Possessed
April

Ciel was breaking.

Rachael was worried. Vincent, although still a bit sore about the idea of his son, a Phantomhive, disrespecting a teacher and a daughter of the lord… he was worried too. The nightmares seemed to have stopped, but their son looked more tired than ever. Dark circles surrounded his large eyes, he couldn't seem to sit still anymore, and perhaps what disturbed her the most, the boy was barely eating. He'd lost almost ten pounds, and being rather slight already, he was beginning to look emaciated. Was he depressed? Had Elizabeth broken his heart? All pleas for answers were returned with clipped "I'm fines". And she had absolutely no idea what to do.

Vincent had walked into his son's room unannounced and was met with Ciel screaming at him to get out, and to knock the next time if he wanted to come in. The unabashed disrespect had angered him so much he'd nearly raised a hand to his boy, hoping to knock some sense into him, but he'd looked into his son, really looked into his son, and realized he was sick. The boy had lost weight, looked frail, looked like he was dying, really. And that sight disturbed him. He'd left Ciel's room, shutting the door behind him, and had not forgotten to knock since.

Rachael began attempting to feed him more. The result was aggressive outbursts. After a couple of practiced, calm responses where he'd say something along the lines of "I'm really not hungry", Ciel would positively lose it.

"Leave me alone! God, fuck, you never leave me alone! What is it about I'm not hungry that does not translate through your stupid skull?"

This was not her son. Not her Ciel. After the third outburst in a week, Ciel flipped the dining table. In a normal home, where the dining table is light and the tableware is mostly plastic, this would be an easy feat. The Phantomhive's dining table was made of solid oak, a true antique, made to seat as many as thirty people. The glassware was thin China, but very heavy vases sat on this massive piece, but without a second thought, Ciel yet out a scream of frustration and turned it over. Collectively, it probably all weighed over a thousand pounds. The meal flew to the floor, vases and dishware shattered, and Rachael was stunned. Vincent had been at work, then, and out of fear for his reaction (he was not a violent man, but he was becoming an increasingly more desperate man), she had all of the help work together to make the dining room look like nothing had happened.

Occasionally, her baby boy seemed to resurface. He would drift out of his room and embrace her, apologizing profusely, eating as much as he could, and sleeping undisturbed for hours. During these moments, he'd shadow Vincent the way he used to. Spend time in the library, reading his favorite novels or doing homework. He could even be found in the living room, watching television. But for the most part, Rachael was scared. Vincent wasn't quite as frightened for him, but if he knew all that Rachael was keeping from him, he probably would be.

Ciel finally snapped around the middle of the month.

Elizabeth hadn't been in school that day. She'd caught herself a nasty little summer cold, the kind one only gets from hot drafts in cold homes, and she'd stayed home to fight it, her family doting on her. In her absence, he needed even more coffee than usual. What is known about the incident is that Ciel had been suffering from caffeine poisoning by then, and he'd not slept in six days. It is unknown when he'd last eaten. Most would say Ciel just went crazy, but he didn't. No one just goes crazy.

He'd visited the nurse's office, because his stomach had been hurting. Most people have experienced caffeine sickness at one point or another – drinking coffee with no food in your stomach will cause that discomfort. But no amount of discomfort excused what Ciel did.

Her name was Sister Anna. She was seventy-one. A little plump, certainly kind, and only looking out for him. She'd seen him twitching, sweating, and had reached out to feel his forehead. It was that innocent. The sort of thing you do with every child who comes in, because the thermometer worked but she'd been at the school for years, since she was young and tempting, and so she had no way of knowing that Ciel would feel a thrum of electricity run through him before he lunged at her. He grabbed her by the head and slammed it into the concrete floor, and her screams were the heart wrenching sort that only those who are truly innocent could utter. He smashed her head into the floor and reeled his small fist back, punching her in the nose with an incredible amount of force. It practically caved underneath him.

Sister Anna was lucky because they got Ciel off her quickly. There's no way of knowing what else he would have done, if he would have stopped, if he would have broken much more of hers than her nose. She was lucky because they got her to a hospital quickly, because there were shards of cartilage loose in her face, shards that could have imbedded into her brain. She was lucky.

Ciel was expelled. It was only because of the time, the place, and the Phantomhive's money that he didn't end up in Juvenile court. Instead, he's taken to a hospital for a psychological evaluation. Vincent didn't know what to say, and Rachael won't stop crying. Elizabeth can't believe it when she hears it, and is forbidden by her family to see him again. She screams and cries and tells her family how much she hates them, how they're punishing her for Ciel's behavior, but not even her father wavers a little. The Middlefords were ahead of the curve. They decided Ciel was dangerous, and exorcised him from their lives. It was the most intelligent decision any of them ever made, and none would know it.

He's taken to a different hospital than Sister Anna for his evaluation. By then, he's completely lucid. How Ciel managed to go home that day, no one really knows. It's speculated that once again, the Phantomhive's money had something to do with it. That Vincent might have tried to do damage control to his family name by bribing the psychiatrist. Others speculate that Ciel managed to charm the psychiatrist himself, expressing deep remorse and saying all of the right things. Taking responsibility for his actions, regretting it properly, not disassociating in any way. Another possibility is that the psychiatrist simply didn't want to put what appeared to be a starving child in a mental hospital, where he would be eaten alive. Whatever it was, Ciel walked. Ciel snapped, attacked a seventy year old woman, and was not held accountable for any of his actions, with the exception of his expulsion.

If there were any moment that the Phantomhives should have regretted, it was this one. They should have locked him up where people could keep him safe. They should have forgotten their pride and kept Ciel in four walls, restrained, where he could not be touched further. Where he could not hurt anyone else. Instead, they took him home. Rachael had finally stopped crying, Vincent was staring into space like he was yearning to wake up from a nightmare, and Ciel looked glazed over. Like he was sleepwalking.

Vincent didn't know how to punish him. He didn't even know where to begin. Ciel drifted down into his bedroom and slept, and he stayed upstairs with his wife, attempting to comfort her.

"What do we do, Vincent?" She was trembling. In his mind, he could still see Sister Anna's face. It was bashed in. Less like he's punched her, and more like he'd hit her with a hammer.

He shook his head. "I don't know."

"He attacked someone! We have to do something!"

"What do you want to do, Rachael? Put him in a basket and leave him in front of the prison?"

She burst into tears, and Vincent regretted his words. He'd been doing a lot of that lately. Regretting his words. He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close, so her face pressed into his shoulder. She was sobbing. And to an ordinary person, this might be considered an extreme reaction, but he understood it. Ciel had changed. He'd stopped eating. Barely slept. When he did sleep, he screamed, and even though it was muffled with the blankets in the door, they still heard it. He'd convinced Rachael long ago to stop going to him, to let him work it out. He'd been so sure that if the just closed their eyes and ignored it, it would all go away, just like every other awkward adolescent phase Ciel had gone through. But it wasn't going away.

(Sister Anna's face.)

It was getting worse.

(Crushed like a bag of crisps.)

It was getting much worse.

(Flakes of bone, floating in her face, scraping at her brain.)

And he had no idea what to do.

(Like tearing into the flesh of a grapefruit. Ciel did that.)

In the end, there was nothing they really could do. Elizabeth's mother came by to return a box of things Ciel had given her daughter, because it was too painful for Elizabeth to look at these things, knowing they wouldn't be together again. Rachael had a feeling that Elizabeth had no idea her mother was getting rid of it, but took it all the same, trying to ignore Mrs. Middleford's hard, judgmental eyes. The eyes that reminded her how poor of a mother she was, to have raised such a terrible child. A violent child. She brought the box to Ciel's room, knocking on the door but leaving it in the hallway. It pained her, but Rachael was frightened. Frightened of Ciel. Her asthmatic, feminine son, who never could play sports and she kept homeschooled for years because she was afraid the other kids would beat him up. The Ciel she'd babied terribly, sung him lullabies, snuck books into his room when it was after lights out, and always had given far too many sweets. She was afraid.

After the assault, the days dragged on. Ciel no longer had any reason to be awake, any valid reason to be drinking cup after cup of coffee, any research papers he had to stay up to write, or exams the next day. Elizabeth had been forbidden to see him, and there was no chance of returning to school until next Fall. During the day, he tried to be normal. He tried. He hated the way his parents looked at him, the way most people look at snakes and spiders, but he couldn't really blame them. He'd attacked someone. A nurse. An old lady who had no chance. He'd wanted to write her a letter of apology, and actually had drafted a couple, but he had no idea what to say. I'm sorry I broke your nose without provocation. I'm sorry you had to undergo reconstructive surgery. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

He kept going through it in his mind. It didn't make sense. He could remember being so angry, but he couldn't remember why. She'd touched him, yes. On the forehead. It wasn't as if he liked being touched, but he'd been touched far more by plenty of others, and he'd never gotten even close to being that upset. But in that moment, it was like he was on fire. Like a bull seeing red. He'd never felt that kind of rage before, and feeling that sort of anger… it scared him. The days dragged on, and his calm periods became shorter and shorter. The periods without eating, longer and longer.

Eventually, he stopped fighting sleep. The nightmares didn't stop, but he didn't have to attempt to function in the day, so he didn't care. Vincent, unsure of how to converse with his son, brought him his television back. Ciel, somewhere deep underneath his explosive temper, excessive moodswings, and slowly developing depression, appreciated that. Weak from malnourishment, he spent most of his days in bed. When the rainy season began, he didn't even have to think of an excuse anymore. He would just lay in bed, the TV pushed as close to it as the chord would allow, watching footage from the American/Vietnam conflict.

Some nights, he masturbated to the videos of soldiers being killed. Sometimes he scratched his face while he did so. A few months ago – maybe even a month ago, this would have disturbed him. Disgusted him. Now, it seemed the only natural thing there was. When he drew blood, he'd climax much harder, so he dug his nails in as deep as they'd go and (tear, just like in the dreams, teeth grinding, masticating through his tissues, muscles, tonguing through the waxy straws of his veins, violating, violating) ripping his cheek open as best he could. And fuck, it felt divine, something inside him assured him so, as he watched a shower of bullets turn a human head into raspberry jam inside a bullet resistant helmet.

Ciel had broken.

xx

Hello! And thank you for reading the third installment of Possessed. To all of my reviewers, thank you for the kind feedback. To the one who asked if the whole fic was going to be like this: …yes? Although Sebastian, Claude, and many other characters will be making an appearance in Chapter 5. But until then, it's all Ciel. As usual, please review if you enjoyed this – or if you didn't! I love constructive critique. Thanks again for reading!