A/N: Let's pretend the second season never happened.
THE LONG WAY HOME
.sometimes they come back.
Intro.
When the man comes, the boy is waiting, clad in black velvet and the early morning sunlight. He is small, pale and regal and –mercifully, thankfully- exactly as he used to be. The cruel October sun bites, but it is kind only to him, turning his white skin and dark hair into something spectacular, something ethereal and unreal.
Sebastian –the man, the demon- takes a moment to observe the child and thinks in broken, tangled threads, thinks something along the lines of oh and Ciel and thank you. He thinks and he feels, the sensation suffocating and unfamiliar, it's bittersweet and warm; not anger or lust, gluttony or envy. It isn't any of the deadly sins, he knows their taste all too well. This… This is new. This is fire between his fingers and something like breath in his lungs, like a heartbeat thrumming under his icy skin, a knot tight in his chest.
Ciel.
The demon wants, and this is also new and unsettling. It's not the greed he knows, nor the lust he's used to. It's a need, a desire, raw and human around the edges. He wants. He wants to taste and touch and smell, to close the distance with huge strides and bury his face in the crook of the boy's porcelain neck, breathe in his scent and relearn the shape of his shoulders, the dip of his spine. He wants to graze those bony knees with his teeth, trace the tiny knuckles with the whorls of his fingers and remember, remember what it felt like to touch, back when he could, back when he was allowed to.
"You're late." The child's voice cuts through the air like a whip and speaks nothing but the truth. It hits the demon like a slap on the face.
For the first time in centuries, Sebastian doesn't have a ready answer. Forgive me are the treacherous words that creep upon his lips, but he holds them in, fights them back, because they are not an answer, they are an admittance of defeat. Forgive me, it could mean anything, nothing, everything, it could mean I'm sorry I'm late and it could mean I surrender, you've won. And even though this new world is strange and metallic, even though the boy he wants is nothing but the imprint of a soul, shattered and spent, he is still Young Master, the demon is still Sebastian, and the game between them still stands. A game of chess, only the pieces are all on the same side now.
"I've kept you waiting." Sebastian utters finally, and he even manages a smirk and a small bow. It's not a question, it's a statement, a certainty, smug, self-satisfied and daring. The kind of thing that would have earned him a sneer or a haughty reprimand back then when Ciel had air in his lungs and blood in his veins.
The boy's gray eyes move to Sebastian's face for the first time, sharp and stern under thin, knitted eyebrows, conveying a message, but Sebastian does not catch it, does not care about it. Because there's that inexplicable thing happening in the creature's chest again, that fluttering weakness in his ribcage, that need to reach out and feel and oh, hold, hold on.
I've kept you waiting. Perhaps it was a question after all. Perhaps it's like a silver coin, two sides to it, the same meaning, just different symbols, different words. Have you missed this? Sebastian thinks he's become more complicated than he'd ever wish to be.
"I don't mind." Ciel's reply is curt and his eyes drift away as his fingers start moving idly, tracing circles on his white knees. "And I wasn't waiting," he adds in a dead, uninterested tone, not snappish or annoyed like it should be. He is tired. On the shining white steps of their old house in a different London, he looks like a lost boy, like the trail of breadcrumbs didn't lead home after all. It tricked him and brought him stumbling to a wicked place where he doesn't belong, where everything is only almost real, a reflection of the world he once knew.
"It just gets terribly dull sometimes." The piercing eyes grip Sebastian's gaze again, and they are so deceivingly alive, nothing lost or confused in their depth. Ciel is not breathing but he is here, still and always in control, strong and dominant.
Sebastian is surprised to find himself wondering maybe it's him, maybe he's out of place, the odd one out, a black knight in an all-white chessboard.
He pushes that thought away. It is of no importance. There is no place where he belongs.
The wind is cold and it blows through them both, a distant reminder of lost mortality.
"Let's take a walk," the demon suggests politely after a few moments of mutual silence, extending his gloved hand, a toss of the dice or a peace offering. Ciel nods quietly and stands up, but doesn't take it.
TBC
A/N: Yeah, I know, this makes no sense. But there will be a few more (short) chapters, and hopefully everything will be clear then. Thanks for reading.