{ I hope you guys enjoy the chapter! Bit of banter, and thennnnn...
Claude's a clusterfuck and Ciel's horrible with emotions.
You'll see what I mean. }
*Ciel's POV*
The next two days were like clockwork, easing in and out of romance whenever one was preferable to the other. Neither male had bothered to clue Hannah in on everything, but the maid no doubt knew by now; it wasn't hard to figure it out - though this was only the case because they simply hadn't tried to make it difficult either. So, like all the fairy tales, everything was going as planned…
Ciel Phantomhive had just made his way into the kitchen and was surprised by the tip-tap sound that accompanied the room. Glancing upwards, he found his butler quite literally tap-dancing, and thus burst into a fit of uncharacteristic laughter.
Claude blinked in surprise, then dropped down to stand by the young master, tilting his head to the side, "What, exactly, are you laughing at?"
Waving his hand dismissively at the butler, Ciel chuckled, "Could you be anymore queer, demon?" It was quite a harmless accusation, considering things, but the whole thing had the Earl amused.
"I would say that you're calling the kettle black," Claude's usually clear voice was just slightly altered by the laughter that threatened to escape him, "But I suppose you already know that." Before their banter could continue, the demon flashed to Ciel's side quicker than his human eyes could detect, curling his arms around the younger. "Now, was that a complaint I heard?" he purred, bending down slightly to leave a few lazy, open-mouthed kisses against the Earl's throat.
Ciel melted easily into the other's arms, letting his head fall to one side as the spider's lips brushed over his neck. "Not a complaint," he sighed peacefully, "Just an observation." Cracking a smile, the boy turned around in the other's arms and stood on his tip-toes, leaving a quick kiss on Claude's lips.
It was in this sweet moment that Claude Faustus, who we all know is an absolute clusterfuck when it comes to emotions, caught Ciel off guard by murmuring, "I love you, you know," between a series of kisses. The Earl froze in his face, no longer kissing the demon back as his mind fought to process what had just been said:
I love you, you know.
Had it even been a question? Ciel couldn't be sure of that. So how then, was he supposed to respond to it? He hadn't a clue, to be honest, but he'd already taken far too long to respond. It occurred to him, vaguely, that Claude had stopped kissing him and was now looking down into his eyes with something Ciel had never seen in the demon before: sadness.
"Goodnight, master," Claude mumbled then, shutting his golden eyes tightly as he turned away from Ciel and stalked out of the kitchen, leaving the Earl alone to his thoughts. It was only then, as Ciel blinked and looked around the empty kitchen, that he realized how much he'd just hurt the butler. Sighing heavily, he made his way up the stairs towards his bedroom.
Once the Earl was alone in his room, he collapsed onto the bed with his head in his hands, letting out a groan of frustration and confusion. Love… it wasn't a word that he had ever associated with a demon before—
Wrong. Now I'm just lying to myself. I've loved before…
But he left.