Disclaimer: Nope.
Author's Note: Funny thing. Every time I chat with Alex Beoulve, we always seem to walk away with the same idea… Only I take the angst version, and Alex, the crack. XD It's a great set up we've got going on, lawlz. Anyway, this one is for you, bby. And I hope to finish the other fics I've promised you soon. 8D;
Warnings: Derp. Angsty derp. Flowery, angsty derp. Flowery, angsty, written-at-3-AM derp. Lemony CielSeba.
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Hourglass
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Outside, the rain is falling.
An English summer has descended upon the countryside, painting the faerie land anew in a fresh wash of wet monochrome. Mountainous plumes of navy and midnight have enveloped the unhappy heavens, frothing on the horizon like the spume of a witch's brew; the blanketing darkness has cast a spell of weariness, of lachrymose, over the world— a curse that only time and sunlight will wear away. Eventually.
Eventually.
But for now, the manor and its inhabitants can do little but endure this limbo of gray mists and cold breezes, huddled (like all other animals) inside of the pitiful shelters they've constructed. The moor's lonely wuthering echoes over the soulless grounds as bedraggled crows caw in empty eaves; the sightless statues in the garden glisten as if tear-glossed graves, lamenting the roses that are mercilessly beaten to death by the downpour: white-satin petals shattering, then scattering, every-which-way, battered about by fingers of rain. Mud and filth stains what had once been pristine and innocent. Mud and filth and hands and lips, and there is nothing on this estate that is "pristine" or "innocent" anymore.
The windows have been opened. Musk and sweat and sex and heat have layered atop one another, their remnants cleaving to stale air until it is too thick to breathe; it must be thinned, despite the risk the gale poses the carpet. And so the dew-dropped casement is begrudgingly cracked: creaking on hinges that sing like the sky. At first, the shy winds whisper as they creep over the transoms' gilded ledge, as if afraid they might be caught and punished for sneaking into the room. Now, having realized that they are welcome, they whistle and shriek as they charge through the aperture, eager to dance with the drapes. Luxurious swatches of maroon velvet undulate wildly in their wake, golden tassels tossed about in graceful spins and twirls. The rich hues of expensive fabrics darken all the more as liquid bullets shatter on the sill, but neither the sound nor the splatter of watery shrapnel is enough to frighten (or still) the chamber's inhabitants.
The rain pounds into the bedroom. And the butler is pounded into the bed. And the earl is pounding into his servant, and the frame and the mattress screech with the same demanding passion as the eager squall beyond: the wanton thunder groaning as deeply, as licentiously, as the coupling pair. Yes, when they roil, the deluge roils. When they sigh, the gusts sigh. When the devil's hips begin to bounce again, and the sweet slap of skin on skin fills the sensual silence with sinful sounds, the monsoon moans and flails and rams against the immoral house: enviously, dangerously angry.
The two pay the tempest little mind, despite its many seeming attempts to scare them, to mock them. Walls cannot talk, and neither can the winds that rage against them, despite the tattle-tale tenor of each scream, each howl. Nature would condemn the unnatural, the pair supposes, no matter how clear they make their intentions. Regardless of how many years pay witness to their depravity. Snow storms, hurricanes, and hail; all manner of weather has taken its turn, plaguing them from season to season. The creature above (grinding, grunting, goring himself) has watched his master grow up in the afterglow of lightening: ethereal flashes of plasma and electricity that illuminate the face of a boy, of a young adult, of a man… Silver-gold highlights haloing a striking, ever-shifting silhouette.
Ephemeral. It is all so ephemeral.
And even now, things are changing. Time marches onward. Summer becomes autumn, showers becomes sunlight, a babe becomes a corpse. The eiderdown wrinkles and sighs as pallid fingers tangle in its rumpled softness, willowy digits twitching with the same contentment as a swaddled child's. But that is the only childlike thing about this human, now— the only childlike thing about their relations. Oh, it is haunting, really, how much the master has changed: like the seasons, like the weather, his existence is entirely transient. Even more so, perhaps, than the rest. Yes, time had offered to morph and to mold him, and he had willingly accepted the Hourglass's offer: allowed the falling sands to hone, to polish, to burnish him anew. A diamond in the rough, invited to ride the winds of change, and he had, he had: just as his butler rides him now, in a glassy-eyed haze of yearning and excitement. Of need. Such need.
Everything needs to change. That is the way of things. Simple, succinct. Only natural.
As a servant of Phantomhive, it is only natural…
The handsome earl chokes on a husky keen, regal voice cracking in his kiss-bruised throat. Crackling and crumbling, as if dried leaves or clay shrines. Like archaic monuments to a God long forgotten; like the mortal's fragile body, a sort of temple all its own: one that will someday erode into dust and ash. Into nothingness. Into another handful of Sand that the creature astride him will personally pour into that Hourglass— into Eternity—, before turning his immortal life on its head once more. (Restart.) And he will watch, helpless, as every last trace of his Master's essence vanishes amidst the sea of human rot: a mixture of bones and flesh that will be indistinguishable from any other.
Everything needs to change. And everything will change. The rains will stop, the world will rotate, his master will die, and he will regress from butler to beast, likely forgetting all of this in the process—his memories buffed blank by those same endless Sands. Buried alive and ground into oblivion. Fleeting. Life is so fleeting.
As is the weather. Already, the storm's fury has dulled, like a temper tantrum that has subsided into a session of soft sobbing. Beneath the butler, bucking hips are calming in kind, an arched back caving in like London Bridge as quiet whimpers and soothing endearments are carried away on baying breezes. Like the world outside the window, the earl and his servant are covered in wetness, now… But unlike the trees and the grasses, they cannot blame the inundating torrents. Pale pearls of moisture bead and glisten on the muscled ridges of their abdomens, the silken valley of the sheets…
"…? Sebastian…? Are you—?"
…and in the corner of the devil's eye, unwillingly dislodged by a bat of long lashes. Crystalline and tepid: a fluid unlike the others. The single droplet of saline rolls down the curve of the creature's angled cheek, then tumbles to dilute the mess upon his master's belly.
A moment. An instant—the Hourglass set upon its side. The human reaches out to touch his monster's face, confusion written upon his own. And oh, he is beautiful, and he is in love, and both transitory traits are reflected back upon himself in the vermillion mirror of the other's endless eyes. The whole of this—of them, of their world, both in and outside of these sullied quarters— is heartbreakingly ephemeral.
A moment. An instant.
And then it is over.
"Hm? Oh. Just a speck of rain, young master."
The sun is peeking through the clouds.
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