The Thief's Curse (Part 4)

He began visiting more after that day. First once a month and I longed for his visits, he could keep me company, made my life worth living again. Then eventually he visited once a fortnight. I would sleep, take something and sleep more the days he didn’t come. Eventually he’d come once a week and then, 9 months after Cyr died, he started visiting once a day.

He’d stay for hours; he’d make me happier than I had been since Cyr died. He made me realise that I could live without Cyr in my life again.

Then the nightmares began again. “You’re replacing me with a shinigami, Jess! How could you?”
“Cyr, I’m not! Y-You asked him to look after me, not replace you!”
“Jess, wake up.” It was Grell. “Please, Jess, it’s just a nightmare, wake up.” He shook me and I woke up, panicking. “Grell-niisan, he said that I was replacing him with you…” He pulled me into a hug and stroked my hair. “He wouldn’t say that, though, would he? It’s just the nightmare, I’ve been here so much now, Jess, looking after you. It has been almost a year since Cyr died, and you’ve done brilliantly, my darling.” He stroked my face and I forced a smile, lying back on the bed while Grell stroked my hair.

Blood leaked from my entire body and filled the room, my chest filled with cuts. “My Lady.” Cyr was stood above me, in his Sebastian form. The form that he killed me in. The form he couldn’t remember me in.

Cyr stepped onto my legs, snapping them and then grabbed my head twisting it causing my neck to crack and the smaller bones to snap. I tried to scream but I couldn’t. I could hear a voice, it wasn’t Cyr’s and it sounded desperate. “Jess!” It shouted. “Jess, please…”

I woke up, in Grell’s arms. “Finally, you wouldn’t stop thrashing.” I looked into his sad eyes and began to sob. “I-It wasn’t a nightmare. It was a memory. From when Cyr was Sebastian, when he couldn’t remember me,” I paused. “When he killed me.” Grell looked at me suddenly. “He killed you?”
“I stole Ciel’s soul. He was just trying to get it back.”
“I heard a demon thief stole Ciel’s soul but I didn’t realise it was you he killed.”
“Neither did he. I want to keep it that way as well.”
“He doesn’t know?!” I curled into his arms and revealed a bruise around my neck. “Jess! I think you recreated your nightmare.” I felt the bruise.
“Luckily I’m not strong enough to recreate it fully otherwise I would have killed myself.” I recreated and reversed my nightmare and the bruise disappeared.

I looked up at Grell, my eyes absent. “You could save her, you know”
“Save her?”
“Protect her from dying when her time’s up.”
“How?”
“You have to become more than friends with her and she, in return has to love you back.”
“She already loves me.”
“As a friend. She does not love you as she loved Cyr. I know you love her like that but she does not yet. It is unlikely that she ever will, but if she does, then you can save her.” My eyes return to normal and I looked at Grell, his eyes concerned. “What’s wrong, niisan?”
“If you love me, I can save you from dying.”