Description: Elliot tries to amend the estrangement between his adopted brothers and gets much more than he bargained for. AU set during the ten-year time skip.

Rating: M for incest smut

Characters: Elliot Nightray, Vincent Nightray, Leo Nightray (Baskerville), Gilbert Nightray

Pairings: Elliot/ Vincent/ Gilbert; little Elliot/Leo

Disclaimer: This story is a not-for-profit fanwork production. All rights to images, characters, logos, and names included therein from the Pandora Hearts anime/manga series are owned by Jun Mochizuki, Yen Press, and Square Enix respectively.

All original elements — including story text — are owned by tiniestdormouse. No fanwork from this work may be duplicated or redistributed without expressed permission from the original creator.

Note: Originally written for the PH Fanfest (phfanfest dot tumblr dot com). Elliot and Leo are aged up to 18.

Needed, Wanted

by tiniestdormouse

(part 1. love and reassurance)

Vincent hates to be touched when upset-Elliot realizes this a moment too late. Had Elliot took a few extra minutes to think through his entrance, rather than pounding on the door, demanding to be let in and barging through as soon as he noticed the door was ajar, he would have seen the signs.

Human contact is simply too much of an invasion of Vincent's personal space: how often had Vince kept a bubble around him at balls, tea invitations, social callings?

The shove sends Elliot crashing into the far wall by the bookshelf, the force so strong the shelves shudder upon impact.

Elliot feels the wind knocked out of him. Blue eyes flash like steel. "What was that for?" he snaps, ever resilient in ways Vincent never could be. He shrugs off the blow, though not entirely unhurt, for he favors his right shoulder as he whirls upon Vincent in retaliation. "I only asked what's wrong-!"

"Go away!" Vincent is up, defensive. Dark circles under his eyes, clothes wrinkled, hair in disarray; Elliot was used to seeing his immaculately-groomed older sibling. Did he send Echo away?

"No! Not until you give me a reason why."

Elliot certainly entered the room on a mission: Vincent had vanished for the past week, and Elliot sensed the rest of the household sequestering that awfulness away rather than dealing with it. Maids typically avoided his rooms, he noticed, even though the wing was closest to the servants quarters. Vincent's absence during mealtimes was ignored by the household (including by Gilbert, during the one time he showed up for supper). Even Echo his manservant, who Elliot occasionally spotted beating out carpets or carrying the laundry in and out of his rooms, had similarly disappeared from the estate without a trace.

He had knocked several times on Vincent's door over the course of the last few days to no avail. What if he's sick? Or worse? Elliot imagines a desiccated corpse trailing blond hair (already, he is well-aware of Vincent's thinness) and his mind's eye speeds forward from this week to the next and the next, and Vincent's still body remaining, going grey, attracting vermin, bloating with decay...

"Ridiculous," Elliot had told himself, disturbed since his thoughts usually never go so morbid, and promptly stormed Vincent's rooms, breaking through the door into the receiving room to find Vincent very much alive and staring listlessly into space.

"He's been just sitting there!" the thought had crashed through Elliot's brain, cutting through the worry, and he had made the mistake to grab Vincent by the arm.

Now his adopted brother is roused from his stupor. "Don't." The red eye glints, hard as stone, as Vincent lifts his head from his half-raised arms, posed from the push he had dispensed.

Elliot hates to be refused when upset, and Elliot gets the most upset by two things: when people he cares about are hurt and when people he cares about deny him. He approaches the chaise-lounge where Vincent huddles by the scrolling headrest and lowers his face to be on-level with his adopted brother's.

"I'm not leaving until you talk," he says and as a confirmation of this, he sits by Vincent, deliberately touching his leg to Vincent's body as the older man hugged his knees. He raises an eyebrow, daring Vincent to push him away again.

Vincent acquiesces to his younger sibling's wishes, sighing in a way that fluffs out his bangs. He turns, however, facing away toward the windows and doesn't say a word.

Ten minutes pass. Elliot can be patient when required (discipline is key for any knight after all).

During this interim, he tried putting himself in Vincent's shoes. His behavior certainly reminded him of his best friend Leo. When Leo's hurt, he feels dark emotions boiling inside him and he has to contain them before they spill out, untamed and uncontrollable. Elliot couldn't relate to this reaction at all, but Leo once compared himself to a malfunctioning boiler. Better to lock himself up tight and seal away this heat than let it explode. This is not instinctual, but a habit learned hard. ("But boilers don't work that way," Elliot had pointed out, "you have to relieve the valves or it explodes anyway." He never got a proper reply from Leo on that).

Elliot makes this connection between Leo and Vincent. Touch them anywhere when they feel exposed and pay the price. He runs a hand through his hair and gives an equally frustrated sigh to match Vincent's stormy reclusiveness. He brushes his fingers against Vincent's shoulder - he has to test this theory one more time - and Vincent shies away further into his seat, internal hackles raised.

His silence transforms into an oppressive cloud that spreads across the entire room. Finally, he offers a guess.

"Is it Gilbert?"

The name only intensifies the weight of this cloud, thickening the air with tension.

"What happened?"

"None of your concern."

"Gil's an idiot-" he starts, but before he completes the sentence, Elliot is on the ground, a boot pressed against his chest. Vincent towers over him, the red in his single eye becoming a dagger in anger.

"You have no right to talk about my real brother that way."

The emphasis stings, but Elliot fights the urge to retaliate, guessing Vincent's aim. "He's your real brother, so what? He's hurt you that much and hasn't cracked out an explanation, so he's also an idiot." The heel digs in and Elliot holds in the wince of pain. "In fact," he continues, "I have no issue calling Gil a jerk. I call Ernest and Claude and Vanessa jerks too when they are. And they're my real siblings." He gasps as the pressure eases and Vincent retracts, but remains standing. His pose is cautious, arms tight across his chest, mouth a thin line to match his furrowed pale brows.

Hurt and irritated, Elliot can't help but be caught off-guard by the cold, regal expression on Vincent's face. Disdain, as if Elliot is beneath him, No, even worse- that Elliot doesn't matter.

In a flash, Elliot recalls all the boyhood memories containing Vincent and that exclusionary glare, specifically made when Gilbert was also present. Elliot didn't understand except in all the ways a child understood another's dislike of them. Maybe Vincent thought he was annoying. Maybe he was jealous and wanted Gilbert's attention all to himself. Maybe Vincent was just a bad person.

But then-Gilbert smiled. Gilbert laughed. Gilbert played Elliot's games seriously and helped him with his lessons when Vanessa or Ernest were too busy. Gilbert offered a seat between him and Vincent during bedtime readings. While thunderstorms raged outside, Elliot hopped into their shared bed and found solace between his two newest brothers.

Slowly, bit-by-bit, those disdainful, jealous, or indifferent looks from Vincent appeared less and less. Elliot had thought they moved years beyond these childhood rivalries and fears, but now, he senses them all rise up again like quicksilver in Vincent's dual-colored eyes.

"Why?" he thinks. "Aren't we different now?"

Elliot presses a gloved hand to his chest, rubbing the sore spot on his sternum. A keen sense of his own failure gives the ache a sharper edge. Where the hell is Gilbert anyway? Vincent never cursed his "real" brother with that dismissive look.

More and more often, his other adopted sibling had been missing from the Nightray manor, spending his days at Pandora since contracting the Raven. The last time he saw Gilbert, Elliot realizes, was last week last in the kitchen. Whenever Gilbert came in late from Pandora duties, he usually took his meals there (a minor slight from the servants, who refused to take meals to Gilbert or Vincent's rooms after a certain time, but neither of them complained).

He voices this thought. "Gilbert got really upset, actually," he mutters, half to himself, half to watch Vincent's reactions. "I bumped into him in the hallway. He was leaving and sounded very irritated... Did you see him-"

"No." His expression betrays him, and Elliot is on his feet and heading toward the door. Vincent crosses in an instant, blocking his way. "Don't talk to Gilbert." The command sounds like a threat.

"Why'd you care? He might not even be around-"

A fist bunches up the lapels of his waistcoat. Head bowed, wrist trembling, knuckles clenched white, Vincent emits a low hiss. "I said, Elliot, this is none of your business."

"Fine." Force meets force as Elliot wrenches Vincent's grip on his clothes. The sudden turn in his disposition has him wary as well as he mentally dances around the fragile state the other man is in. "But I still gotta leave your rooms, right? Unless you want me here."

At a stalemate, Vincent suddenly shrugs, stretches and yawns. "Whatever," he says, keeping his voice deceptively light, "I need a nap anyway." He crosses the receiving room and slams the bedroom door.

Though Elliot knows he has won this first round, his shoulders tense. He isn't the best at explaining nuance or mending issues between people, but he knows what Vincent craves is love and reassurance. In Vincent he recognizes that quiet, strange boy from years ago, spending days picking the stuffing out of his toys. At the same time, though, he also sees a quiet bookworm in the dusty corner of an orphanage library. Elliot got through to Leo, and he can get through to Vincent.

Vincent has no reason for dragging himself about like a wounded puppy when it is obvious that the whole reason why Elliot had confronted him was because he cared. Elliot bites his lower lip. His feelings didn't matter, and his own convictions won't help. He hits his fist against the threshold as he exits. As the dull pain resonates up his arm, he wonders again whether Vincent realizes how much he's loved.

Perhaps Elliot's love doesn't mean a shit.

Only Gilbert can give him that, apparently. Well, if it's Gil Vince wants, Elliot thinks, I'll make Gilbert apologize for whatever the hell he did, even if I have to beat that apology into the idiot's thick skull.