Title: Angel of Music

Synopsis: Glen Baskerville could enchant anyone who decided to look close enough and they would forever be left with songs in their head. Lotti/Glen/Jack.

Rating: K+

A/N: This started off in my head way different than it turned out. At first it was supposed to be a play off of Orpheus and Eurydice, but I couldn't get it to really work. Then I thought of using the lyrics to 'Little Lottie' and it became this thing. It's weird and some may find it dull, but I think it's some of my best writing to date, so I'm pretty proud of it. Please enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Disclaimer: I don't own Pandora Hearts because if I did I would know what was going on!

…

"No-what I love best, Lottie said, is when I'm asleep in my bed and the Angel of Music sings songs in my head."

-'Little Lottie' from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera

…

"Little Lottie, let her mind wander…" Jack hums as he lays in the grass, his head next to a few white wildflowers that had been growing in the grass since late June. They probably should have wilted by now; August was no time for June wildflowers. Lotti thought that it was probably the sunshine and happiness radiating from Jack that kept them alive past their time. Poor flowers; they never stood a chance. "Little Lottie thought," He grins at her; she is standing up a few feet away. He arches his head backwards to get a look at her. His face was upside down, but even then the smile could not look like a frown. "Am I fonder of dolls, or of goblins or shoes, or of riddles of frocks-"

"Be quiet Jack," She tells him. "I'm not out here because I want to be. I'm here because-"

He rolls over onto his stomach and chuckles. "Glen told you to come out here, right?"

She takes a step back. "And how would you know that?" The last thing that she wants is for Jack to get to know her. Or vice versa; the world would be a much… calmer place without Jack Vessalius. The thought of an intimate-no, not that sort of intimate-relationship with Jack seemed to her to be the first level of hell.

"You do very little without Glen asking you to do it," He tells her, still grinning that grin that makes her want to kill him so very much. "It's not hard to tell when Glen asks you to do something. You walk three times as fast and you get this cute little determined look on your face, as if nothing will stand between you and the little favor he's asked you to do. You're so enthused when something has to do with Glen. Anything else you're positively apathetic about." If Lotti had any affect on plants, right now they would all be dying. "I'm right, aren't I?" His head tilts a little to the side.

"He's asking for you. The help announced that you were here but when he got there you were nowhere to be-"

"I think that you should tell him to come join me out here. A little sunshine might help his pale complexion just a bit. Don't you agree, Lotti? Wouldn't he be so much prettier if he had a little tan?" He's playing with her; she knows that he's playing with her. And because of that, she's refusing to playing along with his silly, childish games. He could act like a four year-old if he wanted, but by God, she had her pride. "So now I get the silent treatment with a nice, big glare," He rolls back over onto his back, somehow avoiding the flowers, still. "And you call me immature." She gives him a look of surprise and he chuckles. "I have ears, you know. When you insult me to your friends in front of my face it's not hard for me to listen-"

"I'll tell him that you won't-"

"No, you'll tell him that if he wants to see me then he needs to come out here. The weather is beautiful and you're itching to come outside, too, aren't you? The flowers are beautiful and rare for this time of year; who knows, they might all die by tomorrow. You wouldn't want to miss that, would you?" That guy just knows how to get into people's heads; she doesn't understand how Master Glen can stand to stay in the same room with this guy, let alone want to be in the same room with him. Still, her master asked for this man, and if he wouldn't come willingly then she would force him to. "And tell him that if he doesn't come out soon I'll leave and he won't get to see me until next week," He sighs and looks up at the sky.

Before she can think she blurts out, "Next week?" Not that she cares that he'll be gone, in fact, she's excited. A week without Jack Vessalius was a week that she would enjoy unlike any other. Curiosity, however, occasionally got the best of her, and this was one of those moments where she could not help herself.

He smiles. "You really want to know, Lotti? That's the first time that you've ever cared about-"

"Never mind. Have a nice life, Jack." She turns and begins to walk away, hiking up her skirt to try to get through the mud.

"Wait, Lotti!" He's crawling to catch up with her and the knees of his green pants became a lovely mix of mud and grass stains. The spectacle is so pathetic that she can't help it. She stops and looks back at him, expectantly. "Don't you want to know?"

For the first time in their conversation, she's in control. "No, not at all. I thought I'd humor you, but as per the usual, you prove yourself to be ridiculously immature and-"

"Fine then, I won't tell you," He sits Indian-style, arms folded across his chest like the spoiled little brat that he is. She looks back at him, eyes wide. Their eyes meet and he smiles. "I guess you'll have to wonder about it forever and ever. How sad."

She snorts. "Like I'd care," she tells him. This is a battle that she will not lose. Jack Vessalius was less than a worthy opponent for her. If she were to lose against him in this battle that she had invented between the two of them, she'd never be able to look herself in the mirror again.

"That's good, then." Behind Lotti's back the door to the garden opens up. "I hope that you won't be disappointed in thirty years when I have died in some terrible accident involving a wombat and a bowl of shaving cream and you still don't know why I will be gone for the next-"

"You're both late," Jack is already smiling at his friend since there was no surprise in his sudden entrance for him, but Lotti looks back in horror to see Glen; she had failed him. Her worthlessness proved to be greater than usual this time and she was ashamed of herself. "Is it really so difficult to come inside, Jack? And is it really so hard to convince one moron to come inside with you, Lotti?"

"I-I'm sorry Master Glen," Lotti says, looking down at his feet, face turning red with the acute shame that she felt for disappointing him.

Jack, still sitting, still smiling, giggles. Suddenly Lotti feels just as much shame for his existence as she did for her own. A grown man giggling and acting like a child was bad enough, but-though he was not of a well-respected family-he was a noble. Such a disgrace was the scum of all of the nobles. "Don't be sorry, Lotti! We were having so much fun together and he just had to come and ruin everything!" Glen's eyes narrow and Lotti contemplates taking off her shoe and throwing it at Jack's head. "You're such a gloomy gus that I was hoping that you wouldn't come out here, Glen," he sighs dramatically and falls back onto the grass. "But now that you're here, I think that you should come sit on the grass with me. You and I can laugh because Lotti will refuse to get her pretty dress dirty because she's a lady who was taught better! So she'll be standing and hovering awkwardly and her feet will hurt because of her high heels and she won't say a word because she wouldn't want to do anything unladylike in front of you."

Lotti knows that Master Glen will not play along with this foolish man's games, that he is too grand and too wonderful to possibly be influenced by this lunatic's insane ideas. If he did then he was not the person that Lotti admired so much and would give her life for-

"If it were anyone but you, I'd spit in their face," Jack's face lights up as Glen sits down next to him, less than gracefully sinking to the ground and wrapping his arms around his legs, facing away from the sun. Jack stares at him with wide eyes for a moment, as Glen sits there, obviously expecting some sort of tremendous change in mood. "I don't see what's so wonderful about this," he complains to his friend. "There are bugs all over the place. Soon they'll be crawling on you."

"And why not you, Glen?" Jack asks as Lotti gapes at the two of them, the moron and the master that she once loved and respected more than any other person on earth.

"They're probably far too afraid to come near me," There's just the smallest sliver of a smile on her master's face. "If I were a bug I'd be frightened to come near me. Then again, I'm not a bug; my mind has a far greater capacity than theirs does."

Jack stares at his friend for a moment, his face blank, then puts a gloved hand on Glen's shoulder. "Glen, was that, dare I say it, a joke?" he asks, his eyes wide and his voice sounding so shocked that there was barely any intonation in it at all.

The two friends stared at each other for a moment, Jack comically excited and Glen comically stoic. Lotti didn't dare breath; the wind seemed to stop blowing through the grass and the birds quit chirping. Neither of the men moved and neither spoke. The tension in the air was greater than that at the meetings of the Baskervilles that Glen ran, far greater than the meetings of world leaders, far greater than anything that Lotti had seen before. She was sure that someone was going to have a heart attack before the whole affair was through. There was yet another reason for Lotti to hate Jack, not that she needed any new ones. If he were to cause Master Glen's untimely death than she would not be able to hold back her anger towards him. She would kill him.

"And is that," Glen asks, his eyes as narrow as his piercing voice. "A problem for you, Jack?"

Jack begins to laugh and the wind starts up again and the birds chirp and the maid yells at her cheating husband for having an affair with the laundry girl and Lotti finds that she can breathe once again and some of her murderous intent is gone. "Of course it is, Glen! I'm so proud of you that I can barely stand it!" His laughter rings out across the courtyard like a bell and echoes against the trees. "You're really changing, aren't you?"

He says nothing and instead shuts his eyes and lets his hair blow in the wind. Openly Jack stares at his friend and Lotti can't help but notice that he does. When one was with Glen a person watched him; he was quiet and calm and at times seemed distant, severe and cruel, but the charisma and the true kind heart that Glen Baskerville had shined through to the people who gave him a chance. And those who did find the true him really loved him, whether he realized it or not.

"So you'll be out of town, Jack?" Glen asks, breaking the silence. He opens his eyes and they meet Jack's staring ones instantly; the smallest bit of a blush lands on Jack's cheeks and he looks away, down at a flower by his foot. "For how long?"

Jack scratches the back of his head, still looking down. "A week, probably. Maybe a bit longer. It depends." Lotti shifts her weight from foot-to-foot; standing in the mud with high heels on was uncomfortable. It seemed that Jack had been right about something for the first time in his life. She tried to keep her mind from wondering why Jack would know that high heels were so uncomfortable.

"For what, if I may ask?" Nothing changes in Glen's tone or inflection; it seems like he could care less about his friend being out of town. He did care, however. Both Lotti and Jack knew that Glen would miss his friend dearly. Still, his feigned apathy made Jack's smile a little less bright and the twinkle in his eyes a little dimmer.

Jack glances up at Lotti and sighs, "She wasn't supposed to know, but since my bestest friend asked me about it, I guess she'll have to hear." He grins up at her now and she glares down at him. "My parents are taking me to meet some of their friends for the week. Or at least that's what they're telling me; I do know, however, that their friends just so happen to have a lot of money and a daughter a year younger than me. My guess is that they're trying to set me up with this mystery woman."

"That's what you get for being from a less-than prodigious noble family," Glen says, not a hair out of place after learning the news about his friend.

Lotti looked at Jack; he seemed almost… disappointed. The green eyes that were usually so full of light seemed just a bit duller as he looked t the grass and inspected the ants as they crawled about. His arms hung limply at his sides and he didn't seem to have the vigor that did just a few minutes before.

"I can't help that, now can I?" Jack says, now more defensive than joking, now. He sighs and his face lights up just a little, though it doesn't scream sunshine at an obnoxious volume as it usually did. "Hey Glen, have you finished that song that you were writing? I'd like to hear it before I leave." He's grinning once again and Lotti imagines that he'd have no problem begging like a dog if he had to.

Glen lifts his nose up and the sun shines down on his pale face. "I can't play it while we're outdoors; there's no piano and it's not like I can bring one out here just to suit your moods. You'll have to go indoors if you'd like to hear it." Glen picks at a fingernail. Sometimes Lotti wonders if he cares about Jack at all; times like now he seemed so indifferent to the boy's existence. Not that she minded, of course. It would be fully to her benefit if the two of them stopped being friends.

"It'd be a shame for us to go indoors, though. When I'm not around I'm sure that you never leave your room."

"That's not true!" Lotti interjects; Jack looks up at her but Glen still seems more focused on the crawling ants and his fingernails than his two friends. "Master Glen has many important things to do," Her face is turning red with anger; it was one thing to say things about her, but to insult her master like that… "He just doesn't have the time to goof around like you do! If you dare disrespect him again, I'll-"

This time it is Glen who interrupts her. "There's no need for that, Lotti," he yawns into his arm, bored with the constant fighting and the conversation all together. "I think that we're all just a bit tired today." He stands up, his black cloak swishing about as he does so. The graceful movements of the silk along with the graceful movements of her master make Lotti stare; he is beautiful. Even if he was clumsy as he sat, when he stood he was as intimidating as the oldest of statues, and just as untouchable. Sometimes he made her breathless; now was one of those times. "I think I shall go inside and rest until this evening's dinner. Lotti, I would appreciate it if you could see Jack out for me."

Before either of them can interject their opinions or try to sway him, Glen is already walking down the path to return to the mansion, his black cloak waving in the wind, flying out behind him. The two remaining people look at each other, both blaming the other with their eyes. "This is your fault," Lotti tells Jack, crossing her arms over her chest. "He's only like this when you're around. Never when we're alone."

He smiles up at her, forced and almost angry looking. "Now that's as much of lie as me saying that I enjoy talks about taxes, and you know it." He becomes thoughtful now, his face softening and his smile becoming softer and more subdued, rather than angry. For the first time Lotti can see why someone may want to spend some time with this guy. If he shut his mouth and just looked like that, then he would make a pleasant addition to a group of friends. "He's just like that. Whether it is to me or to you or to anyone else in the entire world," he pauses now and frowns, looking down at the grass again, studying the patterns of the ants as they ran across the dirt. "Say, Lotti, have you ever heard songs in your head?"

She takes a step back. "What do you mean by that?" This boy is crazy, but if he thinks that she hears strange voices, than he's obviously deranged. Still, there was something poetic about him sitting there asking her that. It was a shame that she had not the poet's mind and instead watched him with criticism and cynicism.

"It's how that song goes," He begins to sing again, though his voice s less than grand and his pitch is just a bit off key. "No, what I like best, Lottie said, is when I'm asleep in my bed and the Angel of Music sings songs in my head. The Angel of Music sings songs in my head." They both stay silent for a moment, letting the wind wrap around the two of them and go by again. "I think I know who my angel is," Jack whispers, just loud enough for her to hear over the chirping of the birds and the breeze. "Do you?"

Of course, she immediately thinks of Glen. Of him sitting at his piano during the few hours where he had nothing else to do, scribbling notes down on pieces of yellowing paper and playing chords that seemed to have never been invented before, too beautiful to have been played by anyone but him. She thinks of the passion in his face as he plays a new composition, of the look that he had as he traversed the keys that he never had at any other time. When he was at his piano, playing his songs he was more at home than anywhere else; no one and nothing could replace music to that man, even if it tried. If there was anyone who was an Angel of Music to her, it would forever be him; Glen Baskerville, her master and the unsurpassed musician of the Baskerville estate.

"Are you talking about that girl who your parents are setting you up with?" Lotti asks, not knowing who Jack Vessalius could possibly be in love with. She had always thought that narcissists could love no one but themselves, and she had always believed Jack Vessalius to be the most narcissistic person that she knew. "Is she musical or something?"

He raises an eyebrow at her and chuckles half-heartedly, his smile not reaching his eyes. "That girl? I don't even know her name; it's pretty irrelevant to me. She's pretty irrelevant to me, to be honest. I'd never marry anyone, let alone someone who my parents would set me up with out of desperation for a grandchild. I would think that you would know me well enough to know that I wouldn't fall for just anyone. Even if you hate me, that much should be obvious!" He chuckles again and his eyes float over to the door that lead back into the house, gazing there, expecting something that would never come.

She sighs and shuts her eyes. There's noise all over, but when Glen isn't there it's dulled, nothing seems as bright or as vibrant. Maybe it was because things became brighter in comparison to his gloom, but she thought that his beauty is what made things more beautiful near them. Without him she just didn't feel as calm or as happy; desperately she wished for him to be there with them once again.

Sick and tired of standing, she takes a few steps closer to Jack and sits down. In the mud. Getting her party dress nice and dirty. And even though when she bathed that evening she would find mud under her fingernails and the laundry woman would complain to her about the state of her dress-though she could easily get her fired for the affair she was having-and even though ants crawled up her legs and tickled her, she was happy. She had no need to impress Jack Vessalius, so she could act unladylike around him. And to be honest, she did not mind at all.

"I didn't expect you to come down here," Jack says, tilting his head to the side with a smile. "I'm glad that you-"

"Shut it, Jack. Or I'll tell people about the weird angel who's been singing in your mind and how you like that it's there." She sighs and refuses to admit that she's enjoying this moment with this man she hates, thinking these thoughts that haunt her from morning until night.

"You're so mean," Jack says with a playful smile. "Besides, I'd just take you down with me, if you tried. I can ruin a reputation just as well as you can." She sighs and he laughs and they both stare out at the courtyard of a place that they both love with all of their heart.

They sit together, occasionally making some sort of remark to the other for a good deal of time. Just a bit of small talk, nothing spectacular or life changing. Neither tries very hard to impress the other, or does anything to specifically annoy the other, either. It was calming; it was nice. In a world of confusion, it seemed, if only for a moment, that their lives were stable.

The two of them have been sitting together for almost an hour when Jack looks down and says something that Lotti would never forget. "Lotti?" He asks her.

"Yes?" She responds, not looking at him, but hearing him, nonetheless.

"I love him," He tells her and she can hear the hint of a sad smile in his voice. "More than anything else in this world, I love him. And I think that I always will."

Part of her is surprised and part of her isn't. Why else would he always be there, staring at Glen, being the only one to make her master smile. Still, she didn't want to believe it; not because she thought it was wrong or something, but because…

"So do I," She tells Jack, still staring into the distance. "So do I."

She knew that if they were to fight one another for him, she would lose. And never again would she hear the Angel of Music singing songs just for her.

…

Fin