A Song for Swans
Title: A Song for Swans
Fandom: Pandora Hearts
Pairing: Vincent/Leo
Rating: T
Words: 1340
Summary: He will hold this boy until black bleeds out to grey.
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.a song for swans+
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[rip the earth in two with your mind
seal the urge which ensues with brass wires
i never meant you any harm
your tears feel warm as they fall on my forearm]
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And, naturally, the boy that has promised Vincent eternal nothingness has the face of a seraph.
In a way, Vincent almost finds the whole thing hysterical. Of course his brand of salvation comes to him with eyes flooded with splintered prayers and the trembling lips of a rapturous virgin; of course his tears fall like rain down the smooth curves of his cheeks, seeping into the satin of Vincent’s glove as he holds him steady; of bloody course, what else was he expecting?
Then again, he only says this because of the circumstances. They’re both just as desperate as the other at this point, and so every movement they make is magnified by the sheer fact that someone else besides the long-gone is there to witness them. Every shift of bone and muscle is left up for crisp analysis, just as every turn of the eye or dip of the spirit is kept open for the other to latch onto in the midst of their own fashions of drowning.
Yes, that’s what this is about - circumstances. After all, he would have had every reason to expect a different face to be gazing back at him, given the boy’s usual slapdash appearance that easily betrayed any thoughts of beauty lurking beneath their respective guises. It’s not as if Vincent could have ever used the words “polished” or “elegant” or even so much as “presentable” when it came down to Leo before tonight. But none of that can be held accountable right now, not even in jest.
Right now, he’s looking at an angel. He’s touching grace, feeling its warm tears roll down his wrist, listening to its stunted breath, and he’s never seen anything so beautiful in all his life, circumstances be damned.
Oh, but it’s ludicrous, every last scrap of it. The beauty of the boy, the ugliness of Vincent’s own confession - god, if he didn’t mean every letter of every word he just uttered, he’d be smirking and giggling until his lips cracked. But Vincent has never wanted to be a liar - no, he is merely a concealer of the truth. (Not a liar, never a liar, he did it all for Gil, all for Gil, he swears.)
Stricken and breathless, he runs the pad of his thumb over Leo’s wet eyelashes. Leo stiffens, his gaze fixed on Vincent’s with the uncertainty of a small, skittish animal being released from a wire cage. He freezes in the middle of wiping his nose with the back of his sleeve; a childish, unappealing gesture somehow made beautiful by the very body that it stems from.
“Look at you,” Vincent murmurs, delicately cupping Leo’s chin and pulling him closer. Leo sucks in a sharp breath and turns his head away, but Vincent coaxes him back with a gentle touch to the cheek. He must be so careful, so very, very careful with this frightened kitten of a boy; he wonders if his hands are too rough, if his breath is too loud as he fights to keep it at bay. Leo finally eases just enough to wipe his runny nose, still warily watching Vincent touch him in ways not unlike the unholy souls pawing at sunlight that streams in through shattered church windows.
“Yes,” Vincent whispers, his words disconnecting from his conscience, “yes, look at you, look at…look at me, my Leo, never look away from me…”
Leo’s eyes flash, and for a moment, one brief and brilliant second, Vincent sees it. It’s there, in his eyes, in the bow of his lip, in the salt of his tears. Vincent can feel it emanating from his dark, wide-eyed stare, can see that spirit clawing its way out of the ribbons of gold glinting beneath all the black.
There may be the ethereal, haunted lights of the abyss glowing in the boy’s eyes, but Vincent knows darkness when he sees it. He knows madness, hurt, apathy, and desire, all in equally cold fragments that pierce his skin in the dead of night; he knows longing, grief, failure, and need, knows such feelings intimately enough to have nearly destroyed him, to have thrown him under the killing lights so many years ago that he never dared turn away from their tempting shine. Heads have rolled because of the things Vincent Nightray knows, but as for the things he has seen…
All the death of the world. That’s what Vincent Nightray has seen.
“But that’s not true, is it?” he whispers, his voice soft and enthralled as it cuts through the icy quiet. He touches Leo’s lips now, parting them with the pad of his index finger, and Leo winces as if slapped. “Because you…you’ve seen so much more. You’ve seen centuries’ worth of blood and loss, more than I could ever speak of myself…”
A fresh wave of tears assaults the corners of Leo’s eyes. Vincent watches them stir and shiver, eager to be released, and repositions himself so that he hovers but a breath away from him. Those tears dangle dangerously, stubbornly, before one finally breaks loose. Vincent tracks its mournful slide with his fingertip, and Leo coils deeper into himself as he sniffs and shakes, his gaze just as wild and flyaway as his hair. It’s only when Vincent cups his face with his other hand, holding him tenderly as one would hold a golden book of hymns, that he lets the overwhelming threat of tears make him their victim. He breaks down in a fit of horrible, choking sobs that rack his fragile shoulders and tear at his vocal chords, and for a moment, all Vincent can do is watch.
But the next moment, he’s sweeping Leo into his embrace, holding and holding him, kissing and kissing his cheeks, his forehead, his eyes, until he tastes nothing but salt and loneliness and the distant but resounding crash of a fallen childhood; he remembers hearing his own crash ever so long ago, and hearing Leo’s echoing all around him sends a rippling surge of something through his blood that he can’t quite place or name. He has no time to think upon it, though, because all he can do is hold and hold him, kiss and kiss him, and relish the warmth of the boy’s avian body pressed close against his chest. Leo slumps into him, defeated, exhausted, sobbing as if the only sounds he still knows how to make are those of agony. He smells of sleep and the musky pages of old books, and Vincent breathes him in in between each messy stamp of his lips. His vocabulary is cut drastically short as the only words he can manage to string together are “my lord”, over and over again, as if sighing them out in this black hour will save them both from what has always been hopeless since the dawn of days.
Whispering those two words into Leo’s neck, Vincent can already feel them falling into place - master and servant; angel and horror.
Even as Leo tells him to stop, first in a whisper, then in a plea, and then in a scream, not once does he go about pushing Vincent away. He grabs blindly at the arms wrapped around him, all but choking on his sobs as Vincent holds and holds him, kisses him and kisses him in the gathering darkness draping tiredly over their bodies. There are whispers and croons, weeps and whimpers, sounds of comfort and sounds of affliction - and then, there is silence.
In due time, Leo drifts off into a sleep that could pass for death. His body slackens and goes languid in the armchair, but Vincent doesn’t dare let him go, not for all the aching muscles and tight throats in the world.
He will hold this boy until black bleeds out to grey.