(Part 8)

Kyrano retched and heaved the contents of his stomach into the toilet bowl, feeling painfully bare and empty inside as soon as he was done. He had held on carefully for the past few weeks, making sure that he woudn't show his nausea on the outside. His insides had been churning for so long that he was painfully exhausted from it –and it was all because of his mistress.

He almost could not stand it any longer. Serving Louise had never been harder than it was now, and Kyrano leaned heavily against the toilet, his energy leaving him. How was it that he managed to serve Louise before? How did he even manage it before?

Of course, things had changed –even though it might not have on the surface. The fact that his master was Oscar had now become clearer to him like no other, and Kyrano knew that he needed to deliver on his promise.

Still, he wasn't sure at all which part of his promise included him ingesting poison little by little everyday, knowing clearly that it was killing him on the inside. The small tablets were the cause of his nausea, his pallid facial colour and still he continued to take them religiously.

Kyrano was a complete idiot.

"Are you okay?" Kyrano drifted back to reality blurrily shortly after, a concerned voice swimming in his ear. His head felt thick and heavy, and he knew that his body was doing its best to continue purging the foreign substance that he had been ingesting constantly.

"I apologize." Kyrano mummered softly, putting a hand to his forehead –not surprised to find it a little clammy. "I am not feeling very well at the moment."

A cold hand gently but firmly removed his, replacing with a cold touch, taking his temperature. He heard a distant sound of annoyed chatter, and then he was aware of a pair of hands on his coat buttons, working them. Blurrily, but doing his best to regain his senses, Kyrano's fingers closed over the ones touching him.

"Please don't." He said thickly.

"You are soaked through your shirt with sweat." The voice replies, and he heard disapproval. The hands gently removed his fingers away, and then continued at unbuttoning his coat, then his shirt. "How long have you been like this?"

"It started sometime last week." Kyrano wasn't really sure why he was answering, but he was rather blurred at the moment. "I could hold it in around Miss Louise last week, but I think I might have reached my limit."

"Why Miss Louise?" The fingers pulled his shirt apart, and Kyrano felt cooling air touch his skin. He hadn't been aware that he had been sweating, had felt hot until the cold, almost icy air touched him. Thus, despite his protests, Kyrano breathed a soft sigh of relief as his collar was loosened, giving him a little more space to breathe properly.

The question was left unanswered when Kyrano's arm was guided around a broad set of shoulders, and he felt himself hoisted up. With a little effort, he found his feet, though he was leaning very heavily on his helper. Both of them knew that he could not be lying on the washroom floor, that he needed to be somewhere more comfortable.

However, somewhere more comfortable meant being seen.

"Please..." Kyrano did his best to force his legs to stop even though his helper was doing his best to drag him along. "Please do not let this moment of my weakness be seen by anybody."

"This isn't the time for ego, Kyrano." The voice admonished again, but Kyrano refused to budge –even though he could feel himself being dragged forth against his will anyway.

"This is not about ego..." Kyrano did his best to force his lips to move, his words spilling forth. "This is about Miss Louise's safety. I cannot be seen sick, not right now."

"Ok... then where do you want me to bring you?"

"Master Brandon..." Kyrano slurred a little now. "Please take me to Master Brandon, and please... I beg of you, do not let me be seen..."

"Brandon?" His helper questioned with stark surprise. "Why do you want to go to Brandon's?"

"Only he can help Miss Louise... He is the only one left..." Kyrano's consciousness slipped along with his words, and he drifted off.

________________________________________________________________________________

Brandon always found his butler Keyron to be abit of a wandering soul at times, and the man had a tendency –since young –to bring back with him whatever that interested him. There had been a few times that Keyron adopted little puppies and kittens along the road because they looked pitiful. There were other times that the butler brought back interesting-shaped leaves, bright coloured rocks –and sometimes even strange litter from the floor.

Basically, Keyron picked whatever that he found interesting, and presented it to his master. It had been worse when they were younger, because everything interested young children. As they grew up, Keyron's bad habits faded away eventually, but it didn't mean that it wouldn't happen.

What Keyron had found this time –when Brandon opened the door to surprisingly weak knocks on the door –was completely out of Brandon's depth of understanding.

"What the-" Brandon's exclamation could not even be completed before his butler nudged him to the side, hurrying into the room with both his hands occupied.

"Close the door; quick." His butler was the one to instruct him now, and Brandon found himself complying, though his eyes tagged onto his butler, who had rushed to the couch with his sack.

Quite literally, Keyron was carrying a potato sack that was obviously rather heavy. The worst thing, however, was that Brandon realized that the sack was human-sized, and had the imprint of someone lying inside it.

"What the heck is going on, Keyron?" Brandon rushed to his butler's side, demanding as Keyron hefted the sack onto the couch, then hurriedly pulled at the opening.

"Come on, help me." Keyron didn't answer him, but urged at him instead, and once more, even as the master, Brandon found himself obeying as he rushed forwards to help his butler pull the sack downwards, revealing the content that his butler had lugged into the room.

Brandon's detective skills weren't wrong. It had been a human inside the sack.

It wasn't just any human.

It was Keyron's twin brother, curled up and half naked.

Knowing that his butler wasn't going to explain anything soon until they were done with untangling Kyrano from the sack, Brandon did his best to help Keyron out until they had the last of the sack off the unconscious man who had unfortunately been dumped into a sack. Throwing the sack to one side, Keyron rushed to force his brother to relax along the length of the couch, then rushed to the wardrobe that had been set up beside the butler's bed. Brandon stood helpless, watching as Keyron grabbed a set of clean covers, running back to throw it over his now-shivering brother, tucking Kyrano in quickly and efficiently.

"Painkillers?" Brandon offered, following his butler to the washroom where Keyron prepared a pail of cold water and a washcloth. It was easy to guess that Kyrano was suffering from a fever, and medicine was still the best way to go.

"That would be good." Keyron answered, and Brandon nodded quickly at the implied request. Searching through the medicinal cupboard, Brandon was surprised to come up with no results. Dropping a quick update to his butler, who was carefully dabbing Kyrano's forehead in a bid to lower the temperature, Brandon stepped quickly towards the infirmary.

Lying about having a headache and the feeling of rising fever was easy and he got his hands on a box of painkillers quickly. Brandon's worry, however, almost made him crash into a woman around the corner, and he dropped the box within his hands in reflex to stabilize the lady that he had almost knocked over.

He blinked for a short while, his world stopping in that moment

"Louise?"

"Oh, Brandon." The woman seemed to only just register him as well. "I'm sorry for walking into you."

"What's with the makeup?" Brandon blinked again with surprise. "I thought you don't put on makeup?"

"Oh, this?" Louise's hand went to her cheeks softly. "Kyrano's been putting makeup for me since he came back. He seemed insistent, and I thought it would be better if I just... allowed him. Perhaps it would regain a little bit of the old him."

"But why would he?" Brandon asked back, confused. "Why would he make you look-"

Brandon cut himself off, barely catching himself. It was always impolite to tell a lady that she looked lack-lustre; even if it was due to makeup done to her by her butler. Still, Brandon completely could not understand why Kyrano would want to force his mistress to put on a makeup that made her seem a little too pale and slightly pallid.

"Make me look like what?" Louise asked, curious eyes on him. It was apparent that Louise didn't seem to find much fault in her makeup –or perhaps it was the love that blinded her eyes to everything that her beloved butler did to her?

"Beautiful." Brandon covered up quickly, then remembered his mission, bending down to scoop his box of medicine.

"Are you sick, Brandon?" Louise's question was concerned, and though Brandon's heart warmed a little to know that despite the fact that the woman was trying to distance herself from him to protect him from her family's problems, she still cared for him. Brandon didn't want to hold on hope that she loved him, but at least Louise seemed to be concerned about him.

"Oh, not really. This is for... um, Keyron." Brandon hesitated in the middle, but hid it quickly. He might not know why Kyrano was sick and brought into his room by a sack by his butler, but he was intelligent enough to infer that it was supposed to be a secret.

"Oh," Louise nodded with empathy. "Do watch over him well and nurse him back to health soon."

"I will."

Louise seemed ready to move on to end the conversation, and Brandon –for once –was almost glad to see her moving off, until she paused and turned to him again.

"Have you seen Kyrano by any chance, Brandon?"

"Kyrano?" Brandon repeated faintly, putting on what he hoped was his best confused expression. "No. Is there something wrong?"

"No." Louise's smile was obviously brittle, and Brandon fought hard with his heart not to crumble. He needed to know what was going on –before he decided to tell Louise exactly where her beloved butler was. "It's fine. Have a good day."

"Good day to you too." Brandon tipped an imaginary hat –hoping that he did it with his usual easy and playful flair –then continued hurrying down the corridors, fearful of looking back and seeing the lady still watching him, still having the same disappointed look in her eyes.

"I'm back." Brandon announced as he opened the door to the touching sight of the younger twin brother placing the cold cloth over his brother's forehead, a worried look on his face. No matter what Keyron said about Kyrano, and how disgusted he might be about Kyrano's obvious and sudden change since his return from the Crawford Main House, it was painfully obvious to Brandon that his butler still cared very much for his twin.

Brandon knew that he should not be jealous of Kyrano, but there was still a slightly possessive hint of displeasure coursing through him as he started forth with the box of pills, his butler completely ignoring his return as Keyron felt for Kyrano's temperature at his neck, as if hoping for the cold cloth to work miracles and show result in mere seconds.

Still, Brandon was the young master of the Greaves family, and the Greaves had always taught Brandon one very important thing that he would never fail to remember: Family was number 1. And even though Brandon and the rest of the family had long come to accept Keyron as a family member, it still remained a fact that Kyrano was Keyron's blood brother. Kyrano had cared for Keyron the moment he appeared –even though the famous Butler in Black of St. Clair Academy did not expressively show it. It was only right, after all, that Keyron still cared and loved his brother after all that Kyrano had gone through.

Thus, with a silent sigh and admonishment to himself about being jealous of Kyrano, Brandon approached the pair shortly thereafter with a pair of pills and a cup of water, feeling like the butler this time as he offered it to his own butler.

"I heard someone being sick in the washroom." Keyron's words pierced through the sombre silence a short while after, as Brandon and his butler both sat back and rested their eyes helplessly on the fever-addled man. Brandon was distantly reminded by the days that Kyrano spent in the hospital, fighting fever from the infections that his self-inflicted cuts had gotten. "And then after a short while, it stopped. I was a little worried so I lurked around the washroom for a bit, hoping to maybe help the poor soul out when he came out."

Brandon remained silent, simply watching his butler carefully. He recognised that Keyron was finally answering the question he had exploded to ask when Keyron first came in with the sack.

"The apparent poor soul didn't come out after a while, and I got even more worried. I went in and there was only one stall closed. I knocked the door down, and found him unconscious by the toilet. He woke up abit, but I think he was too out of it to recognise me. At least he admitted that he wasn't feeling very well –and that set alarm bells ringing because you know Kyrano –he would never admit that he was weak unless it was to Miss Louise."

"That was a Kyrano before he went back to the Main House." Brandon reminded, the painful reminder that the man they thought they knew was completely different now that he was back. "But go on."

"Anyway, he insisted that he couldn't be seen no matter what. I wanted to take him to the infirmary, but he didn't want to. He was the one to suggest you. He said to take him to you, because you are the only one that can help Miss Louise. He passed out before I could ask for more. Then, because he insisted that he couldn't be seen weak, I looked around for something to disguise him. But how am I supposed to drag him around and pretend that nothing's wrong? I found a sack –so here we are."

"Creative." Brandon muttered, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms with a frown. "So why did he want to come here? Why didn't he just go back to Louise? I'm sure she accepts a sick Kyrano. Right now, she accepts any type of Kyrano –as long as he returns to her side in his original glory and form."

"But that's highly unlikely." Keyron answered as well, eyes never wavering from his brother, as if eye power was going to help the man recover. "Kyrano's been broken and branded."

"Branded?" Brandon echoed with confusion. Both he and Keyron had come to the safe conclusion that the man was broken –considering it was impossible for a man to undergo such an extreme character change in simply two months. Branded was something Brandon knew nothing about.

"I didn't know until just now when I was removing his clothes." Keyron stood up from his seat on his seat, as if glad to move. Beckoning from his master to follow, both of them rounded to the couch where Kyrano currently slept peacefully on. The man was on his side, the covers drawn up and over his shoulders, but Keyron gestured for Brandon to move to the back of the couch.

Then, careful not to wake the man in question up, Keyron peeled the covers back a little.

"There." Keyron directed Brandon's line of sight, but there was no need at all. It was obvious, the red-black mark that meant that flesh had been burnt completely upon contact. It was the crest of the Crawfords.

"Branded..." Brandon repeated with shock running through him. "Families no longer brand their butlers..."

Keyron pulled the covers back over Kyrano's shoulder.

"Rules no longer apply to Crawfords when we talk about Kyrano now." Keyron's voice held an extreme anger behind tight control. "Oscar and Maiko have gone all out with Kyrano –and they are going all out for Louise. Right now, I'm just glad that Kyrano is even alive. I'm even glad that he is broken –because it means turning Oscar's eyes away from him."

"But Louise..."

"Louise..." The name was repeated in a weak voice, and both men looked down with surprise to find that Kyrano had stirred a little, the name spilling forth from his lips.

"Louise..." Kyrano repeated, completely dropping the honorific for the lady. It was the first time both men had heard Kyrano call his mistress without an honorific. "Do not trust Oscar..."

Keyron exchanged a look of surprise with his master. Do not trust Oscar? It was not a surprising thing to hear –but the fact that Kyrano had muttered this in his fevered sleep? For the first time as well, it was not 'Master Oscar', but simply just 'Oscar'.

"Louise..." Kyrano continued mumbling, brows furrowed in a nightmare as he tossed once more, the covers shifting off his shoulders once more to show the brand on his back. "Louise... Love only Brandon. Never love me more."

Brandon swallowed.

Kyrano curled up on the couch once more, and Brandon's eyes widened to see that the man was clutching at his chest as if it hurt.

"Louise... I love you but I'm sorry."