Barring Eros I'd trace his face
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There is a bird in my mouth (I reach to clasp your face, but have lost both my hands) by ossia_ombreggiata
Fandoms: Pandora Hearts
14 Feb 2025
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Summary
Jack swallowed laboriously, appraising the weight of the skull that had been offered so humbly, so fully, and solely to him.
Yes, this was his—not Miranda’s, not anyone else’s. He cradled it against his chest, feeling each imperfection in Oswald's scalp, the slight dampness of his hair, the long lashes of his closed eyelids, the cracks of his soft lips, his discreet dimples. Jack committed it all to memory. Only then, he lifted his friend’s head in front of his own, which made Oswald lose balance and open his eyes and—he was his, they were still alive, Jack thought frantically, and roughly kissed him.
The night before the Tragedy, Jack Vessalius’ steps lead him to his best friend.
Series
- Part 1 of Barring Eros I'd trace his face
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I scrawl your name at the bottom of the river (I sing it and it sings me back) by ossia_ombreggiata
Fandoms: Pandora Hearts
10 Mar 2025
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Summary
Oswald allowed Jack to baptise him in anger.
Such a feeling had to be real, the older man realised with glee as he let Jack’s hands guide his skull against the porcelain of the tub. He held his breath and closed his eyes in calm acceptance, a reaction that must have upset his partner, because he was quick to tighten the grip he had kept on Oswald’s neck—then a warning and now a punishment. Oswald did not know exactly what he was being punished for at that moment, but he knew better than to think he did not deserve it.
Maybe Jack Vessalius could have loved Oswald. Of course, he will never get to—that is a burden for Glen Baskerville to bear.
Series
- Part 2 of Barring Eros I'd trace his face
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Not the hymn of promise but the body’s bright wailing against its limits (a bird caught in a cathedral) by ossia_ombreggiata for xhoppipolla
Fandoms: Pandora Hearts
01 Jun 2025
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Summary
Jack bit his lip. It hadn’t hurt, but the sensation of his friend’s eyes on him as he was being taken burnt.
It turned his thoughts to mush, Glen’s image overlapping Oswald’s, Oswald’s overlapping Glen’s, back and forth, and he did not know whose name to moan as his best friend penetrated him with so much tenderness, movements slow and careful, all while he stared down at Jack—reverently, fearfully. Almost lovingly.
If Glen Baskerville insists so much on Jack staying the night, it’s not because he’s worried about his friend being caught in a storm: it’s because the Duke wants to sleep with him—or so Jack believes.
Series
- Part 3 of Barring Eros I'd trace his face
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And alone she endures music at midnight (this bliss is yours, living world) by ossia_ombreggiata
Fandoms: Pandora Hearts
13 Jun 2025
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Summary
Lacie didn’t recognise her place in the melody's last cadence. In how, after Oswald had shortly taken over with a weirdly soothing tremolo, Jack's chords turned to birdsong—those loud cries of swifts in late spring, scared and seeking. Oswald answered with an inquiring glissando, and it only took a single beat for the men to start playing the same hopeful tune on different octaves, their hands seeking to meet in the middle.
It wasn't for her to hear anymore, Lacie knew, but her eyes watered at the beautiful refrain all the same. She did not dare humming along.
Jack and Oswald play a song, Lacie stumbles across her birthday present a bit too early.
Series
- Part 4 of Barring Eros I'd trace his face
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Tell me a poem can coax oil from a sea bird’s throat (tell me what to do with my hands) by ossia_ombreggiata
Fandoms: Pandora Hearts
19 Jan 2026
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Summary
"I could tell the orange had gone bad when I picked it up from the dirt, when I felt it, all softened up in my hands,” Oswald sighed with melancholy, grimacing. “But I couldn’t help wanting to taste it. I… broke its skin, and it looked bruised, and the juice was coating my wrists, and it felt very horrible—so sticky—but I still… I still…”
Each segment, too soft, religiously taken apart to reveal the mouldy core—cloud of green—and the fruit didn’t disgust him half as much as he disgusted himself, because in all its foulness Oswald had kept on licking up his palms, each bead of rotten juice devoured with delight, coating his mouth with bloody sugar.
“You ate it,” Lacie declared matter-of-factly.
“Yes,” Oswald finally answered. There was no need to say more—to confess that Jack awoke in him the same irreverent hunger.
Oswald Baskerville is in love with Jack Vessalius. Everyone seems well aware of this—everyone but Oswald himself.
(Or, 4 seasons in the life of Oswald Baskerville)
Series
- Part 5 of Barring Eros I'd trace his face
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You’d break your heart to make it bigger (so why not crack your skull when the mind swells?) by ossia_ombreggiata
Fandoms: Pandora Hearts
31 Jul 2025
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Summary
Oswald wanted to follow the tearful order. He couldn't. He could not part from the messianic vision so easily, the rapture of Jack's chest rising and falling quicker than the doe he had wounded at a hunt, once. Years ago. One that had been eaten for dinner, later, but that he didn’t even manage to stomach, retching over a window sill at the memory of her panicked stare crossing his own.
Jack and Oswald play a game of chess for the first time since Lacie's death.
Series
- Part 6 of Barring Eros I'd trace his face
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Sliced in two like a flatfish (your lack is my lack) by ossia_ombreggiata for ukiinas
Fandoms: Pandora Hearts
27 Dec 2025
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Summary
Alice worries about love, Vincent about identity. Perhaps their concerns are not so different, because Jack and Glen understand neither...!
Thankfully, the Baskerville manor’s library is well-stocked enough to provide answers on anything—even to questions the two men would never dare ask.
Series
- Part 7 of Barring Eros I'd trace his face