The Brute
Ciel's bond with James was different than the one he had had with Edwin. There had been days when he'd hated Edwin with a passion, but there had been moments when the breathless intoxication of his presence had overwhelmed him. James was never anything more than mildly irritating, and sometimes mildly amusing. He found it hard to feel the wishes that sparked through James's mind, though he couldn't tell, at first, if that was because James had so few wishes or because of the weakness of the contract. And his own influence over James's soul was less. He would try to guide it one way, in hopes of deepening the flavour, and like an unruly mule, James would dig in his heels, and go nowhere. And then, unless James ordered him, Ciel felt no need to make things conform to James's wishes, the way that every need of Edwin's had tormented and teased him. It wasn't entirely uninteresting, but Ciel could understand why Sebastian had been so driven to better things, why he had eventually become almost as starved for a challenge as he had for a quality soul. To put oneself into this position for a subpar experience seemed so trivializing.
The only way Ciel had found for riling James's natural placid (if bitter) demeanor to something more passionate—though hardly with the subtle nuance and delicious contradiction Edwin had provided—was by cultivating his anger and jealousy, two emotions Ciel found personally distasteful; but strength of flavour won out over exactitide, and the entertainment effect was at least worth the bother.
Opportunity came in the form of a woman James set his eye on one evening, as they went down to a crowded bar where the drunken revellers were still singing and dancing, enjoying some confused bacchanalia in thanks that at last, the nightmare had ended. James took her to bed with him that night, and the very next day, Ciel had given her what she afterwards informed him was the most pleasurable experience of her life.
"You almost make me want to ask you to marry me, just so I can get more of you," she told him with a low and throaty voice.
"I would say yes," Ciel said, "but you're already taken. You wouldn't want to disappoint your husband, would you?" he asked, with a tiny, cold smile.
She stepped back from him at once, her arms untwining from him as she gave him a look of both shock and revulsion. "How did you know?" she said at last.
"The frequent wearing of a wedding band leaves a mark, even if you take it off," Ciel said, and watched as her fingers felt at that empty spot with a guilty tremor. He'd timed the matter to give her allowance to gather her things and the remains of her dignity before James walked into the room—it was James he really wanted to play with, not this woman—and he watched with interest the way his master's face went red and his hand struck at her face. She dodged all but the edge of the blow and ran down the stairs, showing an admirable spirit of self-preservation, while Ciel, who had neglected to rectify his own state of undress, leaned back in his bed and smiled.
"What the f— do you think you're doing, Dale?" James shouted. "That was my girl you just slept with!"
"Your girl?" Ciel said, drawling. "Don't make me laugh, master. That woman was married. Oh, didn't you know?"
"You're lying!" James yelled back, staggering his way forward. He was drunk, Ciel noticed, though it wasn't even noon yet—the abundance of alcohol had certainly revealed something interesting in his behaviour. Or perhaps that was Ciel's actions. He wasn't going to be picky.
"Why does everyone always think I'm lying when I'm not?" Ciel wondered.
While another, smarter man might have asked how Ciel had even been able to get a woman into bed when he had been ordered not to use seduction (and to that, Ciel could have pointed out that James's order had been quite unspecific, leaving room for many interpretations, including that 'that seduction you're doing' only applied to the seduction that Ciel had been engaged in when James had given the order) James just walked over to the bed and pulled Ciel from under the covers, throwing him nude onto the floor.
"You're not to sleep with any woman again, do you understand?" James said. "That's an order!"
Ciel pretended to think this over. "I'm not certain. Do you think you could explain it more clearly?"
"I'll explain it more clearly," James said, and did so, kicking and punching Ciel until he had become so enraged and addled that he fell over onto the floor himself. Then Ciel dragged him to his feet and threw him, with hardly any care, onto his own bed, before dressing himself. He was surprised to find that his fingers were shaking.
What's wrong? Ciel thought. This is what you wanted, isn't it? His soul is already more flavourful than it was before, the aroma has almost progressed to something tempting…
He couldn't bear to be in the same room as his master right now. The cold air of fast-approaching winter felt like a bracing shock as he stepped outside into the darkness. Had it really been that long since James had stormed back into the room? Now, more than ever, he felt the urge to slip away into the pools of darkness under the streetlamp, the icy breeze. It was impossible, for James needed Dale to be someone he didn't feel threatened by in any respect, and the power of magic, something he couldn't even comprehend, was cut entirely from Ciel's use. Perhaps the uncomfortable sickness in his stomach came from transgressing James's unspoken wishes in such a manner. Perhaps it was some left-over illusion from the beating that had already faded from his physical body. If it was pity that had drawn him to James at first, as Sebastian later suggested, he felt none of it now, and maybe it was that sudden lack that disoriented him, or the fact that, no matter the flavour of their soul, he still felt the same burning hatred for those that would abuse others as he always had, and he knew, with terrible certainty, that it had been his influence that had brought that darkness out of that caged place in James's mind, and set it running free.
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.
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