Title: Living
Synopsis: Churches remind Vincent of his own mortality. However, at the same time, nothing else but disobeying God could make him feel so alive. Ada/Vincent.
Rating: T
Author's Note: Just a little test for myself to see what I could write in a half hour. I don't know about you, but I liked it.
Disclaimer: I do not own Pandora Hearts, its characters or anything affiliated with it.
…
Churches were terrifying. The high, arching ceilings that lead to the voices of the people within the church echoing over and over and over… and over and over and over… and over and over and over again until they faded into nothing. Like how he and everyone he had ever known would someday fade into nothing, not even a memory in someone else's mind to keep them alive. A church was a reminder of one's own mortality. A small parish was just a quiet reminder, a whisper of what will come to you, but an ornate church like the one that Vincent stands in is like a scream.
"You will die," it shrieks at him. "You will die… you will die… you will die…" it echoes over and over in his ears, growing more and more dim until it was no more than an incessant and maddening whisper in his ear. "You will die." It was laughing at him. Mocking him. Killing him. Tearing him inside out until he is no more than a shaking mess of the man that he thought that he was before.
He turns to Ada Vessalius, the silly girl who has brought him here for some fun, as she thought it was. She is enthralled. "It's beautiful!" she whispers, pointing over to a stained glass portrayal of her savior being nailed to a cross, scarlet blood dripping from his hands and feet, his head looking up to the heavens, searching for answers to questions that were too confusing for him to understand. He died for her sins. Ada grabs Vincent's arm. "I'm afraid that if I speak louder," she whispers conspiratorially to her date, still staring at the stained glass with utter delight. "Then I'll bother the other people here who are praying right now. So let's just both whisper! It will be like we're only telling secrets to each other today. Isn't that fun?" She giggles; an old woman in a dark coat glares at her beneath the veil of her old-fashioned and overly fussy hat.
Saying that sort of thing suits that girl, he thinks. He thinks that since she has no secrets, since she has nothing to her besides that silly, unnecessary and happy smile—and the freakish interest in the occult that he keeps trying to forget, but to very little avail—that wanting to find some sort of secret within her would make sense. Make her feel as if she were important, even when she is not. Give her something to feel good about herself about, when she has nothing else to feel good about.
Vincent, on the other hand, has secrets. He has more secrets than anyone else in that room—including the priest who likes little boys or the nun who has been sleeping with the bishop—and has probably told more lies than anyone else in the town, or perhaps all of the townspeople put together. To him, the world is dark and treacherous; a place to fear and a place to try to conquer. To her, it is full of light and hope and daydreams and sunshine and…
And…
And…
And…
It echoes through the church, hitting the beams that keep the ceiling from falling on them and the walls that keep the cold away from them. "Kiss me," Vincent whispers, hearing it disappear into the architecture as all of his words did. "Now," he adds, grabbing onto her arm, not letting her go. Ada doesn't think twice about what she is going to do. She does not think about how they were in a church and would be disrespecting God, or how her father would react if he found out that she was kissing a Nightray—an adopted Nightray, the only thing worse than a Nightray—in public without any regard for her reputation or the reputation of her family. At his request, and for his eyes, and for his smile, she would give anything. One kiss seemed like a small price to pay for the unconditional love that he gave her and she wanted to keep until the day that she lay cold in the ground.
He touches her cheek—a bit harshly, though she doesn't seem to notice it—and she closes her eyes and leans forward towards him. They are kissing. They are mortal and they are full of blood. One day, each of them will die and will be buried, most likely in this church or at least one like it, but not today. Today, there is nothing to be gained and there is nothing to be lost. The world stops around them, but not for anyone else. They ignore the soft whispers of the other patrons of the church as they whisper about the scandalous young couple that has disrespected the Lord in His own house and continue in their little world that has only the two of them within it.
The people who whisper and judge them so are not living; they let something so invisible, so intangible, control them. Vincent has never seen God, has never known God, and has never cared about God. God is far, far away in his ivory towers. He has probably never even wasted a moment to look down upon Vincent Nightray and all the evil that he has committed. So, Vincent thinks that God can Heaven and Paradise and have a jolly time with them. Vincent knows that he's doomed to Hell, so he might as well live until then and try to take this saintly beautiful girl with him just to spite a God who never had time for him.
"I love you," he whispers to her and it swoops around the church, hitting every corner, nook and cranny within it. "So very much." She blushes and reaches back in for another taste of his lips.
Vincent goes in for another round, pitying God for what he has lost since he has let him live.
…
Fin