I know, I meant this to be a oneshot, but... oh the fluff! It's unbearable! And the plot bunnies wouldn't shut up... Thanks to KitKatLove96 for requesting this.
Before I start, I just want to say that I'm not sorry. I'm a jerk. I know.
Enjoy!
Bard is rational. He's the eldest of the three, the most responsible, and it's his job to look out for Finnni and Mey Rin. He knows... He knows he needs to tell them the truth, but... how? How is he supposed to crush their hopes? It's like telling a small child that Santa Claus doesn't exist. He doesn't want to see that little spark, the only thing that still keeps them waking up in the morning, to fade out.
The Young Lord and Mister Sebastian aren't coming back.
He knows this, and he doesn't want to believe it, but his rational mind tells him he has to. Bard knows what exactly the Young master and Mister Sebastian did for the Queen, and in a job like that... Well, if they haven't come back yet, they probably won't. He even took the papers proclaiming the deaths of the missing persons the Earl of Phantomhive and the butler by his side.
"It's the 'zact same," Bard mumbles from the doorway. And it is. The same grand staircase, the same dining room, the same furniture.
Out of habit, Bard's gaze drifts towards the dining room. The door is hanging open on rusty hinges, the smell of years of rotten food drifting faintly from inside. But he still smiles, not at what he sees in his mind's eye, nor at the memories that were created in that dining hall, but at what he sees inside.
A taller shadow, rather, a huge overcoat flicking around the doorway and quickly out of sight and melting into the shadows like they're an old friend's embrace. And Bard smiles at the familiararity of that old cloak, of the face he can remember inside of it.
"Its so... dirty," Finnian sniffs, playing with the hem of his shirt. "Mister Sebastian'd be angry with us."
"We'll clean it up when Mister Sebastian and the Young Master get back, we will," Mey Rin says with surety.
"Well, when'll they be back?" Finni asks through his teary forest eyes.
Bard takes another quick glance at the dining room doorway, peering closely at it for half of a second. He nearly gasps. He could have sworn he saw the flash of a white glove, even, an inhumanly pink eye glowing from the darkness.
"Don't know, Finni, but they'll be back," Bard says truthfully. Maybe not tomorrow, or the next week, or even the next year. But Mister Sebastiana and the Young Lord will be back one day to come and fill the decrepit house with life again.
It's only a matter of time.