“Beautiful,” he answered, giving a lazy smile at the innocent man.  “Lovely…”  He was definitely those things, which must have attracted many eyes, Andreas’ included.  The second question took him by surprise and his eyebrows went up.  “Käraste?  Well, my Swedish is a little rusty, but I think that would come to mean<i>dearest</i>in English.”<br/><br/>His smile returned and he shook his head.  Was he really being thanked for being a decent person?  That had never happened before.  The bruises were revealed and he felt his stomach roll a little.  If Andreas hadn’t hurt him, then all those marks were from the father.  The pattern was one Raff had seem before on more than one occasion, the consequences of resorting to hookers on street corners to satisfy his basic needs.  It must have been going on for a long time… that kind of abuse.  Others also must have seen it, and they turned their heads and ignored it.  The<i>mother</i>must have…  Raff thought it was sad that it took trained killers coming into Alex’s life for him to be shown some form of compassion.<br/><br/>--<br/><br/>Andreas had looked over every little snippet of information and had it all sorted and stored in his mind.  He’d burned through three cigarettes in that duration of study, both the concentration and the soothing act of smoking settling his nerves to a point where he didn’t feel like he was going to smash something.  Gathering everything up, he headed back inside and tossed the envelope down on the desk.<br/><br/>“That was well put together, especially on short notice,” he commented.  “Tell Aedan I owe him.”  Then he looked over to the gorgeous man sitting on the bed, his hair now down and half unbraided.  Was Alex still mad at him?  He sighed and offered his hands out, palms up, and motioned for Alex.  “Come here…”