But For Myself, a kuroshitsuji fanfic

"But For Myself"

The CLOD & the PEBBLE

Love seeketh not Itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care;
But for another gives its ease.
And builds a Heaven in Hells despair.

So sung a little Clod of Clay
Trodden with the cattles' feet:
But a Pebble of the brook,
Warbled out these metres meet.

Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to Its delight;
Joys in another's loss of ease.
And builds a Hell in Heavens despite.

—William Blake

"Why wasn't Ciel the one who survived?

Such a thought I might have had.

I never wanted to know I was such a cruel girl!"

—Elizabeth Midford

LIZZY

Lizzy can still remember the first year after he came back—he seemed so fragile and yet harder, stronger, than she'd ever thought of him before, when she'd assumed their lives would go on as they'd been told: she, wife of the Queen's Watchdog; he, the husband and protector. No matter that she was always a little taller, a little faster than he, that it was never really that way, the way she imagined. He had never taken to fencing; she winced in sympathy as he was knocked down by her mother again, and again. She knew: she'd felt those bruises herself. Sometimes she'd cried over the pain, but she'd always gotten up again, her eyes shining more than before, her mouth pressed close in concentration; when she moved, it was like a dance, the extension of her body her sword. It wasn't until that day that she'd thought to hate it. Wasn't it possible to be a good girl and a strong one? Wasn't her mother just like that?

He was knocked down again and didn't get up fast enough; sat, staring sullenly on the floor, spots of red on his cheeks. Anger? Embarrassment? He didn't cry like she did. Her mother was never effusive in her praise, but it was worse with Ciel: she thought he was spoiled, arrogant, brattish. She tried not to say those things to Lizzy, but it wasn't hard to tell. Lizzy had always noticed, put two and two together.

A lady must keep her thoughts to herself, Aunt Anne had advised her.

Why? Lizzy had asked. Mama doesn't. She liked Aunt Anne. Admired how strong she was, even though she didn't show it through sharp words and the force of her body. Aunt Anne was the lady she wished she could be—beautiful and effortless, but who never let anyone twist her resolve. It was hard. Lizzy always felt her resolve being twisted. She always bowed to what her mother wanted, in the end. She always worried about pleasing Ciel. Sometimes even Edward could get her to cover for him, though she wasn't shy about giving him a good slap if he really deserved it.

Your mother is very unusual, Aunt Anne had replied, with that strange smile of hers—the one that didn't quite seem happy. But she had laughed, softly; and the strange smile had disappeared into the softness of her eyes.

Woman can't be mysterious if she lays her thoughts out for all to see, can she now?

I guess not, Lizzy said. She thought about it, twisting her finger in her hair the way her mother always scolded her for. Aunt Anne never scolded her—she only pointed it out, when they were alone, and that was always enough to get her to stop. If they were in public, she would give her something small to hold. Lizzy was greatful: it spared her the embarrassment of having her inappropriateness be called attention to, and it made her think about what she was doing. When she noticed before Aunt Anne had to speak, and put her hands away guiltily, her aunt gave her a smile of pride, and Lizzy felt herself stand taller in response.

If Aunt Anne knew how to fence, she could teach him, Lizzy thought, when her mother's footsteps had finally echoed away, and she'd flown forward to hover next to her cousin. Ciel had so much pride, and it was hard for him to take mother's criticism, no matter how fairly given, when it was flung along with insults and snappish retorts. Instead of being inspired to get better, he closed up, until he wasn't thinking about learning anymore, only mother and his fear and his anger at her. It went like this, back and forth, until neither of them knew what to do with the other. Mother had never found it easy to deal with strong-minded people.

Strong ladies scare me, Ciel confessed. I'm glad you are going to be my wife, Lizzy. And all her thoughts got so jumbled up. She didn't want Ciel to be scared of her. She didn't want to be like mother—pushing her way around until her family, the very people who should have loved her, felt only resentment instead. But Lizzy loved her mother. She admired her. Seeing her stride so confidently through any situation, as though she owned it, made her feel wonderful—light and strong.

I love mother, Lizzy thought. There's nothing wrong with her. But there's nothing wrong with Ciel either. I love both of them. He just likes different kinds of girls, that's all. And that's the kind of girl I am. I want to be sweet, and charming, and innocent. I want to be the lady Aunt Anne talks about, the perfect angel. I don't want to step on anybody, even if I have to let them step on me.

It was a painful realization. Too painful, and too complex for her to comprehend. It was the truth, ah, but not the whole truth.

The truth is, when Ciel comes back, he is… different.

She didn't know what happened. She could tell that mother didn't know either, because she complained about it loudly to father until he said, we know enough, don't we? Something bad happened to him—something terrible. There are so many things that might have happened to children like them. You know, Francis—we can both imagine. But he's back now, and if he doesn't want to talk, I don't see why we ought to force him.

It's for his own good— mother replied, furiously.

Is it? Or is it for your curiosity?

The blood had drained from mother's face, at that, and her knuckles had clenched as though around the sword she had not brought to the breakfast table, while Lizzy and Edward and the servants kept their heads down and pretended nothing was happening.

We will continue this in private, mother said. And, when father didn't move; now!

All right, he said calmly, taking a last bite and wiping his hands before following her out of the room, to the fencing hall where for the rest of the morning Lizzy could hear blades clashing, and her mother's angry screaming, muffled through the wood, that petered off, slowly, through the hours, until at last there was nothing but the the sounds of metal left, and she could breathe easier again.

Sometimes she could imagine why Ciel was scared of mother.

Yet, still: she can remember the feel of him under her embrace, the bony shoulders, the bruises still blooming red and yellowish, black and green over his face. Most unsettlingly, the look in his eye (the other one is covered in bandages, and she wonders what is beneath—) because his eye always looks as though he is seeing something else and not her at all. Or anything. It does not seem haunted; there is no anguish in his expression. Rather, everything has gone blank and flat, and she feels as though she is exchanging words with a stranger who has no interest in anything, not in the world or… or anything.

It scares her.

The only thing he does show interest in—if you can call it that—is this mysterious butler that tags along behind him like a shadow. It is not interest, because that would require some amount of curiosity, some sensation. No, instead he treats Sebastian as though he is an extension of himself, another limb. They seem to move in uncanny sync, they watch each other when Ciel will meet eyes with no one else. It is as if he has left the whole world behind him and replaced it with Sebastian.

Her mother has many words to speak about the butler, as well. But Lizzy doesn't mind him. Sebastian is charming, and he is careful, and she notices how his very presence seems to set Ciel at ease and if that is what Ciel needs, why would she fault him it? It is obvious that Sebastian rescued him from the bad thing. She knows enough to wonder, too: vague, half-formed thoughts that form the shape of chimney-sweeps huddled in the cold, and the ragged boys that take any work, and steal, (but no, worse than that—she fears, because father and mother had not ever talked about what they thought might have happened, and they have never tried to shelter her or Edward from the dark side of the city) …

"What do you think happened to him, Edward?" Lizzy asks.

And Edward gets a strange look on his face; guilty and tired. "I don't know, Liz," he says.

"You have ideas, though. Come on. No one will tell me anything! You have to."

"Yes, well, he isn't exactly going around sharing his story, in case you hadn't noticed!" Edward bursts out. "If you want gossip, you won't get it from me!" he adds, bitterly, and Lizzy draws back, ashamed. Edward has never treated her like a girl, or intimated that she can't understand or that she's unworthy because of her sex. He's perfectly respectful, and a gentleman, and now she feels like she's found herself on the wrong side of a gap, along with all the dreadful, shallow society women he doesn't approve of, and she's not entirely sure what she's done wrong.

"Oh Lizzy, I'm sorry," Edward says, seeing the tears in her eyes. "We're all having a hard time these days, you know? My temper is shorter than it should be."

He wraps an arm around her shoulder. "Forgive me?"

She nods.

Ciel had put words to her fears, but he hadn't created them. That started earlier.

She hadn't realized what a talent she had for fencing until mother set her against Edward. She watched their awkward start, neither wanting to be the one to touch the other first; but in a moment all self-consciousness fell away, and they were concentrating only on the dance. Ah, I can do this, Lizzy thought. She pressed him, back and then onto the floor, and then mother was striding forward. "All right, you two, don't loll around."

Oh dear, Lizzy thought, staring down at him. I think I hurt him. It was the first time she had ever won a match. She'd never fought against anyone but mother before. It was an odd feeling. She could tell she was good at this. It made her feel happy, but right on the heels of that came worry. I beat him easily, and he's been training for years, she thought. Am I really that special? She wasn't sure if she wanted to be special. She wasn't sure what to think about the fact that her older brother was on the ground because of the point of her sword. It was so much power. It becomes too easy to hurt someone, she thought. I don't want to hurt him.

"That was brilliant!" Edward said, getting up. He couldn't contain the awe in his voice. "Lizzy, you're a genius!"

"I am?" she said, a little uncertain, looking at her own hand. She didn't feel like one.

"Of course you are! You're a natural!"

"Now now, Edward," mother said, with some sternness to her voice, although she smiled gently at Lizzy. "One has talent, but one is not a 'natural.' You must still work hard if you wish to be the best."

"Yes all right," Edward said. "Listen to mother (but really, you are,)" he added, with a grin.

Edward was the only one she had confessed to, that few weeks when she had refused to fight anymore. She'd expected mother to get angry, had been prepared for it, steeled herself against it; but mother hadn't been. She'd narrowed her eyes a bit, then said, "if you wish to stay here for three hours and do nothing, be my guest." So that is what they did. For one day after another, until she was fidgeting fit to burst in her fencing costume and casting glances toward her rapier. I musn't, she told herself. It's not cute. I don't want to…

Mother was best at waiting. She was much more patient than Lizzy, and she knew that the reason would come tumbling out eventually, or she would get too bored of sitting around. It did. But she never told her why.

"Next time I see that kid, I'm going to give him a piece of my mind," Edward growled. "Let's see if he doesn't like strong men, either."

"Oh, please don't," Lizzy said. "You promised not to tell."

"I can't just stand around if I know something like this, Liz," Edward retorted. "If he was anyone else you'd have fought him for it already, or told mother so she could."

"But he's not anyone else," Lizzy said, tears coming to her eyes. "He's Ciel. He's my fiancé."

"Well, maybe he shouldn't be," Edward said.

She was shocked at the bitterness of his words; the way he really seemed to mean them. She'd wanted someone to comfort her; to tell her Ciel was wrong, maybe, but not to vilify him. Not to speak of breaking off the engagement. And if he told mother, oh, mother just might. All of a sudden she was angry.

"Don't you dare, Ed," she said. "You're not going to marry him, are you? I am. I want to. So just shut up."

"What happened to him? Do you really want to know what I think?" Aunt Anne says, and there's something hard in her expression. She looks Lizzy straight in the eyes, until Lizzy begins to fidget uncomfortably. "You have to be honest with me, because if you really want to know my thoughts I won't hold back."

Because there is a script, you see: you say, oh, I don't know what happened to Ciel, oh the poor child, what do you think happened? And they say: terrible things, but we shouldn't talk. A lady wouldn't talk. A lady would keep her thoughts private. But the thing about Aunt Anne is that she is not—always—a lady.

Aunt Anne has never given a fig about gossip. Aunt Anne has both built up and thrown out a reputation. She became a doctor, though it cost her her parents' regard. She's told Lizzy this. She's never quiet about who she fancies. She's not, quite, respectable. Respectability is a game, Aunt Anne said. You have to know all the moves so that you can judge when to keep them and when to discard them, and what it will cost you.

Lizzy swallows. Her throat is suddenly dry, but she clenches her fists, stands up a little taller, and doesn't look away from Aunt Anne's eyes—cold and so red in moments like these. "Yes," she says, trembling.

So Aunt Anne explains about how she knows things. A doctor always has to. There are patterns that can be found from the way a bruise shows on a face, and the way a person stands, and where they look and don't look and even what they don't tell you. She talks about some of the women she's treated—for broken bones from 'a fall down the stairs' say some of them, or 'he just gets this way when he's drunk,' or merely a flat look. "I came here to get this bandaged, not have you askin' me about my life." She talks about the different professions that come through her door. She pauses, looks assessingly at Lizzy as she does. She's not really spelling it out, but Lizzy starts to think about the patterns the way a doctor would. Aunt Anne takes her time—talks about different people she's known, never mentions Ciel by name. Lizzy sits down at some point; her face feels numb and her hands ache where they've been clenched around her skirt. By the time Aunt Anne talks about whores and then kidnapping and the black market Lizzy doesn't even feel surprised anymore, she just feels blank.

Maybe this is how Ciel feels, she thinks.

At last, Aunt Anne takes pity on her. "I think that's enough," she says gently, and carefully brushes the wetness from under her eyes. Lizzy blinks. She hasn't even realized she's been crying. But all of a sudden she's sobbing in truth, great, gulping heaves, and flinging her arms around her aunt, closing her eyes.

"Why…" she says, at last. "Why?"

Aunt Anne only smiles that sad smile, the one that looks like a piece of hope that broke and got stuck at the corner of her mouth, fading day by day, and says, "I ask myself all the time. But the only answer I can think of is that life is unfair and cruel and cares nothing for anybody. That's just the way it is."

Ciel comes back to her in pieces. One day, he greets her without her speaking first; another day, he smiles—a slow, hovering thing. And the year goes on, and another, and another, and by the time he's put himself back together she has so convinced herself that they've been getting somewhere, getting back to what they were that she ignores everything that clangs alarm in the back of her mind. Of course he would be different. She still doesn't know what happened to him. If he doesn't act just the way he used to, it's understandable. If he doesn't remember what they did together, it's because of what happened, it's not because…

Because the alternative is too great to even think of, in the shadow of her darkest nightmares. Neither of them were that cruel. (They no longer speak about his brother. Ciel doesn't welcome it. She might think that's he's forgotten him, too, if it wasn't for the four graves in the graveyard, standing solemnly side by side—the family that died, and the one that remained.)

All she wants is for him to be happy; no matter what she has to do to make that happen. And she will do anything. She will protect him in every way she can—if nothing else, by her sword; if not that, by her smiles, by her softness and her innocence and the way she makes him forget his cares and play. He will never see her lost, he will never see her confused or hurting. A lady is always what her husband wishes, she is the flower for him to show off. She knows she can be this for him, if nothing else.

PHANTOMHIVE

That he is not Ciel is only one of the secrets he has kept from Lizzy, and sometimes, it doesn't even seem the greatest. Doesn't the fact that he sold his soul have more weight to it? Doesn't that month? He doesn't tell anyone what they don't need to know. Why would he? And she doesn't need to know this. It would only make her sad. He wonders if she ever missed him. He hopes she did, but that was never her obligation, was it? He was never her fiancé. He was not the one she played with, the one she gifted those dazzling smiles. He doesn't fault her for that. She had loved Ciel more: of course she had.

And so it is for her that he plays Ciel's part; and for Ciel. He feels like he is creeping by, stealing something he ought not to touch, but then; he is Ciel, now, isn't he? There is no other. When her hand grips his own and drags him about (the way she had never done to him—he was always too frail, too weak, and she was too aware of that fact to presume), he can feel the echoing tingle of her touch for moments after she lets go. It feels like a dream, having her look at him this way. Seeing her look at him so softly. This is why I made that choice, he thinks, watching the way she will forget, sometimes; the way she will send him small, blushing looks from the corner of her eye, and turn her face away. This is what everyone would have wanted.

I'm doing this for her. I'm doing this for him.

And this was the truth—ah, but not the whole truth. Not at all.

A year passed, and another, and another. The day came when he did not feel so much as though the life he lived was stolen; that the lie was only a lie; that it could be nothing more. Life went on, and it did so slowly. With so many other things to take up his time… with cases to solve, a reputation to uphold, when did it begin to matter to him? When did he stop thinking about that vow? (I will be the person you wanted to be, he said. It was true, once. But it was too hard to continue being that person forever. Something else had slipped in the cracks.)

I am doing this for you, he had said, once. But he wonders.

LIZZY

I am doing this for you, she thought, and she told herself she did not wonder at all.

There are moments where everything is perfect. If she does not look too closely, if she keeps her thoughts to herself, and closes her eyes, then the summer sun shines on the gardens and lights up Ciel's smile. Sometimes she can feel him watching her, and it feels like he is seeing her for the first time. He has become so much more thoughtful, since that time. There are moments when she thinks he cares about her more than he had before. Is it terrible to be glad of that? No, it can't be. Having gone through such a trial, why would she grudge him anything at all? (Even if it wasn't about him at all.)

It's not that she doesn't like visiting him either. But sometimes he can be dreadfully grumpy, and it's not as though she likes that. But she likes his servants, and the way they interact with their master. She can see that Ciel has gained their trust and their respect, and it warms her to think of the person he has become. Such pride, a small voice whispers in the back of her mind. Is that not a sin? But she is proud of him. She can't not be. Even if it is bad. It might be terrible of her, but she tells herself it isn't. Just the way when she eats too many cakes, she can always persuade herself that it wasn't so bad. Next time, of course, she will be better. It doesn't make one a bad girl to have a lapse now and again, does it? Of course not. Not at all. Such gluttony, the voice whispers, and she tells it to be quiet.

Because Ciel came back, and now everything can be perfect. He is her Ciel, just as she'd always known he would be. And it isn't greedy at all. Sometimes she closes her eyes and imagines their future: the children they will have, oh, or their wedding day—or just next week; oh, the matching outfits they ought to wear, the one that will show them both to the best advantage. It isn't as though he is the flower for her to show off, it really isn't. She only wants what he wants, of course. She only wants what will make him happy. And if it makes her happy, too, what of it?

(Even if something creeping in her gut has been screaming that something is wrong for years. It's not like it matters, does it? Because everything turned out fine. It's too bad, after all, that his brother died. She can't help but feel sorry. But it's not as if she'd known him that well, is it? And the Ciel that she has now loves her. She knows that.)

So nothing is wrong. Nothing at all.

Jack and Jill went up the hill

To fetch a pail of water;

Jack fell down

And broke his crown

And Jill came tumbling after.

And then… he returns.

...Now what?

Ciel, with two blue eyes and a sweet, sweet smile. She remembers how sunny it had been before then, she remembers how it had gone away entirely, after, and then come back… something soft and secret, no longer so innocent as it had been. There was too much mischief in it for that. This one, this one doesn't look devilish at all, though; it looks grown-up, and collected, and far away. He blinks his eyes open slowly when he is strong enough to wake, on the days when she stand weeping by his low couch. She feels like he is a millstone tied around her, tying her to this place, and it grows heavier as the air around her drowns.

—My brother took my place, he says. I have been so very ill all these years. If it wasn't for Undertaker, I would have died. He left me behind, you see.

—Why? That doesn't seem like him, she thinks, but she doesn't really know him at all, does she? He'd never told her anything real.

—I don't blame him, Ciel says. Ciel. She's gotten so used to thinking of him as the sky. But he hadn't been her star at all.

But she blames him. The more Ciel speaks, the more she cries, the more her heart twists inside her, the more she blames him. She wants to scream, she wants to tear him apart, claw him to pieces with her bare hands. How could you do this to me?

It scares her. She doesn't want to hurt anyone. She's never wanted to. She doesn't want to be that girl. But she doesn't know how to stop.

The world has narrowed to four doors and an endless hall, filled with shadows. Her shining thing is here. But though the sky is all around her, all she can see is darkness.

There's too much time in which to think, too much time holding his cold, pale hand, watching him breathe deeply in his sleep, two dark eyelashes fluttering on an untouched face. Too much time for the coldness to slide into her, for her thoughts to gain shape and mock her.

You wanted to be the perfect girl, the perfect lady. A perfect wife, to do your duty for the husband that had been chosen. And all this time you were with someone else, and you couldn't even tell! What a fool you are!

Or was it… that you didn't want to know? Because you were happier that way.

It was never about him at all.

I loved him.

I loved that he loved me.

I could have known, if I'd tried. But I was happy, so I didn't care.

[You and my love…

Everything…

Was a -lie-]

—Elizabeth Midford

"I've found that if you keep up a lie long enough,

It becomes the -truth-"

—[C i e l] Phantomhive