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1.
Marx was not having a great day. His head was pounding, he felt dizzy and even the smallest amount of light was hurting his eyes.
He knew he had a migraine but he couldn’t allow himself to take a break right now. There was still a huge pile of paperwork that had to be finished by the end of the day and to make matters worse Julius was nowhere to be found.
With a groan he sat down at his desk and started working through the pile, occasionally distracted by the pounding in his head.
After some hours of working he made his way towards the Castle’s kitchen to get himself a glass of water. This is also where he found Owen eating his lunch.
“Hello Marx!'' Do you want some, too?” He asked with a pointed look towards the pot with chicken soup.
Even though the thought of some soup sounded great at the moment he answered “No, but thank you Owen. I still have to get some more work done first.”
Owen just let out a displeased sound.
Marx continued his way through the kitchen and just as he started pouring himself some water another dizzy spell hit him, which caused him to drop his glass.
Immediately there was a steadying hand on his shoulder.
“Are you okay?” Owen asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry. Don’t worry about this, I just lost my grip on the glass.”
“If you say so…”
Together they cleaned up the mess and as soon as they were finished Marx quickly grabbed another glass of water and hurried out of the kitchen back towards his office.
2.
He quickly made his way through the halls of the castle. He needed to get to his office as fast as possible. He couldn’t risk being seen by anyone.
This morning he got the message that his mother had passed away and while they were never really close, she was still his mother.
Yet he couldn’t take a day off to mourn her death. There was just too much work that needed to be finished.
Tears started forming in his eyes as he made his way through the halls. He didn’t understand why though. His mother never really was there for him. He has been taking care of himself ever since he can remember. He hasn’t even heard anything from her in years. Years! So why was her death affecting him so much?
“Hey Mushroom Head! Where is the old man? I need to talk to him.” He heard a voice say from behind him.
He quickly wiped his tears away before facing Yami.
“I don’t know. I still haven’t seen him today. But you could try it in his office.” He said.
Yami didn’t respond to that. He just casually looked him up and down.
“Normally I wouldn’t interfere with other people’s businesses but are you okay?” He asked.
If Marx would have been a little less focused on hiding his emotions he might have noticed the subtle worried undertone in Yami’s voice or the slight glim of concern in his eyes.
But he wasn’t and so he just answered “I’m fine.”, turned around and walked away towards his own office.
3.
Julius was nowhere to be found yet again. Which means he also had to finish all of the remaining work alone…again.
Currently he was running through the halls with a huge pile of paperwork that needed to be finished before King Augustus will have their throats.
Not being able to look well over the stack of papers he didn’t see William Vangeance standing in the hall and bumped right into him.
Both men fell to the ground, the papers lying spread everywhere on the castle’s floor.
“Oh Lord. I’m so sorry, William. I totally didn’t see you there.” Marx apologized while stumbling to pick up the fallen papers.
William quickly made his way to help the other man. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about this. Lots of work to do?”
“Yeah… you haven’t seen Lord Julius by any chance, have you?” He asked hopefully.
“No, sorry, I’m afraid I have not.” Responded the captain of the Golden Dawn. “But tell me are you okay? You seem a bit tired and well… stressed to be honest.”
A bit taken aback by the sudden question the advisor answered, “Well, Julius has been disappearing quite a lot lately but I got everything handled. I’ll be fine.”
"Mhm, okay. But know that you can always reach out to me if you need any help. I would be happy to lend a hand or two.” William offered with a warm smile.
“I’ll keep that in mind. But really I’m fine.” Marx shot a smile right back to him before storming off towards his office.
He closed the door behind him and sat down at his desk where he worked through the paperwork for the next few hours. Not noticing the late time his head grew heavier and his eyelids kept falling close until finally the welcoming darkness surrounded him.
+1
He was awoken by a heavy hand carefully shaking his shoulder. The first thing he noticed was that it was still dark outside, the second that it was Julius who woke him up.
“Good morning sleepyhead” the older man greeted him with a sheepish smile.
“What time is it?” Marx groaned.
“Just past midnight but you should probably head to bed if you don’t want to risk having a backache tomorrow.”
“Can’t.” Is all that Marx says.
“Why not? Are you okay?” Julius asks with so much concern filling his voice that Marx couldn’t stop the tears forming in his eyes. Everything that happened these past few weeks just seemed to be getting back to him all at once at this exact moment.
He looked away, hurryingly trying to wipe away the tears, “It’s nothing, really. I’m fine.”
A sad smile appeared on Julius’s face as he laid a gentle and warm hand on the younger man’s cheek.
“No, you’re not”, he said, “but that’s okay. You don’t always have to be fine. Now tell me what’s wrong, please.”
Now he really couldn’t stop the tears from spilling anymore. “I don’t know. Everything is just too much right now.” Marx responded.
“Oh, kiddo…” and with that the advisor found himself in his king’s arms, unable to keep himself from burying his head into the taller’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!” He sobbed.
“It’s okay. You have nothing to be sorry for. I should be the one apologizing. It wasn’t fair of me to disappear so much and let you do all the work alone.” Julius tightened his hold a bit and patiently waited until Marx head his emotions under control again.
Letting go of him he said “Why don’t you go and get some proper sleep? We can talk a bit more about this in the morning.”
Marx looked pointedly around his desk, “still gotta finish all of this first or else we will have the King’s wrath against us tomorrow.”
“Let me worry about Augustus and go get some sleep. You deserve it.”