Another world, another place, another man.
A layer of skin, a fine membrane that separated one reality from another, the sordid black that spilt over one now carved down the middle by his wilfulness, and now the darkness had dripped slowly, steadily into the leftover of the worlds.
The client's footsteps tap out a sharp rhythm on the paved sidewalk, the silence of the street accompanying the extinguishing of the street lamps with every step he took.
There he looks over his shoulder for a brief moment as an unaccountable chill settles itself heavily over his shoulder and breathes down his neck.
He wondered what it felt like to die, even as his neck was snapped cleanly into half.
Beside his body, the demon smiles.
-
It took Sebastian another two months before he returned to the same house, the same place where the game continued through dawn and dusk and the two of them were left grappling with the same nothingness.
Ciel hadn't summoned him, and there was nothing that he could possibly gain from this visit. He had only hours to spare before his new master awoke to the start of a new day, and his duties as a butler began all over again. He was the carrier of death and waste and sin, and slowly the stones beneath his feet were cracking under the hollow echo of his polished boots. As the merchant of death, he had stood on the edge of the world and known the decayed fingers of the dark for what they were.
Another piece had fallen.
He knew that, repeated it to himself, and still his feet took him closer to the apartment.
The lift rattled upwards slowly, and in the blinking darkness of the metal cage, his eyes were as clear as fresh spilt blood against the snow.
"You have that look in your eyes again."
The door swung open, and Ciel let him in without another word.
Silent, they sat in the living room, each unwilling to crack the fraught tension, until Ciel stood to leave, his face a badly masked expression of impatience. A touch of fear lingered under it, and he savoured it that delicious emotion, before the shimmer of blue eyes were turned down to meet the floor.
Oh, my young master,
"Who is it?" Ciel breathed, his voice unnatural and choked.
The colour of heaven,
"Only the last piece that remains."
Was not meant for eyes such as yours.
"Finian."
His young master had turned away, his steps unsteady. He had been thrust aside roughly even as he tried to guide the young master into his room, blindly searching for the familiar grip of flaking walls that encased the tenuous threads of life into a semblance of reality. He couldn't speak to voice out his terror, nor explain what his hands were reaching for as he curled deeper into himself like an injured animal, pushing him further away.
The loss of a child, the pain of one abandoned by everything familiar –
He had seen the same scene before.
"How?"
"A minor accident. A small loss of control which escalated into an unavoidable circumstance."
The young master managed to breathe, a harsh, choked gasp as those eyes brimmed unexpectedly, pale fingers digging deeper into the covers in a vain bid to assuage the pain that gripped his heart.
"Young master, he was old, there is nothing that could prevent the inevitable from happening."
"Get out." the young master snarled, his slender shoulders shaking as his wild eyes searched the room blindly, looking for something which Sebastian couldn't fathom of.
"Young master – "
"How many times have I fucking told you not to call me that!" Ciel shouted at him, his fury making his shoulders shake as his fists were tightly balled as though he was itching to hit him. The bitterness in his voice deepened as his eyes turned to his hands, nails cutting deeper and deeper until the crescents of blood appeared beneath his fingernails.
"If I hadn't erased the company, would he have…no, that isn't the issue anymore." He breathed unsteadily, a hand rising uncertainly to brush away the tears that wouldn't stop falling.
"The past is gone, Sebastian. Stop chasing your master, he doesn't exist anymore. The Phantomhive family has been erased from history, the Queen has long passed on, everyone I know is gone and there's not a single person left in this world who remembers who is Ciel Phantomhive."
Was this tenuous emotion known to be regret?
What was it that made him this weak and ready to debase himself? For decades, he had been tied to this same foolish human, now crying in his arms even as he struggled to be freed, a single soul that begged for something, anything to take away the pain and taking off the edge from razor sharp emotions that threatened to break them.
"I remember. Even if there is no one else on earth who will remember the young master, I will. Until the bitter end, I will follow you."
Ciel cried harder, his slender body racking with his sobs as his arms gripped Sebastian fiercely, his face buried in the crook of his neck.
"Please don't leave me. Not you too. Please don't leave."
He would always remember the warm heat of Ciel's body, even as his fingers slipped tenderly against back of his neck, feeling the fine brush of silken hair against his knuckles.
"Don't I always keep my promises? I'd never leave you."
Outside, the pregnant moon was tinged in red.
END CHAPTER