"Our fair lady is getting impatient," said the man with the revolver. Grey, if Ciel had heard right.
Sebastian took a single step back. "We have our part ready and waiting, her buyer is the one with cold feet."
The smaller man advanced, drawing closer to the bar. "I know how convincing you can be, Sebastian, and so does she. Get them on board."
Ciel closed his fingers around the neck of a crystal decanter. It wasn't much by way of protection against a gun, but it had to be better than nothing. He watched Sebastian take another step back. His retreat suggested fear, but his confident steps and unwavering grip on the gun argued otherwise. He looked to be in total control even as Grey backed up into a corner. Ciel felt a film of sweat gather between his fingers and the smooth surface of the crystal. His eyes darted between the two men, barely able to hear their conversation over the sound of blood pounding in his ears.
"I feel we could have handled this in a far more civil fashion," Sebastian said. He hit something under the bar and the alarm was deactivated.
Grey huffed. "You know when she involves us, she is past the point of civility."
Sebastian smirked. A look of confusion peeked through Grey's composed mask for a moment as he stopped on the other side of the bar but he covered it as quickly as it appeared. Sebastian closed the space he had been putting between them, saying, "You are just too easy, Charles." With practiced, deadly efficiency, Sebastian disarmed him and twisted him down against the bar with his arm pinned diagonally across his back.
"Sebastian, the other one!" Ciel said, seeing Grey's companion take aim.
"Oh, I'm not worried about him," Sebastian said as he leaned down to look into Grey's eyes and put the barrel of his pistol between them.
Ciel's bewilderment was answered by a dark form emerging from the other side of the dance floor. He was glad he wasn't strong enough to do any damage to what had to be a very expensive decanter he was grasping, because he was holding it hard enough for his knuckles to ache. Claude pulled the man's gun arm over his shoulder, disarmed him, and flipped him all in one clean move. He kicked the revolver away and knelt on the man's chest with a wicked smile.
"Now," Sebastian said, pushing Grey's hair out of his eyes with his pistol, "Why don't you run home and tell Victoria that the matter is already being handled."
Grey raised his head just far enough to spit in Sebastian's face. For a minute he didn't seem like he cared. He only blinked and wiped it away with his cleaning towel, eerily calm. Ciel's hand was cramped but he wasn't ready to to let go of his makeshift weapon yet. Sebastian smiled, a terrifying sight under the circumstances. He flipped the gun and whipped Grey across the face, knocking him out cold. He let go of the arm he had been pinning to Grey's back and watched him slump, unconscious, to the floor.
"Phipps, get him out of here before I do worse," Sebastian advised.
Claude stood up and bore a silent dare into Phipps' eyes, but the man didn't make a move except to pull Grey's arm over his shoulders and heft him on to his feet. "Always a pleasure."
Sebastian bowed from the waist and gave him a cheerful wave, though the polite gesture was marred by the weapon in his hand. "Good day to you."
The door to the club swung shut and Ciel folded on to the floor as his last reserve of energy was tapped. He couldn't hold himself up any longer without the aid of adrenaline. Sebastian was there in an instant, hands on his shoulders and asking if he was alright. His gun must have been holstered again because Ciel didn't feel its cold weight pressing into him anywhere. He stared up at Sebastian, finding a flood of worry in his eyes. Ciel could hardly believe this Sebastian was the same one he had seen take down Grey. He had moved more like a machine than a man. Now he loomed over Ciel, asking the dumbest question Ciel had ever heard in his life.
So, Ciel hauled off and slapped him across the face.
"Of course I'm not alright! What the hell was that?" he demanded.
Sebastian ran a hand over the red, finger shaped marks on his cheek with a look that suggested he was more impressed than angry. "My day job, you could say."
"You need to give me answers and you need to give them to me now, what do you think would become of you if my father knew the danger you just put me in?"
"Oh! Excellent point, I should call to let him know the Charleses are in town."
Ciel watched him, agape, as he took out his phone and called his father. He no longer knew if his sickness was the result of a hangover, fear, anger, or all of them combined. The conversation was short and to the point. Sebastian relayed what had been said, informed his father that his son was fine, and disconnected shortly after. He pulled Ciel to his feet before Ciel had the chance to refuse his help.
"Tell me what's going on at this club and what it has to do with my father," Ciel said, releasing Sebastian's hands.
"Not until he gets here. I may be the one on the business end of a gun if I explain this to you without his consent."
Ciel folded his arms. "So what, he owns you or something?"
"No one owns me, nor will they ever."
He heard the edge in Sebastian's voice and let it go. He was curious but he wasn't stupid, he hadn't forgot the gun that was undoubtedly still within Sebastian's reach. The events that transpired didn't make him feel like he himself had anything to fear from Sebastian, but he didn't know how fast the bartender and apparent gunslinger would turn on a dime. He held his tongue for the time being.
The door opened and he jumped but the flash of crimson hair set him slightly at ease. As close as they were, he had no reason to trust Grelle more than Sebastian. She sat on a barstool and looked between the twins. "Want to tell me why I got the notification on my phone for the alarm being triggered?"
"The Charleses," the twins chorused.
She propped her chin on her hand, looking thoroughly disinterested. "Oh."
Ciel gave her an appraising stare. She wore no makeup and her hair lay long and straight down her back. In place of her usual skirt or dress was a white button down and black skinny jeans. Something wasn't right, and not just the fact Ciel was pretty sure that shirt belonged to William. He put his pondering of her to the side. There were a lot more important things to be thinking about, and dangerous ones at that.
The next time the door opened his father walked inside with an expression Ciel had never seen before. He took calm, measured steps toward the bar. Then he reached across, grabbed Sebastian by the shirt, and jerked him over it. Ciel scrambled backward as his father pulled Sebastian nose to nose with him.
"You said I could leave him here and he would be fine!" Vincent said, stabbing a finger in Ciel's direction.
Sebastian blinked, seemingly okay with the position he was in. "And he is, isn't he? It's not as if Grey called in advance to let me know he was coming."
Vincent dropped him and paced in a circle. "How did you get rid of him that fast?"
"He wasn't playing his full hand, I'll tell you that much. Taking him down was too easy. That wasn't even a fight by Grey's standards."
"How much did he say?" he asked, throwing a meaningful glance at Ciel.
Ciel cut Sebastian off as he came around the bar to join the conversation. "He said enough to tell me you have some explaining to do."
He was infuriated at the way Sebastian and Vincent shared a look, as though deciding if he absolutely had to know. Vincent's head jerked in the smallest of nods and he saw the defeat in the lowering of Sebastian's shoulders. He looked between them, growing more impatient by the second. Grelle had spun on her stool to watch the proceedings but she looked as bored as ever.
Sebastian smoothed the front of his shirt and looked down at him. "If we're to give you answers, we have to start from the beginning."
Weston College, Some Many Years Ago
Sebastian dished up breakfast and handed a plate to his mother. He sat across from her at the small breakfast nook, careful not to wrinkle his uniform. It had cost her a lot. She lifted a forkful of omelet and inhaled deeply, a wide smile coming to her face. He hid his own behind a sip of ice water. That smile kept him going, most days. He couldn't help but admire the way her it reached her eyes, which were a stunning combination of her English mother and Japanese father.
He finished breakfast as quickly as possible without being indelicate and put his plate in the sink. "I have to go."
"You're going to be great," she said.
Tears welled in her eyes as she looked him over. His Weston uniform had been tailored to fit, and he carried used books but they were in a brand new bad emblazoned with the school's emblem. He could barely stand her look of joy.
"You went through so much to put me in this school," he said, taking her hands. His uniform seemed to weigh a ton and burned his skin wherever it made contact. They were already poor but she had insisted on sending him to Weston as soon as she had the money. He was surprised she was still standing, as many double shifts as she had worked to put him there.
She gave his hands a squeeze. "It was worth every bit of it."
Those words carried him through his first day, and then his first week. He had noble blood but he couldn't have been more of an outcast at Weston. People eyed his tattered books, his worn shoes. He didn't get a reprieve until the first day of his second week. Walking up the stairs, lost in thought, he didn't see the other student approaching him until a stranger grabbed him by the arms.
"Please, you have to help me," the boy begged, about Sebastian's age from the look of it.
Sebastian took note of his wildly spiked red hair and frantic green eyes. "I beg your pardon?"
"I'm new and I have no idea where I'm going! I saw you and had the highest of hopes that this dark knight would help a lady out."
What a strange individual. "Where are you trying to go?"
It had started to rain and the transfer student squeaked, arms snapping to the top of his head. "Economics."
"First hallway on your right after the entry hall, third door on the left."
"Oh, bless you my handsome prince!"
The student kissed him on the cheek before he could protest and took off up the remainder of the steps. Sebastian raised an eyebrow, and called out, "Do you have a name then, princess?"
Rather than be insulted the redhead spun on his heel and beamed at him. He put a hand to his chest. "Grell Sutcliff, a fellow outcast it would seem. What do you say, let's get along." He blew Sebastian a kiss and ran inside as the drizzle of rain became a downpour.
He wiped the back of his hand across his cheek and ascended the stairs at a more reasonable pace. He had no intentions of getting along with that nutcase.
It was during his first year that he came to be friends with his fellow oddities. First came Grell, then the math wiz from Blue House who got teased for walking into things whenever he lost his glasses. By the time vacation rolled around their little group was taken in by none other that Vincent Phantomhive, the most popular and maybe the richest boy at Weston. He was an upperclassmen with a penchant for "taking in strays" according to the other students. By the time he made it a point to befriend Sebastian and the others, he had already started hanging out with the oldest of the group and the oddest, a boy in his last year known only as Undertaker.
Their bond was cemented over summer vacation. They were even joined for that period of time by Sebastian's twin who preferred to live with their father, and went to a different school across town. One hot night found them sitting around a table at William's house. His parents weren't home, which left them a nice place to relax on one of their final days of break. Sebastian couldn't help but chuckle at the antics of his friends. Grell had given up on his affections for him as soon as he met William, but Will was of a respectable family and couldn't possibly date a man. Claude was strong and silent as ever, leaving Undertaker to fill the space with a never ending supply of unsettling comments. Vincent cast an amused look over the table at Sebastian, probably thinking the same thing he was. They were the responsible ones, the "parents" of the group.
That was when the conversation got serious. Their shared look seemed to be a final indulgence of Vincent's, before he had to break the hard truth to them. He leaned forward with his elbows on the table. "I need to tell you all something." At their expectant silence, he said, "Funtom is about to go bankrupt."
An immediate flurry of chatter followed, which quieted down when he waved his hand in a request for silence. "Training to take over the company is all I've ever known. What's more, I can't watch my parents spiral into debt after everything they've done for me."
Sebastian asked for all of them, "What will you do, then?"
"It took some time, but once word got out that I was looking for a way to make a lot of money fast, someone came out of the woodwork. Someone who represents a woman known by the alias Queen Victoria."
Grell said something about that being a terrible alias, but Claude spoke over her. "She operates in the underworld, or rules it, more to the point."
"Our father wasn't always a member of respectable society," Sebastian explained.
William pushed his glasses up his nose. "You should pursue other means by which to save your company, Vincent, this venture will be dangerous."
"Sounds fun," Undertaker said, tapping his long nails together.
"I don't have hard details yet but I'll be called upon to do things that are illegal, and yes, likely dangerous. In exchange she is going to pull Funtom back out of the water. In the meantime I will make good money carrying out her orders, which I can use to keep Funtom afloat."
"She could hold that over your head indefinitely, once she has that kind of power," Grell said.
Sebastian looked around the table. He could hardly believe this was the same group that had been so lighthearted and carefree. They were talking about doing unspeakable needs for a faceless queen of the underworld. His mother's face came to mind, always gaunt from exhaustion. "Do you have room for one more?"
Present
"Everyone else followed suit, and we took on the underworld together," Vincent said.
Ciel pressed his hands into his eyes until he saw spots. "This is madness."
Grelle huffed. "You're the one who wanted to know."
"You're a man!" Ciel retorted, remembering one of the many things about the story that shed light on his confusion.
Those electric green eyes narrowed to slits and Sebastian stepped in before things got ugly. Ciel didn't care how ugly they got. His father had been training him to take over a company that was attached to a life of crime. Had he expected Ciel to take on his burden, his servitude to Victoria after he took over the business? For every question that Sebastian's story had answered, two more rose in their places. He didn't know what he had expected to learn but this wasn't it.
"So why are we here, then? The truth," he added, no longer taking such a precious thing for granted. If Victoria ruled London's underworld he couldn't believe they were in New York for as innocent of a reason as expanding the company.
"When the work slowed down, we all began to go our separate ways. However, something came up that she needed quite a few sets of hands for, and ones that she trusted."
Ciel had never been so homesick, especially knowing they left for a reason like this. "We're here for you to do her dirty work."
"With help, of course," Grelle chimed in.
Vincent nodded. "I came to bring the Devil Six back together."