There will always come a time when everything comes to an end. The sun will die, and we alongside it, as nothing is ever permanent. We, as habitants of this planet, will die far, far before anything truly begins to go wrong. Before the universe is empty and the last of the supermassive black holes have eaten everything there is to eat, we will exist and we will cease to exist.
Far, far before the universe was plunged into eternal darkness by the lack of planets or stars, there was a boy, actually, there were two boys. They were meant to save and damn mortal kind all the same. They were meant to save and to kill.
Somehow, somewhere, they managed to escape their fates. They managed to derail the cosmic fates and take control of their lives for the first time in human or non-human history.
Their lives began far before either of them were born.
Ciel's life began with his mother and the slow but inevitable deterioration of what made her, her. He was and is but a projection of his parents and surrounding's worst nightmares and best dreams. He is and will forever be an image of his mother's insanity and his father's narcissism. As egregious as that sounds, he was also the best of his environment.
He was his mother's kindness and his father's intelligence, he was his lover's ambition, he was his education's perseverance, and most of all, he was his own role model.
He was his own, but at the same time, he was everyone else's'.
On the other side, Andrea was mostly the worst in everything. He was and is unbalanced to a degree some would consider dangerous. He is more bad than good, and it's difficult to find the good sometimes.
His life began with his happy family and vacations all over the world and all dimensions. But when a child loses its mother, the child is bound to change. Just like Ciel, Andrea was changed when his mother eventually succumbed to a genetic illness.
At first, he didn't understand why he couldn't talk to his mother anymore and why everyone was crying. He didn't know why his dad held him and his sister close to his chest during their final hospital visit. He didn't know until he did know.
He was and is his father's determination but also his anger, he was and is his mother's vitality but also her surrender. He was his education's bias, his sister's stubbornness, his lover's cowardice, and above else, he was his own downfall.
He soaked up every and all emotion he came into contact with and it was difficult for him to understand what was his and what wasn't. Perhaps it was empathy.
Before the two officially met, they knew each other to a certain degree. Correction, they knew of each other, as much as one would know their father's colleague's son.
Ciel knew that the big Mr. Bruschi had a son and that his name was Andrea, and Andrea knew that Mr. Fâcheux had many kids, one of them being the introverted Ciel. They had both seen each other in passing when attending gatherings and galas for the Ten Clans. The first time they would ever interact would be in Celeste: School of the Light & Dark Arts, a school all witch youth would go to.
They had all their classes together, as heirs and family members of Clan Leaders would have separate curriculums and would learn together in a private classroom. They were both sixteen when they first truly became acquaintances.
Most heirs and other Clan kids didn't like either Ciel or Andrea as the former was too introverted and reserved and the latter too loud and incandescent. They first bonded over their classmates' mutual disdain for them and later would grow closer as they were both heirs of their clans.