I have to stay awake. I simply must.  If I fall asleep, Nightmare will yell at me because I almost died and I kicked him  in the stomach, and to make matters worse, Gray will yell at me too because I almost died and kicked Nightmare in the stomach-- he had to clean up a lot of blood, and force Nightmare to take his meds.

Coffee.... I need coffee.

Gotta avoid sleeping at all costs.

Coffee coffee coffee.

Though it was pitch black outside, I exited my room and made my way to the kitchen, unknowingly passing Julius.

"...Alex?" Immediately, I halted in my tracks. "It's 2am, why are you awake?"

Julius was sitting in the exact same spot I left him....... a while ago, when I left to sleep. And on the floor lay an unconscious ( in other words, sleeping) Ace. 

As I turn, I narrow my eyes. "No, Julius... what are you doing awake?"

"I'm working." He replies, unamused.

"I'm... I'm also working."

Blue (or purple? Who knows, man) eyes scan me with curiosity. "And what exactly are you doing?"

Putting my hand on my hip, I do my best to do what I do best. Bullshit my way out of situations. "My business is my own, Julius. As a fellow working man, you should understand that. More importantly, it's 2am, what are you doing awake? You'll get bags, you know. And while you are really good looking, bags are a really hard look to rock -- I do it fine because my eyebags are designer, but --"

"--Alex." He cuts me off. "Just answer my question."

Fuck... He's giving me that angry dad stare. Or is it the disappointed dad stare...? I haven't seen my father since Lorina's death, so I wouldn't exactly know anymore.

Biting my lip, I gulp. Do I tell Papa Julius? Do I risk getting a lecture?

"Alex."

oh fuck, now he's mad--

"WELL," I begin unnecessarily loudly. "I may have, uh, pissed Nightmare and Grey off." Julius raises one of his thin eyebrows, and I let out a sigh. "...He was mad about my arm, and was pinning me to the floor for some reason, and he wouldn't let me go, and I thought to myself, Alex, this is some form of harassment, kick his ass."

He nods, "Continue."

"...But I couldn't reach his ass because he was hovering over me, and also this is Nightmare we were talking about and he was going to puke blood all over me."

 Again, he nodded.

"And then, uh..."

"Continue." Is all Julius says.

"Well, it was inevitable that he was going to spew blood at some point, right?" To this, Julius nods. "It just so happens that he was going to do it while he was pressed against my face." Julius's furrows his eyebrows in disgust; even when he's grossed out, he's still pretty chill. "And I, well, I didn't want his blood to drown me. So...."

This time, he sighs.

"What did you do, Alex?"

Quietly, no, near silent, I answer, "...I kicked him off me, and he bled through the entire trip through the air."

Julius just stares at me, and makes no reply. I throw my hands up in the air, and my voice is noticeably louder when I hurry on and attempt to explain (and defend myself) the situation further. "Look, it's his fault, okay! When I woke up, he was pressed right against me, like, no respect for personal boundaries whatsoever" but he's a man from wonderland, so it's not exactly surprising, "and he wasn't even going to move off me when he started to heave blood up! He was just going to stay there, and Gray, that asshole, wasn't even going to help me! So I had to kick him, it was self defense, and sure there was blood everywhere but that's not my problem and-- what the fuck"

My eyes land on Ace, who is covered completely by a blanket. He's... moving, slightly, underneath the blanket. Julius's judgemental gaze follows mine and lands on Ace. We look at eachother, and then back to Ace, and then to eachother.

"What the fuck is he doing?" I silently mouth after watching his body move up and down.

"I don't think we want to know."

Holy shit, he's not doing what I think he's doing, is he?

I have to uncover the truth before he stops...!!

Julius looks at me, and I mentally whine, you're older than me, so it's your job. Like he read my mind, he sighs. Quickly, he pulls the blanket off Ace, who is......

...laughing?

Papa Julius and I let out the longest sigh in history. He was laughing, not--

"--Hey, where'd the blanket go?"

"Ace." Julius hisses.

"Yes?" The heart knight says sweetly as he looks the other in the eye. 

"How long have you been awake?" I interrupt. Ace only smiles at me, "The entire time, of course."

of course, he says, because he's an asshole like that.

Thankfully, Julius drops the blanket back onto Ace, who protests immediately, but also rolls away and avoids it at the same time. He's... he's something, alright.

Awkwardly, the three of us just stand (or in Ace's case, lay on your front) there. I clear my throat and declare that I'm going to make coffee, which was the reason I even left my room in the first place.

I hear Julius's chair scrape against the floor twice, and just like that, he goes back to work. 

"Alex~"

Oh hell no. Not right now. It's 2:15am. I don't have the energy for this.

"You don't need coffee to keep you awake." He says as he stands behind me, voice clear over the loud rumbling of the boiling kettle. With folded arms I turn around to see his smiling face, and I snort. 

"No? What do you suggest?"

To this, his fake smile shifted into a smug smirk.

"Well," Ace leans forwards and presses his lips against my ear, and whispers. "I'll offer my services."