-:- Subject 13's Butler -:-
.:A Kuroshitsuji Fan Fiction:.
Author: AoUsagi
Summary: Ciel takes the leap into Oblivion, only to wake into a strange white-washed world of beeping machines and white-coats doctors. The only thing that seems real is Sebastian, who steals him away from the hellhole laboratory to save him from the sick sake of science.
BeforeNote:
It seems like forever yet I know it's at least been a week. My internet's been used up for the month so I'm using this crappy telstra prepaid stick thingy to bring you lovelies this little update.
And in this chapter, ANOTHER character is properly introduced! 8D stop me now; there are still at least another 13 characters to be brought into the story. (Only stop me if you don't want any more updates, yo!)
Aaaarrrghsdalsdadble I'm so very tired. I need some good, long, decent sleep. Unfortunately, I've recently discovered some music that tops every chart of awesomeness, and often spend too much time listening to it and not doing anything useful.
That and, in between everything else that's been going on, there has been Skyrim.
Lots and LOTS of Skyrim.
- Mercy
…
All of you, I command you. Open another tab, go to YouTube, and look up "Winterspell" by Two Steps from Hell, from the Skyworld soundtrack. THAT THING IS FUCKING BLISS ON A STICK.
Chapter Thirteen: Love me. Hate me. Take me. Break me.
-:-
The Dispatch officers had searched the building another two times before being puzzled enough about the mysterious disappearing body of Ciel that had quite clearly fallen from the window yet was nowhere to be found on the street below before finally giving up and heading away. Ciel had watched them leave from the same window that only half an hour ago he'd been dangling from. Madame Red had suggested that while the officers conduct their search, he and Sebastian hide up on the roof, and so he and the doctor had sat up on the rooftop of the hospital overlooking the rest of London, the breeze and the clouds in the sky creating a rather melancholy atmosphere.
At least he was calm now, Ciel reminded himself. It had taken a while for him to start breathing properly again from the adrenaline rush, and Madame Red had said he'd been close to having a panic attack despite being safe. Just to be sure, she'd left him and Sebastian on the roof with a portable nebuliser, a piece of equipment that Sebastian explained would help him to breathe properly with the help of some foul-smelling medicine that made his throat taste terrible.
The rest of the afternoon passed with relative peace; no one else tried to hunt them down and no one climbed out any more windows. Ciel was kept in isolation from any of the other patients, tucked away in the private ward with Mey-Rin and Finnian for company, who'd come as soon as they'd heard the news. Bardroy had headed back to the hotel to make sure Pluto wasn't by himself in case anything happened.
"That's not a word," Mey-Rin objected, and Ciel looked down at the word he'd just spelled out.
They were playing Scrabble. Bardroy had brought the game with him, and Finnian and Mey-Rin had insisted that Ciel be taught how to play merely on the basis that if they didn't entertain him somehow, he would go spare from being cooped up – Sebastian had taken a turn to stay on guard just outside the door.
"Oh," Ciel replied, a little lamely. "Uh…" he rearranged the letters so they spelt something else. "Better?"
Mey-Rin gave him a smile. "Yup," she said, before stretching and looking at the clock. It was six thirty. The sun was beginning to disappear among the towering buildings of the city and the darkness was beginning to set in.
Finni watched Ciel for a moment before speaking.
"You're not really paying attention, are you?" he asked, and Ciel blinked, dropping the letter piece that he'd been flipping over in his fingers.
"Hmm? Oh – no, not really," he admitted a little sheepishly, not wanting to hurt their feelings. But the two of them merely smiled.
"It's okay," Mey-Rin said, and Finni suppressed a yawn. "It's been a long day and it's understandable if you're restless."
"Just don't let me go for a walk," Ciel smirked, and they both gave him a surprised look before getting the joke and dissolving into laughter. They heard Sebastian clear his throat outside, and they quieted.
"It won't be long now," Finni reassured Ciel with a smile, his big, blue eyes holding nothing but honesty. "Doctor Red says just a few more days of bed rest for you and Sebastian and you'll be ready to go."
Ciel let out a sigh as he took a look out at the darkening horizon out the window. It was going to be a long few more days.
-:-
Grell Sutcliff wasn't often a busy man.
He preferred to shoulder off his workload wherever possible – but this particular little mission couldn't be handed off to some junior worker or another agent. If anyone else knew about this, he would be fired. Or, more likely, shot on sight.
Stepping passed his boss' office; Grell took a quick glance around before ducking inside. The office was well lit, the fluorescent lights casting the office in a calming, almost blue-ish glow. There was a cabinet in the corner for neatly stacking and filing away important documents and folders, a wastepaper basket, and a small, cheesy little pot-plant on the windowsill. Grell smirked to himself – he knew that, if his boss had anything to do with it, that pot-plant would be sailing out the door of his office faster than a terrified junior agent on his first mission.
In the dead centre of the room across from the door and towards the back of the carpeted office, sat his boss' mahogany desk. It had a simple array of things on it – a flat screen computer, a stack of forms, and a penholder with several pens and the occasional pencil in it. There was nothing personal on the desk – no photo frame of any family, no coffee cup, nothing to personalize the fact that, every single day, Grell's superior would sit here and do any left over paperwork from the night before, apart from the simple, heavy weight brass plaque that sat at the head of the desk facing those who entered and stood before him. The plaque read one name.
William T Spears.
Grell ignored it as he slid behind the desk and deftly removed a hairpin that had been tucked away behind his ear. Kneeling by the draws to William's desk, he slowly jiggled the hairpin into the lock of the top draw – in there was what Grell needed. He kept one eye on the door – he'd taken the opportunity to slip away from the commotion downstairs to have a quick pry in Will's office. William was, after all, preoccupied with the whole incident of the body of the disappearing Phantomhive boy. No doubt, Grell smirked to himself, he was berating Slingby and Humphries for their failure to apprehend the boy or recover his remains.
The lock popped with a soft click, and he dragged the hairpin free of the mechanism before pulling open the draw. In it, he saw a few more office necessities – a manila folder, a few pieces of assorted stationary, and, right at the back, tucked away under a box of staples, there was a key. Grell reached in, gingerly removing the box of staples and placing them carefully to one side before letting his long, manicured fingers grasp the key and drag it from the draw. With a triumphant grin, Grell turned and headed towards the cabinet that stood in the corner of the office. The locked cabinet was open in a matter of seconds.
"Will should really invest in a locked safe of sorts," Grell murmured to himself in amusement as he quickly rifled through the folders. He was looking for one name in particular – a name that, he very quickly discovered, wasn't there.
"Damn."
"Looking for something, Sutcliff?"
Grell whirled, his eyes wide, and he saw William standing at the doorway, readjusting his glasses.
"Uh – oh! Will! Uh – ha-ha, fancy seeing you here, I mean – " the redhead stammered as his boss sighed in exasperation.
"Fancy indeed," William T Spears said, his tone flat. "Especially since this is my office."
He stepped into the room, and Grell swallowed hard – he was busted. Will would drill him dry about this. Before he had time to come up with a plausible excuse, however, William was already standing at the desk, examining his unlocked draw.
"Seems I'll have to invest in some better locks." He said, eyeing Grell coldly. "What on earth do you think you're looking for in there?"
"Uh – p-public…records…?" Grell said hopefully, quickly pushing the cabinet draw shut and palming the key up his sleeve. William, looking incredibly unamused, held out his hand. Grell sighed in defeat and handed him the key, which William replaced inside the draw before closing it and locking it again with a key of his own.
"Really. Now, what were you really doing snooping through my office uninvited?" the dark haired superior asked, and Grell let his shoulders fall. He couldn't deny William – he'd known the man ever since they'd been in college together. One night in a dark alley had begun their path to destruction; the becoming of government agents only to have to break away from their benefactors due to the corruption of under-the-table dealings amongst those who'd first funded them. One night of being just a little too drunk, Grell remembered vaguely.
"Fine," he sighed again. "I was looking for some of the files on the Hospital. More specifically, on the Keinz boy."
William readjusted his glasses – his version of complete astonishment.
"The Keinz boy?" he repeated, and Grell heard a hint of surprise in his voice. "You know fully well that those records are kept hidden for a reason, Sutcliff. They're under a lock and key tighter than anything you've ever picked with a hair accessory. Why are you even interested in them, anyway?"
Grell shrugged, getting back a little confidence. He'd managed to catch William off guard – perhaps honesty wasn't such a stupid thing after all. Of course, telling Will the whole truth was off limits. Grell may be a deadly efficient operative, but he wasn't deadly dumb.
"Well, you know – with the whole thing going down about the Phantomhive brat," he said, letting a small, sly smile creep over his features. "I was curious as to a bit more of the backstory behind the others who were involved."
William raised an eyebrow.
"Pardon the cliché, Grell, but curiosity is what killed the cat." He replied, deadpan. "I can't allow you to see those archives. It's strictly forbidden and you know it. Not even I have access to them."
"B-but you were heading up the case!" Grell was startled – it had been Will's bread and butter nearly four years ago; the biggest scam of the century, about to be unveiled. "Surely you'd at least know where they're kept – "
"Forget it."
"Please?"
"You honestly think begging will help?"
Grell pouted. "Come on, Will. I just want to know a bit more about the Keinz boy."
His superior's eyes narrowed behind his black-framed glasses.
"His name is Drocell Keinz. He grew up in an orphanage til he was four, at which time he was adopted into a family under the name of Mandalay. He is twenty-two years old, was a protégée genius and out of high school at the age of fourteen. He spent four years studying neurology and psychology in a double-diploma at university because becoming a psychotherapist. He was wrangled into working for the Hospital for about a year before the experimentation began. He was forced to use his skills to manipulate children's memories and, upon realizing how wrong it all was, tried to end the trial experiments but was abused and tossed out by the heads of the company, expected to crawl into a hole and die." William's tone was completely flat as he reeled off the information without so much as blinking, and Grell's jaw dropped.
"H-hey, if you know it all then why is the information so secret?" he asked, and William shrugged as he took his seat behind his desk, and Grell came to stand in front of him.
"Because I was there." His boss replied. "I was the one to bring the boy in."
"Well if we've got this stuff, then why the hell aren't we throwing this wide open?" Grell waved his arms in the air. "This is huge! This is even bigger than that incident with the church and that mob of crazy purists!"
"Because who is going to believe the words of a rogue government agency who are taking the word of a half-insane therapist turned delusional head case?" William shot right back, and Grell sighed, realizing he was right. "Besides," Will continued. "We don't have enough information. If we really wanted to throw this out into the open, we'd need solid proof. And for that we'd need at least one of the test subjects and their 'Keepers' as I hear they're called."
"Being…"
"Being the Phantomhive boy and his Keeper, Doctor Michaelis. Both of whom were rumoured to be dead. Until now." William finished, and Grell swallowed – he knew that Will would stop at nothing to get his hands on those two. This was where he began to tread thin ice with his boss.
"Right."
William sighed and leant forward in his chair, resting his elbows on the desk and resting his chin on his thumbs as his intertwined his fingers. There was a moment of quiet before he spoke again.
"Sutcliff?"
"Yessir?" Grell looked up from where his gaze had fallen to the carpet. It was an intriguing shade of blue with small red flecks running through it.
"Why are you so interested in the Keinz boy?"
Grell shifted nervously from foot to foot – this was the moment when it was do or die. Lie blatantly or tell the truth. Thankfully, Grell had become incredibly good at lying. He gave William a small smile.
"It's been at least two years since the kids seen sunlight properly, hasn't it? Wouldn't it be nice if he were able to just go home for once? Just for, say, an afternoon?"
William narrowed his eyes.
"What are you thinking?"
Grell leant down onto the desk, lowering his eyes so he was looking down his nose at William. "I'm asking you to give him a little break."
William raised a hand and very slowly pushed Grell back and out of his personal space. "You're thinking of using him as bait."
Grell's whole façade fell crashing to the floor – how Will had known, he would never know. This was bad.
"I don't know how or where the Keeper would get information on the Keinz boy, Grell, but they're both directly tied to the Hospital case." William said matter-of-factly. "But if the Keeper knows about Keinz, then he'll want to approach him and see if he can unlock the boys memories. It's simple logic when you look at it."
"T-that's right!" Grell said, deciding to pick up the pace again; perhaps he could work a way around this. "And so, you know – wouldn't it make sense? You want the Keeper and the little test subject, so why not dangle Keinz out in the open for them to see?"
William gave him a look. "And who exactly would be working this particular little mission?"
Grell gave him a flirtatious wink – he hoped his nervousness wasn't showing. "Why, me, of course."
There was a moment of silence. For a split second, Grell was convinced that William had seen straight through his attempts to cover his lies and was going to realize that Grell was working for both sides. For just a moment, Grell feared the handgun that was concealed within William's coat, in a holster strap around his shoulders.
"Fine."
Sweating bullets, Grell looked down to see William turning away from him, swivelling his chair around to look out the window of the office. The blinds were drawn down, but they were parted to give a slotted view of the city alight with colours and lights this late at night. Grell stared back at his own stunned reflection.
"S-sir?"
"Go ahead." William said simply. "Bait the Keeper into trying to contact Keinz; he probably doesn't know that we have Keinz in custody at the moment, which is a point in our favour. Apprehend the Keeper as soon as he makes an appearance – but only and only if he has the boy with him. Bring them both in."
Grell couldn't believe it. He'd both saved and damned Sebastian at the same time. Thankfully, though, this little escapade didn't in any way conflict with the Judas contract. That much was good news.
"Right." He said, letting out a silent breath of relief before heading for the door of William's office. "Oh, and Will?"
William was still gazing out the window, not even bothering to turn to Grell. Grell knew that he could see his reflection well enough.
"What, Sutcliff?"
"You won't have to worry about sending in any back up. I can manage this by myself."
Grell waited for William to reply, knowing that this little detail was as critical as the rest of it. So long as he was allowed to escort Keinz by himself and without anyone else from the Dispatch watching, he'd have nothing to worry about. And Sebastian would never have to know that this whole ordeal went down at all.
After a moment, William finally sighed, a mixture of what sounded to be tiredness and exasperation – the redhead couldn't quite tell which was more prominent.
"Very well. Just don't fail like Humphries and Slingby did today."
Grell let his usual smile return.
"Of course, sir."
-:-
Two more days passed with the same sluggish nature of that of the snail that Ciel was currently watching crawl its way slowly across the windowsill. He'd been watching it for and hour – watching as it eased itself ever so unhurriedly along, leaving behind a long, glistening trail of clear slime in its wake.
He snuck a glance at the clock that hung on the wall opposite the two hospital beds. It was barely even five minutes since he'd last looked. Suppressing a frustrated groan, he glared at the snail again. Watching the city no longer interested him, and cloud-watching was only entertaining for so long.
Mey-Rin, Bardroy and Finni had been taking turns on coming to visit, ensuring that there were always at least two of them occupying the hotel room that was their safe house in case anything happened. Pluto had returned and was on guard during the night-time, before disappearing in the morning with Bardroy usually replacing him as he went back to sleep.
Madame Red had been in and out, often brandishing X-ray sheets or some such paperwork for Sebastian to read. Grell hadn't been around since the incident with the Dispatch – and merely out of boredom did Ciel wonder what had happened to the flirtatious redhead.
And as for Sebastian – Sebastian had often been holed up inside the hospital room with him, and had more often than not been occupying himself with reading or writing. But whatever he wrote, Ciel never caught a glimpse and neither did they discuss it. Whatever it was, it was private. Ciel didn't even bother to try and find out what it was – his growing restlessness and growing agitation was beginning to get the better of him; he hated being cooped up in here. It was starting to feel claustrophobic.
He snuck a glance at the dark haired doctor next to him. Sebastian was, of all things, doing a crossword. A pair of glasses rested on the doctor's nose, his dark red gaze looking over the black and white paper in front of him, his pen tapping on the page as it was held by idle fingers. Ciel studied him for a moment. How could Sebastian be so relaxed? Surely he was beginning to get bored too.
"I want – "
"No."
Ciel sighed in frustration and buried his face into his pillow. He was lying on his stomach, propped up on his elbows so he could look up and around him. The tone of Sebastian's voice was, indeed, bored, and Ciel gazed at him for a moment longer. Then, a thought came to mind.
" – A – "
"I said no."
A smile tugged at Ciel's lips. Sebastian's voice was distracted – he wasn't really listening to him at all. He wondered just what he could say to stir Sebastian up. Suddenly, he had it.
" – Kitten."
"I said – what?" Sebastian looked up at him, his eyes a little dazed and unfocussed, but he'd obviously caught on what Ciel had said, but hadn't got the context. Ciel muffled a small laugh. "What?"
"I knew it." Ciel rolled over onto his back, clutching the white pillow to his chest as he gazed up at the ceiling, a triumphant smile on his face. "Even here, even now, you're an cat person."
Sebastian cleared his throat and sighed in exasperation – Ciel didn't need to look over to see that the doctor was rolling his eyes, unamused and obviously catching on to Ciel's playful ruse. He set down the crossword book.
"Of course I am." He replied. "Dogs are so…so eager to please. Unless they're not trained right. Then all manner of things could go wrong."
"So what makes cats so good in comparison?" Ciel asked lazily, and Sebastian smiled a little.
"They have minds of their own and don't need to be told what to do, when or where. You can house train a cat, but it's up to them to allow you to keep them." He said. "And anyway – they're creatures of grace and beauty."
"Dogs can be graceful."
"Dogs have been used throughout history to hunt and kill." Sebastian retorted. "They have been trained to fight and trained to lie subserviently at a masters feet. They don't think for themselves if they think someone may set down food for them. They're too… to predictable."
"And cats aren't?" Ciel asked, his eyebrows raised. He wasn't particularly into this topic of conversation but at least it beat the silence of boredom. "Besides. Cat's hunt birds and mice and stuff, don't they? And I've heard of circus' that use big cats in their cats."
"Cats know what they want and how to get it, despite being 'owned' by man." The doctor replied. "Not all cats chase birds and vermin such as mice. And the use of big cats and other large animals such as elephants in circus' has been banned in most countries these days because of the cruelty to animals act."
"And yet they're still kept in captivity," Ciel pointed out. "I remember hearing something about a zoological garden and how they keep lions and elephants and monkeys and the like. Bard was watching it on TV that first day at the hotel safe house."
"That's because those creatures have been bred in captivity," Sebastian countered. "The hunting and capturing of animals from the wild these days is forbidden because of many low species counts. The animals you see in zoo's these days have been born there, as were the majority of their predecessors. If you were to let those animals loose, they wouldn't go around attacking people – they'd go around asking to be fed. They've been hand-fed and kept for their whole lives, and wouldn't know any better."
Ciel was about to retort, but suddenly, he fell silent. A thought had struck him.
Like rats in a lab.
"Ciel?"
"It's nothing." Ciel mumbled, rolling over onto his side so he didn't have to look at Sebastian. "I was just thinking of something."
The thought of being born and bred in captivity like those animals in zoos was quite similar in Ciel's mind to be kept in isolation tanks and having ones mind manipulated into thinking that you were a whole different person in a whole different world. What would it be like for a chimpanzee to escape from a zoo, only to find out that everything it had dreamt the wild to be like, was really just a phantom memory when the real world was so built up with brick and stone and steel into a wilderness of human evolution? A lion would have nowhere to hunt for food, and wouldn't have the first clue of how to use a restaurant or café.
Something made a small plop on the pillow now beneath his head, and Ciel was startled to see that it was, in fact, a tear.
Those things were exactly like waking up thinking that you lived in a world that in reality no longer existed.
There was the click of the door behind them, and Ciel sat up, quickly brushing a hand across his eyes to rid them of any more tears that threatened to fall before anyone could see. Turning around, he saw Sebastian also watching the door as it creaked open. Pluto leant in to push the door open for the newcomer.
"Grell." Sebastian greeted him dryly, and the redhead wore his usual flirty smile as he slipped into the ward. He flashed a manila folder at Sebastian from where it was tucked into his red jacket. The grin he wore was one of triumph.
"We're in." he said. "It's go time, boys." forget.
-:-
AfterNote:
I've actually always wanted to drop a cliff-hanger like that. "IT'S GO TIME!" I blame the smut. It's everywhere.
This chapter took a little longer than usual to write, mainly because I've been working my ass off around the house and being otherwise laaazzyyyyyy when I'm being otherwise unproductive. And last weekend was truly chaotic; there was a great country book sale on in town with all the reject books from libraries around the state, and I was a volunteer. Meant that I got first dibs on any books I want! *hee hee, collecting ALL the mangas~*
That and my other excuse for not writing this any quicker is ponies. My Little Pony, Procrastination is Magic. I've been drawing too many ponies and all my other artsy skills have dried up and gone on vacation somewhere. Presumably to Smut-Land, and when they come back all I'll be able to draw is smut for WEEEKS. But you'll hang, won't ya? Hang in there – chapter fourteen is well on its way.
That and my internet ran out for the month again. Fuuuuuuck me.
- Mercy