Exsequor
Summary: "If you hadn't let them escape, then he would still be cooped up in here, idly wasting his life away thinking of the Little One."
DISCLAIMER: Meh. :O
A/N:*wails tears of joy* People are still reading mah fic! T^T I'm so happeh...! T^T
A nagging thought had been bothering Sebastian lately―and it involved telling Ciel what he really knew about the mysterious Anya. His tongue almost itched to say it to him, to anyone in the house―that he personally knew the odd lady.
So when Ciel was close to falling asleep for the night, Sebastian held in his breath, and he dropped the bomb.
"I know who she is. That Anya."
Ciel's mismatched eyes snapped open.
Charles paced his room restlessly, his mind making lots of possibilities of where Anya might be. Claude was sure he knew where she was, but pride ate Charles out. There was no way he was going to ask that brick-faced man.
A knock came from the door, and when Charles opened it, he saw a bruise-faced Beatrice looking at him. He wordlessly let her in.
"She got a hold of you again," he idly observed as Beatrice mutely sat on the edge of his bed and blankly nodded. Charles took an ice pack from the adjacent bathroom and gave it to her. He sat down with the silent girl, and he laughed awkwardly, "If only he knows that we're taking all the consequences from his actions, Seba wouldn't have left."
Beatrice flinched, "I apologize―"
"But it's for his happiness."
"Eh?"
Charles looked at the ceiling and laughed, "If you hadn't let him escape, then he would still be cooped up in here, idly wasting his life away thinking of the Little One. Sebastian has the courage that even I don't possess―and it's admirable."
Claude was in Victoria's office, and he bowed before her, "She is seeking refuge in his bedchamber."
Victoria huffed and looked away from the butler as she sat on her plush chair, "That little wretch thinks she can find solace in Charles's company? Hah. A fruitless outcome it will be. Leave, Claude. Don't interrupt them for the meantime. Nothing fruitful will come out of their short chat."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
Angela talked to her dear brother over the phone in her room in the servant's quarters. She had been missing his presence lately since his last visit, and hearing her brother's voice soothed her.
"So you see, Ash, on my next payday, I might be able to buy you that white suit you like so much and―oh... Right now? But we've only talked for half an hour... Oh, fine. Say hi to your classmates for me! Bye-bye," she giggled as she hung up her phone, and when she turned around, she saw Anya cautiously peeking at her from behind her bedroom door. She gestured for her to come in, "Come in, come in! Oh, Anya. You don't need to be shy at me. Come!" And she watched as the door slowly opened and Anya timidly walked in, her hands clutched at the sides of her jeans.
Anya looked aimlessly at the floor as she spoke softly, "Um, you called me earlier?"
Angela hummed, and graced Anya a hidden smile, "Why, yes. I called on you earlier. You see, I have a problem with my phone. Static problems are a pain, wouldn't you agree? So," the maid turned around and rummaged through her drawer, humming a tune all the while as Anya's gaze drifted left and right, wondering what she was talking about―
The maid faced the fidgeting woman with a sweet smile as she showed her a purple-cased phone―
Anya froze, and she could feel blood pumping through her ears.
"I just bought this phone two days ago, you see. But whenever I try to call anyone, I would end up hearing nothing but static. So in the end, I'd still use my old phone. Would you happen to know anything about such gadgets?"
Anya could feel her palms starting to sweat as she looked at the phone sitting ominously on Angela's pale hands. "I... wouldn't know anything, Miss."
Angela tilted her head to one side, her lips slightly pursed as she looked at the shiny little thing. She sounded almost mocking as she spoke in her sweet voice, "Really...? Are you sure you don't know anything about it?"
The Russian continued to avoid her gaze, "Yes... I don't know anything about it."
Angela raised a fine eyebrow at her, her expression quite knowing as her lips quirked into a little sneer, "Well, I suppose you're telling the truth. I mean, you wouldn't happen to know anything about such a thing, let alone own it, right?" She shrugged and beamed at the slightly shaking Anya, "Oh well. Silly me, asking you, of all people, if you know anything about such a device. I'll just ask oth―oh. William!"
And the smiling maid ran after William, who just happened to be passing by. She told him of what just happened as she showed him the phone in her possession.
The stoic butler didn't say anything else, as he merely nodded at Angela and took out a handkerchief from his coat pocket. Angela looked behind her, and seeing that Anya was still facing the other way around with her shoulders still hunched, the maid handed over the phone to William. He, in turn, glanced at Anya with a slight frown, and he wrapped the purple-cased phone in his handkerchief and put it in his trousers pocket. He held in a deep breath and patted Angela on the shoulder. And he nodded at her and quietly left.
Angela looked at William's retreating back with a smirk, and her eyes slid to a statuesque Anya, who was still facing her back towards her.
Ciel had been looking at the phone delivered to him by William earlier. The teen was in the gaming room, sitting on one of the bean bags littered on the carpeted floor. In his left hand was a game control, his finger pressing on the start button as he stared at the seemingly offending mobile.
"Willie said Angela found the mobile with Pluto's help," Ciel said to Sebastian, who was lying on the carpeted floor while reading a novel of Poe.
Sebastian sighed, "So the husky sniffed her scent?"
"Yup. I told you dogs are man's best friend."
"They're still noisy. My cat is silent."
Ciel pouted at the other male, and opted not to give him the satisfaction of a losing argument. So he took the phone and scrutinized it with his lone good eye, searching for any scratches or any indications that it was frequently used.
"This looks rather new. The casing, I mean. But I see the keypad looking a bit worn. The screen looks like it has been cleaned thoroughly recently, too. No signs of dirt on the edges. Hm, let's see..." And Ciel turned on the phone, and a bunch of letters he was quite unfamiliar with appeared on the screen.
Ciel tilted his head this way and that, trying to decipher which letter was which. Seeing that he could no longer try to decode the message on the screen, he called out to Sebastian to help him. And Sebastian, being the helpful friend that he was to Ciel, came over to him and looked at the phone in question.
"It's in Cyrillic. A type of alphabet used mainly in Eurasia―mainly by the former Soviet countries."
Ciel pouted at Sebastian, "How did you know such a thing?"
The raven-haired male smiled at the adorable face Ciel was making, and he tapped Ciel's nose as he spoke with a little laugh, "I know of these things because Brother taught me how to read these characters. Like the word that is shown on the screen here, it says, 'Dobro pozhalovat', meaning, 'Welcome'." Sebastian smiled as he was explaining each letter shown on the screen, and when he asked Ciel if he finally understood, he was only met with a blank stare and a crooked index finger vaguely pointing at the screen.
"...So. You're telling me that this entire long bunch of Greek and Cyrillic letters mashed together only means one word in English?"
Sebastian nodded and laughed at the smaller male's reaction.
And so they tinkered with the phone that surprisingly had no passcode of sorts, and Ciel fiddled with its messages and contacts.
"They're all in Russian, Sebastian."
"Well, of course it's in Russian, it belongs to a Russian lady, after all."
"...But why is this particular message in English?" and Ciel showed him a short message on the screen, and the name of the sender sounded quite familiar―
―and that number.
Sebastian mumbled the words, "'I miss my not-so-mega-mini-little Anya already', it says. It's dated three months ago..."
Ciel's lips were set in a grim line as his mismatched eyes roved over the words twice. "It's from Charles Grey."
Sebastian let out a withheld breath slowly, his jaw taut as he pondered what to say, "Last time I heard, he refused to have any contact with her. He said that he had moved on and will be living with Phipps after this fiasco with Victoria ends."
"So your brother is lying...?"
Sebastian looked at the floor blankly, his mouth slightly open, "I―I don't know anymore, Ciel."
"Mister Charles, are you fine with all of this? I mean, you can't see your brother, you're forbidden to see him and―"
Charles shook his head and gave Beatrice a resigned smile as he patted her head, "The meaning of self-sacrifice hasn't taken you over yet, I see. You'll know what I mean once you are in my shoes. For the meantime, you return to your room now. That brick-face has ears all over the place."
Beatrice laughed as she dabbed the ice pack on her face once more, "Oh, Mister Charles. I wish I have the same optimism you possess!"
Claude had been pacing in his room for quite some time, tapping his foot impatiently as he groaned over the phone in his hand.
He had been calling Hannah for the past hour, yet he couldn't get through.
What on earth is happening to her?
His eye twitched and he rearranged his eyeglasses for the umpteenth time as he listened on to the blank response he had been getting from her mobile. He sighed.
Sebastian had always been good at fixing and destroying things. In this case, he was completely disassembling Anya's phone with a tiny screwdriver, searching for anything that might give him a clue of sorts. About what, however, he couldn't tell as of yet.
"Ciel, pass me the magnifying glass, please... Thanks." And Sebastian looked, stared, at a little piece of folded paper stuck in between a tiny crevice of the device. He took a tiny pair of tweezers from his right and carefully slid out the parchment. Once done, he laid it out on the desk, and he smiled at Ciel. "See? What did I tell you? I told you we'd find something in here."
Ciel giggled from behind him. He had been observing Sebastian's work since earlier. "Well? Shall we open it?" he asked, his feet lightly bouncing as he leaned over Sebastian's seat.
Sebastian nodded and carefully opened the folded paper.
Two pairs of mismatched eyes looked at the string of words that were written on the paper full of creases.
'Anya, I'm sorry.'
Hannah paced her room, biting on her thumb as she jogged her mind about a plethora of excuses just to get her phone back.
She didn't know how her phone ended up in Angela's possession. I'm sure I put it under the pillow!
The sound of a barking dog echoed from outside her room, and the familiar voice of Angela and William hollered down the halls, both of them calling for the boisterous Siberian husky.
All the while, Hannah had her brows furrowed as she glared at the door.
And she gasped as the door flew open and Pluto came barging in and barking straight at the startled Hannah.
Angela came to a stop and apologized to Anya when―
"...Oh. I see you have a bit of beauty beneath your mask, Anya."
Hannah turned around and faced her back towards the Phantomhive maid, her visible eye wide with fear at the discovery. My mask!
"You can't hide now, Miss Anafeloz."
Behind Angela, a slightly out of breath William stood with a pruning pole held upright in his right hand. Adjusting his glasses using the tip of the pole, he glared at the Russian. "We're taking you to the Master of the house, Miss Hannah. If, that is your real name."
Beneath Hannah's purple long-sleeved shirt, she took out a switchblade knife and calmly faced Angela and William―
―and she lunged straight at the smiling maid―
―not knowing that the blades of a pruning pole suddenly hovered just millimetres around her neck.
Hannah stopped in her tracks.
William's face held no emotion as he held up the blades of the pruning pole around Hannah. "Make one more step and I'll chop off your neck with no regrets."
Hannah bared her teeth at William, yet she dared not to move. Angela leered.
"Oh, William. Don't be brash. We don't use such methods of violence in the House. It's one of the rules, remember? Unless, of course―yes. That's it. Unless we so kindly ask for the Master and Mistress's permission to commit such an act. I'm sure they will listen to our side."
Near Hannah's feet, Pluto growled, ready to strike any moment if ordered to.
The phone attached to one of the walls near the Guelph kitchen rang, and Claude, being the only servant currently serving the house and answering calls, answered it.
"Good day, Guelph residence. How may I―"
"Please be informed that one of your contacts will be terminated as of tonight. Good day."
And the line went dead.
Claude stared at the phone, wondering what just happened. "The voice of a woman..."
William's pruning pole finalleh makes an appearance~ :3 I just noticed the lack of SebaCiel moments here. :x