Archive of Our Own

He had been making his way to the library, returning a few of the books Ed had checked out, begun to read and then promptly forgot about.

Rui didn’t like going into campus at the best of times but especially not to clean up after his geriatric housemate but if he didn’t do it then it wouldn’t get done.

So, he went anyway, and he went with a smile.

It was easier that way.

People didn’t stop to talk to him, ask him how his day was going, not like they used to.

He wasn’t a person anymore, not really. He was more like an NPC, nodding and smiling his way through campus.

At least this way, cheerful and masking his pain, some people smiled back.

It was then that he first saw you.

The whole campus, not just him, had been roused by Kaito’s piercing screams. Watching Kaito, the second year with a gambling debt, flee from Romi was not an uncommon occurrence. What was uncommon though was you. Running ahead of them both, a black veil draped over your face, your worn trainers squeaking against the asphalt path as you dashed past Rui and around a corner.

Flabbergasted was the feeling that came to mind as Rui watched Romeo, composed and serious—often too serious—chasing after you.

It wasn’t love at first sight—he didn’t believe in that stuff anymore. But intrigue? Definitely.

After all, anyone who could cause such chaos on their first day at Darkwick was someone Rui wanted to know.

* * *

He had asked Romeo, after he was pliantly drunk, who you were that night.

'You mean the BB running around wearing Hera’s snakes as a veil, ugh.' He huffed and set down his empty glass, tapping the wooden tabletop twice in a gesture Rui was all too familiar with.

'Do you mean the Honor student, wait she’s the same girl who had the Frostheim kid chasing after her?' Haru asked, red faced and leaning against the bar as though his left side had begun to sink into the floor.

Rui nodded, set down another old fashioned in front of Romeo and slid a hopeful glass of water across to Haru. 'Yeah, I’ve never seen Romi run so fast.'

'I was chasing that leech Fuji not the BB,' Romeo scowled as he sipped his drink, the crease between his brows lessening slightly as he drank. 'Why do you want to know about her anyway, Mickey? Interested?”

Romeo and Haru shared a conspiratorial look that only made Rui roll his eyes.

Unsurprisingly he had gotten very little in the way of answers. Romeo was still trying to figure you out as well and as was his way, Romeo always reserved judgment until he was sure of a person’s character and you, you were an enigma to them all.

So aside from a comment about your horrible—Romeo’s words not Rui’s—taste in fashion, he had learned nothing.

* * *

It is meant to be a testing facility.

That’s what Darkwick had called it when the subject was first broached. A branch of the hospital that would house you. Take care of you. Watch over you.

You had wanted to stay in Mortkranken instead, but the academy had shot that down, claiming it was too risky.

Yuri had raged of course, like he did whenever you were concerned, but it had been for nought.

They called it a facility, but it is immediately obvious to Rui that it’s a prison.

There is none of the clean crisp interior found within Mortkranken, or within the walls of Darkwick General. No lemon scented cleaning products or plush hospital beds. No doctors, no nurses, no one to help you here.

Hidden away on the grounds of Hotarubi and guarded constantly by men in suits, it is barely a ruin. Built around the corpse of something ancient and sinister. The walls thick with moss and the ground nothing more than churned up dirt.  

Rui had heard Lyca’s night terrors. He had heard you explain just how harrowing it had been finding the young boy locked away down here. But only now did he understand the true horror of this place.

* * *

The first time Rui had spoken to you, really spoken to you, was just after Lyca had arrived at Obscuary.

You had taken on the role of Lyca’s protector with a fierceness that Rui had found both heartwarming and humorous.

How quickly you and the young werewolf had ingratiated yourselves to each other. It would have been alarming but then Rui was dragged into your small circle and found that making people fit, making them feel safe, was just something you did.

You had been drinking with Haru and Romeo, listening to the red-head’s increasingly incoherent stories with enthusiasm. Laughing brightly and sipping at the watermelon mojito Rui had made you.

You were a slow drinker, sipping rather than gulping like Haru and Romeo, but still you were just as tipsy.

After the others had left—Romeo still on two feet, Haru being dragged along behind him—you had turned to him and blinked your bright doe-eyes up at him like you were waiting for something.

Your gaze made his feet slip on the grimy mats covering the floor behind the bar. Something within your eyes, a curiosity, a desire left his lips feeling fry and his breath quickening. He had long forgotten what it was like to be looked at like that, like he was someone worth getting to know. 

'If it’s another drink you want, I’m afraid I’m going to have to cut you off,' Rui turned to polish some already spotless glasses, needing to break away from your gaze. 'You’ve gone all glassy eyed on me, you need to get up to bed before I have to carry you.'

He’d said it playfully, more to fill the silence rather than start a real conversation, so when you spoke, your voice quiet but filled with an intensity he froze.

'What about you? Are you going to head to bed?'

It had been an innocent enough question, you couldn’t have known how it affected him. But affect him, it did.

'I...ah,' he turned, rubbing his gloved hand against the back of his neck, 'I don’t really...sleep.'

He had been hoping to avoid this conversation, ideally forever. You still looked at him like he was a good guy, like you were comfortable around him. Shattering that had been the last thing on Rui’s checklist.

'Really?' your eyes lit up, shifting in your seat, no longer looking tired, now you were wide awake.

It was hard not to find your curiosity charming. After spending so long in Darkwick all of its curiosities had become commonplace to Rui, he often forgot that you were still finding your place here.

'Yeah it’s…'

He didn’t know how to explain it without scaring you, nor did he want to divulge the darkest parts of himself to a drunk girl at three in the morning. But he also didn’t want to cut you out, in fact he found he couldn’t.

The idea of dismissing your curiosity, of closing you out like he did so often to everyone else, twisted his insides painfully. So, instead, he settled for a more comfortable admission. 

'It’s a side effect of my curse.'

That had been the first time he had opened himself up to you. Showed you his dark rotting core. It was also the first time that not just you, but anyone hadn’t flinched away in horror.

After he had confessed to you, a small part of his dangerous past, you had looked him the same way you always did.

It was the kindest thing anyone had ever done for him.

* * *

The day things had really changed though was about a week after that first mission together.

You had been coming around to Obscuary a lot. To watch videos with Ed, to help Lyca with his work. Rui had thought you were lonely, shut away in the ruins of Clementia. He knew the feeling.

He always liked when you visited, even though it wasn’t to see him. A quick chat, a smile, it was enough for him. Each moment with you felt like life was being breathed back into him.

It was different to his curse, that felt parasitic, like death and decay. Being with you, around you, felt like connection, like sunlight directly into his tired bones.

You had found him in the basement of the bar. He was sorting though some of his anomalous ingredients, checking to see what he was low on.

You had approached with your hands behind your back, a curious look on your face. It was the same look you had whenever you wanted to order an overly complicated cocktail.

He smiled, standing to face you fully, 'out with it, what do you want?'

You skipped closer to him and instead of saying whatever it was that was on your mind you reached out.

He flinched back but you had been quicker, the tips of your fingertips just barely managing to brush against his cheek.

You had just barely touched him but even so it was like you had burned him. He could feel his skin heat and prick, like a phantom touch still tingling against his skin as he looked at you in horror. Waiting for the moment the light would leave your eyes, and you’d crumple into a dried husk.  

Instead, you just smiled at him, the playfulness gone from your face replaced with something softer. A gentle concern that felt as close to a caress as he remembered.

'It’s okay,' you said quietly holding up your hand to show him a pair of brown leather gloves. 'Ed thought it would work, and it did!'

You were excited but Rui couldn’t brush away his horror, 'Ed, thought?”

You heard the edge in his tone and stumbled back, dropping your hand to your side. Your smile dropping away and ducking your head looking scolded, ashamed.

Rui hated that all he wanted to do was grab a hold of you, reassure you that it wasn’t you he was angry with. 'Why would you take that risk, I could have—I could have…'

He couldn’t even say the words; they turned his mouth sour and squeezed his heart painfully. So instead, he just looked back to you, waiting for your explanation.

Did you have a death wish?

Had Ed convinced you to?

Rui didn’t care that it wouldn't kill him, he’d touch the vampire anyway if he'd intentionally put you in danger.

Your eyes flicked up to him meekly, 'I just thought it would make you happy…I didn’t think—'

'No, you didn’t,' he snapped angrily, turning away so you couldn’t see the fear in his eyes. 'What if the gloves hadn’t worked? How do you think I’d feel if you I killed you.'

He could almost feel you move closer, like the air around you was a degree warmer than everywhere else.

'I’m sorry...I should’ve asked you first.'

'You’re right, you should have,' he turned around, his back pressed against the potters table, 'I never would have let you, but still…you should have asked.'

Your eyes softened as you looked at him, 'oh, Rui.' you reached out a gloved hand, slowly this time.

Rui stilled, watching your hand like it was a bear trap. When you finally touched him, he waited a beat, just long enough to make sure you were really okay, before he gave in. Leaning into your palm with reverence.

He must’ve looked pathetic, rubbing his face against your open palm like a touch starved cat but he couldn’t help it.

It was like he had been locked underground all his life and finally after years, he had felt the sun against his skin.

You never took the gloves off after that.

* * *

None of the others understand your choice.

That day when, struggling to remain unemotional, Yuri had announced that it was over. That he was out of ideas, that the end was inevitable.  

What you had asked of all of them. 

None of them had understood, but Rui did...does.

He knows what it is like to be a monster.

A real one, not like Lyca and Ed who only think they are monsters. He knows what it is like to be a destructive force, capable of only bringing pain and suffering to the world.  

He knows what it is to live with that, and he understands why you don’t want to.

So, when you had announced your plan to the rest of them, he was the only one who hadn’t raged. He didn’t fight or try to convince you out of your choice, he knew it was too late for that.  

That doesn't mean that he doesn't want to be selfish though. 

To beg you.

To plead with you. 

But in the end, he loves you more. Loves you enough to give you peace. Even if it means being without you, even if it means going back to how he used to be.

* * *

The prison is quiet. Their plan to draw the guards away, distract them with a scene at the main building, has worked.

Lyca doesn't like the plan, nor does he know the full extent of it, but he had promised you so Rui knows he will keep his word. Still though, he doesn’t have long, there is only so much one werewolf and two second years can do.

* * *

'You’re always making everyone else drinks,' you said twirling around a bottle of whiskey just like he had taught you to only an hour earlier, 'let me make one for you.'

It had become commonplace for you and Lyca to help out behind the bar. Lyca because he wanted to practice his social skills and you because…he actually didn’t know why you joined him some evenings.

He thought it was probably so you could keep an eye on Lyca, keep him out of trouble. But sometimes, deep in the recesses of his own mind, he liked to imagine you came for him.

Rui smiled across to you and nodded, before he deftly hoped over the bar and took a seat on one of the stools, 'okay then, what are you making me?'

'It’s a surprise.' You responded, your eyes twinkling.

You were the only two left in the bar, everyone else had walked or otherwise stumbled out a little over an hour ago. You had offered to stay and help him clean. And boy, was there a lot to clean.

Rui hadn’t been onto it tonight. Clumsy and distracted. More concerned with flirting with you, entertaining you, than ensuring the bar remained spill free and the dishes clean.

You were seriously becoming a hazard to his business, but he didn’t really have it in him to care. Each moment with you felt like his head was just barely cresting above the waves.

He watched you feeling almost giddy as you made a show of getting different liquors and syrups, pouring them into a cocktail shaker. He could already tell that whatever you were making was going to be a disaster, far too sweet and far too strong, but you looked so happy doing it that he just grinned up at you.

You weren’t the best at making drinks to begin with, he only really ever let you mix for Haru and that was only because he was usually too drunk to even taste what he was putting in his body.

You set down a whiskey glass of purple-brown liquid with a smile. Rui looked from the glass to you dubiously.

'You wont even try it?' you pleaded leaning forward against the bar, 'I made it just for you.'

Of course he would.

It was basically just sugar, strong notes of chestnut and lemon waged war on his pallet only to be completely destroyed by an aftertaste of rubbing alcohol.

Rui coughed, blustering as he grimaced up at you, 'that is awful,' he explained with an unshakeable smile.

'No...really?' you frowned scooping up the glass and taking a swig only to immediately double over in a coughing fit. 'God,' you winced setting the glass down, 'that is atrocious.'

Rui grinned and you, overcome by the silliness of the situation or perhaps the alcohol, bust into a fit of giggles.

Rui took the glass again, choaking down another sip, much to your amazement. You fretted hands reaching over to try and pry the glass from his grip.

'No, don’t drink it! It's terrible!'

Rui just leaned forward, a sly smirk plastered on his lips, 'but it was made especially for me.'

In another life that would've been your first kiss, half tipsy and tasting like your awful concoction. But in this life, it was just a longing smile and a moment gone begging. 

* * *

It is just Rui now, alone in the dark navigating the winding tunnels.

Despite himself he can’t force his feet to move any faster.

It wasn’t meant to happen so quickly.

None of them had expected the acceleration in your condition. No changes for almost a full year and then in the space of a month everything went south.

Outwardly Lyca was the most upset, most confused by your sudden downturn. Rui had kept himself calm on the surface, for you, for the others, but inside he felt like he was drowning.

Yuri had promised him time, had promised him a warning. It wasn’t meant to happen like this. So quickly.

He’d barely had time to process the new timeline. Accept that time for you, for him, was running out, when they had taken you away.

* * *

The first night he spent with you was after a mission you had with Mortkanken.

Something about it had really scared you, more so than any other mission. You hadn't wanted to talk about it but when you arrived at Obscuary, a overnight bag clutched in front of you apologetically and your eyes incased in dark circles, Rui could just tell.

Ed and Lyca had been delighted seeing you back in your makeshift room at Obscuary. Rui was…more conflicted.

At some point he had fallen for you, not just a little but entirely.

That was old news though, he could’ve nursed his one-sided crush forever. Dealt with it through frivolous flirting over custom cocktails and shameless pick-up lines but you had begun to act differently around him. Choosing to sit by him rather than Lyca, seeking him out to chat on campus, offering to help him in the bar.

It should have made him happy, and the selfish part of him was, but the rest of him just felt guilty.

You deserved better than him. You deserved someone who could actually touch you. Who could hold your hand without fear. Your gloves were nice, but a relationship built on little more than an occasional hand touch wasn’t the kind of relationship someone like you deserved.

And it wasn't like you were devoid of options. Half the ghouls went gooey eyed just looking at you. It would’ve killed him to watch you be swept up by someone else, but it would’ve been better. Safer for you.

So, he had tried to avoid you, create some distance. Hoping that it would force you into the arms of another. He should’ve known it was impossible though. He knew how stubborn you were, it was one of the things he adored about you.

He had locked himself away in his room, not sleeping just thinking, imagining a world where he was normal, where he had never been cursed, where he could be the type of boyfriend you deserved.

He felt the bed dip and he pealed open an eye expecting Ed, who often broke into his room to demand he fix the internet speed or solve a disagreement between him and Lyca.

Instead, he saw you, still in your jeans and jumper from earlier that day.

He should’ve moved, gotten off the bed but instead he just watched you, waiting to see what you would do.

You didn’t speak as you shifted, lying down on the opposite side of the bed, facing him.

He was so close to making a flippant comment, something about how if you wanted to get him into bed all you needed to do was ask but there was a vulnerableness in your expression, whatever you had come here to say was important. So, he shut off the part of himself that wanted to flirt, to fill the air with noise, and waited.

'Can we pretend, just for tonight, that we’re both normal?' you reached across the bed, your hand dragging along the covers holding your open palm between your two bodies.  

Rui looked at you then at your gloved hand before, carefully, he reached across and laced you fingers together. He closed his eyes at the touch, letting the feeling wash over him.

It was pathetic really, how a single touch, a single caress, felt. How it sent him spiraling.

You were like a heaping spoon of honey after only ever tasting ash. Too sweet, too intense. It made him want to close his eyes, to cringe away, whilst at the same time lean in and soak himself with you completely. Sometimes he thought that if he could actually touch you, skin to skin, or kiss you, that it would be too much. That the taste of you would almost burn his throat with the intensity of it.

He opened his eyes and met your gaze before giving you a single, almost imperceptible, nod. He would pretend with you forever if he could.

'We’re in love with each other, aren’t we?'

Your voice and expression were laced with tragedy and Rui found his own feelings a mirror of yours. His heart both swelled with joy and hope and clenched with pain at your confession.

O course you were in love with each other. You had been for a while.

But what did it matter? What did it change?

Everything that still stood between you was still there. Obstacles were not made any easier with the confirmation of your feelings.

He nodded slowly, 'I’m afraid so.' He looked down to your interlocked hands. 'Desperately, in fact.'

A single icy tear pooled at the corner of your eye before rolling down your cheek where it hit the silk pillow. You nodded, before bringing your intertwined hands up, close to your face.

You pressed a single feather light kiss against the back of his hand, so gentle he almost didn’t feel it through his glove. Then you closed your eyes.

There was nothing else to say, nothing to do.

So, Rui just rubbed his thumb against your hand and imagined he was falling asleep with you.

* * *

It’s not hard to find your cell. You are their prize catch after all.

The kyklos is a strange anomaly, its slow change rate allowing the academy time to perform all manner of horrifying tests.

You are the only one in this wing. In the bowels of the prison. There’s no light here and it takes Rui a moment for his eyes to adjust.

You are at the back of your cage, curled in on yourself. You flinch when you hear him approaching.

You are blind now.

The bouquet that covers most of your body has taken your eyes too.

* * *

He was in the garden when you found him.

You had been on a mission all week and still technically were, he hadn’t expected to see you. So, when he spotted your figure approaching through the forest, he couldn’t help the smile that overtook his face.

'I thought you weren’t back until tomorrow!' he called out, setting down his secateurs and jogging up to you, 'you should’ve told me I could have walked with you or met you at Clem—'

You were crying and you had been for a while. Not sobbing, but silent tears were still gathering in the corners of your devastated expression.

At first, he thought the worst had happened. That someone had died. You’d been on the mission with Frostheim, you were close with all of those ghouls but Kaito and Luca in particular.

He wanted to run to you, to take you in his arms and assure you it would be okay. But he couldn’t so, instead, he just stood in front of you useless and stiff.

'What is it?'

Your eyes flicked up to him, worry clear on your face. For a moment you just chewed your lip and avoided his eyeline then finally you said, 'I kissed Jin.'

He felt his heart crack. Not a small splinter but a chasm opening up inside of him, deep and festering. The coals of his heart exposed to the air. He tried to swallow back his hurt, push down the pain. You didn’t owe him anything, hadn’t made him any promises. You weren’t together, even if you acted like it, even though you loved each other.

'I don’t know why I did it…I just—I was just scared and sad and he was too and' —you take a step forward still rambling— 'and for a moment I thought he understood me.'

At first Rui thought you were sad because you were breaking his heart, and truthfully half of him had hoped that you were. Finally realising that you could never have anything real with him. He didn't know the Frostheim captain that well or even like him, but you could kiss him, you could be together and be safe. It would've been a better life for you.

The other half of him was dying.

'I regretted it right away,' you took another step closer, your arms outstretched fell uselessly at your sides. You looked down at your clasped hands and sniffled before finally looking back at him. 'Are you angry?'

He hated the hope that bloomed within him. You weren’t here to break his heart, to rip him in two and discard him, you were here to ask for forgiveness.

Part of him was angry, furious, but a larger, much louder part was just screaming with relief. Relief that you had picked him. Still chosen him when you had so many better options.

How could he be angry at you? How could he hold a stupid kiss against you when he stole everything from you just by being with you?

If he was a better man, he might’ve pushed you towards Jin. Insisted that he was the better option, but he was selfish and, God, he would choose you in any lifetime.

So, he did what he always did, he hid behind a flirtatious smile. 

'Don't worry, I only care about being your last kiss.'

* * *

The small cage they have you in, grimy and dark, makes him want to rage. It makes him want to go to Cornelius and end his life with just one touch. To turn on the staff, become the monster they all feared he was. 

You are curled in in yourself, hugging your knees to your chest. He’s never seen you look so small, so scared, flinching as he approaches. 

'Who's there?' 

Your voice is marred with pain, and it makes Rui’s mind flicker to the darkest corners. Horrors blooming as he ponders over what tests they have been performing on you. 

'It's me.'

He hates that smile. The one that takes over your whole face as though he is a hero here to save you when in reality, he is here to do the opposite. It makes him feel sick.  

'I was starting to think you wouldn't come.'

'I didn't want to,' he quietly admits to himself. 

* * *

When you had first broached the subject with him, he had thought it was a joke. 

Some kind of cruel prank. 

He had only just gotten used to the idea that you could love him despite his curse and asking that of him had set your relationship back weeks. 

He thought it was just a twisted call back to months before when you had confessed that you had kissed Jin.

* * *

'Will you come closer?' Your wrists are red raw from the cuffs and that is nothing to say of the one around your neck. 

As though subconsciously pulled towards you, he moves unthinkingly, dragging himself forward until he’s right in front of you.

The sight of your hands reaching for him pull at something in his gut.

He takes them, rubbing his thumb against your gloved hand as he slides to his knees across from you. The feeling of touching you still startles him.

'They let you keep the gloves?'

'They’re the only thing they let me keep.'

You reach forward blindly and press a hand to his cheek. He leans into your touch like it is the first time again.

'Why?' the word breaks halfway out of his mouth. A crack of pain splintering the question into two pleading syllables.

'I'm sorry that it has to be you.' You are still so beautiful, even as you’re being slowly buried alive by flowers. 'I'm sorry that I want it to be you.'

He looks down at your hands and a stray tear falls, staining the brown leather of your gloves. 'I wish this had never happened to you.'

'Then I wouldn't have met you.'

He wants to make a joke, to plead with you to change your mind, to insist that there’s still time. But he forces it down. 'But you'd be safe.'

'This is safe,' you remind him, running your hand over his cheek. 'You make me feel safe.' 

He sighs his eyes fluttering closed briefly as he twists his head and kisses your palm.

'I wouldn't have changed it.' You whisper. 'I need you to know that. I picked you for a reason Rui.'

He laughs through his tears and it’s a pathetic watery sound, 'Yeah, because you're crazy.'

'Just shut up and kiss me.'

He swallows and looks across to you. There's only happiness on your face, a smile so bright it feels out of place in a gloomy cell like this.

He can hear guards running through the tunnels, coming to stop him and, achingly, he realises he’s almost out of time.  

Tentatively he leans forward but you hold up a finger, stopping him.  

'I'll say it now because I won't be able to after.' He shakes his head, unable to think of the after. 'You deserve love, and you're allowed to be happy.] 

'I'm happy with you,' Rui insists, squeezing your hands.

You tug him closer, the sound of the thundering guards increasing as he inches forward.

'I love you.' He breathes out, the words hitting you, fanning over your lips in a gentle caress.

Then as the guards burst through, he draws you in, dragging you against him, touching every inch of his body to every inch of yours as he kisses you.

And it is unlike any other kiss he remembers but that might just be because it's you.

He feels the familiar sting, the pull of his curse drawing the life from you and feeding him. He can feel the moment the life completely leaves you, but he doesn’t let you go, he can’t.

Instead, he drags you closer, your chains rattling as he pulls you into his lap and buries his face in your hair.

He can still feel you on his lips, in his blood. He can feel you when the guards drag him away, when Cornelius interrogates him and still the next day. It’s not his reaper curse though, this is different.

You were already under his skin long before he ever kissed you.