Ciel's bedroom was achingly empty.
He didn't chase after Trancy—after Alois. He just lay there, helpless, numb, wide awake.
His parents, his past. Sebastian, Trancy, his present. He couldn't tell the difference anymore.
Ciel watched as the ugly orange light from the streetlamps faded with the rising sun; he hadn't slept all night.
The following day was, predictably, awful.
Ciel was rather like a fussy tropical plant, sensitive to any disruptions in his ecosystem. A sleepless night did not suit him well. He was agitated and loopy all day, practically delirious by the time rehearsals rolled around.
Fleetingly, he wondered what Trancy would think, if he could see what a mess he looked, sallow and wan, with heavy bags under his eyes.
He shook this thought off like droplets of water, though he was still gripped by nauseous dread at the prospect of telling Sebastian what had happened. He wasn't sure if he was afraid Sebastian would be angry, or afraid that he wouldn't.
When he entered the rehearsal room, Sebastian, already waiting inside, arched an eyebrow. "Fun night?"
Ciel averted his gaze to the floor, uncomfortably reminded of Trancy. "Fun night?" he'd whispered, poking at Ciel's allergy-swollen face after his first night at Sebastian's.
"I didn't sleep well," Ciel mumbled. After you kicked me out.
"Hmm. Well, if you're not going to be able to play, you might as well take the night off." Sebastian said, every inch a professor disappointed in his student.
"I didn't ask for the night off," Ciel snapped. "I'm fine."
He could feel Sebastian's eyes scanning him, like a submarine's floodlights, taking in his sloppy clothes, mussed hair, and pallid skin. "Very good, then. Let's begin."
Ciel's fingers were clumsy, as if frostbitten, as he played through the complicated piece, Sebastian stopping him frequently to correct him. At last, he lowered his instrument in frustration. "Forget it. I can't do this."
He was prepared for the smack of Sebastian's baton against the music stand, followed by a stern reprimand. He was already preparing for the inevitable argument when Sebastian said, "I understand. Go home and rest."
Ciel opened his mouth, closed it. Then, hesitantly: "Sebastian? I...need to talk to you about something."
Sebastian snapped his violin into its case and looked up. "Oh?"
"It's...well, can I stay at your place tonight?"
Sebastian furrowed his brow. "May I ask why?"
"I just...don't feel comfortable at mine right now," Ciel said, frowning softly, as if from within a nightmare.
Sebastian sighed softly, which made Ciel furious. Acting so put upon when he'd started the whole damn thing.
He trailed behind Sebastian, around the front of the building and to his sensible black sedan in the faculty parking lot on the other side. Chivalrous as ever, the older man opened the passenger door for Ciel, before circling around to the driver's side. The lights that came on automatically were harsh, dispelling the shadows of memory that mingled in the dark.
An artist Ciel couldn't place trickled through the speakers. The music seemed cheesy, melodramatic and mocking. The longer it went on, the more it irritated him, and he was prodded from his moody silence. "Could I get something to eat?" He couldn't help his petulant tone.
"Certainly."
Gracious as ever, Ciel thought bitterly. Sebastian's unshakeable sangfroid made him feel hysterical and difficult by comparison, and his defenses were worn so thin that it was like a rush of oxygen to a roaring fire. He shifted in his seat so that his weight was balanced heavily on one hip and his back was practically facing Sebastian, and he glared out the window.
Sebastian left him to fester for the duration of the ride, and the silence between them stretched unbroken until the front door had opened and shut behind them with a whispery creak.
The two cats Ciel had seen, and a dark grey tabby he hadn't, immediately ran to greet their master, purring and winding about his legs. Reflexively, Ciel rubbed his nose and took a step back from them.
"Please excuse me for a few minutes," Sebastian said, not looking up from the black cat whose face he was caressing as he knelt on the floor.
Ciel snorted and walked back into the bedroom, kicking off his shoes at the door and immediately collapsing into the cloud of bedclothes.
They smelled freshly laundered, and he wiggled over to the pillows and laid his cheek upon one. Warm and comfortable, his immediate problems out of the way, a deadened calm settled over him. He lay things out in his mind, feeling comfortably distant from himself.
Trancy may have been abrasive and gross, but he knew something. And, from the little information Ciel had been able to gather, it was possible he may have still had some contacts. His past tended to strike at him suddenly, like a vicious snake curled in the damp corners of his mind, and when he could, he preferred to leave it there. But, if the other boy had information, it might be worth it to confront the beast.
"What do you think of Alois Trancy?" Ciel asked evenly, his gaze fixed steadily on the wall opposite him as he heard Sebastian's footfalls entering the room and pausing somewhere around the doorframe.
It would be obvious that the question was related to Ciel's strange mood and circumstances, but he knew Sebastian wouldn't press the point. He heard a solid-sounding but quiet chok as Sebastian approached closer and set something on the nightstand. "He is, technically speaking, a very talented violinist, if not a true musician."
Ciel rolled over, then, looking Sebastian unflinchingly in the eye. "So that's your opinion of him?" He spoke like an adult catching a naughty child in a lie.
Standing next to the bed, posture cautious and rigid, Sebastian met his gaze. "I don't know him well enough to say anything more."
The younger man was silent, with that same strange, chastising look. He couldn't explain it, but somehow, he felt like Sebastian was a part of this. The professor seemed to have been a catalyst for everything that was happening, all the old scars suddenly dragged to the surface and this unstable new player in the three-act tragedy of his youth.
Maybe he just wanted someone to drag down with him.
After a long, weighty silence, Sebastian spoke again. "I brought you allergy medicine." The little white pills sat next to the glass of water he'd set on the night table. Languidly, Ciel pulled himself up into a sitting position, taking the pills with a swallow of water.
Everything felt glassy and strange, like his body and voice were acting someone else's direction. And then, suddenly, it shattered, and he flew back into himself. He shook his head briefly, eyes closed, trying to adjust to the jarring transition. Sebastian just stood there silently, watching, his face giving nothing away.
"I need a bath," Ciel said, the little snippy edge returning to his voice. Without asking or waiting for permission, he stood from the bed and swept past Sebastian.
After a few moments fiddling with the knobs, trying to figure out how to adjust the temperature and shut the drain, he set the bath running, and perched on the edge. "What a weird day," he muttered to himself, face in hands that were shoving upward through his hair.
"Indeed," a smiling voice replied.
He looked up; the professor had taken off his shoes and padded into the oyster-tiled room, unnoticed.
Sebastian was no longer handling him with that uncomfortable stiffness he'd been so full of earlier. He seemed more relaxed, with the indiscernible little upturn of lips and slant of eyes that he so often wore around Ciel. He held a fluffy white towel, which he hung on a bar next to the tub, before sitting down next to Ciel.
"Is anything the matter?" he asked again, softly.
Ciel heaved in a huge sigh, tilting his head up towards the ceiling, his hands gripping the tub on either side of his hips, before he exhaled and looked back down toward the floor. "Trancy knows something about my past. He was there."
He'd never seen Sebastian barefoot before. His feet were lovely.
The water splashed into the bathtub behind them, a busy, joyful sound. "He came to my apartment last night, and I'd rather not have another run-in with him," Ciel supplied, as the silence stretched unbroken.
"I see." They were silent for a moment. "Can I get you anything? Tea, perhaps?" Sebastian offered. Ciel heard the minute rumpling of his clothes as he shifted his weight.
"No." He stood, and, turning away from the professor, began to strip off his clothes, tossing his eyepatch off last. As if the other man wasn't in the room at all, he dipped one slim leg after the other into the water and sank into the hot bath.
Sebastian kept his house quite chilly, and the warm water felt like heaven. Ciel's eyes slid shut in contentment, and for the first time in a long while, his mind felt blissfully empty.
He creaked his undamaged lid open when he heard the tap shut off. Its hollow, erratic dripping echoed through the room. It looked like Sebastian had dimmed the lights as well.
"You really missed your calling as a butler," Ciel mused drolly, closing his eyes once more. "Actually, I think I'll take you up on—mmph!" Plush lips pressed roughly to his swallowed the end of his sentence, and his eyes flew open in surprise.
Predatory eyes flickering in the low light met his, something ancient and unknowable flashing within them. They stayed like that for a beat, fear and lust congealing in Ciel's heart, before Sebastian's hand wove its way into his damp hair, pulling his mouth up for a deeper kiss.
He couldn't help the stirring deep within him at that rough, possessive clashing of lips. Couldn't help the submissive way he parted his lips to allow Sebastian's hot tongue to explore him; the way he reached up desperately to wind his arms around the other man's neck, awkward as it was with Sebastian kneeling next to the tub.
It was pleasure mixed with pain; the closeness of another person cut through him like a knife, but the deep hollows of his mind were flooded with base desires. He felt utterly torn, falling into the deep chasm that separated fear from lust.
Which was how one hand was pushing weakly against Sebastian's chest, while the other tangled in his hair, and his mouth moved roughly against the professor's.
He pulled Sebastian's hair roughly, and the small, debauched noise the action elicited sent a shudder through Ciel. Faster than could be put to words or pictures, the idea flashed through his mind of taking the professor as he himself had been taken last time.
And suddenly, he was attacking full force, lifting himself partway out of the water to lean closer to Sebastian, dark, heavy possessiveness swirling about him like shadow. You are mine, and you will think of nothing else.
He pulled hard on Sebastian's hair, tilting his head to expose his throat and the fetching angle of his jaw. Nearly standing, bracing himself on the edge of the tub, he leaned forward, sinking his teeth into that neck. Mine.
"Phan—Ciel—"
"Shut up," Ciel growled, in a voice he was quite sure he'd never heard, "and undress."
Sebastian didn't move as Ciel stepped onto the tasteful, nubby bathmat, and pulled the towel from the bar above it. "I am not a patient person," he said, drying himself off roughly, his eyes glinty as they slanted downward.
The professor rose, and his face was fox-like in the shadows as he looked down to unbutton his shirt. With his eyelids lowered like that, lashes lush and sensuous, he looked strangely...submissive. It annoyed Ciel; he knew where the true power lay between them.
"Stop acting all innocent," he huffed, undoing Sebastian's trousers while he was working on his shirt. He made sure to brush his hand against the growing hardness beneath them, a light, teasing touch.
"Yet you're acting so bold," he answered dryly, despite the evidence of his interest. At this, Ciel yanked the other man's trousers down roughly, having successfully undone the belt and fastenings that held them.
He was intoxicated with this feeling; this desire to claim, to possess. Ciel sank to his knees, scraping his nails along Sebastian's newly bared thighs, and taking his arousal tentatively into his mouth.
Due to his inexperience, he aired on the side of cautiousness, licking and sucking softly, but as Sebastian remained silent, a wildness reared up within him. He would respond.
Lifting his lips, he sank his teeth into the soft white skin of Sebastian's thigh, while delicately stroking his arousal. He bit down, hard, until at last he heard a rough little exhale.
He stood, stretching to meet Sebastian's lips in a hard kiss. Don't you dare treat me like everyone else. He pushed his tongue into the other's mouth sloppily, tracing his lips and tasting him like the exquisite stimulant he was.
Perhaps it was the unexpected and unexplained kiss from Trancy, but Ciel felt suddenly wild. He wanted Sebastian to feel as jealous and possessive as he himself felt.
"Trancy kissed me," he whispered, on tiptoe, into Sebastian's ear, his words conveyed with hot breathlessness.
He couldn't have anticipated the reaction.
The older man grabbed Ciel's hips roughly, picking him up and resting him on the edge of the counter. His hands were rough shackles around his calves, splaying the teen's legs up and out awkwardly, while his tongue caressed his inner thighs, its path falling dangerously close to his entrance.
Ciel was torn between that hot, wet tongue chasing his lust and his own angry need for power and control. Before he could make up his mind, one of his hands had wound its way into Sebastian's hair, and his brain had begun to register the soft warmth of that other body between his knees.
That antsy feeling within him cried out for more. The base part of him took Sebastian's arousal in hand, stroking gently, and pressing its tip against his own entrance. Do it.
He felt utterly manic, staring up at Sebastian through his own shuttered lashes.
Ciel couldn't have asked for more. The professor looked completely torn, split between his student and lover's well-being and his own lust.
"Maybe we should go to the bedroom," Sebastian murmured, taking his own lust in hand and tracing tight circles against the teen's entrance.
Now.
Ciel slid off the counter, as prettily as he could have hoped, and transitioned back down to kneeling as smoothly as possible. His fingernails sank into the unmarked whiteness of Sebastian's arse and back, while his lips circled his arousal once more.
His tongue lay wetly against that pulsing vein, and his lips and teeth provided suckling pleasure and pain that, unchecked, kept the Sebastian teetering quietly on the edge of release.
Every silent second that passed served only to encourage Ciel, and he grew less gentle and careful. He couldn't help it; something about seeing Sebastian this way coaxed out that wild part of him that demanded a response.
"Either come," he breathed, "Or fuck me."
Gratifyingly, these words were met with a closure of eyes and a sharp inhalation, like perhaps Sebastian was restraining himself. For a cold and impossibly deep instant, the professor pulled himself away, then propped Ciel up on the counter, and, slicked with something unseen, that pressure was against him once more.
Ciel curled his hands into claws, pulling Sebastian closer, closer. His breath hitched and his eyes squeezed shut involuntarily as he pulled himself and his destiny together.
Despite whatever Sebastian had applied to himself, it was too much. Ciel gasped out a ragged, ugly cry, and the professor withdrew.
"I won't punish you," he murmured into Ciel's neck as he leaned forward.
He wouldn't admit that he wanted this; pleasure and pain, redemption and damnation. He would push Sebastian to his breaking point, so there was no longer any question.
Taking Sebastian's cock into his hand, Ciel guided it roughly into himself, despite the burning rawness of it. The gratification of seeing the other man's pleasure written across his face was enough.
The unfiltered expression on Sebastian's face as he pressed into Ciel, he thought, was why wars were fought. Why civilizations had been built and destroyed. For in that moment, he'd have done anything to see that look. Far beyond the tight, burning ache of his body struggling to accommodate the other man's.
Soon, however, the wicked fire in Ciel's eyes began to burn a different color, as Sebastian angled himself to hit that wretched weak spot within him. Absolutely unbidden, Ciel's back arched, and a breathy sigh escaped him as Sebastian brushed against his g-spot.
The rhythm of their coupling was nameless and rough, each set of lips uttering a secret prayer unbeknownst to the other.
The undoing, senseless touch of Sebastian's hand was enough. He was utterly possessed, filled with the professor and helpless beneath him. With only a few liquid strokes, Ciel was crying out his release, Sebastian apparently not far behind him; the only indicator was a few loose, aimless thrusts, followed by stillness.
Ciel slid down off the counter, scooping up his neglected towel. "Now I need a shower," he huffed. He busied himself with draining the neglected bathwater, unwilling to admit that he was afraid to look at Sebastian's face.
Soft footsteps told him that the room was his once more. Ciel sat on the edge of the tub again, listening to the water flow down the drain.
He turned on the shower, standing beneath its spray until the water began to grow cold. When it became unbearable, he turned off the tap, and, drying himself off, he dressed in the same clothes he'd worn over.
He couldn't help it: with all his thoughts of his past and of Trancy, he slunk out into the living room. Ciel wrapped himself in a plush throw blanket tossed over the back of the couch, and, with the lights blazing merrily and surrounded by cats, he collapsed onto the couch.