Chapter 24

Mey-Rin hadn't noticed many external wounds upon changing Sebastian's clothes; nothing but bruises that indicated that he had been bound up by something. However, that didn't change the fact that his once clean, crisp, white dress shirt Nina had tailor for him was now drenched him his own blood. Of course, she'd removed blood stains from the butler's clothes before, but the amount that had been spilled on this shirt frightened her. How was it that Sebastian was even still alive?

The maid pushed that thought out of her head as she pulled another clean, white dress shirt from Sebastian's wardrobe. But this was one of his larger ones; the dress shirts he'd wear before this situation occurred. It would be much too large for him. But it was already late; long past dinnertime and the sun had set a long time ago.

At the least, Sebastian could use this as a nightshirt.

Quickly and quietly, Mey-Rin slipped the garment on Sebastian's sleeping form. It was like changing the clothes of a ragdoll; the butler's limbs were limp and slid into the over-sized sleeves with ease.

After fitting the shirt on him, Mey-Rin tucked Sebastian into his bed and left him to rest. When she stepped out of his room, she realized Ciel had been standing there the whole time.

"I'm sorry, sir." She piped, realizing she had almost collided with the earl.

"Never mind it." Ciel said, lifting a hand to stop a stuttering explanation to come babbling from the maid's mouth.

Mey-Rin nodded and looked back over to Sebastian, "Are you sure he's alright?"

"Yeah, that angel just roughed him up a bit, is all. Just clean up that shirt before the blood dries and it becomes harder to remove."

"Yes, sir."

The maid picked up the shirt and trotted off to clean it as she had been told, while Ciel entered his butler's room and sat down in a chair beside him.

"For once, it was you who needed saving." He said, "Now I know how you felt whenever I got my arse kidnapped. What a bother…"

A hand strayed from Ciel's side and stoked the top of Sebastian's head. His skin was soft and warm and his hair felt downy; like the feathers that filled his pillows.

A smile appeared on Ciel's face as he stood and made his way towards the door.

"Good-night, Sebastian."

Ciel went to bed that night later than usual. He hadn't had supper, or tea, or dessert; not even a cup of warm milk flavored with honey. This whole day had exhausted him, and he no longer cared about sweets or tea. What really mattered to him now was putting this day behind him and waiting for Sebastian to get better.

He dressed himself him his night clothes and set his eye patch aside and it wasn't long after he was buried under the covers that he drifted off to sleep.

"Young master, it is time for you to wake up."

It was the same greeting that woke Ciel up every morning. But here was something about this particular occasion that just didn't seem natural.

Ciel hadn't even opened his eyes, even after the curtains were pulled open and the blinding sun flew into his face. He was still trying to identify the voice that was in the room with him. It was low and dark. It wasn't Lucifer. It wasn't Tanaka or Bardroy. And Sebastian's voice was…

Ciel opened his eyes. To his astonishment, it was Sebastian who was in the room. He wasn't the ten year old he remembered watching as he slept last night. No, Sebastian, as it was considered, was back to normal. Older, taller, and he was carrying that clever smirk on his face.

"Come on now, Young Master." He chuckled, "You have a very busy day today."

Ciel shot up in bed and looked at himself. the bed had gotten bigger… no, he had gotten smaller. He grabbed his ring from the dresser beside him and slid it onto his ring finger, only to find it didn't fit like it had the day before. It was far too big for that finger. Carefully, Ciel slid it onto his thumb, and it fit just like it had had before. He picked up his eye patch and carefully tied it to his face, and he found himself with more sting than he had yesterday.

The earl was puzzled. It was as if everything that had happened yesterday and all the days before, where he was the older one and Sebastian was the smaller, weaker one, had never happened in the first place.

"Is something the matter, master?" Sebastian asked.

"It's strange…" Ciel said. Even his voice had gone back to the way it had sounded just a week ago, "That had to be the strangest dream I've ever had."

Sebastian chuckled, "I'm afraid what happened yesterday, the day before, and the day before that had been no dream. Things are as they should be, now. Now, let's get you dressed. I've made scones to go along with your breakfast."

Ciel shook his head, "How could have things gone back? I thought Lucifer said it was only the angel who could turn us back."

"Indeed, sir, and Angela's dead. A spell is a tricky thing. If the caster is killed and the spell is still in effect, then everything and everyone the spell affected goes back to the way it was."

Nodding, Ciel allowed himself to get dressed and he drank his morning tea.

"Where is Lucifer, anyway?" he asked.

"My father has returned back to Hell." Sebastian explained, "It seemed once he knew we'd gone back to normal he was sure his services were no longer needed."

"And what about the others? Do they know about this?"

"Yes, and it came to quite a shock to them; Bardroy, most of all."

Ciel couldn't help but chuckle at the thought, and he thought of how much better things were going to get. Sure, he was bound to be kidnapped more often and Sebastian would be the one to save him, but he didn't care about that now because Sebastian could protect him and protect himself.

"What's on my schedule today?" he asked.

"At ten you have a meeting, and a noon Lady Elizabeth plans on visiting, and at two, I planned on continuing your dance lessons…"

Meetings, dance lessons, and his fiancée coming over to visit; it was as if life around the Phantomhive manor had gone completely back to normal.

Ciel sat in his study alone. It wouldn't be long before he had to go to the meeting, but he decided he wanted some peace to himself for a while more. It wasn't that, necessarily as he reached into his desk drawer and pulled out the photograph he had taken with Talbot's camera.

In the picture Sebastian laid in bed in his ten year old form, sound asleep with his mother and father lying along beside him. The picture still made Ciel smile, and it was surviving proof of what had happened to him and his butler. They had switched places. Now the both of them knew what it was like to be in each other's shoes, and Ciel had learned things about his butler that he hadn't known or bothered to know before.

His attention was drawn away from the picture by the sound of laughter; Sebastian's laugher.

The earl wheeled around in his chair and scooted himself to see what was happening. As usual, the butler was in the garden, in the rose patch. He lay sprawled on his back, once again being swarmed by Blue Morpho Butterflies. Sebastian didn't bother rolling or try fighting off the shimmering blue swarm and Ciel watched as butterfly after butterfly settled on Sebastian's body, opening and shutting their wings in a steady pattern:

Open and closed, open and closed; blue to brown, blue to brown.