Work Text:
1888
Things progressed smoothly, far moreso than could have ever been expected when the project first began.
Ciel Phantomhive returned to the Phantomhive Manor three years after he had supposedly died along with his twin brother. He reappeared with a caretaker, one with long white hair and bright green eyes. He was weak, then. His health was poor, but his resolve was firm. Before the year was out, he'd already begun to make progress towards restoring his family's title, land, and honor.
Assailants came from all walks of life and death. Would-be assassins stalked the manor by night, and in their tow were reapers looking to make sense of the dead who had begun to move on their own. For the living, he hired mercenaries of exceptional capability.
For the dead, the demon turned out to be a most useful pawn indeed, as no mere mortal would have been able to drive them off.
His supply of blood, for the transfusions he needed to stay alive, was steady. Elizabeth stayed by his side as often as she could to support him when he couldn't move about as freely.
He told her what he held most dear, that which he aspired to achieve. She saw the bitterness and ache in his eyes. She knew he had seen more than anyone should in a lifetime, but he grew restless and irritated when she asked, so she learned not to. She understood enough.
There was a crash in that dark room, when the earl threw over a metal cart and the porcelain tea set atop it shattered on the floor. His caretaker watched with a blank expression, perched on the bed next to the transfusion machine.
"It's not enough," the earl had said. His face was dusted red and his breath came fast and hot. His hands shook. "Not soon enough. Can we not move more quickly?"
"No, my little earl," his caretaker responded. "Your blood is rare. There is not enough, not yet. You must be patient. I have kept my promise."
Those voices... one was so familiar, and the other wasn't, but he'd heard them before. They faded in and out, swirling around vicious red and an endless black.
1890
Time was an amorphous, meaningless thing.
"Poor thing," Lizzie said, somewhere in the void. He felt her weight. "Please return to us soon. If for no one else, then for Ciel."
The Queen’s Watchdog was brilliant and executed her wishes without fail. He used her summons for his own purposes as often as he could, and the Sirius Project flourished. Before long, the Earl Phantomhive restored the vast network of connections his predecessor once had. All of it was for a singular purpose, one that the Earl poured all of his resources into. The Sirius Project was reaching its pinnacle, which meant that its next phase, Procyon, was on the horizon. Everything hinged on the success of Procyon. Everything.
The Procyon phase was threatened time and time again. Perhaps the worst was in the winter, when the reaper garbed in red severed the transfusion lines. The manor was in an uproar during the assault, though the demon ended it swiftly. In the days following, the Earl was more agitated than ever. His fuse was short and he was dangling over fire.
That attack didn’t feel like an attack, not to its target. It was more red, the same horrible red, that painted every wall and all the floors. He was in that same cage, living in his last memory, unable to escape. His constitution was poor. He was nearly lost that night and it made no difference.
Ciel grieved all over again, sobbing into pristine white sheets that hadn’t been disturbed for nearly two years. The Earl was grateful that all was not lost, but he was not glad. His patience turned as thin as paper.
The demon lurked in Procyon’s shadow. The echoes of its terrible voice, of the sound it made when it walked across the tile floor, was never far away. He was as present as the Earl himself, perhaps even moreso. There was no soul for him to steal, not here. Still… he stayed to watch what was to be a challenge on the laws of nature. A good many souls would be ripe for the picking if tragedy struck. As with all interventions from beings beyond the mortal plane, tragedy would surely follow. The only thing that remained to be seen was when, and to what order of magnitude.
The Earl grew restless. At the turn of the new year, he set out to establish a new company– Funtom Co., a toymaker, one that he and his brother had spoken of when they were young. It felt childish, and beneath him, but he was desperate and thought perhaps… perhaps those ambitions would somehow breathe life back into the stagnation of the Sirius Project. It was more difficult to maneuver now that he had everything to lose, but his caretaker promised again and again that no more Phantomhives would be lost.
Ciel wondered if perhaps those words of comfort were actually an admission of failure, but he held his tongue. They just needed more time, just a little more time.
1891
Ciel grew busier than ever in the months preceding his sixteenth birthday. With Lizzie, he began to plan a wedding. He continued to pour all his resources into the Sirius Project, which made a breakthrough come summer. The air in the manor changed in the balmy heat of the countryside: all was forgotten save the Queen’s direct requests and the Sirius Project, which officially began work on its next, and final, phase. The toy company was all but forgotten, left to operate with its own devices. Its ownership left a void at the very top, as the Earl demanded.
It’s almost time to wake up, young master. Wait just a little longer.
In his mind, there wasn’t anything to wake up from. The flashes of recognition– not quite memory, for they were far too vague to be memory, and had no true connections to any other event– were still brief lapses in the world he lived in. It was the very last second, like a frozen breath in the winter. It was endless, but it had already passed. It was a bolt of lightning. He heard familiar voices, but they felt unreal, something he could barely comprehend.
His dreams returned to him, slowly but surely, offering him something new from the steel and blood. In them, he couldn’t make much out, but he started to remember things of the past. Everything he saw was cast in the shadow of the demon, whose vivid pink eyes never left him. There was no escape. He never had in the first place.
The manor collectively held its breath in the late fall, at that time where the chill of winter crept over barren ground and heralded the snow that was to come. The day had finally arrived, the day the Earl had spent six years working towards. He was beside himself with joy, but also had a voice in the back of his mind that tormented him, eager to call the whole thing an utter failure. He swung violently between utter joy and crushing dread as he was unable to reconcile them. He hadn’t slept since he’d been told.
It's your turn, now, young master. You may wake up.
Relief finally came in the shape of a warm hand on his cheek. When he opened his eyes, the world was out of focus, but he recognized the mirror image he saw leaning over him. They'd always been identical: even their parents had confused them for one another. Their personalities were the only thing to set them apart.
Ciel's eyes watered, threatening tears. He looked as though he could barely breathe.
"I told you," he said. His face came into focus, and time began again in earnest for the one he'd almost lost. "I told you I'd take us both back home. That we'd always be together."
He choked on a breath. He let go of his inhibitions and drew his younger brother up into a hug, as tight as he dared, since he knew their battle was not yet over. It never would be.
"Welcome back, Etoile," he whispered. "We'll never be apart again."