Well, as I near the end of this story I am constantly astounded by the way all of these elements fit together like puzzle pieces...
I think this is perhaps the level of subconscious planning that real authors have... At least... I hope it is... Because that would be really, really, astoundingly, amazingly cool.
Praise and constructive criticism are always welcome.
Also, I know it's a mainstream pop song, but I strongly recommend listening to "Lights" by Ellie Goulding while reading this.
For the last three chapters it's the only song I've listened to while writing... I've probably listened to it over a hundred and eighty times in the last couple of weeks; I can get a bit obsessive... But this song seriously inspires my writing. It puts me in a kind of trance, and before I know it, there are five pages of writing staring back up at me from the computer screen.
I hope you enjoy. It was my pleasure to write this.
"Bocchan?" Sebastian approached slowly, unwilling to trust his eyes… From a distance, the boy might have been sleeping, but the demon's eyes did not lie to him; the figure within the basin remained still, silenced by the hand of death. "Damn it…" With despairing eyes, Michaelis ripped the glass bottle from his pocket, fumbling with the stopper, which felt like lead in his hands.
He allowed the vial to fill to the top with the blackness which overflowed the basin, emptying it into the boy's mouth when it did. Ciel's eyes fluttered open, milky and dead, and then closed again. His body remained rigid and motionless as the stone he lay upon.
Hours slipped into the unending darkness… Countless times, Sebastian had refilled the vial. Countless times, the demon had poured Ciel's broken soul back into him. Countless times, the boy's eyes had opened, only to snap shut again, each blink killing a sliver of the demon's hope until Sebastian's perfectly sculpted form collapsed onto the marble below, his graceful limbs forced into gruesome, painful bends.
Stained with black, the clear crystal vial slipped from his hand and shattered, joining the rest of the precious materials strewn about the floor with a radius of about sixty feet in every direction.
And despite all the wealth that had been conjured up, all the heavenly blood which stained the white, white marble red for the sake of the young earl, not a breath entered the boy's lungs, not a whisper graced his figure. And Sebastian, though he loathed human sentiments and philosophies, found that, upon seeing the boy's body, there were too many words he had left unsaid; that every rule, every law, every nature had at least one fault, one exception; that equal or greater tragedy accompanied every last smile, every last note of happiness.
Ciel's wish... that childish weakness had come back and obliterated him, for this was the fate of all humans; this was the bitter aftertaste that accompanied even the finest of dark chocolate truffles.
Rest, rest and peace at last… It was not Ciel's wish to wake. Ciel did not want to… Ciel refused to… And yet, the lurking anxiety that forewarned nightmares stole into his peace, rousing the tender boy from his sleep, and a hauntingly familiar landscape glided into being.
Sheet-white snow blanketed the world in youth's purity, in breathtaking, diamond hue. Before him, the knotted branches of wilting rose bushes clawed their way up to the watery blue sky, climbing a labyrinth of angry black hedges. They spoke in hisses.
"Dead you are. Death and ice. Pain and anguish are your price. Your wish ungranted, your knight still breathes… And for your mangled soul he grieves."
When thorns pierce through and white bleeds red
When their deadly thorns tore into his flesh, Ciel did not cry out, did not beg, but rather, allowed his memories to fill him with unquenchable desires. How he longed for his warm bed; a cup of boiling, earl grey tea with lemon; a slice of crisp, apple tart; a hot cinnamon roll drenched in rich, buttercream icing…
No. No culinary confection was sweet enough—nothing was sweet enough to satiate his longing… Save the kiss of a certain demon butler, to which no artfully prepared desert could compare. Ciel craved the demon's touch, the clarity of mind that those kisses brought; Sebastian's affection sought out his pain and wrenched it away, healed the wounds, erased the doubts, banned the worries… If for even one moment…If for only one moment Ciel could saver that sensation again, he thought he would happily endure this hell for the rest of eternity.
In his mind's eye, Ciel gazed upon the memories of Sebastian, a great many of his observations pertaining to the demon's lips, their movements as he spoke, and the sounds that each motion produced. Yet, with every flawless recollection of each and every shape, every movement of the Sebastian's tongue, with all the hours of careful listening and matching, Ciel could not forge the memory of a particular phrase, and because this seemingly simple task was deceptively, obscenely arduous, the earl let it consume every fiber of his conscious and subconscious.
Tainted lips leave words unsaid.
For all his strenuous effort, memory, and inspiration, the raven-haired heir procured one cheaply imitated sound, one cursed melody, one lying string of words, neither accompanied by images, nor confirmed by instincts.
But lies become truths on tainted lips
"Pitiful that you should die before I even told you I loved you," Sebastian murmured to the boy's frozen face. "...And with a wish, the master slips… You're weak… And I'm weak too, I suppose." The demon cleared his mind, closed his eyes, and pressed his lips lightly upon Ciel's.
Falling into memories
"All those moments, all those times I promised to fulfill my duties…only to have you die before I could avenge your pain," Sebastian cursed, allowing the past to overwhelm him with memories.
One image, above all else, threw the demon into sheer, raw, unparalleled agony.
Where once an honest smile loomed
Once in all the years he had served his young master and only once, Ciel had smiled. What dizzying beauty, Sebastian mused, worthy of angels…worthy of God himself.
Replaced by now a fateful smirk
For that one genuine smile, Ciel had given hundreds of fakes, thousands of imitations to satisfy the all-devouring eyes of the general public.
Sebastian blinked to clear the liquid from his eyes, disgusted that he had only caught a glimpse of that beauty once. Michaelis had agreed to answer to his master's every whim. He'd cooked, cleaned, calculated, killed for his master, yet Sebastian had never given the boy happiness, and, as if to mock his agony, Ciel's gentle smile appeared in his vision then warped into a grim, haunting replica.
That marks its fallen victim doomed.
Sebastian loathed himself. He was not, could not, and would not ever be human; the demon never should have felt the whisper of love at all. He was a failure, an abomination, a victim to his own ignorance; the notion of satisfying his own appetite had lost its appeal long ago.
When poison spreads and blue turns gold
Ciel let his eyes open again, writhing uncontrollably in the pain that saturated the fibrils of his muscles and bore into his bones, maggots in a corpse.
Venom from the deadly thorns seeped into his blood vessels and burned through his body like blue flames. Why must it always be this way? Why must I end every day with a pain more excruciating than the next? Why… Sebastian…why? Hot tears rolled down his burning face, leaving sweet, merciful trails of ice behind on his pale cheeks.
Through the earl's distorted vision, a multitude of surreal colors flooded. Among them were vibrant shades of red, piercing whites, neon blues, and one enormous streak of orangey-yellow on the horizon that marked the setting of the sun.
If this is Hell, Ceil mused, it's oddly beautiful.
Memories leave tales untold
A thought occurred to the Phantomhive quite suddenly. Perhaps Sebastian killed the angel… And if he did, he must have taken my soul… Perhaps I am being digested by a demon.
Ridiculous, another part of Ciel retorted, unwilling to accept the possibility; the boy had always been stubborn.
Time passed, and a great number of baffling theories crossed the Earl's clouded mind, most, improbable, many impossible. In the end, Ciel decided that his soul must have been consumed, and so he smiled. Laughed even.
But curiosity unveils
And then he woke up to find his best tail coat ruined and his butler unconscious on the checkered floor of a capacious chamber. Blood and crystal and diamonds, precious metal, ink (he assumed) and shards of some unknown yet dazzling green gem littered the floor and depicted a gruesome, gory death-match, the likes of which Ciel thought would make for excellent entertainment; he pitied having not seen the fight play out.
The earl groaned, noticing a growing ache in his back; he looked down to find himself draped across a wide but shallow, raised, stone basin. Inky liquid consumed any space that he himself did not, and it spilled over the brims when he shifted. Sore and stiff, Ciel leaned up and moved to perch the edge, where he sat at a safe but not-quite-comfortable distance from the ground.
This is far too troublesome, the Phantomhive boy decided, judging whether or not he should attempt to climb down by himself.
"I think you'll have an easy enough time getting off of there by yourself," a voice, smooth and velvety, called, startling Ciel from his temporary dilemma.
The face that accompanied this sensual sound matched it perfectly yet left Ciel speechless. The man had inconceivably beautiful features… A single, jagged scar began at the left side of his forehead, crossed his left eye and the bridge of his straight nose, and continued across his right cheek.
Behind the man's thick, black lashes rested two gold-green orbs. "You should laugh more; it's quite an attractive sound," the silver-haired shinigami mused.
"Undertaker?" The man turned and flashed the Phantomhive a brilliant smile.
"At your service, My Lord," the shinigami answered. "Now why don't we wake up your lover, hm?" Ciel's adrenaline spiked, causing the boy's words to stick in his throat like glue. Before the heir could reclaim control of his own body, Undertaker had reached the basin. "Waiting for that angel to come help you down?" the shinigami chuckled. "Well it's dead, so you're going to have to jump. Trust your limbs; I think you'll find them a bit more durable than before." Peeved, Ciel released his death grip on the marble and allowed his form to slip from the edge, landing painlessly, elegantly, and silently in the very center of a black tile.
Confused, the Phantomhive flexed and released each of his muscles, monitoring their new power and documenting the increased control he felt. He crouched down beside Sebastian's crumpled figure, observing an increase in balance and coordination as he did so, and laid a hand on the demon's soft, flawless cheek. Sebastian's eyelids glided open, and a pair of crimson irises met his, identical in shape and color to Sebastian's own.
With his right hand, the demon butler propped himself up and adjusted his position so that his back rested against the cool marble of the basin. His left hand came to a rest on top of Ciel's, pressing it firmly against his face. A moment passed before the demon released it.
When he did, Ciel drew back his entire arm, and, with tremendous and inhuman force, slapped Sebastian cleanly across his face, conveying rage and agony, revulsion and pity, love and hate, all in one action.
The snap of skin against skin bounded through the marble and sprung off the walls, producing hundreds of smaller echoes. Undertaker's deep, sonorous laugh joined them.
Collectedly, Sebastian turned back to meet his master's gaze, captured the earl with a skillful arm, and drew their bodies together, trapping the boy's lips in a wanting, urgent, passionate kiss that assured Ciel (if he hadn't known already) that the beautiful man whose arms encircled his waist was, indeed, a sinful shadow of hell, a terribly gorgeous demon.
And Ciel returned the kiss with yet more longing, more need, more intensity, willing their two beings to merge and become one of the same.
"If you two could postpone your affections for a moment or two," Undertaker, who was now nursing a glass of red wine, advised, "It would be best if we left this chamber before it becomes unstable."
The shinigami smirked, chortling to himself as Sebastian rose with commendable agility for his state, Ciel wrapped protectively in his arms. As the boy's personality commanded, Ciel objected vociferously.
"I can walk, you know. I'm fully capable of moving at your pace now," the heir whined.
"Not quite," Sebastian smirked. "You still have a ways to go before you'll match me in any way…"
"What gives you the right to speak to me like I'm a child?" Ciel raised his voice considerably. In turn, Sebastian's smirk grew ever larger and more arrogant.
"Bocchan," he whispered in the boy's ear. "I am at least forty-eight hundred years older than you are; I'll ask you to give me at least another fifty to adjust."
Ciel sighed, accepting with relative ease that he would not win the argument. Surprisingly, this fact did not agitate him. "How much time has passed?" He inquired boyishly.
"Not more than a few hours for the humans," Undertaker chuckled. "They'll probably still be working on the earl's bedroom when you two get back," he thought aloud and began laughing again.
"What's so funny?" Ciel's lips formed a pouting frown.
"Now that you're a demon, I'll say this," the shinigami answered. "Humans are truly a pitiful and sick existence."
Hope you all enjoyed. Review if you feel like it. It won't hurt my feelings if you don't, but it will boost 'em if you do 3
Happy reading to you all.
One chapter left... I can't believe I went through this so quickly.
Well, for those of you who have stayed with me for all ten steps of the journey, I thank you immensely.
And for those of you who are new, I thank you for your reading and support as well.
is truly a wonderful place.
Love you all
~ Sophia