"Shall I wake the young Master?"
"Hmm? Oh, no, thank you Gregory. Leave him to sleep. It is the first uninterrupted sleep he has had in a very long time. Let him enjoy it. He will wake on his own but not until close to eleven. Have my appointments been canceled for the day?"
"That is very near half the day! Yes sir, they have been rescheduled though you could surely attend to several of them before your guest wakes."
"I would rather not."
"Your Lordships ability to avoid work is worthy of merit."
"Gregory."
"Oh, very well, I am leaving. I shall have endless more work to do today as it is with a child in the house."
"Aidun is thirty...ish."
"Children!"

Matteo could hardly help that soft simper that found his lips all the same, that deep chuckle reverberating within his throat as his manservant strode from the room in the very sort of mood that had become near atypical off him those past few centuries. Still, the Frenchman hardly moved to chastise him in any true fashion, the pair had long since learned to work with one another's quirks and truly, despite his often abrasive manner, Gregory was a good servant and he kept that household running when Matteo himself was otherwise indisposed. The Frenchman sighed softly once more, leaning back into the comfort of that cream coloured lounge, his bare feet extended before him to rest on that equally cream coloured ottoman, the cup of coffee held within his right hand lifted to his lips. That heated, bitter taste was almost jarring and yet even he was not immune to the tiredness that gripped him in the wake of yesterday's travel. Aiden had not failed to disappoint him in so having barely been ready when he had arrived to pick the boy up for that trip to the airport. Aiden's own manservant of sorts had still been throwing clothes into that duffel bag when Matteo had arrived. Aiden himself so refusing to show any real sense of excitement or indeed any truly definable emotion at all in comparison to the overly excited Jackal. Yet, Matteo had long since come to anticipate, if not expect, Aiden's unusual moods. Especially over those things that made him anxious. International travel, he suspected, one of those very things.

He so hardly blamed his adoptive son of sorts in any sense. Aiden had spent a lifetime of being letdown or disappointed. To allow himself to hope for anything was to allow himself to be open to the opportunity of being hurt. The Frenchman long ago having come to find a tolerance and acceptance for those very eccentrics. He knew, in truth, that those very moods he was so often presented with were little more than falsified shields. Aiden was, he suspected, despite his apprehension, looking forward to that very holiday. It would only be when the boy relaxed that glimmers of that true personality might find their way through once more. Matteo was near determined he could coax that smile back to the man's face in the next few days. Aiden was, for perhaps the first time, entirely out of reach of that woman and any off her abilities - even those nightmares. Matteo almost alarmed in turn at the sheer effect that very notion had held upon him in turn. It was almost foolish in a sense surely, and yet to have Aiden safe, nestled in the bed upstairs was....a relief. It was as if Matteo himself could breath for the first time in twenty years with no need to search that future and worry for the man's safety. He knew were Aiden was, he knew he was safe and for the first time in a long time he was content in that knowledge.

His free hand reached gently outward to rest upon the head of the Corgi beside him. Herbert's head tilted upward to lick as his fingers before it came to rest between his paws in contentment once more. Matteo continuing to stroke the tan and white coloured fur of the ridiculous short-legged animal. A soft smile finding his lips once more at that very memory of their arrival yesterday. That plane ride had been rather unremarkable in any sense, at least to him. Aiden, he suspected, had found some novelty in the idea of his first flight. Matteo not yet trusting his companion to teleport so far or to a place he had never been thus requiring that flight here in the least. He had forgotten how long those flights took! Even in the luxury of that plane borrowed from Dorian it had taken near ten hours to reach the Aéroport de Paris and from there another near two hour drive by car to reach Chambord itself. Aiden, much like Alexander, had been distinctly critical off his driving skills and yet he had managed to reach Chambord all the same. That very look on Aiden's face when they had arrived at the chateau he called home perhaps the first true look of awe he had ever seen his friend wear. A look that had only furthered into some measure of confusion when he had queried how many people lived here. Matteo's insistence it was only himself and his servants having near stunned the boy back into silence. It was, he supposed, some measure of ridiculous that one man and a handful of servants might occupy a four hundred and forty room estate and yet this had been home for so very long.

That early dinner that had been waiting for them had been eagerly consumed before the ancient Fae had shown Aiden, several times, how to get from that main kitchen and living room to the required staircase that led upwards to his room. Matteo remaining unsure of just how Aiden had taken to that realisation it truly had been his room in every sense of the word. A room that had been waiting a very long time for its occupant. That lavish suite was decidedly comfortable with its king bed and small lounge area right in front of that roaring fireplace. That plush carpet was glorious to walk barefoot on, the attached ensuite with its tremendous bath equally as opulent yet too- those touches of more simple things existed in turn. That writing desk and shelves were a simple mahogany wood that somehow suited the white and cream of the rest of the room, offsetting it with those bolder colours. Those french doors could be opened in the summer, the small balcony beyond overlooking all of the farmland and forest his estate owned. It had been for what that room contained, however, that Matteo had been almost apprehensive to show his companion. If only for those memories it might well trigger. In the least- they were good memories. All of them.

Those few photographs that existed of himself and Aiden together rested easily on those shelves, along with several more of Aiden himself, taken in those few moments or days he had managed to take the boy away from Risque and offer him even some glimmer of reprieve from that life. The boy in those pictures ranging from a child, to a teenager, to a young man- photographs Aiden himself had once loved and yet had been given to Matteo to prevent that vampire woman ever seeing them. That singular photograph of Aiden's family, his mother and father and sister and even Tobias pictured with Aiden himself when the boy could hardly have been more than nine sat on that bedside table. Matteo remembering distinctly the day Aiden had begged him to go back to the house to see if anything might be left before entrusting that very picture he had found to the Frenchman to keep. Much of that room was so made up of those very things Aiden had made him promise to guard over the years. Those childrens toys Matteo himself had gifted the boy for birthdays or christmas were tucked neatly in that chest on one side of the room. Once-loved books and magazines and other trinkets rested on the desk or the shelves or within the book case itself. Those very treasures Matto had, as asked, kept safe for all those years neatly placed around that room. After all, what else was he to do with them? Even if Aiden had long since forgotten most of them, they were not Matteo's things to throw away. Aiden sure to discover them when he made some effort to unpack. That room very much.....his room. The man, he was sure, having collapsed readily into bed last night once the servants had lit that blazing fire across from the bed. Fireplaces so having a habit of keeping a room exceptionally warm throughout the night. Gregory having returned at six in the morning to stoke that fire once more into life. Surrounded by such warmth Matteo was sure Aiden might never rise and yet he was content to let him sleep.

The Frenchman reached easily then for that novel that rested on the coffee table, Herbert taking the opportunity to stretch out beside him as that sound of cow-bells briefly saw his gaze lift to that sunlit window that all but flooded that room with natural light. Those La Brune cows slowly being driven past that front window and toward the dairy- pausing on several occasions to snack on his hedges. How inconsiderate. Still, he had forgotten how...peaceful his own home could be. The man inclined to consider that he should come home more often and yet, until now, he had held little reason too. His attention returned to that book then, Matteo content to pass the time until Aiden woke.


m a t t e o
it's tough to be a god