Chapter Sixteen

The journal had been a gift from Claude. He'd given it to Alois a while before bringing him to St. Victoria's, back when he'd still been That Man's toy and when Claude had looked solely at him. He adored it like the rare treasure it was. The doctor was not a man who handed out presents to just anyone, after all. He knew that it had been chosen solely for him, too. It was bound by soft leather, the expensive kind that Alois had never had before, and all the pages were trimmed with gold, even though he knew it wasn't the real stuff he still liked to pretend it was. He loved it, just like Claude knew he would.

It was so nice that Alois didn't dare actually write in it. He'd only write silly things that would ruin the pristine white of the pages. Once the journal was written in, it'd officially be his, and he couldn't help not wanting that. He much preferred to think of it as something belonging to Claude, something of the man that only he held.

That was what he'd thought for the past few years. However, Alois had always been such a slave to his emotions, the negative ones in particular. In his anger with Claude, he tore the journal from its hiding place beneath his mattress, wrenched it open so hard the spine cracked and put pen to paper. He regretted it the instant the black, black ink left a spot upon the page, watching as the single dot of ink spread out, like tiny little spiders scurrying away from the tip of his pen.

He'd ruined it now.

It no longer belonged to Claude.

Zydrate. Needle. Hour or two. Maybe even three. Dunno. Feels –

Ciel had told him to keep a record of his course on the new and unfamiliar drug. Considering that he'd already ruined the journal, he was using it for just that. Well, he was trying to. What exactly was he supposed to write? Words had never been his strong point in the first place, even less so now that he was so fuzzy.

Feels fuzzy.

So articulate. He rolled his eyes, scanning his barely legible scrawl and trying to coax more words from his pen. They were stubbornly resisting him, though.

I like it.

He never got to watch much television. Between one thing and another, he was never in one place long enough to get settled in, never mind find time for luxuries like an hour or two lazing in front of the idiot box. Still, as with everything else he was lacking, Alois imagined what it would be like. Watching the lives of fictional people play out before him in technicolour, always finding the perfect punchline just in time to cut to the adverts, their antics invoking humorous dilemmas that were easily solved in convenient half hour time slots. Characters that you could easily meet in the street, befriend and be pulled into their world of weekly drama and angst, problems that you could relate to but not really worry about encountering yourself. That was the appeal of T.V, right? A way to shut off from your own reality by delving into somebody else's – that was what being doped up to the eyeballs on Zydrate was like.

He wasn't Jim McCain, though he hadn't been him for a very long time. He wasn't Alois Trancy any more either. Alois Trancy was a character in a show that he was watching. In this show, Alois Trancy was in love with the tall, dark and would-be-handsome-if-he-cracked-a-smile doctor, Claude Faustus, but tall, dark and would-be-handsome wasn't too interested in little old Alois any more. See, the novelty had worn off once the good doctor had found a new and shiny little boy to dote on.

The world of this show was a lot like the dog pound. All the mangy little mongrels that no-one at the shop had wanted, thrown into cages to paw at the bars and look pitifully cute every time a potential buyer sauntered past. Alois threw himself up against the wire closing him in, pressing so hard that the cold metal could cut into his skin, fluffing his soft blond hair until it looked perfectly dishevelled and batting his baby blue eyes, but Dr. Faustus just walked past without sparing him so much as a glance. Why would he, when just a few compartments down was Ciel Phantomhive, who didn't preen himself and pathetically claw at the wire ensnaring him, who sat in his cage and made it look like a palace.

He watched this show, with the Zydrate thrumming through his body, and laughed.

How pitiful. Why can't he see he's not wanted?

He watched Alois through the eyes of an impartial viewer and laughed. It had been a week now since Dr. Faustus had injected Alois with the blue, blue liquid and given him oblivion. In that time,

Dr. Faustus hadn't granted him a single fleeting look, didn't meet his desperate gaze even when Claude was enquiring after the affects of the drug. In that time, Dr. Faustus had had three more private sessions with Ciel, who also wouldn't look at him any more.

I'm not jealous.

It was true. Alois Trancy was burning with the envy, so much so that there was no room left in him to feel anything else. But him, the blank boy with blue in his veins, wasn't jealous at all. And if he'd still been feeling things, he'd have been feeling so very glad for it.

Yeah, I like it. It's the only thing keeping me from hating my best friend.

"I want to talk about Vincent."

A week had passed since Ciel's meetings with Claude had been tripled. One week, three sessions, three hours alone with the doctor and his poisonous lies and tempestuous eyes. The man was easing him in gently, Ciel knew. Innocent questions that he already knew the answers to – your favourite food, Ciel? Your favourite colour, Ciel? What did you do, Ciel? – and no employment of his usual techniques when he didn't receive the answers he clearly wanted. He knew it wouldn't last though, this simple question and answer format that could easily be pushed from the mind as soon as he had walked through the door. That wasn't how Claude liked to do things, after all. For Ciel to be able to put the doctor from his mind once he was out of sight was simply not acceptable.

He should have known. It always came back to Vincent, always.

"Then talk," Ciel said, words lacking bite, a mere suggestion. He kept his eye locked on the starkly white fridge in the corner of the room, an unfamiliar decoration that he didn't remember being there before. He'd found, over the years, that it was easier to keep his head when he didn't have to look at Claude. Something about the man's vacant face sent irritation prickling at his skin.

"I'll have to be more literal then – I want to have a conversation with you about Vincent. Naturally, this would include you talking too."

"I don't want to talk." The unsaid to you lingered between them, heavy on the air like a bad smell.

Ciel could picture the flash in those eerie amber eyes. Anger? No, never anger, not at him. Disappointment, possibly. Whatever it was, he didn't want to see it. He much preferred those horrid eyes to be empty.

"I can't help you if you won't talk to me." Hurt, then. The words had a definite wounded quality to them. Even though Ciel wasn't looking at him, Claude was managing to irritate him none-the-less.

Ciel sighed and began patting himself down exaggeratedly, as though looking for something that continued to elude him, "Sorry, I'm all out of fucks to give."

The silence drew out between them, unnaturally long even for two such taciturn people, until Ciel felt the strong compulsion to look at the man. He didn't though. That was probably exactly what Claude wanted, after all.

"You parents moved to Renbon shortly after Rachel fell pregnant with you, isn't that right?"

Ah, back to business then. He couldn't get angry at Ciel, after all, not even when the boy was being intentionally antagonistic.

"So you tell me." He found a sudden intense fascination with his fingernails, staring at the blunt and chewed tips of his fingers. There was a soft scraping as Claude pushed his chair back, the legs brushing across the carpet. Ciel didn't look at him as he rose from his seat, nor when he crossed around the desk and passed behind him.

"Yes. From what I can tell, your Mother was only a few months gone at the time. They were welcomed with open arms."

Claude was back in sight, and Ciel hadn't even realised he was looking. He looked sharply back down to his hands. As the doctor returned to his seat, he placed something on his otherwise empty desk.

A file.

Ciel's file.

He couldn't look away if he tried.

"Your parents were very young when they had you, children themselves really. But Vincent was especially irresponsible. Fell in with the wrong sort in that town, didn't he, Ciel?" Claude's voice was a velvet murmur, quiet as though every word he spoke was a secret just between them, which it technically was. This was just between Claude, Ciel and that file. If that. He still didn't know what was said about him on those pages. Oh, he could imagine – crazy, delusional, a risk to himself and everyone around him. Lies upon lies that he sometimes thought Claude had actually deluded himself into believing. You tell a story enough times and it begins to seem like fact. It starts with a minor change, just a little detail falling through the cracks, like a game of Chinese Whispers, but then it grows and grows until the story is unrecognisable. How much of the truth was left in that file, he wondered now, how much had been lost between the tellings, and – ow.

Ciel jolted in his seat. In that moment, he forgot his resolution to not look upon the doctor's face and glanced at him. Nothing. He carried on talking, the monotone not faltering for an instant, not a twitch to indicate that he'd felt a thing.

What the fuck was that? It – a noise, so loud. A noise as sharp as a knife, a whistle (was it a whistle, could a whistle be this piercing?) that cut through Claude's words and penetrated him deeply. He couldn't help it, the wince that twisted his face – couldn't Claude hear it? Why was he still talking, going on and on when that sound was so loud he could barely think. There was no way he was just ignoring it. That wasn't possible. No-one was this good an actor, and Ciel knew a good actor when he saw one, being in the trade himself.

...No. Claude had gotten up. He'd gone behind Ciel to get the file – and to do something else? He hadn't been able to see him there, facing the other way. Claude could easily have done something, triggered something to start this noise.

There was no way he couldn't hear it. He had to be pretending, to make Ciel think only he was hearing it. That sly fuckrag was messing with his head. Again.

With difficulty, Ciel wiped his face clear of any sign of discomfort, looking away from the doctor and back at the fridge. Already his temples throbbed with an incoming headache. Well, if Claude could ignore that noise so easily then Ciel could do it too.

"...ave you to them – Ciel, are you listening?"

Ciel shook his head to get rid of the fuzziness, "Yeah. No. What did you say?"

"We were talking about Vincent... You've gone awfully pale," Claude's brow furrowed, "Are you feeling alright?" Ciel was sure that if he looked up, he'd see a glimmer of satisfaction, having finally gotten a response from him.

"I'm fine," was all he said as the noise grew louder in his ears.

Claude seemed to hesitate momentarily, or maybe Ciel just imagined it, before he resumed whatever he'd been saying before.

"From what I've gathered over the years, you were a great source of friction between Vincent and Rachel, given the circumstances. She blamed him and he... he blamed you, didn't he?"

Ciel grit his teeth against the growing pounding in his skull. It was that sort of headache that you could feel right behind your eyes, a pulsing, and every sound became nails on a chalkboard. Except the whistle, of course. That was staying the same.

"No. He didn't." His voice was even, calm. Good. Just as he wanted it to be.

"Ah. We've reached our first disagreement then," Claude flipped open the folder, leafing through the sparse pages until he found the one he was looking for, "You were so young, you don't remember clearly, Ciel. I know it's difficult for you to accept, you clearly idolize the man, but you're at an age now when you have to acknowledge that your parents were people too. Children have a habit of putting their parents on a pedestal, separate from everyone else they meet, thinking that they exist solely to care for you. But the fact is that they had lives before you were born, had lives outside of raising you, had flaws and made mistakes just like you did. Ciel, your Father was a deeply flawed man and you can glorify him as much as you want but it won't change the fact that he did wrong by you-"

The noise – zzzzzzzzzzzzzeeeeeeeeeeee – was getting so loud, if it got any louder his head was going to burst – zzzzzzzzzzzzzeeeeeeeeeeeee – Claude needed to shut up, shut up with his filthy lies and stupid folder and looking at him like that.

"The sooner you stop lying to yourself and ignoring what really happened back then, the sooner I can help you get better, Ciel. This memory of Vincent that you have is false and is the only thing keeping you here, keeping you sick."

He wasn't sick – except for the headache, which was Claude's fault, whatever the fuck he was doing with that noise that was making it hard to even string together a cohesive thought – stop talking about Dad, you're a liar, he loved us, protected us.

"You need to remember. Your mind is trying to protect itself by hiding behind a lie you've created, and I've allowed that because you clearly needed it, but you're too old to pretend any more," Claude's voice was getting that desperate edge to it again, gaining a fervour that sent a chill down Ciel's spine, "If you keep pretending like this, I'll never be able to get you out of here."

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Ow.

"The memories are there. You just need to access them. To do that, you need to think about Vincent. What Vincent let happen. What Vincent did-"

"Shut up!" It was a long, drawn out minute before Ciel realised the hissed order had come from him, that he was no longer sitting but on his feet and scowling at the doctor. His hands had curled into fists entirely without his permission, shaking with the foreign desire to lash out – completely foreign, he only resorted to physical violence when he lost all composure and... shit, had he? Vincent and the noise and promises of freedom that only trapped him more, had he lost his head without noticing? Shit. In front of Claude too.

With more effort than the movement should have needed, Ciel slowly unfurled his hands and sat back down, reigning in the temper he wasn't even aware he'd lost. He had to look at Claude now, whether he liked it or not, to gauge the repercussions of his folly.

Most people would be perturbed if not downright angered by having someone shout in their face. Claude Faustus was not most people, anyone who knew him for more than five minutes would tell you that, so it was unsurprising that he didn't look bothered at all by Ciel's outburst. If anything, he looked mildly satisfied.

Creep.

"I think we'll call it a day here," Claude flipped the file shut, moving away from the desk to put it away, "I'll take you back to your room."

A chilly silence lingered between them as they made their way back to the ward. Claude left him at the door, odd considering he usually walked him straight to his bedroom, but not inside, never inside.

Ciel slammed the door behind him, jabbing a finger in his ear and twisting. The noise was quieter here, not the actual noise but just the residual echo from back in Faustus' office. Even so, it was still pretty fucking annoying, like a fly that continued to buzz around your head no matter how many times you tried to bat it away.

He stepped over the usual mess on his floor and flung himself down on his bed.

Great. He couldn't shut off. Sometimes he really hated how his mind refused to just stop. Just an hour, just a minute, it wouldn't give him a moment of peace.

It's been six years. Don't let him start getting to you now.

Claude was about as honest as Ciel himself, he knew. He remembered Vincent Phantomhive with crystal clarity. His Father had been – well, not responsible, okay, but he tried his best. If there was one truth the doctor had said, it was that Ciel's parents had been no more than children themselves. So yes, Vincent could be immature, treating Ciel more like his friend than his son, but the love was unquestionable. When Ciel thought of his Father, he thought of warm words and gentle hands, an effortless grace that he couldn't imitate no matter how hard he tried, a shadow behind the eyes that he could copy all too well.

But... didn't you think the same back then, about Finny? They made you forget. You were wrong once. How many other things have you been wrong about?

No. The Vincent he remembered was real, as real as he himself was.

You were sure about Finny too, before you saw that post-it note. How do you know that Claude isn't playing the post-it note here, that he won't say the right(wrong) thing and it'll all come back?

That was exactly what Claude wanted him to think. Faustus was just fucking around with his head, Ciel knew that, and he wouldn't let himself start thinking any differently. It had been six years – he wasn't about to let them win now.

In case it hadn't been beating a dead horse enough, let it again be stated, Sebastian Michaelis had had many jobs since he'd left full-time education. He had graduated college at the age of twenty two. It was in those two years between leaving school and joining the staff of St. Victoria's that his occuptation-whoring had taken place. Eventually, he began taking on jobs depending solely on their excitement factor. His favourite, though by no means interesting enough to keep him there more than a couple of months, had been lion-taming.

The training itself had been enduring. Not difficult but painfully mundane. Naturally, he excelled and completed it twice as fast as was the norm. A common misconception about lion-taming was that it was all about whipping the animal whenever it was bad until it associated those bad actions with pain. If that had been all the job entailed, Sebastian simply would not have been able to do it. To mar that feline's beautiful coat with unsightly welts? Blasphemy.

On the contrary, a large part of the job had been learning to read the animal's mood. Lions really were nothing more than big cats when you stripped them down to nuts and bolts. The lion Sebastian had been put in charge of had been a young female called Betty – sleek tan fur, almond-shaped eyes, long and lithe legs, she had been a beauty. A temperamental one, at that. So much so that the sanctuary couldn't have her in the enclosure with the other lions. Familiarising himself with her mannerisms hadn't been all that hard; when she was antsy, her posture was stiff and ready to move in an instant, her green eyes flickering around her frantically; when she was hungry, she prowled and keened, scanned the ground for anything to pounce upon; when she was content, she purred like a revving engine and sometimes even rolled on her back to offer up her belly for a rub. It was her anger he had to watch out for the most, however, as it could drop upon her so suddenly that Sebastian barely had a chance to scarper. Her ears would fall flat against her head, hackles raised, mouth twitching as she prepared to bare her teeth.

It was thanks to Sebastian's time as a lion-tamer with the temperamental Betty that he knew as soon as he entered Ciel's room that day that the boy was not in a good mood.

The boy's back was turned to the door and if Sebastian hadn't known better he'd have thought Ciel was fast asleep. However, there was an obvious tension in his posture. His shoulders were all hunched up, just like Betty's would be when she felt the need to be defensive. His bare feet twitched, as though taking the place of the tail he couldn't have, the slight nervous jolts a sign that Ciel was ready to jump to his feet at the slightest hint of trouble.

"Afternoon," Sebastian greeted, a little more cheerfully than was necessary. Predictably, the response was minimal, a sullen grunt that may in some language have been a word but certainly not in English. Well, he was nothing if not a trooper, so he tried again, injecting an ounce more sugar into his tone. Whenever Betty was acting up, Sebastian's attitude could often affect hers, after all. "How did it go with Faustus? PG-13, I hope."

Ciel's back seemed to tense even more, if that was at all possible. Sebastian wondered briefly if he'd hit a nerve, the beginnings of worry curling in the pit of his stomach, but then Ciel threw himself off the bed and Sebastian could see his face. Oh, it was a face of thunder, no doubt about that, but it was an expression he was growing increasingly familiar with. One of annoyance, frustration, but nothing more. The curling tendrils unfurled as what might have become worry seeped away.

"Must you talk? Your voice is grating," Ciel snapped, stalking over to his bookshelf and snatching a dog-eared paperback, yanking it open as he clambered back onto the bed. And then Sebastian may as well have been absorbed by the wallpaper, completely ignored as Ciel read the book – pretended to read anyway, it was difficult to read something backwards.

Well, the prissy little princess clearly wasn't in a mood to entertain that day. If sweetening Betty's mood didn't work, Sebastian's best bet had always been to beat a hasty retreat before he got a face full of angry lioness claws – or, more likely, a rubix cube to the nose.

"Apologies, Sunshine." The words were so heavy with sarcasm, it was a wonder he didn't trip over them as he turned to walk out the door. He didn't get as far as the door, however, before Ciel was spluttering after him.

"Wait – where are you going?" The boy sounded so incredulous, like Sebastian leaving had come as a surprise. Oh yes, who could resist being in the company of that charming attitude?

"Outside to see the other patients. To spare your delicate ears my grating voice."

A petulant scowl twisted Ciel's mouth. What may have been a threatening expression on someone else only managed to look sulky on him, much akin to the look a child would wear when they were just that inch too small to go on the big kid's rides at the fun fair.

"Oh, don't be so bloody sensitive. I have a headache, alright? That doesn't mean you have to go off in a strop. Just... sit down and don't talk," Ciel sighed, gesturing to the desk-chair with one hand and rubbing at his apparently aching temples with the other.

Sebastian gave a quirk of the brow. No-one had to do him any favours.

"No, that's fine. I saw Beast out there. Don't think I've ever had a proper conversation with her before-"

"Stay." All traces of a dark mood had lifted from Ciel, just leaving him looking exhausted and significantly smaller. The book hung limply from his hand, all but forgotten.

"I'm sorry," Sebastian was almost shocked, having thought the boy incapable of an apology, "That you went and got offended." Ah, that was more like it, Sebastian's fault for being such a sensitive flower then. "I'm not in a very talky mood today. You can stay though."

Sebastian spared him having to say any more, stepping away from the door and stealing the book dangling from Ciel's fingers. "If you have a headache, reading isn't a wise thing to do. If you can't sleep then at least rest."

Ciel gave a stiff nod, going back to his bed and resuming the same position he'd been in when Sebastian had entered. The boy meant it when he said he wasn't in a talky mood, not a word spoken between them the rest of Sebastian's shift. He didn't sleep, just lay there facing the wall as though he was seeing something more than the royal blue wallpaper. Still, despite the silence, at no point did he indicate that he wanted Sebastian to make good on his offer to leave and before long that silence was more comfortable than anything else.

Bard's departure from the Institute with Finny and Meirin had been a blessing in disguise, probably the best thing that had happened to the inhabitants, staff and patients alike, in a very long time. No longer did they look at their meals and wonder what creature it once was, or possibly still was, whether or not it was even edible or just something the 'chef' had found in the gardens. It begged the question of just who Bard had been fucking to get the job in the first place. The person obviously had defunct taste buds.

After the trio's disappearance, it was decided that the remaining staff would go on a rotation. Every day, a different member of staff would be in charge of cooking the meals for everyone, their usual duties delegated to somebody else. This lasted as long as it took Grell to intentionally set the kitchen on fire so it would match his jacket. Even Bard had kept his accidental arson to once a week. After that, Ronald was appointed the new chef, for no other reason than he very rarely bothered to go to the ward anyway. As it turned out, Ronald was a much better cook than he was an orderly, and everyone was rather pleased with the decision.

Despite Ronald's surprising culinary talent, Sebastian continued to cook his own meals. The matter of his exception from the memory erasure still lingered in his mind and the only possible reason he could deduce, the thing that marked him as different from everyone who had forgotten Finny, was that he cooked his own meals. Even the higher-ups, Ash, Angela and Claude, had their meals prepared by Bard. That still begged the question of who was tampering with the food, it surely hadn't been Bard, and exactly how they'd done it, Sebastian may have been cooking for himself but he still used the same ingredients, after all.

He'd convinced Agni to cook for himself too. They always say you could never be too careful, and that couldn't be more true than it was in St. Victoria's.

The two were eating breakfast together in the kitchen rather than the dining hall, sitting at the table Sebastian used to share with Bard, Finny and Meirin. They were mostly silent, the odd bit of small talk exchanged every now and then – things were rather awkward between them these days. When they weren't discussing the asylum and just what the hell was going on in it, they were both lost for words with each other. It was a little disappointing, truth be told. Sebastian couldn't help thinking of that stupid phrase, something about friendship being like glass. Once broken, it could be fixed, but those cracks would always be there. He hated such tripe with a passion but sometimes it really proved to be true. Back in college, he and Agni had been able to talk for hours about absolutely nothing with ease. Now, because of mutual misplaced concern, they struggled to come up with more than terrible weather today, isn't it? More than sadness over a rift in their friendship, however, was a deep concern; now that they were drifting apart, would Sebastian be able to trust Agni with his back if it came down to it? He had no one, really, in this place. Yes, he trusted Ciel, but only to a certain extent. At the end of the day, the boy was a survivor. There was always the chance that if freedom presented itself to him, he would readily throw Sebastian to the dogs to grasp it. Agni, though, he'd been running on the assumption that Agni was a certainty. Now, however – could what was true for Ciel also be true for Agni? Would Agni be willing to toss Sebastian aside for himself, or worse, Soma? The fact that Sebastian had to even ask himself that question was proof enough that his trust in Agni was dubious at best.

"Oh – here's trouble," Agni mumbled to him, pulling Sebastian from his thoughts, looking purposefully down at his mostly empty plate. Not a moment later, footsteps, quick yet purposeful, sounded from the doorway behind him.

"Good morning," Claude greeted, nodding to both of them in turn, his eyes only meeting Sebastian's. They each muttered a response, more a grunt than words. It seemed they two of them had given up on even trying to hide their disdain for the man. "Sebastian, you won't be working on the ward today. You're long overdue for your staff training."

Sebastian nodded slowly, a sense of unease washing over him as he shared a look with Agni. He'd been at the Institute over half a year now. Overdue was an understatement.

"If you've finished eating..." Claude trailed off, eyebrow raised in question.

"Not just yet," Sebastian replied, despite his plate being almost entirely empty and his stomach completely full. Childish as it was, he intended to make the man wait, just for the sake of it. A part of him hoped Claude would offer to wait elsewhere so that he could ask Agni just what staff training entailed – a little voice in the back of his head wondered if this was what they'd told Finny before he'd disappeared, had the gardener been whisked away for a botany lesson but instead received a lobotomy? – but no, Claude just nodded and continued to hover beside him as Sebastian poked the dregs of his meal around the plate.

And Sebastian had thought Ciel was bad at reading the atmosphere.

"Well, I'll see you later, Agni," Sebastian relented, standing and scraping the unwanted egg yolks into the bin then placing the dish into the sink. Claude didn't say anything, just gave another curt nod and strode from the kitchen, not even looking back to see if Sebastian was following. Reluctant as hell to do so, Sebastian threw Agni a what can you do look and made his way after his superior.

It was a slight comfort that Claude had called him away from his shift in front of Agni. If there was a witness to his being taken somewhere then it was all the more likely that he was coming back, Sebastian supposed.

The comfort was a fleeting one. He wasn't at all sure where he was being led by Claude. He'd seen the entire hospital building from basement to top floor, albeit for only as long as it took to sweep a room without being caught, and there'd been no rooms that seemed to be for training. What kind of training did he need at this point anyway? A little over six months he'd been at St. Victoria's and all he'd done, officially at any rate, was keep the patients company during the day. Occasionally he cleaned up. Very rarely he had to restrain one of the kids when they took a sudden violent turn, though even then he was often beaten to the punch by one of his disturbingly eager co-workers. Maybe this training was just protocol, more for show than anything else? Even so, he had a hard time believing after seeing the way the place operated that they'd bother with such things.

The comfort abandoned him completely when Claude began leading him downstairs rather than up, towards the basement, towards The Room – ah, so that was it. A delayed punishment? Ash had been lenient but Claude had other ideas. His blood turned to ice in his veins. Jesus, had this been how it happened with Finny? Taken away, none the wiser that he wouldn't be returning, that he was going to be completely forgotten. Was it going to happen again with Sebastian? Would his name not even be a memory in the minds of the people he'd met here? No-one would be any the wiser. Sure, his Mother might poke around after a while, but even then, that would take a long while. He'd made a point of letting her know he couldn't get in contact often. And besides her, there was no-one. Sebastian moved around so often that he never bothered staying in touch with any of the brief friends or lovers he acquired along the way –

"Ah, boys! Finally," a booming voice exclaimed, not so much pulling as dragging Sebastian from his turbulent thoughts. Without Sebastian's noticing, Claude had led him not towards but away from those matching doors that led down to Room 1800. They veered away, down a corridor he... didn't remember. That couldn't be right. Between the three of them, Sebastian, Ciel and Agni had traversed the entire building, hadn't they?

Doctor wheeled himself towards them with a beaming grin, out of breath, face shining with sweat. His curling chestnut hair was pulled tightly into a bobble, though as Sebastian looked at him, strand after rebellious strand sprung free. Coupled with the happy shine in his eyes, the bespectacled man had a manic quality that Sebastian hadn't expected from him. When he'd first met Doctor, he'd took a shine to him instantly, respecting the man's passion for his work. Now, knowing what he did, he couldn't help but wonder just what that work entailed. The initial liking was curdling into something sour, Sebastian unable to help falling back on mistrust.

"My apologies, Doctor. I caught Sebastian in the middle of his dinner," Claude explained, possibly the first time Sebastian had seen him show a shred of respect to someone else.

Doctor waved a hand flippantly, "No bother, no bother. Let's just get stuck in, shall we?" And with that, he turned around and was making his way down the unfamiliar corridor, the other two men trailing behind him. They couldn't have walked for more than five minutes before they reached a door. It was unlike the sparse few other doors along the hallway, which had been the usual electronic, industrial grey fare. This one was right at the end of the hall, a door identical to the ward door in every way but one – where the ward door had the electronic panel as all the others, this one had a keyhole.

Sebastian sent a questioning glance to Claude but was ignored.

Doctor rolled himself right up to the door, fumbling in his white coat's many pockets. When he found what he was looking for, he gave a pleased hum, pulling a long piece of string out of his pocket. Tied to the end of the string was a tarnished silver key.

"Now, Sebastian, you have to be sure to listen to what I and Dr. Faustus say, alright? And I mean as soon as we say it, no back-chatting. If you're not quick, you could get hurt, mmkay?" Doctor chattered away as he unlocked the door – Sebastian was looking closer now, could see that unlike the others doors it didn't have a number, but a letter, Room V – and ushered them inside in front of them.

It took a lot to strike Sebastian Michaelis truly speechless. Room V managed it at first sight.

It was entirely white. Even by a hospital standard, it was the whitest of whites, as though colour had been a privilege not deserved by the inhabitants of that room. The fluorescent lights were blinding, the kind of bright that burned behind your eyelids and made you see dancing spots. The room was segregated into little plastic compartments – transparent cages without bars or locks, completely impenetrable. The floor of these cages was not the same as the floor outside of them. Whereas the floor Sebastian stood upon was sleek and clean linoleum, the bottom of those cages was rough wooden floor boards. Around the edges of the cages, the linoleum was crudely cut, tore up from the ground. The wood inside was splintered and filthy, coated in god only knows what, looking as though it was ready to collapse beneath the slightest of weights. The smell of the room was foul, so heavy on the air that his eyes began to water and he actually had to take a step back. He wouldn't let himself even try to identify what that smell was made up of. The worst thing though, the thing that had actually blanked Sebastian's mind, was what was inside those cages.

People. At least, what had once been people. It was difficult to attach the word to... them. There was nine of them in total, one filling almost every cage in the room bar the final compartment right at the far end. They were dressed in baggy white sweatshirts and baggy white sweatpants. Their faces were skeletal, sallow skin stretched impossibly tight over their bones, eyes sunken so deeply it was a wonder they could see at all. Their mouths were like a jagged gash, some had no teeth at all, others looked more like chunks of glass was protruding from their gums. They seemed to be covered in their own filth, matted with blood and excrement, and the source of the smell was crystal clear. Some of them were huddled in the corners of their cages, arms wrapped tightly around themselves and rocking, while others were rampant, flinging themselves at the walls entrapping them and seeming unaware of the damage they were doing to themselves. One thing all nine of them had in common was the screaming. Together, a horrific harmony, they screeched. No words, nothing intelligible at any rate, just a scream of raw agony.

A hand descended on his shoulder.

"I know it looks inhumane, but as you can see, there's nothing human left of them any more," Claude murmured into his ear, standing so close Sebastian could feel the heat of his body. Firmly, he turned Sebastian to face him, looking at the nearest cage with what could only be described as a deep loathing. "These are the experimental patients. They're much more severely ill than the patients upstairs. There is very little chance of rehabilitation for them. As such, they've been chosen to undergo new treatments. These treatments... they may seem cruel, but they give at least a sense of hope to otherwise lost causes. Under Doctor's and my instruction, it will be part of your job to administer these treatments, Sebastian."

Sebastian could only gape at Claude, well and truly speechless. Doctor took over then, launching into an earnest speech about the patients, referring to them only by number, and detailing their individual treatments. It went in on ear and out the other, absorbed by the chaos of the patient's agonized screams.