"What are we doing here?" Diederich asked. He and Vincent were laying on top of a loft in the library in the blue house dormitories. The library was deserted and dark and had nothing but a few oil lamps illuminating it. Vincent was obviously enthralled with watching nothing happening, though his companion was far less so.
"A stake out," Vincent replied with a hushed tone. He had a pair of fancy opera glasses he was looking out into the library with, though actually, he really didn't need them. He was just feeling a little bit sassy at the moment.
"So you actually do work?"
"Shut it," Vincent hissed.
Some boys clamored into the library with hushed voices, opening the door slowly so that no one would hear it creaking. Yet, unfortunately for them, the person staking them out was already inside the library, waiting. Diederich had finally silenced himself of the constant complaining. Vincent enjoyed the small reprieve in which his newly-won companion wasn't loud and annoying for once. The boys pulled out a bottle of cheap wine in a green bottle and Vincent pulled a pistol out of his back pocket. Diederich looked at it with an obvious expression of horror. Vincent aimed and shot the bottle, glass and wine sprayed everywhere, the boys screamed and headed out of there, one of them bleeding from the glass shrapnel.
"And that is how you put a stop to underage drinking," Vincent said. He smiled at Diederich gasping face and added in, "Weston has never been safer."
"You're a mad man!"
"And you're cute when you're angry."
Graduation had come to a close, and Vincent said farewell to a place that had been his home for many years. So long Weston, you were a home away from constant abuse and torment! A place of adventures, of friendship, of shenanigans. He would quite miss it, really. The carriage ride back to Phantomhive manor was a long one, during which Vincent observed Diederich mentally calculating an escape route while complaining loudly about the miserable, overcast weather today. And the long ride through the heavily wooded areas. And the sounds of crows cawwing, sheeps sheeping and whatever else he saw or heard. Vincent cracked open a book and hummed to himself. Soon enough the plays going through his head distracted him from the constant angry staccato of complaints. It was as if he were off on some wild adventures and that when the carriage stopped, the doors would not open to the sight of a the place where he had been tortured for so long.
Yet, as the doors opened, he came back to life and realized that this wasn't a fantasy and he wasn't some price or a knight or a god. He was no longer the hero of myth, but he still managed to be a children devoured by Saturn, swallowed up by constant grief and torment. The sight almost made him sick, it was as if nothing had really changed. Diederich looked onto the massive building with it's beautiful architecture and gardens, but Vincent could only think of that dark place in hell hidden underneath it. The smell of pink roses lightly touched by rain could never be enough to cover up what really happened here. It was time to stop ignoring this place, and to come back and make it a home. Maybe if he added some nice wall paper it would take away the constant feeling of dread that pervaded the air.
"Hi!" called a voice. A blonde young woman was standing there with a smile on her face. Rachel had already opened the door to the manor and was now hurrying down the steps, the heels of her short boots clacking against marble. Vincent rushed towards her and gave her a big hug.
"This is my fiance, Rachel," he said.
"By the way, please let me introduce you to my new assistant, Diederich," Vincent said. He grabbed Diederich by the sleeve of his dark green jacket and presented him to Rachel as if it were show and tell day in class.
"He's quite the handsome one, isn't he?" Rachel said, she brought her hand out and pinched Diederich's ass, he jumped up in the air immediately. Vincent started laughing at Diederich's sad misfortune.
"She likes to sample my conquests," he explained. Diederich was obviously angry but Vincent paid no mind to that at all, after all, what was Diederich going to do about it, whine? Because he'd done that the entire carriage ride there and it was actually becoming like white noise to Vincent. Maybe he should have Dee complain him to sleep at night.
"What do you mean by conquest?" Diederich asked with an indignant tone.
"You'll see," Vincent said. Rachel held up her hand to her mouth and gave a quick chuckle. It was an awkward situation for poor, poor Diederich.
Vincent led Diederich through the manor. He looked at the morbid paintings that were hung on the wall. Judith beheading a troupe of men, Ophelia's drowned body, and golden chandelier with red crystals dangling from them like drops of blood. It was decadent, dark, and just a little bit depressing. The Phantomhive's always had a flair for things morbidly dramatic, but Vincent was never like the rest of them. Somebody get something happy to display in this dreary place! He swore that he would go mad if he were forced to stay in this constant, dark baroque barrage of opulence and misery. That's what this place was, dark and miserable. He wished that they'd hurry it up and get electrical lines installed so it could, in the very least be bright. At least a dark and miserable guy like Diederich would fit right in with all this darkness.
"Rachel has been tormenting me," Frances said. She was sitting at a table in the parlor while Tanaka poured her a cup of coffee. He had already prepared a pot of peony white tea for Vincent and Rachel. Diederich sat down on a chair and said nothing for once.
"I have simply been trying to teach her how to look a little more lady like!" Rachel protested.
Rachel, of course, was exactly what every woman at the time would like to be. She had porcelain white translucent skin, blue doelike eyes and golden curled hair. She had thin wrists, a soft heart-shaped face. The blue lines of her veins traced lacelike patterns across her hands. She looked like she could have fainted at any minute, which was true, because she was quite sickly. But none the less, that was how it was all victorian women were meant to be. A pale doll with restricted breathing and a vacant mind. Women were not meant to be strong, but submissive, frail and always on the verge of wilting. Rachel at least looked the part. Frances had an austere disposition that could make the blood of a demon run cold with fright.
"She put pink flowers in my hair!" Frances said. Bright pink roses were now interwoven through her bun. She looked like a cute, pouting little fairy princess with her blonde hair and big green eyes. Vincent thought it was quite the upgrade.
"What a hardship you must endure, my little Franny. I'll be sure to telegraph the Vatican and have them send a priest over here immediately to exorcise the demonic woes from your blonde tresses. By the way, how was that talk with Midford?"
"There was no talk with Midford," Frances deflected.
"But I saw you looking at him," Vincent said. His gaze was sharp as it always was, and he knew when Frances was not watching him play cricket; but rather spend the entire game staring at a certain blonde cutie from green house.
"I did not look at him!"
"Sorry, my mistake Frances, you were not simply looking at Midford but gazing directly into his soul with the googly eyes of a young woman in love. Dee totally knows Midford and we could set you up on a date."
"No!" Frances said.
"Go out with him, he's cute and he likes swords, you're cute and you like swords. It's a perfect match," Vincent said. He took a sip of tea and set down his tea cups. Oh he was so serious right now. Diederich simply sighed and silently listened to the idle chatter of dating, it was his turn to become bored out of his skull. Take that, you loud german bastard.
"It's not that simple," Rachel said, "If Frances presents herself to him without a letter, or without a planned visit, Midford might think she's a whore. Or if Frances seems too eager to introduce herself, she will be called a whore. It is best if we... arrange a 'change meeting' of sorts. Stalk Midford for a bit and let things work themselves out," Rachel said. She sipped on tea from a pale blue tea cup and set it on her plate. She was calm and graceful in her pale blue dress.
"Then why has nobody said anything about us living together when we're clearly not married?" Vincent asked Rachel.
"My sister has set her heart on going to medical school, which brings all of the criticism of our family towards Angie, not myself. Being a woman is hard, Vincent. Everything we do is carefully poked and prodded and if we betray the rules even slightly, it ruins our reputations," Rachel told him. Of course, these rules nothing to change the fact that she was living with Vincent or the fact that she had given Diederich's backside a good fondling.
"I am afraid that I am lost in this conversation," Diederich said.
"You see, We're a society of endless rules that invade a woman's abilities to choose and think for herself. The entire process of a male and a female so much as talking to one another must follow an archiac set of rules. Women and men who are not related are not allowed to live together for fear that they may have unsanctioned relations," Frances said, her stern face betrayed the dainty clink her coffee mug made on the saucer.
"She means sex," Rachel clarified for him. Diederich's face turned red for a second when that particular word was mentioned.
"I would never have sex with Rachel, though," Vincent added in.
"I really don't want to know about whatever debauchery you get up to in this place, but are women truly not allowed to speak with us without asking their parents prior?" Diederich asked. The seclusion of the all-boys boarding school did nothing to harbor young victorian men with an interest in women, and he was no exception.
"Your personality does a lot more to keep women away from you than any societal rules," Vincent said.
"Don't be so mean to him," Rachel told Vincent.
"He tried to beat me in the face with a cricket bat," Vincent explained in defense of his rudeness.
"How could you?" Rachel asked Diederich, her blue eyes gave him a cold stare. "I have to marry that face, you know."
"Excuse me me, but I have a letter from her Majesty," Tanaka announced. In his hand he held a pristine white envelope with the familiar red seal.
