Kuroshitsuji: Public School Arc, Ep. 10

╰┈• "Ciel... I'm frightened.

If I'd stayed at this school without knowing anything, maybe I would have turned out like those prefects. I might have become someone who mistakes the crime of murder for justice."

"Don't worry. If that thought can still frighten you, you are still in your right mind.

Unlike me. "

✒⸻ July

let’s say we’re not enemies by forgeturself (Vampyr, McReid)

╰┈• Geoffrey stuttered half a sentence and pressed his face into the crook of his neck. While Jonathan would have been happy to let him drown his sorrow in the taste of his blood, the other just clung to him like a lifeline and he understood only too well. Blood was everything they needed, and yet it meant nothing at all.

Love poem with a dying cat by Nen G. Ramirez

╰┈• Two years into anorexia recovery, when I begin to miss dying more than ever, my cat begins to hide. She disappears for hours and I find her hammocked in the lining of my couch. She has hollowed it out with her teeth and stares at me through cobwebbed eyes.

I am startled at my own anger. After all the time and love I’ve given her, I can’t forgive her turning away like this. My partner reminds me that cats do not know how to be cruel, but they do know survival and fear. Each day, I reach into the dark mouth of the couch and pull her, claws and all, back into life.

Weeks later, she dies with no one home. I discover the body and the urge to blame myself glows hot in my chest. How could I let her die in an empty house? How could I be so cruel.

On the drive to donate her body, my partner apologizes with every breath. We pull over and he cries into my coat, How could I let this happen? And I know that if he feels guilty too, maybe the blame belongs to neither of us.

This is the person who tried to breathe life back into the cat’s corpse, without realizing what he was doing. He did it because his instincts told him to, because every cell in his body is good. For weeks, the memory will make him shiver, gag, rinse the moment from his mouth.

This is the person who gave everything to keep me alive, when letting me die was the easiest thing to do. He never stopped looking for me when I hid in the hollows of myself and my heart became a shadowy hallway of locked doors.

This is the person who, if I died as the doctor said I would, would surely blame himself, and I would bang my phantom fists against the plexiglass of the living world, screaming No!

I did not die. And when I was stuck in the hospital, sobbing as I pictured him living our life alone, I wrote him a letter asking how he could ever forgive me. He wrote back saying I would rather miss you for a while than miss you forever.

In the car now, he asks how we’ll ever survive this and I say Together.

avaler des couleuvres by sentimentalfootsteps (Vampyr, Mcreid)

╰┈• “If you’d told me a year ago that vampires could have nightmares, I would have laughed in your face.”

“You did laugh in my face a year ago,” Jonathan reminded him, “no matter what I said to you.”

McCullum shrugged. “Had no reason to trust you. Are you still angry over it, then?”

“I was not angry then,” Jonathan said. “You had your reasons, as difficult as it was to avoid your war dogs.”

“You’re completely unflappable. Have I told you how annoying it is?”

“Not today.”

“Tick that off my to-do list, then,” McCullum snorted. He looked off at the darkening skyline. Whatever he saw, or failed to see, offered him no comfort.

“I need to go about my rounds and resupply at the Pembroke,” Jonathan offered as an olive branch, “if you’d like to join me for one or the other.”

McCullum shuddered. “Not after last time.”

Damn. Jonathan had all but forgotten that night: the river of blood pouring from McCullum’s throat, the pistol the man had pressed under his chin like a lifeline. No, Jonathan supposed he would not wish to return to the Pembroke in such short order, either. “Right, then,” he said. “I should be back soon.”

McCullum looked for a moment as though he may have had more to say, but just as quickly he reeled his reaction back in. “Right. Be cautious, would you. I mean it.”

Though he dearly wanted to know what had crossed McCullum’s mind, Jonathan donned his coat rather than enter into pursuit. McCullum’s Luger was already buckled about his waist, as was his embarrassment-apparent of a sabre. “Do I pass muster, then, Mr McCullum?”

“Apart from that shite sabre—”

“—yes, thank you, we already know your feelings regarding that—”

“—yes,” McCullum smiled. “You look good.”

The simple pronouncement took Jonathan by surprise. It could have been taken at face value— McCullum was not shy when it came to expressing himself— but Jonathan could not help but feel as though he heard something deeper in the statement. “I will be back soon,” he said after a far too long and telling pause. “Do try to get some rest.”

That smile turned a touch sharper. “What,” McCullum said, his dark lashes falling temptingly half-closed, “no good-bye kiss?” He even inclined his head invitingly.

Jonathan drew himself up, startled. “Oh— I—”

McCullum burst into laughter. “God. Get on with you,” he managed to wheeze after a few moments, “just don’t find someone else to become perplexed by while you’re out.”

Well. That was a bridge too far for Jonathan's ego.

He closed the gap between them, revelling in McCullum's sudden stillness, and lifted his hand to touch the man’s stubble-rough cheek. Soap, pomade, tobacco, a hint of whiskey— they assailed Jonathan’s senses at such dangerously close range. He slid his hand to the back of McCullum’s neck and gently pulled.

McCullum moved with his touch agreeably, expectantly, eyes half-lidded and glittering. The light kiss Jonathan pressed upon his cheekbone, right at the corner of his eye, elicited a soft inhale that did not quite qualify as a gasp.

“Oh,” McCullum said. His face had turned an enticing shade of pink. His body was so splendidly warm in such close proximity to Jonathan's, firm and tempting, his willingness proven. Jonathan knew if he did not withdraw then they would both succumb to further impulse.

And so, instead, he smiled. “That should tide you over, I think.” He swept to the door without waiting for a response.

McCullum’s quiet, stunned laugh still floated to his ears.

✒⸻ August

A Song For Patroclus by Rainbow_Femme (The Song of Achilles, Patrochilles) Achilles POV, really amazing. Please read it

╰┈• Water rolled off them in shining beads, and he thought Patroclus looked as if he were embedded with a thousand glistening diamonds, or perhaps the heavens themselves had fallen to decorate his skin, preferring its warmth and depth to the emptiness of the sky. He did not blame them, he often wished to do the same.

╰┈• "I did not think-" He could not say it, could not put all his hopes into the proper words. I did not think you could love me. I did not think I could be enough for you to stay. You are the earth, the sky, the sun and the stars and I cannot fathom all that you are, all that you mean to me.

╰┈• "Patroclus. I have given enough to them. I will not give them this." He would let nothing and no one take Patroclus from him. He would fight their war and give them his life but not his love. That he would keep for himself.

╰┈• For a moment, he was not hugging his father but himself, his future. He saw the faded gold hair, the wrinkled bronze skin, the hazy green eyes. He saw the thin hands that held no more spears, but perhaps the hands of more children and even grandchildren he would never have. And as he raised his eyes, he saw an aged Patroclus, smiling sadly at him. A face he knew he would never see in life, a face that he would have kissed a hundred thousand more times, had a hundred thousand more conversation with, told he loved countless more times. He could delay killing Hector, but not that long. As he stepped back from his father he stepped back from this glimpse of the future that would never be, watched these phantoms slip from his grasp into nothingness.

╰┈• He had readied to kill this man before he had even thought off the need. It did not occur to him that he could not make the distance, did not occur to him that he might miss. Did the wind miss the sails? The sun miss the flower?

╰┈• Achilles had thought throwing spears from the ship felt right, he had thought those first raids felt right, but it was nothing to true battle. He felt like a bird kept all its life in a cage only to be released and shown what its wings were truly for. He loved to sing, to play the lyre, to run, to laugh, to create challenges for himself to overcome. But it was only now, armored and facing down an army, that he understood what he was for, why he had been created.

A distant voice that sounded perhaps like old Phoinix whispered in the back of his mind. That war was a terrible thing to be endured, not relished in, certainly not enjoyed. But Phoinix was a mere man, for all that may be blessing or curse. He had been made for nothing and so could do anything. Achilles had been created to hold a spear as a lion was created to hold an antelope in its jaws.

╰┈• “No more than the left hand can hinder the right.” He let his hand rest over Patroclus’ heart, relaxing with the familiar beating against his palm. “I am not complete if we are apart. I miss the other half of myself.”