Ambidextrous II/IV: Nightray (Part 1/4)

[nadramon]

Fandom: Pandora Hearts
Story title: Ambidextrous

Chapter title: Nightray

Characters: Gilbert, Vincent, Glen, and others.

Disclaimer: Their original creator is Jun Mochizuki. The copyright goes to Square Enix.

Rating: K+

Warnings: Spoilers for Retrace 76! And Vincent is in this chapter.

Word Count: 15,858.

Status: Ongoing.

Summary: No matter how many times he changed his name, Gilbert would never belong anywhere. He simply hopes that his master can be saved. The question is: does he still have one?

Chapter I: Baskerville

Chapter II: Nightray: Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.



AN:   Thanks a bunch to everyone who reviewed! Since some of you asked, and I can’t write one-shots without a sequel in mind, Ambidextrous is now a multi-chaptered alternate continuity.

However, I will still try to fit as many canon facts as possible in my chapters, so expect spoilers for Retraces 75 and 76 in this one.

The original one-shot hence gains the subtitle Baskerville, and this chapter is called Nightray. There will be four in total. Can you guess the last two?

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Ambidextrous

Nightray

The creaking sound of a door opening woke him up. Gilbert turned his head towards it, and saw his brother standing in the doorway. Night had fallen on his old bedroom. The only light came from the candle Vincent was holding, and the airy dust that clung to his dirty blond hair. Gilbert’s mind was still too drowsy to understand the situation.

His brother smiled apologetically. It didn’t reach his eyes.

“I let you sleep as long as I could, but we have to go. I just got a message from Pandora Headquarters.”

“Pandora…?” Gilbert sat up. “But I thought…”

“The Baskervilles have put Pandora under siege. They are gathering the contractors of the five Black Winged Chains. Your master expects you, brother.”

The words were hammering reality into his head, leaving him alert and terrified. They woke the pain in his left hand. Gilbert jumped to his feet and threw on his discarded coat. Someone had hung the cloth to dry on the mantelpiece, but it still clung to his undershirt. He couldn’t have slept that long.

Vincent was watching him closely. When Gilbert went for the door, his brother followed in long, even strides. Every move he made sounded composed and deliberate. But whenever Gilbert looked over his shoulder or into the dark glass of a passing window, he would meet Vincent’s eyes.

He could feel them boring into his back as Vincent told him everything that had happened while he slept. In order to prevent the chains holding the world from breaking, the Baskervilles needed the power of the five Black Winged Chains. Glen couldn’t use the full power of the Jabberwocky with the fifth Sealing Stone still intact, but thanks to Duke Barma’s collaboration, they had learnt its location: Count Eyrie’s manor, a little further East after the Nightray household.

Duke Barma had warned them against the count’s high security, so the Baskervilles had split into two groups: Doug and Lily had gone to destroy the stone, while Zwei, Lottie and Glen - who couldn’t go near the stone - had gone back to Pandora Headquarters, as reinforcements for the illegal contractors. They were to take control of Pandora in order to find the five keys to the Abyss, but their main targets were Sheryl Rainsworth’s Owl and, of course, Oz.

Gilbert pushed the front door open, and raised his arms to shield himself from the sudden airstream. The rain wouldn’t stop. The sultry air was charged with electricity, and the trees bended under the howling wind. But it wasn’t water falling from the heavens. No matter where Gilbert looked, golden drops filled his vision. The world was collapsing all around him.

As he ran, Gilbert felt for the pendant under his shirt. The chain was ice cold under the drenched fabric, but the mirror was emitting some warmth. It felt like its contractor’s body heat clung to it stubbornly. Like the Raven kept some of Gilbert’s strength trapped there. The pain in his left hand got sharper at that thought. He had no idea how to stop it. There was no choice but to ignore it and keep going.

A carriage was waiting. Their driver was struggling to calm the horses, and swearing like a trooper at the weather. Gilbert got in without a word, his mind filled with thoughts of bloody corpses, burning buildings and a bottomless pit. Even if the Baskervilles managed to stop the destruction of the world, the damage already done was probably too great. It would be Sablier all over again.

When he sat down, Gilbert noticed a long, tightly packed-up bundle, which was propped up by cushions on the opposite seat.

“What is this?” Gilbert pointed at the baggage when Vincent boarded.

Vincent sat close to the object, and closed a hand around its wrapping. He kept it safely tucked next to him.

“Only something you are going to need later.”

Gilbert wanted to prompt, but just then the carriage started, and almost knocked him off balance. He straightened up, and glanced out the window at the night landscape rushing by. Their speed was probably unwise on these roads and with an upcoming storm, but he wasn’t going to complain. They had no time to spare.

“It’s only a matter of time until Pandora gives in,” his little brother resumed his account. “The Hatter has been caught.”

“What?”

“I heard it just now, from the messenger. They took his blood mirror and imprisoned him.”

Gilbert was hanging on the edge of his seat, waiting with bated breath for more, but Vincent had stopped talking. He was watching his older brother in silent apprehension. Gilbert hated how forlorn he looked. The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them:

“Oz. What about him? What have they done to Oz?”

Vincent frowned slightly. Gilbert wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been looking so intently.

“The Hatter was carrying him when they got to him. Oz was taken as well. Last I heard from Zwei, they took him to a cell to seal his powers.”

“He is alive....”

Vincent’s lips were drawn into a thin line. Even in the darkness of the carriage, his eyes were bright and calculating.

“…Does it matter to you?”

“Of course it does!” Gilbert’s voice was trembling, with anger or fear, probably both. “What do you think…”

“Brother,” Vincent interrupted softly, “I know that you blame yourself for what happened.”

He was shaking his head with a fond, disapproving smile playing on his lips. Pieces of golden chains went flying around his unruly hair. There was a childish air about him, which unsettled Gilbert and reduced him to silence. As patronizing as Vincent’s gestures were, Gilbert couldn’t help but notice how tense his little brother’s shoulders looked.

“And if I told you it wasn’t your fault, you wouldn’t listen,” Vincent chuckled. “Still. Your master knew what he was doing.”

Gilbert’s left hand twitched. It might have been him, or Vincent had put a slight emphasis on the word ‘master.’

“Besides,” his brother went on after a short silence, “you knew that B-Rabbit was the one who broke the chains. But to you, this Chain was always too human. Not to mention that,” his lips twisted into something that might have been a sympathetic smile, or a teasing one. “For a while, Oz filled a gap in your life, didn’t he?”

Gilbert couldn’t answer. It was, after all, nothing but the truth, things that Glen had already talked him through. Gilbert was perfectly aware of the way he had used Oz. That made his betrayal all the worse. Even if his master ordered it, he had no right to hurt Oz in any way. And now, even Break had suffered the consequences of Gilbert’s weakness. He couldn’t leave things like this.

“I can’t abandon him....”

“Do you mean your master?”

Gilbert flinched. He had definitely heard it. There was a slight tremor in Vincent’s voice; the one he had acquired after Gilbert had scolded him during their face-off in Réveil. It sounded uncertain, and grew more urgent every time he mentioned Gilbert’s master. It almost felt like a physical pull....

“Of course. You only live for him,” Vincent rested his forearms on his knees, and leaned in. “You told me this yourself: if his life is in danger, you’d kill anyone who threatened your master, wouldn’t you? If you think about it, nothing has changed.”

Lightning struck and illuminated the compartment. Vincent’s eye shone a bright, pained red:

“The one trying to take your master away is B-Rabbit.”

“Shut up!” Gilbert clutched at his temples. He didn’t want to hear those words. They wormed their way into his skull, niggling at the back of his mind like claws on glass, everything would shatter unless that gravely voice shut up, shut up! “I didn’t know it was Oz!”

“You couldn’t have known.” It took Gilbert a while to realize that it was his brother speaking, and not the bloodthirsty voice in his head. “But you can only serve one master.”

Master. Everything was so much simpler when he had a master to serve. Love him. Follow his orders. Simple. Easy. Kill his enemies. Simple, and the servant had still failed.

In order to protect his master, Gilbert should have stopped Jack a hundred years ago. He had been too late, and too naïve. Jack had gotten away and killed Glen. Gilbert had followed the order belatedly, and shot Oz instead. Knowing all the while that it wasn’t really Jack he was killing, and that his master was long lost, anyway.

Thunder rumbled in the distance. It was still far. Gilbert barely heard it over the clatter of the carriage wheels against the uneven road, but it was enough to bring him back to reality.

“I know that,” he told his brother through gritted teeth. “I know....”

He couldn’t use his master as an excuse for what he had put Oz through. The truth was that Gilbert’s act had been cruel and pointless. Even if Jack was the enemy, he was well out of his reach. Shooting the vessel wouldn’t rid either Glen or Oz of the ghost.

Gilbert had followed the order blindly, but it hadn’t brought his master back from the dead. Nothing would.

“I can’t ever make up for what I did then. I lost my master back in Sablier.”

His voice sounded hollow to his own ears. Yet somehow, his headache was easier to bear after he said it. Gilbert knew exactly where he stood, and how hopeless his situation was. Glen may have forgiven him, but Gilbert had never earned his trust, and he never would. Now, a way out was all he could wish for.

More importantly, Vincent’s expression was seriously worrying him. Gilbert had always resented the fact that his little brother hid things from him, and never confided in anyone, when it was obvious that Vincent had troubles he couldn’t handle alone. Now more than ever, under all the smooth words and calculating gaze, Vincent looked like he could crumble at the slightest push.

“…There might be a way to undo that.” Vincent said. He was talking so softly that Gilbert barely heard him over the storm and jolting carriage.

“What are you saying?”

Vincent seemed to hesitate. He took a slow, deep breath:

“What if you could prevent your master’s death? What if you could go back to that time?”

Gilbert’s eyes widened.

“You don’t mean…”

“I made a deal with Leo Baskerville,” Vincent was talking faster, his back very straight against his seat. “He is the Glen of this time. If he obtains the Will of the Abyss, he agreed to grant me a wish. Gil, we can change the past.”

What remained of Gilbert’s headache vanished at that. He looked at his brother in a daze, his heart hammering in his chest. Change the past. They could do anything. Bring Elliot back. Prevent the Tragedy from ever happening. Save his master. Save Oz…

His train of thoughts stopped short. Gilbert’s hope deflated like a bubble, before it was even fully formed. Of course he couldn’t save Oz. Not the boy he had served for five years, and followed into the darkness of the Abyss. If anyone turned back time, and prevented the Tragedy of Sablier, there would be nothing left of the Oz he knew.

“It is possible,” Vincent insisted. “I spent years gathering information from Pandora and the Baskervilles. I know for a fact that it has been done before.”

In a flash, Gilbert saw Break’s completed seal, the way the man’s pale fingers fisted his hair and hid his eye from view when he moaned: “I killed her.”

“Vince…”

“Jack wouldn’t be able to open the Gate!” Vincent got up and grabbed his shoulders. “Not without my help! Maybe… No, he would have given up on his plan. That foolish Duke doesn’t know anything. Both of us, we knew Jack better than any of the Barmas. You remember too, you know Jack would never…”

“Vince, calm down!” Gilbert pulled at his brother’s wrists, but Vincent only tightened his grip. “You don’t…”

“Brother, hear me out!” He was too close. Gilbert could even see his lips quivering. This wasn’t like him, Vincent shouldn’t look so vulnerable, it reminded Gilbert too much of the past. “It can’t get any worse than this! Just give it a chance, I know we can trust Jack! I…”

The carriage jumped when a front wheel hit a pebble. Vincent was sent off balance, and Gilbert caught hold of his shoulder when his brother fell on his lap. The man made haste to push Vincent off, make him sit next to him and ask if he was alright, but his little brother hung on to him. He looked flustered.

“Gil. You deserve a past without me,” Vincent told him earnestly. “Please… Let me give you that much.”

Gilbert was dumbstruck. Vincent’s words were soft-spoken, yet Gilbert became deaf from them. It was as though they had swallowed the raging wind and clattering wheels outside. He hoped he had heard wrong. That Vincent would take them back.

“Everything you went through was my fault,” Vincent went on, like he was stating a fact. “Our parents abandoned us because of my red eye. Everyone shunned us because of it. It was I who opened the Gate to the Abyss. If I was never born…”

Gilbert slammed his brother against the back of his seat.

“Is that how you planned to ‘make me happy’?” he asked, livid. “You want to erase your own existence? Are you crazy?”

“I know,” Vincent smiled, unconcerned about the fist clenching his collar. “I knew you would disagree. You were always so kind-hearted. Of course you would never approve of a plan that involved my death. I know you very well, brother…”

“Then why are we having this conversation?”

“Now, be honest,” Vincent covered Gilbert’s fist with his hand, and looked at him from under his eyelids. “And answer this: have you never told yourself, not even once, that you would be happier without me? Have you never wished that I would just disappear?”

Gilbert went stiff. Vincent stroked the fist at his throat with a thumb, and waited for an answer that wouldn’t come. His smile widened into a grin that reduced his mismatched eyes to slits. Gilbert’s fist shook. He couldn’t believe this.

“…I have,” Gilbert admitted, his grip tightening around his brother’s collar. “Many times. Even when we were children, and I had nobody else in the world. Are you trying to tell me that I was right?”

Vincent tilted his head, all the better to see him in the dark.

“That’s just the way you are,” he said lovingly. “Too sweet and weak to admit your own cruelty. This is why I took things into my own hands.”

“Stop that!” Gilbert slammed his brother harder against the seat, in a desperate attempt to knock some sense into him. “You don’t know anything! You keep talking about Sablier. Did it ever occur to you that, for most of my life, I remembered nothing of that time? What about the years we spent together at the Nightrays’? Don’t they mean anything to you?”

“They hated us,” Vincent kept smiling. “And you hated this house. I kept you there because I couldn’t live without you.”

“It was my decision to become a Nightray, and you know it!” Gilbert yelled. “You always knew that I was using you to get my hands on Raven! And yet you always supported and helped me. If it hadn’t been for you and Elliot....”

There it was. The slight widening of Vincent’s eyes, that lost look he had never outgrown. Gilbert had both fists at his collar now:

“I would never have made it without you! You always knew what I was planning. And whenever I asked for help, you gave it. So why can’t you trust me? You should have told me what you were up to! All these years, you had me worried sick. I drove myself crazy trying to figure out what was going on inside your head! And all this time, you wanted to die?”

The carriage did another jump, and the shock almost made him strangle Vincent. Gilbert released him immediately to check for bruises, but his little brother just stared at him in a confused daze.

“Damn you.” Gilbert ran his hand through his hair restlessly. “Things are bad enough as it is. Do you think I want to lose you as well?”

They were both quiet after that. The racket from outside was back, sounding much closer and realer now that Gilbert was done venting. He couldn’t hear himself panting above the storm.

“Brother.”

Vincent was slumped on his seat. All energy seemed to have left him as soon as Gilbert had let him go. When Gilbert raised his head to meet his gaze, Vincent covered his red eye. A reflex engrained long ago, that made his brother sick to his stomach every time he caught Vincent in the act.

“I am going to disappear anyway.”

Vincent’s expression was a mere shadow of his usual smiles, twisted in pain and regret. It sent chills down Gilbert’s spine.

“Your seal,” the man whispered. “How far did the needle advance?”

“My…? Oh. Right. Demios. No, I wasn’t referring to that.”

Gilbert could have slapped his brother across the face for taking his illegal contract so lightly. Vincent froze him with a look:

“I am a Child of Misfortune.”

Vincent’s smirk became crooked with self-disgust when he said it. As he stared at his older brother, it seemed to soften slightly.

“It’s better that way,” Vincent told him. “Once the chains are restored, as soon as Glen Baskerville gets all his power back, I will be sent to the lowest level of the Abyss.”

Gilbert shivered.

“Did… Did he tell you that?”

“You heard him. Children of Misfortune threaten the peace of the Abyss. This is why your master sent his sister down there. If you had become the next Glen, you would have done the same for me.”

There was a fierce glint in Vincent’s eyes, the certitude that he deserved no better fate. The way he phrased it, it almost sounded like a favour.

“There was never any proof of that!” Gilbert protested.

He had spent the earliest years of his life telling his little brother that all that talk about misfortune was nothing but superstition. He refused to believe otherwise.

“Who knows?” Vincent said. “It doesn’t really change anything. All I want is to let you start over, without me to burden you. Just let Lord Leo erase my existence. Then you wouldn’t have to kill me, and there would be no Tragedy of Sablier.”

“You would still die! And Jack would find another way! He became an illegal contractor, stabbed me in the back, and killed his best friend! Do you seriously think he would give up just like…”

“What did you say?”

Suddenly there was a fixed stare on Vincent’s face. His pupils had contracted so much that his eyes seemed to glow in the dark.

“Jack stabbed you?”

“He used me to get to my master,” Gilbert growled. “Then he forced Oz to kill him. Jack betrayed the four of us. We can’t trust him, Vince.”

Vincent’s hands were balled into tight fists. Gilbert bit his lip, and put a hand on his little brother’s forearm. He was shaking so hard that it became noticeable in spite of the carriage’s jolts.

“I’m sorry,” Gilbert told him. “I should have protected you back then.”

Vincent didn’t seem to hear him. If it weren’t for his erratic breathing, Gilbert would have thought he had turned to stone. He held his tongue, deeming it safer to give his little brother some time to recover. They stayed like this for several minutes. When suddenly, a bitter laugh left Vincent’s lips.

“I see,” he said between snickers. “I see… But it doesn’t matter. Your master will erase Jack, too. Yes. I will just take him with me. With the two of us gone, you won’t have to suffer anymore.”

Gilbert’s fingers dug into Vincent’s arm: “Are you still…!”

“Rather than killing us now, it would be best to prevent Jack’s birth, and mine,” Vincent’s laughter was dying down gradually, leaving a manic expression on his face. “Since our fate is sealed, anyway…”

“It is not! Master never said he was going to kill you!”

“He will do it, brother. The only reason he didn’t imprison me is because I pledged my allegiance. But as soon as this crisis is over, he will be sure to get rid of Jack and I.”

Realisation hit Gilbert with the force of a slap. Suddenly he felt cold, unbearably so. His soaked undershirt weighed him down like ghostly hands. The howling outside froze him to the core.

“It can’t be...” his voice was hoarse and foreign. “The reason why the Baskervilles kept Oz alive…?”

Vincent rubbed at his face. To Gilbert, it looked like an attempt to erase the grimace he wore. The younger man heaved a long sigh.

“Yes. They are going to throw him into the darkness of the Abyss, along with Jack.”

“They can’t… They can’t!”

“They already tried. Twice,” Vincent gave him an unblinking stare. “They couldn’t send Oz deep enough with only one Black Winged Chain, however. This is why he could make it back. Even Lord Leo was bound to fail. But this time, the Baskervilles will have the five birds at their disposal.”

Gilbert put a hand over his mouth, horror-struck. The Baskervilles needed the five Black Winged Chains to send Oz and Vincent to the lowest level of the Abyss, where no one could save them. They needed Raven.

No. He couldn’t do it. His master couldn’t ask that of him, anything but that....

“Do you see now?”

He was going to be sick. He wouldn’t look at Vincent. He didn’t want to hear another word from him.

“It would be better if the two of you never met,” his little brother’s tone was almost gentle. “If we change the past, at least my death would have a purpose.”

“Be quiet,” Gilbert pleaded. “Don’t say that. Never say that again.”

He didn’t want to go through this ever again. He didn’t want either of Oz or his brother to go through this ever again.

But what could Gilbert do if he couldn’t trust himself? His own hands had betrayed him. Gilbert was among the Baskervilles’ ranks from the start. Ten years ago, he had stabbed Oz. Just yesterday he had shot him. And this time, it would be his own hand dragging his young master into the Abyss.

“There is still time,” Gilbert murmured frantically. “Before the four dukes are gathered....”

The carriage jolted to a stop. The rain was pattering heavily against the roof. Gilbert stood up straight.

“Break.”

His brother raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Vince,” Gilbert asked in a rush, afraid their driver would overhear. “You know where Break is, don’t you? Take me to him.”

A worried crease appeared on Vincent’s forehead:

“What do you intend to do?”

“I have to talk to him.”

It was the only out Gilbert could see. Ten years ago, Break had burst into his life like a mad genie out of a timeless lamp, and only by following his lead had the young boy found his way back to Oz. If Break couldn’t find a solution to this mess, no one could.

Vincent’s frown only deepened. Their driver opened the door for them. His top hat was low on his eyes to protect them from the pouring rain, but Gilbert recognized his square jaw and aquiline nose. It was Joseph, a servant of the Nightray household, whom Gilbert remembered as dependable, if rather forgetful. The driver was only carrying two umbrellas, which he held out to the siblings.

Gilbert thanked him profusely, told him to keep his, and ran into the night. He ignored the paved roads, and made a beeline for the side doors.

Nightray: Part 2