Heracles was not somebody who angered easily, but when he was boarding the plane to go to school again, he was NOT anticipating his guardian coming with him.

He had no clue what it was about Sadiq. Hell, he didn't know what his mom was thinking, leaving him with this guy. It wasn't long before they started hating each other. Sadiq was angry, loud, an alcoholic, and on more than one occasion had slapped Heracles for...what? Insubordination?

He was lucky that it never got worse than a slap here or a punch there in the heat of passion, and it wasn't long after falling into Sadiq's guardianship that he could defend himself. As easygoing as Heracles was, he was just as vicious when angered.

Sometimes he would be yelled at for the crime of existing.

Living with Sadiq was no easy feat.

But, he had to count himself lucky. After a while the old man just resigned himself to letting Heracles do what he wanted. After Heracles proved he could defend himself, the guy stopped trying to pull anything. So long as Heracles kept his nose clean and cleaned up after him, Sadiq didn't care. He didn't care to the point that, when Heracles was fourteen and stupider, Sadiq responded to a police phone call with the simple words, "He's not my son." Heracles had to spend the night in a jail cell for that.

Those memories would live with Heracles, and he didn't know if he could really think of Sadiq without being reminded of that pain.

As he lounged on the bed, enjoying the afterglow, he watched his most recent conquest languishing in the joy that he gave her.

Sex gave Heracles such mindless pleasure, and Elizaveta was his most sought-after sex partner, besides Kiku. He always felt kind of bad, being dishonest to Kiku. He shared everything with the boy. The boy's calm understanding was a pleasure by itself.

In an odd way, being so discreet about his affair with Elizaveta was his own way of showing how much he cared about Kiku. She almost always seemed to be having problems in her own relationships, never able to choose between Gilbert or Roderich, and he always managed to catch her in the interim.

She vented her frustrations at him through sex, and he got to enjoy mindless fucking, no strings attached, getting to be as passionate and depraved as he wanted. As much as he loved Kiku, that boy was not cut out to dominate or be dominated. He was cut out to have someone quietly and passionately make love to him, which frustrated Heracles to no end. He saw that boy's porn stash, he knew Kiku was into wilder stuff.

He just had no idea how to be honest with Kiku. He loved the boy, and had listened as Kiku cried about his family, had quietly encouraged him to be more exploratory, had made him feel comfortable with being impulsive. But their relationship was still a secret to everyone outside of the school. How could he be totally honest when he knew Kiku wouldn't even tell his own brothers about their relationship? His brothers went to this school!

All he did was clean up and leave, after he had his fill of cuddling Elizaveta afterward.

Entering his new dorm, all neatly packed away, he put on his best smile. Kiku was quietly at his desk, hard at work on his essay. The boy had a habit of tuning the rest of the world out while he focused, and Heracles used that as an excuse to wrap his arms around Kiku from behind.

Usually, Kiku would stiffen instinctively, but at Heracles' familiar scent, he relaxed into the embrace.

"Hera..." He turned, with a fond smile. It was a smile of total relaxation he reserved for no-one else. It was a smile of love, of trust, of friendship. It was a smile that told stories of intimate secrets shared in the dead of night. It was a smile that told of growing together, building up a life together, of happiness shared together.

It was a smile that broke Heracles' heart.

But he had long since given into his abandonment issues and mustered up a smile with hopefully half as much sincerity as Kiku's. He kissed the boy, with passion.

Without a word, he tore Kiku away from his laptop, with minimal protesting from him, and carried him to the bed. They were given two twin-sized beds, and had the sense to push them together after the head of housing checked them in.

This time sex was not fucking, not grotesque or a way to vent emotions. It was love-making at its finest. It was giving themselves over to absolute pleasure. This was the truest form of intimacy, one that Elizaveta could never give him.

It was that intimacy that broke Heracles' heart, for he broke it every time he gave into temptation. He broke the trust that Kiku gave him.

As he fell asleep, holding the tiny boy, he sincerely prayed that Kiku would never find out.

Getting that note from his guardian ruined his day.

"Mr. Adnan would like to see you after class" the note read. He sighed. They were far beyond helping. His only concrete father figure now treated him in the most official, clinical way possible.

After a month of no incidents between the two (which was an achievement in itself), he now found this.

Standing, waiting, and despising the man in front of him, Heracles was patient as the rest of the students filed out.

"What do you want? I've been a model student just so I have to deal with you as little as possible." Heracles spat these words, and the force of them looked painful to Sadiq.

"So, been with Kiku a while?" Sadiq's eyes were accusing.

"Since when did you care about who I fucked?" Heracles' eyes were more sad than angry.

"Since I actually got to know some of them," Sadiq responded. "Furthermore, you've been doing a great job in my class-" Heracles mentally gave the man props for sounding professional at least. "-But you haven't been keeping up your studies in other classes. Seeing as you do so well in some courses, I would wonder why you didn't try to excel in others."

"When did you start caring about academics? You almost flunked out of high school and college." Heracles started leaving before he heard Sadiq ask him to wait. He turned to glare at the man who dared act fatherly now.

"I just don't want you to repeat my mistakes. Stop cheating on Kiku and start applying yourself or there will be hell to pay." Sadiq's eyes were more terrifying than the low growl he chose to use to speak those words. Heracles was accustomed to yelling, screaming, all sorts of fits of anger. More than one new set of dishes had to be purchased because of Sadiq's temper. Heracles felt the heat of anger rise in his chest, and did little but storm out of the room.

It wouldn't be until Heracles returned to his room that he would remember what Sadiq had last said. 'I just don't want you to repeat my mistakes.' That phrase turned in his mind. What did the man mean? He had never shown any interest in Heracles' life whatsoever, unless it was with food. Sure, everything Sadiq cooked had a certain "Turkish flavor" to it, but that man was definitely a gourmet and liked good food. It was the only peaceful moments with the man, when Heracles would cook. He would give gentle pointers to his ward, or guide him where he messed up.

In those moments, Sadiq looked gentle and caring.

'I just don't want you to repeat my mistakes.'

So what if he cared. It was Heracles' life, and if he was going to learn, it would have to be the hard way.

He turned over and promptly took a nap.

It wasn't until Kiku had returned after a study session with Arthur and Alfred that he roused himself. Kiku smiled softly and planted a kiss on Heracles' forehead. He had started becoming more open with shows of physical affection since Heracles had brought Kiku under his wing.

"So how was studying?" He asked, in his telltale slow manner. Kiku was the only person who didn't find his slower way of speaking annoying. Everyone else either disregarded it and used him, or yelled at him for it, or silently seethed. Kiku had never once looked angry or upset, only patient.

A deep sigh was all Kiku needed. He spoke so much with so little words. It was a quality Heracles had learned to appreciate.

"Still don't know why you hang around Arthur."

"Ah, well, we have some subjects together you see..." But Kiku's face betrayed his discomfort. The two had a history. Arthur was Kiku's first boyfriend and first lover, and had tossed the boy aside to chase after the ever-dense Alfred. It wasn't even a typical break-up. He had just stopped speaking to Kiku. Considering the two were roommates last year, it was an awkward situation all year that lead to Kiku spending a lot of nights in Heracles' and Feliciano's room, well before Heracles had even noticed Kiku.

It always secretly made Heracles want to throttle the poor bastard, even though Kiku had asked him not to, and frankly, he was too lazy to put forth the effort of throttling him anyway. But, if Kiku wanted to deal with his hurt feelings that way, he could.

And it gave Heracles secret satisfaction that he was now sleeping with Kiku, and Arthur had nobody.

"So did he make progress with Alfred?" Heracles asked. Kiku sighed.

"No, Alfred just kept talking about Arthur's hot cousin." Ah, Deirdre. The fiery Irish lass. Yes, they were cousins, but Deirdre grew up in a small town in Ireland and Arthur grew up in England. The differences showed.

Those two had an odd love/hate relationship that even made his relationship with Sadiq look tame.

But it couldn't be denied, she was gorgeous. And amazing in bed.

Heracles also didn't express either of those thoughts out loud.

"Well, his loss." Heracles was grateful that Arthur had been such a jerk to Kiku. If Arthur hadn't been such a jerk, Heracles wouldn't have gotten to know Kiku, and wouldn't have fallen in love with Kiku, and he wouldn't have been able to be such a good boyfriend to Kiku.

Well, most of the time.

As Heracles lounged in bed, and Kiku typed away, he dozed off, and when he came to, the small Asian boy had crawled into bed next to him and wrapped his arms around Heracles, his head resting on the Greek boy's chest.

As he dozed off, yet again, he realized this may be the happiest moment of his life and he might ruin everything.

Author's Note:

Well, I already got two awesome reviews so far, which has inspired me to actually write more. I'm not promising any consistent timing for updates – I am a college student and I did just start a brand new school year, but on the bright side my program is all writing-centric so it has oiled the wheels in my brain when it comes to writing shit.

I sort of abruptly ended this – my goal for every chapter is for it to be about 5 pages long, but I honestly didn't have any idea on how to put 5 more pages into this chapter. Heracles...Heracles isn't easy to write.

So there you have it. I hope to have the next chapter written soon! The perspective is going to change chapter-to-chapter between Sadiq, Heracles, and Kiku – for now.

And that's all I'm going to say, now back to writing more essays for my hippie dippie liberal arts college.