Rowen yawned and rubbed his eyes, trying to get the early morning sand out of them. He flung one arm out of the bed, groping blindly for his watch. He found it, and was pleased to discover he hadn't slept till noon. It was only 11:30. The guys were going to be surprised.

        As the last remnants of sleep left him, he sat up and looked at his roommate's bed, which was already impeccably made. Rowen didn't understand Sage's penchant for making his bed. He was just going to sleep in it again anyways. Which was why Rowen's bed was never made.

        Rowen got out of his warm bed and threw on a t-shirt to complete his morning ensemble, which consisted of the t-shirt and some well-worn blue boxers. He made his way downstairs, following his nose to Cye's cooking. Even though it was almost lunch time, Cye always had some sort of breakfast food waiting for him. Kento also took advantage of the situation by having a continuous breakfast until Rowen got up. Such was the scene that greeted him as he walked into the kitchen.

        "We-e-elll, look who decided to grace us with his presence so early this morning," Kento said, through a mouthful of toast.

        "Can it, Kento," Rowen said as he helped himself to some toast as well.

        Cye looked up from the recipe he was reading. "Somewhere you have to be this morning, Rowen?"

        "Nah, just felt like getting up, is all."

        A crash, followed by several muttered obscenities, interrupted them.

        "Whatinell was that?" Kento asked.

        Sage came pounding down the stairs, covered only in a large green towel that rode low on his hips. He was soaking wet.

        "Cye, I swear to God, if you don't find some way to keep the water temperature the same in this house..."

        A grin played around the corners of Cye's mouth.

        "It's not funny. How would you like it if the water suddenly turned ice cold? Pretty soon I'm going to call a plumber."

        Cye mock gasped. "You wouldn't! Ohh, the humanity!"

        Sage growled. Or, tried to. His teeth were chattering too much.

        Rowen chuckled. "Why don't you go put some damn clothes on?"

        Sage colored somewhat, then turned and went back up the stairs.

        Ryo walked in and saw Sage's retreating half-naked body. "What was that all about?" he asked, pointing his thumb in the direction of Sage.

        "Oh, he got all in a tizzy because someone didn't leave him hot water," Cye said, with a pointed look at Kento.

                "What can I say? I'm a big guy, I need lots of water. Besides, he should get in there before I do if he wants hot water. Geez."

        "Then he tried to make me feel responsible for it. He even threatened to call a plumber."

        "He didn't!" Ryo laughed.

        "Speaking of showers, Rowen, why don't you take one?"

        Rowen raised an eyebrow at Cye. "Why, do I smell? Shut up Kento."

        "What?"

*****

        When Rowen finally had his turn at the shower, he realized there were no towels left. Of course, this wasn't until after he had gotten out. Since his room was right across the hall, he never brought his clothes in with him, and he had thrown his nighttime dress down to be washed. He decided he would risk running to his room.

        He poked his head out the door. Convinced that coast was clear, he made a break for it, and closed the door to his room behind him. It didn't register that he usually left the door open, and that he shared the room with Sage. He turned around and saw his roommate staring at him blankly.

                Rowen paused like a deer in headlights for a fraction of a second before spreading his hands and saying, "Forgot my clothes." He then proceeded to remedy the situation. Sage was still looking at him.

        "What?" Rowen asked, pulling on some boxers.

        "What possessed you to do that?"

                Rowen straightened and looked at his friend. "Nothing. It just slipped my mind. Besides, you know I never bring clothes with me, and someone used all the towels. So what was I s'posed to do?"

                Sage shrugged, and returned to meditating. Or tried to. Rowen's wraith-thin body kept interrupting him. The multitude of scars also disturbed him.

        Sage wasn't one to pry into anyone's life, but he was too curious to ignore those scars.

                "Rowen?"

        "Yeah?" he answered, his voice slightly muffled due to the shirt he was pulling over his head.

        "Can I ask you where you got some of those scars?"

        Rowen stiffened. "Well, most are from fights."

        "Most?" Sage hadn't missed Rowen's tension.

        "Yeah. Look, Sage, I really don't want to talk about it."

        Sage frowned, but decided to let it go. For now.

*****

        "Cye, if you wanted information about someone, but they didn't want to give it willingly, how would you go about getting it?"

        "What on earth prompted that, Sage?"

        "Answer the question first, then I'll tell you."

        Cye thought for a moment. "Well, I suppose it would depend on how well you know the person."

                "Very well, like a relative."

        "Hmm. Does the other person trust you?"

        "I hope so."

        "Hmm. Do you trust this person?"

        "Yes."

        "Hmm. Then my suggestion, Sage, is to leave well enough alone and wait until they're ready to tell you. Trust the other person's judgement. Now, what is this about?"

        "I don't think I should tell you. You should probably hear it from him first." With that, Sage walked away.

*****

        A week later, when Rowen came home from a night on the town, Sage was the only one who heard him. Being across the hall from the bathroom didn't help his hearing much, especially when one of the housemates decided to be sick. Rowen was rather loud when he was sick.

        Sage got up and opened the bedroom for Rowen, whenever the blue-haired archer got around to coming to bed. He noticed a light coming in from under the bathroom door, which was unusual for Rowen, who never turned the light on at night, even when he was throwing up. Sage opened the door a crack.

        "Rowen, you okay?"

        A groan from the vicinity of the floor made him look down.

        "Oh my God," Sage breathed, and hurried to Rowen's side.

        The front of Rowen's blue shirt was stained to almost black with the blood dribbling from his mouth. The toilet and surrounding floor were also covered in blood. Thinking that Rowen might have been externally injured, Sage pulled Rowen's shirt off despite his feeble protests. Seeing no outside wounds, he tried to talk to Strata.

        "Rowen, come on, you're freaking me out. Talk to me. What happened?"

        "Ughnn, don't know. Throat hurts."

        "Anywhere else hurt? Your sides, chest, back?"

        "Hmmgmn, chest, a little."

        "Probably from coughing. Can you stand? I want to get you in the tub so I can clean you up."

        Rowen managed to get to his knees and crawl into the tub. Sage had to strip the rest of him, and debated whether or not to throw away the bloodstained clothes. He dropped them into the pool of blood at the base of the toilet. He would throw them away later.

        "Think someone slipped me a mickey," Rowen mumbled. He was getting more coherent.

        "What would make you cough up blood?"

        Rowen shrugged, and let Sage douse him with water.

        About an hour later, Sage finally got Rowen to bed. He slept fitfully, and seemed to have trouble breathing. Sage extended Halo's healing power to his friend, and Rowen's breathing eventually evened out.

*****

        The next morning, Rowen awoke before Sage. It was still dark out, but Rowen couldn't sleep. He tried to remember the events of last night. All he could come up with was somebody that kept ordering drinks for him, and that had tried to get him into a car. He had no idea how he ended up home. Rowen suspected Strata was involved. His throat was a little raw, and his chest still hurt, but he knew they would go away soon.

        Rowen's next problem was to figure out what he had been drugged with. It would take some research to find a drug that made one's lungs bleed. He would work on that later. Movement from the bed next to him told Rowen that Sage was awake.

        "Rowen. Are you okay?" the swordsman asked concernedly.

                "Yeah," he rasped, astounded at the condition of his voice. He scrunched up his face. "Any water here?"

        "Hold on a sec, I'll go get you some."

                When Sage returned, Rowen was sitting up in bed. He drank the glass of water thankfully.

        "Ugh. Sage, thanks. For everything you did. I appreciate it."

                Sage shrugged. "What're friends for? Anyways, I didn't want you waking up the whole house. Cye would have a conniption, Ryo probably would have burned the city down, and Kento, well, would have been Kento."

        "So I guess me'n'you are the most logical of the five of us, eh?"

        "Took you long enough to figure that out. Wanna tell me what happened?"

        Rowen frowned. "All I remember is someone who kept ordering drinks for me and then tried to get me into a car. Then I was here, drowning in my own blood. I think Strata had something to do with getting me home." Rowen swung his legs out of bed, stood up slowly, and stretched. It was then that he realized he was bare-ass naked.

        Sage turned his head, grateful for the darkness that hid the heat rising to his face. This was the third time he had seen Rowen sans clothes.

        "Oops," said Rowen, and climbed under the covers again. "Thanks for cleaning me up too. I can imagine it wasn't pretty."

        Sage snorted. He had gotten a better chance to see some of those scars though. Many of them were in...uncomfortable places. He watched as Rowen stood again, this time taking the blanket with him. He put on the obligatory boxers and a t-shirt.

        "Are you gonna tell the guys about this, Sage?"

        "No. For the same reasons I just said."

        Rowen blew out a breath. "Good. Can I ask you something?"

        "Sure."

        "Why does it seem like you get all uncomfortable when you see me naked?"

        Leave it to Rowen to be blunt.

        "I mean, it's not like we haven't seen each other before. Besides, we're all guys here. Well, except Mia, but that doesn't count."

        Sage's mouth worked, but no sound came out. ~I just hadn't noticed before,~ he thought.

        "Is it because of the scars?" Rowen asked quietly.

        Sage's head came around. "No, no! I-I just hadn't noticed them before, is all. And I just didn't know how to approach you about the subject." He was stuttering and babbling at the same time. ~Nice combo, Sage!~

        Rowen looked relieved. "I know you asked about them before, and I guess I can tell you."

        "Rowen, you don't have to if it makes you uncomfortable. I was just curious."

        "No, really, it's okay. I want to tell you. I'm sure you saw them when you cleaned me up anyways. You kinda surprised me with the question earlier, and I wanted to have time to think about how to explain. Some are from the war with the Dynasty, but most aren't."

        "Yeah, you said as much before," Sage said, getting comfortable on his bed.

        Rowen thought a little before continuing. "Ummm, I guess you could say that I didn't have a very pleasant childhood. My mother was hardly ever around, and when she was, well, she ignored me. My father was bad."

        It was a generic word for his father, Rowen knew, but he also knew that it fit perfectly.

                "He liked to drink. No, he ~loved~ to drink. Booze was his best friend. He would come home drunk and just be obnoxious. When he wasn't drunk, my father was the best man I knew. Well, until I realized he was an alcoholic, then I tried to stay away from him. I guess it all started, or ended, depending on how you want to put it, when he took me with him to his bar."

        "He brought you to a bar?!" Sage exclaimed, sitting bolt upright.

        "Yeah. He and my mother had gotten into a shouting match over who would have to stay home and babysit me. I was ten or eleven at the time, I don't remember. My mother just got up and walked out, so I was stuck with Dad. He already had plans to meet his buddies at the bar, and he took me with him. The bartender didn't notice me, so my dad got a chance to put away a few beers and such before the shift changed. The new bartender told my dad that he couldn't have me in the bar with him; it was against regulations and he could have his liquor license revoked. My dad got all pissed off and stormed out of the bar, yelling at me for ruining his night. He smacked me around right then and there in the parking lot. It was the first time he had actually laid a hand on me violently."

        Sage was silent, waiting for Rowen to continue.

        "He busted my lip, but that was it and we went home. Of course, by then it was already too late. He knew that he could smack me around to vent his anger and no one would care, not even my mother, since she was never around. And she ignored me anyways, so what did it matter?" Rowen grimaced, and swung his right leg out of bed. "See that?" he asked, pointing to a long, thin scar that ran from his ankle to his knee. "I was trying to get away from him one day when I tripped and fell. I started crawling, but he pulled out a knife and cut my leg. I think I was thirteen. Over one hundred stitches, that one. If he had gone any farther, I would probably be crippled."

        "Why didn't the doctors do anything?"

        "For one thing, my father never took me to the hospital. My mother did. She covered for him. My mother could lie to the pope and get away with it. We never went to the same hospital twice in a row, either. It cut down on questions." He raised his left arm and turned towards Sage, pointing to another scar near his armpit. This one was wider than the one on his leg. "Never knock icicles off the eaves, you could get hurt. That's what my mother told the doctors, anyways. The truth about that one crosses my drunk father with an icepick. Icepicks aren't made for slicing, so it ripped the skin apart. I was twelve."

        Sage involuntarily shuddered.

        Rowen raised his shirt, showing a dark, circular scar on his left side near his waist. "Don't get in my father's way when he's working on a 'project'. That's from ye olde blow torch. I didn't go to the hospital for it, though. I just laid around with a cold washcloth on it. I was fourteen."

        "Why didn't any of your teachers notice?"

        "Well, my father, unfortunately, was not stupid. He never touched me on weekdays. He only kicked my ass on weekends or during vacation from school. He never hit me somewhere that wouldn't be covered by clothes or otherwise hidden. And he made sure I got the best treatment at the hospitals."

        "Rowen, I'm so sorry. I had no idea."

        "How could you have? Don't worry, it's not your fault. It's not mine either. I know that."

        "Do you have a picture of your dad around here somewhere?" Sage asked, in a moment of inspiration.

        "Yeah, somewhere. Why?"

                "Good. I'm going to study it. That way if I ever see him on the street I can kick the shit out of him."

                Rowen laughed outright. "Get in line!"

        They both sat in contemplative silence for a while.

        "You know what scares me, though?" Rowen said quietly, all humor gone from his face. Sage turned to him. Rowen never admitted he was scared, not even during the war.

        "I'm afraid I'm going to turn out like him."

        "Rowen, that's not gonna happen. The guys won't let it. Mia won't let it. ~I~ certainly won't let it happen. You are one of the strongest people I know, next to my grandfather. If you've survived this long, put up with so much and came through it still sane, then I think you have nothing to worry about."

        Rowen shook his head. "But you know how they say that alcoholism is genetic? Well, what if that's why I go out all the time? What if that's why people put things in my drinks, cuz I drink so much? Gods, Sage, I'm not even ~legal~! What happens if I have a kid of my own someday and I can't stop drinking? Will the vicious circle start again? For all that you say I'm strong, am I still destined to be just like ~him~?" Rowen was wide eyed and wild looking. "Sage, you have to stop me! I don't want to end up like him! Oh wow, I'm really off, aren't I? Maybe it's the drug I was slipped!" Rowen stood up and started pacing the room. Even in the dusky pre-dawn light, Sage could still tell that his friend was sweating. Rowen's blue forelock was plastered to the bridge of his nose.

        "I haven't felt like this in a long time. No, it's not the drug, Sage. It's me. It's finally happened! I've gone ~nuts~! Again! Sage, I saw a psychiatrist a while ago, right after the war. She gave me something..." He whirled, and started rummaging around in his dresser drawers. He pulled out an orange perscription bottle of pills. "Eureka! Sage, you're the first person I've ever told about my family, about my life. I haven't had to use these in a long time. Please understand. 'Do not mix with alcohol'. Hah! Fat chance!" He held up the bottle. "Look! Sage, look at my hands. I could hammer a nail with the way they're shaking! Oh my God. Sage, make it stop. Make it go away. Make the pain stop!"

        Sage had never seen anyone so distraught. He did the only thing he could. Sage stood up, walked over to the shaking Rowen, and encircled him in a bear hug. Rowen struggled a little at first, but then gave in and started to sob.

                "Shhhh, Rowen. It'll be all right. We're here for you. I'm here for you. There's nothing that can hurt you now. I meant what I said about seeing your father on the street. Now I won't stop at kicking the shit out of him. I'm going to kill him. Hush, quiet Rowen. Calm down. I'm here."

        "Don't leave me alone," Rowen whispered, and clung tighter to Sage. Sage manuevered them both to a bed where he sat down. Rowen never let go.

        "I feel so foolish, Sage," he choked out between sobs. "I've never cried in front of anyone before. I always held it inside. What made me lose my control?"

                "I don't know, Rowen, and I don't much care, either. What I do care about is seeing you getting back your normal arrogant, smart-ass attitude. Come on, where's the Rowen that laughed at Ryo when he got scorched by the oven? That pointed out that Cye didn't know the difference between a goldfish and a guppy? That ratted on Kento when he ate all of Mia's Valentine's gift to Ryo? Hehehe, that yelled at me because I complained the sun was hurting my eyes at the beach one time?"

        Rowen gave Sage a watery grin. He was still sniffling, and taking a few gasps for air, but he pulled away from Sage and looked him in the eyes.

        "Thank you."

        Sage smiled. "Why don't you try to get some sleep? The guys won't notice."

        Rowen crawled under the covers. "What about you? You've been awake too."

        "Yeah, but I'm used to it." He leaned over and pulled the blankets up to Rowen's chin. "Sleep," he said softly, and planted a kiss on Rowen's forehead.

        "What was that for?"

        "I dunno. Something my mom used to do when I went to bed every night."

        Rowen gave him a lopsided grin. "Thanks, Sage. If it helps me sleep better, could ya do that more often?"

        Sage blushed slightly. "If you want..."

        "Yeah, I want. I owe you a lot for tonight, Sage. Oh, and if you're wondering, those pills are for depression and anxiety. But like I said, I haven't had to use them in a while, and I don't intend to start now. Good...morning, Sage." He rolled over and promptly started to snore.

        Sage stood and watched his friend sleep for a while before going to his own bed and lying down. He was tired, emotionally and physically. He couldn't sleep, though. He kept going over the events of the past week. If he didn't know any better, he would think that Rowen was trying to seduce him. Or maybe that was just Sage's overactive imagination. But why would Rowen want him to kiss him goodnight? Why was Rowen so nonchalant about letting Sage see him nude? As far as Sage knew, Rowen was not that open with the other guys. Sage really admired Rowen for staying strong. Was that the source of his infatuation? Sage sat up in bed. "Good Lord," he whispered. "I'm falling in love with him." It wasn't ~Rowen~ being nonchalant, it was Sage blowing everything out of proportion! Sage's family would never approve of a pairing with another male! ~What am I going to do? I'm supposed to be the aloof one! Should I tell Rowen? No. That would make things worse. What about the other guys? Would they understand?~ he thought. If he had a crush on someone else, he would go to Rowen immediately. Who would he go to if he couldn't tell his best friend? Ryo, the leader? No. Cye. It had to be Cye, if anyone. He could trust Cye to keep quiet, too.