Paper Stars [Ciel/Niklaas]

[Deleted]

luck (♠) is (♥) a (♦) lady (♣)

word count

566

tags

Niklaas de Vries

notes

here sve i hope it's okay ;w;

F

or once, the day was light.

It didn't weigh heavily upon her shoulders like it usually did. The grey sky was not a dark as it often was, instead letting a ray of sun peek just through the dense clouds. The air was refreshing and cool to the touch, a soft summer breeze fleeing from the approaching autumn while it could. Fog was nowhere in sight this morning, and Ciel took this as a sign to visit the bookstore.

It had been a while since she had last visited; a good few weeks, at the very least. She had finally finished her latest purchase just barely yesterday, and already she was yearning to pick up another novel to fill the emptiness that always accompanied the ending of a book. It was an endless cycle for Ciel, but one she had easily grown accustomed to over the course of her residence in London. Her fondness for the fictional world had only become more prominent as the time since her parents' death grew farther and farther away.

One of her first stops after settling into the great city had been to visit the local bookstores. She skipped over the library; she preferred owning a personal copy of a book herself to mark notes and favorite parts as she read. The bookstore she was currently visiting was the one she had decided on as her favorite; doubling as a lenient coffee shop and having a wide expanse of books of all sorts that stretched on for meters upon meters had won her over easily.

As she stepped through the door, the scent of freshly brewed coffee and new paper was present. It was her favorite -- the relaxing aroma doing wonders to calm any frayed nerves she had from her recent dealings with fellow members of the deep underground roots of the lawless. Ciel pursed her lips as she approached the bookshelf of new arrivals. Honestly, they could be frustrating when they wouldn't even bother attempting to compromise.

She perused the shelf for any titles that would perhaps catch her eye. With a tendency to select new novels by their title and then reading a summary on the basis of an interesting name, she ran a finger along the spines as she internally read them to herself. The Garnet Gauntlet, Raquel's Love, The Grey King... Ciel plucked Paper Kisses from its place and turned it over to scrutinize the summary after checking the cover. The prospect was intriguing; a romance novel between two women, one struggling against her family's religion to be happy, while the other faced the inherent dangers of a terminal illness. Perhaps a bit cliché from some people's view, but she was familiar with this author's writing and other works. She had enjoyed them quite thoroughly, so she might as well give this at least a few chapters.

Taking a place on one of the love seats near the coffee shop area, Ciel settled down until she was content with her arrangement. A forlorn, longing feeling washed over her; if she had been born into another life, as a normal civilian with a peaceful, happy family, she would have liked to own a bookstore of her own. But there was no use in mulling through regrets and lost dreams from her childhood. One leg crossed over the other, she opened Paper Kisses to the first page.

by worldie for mona

[Niklaas de Vries]

To be perfectly honest, Niklaas came here less for the books and more for the coffee. It was well made , reasonably priced and one of the baristas was a nice enough young lady named Jennifer. She was student who was trying to pay her way to France in order to study at a university in Paris. She responded to Niklaas' playful flirting with a eye roll and a smile, reminding him that she was perfectly happy with her girlfriend, and neither him and his jazz musician charms would ever change that. That, and his accent was a bit too guttural for her tastes; a complete turn off, honestly. Joking flirtations with Jennifer aside, the Dutchman paid for his coffee and sought out an unoccupied table, absently stirring the ice cubes around with the straw (there was no way he was going to order hot coffee, not in this humidity). He rarely actually bought books here, if ever, unless they really grabbed him, fortunately the employees didn't seem to care all that much. So long as he was giving them his money and not just sitting around using the wi-fi, he was left alone. Generally speaking, this little shop was a nice place to kill some time, since it was still too early to go out and go to a bar somewhere. Being day drunk wasn't his thing. Besides, it wasn't nearly as satisfying as getting high, which he would be doing at the moment if he wasn't low on marijuana. That shit was expensive and he wanted it to last a little while longer.

He was browsing the shelves, turning his head at just the right moment to see a young blonde woman walk by. He then proceeded nearly choke on his coffee. Thankfully he remembered the joys of swallowing, and coughed harshly into a fist, thankful that he hadn't spat any liquid onto the shelf. That would have been something he would have to pay for, if any of the books got damaged.

“Godverdomme,” he groaned with a sniff, rubbing the bridge of his nose and giving one final, pitiful little cough. That was a rather embarrassing loss of composure, and he was thankful that no one seemed to witness it (and if they did, they didn't say anything). What he wasn't thankful for was who he thought he saw. A certain regal young lady who he had hoped to never see again. Niklaas leaned against the case behind him and took a deep breath, eying the cup in his hand suspiciously. It seemed like figments of his past were coming back to haunt him. His encounter with Nico a week or so ago, now her? Fuck, what next? Where his dreams going to be haunted by his old targets when he closed his eyes that night?

“Christ, listen to yourself,” his mind scolded in a irritated tone. “Blonde haired girls with glasses are a dime a dozen. Chances that it's her? Almost impossible. She has a principality to run and a huge manor to lounge around in.” Niklaas mulled over the thought for a few seconds and nodded. Maybe he was just getting old and paranoid; but in his old life paranoia kept him away from the prison cells. Even still, there was a point where paranoia became absolutely ridiculous, and he was sure he just crossed it. Best to just go about his life and keep that girl, real or no, as far away as possible. He liked being alive, thank you, and wasn't planning on rotting in prison over a life he had given up a long time ago.

ELECTRIC OF GS AND BTN