I dedicate this story to the ghost of my father. Because my father would pull this shit with my mother all the time. He'd say we're going to see a movie and instead he'd drive up to the local water falls and we'd jump of the cliffs and rocks, or we'd go tubing on the rapids. My mom would flip her shit because nobody should show their nine year old how to jump off a cliff safely. And I'm glad my dad didn't care to listen to her because I consider myself gifted that I got to have a father that cared about me enough to instill me with a life-long love of adventure and risk taking.
Ciel was nine years old, which Vincent thought was a perfectly fine age to take along with him to various places of ill repute. It was a June night, the air was balmy and humid, and Lau had invited Vincent and Diderich to a party in London. Normally Vincent would have had Tanaka take care of Ciel the night, but tonight he wanted to bring them both with him. Because he could bring Ciel where ever he wanted to provided that Rachel wasn't there to witness it. Rachel was somewhere with her sister doing something Vincent forgot was but that only meant that Vincent could sneak Ciel out of the manor and take him some place fun. Rachel never wanted Ciel to go some places that were fun; especially not with Lau, or with anyone that hung around Vincent except Tanaka. Even Diderich she was apprehensive about leaving alone with Ciel. She was under some kind of crazy assumption that Vincent and his friends couldn't be trusted to bring a child anywhere appropriate.
Rachel's crazy assumption was proven correct as Vincent took Ciel to an opium den for the first time. Ciel was mystified by the cloud of smoke, having seen a literal cloud of opium smoke flood out of an opium den before. Lau greeted him, as always- with Ran Mao at his side. Except now he had five other scantily dressed women who expose their leg, thighs, and breasts.
"They're so pretty!" Ciel exclaimed, looking at the girl surrounded by Lau. He was of course, entranced by the bright colored brocade dresses and large peonies and tassels that decorated their hair.
"Now Ciel, remember that you're engaged to Lizzie so you can never let her know I took you here, okay?" Vincent told him.
"Why? Lizzie loves looking at pretty dresses." Ciel said. The flowers and bright colors reminded him of Lizzie's easter dresses, and how much she loved looking at gardens in the summer.
"Because uh.. because I told you to keep it a secret, alright?" Vincent told him and Ciel nodded along.
"So..." Lau drawled along, taking in a drag and blowing it off to the side. "Whats with the kid?"
"Rachel was away so I decided to sneak in Ciel. He doesn't get out much so I figured a trip to London and a nice party would brighten him up a bit." Vincent said.
"He is the cutest little thing I have ever seen. I didn't think you had it in you to make such a sweet little baby." Lau said, Ran Mao nodded in agreement.
"What, were you expecting him to come out with horns on his head?" Vincent asked.
"Yes, actually." Diderich said.
"I expected it too." Lau admitted.
When Rachel arrived home the night, it was late and to her surprise- not a Vincent, Ciel, or Tanaka in sight. She waited up until the next morning, sitting up in the parlor in the chair. When Tanaka opened the door, Vincent stood in front of a tired and pissed off Rachel with bags hanging under her eyes. In his arms was a tuckered out and sleeping Ciel who was still fast asleep after a train and carriage ride home from London. All three of them smelled like opium smoke, and expensive chinese prostitutes. Vincent handed Ciel off to Tanaka who rushed Ciel upstairs to his room. Rache ltapped the heel of her boots against the floor, his arms crossed and her glare deadly.
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU THINKING, VINCENT PHANTOMIVE? DO YOU EVEN THINK AT ALL OR IS YOUR MIND FILLED WITH NOTHING BUT SMOKE?!" she screamed at him.
"Vincent, where is Ciel?" Didierich asked.
"I don't know. Sebastian!" Vincent yelled and a black irish setter trotted into the room and sat before Vincent, waiting for something.
"Go fetch Ciel!" Vincent said, holding up a treat and tossing it to Sebastian the irish setter. Sebastian the irish setter caught the treat in his mouth midair and wagged his tail, wandering off somewhere.
Moments later, Sebastian the black irish setter, also known as Sebastian the First, Sebastian Number One, or Sebastian Michaelis's name sake, came trotting back in the sitting room. In Sebastian the irish setter's mouth was hanging the body of a very tiny Ciel who giggled in response to the dog picking him up by the collar of his shirt and dragging him across the manor. Sebastian the irish setter dropped Ciel on the floor in front of Vincent, wagging his tail. Vincent sighed and gave Sebastian the irish setter another treat, and Sebastian woofed happily and left the room. Didierich looked over at Vincent, with a look of disbelief and serious moral concern on his face.
"Did you seriously train your dog to fetch a small child?" Diderich asked.
"If you were a parent, you would understand why." Vincent told him.
Ciel laid down in bed, his chubby cheeks and bright blue eyes peered up over the white down comforter that seemed to swallow him up in the king sized bed. Vincent tucked the covers beneath his son's side and pulled up a chair beside the bed, opening up a story book. Last night they read up to the part where Harry, Ron and Hermione are in the restricted section of the library looking up how to make a polyjuice potion. Vincent should know better than to read a story about children breaking into libraries and stealing to a six year old with an over active imagination. Yet, if he ever stopped Ciel would throw a tantrum the size of a thousand burning suns. He loved it when he was read stories of the most fanatical kind. Dragons, elves, warlocks, vampires- Ciel had an imagination that could not be tamed, not even in the most bizarre fantasy ever thought up. He loved the super natural and the fabulous. Vincent could tell from the gleam in his eyes, that in Ciel's mind he was in the library looking over Hermione's shoulder at the dusty tome, his mind listing off word he didn't know how to pronounce yet inside his head, hoping that Filch wouldn't find them.
"And that Ciel, is a basilisk." Vincent said as he turned the book around, showing Ciel the illustration of Harry standing before the basilisk. Ciel gasped and his eyes went wide in horror at the cartoonish illustration.
"What if it's hiding under my bed?" Ciel asked, genuinely frightened by the prospect of a fifty foot long monster snake's head peering up at him in the night and petrifying him.
"He'd have to be flat as a board to fit underneath it, Ciel. It's a large snake." Vincent told him.
"But what if it gets at me?"
"Then shoot them in the face." Vincent took the pistol out of his jacket pocket, put the safety on and tucked the gun under the pillow next to Ciel's.
"Okay!" Ciel beamed.
"For fucks sakes, Vincent!" Rachel shouted. "You let a four year old sleep with a gun under his pillow?!"
"It makes him feel safe."
"He's going to blow his jaw off, you incompetent fuck!"
"He'll be fine."
"I did not nearly kill myself pushing him out of my body for you to be an idiotic bastard and give him dangerous weapons to sleep with!" Rachel screamed.