Title: Nerves
Description: On the night of Ciel's 18th birthday something truly frightful happens. Sebastian/Ciel all day every day.
AN: I promise I'm working on my Catfish fic. Sorry! Anyway, these two have taken over my brain.
Ciel picked the last piece of confetti out of his hair and tried to dramatically throw it on the ground, but it was so light that it floated down like a petal in the breeze. That was hardly the effect he had been going for.
Even more perturbed because of this, Ciel sat down on his bed with a huff.
"Are you truly sighing after all of that?" Sebastian asked his charge with a sigh of his own. Ciel was difficult to please in the first place, so Sebastian had each year tried for grander and grander parties on the fateful day of Ciel's birthday. Sebastian planned them alongside Lady Elizabeth as they made sure Ciel only got the best of the best.
Ciel grunted in response. "Just prepare me for bed. My feet ache from all the dancing Lizzie made me do."
And what unfortunate dancing it had been. The years had not helped Ciel's coordination, and Sebastian frequently had to distract the rest of the guests whenever the birthday boy made an embarrassing misstep. Such was the life of the Phantomhive butler.
"Ah, but she is your future wife, young master—" Sebastian cut himself off. "Or should I not call you that anymore? You aren't so young now, and you're a legal adult of marrying age." As he spoke Sebastian readied Ciel's sheer nightclothes.
Ciel was exhausted and frustrated which put him in no mood for Sebastian's games. Demons, masters of human desires, could see right through feigned love as they often manufactured it themselves to meet their ends. Sebastian could see Ciel cringe when his Aunt Frances discussed wedding plans, and the way his eyes would wander around male business associates.
"Don't remind me," Ciel grumbled. Lizzie meant so much to him and had saved his life more than once, but Ciel couldn't muster up any romantic or sexual feelings in the slightest for her or any other woman.
What a curse it was to be a homosexual in such an oppressive time and place. In all of Sebastian's two-thousand years roaming the earth he had seen great atrocities committed against those of varying sexualities, and quite frankly found the whole thing to be ridiculous.
Sebastian dropped to his knees and unbuckled Ciel's shoes, starting on their evening ritual as always.
There was certainly something to be said about the comfort of that ritual. Sebastian had never been in the service of a human for as long as he was in Ciel's service, so the Phantomhive heir was by far the human he'd spent the most time with.
"And you can still call me 'young master' if you like," said Ciel as he leaned back on the bed, propping himself up on his elbows. He still had a bit of wine in him from the party and was ready to pass out without having his clothes taken off at all.
There was also, apparently, certainly something to be said about how Ciel liked their patterns. Sebastian was the person he spent the most time with out of anyone else, and their nonverbal communication had gotten down to a science. All they had to do was make eye contact to know what the other was thinking.
One glance between them could carry any message and a light brush of a hand on a shoulder could communicate volumes.
Sebastian rolled Ciel's stockings off his legs that were still rather short in spite of his growing. Sebastian always found that amusing, and caught himself staring at Ciel's legs for long periods of time throughout his day alongside the young man.
What could Sebastian say? Ciel had grown to be shapely. It wasn't until recently that Sebastian had begun to think so, but he thought it nonetheless.
Sebastian pressed his thumbs down on either side of Ciel's left foot and began moving them in circles.
"What are you doing?" Ciel demanded, bolting back up to sitting.
"My apologies, young master," Sebastian replied smoothly. He continued the motion, working his way up Ciel's foot. "You said the dancing had worn you out. This eases the pain."
Ciel's face twisted up. On one hand, a massage would work out his nerves, but on the other it could lead to that stirring in his stomach, that feeling he got when Sebastian looked at him for too long.
Ciel gave in. "Fine." Sebastian belonged to him, didn't he? He was a chess piece of Ciel's, and if he got excited in front of him then it was his damn job to keep his mouth shut.
At least that was what Ciel told himself in order to sleep easy at night.
He wasn't blind to Sebastian's attempts to impress and possibly woo him. As they both continued on together their bond became forged in blood and steel with Sebastian killing all those who dared to cross Ciel and by extension the Queen.
Sebastian rubbed Ciel's feet dedicatedly, working out all of the places where his muscles held tension. Ciel's ankles had twisted numerous times as he twirled Lizzie around, so it only made sense for Sebastian's hands to be moving upward towards the bottom of his calves.
Ciel sighed contentedly.
"I'll have to do this more often," Sebastian commented airily. "You've got knots like welts in your legs. You really must learn to relax."
Then Ciel laughed bitterly. "How can I, Sebastian?"
"Many Eastern treatments—"
Ciel laughed again, feeling the wine slosh in his stomach. "Is that what you think I need? Some retreat from business on a little spa weekend? Do you think I'll come back feeling refreshed?" His voice was cuttingly sarcastic. "Yes, that will fix everything right up." Broken marriage, life in danger, and all. "You're a demon, Sebastian."
A cold, calculating, unfeeling demon. Wasn't that how they all were? It was certainly how Sebastian presented himself. He was a wolf in sheep's clothing that desperately wanted to rip Ciel's soul from his body and chow down.
"How observational you are, my Lord," Sebastian chuckled, working the tender flesh around Ciel's knees in his climbing massage.
"You want me dead," Ciel added. He'd come to terms with it around his sixteenth year, and hardly expected himself to live long.
"Let's not think about such morbid things. It's your birthday." Sebastian rolled Ciel's pants off of him so he could better massage his thighs. Casually discussing mortality wasn't uncommon for them, as Ciel valued honesty above all else.
Ciel snorted. "My birthday is a morbid thing." It marked the anniversary of the darkest times in Ciel's life. "If I'm lucky I won't see another one."
Sebastian stopped his massage suddenly and cast his red eyes up to Ciel. Carefully, he reached behind his charge's head and undid the tie that kept his eye patch in place. Ciel's contract symbol burned brightly in the candle-lit room. "What in the world are you talking about?" Sebastian demanded, on-edge. "Where's your sense of playing the game? When the king falls the game is over."
"What does the king gain with more years?" Ciel asked Sebastian, shivers running down his spine. Why was Sebastian so shocked? Any demon would love to feed off of such misery. "I commissioned you to destroy the people who burned my house to the ground and humiliated me. Now it's you who's humiliated me, hm? You drag out my life so I can be forced into marriage and further tortured." It really was a brilliantly cruel plan.
"For a king so smart, you're rather stupid."
Ciel reddened at the insult. "What? How dare—"
"You are right," Sebastian interjected. "I am a demon through and through. That means that I can find anyone that you send me looking for—and I still haven't found the arsonists or cultists."
The heat in Ciel's face was replaced with a chill. Had his tipsy ramblings revealed Sebastian's true motives? "You're holding back to keep stringing me along," Ciel breathed. "To prolong it."
"That was what it was at first."
"No."
Sebastian cocked his head to the side. "Hm?"
"Don't you dare tell me you've 'changed'. How many before me have you fooled with that line? Do you think I would just let you crawl into my bed out of loneliness? That I had somehow grown to trust you?" Ciel had, but there was no way he would admit it. Showing weakness meant death. "A demon's words are wind."
"Then let me show you."
Sebastian had always like to think himself a romantic. He enjoyed the chase, and loved nothing more than producing high-quality gifts and reproducing moments from plays and novels for the object of his affection at the time.
In an advance that truly was ripped from the pages of a novella, Sebastian made a grand move towards Ciel, prepared to kiss him full on the mouth when his lips met Ciel's hand.
"No," Ciel repeated, hyper-aware of how soft Sebastian's lips felt on his hand. How they could feel on his was unthinkable. If he considered it for even a moment he was lost and would begin his descent into madness at that very moment.
Lust was strong but Ciel had been able to fight off thoughts of his butler dropping to his knees for more unsavory reasons. Ciel had grappled with dreams about Sebastian that left his sheets wet and fought off all sorts of fantasies about the man who was supposed to take his life.
Something beyond lust was much, much harder for Ciel to deal with. Along with being allergic to cats, Ciel was allergic to emotions. He was unused to them and they caused quite a violent reaction in his system.
"You do not," Ciel began, laying out his defense strategy. What he was about to say was the only way he could go on without succumbing to something that would devour him whole. "You do not get to fucking kiss me unless you mean it. This is an order, Sebastian. If you're playing me and you truly are letting your hands linger on me for too long and your hair 'accidentally' brush against my cheek when we're in close quarters in order to sow false hope in me, I would understand that it is your nature."
Sebastian blinked, mouth dry.
"And I could not blame you for such a thing. You're a creature of hell and I made this bargain. If you have truly been acting and have never felt at all for me, then my order to you is to find the arsonists and cultists immediately. Tonight. If not—" Ciel took a shaky breath. The church had engrained in him so strongly how wrong what he was about to say was. "—then you are free to kiss me, and only then."
For all of Sebastian's flirtatious and joking nature that had indeed lured hundreds to their deaths before with his foresight and cunning, he seriously had not been expecting an ultimatum.
He felt frozen in place. The thought that he had pushed from his mind again and again was finally out in the open, inviting Sebastian to lay one of him.
For so many centuries, Sebastian believed himself no longer capable of genuine affection.
But there he was, moving closer and closer to Ciel at a pace of which the contract—as he was now under orders to never, ever kiss Ciel under any circumstances aside from legitimate connection—did not halt him.
Their lips met in discordant harmony, and Ciel let out a surprised squeak.
A cold spike of fear went through both of their hearts, though one was beating and one was not. The one thing Ciel had feared more than Sebastian taking his soul was taking this piece of him. This piece of him so guarded, so underdeveloped, that it stung like a raw nerve when touched.
Bathed in this icy sweat of fear, Ciel once again leaned back into the mattress, this time taking Sebastian down with him.