If any of my past readers are reading this right now... I thank you most earnestly. It has been a very, very long year for me, though that is no excuse for my lack of writing. I apologize for the wait and hope you enjoy this installment.
If you are a new reader, I hope my work is to your satisfaction, and that you will alert me of any grammar errors I have made, for I'm sure there is at least one.
Ciel's eyes fluttered silently open, his gaze adjusting to the sudden yellow mid-day light, which dripped in through the parted curtains, thick with dust, like a stream of honey dripping from a tea spoon.
In the back of his conscious, he noted a slight throbbing in his head and mild nausea in his stomach, so, with a sigh, the earl let his eyes slip closed again, contemplating his current affliction. He decided it must have been the alcohol.
Moments later, one of the room's towering, mahogany doors clicked and swung soundlessly open, and Sebastian slipped quietly through. On his left hand rested a thirty-five pound antique silver tea set and tray, which he carried with conspicuous ease. In his right hand rested a glass vial filled with a murky greenish concoction. Sebastian, with no apparent trouble, set down the tea set and vial and moved to the windows, pushing open the heavy drapes and awakening an ever exhausted Ciel, who sat up, yawning.
"You drank quite a bit last night… Does your head hurt?" The butler's voice betrayed no emotion other than concern…This greatly dismayed Ciel.
"It was only a glass," the groggy earl snapped, glancing over to find a smirk on his butler's lips.
"But you don't feel well, do you, Bocchan?" This time, Ciel detected slight amusement in Sebastian's tone. It sounded more natural, more…more like it should.
"No, I do not feel quite well," the Phantomhive boy muttered, pouting. Sebastian retrieved the vial and effortlessly uncorked it.
"Here," the butler said, handing the small bottle to Ciel. "This should take care of the headache." Grimacing, Ciel took the vial and swallowed its contents, which tasted bitter and stuck in the back of his throat. He hated the sensation. Wordlessly, the demon butler passed Ciel his doubly sweet tea and proceeded to select the boy's attire. Without consciously choosing to, Ciel's eyes followed the demon's perfect figure, latching onto flickers of light on glossy, ebony locks; illuminated crimson orbs; long, nimble fingers; thin, white lips. A shiver traversed the boy's spine; never had his butler seemed so gentle before.
Ciel noted that the demon's unparalleled vision had located a single hole in the arm of a blue tail coat. With an almost heartbroken face, Sebastian pulled a needle and a spool of blue thread from the pocket of his waistcoat and set to work on mending the sleeve. His fingers worked meticulously, and his eyes never moved. Each stitch placed itself no farther than half a millimeter from its siblings, nor did any vary in length, width, angle, or pattern. They were all flawless, flawless as the demon himself.
Ciel caught a flash of brilliant white teeth as Sebastian tied off the stitches and cut the loose thread. Holding the coat to the light to examine his work, Sebastian stood, allowing the sun to bathe his full figure in a white glow. The demon nodded, satisfied.
A light blush settled itself high on the heir's cheek bones, and he immediately shunned it, averse to the childish countenance it lent his face. His butler appeared to take no notice; however, Ciel knew that he had, and for that, he loathed the arrogant bastard. Memories slowly rooted themselves, despite his best efforts, into his foremost thoughts, and, much to the Phantomhive's extremely apparent dismay, blood began to rush to his cheeks again.
"Hmph…" Ciel pouted, glaring at the floor.
With inhuman speed and grace, the demon lightly laid the tailcoat across the bed appeared by the boy's side.
"Whatever is the matter, Bocchan?" The demon's velvety voice resonated through the silver and through many of the crystal vases in the room. However Ciel had acted in the past, he would certainly not allow himself to become so swept away and hopelessly gushy again… Never.
"It's none of your concern!" Ciel stood and calmly strode to the window, gazing out onto his estate and praying that it would fight off any thoughts of the demon.
Of course it didn't… Not when the unsettlingly beautiful butler stationed himself over the earl's, a silent and stationary shadow, not when a single, perfect, gloved hand traced a feather-light, solitary stroke over the boy's slight but handsome jaw.
A multitude of obscenely bright images flashed across Ciel's vision, cascading waterfalls of white feathers, rivets of shimmering, crimson blood, lilac and cream tainted with death.
Kisses were the color of passion, the absence of thought, and a feeling so right yet so ridiculously improper and cliché. Goose bumps which traversed the entire length of his body could only echo the emotion which flooded every cell in his face, every crease which was too deep for a child's, every streak of pigment that welled like ink behind the glassy surface of his eyes, through the parting in his lips which spoke no words but screamed, professed his lack of control, something wild and beautiful and terrifying.
The seven pointed star in his eye pulsed with starry light. The sun was a single candle in comparison.
Crippling pain ripped through Ciel's back. It burned and seared and tore at his conscience and his flesh, clawing and pulsing, aching… And it was a thousand times…a million times… more...hotter than the pain in his side had been when first that shrieking hot iron seared into his flesh as the stinging of thousands of bees.
Piercing, deafening screams streaked across the space, colliding with the walls, strong enough to immediately shatter any glass, sending lethally sharp shards across the furniture, the carpet, the bed. Several windows broke, and a waterfall of transparent death tumbled down onto the demon, who had dropped to his knees, both hands clamped over his ears. Some unknown force provided a barrier around Ciel, preventing any of the glass from brushing his sheet-white skin.
All manner of feelings and colors and sounds wound and swirled and stormed through Ciel's conscious, and he was conscious, though he could not end the screaming, even knowing it would leave him voiceless for the next four weeks, perhaps longer. This sensation, which he knew could only be the most excruciating and raw pain perceivable, did not present itself as such, but rather as pure ecstasy.
Everything he had ever wanted to know pulsed in his fingertips, the wisdom of millions of years could be transmitted by the same pulses, arranged, rearranged, and stored. Meticulously drawn maps, composing the entirety of his race were written in strands, sequences of four different chemicals. All of these, he now understood, were not even visible to the eye.
His own butler… The demon's composition was nearly identical to his own… Ciel understood with shattering joy that whatever made he and Sebastian different was not, and would not be possible to see and comprehend in the course of a human life. One could not even measure the difference with his new lifespan; he was becoming something exceedingly more resilient, handsome, and threateningly wise.
Yet, in spite of all he had wished, in spite of all his joy, the incomprehensible code of what made Ciel who he was… Some invisible thread of signals rejected the entire transformation as vehemently as the infant Ciel had abhorred puréed vegetables, and this tiny fiber called out to Sebastian, pleading as pitifully as one of the sick, starved urchins whose hunger made them more animal than human as they crawled through the moldy slums of London, unmet by the smiling eyes of aristocrats. And Ciel felt rather like they would, as Sebastian did not answer his call.
Rage bubbled behind his eyes and coursed through him, tickling his nerves with initiative and power.
With this strength, Ciel decided, all at once, to stop his dreadful screaming, and as he did, the boy immediately felt his butler's strong arms encircle him.
An uncomfortable ache settled itself somewhere slightly above the earl's shoulder blades, a space which the boy realized with horror, his body should not occupy.
Slowly, the boy returned to full consciousness. He observed his surroundings, studied each sound, calculated the area of the surfaces where his and Sebastian's bodies touched, and explored the new nerves and muscles in his back.
Several more seconds passed, but each felt like an hour; the sheer amount of detail Ciel perceived in each was… unsettling for him to say the least.
Sebastian did not release him, not when echoing pounds met both of their ears, not when the voices of Finnian, Bard, and Maylene sounded with urgency, not when Bard (and this was now second nature to tell) hastily shoved a skeleton key into the latch and unlocked the door, and not when all three came tumbling through the it… nor when Tanaka silently appeared behind the fools.
What met the servants' eyes filled their stomachs with sickness, their minds with terror, and their eyes with disbelief. Glass covered every square inch of the floor, blood stained all the walls, and a mass of white feathers had settled over the entire scene.
Glued together, motionless in the center of the room, stood Sebastian and the young master, two massive, white wings protruding from his upper back. Fresh scars coated the skin surrounding where the wings attached; they had ripped their way through the earl's nightshirt. Fresh blood colored the white satin almost completely crimson.
Finnian noted a third puncture in the earl's clothing about two thirds of the way up the boy's left side. The shape and surrounding fabric indicated that it had been burned, and through the hole, freshly scarred tissue illustrated a strange brand mark. Finnian hadn't the slightest idea what the marking meant, but when Tanaka's eyes scanned over it, they narrowed, and his thin lips pressed thinner yet. The Phantomhive's previous butler said nothing of the marking, nothing of the blood, the feathers, or the glass, nothing of the earl's wings, and nothing of the inappropriate manner in which his master and his butler were standing; Tanaka opened his mouth, and, in several short words, gave his orders.
"Maylene, Bard, Finnian," he ordered, "clean this up."
Sebastian's eyes fluttered open as he lifted the earl's form gently into his arms, carefully navigating around his new wings. His narrow, cat-like pupils met Tanaka's enraged face for one moment before the demon butler, inhumanly strong and graceful, leapt through the broken window, shards of glass crunching under his feet, and out into the estate gardens, whose dewy leaves glowed like fiery diamonds under the setting sun. Tanaka watched silently.
Above the demon, clear twilight skies shone with the whispers of starlight. Ciel's figure seemed to echo their murmurs, enveloping the boy in a soft white blanket. Cradling the slight form of the half-angel's body in one arm, Sebastian pressed two fingers to the boys throat, exhaling with a sigh as he located a slow but steady pulse.
"Fancy meetin' you two out here…" Undertaker's purring voice cut through the clear night like a wet spoon through ice cream.
Sebastian turned slowly, unblinking. "And to what pleasure do we owe tonight's visit," Sebastian's bass tone answered.
"Well, I've been hearing lovely screams all day, and I couldn't help m'self… And now I understand… You've got quite the trouble on your 'ands, don't you?" Sebastian didn't answer. "But we're wastin' time then." A haunting smile flashed across the ex-shinigami's face. "Better be off before that angel's soul consumes 'im." Undertaker chuckled darkly, dragging a black-lacquered fingernail across the space in front of him. The line contorted and ripped open, a blinding white tear in the fabric of reality. Three forms disappeared into the gap and it closed, seamed back together by the absence of power. "So… Tell me about this angel of yours," Undertaker inquired. Sebastian sighed. Ciel's eyes were closed; he'd most likely passed out from the pain long ago. "From the looks of 'im." Undertaker was of course referring to Ciel. "We're dealin' with a powerful one… I'm guessin' it was the same one that formed a contract with the queen a few months back." The two were now making haste through a dimly lit corridor.
"You assume correctly," Sebastian answered, coldly.
"Only one thing to do then." In the shadows, an enormous smile stretched across Undertaker's thin, handsome lips.
"And what would that be?" Sebastian asked, his chilling voice tense.
"It's quite simple really… Separate their souls and destroy the angel's. 'Course I can't do the second part …but you can."
"You mean to tell me that a death god can't exterminate an angel?" Sebastian hissed.
"Well yes… and no. We can destroy their bodies, but they regenerate. You see, our scythes are made to part souls from whatever they're attached to. When an angel's soul is detached, it seeks out the nearest body and feeds off of it… They're parasites." He paused for a moment and then continued. "Demon's feed off of souls. They're the only thing that can destroy 'em." Finally, the two reached a pair of double doors. Undertaker halted. "There's one little complication though..."
"And what would that be?" Sebastian's eyes narrowed.
Undertaker remained silent for a moment. "That angel isn't just going to let you eat it…" Black fingernails threaded around the handles and brought the great doors open in a smooth, symmetrical, fluid movement.
Thank you again.
Yours,
Sophia