It's a few visits, only, as summer, lingering on, becomes something not-quite autumn yet; it's still more nights of the door creaking open when he's meant to be asleep, the round coin of the moon slowly being eaten away into a bright sliver.
Somehow, the darkness seems to shiver its ways out of the nights and into the days in the dappled forest under the old trees, up at the black rock.
And the darkness had bled out of Sebastian's suit and into the peculiar nails of his hand, which Ciel studied, turning this way and that as they sat atop the rock in the forest, the basket, like a clock, set beside them, reminding Ciel always you have not much time. He lay stretched, half-curled in Sebastian's lap, while the man ran his fingers through Ciel's hair, and stared down at him with a strange type of fondness, like a man with a favored pet.
"You don't think you should do something about them?" Ciel asked at last. "It might be indication of sickness."
The soft, warm chuckle that rolled out of Sebastian's throat made Ciel annoyed, but he was too lazy to be annoyed, anyway. "I assure you, my nails have always been that way, and I haven't died yet."
Ciel frowned suddenly. "Don't say that," he said. "Don't talk about dying."
"Isn't that what you meant, when you brought up the subject of my nails with such concern?" Sebastian asked, with false sincerity.
Ciel didn't know what he meant, but he didn't think it had been that. Sebastian of all people shouldn't think of dying. It wasn't right.
"No," Ciel said shortly. "It wasn't." He turned, wiggling around to get more comfortable, and caught the edge of one of Sebastian's strange glances. They had been becoming more frequent, and they reminded Ciel of the murders going on and secrets and blood.
Sebastian noticed him catching it, and instead of looking away as he used to, he kept Ciel's gaze with the same expression. As though he did not even know quite what he was doing, he licked his lips, and Ciel shivered.
"Are you still hungry?" he said at last.
"Yes, Ciel," Sebastian answered, and the way he said Ciel's name, like the sky was more than cloudless blue but had thunder and storms and darkness made Ciel catch his breath and wish he knew how Sebastian could summon such power from him when he felt like he had none at all. "Very much so…" and he leaned down to rest his chin on the top of Ciel's head, wrapping his arms about him, dangerous and safe.
What are people hungry for?
What was hunger, anyway? The aching in his belly when he hadn't had enough to eat, the memory of those few days after the manor had burnt down, before he had been found by the police wandering lost nearby. The way Madam Red was never very sorry to see Ciel go, no matter how much she loved him, because when he was away she and Grell could do as they pleased, with no one the wiser. The bright smile Lizzy always gave him when he came to see her, a smile that made his insides twist, wishing he could feel like he deserved it, and her laugh, and the way she would turn to him often, waiting for the one thing he couldn't give her. The soft rust of Sebastian's eyes when he didn't know Ciel was looking, that tightness in his face of want want need. It was all so complicated, or maybe it was only the shadows that made it so.
When he was a child he had known what hunger was, and it was simple; it was not being able to wait until lunchtime, it was wishing for sweets when his mother said no.
But now the basket of sweets beside him was not his own, and no one would tell him he couldn't take them, because he ought to know better. And the red cloak Aunt Angeline gave him draped carefully to the side by Sebastian's long, thin hands, because if it got dirty she might ask. And the whisper of the wind in the trees, and the moon's waning.
.
.
.