During the night, unbeknownst to their parents and caretakers, some children, mostly those of the third class, vanished. Due to the panic, the ship's workers went to every room, checking to see if any of the children might have ran elsewhere or be kept in them. They didn't discriminate based on class-they went to every single cabin. It was still very early in the morning when there was a knock on the door to the room where Ciel and his demonic butler were staying.
A maid was standing behind the door, waiting to be let in. The knocking had woken up Ciel, who surprisingly wasn't hungover-but he was very thirsty.
"Sebastian?" He sat up, rubbing his eyes. When he realized that his butler was about to open the door to speak with someone, lay back down, pretending to be asleep, being that he didn't have enough time to put his eye patch on.
Johanna was awoken due o a number of factors. First, the crate was far more crowded now than it had been-there were more children now, and they were all panicking and crying. But still, their captor didn't seem satisfied. She was talking to one of the men that had been down there before to have his way with some of the children.
"It isn't that big of a deal, is it?" the man asked.
"It is. My potions don't fail unless there's something else that is supernatural involved, and no child I touched last night was any sort of supernatural being, so it makes no sense... I've never had this problem before."
"But it was only one child." The man continued.
"That child belongs to me! No one else. And I will have him!" She was furious-so furious that she killed the man simply to relieve some of her anger.
"Oh pardon me." The maid said in a soft voice. "But all of the children aboard the ship except for the really wee ones are missing. We are trying to locate them and see if you're companion is with you." There was a heart wrenching scream next door as another mother discovered her child was gone.
Johanna automatically knew who it was she was speaking of "...Ciel..." she whispered to herself. Oh God. She had to get out of here. She just must. She had to, but she could barely move. Between not eating, her tantrum, and the beating she received..she was surprised her body allowed her to breathe. Which even then was a labored chore.
"I'm surprised you still have any fight left in you." Johanna's captor commented. She listened with near delight as Johanna fought against her confinement throughout the day.
The woman noticed Ciel after Sebastian explained that he wasn't missing.
"You're one of the lucky ones, then. Please keep a close watch on him." She said with a grim smile before bowing and heading to the next room.
Ciel and Sebastian spent the day searching for information of the children. They weren't the only ones searching. Sebastian overheard conversations of the workers who had also searched everywhere, including the cargo hold. Nothing suspicious had been seen or heard. They were all disturbed. A few workers argued over how this would affect the next sail of the ship.
The demon also overheard some of the workers talking about the fact that the ship was heading for an ice field. Some were concerned, while others couldn't have cared less. One even commented that it wouldn't matter if the ship hit an iceberg-it would take much more than that to sink the Oceanic! Still, it concerned Sebastian. As the day turned into night, he did notice icebergs in the distance, so the warnings had been correct. They were heading for an ice field, indeed.
It took Ciel some time to fall asleep. He was angry. Those children had been taken from under his watch, and he still had little to go on. Sebastian informed him that some of the children were dead, but most were still alive. But that wasn't any sort of comfort, and he was restless in his sleep.
It was risky, but Sebastian still intended to keep an eye out for icebergs. He'd left the room a few times that night, searching in the path of the ship for one, and though they'd come close a few times, he still didn'tfind one in their direct path yet. He'd only leave for a few moments at a time so as to keep a close watch on Ciel. However, upon his most recent return to the cabin, his lord wasn't there.
Johanna could hear the sound of struggling, then the velvety voice of the woman.
"You should feel honored, my dear. I had to personally go to retrieve you..." She cooed. There was a thud not far from the crate, as she tossed Ciel onto the ground with ease. He immediately yelled for Sebastian, even if he knew the demon couldn't locate him.
"Ciel!" Johanna screamed. "Ciel! Run!" The top of the box was cracked a bit, but the lid was way to heavy to move on her own. She peered through the box and saw Ciel looking at her in absolute horror. Her busted lip ached and tore back open as she screamed at him, blood trickling down her chin. One of her eyes swollen shut from the previous torment. But she didn't care. This was torture. This was more torture and more agonizing than anything else over the past few days. "Ciel you idiot. You fool! Run! Ruuuuunnnnnn!"
"J-Johanna...?" Ciel moved closer to the box to be sure his eyes weren't deceiving him. It was her, and she was hurt. He glared at the woman, who just laughed.
"Oh? You two know each other then? My, this just became far more interesting." Suddenly, Johanna's arms and legs were bound and she was pushed out of the crate, the opening of it closed behind her to trap the rest of the children in total darkness. Ciel started to move toward her when the woman grabbed him by the hair and yanked him back toward her hard.
"Now, where do you think you're going, love? I still need to figure out what's wrong with you that you didn't succumb to my previous magic. You appear to be human enough..." She wrapped an arm around his neck, then lifted him enough that he was on his toes, just barely keeping him from being choked.
"What are you?" Ciel demanded.
She looked flattered. "Me? I'm merely an angel. Certainly, I've fallen from grace, but that doesn't change a thing." She breathed in his scent. "Do you know what my sins were? My deadly sins? They were lust, greed, and wrath. Any one sin is enough to get your key to paradise revoked for an angel. A servant of God with multiple deadly sins... Well, I was a unique case."
She giggled.
"But enough about me. I want to know about you... Oh." She undid the tie that held his eye patch over his face. "What happened to your eye, love?"
Ciel kept his eye closed. He neither cared for the supposed angel to see it, nor did he want Johanna to see it.
Sebastian had just entered the room when he doubled over and grasped at his stomach. This was not something he enjoyed feeling. This meant that someone had taken off with his toy and Sebastian was a selfish playmate. This feeling told him that his master was no longer in the room and caused him to slam the door shut. And began to run through the ship searching.
Johanna continues to scream at Ciel. She watched as he staggered back and his hair swishing about his face matching the painful jerky movements. There she saw that one of his eyes were violet like hers and contained a symbol in his eye much like the one on her shoulder blade. His head hurriedly turned way so as not to face her, but it was too late. She had already seen what he tried so desperately to keep from everyone. She saw the cause of his humiliation and power all in that single eye.
The woman began to advance on Ciel ever so slightly, taking a moment to bide her time, to savor this interaction as if she had been waiting for it her whole life.
"Damn you Ciel! Damn you, run!" Johanna shook her head violently, flinging tears every which way.
Johanna had to help him instead of wailing like a bellowing fool, but what she didn't know was that her screams were helping a certain butler with fine tuned hearing. Though when the screaming stopped, which he recognized very clearly as Johanna's abruptly stop, he felt his little black heart sinking in his chest. This either meant that Ciel was dead, she was dead, or that both...No. Sebastian could not allow such thoughts to contaminate his mind. He needed to believe that both of them were alive,he couldn't say safe because that would be a lie. Sebastian just willed them to still be alive, but most of all he wished his master to still be breathing. Thankfully he knew in what general area that they were thanks to Johanna.
The woman finally growing bored of the earl not fighting back or even attempting to run. Instead he just kept walking backwards at a slow crawl, obviously still reeling from the blow that she had dealt him earlier. What a weakling. A stupid weakling at that. She thought that he would prove to be something special like his pet over there. Who oddly went quiet. Maybe she passed out again. She didn't care, she could not afford to lose focus on this one.
Johanna nearly whimpered in pain, she bit her lip, as her nails elongated long and black from her swollen hands. She used them to quietly cut through the rope binding her arms behind her only had but a tiny bit left to slice through.
When her attention was drawn to the woman and her master. It seemed so surreal, almost as if another person in Johanna's body was watching the scene with her, she felt so removed from reality as it all unfolded in slow motion.
She felt a pressure build up in her chest, her throat tighten, and her mouth fall open as she screamed. Truly screamed, it was a deafening and fearful sound, that of a banshee. She was removed from her body, she did not hear the anguish that vocally tore out of her.
All she could see horrific wings emerge from the woman and talons like gleaming knives where her hands once were, lash out and grab Ciel by the collar-shredding his shirt in the process, yanking him toward her as her other arm shot forward and his small body bent in on itself as she skewered him.
A splay of crimson rupturing from him, the after shock causing his frame to bend now in the other direction like the curvature of a backwards 'c'. As the darkened celestial slid her butchering hand from his body, his dangling body in midair, beginning to fall...
Johanna did not know how it happened, but she pulled both of her arms in opposite directions and felt the rest of the rope snap apart. She felt the air whipping past her hair and cheeks as she flew at the horrid figure. The horrid figure who killed children for fun, who raped, and and maimed them. The horrid figure who had left holes in families and in lives. The horrid figure who ensnared her and tormented her like an animal. But most of all the horrid figure who hurt her master, her cherished one, her Ciel...
Sebastian heard another scream, but this one filled with more volume, pain, heartbreak, and potency. Then a few moments later he heard the same voice and it sounded almost like the wrath of a goddess descending down upon disobedient creation. He was almost there, but not quite...
Johanna let out a wail almost like a battle cry. There was a flash of green light that exploded from her, her fair hair grew longer like a river of gold streaked with black, she felt sharp points in her mouth, and her hands looked even more like claws. The finger nails shining like obsidian daggers.
The angel looked at her with disbelief but her face reset to one of determination as Johanna collided with her full force and sent her flying backward. Johanna's fist flying at her in unbridled flurries of rage.
"Oh? Do I need to make you open it for me? That's no trouble." She let go of him just long enough to spin him around to face her, grab his hair again to hold his face up, and punch him hard in the gut. His eyes opened in shock, and he coughed up blood, but she managed to get the look she desired.
Ciel's multicolored eyes were wide with shock, but no sound escaped through his lips. The metallic taste of blood once again filled his mouth, and he nearly choked on it.
But this wasn't the first time, was it?
No. He'd been here before, and the pain resonating through him now was the same pain as before, the burning from his midsection spreading throughout every inch of his being, the crimson leaking from his body, surrounding him. And all of the voices were back. The laughter, the snide remarks, the calm voices, all different in tone, but speaking the same words. Sacrifice.
He felt the hands. So many gripping his body to hold him still for the blow. He felt his muscles straining, some tearing, ans he sruggled against the sea of his captors-those that had tortured him daily They'd made it perfectly clear then that his body didn't belong to him, this cruel moral of their actions being reiterated once more.
He heard his screaming from a distance. Ciel was no longer in his own body, but rather a spectator of his own horror. He heard his voice, his pleas, begging them for mercy, and those cries became louder as he witnessed the silver gleam of the dagger being raised.
And then the blade pierced him, the pain instant, tearing its way through his veins and his soul. His mouth was open, but the only thing that came out was blood. There was just so much blood, and he felt himself slipping as it drained from his body.
All of the memories of his past came to him in the blink of an eye. No sound was uttered from his mouth as he hit the ground hard, and no movement was made. His eyes, the windows to his soul, were open, but they were empty. Ciel was not there.
Johanna was fiercely locked in a battle of sheer will and power with the angel. They both flew around the room like blurs. The other besting and outwitting the other.
"Do you think that you can beat me child?" The angel chuckled darkly. "You must have an absolute death wish."
"I am not afraid of you. I will not lose to you." Johanna said through gritted teeth. She was not about to let this horrid creature win.
A puddle of something slick and black caught her eye. It was her master's blood beginning to pool about his body. She saw that he was unresponsive and swooped down to his side.
"Ciel...no..." She said in a barely audible voice that was cracked and broken. "I...have failed you...I have failed to protect you..." tears rolled down her cheeks.
Sebastian's heart was hammering hard in his chest as he bounded down the stairs to the cargo hold. The sight he beheld was nearly more than he could bear. At first he hardly recognized her, it was Johanna, kneeling, Ciel's head in her lap, stroking his hair, her body trembling.
She was nearly transformed into the form of a demon, her metamorphosis was halfway between. Her violet eyes held bright green flecks, her hair was nearly five times it's length and streaked with black, she had fangs jutting down from her mouth. If Sebastian were not enamored by his young master. He would have found her bizarrely attractive like this.
Sebastian stood over his young lord and looked upon him, he felt his heart shattering, and he felt the bonds of their contract pulling at him, "My young lord. It is not time to fulfill your obligations to me. Even though I do crave for that day. Today is not that day."
A bright pink and scarlet symbol formed under Ciel and blazed to life. This was not something that he wanted to use or be forced to call upon. But he had no other choice. The symbol in Ciel's eye identical to the one on the floor began to glow as well. This caused whatever remaining life force that he had to be sealed inside of him, but would not preserve him forever.
"Johanna." Sebastian kneeled down beside her and held out his arms "I need you to give Ciel to me. Then I need you to kill her."
Johanna looked at Sebastian with a look of deflatedness and defeat, Her confidence and belief nearly ebbed out of her. She honestly looked quite pitiful.
Sebastian gently cupped her face, "You look like a Valkyrie of hell coming to exact unholy justice. Now act like it and destroy her. Defend your leige's honor."
And with that he loaded his young earl's frame into his arms and whisked him away to the higher levels of the ship. Johanna was left alone besides the children in the waiting box and the angel who stood in the corner picking blood and flesh out of her claws.
Ciel's flesh and blood to be exact.
"I do hope that you know your master will surely succumb to his fate within the span of a few days..." The wicked woman said almost mechanically.
That was it! She was done with this pish posh and drivel. Johanna gathered all that hate, rage, anger, and all of her other emotions together and imbued her body with it.
One moment she was staring down the angel who just continued to pick her claws looking unsuspecting, bored, and full of herself, The next moment she launched herself at the angel, the woman flew up, and Johanna urged her body forward faster, wrapping her arms around the terrible creatures waist, and then coupled their weight using it to hurl them down towards the floor.
The ship shook, a loud groan, and metal screeching emanating from inside it's belly. People of all classes began to panic and run around like mad. There was incoherent shouts, screams, and shrieks.
Johanna and the angel had shot through the bottom of the RMS Oceanic like a bullet. The woman had managed to get free from Johanna in the ocean and zipped right back up through the gaping tear, and she flew, her large wings beating, she tore through the level of the ship, nearly cutting it's metal structure in half.
Before Johanna ventured after her, she quickly freed the children from the box and urged them to find their parents quickly. Then she too made an aerial dash through the path of destruction that the woman had rent.
Once again the ship began to groan and make horrid metallic screeches. Though most parents were joyous to have their children returned there was a new panic and that of the ship sinking. Not only that. It was of the two monstrous beings who moved through the air above them.
Sebastian had used as much of his medical expertise as he could and stabilized his young master. Thankfully Ciel was rousing and coming about in time to see Johanna striking the woman in the air and the sound of their bodies colliding like that of a thunderclap.
"You are a very daring adversary" the woman mused. "But this is the moment where you succumb to thine demise." The fallen angel hurled herself at Johanna and Johanna snatched her before they could once again collide.
Johanna holding her the way the woman had done to Ciel and then she drove her talon like hand through the woman in the same fashion as toward her master. A shower of black blood pouring and seeping out of the wailing creature and Johanna's arm turning back to normal.
It was strange. Johanna felt her arm inside the angel's ribcage. It was hot, gooey, and suctioned on her arm. She felt her fingers come towards her palm and then jump back as she grasped at the still beating heart inside of the creature's body.
The dark woman's eyes were wide, her mouth agape, and she barely moved. As she felt a ripping and stinging sensation so brutally horrid and then she felt her body grow lifeless and limp as she fell backward. Plummeting towards the water, her vision slowly closing like a shutter on a camera, as the last thing she saw was the girl in the clouds with her heart in her hand.
Sebastian looked down at Ciel who's gaze never left Johanna and seemed to struck with awe fr a moment. Until his eyes widened and he ordered Sebastian, "Catch her now! I command it."
Very nimbly and swiftly Sebastian glided through the air and caught the flailing body of Johanna. Apparently her demonic powers exhausted after her task and she shifted to her wholly human looking form.
Ciel sat, waiting for Sebastian to get back, not even bothering to cover his demonic seal in his eye. The ship was sinking, and even he could tell at that point that there weren't going to be very many survivors-and those that would survive would either not be believed, or not even be thinking about a child with multi-colored orbs. So there was no point in bothering.
All the boy could hear around him was screaming and the groaning of the ship as the water flooded her from the front. They were lowering the lifeboats, and it was women and children first. He knew that there would be no problem for him and Johanna to get in one, but the problem would be Sebastian, and though he knew the demon could survive such a feat as the ship sinking, the last thing Ciel wanted to do was be separated from his butler.
Speaking of Sebastian, Ciel almost lost sight of him due to the crowding of the ship, and no one was going to pay attention even to a someone sitting on the ground. This point was noted when someone stepped hard on his hand and didn't even seem to notice what he'd done, despite the young lord's yelp of pain. He needed to move-specifically to higher ground. The bow of the ship was low in the water, tilting her stern upward, and it was hard for Ciel to walk, and his stab wound only added to that issue.
Johanna protested a few feet from Ciel and shoved out of Sebastian's arms as quickly as possible. She was wobbly and staggered nearly like a new born baby deer from being weak, but she managed to make it to her master. Her eye was still swollen up and her lip encrusted in blood. Bruises speckled her from head to toe.
She didn't care. She stood him up beside her and placed an arm around him and up under his limb to steady him. Then began to walk while barking an order at Sebastian, to which Sebastian raised an eyebrow rather amused, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
"I need you to gather a safe way to disembark this god forsaken disaster and make it back to London!" Johanna snapped at Sebastian.
Which he curtly bowed and replied, "As I shall lady Johanna."
Lau was furious. No matter how much money he tried to offer the crew and patrons. They would not allow him on a life boat. Only Ran Mao who obviously declined.
With a fist full of money Lau cursed and reluctantly slinked off and began pacing. This was unacceptable.
When he remembered the words of the demon Sweeney. Dare he do it? Apparently he had no choice in the situation.
"Sweeney!"
Ciel leaned on Johanna far more than he ever would have expected to. He watched Sebastian slip away, probably to find a lifeboat or something, but there would be no way that he could get one until after it was too late for anyone else to get into one. That was just one of the rules-he was not to interfere with others' lives for the most part, and he couldn't interfere with them saving themselves. The only option would be to wait until the lifeboats could no longer be lowered, which he supposed would be soon, anyway.
He turned his attention to his current companion. She was hurt, but appeared more than determined to survive, and he could appreciate that-but now was not the time to say so. Survive first, then talk about such matters. He felt his balance slipping as the angle of the stern to the water increased. He wondered how much longer it would be until the ship snapped in two-or if the whole thing would sink in one go.
"We have to get to the stern." He pointed. The problem was that it wasn't only his idea. Hundreds of people were making their way to the back of the ship, and he didn't know how they were going to manage-could Johanna manage in such a state?
Another step, and he slipped, feeling his wound stretch a bit, and a new, albeit small, trickle of fresh blood seeped out. Despite that, and despite Johanna looking terrified for her master, he shrugged it off the best he could. There were more important things right now, and he pushed her to keep going.
It took a few seconds, but the former fleet street barber appeared before Lau, walking up as if he'd been relaxing. He looked around, a wide smile forming on his face as he took the situation in.
"It's amazing," he breathed, "what people will do when their lives are in danger and there is so little hope..." He turned his attention to the chinaman who'd called him. "Now, how can I help you. You'd better have a damn good reason to call me here."
Johanna swallowed her pain and with what strength she did possess she lifted Ciel up into her bruised and battered arms. She cradled him to her chest like a small child, his head fitting perfectly against her bosom. She could feel him begin to protest.
"Young lord. Right now my duty is to override whatever sense of ego you may hold about yourself. And protect you. Pride comes before a fall and right now that fall is your life. I am not Sebastian. I will tell you like it is. Whether you wish a curved tongue or not."
With that she climbed the stairs and maneuvered around swarms of people with ease. Johanna's face was a mask of willful resolve, but underneath it her body was screaming and pleading.
Then they heard it. It sounded like thousands if not million of steel piano strings snapping in unison, the ship shudder, and a metallic bellow.
Johanna instinctively jumped into the icy water, clutching Ciel even tighter to her body as she did so. The water causing her to cry out underwater and release a stream of bubbles, which popped liked freezing shards against her skin. But she had to refocus and get away from the ship. So she put her legs together and could of screamed in agony and began to move them like a mermaid would have. She streamlined through the water before braking through the water a safe distance away.
There was a shriek of screams as ship bent in on itself and began to sink. Which caused her to panic, Ciel was already shivering, and even fiercely clutching to her body. Where in the world was Sebastian?
The seconds seemed to turn into hours fast, not even ten minutes had passed, but it felt like an eternity. The ship finally was engulfed by the hungry sea and a bubble of air and froth rocketed out as if the ocean were spitting like a fountain.
Johanna's skin was so numb she didn't notice it when Sebastian who was behind them with a life boat plucked her out of the water with her holding Ciel in tow.
Thankfully Sebastian had dry clothes, towels and blankets with him on the life raft. That he had tied in a leather water proof sack, one of the provisions they had asked for from Johanna before the trip.
Johanna had Ciel between her legs, his back to her chest, head against her shoulder, and her arms wrapped around him under a thick blanket. In an effort to keep him absolutely warm. She hummed to him songs that her mother used to sing when she was a small child and stroked his hair. Careful not to lull him asleep, but enough to keep him comfortable. If she would have been any other person, Sebastian swore that he would have been slightly jealous. But he knew the intentions in her heart were pure.
Since the earl was only two years younger than Johanna, they looked like brother and sister snuggling.
Sebastian noticed a tang of blood in the air from Ciel's ripped stitches and he also noticed Johanna's calves were so swollen that the skin behind them had burst.
It didn't take him long to refashion the earl's sutures, but Johanna's legs would have to wait They needed more serious attention. From the tantrum in the box, the assault, the standoff, and then her swimming- Johanna had torn the tendons in her lower legs.
"I am surprised you can even manage the master like that without yowling in pain." Sebastian said.
"Tch. I am not concerned with that, that is the last of my worries." She replied as he continued to affectionately attend to his lordship.
Then they heard it. It sounded like thousands if not million of steel piano strings snapping in unison, the ship shudder, and a metallic bellow.
Sweeney gave Lau a look like 'time's is not on your side.'
Lau threw his hands up in the air and said, "Fine. How do we proceed?"
After the sinking, Lau was sitting in his own life boat rather comfortably. There were plenty of blankets and coats to keep himself and Ran Mao warm. Sweeney had no use for such things. He was fine. A newly formed faustian seal was etched into the chinaman's flesh, located right over his heart.
"Now tell me what your wish is. What do you seek that I may help you obtain that, once obtained, your soul will be mine?" Sweeney asked, grinning from ear to ear, the dying shrieks and screams from the freezing people music to his ears.
Ciel was silent, apart from his teeth chattering. He was fighting his shivering, but every now and again, he'd shiver so violently he'd nearly hit or kick a part of the boat, Johanna, or Sebastian. It was so cold. Ice was settling into his drying hair, and it seemed like no amount of covering was going to ever warm him up. Breathing hurt. Moving hurt. Everything hurt, both from the cold and from his wound.
He tried to say their names at some point, tried to speak, but his voice was cracking and breaking so much, he couldn't even get their names out.
When Johanna had leaped into the water, Ciel had felt like he was being stabbed all over again, only this was worse. At least when one was stabbed with a knife, the blade could be removed. The water was below freezing, and once submerged, he felt as though his body were beign pierced by a thousand knives, each twisting. He couldn't think. And it only got worse when they reached the surface. The young lord panicked.
He'd taken a large breath as they came up, then gripped Johanna's arms and shoulders hard enough to leave marks. The small waves in the water only made him freak out more, and without thinking, he'd clawed his servant multiple times in an attempt to stay above the water. Yes, she was holding him, but he was so chilled, he neither physically nor mentally registered her touch. Even now, though they'd done as good a job they could drying him off, his sense of touch was off.
Another violent shiver, almost comparable to a full body seizure, slipped through, and Johanna, being so close to him, was hit in the face. Sebastian was hit by one of his master's knees.
"I-I c... c-can't..." Ciel was trying to tell them he couldn't control it.
Lau dipped his head in thought and looked to Ran Mao who offered him nothing but a content smile.
"I will need time to consider this. Until then, I can give you some interesting activities to entertain you."
Johanna pulled him tighter to her and began rubbing his body with her hands. She rubbed his arms and chest, but it could only help so much. She was almost at a loss.
When several hours later, there were search lights beaming down upon them and Sebastian helped to row the raft up to the rescue ship.
After they climbed aboard and were seen by the ship's doctor. Johanna saw them, she saw body after body being pulled aboard and laid out on canvas sheets. Johanna's stomach numbly turned to bile as she saw the empty stares of men, the elderly, children, and a great multitude of women icily clutching infants to their corpses.
She felt a person behind her and nearly jumped. It was Ciel. She looked at him with perplexed and haunted eyes. Thinking of how this was all her fault.
Sweeney nodded. "I could use the entertainment." He had nothing else to do anyway for the time being. "JUst don't take too long thinkinb about it."
Ciel put a hand on Johanna's shoulder. Normally he wouldn't touch his servants, but this was definitely a unique situation. He didn't really know what to say to comfort her-he had a hard enough time comforting himself when the need arose, so how could he comfort someone else? There was one thing he could say, though.
He gave her a genuine smile. "Thank you. For saving my life." His smile disappeared as he continued. "I'm sorry that you went through so much." He stared at the marks, and then the scratches that he himself had left on her body. "And what I did..."
-A Few Days Later-
Sebastian had managed to slink away from his master for some personal time, like most other creatures of habit, he needed time alone to think. And it had been so long since he visited the kitties on the veranda. Everyone was asleep in the house, he had made sure of that, so that there was absolute silence among his thoughts. besides the occasional yowling of one of the cats.
Both Johanna and the earl Phantomhive were currently bedridden. Ciel could walk freely about in small doses with the use of his cane. Though Sebastian kept him from doing so most times. This peeved his master more than anything in the world-to be coddled. The times he did have to regulate him back to his chambers, he would find Ciel in the direction of Johanna's room. Though his young liege would never go in or much less knock on the door...when it happened.
Johanna had the tendons torn in both calves and along with mortal medicine he was mixing poultices to apply to both of their wounds. Except Johanna had a blistering fever from infection and it only served to fuel her tormented mind. And the night terrors that came with it, they hadn't reached the point of a full blown episode yet.
The household currently held a somber demeanor and no guests were allowed on the premises until further notice. Not even Elizabeth, Lau, or the Queen's footmen.
They floated about her like chunks of meat in a chilled soup, their eyes glazed with ice, and their jaws agape treading in water. Every single face that night, she saw sloshing about her in a rocking movement of waves. She knew all their faces because the whole time they aboard the rescue ship, she had stood before each one and uttered her apologies. She told them how sorry she was for being the cause of their great loss-their life. Johanna had felt entirely responsible. She kept replaying over and over in head when hurled the angel down into the murky bottom by barreling through the RMS Oceanic.
Like a chill of death itself she heard the dark lady cackling somewhere among frozen aquatic tundra and she felt fingers tickling the soles of her feet. It caused her legs to jerk and for her to frantically splash around the sea.
Another hand this one larger tugged at the tip of her toes, her head slightly tipping back, a sharper tug causing her head to half go under and a third tug that fully submerges her beneath the pool of blackness.
Johanna opened her eyes and she was sitting at a dinner table. Everyone she had come to recently cherish mutilated about her. Except her father sat at the head of the table with Ciel's head on a platter and Lau standing behind him in the shadows.
The dreams were relentless and Johanna felt so weak.
The last one she was strapped to a table and men were doing medical experiments on her. They had her cut open like a cadaver during an autopsy but she was still very much alive and she was very much awake, The face of the first little boy from the box popping up next to her, a scalpel in hand as he began to plunge it into her.
Sebastian was currently teasing a kitten with a string when he heard the cries and screams of Johanna. As he was heading back towards the mansion he saw his lordship's room become illuminated with light. Then Fin's room, Mei Rin's, and Bardroy's rooms were all lit up from his view.
"She's seizin!" Mei Rin called out. "And her skin feels like an inferno."
Johanna's fever had hit a peak and tripped her brain to overheat. Sebastian came upstairs and hurriedly picked her up where Tanaka was drawing an ice Butler dunking her in it and her eyes opening wide causing her to gasp and flail about. She clutched onto Sebastian for dear life. "Ciel! Oh god! Where is Ciel! It's all my fault!" She looked at Sebastian "Where were you? We have been floating here forever and they're all dead. And I lost Ciel...I lost our master..."
She looked in the direction of Ciel in the doorway, but didn't see him. All she saw was his frozen body floating in the water with 'sacrifice' carved into his chest.
Ciel could hear the commotion in the other rooms, and, despite the desires of a certain butler, got out of his bed to go see what the activity was about. He'd heard screaming and as the head of the Phantohive estate he should know what's going on.
He grabbed his cane and made his way into the bathroom where everyone else was though he was panting. He didn't realize how much more work it would take at that time as his body was healing to walk even mediocre distances. He ignored the protests of the other servants as he walked toward Johanna. He'd heard her mentioning his name and took her hand.
"I'm right here." He said.
