Perugia, Italy turned out to be the perfect sanctuary for a couple of sinners like them. It was out of the way of major traffic, and Cross had sent the Order-issued golem with Viktor, so they wouldn’t be interrupted by the Order anytime soon. Cross even refrained from adding to his debt collection so as to avoid early detection, much to the relief of his former apprentice.
Allen was an attentive lover, something Cross had never exactly had the pleasure of experiencing before now. He’d had his fair share of kind women, but he’d never stuck around long enough to garner anything from it. And now that he’d fallen headlong into the wasp’s nest that was sure to become of his newfound fidelity, he discovered that he had no desire to tarnish it. Anytime he had doubts of his faithfulness (due in part to inebriated loss of higher-functioning capabilities), he needed only look into Allen’s eyes, and he would either forsake further consumption of alcohol or allow Allen to do whatever he pleased to keep him indoors those nights.
It wasn’t that Cross had any intention of whoring around with other people, it was that he didn’t trust himself not to. His mind-numbing sexual endeavours, his determination to kill off his liver early, his addiction to losing himself in smoky rooms that distorted reality—it was all to help him forget.
Forget that his best friend had gone insane and died, and that his best friend’s brother’s best friend had offered his body to house the reincarnation of The Fourteenth Noah. Forget that the body housing The Fourteenth’s reincarnation appeared to him as a young child who bore the name of Mana’s dead dog. Forget that he had to care for and train that boy while knowing that eventually he would be consumed by The Fourteenth’s soul and cease to exist one day. Forget that he distanced himself by abusing that boy in more ways than one, and undoubtedly leaving him with psychological trauma that would make any therapist run and hide with their tails between their legs. Forget that he had never succeeded in distancing himself. Forget that his dreams were haunted with grief and guilt each night, and that he could never, ever atone for everything that he’d done.
But now, having finally allowed himself to sober up at the tail end of his life, no longer able to hide the silver strands streaking his hair, he remembered.
Allen was the one who held him that night, and after Cross had spilled his anguish from an endless flow of tears that could not contain the sheer entirety of what had festered within him, after his voice had gone hoarse from trying, trying to articulate every last needle of guilt in his mind, after his limbs had gone weak and numb with a lost sense of desire to use them, after it all, Allen had spoken just three simple words that sent his world crashing down like a house of cards.
“I forgive you.”
And then, to mend the shattered glass and put his distorted reality back into order with an entirely new perspective,
“I love you.”
And here, at the tail end of his life and no longer able to hide the silver strands streaking his hair, Cross Marian began to heal.