Disclaimer: Rights to Kuroshitsuji belong to its creator.
WARNING: slight OOCs and a little AU.
"Young master Ciel, we have to leave!"
Tanaka can recall the night of the fire with crystal clarity.
"Young master!"
The young master had refused to leave his parents to doom. So Tanaka had to grab the boy and unceremoniously carry him out of the burning mansion. He had closed his hand over the young master's eyes and felt tears dampen his sooty gloves. He remembers hugging the young master because he would not stop screaming for his parents. He also remembers being beaten to within an inch of his life before his assailants took the young master away.
This is Tanaka's story.
Tanaka
1 September 2009
Tanaka wakes up with a jolt, wide-eyed and perspiration beading his wrinkled forehead. He wipes it off with the sleeve of his cotton pajama and sits up in the dark. Next to him, Bard and Finny are snoring peacefully. Tanaka reaches for the water on his bedside stand and gulps it down.
It has been ages since he had that nightmare.
If only the entire fire had merely been a nightmare. How glorious then life would be. The Earl and his missus would still be alive. Young master Ciel would have remained that adorable laughing creature who gave hugs as freely as smiles. The Phantomhive family would be thriving.
It took only one night for the Phantomhive family to be condemned to hell.
After the young master had been taken away from him, Tanaka had slept for a long time due to the injury to his head. In his sleep, he saw dark figures with red eyes and grins stretched to the point of eeriness. They taunted him, ridiculed his life, and mocked the Phantomhive family. Tanaka beat them away and was glad when he finally woke up. But by that time, the world had changed, and one of the red-eyed figures from the nightmare had crossed over to his waking reality.
"My name is Sebastian Michaels. How do you do?"
Tanaka closes his eyes. He knows all that is happening, but he doesn't know what to do. He should've protected the young master; should've kept him from harm. But he is not capable of separating a demon from his prey. No one is. And from the looks of it, the young master is willing prey.
The young master is going to hell.
The thought hits him more than once. Once, when he saw the demonic symbol etched in the young master's right eye. Once, when he heard the young master dispassionately order the assassination of a drug cartel. Once, when he realised that the young master was gasping in the middle of dinner because Sebastian was under the table, between his legs.
Tanaka had tried asking Sebastian to stop it, isn't it enough that you have his soul?
But Sebastian merely smiled coyly and retorted, "How can I when it's the young master who asked so sweetly?"
So Tanaka has no choice but to look away. He bites his lip when the young master orders Sebastian to his study alone, walks out of the room when he sees the young master perched on Sebastian's lap, naked from the waist down; plugs his ears with cotton every night and takes some medicine to go to sleep.
Tanaka opens his eyes and from the window, sees the morning sun break the horizon.
The only consolation in this whole situation is probably the fact that the demon actually loves the young master. Sebastian tries to hide it but Tanaka sees the way Sebastian sometimes look at the young master; how he brushes his cheek in his sleep and how his touches linger.
But it appears that Sebastian hasn't even realised this himself. He continues on as if such love and loyalty are inherent in every English butler, and the young master lets him do so because there's nothing wrong with the current arrangement.
Morning approaches.
Tanaka takes out the cotton balls from his ears just in time as Sebastian enters the room to throw Bard and Finny out of bed. Their eyes meet for a brief second. Sebastian smirks and Tanaka smiles mirthfully.
Tanaka knows everything. Sebastian knows that Tanaka knows everything and is impressed. After all, Tanaka was once the sole butler of the Phantomhive family. As a butler to the Phantomhive family, it is only natural that he is capable of such a feat.
A/N: Thanks for reading. Sorry if I've ruined Tanaka for some of you!