A/N: Alright, well this is the second Kuroshitsuji fanfiction I'm posting... unfortunately, I scribbled this down one morning directly after waking up, so it's certainly not my best. xD
In fact, I'd very much rather you read Eudemon Everlasting, an ongoing story I've been working diligently on for quite sometime! it also features a pairing between Sebastian and Ciel, though it has a completely different take on their relationship than this one exhibits... I'm not sure why I began an author's note, because I don't actually have much to say... Anyhow, I hope that you enjoy it, and I'd love it if you reviewed!
Important Note: This is more of an analysis, and certainly doesn't qualify as detailed smut, if that's what you're looking for!
Song:
Haunted- Evanescence
Warning: I suppose I ought to put a warning on this for mild sexual content, but it's only rated for safety purposes.
Disclaimer: Believe it or not, I didn't wake up this morning as Yana Toboso, so therefore I do not own Kuroshitsuji or its characters.
In the Phantomhive Estate, some things were best left unspoken.
Secrets slithered and slinked and thrived in those halls, secrets that no one ever dared to question. Secrets shrouded by the façade of mundane cheerfulness in the daylight, and cloaked by the banal and farcical cycles mandatory for maintaining the manor.
And this was how it needed to be, for some very bizarre things occurred behind those prestigious and dignified walls.
For example, in any regular mansion, if an ordinary cook set to wandering around the nobles' sleeping quarters long after dinner had been served, it would be unseemly.
However, in the Phantomhive Estate, it would be nothing short of expected that an adroit and armed military officer, moonlighting as a simple chef, would patrol the manor as a guard, at an hour the other servants could not. He would scrutinize the utmost edges of the property from afar, where the unblemished grassy lawns were enveloped by the mantle of darkness cast by the ominous forest that surrounded them. He would scour the insides of the estate itself, even if it meant touring past the bedchambers. Because, no matter the cost, he needed to protect the young master; he didn't often convey his gratitude, but that child had, if inadvertently, been the reason for his and the other servants' salvations.
So if and when he detected the scantest evidence that the boy was endangered, he would run to investigate.
Bard had nearly completed his usual rounds that night, though he had taken a different route that evening, and was exiting one of the balconies he used as a guard's watch; it provided him with a convenient view of the entire landscape on that side of the estate. Not so much as a grass blade stirred on this cool, windless evening, and the stultified lavender hue of the sky faded to a blackish indigo as twilight dissipated into night. Fortunately, another uneventful trek. Since he detected no abnormalities outside, Bard didn't feel especially compelled to look inside, but it was obligatory he do so.
On serene, unassuming days like these, he could avoid meticulous searching, and give each hall in his passing no more than a cursory glance. And, as he swept through the dimly lit hall of the Phantomhive living quarters, that was enough.
At least until he heard a breathless, strangled cry escape his master's bedroom.
The cook blanched, petrified in his tracks, as the blood moved cold and sluggishly through his veins. Had he heard correctly? Hesitantly, he approached the doorway; no, his ears hadn't deceived him. Through the flimsy barrier the wooden doors presented, he discerned a slue of muffled gasps, of barely suppressed whimpers. Ciel's voice was recognizable even through the noises, and Bard couldn't help the daunting fear that seized him. Was the master being strangled? Had an assassin somehow managed to get past him?
Abruptly, Bard was puzzled. This was about the time of night that Ciel would begin preparing for bed, which implied that Sebastian ought to be with him. If the blond had noticed anything in his stay at the estate, it was that the boy's butler was irritatingly infallible. It had long been assumed, through clandestine whispers and the flitting of glances, that there was another component to Sebastian Michaelis, in addition to his dastardly debonairness, a component that made all of his inhuman feats plausible. Yet most of the servants ignored it, not disregarding its existence so much as forcibly keeping it out of mind. After all, some things were best left unspoken, and they could easily deduce from that sinister, incontrovertible crimson gaze that Sebastian would agree with them.
It was a concoction of concern, due to the distressed vocalizations of the earl, and curiosity, over Sebastian's inconsistent omnipresence, which led him to open the door. He rapped softly, silently, with his knuckles, and the door arced open ever so slightly, only a crevice ajar. Cautiously, he moved his cerulean eye to the slit, before flinching in astonishment.
Through the visible sliver, despite how dark it was and how hard he needed to squint, he could see the edge of the earl's opulent bed, and a pair of long legs, clad in ebony slacks, stretched across it, so that the heels of the glossy black shoes still rested on the mattress. Sebastian's legs. The incessant anxious gnawing inside of him transgressed into a clenching in his gut, and he felt his throat constrict, making it impossible to swallow. His heartbeat palpitated loudly enough to rattle his ribcage. Someone, at long last, had somehow bested Sebastian, and now whoever it was had prepared to do away with the young master next. The notion itself was so ludicrous and outrageous that it hardly registered in his mind; even though he could find the butler's aura of superiority and condescension aggravating, it was earned, because he was genuinely undefeatable. If, by some means, he truly was beaten, Bard knew exactly what he needed to do, and he ought to act fast. Ciel Phantomhive could be running out of time, and as one of his guardians, Bard couldn't let his own fear hinder him.
Bard eased his foot through the doorway without so much as a creak, readied to stealthily skulk into the room. He would end the attacker in a single shot. Nevertheless, the instant his head breached the doorway and he had half-entered the room, he recognized that he'd been dead wrong in his assumptions. Even so, it took him a minute to grasp what was actually unfolding.
As the cook's eyes adjusted to the frail light of the candelabra on Ciel's bedside table, he saw that he had been right about Sebastian on Ciel's bed; what he hadn't been prepared for, however, was Ciel on Sebastian. At first, all the blond could see, in the dim light, was the boy's bare back, peculiarly enough; the muscles around his spine and shoulder blades tightened and rippled with his movements, as if he were strained, and sweat sluiced in rivulets off of his skin. Porcelain and slick as his flesh was, he seemed to mirror the candles illuminating him, each gilded droplet of perspiration a bead of melted wax. The apricot candlelight leisurely permeated the room, and, though the impropriety of it made the chef a bit uncomfortable, he could make out the subtle curve of the boy's hips and buttocks, which seemed to sway with his movements; he needed only to trace the form of the legs he had seen earlier before he realized that Ciel was straddling Sebastian. The man lay prostrate on the earl's bed sheets, robed only in his midnight slacks, tie, and dress shoes; the remainder of his wardrobe was folded crisply and stacked at the edge of the bed. The boy gyrated and rolled his hips experimentally as the large hands grasping his sides guided him, his poorly concealed gasps matching up almost rhythmically with the creaking of the mattress. And then Bard understood.
"Yes, young master, just like that," Sebastian purred suavely, sounding a bit too satisfied; Bard had expected the baritone voice to startle him from his reverie, but some insidious undertone in the man's voice churned in Bard's gut, and he felt himself paralyzed, with nothing to do but observe the spectacle. "Though you seem to be a bit out of breath… I'd hate to think that this would be too much for you, so if you'd like—"
"I can do it," Ciel grunted through clenched teeth, cutting him off. Though Bard could not see his face from this angle, the rose flush spread all the way to his ears at the offer. "Maybe it would be easier if you stopped yapping, dog." He clasped the silken black tie hanging loosely about his butler's neck and tugged it harshly, in a way that almost resembled jerking on a leash.
The degrading comment regularly would have elicited at least a glance of mild annoyance from the man beneath him, but tonight Ciel's verbal lashing could portray little more than a slip of composure, and from the victorious, fiendish smirk spreading over Sebastian's features, that was exactly what he intended. It was nothing but a petty remark, because Ciel was losing the very game that he had started, and he knew it.
Ciel had presented a challenge, so tempting yet so foolishly predictable, and Sebastian had willingly taken the bait. But the Earl of Phantomhive had chosen the most insurmountable opponent he could take. Certainly, Ciel was on top, but in a coy position he'd already become accustomed to, to the point that it was hardly daring or dominant at all; and yes, Ciel was the one pulling the strings, commanding with utmost influence and watching the demon obey, but he was not the one in control, and he never had been. The worst part was that he saw his own downfall from the start. By inciting a game with the devil he had woven his own trap, and, despite the too-comfortable atmosphere and lascivious frivolity, every move he made was perilous; this was no game of chess. He was dancing with the demon, an entity more than capable of demolishing all that he was without a second thought, were he to cross a threshold he shouldn't have, and it was all in vain, for he had already pledged his soul to the jackal. He invited Sebastian into the bout of wits, knowing there was nothing to gain. But how could he resist?
What was his goal? To brand Sebastian as his mortal equal, when he damn well knew he wasn't? Perhaps just a fissure, a minute fracture in that ever-present equanimity would do it. If it was grinding against him and rocking his hips torturously slow until he coaxed out an impatient reaction, if it was finding some near-impossible way to make him buckle first, if it was surrendering himself in order to please the demon into fits of all-encroaching passion, the likes of which he had never experienced—whatever it was, if it was enough to uncover even the smallest trace of weakness in those fierce red eyes, it would be worth all of his indignity. Ciel hated losing his games.
From the doorway, the blond man frozen saw none of Ciel's struggle, and even intuition could not persuade him of what was truly happening. An exchange between ruthless beings, a futile and fruitless skirmish for an illusory power that neither of them could fully grasp; the only difference for Sebastian was that, beyond aesthetics, he already owned the other. This was naught but for delight and amusement. But although Bard did not understand, he saw. Permanently ingrained into his memory were those slender hips, highlighted with the honeyed candlelight, flexing and arching as the boy rode his butler; the melted-wax sweat dripping from his youthful body onto a pair of coal-black pants, or onto a flawlessly chiseled abdomen, like carved alabaster; and the horrifying look in Sebastian's eyes, which never left Ciel's flushed face.
Those blood-red irises glinted with shards of light; his breath quickened, uncharacteristically so, as Ciel quickened his pace, but his countenance remained impassive save for a soft smirk. The glare, insidious and treacherous as it was, belonged to an untamable beast; but if Bard had to allocate the look to one of man, he'd say it was the discreet leer of someone who'd gotten exactly what he'd bargained for, and then some. Truly, he was more entertained every day with this stubborn, determined soul, and with the way the boy would risk even his life, with reckless abandon, for piteous games such as these; the boy knew he was endangering himself through taunting and toying with a demon, even if he wouldn't let his own impulsive urges get the best of him. And Sebastian adored it.
There was a sadistic, disdainful gleam in his eye, as if he were really only playing in to Ciel's fancies, but this sharpened in seconds to a glare of devout… hunger. Ciel truly was the most perfect soul the demon feared he would ever come across in his eternity. Sebastian wanted nothing more than to sever and surpass his limitations on the contract, to rip and slash and tear into the beautiful boy, to devour and destroy all that he was, and gorge himself like a glutton on the boy's tender flesh and tantalizing soul. And Ciel knew that was what he wanted, didn't he? Would that not be defined as losing on his end, if that's what the boy was tempting him into? A child who tried to seduce the incubus, but who never reckoned on its willpower.
In the flickering golden glow cast in the heated room, Bard could see this rapt starvation and inhuman desire raging in Sebastian's eyes, coupled with an unexplainable fascination.
Sebastian licked his lips and thrust up into the boy, accentuating his efforts and bucking his hips just enough to urge him to a quicker pace. If it were not for that placid demeanor, if it were not for the physical conviction he held, such mild desperation could almost be interpreted as… impatience. Ciel would never win his game, not in this life or the next, but he crawled closer each day.
As Sebastian knowingly thrust once more, he adeptly struck some sensitive spot inside of the boy, evoking a low moan, before Ciel pinched his eyes shut in concentration; Sebastian utilized the moment of crafted distraction to his own advantage. Turning his head slowly, his eyes fixated onto Bard's in an instant. The blond, regularly undaunted, felt his blood chill when the eerie, unfaltering gaze was interlocked with his, and a shudder rolled down his spine, beads of cold sweat pricking at his skin. Wordlessly, Sebastian lifted a single finger to his lips, which were still stretched into that cunning smile, as if he was shushing him. The butler had known he was there all along; the important thing was that the young master hadn't.
So, without further hesitation, he slid from the doorway silently as he had entered it. Despite the dangerous glint in the other servant's eye, he didn't feel as threatened as he believed he should. Rather, he almost ruminated on how fortunate it was that he had been the one to witness it, even though the notion nauseated him whenever he remembered Sebastian's expression. Had MeyRin been the one to discover them in such a lecherous setting, she certainly would've been bewildered if not incapacitated by her own enthusiasm, which jeopardized her position. And, although Finnian was not as entirely naïve as he conveyed, Bard was well aware that something of this caliber would shock the poor lad from his senses. Though he knew that neither of the other faithful servants would speak of it, even feeble word traveled quickly, and it would be an atrocity if one of Ciel's various enemies caught word that the Earl of Phantomhive was spreading his legs for a butler every night. Bard was, once again in his life, the unfortunate voice of reason.
And it was indisputable that Sebastian hadn't forced himself on him; from the snippets he had caught, the boy was more than willing. If the earl was into older men, so be it; the cook had no right to inquire that. Even knowing this, the information weighed heavily on him, and he felt uncannily detached.
As he continued down the hall, he heard the groans and creaks escalate in volume as the boy caved and hastened the pace. When man's desire perfectly pairs that of a demon's, there is little a mere human can do to resist doing what both of them want, especially if he has his own persuasive devil whispering in his ear.
It wasn't hate, and it wasn't love. It was simply some passion, some mindless, self-encompassing fervor for each other, or for the sensation and release, or for the unattainable triumph. And if it thrashed and writhed and heaved between the sheets, it was as close to silent as it could be, because each of the two beings would die before relinquishing a genuine sound of weakness to the other. And it now fell silent on Bard's ears as well.
Stranger things had happened in the Phantomhive Estate, after all.
And some things were best left unspoken.