A/N:
this is the 13th story in "How Not to Spend Eternity" in which Sebastian and Ciel deal with the aftermath of season 2 (or not). — you can see links to each story in order on my profile &, if you want to hop in right here, all you have to know is that Sebastian & Ciel have gone through a lot, and now they're hanging out in hell for reasons.
1&2 "Do Not Stand At My Grave and Weep" (the immediate aftermath of season 2) + "The Contract" (posted together) (Ciel's first contract as a demon)
3 "Puer Aeternus" (Ciel's second and third contract, and an attempt to get Sebastian a gift)
4 "Desperate Times" (Sebastian, Grell, and Will go boating. This goes about as well as you'd expect.)
5 "Dogwood and Chestnut" (in which both Sebastian & Ciel try to make things right)
6 "Capture the Moon" (a woman named Helen makes a contract with a demon)
7 "Slipping" (Ciel finds a mysterious government agency, makes a contract, and decides to investigate)
8 "Whatever We Lose" (Sebastian remembers the plague & realizes he's happy with his life now)
9 "The Spider's Thread" (Ciel ruins his friendship with Helen & causes Sebastian's old friend to vow revenge)
10. "No Exit" (Sebastian is called to court in hell. He loses everything.)
11. "The Red Tree" (Sebastian & Ciel move into a manor house in hell, & get some unusual servants.)
12. "Night's Window" (Sebastian & Ciel go to a party. It turns out badly.)
yes, this is the last story in "How Not to Spend Eternity."
It's been a long journey! I started posting this whole thing in July 2018, 5 years ago, as a sidenote to "Unweaving," when I needed an easier, more fun story to write along with my attempt at a longfic. That was before I'd ever finished a longfic at all (Unweaving was the first) and gosh... I was at a totally different place, writing-wise, and life-wise. In the end, HNTSE would become the series I was most proud of, and one that was very close to my heart. It's taken a number of twists and turns from being only one story (HNTSE) to having a little sequel (The Contract) to turning into a full-blown series. I wrote an arc 1, that ended with "Dogwood and Chestnut," (the one where Sebastian & Ciel get together) and seriously considered ending the story there, but I still felt there were things that needed to be told and stuff the characters had to work through. After all, getting together doesn't fix characters nor does it lead to character development... it felt easy, but too much like a cop-out. So arc 2 began—new OCs and shady government projects, and a darker spin that wrestled with the nature of evil and the possibility of redemption. This last story has been half-finished for more than a year, and for various real-life reasons I was terribly stuck on it. But I knew that, no matter what, I wanted to finish the story this year. For all the readers who have stuck with the series this long, and for myself.
"The way up and the way down is one and the same."
—Heraclitus
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The Alchemist
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Part 1: melanosis
"Mortals are immortals and immortals are mortals, the one living the others' death and dying the others' life." —Heraclitus
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Ten drops.
That's how much the vial contained, in its crystalline glass.
Looking into its clear depths, Sebastian saw the burning over plundered cities, soot-stained fog, a flower whirling along an everlasting current, cold.
His hand, around the glass, trembled.
Will I? He thought.
One drop shivered on the brink, on that clear lip, and for a moment he found himself unable to move. Why?
Still: he reminded himself of the perfection, the power of having that self in his full grasp. Who knew how far he would be forced if he did not fight back? Wasn't it, after all, right to do so, instead of subsiding futilely into despair?
To gravity, at last, it succumbed.
1/ one drop
Ten years old and standing by the open window, Ciel looks out. And remembers: playing with Lizzie on the fine, shorn grass, the softness of dirt underfoot; the faces of his parents. And his dog, which had always somehow unsettled him, though he knew—still—it would not harm him. And there it is, in his reflection; or what he has replaced it with. He wonders, for a moment, what it means to have taken a Thing made of possibility and darkness, so many feathers, and a voice… what it means to have taken a Something made of teeth in the corner of his eye, and too many smiles; magnesium, raven's wings, and turned it into a dog. He wonders, for a moment, watching that unfathomable face, porcelain and hard, what It is thinking, and realizes with a thrill of despair that he will never know.
/
Seventy-five years later, sitting by a table that is not a table in a house that was not a house, where the sound of wind was ever-present, scouring the walls and gripping the corners of the windowsill, Ciel wondered, again, what Sebastian was thinking. Sebastian, who watched him with careful patience as the not-teacup hovered closer to his lips…
Why the play? And would he ever ask? Whether the tea which was not tea could ever hope to compare, there was something to be said for the continuance of an illusion, the careful presence kept toward a principal. And that Sebastian had started it again only now, when the two were in hell, seemed only natural, for everything in its warped, strange manner was just as it should be. It was a teacup filled with nothing but thoughts, and here in this space of unbeing it had just as much formless truth as anything else. Perhaps it was succumbing to ease, to try to understand Sebastian only through the things he handled. But Sebastian had given it to him, and watched even now as it hovered at Ciel's lips.
Nothing trustworthy there, but why should he expect any different?
He drank, and felt a slide of suffocating care masking a bitter core; there was a faint perfume of soft sweetness like morning mist in autumn, and the deep dark mystery of soil. A sharp spike of hatred, new and flowering, that made him pause and turn the flavour on his tongue; it felt acidic and sharp and clean, merely one note in the entire array of sensation.
He looked toward Sebastian with a question in his gaze and the butler took his hand, sliding his gloved fingers over Ciel's own, and finally taking the now-empty cup, and setting it aside.
"Now, what was that all about?" Ciel said at last.
"It will become clear to you…" Sebastian said, "soon enough."
"Mm," Ciel replied, pulling Sebastian closer, and the butler capitulated gracefully to sit on his lap, facing him, back against the edge of the table and its pressed cloth. "I have a terrible feeling you're trying to make things difficult for me."
"Me?" Sebastian said, with mock innocence. He put his hand to his breast, affronted. "Master, you wouldn't doubt your loyal servant, would you?"
"You know, every time you say that, you act as though I'll fall for it," Ciel said.
"And," Sebastian said, his eyes glinting. The liquid of his hair brushed against Ciel's forehead. "Did it work?"
Ciel smiled. "Not yet."
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