'm—" She cut off with a face that clearly spoke what she thought of the idea of fornicating with a lowly terran. Abel gulped.

"N-n-nothing!" he cried, quite truthfully. "I didn't say anything!"

She dropped him. "If I were you, I'd run pretty fast, priest, because I'm going to MURDER YOU!"

Abel did not hesitate.

All afternoon was spent running and hiding from a very angry lady methuselah. She had almost caught him with her spear twice, and he'd been forced to crawl back to Seth on his hands and knees (literally) to beg for protection, which she grudgingly had granted. Locked up in his baby sister's closet amongst a sea of frilly, silken gowns, Abel couldn't help but wonder why these things always happened to him.

Uh... yeah... I can't resist picking on Abel. He's pick-on-able, or whatever the word is for that, if there is one. *is-rather-tired-and-doesn't-feel-like-thinking-right-now*

Once again, review if you wish to