Disclaimer: Nope. As awesome as it would be to, sadly I don't own Eisngrind or Celeste. Those two belong to Nene. Fuck, I don't even own the goddamned word they live in. That belongs to Yana Toboso. So…please no suing?

Warnings: Ocs. Het *le gasp*yeah, you read that right. Oh and by the way, to get what the hell is going on or even who these people are and to avoid any spoilers, you need to have read the doujin up to at least the end of chapter nineteen.

A/N: Not exactly a new chapter, but a drabble I wrote during Driver's Ed (a.k.a the reason for the horrid lack of Phobia updates), which is now thankfully over. But that aside, I have to say I really like this couple. So complex and lovely and wonderful and not your standard lovey-dovey thing, which is always nice. Also, I did take some artistic liberties, I guess? Since we don't know Celeste's or Eisengrind's past really, I guessed. I tried to be as vague as possible about it to make it versatile as new chapters, and hopefully new backstories, come out, but it can only be so vague. So therefore it may go against canon, if it does then I'm sorry? But I do hope you enjoy it anyways.

A Thin Line

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"Love is like a brick. You can build a house, or sink a dead body."

-Lady Gaga, Judah

xXx

A wise man once said love and hate were of the same emotion.

It was a silly concept, really. It was a concept so absurd in fact, that it had a certain raven haired maid quite sure that the 'wise' man had never really been very wise at all. Because love and hate were too very different things indeed. They were like polar opposite really; like water and wine. Like north and south, east and west. Like heaven and hell, fire and ice. Two extremes and two very, very different things.

That was what Celeste had always thought. And albeit she had never truly dwelled on it, for dwelling on such trivial matters was both pointless and a waste of time, the thought had briefly crossed her mind once or twice. And whenever that did happen, even she couldn't help but faintly think that the man was a fool. A bloody fool. Saying love and hate were similar was like saying heaven and hell were similar; it just wasn't something that could ever be.

And while some ignorant creatures might disagree with her, calling Celeste the fool here, she could really care less what they thought. Because quite simply, Celeste hated people. She hated people so much that she couldn't even remember the last time she didn't hate someone, even if it was only by a little bit. So it was pretty much needless to say that the last time Celeste had loved someone, or even remotely liked anyone for that matter, had been a time so far in the past that she could no longer even begin to remember it.

But she cared not for such silly details and whether she could remember it or not did not affect her one bit. Because for her, it didn't matter who it was-friend, fiancé, family.It didn't matter what kind of person they were-kind, caring, compassionate. Nothing about them mattered, because if they were living and breathing then Celeste hated them. No questions asked. Because if they were living and breathing then it was an unspoken truth that they were also liars and cowards as well. Such was the never ending cycle of life.

But as Celeste soon found out, humans were not the only ones who were filthy liars and meager cowards. They were not the only ones she hated and despised, nor the only ones who she wanted dead. For there came a day in her life, a day so distant and hated that she did her best not to think on it, a day when she began to despise life more than ever. It was on that day that Celeste met her.

She was a snake, a hound, a vulture. She was immature and bratty and demanding and horrid. She was everything Celeste hated and the maid knew it too, but she ignored it. Because even despite her indifferent nature not even Celeste could resist the allure curiosity had. After all, the cat was killed from curious thrills. Celeste was no exception.

Even she had to admit she was…intrigued by this woman, even if she didn't know all that much about her, still doesn't actually. She didn't even know what name to call her by, she went by so many. None of them particularly pleasant on the ears either (although in hindsight her current one-a silly little Latin word disguised as Priscilla-was less hideous than the rest). Although Celeste feigned it was a hideous set of names for a hideous woman.

But those were just trivial matters, and like idle musings, Celeste cared not for them.

For in all reality, the only important thing, the only thing that wasn't a trivial matter was that on that day so long ago Celeste's hatred for life, for love, for happiness…for everything only managed to grow.

And it did not take long either, a week perhaps by the time it was cemented and set in stone, for Celeste to hate this woman and her companions with a passion stronger than she had ever felt before. A true feat really, especially after all the times Celeste had thought she could not hate those around her more than she already did. But that was before she met them and oh, was she so wrong.

And oh, did she so hate them. Them and their rules and their simple-minded beliefs and the cowardly lies they told just to get a meal. It wasn't even a good meal at that, more like a scrap of molded meat, really. And the worst of it was that supposedly they were like her. That's what they had said. But they had lied. They had always lied.

Celeste would be damned before she was anything like those people, that woman and her companions, all trapped and fettered as she now unwillingly was. They were nothing like her and Celeste made sure to let all of them know it too. For there were two of them, that woman's companions, both male and both spineless as could be. And all of them liars. Cowardly liars and crooked hypocrites. But Celeste was hardly surprised by that revelation; they were just like everybody else in this miserable world, just trying to survive for one moment longer.

But between those two spineless liars Celeste soon found she hated one more than the other. Considerably more than the other actually. Even though they were both equally grating on the nerves, there was something about that one that infuriated Celeste to the very marrow of her bone. Perhaps it was the way he followed their mistress around like some pitiful, pathetic dog. Or maybe it was the way he took everything she threw at him with that monotonous expression of his, not ever uttering a single complaint. Or it even could have been the way he used facades of falsified indifference to hide his own hatred like some coward. Nonetheless, whatever it was nearly made Celeste just want to stab him.

She knew it was an irrational thought, to want to stab someone just for trying to help you get back on your feet after another bout of the mistress' wrath. It was intolerably irrational to want to kill someone just for looking at you the wrong way. It was horribly irrational actually, and while Celeste wasn't usually one to entertain such rashness, this time she didn't seem to mind entertaining those thoughts of bloody knives and slit throats. Thoughts that bled even more hatred and irritation, like blood dripping onto porcelain white roses. Like the staining blotches of red ink upon white paper, it bled.

It bled, and it bled, and it bled. And it grew, and it grew, and it grew.

And unsurprisingly, she did not love him in the tinniest bit. The wise man was still wrong. Very, very, very wrong.

And as the days wore on she continued to prove the 'wise' man wrong. And as she continued to prove the wise man wrong, that other man still continued doing his best to be a true gentleman towards Celeste. An odd thing considering their kind, but then again, Celeste did not think much of it. Nor did she think much of it when he seemed far more interested in her than he should have been. He seemed more interested in her than even their mistress, the person he should have been waiting on hand and foot every waking hour of every fucking day. But he did not do that.

Instead what he did over the course of weeks and months and years of servitude together was something far more infuriating for that matter. He taught Celeste a lesson. A lesson she had no particular interest in learning.

He taught her why humans call it falling in love.

And oh, did she fall.

Into the depths of heated kisses and fish-netted thighs rhythmically sliding against a clothed waist, she fell. From within the grasps of the soft sweeps of lips across albino flesh and the methodical fall of silken clothes upon lacquered floors of oak, she was trapped. She was tangled in a spider web's cacophony of hitched breathing and heady moans and groans and pants and the rhythmic thu-thump of a long dead heart blackened to the point of charcoal, a steady beat that corresponded perfectly with a far less innocent one. One that rendered her speechless and thoughtless but for the all too frequent gasps and high-pitched moans that fell from her agape lips. Into the darkest pits of insanity she went, with him by her side and his lips on hers; for even their mistress had to look the other way every once in a while.

Suddenly the wise man was not so wrong anymore.

How exactly it all happened, Celeste would never know. She would never comprehend how he managed to turn her into the hypocrite. She would never understand how that despite how many lies he told her (even if it was without him knowing), or how many falsified promises he gave (no matter how true he thought they were), or how many times she told herself she hated his kind, she could not come to hate him. Not anymore. Because once upon a time she had hated him, hated him so much that she wanted to kill him. And while now she still wanted to kill him, it was for an entirely different set of reasons.

For now the tables had been turned. Now she was the hypocrite and the liar. She was the one falling in love with the very thing she hated. She was the one who wanted to kill Eisengrind, plunge a knife into his chest and be done with it. But she knew all too well that she could never bring herself to do the deed. Even when she had every opportunity to, she could not, would not do it. No matter how much she may have wanted to.

Because love and hate were of the same emotion.

Because that one wise man was actually very wise indeed.

A/N: Just a little curious here, can anyone guess what sone I was listening to while writing this? I'll give you a hint, a line of the song is actually in the fic, and no it is not the quote at the top, by the way. And if anyone can guess it, then you are extremely awesome and I automatically love you.