Hospital For Souls (M i c h a e l i s) [Kuroshitsuji 3]{Completed}

Chapter XX (iii): 'He looks just like you. He has your eyes.'

 I said I loved you as I left you.

Regrets no longer in my head,

But I promised you and now I'm home again.

I'm home again, 

I'm home again.

There's something underneath him. It's wood, cold wood, and it smells musty, old; centuries old. Smooth and worn down, the once deep grooves now bare impressions in the boards.

It must be a floor, then.

With a soft groan, he sits up, shaking his thick grey hair back over his shoulders as he tries to take in his surroundings. He feels.... cold, colder than usual, and he has the most horrendous pain in his neck. He reaches up to touch it, then, rubbing his hand across it, and his fingernails scratch into his flesh easily, satisfying.

He's in the parlor. But -- how can this be? Only moments ago he was -- the castle, and -- Charlotte. Undertaker reaches for the edge of his marble mortuary slab and hauls himself up, staggering for the door. He can't be back in the parlor. Which means he is somewhere else. And if he is somewhere else, then that means -- 

"Papa!"

He freezes.

There's a tiny voice coming from behind him and he twists, on the heel of his boot, only to be confronted with a row of coffins, as is usual. Oak, mahogany, ash, and even bronze for those who venture to spend a little more than they have left in their pockets. But -- but, he couldn't have sworn that --

"Papa, hurry up and find me. It's dark in here!" The small voice complains, and it is muffled, muffled by something cloth, and could it be -- 

No, it couldn't. Surely there wasn't a child hiding in one of his coffins?

Undertaker steps forward hesitantly, pushing his hair from his eyes. This is nothing like the afterlife he's ever visited. Then again, the only heaven and hell he knows exist between rows and columns of bookshelves, so who can he be to judge? Maybe there was another place, a special place, for reapers. Such as an alternate reality, bent and suited to his will. Of course. That had to be it. Why it was so quiet, and he couldn't hear anything -- not the sounds of carriages rattling across flagstones, of the hoarse chatter of Londoners passing by outside his door -- but the voice.

He confronts a black coffin, and knocks on the varnished wood. There's a little giggle from the other end of the row, and he begins to pace down it, knocking on each and every coffin, coming closer and closer until --

"You found me!"

With a squeal, something comes tumbling out and attaches itself onto Undertaker's legs, burying its face in his pants legs. As though he were in a trance, he bends down and picks the child up by its armpits -- or rather, his armpits. It's a little boy, with a mop of messy black curls and the most curious, acid-green eyes.

"Yes. I found you," he says, chewing on the words as the boy beams at him. "And you... you are Adrian."

"And you're Papa," Adrian says slowly,  reaching for Undertaker with his short arms. "It took you so long to find me! I looked out, and you weren't there, Papa, for such a long time. It musta been years. Mummy went too. And I waited and hided, and then I looked out again and you were there on the floor! Were you sleeping?"

"I --" A curious sound begins to bubble up in Undertaker's throat, and... and he starts to laugh, laugh at this caution of a child. "Yes. Yes, my darling, I was sleeping. What about you? Did you have a nice sleep in my coffins, hm?"