#kevin regnard fanfiction

[serenevenene]

Think of the Devil

Xerxes Break x Fem!Reader

DNI if you are a MINOR or TRIGGERED BY DARK CONTENT

Kinktober – Day 27

You wanted his honesty.

Foot play, caning, sadism (?), impact play, lots of lead up, ass slapping

There was something about Xerxes Break that always caught your intrigue.  The mystery that Xerxes occupied your mind more and more lately, and even now, as you were standing against the balcony’s railing, admiring the night sky and the cool breeze that came with it, your thoughts were on him.  

“Do you often spend your nights looking up at the moon, my lady?” a voice broke through the silence.

If you were surprised, you didn’t show it.  You turned to your left, eyes meeting those familiar crimson ones.

‘Think of the devil, I guess,’ you thought.

You turned back to face the moon before responding.  “I do. It calms me down before going to bed. You adjusted the shawl wrapped around your shoulders, suddenly very aware that you were in your nightgown.  

“I prefer a hot cup of tea,” Xerxes said, now right next to you.  He also leaned against the railing and looked up at the moon.  “I suppose it does look nice.”

You looked at him from the corner of your eye.  He was smirking. It was in that moment that you realized it was that smile of his that occupied your thoughts constantly.  It wasn’t a particularly warm or bright smile, but perhaps that was it’s draw.  The smile was definitely faked…or rather…forced. It was like he was concealing some dark, depressing secret.  

“Why do you do that?” you heard yourself asking.  

“Hmm?” Xerxes turned to face you with a grin, “Do what?”

“That.  Smile like that.”

“You don’t like my smile?”

You weren’t sure how to proceed with the conversation.  Nonetheless, you said, “You…Even when you’re smiling, you look sad.  It’s like you’re hiding something or holding something back.”

You watched as the grin on his face disappeared.  The sadness around his eyes was more apparent now, but at least he was being more honest.

“One could say that my life has been a struggle,” Xerxes replied, eventually. He looked down at the gardens below, his hair covering his face from your keen eyes.  

You weren’t sure what came over you, but you wanted to comfort Xerxes.  You leaned your shoulder against his, keeping your gaze on the moon. “You know…I like seeing this side of you.  It’s more honest.”

A cool gust of wind blew by, making you shiver. You leaned against him some more, wanting his body heat. “But I kinda…want to be the only who sees this side of you.”

It was at those words that he raised his brow at you.  “If you want my honesty, I’ll give it to you,” he said before he planted his lips on yours.

You nearly jumped in surprise, but his arms already snaked around your back and held you in place. You assessed his face.  His eyes were closed, but like he promised, the expression on his face seemed sincere. You closed your eyes and allowed yourself to sink into his touch.

Xerxes regretfully pulled away, his nose still grazing yours.  “We should stop here.”

You scoffed, pulling at his collar, “No, we shouldn’t.”

Xerxes sat on your bed, stripped and back against the headboard.  You were sitting across from him, admiring how much he was struggling to not cum on your foot.  You continued to torment him, dragging your foot up and down on the backside of his cock. His head leaned back on the headboard. He was gasping for air.  He was close.

“That’s the most honest expression you’ve shown me so far,” you smirked as he squirted his hot stuff all over your toes and his abdomen.  

You removed your foot, wiping your toes on the bed covers as you leaned over him to peck kisses on his clavicle before pressing your lips on his.  He maneuvered you so that he was behind you while you were on all fours. He leaned against your back, snaking his arms around your torso to grip your breasts before whispering, “It’s my turn to take charge.”

“Do it to me,” you said looking back at him, excitement welling deep inside of you.  An idea manifested in your mind, “Actually…can you use your cane?”

Xerxes cocked his brow at you, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.  “I’m glad you asked.”

Xerxes took his cane from it’s position next to the bed.  He gently groped your ass before raising the cane up, preparing himself to strike you with it.  “Are you sure?” he asked.

“I can take it,” you said, licking your lips.  He swung at you, the impact making an audible noise upon impact. Your body jolted at the pain.  “Fuck.”

“Did it hurt too much?”

“No, it’s fine. I want to see bruises in the morning,” you answered.  You heard him chuckle behind you before you felt another impact.  Your pussy convulsed.  “Put your dick inside me…”

Xerxes pumped himself a few times while you used your finger to pull your labia apart to welcome him into your entrance.  He pushed himself into you.  “You’re really wet…my lady.”

“Hit me again, and I’ll get wetter.”

Xerxes felt you tighten around him as his cane descended on your ass once again. You gasped, loving the pain.  He started thrusting, his pace steady.  You matched his rhythm, rolling your hips back and forth against his stiff member. As much as you wanted him to be more honest with you, you were grateful that he couldn’t see your face, jaw slackened and basking in the pleasure.

Xerxes was enjoying the horizontal marks his cane was making on your skin.  Your skin was puffing where the marks were.  He let go of his cane to grab your hips as he fucked you harder, reaching a place deeper than he was before.  The sensation sent shivers up your spine and your arms collapsed from under you.  You gripped the sheets as he slapped your ass.

“Oh my fucking—,” you moaned into the sheets.  You were close.  You were so close.  You arched your back, lifting your head from the bed.  “Fuck me harder!”

Xerxes felt you tighten around him and he picked up the pace.  Your moans filled his ears, feeding the fire that was his lust for you.  He picked up the cane again and struck you once last time.  He enjoyed how your body convulsed under him, how your pussy quivered around his dick as you orgasmed.  He groaned as he shot his thick, hot cum into you, his hips bucking wildly.  

You turned your head to look at his face.  His eyes were closed as he came inside, his mouth open and his brows raised.  This silvery-white hair stuck to his sweaty forehead.  This face was a face only you knew, and would know.  It was definitely progress.

Reblogging is fine, but do not repost on Tumblr or any other platform without permission.

Tags: @mintyrae

[antihero-writings]

Premonitions 

Fandom: Pandora Hearts

Character Focus: Glen (Oswald) Baskervlle, Jack Vessalius, Vincent Nightray, Gilbert Nightray, Kevin Regnard, Oz Vessalius 

Summary: Jack, Glen, Vincent, and Gilbert thought they were going on a relaxing vacation in the mountains, but a creature from The Abyss has a bit of an adventure in store...or is it a warning? 

(Written for the Phmonth19 Tragedy Trio prompts "Wolf," "Ruins," and "Winter.")

(For those who’d like some Glen, Jack, Vince, and Gil cuteness. There's at least a little of that here, which was super fun to write. )

Notes: If you can believe it, this is actually a fic for Phmonth19! It was for the Tragedy Trio prompts "Wolf," "Ruins," and "Winter." 

I liked a lot of the prompts during Phmonth19, and wanted to find a way to use multiple simultaneously. I liked the idea, but ended up struggling with where I wanted to go with it, and having too much to do during Phmonth19, so it didn't get written then. But I liked it enough to continue it and return to it eventually.

I hope you enjoy it even so!! Please know that when you comment you are both making my entire week, and motivating me to keep writing more fics like this one!!

Premonitions

A young boy weaved in and out of the crumbling artifices, hopping down from a half-broken wall to a mossy ledge on a lower level of the ruins. It was probably a room in the past. It wasn’t now.

They’d warned him not to go in here. But if forbidding something was incentive for most kids, it was practically a command to him.

They told him it was dangerous, unsafe, that anything could fall and crush him, or crumble beneath him, not to mention that there was a sort of energy here: it infected people, made them into madmen and monsters, and if said monstrosities didn’t attack and kill you…you might just become one yourself.

As if he needed a better invitation.

Most regretfully, he hadn’t found any horrifying monstrosities yet. Just a bunch of cracked stones and sewer rats looking for corpses to clean off. Occasionally something shimmered in the dirt, but more often than not it was just a rusted piece of metal, or cracked bit of glass.

He kicked up a board to see a dagger laying there. He frowned, considering it, before picking it up, examining the details on the hilt. Might make a nice souvenir if he could manage to clean the rust off.

He couldn’t help but wonder what happened here. People said this place was dropped into the Abyss, that it had become a hole to swallow all that dared to enter. But what exactly did that mean? He’d heard of the Abyss, and the Chains that lived within, but never of anything other than sinners being dropped into it. What kind of atrocities had everyone there committed to warrant the whole city being dropped into the Abyss?

He kicked another rock, before glancing up, his red eyes widening.

A wolf sat in front of him.

He hadn’t even heard its footsteps. It just sat there on the wall above him, swishing its tail. He took a few steps back.

It was gold and ethereal, its tail long and wispy, like a gust of wind frozen into flesh. Said tail flicked back and forth. White eyes left trails in the air—like slits in a mask, only letting the golden light inside it break through the eyes—yet they held no mal intent—(he’d learned to be able to see that, to feel it, almost). It seemed intelligent.

Was this one of the monstrosities they warned him about?

His hand tightened around the dagger.

The wolf stood, but after it took a few steps forward it looked over its shoulder as if to ask “Are you coming?”

The boy took a step forward himself, to run after its disappearing tail, compelled by some inclination; he knew he ought to follow it, that it wanted to show him something.

“Kevin! Kevin!” A familiar voice called from far away. “I’ll not have you sullying the Regnard name with another one of your insolent games! If you get eaten by some Chain you’ll only have yourself to blame!”

When Kevin looked back the wolf was gone.

*****

Jack breathed deeply through his nose, as he entered the cabin, then breathed out just as noisily.

“Smell that mountain air! I just love the snow, don’t you? I always feel like something’ amazing is going to happen!”

Glen rolled his eyes, dropping their bags—(which Jack had made him carry inside, citing the fact that he was carrying Vincent).

“Say, Jack…” the boy sitting on his shoulders spoke, “do you think we’ll see the northern lights up here?”

“I don’t know! …What do you think, Glen?”

“Probably not.”

“Aww!” Vincent pouted, bumping his fist on Jack’s head.

“Ow!” Jack reacted in an over exaggerated way.

“Eh! I’m sorry!”

When Jack had found out about the cabin the Baskervilles owned in the mountains he knew it would be the perfect place to spend a few days relaxing and playing in the snow—and what better way to remember how to have fun than to bring Gilbert and Vincent along?

When Jack brought up this idea, Glen had blatantly refused. Ever the responsible leader, Glen didn’t take vacations from his duties. But lately he had started having conversations with the rose bushes, and everyone agreed he could stand a few days off.

Glen was just starting to unpack their stuff when—

“You guys want to go sledding?” This was Jack’s voice, of course.

It was a resounding “yes,” from the kids, complete with jumping up and down and shouting.

“We just arrived,” Glen grunted. “Wasn’t the point of this trip to relax?”

“And what better way to relax then hurling yourself down a snowy mountain on a thin piece of wood?”

Glen blinked. “Reading.”

Jack grabbed his arm, pulling him out into the snow. “Don’t be such a fuddy duddy. Come on!”

Glen glared at his friend as he promptly dragged him off into the snow.

Soon they were flying up to the tallest hill they could find on Raven, then, after they successfully reached the top, they proceeded to push each other down it on sleds, with much giggling and whooping (from everyone except Glen). When they reached the bottom, they would fly back up on Glen’s chains—(who seemed to enjoy the show).

At one point, a little while into the festivities, Vincent was waiting for his turn when something in the corner of his eye flickered. He turned to see in the woods, behind a tree, a creature.

Vincent froze when he met the wolf’s gaze, a shiver running up his spine, more than just the cold, his face twisting in fear.

“What’s wrong, Vince?” Jack put a hand on his shoulder, glancing from the terrified boy to the empty air he was fixating on.

The wolf ran in a figure eight around two of the trees, brushing up against them, its form leaving tracks in the air. Then it paused again to stare at the boy with white, smoky eyes.

It didn’t look completely there.

Vincent pointed shakily towards it.

Jack put a hand on his shoulder. “…Where?”

He pointed more emphatically.

“I’m sorry Vince, I…I don’t see anything.”

“What’s going on?” Glen asked, hopping off Raven and landing beside them with Gilbert in a flurry of black wings.

Vincent just kept pointing, his finger a vibrating signal.

Glen’s eyes widened.

“What is it?” Jack demanded.

“It’s a wolf. Or at least…” he paused, noticing the strange color, and misty nature of the creature.

“I don’t see it,” Gilbert said softly.

“That’s okay,” Jack crouched down by him, “Neither can I.” He stood back up to his full height, reasoning with Glen, “If you two can see it, and we can’t…”

Glen nodded at him, before taking a few steps forward, and finishing the thought:

“I think, more likely than not, its something from the Abyss.” He squinted at it, watching it playfully thread the trees. “I think it wants us to follow it.”

Vincent tensed at the idea.

Glen looked over his shoulder, his eyes flicking to the boy. “I can always go after it by myself if you’d like to return to the cabin.”

“Oh it’ll be fine! Don’t worry!” Jack took the hands of both boys. “With Master Glen with us, nothing’s going to hurt us!”

Glen rolled his eyes, but Jack’s words seemed to comfort them.

Un-summoning Raven, Glen walked in front, the other three following a short distance behind.

When the spectral wolf saw they were going to heed its call, it moved further into the forest, always dancing around the trees as it waited for them to catch up.

They followed it quite some ways—(especially since they were tired from all the sledding)—until the trees stopped abruptly in a cliff edge. Jack had to put his arms out in front of the boys to keep them from walking any further.

As they raised their eyes, they saw across the gorge a plateau.

“I-Is it still there?” Gilbert asked softly, looking all around them.

Vincent and Oswald looked around but the wolf wasn’t anywhere close to them.

“There!” Vince pointed after a moment. The wolf was across the gorge, weaving in and out of a stone ruin on the plateau.

“Are you sure that’s safe?” Gilbert asked nervously. “Maybe we’ve followed it far enough…”

Glen had already summoned Jabberwocky, and was currently climbing on its back.

“You coming?” He asked the group flatly, holding out his hand.

The three glanced at each other, before Jack helped the kids onto its back, and hopped on himself. Jack hugged the boys tightly, as Gilbert held just as tightly to Glen’s coat.

The wind was cold and biting as they flew through the air, but the ride was very brief, and they landed moments later in a puff of dust in the center of the ruins.

“What is this place?” Jack asked the air, and no one answered.

They ventured cautiously into the ruins, at first sticking together, but soon curiosity overtook them, and they each wandered in separate directions, captivated by different rooms. The place wasn’t too vast though, and thus didn’t allow them to stray too far from each other.

Glen found the throne room, or where it most likely once was; a huge empty room in the center of the ruins, empty, save for the collapsing chair, backed by the skeleton of a large window, holding broken pieces of colored glass. He slowly marched up to it, running his fingers along the ghost of the chair, looking out the window at the now frozen water far below, wondering what sort of king ruled here.

When he turned around, the wolf was sitting in the center of the room, swishing its tail at him. Glen was sure it wanted him to understand something, but he couldn’t quite discern what.

He noticed at the side of the room there was a large structure. At first he mistook it for a collapsed bit of wall, but upon closer inspection, he realized it was a piano. He set his fingers on a few of the notes, but they only gave a croak.

It’d been too long.

He lifted his head and raised his voice to ask the wolf about the place, and learn if it could respond, but it had moved on.

Gilbert found the old kitchen, the food there long since turned to compost for rats and roots. Then he found the servants’ quarters not too far from there, full of rotting bedframes and hungry mice, wondering what sort of servants were here, and if their king was as noble as Glen-sama.

He didn’t see the wolf pass beneath the doorframe behind him.

Vincent found a room that likely belonged to a child. It was faded, but there was paint on the walls: designs of flowers and vines. He almost stepped on a clay sculpting of a bird that may have served as a toy, once.

On a broken dresser he found a box which, once opened, turned out to play music, the notes discordant after years of rust and neglect.

He thought he saw something else, and lifted up the half-bug-eaten board. He immediately dropped it, wishing he hadn’t, the something that was there making him cover his mouth in shock and horror.

He felt a nudge at his back, and almost screamed, whirling around to see the wolf behind him. Fear glued his lips, welled his eyes with tears.

The wolf cocked its head to the side, as if confused by his fear. It licked his hand, and Vincent drew back, though it felt like a brush of wind.

“W-W-What do you want?!” He stammered.

But he could not understand the wolf’s words.

Jack descended a staircase a bit further out of the way and found—more in tact than much of the buildings—a dungeon.

It was a large stone room, lined with cells, sectioned off by rusting bars. He pressed one open with a creak and found an empty room, and a skeleton. He continued on until he found one without a skeleton, whose bars were bent, as if the person within had managed to escape through them. He entered through to find there was a journal in this one. He picked it up, brushed and blew off the dust and frost, the pages just as creaky and unwilling to budge as the doors.

He sat on the floor where he found it and began to read. Many of the pages were too damaged by time to read, the ink fading, the pages crinkling and crumbling, but he could make out at least bits of the story. It seemed the writer was in love with a girl, but, due to her being the ruler of this kingdom’s queen, they could never be together. As the pages continued, the writer seemed to grow more and more obsessed with her; his phrases containing less and less sense and sanity. Jack couldn’t tell exactly how he ended up in the dungeon, nor how he apparently broke out—if the bends weren’t made by weather or time—but in his not-quite-sane state, he must have done something very stupid. Maybe a lot of things.

When the final pages became too illegible, he looked up and saw in the waning sunlight, the tally marks on the wall. As he began to dust and defrost them, he realized the whole wall was covered in them. He ran his hand over the grooves, thinking of how long this person must have been left alone inside himself, and what that might do to a person.

He couldn’t see the wolf pacing around his feet, reading over his shoulder, couldn’t feel the wolf trying to nudge him, nor hear the wolf try to ask him voicelessly: “Do you understand? Do you understand?”

“There you are.” A deep voice broke the silence, almost making him jump.

Glen was standing in the doorway, Vincent and Gilbert at either side of him—(Vincent clinging to his coattails rather tightly).

“Did you find anything interesting?”

Jack set the journal on the floor beside him, standing and stretching, yawning the words: “Not really, no.”

Upon noticing the pink light cast on the floor through the small window, Jack asked, “Do you think we should head back?”

Glen gave a curt nod, turning around to leave, and Jack ran to catch up.

*****

A young boy with golden hair and green eyes stood in the midst of a ruin; a caved in part of the city—or what once was the city.

After putting his hand to his chin in thought, and a good dose of looking around, he pulled a watch out of his pocket. When he flipped it open it began to play the soft tinkling notes of a somewhat sad song.

“I still don’t know what exactly happened here,” Oz muttered softly to himself, “but…I’m going to do everything I can to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

He didn’t see the wolf poking its head out from around a wall behind him, didn’t see its ears perk up, nor, now that someone had finally heard and headed its warning, hear its satisfied howl;

“Thank you, Dear Rabbit.”

[this-idiots-left-eye]

Premonitions 

Fandom: Pandora Hearts

Character Focus: Glen (Oswald) Baskerville, Jack Vessalius, Vincent Nightray, Gilbert Nightray, Kevin Regnard, Oz Vessalius 

Summary: Jack, Glen, Vincent, and Gilbert thought they were going on a relaxing vacation in the mountains, but a creature from The Abyss has a bit of an adventure in store...or is it a warning? 

(Written for the Phmonth19 Tragedy Trio prompts "Wolf," "Ruins," and "Winter.")

(For those who’d like some Glen, Jack, Vince, and Gil cuteness. I definitely enjoyed writing some! It's something I've wanted to write about for a while)

Notes: This is actually a fic for Phmonth19! It was for the Tragedy Trio prompts "Wolf," "Ruins," and "Winter." 

I liked a lot of the prompts during Phmonth19, and wanted to find a way to use multiple simultaneously. I liked the idea, but ended up struggling with where I wanted to go with it, and having too much to do during Phmonth19, so it didn't get written then. But I liked it enough to continue it and return to it eventually.

I hope you enjoy it even so!! Please know that when you comment you are both making my entire week, and motivating me to keep writing more fics like this one!!

Premonitions

A young boy weaved in and out of the crumbling artifices, hopping down from a half-broken wall to a mossy ledge on a lower level of the ruins. It was probably a room in the past. It wasn’t now.

They’d warned him not to go in here. But if forbidding something was incentive for most kids, it was practically a command to him.

They told him it was dangerous, unsafe, that anything could fall and crush him, or crumble beneath him, not to mention that there was a sort of energy here: it infected people, made them into madmen and monsters, and if said monstrosities didn’t attack and kill you…you might just become one yourself.

As if he needed a better invitation.

Most regretfully, he hadn’t found any horrifying monstrosities yet. Just a bunch of cracked stones and sewer rats looking for corpses to clean off. Occasionally something shimmered in the dirt, but more often than not it was just a rusted piece of metal, or cracked bit of glass.

He kicked up a board to see a dagger laying there. He frowned, considering it, before picking it up, examining the details on the hilt. Might make a nice souvenir if he could manage to clean the rust off.

He couldn’t help but wonder what happened here. People said this place was dropped into the Abyss, that it had become a hole to swallow all that dared to enter. But what exactly did that mean? He’d heard of the Abyss, and the Chains that lived within, but never of anything other than sinners being dropped into it. What kind of atrocities had everyone there committed to warrant the whole city being dropped into the Abyss?

He kicked another rock, before glancing up, his red eyes widening.

A wolf sat in front of him.

He hadn’t even heard its footsteps. It just sat there on the wall above him, swishing its tail. He took a few steps back.

It was gold and ethereal, its tail long and wispy, like a gust of wind frozen into flesh. Said tail flicked back and forth. White eyes left trails in the air—like slits in a mask, only letting the golden light inside it break through the eyes—yet they held no mal intent—(he’d learned to be able to see that, to feel it, almost). It seemed intelligent.

Was this one of the monstrosities they warned him about?

His hand tightened around the dagger.

The wolf stood, but after it took a few steps forward it looked over its shoulder as if to ask “Are you coming?”

The boy took a step forward himself, to run after its disappearing tail, compelled by some inclination; he knew he ought to follow it, that it wanted to show him something.

“Kevin! Kevin!” A familiar voice called from far away. “I’ll not have you sullying the Regnard name with another one of your insolent games! If you get eaten by some Chain you’ll only have yourself to blame!”

When Kevin looked back the wolf was gone.

*****

Jack breathed deeply through his nose, as he entered the cabin, then breathed out just as noisily.

“Smell that mountain air! I just love the snow, don’t you? I always feel like something’ amazing is going to happen!”

Glen rolled his eyes, dropping their bags—(which Jack had made him carry inside, citing the fact that he was carrying Vincent).

“Say, Jack…” the boy sitting on his shoulders spoke, “do you think we’ll see the northern lights up here?”

“I don’t know! …What do you think, Glen?”

“Probably not.”

“Aww!” Vincent pouted, bumping his fist on Jack’s head.

“Ow!” Jack reacted in an over exaggerated way.

“Eh! I’m sorry!”

When Jack had found out about the cabin the Baskervilles owned in the mountains he knew it would be the perfect place to spend a few days relaxing and playing in the snow—and what better way to remember how to have fun than to bring Gilbert and Vincent along?

When Jack brought up this idea, Glen had blatantly refused. Ever the responsible leader, Glen didn’t take vacations from his duties. But lately he had started having conversations with the rose bushes, and everyone agreed he could stand a few days off.

Glen was just starting to unpack their stuff when—

“You guys want to go sledding?” This was Jack’s voice, of course.

It was a resounding “yes,” from the kids, complete with jumping up and down and shouting.

“We just arrived,” Glen grunted. “Wasn’t the point of this trip to relax?”

“And what better way to relax then hurling yourself down a snowy mountain on a thin piece of wood?”

Glen blinked. “Reading.”

Jack grabbed his arm, pulling him out into the snow. “Don’t be such a fuddy duddy. Come on!”

Glen glared at his friend as he promptly dragged him off into the snow.

Soon they were flying up to the tallest hill they could find on Raven, then, after they successfully reached the top, they proceeded to push each other down it on sleds, with much giggling and whooping (from everyone except Glen). When they reached the bottom, they would fly back up on Glen’s chains—(who seemed to enjoy the show).

At one point, a little while into the festivities, Vincent was waiting for his turn when something in the corner of his eye flickered. He turned to see in the woods, behind a tree, a creature.

Vincent froze when he met the wolf’s gaze, a shiver running up his spine, more than just the cold, his face twisting in fear.

“What’s wrong, Vince?” Jack put a hand on his shoulder, glancing from the terrified boy to the empty air he was fixating on.

The wolf ran in a figure eight around two of the trees, brushing up against them, its form leaving tracks in the air. Then it paused again to stare at the boy with white, smoky eyes.

It didn’t look completely there.

Vincent pointed shakily towards it.

Jack put a hand on his shoulder. “…Where?”

He pointed more emphatically.

“I’m sorry Vince, I…I don’t see anything.”

“What’s going on?” Glen asked, hopping off Raven and landing beside them with Gilbert in a flurry of black wings.

Vincent just kept pointing, his finger a vibrating signal.

Glen’s eyes widened.

“What is it?” Jack demanded.

“It’s a wolf. Or at least…” he paused, noticing the strange color, and misty nature of the creature.

“I don’t see it,” Gilbert said softly.

“That’s okay,” Jack crouched down by him, “Neither can I.” He stood back up to his full height, reasoning with Glen, “If you two can see it, and we can’t…”

Glen nodded at him, before taking a few steps forward, and finishing the thought:

“I think, more likely than not, its something from the Abyss.” He squinted at it, watching it playfully thread the trees. “I think it wants us to follow it.”

Vincent tensed at the idea.

Glen looked over his shoulder, his eyes flicking to the boy. “I can always go after it by myself if you’d like to return to the cabin.”

“Oh it’ll be fine! Don’t worry!” Jack took the hands of both boys. “With Master Glen with us, nothing’s going to hurt us!”

Glen rolled his eyes, but Jack’s words seemed to comfort them.

Un-summoning Raven, Glen walked in front, the other three following a short distance behind.

When the spectral wolf saw they were going to heed its call, it moved further into the forest, always dancing around the trees as it waited for them to catch up.

They followed it quite some ways—(especially since they were tired from all the sledding)—until the trees stopped abruptly in a cliff edge. Jack had to put his arms out in front of the boys to keep them from walking any further.

As they raised their eyes, they saw across the gorge a plateau.

“I-Is it still there?” Gilbert asked softly, looking all around them.

Vincent and Oswald looked around but the wolf wasn’t anywhere close to them.

“There!” Vince pointed after a moment. The wolf was across the gorge, weaving in and out of a stone ruin on the plateau.

“Are you sure that’s safe?” Gilbert asked nervously. “Maybe we’ve followed it far enough…”

Glen had already summoned Jabberwocky, and was currently climbing on its back.

“You coming?” He asked the group flatly, holding out his hand.

The three glanced at each other, before Jack helped the kids onto its back, and hopped on himself. Jack hugged the boys tightly, as Gilbert held just as tightly to Glen’s coat.

The wind was cold and biting as they flew through the air, but the ride was very brief, and they landed moments later in a puff of dust in the center of the ruins.

“What is this place?” Jack asked the air, and no one answered.

They ventured cautiously into the ruins, at first sticking together, but soon curiosity overtook them, and they each wandered in separate directions, captivated by different rooms. The place wasn’t too vast though, and thus didn’t allow them to stray too far from each other.

Glen found the throne room, or where it most likely once was; a huge empty room in the center of the ruins, empty, save for the collapsing chair, backed by the skeleton of a large window, holding broken pieces of colored glass. He slowly marched up to it, running his fingers along the ghost of the chair, looking out the window at the now frozen water far below, wondering what sort of king ruled here.

When he turned around, the wolf was sitting in the center of the room, swishing its tail at him. Glen was sure it wanted him to understand something, but he couldn’t quite discern what.

He noticed at the side of the room there was a large structure. At first he mistook it for a collapsed bit of wall, but upon closer inspection, he realized it was a piano. He set his fingers on a few of the notes, but they only gave a croak.

It’d been too long.

He lifted his head and raised his voice to ask the wolf about the place, and learn if it could respond, but it had moved on.

Gilbert found the old kitchen, the food there long since turned to compost for rats and roots. Then he found the servants’ quarters not too far from there, full of rotting bedframes and hungry mice, wondering what sort of servants were here, and if their king was as noble as Glen-sama.

He didn’t see the wolf pass beneath the doorframe behind him.

Vincent found a room that likely belonged to a child. It was faded, but there was paint on the walls: designs of flowers and vines. He almost stepped on a clay sculpting of a bird that may have served as a toy, once.

On a broken dresser he found a box which, once opened, turned out to play music, the notes discordant after years of rust and neglect.

He thought he saw something else, and lifted up the half-bug-eaten board. He immediately dropped it, wishing he hadn’t, the something that was there making him cover his mouth in shock and horror.

He felt a nudge at his back, and almost screamed, whirling around to see the wolf behind him. Fear glued his lips, welled his eyes with tears.

The wolf cocked its head to the side, as if confused by his fear. It licked his hand, and Vincent drew back, though it felt like a brush of wind.

“W-W-What do you want?!” He stammered.

But he could not understand the wolf’s words.

Jack descended a staircase a bit further out of the way and found—more in tact than much of the buildings—a dungeon.

It was a large stone room, lined with cells, sectioned off by rusting bars. He pressed one open with a creak and found an empty room, and a skeleton. He continued on until he found one without a skeleton, whose bars were bent, as if the person within had managed to escape through them. He entered through to find there was a journal in this one. He picked it up, brushed and blew off the dust and frost, the pages just as creaky and unwilling to budge as the doors.

He sat on the floor where he found it and began to read. Many of the pages were too damaged by time to read, the ink fading, the pages crinkling and crumbling, but he could make out at least bits of the story. It seemed the writer was in love with a girl, but, due to her being the ruler of this kingdom’s queen, they could never be together. As the pages continued, the writer seemed to grow more and more obsessed with her; his phrases containing less and less sense and sanity. Jack couldn’t tell exactly how he ended up in the dungeon, nor how he apparently broke out—if the bends weren’t made by weather or time—but in his not-quite-sane state, he must have done something very stupid. Maybe a lot of things.

When the final pages became too illegible, he looked up and saw in the waning sunlight, the tally marks on the wall. As he began to dust and defrost them, he realized the whole wall was covered in them. He ran his hand over the grooves, thinking of how long this person must have been left alone inside himself, and what that might do to a person.

He couldn’t see the wolf pacing around his feet, reading over his shoulder, couldn’t feel the wolf trying to nudge him, nor hear the wolf try to ask him voicelessly: “Do you understand? Do you understand?”

“There you are.” A deep voice broke the silence, almost making him jump.

Glen was standing in the doorway, Vincent and Gilbert at either side of him—(Vincent clinging to his coattails rather tightly).

“Did you find anything interesting?”

Jack set the journal on the floor beside him, standing and stretching, yawning the words: “Not really, no.”

Upon noticing the pink light cast on the floor through the small window, Jack asked, “Do you think we should head back?”

Glen gave a curt nod, turning around to leave, and Jack ran to catch up.

*****

A young boy with golden hair and green eyes stood in the midst of a ruin; a caved in part of the city—or what once was the city.

After putting his hand to his chin in thought, and a good dose of looking around, he pulled a watch out of his pocket. When he flipped it open it began to play the soft tinkling notes of a somewhat sad song.

“I still don’t know what exactly happened here,” Oz muttered softly to himself, “but…I’m going to do everything I can to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

He didn’t see the wolf poking its head out from around a wall behind him, didn’t see its ears perk up, nor, now that someone had finally heard and headed its warning, hear its satisfied howl;

“Thank you, Dear Rabbit.”

[curekibouka-writing]

Blissful Tomorrow Chapter 1 (Pandora Hearts fanfic) (Completed)

Summary: May you reach a blissful tomorrow as you open your eyes. For now, sweet dreams. 

Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4

A/N: This will be a four-chapter fanfic based heavily around the lullaby in the story Cradle Song in Caucus Race Volume 2. However, I made some changes to the official translation. 

For the full cover image, please see the reblog to my main blog.

*This fic is also on FF.net and Quotev.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 1: Found

“Cradle of light, cradle of light...”

Kevin briefly wondered whether the lyrics were originally written this way, or did she read his mind (would not have been the first time), for he was quite certain that a cradle of light could not have been far from what he was resting on. 

A melody as serene as a single snowflake gliding down from heaven, only accentuated by her soothing voice, he couldn’t bring himself to interject before she finished. 

“Blown about by the winds of time

Drifting on waves of dappled sunlight 

And, before you know it

It reaches the shores of ‘a blissful tomorrow’”

“What a pleasant song, Shelly-sama,” he spoke, opening his eye, capturing the moment of enjoyment on her features before it was replaced by slight surprise. 

“Oh, still wide awake, I see,” she remarked, “How odd, if it were Sharon, she would’ve been drifting off to sleep by now.”

“...With all due respect, have you taken into account the fact that I am not Lady Sharon, nor a child in general, perhaps?” Her attitude towards him truly baffled him at times. Not that he had had many interactions with women back in his time, but surely letting a suspicious stranger slumber on her lap would not be a go-to conclusion had she the slightest sense of caution. 

Can women really change this much in 30 years’ time? Or was it just a quirk of this particular one before his eye? 

She chuckled (at how he utterly did not realise it was a joke), “You have a point. Regardless, I’m sorry if my song woke you up when you were about to fall asleep.” 

“Ah, no,” he immediately denied, “It is a lovely song, despite it being short. I wanted to listen.” 

“Thank you. It’s a lullaby of my own composition,” she said, with a hint of pride, “That’s why it’s so short. I made it up spontaneously when Sharon was but a toddler, although she seems to like it even now.” 

So the lyrics were written this way from the start, what a coincidence then, he noted to himself. Could she have picked this song on purpose though? Her perceptiveness was one thing he had learnt to both fear and admire in the days he had spent here. 

If so, what exactly was she trying to convey to him? 

Having no confidence in being able to grasp her intentions, he could only ride along with the conversation, “Well yes, surely there is a ‘blissful tomorrow’ waiting for Lady Sharon as she opens her eyes every morning.”

She fell silent, which unnerved him more than his stoic expression would let on. She didn’t seem offended, thankfully, he’d hate to have blurted out something hurtful. 

She was thinking, he could tell that much. The corners of her mouth turned up very slightly before long, and he recognised that gesture. She made the same one when she had found out about his continuous nightmares, which he never did and never planned to tell anyone about. 

What a fearsome gesture, he inwardly gulped, which of his many secrets did she unearth this time?

“Kevin.”

“Yes...?” 

That fear melted away as she stroked his long silver locks almost affectionately, answering in an as-a-matter-of-fact manner, “You see, there’s a ‘blissful tomorrow’ waiting for everyone, Kevin, not just Sharon and not just me, there’s one waiting for you too.”

“...”

“So sleep tight. The crimson realm of your nightmares won’t last. Maybe when you open your eye, you would’ve reached the shores of ‘a blissful tomorrow’ too.” 

There it was again, her compassionate smile that brimmed with certainty, as if she knew every word she speak would come true. Almost as if she saw through all his sins and still promised him a merciful future nevertheless like the dappled sunlight filtering through the trees to shine upon them. 

He doubted she knew how much weight such a promise carried for a specter like him. But if hope is something as ordinary as this serene sunlit day, something as soothing as her proximity to him, something so simple, so mundane, so seemingly easy to obtain, then perhaps there was no harm in placing a little hope in her words. 

Or perhaps, he inwardly thought as his sight lingered on her smile that only served to enhance her beauty, despite the fact that he was in no way deserving of it, perhaps…

A ‘blissful tomorrow’ had already been found.

“Sweet dreams, Kevin.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

End of Chapter 1

[thisgoldenafternoon]

In free fall- A ReimxBreak fanfiction

“Hah... you don't need to tell me that...” the words come out barely a whisper. Defeated and done for.

And then Break's lashes flutter closed. There is the tiniest of stumbles, while his neck arches sideways, a pristine porcelain white and his swaying body is suddenly drained of any tension.

He's falling, Reim realizes, but in the most beautiful pattern. As if in slow motion he witnesses every muscle in Break's body go limp, his mouth is slackening, the sad and ironic smile erased but his features still cling to the memory of pain and despair they held only seconds ago.

Vicious black lines taint the immaculate skin of his chest with an irrevocable reminder of a hidden past, tragic and disturbing, and now in plain view for any onlooker.

Break's form, though halfway doubled over, is still sinking backwards and maybe even in unconsciousness it is drawn towards the safety that is Reim's presence. Maybe it's always been this way, that their bodies gravitated around each other and their minds are only now beginning to understand.

But there is still this sting of betrayal, that keeps Reim from dashing forward, to secure, protect, and hold.

It's not like he had expected Break to lay himself bare in front of him, but hell- they've known each other for fifteen years and Reim had always been confident that he'd seen the man at his lowest and brightest, but now he isn't too sure if what he'd caught glimpses at was more than a paper-thin, carefully elaborated charade.

Crushing insecurity makes him stare blankly ahead, while Break is gradually crumbling to the floor like he is suspended in quicksilver, all gracefully buckling limbs, pale strands obscuring his eyes.

Was Reim really trusted that little? Or had he just been too blind to realize the truth?

Had Xerxes secretly been reaching out to him, wanting him desperately to realize the deep dark truth about himself?

Should he have known?

Should he have been told?

Was he even allowed to assume, that his rightful place truly was by Break's side?

Had Xerx' really wanted him to be his friend, his equal, would he have kept all those things from him?

The weight of the years suddenly seems to pull him down. Years of being lied to, years of

-god forbid it- being a mere pawn in the grand scheme of what ever it might be, that Break had set out to do.

There is a sharp crack somewhere in front of his unseeing eyes when Break's weakened hand loses its grip on his cane and Reim's mind is starting to reel.

The sound brings back a memory of a different day, one late in March, when the hares are said to be raging mad and the sun has made it higher above the horizon than since forever.

And suddenly Reim can smell daffodils. The barely warmed bark of an oak, where the frosts of winter still lingered, when you touched it long enough for your skin to drink in all the sunlight. Rich, sodden earth. And the sweetest touch of tea and vanilla.

He was sixteen by that time, but he still remembers it as clearly as his head now remembers the blow it had received earlier.

Sharon had kept a cat those days, a timid fluffy thing that used to stray away from the manor only to get scared by a shadow and seek shelter where ever it deemed suited. It usually took all the coaxing and prying Sharon was capable of, to lure it out of its hiding place, but on that day the kitten had chased a wisp of sunlight up to the higher branches of the oldest oak on the Rainsworth's estate.

Reim had spend the morning writing letters for both Lady Cheryl and Duke Barma and rain had drummed a constant staccato on his window pane, but the clouds were shifting restlessly outside and by afternoon a sun so dazzling and bright had broken through, his papers almost seemed aglow.

Right when he took a small break to marvel at the sight, Sharon had stormed into his study, a charming little Lady at the early age of thirteen years but the tears staining her cheeks somewhat tarnished the impression.

Her breath was hitching and her cheeks were reddened, hair coming loose from the elegant knot it had been styled in this morning.

“Reim-san! You need to help me!” She looked at him with pleading eyes, and Reim knew, whatever was to follow, be it “ You have to travel to the deepest core of Abyss!” or “You gotta tell Break, he won't be getting any sweets for the next two weeks!” he didn't have it in him to turn her down.

And he was well aware which option of the given he'd prefer.

Fortunately though, the following request was reasonable enough. “I can't find Mina and I fear she got lost somewhere in the gardens again! Will you help me look for her, please?”

Suppressing a sigh Reim got to his feet. Surely the letters could wait, it wasn't like Lady Sheryl's answers would convey any joy or hope for Duke Barma, anyway.

So out he went with a disheveled and worried Sharon in tow and they spent the better part of the afternoon wandering through the spacious grounds that made out the acreage of the Rainsworth's but to no success.

When the sun had already begun its steady descent towards the horizon and the glittering on the first daunting green of spring had turned a stunning gold, they both found themselves out of breath, with dirt staining the rims of their fine attire and stray branches sticking out of their hair, at the foot of the dignified oak that marked the deepest part of the gardens. Panting and light headed as he was, Reim leaned back, just to let air flood his lungs and the cooling breeze soothe the heat rising in his cheeks.

It carried a whiff of early daffodils. Under his hands, the earth was still damp from all the rain, but emanated a scent of belonging that resonated with a secret spot deep within his bones. A scent one would always associate with home even if worlds away.

And it was in this fleeting moment of rest that Reim looked up into the skies where the barren branches of the oak had painted bizarre patterns, gouty fingers that reached for the sun though unable to secure its warmth, yet.

There high above he spotted a hint of white fur, nearly obscured by the chaos of blackened bark and dead wood, the tiny body pressed flush against the enormous trunk, shivering.

“My Lady, I think I found her!” he breathed, in fear that the slightest sound would scare the little ball of fur ever further up the tree. “I'm trying to get her down now, so please just stay here and be ready to catch her should she fall!”

He knew he wasn't in the position to give orders to the Grand-daughter of the duchess, but he wouldn't put it past Sharon to follow him up the trunk, lest he made himself clear and gave her a solid purpose to stay right where she was.

Reim remembered climbing that oak countless times as a kid but never to such a height- and had his feet always found that little support in the cracks and crevices of the bark?

Had the branches always gnarled like this when being strained with his weight?

Probably not, but only a few feet above him Mina still clung on to the tree for dear life, so there was no way in hell he'd abandon his task now.

Sweat trickled down his neck and the muscles in his shoulders started to ache like overused cords and still he strove higher, his mind dead set on finding a shake to hold on to, a crotch to get a footing.

And just when his eyes where nearly level with Mina's snowy pawns, with Reim in constant denial of seeing stars dancing in front of his vision, a sharp crack resounded throughout the crisp air that made some early songbirds take their hurried leave from the safety of the crooked tree.

Suddenly Reim's foot wasn't caught in the secure grasp of sturdy roughened wood anymore but suspended in thin air, the gnarled branch that just snapped like a match now making its violent descent in a whirling of slurred shadows.

“Sharon! Get out of the way!” Though only secured by the tight hold he had on the knag above him, legs frantically searching for a cleft or bump to get a bearing, his first thoughts had concerned Sharon's safety, not his own.

Having dodged the debris easily, she cried out to him in apparent horror.

“It's fine! I'll just have to pull myself up, no need to..” Reim's voice broke off with a yelp of pain. The strained muscles in his shoulders had all of a sudden gone into violent convulsion, cramps wracking his back and he felt his grip on the lifesaving bough slip.

He tried slinging his legs around the trunk but to no avail, his mistreated limbs had refused any obedience.

Adrenalin was coursing nauseatingly through his veins and his pulse drummed a maddening crescendo of “I'm gonna die- I'm gonna die- I'm gonna die!” behind his eyes. Though his arms had gone in a complete rigor, he could feel his biceps shaking on the very last thread of strength.

There was another pang of raw pain running through his body and then his arms gave out.

Break had been strolling around rather aimlessly for the past two hours, carefully avoiding the more populated areas close to the manor, in favor of the quieter run to seed spots somewhere close to the riverbank on the far edge of the estate.

The constant rain and gloom of the last weeks had made him restless, the empty socket that accompanied his remaining keen wine red eye throbbing dully at ungodly hours in the night.

A deep ache grinding in his bones sometimes when it stormed, filled him with an uncertain foreboding he couldn't quite put a finger on, yet.

So, when the birdbrained duke came to attend upon Lady Cheryl once again earlier that day he had fled the house, using a secret passageway concealed by an armor and made his escape to the gardens just in time to catch the first ray of sunlight painting the listless gray a stunning beryl.

A warm breeze came from the west and carried a scent of the sea, but hidden beneath the sharp pang of salt and tang lay also the promise of daffodils.

When the warmth descending on him had alleviated the stiffness in his bones somewhat, he idled around the little forest, every once in a while treating himself to some candy while his thoughts went ahead and around in circles. He hadn't even realized that his feet had carried him a good way back towards the manor already, when the panicked cries of Reim, seconds later joined by Sharon's high pitched voice yanked him out of his revery.

And Break found himself running. Worry constricting his throat, heart pounding, he skidded to a halt in the clearing at the very foot of an enormous oak, to find Sharon hysteric and in tears and Reim forty feet above the ground, barely holding on to the tree anymore, with his whole body shaking and convulsing with exhaustion. He felt a cry building in his chest, sheer terror spreading throughout his whole being.

A rough jerk went through Reim's tense shoulders and suddenly he was falling.

Break was well aware that he wouldn’t be able to catch the other the way he would manage with Sharon's petite form, for Reim had already overstepped the threshold of adolescence what with his broadening shoulders and lean built.

The last traces of boyhood in him were only reminiscent when he was cradled in the tranquility of sleep and the morning light smoothed his sharpening features with a gentle touch.

There was no way to simply catch him in his arms like Break would have done several years ago, but he'd be damned, if he wouldn't try anyway.

Reim braced himself for the impact. Praying silently to any deity that might listen, that the ongoing rain had softened the earth enough for the fall not to be fatal.

A pang of white agony shot through his right leg, when it smashed into a particular thick branch and then he hit the ground.

There was a sickening thud accompanied by a barely suppressed outcry of pain and Reim found himself cradled by the musk-heavy scent of soil and rain drenched grass.

Still in a daze and numbly wondering how in all seven hells he wasn't feeling much pain, save for his leg, the smell of vanilla and syrupy tea invaded his senses and all of a sudden he noticed the pair of arms, almost completely hidden in ridiculously wide sleeves, slung around his waist.

The hold Break had on him tightened for a brief moment and there was the ghost of a whisper next to his ear. Only three words, but to Reim they seemed to convey a much deeper meaning.

“I've got you!”

Then Break's whole body went limp.

For a heart stopping moment Reim was sure he had crushed the fragile form and frantically rolled off his savior with a whimper, ready to see blood and protruding bones.

Instead he found the dark bud of a bruise viciously blooming right next to Break's eye, where Reim's elbow must have made violent contact with his temple and knocked him unconscious.  

His searching hands found a pulse, and though the others breathing seemed labored and his face was taut, there was a steady rhythm of “thum-thump” against his palm.

Right underneath his fingers, obscured only by the thin layer of fabric that was Break's shirt an ink black intricate mark tainted the milk pale skin, waiting patiently to be revealed.

It was Sharon's voice that brought Reim to his senses, in a state of absolute horror she asked him if he was alright again and again, if Break was going to die- and oh how her tears spilled over the two of them- until Reim carefully took a hold of her hand.

“It'll be fine!” it was all the reassurance he could muster with his body trembling and voice strained, but when he caressed her strawberry-blond strands gently, the sobs subsided. He carefully tried to pick himself up, but collapsed right back when searing hot pain coursed through his leg once again.

The angle the limb stood out from underneath him sent waves of nausea through his guts and suddenly his vision blurred.

Someone frantically called out to him, but his mind was all fuzzy and swimming and the earth seemed to pull him in.

“Get help!” he moaned before blackness swallowed him whole.

At the end of the day Reim had gotten himself a horribly broken leg, but apart from that he was nearly unhurt.

Break had managed to protect all the vital parts, after all. But to what expanse...

The Hatter had suffered a severe concussion, which rendered him unconscious for the next couple of hours, two broken ribs and an unnervingly large quantity of bruises and contusions all over his body.

It took weeks for him to move about with only a manageable amount of pain, whereas Reim's leg sometimes still hurt to the present day, mostly on rainy days in March.

Sharon had cried her eyes out at the sides of both of their sickbeds, feverishly blaming herself for not taking better care of her cat, until both Reim and Break were sick and tiered of it and threatened to banish her from their rooms, lest she not stopped. After that she pouted in silence, but held back her tears.

But from that day on she kept a keen eye on Mina, who wasn't allowed to the gardens ever again, after the poor gardener who had been sent to finally free the kitten from its lofty prison, armed with a ladder and a brailer very nearly had his face clawed off.

Reim had tried expressing his gratitude the moment he was allowed to roam about, but just got cut off brusquely, with Break stating, that him falling to his death would have resulted in Sharon crying even more and neither her Mother nor Grandmother would have let him get away with THAT.

Reim just smiled quietly to himself and remembered the erratic heartbeat he had felt against his back, the way Break's arms had tightened protectively around him, even tough it must have hurt like hell, what with all the injuries to his torso, and those three words breathed against his pulse line.

By the amount of relief they carried, it was entirely possible that they had been more of a reassurance for Break himself than anything else.

But there had also been a raw emotion resonating in the strained whisper, Reim still didn't thoroughly understand.

So he mulled those words over and over in his mind for the next ten years, together with the painstaking moment that had his blood running cold, the moment he had thought he'd surely gone and killed off Break.

Reim is still in a haze when Xerxes' pale strands ghost past his jawline and envelop him once again in the familiar smell of vanilla and sweet tea, so he almost doesn't catch his falling form.

Almost.

For when Break's shoulder collides with the solid wall of Reim's chest after an eternity played out in air that seemed the consistency of molten lead, his body acts on his own accord.

His arms wrap around the thin shoulders and waist to finally secure, and hold and protect.

He is dully aware of being asked if he knew about the seal and what kind of story it conveyed.

He breathes a stunned “No...” as an answer, wondering briefly if it was even alright for him to know, now.

But then he set his jaw in determination.

Maybe this whole ordeal could also mean the beginning of something unspoken, something beautiful and renewed; a future where Break would stop hiding from him and Reim could tear apart those icy walls of silence the other had built around himself.

All of a sudden he realizes, that the reason his stomach is churning and his mind races a thousand miles per hour doesn't have anything to do with Kevin Legnard but everything with Xerxes Break, who's motionless form is currently only supported by Reim's tight hold.

For now, that would have to do. For now,  Reim would content himself with being able to catch the other should he fall; because he might not understand the White Knight of the Sinclair's and any of the loneliness, despair and ruthlessness that accompanies him, but he does know a little about Break.

And that is enough for him to cast aside one hundred and sixteen nameless lives and even more months of being kept in the shadows.

Instead he watches Break's face, still drawn, haunted, and is startled when a red tear silently falls on a marble-cold cheek.

His head he numbly realizes is throbbing dully and there's a trickle of blood steadily ghosting down his temple. He will need bandaging soon, but for now, Xerxes his more important.

So, when Duke Barma finally shifts his attention to Oz, he carefully lowers both of them to the ground, lips gently brushing the pale temple on which once a tempest-black bruise blossomed, just to tighten his hold for a fleeting moment, and whisper

“I've got you!”

to the soft skin underneath.

And he isn't even surprised to find a reverberation of the same still not fully understood undertone in his own voice, that tinges the words with unspoken worry and affection.

Was this what Break had felt at that moment? What had driven him ever since they first laid eyes on him, bloodied and broken on the cold stone floor in front of the Rainsworth's gate?

Perhaps their bodies had realized a truth hidden deep in their blood long ago and had hence reached out for one another.

A pained shiver runs through his friend, which causes Reim to carefully remove his coat and wrap him up in the soft fabric, briefly marveling about how nicely it managed to cover him whole.

After guiding the frail form down, head securely resting in his lap, Reim's hands busy themselves once again with finding a heartbeat, and though now the twisted mark is obvious under his touch, he finds the rhythm of the pulse unchanged, strong and achingly familiar.

In this moment it dawns on him, that he couldn't care less about Kevin Legnard, for in the chest under his palms beats the heart that's tact he's come to know in and out. It was a sound he could sometimes hear in the dead of night, when rain hits his window pane, intimate and beloved.

A steady, unwavering drumming in the darkness and it begins to grow on him with a startling clarity, where his own heart might have lain for the better part of his life.

[multixkitten]

Just me getting emotional about RP at like 2 am

I just...I was thinking how amazing it is to write, how I wouldn't do anything else for a hobby even if it can be stressful at times and take a lot out of me. I just...love it, so much. I have since I was a little girl and I read the Warrior Cat's series for the first time and I thought: I wanna write! I wanna create a world of my own! So I pulled up my computer and did exactly that. I wrote a shitty 32 page warriors fanfiction. It was the first thing I ever wrote. I put so much of my heart and soul into it and even til this day I am thankful, so very thankful, that I took that small step into a large, brand new world.

Writing isn't just a hobby for me. It never has been. I've said it before, but...I don't write characters. I write /people/. Every last one of my muses hates, loves, cries, feels fearful, feels anger, lashes out, hurts people--everything that a real life human does. I truly believe that as a writer, we breathe the initial life into our muses, our people, and watch them develop from there.

And I become so fascinated with the psychology of writing too. What I mean is this: muses react just like real people do. Every breath they take, every step takes them in a direction that changes them, rewires them, into something new. It's why I get so sad when people worry that their muse is the same as someone else's because it's just not true. No two people are the same, even people that come out of the exact same situation end up becoming different in the end, because their experiences shape them into who they are. I have 10 different versions of Xerxes Break/Kevin Regnard on my blog and none of them are the same, despite sharing a soul. Each and every one is different, has led entirely different life circumstances...all it took was one domino to be pushed over for them to become their own person, their own muse, with an entirely different life. And every single writer does this with their characters, they breathe life into a person and watch them become who they want to be.

Don't tell yourself to stick to a pre-made canon. What you're doing is putting your character in a cage and stifling them. Let them breathe. Let them live. Let them become yours because it's a beautiful thing to write and create characters, whether from scratch or from somebody else's mind.

It's beautiful and amazing and just...you all are amazing. Appreciate yourselves and your hard work a little more. I've been asked how I've stuck with RP and writing for so long, no matter how much pain it causes me and just...this is my answer. I am in love with every bit of writing, the experience of creating a character, watching them grow as a person on their own, every little bit of it. I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Fall in love with writing. Fall in love with /your/ writing. As someone who has, I can tell you one thing.

You'll never go back.

[philosophicalparadox]

Character Scenarios

I may not be the most active person on this site, but I am on here enough to do this!

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and decided -- why the hell not? I love looking too far into character’s behaviors, so what better way to alieviate my fandom-theorizing mind’s craziness than doing scenarios?

I prefer in-cannon, but AU asks are acceptable within reason. 

Shipping asks are also fine, and crossover asks will be squealed over with great enthusiasm. (crossover ask: one character from a particular fandom meeting another from a different series, e.g. Alucard meeting Sebastian [I did a whole fanfiction about that one] etc.) 

Also specializing in the minor-detail asks -- eg. hobbies, interests, etc. 

BEAR IN MIND these will all be personal interpretations based on observation and a whole lot of literary-scale analysis of character development and personality. For non-human characters, my specialty, keep in mind that I study demonology/angelology as a hobby, am going for a zoology major, and have a fairly sociopathic (reliant upon logic, not emotions, and lacking most  human empathy or feelings) interpretation of most demons. If you aren’t prepared for that, I apologize, but it won’t change soon. 

SO, the fandoms/characters I am open to at the moment are:

Black Butler:

Sebastian, (my  non-human specialty in this fandom. I spend way too much free time studying Sebastian.)

Soma

Agni

Edward (I adore him! also a  human specialty)

Elizabeth

Ciel/OC 

Grell (I won’t guarantee 100% in-character-ness on that one, and unless requested otherwise, will refer to him as a he)

William (Yes please! love him!)

Ronald (also, yes!)

Undertaker (another non-human specialty)

From S2:

Claude (with notable interpretation being based on his demon-form, that of a spider. I study all kinds of spiders and keep them as pets, so I know my arachnids. :)). 

Hannah (she is interesting to write, and a more interesting character study for me)

Alois (little brat, but fun as hell to write)

Blue Exorcist: 

Mephisto/Samael (Hell the hell yea -- non-human character specialty)

Amaimon (also a non-human specialty of kinds)

Lucifer (Ehhhhh.....He’s a tough nut to crack, because the way he acts in the manga is 180 degrees away from how he is portrayed in mythology. But I shall try my best to unravel him - if you feel like challenging me, by all means. )

Rin (of course -- I want to call him a human specialty, but he’s not exactly human...)

Yukio (also, spend too much time analyzing this poor sap)

Shiemi 

Izumo (eh...not 100% sure on her yet, but I will try.)

Ryuji/Suguro/Bon (human specialty besides Rin)

Shima 

NOTE: I will not be doing Konekomaru because I frankly don’t like him. Writing him is very hard for me for some reason. I can’t keep him in character to save myself. 

Hellsing Ultimate:

Alucard (surprise, non-human specialty.)

Seras (much more beloved specialty.)

Integra 

Walter (older or younger is fine, but preferably no vampire-walter. Haven’t figured out that one quite yet.)

Shrodinger 

Major (guardedly.)

Inuyasha: (just to hop over to another fandom I’m a major part of but which I’ve never posted anything about -- whoo!)

Sesshomaru (it’s no longer surprising. Definite non-human specialty.)

Inuyasha (also a semi-human specialty.)

Kagome (DO NOT ask for Sesshomaru ships! I won’t take them.)

Miroku (human specialty character.)

Sango + her children, if you really want to. 

Shippo (love the little tyke, do ask away!)

Koga 

Ginta + Hakaku

Naraku + any incarnations he has

Kikyo (this one I am open to more ship asks from, but don’t expect any bashing.)

Basically any other character. I love them all. 

Pandora Hearts: (keep in mind I am still reading the manga! I have finished the anime, but haven’t gotten past that cannon yet. Good potential for crossover asks). 

Xerxes Break/Kevin Regnard (semi-human specialty)

B-rabbit/Alice (non human specialty, the only female one I have!)

Gil/Gilbert 

Oz 

Vincent (human specialty...sort of. He’s very fun to write about, but expect things to be dark with that one.)

Cheshire cat (LOVE him)

Alyss/white rabbit 

Yu Yu Hakusho: (another fandom I am deeply involved with but which I never post about -- has fantastic potential for crossover asks)

Kurama/Youko (yup, you guessed it. Specialty.)

Hiei (also specialty.)

Yusuke (semi-human specialty, but I find his character a bit challenging to keep in character). 

Kuwabara/kazuma

Yukina

Genkai (human specialty)

Sensui (eh...the guy has 7 personalities, so you might have to specify which one he is in.)

Itsuki

Kuronue (the bat demon, yea, that one you all forget existed in the movie canon but which actually would explain a few things about Kurama if he was canon in the series.)

Yomi (another non-human specialty. I’d dare you to ask me to crossover that one into any of the above worlds. He’s very Mephitso-ish in his attitude.) 

Raizen (keeping his actual mythology as a war AND thunder god in mind). 

Mukuro (don’t ask me to do things with her canon past. I don’t appreciate it.)

AND with that, I am done here. 

I would to a Naruto one, but there’s far too many characters on that radar and its been a long time since I finished the series. 

So, to anyone reading this (my whopping 9 followers included) feel free to drop me a scenario ask, a pairing compatibility ask, or a little-things ask (specify hobbies, specific scenarios, etc.)

I may not get to them immediately, but I will get to them!

Thank you. 

:)

[this-idiots-left-eye]

Depth Perception 

Fandom: Pandora Hearts

Summary: How did Reim get his glasses? || Two of the Rainsworth boys are having trouble seeing properly. One needs a physical fix, and the other may need something a bit deeper.

Notes: This was written for @phmonth2021, Rainsworth Trio Day 4 prompt: Glasses.

This was a bit short/fast, so I think I might flesh it out a bit later? But I really liked this idea and definitely thought it was worth posting what I had!! I hope you guys like it too!!

I'll put links to this fic on Ao3 and FF.net in a reblog!

Also, fyi, I've started a Pandora Hearts series on my Ao3 so that those who only want to follow me for ph can do so!! So if you like my ph fics, please consider following it!! I post for ph more than any other fandom!!

If you liked this fic, please consider commenting!! You have no idea how much your comments mean to me. They make my entire week, and motivate me to keep writing stories like this!!

Rufus Barma hadn’t been entirely convinced that taking on such a young servant would be productive. He was more than half sure he would get regularly distracted, and not do his job properly overall.

He was surprised to find that despite his young age, Reim had little to no interest in silly games. The boy was astute, he was respectful, and in fact his diligence was unmatched even in his adult servants. He always did all the work asked of him, no matter how much or how trivial. He was a model servant, and more than qualified.

The only problem…was that he couldn’t see.

Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. He could see. He just couldn’t see well. Rufus all too often found him with his nose pressed against the paper as he worked. He ran into things in the hallway, and apologized profusely to vases. But whenever Rufus brought it up, Reim told him it wasn’t a problem.

Sharon realized this fact even faster than Rufus had—(a fact that, had he known, he would have found rather shocking). Even within their first meeting she could tell by the way he squinted and clumsily bumbled about that he was in dire need of a pair of glasses.

Surmising that the Duke was may be unaware of the situation, she endeavored to enlighten him. Her grandmother was heading over to the Barma Dukedom soon and suggested she come with her.

She hadn’t been over to the Barma Dukedom very often, despite her grandmother’s insistence that he really was a big pushover, standing in front of him she was rather intimidated.

“Duke Barma-sama I mean no disrespect, but I have come to make a request of you.” She said with her hands folded over her dress, her eyes down, and her grandmother’s comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Speak, Child.”

“Well…I just wanted to ask…” She wrung her hands. “I wanted to ask if you could…” She dropped her hands to her sides and said confidently, and a little too loudly, “Please get Reim glasses!”

Rufus blinked, taken aback.

“He stumbles around all the time, and runs into things an awful lot! One of these days he’s going to hurt himself! He really needs glasses! I know it’s not my place, but I’ve come to request that you please buy him a nice pair!”

Rufus’ eyes flicked to Sheryl, then he turned around to hide his smile. He silently walked over to one of the shelves behind him, pulling down something nestled between the books. He handed it to her.

It was a sort of oval shaped case. Trying to curb her fear that it might explode, she slid it open to find a pair of shiny gold-rimmed glasses.

Her expression broke into a grin, and when she looked up at Duke Barma, he was smiling too.

“Shall we present these to him together?”

She gave a nod beaming.

When Reim saw Duke Barma, Sharon, and Duchess Rainsworth walking down the hall towards him together, his brain didn’t delay in predicting all the terrifying scenes that might just play out in a moment, and tried to delay the self-destruct sequence that began to count down.

“Reim, young Sharon and I have a gift for you.”

Sharon held out the case with both hands.

Reim glanced from the two smiling imps, taking the item very slowly and cautiously, wondering not if it was going to explode, but just how it was going to explode, and how much damage he was going to have to clean up.

When he opened it his expression broke into to surprise.

With wide eyes, he flicked his gaze from his master to his friend, then to the Duchess.

“I can’t accept this.” He spoke flatly.

Rufus’ traded his smile for a furrowed brow. “Art thou refusing a gift from thy master?”

He bristled. “No! No! It’s just—this is too much, Rufus-sama!”

Rufus put a hand on his shoulder. “I do not consider it much, compared with the price of all the heirlooms thou hath broken.”

Reim froze, eyes wide.

“Many apologies, Rufus-sama!” His nose almost touched the ground as he bowed. “I will accept this most gracious gift with honors!”

Rufus leaned down and spoke to Sharon behind his hand. “Thou wouldst do well to use such methods with him the future.”

Sharon took a step forward. “Why don’t you put them on, Reim-san?”

Picking them up as if they were a valuable and ancient artifact, he ticked up the two sides, and slid them over his ears, looking like he’d been doing so his whole life.

He looked around at them all, finding that there was a lot more detail to their faces than he was generally privy to.

“I think they suit you perfectly, Reim-san.” Sharon beamed.

******

It was those glasses. It took Kevin a while to realize. It was those glasses he hated.

He could rarely tell what was behind them, the light reflecting off them obscuring any expression within the young boy.

Reim hated him. He knew it. He must. He intuition was usually pretty good, and, no, he didn’t feel any malice off of him, but he was sure that behind his back the boy whispered malicious things, and gossiped with the rest of them.

It was those glasses that told him that. He was always looking at him with that indecipherable glass gaze, but Kevin was unsure he really saw him at all.

Kevin was just as creepy as they said, of course. It only made sense the children would be all that much more afraid and judgmental. It wasn’t their fault a murderer had taken up abode into their home.

…That didn’t make it any easier for Kevin to take.

He could handle the gossip of the adults. That was high society, after all. Such whispers followed him long before he arrived at the Rainsworth manor. But that of children…

—(“Kevin…Please don’t leave.”)—

That was a bit more difficult to take.

He longed to break them. To throw them to the floor, just to see something real in his eyes. To confirm his fears and assumptions.

And one day…the thread snapped.

“Shut up! Don’t pay me any mind….Don’t come near me… Don’t so much as look at me!”

The glasses hit the floor.

But the look in the boy’s eyes…it wasn’t one of malice or judgment. No anger or annoyance at his actions. Not even fear. It was one of simple surprise, wondering, and…compassion, even?

Was it possible that when he told him to stop…he was truly looking out for his well-being? That there wasn’t some ulterior motive? That Kevin’s intuition about the boy being a pure and un-violent soul was right?

When Shelly picked up those glasses, gently replaced them on the boy’s face, kind words mixed with reprimand for Kevin…he decided it might not be remiss to give the boy a chance. To try and meet the golden eyes behind those glasses, and realize that they may not mask something darker after all.

The next time he stumbled against the wall, and wanted nothing more than to shove Reim’s helping hand away, he decided to give in, and let him help him.

As Kevin leaned against him, the boy smiled. “It’s alright. I know what it’s like not to be able to see very well.”

After that, he learned to trust his intuition, not his eye.

[curekibouka-writing]

Crimson World (Pandora Hearts one-shot fanfic)

Summary: He gladly drifted off to a long overdue repose on her lap, believing the mere fact that she was with him would finally allow him to dream of wonders as sweet and forgiving and beautiful as her. 

A/N: Been a long time since I posted a Pandora Hearts fic? Yea. Fun fact, I delayed this by a lot because I kept thinking it’s not good enough. Now? I did try to rewrite but it’s still terrible T~T. But I really want to post some Break x Shelly (/Kevin x Shelly), so here we go.

I am a teenager who has no experience in the romance department writing a romance between two adults. You have been warned XD

Note: This is supposed to be a two-shot, but I merged them for tumblr format. It doesn’t really matter since the content is the same. But if you’re curious, you can check out the links in the reblog. (Quotev has better formatting options)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A crimson eye darted to the side in acknowledgement to the golden light of sunrise illuminating the view outside. It was perhaps the first occurrence his mind managed to register in the last few hours.

He tried. He really did. Every cell in his body had been urging him to sleep for the past hours, and the hours last night, as well as those the night before, and he tried to comply.

But every time he closed his eye, all he saw was a nightmare.

A world of crimson. A hall, stained by crimson. A child, stained by crimson. His clothes, his hands, his face, his eye, all dripping in revolting crimson.

He pulled his finger out from his hollow eye socket. His clothes, his hands, his face, now dripping with crimson as well.

He almost smiled as he rammed his fingers into his blood-flooded eye socket again. An agonised howl bursted out from his throat, but he had no intentions of ceasing his torture, not until his reality was painted with the same amount of crimson as his nightmare just because he knew he deserved it.

With less than half of his sanity intact, it was a miracle he even heard her voice, ever so benevolent, even with worry in her tone, even in this realm of hellish red.

Shelly touched him with the gentleness one would display to a weeping child. In his astonishment, he heeded her request for him to stop.

She extended an invitation to him after his blood and his shredded bandages had been taken care of.

“Kevin,” she whispered his name as if it was not something filthy and despicable, “care to accompany me to the garden?”

He flinched as he stepped into the light. How long had it been? A specter who had always lurked in the shadows was a disgrace to the blessing of the golden sun, darkness was his domain. But as he laid eyes on her, so radiant as she elegantly trod the soft grass and smiled at him, he could not help but follow her further into the light.

Unfortunately, his fatigue caught up with him. Between his deprivation of sleep and his lingering pain, he found his mind in quite the hazy state.

“Kevin... Don’t leave me alone...!”

I know. I shall return. I promise. Please give me some time.

“Do YOu wISh tO cHAnGe tHe pASt?”

I... must kill.

“It’s the Red-eyed Specter! Run! Quic—“

I must kill.

“Kevin...!”

“KEviN.”

“Kevin...!”

“KevIN.”

“Kevin?” Once again, Shelly called his name with that calming voice of hers, stepping forward as she sensed something was amiss, “Are you alright?”

He backed away by instinct. His gaze blanked, somehow even more than how it had already been.

But she could see. She could see beyond the blank surface. She could see all the fear and all the fragility, as if something was screeching — despite his silence — deep within his soul, demanding her to stay away.

And then she made a judgement. They had given him enough space, enough time, enough liberty to regain control over himself and he had shown no ability to do so. He was too shaken, too exhausted, too blinded by something that wasn’t his reality in the present.

Time and distance were not what he needed, it was something much more basic, so much so that she pondered how he could possibly lack it.

“You are tired,” she stated — not asked — curtly yet assertively, leading him to the shades of the nearest tree, then sat down and smoothed out her dress, “Come. Rest.”

He shook his head after a good while.

“It’s less likely to have nightmares when you are not alone.”

The slightest hint of surprise flashed across his countenance, as if to ask “How did you know?”. Although he did not voice it.

She pretended she didn’t see that, “Your physique is feeble enough as it is. In fact you look like you’re about to pass out at any moment even now. You have to rest.”

“...”

“There’s nothing to fear. Come on, come closer.”

“......no... not for... me...” he muttered under his breath ever so quietly, but he believed in it more than anyone. He backed away again, regaining distance, for one thing he feared far more than his nightmares was the crimson in said nightmares spreading into someone else’s life (again).

.

But it wasn’t spreading.

She grasped his hand. And it didn’t spread.

Only her golden warmth had spread to him.

“Running away? Are you going to lock yourself up again?” she probed, “Kevin, you won’t heal for the rest of your life if you don’t let someone in.”

“That is—“

“Not fine,” she declared. She would never allow this. She would not just leave him to his own devices, knowing that his fear would surge and drive him to self-destruction.

Because how in God’s name could she cast aside this young man who so desperately needed somebody to tell him it was okay for him to live and breathe?

“I know not what you fear, or why you fear them. But I know that this moment in which you’re only standing here is not a lie, not a nightmare and certainly not a sin.”

She was wrong, he knew she was. He knew his current life was a lie and his past was a perpetual nightmare. He was constantly condemned by the knowledge that his existence in this time and space was a sin in and of itself. Yet his heart leapt forward to believe in her words before his head could deny.

Finally, he allowed himself to lie down and rest his head on her lap.

Warmth. Warm like the gracious sun rays of morning. Warm like the embrace of a pure angel’s wings. Warm like memories of the days before he was broken in almost every way possible.

He shifted uncomfortably, reminding himself that he, an unsightly, murderous specter, deserved nothing of the sort, nothing so warm, so compassionate, so humane.

“You’ll be fine.” She pressed lightly on his shoulder to steady him, “Sweet dreams.”

A thousand words halted at the tip of his tongue, and he gulped them back inside, a compunctious smile was all he offered as a reply. But that was good enough for now.

For now... he placed his trust in her words, and believed the mere fact that she was here with him would finally allow him to dream of wonders as sweet and forgiving and beautiful as her.

(End of Part 1)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shelly-sama. 

Another day without you. Can you believe it? It has already been a year since.

Somehow, I pulled through. Somehow, I am still in one piece, staggering, struggling, surviving, just as you told me to. 

And I suppose you have not the slightest idea of how arduous it is. 

Be it in the heat of summer or the cold of winter, the drizzles of spring or the breeze of autumn, I have scoured endlessly for warmth and beauty akin to yours. 

Alas, I doubt even the finest velvet quilt in the Rainsworth’s possession would even come close to the comfort your mere presence bestowed upon me. 

Please rest assured, I have advanced beyond the idiocy of wallowing in despair. I will continue to survive, as you so wished. Believe me, I would have more than willingly allowed an otherworldly being manipulate me into mad bloodlust again had it harboured the slightest possibility of bringing you back. But your command is one thing I would never so much as to consider disobeying. 

Ah. 

But. 

I miss you so. 

Perhaps in this short-lived wonderland yet to be defiled by crimson, I would be permitted to utter words I never dared to:

I love you. I love you with all my heart. I love you more than the accumulated amount of kindness and care and mercy you had given me. I need you. I need you to live. I need you to breathe. 

Would you be so kind as to bless me with all the hope in existence just once more? A single, brusque glance at your silhouette would suffice, I beg of you, please grace this rotting blood-red eye with your compassion.

So please, would you let me see you tonight?

...

......

..................

He woke up. 

The End

[antihero-writings]

Reminded by a Flower—Pandora Hearts fic for Phmonth19, Rainsworth Trio, Day 6: Flowers (Full fic)

Fic Title: The Simplest Gifts

Chapter Title: Reminded by a Flower 

Fic Summary: Christmas may not be the happiest time for the Children of Misfortune, still, sometimes it's the simplest things that can bring joy

Notes: This was a Christmas fic I started during Phmonth18 last year. I wasn't able to write Break’s chapter for it, so I decided to use one of the Phmonth19 prompts to finish it this year! Oh, and you dont need to have read the other chapters to understand this one! 

Fic: 

Kevin crouched beside a flowerbed. Most of the flowers were white, especially considering the snow, but as he dusted off the frost he found a single red bloom amongst the rest.

“Which of them is to be tonight’s victim?” a voice only he could hear said behind him.

He glanced over to the group it was referring to, which probably looked like a lavish dinner table to the Chain.

Christmas had taken over the town. Evergreen trees were set up like well-decorated sentries at the corners of streets, a large one guarding the town square. Candles, tinsel, ribbons, bells, and other assorted decoration had claimed shops and houses as their own, inside and out. There was barely a person without a candy cane, gingerbread or other cookie in their mouth. The children were especially affected by its cheer, making angels and fights out of the cold.

People did litter the area, carolers, rich folks in suits and fancy dresses, chatting in benches, poor people in rags sharing bread and a smile, kids slipping and giggling as they fell on on the ice, families, parents holding their children’s’ hands, friends drinking together.

The world rarely looked so alive, so…merry. Often he wouldn’t care, his eyes glazed with the potency of his goal…Today was different.

He returned his gaze to the flora, reaching down and picking the red bloom.

“Master?” Albus asked.

*****

He had never seen the place so alive. The manor, the family, always radiated a sort of warmth, but the glow of the assorted candles, the fires in their places—picture perfect, like everything else— the reflections in the ornaments and plates glittering like the sunset on the ocean were enough to make anyone feel the cheer of the time of year. The sweet scent of pine flittered down from the trees, the aroma of cakes, gingerbread, and other treats drifting in and out of each room. The hubbub of party guests, along with music, floated in the air like butterflies drawn by the lamplight.

Kevin stood by the door, his eyes sharp, surveying the room, the guests, like a guard dog, always trying to find a threat, never fully relaxed. It was his job of course, but the festivities didn’t appear to interest him in general. The guests, with their fanciful dresses, words, and smiles, didn’t seem to notice the young man either, like he was just a decoration, a painting in black, white, and red, on the back wall.

Two did notice him, however: a rather large man, with a brown—greying—beard, wearing a nice black suit, (the tie only slightly askew), with a white flower on his lapel, a smile on his face, and a little girl with short blonde hair sitting on one of his shoulders.

“Roman-sama,” Kevin bowed to his master. “Do you require my services?”

He laughed a little. “No, no…Well, yes. Actually…seeing as it’s Christmas, little Emily wants to give you something.”

Kevin blinked, as if waiting for the punchline. The thought that his master’s daughter would give him, a servant, a gift for Christmas, was at the least improper, at the most mad.

Upon seeing the quizzical look on his face, Roman grinned. “Come now, it’s Christmas!! Will you not allow one little gift?” he leaned over and spoke behind his hand, (though she could probably still hear him), “if you don’t accept, the little tyrant might just get offended. We wouldn’t want that, would we? Who can tell what her majesty’s ruling would be?”

“Please, I couldn’t possibly accept—”

“Keeviin!!” The little girl moaned. “Just let me do something nice for you, you dummy!”

He blinked. He knew The Sinclairs to be both benevolent and stubborn, but this was something else.

“My apologies, Ojousama,” he bowed.

The little girl had been attempting to hide something by keeping it behind her father’s back. Roman now lifted her off his shoulders, giving her to the floor. She pattered up to Kevin and offered him the gift with the innocent smile only little girls are capable of.

It was a red flower.

He blinked, reaching down and plucking it from her hand.

“It’s a…I forget what they’re called. But I’ve only ever seen these flowers be white. I’d never seen a red one, and it made me think of your eyes!”

The aforementioned eyes widened.

“See, I’ve never seen a person with red eyes either! I think they’re really pretty…and I just thought maybe you and the flower should be together!” She put her hands behind her back and swayed back and forth.

Others had noticed his eyes too...’noticed’ was a bit of an understatement. At her age he often got bullied for his strange appearance, but as he grew older people would often avoid eye contact, or seem very uneasy beneath his gaze…and those were some of the milder reactions.

“Well, what do you say?” Roman said like someone had just complimented his young son. Kevin cleared his throat and spoke properly and simply. “Thank you…I appreciate it,” he added when she continued staring at him.

She grinned, giving a small curtsey. “Good. Then I won’t have to behead you for your impudence!”

Something of his expression must have shown his shock because her father laughed, patting her head, ruffling her hair, “Always the little jester, this one.”

“Father! You’ll mess up my hair!” the Sinclair girl put her hands on her head, scowling at him.

“Sorry, sunshine!”

She took his hand, dragging her father back out into the party.

“We’ve leave you to keep manning the fort!” Roman saluted, and Emily waved.

Kevin leaned back against the wall, twirling the stem, watching the petals twist like a dancer in a red dress, trying to hide his smile.

*****

Kevin twisted the stem between his thumb and forefinger.

The same flower, but the times were so different.

A lot can change in a year.

“Master?” Albus asked again.

Kevin stood, looking the way of the painting-like scene the Chain looked at as a menu.

“It’s Christmas,” he said softly.

On this day last year, he was in a warm manor, the knight of an even warmer family. On this day last year he was a part of these traditions and games, even if on the sidelines.

Now he was cast out of that world, and no fires warmed his skin, no glittering lights peppered his vision, no candy or cake gracing his tongue…Not that having come now could sooth the ache in his stomach.

“And?”

His eyes darted from the twirling children to the twirling petals in his hand.

But others could still enjoy the warmth of this day. Even he was alone, and cold, his eyes attuned to the dark, others still gave each other gifts, and told stories, and ate sweets in the firelight. Others still had families they could sit with, and who they would be devastated to lose…especially tonight.

He began walking forward, tossing the bloom to the ground, it landing like a drop of blood on the snow.

“I won’t be killing anyone tonight.”

*****

“Break! Break!” the little girl toddled up to him, her feet carrying her as fast as they could in the snow, causing her to nearly topple over in her oversized coat. “I—” she panted, “I found something for you!”

She held up the bouquet of unevenly picked flowers like a trophy of war.

“Mother said you’re supposed to put flowers on people’s graves.” Sharon explained once she’d caught her breath, “I don’t really know what that means, but I made sure to pick the prettiest ones I could find.”

He blinked at her, taking them in an almost ginger way. It took him a moment to notice the red bloom hiding, slightly wilted, amongst the white.

“Do…Do you like them?” she asked, drawing circles in the snow with her boot.

He tried to smile, “Yes. Thank you, Sharon.”

Reim caught up with his friend, then gasped when he saw the makeshift bouquet.

“Sharon! You shouldn’t have picked those! I was just reading somewhere; the red variety is very rare!”

“You have nothing better to do then read about flowers?” she put her hands on her hips, “Why not pick up a book about something exciting,” she flourished with her hands, “something that will actually strengthen your mind… like a romance novel!”

“Shelly told you you’re not ready to read those!”

As the children squabbled—(he tried not to smirk at their fight…he’d slipped her that romance novel)—Break carried the bundle to said graves.

He pieced out the group, setting a few blooms on each, until only the red one was left.

As he let it drift onto the last stone, he murmured, “Merry Christmas, Emily.”

*****

Break strolled through the frosty Pandora garden. Reim had left his notebook back here—(…either that or someone hid it from him)—and he had commissioned (more like drilled) everyone in a nearby radius to help him look for it.

The garden was mostly barren at this time, though there were a few flowers that bloomed in winter. In particular, white blooms lined the pathway near the ground. He thought nothing of them until he rounded the corner to find a bit of a disaster on the pathway:

Petals were strewn about the stones, the stem in fractured pieces, like flower had offended someone, and this was their revenge.

Break knelt down and picked what was left of the bloom, guessing exactly who had decided to take whatever frustrations he had out on the innocent flower—(he made a mental note enhance those frustrations later).

“Oh, there you are Break!” Sharon ran up to him, hugging Reim’s notebook to her chest, “I found—Oh! What’s this?” She knelt down, observing the crime. “Who would do such a thing?”

“I think a rat may have gotten in here.”

She frowned, standing back up. “That’s too bad, I would have liked to put it in a vase. I think I remember someone telling me the red ones are very rare variety. It’s pretty... It kind of reminds me of your eye.”

He tried to laugh it off, crushing what was left of the flower and standing, joining her to return Reim’s property, thinking all the while it probably reminded Vincent of his eye too.

*****

“What is it, Sharon?” Reim asked.

She had stopped, before proceeded to running off to a nearby patch of flowers.

He couldn’t recall their name, but when he caught up to her, he saw that they were white flowers, blending in to the surrounding snow. Sharon knelt down before them and plucked one.

The one in her hand, however, was red.

“It’s been a long time since I saw a red one of these,” she said softly, twisting it in her finger.

“Yes,” he leaned over her shoulder, trying to get a better look at it, “I believe they’re quite rare.”

She proceeded to add this red flower to one of the bouquets she was carrying.

“My apologies for the detour,” she mentioned properly as he helped her back up.

They finished the rest of their journey, stopping before the graves. She knelt down and set one down at each respectively, removing the red flower and carefully placing it on top of the headstone.

His wife tried to smile as she said, “Merry Christmas, Mother. Merry Christmas, Break.”

[antihero-writings]

Black and White and Red All Over—Pandora Hearts Fic for Halloween 2019

Title: Black and White and Red All Over 

Summary: She's heard stories of a ghost, a knife, and the color red. She never quite believed them.

He wishes he could forget them.

Character Focus: Xerxes Break | Kevin Regnard 

Fic Preview:

She can hear her own breath. A tattered, panicked, rasping, gasping. Each inhale clawing at the air as if it were a rope. Each exhale another string in the rope fraying. Her throat burning as her lungs try to hold onto the air slipping through.

Red.

She had heard stories about the color red. Old wives’ tales? Maybe. Close enough to the town called truth or miles away from it? Too soon to tell.

A ghost. A black cloak smattered in red. A moon-struck blade. A moon-struck man. A lunatic.

(Or perhaps he was too sane.)

Some specter of a time-gone-wrong. Half alive. Half in the grave. The abyss gnawing at his heart with an incessant ticking.

Alive enough to kill.

Dead enough to not care.

A demon. A hellish thing with its strings around his soul. Allowed in because of some ugly truth and some pretty lies. A chain, one end around his wrist, the other in the abyss.

And the color red.

Red on his clothes. Red on his knife.

Red in his eyes.

Not just a metaphor for a clouded purpose.

Eyes really and truly red. Like in a fantasy world. Like a dream. Like a nightmare. A human, with eyes the color of roses, and just as thorny. As if all that death coalesced into his gaze and made them shine with the fire of hell.

You’d see nothing but the color, until all the red inside you was on the pavement.

She’d heard the stories of the Red-Eyed Specter.

Heard.

Believed?

Not enough. Not enough to make her cower in her room at night. Not enough to scare her into rushing home as fast as she could when the sun went down.

She had a family, you know.

But belief is an obstinate thing. Doesn’t like to be told what to do. Even when what it’s being told to do is get out of the road because there’s a train coming.

Her feet, her side, barked at her with sharp stings. But she couldn’t listen to their demands.

Because those red eyes were right behind her.

Or at least she had to assume so, because guessing any less, because hesitating, turning around to check, could result in the red in her fleeing her body as if her skin were a cage, black overtaking her world, and her universe going white.

She had seen them though. Those eyes. Her heart assured her with every frantic beat it was certain.

First that feeling; her brain told her she was alone, the hair on the back of her neck said otherwise. An alleyway to the right, one she walked by everyday, and never held anything more than trash and a few stray cats. But the chills chasing each other down her spine chittered that today that was not all. Her heart sped up to the tune Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look.

She looked.

And there they were, like they’d been there all along, and just wanted to say Good evening, nice to meet you. I’m the Red-Eyed Ghost, you may have heard of me. And you, my dear, are my prey. Two red eyes, two pins aimed at her own eyes.

And she had run. There was no other choice. No other salesman provided the option of surviving till the morning.

“My, you’re in quite a rush.”

And she hesitated.

*****

You can read the full story here on Ao3, here on ff.net, or here on tumblr! 

[antihero-writings]

Black and White and Red All Over—Pandora Hearts Fic for Halloween 2019 (Full fic!!)

Title: Black and White and Red All Over

Summary: She's heard stories of a ghost, a knife, and the color red. She never quite believed them.

He wishes he could forget them.

Character Focus: Xerxes Break | Kevin Regnard

Notes: Happy Halloween!!

*Please Note!!* I messed around with identation a lot on this fic, unfortunately, tumblr doesn't allow you to do that in the same way as Ao3. I'll hopefully figure out how to edit the indentation in later, but for the time being, if you want to read this fic in its full glory, pleast go read it at I_prefer_the_term_antihero on Ao3 on your computer!

Fic:

She can hear her own breath. A tattered, panicked, rasping, gasping. Each inhale clawing at the air as if it were a rope. Each exhale another string in the rope fraying. Her throat burning as her lungs try to hold onto the air slipping through.

Red.

She had heard stories about the color red. Old wives’ tales? Maybe. Close enough to the town called truth or miles away from it? Too soon to tell.

A ghost. A black cloak smattered in red. A moon-struck blade. A moon-struck man. A lunatic.

(Or perhaps he was too sane.)

Some specter of a time-gone-wrong. Half alive. Half in the grave. The abyss gnawing at his heart with an incessant ticking.

Alive enough to kill.

Dead enough to not care.

A demon. A hellish thing with its strings around his soul. Allowed in because of some ugly truth and some pretty lies. A chain, one end around his wrist, the other in the abyss.

And the color red.

Red on his clothes. Red on his knife.

Red in his eyes.

Not just a metaphor for a clouded purpose.

Eyes really and truly red. Like in a fantasy world. Like a dream. Like a nightmare. A human, with eyes the color of roses, and just as thorny. As if all that death coalesced into his gaze and made them shine with the fire of hell.

You’d see nothing but the color, until all the red inside you was on the pavement.

She’d heard the stories of the Red-Eyed Specter.

Heard.

Believed?

Not enough. Not enough to make her cower in her room at night. Not enough to scare her into rushing home as fast as she could when the sun went down.

She had a family, you know.

But belief is an obstinate thing. Doesn’t like to be told what to do. Even when what it’s being told to do is get out of the road because there’s a train coming.

Her feet, her side, barked at her with sharp stings. But she couldn’t listen to their demands.

Because those red eyes were right behind her.

Or at least she had to assume so, because guessing any less, because hesitating, turning around to check, could result in the red in her fleeing her body as if her skin were a cage, black overtaking her world, and her universe going white.

She had seen them though. Those eyes. Her heart assured her with every frantic beat it was certain.

First that feeling; her brain told her she was alone, the hair on the back of her neck said otherwise. An alleyway to the right, one she walked by everyday, and never held anything more than trash and a few stray cats. But the chills chasing each other down her spine chittered that today that was not all. Her heart sped up to the tune Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look.

She looked.

And there they were, like they’d been there all along, and just wanted to say Good evening, nice to meet you. I’m the Red-Eyed Ghost, you may have heard of me. And you, my dear, are my prey. Two red eyes, two pins aimed at her own eyes.

And she had run. There was no other choice. No other salesman provided the option of surviving till the morning.

“My, you’re in quite a rush.”

And she hesitated.

Looked up.

A man was leaning against the side of a nearby building, the moonlight polishing his features, the shadows steaming his cloak.

Black.

Black shadows. Black cloak.

White.

White skin. White hair; messy, hanging limp over his shoulder, covering his eyes.

“Th-Th-The Red-Eyed Specter!” Her unraveling voice called, save me! written beneath every torn syllable.

He looked in either direction, considering the options, put a hand on his chin.

“There’s no one here but us, Ojousama. Certainly not any horrifying chains.”

She stopped, breath and heartbeat latching onto those words like a lifesaver in the water. Her gaze bolting in each direction—from the cobblestones before her, to the buildings around her, slowly to the road behind her.

He was right.

The black that had swallowed the path she was taking, the glowing red—two holes in the fabric of the universe, glowing with abyssal light—were gone.

She fell to her knees, letting the air enter her chest and lower her back to earth slowly and safely, her heartbeat still unable to let go of the idea that a ghost was just behind her. Her aching feet thanked her, but her body shook, and nausea filled her stomach. She closed her eyes; now that she knew blinking wouldn’t result in her demise, trying to make her body realize it could calm down.

He took a step closer.

“Still, it must have been quite the convincing imposter, to give you a fright like that.”

Two steps closer.

“I shudder to think what sort of monster”—

Three steps closer.

—“might be so cruel as to”—

Four steps closer.

—“make a pretty lady like you cry.”

She coughed. “I-I-I thought I saw—“

Five steps.

“A pair of glowing red eyes in the dark?"

Six steps.

“Yes...I can imagine/that would be terrifying.”

Seven steps.

He was close now.

“But, unless I am mistaken, there’s nothing here now.”

Eight.

“I’m sure everything’s alright. You’re safe now.”

(Did the words reach his eyes?)

Nine.

She could feel these steps in front of her.

She blinked, her eyes taking him in one bite at a time.

His shoes—

(Red)

Next the edge of his cloak, tattered and, though it may have black once…it wasn’t anymore.

(Red)

There was something that spilled on it enough to dye it.

(Red)

Something that died enough to to spill it.

(Red)

Before it hit the safety ground, her breath caught, caught the air.

He crouched down in front of her, offered his hand to help her up.

“You must be cold. Why don’t we find a safe place to take you? A lady like you shouldn’t be out in the dark so late.”

Next the handle of a weapon at his side: a mouth that could open and reveal its gleaming teeth if only he summoned it.

Her eyes were stubborn, they didn’t want to greet his. But… not because they were shy.

(Red.)

Because, though there was a part of her that found his words as calming and sweet as a good cup of tea…her heart knew what her gaze would find in his.

Red.

His eyes were red.

Red like roses.

Red like hell and all its demons.

Red like blood.

Red like death.

And in the night air they had a faint glow. Like something unearthly, something hellish, some from the abyss, possessed his gaze. Like it was his eyes, and not his blade that devoured the souls of his victims; his blade just did the negotiations.

She shrieked, stumbling back.

He blinked, the red flickering. “Whatever is the matter, Ojousama?”

“N-No…You…You’re….”

“Kevin Regnard.” A grin spread across his features, a foul thing, somewhere between completely mad, and a little off base. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“No...No! Please!” She screamed, continuing to back away. Tried to stand. Fell.

Ten steps, eleven steps, twelve.

“I-I have a family! They’ll come looking for me!”

This made him pause, and he said his next words like they tasted like the color black.

“I did too.”

And for a moment he paused. For a moment something wavered in the red.

Thirteen fourteen fifteen

"Tell me, this family of yours"--

Fifteen sixteenseventeen

--“When they realize you’ve gone, what do you think they’ll do?”

“No, no I beg you!” she managed to stand this time on her shaking, aching legs, and run like she was eighth notes in a measure.

The next few steps happened so fast she barely heard them.

Eighteenninteentwenty

“Will they mourn you in silence?”

Twenty-one; one hand on her shoulder.

Twenty-two; the other around her side, like he was her partner in this sick dance.

Screams burned, ripped apart her throat. Screams of ‘NO’ and ‘HELP’ and ‘SOMEONE! ANYONE!’ and she tried to twist, to kick, to bite, to somehow escape his grasp.

He was not a ghost. He was far too alive, his touch harsh and unrelenting as life itself.

But she may be one before long.

His breath was warm on her ear, stinking of death and chocolate.

“Or do you think they’d sell their souls to save you?”

She was a pile of wriggling, writhing, squirming screams in his ruthless grasp.

Twenty-three; the knife at her throat, growling and hungry.

“Feed their own friends to the devil for a little more time?”

Tears tracked her face, she tried to rip his cloak, his skin, the air with her nails and wails.

And he didn’t cover her mouth.

Let her scream; those she called would only be more fuel for his ever-hungry knife.

She looked up at him, his eyes carving red tracks in her vision, even behind closed eyes, like fireworks.

And now she quieted, blinked at him, spoke to him, not as a ghost, but as the human he is.

“Please...have mercy”

Something darted across his eyes.

Then he looked at her like she was a worthless, ugly thing; just another stitch on the hat he was making out of souls, and there is nothing but heartless red.

She would have liked to have tea with her mother the next morning. She would have liked to kiss that boy a few doors down. She would have liked to tell her brother she was sorry for yelling at him.

The stars were particularly beautiful that night.

Her throat burned from all the breathing. All the pleading. All the screaming.

Her throat burned from this thing nagging to get into her neck, trying to negotiate, digging into it, cutting the rope, severing the ties of air between her lungs and her throat. Her throat—

She would have liked to see the sunrise.

Twenty-four.

Red clouded her vision before her lungs stopped coloring with breath.

Black clouded her vision before her heart stopped singing.

White clouded her vision.

Her head hung limp and half torn on her neck, lulling onto his shoulder.

Kevin pushed her body away from him as if she were clothes he didn’t want to wear, letting her body hit the ground with a wet thud, walking away.

“Albus,” he said with the same regard one would when telling their friend they could finish the rest of their meal.

He expects to hear the shadowed voice reply, or simply unceremonious crunching and slurping behind him.

Instead, the sloshing, dripping behind him is softer.

He pauses.

Looks down.

Red.

Beneath his feet the blood is seeping towards him.

White.

His shoes, which a moment ago were black, dashed with crimson, are now white and black and purple.

Break jumps forward onto a dry patch of pavement, twisting on his toe as if dancing, turning to see—

The corpse, the woman, a moment ago an empty, motionless shell, is standing. Her head hanging loose and upside down at her shoulders, her eyes open and half-white.

“I had a family. I had a future.” The words are echo-y and distorted without breath or heartbeat.

The stain continues spreading. When he tries to jump out of the way again, play hopscotch with the nightmare, a hand reaches out from beneath the waves, grabs his ankle. A crimson print marring his pristine shoes. When he tries to twist free another wraps around his hand, like some twisted show of intimacy. He jerks free, a splotch of red on his thin, pale fingers. He stares at it a second too long.

Beneath the pavement sea, coming up from the depths like serpents, hands become arms, become shoulders, become faces, become people, dyed crimson.

“I had a son.” Says a man with a slit in his chest.

“I had a daughter.” Says a woman with a gash along her stomach.

He tries to back away, but the talking corpses—their eyes hollow, black sockets, the black tracking tears on their indistinguishable faces—grab him, jump on him, knock him down, sending him into the red, dying his cloak, his shirt, his body, all red. Everything, everything turning red. Even their voices dyed the color of that name.

“…Kevin.”

“…Kevin.

“Kevin.”

"Kevin.”

"Kevin.”

“SHUT UP!”

He manages to shove them off, back up, enough to draw his sword. He spins, the blade doing the talking, rushing forward, the red rising with the wind, their heads falling into the kingdom of hearts.

Break re-sheaths his sword.

“Kevin.”

His hand reaches for his sword again—his hands caught, covered in the color of killing—but he pauses.

Something about that voice is different.

He knows that voice from other nightmares. From memories that wouldn’t let him out of their grasp, even awake.

He turns.

There is a girl, a little girl, standing at the edge of the corpses’ realm.

His eye widens, breath catching on the air.

A girl with short blonde hair, a little pink dress and a doll in the crook of her arm.

“Kevin,” she says softly, like she always said it so long ago. Like nothing’s wrong.

One step closer.

“Ojou…”

Two steps closer.

"sama…”

Three steps closer. He watches her little feet—(she danced for him once)—get closer to the…

Four steps.

"Stay back!” his voice is cracked, and he wants nothing more than to scream the words with everything in him.

She stops.

"What’s wrong, Kevin? Don’t you want to play with me?”

All he wants to do is rush to her, scoop her up in his arms, and take her as far from the color red as he possibly can. But the moment he touched her, his own hands would dye her.

His nails are digging so deep into his palm that his red is dripping down his fingers, adding to the pool.

Five steps.

"Stop!”

But red has already splashed onto her dress.

Nine steps.

His chest is burning, even though the clock has long since reached zero.

Eleven.

"Don’t come any closer!”

His empty eye socket is aching, even though it long since stopped bleeding.

Thirteen.

And the blood has covered her dress.

"Emily!” and her name tastes like blood, and charcoal, and mercury.

Her features twist into a grotesque, dollish smile.

Fifteen.

And she speaks with a dollish voice.

“You killed me.”

He raises his voice, but red starts to fill his lungs, and he begins coughing, so much so that he falls to his knees, falling, falling….

When he opens his eye, the scene has shifted. No longer in a city street dyed with death. He’s in a girl’s room, a checkerboard floor, the walls lined in toys...that little Sinclair girl nothing but a doll on the shelf now.

The Abyss.

A hand wraps around his chest, another crossing his vision, reaching for his eye.

"I did say I wanted the other eye.” The Will of the Abyss’ voice flutters in his ear.

He tries to whirl around, to knock her to the ground, but she has too much power here, a dark energy is entering him, freezing him in place.

She digs her fingers into his right socket, ripping out his other eye, so he is nothing but a blind doll himself.

He screams, and the air collapses with him onto the floor, and he can still feel the blood—or perhaps water now—despite the change in scenery. And she laughs and laughs and laughs.

"I must say,”—three steps around him—“seeing you like this is quite satisfying, Mr. Hatter.” Vincent’s voice fluctuates between a child and adult’s.

"Shut up.”

He laughs, using the forth to kick Break hard in the stomach.

One step. “You always were a jerk,” Gilbert spits, much crueler than his usual tone.

“I looked up to you.” No movement now, and perhaps this is because Elliot is dyed with the color still.

Five steps.

“Dance for me, will you?” Rufus laughs.

He can’t see anything, anyone, but he knows they are all around him, all the people he loved, all the people he scorned. Everyone he knows.

One step

“Break!” This is Oz now. “Come, on, get up!”

Ten steps

"Xerxes Break!” Oscar.

Eleven

Thirteen

"Clown!”

Two

"Xerkkun.”

“Xerx!”

At the sound of Reim’s voice something in him tears.

Four

"Break!”

At the sound of Sharon’s something in him cracks.

Eight

“Xerxes.”

Shelly.

And he is broken indeed.

Xerxes Break woke up. And when he opened his eyes—

Black. There was nothing but black.

To erase the dream from the back of his eyelids, to see pink dresses, and green fields, blue skies and orange fires, would have been a gift indeed.

But even when his eyes are open now, there’s nothing but black and memory.

And that, one eye stolen from him, color fading from the other slowly, those red eyes that scared and killed so many, going blind, unable to see that red anymore, that is penance.

He can feel his throat burning. He can hear his breathing; a tattered, panicked, rasping, gasping.