This is part of my "Crossroads" series - Black Butler if it had taken place in SPN universe. This takes place right after the first oneshot, "Crossroads" in which Sebastian & Ciel make a contract, SPN-style. (If you want to see the full series order, you can go to my profile :)
MAJOR SPOILERS for mangaverse.
Additional note: there's really no influence from Ray Bradbury on this story, except for the title, which was too cool and fitting not to pass up.
The Naming of Names
"All dead cities have some kind of ghosts in them. Memories, I mean." —Ray Bradbury
(1)
The boy now named Ciel and the demon now named Sebastian leave the hollow-mouthed cathedral burning behind them, flickering out of the empty night. Because Ciel cannot adequately explain where the Phantomhive manor is or even his family's townhouse, they teleport again, and appear in what seems to be the back room of an inn. It's empty.
"I know the proprietor here," Sebastian explains, in a low voice. "He will not ask questions. It might be easier if you stay here until I have procured a room for us."
It is not easier, Ciel wants to protest, but he is swaying on his feet where Sebastian let him down. He cannot walk on his own, and he doesn't like the idea of anyone else seeing him in such a state—clad in nothing but a filthy shirt and short pants, bloody, dirty, ruined. He lowers himself onto a nearby seat and focuses on just breathing. The small gas-lamp on the wall casts his smeared and flickering shadow on the floor.
Somehow, he is still alive when Sebastian comes back in. The room is still a room. The boy is still Ciel.
Somehow, that is the worst part.
It is surprisingly easy to fall asleep. The bed, in the room Sebastian has rented, is warm, the sheets in it scratchier and thinner than any he had had before, but that was before, and this feels like a dream, a respite that he will wake up from to more of the same horrors. Sebastian sits on the single chair, and when Ciel meets his eyes, he realizes that when they are not burning red, they are a hypnotizing dark maroon. But ordinary. Human. It makes him want to snap at the demon to stop pretending. But it is only eyes.
It is the dreaming that is hard. In the dream, he is back there, he has never been rescued, never been saved.
And his brother is dead.
He wakes up screaming in a cold sweat—sure, for a moment, that it had all been real. That the rescue had never happened. The relief, when it comes, is excruciatingly sweet. It hurts. He curls his fingers into his arms so tightly they bleed, listens to the sounds around him; the relative quiet of the inn with the lingering hum of the city folded around him. The air is still and thick, an artificial warmth struggling against the winter chill.
He is here. He has been rescued, he has been saved.
And his brother is dead.
His new-borrowed nightgown presses against his skin, crisp and clean except where he has been sweating into it. The demon-butler is sitting at the chair, watching him with knowing eyes. Ciel looks back into that unfathomable gaze, pulls his covers close, and snaps irritably, "what are you doing?"
"Watching over your sleep, as you requested," Sebastian answers. "Is there something else you require?"
I don't know, Ciel thinks. He wants so much for all of the bad things to never have happened, but that's an old wish, so worn and tattered that it seems like it belongs to some other boy, the boy that was not named Ciel, who had an older brother that would hold him when they both had nightmares, curled up together on the filthy floor of the cage. He wants so much, but he doesn't know how to even imagine want anymore, except that it involves revenge, the destruction of the people that killed his parents, that caused all this to happen.
"Not at the moment," Ciel replies, looking away from Sebastian as he feels his heartbeat slow, his sweat cool.
He's here with me, Ciel thinks. Nothing can hurt me now.
.
.
.