Exsequor
Summary: The sound of a sharp blade meeting flesh burned in their ears.
DISCLAIMER: Meh. :O
A/N:*wails tears of joy* People are still reading mah fic! T^T I'm so happeh...! T^T
Hannah was tied up with a rope in Angela's room, and the Russian was half-dragged―by Angela and William―all the way to Vincent's office. Behind them, a faithful Pluto followed, its eyes alert should the bound woman try and struggle.
Inside Vincent's office, everyone in the house was present. Sitting on the large chair behind the large mahogany desk was a calm-looking and smiling Vincent. Standing on his left was Rachel, and on his right, Ciel and Sebastian.
The ones who opened the doors were Ronald and Tanaka.
Hannah was roughly pushed to the floor by a smirking Angela.
"Now, now, Angela. Don't show violence in front of the children."
At this, the maid bowed sincerely, "I'm sorry, Master. But she attacked us earlier with a knife hidden in the shirt I gave her two weeks ago."
Rachel's blue eyes widened with shock, "Well? Were you two hurt? How about my baby?" As though an answer to her question, Pluto came barking happily at Rachel, wagging its tail at her, and she hugged the husky.
William adjusted his glasses with the tip of the pruning pole, his face showing no emotion as always, "We are not harmed in any way, Madam. But..." His green eyes trailed to where Ciel and Sebastian were standing, and he frowned at Ronald. "I'm sure someone here tonight will be."
Heavy silence filled the room.
Claude wasted no time, and he immediately reported to Victoria what just transpired.
The old woman was writing a contract of sorts in her office―to a company executive, he supposed―and she heard what the butler said, the sound of her pen scratching on the paper stopped abruptly, and she gave him her undivided attention.
"Did you have an idea who she was?"
He stiffly shook his head and bowed, "No, Your Highness. I truly apologize if I don't have any idea―"
A wrinkly hand waved offhandedly, and Victoria's lips thinned, "It's fine. Just make sure you take note of this incident."
Claude sighed as he prepared today's afternoon tea. He still wondered who on earth the caller was. It had been a week since the calling incident, and no further suspicious calls happened since then.
And he couldn't contact Hannah.
Gloved fingers stiffened around the knife he was holding, and upon hearing the sound of the doorbell echoing from the halls, he stopped his dark thoughts and took off his apron.
Muttering curses and fixing his waistcoat as he briskly walked down the vast hallways of the Guelph estate, he heaved a sigh and fixed his hair one last time before putting on his usual passive face, and he opened the large oak doors―
―only to find no one there.
A low snarl almost escaped his lips, until he saw a large box right beneath his feet.
His brow raised, and his golden eyes scanned the perimeter of the area as far as his vision could see. And when he was sure that no one was really around, he grunted and glared at the box―
―and it moved.
Claude Faustus's eyes widened.
"Mother? Where is Anya?"
Ciel had just returned home with Sebastian (who was currently in the kitchen helping Angela with the cakes for tonight's dessert), and the little teen padded in the gardens with Pluto and Tabitha trailing behind him. Rachel was sitting beneath the large oak tree near the rose bushes, reading a book about kittens.
Rachel looked up the moment she heard her son's voice, and a small smile cracked on her face as she patted a spot next to her.
Ciel smiled and nodded and sat with his mother, giggling when Tabitha immediately went up to his lap and curled herself to sleep there.
"Where is Anya, Mother?" he asked again. "I haven't seen her since I got home. Is she still upset about the bindings? Is she still in her room sulking? Should I cheer her up with flower wreaths?"
Rachel shook her head, and her smile faltered just the slightest, and she patted Ciel's head as she looked at those wide and innocent eyes. "We let her go, dear. Anya is never coming back."
"Ciel and Sebastian are upset, dear. They think she ran away."
Vincent looked up from the papers he was signing, and he took off his reading glasses as he sighed. "They mustn't know what we did, Rachel. Ciel is too young to grasp such things."
Rachel bit on her lip and looked at the plush carpet adorning the floors of Vincent's office, her candle-like fingers idly twiddling as she did so.
"We shouldn't have done it, dear. That was inhum―"
"That woman tried to take away our son's happiness, Rachel. Please do remember that."
And she fell silent at her husband's words, and Vincent continued to speak.
"Putting that Russian in a box is the most humane way I could think of. Sending her back to her original employer in that way would serve as a warning. I even put some of Angela's worn clothes in there to keep her warm. It was with Angela's permission, don't worry." And Vincent's carefree smile turned just a tad cockier and much more wicked, and his midnight blue eyes almost shone in the afternoon light as he looked at his wife.
"I am openly declaring war against Victoria Guelph."
And Rachel Phantomhive's face was unreadable as she looked at her love's eyes.
Humming as Ciel twirled and spun daffodils into wreaths, Sebastian idly looked at the almost purple sky, silently admiring how the orange of the sun and the blue of the heavens melded together to form a sea of beauty above earth.
Sebastian wondered where Anya went. He knew that there was something more than Rachel's explanation, but—
"There, it's done!" and Ciel admired his work for a moment, tipping the circlet of flowers this way and that, and seeing that there was no loose stem sticking somewhere, he turned to Sebastian, and carefully placed the wreath on his head. "Sebastian is now pretty!" he exclaimed, and his mismatched eyes saw him smile widely.
"I think the word you're trying to say is 'handsome'."
A thin index finger pointed at Sebastian's hair. "But you have flowers on your head. So that means you're pretty."
Sebastian merely laughed, and silently backed down with no arguments. "I guess I am."
A comfortable silence fell upon the two as Ciel leant his head on Sebastian's shoulder, with nothing but the occasional hush of the wind startling the trees to break their otherwise peaceful calm.
A low hum, a thrum of the beginnings of a song about fields of gold passed in between a thin pair of lips, and Ciel silently listened to the deep notes of Sebastian's lulling vibrato, and he smiled.
Sebastian kept on idly humming, unaware of the other male falling asleep on his shoulder, and he looked up at one of the lit rooms in the mansion. And the first room he saw was Vincent's office, and he smiled upon seeing Rachel looking out of the window, and she waved at him. Sebastian waved back as he turned his attention back to the now slumbering boy.
Inside Vincent's office, Rachel looked softly at her son sleeping so peacefully on Sebastian's shoulder. And she giggled upon realizing that another flower wreath was placed on top of the black-haired male's head.
"What is it, Rachel?" came Vincent's voice from behind the large chair. He was still signing papers.
"Our little Ciel put a flower garland on Sebastian again. It's the daffodils this time." And Rachel heard Vincent chuckle.
"By the amount of time Ciel makes on creating flower crowns, I wouldn't be surprised if you woke up one day to see that your garden have been turned into a sea of flower wreaths," he said, and he stood up from his stuffy chair and stretched his back, glad to hear his joints popping as he raised his arms overhead. And he joined his wife near the open window.
"You see, dear. This is what I want to see from my son. I want to see him happy. And if being with another man makes him happy, I―I am fine with it. It might be a little hard to accept at first, but I already noticed it ever since they were young. It never hindered Ciel's personality at all, I think. His head is still clear."
"That's because our little boy is still innocent."
Vincent laid a hand on Rachel's shoulder, and he smiled upon seeing Sebastian placing a kiss on Ciel's hair. And the black-haired male picked a bunch of flowers from the pile beside him and placed them on his lap, and he began to make a wreath of flowers for Ciel. "Of course he is. Sebastian is keeping him safe from those prying eyes. And if all else fails, we will be there to catch them both once the world would turn cruel on them."
"And it surely will."
Rachel's words were almost too soft to hear, and a tear fell from her blue eyes.
Vincent glanced at his wife, and a pained expression painted his marbled face.
"This is why I refuse to back down to that woman. I just―I just think of what Charles is going through right now. Our son and he is in the same situation."
"And this is why I gave you this chance to make it up! And you ruined it!"
A harsh slap resounded in the room, and a pained cry was ripped out from Hannah's throat as she stumbled to the carpeted floor and felt her long hair being grabbed and pulled roughly.
Victoria had been furious since she received the news from Claude that Hannah returned, literally, in a box, and with no Sebastian in tow.
It wasn't part of the plan.
"You're telling me that you came here, on your own accord, in that box, with that Phantomhive servant's clothes, and without the queer? Are you that low and shameless, Anafeloz!" Victoria was seething now, and despite her seemingly weak stature of a woman in her old age, she had plenty of strength stored in her.
Outside her office, the banging of the door wouldn't cease, and Victoria was growing tired of hearing her grandson's cries for her to stop.
"Shut up, Charles! This is for your own good!" she bellowed, and her foot collided on Hannah's face.
Outside the room, Charles let out a strangling cry.
"Anya!"
Beatrice paced her room anxiously, and checked her clock for the umpteenth time. Hannah had been summoned by Victoria three hours ago, and it was now way past midnight―
―and the cries and screams wouldn't stop.
Even in the vastness of the Guelph estate, Beatrice swore she could hear Charles's cries of agony, and yet even if she wanted to, Beatrice couldn't help him.
The windows and the door were locked from the outside.
She bit on her nail, pondering which course of action would work best.
Claude was standing outside Victoria's office, that much she knew. The butler needed to restrain Charles with all his might.
It means no one is standing outside. But the door's locked.
Deciding that she should just break the door lock with a hammer, she nodded to herself and moved to just that―
―and her phone rang.
Cursing out, she answered her phone with much irritation, "What."
"'ey, it's me!"
Beatrice's eyes widened. "Jester?"
"Claude, let me go to her! She's going to get killed!"
Claude huffed as he struggled against the other man's wild thrashing. Both of them put up a lot of fight, and neither of them were giving up.
"Her Highness wants what's best for y―"
A sickening crack met Claude's face and glasses. And the butler fell to the floor with a thud as Charles growled at him, his fist still poised just in case the other would retaliate.
"No one decides for me, Faustus."
And Charles slammed the door open, just in time to see his grandmother about to kick Hannah's face.
"Anya!" and he dived into Hannah's defence, readying his back to shield her from the blows of his own grandmother. "Stop it!"
Kick.
"Stop!"
Kick.
"Don't defend her, Charles! She destroyed her chance of redeeming her lowlife self!" and Victoria pushed him aside and pulled on Hannah's hair, and the maid let out a wail as Charles hugged Hannah's waist with one hand and clawed on Victoria's arm on the other. "I should have killed her the moment she returned here! Her and that queer boy toy of yours!"
And on the doorway, Claude stood up groggily, and cursed when he saw his glasses were broken.
Growling at the sight of Charles gnashing his teeth and pulling out a sword from one of the displays on the wall, Claude charged at him in full force.
The sound of a sharp blade meeting flesh burned in their ears.
And Hannah Anafeloz cried out.
"Yes, yes Jester, I will!" Beatrice laughed over the phone, circling around in her room and her burgundy eyes widening in unbridled joy. The two have been exchanging calls in secrecy lately, and whether Beatrice would admit it or not, her heart had slowly grown fond of the Joker and his words.
Jester was going to go to the Guelph house to take Beatrice away.
She hung up her phone with much glee, and her plump lips couldn't stop the grin that adorned her face, and she looked at the locked door of her room.
"Time to bust out of 'ere."
It was already past three in the morning when the house of Phantomhive woke up from a frantic call.
The slumbering forms of Sebastian and Ciel in the bedroom were rudely knocked out of their dream-filled unconsciousness when Tanaka briskly tapped them on the shoulder.
"Wake up, Masters. Please," he croaked, and when two bleary pairs of mismatched eyes creaked open, Tanaka wasted no time to elaborate.
"Master Charles is in the hospital, and his grandmother is in critical condition!"
The heavy sound of running echoed down the hallways of the hospital where the Double Charles, Claude, Victoria, Hannah, Jester and Beatrice were.
Vincent was the one who barged in the room first, his strides purposeful as he quickly assessed the situation with midnight blue eyes. Charles Grey hurriedly stood and hugged the elder male, bawling for apologies and muffled forgiveness. All the while, Charles Phipps stood silently still beside a still shaken Jester.
On their left were two beds, one with Victoria in it, and one with Claude in it―
―both of whom Charles Grey had stabbed in the ribs and stomach with no hesitation.
Ciel looked at Victoria with little concern, then at Claude. The two on the bed were wrapped in bandages, and their skin as pale as a sheet. From the corner of his eye, he could see Sebastian with a tensed jaw and a blank gaze.
Sebastian wordlessly made his way to his stepbrother, and a lanky pair of arms hung limply on Charles's back as black hair draped on his shoulder.
And Sebastian cried for him.
"I'm sorry I wasn't there, Brother."
And the room was filled with a sad silence as Charles cried even harder. All the while, Hannah painfully cradled her broken arm. It had been broken by Claude earlier when she had tried to defend Charles from Claude's forceful attacks. The blow she received had been too strong that her bone had almost ripped through her flesh, as said by the doctor earlier.
She needed three months to recover fully.
Ciel took slow steps towards the unconscious Victoria, his face still holding that passive, emotionless stance―a very far cry from the boy who usually was joyful and carefree.
Bitty fingers twitched at the sight of that weakly rising and falling rib cage. Eyebrows curled downward at the sound of that ragged breathing.
So close. So close.
It would've been fine if―
"Ciel?"
The sound of his name being called out by his mother knocked Ciel out of his spiralling dark reverie―and Ciel turned around with a little frown and a hum.
"Come here, sweetie." And Ciel obeyed his mother, and Rachel held him tight. "It's going to be all right," she mumbled to her son as she patted and kissed his head.
From her seat, Hannah looked away in shame―for who, she couldn't tell.
Vincent calmed Charles Grey down, rubbing his back idly with a broken smile, softly saying words that everything was an accident and nothing more.
But Vincent was wrong. Oh so wrong.
Ronald, who had been a mute spectator the whole time, slid his gaze to the gloomy Russian woman sitting beside Charles Phipps.
He wanted to comfort her, somehow.
Beatrice, choosing now as the right time to speak up and explain everything, suddenly shook and wavered as she blurted out words from her rosy lips.
"Mister Charles did nothing wrong! She was being cruel to all of us! She beats me up if I don't follow her orders and locks me up if guests arrive in the house! She abuses Hannah and Mister Charles and plans to steal Sebastian from the Phantomhives to use him as a leverage for the money his inheritance has!"
Everything seemed to stop. Sounds seemed to cease, and in the dead of the stillness of it all, an very faint whisper slipped past Sebastian's lips.
"...What?"
Yay. Done for this chappie. Will write the next one soon~ *heart* I apologize if it's too short. D": *hides*