Hello guys, I'm back :). Here is the CielxAberline fic I mentioned previously, and like Songbird, this fic will be in more than one part. And no, this fic isn't named Eden because that's my account name XD, it just happened to be coincidence. The italicized sections are memories, and the regular type is in the present, though not quite in chronological order. If there is any confusion, pm away!

Disclaimer: I don't own Kuroshitsuji, yadda yadda.

Rating: I would put this story as a light M, malexmale and general confusing angst.

And here we go~

Eden

Part l: Idealistic

One looks for Eden in history, best left unvisited.

Aberline remembers the day he first met him.

It was late December, and the air was cold and chaffing and Christmas was rapidly approaching. 'I should have worn my heavier coat,' Aberline thought, 'It's unearthly cold today.'

As he made his way down darkening cobblestone streets, snow began to fall and he wished more fervently than ever for warm soup and a crackling fireplace. He was carrying with him a rather light package: a stuffed bear, ready to be wrapped as a holiday present for his niece. Now he only needed to buy a blouse for his uncle, and all of his shopping for the day would be done. He needed to hurry, though, as the shops would not be open for very much longer. He turned onto Camden road and paused quite suddenly.

In front of him stood the most beautiful family he had ever seen. The father was lithe and broad-shouldered, the mother's hair and clothing beautifully and artfully arranged. Next to his father, holding his mother's hand, was a pretty little boy. The detective watched as he broke away from his family to stare at an ornate wooden rocking horse in a shop window. In the window's reflection, Aberline saw himself. He seemed so separate, so disjointed from the family. He didn't belong here, he thought, in his shabby brown trench coat and scuffed shoes. He was just ruining the portrait.

But the little boy quickly turned and focused his huge, sapphire eyes on the detective, and the detective found he could not move or-


He's forcibly snapped back into reality by the bitter sting of nails digging into his cheeks. A narrowed, cold blue eye and smirking red lips are much too close to his face.

"What were you thinking of, detective? Or rather, who?"

Earl Phantomhive shifts and Aberline tries to break his gaze away from the boy's gloating face, but he finds he cannot and he can't and those eyes-

"Me?"

Aberline drops his head in shame.

For the primal sin is always a present sin.


He was watching the young boy and his butler. The wind picked up and his coat swished about him, and for some reason he recalled summer nights, autumn musk, and the heady scent of cigarette pipes and smoke. The young boy and the butler remained unknowing of their observer as they stood speaking outside their carriage.

The boy was arguing with his butler now. Arguing over this and that, over failures to comply with orders, over what dessert would be served with supper. Aberline stood stock-still as the butler lowered his head to the boy's ear to whisper God-knows-what. A love confession, thought the detective bitterly.

The next second he felt immensely foolish. It was stupid of him to have thought that he would remain forever invisible to the pair. The butler, contrary to what he had thought earlier, most likely had been warning the Earl of his presence.

Ciel had turned to shoot him the most contemptuous glare he had ever received. It was the kind of look that made him feel (and admit to himself) that he was just the same as some filthy, pitiful voyeur. Don't look at us, said the Earl's glare. You are too far below us.

Behind Earl Phantomhive, the butler stood grinning devilishly at the detective.

It's deep into the night, and though he's nice and warm beneath his bedsheets, Fred Aberline cannot sleep. He's tossing and turning, holding his head and his heart. He drifts in and out of consciousness, but he's never quite asleep. Never quite awake, never quite asleep. Like a waking dream, he thinks. He's awake during his dreams.

Sometimes, for a few minutes at a time, he dreams of Ciel Phantomhive. Dreams of Ciel sweating, moaning, and trembling beneath that demon he calls a butler. And he can see both of the boy's eyes now, shining brilliantly and begging for kingdom come. Aberline feels and hears the butler- was his name Sebastian?- push into the Earl. He hears cries and rustling sheets and the slick sound of wet bodies rubbing against one another.

He wakes up.

The scene of the crime was a particularly ghastly one. The body of the victim lay in the side corner of the alleyway, throat slashed, eyes gouged out, and legs dismembered.

It was the latest in the string of killings from the infamous killer that had come to be known as Jack the Ripper. As a faithful detective of the Scotland Yard, he had come to investigate the exact nature of the crime. Was it merely a copycat killing, or could it be identified as the actual handiwork of Jack the Ripper?

As Aberline pushed through the crowd of policemen and spectators, he caught a glimpse of short trousers, knee socks, and a piercing piercing blue eye.

The detective choked.

It was Ciel.

And Ciel was making his way towards the detective.

Panic seized the man as slices of his dream rose to his consciousness. Moans, cries, rustling bedsheets, sweat and musk and air thick with longing. The boy was two steps closer now, three, four, five. Three creaks, four moans, five I love you's-

Aberline couldn't help but to run away.


How dare he, how dare he? How dare he think such things of the Earl, who was yet still a child, and most definitely a male.

But every time he brushes by him at a crime scene, every time he sees the boy's face in the paper, in his mind sapphire eyes turn pleading and pale lips transform into a swollen ruby-red.

And every time he watches the butler place a loving hand on the boy's back and thread gloved fingers through cobalt locks, Aberline grows green with envy.

He's sitting with the Earl in his parlor. The Earl is smiling, but it's a sickly sweet sort of smile.

"How could you do this to yourself?" says Aberline.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

The boy's false smile grows wider as Aberline grits his teeth.

"Yes, you do."

The Earl raises an eyebrow, and waits in silence for Aberline's statement. The detective reaches for everything, anything, inside of him to give him the strength to go on.

"It's your improper relationship with your butler," The man finally whispers, not meeting the boy's gaze, "You can't do this to yourself."

The man had, previously, hypothesized the different reactions he would receive, ranging from anger to apathy to flat-out denial. He had never guessed that laughter would be the response.

"The Yard is attempting to charge me with sodomy?"

"No, no, no," Aberline exclaims, "Not at all."

For a few moments the room is silent. The only sound reverberating through the walls of the ornate room is the steady ticking of a grandfather clock.

"Then why are you here?"

Aberline can't bring himself to say that it is because he cares.

Unspoken words hang heavily in the air, as if something is finally sliding into place. The noble breaks the silence.

"How idealistic of you, detective, how idealistic of you. I'm not who you think I am."

And this very moment, this very word will be Eden.

And that boy was already, or is already, in Eden.

Ok, how was it? The bolded sections other than the title are taken from a poem called Eden, by Anthony Burgess. The moment I saw the poem, it just sort of reminded me of Ciel, even though I have no clue as to why xD. Anyways, reviews and critique are much appreciated! Until next time,

Eden Lies