A/N: I wanted to finish this in time for Gilbert's birthday, which is today! (Even though this fic is technically about Oz's birthday, but hey.) This is kind of a bittersweet fic, given the context, but I love his relationship with Elliot so much that I had to write something for them.

So yeah, happy birthday, Gilfart~ You're my very favorite.

Also, heliotrope is a flower that represents faithfulness and devotion.

prompt: gil, tears

soundtrack: sons of light and darkness - helios

::

shelter as we go

::

you've got sucker's luck

have you given up?

does it feel like a trial?

does it trouble your mind

the way you trouble mine?

- "vilify", the national

::

Gilbert is drunk in the garden again. This is the third time this week.

Elliot, ten years old and very, very much the responsible boy, has been keeping track of these occurrences like clockwork for the past few weeks. The pattern of Gilbert's dark and cloudy moods seems to work in a very precise order: the first stage is irritability, in which his face is constantly looking very put off and he recoils like a charged spring whenever Vincent tries to touch him (then again, Elliot thinks, that's not all that new); the second stage is isolation, where he leaves the dinner table early and stays locked away in his room for days on end; the third stage is "apathy", a word that Elliot learned from a grown-up book and seems to coordinate quite well with how Gilbert barely responds to anything going on around him, his expression dull and lackluster and making him appear even paler than he already is.

And the fourth stage is, well, this. Drunk in the garden, staring dismally at the flowers, all alone.

Elliot doesn't really know much about drinking, but he doesn't think it's a very good thing to do, especially if you're someone like Gilbert. Elliot likes Gilbert. He knows he probably shouldn't, for reasons his family won't tell him, but he just does. Gilbert reads to him sometimes, and he doesn't laugh when Elliot's mind scrambles up the letters and makes them unintelligible and strange. Sometimes Gilbert sneaks him his dessert at dinnertime when he doesn't want it, and sometimes he pats him on the head and asks him how his day has been, and he even tells Elliot that it's not "unrealistic" to want to become a great hero one day, unlike his other siblings who just "want what's best for him", whatever that means.

Elliot likes Gilbert – and to pretend otherwise even while the man is a drunken, sad-eyed, pouting mess is just as useless now as it ever was before.

Elliot finds him sitting cross-legged in the grass just a little ways off the garden path, staring dazedly at the heliotrope. He doesn't turn his eyes away from the purple blossoms even when Elliot calls his name, a question mark pinned to the end of it. By nature, Elliot is anything but wary, and yet the atmosphere surrounding his step-brother makes him hold back a little, peeking at him from around the ivy-covered trellis. He can see Gilbert's shoulders shaking, his hands trembling. Elliot huffs and thinks, If you're so cold, then just come back inside! To add to this, he says aloud, "It's not even that cold out, so why are you shaking like that?"

Gilbert gives a sudden jump, and Elliot sees him wipe his nose on his sleeve. How improper. (Elliot does the same thing.) "Please just go away, Elliot," Gilbert says, his voice a slurred mess.

"You never tell me to go away," Elliot says as-a-matter-of-factly, "so I'm not going to start now."

"Well, you – you should." A pathetic comeback. Gilbert wipes his nose again and gives a hard sniff, turning his head away from Elliot. "You don't need to be out here. I'm okay."

"But you're never okay when you come out to the garden." Elliot peers around Gilbert's shoulder to try and see his face, but Gilbert gives a lousy wave of his hand and remains hidden from view. Elliot scoffs dramatically and sits down beside him. "People are already calling you a drunk. You don't want that sort of reputation, do you?"

Gilbert shrugs, a graceless, bitter movement. "I don't care."

Elliot turns his gaze downwards, looking at the grass with a sour expression. "I do," he mumbles. Gilbert doesn't seem to hear him.

They sit in silence for a little while, listening to the crickets and the swaying of the flowers. The soft buzzing of the night should be calming, but Elliot finds himself becoming more and more uneasy every time Gilbert turns away from him, and suddenly it hits him that Gilbert might not be shaking because he's cold. "You're not crying, are you?" he asks, careful to keep from sounding as though it bothers him too much. (But Elliot can't recall a recent time in which a thought has bothered him more.)

Gilbert doesn't answer for a long time. He just sits there and keeps wiping his nose and shaking like a leaf, his every movement heavy and slow. But his silence answers for him, and Elliot, against all facets of his person that are natural and familiar, finds himself speechless. He hears Gilbert's breath hitch in a little skip, followed by a sniff that he tries to hide with another wipe of his sleeve. Elliot feels a sudden heaviness in his chest that he disguises with an annoyed sigh. "Well, what's the use in that? Nothing's even happening for you to be crying about, unless the flowers make you sad."

And knowing Gilbert, they would; but Elliot knows this is something else, something bigger, something that needed to be drowned out and swallowed down and brought out alone to the garden lest it rise up out of Gilbert's body in an anguished scream. Elliot has seen him get misty-eyed over poetry and Holy Knight, and every time, he does the same thing – turn away, hide his face, pretend nothing's happening. Whether it's for the sake of his pride, or out of some sort of quiet fear of the other Nightrays seeing, Elliot doesn't know. But he doesn't like it.

"Well," Elliot says with a huff, "if I were upset about something, I wouldn't sit around and cry about it. I'd do something that would make it better so that it wouldn't upset me anymore. It's as simple as that, so why does everyone always mope around and make it so complicated for themselves?" His annoyance isn't so fabricated anymore as he pulls up clumps of grass between his fingers, frowning in disapproval. "I'll never pity myself. Or drink. And you shouldn't either."

Gilbert turns his head to look at him now. He looks like hell, his eyes bloodshot and mournful, lank curls of his hair sticking to his cheeks, his clothing wrinkled and grass-stained in places. Elliot scoffs and reaches forward to fix the other's crooked shirt collar, although he isn't sure what point there is to it. No one's out here but the two of them, and even if Elliot's other siblings were to suddenly appear, he doubts a straightened collar would stop them from saying the mean and confusing things about Gilbert and Vincent that they must think Elliot can't hear.

"Today is someone's birthday," Gilbert says, his voice hoarse and quiet.

Elliot waits for more explanation, but it doesn't come, so he says, "Then tell them happy birthday."

"I can't." Gilbert still looks at Elliot, but it's as if he's looking straight through him, not even seeing him. "They're not here anymore."

Elliot blinks, not quite getting it. "You're this upset all because you can't tell someone happy bir-"

But he stops his sentence quite suddenly at the sight of Gilbert's eyes welling up with tears again, his face starting to crumple like something wasted and tired, and Elliot surprises himself with how much that disturbs him, how much he wishes Gilbert just wouldn't do that. Gilbert turns his attention back at the heliotrope. One of the blossoms blows off and lands in his lap, and he touches it with deft, trembling fingertips. Elliot feels like snatching it from him, taking him by the shoulders and shaking him, knocking some sense into him – but really, what is there for him to even say anymore?

After a few silent beats, Elliot clears his throat and gives Gilbert a very serious look, his voice low and secretive when he says, "Don't you dare utter to this to a soul, but…one time Ernest drank too much and cried over his nightclothes still being in the wash."

Gilbert sniffs and wipes his eyes with the back of his hand, brows raised in surprise. Elliot takes this as his cue to keep going, but not before stealing a few glances around them to ensure of no one listening. "He wanted to go to sleep early, you see, but he hates sleeping in his day clothes. And when he found out that the maids hadn't done the wash already, he sat on the floor right in the middle of the parlor and cried."

Much to Elliot's surprise, and relief, Gilbert smiles the tiniest bit as a breath of a laugh puffs past his lips. "I…I can scarcely believe it."

"I never lie," Elliot says indignantly. "You still can't tell anyone, though. Only the maids and I know about it, and Ernest didn't even know I was even there."

Gilbert laughs quietly again as he rubs at his eyes with his fists, suddenly looking much younger and smaller than eighteen. Elliot knows that when he's eighteen, he'll be much bigger and taller; or perhaps not taller, since Gilbert is already quite the willow tree, but Elliot will certainly be broader, that much he's sure of.

The tension between them softens. Gilbert's smile is small and sad, but at least it's there. "I won't tell anyone," he says. The slurred slowness to his speech has lessened a little; he's sobering. One white hand reaches out to gently ruffle Elliot's sandy hair. "Thank you."

Elliot has to duck his head to hide the fact that he's smiling, feeling pleased and even a touch bashful. Gilbert had smiled. That means Elliot made him happy. That means he has a better influence over him than the alcohol and the sadness. Something silly and warm rises up within him at the revelation, which he masks with a cough as he jumps up to his feet, grabbing at Gilbert's hand. "Come on," he says, "get up, get up."

Gilbert groans in protest and lets Elliot pull at his arm, the rest of him limp and useless. "Oh, but Elliot, my feet hurt…"

"I don't care, we're going for a walk."

"Ugh, walking…"

"No whining allowed, let's go."

He eventually gets Gilbert to his feet, holding his arm when the man sways and nearly stumbles. Elliot calls him a moron and Gilbert agrees. As they make their way down the winding garden path, a multitude of thoughts come to Elliot in little waves, thoughts of where they'll be in ten years, whether they'll still be close, if Gilbert will ever settle down and actually find himself a wife someday (despite his apparent and strange disinterest in anything involving women; Elliot wonders, innocently, why that is).

They walk for an aimless amount of time, speaking quietly with Elliot doing most of the talking. Gilbert listens; sometimes he even smiles. When Elliot looks down at the man's hand, the single heliotrope blossom is still tucked between his fingers, like something precious, something needing to be protected.