Chapter X: Monotony
For the record, spending hours upon hours waiting around in a closet was not a particularly exciting or enjoyable way to spend an entire night. It was his duty, so Sebastian wouldn't utter a single complaint openly. It was a good thing that he found these two to be so endearing while they were at their most vulnerable, or he might have lost the sense of why that task was supposed to matter in the first place.
The clouds in the sky had cleared, making way for an early sunrise. The evening had passed without disruption, which was a particularly good thing, considering how ill the young master consistently seemed to be. There was a chance that, perhaps, he would be in a better mood after having a full night's rest for once. It was a very slim chance, admittedly, but a chance nonetheless, and Sebastian found it hard to imagine that being well-rested would make him more temperamental.
The bedroom began to rumble with the sound of the garage door opening and shutting. The man whom he needed to avoid was no longer in the home, giving him his cue to attend to his morning responsibilities.
Sebastian slowly slid the closet door open and stepped across the room. He checked the locks on the windows to assure that nobody would be able to enter without alarming him somehow, and left the room. He needed to prepare breakfast, put away the laundry, clean any unfortunate spills that the owner managed to leave behind, and check his suitcase and phone for any messages from his secondary job. None of the tasks were particularly engaging, but they made him busy, and he completed them with the same attentiveness that he applied to everything else.
In his absence, the projected appearance of normalcy began to drop. The indications were subtle, enough so for a person who saw the twitch to write it off as being a mere coincidence. Even in his sleep, Cian was hesitant to make it apparent when he was distraught when Sebastian was around. As was typical, his mind was locked into another nightmare, just as vividly realistic as the ones before it. His breathing started to stagger as he turned over onto his side, and his hand clutched the sheet with a grip so tight it turned his knuckles white.
He was standing in a room with no door. The walls were painted in a stark, mid-tone gray. There were no sounds or signs of life, only silence. He took a step towards one of the walls to check for any signs of an exit. A quick glance around the area and he noticed there was a slim crack through one of the walls. Hopeful he may have found what he sought, he approached the wall. He extended his hand and reached to graze against the edge of the line.
Before his finger had the chance to touch the wall, there was a flicker of distortion in the right back corner. He twisted his head around, and immediately came to the realization that it was nothing but a shadow. That failed to diffuse the tension. Cian continued to stare behind him, watching with the utmost suspicion that something would go wrong. He slowly retracted his previous steps, retreating to the opposite side of the room, never looking away from that one spot. He placed one hand out behind him as he walked, so he could recognize when he reached the other side without breaking eye contact.
It wasn't long before his hand grazed against dew that had settled on the wall. Startled by the unexpected sensation, Cian pulled his hand back towards him and looked down at his hand. The surface of his fingertips was coated with a thin layer of blood. The walls hadn't appeared to be wet ten seconds ago. By that logic, the only way anything could have possibly entered the room without his notice and fall from that direction had to be up.
Cian turned his head towards the ceiling to find the source. He had braced himself for the sight of a person, living or dead. That wasn't it. This made less sense than a murderer hunting him down or their prey hanging overhead. There were symbols he couldn't read painted in fresh blood across the mirror on the ceiling. At first glance, the letters appeared to be incomprehensible, but they were obviously letters of some sort. Instead of attempting to read it from the ceiling, he turned his head back down towards the floor. There was one place in this room where he hadn't bothered to look yet.
There was a mirror on the floor, and it reflected the same symbols set on the ceiling, with a few minor distortions from small puddles of blood and his feet. From the direction he was standing in, the text was tilted sideways, still incomprehensible. Cian tilted his head to find a better angle while he walked around the border of the room. As he approached the proper direction, the combinations of letters became increasingly more legible. Whether or not the words made any sense was a separate matter entirely.
A quick survey of his reflection in the kitchen window confirmed that Sebastian was presentable. Considering the fact that he had gotten dressed while waiting inside of the closet earlier in the day, the impeccably tailored black suit and tie he was wearing appeared professional enough. He rearranged the placement of the items on the tray he had found until they were properly balanced, and referenced the clock on the opposite side of the room. Waiting any longer would place a strain upon the schedule. The young master hadn't woken up on his own, so he would need to wake him up instead.
As Cian read across the phrase scrawled across the ceiling, the words started to slip from his mouth without specific effort towards it. He couldn't understand why he felt the need to speak them; they crawled out from his throat against his intentions, burning on their way. The sound of each whisper echoed unnaturally across the walls of the cramped space.
"Abundans cautela non nocet. Mors vincit omnia, et in inceptum finis est."
Sebastian brought the tray with him as he walked up the stairs. He held it on one hand, freeing the other to gently rap on the door before opening it the rest of the way and entering the room.
"Locis fit caedes-"
Sebastian walked across the carpet until he was standing beside the bed, bent at the waist, and leaned over the top of an elongated lump in the blankets that he presumed he identified correctly.
"The first observer always watches," Cian recited, near mesmerized in the worst of ways. What were those phrases supposed to mean? The only part that was in English seemed like plain logic and it wasn't as if he knew how to translate Latin; he wasn't even certain that the language was Latin.
"Good morning, sir. Pardon my intrusion. It is time for you to wake up," he whispered into what he believed would be around the general area of the young master's ear.
The unexpected nature of the interruption caused Cian to be jolted out of the dream. However, release from that particular nightmare didn't necessarily imply that he was awake, or wanted to be. On the contrary, his awareness was able to fade away from vigilance, making him even more determined to sleep. Cian responded with a groan and huddled further under the blankets, wordlessly expressing his current desire to retreat from living today.
than wait until Cian was ready and allow the morning to come to an end entirely, Sebastian decided to speak again. "Your father has since departed. There is no longer any chance of you encountering him in the hallway," he reasoned in a small attempt at persuasion. When that didn't receive a response at all, he was forced to resort to a more direct measure. He pulled open the drapes and tugged the shade up, allowing light to flood the room with color. He set a folding table beside Cian's bed and placed the tray upon it. The proximity caused the scent of the freshly cooked meal to waft towards the bed, seeping through the covers enough to argue on its own behalf how tantalizing it was.
"For breakfast this morning, I have prepared eggs Benedict with a side of roasted potatoes and a cup of Darjeeling tea. If you wait much longer to taste it, it shall become cold," he advised.
Dazed and displeased, Cian raised a hand and pulled the covers back towards him. He jerked his head to the side, placed a hand over his mouth to conceal a yawn. He didn't want to start mentioning the actual problem, so he decided to create a diversion to stall for time instead. "Why do you think that my father's absence would be a motivating factor?" he asked with an exhausted slur.
Sebastian reached for the covers that Cian had started to pull back, taking them away without pulling them so taut as to risk tearing them accidentally. "Provided how adamantly you avoid him, it would be more remarkable if I had not noticed," he stated back.
The absence of the main source of warmth created enough of a change in temperature that it helped, or forced, Cian to lean upright against the back of the bed. Now that Cian was awake, Sebastian was able to take the final step. He raised the tea kettle off of the candle-lit warmer that had maintained the temperature, and prepared a fresh cup of tea just the way Cian preferred to take it. When he was done, he passed it over directly. Cian took hold of it and stared into the contents with the vacantly drowsy expression that seemed to consume him lately. It felt, and appeared, to be too warm to drink.
"Forgive me if the tea has become bitter to your tastes. The tea bags were stored improperly, and they had lost some of their flavor, requiring me to adjust the steeping time accordingly," Sebastian explained.
A beat passed before Cian was able to form his words into a question. "We have a tea kettle?"
Well, that explained why it had taken so long to find it, and why it had been stored in such an obscure place buried among so many other dusty supplies. "Yes. It was among your finer china in a storage box in the attic. If you do not require anything else, I shall prepare your clothing for the day." Sebastian turned around and began to leave.
Before he had the opportunity to reach the door, Cian interjected. "I suppose there's no chance in me not going to school?"
"You suppose correctly."
"Then, feed Eulalie and bring your car around to the driveway. I'm not in the mood to walk," he ordered, dismissing Sebastian with a wave. To be more specific, this statement was a code that translated to mean he wasn't in the mood to encounter any bullies, idiots, or combination of the two. The act of walking itself, he didn't mind. It was the cumulative damage that he wanted to avoid.
Sebastian bowed his head upon receiving his orders. "I shall return momentarily," he agreed, then turned around and walked out the door into the hallway. The mention of food was enough encouragement that Eulalie was plenty enthusiastic about trotting out after him.
Cian waited until Sebastian was out of sight, and took a sip from the cup. He was far too drowsy to notice whatever subtle nuance in the taste Sebastian had been so concerned with. Breakfast was as decent as ever. He kept his eye shut while he finished picking apart the contents of his plate. Specifically choosing not to focus upon anything other than the inside of his eyelid helped create some relief from the sensation, at least from a temporary standpoint, but it didn't resolve it. Ever since he had woken up, he wasn't able to shake the dizziness from that dream.
As many nightmares as he had experienced previously, these ones continued to trouble him. They came across so realistically that he hesitated to think that they could possibly be just images from his subconscious, but he had no other answer to offer himself, which made it even worse to consider. What could he possibly be overlooking that could rationalize him experiencing tactile sensations while he was unconscious? Unless he had a specific reason for it, then more likely explanation was stress. With the events he'd been through lately, maybe it was normal to start having vivid nightmares and a wild imagination.
By the time Sebastian arrived back upstairs with the newly washed and neatly pressed uniform, Cian had cleared off the majority of his plate, leaving behind nothing more than a few drops of hollandaise sauce. Sebastian placed the hangers onto the back of the door while Cian pushed his tray out of the way and prepared to stand up.
No sooner had he started to lift off, he was stopped by Sebastian standing directly in his path. Cian swayed backwards on the bed, reflexively moving away from the source of the surprise. After a brief moment of observation, he was able to figure out why Sebastian felt the need to spontaneously appear less than a foot in front of him and block his path. He was carrying disinfectant, a bowl of water and a roll of bandages.
"Your wounds are in need of tending. If you do not mind, this should only take a moment." If Sebastian didn't clean out the gash while it was still healing, there was a chance that it would become infected. They had enough inconveniences without creating new ones. Cian understood this well enough that he didn't bother to put up a fuss. Instead, he unbuttoned the pajama shirt he had been wearing and removed one of the sleeves, revealing the slightly yellow tinted bandage wrapped around his upper arm.
Cian closed his eye while Sebastian wiped off the excess buildup of dirt and unseen contaminants, then securely re-wrapped it to prevent any further trouble. He applied enough pressure that minimal debris would enter the space, prepared to tie a knot, and stopped when he took notice of the mildly strained expression on Cian's face. "Is this uncomfortable for you?" Sebastian inquired, concerned he may have secured the bandage a little too well.
Unadmittedly, yes, this was a very uncomfortable situation for Cian to be in. However, it had nothing to do with the bandage. He was being partially honest when he nodded his head and continued to avert his attention to focus anywhere else in the room. He was also lying enough that Sebastian could tell that Cian was using the opportunity for an excuse.
"My apologies, my lord," Sebastian knew that there was more wrong here than merely the possibility of pain, but if Cian wasn't willing to say what it was, the most he could do was attempt to fix the parts that were within his control. He adjusted the bandage, swiftly tied it in place by tucking it towards itself, and placed a knot at the end so it would sit snugly without completely cutting off circulation. "That should be sufficient."
Cian didn't need to be reminded twice that he could leave. Without taking a single moment to readjust, he stood up from the bed, took his uniform out of the closet, and headed down the hallway. He subtly glanced over his shoulder to see what Sebastian was doing, broke contact less than a second later and looked away before Sebastian should have had the chance to notice, loudly shutting the bathroom door behind him. It was his own fault that he allowed such minor things as a meaningless dream or gloved hands on his arm to bother him, so he wasn't going to force someone else to deal with his senseless problems. He could handle them alone.
When Cian took his leave, Sebastian returned to the completion of the cleaning, dismissing the poor reaction as another problem he couldn't help. That type of problem seemed to be in abundance, here, so it wasn't worth the effort to dwell upon. He left the bedroom, heading towards the front door. He grabbed a packed lunch out of the fridge while on his way, stopped for a second time by the closet to slip on a light overcoat, pulled the keys from an inner pocket, and went out to get the car. Roughly two minutes later, Sebastian pulled the car into the driveway. He stepped outside of the driver's seat, circled around, and waited patiently by the passenger-side door.
About five minutes after that, Cian stepped out from inside the house. He secured the door out of habit, adjusted the strap of his bag in the usual disguise for a nervous fidget, and approached the sleek maroon car. Cian had already seen it once before, but he hadn't bothered to really look at it. For some reason, he had recalled it as being black, which it clearly wasn't. It was in pristine condition, without a single speck or scrape on the paint, which made it appear flashier than it otherwise would have been. On a teacher's salary, it wasn't as if Sebastian would have been able to afford a luxury vehicle. Well, since he was residing in a house rent-free, he might have been able to, but it would have been suspicious to drive to work, and this functioned just as well.
Sebastian opened the door for Cian to enter, and closed it behind him when he was seated. Sebastian then circled around to the driver's side while Cian arranged the stereo system to accommodate for his music. He crossed his legs and slipped down on the seat to be comfortable as a passenger. The sole of his left shoe pressed against the dashboard, and in further show of his abysmal posture, Cian's torso swayed towards the window. He pulled his iPod upwards towards his face, scrolling a finger across the wheel in search of an appropriate song.
As horribly impolite as it was, Sebastian chose to ignore the boy's manners, instead opting to fixate on the more important thing amiss. "Sir, your seat belt," he prompted.
The sound of the announcement caused Cian to press his thumb on the scroll pad he had been using, turning on a song that he hadn't intended to play. He turned to Sebastian, and gave him a glance that seemed to announce how unnecessary making that statement was. He'd been in the process of getting to that; he had just needed to attend to the music first. In truth, there was a high probability that he would have forgotten, but since he hadn't had the chance, he could argue hypothetics. He begrudgingly put his seat belt on and turned right back to face the window.
Sebastian pulled out of the driveway, heading towards the school by taking the main streets. The otherwise dominant silence produced by the complete and utter lack of conversation was soon overlapped with instruments and screaming vocals. Sebastian presumed it was music since there was a rhythm to the pacing; it was the lyrics that struck him as truly abnormal. The vocalist seemed to enjoy describing themselves as 'broken', and 'cold', because they continued to do so, a lot. Who had composed this?
When they reached the first intersection, Sebastian prepared to follow the quickest route and go straight. He had been ready to turn the wheel when Cian knocked his hand against the window to call for attention. Sebastian pressed on the brake and turned his head over his shoulder to see what could have possibly gone amiss in the literal minute that they had been in this car, and was met by a disinterested, mildly impatient stare that seemed to imply he'd been waiting to speak for a while.
"Turn to the right, and take the alternate route," Cian demanded.
Sebastian kept his hands still against the wheel and his feet off of the pedals, ensuring that the car would stay still for a moment longer. "If I may, is there a particular reason for this detour?"
"I want you to drop me off two blocks away from the school. Taking the side-streets in ensures that we won't be seen together," Cian answered without a second's delay, making it clear that he had been at least half-anticipating the question. It was also likely that he expected the question to follow. That didn't make it any less necessary or logical to ask when Cian wasn't volunteering the information.
"If safety is your concern, would it not be more beneficial to stay in the car longer?"
"That's because safety isn't the problem, here."
"In that case, would you care to explain what is?"
"Not particularly," Cian answered honestly. It had been a yes-or-no question, and the option was open. He had every reason to be honest. Sebastian didn't appreciate the humor in the caustic commentary.
"Alright, then." In what appeared to be resignation of defeat, or maybe he was merely sick of wasting time, Sebastian took a right turn towards the next street over. He watched the road ahead with enough attention to know where they were going. Cian began to relax, and thus, provided Sebastian his cue to speak up with a statement that had been on his mind for a while. "Tomorrow, perhaps you would like to walk the entire way without accompaniment? There is little difference," he stated with that slyly cheerful confidence that Cian was learning to despise by association. It only showed up when Sebastian knew he had enough of a point that he had already won.
Bitter but not entirely at a loss, Cian kept his eye on the window to avoid giving Sebastian the satisfaction of looking at him while he tried to figure out how he could explain himself. After a few seconds of pressing a hand to his cheek and trying to articulate, he concluded that a 'good' way to phrase this didn't exist and settled for what he had. "Mr. Holender was able to determine what you and I were based merely upon a few ambiguous comments I made. There are some measures that we can't help, but we shouldn't make it obvious that we have any sort of connection other than teacher to student. We can't afford to leave hints, and most teachers don't take their students with them to school on a regular basis," he explained.
With the added context, now the otherwise unreasonable demand seemed downright logical. Sebastian understood entirely. "Was that so horrible to state?" Sebastian asked, in an attempt to be gently encouraging.
"Yes," Cian answered, unyieldingly honest. He sighed softly and continued to look out the window towards the passing houses and colored, dying leaves.
It hadn't been the request that bothered him. It was the way that Sebastian constantly seemed so entertained by him that had gotten on his nerves more than anything else. Each time that piercing stare directed at him, he was filled with anxiety that he refused to think of. Sebastian returned to watching the road, but the sensation lingered as long as the thoughts did. No matter what Sebastian had said or done, Cian couldn't shake this nagging idea that to a demon, he was nothing more than a toy to play games with and manipulate. On the opposing side, there were some games that it took two to play, and there was a great deal of satisfaction to be found in outplaying an expert. It was to the point where he wasn't sure if he liked it or despised it.
"I hope you're aware, there will come a point where your words no longer faze me," Cian stated definitively. It wasn't an assertion that he should have been making, because he had no idea if it would be true, but this struck him as an appropriate moment for a bluff.
"And I shall readily look forward to that day. Perhaps it will allow us to arrive at school on time."
"As will I," Cian retorted, for no other reason than his unwillingness to allow someone else to have the last word. Sebastian recognized this well enough that he didn't bother to interfere, ending it there.
Sebastian brought the car to a stop at the curb of the sidewalk two blocks away from the school's back entrance, exactly as he had been instructed. Sebastian reached over to unlock the door from the inside, but Cian raised a hand to block the movement and pressed the lock open on his own. He wasted no time in unhooking his seat-belt, opening the door, and stepping out onto the empty street. While climbing out, he had grabbed the side of the doorframe. He continued to hang by that hand for a moment extra, peering at the interior while he gave a few parting instructions.
"If all goes well, I'll see you fifth period. We can discuss the remainder of the day on the way home. Remember your excuse and no matter what occurs, if I don't order it directly, stick to your job and do not call special attention to me," Cian ordered. He stepped back, shut the door and started on his way before Sebastian would have had the chance to speak back. That was for the best; they didn't have time for any more discussions.
By the time Sebastian arrived in the faculty parking lot, there was only one space left, proving that he was the last one to arrive. He pulled his briefcase out of the back seat and walked briskly towards the main building. The clock mounted on the wall of the front entrance stated that there were approximately six minutes remaining before the homeroom bell. He was short on time and would need to rush through organizing the lesson plans, but he wasn't late yet. So long as he didn't run into any more delays, he would be okay.
The presence of a dependent clause in that statement should have been enough to prove that whatever he needed to avoid would be precisely what happened next.
The hallways were oddly deserted for the time of day. Initially, this had almost seemed as if it was going to be a convenience. Less people in the area meant less people to create a problem. That was when he heard trampling that was best compared to a stampede followed by an oddly loud crinkling noise rapidly approaching from the next corridor over. He should have known the idea of a calm morning was far too good to be possible.
Instantly alert, Sebastian turned his head to see what the cause might be. He was met with the sight of an unidentifiable figure that he presumed to be a person submerged in vinyl material that was intended to be a school spirit banner, which was now finding new use as a brightly colored ghost costume. They were flailing about blindly, spinning through the hall while attempting to find a way to escape from the depths of un-breathable fabric, while a second person chased after them in a pitiful attempt to try and grab it off.
Somehow, Sebastian wasn't nearly as surprised by this as he should have been. Though he still had no idea how this had occurred, based on the identity of the student who was on the other side of the hallway, frantically chasing after the disaster-to-be, he had a fairly sound suspicion as to who might be trapped inside. That was explanation enough.
Sebastian casually stepped out of the path that the oncoming disaster was traveling down. The tangled maroon and gold mess stumbled by while attempting to find a sense of balance. It ran towards a wall, and came close enough to colliding with a locker at the side that the impact made a lamp on the ceiling begin to rock drastically from one side to another. The floor began to slip away from beneath their feet, to the point where it was a nudge and a misstep away from dramatically colliding with the wall.
Sebastian kept watch until an edge of the fabric was in view. When the opportunity arose, he grabbed it with a swift yet smooth tug, causing the sheet to unravel without doing any damage to the banner. From beneath the mound of tarp fabric emerged a bespectacled girl with burgundy red hair. To be honest, he hadn't expected anything less at this point. Of course this would be the case. To think that he would get any sort of a reprieve from dealing with incompetence just because he no longer worked alongside these people was far too optimistic.
She had been tripping already, so the removal of the cloth beneath her feet didn't have much of an influence in stopping her, just in altering the direction she happened to be crashing at. She reached out and raised her arms while trying to steady herself, which had absolutely no positive effect whatsoever. For a brief moment, Sebastian wondered what would occur if he allowed her to fall without interfering. He quickly discarded the idea as impractical, cast the banner aside, and skidded to a stop on his knees behind the point where she was about to land, allowing him to catch her.
It probably said something about the people that he was typically surrounded by that making these types of catches was such a routine process he didn't need to bother thinking to perform it. He didn't even need to glance at her to predict the reaction that would follow. The moment she realized what had happened, she would start to blush. Shortly after that, she would squeak nervously while attempting to figure out how to regain the capacity for speech. Thirty seconds or so later, she'd finally return to her senses enough that he could safely stand up without her falling over. This all passed as anticipated, with the additional, minor clarification that she still hadn't figured out how to talk after he'd set her down.
She was no longer at risk for being harmed in that accident, so he began to take a cautious step away from the scene. As if the scenery itself planned to conspire against him, he hadn't made it a full pace backwards before he was interrupted by the sound of an oncoming rampage. He turned his head to see if he could spot the source of such commotion, and was met by the sight of the missing person turning around a sharp corner, rushing frantically down the hall. They were moving so quickly that it appeared they weren't bothering to employ their sense of sight to assist them. In order to avoid being run into, Sebastian had to freeze in place.
Still set in a state of temporary selective sight, they skidded past Sebastian to a stop in the middle of the hallway and set two hands on the other girl's shoulders. Tears welled up in their eyes, to the point where it appeared that she was the one who was really frightened by what was happening. "Oh god oh god, Marlene, tell me you're okay and that they weren't gonna get you and-" she stopped rambling in worry when she reached the very delayed realization that the world had not recently reached a gory demise and furthermore, there was someone else in the hallway as well. She turned her head slightly to look at Sebastian and stared.
There was a noteworthy gap between when her expression turned blank from confusion. The pause lasted for as long as her mind took to grasp what had happened. The instant when she understood, she began to speak again as if the previous thirty full seconds hadn't occurred at all. "Mr. Michaelis, thank you! Please don't be mad! It wasn't our faults, I swear! There was a flicker and all the sudden the ghost made the sign fall down!" she apologized through abnormally boisterous sobbing.
Ordinarily, Sebastian would have dismissed this. He would have been slightly annoyed by the sniveling, but he still would have brushed the subject aside. The problem had already been created and the damage couldn't be reversed that easily. However, that statement was a little odd for an excuse, especially when it was so abnormally specific.
"A ghost?" he repeated, not entirely able to conceal his exasperated disbelief. From what he had witnessed, he couldn't even start to determine where someone would reach that conclusion. Where could an idea like that have possibly struck her as being logically sound, or, for that matter, good? He knew of ghosts. It was true that they existed. It wasn't true that any of them would be wasting their efforts pulling down posters in a school, and even if one was honestly that bored, he would have been able to sense a poltergeist long before two teenage girls brought it up.
If she spotted Sebastian's disbelief, she was choosing to entirely ignore it. "Yes!" She exclaimed with misplaced conviction. She turned away to look towards her recovering friend, in an attempt to receive some back-up. "What else could it be? You remember, don't you, Marley? Yesterday, how you got shoved down the stairs when there wasn't anyone behind you and tripped over nothing?"
The girl who was evidently named Marlene started to take a step back when she was spoken to. She stared down at her hands and started twisting her fingers around, fidgeting to try and distract herself from other matters. "Oh, I, I, not," she tried to speak, and lost track of where she had intended to go so quickly that she may have not even completed the thought before it slipped her mind.
"What about how we kept getting shivers every time we passed by the music room? We both thought we heard music but nobody was there when we opened the door. And then there were the random messages on the school computers, and Brad's eraser disappeared right off of his desk in the middle of class when nobody was around to take it, and" she stopped herself from continuing any further when the memory of it was enough to give her a slight case of the creeps, along with a more outwardly apparent shiver.
Yet again, Sebastian started to think this was the opportune moment for him to leave. He was just about ready to speak up a few words of parting when Marlene worked through enough of her embarrassment that she was able to speak in fragments, destroying any hope of making a swift exit within the minute.
"It's probably not, uhm, when Finley says tripped over nothing, there really might not have been anything else there. I was trying to make the banner lay straight when it fell. There's nothing to worry about! I'll fix it right away, I promise!" Marlene apologized while attempting not to look frightened. Her eyes darted from one side to the other to avoid looking directly at him.
"But that doesn't explain everything else! There's no other reason! It has to be a gho, os," Finley's expression seemed to freeze when her thoughts drifted right back in the opposite direction than they should have gone. The thoughts made her feel just nauseous enough to justify the complaining. "I want to go home! I don't feel well and it's safer there!" she exclaimed, distraught to the verge of tears, not that tears took that much effort when she was already crying just a few moments ago.
From there, it was a chain reaction for Marlene to be frightened as well. She gulped, trying, and failing, not to reveal this to Sebastian. To her credit, at least she wasn't crying, though there was no guarantee as to how long that would last if allowed to progress.
In that single second that Sebastian had spared to observe Marlene's condition, Finley had latched directly onto his arm and started pulling him downwards. Finley gazed upwards with wide, pathetically quivering eyes. Perfect. Somewhere, a person existed who would find this adorable or endearing. This hypothetical being could feel free to take his place at any time.
Sebastian raised the arm that wasn't being restricted by an iron grip to set a hand on Finley's shoulder. He released a short breath that sounded oddly similar to a sigh, and then spoke. He couldn't appear shaken or irritated when he needed her to listen. "If you are feeling unwell, Hayes, then you may go to the nurse's office. I shall speak with your homeroom teacher to explain your absence on your behalf later, if necessary," he tried to assure her.
Slowly, he slipped his arm away from Finley's grasp. The process was gradual enough that she didn't seem to mind, or perhaps she just didn't notice. He took advantage of his regained mobility to retrieve the fallen sign. If it had been left in a pile to be forgotten, he had this suspicion that someone would have tripped on it.
Once it was evident that Finley was no longer in hysterics, Sebastian was able to attend to the lesser source of vexation. "As for you, Weiss, there is no reason for your concern. It is best that you continue on your way to class. Someone else shall attend to the banner, and you would not want to be tardy," he advised while watching her closely. Maintaining a focus point on the subject of the conversation was, logically enough, polite and helpful for Sebastian. Marlene wasn't receiving the same benefits.
Receiving direct attention from someone so completely gorgeous was making her so nervous that she was a moment away from swooning. Her face turned a dark shade of pink before she was able to wrestle her eyes away from a sideways glance. That brief moment had been enough to almost entirely erase any image of a ghost from her mind, replacing the imaginary scene with another type of daydream that she should probably be ashamed of having. She had been standing there for half a minute before she bothered to move, or for that matter, think.
"Oh, yes, right. You're right, right," she stuttered with a wave of the hand, in a severely delayed attempt to distract from her embarrassment. "I, uh, don't feel so well either, so, I'm gonna- go with Finney too. Make sure she finds the nurse and, bye!" With that rushed statement as her parting words, she took Finley's hand, and the two of them finally left Sebastian to his new predicament.
He was already late, so he decided not to try delegating the task and to put the sign back up in its proper space himself. It wouldn't take him that long, and it gave him a few moments of actual silence to contemplate the possible implications of what he just heard if Finley wasn't lying to him.
If he assumed that her statements could be substantiated, it meant that there was a supernatural presence in the vicinity. Ghosts weren't capable of causing such things, but the influence of a malicious demon was more than possible. If it was causing phenomena randomly, it meant that it was being drawn towards the school, but it hadn't located its intended target. If this was the case, it was more than a stroke of good fortune that they hadn't attended yesterday. It was too convenient to be a coincidence. Cian had experienced a case of subconscious intuition.
This new development was interesting, and it brought a few new possibilities to light, but it wasn't particularly helpful. Avoiding school for another day was no longer an option- it would only raise suspicions. They were in the best instance they could have aspired for. It just wasn't very reassuring when it set them on the defense in a naturally restricted setting. Something knew they were there, but it didn't know they were the ones it was looking for.
As he pressed push pins into the wall to hold the sign up, there was a single subject weighing on his mind that he had no way of knowing the answer to. There were three hours until he would have the opportunity to share this information. Until then, the Cian was unlikely to realize that there was danger to be wary of unless it was already striking. So, how much good fortune did the young master have left, and would it be enough to bide them time?
…Then again, it was just as possible that this theory was invalid and he was as mistaken as the source the information came from. For all he was aware, the entire basis of this assumption could be the result of a teenage girls' wild imagination, and unless something were to go specifically wrong, that would remain consistent. He supposed it wasn't worth dwelling on for long when the answer would unveil itself in due time. For the next three hours, he would be sure to keep his ears open, just in case.