Author Notes: HAPPY FATHER'S DAY! It's not Father's Day in Australia but it is back home yesterday! Although I forgot to say 'Happy Father's Day' to my dad on the phone the other day. I was going to upload this on the day but school is cruel and internet died before I could do so. Anyone realize that all my Kuroshitsuji fics are all centred around the theme of storytelling? How odd… It would be great if everyone would read this without the idea of SebastianxCiel in mind (I don't ship them and this fic wasn't meant to either), although it might be a little tough hahahaha~
Disclaimer: I don't own Kuroshitsuji or anything related to it.
It was odd to be staring up at a ceiling that he was all too familiar with even though he had spent years of his previous life here. Every nook and cranny looked the same as before. That tiny subtle crack that always irked him when bedtime came and the nostalgic peeling wallpaper at another unreachable place in the corner; not a single detail was left out. It was as if those great blazing embers never swallowed the mansion whole, digesting all of its inhabitants along with the building, the flames blotting out his childhood, his past self and everything connected to it in dazzling shades of autumn.
Devouring everything but him.
Frowning at the thought, he shut his eyes and forsook the old memories of fond childhood. He had made a contract with a demon now, bound himself to a cursed evil being that defies all the laws of God – there is no going back, no way to retrace his steps and repent for his sinful decision. Even the fiend himself had warned him of his incapability of passing through heaven's golden gates once the contract was established. But overcome with desperation for survival and shaken with fear of death, he fell victim to the malignant spirit's tempting sweet words that promised freedom, power and survival. He knew that his heart regretted taking hold of that thin thread of hope and he knew that deep down, he believed that it was probably for the best if he had died back then and dissipated as another shameful tenuous stain on history's fast turning yellowing pages.
Hearing the muffled thuds of footsteps on thick carpet, his azure blue eyes watched as a thin line of light formed beneath the door and the footsteps came to a standstill outside his chamber door. The late night visitor knocked quietly on the oak door and a voice, so dangerously smooth like the elegant glide of notes on a piano, inquired, "Young master, are you still awake?"
"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore," Sitting himself up in his comfortably cushioned bed, the young master of the house said in reply, his voice solemn and grey, "While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, as if someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. "'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "Tapping at my chamber door — only this, and nothing more.""
The door swung open, revealing a tall young man with an appearance of such refined exquisiteness it seemed he did not belong to the mortal world, his skin possessing an unblemished paleness that resembled china dolls and the dark raven hair that frames his handsome face impeccably neat. But the most attractive quality of all was his charismatic red-orange eyes that seemed like a hunting trap, capturing your bare soul once he makes eye contact and his long feminine eyelashes only compliment his looks further. Dressed in a smart distinguished outfit consisting of black trousers, tailcoat, waistcoat, tie and shoes with a crisp white button-down shirt, a silver pin at the lapel of his buttoned tailcoat glinted in the soft light of candle flame. The wavering flames of the candles cast parts of the man's fine features in pitch black shadows, giving him a dark ambiance.
The man stepped into the room and shut the door behind him with one hand, his other carrying a candleholder where three tall white candles stood with flames dancing on their wicks, a thick leather bound volume tucked underneath his arm. The black clad man's lips curved, his smile somewhat mocking, "My, my, what dark humour you possess, young master."
Again, Ciel said nothing but replied in poetry, "Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, in there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore; not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he; but, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door — perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door — perched, and sat, and nothing more."
"And I suppose I should say," The fine looking man came to stand at the boy's bed, "Nevermore."
Fed up with the poetry games, Ciel asked, "What do you want at this hour, Sebastian?" Spotting the book tucked safely in the crook of the butler's arm, the boy raised an eyebrow, "Reading children's storybooks for your own amusement?"
Sebastian's face lit up with a resplendent smile, "No young master, I am simply trying to improve myself so that I may serve you adequately and meet your every need."
"I'm not a child anymore so don't treat me like one!" The boy seethed at his servant. The butler's smile remained plastered to his face. Ciel sighed, "Well, I suppose it'll be fine just this once. I can't sleep anyway and it'll do me some good too."
For a moment, a look of surprise crossed Sebastian's features before it was replaced with sinister smirk. As he spoke, he placed careful emphasis on keywords that he knew that would vex the young master, "How unlike the head of the Phantomhive house to be a child and need bedtime stories to get to sleep. I do wonder if you've forgotten that you've just claimed you're not a child anymore."
Rather than extracting an angry comment or snarl from the child, the butler heard the boy hushed murmur, "No, I'm merely trying to erase all the hesitations I possess about my past."
Satisfied with the response, Sebastian said no more and answered, "Yes, my Lord."
Sitting himself down on the edge of the bed, the raven haired man set the candleholder on the nightstand and opened the hard covered collection of stories by various authors. Flicking through the slightly musty pages until he arrived at the first page of the tale of Rumpelstilskin, Sebastian cleared his throat unnecessarily, earning him a look of profound disgust and exasperation from the dark grey haired boy. The candles' flames flickered warily, shifting the shapes of shadows that were cast all around the room as if they had a life of their own as the butler began narrating the story, retelling the story of how a poor miller's daughter had to spin straw into gold for a greedy king all because her father bragged about something she was not capable of doing.
Every time the king would lock the girl in a room with straw and a spinning-wheel and only give her a night's worth of time to spin all the straw in the room into gold; if she failed, he would kill her. Trapped in this predicament, the girl cried until a little man came into the room and offered to spin the straw into reels of gold in exchange for something. As the king got greedier and greedier, the amount of straw she had to spin into gold grew and grew. Each time, the little man would come into the room and offer his services to the miller's daughter for something in return. The king was overjoyed with her work and finally, when he took her to a larger room full of straw, he said if she should spin all of the straw into gold, he would marry her. This time when the manikin came, the girl had nothing left to give, having previously given her ring and necklace already. However, the manikin only asked for her to promise him her first child should she become queen. Having agreed to this, he spun all the straw into gold and the poor miller's daughter became queen.
A year later, the miller's daughter brought a beautiful child into the world, forgetting about her promise to the manikin completely. But when he suddenly came to claim what was his, she offered him all the riches in the kingdom in replacement of her the child. But the manikin refused and so the queen began to lament and cry. The little man pitied her and said that if she could find out what his name was in three days, she can keep the child. So the queen thought of all the names she knows of and sent a messenger all over the country to inquire far and wide for names. However, when the manikin came the next day, none of the names she spoke of was his name. On the second day she made inquiries in the neighbourhood for odd names but again, none of them was the little man's name. On the third and final day, the messenger returned and reported to the queen that he has failed to find any new names but as he came to a high mountain at the end of the forest where the fox and hare bid each other good night, there was a little house and in front of the house was a fire burning and in front of it was a ridiculous little man jumping and dancing about upon one leg.
Here the butler paused and looked up from the book at the young master who's hastily put on expression told him that the story does not impress him with the level of immaturity and boredom involved. However, Sebastian certainly noticed that he had gradually inched forward from his reclining position on his pillows to just peering over the older man's shoulder at the book which he was reading out of. The boy detected this but didn't move back to his original spot on the bed, ignoring the servant's laughing wine coloured eyes and asked him what it was now that he wanted to say. Holding back the temptation to tease the young head of the Phantomhive house, Sebastian solicited for his master's choice between him singing out the merry little stanza of poetry for dramatic effects or simply reading it out loud. Ciel gave no second thought and chose the latter, although it tickled his mind to imagine the demon singing a crude stanza of poetry from a child's storybook.
The little man dancing around the fire in front of his house as it turns out to be, was the manikin. As he jumped around the fire, he was shouting, "Today I bake, tomorrow brew, the next I'll have the young queen's child. Ha, glad am I that no one knew that Rumpelstiltskin I am style." Obviously when the queen heard this from the messenger, she was beyond ecstatic. Soon afterwards, the little man himself entered and asked for the final time what his name was. The queen tried a few other names first and the manikin seemed confident that the child would be his until the queen asked if his name was Rumpelstiltskin. To say the least, the little man was furious. And in his fury, he plunged his right foot so deep into the earth that his whole leg went in and then in such rage that he pulled at his leg so hard with both hands that he tore himself in two.
Unable to resist, Ciel burst out in a fit of blissful laughter. The musical ring of the boy's laughter caught the raven haired man off guard; he did not understand what exactly was funny and it made him perplexed for a moment. It was true that Rumpelstiltskin was an idiotic moron and his amazing amount of dumbfounding stupidity did amuse Sebastian a little, nevertheless the creature's foolishness was beyond laughable to him. Shutting the book with a snap, Sebastian sat there in silence, an eyebrow raised at his young master, watching the usually stoic mannered boy laugh himself senseless. The boy had a hand clutching his stomach, tears beading at his eyes and his other hand on the demon's shoulder for support. Eventually he calmed down although his delicate frame was still trembling. When he was sure Ciel's bout of laughter had finally ceased, the sarcastic smile crawled its way back to Sebastian's lips.
"It seems such a simplistic primitive tale has served to amuse you very much, young master," The butler wasn't laughing but the way he spoke certainly held a similar effect as laughing directly at Ciel's face, "Would it suit your tastes that I read you a bedtime story every night?"
As if he had taken a drug that made him explode with laughter, the effects of it started to wear off and on the contrary, seemed to only throw Ciel deeper into the dark pits of depression. He retreated back to the safety of his pillows and threw his covers back over his body, his face shielded by the dark shadows where the candlelight doesn't reach. Lying in bed with his head facing away from the butler, Ciel recited again, ""Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend," I shrieked, upstarting — "Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken! — quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!""
The older man decided that he had teased the youngster enough for the day and obeyed his command, taking the candleholder and book with him. As he was about to shut the door behind him, Sebastian bid the young master goodnight and then the door clicked shut.
Shrouded in the dense darkness where he cannot see, Ciel was once again locked away in this immense span of silence. He despises showing his weaknesses in front of Sebastian and nor does he fancy doing something just to please the demon's odd tastes of enjoyment. But he had done exactly that; letting his child self slip past his mask and breaking his cool demeanour apart like it was nothing but a piece of flimsy glass. When he was young, his father would always read him a story at night when he couldn't find his way to sleep. The previous head of Phantomhive had a peculiar choice of stories, always choosing the longwinded and hilarious stories, hoping that he would fall asleep halfway through the story and if not, proceed to laugh himself into exhaustion and retire to bed then. Perchance, he tells himself, it was just because he was exhausted from wearing that mask all the time and he needed to let the imprudent child inside him out to run free and play. Or possibly, it was because he purely missed his father whom dotted upon his every need and loved him more than anyone else.
It was truly laughable, how much he wanted to return the past though he resents reminiscing more than anything.