＃KAZE TO KI NO UTA !! ♡ — I STEEP YOUR HEART IN MY CHAMOMILE TEA (SERGE X GILBERT).
#. synopsis! — serge will love gilbert until the day he dies .
#. characters! — serge x gilbert .
#. warnings! — angst, explicit mentions of death and canon-typical dark content .
#. word count! — 1.4k .
#. alt accounts! — @ddollipop (nsfw) @hhoneypop (moodboards) .
#. others! — navigation & masterlist .
#. a/n! — please accept my humble kazeki spotify playlist <3
It was never that Gilbert didn’t love Serge as much as Serge loved him. No, it wasn’t a matter of choice, or want, or desire, —it was a matter of possibility. By the time they met, it was much too late, although Serge never wanted to believe it. He was a smart young lad, but a child is always a child. And Gilbert was a child too, even if he didn’t seem it at times. They were doomed from the start; by the heavens, by God, by earthly forces and celestial ones alike. They were doomed by every season, by every whisper of wind, by every hand that had ever touched Gilbert’s aching frame, stealing more of him away.
When he met Serge, there was nothing left to give, no matter how badly he’d wanted to. He was a void, some cosmic hole of nothingness that sucked things in and never spat them out. He was broken, and tattered, and torn at every edge, —and he did love Serge for whatever that was worth, but in the end, it wasn’t much. Gilbert was living on Serge’s borrowed time, feeding off his warmth, pulling him under. . .
The sun sets upon another day, one that Gilbert never saw, and Serge sits alone in his room, dressed in clothes that don’t feel like his own. Because they aren’t. He’s always been more tall than he’s ever been proud, and this ruffled collar and gold-buttoned vest may have looked dashing on his father, but they swallow Serge up just like Gilbert used to; trading one prison for another.
At least when it was Gilbert’s doing, Serge felt more like himself.
But here he sits in this stuffy manor, brown eyes flickering across the ornate paintings hung about the room. They’re all trimmed in subtle bronze, carved into filligrous vines, and it’s all so melodramatic that it’s giving him a headache just staring at them. The art itself is expertly done, —mostly flowers and cabins stuffed somewhere off in the woods. For a moment, Serge thinks to himself that he should have run somewhere like that with Gilbert, somewhere they could have hidden themselves away from the world for as long as it took him to get well. Forever, maybe, if that’s what he needed.
It’s a pipedream now though. Gilbert is gone; has been gone for years, and yet Serge still finds himself thinking of him as if he were soon to walk through the door at any moment’s notice. He can’t eat chestnuts without tasting Gilbert’s burnt flesh on their surface, can’t sleep in any bed without the ghost of Gilbert’s arms encircling him, —and sometimes they’re softer than others, but they never change their size. Sometimes when he closes his eyes, Serge can still smell Gilbert on his sheets; one’s that he never even laid on. He hears his voice when he plays piano, humming along to the melodies he plays, —he feels him when the wind rustles, when the sun shines, and when rain takes over the skies.
If there’s one thing Serge knows for certain, it’s that Gilbert will live inside him for as long as it takes to make things right. He’ll apologize a million times for mistakes he never had the chance to make, and he’ll pour an extra cup of chamomile tea, even though Gilbert probably wouldn’t have liked it anyway.
He’ll sit and think far too often about how Gilbert would have grown in tandem with him, —getting taller, and warmer, and kinder, like Serge was melting ice in his palms. He’ll visit his grave and tell him about his days, even if he’s never really felt Gilbert there where his name is carved into marble and brownstone. He’s the only one who ever visits these days, and it would be a shame to let his resting place become some overgrown mound of weeds. Maybe Gilbert wouldn’t mind, but Serge does.
He’ll try not to cry as much as the days go by. Time hasn’t healed his wounds the way he thought it would, —but he’s not doing himself any favors with the way he digs his fingers around in them every morning, desperate to keep them festering like some metaphorical maw of devotion. It’s what Gilbert always did, picking at his cuts and his bruises to keep them around.
Serge will bleed on every inch of Lacombrade Academy, then on every stone on the streets of Paris, just as Gilbert would have wanted.
He’ll carry this guilt like a cross on his shoulders, —unadulterated and proud, each step heavy with the weight of remorse. Serge will lug this love like a burden and a gift from some forsaken savior, a constant companion, shaping to the contours of his soul, merging down to the muscle. This is where he feels closest to the writhing boy he lost to the rain and the mud and the horrors of his mind. This is where he feels Gilbert so strongly; in the sinews of his being, rotting on the inside but sickeningly sugar-coated.
He puts an extra cube of sugar in Gilbert’s tea and watches it dissolve, then takes a sip of his own.
It’s mild, —floral, and maybe it would be soothing if Serge allowed for it to be. He won’t, of course.
Shadows dance off the walls in the late evening light. The air is thick with melancholy, the kind that permeates the tea in Serge’s delicate porcelain cup. He almost smiles when a whisper of wind from the open window makes the curtains quiver and snuffs out the candlelight on the clothed table. Gilbert never did like romantic gestures. He preferred something raw and much less tangible, clawing at Serge until he came apart, just so he’d put him back together.
And he always did. . . Until he couldn’t. Serge always knew how to fix Gilbert; how to pull him in and soothe the ache, until the echoes got louder, until Gilbert got high enough to block them out, even when it came at the cost of blocking Serge out with them. At least he was delirious at the end. It’s a somber sort of comfort knowing Gilbert wasn’t in the right mind when it all came crashing down, —but more than that, it’s a reminder to Serge that it’s his solemn duty to keep those memories alive until he’s food for the worms to eat.
There wasn’t enough love in the world to save Gilbert from himself, and Serge has yet to reconcile with the bitter truth that he knew that all along. He’d known it from the moment they met in that claustrophobic dorm room when Gilbert came crashing in, teetering on the edge. It was only a matter of time before his sadness caught up to him. He was running from ghosts and the whispers of his mind, from the attention he craved and begged for, and found in the arms of whatever upperclassman or old, nasty man he could sink his teeth into for a night.
And Serge couldn’t kiss that away.
He couldn’t ever hold Gilbert tight enough, so he settled. He settled for the tanned hands brushing golden strands from his face, caressing him gently even when he begged to be hurt. He settled for whispered words against his neck instead of canines on his flesh, for big, brown, innocent eyes that were just so disgustingly kind. Gilbert settled for love when he wanted to be hurt.
Worst of all, he liked it.
He liked how Serge held his cheeks and kissed his tears away and how he always kept the promises he made.
Now, Serge sifts through memories of pale skin and lean muscle, —emerald eyes that never really had a spark. But heaven knows they were so, so pretty when Gilbert wanted them to be. His heart wanes like the humble moon, the ache of loss still ever-present, no matter where he goes. He lives with a chill that follows him wherever he ventures, undeterred by the warmth of his tender memories or the cup of quickly cooling tea in his palms.
Gilbert’s love was never perfect, and it never came without great costs, but Serge would have traveled to every end of the Earth to keep it. He’d have paid every price imaginable just to pull him from the depths and breathe new life into his fragile lungs.
But it’s too late now. . . So Serge sits alone at this table, holding a cup of chamomile tea the way he once held both their hopes and sorrows. He clings to what he has left, —the reminders of what he lost and what he gained.
The last sip lingers like Gilbert’s lips always did on his collarbones, and Serge settles the empty cup back onto its saucer.