Disclaimer: I don't own anything, really. It's sorta pathetic.
Author's Note: The last episode gave me a whole ton of ideas. Here's a nice mesh of them. X3
Warnings: Spoilers through the end of the anime series. Probably fairly confusing. Light Sebastian/Ciel.
XXX
Spider Web
XXX
I.
White marble crumbles into dust.
Sparks glimmer like fireflies.
He wants to kiss him.
II.
He loves him.
It does not surprise him; he expected nothing less. Theirs are hearts, minds, souls that have been bound together, and are now tightly tied by the red thread of fate. Each order, each comment, each glance strengthens those chains, and Sebastian can see the boy slowly starting to suffocate—choked by needs and wants and strange, foreign desires.
He understands the feelings—reciprocates them, even. But where the sensations seem to frighten his master, they do not bother him. They are simply additional strings: something else the young Earl has constructed to link them.
His master does not yet understand how knotted he is in the demon's web. At this point, it seems likely that he will never understand, never connect the millions of tiny, invisible, perfectly obvious dots. For the more the child loves, the more Sebastian loves, and the more ensnarled they become. Intertwined and helpless… neither will survive once the spider returns.
No.
The young Count Phantomhive— beautiful and stubborn and proud and weak, weak, weak, weak— will die. Someday distant, someday soon. And when he takes his final breath, he will not be the only one to perish: the butler Sebastian will also cease to exist.
And the demon that remains will care as little for the child's rotting corpse as he would for any other piece of human filth.
III.
He balances precariously on a single, blood-stained hand.
Dark grey lashes lower to a close.
He wants to kiss him.
IV.
There is no need to dive after the body. No need to risk the dangers of the Thames to secure one fragile cadaver. The boy's soul is interlaced with his own, and would follow accordingly—there is no way for him to escape, no matter where he might try to run.
Until the contract has been fulfilled, the bonds will not loosen. Never loosen. Always tightening, even in death: cutting deep into flushed flesh, raising welts and blood and leaving one struggling for oxygen, spitting up pollution-tainted river water in the first light of dawn.
There is no need for the body.
And yet…
V.
The child leans back, consenting and sure and every inch the master he's always adored.
He touches that fearless face—gently, tenderly, caressing the silk skin he's fought so hard to protect.
He wants to kiss him.
So he does.
VI.
He will never forget the screams.
VII.
Time passes slowly in the wake of excitement.
The demon squanders away the decades, watching in mild amusement as the modern world falls victim to the plagues and problems of the old one. But with so much more gusto. So much more fire.
He wanders the streets of London, spreading corruption, avarice, lust, and vices, vices, vices as he goes. But mortals hardly need his help for that; he pauses in an alley, and calmly observes a brutal rape.
For reasons he can't explain, his mind wanders backwards, recalling a summoning circle.
VIII.
He feels eyes upon his back. Watching as he paroles the cities.
He ignores the gaze and presses on.
IX.
The demon does not sleep, and therefore does not dream. But there is a memory, or illusion, or some kind of hazy vision dancing just behind his clock-spring lashes, waiting to pounce whenever he closes his eyes. It lingers there, almost-tangible and almost-obvious, always just out of his grasp.
Yes, something in his subconscious is niggling away at him, prodding at his mind with an annoying sort of insistence.
"What's wrong?" the prostitute purrs, her ugly face coated in layers of filth and sweat and makeup. She lovingly touches his scowling face, the fingers of one hand and slipping through hair and brushing over cheeks and dusting across his half-closed eyes.
The prodding intensifies.
He smiles beautifully, his own hands touching her throat.
"Nothing at all."
But she is already dead.
X.
Something is screaming.
He does not know if it is a man, woman, child, animal. He does not know, and he does not care enough to find out. What they are does not matter; what they are has never mattered. All he wants is for them to scream more, scream harder, scream like—
The body breaks.
There is silence.
XI.
The eyes remain.
Like the sepia-hued daydreams that linger as cantarella traps in the back of his brain, the unfamiliar presence nags at his subconscious.
Something is following him.
XII.
He is not Sebastian.
XIII.
"Y—you said you'd serve me…!"
He watches, apathetic, as the small boy trembles, trying to flee. It must be difficult for him, the demon muses, seeing as he's barely able to stand…
("You live to serve me, Sebastian.")
The unheard voice comes from nowhere, everywhere— the demon blinks, starts. Then he smirks, meandering forward; his blood-splattered heels echo deliciously in the darkness of this cement prison, this grisly basement.
Out of passing curiosity, he examines the quivering brat— an average specimen: cursed with average looks, average intelligence, and average stupidity. As if in testament to this, he still holds the knife, wet with the blood of his parents. Like a well-loved teddy bear, he clutches it to his heaving chest.
As if it might protect him now.
The boy whimpers again, backed into a corner. "You… you promised…" he whispers, choking on tears and spit.
("I am not like humans.")
"Did I?" A smirk. A chuckle. Dark amusement oozes from the spectral creature, taking the form of shadows and silhouettes. And as he reaches out a slender hand, a hand made sharp by five pointed talons, he breathes:
"Boy, I am a demon…"
("I will not lie to you.")
"Lying is what I do."
It is a meager meal, but a meal all the same.
XIII.
He is not. Not. It is not possible to be. And he knows this: embraces this, is thankful for this. But still the eyes watch him, and still his hand burns, and still and the red thread tightens, choking him from the inside out.
XIV.
But why? There is no answer. Nor should there be, for logic states that he is not. Is not. And never will be Sebastian again.
XV.
The demon waits.
He sits on a stone bench, still and silent, and he waits.
He does not know for what. He does not know for whom. All he knows is that he has been waiting since the day 'Sebastian' died, and no amount of feasting or fooling has managed to distract him from this reluctant reality.
There is a sudden, unexpected tapping on his foot. A soft poking: a personification of the prodding in his mind. The demon arches an eyebrow, glancing downward.
Red eyes meet sapphire, and he cannot mask his surprise.
XVI.
Quoth the raven, 'Nevermore.'
XVII.
The grey kitten stares regally at the demon, lazy and proud and utterly unafraid of the monster before it.
Instinct takes over; the demon leans forward, a dusty and long-forgotten affection squeezing its way through the cracks of his withered heart… But the feeling is destroyed with a hiss and a flurry of claws, fading to a dull ache as the dark-furred animal races away, merging with the night.
In that instant, for that moment, for that millisecond in time, the demon knows. And once—just this once, for this instant, this moment, this millisecond— he admits to the truth.
He misses his young master.
XVIII.
Hours and days and months and years are meaningless concepts to him.
He walks, moving in and out of realities, up and down forever-cobbled streets, watching the scenery he knew change and change and change again.
He is the one and only constant in the world.
XIX.
Nevermore…
XX.
"Hello, again."
The blue eyed cat watches him noiselessly, preening its silk-grey coat as the demon wanders towards its corner. A tower of soggy boxes stashed in the London back alley has made the creature a safe and relatively-dry home; it lounges inside the cardboard construction like a king in his castle, its jewel-bright eyes glistening like a treasure in a chest.
"You've been following me."
The cat continues grooming. The demon crouches low, watching the magnificent creature as it stubbornly ignores him.
For some unexplainable reason, the rudeness makes him smile.
XXI.
He is not…
XXII.
It is nothing more, or less, than an ordinary outdoor cat.
He pokes its plush-pink paw-pads, and strokes its glossy fur, and cuddles it as he used to snuggle another pretty feline in his life, his mind drifting back to the blossoming gardens of centuries past. And as his thoughts wander, he remembers roses, and orchards, and white stone angels— marble that crumbles to dust.
His freezes mid-squeeze, overcome by a distant, familiar, and wholly-impossible longing.
XXIII.
He…
XXIV.
I want to kiss...
XXV.
Who is he?
XXVI.
The cat follows him like a second shadow— lurking in side streets and hiding behind store signs, but most certainly and noticeably there. And the demon must admit, he finds himself amused by this bizarre situation, this perpetual game of hide-and-go-seek.
In the back of his mind, something continues nudging at him. The same something, he assumes, that makes him think about giving his feline companion a name. Just for irony's sake.
But the only name suitable for the cat is one that he cannot bring himself to say, and nick-naming an animal "young master" is a ludicrous notion.
XXVII.
He dangles the spare thread before the aging creature, watching as it paws and spits and gets annoyed with the cheeky piece of string.
Inside, the demon can feel similar threads weaving slowly around his heart, squeezing it tighter and tighter and tighter…
XXVIII.
There is something wrong.
XXIX.
The moon rises, the moon falls.
("I made a vow on the moon.")
He watches it from the rooftops, eyes on the sky as a silky specter loops lazily around his legs, mewling. Its little cries grow louder as the silver orb swells, and vanish with the disk as it is swallowed by darkness.
("On a moon that waxes and wanes?")
Only now, so many years later, does the demon begin to understand.
The moon may wax and wane, but it never disappears.
XXX.
There is nothing wrong.
XXXI.
Someone is screaming.
Bitter and deep and long and loud—a sonorous sound that rings with frustration and fury, with long-lost sorrow, with the rage of one who feels they have been tricked.
It takes the demon a moment to realize the voice is his own.
XXXII.
He is not Sebastian.
But, at the same time, he is not not Sebastian.
XXXIII.
It is only a cat.
XXXIV.
Something within him is shifting. As the starlight grows bright, turns dull, grows bright, turns dull—he can feel his reality turning. And he realizes that this change has been long-coming; he looks back and knows the clues have been there all along: millions of tiny, invisible, perfectly obvious dots he failed to connect.
They were bound. They are bound.
They have always been one.
Even in death, the chains don't fade. The orders, the comments, the lingering glances connect them still: twining the two, weaving the two, leaving the two trapped in such a tangled web that even an eternity of struggling cannot, will not, free them. And now their souls are closer than ever: one diffused into the other, taking over from within.
He can feel the boy inside of him. He, he who has eaten millions of souls, can feel that one struggling within himself: refusing to die, to fade, to submit, even now.
Their contract is everlasting.
And as long as there is a young master, there will always be a Sebastian.
XXXV.
He is starting to think that the boy understood.
XXXVI.
Death is inevitable.
Long, black talons gingerly stroke dull fur, as if trying to revive a hint of the lustrous sheen lost with youth. But it is a wasted effort, rewarded only by the weakest of purrs. The poor animal is tired.
"I could kill you, if you like," he says quietly, and even he is unsure whether or not this offer is genuine, or merely a pathetic attempt at sadistic comfort. It does not matter; it is a cat, and does not respond.
Only a cat.
The demon cocks his head, musing. He tilts the cat's heavy chin, so that eyes of sharp crimson and cloudy cobalt meet.
"I wonder how a cat's soul would taste?"
The creature gives a lazy flick of its tail. Despite everything, the gesture manages to convey a hint of exasperated condescendence—a threat and a snort. It makes the demon chuckle.
With that, the cat nuzzles briefly into his warm hand, gives one last, affectionate purr, and passes on.
XXXVII.
Demons do not cry.
And while he sheds no tears, he is still left wondering if he is even a demon anymore.
XXXVIII.
He loves him.
It surprises him. And yet, it does not surprise him—he should have expected nothing less. The reason he'd wanted the child's soul in the first place was for its extraordinary nature; why had he assumed that the soul would change its disposition after consumption? Why, when he knew first-hand how twisted they'd become, how absorbed in one another?
Theirs was a contract the likes of which he had never before employed, and would never employ again.
And perhaps that is why. Perhaps that is the answer. Perhaps that is the reason he is no longer the demon he once had been. Nor is he the demon he thought he was. And he is not Sebastian, either—not fully, not completely.
But partly. Partly. And that's enough: just as the moon waxes and wanes and never vanishes, neither will the memories. His feelings. The small boy's spirit. That portion of him—however small—will remain forever, alive and well within the context of the young Earl's eternal soul.
And that part of him will always love his master.
XXXIX.
It was only a cat.
Not a reincarnation, not a replacement, not a twist of fate.
Only a cat.
But he has always loved cats.
XXXX.
There is no marble in the cemetery—only stone. Only dust. And the sparks that light the twilight sky are not flickers of fire, but true fireflies.
He sets the tiny creature's corpse beside a statue of a white angel, its wings outstretched and open wide.
Amidst the singing crows, the demon remembers…
I.
White marble crumbles into dust.
Sparks glimmer like fireflies.
He wants to kiss him.
II.
He loves him.
XXX