1/ Lust
This one should be easy enough, if potentially disconcerting, Ciel thought, as the entire room sped backward beneath their feet. Stepping into the memory, Sebastian, then Ciel, then all the judges, the noise like hacksaws that had been droning beneath them for the whole time, shaking its way through the floor and walls, suddenly ceased, and everything became liquid-bright.
Light. Falling through window-panes sparkled with early morning rain like cut class, pearls and crystal chandeliers. There was the walls of his mansion—not burnt down, as its image seemed to be in hell, but new and strong and re-created as Sebastian had made it, though the jagged teeth of its old foundation could still be found over the low slope, covered in brambles; and turning, Ciel almost thought for a moment that he saw its shadow through the fog, and the glint of the blue ring he'd fished from its wreckage.
Still. Here and now, they are: trembling behind a film like water, behind Sebastian's form, the butler's persona clean and perfect and playful. And there he is, Ciel Phantomhive. They looked, of course, because he has been looking, in the memory. Human-souled Ciel, feast among men. The child doesn't seem to realize how every breath of his exhales sweetness; could not be more unconscious of the deadly lure he is to demon or mortal alike, just by being. This child, Ciel thought, hardly looked like him at all, though of course he did and does. The same hair, the same small face, cut with an expression beyond his years; a haughty impatience with fissures within. Cracks upon cracks, but they do not shatter, only turn to mirrored shards for the unwary traveler; still Sebastian takes every opportunity to slide into his thoughts, which at the moment consist mostly of boredom.
All unconscious of it, or perhaps uncaring, the child asks for breakfast. Soon, Sebastian thinks. Soon— and as he carefully passes the teacup in his gloved hand, he imagines the meal they will partake in, something no dust-mortal food, thick and heavy and rancid, could ever compare to. They have not met Hannah or Claude yet. The child has not yet lost his memory of his revenge; he has not even met his revenge, he is not even close to finding the Queen under her numerous disguises and dissimulations. This is the perfect time, Ciel thought; if indeed they had ever had a perfect time. Far enough along that their thoughts had begun to mirror each other, in a way that even then he had realized called something of that glimmer to Sebastian's eyes, like banked fires. He had not felt that regard in years, not truly; and no night facilitated by the illusion of Julie's soul could quite recapture it. And feeling/seeing it again, he remembers: the coy looks and the games, his own careful pushing forward, wondering: what does he mean, and; if this is the way the pieces fall I must win, as always.
Small thing. He knows not enough to win; even his own movements, which he had thought so bold and assured, are nothing but uncertain steps, fear chasing at his heels.
He sips his tea. He eats.
Spun out of his reverie, Ciel saw mist fallen over the ordinary scene, and there in Sebastian's thought he lies upon the table, dressed in finery with plates piled around him; are you quite comfortable, young master Sebastian says
tolerably, but i hardly think that's of importance to you Ciel replies with boredom that is—oh yes; not quite put-upon, it is very real, and nothing could be quite as satisfying; still there is that shiver of uncertainty that his bravado skates over
oh, you hardly think so? and I suppose you're the foremost expert in such matters
i eat every day, Sebastian, and i am not possessed of the delusion that it is pleasant for the quail to be eaten.
now now, i think you are forgetting something.
and that is?
the quail cannot be of an opinion on the matter one way or another, because the quail is not alive at the moment when it is consumed.
...i see. Ciel twists his face at that; a disgust he can't quite overcome. don't you think it's enough that it's pleasant for you?
not at all.
Hmm. Ciel looks up at the drapery hanging above him glittering with silk brocade in the flickering dark candlelight. It is night, and it has been, and will be, for as long as Sebastian desires it.
And the butler carefully puts down his tray, and skates his gloved hands over the child's ankles, while Ciel remains still, but full of tension as though preparing to leap and flee. It is right, of course, that he does, Sebastian thinks: for no matter quite how much he wishes to lull his soul into complacency, he never quite succeeds: and yet Ciel never runs.
there is no need to hurry the matter of dinner, of course; Sebastian says, musingly. but an appetizer would not be amiss.
and what would we do if i lost a foot? Ciel says
why, i'd have to carry you
Ciel laughs, then, the sound startled out of him and subsiding after a short moment. oh, i see your game at last. His words twist ironically, and Sebastian savors them, and the lack of fear his contractor shows, oh yes, and the fear—that catch of breath as he carefully slides off the shoe, and then as though to show that nothing dissuaded him Ciel brushed that stockinged foot up to his shoulder and the toes through their cotton, slightly damp with sweat, brush against his cheek
And with his teeth he takes hold of the fabric and carefully pulls it down the trembling leg, and off, with one hand, as the points of his fangs rest delicately against the flawless skin. But he does not rip, no nothing but the barest brush of sharpness. This is just the appetizer after all. There is so much time left to peel the edges off… but here and now it is this wariness he wants to destroy, until there is no fear left, until the child has stopped wondering about the shadows that shift more than the candlelight allows; until he does not even think of running; until he believes in every lie, believes himself safe, absolutely. Would he wish to see such devastation in his young master, truly? No. But here in this endless moment of thought he can play with the idea, tug on it like a string and see it unravel
I will touch you carefully until habituation dulls you of your response and the soft hazy warmth of the table linens seem to you a bed and your eyes spin love out of adoration and populate it with every fantasy you've created, until you forget about the beast you never saw except in shadows beyond the shifting feathers in nothingness, forget about eyes and teeth and the open press of lips and think yourself cradled in exquisite care; as though being loved meant being safe from harm
And the judges, with their hands and fingers and the grasping breath, deemed the conversation a successful one, for they had been convinced of the evidence of lust.
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