Snake - GUILTY
"Don't feel bad, says Oliver."
"I… don't feel bad," he mused to himself, even as he glanced over at his friends. They curled around and some looked over at him, silently echoing Oliver's feelings. Emily came over, nudging her head under his hand, and slithered into his lap.
"This is a good home, says Emily. We are not having to perform and be made fun off. Our other friends may have been nice to us most of the time, but they didn't think we fit in."
"Sometimes I am happy they are gone, says Victor."
Even Emily turned and hissed at the older friend. Victor barred his fangs and moved under the bed.
Snake fell to a deep silence, his usual state, and thought. He didn't really feel badly that he and his friends were safe, same as he didn't really feel bad that his circus friends had seemed to move on, without him. He felt something deeper.
Guilt. He felt guilty he ran. He felt guilty that his friends had pushed him to the place Black and Smile lived and worked, but he couldn't, didn't, wasn't even now, able to strike on them. He looked at Emily and stroked her beautiful skin. She was the passive one of the bunch, the level headed one, the one who sometimes would come with him on his walks, and she seemed to understand.
"I'm going outside - I need… air."
Victor hissed from under the bed and Oliver curled up deeper into himself, closing his eyes. He looked down at Emily and she smiled. He placed her around his neck and got up.
He walked down the hall and smelled Black in the next hallway. He paused and eased to the corner, looking around it, and saw Black and Mey-Rin, the maid, standing in the hallway. They were talking in low voices and he simply watched. They seemed to be deep in discussion and he finally heard a bit of the conversation as the maid took her glasses off and her bright eyes flashed dangerously.
"He was not here when they came, Mister Sebastian. I don't believe for one moment he could be here for any other reason but to heal. You should know this better than anyone." She sighed and looked up at him. Snake blinked and wondered why he wished to be looked at by anyone in the way the maid now looked at Black. "He is a sweet man. I don't care for the snakes, but I understand - we all want to belong."
Black nodded and took her glasses from her and studied them for a moment. "Yes, and we all do things we wish we didn't have to do just that." Snake heard a smile in that sentence, and Snake saw the maid also smile, in a rather intimate way that made Snake duck back around the corner.
"She loves him, says Emily, with a sigh."
Snake looked at his friend and blushed. "They are so different. And I don't think we should have seen that."
He felt guilt surge once more. He was living in a mansion and had so many places he could be, and he always seemed to be bumping in to the others. Snake looked at Emily and she seemed to still be happy about what they saw and heard. The other night he had heard the other two servants - Bard and Finny - run down the hall, chasing a ball and skidding to a stop when they saw him standing, the ball at his feet. He had looked at it and wondered why anyone would be throwing balls down the hallways. He had picked it up and Finny had smiled, asked if he wanted to join, even as Snake wanted to answer, he saw Bard cringe a bit. He had slipped back into the shadows, feeling ashamed and guilty he was in their way.
Snake sighed and walked down the back stairway, on his way out to the garden. He didn't mind that it was rather cold, and Emily curled up his neck and settled on his head, as if she was a hat. The crisp air swirled around and he breathed in deeply, clearing his head of all the questions that he was sure would never be answered. He was in a good home, as Emily had said before, and he never had to worry about anything beyond an odd stare or a small shiver running down the visitors' backs. Snake was fed, housed, and treated with kindness. He was able to travel with the others, and his friends were able to come most of the time as well. Victor said he hated being out, and had reported seeing all kinds of places when he was left alone. Oliver liked being out, and had always a story or two about the things they saw in the city. Emily usually went with him and her quiet observations and comments made Snake feel as if he was really adjusting to the life outside Noah's Ark Circus, where he had first found his family.
He sat on the hard ground, letting the cold seep into him and Emily and he talked about the past, the present, and the future. As he continued to talk, he was unaware of another set of eyes that had rested on his form. Ciel Phantomhive watched as the man who talked to snakes was in his garden, carrying on with one of them. He sighed, the guilt that weighted on his shoulders was something he had long agreed to never burden the man with. He had deceived him and had asked him to stay, promising he would look for his circus family, knowing that they were dead. Most from his own staff that Snake sat beside and daily interacted with. Ciel let the curtain fall and his thoughts. He was no saint, and neither was the snake talker. They just felt guilty for different things, and for different parts of the same situation.