Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Henituse county is famed for their safety above all else, largely attributed to the Count’s steadfast, meticulous care.

Meticulousness, that had, in recent times, fallen by the wayside.

Precisely seventeen days after the burial of Jour Thames, Cale Henituse stumbles upon a highly illegal scene—although he wouldn’t realize it until much, much later.

‘Roulette’, it is an innocuous word. Cale doesn’t remember the first time he heard of it. It is nothing more than some silly game drunks like to gamble on. A rotating wheel, a pin ball, and a hell lot of money on the line. A highly profitable fixture in every casino he’d ever been to, which was saying something. He’d been to many.

Soon after Cale made his first foray into the deeper, darker world of trashiness, he heard of a deadly twist to the game. Instead of a ball drop into a rotating wheel, there is a gun, a single bullet, a faceless audience, and tenfold the money.

Cale should be appalled, should’ve run to the Count at the slightest suggestion of such a thing, should’ve felt sick to his stomach at the thought of it all.

Cale does none of that.

It was all for the wealthiest of men’s addiction to the high of gambling, the thrill.

Of all things, he shouldn’t be silent.

He sits on this newfound knowledge, stews over it for a day, two days…

…all the way to his next birthday.

—————

Home was the last place he wanted to be.

—————

It wasn’t hard to find. A bit of an open secret. 

Though the Count was a little busy with his new family to do a thing about it, Cale thought, with a not insignificant amount of bitterness.

A wig, cloak, and mask was all he needed.

Don’t forget the money.

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting.

It was a show, entertainment, for the sickest of bastards.

He doesn’t—will not—bet. But he does pay a hefty entrance fee.

Three players. One only a few years older than him. Cale sits alone in a private box, one among dozens, maybe hundreds.

A good day.

Three people enter, three people exit on their own two legs. A pile of what looked to be body bags sit by the stage, untouched. The audience’s disappointment was almost palpable.

Cale’s stomach churns uncomfortably. An unidentifiable emotion sits heavy in his chest. Surrounded by hushed whispers and the sound of money exchanging hands, Cale walked away. He’d gotten lucky. He very well might have had to watch somebody, multiple people maybe, die that day.

Lucky.

—————

He crashes into the child. 

And against his better judgement, Cale asks why.

The answer is immediate. “Money.”

Cale’s eyes drifts the boy’s clothes and stay there for longer than is polite, it is tattered, a patchwork of rags. He is carrying a big pouch of gold, presumably. Cale can hear the metal clinking together.

The stranger continues almost kindly, raising his bag. “I win, I turn my life around. Lose? Then, well, it’s not my problem anymore.”

Everything to gain and nothing to lose. Essentially.

And Cale- Cale can understand that.

He glances at the pouch. It’s not bad. Life changing for the average civilian, he can only imagine what it would be for someone clearly from the slums.

He has more.

The mask sits heavy on his face as Cale wordlessly pulls out his own—from a storage device—and hands it to him.

It is his weekly allowance.

It is nearly twice the kid has.

Cale turns away before he could notice the star struck look on the kid’s face.

Cale comes back. Not everyday, or course not. Not often. Just those days, bad days, where it felt like if he had to spend even a single second under those stares, judgement and pity and scorn melding together, he might just snap.

He almost wants to tear his skin off, some days.

That feeling grows increasingly familiar. Nowadays, it’s always at the tip of his tongue. “I’m doing all this for your sake!” He wants to scream. He doesn’t, but god did he want to.

Those days, he skips the usual bar—with its bland wine and a multitude of patrons that range from indifferent to patronizing.

He goes there. Where nobody knew him, nobody truly knew each other.

He gets often enough to realize that every single participant are willing. It only makes him feel slightly better. Nothing changes the fact that all these people, and there were many, too many, every single visit there were anywhere from one to thirteen players at a time, were so very ready to die.

The first time Cale watches somebody die, he was twelve. It was his third, maybe fourth visit.

Six chambers, one bullet. 16.7% chance to die, 83.3% chance to walk away rich.

It is worth it.

It isn’t worth it.

It depends, how desperate are you?

It was a middle aged woman, the light reflects on her jeweled dress in such a way that Cale found himself unable to pull his eyes away even as red trickled down.

She had bright pink hair. Nothing at all like Jour and yet—

Cale remembers it all with vivid clarity. His heart beat loudly, blood pounding in his ears, an unnervingly still silence fell. The audience is never loud, but never quite silent either.

A person who wasn’t clearly impoverished and derelict, was a rare sight.

There was no hesitation in pulling the trigger.

A ghost of a smile dances on her pale lips, and Cale wonders what lead her to this. It is not an uncommon question. But he doubts the answer will be typical financial struggles.

He thinks of her more often than he likes.

There are two ways of entering. Or at the very least, two roles to play.

“I want to pay.”

“I want to play.”

Cale is fourteen, spends most of his days in and out of bars, coming home as late as he possibly could.

The days blend together.

Cale is fourteen. He should be playing with friends, trying new things, failing miserably at some, having fun, living life.

Cale is fourteen. He shouldn’t be so numb, and the world feels so very gray.

Cale is fourteen.

Cale is only a mere few hours from fifteen when the words ‘I want to play’, leaves his mouth.

He dyes his hair. No wig, this time. It was a spur of the moment decision, and he is lucky he had dye on hand.

Lucky.

He leaves the manor fourteen years old.

Cale comes back, fifteen, a freshly bought bottle of whiskey tucked in the crook of his elbow.

—————

Nobody cares to ask about his hair.

It is bright pink.

Cale goes again, the day after that. And the day after that.

He doesn’t die, he doesn’t die, he doesn’t die.

Lucky bastard.

The cold metal of the muzzle against his temple felt nothing like a noose around his neck as he first expected. Death doesn’t feel like it looms over him like so many people say.

It is what it is.

And something is very wrong with him, Cale realizes, to be unable to muster any proper reaction other than damning every god he knew.

He feels nothing.

He becomes a bit of a spectacle; the kid who wouldn’t die.

He comes to recognize the individual hands guiding him onstage, blindfold snug on his head. It doesn’t matter.

The crowd grows louder and louder, each time. His hair is bright pink.

Ron finds out, Cale thinks, he isn’t sure, after the fifth visit maybe. It’s not like he tries to hide his odd trips in the middle of the night.

Nothing changes. Maybe Ron assumed he was out getting drunk. Maybe he knows and simply doesn’t care. Maybe- maybe-

Maybe Cale should stop thinking now.

Cale requests two bullets, the next time.

The applause is thunderous.

Chapter Text

See, Nyx is the oldest of three.

Their father is an alcoholic—and all the negative things that come with it. They haven’t had a mother since the first first time a bottle was thrown her way.

Nyx wants to be bitter, wants to hate her, wants to beg her to fight for them, all three of them. Him and his shitty lungs, the twins and their tiny, tiny baby selves.

He isn’t. He can’t be, not when he can’t say with complete certainty he wouldn’t do the same in her shoes.

Nyx is desperate. He has no formal education, nobody would hire him, all he could do were a few errands here and there for paltry amounts of money.

The twins are six and so very tiny.

With nothing to lose and everything to gain, Nyx delves into the darker underbelly of the territory.

—————

Nyx has toed the line between life and death a little too often to be truly scared of it. Between the freezing cold, ratty clothes, barely enough money to keep a roof over their heads and even then it fails to keep them safe and dry, it’s no wonder.

16.7%

It is not.. high.

It is worth it.

Nyx enters as a player.

And he wins.

—————

He meets a noble—they have to be, with those clothes.

They are masked, a thick cloak blankets their tiny body. The hood is down, however. Their hair is brown in the moonlight.

Nyx prepares himself for the worst.

Being mugged maybe—why though? More probably, they’d bet wrongly on his fate and is angry?

Nothing of the sort happens.

Nyx walks away richer.

He is confused.

He is grateful.

Nyx brands their face into his memory. The slope of their cheekbones, the way their mask sits on the bridge of their nose, the slant of their eyebrows.

He’d always had a good head on his shoulders. He will not forget. One day, he will return the favor.

A few years pass, and things are looking up.

Nyx and his two siblings live together now, in a poor neighborhood, yes, but it is far better than the slums. Nyx is careful not to use the money so soon.

His father finds a bag. Thankfully, it is only the winnings from his gamble with death—he keeps the two bags separately. Is it paranoia if someone is truly after him—his money, more like?

It is a blessing, honestly.

Immediately, the bastard got absolutely smashed and drunkenly picked a fight with the wrong person. Nobody mourns him.

Nyx owns a quaint little shop and life is good.

It’s been a while since he thought of the noble.

There is still some money he hadn’t used yet.

Truly, they were generous.

Nyx hopes to be able to repay the noble one day. Maybe not with money, he highly doubts they’d need it, maybe if they needed a loyal servant?

Nyx doesn’t like owing debts, and he doesn’t quite believe in blind faith, but he doesn’t think they would abuse his loyalty. It’s not a bad fate, living as a loyal servant.

It’s a bit of an extreme view for someone he’d only met once, but they had saved him and his two baby siblings, so.

—————

It is a quiet day when the news breaks.

Cale Henituse is missing.

Pictures of him are posted, advertising an eye-popping monetary reward.

Nyx stares at the picture plastered all over the entire county. It is everywhere. The hair is different, but that face, he recognizes that face.