Chapter Five

After that night, Sebastian tried to force thoughts of Ciel from his mind. It was infuriating him. He understood his interest towards the boy before; Sebastian had never been beaten. It was only natural that he'd want to one-up the first person to do so. He tried to convince himself that it was still just that. That want for victory over the smug little-

But was it? It wasn't thoughts of getting games out of him any more. When he thought of Ciel Phantomhive, Sebastian thought of sanity. He'd been so sure of himself, so sure that he was right in thinking that Ciel was misplaced in the Institute. But would a mad person proclaim themselves mad? From Sebastian's experience, albeit that was restricted to T.V and books mostly, insane people never thought of themselves as such. That was part of the madness, after all, the surety that it was everyone else who was wrong, that they were the ones right.

Then again, Claude's words came back to him. That they're all there for a reason, that they'd try to trick him. He'd dismissed the warning simply because it came from a man he borderline-loathed, but did it ring true?

But if that was how it was, surely Ciel would have gone along with Sebastian's insistences of his sanity. Played on them, used them to manipulate Sebastian. That's certainly what Sebastian would have done in his position.

It made no sense.

Maybe... Maybe it was another game.

There was only one thing Sebastian could be completely sure of when it came to Ciel Phantomhive, and that was that he liked to play games. And he seemed very fond of making Sebastian his competitor.

Was this another game?

And was Sebastian losing?

"All right, come on!" Will barked at the group, passing his key-card over the electronic panel. The door to the ward opened, and the patients followed behind Will out of the ward. As today was Saturday, the patients were allotted a few hours in the gardens, a weekly treat. Something about the natural environment being soothing or whatever. Either way, how much damage could they do with grass?

Sebastian stood off to the side as they all filed out, waiting for the lingerers. Alois was tapping his foot impatiently on the floor, checking his imaginary watch, as an only-just conscious Ciel shuffled out of his room. Out of all the garden trips Sebastian had been at the Institute for, Ciel had never shown, but it seemed Alois' urging had done the miracle of pulling him out of bed during sunlight hours. Not for the first time, a niggling voice in the back of Sebastian's mind wondered just what the relationship between the two of them was. That voice was quickly dismissed, however, when Sebastian remembered it was none of his concern.

Ciel didn't look at him as he passed with the blond, and if Sebastian was a less observant man, he'd have thought it was out of indifference to him completely. Sebastian was an observant man, though, and he didn't miss that it was with a carefully constructed nonchalance that he was blanked. Since the night Sebastian had broached the subject with Ciel, there had been no more switches to the night shift, and on the rare occasions Ciel was hounded out of his room, no words passed between them.

All the more suspicious, surely. If Ciel really wasn't hiding anything then why the sudden silent treatment?

Or was this just another twist in the game Sebastian was being snaked in to?

Ciel had disappeared.

No, Sebastian hadn't been watching him. No more than he had any of the other patients. Of course he had to keep an eye on the boy; it would be unprofessional to not do so. It wasn't like he was keeping more of a watch on Ciel than the other patients, not at all. In fact, if he'd been properly watching him, he'd probably know where the brat had vanished to.

So he was simply doing his job when he left Will to monitor the rest of the patients and went in search of Ciel. For all he knew, the boy could be jumping the fence right that very minute. He was just being professional.

...Unfortunately, he had no professional excuses for hiding in a bush when he did find Ciel, and realised the blue-haired boy was talking to someone.

"...said that she wanted to meet him! Something about wanting to know the genes or whatever," Finnian exclaimed with a disbelieving laugh, yanking a weed from the dirt and tossing it in the growing pile behind him.

Ciel just shook his head, "A bit late in the game for that kind of feedback, Susan."

Finny laughed, "That's what I said! Not like she could do anything about it if she didn't like him, right? Anyway, speaking of babies, Lynette popped out another one-"

"But she already had an entire litter," Ciel protested.

"Tell me about it. She should give one of them to the gay couple, since Gaby backed out-"

"You're going to have to backtrack, you've lost me."

"Oh, right, that was last season..."

...Were they talking about some soap opera? Surely not.

"Oh! And Carlos can see again now!"

"How the hell is that possible? He was blind for five years!"

Sebastian's opinion of Ciel's tastes went down a notch or ten.

However, awful television choices aside, Sebastian had at least one question answered. Since the idea of Ciel merely playing a game with him had been planted, Sebastian had begun to wonder if maybe Ciel only acted that way around him, spoke so lucidly and more importantly, acted so rationally. If it was just a game, he probably didn't act that way around other people. What would be the need, when they weren't players? But now Sebastian knew. It was no act. Ciel acted just as sane with other people as he did with him.

One question answered, a dozen more raised. That seemed to be the pattern at St. Victoria's.

Now that Sebastian knew Ciel wasn't merely acting, his curiosity over just why the boy was in the Institution in the first place was stronger. And if Ciel wasn't going to tell him, Sebastian was just going to have to find out himself.

Unfortunately, what seemed simple enough in one's mind generally ended up more complicated in reality. If Ciel wasn't going to tell him, there were two alternatives; find out from someone else who knew, or read Ciel's file.

Neither were appealing prospects.

If Sebastian started asking around, chances were high that word would get back to Ciel, which Sebastian didn't much fancy. It was bad enough that the kid had gotten under his skin without giving him the satisfaction of knowing it. Besides, it would raise the question of just why he wanted to know. Sure, he could just act like he was taking his job very seriously, but people might begin to draw their own theories about his curiosity.

Either way, it would lead to a very uncomfortable Sebastian.

If Sebastian read the file, the premise would be the issue. Actually reading the file, not a problem. Getting his hands on said file, big problem. He knew for a fact that all patient files were in Claude's office. If he could somehow get in there when no-one else was, read the file and get out without anyone noticing his absence...

The night shift. If Angela asked him to cover for Ash on a Tuesday night, then when the Wednesday therapy group was going on, Sebastian could sneak into Claude's office and read the file without having to rush.

Sebastian smirked, a truly devious smirk, as the plan came together, choosing to ignore the flash of Grell's always-present camera.

You know that feeling when you want someone to fall down a flight of stairs and they just bloody won't? Yeah, that was Sebastian's current mind-set.

He watched with crushing disappointment as Ash reached the floor with no broken bones, not even a cracked skull. He briefly considered taking the matter into his own hands and inviting him into his room via Will's door, but derailed the train of thought. Too messy.

A week had passed since Sebastian's resolution to get his hands on Ciel's file, and no summons to Angela's office had been forthcoming. Figures. He supposed he could wait until the chance offered itself, but at the rate things were going, that could take forever. It was as though, now that Sebastian wanted to be put on the night shift more, the chance was being taken away from him.

"Sebastian? Coming down to dinner?" Agni asked, meeting him at the bottom of the stairs. He seemed in particularly high spirits, and Sebastian wondered what inadvertently-complimentary thing Soma had professed about him.

The two went down to the dining hall. It was a good thing that Agni was in such a good mood, really, considering Sebastian had decided to resort to option B.

"Agni, I've been wondering... How much do you know about Ciel Phantomhive?"

He'd tried to think of a subtler way to ask, but it was hardly as though Ciel generally came up in their conversations. Any mention of the boy would seem odd, so Sebastian reasoned he may as well be direct.

To his confusion, Agni didn't look at all perplexed at the mention of the one-eyed patient, he almost looked amused, "I thought you seemed to be quite taken with him."

If Sebastian had been a cartoon, his jaw would have been scraping the grotty floor.

"...what?" he responded intelligently.

Agni just gave a conspiratorial smile. Sebastian half expected him to wink.

...No.

Just no.

There was no way that Agni seriously thought-
"It's not like that!" Sebastian snapped, looking around shiftily to make sure no-one was overhearing. Agni blinked, looking around himself too, before smiling again as though he'd gotten in on a good joke.

"Ah. I get you. Of course it's not," he said placatingly, almost patronizingly.

Sebastian was very glad he wasn't a cartoon as the steam would have been shooting from his ears at this point.

"This is nothing like your little obsession with Soma! I'm simply curious, Agni, in a completely platonic way!" Sebastian insisted, only getting more and more riled up as Agni just nodded soothingly again, obviously humouring him.

"To answer your question, I don't actually know much about Ciel. He's Soma's friend, but even Soma doesn't know too much about him. The only solid fact I know is that he was brought here when he was eleven, by Dr. Faustus himself, I'm told. Saying that, I didn't work here then, so this is all hearsay. Ronald isn't necessarily the best source of information, considering his source is the receptionist he sees off and on. Maybe if you ask Ronald directly, he'll be able to tell you more?"

Sebastian would be damned if he'd ask Ronald about the matter. If Agni had drew the conclusion that Sebastian's interest lay beyond simple curiosity, he could only imagine the reception his questions would receive from the teasing Orderly.

No, mere rumours and hearsay would not sate Sebastian's curiosity. He was going to have to take the bull by the horns. He was going to have to sneak into Claude Faustus' office.

Grell came back to the world of the living gently, which naturally caused him to panic.

Usually, he was awoken by a strong hand throwing him bodily back into his own room. Masochist he was, he rather enjoyed waking that way. Nothing better than knowing you're in the arms of a strong, handsome man, even if those arms are tossing you like a Frisbee. But not today. Today, he awoke naturally, at the sound of an alarm clock, and the feel of Sebastian beside him.

Oh god, had he smothered him in his sleep accidentally?

"Sebby?"

Cracking an eye open, Grell chanced a look at the man beside him.

He was awake, crimson eyes meeting Grell's.

"Yes?" Sebastian replied.

"...Is something the matter?" Grell was getting worried now. Why wasn't Sebastian tearing him from his bed with passion disguised as annoyance?

"...Actually... I'm feeling a little sick."

In Sebastian's defense, he wasn't to know that those words would induce World War III at St. Victoria's Asylum, courtesy of Grell Sutcliffe. Unfortunately, Will didn't share that sentiment, and still held a grudge over being awoken to frantic cries of the bubonic plague has seized my darling Sebby! at half six in the morning.

An hour later, the entire staff was under the impression that Sebastian was bedridden with a mixture of plague, hepatitis and polio, and Ash had been and gone from his room, excusing Sebastian from work for the day.

Just as planned. If Sebastian had been an advocate of the maniacal laugh, he would have enjoyed a good one right as Ash hurried from the room with a medical mask covering his mouth and nose.

Sebastian gave it an hour and a half before ghosting from his room, positive that the staff were all going about their work by now, particularly the psychiatrists. As it was Wednesday, the group session would be going on in the ward, and Sebastian knew for a fact that Claude was making his rounds with individual patients, so his office would be completely empty.

Claude's office was as you would expect after meeting the man; completely void of personality. It was like he'd watched a few episodes of Frasier and pieced together what he thought a psychiatrist's office should look like. There were no pictures of family or friends, no personal touches to the desk like ornaments or a Troll doll, even the books on the shelves that framed the room were so mundanely obligatory. Freud and Young were the main offenders, flanked by books on personality disorders bigger than your head. The type that could be used as a murder weapon. The colour scheme was suicide-inducing too; dull browns and blacks, the only variation being the fascinating variety of browns Claude had so expertly used. An obnoxiously large desk in front of a high-backed chair that just cried for a cat-stroking Bond villain, with a single filing cabinet breaking the army of bookcases.

Sebastian pressed the heavy oak door shut as quietly as possible, wincing at the dull click as the lock clicked in to place. Luckily, Claude's office door wasn't part of the key-pass system, so there would be no trace of Sebastian's stealthy visit on the system.

Sebastian only realised that he was staking this entire mission on the idea that the filing cabinet wouldn't be locked, and his non-existent respect for Claude became even more imaginary as he discovered it wasn't locked.

How the hell had Claude even gotten his job?

It didn't take long to find Ciel's folder; it was the thinnest one.

Slipping it out of the cabinet, Sebastian sat back on his heels, opening the file. There was only a few sheets of paper inside. One was a simple details sheet; Ciel Phantomhive, currently sixteen, son of Vincent and Rachel Phantomhive (deceased), current guardian Angelina Durless. On a separate sheet, random facts like allergies, asthma and the such were detailed, and a list of visits to the Infirmary. Attached to that sheet was a single photo, an obviously younger Ciel, ragged and weary looking, bandages wrapped around the left of his face, visible eye avoiding the camera. The final sheet of paper was handwritten. There was only a paragraph on it.

Patient D18, Ciel Phantomhive. Severely unstable, volatile and delusional. Denies all responsibility of The Fire. Refuses to associate with other patients, will not take part in discussion groups, vehemently rejects medication to the point of having to be restrained. High-risk patient. Rehabilitation, indefinite.

Sebastian read the words again and again, but it was the last two words that caught his attention.

Rehabilitation?

Sebastian knew perfectly well that some places like St. Victoria's centred around getting the patients back into normal society, on helping them gain a sense of stability, to help them shape a normal life. But Sebastian also knew that St. Victoria's was not one of those places. It wasn't a stop along the path, it was the end of the road. Once you entered St. Victoria's, you didn't leave again.

Sebastian didn't have long to ponder on that, however, as voices suddenly sounded out from the corridor, heavy footfalls coming towards the door.

So Sebastian did the only thing he could think of; he jammed Ciel's folder back into the cabinet, kicked the drawer in, and jumped into Claude's coat closet.

Oh, in the name of all things cliché...

"It's enough already! He's been gone for ages!" Sebastian peered through the crack in the door, reaffirming his suspicion that that was Joker's voice he'd heard. The usual playful grin was absent, the friendly air the man always held about him completely dissipated. His hair, albeit never neat, was even messier than usual, a tell-tale sign that he'd been running his hands through it restlessly.

"Calm yourself," Angela snapped, pale eyes narrowed at the frustrated man. Claude stood silently behind her, leaning back on his desk, watching the patient with veiled eyes.

"No, I will not be calm! What do you think you're playing at?" Joker exploded, veritably baring his teeth at the woman. She visibly bristled, Sebastian could almost see her haunches rise.

"I am doing my job, boy. Little Peter misbehaved, so he must be appropriately reprimanded-"

"And it's been over a week! Even if he was in the wrong, he's atoned for it!"

That was apparently the straw that broke the camel's back for Angela, who raised herself up as tall as she could go, much taller than Sebastian had thought her, towering over Joker.

"That is not for you to judge! I am the judge here! I will decide if he has atoned!" she shrieked in his face, and Sebastian's respect for Joker rose as he didn't even flinch, just looked at her like she was dirt on his shoe.

"And if your opinion of atoning is more than he can handle?" Joker had gone dangerously quiet now, the living epitome of the calm before the storm.

And Angela's anger disappeared, the usual relaxed smile returning to her lips, "That is none of your concern. We are no-where near being done with little Peter yet."

The storm erupted, and Joker lunged for her, all snarling teeth and blazing eyes, hand going straight for her throat. Angela didn't move, didn't flinch away from the livid teen about to completely destroy her.

She had no need to.

His fingers brushed her neck, and Joker was flung to the floor, the impact knocking all the air from his lungs. Claude stood over him, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, not a hair out of place. He looked down at the wheezing Joker, and the emotionless mask cracked for a second, just a second, long enough for Sebastian to see the faintest flicker of amusement in those amber eyes.

Hatred rose in the watching Sebastian, a searing flame, burning like acid, and he almost darted out of the closet. Not to protect Joker, he wasn't nearly a decent enough man to take it upon himself to needlessly defend others, but to knock that smug look of sinister glee from the bespectacled man.

The office door burst open, slamming into the bookshelf behind it and knocking hardbacks to the floor with a thump. The triplets appeared beside Claude, two of them taking one of Joker's arms each and wrenching them behind his back until he let out a sharp cry of pain, the remaining one accepting a syringe from Claude. Joker struggled violently as the triplet not restraining him neared, kicking out his legs and trying to pull free from their vice-like grip.

"Do you really think you'll get away with all this? Fuck! And you say we're mad!" Joker screamed as the syringe came closer to his neck.

The words ceased abruptly as soon as the needle broke skin, and Joker slumped in their arms. He wasn't unconscious, Sebastian could see that. His eyes remained open, but they dulled, a glassy sheen to them. It almost looked like he was peacefully daydreaming, but his ruffled hair and rumpled clothes were evidence to the struggle that had taken place only seconds before.

Sebastian watched, his mind blank, as the triplets dragged Joker silently from the room, Angela following behind. Claude flicked imaginary lint from his jacket and turned to follow, only to freeze in his steps.

You know that feeling when you're sort-of asleep, but you feel like you're falling? Like the world has suddenly been pulled out from beneath your feet?

That was the feeling Sebastian got when Claude frowned down at the ajar drawer of the filing cabinet.

Claude knelt down and pulled the drawer fully open. He looked down, eyes intent, taking in everything, every placement. Sebastian scarcely breathed, waiting for the moment Claude would pull Ciel's file out of the drawer and know. Know who and what and when, know why more than Sebastian knew why at that moment.

Today, though... today seemed to be Sebastian's lucky day. Claude either didn't see anything amiss or pretended not to, simply slamming the drawer shut and stalking from the room.

It wouldn't be for another half an hour that Sebastian finally felt it was safe to leave the closet and return to his room.