"That was the first and last time that I heard him call his parents that way."
He never asked to go to the cemetery. Not once. Of course, Sebastian knew, it wasn't really the kind of place one asks to go to in the first place.
The Young Master made a point to move forward, to leave the past behind, to be the best fakes they could be. Yet, in the weeks succeeding their return to the mansion, that same Young Master often...found himself there. Like it was never a place to which intended to go, but he somehow, by no fault of his own, ended up there anyway. Like it was some hellish Rome that all roads led to.
As they made simple trips into town, sometimes on their way, or on their way back, they would arrive at the cemetery, as if it had appeared through a fog—(of course the idea was absurd). Or the Young Master would ask to go somewhere alone, and the cemetery (or perhaps the ghosts within) would call him back. He must have thought it was a secret, but there was nothing in their contract about surveillance, and ensuring his Master's safety was top priority. So Sebastian would watch him, and wait. And neither would say a word about it later.
His Young Master would never cry while he was there. Never break down. Never fall to his knees, overcome by emotion (like most humans do). Never whine that they were gone, or plead that they would come back. Never pray. He would just stand there, his cane in one hand, fingering his ring with the other, looking solemnly down at the graves, like he was an old man, who had watched his friends all die one by one, and he was the only one left—and while it was all very sad, he had no right to cry, because it made sense after all; death comes for us all in the end. Or maybe he was looking down at the porcelain headstone like it was something beneath him, (beneath the call of a king, the pawns that fell lifeless at his feet, but he was not shaken), beneath him, yet something that was judging him all the same. A curious notion; that one can be judged by things beneath the ground.
Perhaps most often than anything, he would bring flowers.
White lilies, and pink carnations, lavender, and geraniums, roses, lilac, and peonies.
He wondered if his Young Master knew what they all meant.
Purity and love for his mother. Devotion, determination, gentility for his father. Innocence and bravery for his brother.
Pretty little words that meant nothing to the boy who had lost them all.
Were they his reason for coming so often; to lay a pile of lifeless words at their feet?
Or were they merely an excuse for something greater? But an excuse for what greater thing? To stand there looking forlorn?
The Young Master was never one for sentiment. So why this? Why not leave them behind, burning in the past where they belonged? Or was there more sentiment in him than Sebastian initially thought, and the boy advertised?
Nevertheless, it was there his Master went, and it was Sebastian's job to know why.
If he couldn't, what kind of a butler would he be?
He cycled through the human emotions—(he kept them on a list).
Was it the obvious emotion: sorrow? Mourning? They were his family after all. Sebastian knew, (not personally, but on principle), that it was hard for one to lose their parents. He had certainly broken down, called their names, once before. But never again.
No, he was too stubborn, too detached for that. The Young Master didn't like the muddiness of sorrow. It was too much effort. And wearing black wasn't a clue; he wore black no matter the occasion.
Or perhaps he was always in mourning.
How about pity? Did he feel sorry for those in the ground?
No, there was nothing to make him feel sorry for them, and surely he thought they had it better.
Maybe envy, then. That was the most interesting explanation. But why come here every day to see them just to turn slowly green with envy? No. As much that would have made things more interesting, that couldn't be it.
Was it anger? Some show of pride, injustice, distain? Was he angry at them for dying? For leaving him here alone?
He'd bookmark it. But it didn't seem enough to drag him back here.
After much hard thought and observation, he guessed guilt was the most likely reason. It made more sense than the others at the very least. It was the only one that provided an adequate reason for him to continue to come back.
Not a very creative reason, but an adequate one.
He had survived. He, the weak one. The frail. His father who was strong, his mother who was kind, his brother who was…everything he was not. They were the ones to die. And he felt guilty for being the one to live—and maybe a smidge angry too.
So the flowers must be some convoluted way to overpower the stench of his own guilt.
The demon licked his lips. He couldn't help it, things like guilt only made the soul more delicious.
Still, he had to curb his desires, and while guilt could be a fine delicacy, these visits were growing tiresome.
Now that he had enough information, he decided to come before the boy himself.
"Young Master?"
The boy didn't look up from his paperwork.
"If I might, there is a personal question I would like to ask you."
"You and your bloody personal questions," he muttered, taking the papers off the desk, leaning back and putting his feet on the table, "Well, there's no use dragging it on; out with it."
"I have often noticed you visiting the cemetery."
The boy froze.
"Why just this week—"
"You…You were spying on me?!" he spun around and stood up, slamming the paperwork on the desk.
Ah. If he wasn't mistaken, this was the emotion called anger.
"Only in a manor of speaking. It is my job to see to your personal well-being is it not?"
"That doesn't excuse you—you—"
"My apologies. Would you like me to amend our contract to include—?"
"No, no," he groaned, slumping back into his chair, rubbing his temple.
"It appears I've crossed some line."
"Like you can see the lines," he scoffed under his breath.
The air was stirring with the boy's half-baked emotions.
"Are you finished here?" the Young Master asked.
Sebastian mulled over how to phrase it. "I hate to drag this on, but I never did receive the opportunity to ask my question."
"Your question wasn't...? Ugh. Fine, what is it?"
"Would you like me to bring flowers to their graves?"
The boy blinked. "Huh?"
"I merely thought that would be much easier, seeing as you were never one for things like sentiment."
The Young Master bit his lip, glaring at the nothing in particular in the corner of the room, "No, I would not. Now please leave me to do my work in peace."
Sebastian bowed. "Yes my Lord. My apologies for even bringing it up."
But a few days later, when he was having tea with Lizzie, The Young Master motioned for him to come close.
"Yes, Young Master?"
"That thing you mentioned the other day, about the flowers?"
"What of it?"
"Please do it."
"Of course, my Lord." He stood, "Happy to be of assistance."
Sebastian knelt down before the headstones, setting the flowers in neat little piles by each.
The demon never understood why humans visited graves, much less why they left flowers for them. What are the dead to do with flowers? Are the flowers to die with them? Or, what comfort do flowers provide the living? Were they trying to make the stench of death more palpable… or less intoxicating?
Intoxicating, yes. The day when the house burned, and the two boys were stolen away from the bloodied corpses that were once loving parents…that day, death must have been intoxicating for him. He must have wished to die with them. But the boy didn't get to die. In the days, weeks, following, as he was tortured and branded and scarred and starved, Death's perfume placed beneath his nose, he didn't get to taste it.
And now death would become something far worse for him than it ever could have been before.
The days went by, then weeks, dragging into months, he continued to bring flowers. Sun, rain, snow, it didn't matter. Of course, it never mattered anyway, but this chore was one of the few that carried on, that he was never told to relinquish, no matter how much time had gone by.
Sometimes he would see others there, people mourning, a well-lit funeral, sometimes Abberline knelt down and prayed for the victims of their cases, or Lizzie came by to pay he respects to her aunt and uncle. But the person he would see most often, (understandably), was the Undertaker. The first time he had seen him, Undertaker had been more than a little curious:
"Now what would a creature like you be doing leaving flowers before gravestones?"
Sebastian turned to see him leaning against a nearby headstone.
"The Young Master has asked me to." The demon smiled pleasantly.
"Ah, should have known. Always 'Young Master' this, 'Young Master' that. Must get tiring after a while." He tapped a long nail on the stone.
"Like you wouldn't believe," he muttered.
Undertaker laughed.
"Still," he turned the sky, "I didn't think the Earl was so sensitive."
"What are you getting at?"
"Oh nothing, just wondering." Undertaker chuckled. "Just thinking that maybe there's hope for him after all."
Sebastian rolled his eyes.
But when he returned the next week, Sebastian noticed a blue rose in the midst of the flowers he left on the brother's grave. Sometimes others would add to his display, but adding one, to a single grave, was particularly strange. He lifted it, twisting the stem in his fingers, trying to decipher who left it.
Red roses were for romance. White for innocence. Pink for grace. Yellow for friendship. And black for death.
And blue; for attaining the impossible.