Beside the Lake, after dark, open to all.

[ash_imperfect]

Asher walks the edge of the darkened lake, brooding and hurt. His room - or at least his furniture, and most particularly his bed - is no more than matchsticks, the victim of rage that had overwhelmed him when Nathaniel had walked out the door. Mania past, Asher was left feeling weak, broken, and unable to think about staying in his room. The

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[ash_imperfect]

Asher smells the faint scent of Ganymede's cigarette, and sees the young man sitting, but he has no wish for company.

He turns his face away, tears drying, no reddened eyes or puffy skin to give away his despair. Only the faint silver shine on pale cheeks, to show that he was ever anything less than composed.

[ash_imperfect]

Asher stays still, not willing to call out. He shifts, slightly, the gold of his hair catching the moonlight, spill of it over his shoulders, hanging in front of his face.

[ash_imperfect]

Asher looks up at the sky rather than at Ganymede, chuckling harshly.

"And who are you to know if I should be alone?" He asks sharply.

[ash_imperfect]

"Listening will do nothing," Asher mutters, wrapping his arms around his knees, drawn up in front of him. He looks far more human than usual; grace and poise of an immortal somehow lessened in his woe.

[ash_imperfect]

Asher shrugs.

"I care not." He clutches tightly at his own arms, body giving away what words will not - Asher very much wants company, but is too proud to ask for it. Of course, the company he wishes for most is Nathaniel, a warm body to curl around, to hold him and be held.

[ash_imperfect]

Asher sits, silent, but Ganymede's presence is strangely soothing. He stares out over the lake, sighing. The smell of smoke that clings to Ganymede is familiar, and comforting.

"Tell me of your home," he says at last. A plea for distraction, when he cannot talk about what ails him.

[ash_imperfect]

Asher sits, silent, his gaze straying more often to Ganymede, less on the empty lake. He is a little cheered by the bright images that the young man paints with his words; he does not know, of course, that Ganymede speaks of Troy, but the picture is nice nonetheless.

[ash_imperfect]

Asher remembers the sun, even if he has not seen it in over 600 years. It had begun to dim a little in his memory, but photography, and then moving pictures, had brought it back in glorious colour and movement. The sea, less so. He has never seen it in the day. As a child, he had travelled as far as Avignon with his father, but that was still too far to see the Mediterranean.