The first time it occurred to him, it was a cozy Sunday morning. He was warm and comfortable like only a good night's rest could make, and he relished this because Lady Elizabeth Phantomhive was on a trip in France at that time, and therefore he had the whole bed to himself.
The slow season brought about with it a wonderful lack of duty and urgency.
Golden sunlight poured in from windows freed of curtains, and Ciel took breakfast in bed along with the daily newspaper, but he wasn't reading it. He was propped up on goose-feather pillows, asking Sebastian questions lazily between nibbles of scone.
Questions like, "Is there a God?" or maybe "What does a soul taste like?" and even "Can you be exorcised?"
Sebastian entertained his enquiries, but the answers he received were less than satisfying: "If you believe in Him", "That would depend on the soul", "Would you truly want to exorcise me, young master?"
And then Ciel asked, "What makes a demon?" He meant how demons were created, but-
"What classifies a human?" was the question shot back at him.
Humans aren't evil like you are, Ciel was about to say, but then he remembered the screams and chains and masks with no eyes, the smell of burning skin and painpainpain - he blanched.
Sebastian chuckled. "Really, are we that different from each other?"
.
There was a shadow which drifted from room to room, always lingering at the edge of Ciel's peripheral vision, always lurking in the back of his mind. From time to time it spoke, about what he wanted, and every time it made an offer which he would inevitably decline.
It only appeared when Sebastian wasn't there. Or maybe it was Sebastian himself. Ciel didn't really know anymore.
