In Oz' words, Gilbert finds salvation.

Serving and being protected-- that is a little like living, he thinks.

Oz is swallowed by the Abyss on his fifteenth birthday. Gilbert bleeds on the floor next to where his body should have been, if he had been executed, and the blood never really comes off the robes Oz gave him, no matter what he does.

In Raven's wings, Gilbert finds the will to die.

The dark that never changes, the voice that echoes only in his mind, the bitter taste in his mouth when the chain speaks. All these paint the picture of a grave, the Abyss of mortals, the end.

He tames Raven in less than ten years, and takes his name.

In Break's hand, Gilbert finds the lines of a shadowed life.

To be used, and to use in return; the smile that never lies but which never tells the complete truth; the gaze of his right eye.

Break's embrace is like a cage to him, and it fits, even though he knows someday he would have to break it.

In Alice's eyes, Gilbert finds a cracked and ruined mirror, the despair which has no name.

Her life is her pain, and her contract with Oz is the consummation of a chance that was never meant to be. But amidst every piece of evidence supporting the contrary, he begins to think of her as a human.

When he finds Oz holding her hand, smiling at her and assuring her that he would help her, Gilbert feels that unnamed despair, and realizes that something in him had been broken (yet again).

So he escapes to the Nightray house. Eliot greets him at the door, yells at him for being soaking wet, and gets him to change clothes and lie in bed before he catches anything. Sleep eludes him, and he wanders the hallways without a purpose, his gaze trained on the path before him, as if it would do him any good.

"Gil?"

He looks up.

"Vince..."

In Vincent's word's he finds solace, in Vincent's arms he finds comfort, in Vincent's hands he finds the lines of a cruel life, and in Vincent's eyes, he finds himself.

"From now on, no matter who you kill with your own hands, only I will stand by your side!"

He may be left to the darkness... but he would never be alone.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

fin

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Author's Notes: Why is it that I can only truly achieve Nightray-cest with Gilbert going off the deep end? :( I should find a better, more romantic and fluff-filled way of hooking them up. There has to be one! *flails*

Randomnity: Do Yamane & Raven get along with each other?