Hello there! This one shot is inspired by Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, which I recommend to listen if you'd like to read this story! Thanks for your attention and enjoy the reading!
A solid shadow behind the column; like as a predator in the hunters' land, the Trancy butler was hiding, just due to mere fiction and formality, knowing perfectly that they both localized each other. He slipped out the darkness as he was weightless, walking on a spider web. A thin thread could have broken under the weight of an adult man, but rather it was accompanying his steps, silent steps, on the marble hall.
"Welcome. To be honest, I wasn't waiting for your arrive" resounded in the hall Sebastian's calm voice, dressed with a sneering note, perhaps also bothered.
The answer didn't come late. "Thank you for welcoming me" cold and impersonal, as usual. Curious fact, Claude wasn't wearing spectacles that night.
Secretly irritated, Sebastian didn't bat an eye and neither he showed a sign of losing composure. "To what I owe the pleasure of your visit?"
"Rather unexpected.."
"...To what I owe the pleasure of your rather unexpected visit?" he repeated. Another few instants and he would have kicked the other out of the main door.
"I was in need to have a little talk."
"Be brief and concise."
"I fear you're asking me a hard task" Claude answered vaguely back. He began to move some steps around Sebastian, a strange behavior, but almost as a consequence, Sebastian moved the same steps.
Two panthers were walking in a circle inside the marble garden.
"Such inappropriate words for a Trancy butler..!" a touch of covert irony in Sebastian's voice.
"Such an inappropriate hour to be still awake, Sebastian."
"I don't need to sleep as much as you do, Claude."
"I agree with you" the circle was narrowing from line to line, but not just a single sound of footsteps was audible, neither a sole's squeak.
"Moreover, I wouldn't be much help to my master while sleeping."
The shadow of an irking smile took form on Claude's face, made more pale and ghastly by the nocturnal semidarkness due to the candles' dim light.
"Your master…" such a smarmy whisper, pronounced by such a soft music like the other's voice..!
A rush of disgust pervaded Sebastian. "If that's the reason for you setting foot here, I should politely ask you to leave" it was the reply calmly spelled, keeping moving in circle, more and more narrow.
"Your master" that smarmy, pompous pitch once again! Sebastian would have gladly bitten off his tongue… "Isn't the topic of conversation I'd like to deal with, tonight." The circle within they were walking didn't exist anymore, now standing up in front of each other.
"I presume you'd like to tell me about your spectacles, which I see you aren't wearing" and which make you look like a fish, though the Phantomhive butler.
"You own such a poor imagination" apathetic, he accused the other.
"Probably it doesn't equal your lack of delicacy, Claude."
Sebastian could have sworn that he heard him laughing in the asleep mansion. However, not a single muscle moved on the spider's face. Obviously.
"Neither your stubbornness."
"Oh. I think it's the only situation where both of us are equal" he lowered his eyes with a sarcastic smile. The conversation begun to be tiring, but otherwise he couldn't end it.
"It's very probable" Claude moved a step forward and the other demon imitated the action, coming close to his face, which he was peering severely. Unwanted intruder, vanish in the wake where you came from, said the mask of annoyance hung from the pale face.
"The way you dodge my claim is almost interesting, Claude."
"Claim?" just a little distance was separating them, even though it was nothing compared to another kind of it. More distant, in the same time more close then the almost touching faces.
"Be brief and concise" Sebastian repeated, slow breath, eyes staring into the other's pupils which he hooked becoming their prey in turn. He wasn't feeling danger, neither he was feeling the need to push him away. Curiosity: that was the pivot of his actions. The Trancy butler was sliding away from the topic with agility, nourishing the other demon's inborn curiosity; doing that he was keeping Sebastian on a thin thread. Such an admirable spider, able to wave without using his sharp legs! Sebastian himself was the one who nullified the distance between their faces, caught, with a cold electrifying thrill down his spine. In a way or in another, he would have talked to him.
Lips touched lightly, an infinitesimal distance, ridiculously small… And burning. A gentle touch, perceptible only by creatures like them, breath in breath. One blended with the other –alas!- just for a moment, a brief instant of such a miserably intense length: and they had nothing to say to each other, but a silence made of gentle puffs fraught of not spoken words, unrepeatable.
Perfection.
That moment was pure perfection in instant.
The thought darted through each other's minds; did they maybe know something more perfect than souls which madly wanted reciprocally, yet they were keeping on refusing, repelling, chasing away each other just to increase a kind of tension which was too intense and intoxicating to be broken?
The answer was so simple and banal that telling it would have been the most ridiculous thing at that juncture. Sebastian was drowning into the other's liquid gold, he wearing the outlaw's clothes and he was stealing it. He would have put it away for himself, divinely diabolic vision, and he would have made it an inestimable treasure. Claude was drinking the blood which filled those eyes of him, greedy vampire, needy of a scarlet pond where to dive and suck until he didn't have any more energy to fight against the looming sloth.
They wanted to destroy each other with their glances, leaving the rival with no way out. Warders were locking themselves in jail and throwing away the key, shoving it with force in the other's throat –foolishness. Either of them didn't really want to be enchained to the other, though neither free himself.
How was it possible to look for a truce, when his eyes where the most sublime of chains one could hope for? Oh, they would have lost ages just to study every single ring and sign of rust which made them even more desirable those ropes made of iron wrapped around the soul, straight to core of it.
Claude cancelled every inkling of distance by pressing his forehead onto Sebastian's.
"Teach me your passion, tell me your secrets. Make me your distant lover, enemy and confident" said Claude. Did those words really have been pronounced? No. The forehead on the other one was like a mouth, a kiss of the mind: it was a deep language, silent, spoken by the soul.
"You ask me what you already have."
"You have revealed an honor to me."
"You have revealed terror to me."
"Do you perhaps know about terror?"
"You have unclothed yourself of your mortal garments. You're essential. So you're terrifying."
"Accept this hand, the left one. Take it."
"I don't have a reason for that. Your deal is fatal."
The spider batted his lids, black lashes which hid wise eyes, but soon they raised once again, considering that they had such a urge to dive into the Red Sea.
"Be my terror."
A wall was erected between the two: Claude, dazed, tried to clash against it, even though he already knew that he wouldn't collapse. Damn..! He staggered and when Sebastian took advantage of the other's mistake, it was a painful stab in his thoughts: he was paying the consequences of his offer, but he was almost satisfied, gratified. He was feeling Sebastian caressing him in the deep, and it was pleasing.
"Go, free. Explore every corner –make it yours."
And it was what the demon did.
Claude's mind was completely open, and Sebastian's hand arrived to places no one had never reached, places of his Ego which no one –not living, not dead- could have believed they existed. He could have smashed his brain from the inside in every moment, suddenly, simply due to a childish whim. Neither one nor the other butler ever felt something more sublime of what they were sensing there, into the Phantomhive mansion's hall, forehead to forehead, arms along their bodies.
Sebastian licked his lips. The more he was going deeper, the more he was digging, the more he was under the impression that Claude was actually rebelling against him and for that the crow was fighting him, meeting nothing but a weak resistance which was pleasing to destroy anyway. A moan physically left his mouth, there was no way to hold it back, both his body and his mind were experiencing the sensation of violating another creature's thoughts. Not a common creature, but a demon; not a common demon, but Claude Faustus.
He crossed hills and mountains, he went through passes and paths, he chased away with a stroke of his hand the wolves which crowded the forests of Claude's mind. At the end he descended slowly and gently in a green valley, with a grey sky above him. Drops of thoughts were falling from the sky, the most external surface. He passed through them and let them cover him, he dressed himself with the other demon's words and thoughts which were falling down to the center, the core of his rotten soul, so different from the human soul, impossible to eradicate.
Deeper and deeper. Even if his hand slipped in gently at first, now it became a cruel blade. He tasted enough; now he just wanted to tear up the second surface and see the wonderful horror which was down here, and make it his own. Oh, he was aware that the rival wasn't giving himself to the crow due to mere masochism, even though that mind was stirring Sebastian; he was feeling the thrill of accomplishing a dangerous act, violent, cruel and delicious clawing his thoughts, forcing his way through the walls. Sebastian wanted to destroy Claude and leaving him with the awareness of what he was doing.
Claude wavered on his legs. Sebastian was faster than him: he led a hand to his nape and pressed Claude against his forehead. Claude closed his eyes, barely standing up, his arms lopping behind his shoulders. Such an exquisite vision to Sebastian's eyes..! No! He wouldn't have escaped, he would have suffered, the crow would have shown to him a deep pain, so satisfying that gave him goose bumps.
He was clawing the last wall, his breath becoming faster and keeping pace with the other's, completely at his mercy. Claude's knees were trembling, his whole body was showing signs of suffering but no sound left his mouth: he didn't want to give any satisfaction to the Phantomhive butler, not even during the devastation caused by the pain. Claws dug into the high marble great wall, last Claude's shield and the other demon laughed silently of the defeat. He began to scratch the hard surface which didn't want to let him pass, that corner which Claude refused to show him. Treacherous, disgusting liar!
He paid his distraction so much! The dragon roared, and it wasn't a phoenix the creature which came back to life from the ashes where Sebastian threw him. Claude raised over the wall and overwhelmed Sebastian with such dreadful power. This Claude was hiding into the darkest den of his mind. His merciless anger, his powerful rage, his fascinating destructive force. Claude reached out both of his hands into the other's mind he, yes, he had no compassion, indeed, he owned no grains of calmness. Also his body gained new strength and now was standing up fiercely, supporting Sebastian's nape, now the trembling one. The roles reversed by seconds.
Hands open, Claude was shredding the surface, caressing it with his claws and his large and secure palms, he was pushing himself in the deep heedless of the other's resistance which he was dodging without any trouble. Fingers went in few moments where they wanted to go, Claude allowed the ravenette's thoughts to become his clothes, taking them by force and wearing them. There it was the last wall, a sweep of matted brambles being lost up into the dark sky. The furious beast threw his claws through the stems, ripping and hissing. His revenge! He would have took it, it didn't matter the cost. He wanted to reach the most essential and deep place, destroy and steal it.
In the same moment he started to dig through the briars, Sebastian's hands gained back their strength. The need sharps up one's wits, the danger gives new life. It was a furious challenge about who would have reached first the other's profound core, and the winner would have had the bloody trophy in his hands, having also the right to bite it and eat it, gaining the other's essence and no one of them wanted to lose.
Bleeding, almost deprived of their energies, the hands destroyed the last barrier and both of them let out a low moan, not exactly due to some pleasure. The warm essences begun to permeate each other, while the claws of two different beasts were grabbing the dripping heart.
And they felt as if they were the same thing.
With the other's essence in their hands, their breath stopped and eyes, closed, refused to open. Both of the demons' hands were strong on their napes, while the hands of the mind were holding a precious and cursed treasure. How could they have been so vile to destroy each other, now? They were dazed, but aware that they would have been nothing but vermin, unctuous and disloyal, deprived of dignity, if they would have done it because in the same time, in the same place, the demons appropriated the other's essence. A known sensation, even though new, permeated each other's limbs: pure, abysmal sense of belonging.
Sebastian's long fingers were keeping tight the deep treasure, found with efforts and pain. It was made of horrible beauty. Into Claude's eyes he was reading the same though and he felt a sense of completeness, hand by hand with the other demon who still was holding his nape. Claude caressed Sebastian's essence with his claws, he was studying its astounding and horrifying shapes, and he was under the impression that it was what he always had seek in the whole eternity. It was so different from his angular soul, Sebastian's was sinuous, with soft shapes. Although Sebastian seemed to show appreciation towards it: he was gazing it and holding it in his arms. Both of them were astonished by the discover, or rather by the confirmation that the one was indispensable to the other, that they complemented each other and that their existence was almost essential.
"Claude.." he was lightly touching his cheeks now, and he was smiling: they were sweat-soaked.
Claude shown his pupils and once again their eyes met. He blew softly from his nose and his fresh breath gifted Sebastian a wet sensation: his face too was sweaty.
The Trancy butler's hands slipped down the back of his neck to the jawline and he took his face between his hands. The hall was silent once again, filled only by distant sounds –someone who was rolling in their bed, rustling leaves out there- and nothing more. Everything was silent, until two voiced from two different throats raised and became a single sound.
"You are only mine."
P.S.: The last sentence is not romantic - it is possessive ;)
If you had read to this point, well! Congratulations!
Feel free to comment and such, I really appreciate that. Ah! I'm not English, so please forgive my mistakes and tell me if something isn't clear; I'll correct it.