The Technicalities of the Telescope

by schnook

Her opera glasses are her microscope, his glasses is his telescope, and together, they're a wide-shot in acute focus. Except they're not, because they're not together, and he's glad. Kyouya/Eclair

Title: The Technicalities of the Telescope

Anime: OHHC

Pairing: Kyouya & Eclair – (love this ship)

Enjoy!

-x-x-x-

He has a trained eye.

The glasses are a ruse, a facade – technicalities that mean the negative of nothing. He's always had a trained eye. Even as a small child: dark, wispy hair that combs slick against the scalp and decidedly discerning looks; grey eyes that look too old, too tired, too cynical for such a smooth, young face. As a child, he could have been a god – the ethereal look of an ivory-skinned boy; young, young, young in immortality with the burden of reality and shrewdness weighing down his eyes, the orbs that turn him into a paradox, an oxymoron – youthful, carefree immortality with the humanity and mortality of wisdom in his eyes. Frightening. God-like. Ootori.

But the marble skin is no longer – he is a beautiful creation, yes, hung in grand Paris as passer-byes and commoners take off their hats to admire and fear him, while the curators hurry them along, because there is only time for two minutes each, and he must be spread as far as possible – he is beautiful, yes, but no longer the small boy standing like a god amongst three greater gods. He is now a man, tall and strong and leading, yet the transition is by no means less potent. God to Man; he sings his victories, and wears the glasses like a medal, useless as they are.

But he won't be free of them. They are a mask. A refuge. A flash of light shielding against weakness, error. And they are his telescope. His view has always been telescopic – always will be telescopic. The others are limited, armed only with the naked eye; viewing their own frivolous world from the confines of a microscope – unable to grasp the big picture, the big problem, the big issue. They know nothing of big. And they are happier that way.

Ignorance is bliss, after all.

-x-x-x-

When he first sees her, he knows her – but only in a rather arid way.

She carries her opera glasses like Takashi hoists Mitsukuni onto his shoulders, or like Suoh holds Fujioka's hand when she's not paying attention. She carries her opera glasses like he carries his own clipboard; protectively, nurturing, maybe even lovingly. He knows when she peers through them, though, she's wrong.

Her opera glasses are her microscope, his glasses is his telescope, and together, they're a wide-shot in acute focus. Except they're not, because they're not together, and he's glad.

They kiss, sometimes. Through some kind of magnetism (he's secretly sure their cold, metal hearts find some sort of solace in the knowledge of another money-hungry-good-for-nothing-bastard's existence) they're drawn together, unwillingly, spitefully, recklessly. Their kisses are more primal attacks than anything else – there's bumping of noses and crashing of cheeks and pulling of hair and victory and defeat – and though there is no comfort, there is continuity, and they find themselves together by the wills of their family names, their pride, or some orifice with a twisted sense of justice (one that looks young, ivory-skinned, god-like).

She tells him he isn't worth it after they're done, and he doesn't ask her to specify. He doesn't want specifics – he is the telescope in this business, after all; he has no room in the glorious expanse of his mind for specifics.

She does, though, apparently; she peers into everything till she's so close the view is nothing more than a hazy blur. She doesn't care for the greater good, the prevailing of 'true love,' or even the hearts she will inevitably squash as she walks through life, determined to be Eclair Tonnerre, and pen the letters of the name (E, C, L, A, I, R, U, T, H, L, E, S, S) with the pride and vanity that is as common to her as the air she breathes in and out, in and out.

When she comes to him, she isn't really there – only a shadow of the lady, standing in as representative for Ms. Tonerre as he grasps her and mishandles her with indifference and selfishness, while the real lady in question is away on business dreaming of (blue) eyes and princes.

He doesn't mind.

She doesn't mind.

So they stand on the only mutual ground they share.

(Except for that fact they're both money-hungry-good-for-nothing-bastards, which needs not be communicated in words, only actions.)

When he comes to her, it's always out of obligation – a gentleman's duty – as if his chivalry is somehow enough to substitute his. He is politely indifferent as he kisses her, courteous as a stranger when he eventually makes love to her, and detached, forever-to-be-third-son as he hears her cry. He listens in the same manner he listens to the old, senile lady rattle off in the Ootori family ballroom, drinking his father's best liquor; he is smiling slightly, head cocked to the side, brow lifted as if indulging a young, foolish child.

Tonerre is, was, always will be a young, foolish child to Ootori as she pokes at the insects scuttling across the ground with the tip of her microscope, viewing them from too close, too near to see she has really killed them in her play.

But he can't blame her, really.

He's killed too many bugs in his own life to pass judgment.

He no longer holds that immortal position; no, he is man. Eclair Tonnere seems all the more adamant to prove the fact.

-x-x-x-

Like I said, I love this ship – hopefully this will be the warm-up piece; one of many. I really just can't get sick of these two. They're messed up, egotistical and downright bad.

Excellent.

x Schnook