Work Text:
It was after Lady Shelly’s death that Xerxes Break began to really consider Chains.
The last time he’d lost someone important to him, he had contracted one, the White Knight, and had gone on a killing spree in order to bring back the people he’d lost. This time, there was no such solution, no such hope to cling to and set his world alight. This time, there was only a funeral, and Sharon crying and clinging to him, and a terrible, gaping emptiness where Lady Shelly once had been.
It was horrible.
Grief—grief—grief—
Grief was not something Xerxes dealt with well, and he knew it, and he did not want to hurt anyone on the edges of his pain this time, because they were all hurting too, and hurting more, since they’d known Lady Shelly far longer than he had. It would be fair to them to show them his pain, to let it bubble up and spill over, because that way madness lay.
And Xerxes Break knew quite a bit about madness: that was the emotion his Chain was centered around, the feelings and experience that had flowed throughout everything during its creation—madness brought on by grief, his and the Intention of the Abyss’s and young, creepy Vincent’s. He knew it, he knew it so well, and so, when Sharon revealed her intention of contracting a Chain only four days after her mother’s death, he didn’t know what to do.
“Don’t commit mass murder,” Xerxes muttered when he heard this.
“Why would I do that?” asked Sharon. “I’m going to be useful—I’m going to help out Pandora, as the next head of the Rainsworth dukedom!”
Xerxes couldn’t find it in him to argue with that—or perhaps he just didn’t want to try—and so he nodded and began making preparations.
If Sharon got a dangerous Chain, or if it began to drive her mad and prey on her mind, like the White Knight had him, he could simply destroy it. That was what the Mad Hatter had been made for, after all, in all its destructive madness: to kill other Chains, and to kill the girl at the heart of the Abyss—and maybe he could use it to save Sharon, if need be.
But Sharon’s Chain was a unicorn made out of shadows, and not at all dangerous to her; in fact, they quickly learned that it could be used quite well to spy, and to gain the advantage of not only the other Dukedoms but anyone else they pleased, which was useful and funny, and which they quickly used to torment the newest Nightray member, because really, the boy could use a bit more laughter in his life.
And when Reim got his Chain, Xerxes found himself even more reassured, though he refused to admit it: the March Hare was not combat-suited at all, and all it could really do was fake its wielder’s death, which meant that Reim and Sharon were both safe, both from enemies and their Chains, in a way Xerxes would never, could never be.
But Sharon and Reim would be alright, would be safe from the madness that Xerxes had become so acquainted with through his two Chains, and he couldn’t help but be relieved. He didn’t know what the future would hold, but he would protect them, and when he died, as he knew he must, he would go out knowing he’d done his best for those he loved, and that their lives would be better and easier for his presence.