Chapter Twenty

Ciel lasted, at most, three minutes after Sebastian had sauntered from his room with that insufferable smirk. For those three minutes, he made the conscious effort to be very still, very calm. It was a simple enough thing at first, the lingering heaviness of what he refused to refer to as after-glow still swamping him, and it was easy not to think. Unfortunately, his mind had always been his own worst enemy. When it returned, it returned with a vengeance.

He had felt this feeling before but refused to refer to it by name. It was a thick kind of emotion. It started slowly, like the first few steps as a person walked into water. It pooled around his feet, not entirely noticeable. Then it rose, becoming heavier and more difficult to ignore. It began to drag at his clothes, make it so much harder to tread water, until it was a full body struggle to even move. It had started as unnoticeable but quicker than he could realise, it was suddenly over his head, stealing the place in his lungs that should have housed air.

As the shame suffocated him that night, Ciel clasped his lips over the mouth of his inhaler and choked on the bitter medicinal taste, bidding his chest to stop heaving and his mind to stop screaming.

He was ashamed – he had offered himself up like some common streetwalker, to one of the few people whose opinion, he had to admit, may have mattered to some degree. It wasn't even the act that was leaving him so stolen of air. Sex was sex, nothing more than a person's greed for their own gratification, back-seat fumblings desperate for that fleeting moment of bliss. It wasn't as though he was alien to it all himself. Yes, he may have liked to think of himself as above it, to be as cold and unfeeling as possible, but at the end of the day, he had not been lying when he'd told Sebastian that he was just as much a slave to his hormones as any other teenage boy. With puberty came awkward mornings of sticky bedsheets like some perverse initiation rite, may well have been a greeting card, You're All Grown Up Now!, with some tissues tucked away in the envelope in place of the customary ten pound note.

No, it wasn't the act itself that had Ciel clinging to the inhaler like a life-line, dependant upon the little plastic rectangle in a way he hadn't been since he was new at St. Victoria's and still naive enough to hope. More than anything, he was ashamed of the fact that he had had to resort to it at all. He prided himself on his cunning, his ability to manipulate his surroundings to his benefit. May there have been another way? If he hadn't been so thrown by his sessions with Claude, by the entire situation with Finny, his own growing doubts about the memories he still clung to, would he have been able to find a more palpable remedy to the situation?

It stung. He had found a solution, certainly, but one that sacrificed the impenetrability he had always ensured himself. By propositioning Sebastian, he had lowered himself from the controller's position by some degree. He had been so very careful in his interactions with the man – to Sebastian, he was someone who had answers, some form of ally. The plan had always been to have Sebastian as nothing more than a means to an end, the brawn to his brains, the one who opened doors. However, Ciel had backed himself into a corner now, hadn't he? Even before that day and the upgrade of their relationship, that little plan that kept Ciel at a safe distance had been wavering.

That night when Sebastian had taken a leap of faith for the sake of knowledge and agreed to let him out of the ward to help Joker, Ciel had made a compromise. To ease Sebastian's suspicions, he had bound them together, tied their wrists with a bit of cloth. To Sebastian, it probably meant no more than it looked. To Ciel, it had been putting all his eggs in one basket. If they were caught that night, Ciel would not have been able to run, at least not as quickly as he would have done unbound. No, they'd have been caught together, and Ciel would pay the same price as Sebastian. Had it really started that early? These uncharacteristic submissions?

And then all the compromises he made while trying to help Finny. He had been livid at Sebastian for reading his file, a betrayal, not of trust because there was no trust between them then as far as Ciel was concerned, but a betrayal none-the-less. Yet hadn't Ciel dropped that anger quickly? It wasn't, as he was sure it seemed, because he had been swept up in the drama surrounding their situation. Despite the new problems and fears surfacing, there had been a little voice constantly whispering at the back of Ciel's mind; he's seen it. He's read it. He knows. And every time that poisonous little murmur became louder than all his other thoughts, there certainly was a flicker of rage. Sebastian had had no right, especially when Ciel himself had yet to glimpse the slander he was no doubt being dealt on those pages. Regardless, he hadn't made a confrontation over the matter like he should have, definitely should have to set a precedent. If he let Sebastian get away with such a thing once, he would certainly try to again, surely. The most recompense he had issued had been his leaving Agni behind and the refusal to go try and find him again – not so much meant as callousness towards Agni as it had been a message to Sebastian, that Ciel came first, always.

A point well made when Sebastian had followed him like a loyal dog despite his own issues. However, a point ruined when Sebastian had offered him escape. No strings attached, no debt to be collected later, pass go and collect two hundred dollars, freedom. And Ciel had said no. No because it did not sit with him, skulking away in the dark like a coward, shedding his dignity and spending the rest of his life constantly jumping at shadows. No because – and the thought had Ciel grasping for his inhaler once more, still unmoved from the edge of the bed he had stumbled on to – Sebastian would surely be the first to pay for his disappearance. Somehow, for some reason, that fact seemed to matter. Once upon a time, it wouldn't have. In fact, earlier that very night, it wouldn't have. But just the fact that Sebastian had even offered such a thing, entirely selfless and completely for Ciel's benefit, gave Ciel pause. Oh, he'd analysed it that night. Turned the simple gesture over in his mind until it rotted. But no matter what way the boy twisted it, broke it and pieced it back together, he could find no ulterior motive beneath it that spoke of anything sinister.

Ciel, who wanted nothing more than to shatter the walls of St. Victoria's until they could never hold him again, had turned away from the chance to run free, all for the sake of someone else. It was uncharacteristic, it was not the type of thing he did, and it scared him.

Sebastian was destroying him. Ciel had always looked on their odd little alliance as one-way, as Ciel having sunken his claws in to Sebastian, but that was looking less and less true by the instance. If Ciel had sunken his claws in to Sebastian then clearly Sebastian had gotten a grip on him too, enough to garner himself the same begrudging care that the boy had eventually allowed Alois and Soma, Freckles and sometimes even Joker.

It was not love. It may not have even been like. It was necessity. The powerful boy rendered powerless by circumstance and the bored man with control to share, their footing in sanity beginning to erode and sinking their claws in to one another more sharply, deeper and deeper until that was all that was holding them up.

It was terrifying, this alarming codependency Ciel suddenly found himself embroiled in, and as he shuddered on the edge of his bed, he found the inhaler not nearly enough to calm his frantic, panicked gasps. It was useless to him now so he discarded it, instead bundling his sheets and a pillow in to his arms and lumbering into the bathroom. The lock of the door was cool and heavy as he twisted it shut, the bolt clicking in to place so very loud in that small and private room, and already isolation was doing what the inhaler hadn't managed – with no other sound but his own rattling breaths, it was so very easy to pretend that he had locked the world away behind that door, shut out his fear, his demons, even his chilly logic that was telling him he was being silly, if Sebastian was changing him then it was a change that better tied the man to him and brought them closer to escape.

Ciel had long since put his foot down with himself about escapism, any indulgence in fantasy, but just for that one night, he allowed himself a shattering moment of vulnerability. It was something he hadn't done since he was thirteen and the realisation had hit him that Vincent was not coming for him, that he could wait forever but it would be fruitless. Just like he had done that night over four years ago, Ciel tossed his bedding into the bathtub, climbed inside and yanked the curtain tightly across. Just like with locking the door, Ciel allowed himself to imagine that the world had suddenly blinked out of existence. There was only him, cocooned inside his quilt, hidden away in his private corner of the world. Outside of that yellowing shower curtain, there was nothing. A void, vast and empty, blissfully silent. A perfect isolation.

When he awoke the next morning, it was to cramped quarters and stiff bones, but a peaceful mind. The fear, the panic, the shame – it had evaporated. It was a new morning and he looked back on the previous day with a fresh mind. What he had set in motion with Sebastian, whether he could have come up with a safer alternative or not, was not something for him to regret. It had its risks, yes, but every step was a risk at the Institute.

He had a shower, got dressed and put that night behind him. It would be the sole moment of weakness that he allowed himself in the rest of his time at St. Victoria's and one that wouldn't be forgotten.

At ten o'clock that morning, Ciel strode out of his bedroom with the same self sure swagger he had worked so hard to possess. To the other patients milling about in the leisure room, there was not a thing different about Ciel Phantomhive, not the remotest waver in that single defiant blue eye.

"What on earth are they doing?" Sebastian asked with a confused glance across the leisure room, slipping in to the empty seat across from Ciel. Joviality was the call of the day, laughter on the air, the room more boisterous than usual.

It was doing nothing for Ciel's headache.

"I'm sure on some planet it's considered juggling. Earth, on the other hand..." Ciel grumbled, not deigning to look in their direction.

Oddly enough, at the centre of the group was Snake. A very flustered looking Snake. His ivory hair was a rat's nest, his clothes a shambles and Sebastian could see from across the room that if he took another step forward he was going to go flying over the several balled up pairs of socks lying at his feet. At his side was the wrong redhead. Rather than Drocell, his constant companion and who may as well have been his conjoined twin for all the space usually between them, was Joker. As Sebastian watched the unusual duo, Snake predictably trod on one of the hazards lying at his feet and went A over T. Joker attempted to catch him with his one good arm and only ended up sprawled beneath him, laughing good-naturedly and waving off Snake's spluttered apologies.

"Where's Drocell?" Sebastian glanced around the group, Joker's usual lot, the taciturn redhead not amongst them.

"Sick, apparently," at the frown, Ciel hastened to add, "Not anything to be concerned over, as far as I can see. A cold, not staff-manufactured. Snake was sulking in the corner so Joker took it on himself to distract him."

"This is a painful distraction to watch," Sebastian chuckled. As he spoke, the make-shift juggling balls once again went flying in all directions, one pegging Beast across the head. She reacted with her usual good grace, pretty face snarling and launching the ball back where it came from with a backhand any athlete would be jealous of. "Exactly whose genius idea was it for the one-armed man to teach the klutz juggling of all things?"

It was all, Ciel thought, a little too normal. If he were in the habit of wet dreams, he'd think the events of the previous day had been nothing more than a particularly vivid one. He wasn't quite sure what he had expected to happen now. Truth be told, he'd been antsy all day waiting for Sebastian to eventually show up for his shift on the ward – an occurrence which was happening later and later in the day until it seemed entirely pointless for him to show up at all.

Would Ciel be expected to perform? Well, he had made the offer, after all. He could hardly be surprised if Sebastian were to take him up on it. Still, the anxiety creeping upon him was not what he had planned. The entire thing was supposed to help get rid of his anxiety, not make it worse. An oversight, unfortunately. It couldn't be helped, he supposed. It was hard to account for things with which he had no experience, sexual relationships being probably the highest on the list. Not enough data.

The restlessness as he had awaited Sebastian's arrival had even driven him out of his own bedroom. A part of him had worried that if he stayed there, even if he wasn't lounging on his bed like usual, it may be taken as invitation. Invitation was the furthest thing from his intentions now.

Ciel had set the ball rolling. It would be down to Sebastian to decide the momentum.

A part of him – a very small part, mind – may have actually been a bit disappointed by the new development. Now that he had taken it to the next level, things would not be the same. There would be no more innocent games to pass the time and exercise his superior skill, relishing the obvious bruises he was dealing to Sebastian's ego in the process. There would be no more simple conversations – well, considering their conversations were usually weighed down with the subject of sinister staff and potential GBH, perhaps not all that simple, but still. And now that sex had been introduced to the equation, the odd sort of companionship they had built up over those number of months since Sebastian had arrived, equal parts camaraderie and antagonism, would never be the same.

Ciel had gained an ally but lost a companion, and considering how dismally few of those he had, it was more disappointing than he'd have thought.

"I can juggle, you know. Very well, actually," Sebastian had continued talking despite Ciel's unresponsiveness, almost seemed to have expected it, "And I have to say, there are far fewer casualties."

Ciel merely hummed in response, looking in his direction but gaze clouded over. A shadow lingered beneath his eye, a deep exhaustion hanging about the boy like a miasma – he hadn't slept, and if he had, it had not been a restful one.

It struck Sebastian not for the first time. Ciel had such a sharp mind, a quick wit, a grasp of manipulation that would have politicians green with envy. However, for all that, regardless of how much of an adult resided inside him, sometimes Ciel was just as clueless as any other teenager.

Sebastian leaned across the space between them, expecting the sudden jolt back Ciel took, and whispered, "You're thinking too much."

Before the boy could respond, Sebastian had left his seat, striding over to the group and filching a few of the balled-up socks. He was back just as quickly, gesturing for Ciel to stand up.

A sense of dread about where this was going, Ciel remained determinedly in his seat.

"Not a chance."

"It's harder than it looks, y'know. Takes quite a bit of focus. Hard to think things to death while you're juggling," Sebastian stated, throwing one of the balls into the air and passing the other two between his hands with a well-practised ease and more grace than one would have thought a person could possess when tossing around socks.

"It's nothing to do with focus. It's just hand-eye coordination and, I'm willing to bet, a fair amount of depth perception. That rules me out," Ciel shrugged, not even trying to adopt a disappointed air.

"Don't you pull the one-eyed card on me. As the recipient of a lot of projectiles thrown by yours truly, I know first hand just how good an aim you have," Sebastian rebutted, the balls now passing through the air and his hands in a perfect cycle.

Ciel rolled his eye. Show-off.

"Irrelevant. You're just an easy target," Ciel replied, resisting the petty urge to kick him in the shin and see if he could keep it up then, "You can't seriously think you're going to get me to do that, can you? Even your ego isn't that inflated."

"Hmm. No way you could do it anyway. You have all the coordination of Bambi, and half the charm."

"Do not reverse psychology me. It's insulting," Ciel huffed, crossing his arms over his chest, indignant.

"I seem to remember you doing it to me once. 'Afraid to lose,' wasn't it?" Sebastian grinned as Ciel gave a bark of laughter, and with even that minimal laugh, some of the tension in the boy seemed to fade.

"I couldn't believe that worked. So easy," Ciel smirked, "Reminiscing, are we? Must be getting sentimental in your old age, Sebastian."

"To be so bright eyed and bushy tailed again," he sighed longingly, returning to his seat without disrupting the flow of his hands and the socks at all. Ciel watched closely and huffed again when not a single ball was dropped.

"Show off," the boy bit out, though the words didn't have quite the same sharpness to them that they once would have.

Sebastian didn't succeed in getting Ciel to try juggling, to no-one's surprise. He wasn't too disappointed though, relishing in quite another success as Ciel allowed himself another half-stifled laugh, the shadow in his eye fading little by little.

His reflection was a blur.

The shower had been too hot, leaving the entire room misty with condensation, a stifling heat. The mirror was so streaked, his entire reflection was just a haze of yellow, blue and pink. His features were completely indistinguishable, the faux-mirror showing none of the wide blue eyes that always found their way to that man, nothing of the lips that had played too long at a smile, none of the bitterness that it would shatter trying to contain. It was a good thing, being a blur, and he was much more content to stare at the fog of colour that he'd become than to leave the bathroom and be faced with what he had done to his bedroom.

The anger that had consumed him a few days ago had left destruction in its wake. His bedroom was the sole place in the world that he could call his own, but it had been ruined by his own hands. The sparse belongings lay broken on the carpet, the few bits of furniture upturned, the journal, once so treasured, ripped apart at the spine and left useless and beyond repair on the floor.

The anger had deserted him as quickly as it had come, and all that was left now was a blur of colours in a fake bathroom mirror. He was just... lost. What did you do, Alois wondered as he watched a droplet of water streak down the mirror and blur his colours further, when the only two people who mattered in your life didn't want you in theirs?

"S'not fair," it was the first time he had spoken out loud in days and his voice was unrecognisable to his own ears. Hollow, rough from lack of use, impossibly quiet. Was his voice blurred too? Was even that indistinguishable now?

Alois startled at the feel of something wrapping tightly around his middle, freezing in place. A solid heat pressed up against his back, something ticklish brushing softly across his still damp skin. It took a few seconds before he could move again, as the small arms wrapped around his torso tightened a fraction and Alois whipped around, lashing his arm out and staggering backwards at the same time. The arms didn't put up a fight, releasing him as soon as he struggled. The sink was cold as it pressed into Alois' back and he looked over at the intruder.

Messy auburn hair starting to curl in the condensation framed a chubby pink face, puppy fat that he would never grow out of. Big brown eyes, always with that wide and unblinking quality that unnerved most but was only for the sake of not missing a thing, staring over at Alois with the same warmth that he could never forget. Dressed exactly the same as the last time they'd seen each other, light brown dungarees that matched his eyes with a white dress shirt that was just that little bit too big, the sleeves hanging over his hands. The front of his clothes were a little darker in colour than the rest – damp, from where he had hugged a not yet dry Alois. The boy shifted nervously, his happy little smile twitching as he waited impatiently.

It started with a choked breath, half-way out Alois' throat but then stumbling, leaving him gasping for another, and another, and another. It started quietly, just a wispy little chuckle that grew with each gasp until Alois was bent double with laughter, groping at his stomach as though it would ease the clenching knot. His laughter sounded far too loud within the small bathroom and within his own head, not sounding like his own at all, like the walls were mocking him, his own mind taunting.

"W-Why are you laughing?" Luka asked timidly, warm brown eyes swimming with confusion and concern. Oh, that voice. That voice that had haunted Alois for years, the same tone, the same inflection, the same high-pitched sweetness so long overdue.

Alois could barely speak for the seemingly endless bursts of laughter bubbling from his lips, eventually managing to croak, "I – I guess I really have gone mad!"

Luka's face crumpled, and the laughter cut itself off immediately. His brow furrowed, pale lips pressed into a frown – it was an expression that could, even after all these years, stop Alois in his tracks in an instant.

The little boy stepped hesitantly forward, unsure in his every step, looking at his brother for the slightest hint that his approach wasn't wanted. As he drew closer, he raised his arms up to embrace Alois again but dropped them awkwardly, pausing and leaving a gap still between them. The hurt in his voice was undeniable when he said, "I thought you'd be happy to see me, Jim."

Oh. Something in Alois was completely torn at those wounded words, soft eyes peering up at him with wariness that he should never have to feel, not with Alois, not with his big brother. The fear of being unwanted that Alois knew only too well – he couldn't inflict it on Luka, not his Luka.

And yet... it wasn't real. Oh god, it couldn't be real. He knew that, he wasn't so far gone as to not know that.

Another hysteric bark of laughter slipped from him as Alois replied, "I'd be a lot happier to see you if it wasn't a sign that I'm completely off my head."

Luka risked a timid little grin, as though testing the waters, and shrugged his shoulders, "What's it matter? So long as you're not lonely."

The boy darted forward once more, suddenly emboldened, and threaded his arms around Alois' waist once more. Alois was ten again, with his little brother in his arms, that single thing enough to make all the bad surrounding them go away; That Man became a faded memory, a thing of nightmares that slipped away as soon as you awoke; the painful pangs of starvation were so much easier to bear, the delirium of dehydration pushed far away; all thought of Claude and Ciel, Ciel and Claude, individually, together, it disappeared.

It didn't matter any more. Nothing mattered any more except the arms wrapped around him, so warm, so tight, so real. Oh, he knew it wasn't. It couldn't be real, not when he had seen Luka's body cold in the dirt with his very own eyes, but that image was so hard to summon when his voice was in Alois' ears and his body was warm against Alois' own. What was real was Claude no longer caring about him, was Ciel no longer needing him, was his own degenerating ability to ignore the darker thoughts in his mind.

Alois dropped to his knees, eye-level with his little brother, and pulled the boy into his chest. Burying his face in Luka's neck and feeling the warmth of another person surrounding him, Alois knew that something inside him had finally broken, snapped with no hope of ever being fixed. But it was so hard to care.

When sanity was so lonely, maybe being crazy wasn't all that bad.

"Have you thought any more on your Father, Ciel?" Claude asked with what some would mistake as hesitance. A considerate reluctance to encroach on a subject that had proven so very unwelcome. Ciel made no such mistake, knowing only too well that every choice of word and pause in speech was of Claude's careful design.

"I have," Ciel confessed, imitating the same reluctant tone with a much better grasp on sincerity, "And I – well, I was ten when they died. I can't honestly say that I remember everything with clarity. Who really remembers their childhood accurately? I'm... willing to accept that I may be remembering things through a child's eye."

Lies.

Every word was a lie.

Ciel had finally decided on a course of action. Thinking that he could just grin and bear it had been a foolish thing, arrogant even – better than anyone, Ciel should have known not to underestimate Claude Faustus. As loathe as he was to admit it, Ciel was on Claude's battleground. In a battle between a doctor and a patient, the doctor had the natural advantage. Even more so given Claude's concerning amount of knowledge into Ciel's past. It truly had been foolish of Ciel to think that by remaining as unresponsive as he could, he could get through these sessions with Claude. That had failed so quickly, outburst after outburst being pulled from him, to the point that he had been rendered under Claude's mercy.

If he was at a natural disadvantage then the only option that remained was to play the game by Claude's rules. Out of the several strategies Ciel had made, one stood out higher than the rest, and so it was that he would lie. If 'recovery' was the aim of this game – being rehabilitated into a model citizen, capable of re-entering society once more – then a recovery that didn't involve electrocution or some other barbaric method was definitely the target. He would have to lie through his teeth, besmirch his Father's name entirely, but that was a necessary sacrifice. As long as he knew himself what had really happened back then, it didn't matter what Claude believed, or believed Ciel believed. Anything that got him closer to those wrought-iron gates once and for all.

"I see. It's good that you're starting to look at this more rationally," Claude replied slowly, eyes blank as they watched him closely. Not a hint of belief there, of course, and that was to be expected. After all these years, the Doctor made a point of assuming that every word out of Ciel's mouth was a lie. He wasn't entirely wrong.

Ciel snorted, "We'll see about that. For now, I'll humour you, if only to move things along a little. I still think you're talking nonsense, but go on, let's see how plausible you can make your lies sound."

Ah, that did the trick. Just the right amount of haughtiness and annoyance, with copious amounts of reluctance all round.

"An open mind is all I ask for," Claude replied, and so it began again. Words that vilified Vincent to a slanderous degree, casting Rachel as the distressed damsel, and then Ciel, as the broken boy that he would never let himself really be.

Ciel let the poison wash over him, holding his temper carefully in check, nodding at all the right places and occasionally tossing out a snide remark to keep things believable. And when Claude turned it up a notch, trying to force a reaction that Ciel couldn't let himself give, Ciel turned his thoughts to Sebastian.

The development with Sebastian had been two-fold. Securing the man from The Change was the major motivator, along with claiming an exterior source of reason for himself when Ciel's own mind may not be as trustworthy as it once was. However, there had been another, less significant reason for it.

As Claude continued talking, Ciel let his mind wander and repressed a smug grin. There was something incredibly... powerful in knowing something that Claude did not. Even though he was undeniably trapped under Claude's thumb and within the Institute walls, there was something entirely under Ciel's control, a secret that he knew would infuriate Claude just as much as Claude's words infuriated him.

Upon Ciel's collar bone, an angry red bite stained his pale skin, and as Ciel remembered it, he could almost feel a lingering sting from where Sebastian's teeth had pressed too hard and punctured the flesh.

What would Claude think, if he saw that bite? A physical mark of someone else upon him. The temptation soared to accidentally let the shoulder of his shirt slip down and leave the mark in plain sight, just to wipe that blankness from Claude's face. To see that he could pull the rug from under Claude's feet just as easily as Claude had been doing it to him all those past sessions.

But, no. That would be childish, not too mention counter-productive. After all, this was not for Claude. This was his, knowledge just for him, something for Ciel to hold on to when Claude was shattering the reality he thought was his with lies so plausible.

Still, there was a smug satisfaction in Ciel's little secret. Claude had him here in this gilded cage and thought that sick sense of ownership would last. But now someone else had come, was seeing Ciel and touching Ciel in a way that Claude could only dream of.

It was a victory, not just his but Sebastian's too, over this malevolent doctor. It was theirs.