Chapter: 50 Sentences
Category: PandoraHearts
Genre: Romance/Drama
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Gilbert/Oz(/Gilbert)
Comment: Written for the 1sentence challenge. Potential spoilers up to chapter 38 of the manga. Title inspired by the Utada Hikaru song of the same name (for some reason it inspired me, don't ask).

Apple and Cinnamon

Gilbert/Oz/Gilbert

Epsilon Set

#1 Motion

More than the pain in his arm, it was the uncertainty of Oz’s future every time that the needle moved in his chest that left Gilbert at the verge of a breakdown.

#2 Cool

He never mentioned anything, but he regretted that Oz never had the time to realize on his own that he was Gilbert, like he had been waiting ever since his master first opened his eyes again.

#3 Young

Gilbert felt old, and tired, and the weight of a hundred years of despair on his shoulders, but still Oz stirred reactions and sensations and feelings so timid and new, and every time he laughed, it was like being born again.

#4 Last

For a brief moment of consciousness, between the excruciating pain in his chest and the excruciating pain in his heart, fourteen-year-old Gilbert hoped more than he ever hoped before that this was not the last time he would see his master.

#5 Wrong

More than Oz having a contract with a chain, more than him being afraid of truths anymore, it was the not needing him anymore made Gilbert realize that no, he was not the same as ten years ago.

#6 Gentle

He should have gotten used to it, he should be unaffected, and he definitely shouldn’t have blushed when Oz got so close that he could feel his breath on his cheeks, and told him that he should smile more often.

#7 One

Although they looked the same, although their souls and past and present and future were probably linked, it was Oz, and not Jack, the master he was willing to die for.

#8 Thousand

It might have been just ten years, but to Gilbert, without that cheerful voice calling out his name, it felt like a thousand years had passed since he last lived.

#9 King

And the Black King was dead, thrown off the board, rolled across the floor, and the White King gave that suggestive smirk that made Gilbert feel like he hadn’t lost the game at all.

#10 Learn

Alice had gone to Sharon one day, with a question involving Oz and Gilbert and why did she hear weird noises late at night out of sudden, and Sharon had promptly fainted.

#11 Blur

He vaguely remembered, over a cloud of alcohol and tears, that as pathetic as it all must have been, Oz had not pushed him away – he pulled him closer.

#12 Wait

“I would wait for you,” he said, he promised a million times, but the truth was, one day, he could barely wait to see him again.

#13 Change

Passed out, drunk, and tearful Gilbert clung to his smiling master, who, unseen by anyone, between one or two boyish giggles, kissed one of his tears away and pleaded him to never, ever change.

#14 Command

“Don’t,” he commanded, and Gilbert stopped looking away, and he started shaking, until his breath was no more, trapped between Oz’s lips.

#15 Hold

The hand Oz held during those days was his, and they were smaller and paler and weaker, and can’t you see that by holding her hand now, you’ve let the other one fall?

#16 Need

Gilbert was glad that Oz never questioned why he started smoking, because he would probably die before being able to admit out loud how badly he needed a new fixation once Oz was gone.

#17 Vision

As clearly as he saw the blade in his hand, the fear in her eyes and the blood on the floor, he could see Oz backing away from him, denying him,leaving him if he were ever to tell him what he saw.

#18 Attention

Oz called out his name, asked him if he was coming, but just looking at the girl by his side, for a moment he hesitated.

#19 Soul

Gilbert hoped that as Oz grew up to be a man, that he wouldn’t be like Jack, that they grew apart somehow, and that that tiny fragment of his soul would melt away into nothingness, no more a reminder of the one he couldn’t save.

#20 Picture

If he could, he would freeze time, lock the world out, and simply spend the next ten years watching him sleep, even if that probably didn’t even begin to fill the gap that grew in his heart during those long years.

#21 Fool

The words died in his throat every time, choking him, suffocating him, because why couldn’t Oz see what she was, what she was doing, how she was slowly taking him away?

#22 Mad

Oz drove him mad, madder than Break and Vincent combined, make him willing to throw random objects at the wall in protest, but he had to admit that as maddening as Oz was, it was that game of teasing that made him smile at the end of the day.

#23 Child

Break surely found young Gilbert’s trouble in choosing the right pronouns while growing up amusing, but if there was an even more amusing fact, one that he never told anyone, not even Gilbert himself, was that up to that day, he would whisper his master’s name in his sleep during storming nights.

#24 Now

And every time Oz took his hat and placed it upon his bright golden hair, he couldn’t help but smile, feeling like the him from ten years ago could finally meet the him from now, past and present finally reunited.

#25 Shadow

It broke his heart to know that, as a kid, he could carry Oz’s shadows and burdens and sorrows in his stead, but nowadays, he didn’t even know their form anymore.

#26 Goodbye

It had been futile to bide old Gilbert goodbye, to acquire a new façade and a new alias, if the first thing Oz did upon coming back was call his name.

#27 Hide

It was an endless game of hide-and-seek, how Gilbert would desperately cling to the past in blissful denial, and how Oz would hide all of his uncertainties behind a golden smile.

#28 Fortune

In the first breath of air, on that dark, rainy day, Gilbert did not feel lucky to have survived the deadly blow from Oz’s sword – not when Oz wasn’t there to tell him it was finally time to wake up from that horrible, horrible dream.

#29 Safe

Between abysses, and chains, and mad hatters and Cheshire cats, Oz was content with having at least one safe port to ground him and remind him of his sanity, and as he fell asleep against Gilbert’s side.

#30 Ghost

It had startled him, how in between kisses and touches and so much passion, there were tears and Oz’s young voice pleading him to please call his name, to please get closer, so much closer, and to please remind him that he was Oz Vessalius and not the ghost of a dead hero.

#31 Book

Alice ran to Sharon’s books one morning to check if there was anything in them that explained how Oz slept in his bed at night and woke up in Gilbert’s the next morning.

#32 Eye

The scar in his chest was but a little price to pay for having broken his word and hurt his master, and to have only been able to watch himself be a pawn in Baskervilles’ plan was a wound that was likely to never heal.

#33 Never

No matter what Vincent said, no matter what he felt, he could never bring himself to hurt Alice if Oz was willing to lose his mind and wish her death because she so wished.

#34 Sing

If only he could, he would sing him lullabies and keep Oz asleep, safe, and peaceful – but to his demise, ravens can’t sing.

#35 Sudden

His heart must have skipped a beat when Oz handed him that single, little feather, and he questioned himself many times over if the boy knew what it meant, if he meant what it said, but the only answer he got were Oz’s arms around him, and not a single, little word.

#36 Stop

He held Oz as the world around them and the body in his arms stopped shaking, and he was afraid of letting him go, afraid to hear him say her name like that again, or see those lips speak of killing again.

#37 Time

If he was supposed to be the older one, why was it that at times Oz seemed taller, his back seemed wider, and Gilbert felt that time had made a mistake?

#38 Wash

Oz had once witnessed the Raven drenched in the cold rain, and he called out his name and called him stupid, but what he couldn’t understand was that for years, many, many years, the rain had been his only prayer to wash away all of his sins.

#39 Torn

In name he was a Nightray, in soul he was a Vessalius, but would it shock anyone to know that in heart, he would be whatever Oz wanted him to be?

#40 History

No matter how hard he tried, it was Oz who kept saving him instead, but still he did his best, he did everything he could and everything hecouldn’t, if only so history wouldn’t repeat itself, so that Oz would live to see him die, and not the other way around.

#41 Power

Sometimes, he could almost listen a tick tack instead of Oz’s heartbeats, and in his mind, he could hear the Raven crying, loud and deafening, and he didn’t know if was more scared of Oz’s seal or his own.

#42 Bother

And damn that stupid rabbit for being able to say the words he wanted to say, to give what he couldn’t give, and for being in the place that had once being rightfully his, beside his master’s side.

#43 God

Sometimes he wondered if he could see it, the Will of the Abyss, would he wish for Oz to never have left, or would he wish so that he could have gone with him?

#44 Wall

That wasn’t exactly what he had in mind when he pinned Oz against the wall, he had really meant to talk sense into him, but why was it that when Oz licked his lips and smirked up at him, all rational thought left him?

#45 Naked

Gilbert probably didn’t know, but the scar on the taller man’s chest and the seal on Oz's own were probably equal excuses for them to take each other’s shirts off.

#46 Drive

Bang, bang, bang, said the gun as he pulled the trigger, and he had to remind himself every time, all the time, that everything he did, even this, was to bring himself closer to those green eyes once more.

#47 Harm

And it took all of Oz, body and mind and words and caresses, to convince a crying Gilbert that it didn’t matter what he had done a hundred years ago, because his Gilbert could not bring Alice or Oz or anyone he loved any harm.

#48 Precious

Sometimes he didn’t sleep, and Break would notice, and Sharon would notice, but still Gilbert didn’t mind, because he could take a few jokes, if that meant he could count every single second that he spent with the one who was most precious to him.

#49 Hunger

If Gil had been unable to quit smoking after several frustrated tries, quitting Oz would be past the boundaries of impossibility, especially after he learned that his kisses weren’t just everything he thought they would be – he almost felt like he could live on them only.

#50 Believe

“I’ll make things right for you,” he said, his hands brushing Gilbert’s bangs away from his face, and Gilbert looked down at him, ready to drown in his presence, ready to cling to every word he said, and so he said, “I promise.”