Alice 19th Fan Fiction ❯ Smile, Empty Soul ❯ Chapter 1

RATING: PG-13, but creepy; Eric/Frey. If m/m interaction bothers you, pass this by.
SPOILERS: Volumes 5 and 6.
SUMMARY: When you're a Maram Master, the darkness inevitably colors everything.
FEEDBACK: can be sent to Viridian5@aol.com
DISCLAIMERS: All things Alice 19th belong to Yuu Watase/Shogakukan, Inc. and VIZ, LLC. No infringement intended.

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"Smile, Empty Soul"
By Viridian5
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"Goodbye, Frey. Be good."

Frey rolled his eyes. "Eric. I'm not a kid anymore."

"Yes, I'd forgotten that 19 was ancient."

How lightly he joked with his "favorite" student, just as if events weren't finally reaching their conclusion, with Frey leaving for Tokyo to guide the fledgling Neo-masters. Soon Eric wouldn't have to lie to the others or to Frey anymore.

Soon, Eric would die, but the order would die first.

He wondered if Frey would survive the assaults of the other Maram Masters to reach Eric and discover his treachery. Part of him hoped so. He wanted Frey to know the truth of his hatred and watch the boy's heart break.

As he'd seen it broken before, when they'd first met. If he'd known then what he knew now, would he have saved Frey's life? When the boy had come back with his cousin/love's cold body in his arms begging him to do the impossible and bring her back to life, would he have inducted Frey into the order or sent him on to follow her in suicide?

Then, Eric had been confident in his mastery of the Lotis words and his belief that he would live a good, long life.

Frey was powerful in the Lotis now, more gifted there than Eric had ever been, but he still had darkness in his heart, darkness that could be exploited. Eric had never successfully convinced him that Ida's suicide hadn't been his fault, and that could be useful.

Eric often wondered whether Ida had simply been a particularly thoughtless and self-absorbed 19-year-old girl or touched by Mara and set into Frey's path specifically to wound him. How many girls unhappy with their engagement would choose to cheat on their fiancé with the fifteen-year-old orphaned cousin being fostered in their home? Or let their father simply throw their relative/love outside on a winter night after catching them together? Or come to the boy later with a mad scheme of running away together and be upset when the boy is overwhelmed by it and turns it down? And then suicide. Brilliant.

Yet Frey still wore the idiot girl's pendant dangling from his right ear four years later, a visible sign of the darkness in his past. Weakness. Darva would strike there.

"Hello? Eric?" Grinning, Frey waved a hand in front of his face.

"Sorry," Eric answered. "It's a big day. Everything really starts now."

"I'll make the order proud."

The order was sending a 19-year-old out as their representative. A very gifted 19-year-old, one who had surpassed his teacher ages ago, but....

The order thought Frey to be a smiling golden boy, yet Eric, who wore his own mask, had seen Frey's grins and goofy enthusiasm slip now and then. Thrown from relative to relative for most of his life, Frey had learned to seem perpetually cheerful and thankful.

"I know you will," Eric answered as he set his hand against the side of Frey's face, smiling a little at the feel of warm skin and soft hair and the way Frey turned his head into Eric's palm, so desperately hungry for affection.

Frey loved and trusted him. If the Lotis principles had still had any power to affect Eric at all, it would have touched him deeply.

If the Lotis had still had the power to heal him, Eric never would have made his deal with Darva.

Frey's link to him had made Darva more likely to offer a deal to Eric, knowing that this betrayal would wound. Sometimes Eric felt the urge to move in closer for a kiss and tug on Frey's golden hair, particularly the braid that was the mark of their order. Would the boy taste sticky-sweet, like the jams he was addicted to?

Frey was quick to learn and very attractive, dressed a bit provocatively, and flirted with anything that moved. And he loved Eric. If Eric pushed a little, the boy could fall into his hands, and how much worse would it be for Frey to have another lover rip his heart out?

But Eric worried that the degenerative disease that weakened and was slowly devouring him might strike at a sensitive moment. Just because Darva kept the pain away didn't mean that his body didn't suffer. Frey mustn't know about his condition. Not yet.

Frey wasn't smiling now, and his green eyes looked deep and dark. "I'm good, Eric. You made me so."

Eric felt a sudden stab of pain and took his hand away from Frey's face so gently and slowly that it could be taken for a caress. "I know," Eric answered as he put on a proud smile. "I have faith in you. I'll see you again soon."

***********************THE END**********************

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