Chapter 11

Guy walked quietly through the halls of the Fabre's Manor. His footsteps echoed on the tiles. The late afternoon sun spilled light onto the floor through spotless glass. The halls were mostly empty.

Guy was first up and out of bed as his own sleeping habits caused him rise early in the morning. He had taken sleeping pills to regain the lost hours of previous night, but they had barely caused him to drop off till lunch when his stomach became his own biological alarm clock.

Ironically enough, waiting in the kitchen was none other than Jade, looking as though he'd slept peacefully for months on end. He smiled ignoring the grumpy stare of disbelief Guy gave him. He leaned back against the wall and shrugged his shoulders appearing innocent. The playfulness about his actions was what taunted Guy the most.

"You couldn't sleep either, huh?" A more feminine voice proped. He turned to see Tear making herself some tea. She was standing across the room from Jade, over an exceptionally clean draining board.

"No," he sighed." The only ones who seem to be able to some decent shut-eye are Asch, Luke, Anise and Ion." He didn't include Natalia as he knew she'd be up earlier than every one around him now.

"You might want to scratch Ion and Anise from that list, they were both in here earlier." Tear held a steaming mug to her mouth and blew gently over the scolding liquid to cool it. "I think they may have ran off to the library."

Turning back to Jade, Guy now noticed the wine glass in the man's hand. "A little early to be drinking?" The man kept his smile while taking a sip.

"We all have our ways of dealing with things, Guy, for example, sleep. Or lack of it in this case."

Ignoring the issue due to his lack of interest in continuing it further, he changed the subject to something that had been bothering him since he'd sat down and thought about it. Given that he was in the presence of a less than sober colonel he hoped to harvest what information he could with the absence of those involved.

"Speaking of sleeping... You'll never guess the pair that I saw snuggled up this morning." Tear's ears perked up in interest. Jade gave him a side long glance, urging him to continue. "Luke and Asch are in their old room together, it would seem they've been getting much closer recently."

Tear's eyes seemed to melt slightly they way they normally did when she found something cute. Jade seemed slightly relieved. Somehow, Guy figured it wasn't for same reasons as he or Tear.

Jade set his near empty wine glass on cabinet behind himself before excusing both himself and Guy from Tear's presence. They walked silently down the corridors till they reached the guest room Jade and Ion were sharing. It was a moment before Jade began speaking.

"Do you know about Asch's current condition Guy?"

Guy shook his head, he knew that tone too well. It never spoke good news...

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Asch groaned as he awoke with a familiar stiffness in his bones. He blinked away the droplets of sleep from his eyes before trying to adjust to room's dull light. Upon the realisation of where his current location, any remaining dreariness faded. It was his old room.

Not precisely his room, it hadn't belonged to him in years, but still, he couldn't help but think of it in such a way. He had always hated the colour, but both his 'parents' always seemed to be too busy to change it.

There was a small growl next to him and Asch looked down at Luke, who was grumbling in his sleep. Asch could only assume it to be caused by a nightmare of some sort. Until Luke grabbed him, pulling him back down onto the bed and clinging to him like a child to a teddy bear. Dear Lorelei the kid could hold on!

When he finally managed to squeeze out of Luke's hold, Asch sat up on the bed and looked out the window. It was either sunrise or sunset, he really couldn't tell.

Some incoherent mumblings caught his attention as he became vaguely aware someone was trying to cuddle up to something that wasn't there. Asch sighed, he owed the kid this much after worrying him sick and dragging him through the deserted streets in the early hours of the morning.

He settled down quietly next to the younger and, within seconds was pulled into the younger's arms. Luke settled his forehead onto Asch's shoulder, the smooth cure of his nose seemed to fit perfectly when Asch turned in towards it. Soft hands found their way to the small of his back and rested there lightly clasped on top of each other.

The atmoshere around them seemed so relaxed that Asch hardly noticed when Luke murmured something peacefully in his sleep.

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"Dammit... I had no idea, but I suppose it would make sense as to why he used to get so angry all the time." Guy was kicking himself now after what he'd just heard. He honestly should have known what was going on in the red-head's mind. Until now Guy had always blamed Asch's temper on grief, hatred and the loss of his childhood dreams. But an illness? A thought like that hadn't ever occurred to him, Asch always seemed like to strong willed a person to be overcome to an illness.

Even as a child that man had an indelible will of iron. Guy could remember a cold winter's day when Asch had gotten sick and wanted to play in the snow. His mother told him no, his father told him no, Guy told him no and yet Asch still insisted yes. The child had opened the window in the middle of the night and built a tiny snowman on the ledge. He stayed in bed for a mouth afterwards. This wasn't exactly the same as that time, but still.

Guy sighed heavily as if trying to make sense of what to do next. Jade noticed and decided to leave the man to his thoughts, turning at the door he left some words behind him.

"Don't interfere Guy. I know how hard it might be for you, given your relationship with both boyes, but stay put on this." Guy caught his wrist as his hand went to turning the brass nob.

"You right you have no idea how hard this is for me, but you can't just tell me something like that and expect to stand by and let it kill them both!" Guy's voice was only a hoarse whisper through his teeth but Jade could still hear the cold fury in it.

"Guy, if you do anything that will alert Asch of the knowledge you have about him it will kill off any remaining pride he has left in himself. Think carefully Guy, Asch has lost almost everything; he lost his family when he was kidnapped... he was used by the only person he had ever trusted... he has few people he can call 'friend' -or trust for that matter- and sometime in the short future Asch will die or have to take a cure which will burden him psychologically for the rest of his life. A year ago we both stripped him of his freedom by telling him to stay here, the least we can do for him now is leave to him the only thing that he has left."

Guy was in shock. He mouth opened and closed. He wanted badly to argue back, but a part of him understood everything that had come out of the others mouth and knew that he was bitterness of the situation cut into him as if it were a blade. He withdrew his hand and turned to face the window of the conjoint guest room.

"I know it's hard, knowing what's going on but being absolutely helpless doing nothing but watching it happen. And it's not like all hope is lost... there is that. But we both know such a thing is out of our control. " Guy scowled at that thought, there was little or nothing he could do about any of this.

Without second thought Guy paced over to the window, flicked the latch with a practiced hand and pulled the handle.

Jade simply stared at him. "Force of habit?" He inquired his head cocked to the side.

Guy paused sitting on the ledge. "Yeah, I never really got used to using the doors in this place." Without waiting for an answer he hopped off the ledge onto the grass, leaving the window open behind him.

Jade didn't close it as he left.

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AN: Sorry it took so long this time, haven't been too well recently...

As a side note, please don't blame me for spelling errors I use FF's spellchecker -blame it.