Sorry for waiting so long, and for the badly written chapter- it's really just transitional. Didn't want to be written much. Next one'll be cooler and more fun :)
Thanks to:
(you definitely motivated me, thank you!), SashaPayne56 (you're too nice~!), hexagon, Ebru Gunduz Lestrange, williamsangel88, Guest, kiroigenaya(thank you for the criticism, I've never been good with endings, or middles…), A.V. Jackson, Esseraph, Mirthfull-Malady, Avengel Azrael (CONGRATULATIONS! LONGEST REVIEW! I TOTALLY LOVE YOU!), xXxOtaAkU-444xXx, CrystalBlues,
and xDarklightx, my first reviewer!
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DISCLAIMER: DON'T OWN NUFFIN.
…ch2…..111111111
Well. Fuck.
If being pinned somehow, inexplicably, to the floor in some awkward way that crushed his creaking ribs backwards, and weighted his knees downwards, his throat stilled in movement by that sensuous blade- wasn't enough, a single, gloved hand had snaked to the side of his head, where the loud sound of it's veins pumping thready jolts of fluid down and up and all around, blotted out almost all other sounds. The too-close face of his attacker looming over his own, blocked everything but a thin corona of light and gleaming marble, which framed the man-thing's hair like a halo.
Smirking, slitted, crimson iris' and inky swaths of black clothes encompassed everything else.
Out of the corner of his eyes, Harry could barely decipher several shadowy slivers of figures, the few that had belatedy swarmed the room after his abrupt entrance. Judging by the cadence of their infrequent twitches and shifts- muscles of their feet sliding against marble via tough wooden soles in order to compensate for hushed but labored breadth and slowly relaxing tensed stances- one was a long-distance fighter who utilized something like guns, arrows? A woman too, by her shorter, hisses, and high-pitched gasps for breath, and the stilted rhythm of her footsteps that meant her shoes were heeled in a feminine manner.
The other had come from the other side- heavy, limping, smelling of smoke and burned food, meat, and with jerky movements. He wasn't as rigid a fighter as the woman, who probably had a history in a rigid art, martial or otherwise, that oiled her movements, if slightly. His footsteps were a soldiers, flexible but sturdy. The kind of steps one would use without thought, a sort of improvised tenseness and balance.
Neither of them were Twig- or Finny, as he had grudgingly accepted. It would suit him. Finny. More than the one Harry had given him- to be fair, he hadn't been completely lucid at the time.
There was a third body. The owner of that fierce, piping voice- a child. A CHILD. With clopping, confident and rushed footsteps, that, even invisible to his eye seemed to be seeped in an elegance, in rhythm if not in stride. The words uttered- a voice, more than he had gotten from the others- had been dripping with contempt, and that flippant fury, and the sheer irritation, but also that coldness, and MERLIN, if that creature was a child then Harry was gonna cry.
On the inside, at least.
The three would be easy to take out- or relatively so, once the drugs had completely left his system.
Usually they would be cleared completely from his body when he died…but he had passed from internal malfunctions, a bug in his throat, fluid in his lungs. Tempurature. Starvation. Infection. Not much to speak of in terms of plain damage, not much to be re-written, and though he hurt like fucking hell, that damned drug still lingered somewhere inside of him.
Like fog around his eyes and ears.
Which meant, fighting, or killing these people wouldn't- would NEVER be the right option. Not just because he would lose, or because he would die- cause he would- but because Twi-Finny would be sad. And mad. But still. he had to…he HAD TO.
He had to see Finny.
"I'm just here to see Finny." he said slowly, calmly, " I'm sorry about breaking in. I didn't mean to. I-"
"Wasn't thinking?" interrupted the child coldly. The voice dripped derision, and his slow footsteps drawing closer held the rhythm of a furious stalk- like an angry cat. "A moment of thoughtless passion? That does not make you blameless, does it, Mr. Criminal?"
He stopped close enough that Harry could make out the toes of his boots around the edges of his attackers arms ( and why couldn't he just shake the bloody man off- he wasn't HEAVY, just…there).
"Should I let you go? Turn a blind eye? To an unknown man who broke into my house, my home?" he paused deliberately, enjoying the way Harry's eyes darkened as the accusations piled up, "Tell me- would you put yourself in danger like that? Would you?"
No he wouldn't. He acted first- thought later. That was his nature, unchangeable, resolute, his vice and fault, and Harry knew. He knew that bursting in through the door had been just that- and so did the kid. The child could probably read the frustration on the tight lines of his face, as his silence held a measure of smugness.
He had really fucked up the first impressions, and with his mind drawn to unimportant details, like the cadences of the peoples footsteps, the bitter smell of the polish on the knife against his throat, and the funny muddy stain of the tip of the boys shoe; slow, also, and muddied by that drug…he really couldn't figure out a way to fix his fuck-up.
(( Come on Harry. Don't die. Don't kill. Fix this. Come on. For Twig. ))
And as usual, his mouth would just take over when his brain started letting up to much steam. "Whats your name?" The child took a surprised shift to his…no Harry's left. And he felt a flush of hope in his fingertips. "My name is Harry." he blathered on, "I'm…seventeen. I knew Finny when I was ten- he and I when to the same institution-"
The body beside him stiffened at that word. A rough hand slid down his neck to wrench him upwards by the scruff of his neck. He yelped, disoriented, to suddenly find himself contorted awkwardly so his face was tilted upwards, legs still pinned beneath that freakish butler, and neck twanging painfully at the entree angle and twist. He struggled to continue, knowing the move had only been so that the kid could see his face, not to shut him up.
"I…he was…my…brother. Please, I've been …looking for him for…weeks…" he grit out, trying to stick close to the truth ( he couldn't very well tell him that he had skipped around a couple of times, body flickering between past and present, enemy and alone).
The light of the chandelier above him glared around the dark silhouette of the child, cloaking the features in darkness. He just barely make out a blue arch of iris, and a smooth head of light, slicked hair, the other eye blotted out by an absolute black of an eyepatch. It was a struggle for his squinted eyes to make out anything else- but that expression of wickedness was unmistakeable.
"…please…" he said again, feeling the sick taste of the words, as well as his own fury build behind his words. He hated begging. Even when he didn't mean it- even when it was in a light-hearted situation such as this, where the biggest consequence was being killed, or being taken away from Finny, again. And Harry….Harry hated being killed.
"Please….he's family…"
There was still that cold, contemplative silence. A small white hand brushed against the skin of his cheek. The strain was bowing on his face then. Harry hoped the restrained violence wasn't, and held himself limper.
"…I won't take him anywhere…I just want to see him…"
" He's all I have left…I promise…."
"Please…"
If this didn't work, he promised himself cruelly, he was going to scalp the pretentious little bugger; beat him and flay him and stab him for all the awful AWFULL memories he was digging up. For all the cold, wet hands he dragged up from the forgotten forgotten shadows of his mind, hands that dragged up and down his shivering flanks, tracing bloody lines across his face…his phantoms…his ghosts…
"I am Ciel, the Earl of Phantomhive. Finnegan is my gardener- he has been employed here for…several years, now." His voice dropped to a murmur, " Maybe we can discuss this sometime…" And then the weight was off of him, bodies sliding against each other quickly, before gravity pulled his harshly down to the floor. He embraced the cold for just a moment, glad that the demon of a man was finally -FINALY- off of him. "Harry. It's…nice, to finally meet Finny's elder brother." Harry could feel the derisive grin from his place on the freezing marble,
" He's told us SO much about you."
Harry remembered himself just barely, mutely letting the blow land and the cold darkness swallow him up.
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"You knew." spat Harry, straining against the ropes that held him down (what was with the constraints, he had stopped struggling early on), " You KNEW who I was, but STILL din't let me see Finny." His anger was blinding now, a vague wave of red boiling and crashing down around everything in sight. The people in the room seemed unaffected by his tenseness and bloodlust, the boy- who looked nothing like a boy and more like some devilish, posh imp- pacing cockily across the floor, and that DAMNED bastard of a butler lounging smugly in some shadowy corner out of sight.
The child cast his a bored look, the smallest hint of a sneer curling at his lips, and said with a commanding voice, "I knew EVERYTHING," he stiffened, "- from the start, Harry." Blue eyes honed in on the soft stirring of discomfort that churned momentarily through Harry at those words, words which usually lead to death after death after death, and the child's pacing aborted, heavy footsteps bringing the earl closer to the thrussed up Harry, "….Does that disturb you? That I can say that?"
That dread welled up inside of Harry, all thoughts of violence fleeing in the face of a picture, suddenly very clear, the picture he now saw, of those two blue eyes KNOWING-
"...Or does it it disturb you that you were dead."
Harry's empty prayers turned to lead and fell heavily to the floor, shattering into a million, painful shards. Fractured green eyes shot up to meet dark cerulean. Silence.
"…Let me see Finny." he said softly, "Please let me see Finny."
There was desperation held back in his voice, thinly veiled fear, resignation, fury. His broken expression crumpled into something cold and sad. The situation was painted clearly before him- in the superior, looming gaze of the two humans...
But the Earl just shook his head, eyes never leaving Harry's. " No. I won't. I think you should understand that I cannot let a monster such as yourself near my staff."
Graceful, pink fingertips brushed along Harry's chin, lifting it so that his dark hair rolled off his forehead- another finger rising to trace the thin, lighting bolt scar, "- Someone like Finny, who likes to trust, might get…hurt."
His round nail bit into Harry's skin. A bead of blood sprang to the surface of his scar, scalding hot, like Harry's panic(- which he viewed through a hazy veil of frantic fear and despair-) ran down his face, blurring his vision pink and black, and pooling on his lower lip, irony and gross. He licked it, swallowed. Suddenly realized how thirsty he was. The Earl watched the blood with cold disgust, a flicker of unease shadowing his face when Harry didn't blink, allowing the blood to slide over his vision, choosing instead to gaze piercingly, pleadingly on the Earls eye.
"…If I told you what I was, would you let me see Finny?"
He hadn't does this for years. Hadn't opened up, hadn't let those words taint his tongue like bile- burning him. But…his conviction hadn't changed. The Earl knew, and gods did Harry hate that, he hated it more than the ugly ropes that they DARED presume could hold him, he hated it more than the smell of his blood, than the stagnant darkness of the cell,- but it didn't change Harry's need to see Finny.
If anything, he needed to MORE. He needed some sort of respite, something to make this whole fiasco fair, less depressing…
The Earl frowned cutely.
"If you told us what you were?" Harry nodded mutely. Then he lowered his gaze, carefully, the shadows dipping to clear his vision of color.
"Or you could kill me." There. The Earls eyes bulged slightly with surprise. Harry didn't even need to look. "I'll go without a fight if you let me see Finny. He doesn't even have to know. I just want to talk."
"…And you'd die, just to TALK to someone?" hissed the Earl indignantly. Harry raised his head, bemusement pushing away the darker of his emotions, and gazed in disbelief up at the child. He could see it in his face. The child stony, bitter face writ that he had never felt that urge, that determination, or regret, or guilt, that he would be fine with any price if he could just set things right. He had the premature face of one who lived for oneself. Harry shouldn't believe that about someone easily, but looking at the earl, he did. His smile grew- and it was cold, and full of pity, and jealousy.
((Harry and always loved to easy- and it had always always hurthurthurt him.))
"Yes." the raven haired man whispered, enjoying the flush on the boys face as he met his eyes, " I would do anything. I would kill you, and all the people around here if it would help." That wave of helplessness crashed over him, and his brief glimmer of superiority and sentimentality vanished into his previous gloom, " But it wouldn't. Not this time."
"…Why wouldn't it help?" came a deep voice, crawling from the shadows. The butler, with the weirdly silent body, and the messy hair- almost as messy as Harry's own.
" If you were some extraordinary creature, unable to be killed, powerful enough to destroy us all-" And here a note of hungry curiosity tempered his posh tones like the echo of a growl, "- why wouldn't you…?"
Harry shuddered as the butlers deep voice, and his subtly sibilant tones washed over him, ears easely picking out the small nuances of rustling that signaled him padding forward, closer to the back of Harry's chair. He had thought that already- that smarty bastard didn't need to point it out again, but Ciel was now looking at him with curiosity. He sighed wearily. " How about you untie me, " he groused weakly, grimacing at the odd fragility he felt from swinging between fearful and in control- " And then we can all sit around with some tea and CHAT."
The Earl huffed slightly, smothering a chuckle poorly in one gloved hand. "Your highness, " he murmured indulgently, then snapped his fingers, eyes glittering, " Sebastian, fetch us some tea, and another chair from the lounge- my feet hurt."
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This was just ridiculous.
Did no one else think this was ridiculous? Harry did, because seconds later the kid was perched in some plush, velveteen throne, sipping from a small china cup, the cold lines of his face relaxing under it's reflected glow into something softer and more tired. And that BUTLER was fluttering around the pretentious little shi-Earl, gloved hands maneuvering a pair glistening silver trollies- which were really most of what he could see without glasses of magical aide- whisking out sugar and milk and pristine china plates like it was some circus act.
The light from the dim lamp somewhere behind Harry caught on the elegant artifacts, glimmering there and being caught, like fireflies on the ruby curve of the butlers eye, on his silken, white clothes and the glossy panes of the boys satin frock and polished bronze buckles. Some elitist light- to Harry, it seemed to ignore almost everything else, the floor , the walls, surrounding the two Englishmen by a deep, velvety black.
Then a small table was wheeled around- a fluttering, gold cloth arranged primly and crisply over it, and a bright, gaudy array of sweets seasoned with fruits, designed in a spiral- was placed in front of the little shit ((Harry snickered at that thought)). By the butler…With a flourish.
In a dungeon.
In a cell.
Across from a roped up, bleeding, trespasser.
...He felt the overwhelming desire to laugh.
"So! " he said instead, letting his head flop backwards tiredly in an attempt to loosen up his knotting muscles, and also dissuade his urge of hysteria, " Have you decided? Kill me or make me talk or whatever? Finny? Deal?" he smirked tiredly, careful not to hide the tortuous desperation in his eyes, the weakness in his quivering lips, "- Ring a bell?"
The boy eyed him over the rim of his cup, before his gaze flickered silently over to his butlers, and finally slid shut- as if settling firmly on a distasteful course of action. One gloved hand flapped lazily around in the air, " Don't worry about that, " he said cooly, and Harry grimaced at the nonchalance, "We'll make a decision. I want you to answer Sebastion's question."
Sebastian's question? -"….why wouldn't you?…" -Harry groaned, " I didn't even get any of the tea!" he whined reflexively.
The Earl shot him an amused, but still frigid glare, " Of course not." he drawled, " I wouldn't want to spoil you, just in case your some avatar of Britain, and grow stronger with a steaming cup of Earl Grey." His eyes flahsed at Harry's startled laugh, and he continued primly, "Sebastians question, Harry."
He didn't grin, but the ugly knott of pain in his lower abdomen loosened."Oh," he said, clearing his throat, "Well, I figure, as drugged up as I am-" whoops, that just slipped out, too much truth, don't give more than what he needs Harry- "- I wouldn't do much for myself personally, and Finny would probably h-h-hate me…even if I did."
He shuddered at the cold chill of a memory creeping up his back- angry, tearful, cornflower blue eyes, welling with furious tears, snarled words, sung in a cute, ringing voice… The red that seemed to lurk just out of sight, his own madness, tied to and burning him. "Finny doesn't like it when I kill things he likes, and Finny wouldn't work for you if he didn't like you, so…" He frowned suddenly, as the thought struck him.
" How did that happen anyway? Hiring Finny? How did he get out of the-"
"-institution?" The Earl leaned forward with a soft sigh.
" I destroyed it." The boy said bluntly, looking as if the explanation, the fantastic things he was claiming were tedious and boring. " And I saved him. Only he survived."
"…"
"…"
"…"
"…"
"…Okay." said Harry.
" Thank you."
And he was sure his eyes looked weird. He could tell by the Earls odd expression. By his tense fingers, his wide eyes and furrowed brow. He could tell because he could feel it, that overwhelming tide of gratitude, that hot buzz of awe that was carried by sparks of his magic- the feeling of his relief, knowing that Finny hadn't had to pull himself out of that hell. The feeling of respect for that slip of the boy he STILL HATED, but had done something he, Harry, couldn't, but had wanted to. SO badly. He felt that warmth in his gaze, the gentleness bleeding into his eyes, the rekindling of love he felt when he saw some of the good things in people- though the Earl was not a good person.
The thing he did was seeped and tainted by blood and pain, and badness….
But it was good enough for Harry.
"Thank you." he murmured again. And suddenly he was looking back at the floor, furiously clenching his eyes shut to stop that warm prickling feeling from touching his eyes- cause tears would be uncool here. He shook his head a couple of times, sniffled softly, and coughed roughly, cringing at the wetness in his breath that spoke of tears, trying to get some of the dampness to cling to his hair instead of his eyelashes so he could maybe look back up and retain some measure of pri-
"Sebastion. Bring in Finny."
Harry's head shot up anyway. Wildness glinting off of viridian orbs as he scanned the Earls impassive, calculating face, letting his large, childish eye bore into his own. The butler grimaced, "Master…", but the boy waved him off with a harsh 'Now!', his rough affirmation ballooning the fragile hope inside of Harry. The butler spun elegantly on his heel, disappearing behind Harry and out the door, leaving him alone with the angry sound of his heartbeat, his salty, sticky eyelashes, and the Earls excellent poker face. Excellent, smirking, poker face.
"Harry, " he purred, " Lets make a deal…."
" Only if you made them SCREAM….Phantomhive…"
FIN FOR NOW. Sorry for such a long wait- my updates are always spotty! This si unedited as always, if anyone wants to , just forrest me in a review or something, and I'll fix it when I can. THANK YOU ALL FOR SO MUCH SUPPORT.
Now, Harry is almost getting what he wants, but the Earl has never been a nice person, what will be his price?!
Please drop in a review- I love your thoughts, even if they're just a couple of words, or a stupid emoticon- I really rely on you!