A Demons Mate (Black Butler)

Chapter 49 Epilogue

"Sebastian?" Serena dropped her graduation gown and cap as she stared at the demon in the living room.

He moved slowly, taking his time uncrossing his legs and standing from his chair. She was caught again by the predator's grace as he walked toward her. His shoes made no sound on the glossy floor before he stopped in front of her, barely a foot away, leaving the last few inches for her to bridge.

The redhead didn't know what to say. Those last few inches were filled with months of waiting, dreams, rules for behaviour...and the learning of their consequences if broken. It was too far for her to move.

"Your contract is finished?" She shifted in her heels and grabbed a piece of her hair for something to do, something to keep her hands busy so she didn't reach for him. She couldn't, just not yet.

"It was finished shortly after your Fall Festival."

"What?" Serena stared at him while anger built behind the shock of seeing him again. "So, what? You've just been hanging out for the last few months?"

"Serena..." he reached out a hand to placate her.

"No!" She smacked it away and moved to put the island between them for more space to think, more space to vent. "I've been waiting since last summer for you, doubting that you were going to come at all. I've been harassed by Lucien, who hates me now by the way. Mostly because I had too much time on my hands, waiting for you to acknowledge my existence again. I've had my entire wardrobe overhauled by Corrine and her curling iron of doom. Thanks, by the way, for trading Edwin for her. I hope you realize that you got the short end of that particular deal."

"I am aware of it."

"Good for you." She grabbed the bowl on the counter, that normally held fruit in its blue glass confines, and threw it at him. Sebastian ducked the bowl easily, letting it shatter someplace in the darkness behind him. "Where the hell have you been?"

"Interesting way to phrase it. I've been in my own personal hell."

"Oh, don't give me that bullshit."

"I've been waiting for you as I have for over a hundred years."

That made her stop for a moment, made her remember that he had been waiting far longer than she ever could.

"Why?"

Sebastian waved to her outfit. "We once argued that your graduation was important to you when I said that it didn't matter anymore."

"You've been waiting for me to graduate?"

"I thought that was what you wanted. Do you think that I have enjoyed these last months? I've waited for over a century, I've watched your family for generations, waiting for you to be born. I was one of the first people that held you after your birth. And then I waited for you to grow up, each year harder to keep my distance than the last." He came closer and Serena didn't move away. 

"I waited while you tried dating, I waited while you were accepted into college. I watched as a plane carrying you off to Tokyo and, in time, to our first meeting and, eventually your death. I saw that you were coming back before I was ready and tried to keep you busy for those last few weeks before your next semester started and you would be busy again. 

I had planned to keep you busy myself, not to be there in person, of course, but to watch and direct. I couldn't be close anymore and still give you this day. Instead, I was tied here and left to hear about it after the fact. After everything was done after my interference would change nothing." His hands found the island behind her, leaning down to make her look at him, trapping her between himself and the butcher block. "I waited after my contract was finished for you to graduate. Something that was important enough for you to scream at me in the past. I waited, out in those damn trees, for you."