- The Cardigans "Happy Meal II"

A Bit of Sage Advice
by Ebonhawk

Rowen glanced over his shoulder in suspicion. Just as he'd thought, Kento was standing in the doorway, a silly grin on his face. "And just *what* are you up to?" he asked, turning back to his typing. The letters quickly spilled across the monitor with the keyboard under his skilled fingers.

"Nothin'," Kento replied. Yep, he was up to something. That single word proved it beyond all doubt.

"Spill it." His fingers never paused.

"I'm not doing nothin'!" Kento protested.

"That was a double negative, Ken, so you *are* doing something. What do you plan on doing to me?" Rowen smiled a little when he heard his friend huff in disappointment. None of them had been able to take him by surprise yet. It was while he was listening to Kento's mumbling about this very thing that he *was* nabbed. "Hey!"

Sage had one arm and Ryo the other. Between them, they hauled him out of the chair and dragged him from the room. They pulled him up short and the last thing he saw was Cye's smiling face as he tied a heavy blindfold over his eyes. "Shit, guys...what the hell are you doing to me?"

"Just be quiet, Rowen," Cye whispered in his ear, pausing to softly kiss his earlobe before stepping out of the way. Sage and Ryo moved forward again and he stumbled as they moved faster then he did. He wasn't sure where they were taking him, getting all turned around in his confusion, but he knew it when they dragged him into one of the bedrooms.

He felt the warmth of sunlight across his skin and figured that it was Sage's room...none of the others let in this much light. Ryo let go of his right arm and moved away while Sage moved to stand behind him. Sage's arms were around his waist, pulling him tight against the blond's body. He could feel soft lips nuzzling at his neck and he bit his lip to hold back the gentle moan that threatened to escape. He trembled when a tongue drew a soft line up the back of his neck and then Sage's hands moved steadily, unerringly, under his t-shirt, over his chest...and then lower...

"ROWEN!!! Wake up!" Kento slammed the pillow down over his friend's head. He'd been trying to wake him for the past fifteen minutes. How could someone sleep through the ruckus he'd been making? No matter how many times he saw it, it always amazed him.

He watched as the dark blue eyes slowly blinked open, bleary with the remnants of the previous night's overindulgence. Rowen grunted something unintelligible and started to close his eyes again. Kento grinned and lifted the pillow again. This was going to be fun.

*BOOSH!*

"I said, wake up," he told Rowen, who now lay staring at him uncomprehendingly.

"Uzza t'me?"

"Almost noon."

"Nnnnnnn. T'early. Go 'way." Kento dodged Rowen's sudden wild flailing of arms. When the flurry was over, they plopped back down on the rumpled bed and the archer was still again, eyes blissfully closed.

*BOOSH!*

"Wake up."

"Nuh."

*BOOSH!*

"Wake up."

"NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" A pillow flew back at him.

"Fine. We'll do it the hard way." Kento threw back the blankets and scooped Rowen up in his arms then carried him into the bathroom. He dumped his friend, who was now struggling feebly to get away, unceremoniously into the tub and, switching it to the showerhead, cranked up the cold water and pulled the curtain shut.

"YAAAHHHHH!!!" There was a long bit of sputtering and cursing before water was turned off and the curtain yanked back open. Rowen, soaked t-shirt and boxers clinging dangerously close to his shivering body, glared at Kento with enough heat to melt the entire Antarctic polar cap. His blue hair straggled into his eyes and he scowled darkly. He snatched the thick green towel Kento offered to him and stomped back into his room, slamming the door behind him.

Feeling smug and satisfied, Kento tromped back downstairs into the kitchen. Cye handed him a plate and pointed him to the table. Kento looked down and was happy to find his favorite lunch just waiting for him.

"I take it from all the yelling and naughty language that you woke him?" Cye asked from his spot back at the counter.

"Yup."

Cye stepped up behind him and said, "Good," before leaning forward and grabbing him in a tight embrace, putting a quick kiss at the corner of his lips. The blue-green eyes sparkled as the slender young man slowly pulled away and moved to take his own seat. A quick, soft smile was shared betweem them before Kento scarfed down a large portion of his meal. They both looked up when Sage slipped in and took a seat of his own.

The blond eyed them, then said, "You two have been kissing again, haven't you?" The sly grin that graced his beautiful face made Cye blush and hide his cheeks beneath his hands. Sage was the only one in the house that knew that he and Kento were a "thing" so far - although Cye was certain that Mia had her suspicions. Beside him, Kento coughed his embarrassment, throwing a red-faced smirk at Sage. The blond always asked that question just for the reaction that never failed to make him laugh.

They were only mildly startled when Ryo burst in through the back door, smiling wide and mischievous, White Blaze romping in after him. "Watch out!" he cried, "Mia's right behind us!"

Bewildered, the trio watched as Ryo zipped through the kitchen and then through the house...leaving the front door wide open as he hurried. They swung back around to the sliding glass back door when they heard harsh, heavy breathing. Standing there, drenched head to toe from the hose in her new sundress and sandals, stood a seriously pissed Mia.

"Where is he?" she growled.

Smart enough to not laugh in the face of a their present danger, together all three of them pointed out Ryo's way of escape...in three separate directions.

"Oooooo! You're no help. Why did I even bother asking you three?" Before any of them could give her a smart-assed reply, she swept past them and out of the kitchen. "I see someone got you, too," they heard her comment saucily. An incoherent grumble answered her.

Then Rowen stumbled into the kitchen, still damp and shivering from his unexpected shower but now wrapped comfortably in a big, body-engulfing robe of intense red. Obviously, he'd snitched Ryo's when he couldn't find his own. He plopped into a chair at the table and glared down at the wood, looking like he was still more than half asleep and oblivious to the world at large.

"Would you like something to eat, Rowen?" Cye asked him. "Maybe lunch? Or *breakfast*?" he joked, knowing that Rowen was never up in time to eat a regular morning meal.

"Uzzat?"

"Excuse me?"

"Wuz br'kf'st?" He scratched fiercely at his head, ruffling the blue hair into even wilder disarray. Slumping low in the chair, Rowen finally looked around the table, studiously avoiding Kento. When his tired, hazy eyes lighted on Sage, bits of the dream the "evil one" had pillow-bashed him out of filtered into his mind. He smiled a little and sighed, then flushed and turned away when Sage grinned at him. Then it occurred to him just *what* he'd been dreaming about and he shuddered. What was he thinking??? About being stripped naked and having Sage's hands and mouth all over him, that's what. He winced in private embarrassment and tried not to acknowledge the thought. Like Sage would *ever* even *consider* doing something like that to him...with him.

"So, what's your goal for the day, Rowen?" Sage asked him.

Tossing a quick, unreadable glance at the blond that was stuck in his brain, he easily replied without any time wasted on thought, "World domination." There, that should clear my mind, he told himself.

"Really? And how do you plan on doing this?"

"Using my TI89, Mia's laptop, and the internet. I'll take over the entire world's finances in minutes and everyone will HAVE to do what I say. You'll all be calling me Emperor Touma by dinner."

"Emperor Touma?" Sage asked in surprise, smiling at his friend's brain-dead attempt at humor. Rowen hardly ever used his Japanese name anymore.

"Yeah, sounds better that way." He gave a quick laugh then heaved a tired sigh, letting his shoulders slump low. His head drooped and he stared numbly at the plate Cye set before him. Several minutes passed as he just sat there, eyeing the breakfast food - eggs, toast, and bacon - purely Western fare. Just the sight of it was making him nauseous. He promised himself that he wasn't *ever* going to binge like that again... Yeah, right, he thought in response to that. It was all... Damn! He couldn't even remember who he'd been out with last night. Well, whoever it had been, it was all *his* fault.

"You gonna eat that, Ro?" asked Kento, his voice hopeful.

Rowen carefully shook his head. As the plate moved out of the way, he let himself slowly fall forward, his forehead soon coming into contact with the cool wood of the table. He felt his eyes slipping closed...

"Rowen?"

"Nuh?" He couldn't quite puzzle out who the speaker was. Strong hands slipped gently onto his shoulders and began to rub, digging deep into the tenseness that had shown up in his muscles because he'd slept weird. Oh, that felt good. Rowen let out a small, pleasured sigh.

"Are you all right?" Who was talking to him?

"Nuh-uh."

"What can I do to make you feel better?" Sage! It was Sage that was talking to him. He felt much better having figured out the enigma. It shouldn't have thrilled him that much but he was feeling ill enough at that given moment that it made him the happiest person in the world.

Kiss me, he wanted to answer for some reason - he refused to consider it. He blinked the urge away and instead said, "Let me go back to bed."

"Sorry, I can't. We've got an appointment to keep with my mother. Remember?" Sage asked, his voice ringing with amusement at Rowen's expense.

"Oh crap! I forgot. I wouldn't have gone out last night if I *had* remembered." He paused sheepishly, "By the way, does anyone know who I was out with?"

"Don't you know?" Cye sounded incredulous.

"No. I was *really* plastered last night."

"It was Kimi," Sage informed him, hands still working diligently on his shoulders.

"Kimi? I let *her* get me drunk? I thought I was out with one of the guys!"

"Apparently you did - and she isn't too far off of being one of the guys, if you think about it," Sage said with a smirk.

"Shit. What did she do to me?" Rowen complained, coming a bit more awake. That redheaded chick was always threatening to get him tattooed or pierced if she was ever around him while he drank. He sat up and dropped the top of the robe off his shoulders, letting it pool around his middle, when he suddenly noticed an odd sensation centered around his stomach. Sparkling brightly back at him from his navel was a deep blue bead on a on a silver hoop. His eyes popped open wide and Sage leaned over his shoulder to look, murmuring in appreciation. Rowen was more involved in trying to figure out how he hadn't noticed it earlier.

"Oh, how cute!" Cye blurted before he could stop himself, a faint blush then covering his cheeks along with a wide smile. Rowen glared at him.

"How do you take it out?" the archer muttered, poking at it with an idle finger. "I'm so numb to everything right now that I didn't even feel it before. Do you see anything else?"

Sage's fingers drifted down his back then stabbed hard at a spot in the middle of his lower back, sending shockwaves of stinging hurt through his body, making him yelp. "You've got something here."

"What is it?!" he yowled.

"Looks like a tattoo of your kanji," the blond said, tracing it lightly with a fingertip so Rowen could feel it without too much more pain. Rowen hissed and moved away from the soft touch, afraid that Sage would once again feel the urge to be vicious. He knew from experience that it was not an unfounded fear.

"Dammit. She got me with both of them."

"What are you talking about?" Sage asked, still fingering the dark blue marking on the archer's pale skin as he examined the work.

"Kimi. She's been threatening to have her way with me for the past two years. Seems she got it last night."

"Have her way with you?" Cye balked. "I thought she was a lesbian!"

"She is. She's also been telling me that she would find a way to get me either pierced or tattooed," Rowen clarified, "Thus she has now had her way with me TWICE." He looked closer at the ring in his navel and growled, "How do you get this thing OUT?"

"Leave it. I think it looks good."

Rowen turned swiftly to stare at Sage. There was a flash of something he couldn't place in the silvery eyes before the blond turned away and left the kitchen. Puzzled, Rowen grabbed up the robe around his waist and pulled it back on, snugging the belt carefully above his belly. What was up with Sage? Could he be hinting that...? Nah.

Wearing nothing but the bright blue and green, starburst pattern, tie-died boxers that made Sage cringe every time he saw them, Rowen shook out his hair, flinging water everywhere, and dug through his dresser. Jeans, old and faded black, landed on his bed in a heap. An overlarge, dark blue t-shirt - covered with a starry scene of planets and other celestial events - quickly followed.

Stopping for a moment to look at his preferred casual style of clothing, Rowen wondered if maybe he shouldn't dress a bit nicer for the lunch date he and Sage had with Olivia (note: had to. I love this name), Sage's mother. She always insisted on taking them somewhere fancy...and maybe it might impress Sage. Make the blond take a bit of notice.

He paused to stare at himself in the large, full-length mirror on the wall and snarled. How could anyone (especially Sage!) find a tall, skinny bit of nothing like him remotely attractive? Even his hair was freakish. Who'd ever heard of hair being *naturally* blue?! Rowen sighed and poked at the glinting silver ring at his navel again. Sage liked it but was that enough to make him leave it in?

Disgustingly, it was.

Rowen then turned to survey the dark ink that marred the otherwise perfectly white skin of his back. He couldn't quite see it this way, so he wandered across the hall into the bathroom to snag Mia's hand mirror. Back in his room, he twisted and turned until he could see the figure. It was a deep, dark blue and finely done.

A smile tugged at his lips as he considered what Kimi *could* have done to him. She'd always threatened him that one day he would wake up with a big, too-happy Disney character permanently drawn on his ass. He wondered what had made her decide on this instead. There was no way she could know his connection to this particular kanji. He'd have to ask her later.

"Nice, isn't it?" Sage asked, leaning in the doorway watching him. His arms were crossed over his chest and his hair fell rakishly over one of his gleaming, pale eyes, as per usual. What made Rowen's heart leap then skip a beat or two was the deadly half-smirk that he'd seen leveled many a time on unsuspecting girls over the years they'd known one another.

He lifted his eyes from the spot on the carpet they were suddenly inspecting closely to check if he'd been seeing things. It wasn't there, this time.

"Uh, y-yeah. I-I guess," he stuttered. The archer quickly looked away from the other again. He was only just coming to the conclusion that maybe...just maybe...finding another guy incredibly attractive - mentally, socially, aesthetically, and (oh gods yes, he could admit it) sexually - wasn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, he was sure it could actually be a good thing.

He turned back around to see that the blond warrior had vanished from his door. His heart resumed beating and, with a heavy, heartfelt sigh, he reached for his clothes.

Did Sage understand or even realize what he was doing to him?

END PART ONE