Seeing Seasons
The eyes are the window to the soul—a truer phrase was never spoken when it came to Break and Sharon.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story is a re-post, and was originally written by me and posted on my sister's FF account (DecidedlyPositive) a few years ago, as I did not have my own account. Because I finally got a FanFiction account of my own, I am transferring my Pandora Hearts stories onto it so as to no longer clutter up hers.
It is winter when she first meets him, his body lying on the stone cold ground of the courtyard. Sharon is young then, her cheeks still round with baby-fat and her mind wonderfully untainted with the secrets of Pandora and the Abyss. She dreams and laughs like a normal child, violet eyes sparkling with lively pleasure and eager to engage the world and see all it has to offer. Her small feet shod in dainty little slippers, and clad in a dress made of extravagant frills and lace, she accidentally stumbles upon a white-haired stranger lying motionless upon the grounds of the Rainsworth mansion.
He is everything mysterious and frightening that her innocence has never before seen, and drowns in a pool of bright, red blood. His skin is as pale as the moon painted in the night sky, and his form is utterly motionless, everything about him bespeaking of death. His white bangs slowly fall away from his face, and she can see a gaping black hole where his left eye should be. The other is closed, and she is struck by the horrible idea that this man will not wake up. Crimson stains her new gown as she throws herself down next to the man, tearfully shaking him with small hands.
Mister, mister, please get up! she begs. She cries loudly for her mother. She wails, heart-breaking sobs bringing an alarmed Reim to her side. Everyone is rushing into the grey courtyard, exclamations of surprise and calls for the doctors surrounding her in a sea of blurred noise that has no meaning. But Sharon can only keep her eyes on the stranger she clings to so desperately.
His eye opens amidst the panicked noise, making her frightened cries subside as the pained red of his gaze clashes with her watery violet one. Young and naïve as she is, she cannot help but suck in a startled breath at how much hurt and sadness she can see in his eye. It strikes her straight into her little heart, and she wants to reach out and take away all that unhappiness, because she hates it when the world isn't as bright for others as it is for her.
She doesn't get the chance, though, because he's lifted up, his lifeless body stolen from her grasp, and Reim-san is holding her back, telling her she is too young to follow. The next time she sees him, she is hiding sheepishly behind her mother's skirts, clutching the material so that she can watch without being watched in return. His body is seated at the window, as unmoving as when she found him, and he is staring out past the window glass and past the deadened grounds and into the cloudy sky. This time he does not look at her, and there are long, white bandages wrapped and wrapped around his face, making her wonder how he is able to see everything around him. When she catches a glimpse of his face, she gasps at the coating of fury in his eye, his words to her mother and Reim-san as harsh as the way his features are twisted up into a reflection of despair.
The man called Kevin Regnard dies in winter's chill—his red eye and face passing onto a new person called Xerxes Break. Shelly Rainsworth, in reply to his emotionless request to repay his debt to the family (his stare is filled with the words he will not say, that he wished they had left him to die), asks him to guard over her daughter. An agreement is made, formalities with no real feeling, and a sad Sharon hides behind the door of her mother's sitting room, secretly listening and wincing as his cold voice washes over her.
Spring comes, the abundance of trees in the forest turning a vibrant green and the flowers in Sharon's garden blooming to their full beauty. With a care befitting for a precocious child, she gingerly plucks a rose from her assortment of flowers and brings it to her new friend with a large smile each and every day. It is easy to find him, for he is always outside, as if he cannot bear to be confined within the walls of the elegant mansion. At first he merely stares at her, reaching out wordlessly to take the flower from her waiting hand. His gaze is confused, but not sad or angry, and that makes Sharon inexplicably overjoyed. The next time, he smiles tentatively as she slips the flower into his gloved hand, but Sharon is not satisfied, for his gaze is as far-away as ever, as though he is locked in a time where she cannot reach him. So she continues, determined with only the perseverance that a child can have, to bring him a flower and see him be happy.
And eventually, that day does come. It comes with a soft shower of pink petals, with a childish hand gently reaching out to pull a tainted man from the brink of nothingness. It comes with the acceptance of a small, colorful flower from Sharon's fingers, and, perhaps, the acceptance of a chance at a new life. It comes with a small, but true smile that finally reaches up into his red eye, making the young lady of the Rainsworth house forget her upbringing and twirl around in elation.
It is around this time that he transforms into her protector, her confidant and co-conspirator in her elaborate pranks and girlish games. Their relationship evolves as naturally as breathing is to humans, the close bond of friendship of a haunted young man and an innocent girl blossoming as sweetly as Sharon's flowers. She is his beloved Ojou-sama, and he becomes her precious Xerxes-nii. And all the while Sharon does not lose sight of him, contentedness blooming in her eyes as long as his ruby orb remains free of the awful grief.
Her mother watches in amusement as a cheerful Break sits at her daughter's play tea table, gnawing on fake crumpets and pretending to drink out of empty tea cups. Spring days are passed outside, on the green grasses, as he becomes the willing sufferer of Sharon's sudden interest in flower weaving—in his hair. Nights are spent reading stories upon stories by the light of the fire, Break sighing dreamily right alongside Sharon at the sappy tales of brave knights and swooning princesses that she insists on him reading to her. They gang up against poor Reim, hiding his glasses in the oddest of places and setting up clever traps (planned by Sharon and constructed by Break) to catch him and make him mad.
Xerxes Break and Shelly Rainsworth meet again in her sitting room, months after that first empty promise is made, and she once again asks him to guard over her young daughter. He swears his loyalty to her and dedication to this task with the utmost fervor in his voice. Sharon now rests behind the wooden door, quietly listening in once again, and smiles happily as her Xerxes-nii promises to protect her forever. Spring has melted the chill in his eye and heart, and Sharon is joyous that Xerxes-nii's wintertime has finally come to an end.
The months of Spring slowly fade into the warm ones of Summer, and Break guards over his young charge with an ever-watchful eye. Summer brings the lazy days of paper-fan making and the construction of raggedy dolls made from old dress scraps. In are carried the first tastes of jealousy, as Sharon stares grumpily at the small blue doll that Break takes to carrying around on his shoulder, causing him to beam with affection as he assures his green-eyed Ojou-sama that she's not being replaced. Summer is when concern enters into the gaze of Sharon's protector as she learns how to swim, near-heart-attacks when she disappears under the water for long periods of time (holding her breath was a fun past-time for her, but not so much for Break) and laughter when she decides to engage in water fights that end with both of them soaked to the bone.
Fall arrives with the sweeping winds each year, the summer leaves of green morphing into glorious reds and yellows. The Fall of her thirteenth year is ultimately somber, for it is the year in which Sharon truly grasps the meaning of age for the very first time. Her violet eyes widen, shock and puzzlement swirling within their depths, as she realizes that as she has been growing older, Xerxes-nii has stayed the same. No wrinkles have appeared on his smooth face, and his body is as spry and energetic as always. Fall brings the dark knowledge of Abyss and contractor and Pandora into her previously pure world, summer innocence fading with the gradual lessening of the sun's warmth.
Fall is the dread that strikes Break's expression as he comes to understand what his lady is planning to do. She tells everyone she's becoming a contractor, with fiercely determined eyes, because it is the only way to protect the things she cares about. Privately, with ashamed violet tears, she tells him and him alone she cannot bear to blithely pass through life while he remains frozen. She's not the only one ashamed, because in a moment of selfish weakness he allows her to join him in that never-moving world of Contracting, his pure red stare coloring black with agony as he guides her through the process.
Years hurtle by, time losing meaning as aging stops, and it is winter again, the grey-smothered heavens crying drops of snow upon the land. It is winter when Sharon discovers that the person she loves most in this world can no longer see. He'll never be able to watch the sunsets with her, laughing when he sees the look of awe flitting through her violet orbs. He'll never have that mischievous spark in his red eye again, or the blatantly superior one he gets with Oz and Gil that infuriates them so much. He'll never be able to look at her again, not to do that irritating thing where he reads her emotions with the blink of an eye or carefully watches her to make sure she's safe. He'll never see her face again, won't be able to know what she looks like when she finally grows up. He'll never see her as a beautiful young woman, one that might cause him to view her as something more than his cute little sister. She'll be locked in his mind as the fourteen-year-old Sharon forever.
But most of all, she'll never find the brilliant emotions that dance in his shining crimson gaze when he's with her. She'll never experience laughter, happiness, teasing, or love ever again. She's met people who are blind—there's nothing but a milky film of white and emptiness.
When Reim-san tells her, heavy pangs of sorrow written all over his expression, that Break will never see again, Sharon demands that she be allowed to go to him. She doesn't ask, she doesn't tell or plead, she demands with all of the authority of the Rainsworth heiress. She knows now why her Xerxes-nii has been avoiding her for so many days, something that he had never done before. She knows now why Oz has been unable to look her in the face when they speak, and why her Grandmother has been taking time to ask after her well-being more than usual. They knew.
Sharon tells herself, firmly, that she will not cry when she goes to him. She'll be strong, as Break has been for her all of these long years of being together. She won't make him feel guilty or responsible for the tears that are threatening to emerge—she cares for him too much, loves him too much, to do that to him. She had promised herself that she would no longer be a useless burden to him, even though he had never, ever viewed her as such. She had promised herself that she would no longer be the weak Ojou-sama he had to protect, but rather, the Sharon who could confidently stand by his side as his equal.
The snow piles up outside, the wind and sleet thumping violently against the windows of Break's room as she enters. He's sitting in there, Emily perched on his shoulder like always, and she's so careful not to look at his face as she greets him. She is proud of herself when her voice reveals nothing out of the ordinary, and when he welcomes her so normally, as though nothing in the world is wrong, she is proud that she does not cry and scream with the fury building inside of her. She cheerfully notes that the fire in the room is dying down, ignoring that her voice is perhaps a bit too hearty and determinedly happy.
But her Xerxes-nii knows. He can tell just by hearing, because when she grabs the poker, and leans down to stoke the fire, she feels his hand gently wrapping around hers in a careful hold, making her stop. He knows she's not looking at him, because his hands softly settle upon her face, cupping her cheeks and thumbs stroking the velvet skin. He knows she can't bring herself to meet his shadowed gaze, because he tilts her head up, so delicately and in an achingly slow manner. He knows when she finally sees his dulled crimson gaze, because the warm tears rapidly leaking from her eyes drip sadly upon his caressing fingers.
Sharon cries, she cries because she broke all of her promises to herself about strength and protecting and weakness, and discovers that she is just a frightened young woman who doesn't know what to do. She cries, despising herself, as she allows him to fold her into a warm embrace, sinking down upon the carpet with her in his protecting arms. She cries even as she swears that she'll never leave him, fisting her hands tightly into his black and white clothing, and cries as she hears his serene voice teasing her about her heavy flow of tears.
My, my, Ojou-sama. If I had known it would make you stay with me, I would've become blind years ago, he comments gaily, his hand playing lightly with the strands of her long, golden hair. He knows that it's something that has comforted her ever since she was young. Instead of marrying a handsome prince, you'll stay around to help me up the stairs?
She tells him, through broken sobs, that she will murder him with a paper fan if he makes any more jokes like that, and hates him for being the one to try and make her feel better, when it should be the other way around. She loathes the way that he acts so unconcerned, when she is slowly being killed by this inside. And she can't stand that he can still read her as well as ever, despite the loss of his sight, while she still has difficulty understanding him in so many ways.
It is wintertime again, the end looping back in a horrible twist of irony to meet the beginning. It is wintertime again, and all she can do is cling to him like a child, wishing away the pain she felt in his stead.
It is wintertime again, and she falls asleep in his warm arms by the perishing flames of the fireplace, the heat drying the tears that glisten wetly on her cheeks. There is only the exhausted sensation that is left after crying now, and she snuggles her head further against his chest, the soft cloth pleasantly cushioning. She can sense his lips brushing against the top of her head when he thinks she's dozing, feeling the comfortable weight as he buries his face into her silken locks of hair. It's a need for closeness—she knows it's most likely the only way of comforting himself, the only admittance of weakness, that he'll ever indulge in.
Sharon drifts into slumber, knowing he's watching her as always. He'll never stop watching her, even though his vision has grown clouded and obscured, just as she'll never take her eyes off of him. She won't say that she'll become his eyes—that is far too corny and impractical, even for her romantic tendencies. But she'll be something more, she decides. Maybe it was as simple as always needing him to be with her. Maybe it was as simple as merely loving him until the end of time.
But she would be there to see him through the blurry gray winter, firmly planted by his side, as she has always been.
She would come with a blooming flower in the spring and warm happiness in the summer, and patiently wait with him through the long months of fall and winter until the cycle began anew.
Anything to lift the darkness from his eye, she decides, eyes already closing in sleep. Anything.
And vibrant crimson watches mellow violet disappear as blackness seeps into her vision.
fin