Chapter One, of Esoteric: Disjointed.
It began rather simply on a light, unusually sunny morning where he found London eating breakfast at his table, looking for all the world like it belonged there.
He sighs, and sits.
A while back, he considers briefly (A very long while back) he would of been mostly concerned with a Chinese mafia boss bumming a breakfast off of him and telling him about human trafficking. Or an indian idiot. Mainly an indian idiot.
He begins eating. These days, he doesn't have much choice.
"You're back," London says to him in between bites, and he nods his head in acknowledgment of this fact, not looking at the embodiment of a city eating at his table because it's obvious that he's here, and the fact doesn't even really merit the time of thinking about it.
"You're back," London says then in a muffled roar that shakes his house. He looks up. (London's whisper alone is a thousand flaps of pigeons, a million car honks, ten tube train lines moving at once-To say that London speaks is) He sees London shining in it's glory across the table. (It's eyes glow with dying lamplight, it's wrinkles are streets, and each breath means life)
Then Earl Phantomhive understands, and he takes his hands out of his ears.
"Tell Her Majesty that I will be there." He says as if this sort of thing happened every day, and continued eating as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Then the truth of London dies away in front of him, and leaves behind a painfully ordinary-looking blond man wearing an extraordinarily wooly jumper instead.
His life used to be not quite this complicated. He blames his servant's boredom, honestly. With this in mind, Ciel Phantomhive opens the papers.
x.
He sees the Queen over a computer that week and quietly speaks to her about life, death and duty. She tells him about the world he has come to, about bombings in London and a spider sitting in the center of a web.
She knows far more than her people will ever give her credit for. He does not envy the life she has lived, but she would not envy his.
They both have their roles to fulfill.
x.
After that night in the pool, his first meeting with the Government proceeds:
"You have done well," The British Government says to him. The stone grey eyes sitting in his sharp face say, "You have done what was needed."
Rain pounds outside of the windows belonging to the Diogenes club.
"Her Majesty willed it." He says simply in the dusty silence of the room, in response to both of those statements. He wonders inside of his mind if Arthur Doyle knew how powerful words were, back then-Maybe he knew; and that was why he only wrote of he and his butler in shades of ink, blurring the lines between them both and creating two people entirely different than the demon and the child he had chanced upon.
"Yes…The Queen's dog. How did you come to rise from the ashes?" Government says in a peculiar voice, sucking in air through clenched teeth as he does so. "Her Majesty called, and I came." He smiles.
British Government looks unnerved, and he feels amusement.
Sebastian is standing behind him, a shadow. He feels amusement, too.
x.
Moriarty stares at him with pitiless black eyes, young and old all at once in his prison garb, covered in blood and bandages. His nails are completely worn away, and there's a little smile on his lips, quirking his lips up as if there's something funny.
Even at this depth of humiliation, he finds dignity. Dignity-A lift of a shoulder, disregarding all of the blood around him as if it doesn't matter. Smugness, as if he knew something that others didn't. There is careless dignity that only belongs to the insane.
"I owe you a fall," He mouths to the little boy of thirteen standing on the other side of the bars rather theatrically with that little smile still on his face.
"I'm afraid not." His servant responds for his master, closing his eyes and smiling at the criminal.
"?" Is written all over the grey stone walls of the cell. Only the lower half of it occupies a true name, half-carved and half-writ with blood: "Sherlock."
The Game has truly begun.
x.
"You're sure about this, my lord?" A genuinely amused smile echoes around the smooth, pale lips of the perfect servant. He knows his master very well, knows him well enough to ask.
The master turns around, coat-afluttering like so many rippling feathers around him. The sunset shines brilliantly against his back; it makes for a glorious sight. None of this matters to him.
"The House of Phantomhive has not yet been extinguished."
Gnimaerd: Sorry if it's horrible. Promise you that the next chapter will make more sense and flow smoother; this is more like a trailer that came after a breathless moment. It's another little piece before the story truly begins moving in earnest.