Edward Hart — Once More (one-shot)

edward hart — once more (one-shot)

he wishes to hear you call his name once more.

pairing: edward hart / reader

tags: angst, major character death

words: 1, 941

[cross-posted from ao3]

glossy eyes and a distracted expression. his dirty clothes were strewn across the floor and there were dishes piling up on his bedside table. edward could only focus his attention on the ceiling of his bedroom. rui does come by once in a while to clean up after him but that wasn't enough to keep it from becoming a mess again. edward wasn't this much of a slob; in fact, after centuries of living by himself, he'd watch his friends and loved once die off one by one, he had learned how to live by himself without anyone's interference. he's a proud vampire, the strongest one, the one no one could ever even think of harming. he was doing fine all on his own. he didn't need anyone– that was, and that has been always the case. everything stood true until he met you.

he once held your hand, bowing and leaning in to place a kiss on the back of your hand. he once held your hand flat against his chest– his heart wasn't beating, and he didn't even need to breathe but you told him that he still has a heart, you made his breath hitch in his throat even. indeed, though undead, he had used his heart to love you and only you. he once guided your hand to his shoulder and placed his hand on the curve of your waist. he once smiled at you and spun you around, hearing your mellifluous voice chuckle at his capricious actions. he once snapped his fingers and asked the piano anomaly for a music to slow dance to as he guided your head to the crook of his neck, basking in the candlelit silence of the haunted mansion's ballroom as you waltzed the night away in his embrace. he once plucked roses from the outdoor garden, painstakingly removed each other and offered it to you- the only one who made his still heart beat once again.

"oh? you're here." edward only notices rui once rui was already inside his room, picking up his discarded clothes and tossing them into a basket in his hands. "i'm going there." edward tells rui. rui, who always donned a smile and a carefree attitude, seemed to dim a bit, his expression darkening and his lips pursed into a thin line.

"hey... will you be okay?" rui asks, concerned about the captain. rui was reluctant, knowing that ed preferred to stay inside and never leave his bedroom, rui knew well enough from his observations alone that whenever ed visited that room, he came out worse than before. that room felt like something that constantly drained ed's vitality, the captain's eyes becoming more and more dull as he visited. that room felt like a calamity that dragged ed down for worse, yet the captain couldn't seem to let it go. ed was oddly overprotective of that room in particular, having sworn to secrecy that rui was never to speak of whatever was in that room; after all it was only the captain and vice-captain allowed.

"i'm going." edward stated firmly once again, standing up from his bed and weakly making it out into the hallway. it was a shame, he wasn't weak- he was never meant to be weak yet he crumbled even at the thought of you, of seeing you.

when edward's feet led him in front of that room, he took a deep breath, his hands coming to grasp the door handles yet he hesitated. how can he even show his face to you or be near you? would you even look at him in pity at his current state? would you spare him a glance? if only you were yourself, you would probably have a worried expression and scold him, telling him he should never let himself go. bracing himself for the pain, he held the door open and walked in.

he's a vampire– his heart is still and there's no warmth in him, by human standards he would be considered dead, a walking corpse. it was cruel, absolutely painfully heart wrenching cruel. the figure laying in the bed in front of him was also a corpse. a corpse resting on the line between life or death.

edward never really gave a damn about the rumors humans spew, a being of his status shouldn't regard baseless rumors but among the mountain of rumors, there's got to be one that's correct, right?

he's a murderer.

it had only been a few years since then. eyes brimming with excitement and anticipation, you held his hand and announced that darkwick has finally assigned you two a mission. you had done it, you were on par with edward to be sent on a mission alone with him! as lovers, the both of you were ecstatic yet the lingering fear and anxiety never went unnoticed. whatever, right? you're both powerful, what could go wrong?

yet in that moment, a mere moment of hesitation broke the glass castle you had built along with edward. a desperate call from your throat and edward's feet frozen in place. an anomalous monster took you right in front of his eyes. edward, though always seemingly composed and collected, saw red for the first time. he was sure it wasn't blood that blinded him but fury. seething rage devoured him in an instant. you were strong enough to fight and break free yet that wasn't where the problem laid. it was classified as a high ranking mission because of the effects the anomalous poison had on ghouls like you.

and did the poison consume you.

frankly, edward would've rather had you stricken with a poison that diminished your physical health. at least he can have sought after the most talented doctors in the world to treat you. at least that was something he can overcome. alas, it was something more, something that caused you so much pain mentally that it left you unable to do anything else. you neglected yourself, confined yourself to this room, and every time edward saw you, he watched the world collapsing from your very eyes. every time he embraced you after that incident, he felt you become colder than he was. his once overflowing love felt like a collection of percussive music bringing him down into a spiral and his anxiety accompanied the overbearing thuds like an uneasy rhythm of guitar strings being plucked.

"edward... will you grant me one last wish?" edward can still hear your pleading voice at the back of his mind, your sweet sweet voice asking for a sweet release from the prison the poison had entrapped you in. "can you give me rest, and wake me up when it's all over?"

he was willing to wait years, decades, and even centuries for you. he could even wait a millennia if you asked him to. he didn't care about the rumors that surrounded him, he didn't care that he was called a murderer behind his back, he didn't care that he was seen as a villain. this was his price to pay. this was all for him to bear, this was the rotten fruit his selfish greed bore. gone was his cunning and smug expression when darkwick finally called on him for the consequences of his action. after all, he did pull a few strings and deployed a little manipulation to orchestrate this joint mission between the two of you. the verdict was that he was to be banished to that haunted mansion, ostracized from everything and everyone. it was fine, right? at least he had you- you can live with him in that mansion for all eternity.

edward was filled with uncharacteristic time. wounds that can not be physically mended can be healed with time- it was something he heard humans say in passing. perhaps this was the same for you too. his unbridled hope felt like a fragile flower crushed to death in the face of reality when your eyes turned dull and cold towards him. no, no this was not the you edward offered his heart to. this wasn't the person he loved. you were becoming something else. the poison in your blood was turning you into an anomaly, the same anomaly that cursed you with its poison.

"edward..." he gritted his teeth when he heard your pleading voice once again, "i'm sure you know what's going on..."

"we can run away-" he started, yet you cut him off immediately, shutting down the sprout of hope and desperation brewing in his heart, "they'll find me and kill me. i'm becoming an anomaly, you know that." even when speaking of your foreboding death, he can still find traces of your kindness and of your warmth in your tone.

"edward, please forgive me, i'm being selfish." edward heard the waver in your voice that you tried so hard to conceal. "but when i die, i want it to be done by your hands."

the air was so thick, you could cut it with a knife. edward didn't say anything, he had no words to say just like he had no tears left to cry out. he had no will or life in him to scream and shout in despair because deep inside, he knew it was the better course. he understood you, he knew you'd feel better lulled into eternal sleep than being brutally tossed aside and killed by darkwick for becoming the foe of the institution.

even then, he couldn't keep his promise to you. edward was the strongest vampire, yet he came crumbling down in front of you. he couldn't keep his promise to end your life in his hands, instead he let his selfishness overcome him once more.

"years feel like eternity as of late..." edward mumbles as he sits by your bed where your lithe figure lies almost lifeless. "will you wake up and make this still heart of mine beat once more?" edward continues, lamenting over you. he sits on the edge of your bed, his hand caressing your lifeless ones.

"i know i broke the last wish you had entrusted to me..." he sighs, tracing circles on the back of your hand. "but i just can't bring myself to let you go yet."

"after darkwick made the decision to put you in an indefinite sleep to stop the poison, i've been ordered to grant you your last wish and strangle your throat with these very hands." edward reminisces, speaking bitterly as he brought his hand up to your forehead and tried to soothe the pained expression in your face. "but i couldn't do it. i'm a fool who's still waiting for you to wake up when everything is all over just as you once wished."

"everyone thinks i murdered you..." edward murmurs, "how detestable of humans to spark those rumors. i could never hurt you, even if it was to release you from your agony. a coward like myself could only hide you and hope to protect you from the confines of my own prison." he continues.

"lately, i couldn't bear anyone calling me by my name. it reminds me of your voice." edward adds, his hand coming to comb through your hair, his eyes soft just like his voice. "i asked them to call me ed instead, i think i heard a human regard it as a nickname." he heaves another sigh thereafter.

"please wake up soon." edward muttered under his breath as he leaned in and placed a kiss on your forehead, "i'd like to hear my name fall from your lips again, that way i would feel this still heart beat once more for you.”