The smell of disinfectant was strong and the sound of metal wheels and harsh voices floated through Warren's consciousness. His mind was hazy and he could barely think, he then tried to open his eyes only to find there was something blocking the sight from his right eye. He took a deep breath and he thought he heard someone call his name.
"…ren, Warren can you hear me?" he recognised the voice as his mother's. He turned his head toward the voice and he caught sight of his mother sat at his left hand side and he thought she did not look like herself. Usually she was so immaculately dressed, so elegant, right now however her hair a mess, her skirts wrinkled and crushed, and her kind expression had turned to one of deep worry.
"What happened?" he groaned and he noticed his voice was hoarse.
"Master Phantomhive, do you know where you are? Do you remember what happened to you?" asked an unfamiliar male voice.
His mind was so fuzzy, so to gain clarity he tried to push himself to sit up. "I cannot-"
Images suddenly flashed through Warren's mind and he remembered Crippen, the warehouse, and being shot in the leg. Then his mind opened like a floodgate and further memories came torrenting though. He remembered a metal claw prying at his skull and immense pain.
His hand instantly went to his right eye in panic and that's when he realised why he couldn't see. It was a bandage. The unfamiliar voice belonged to a doctor and he was in a hospital.
"My eye! He took my eye! He took my eye! He took my bloody eye!" he shouted franticly in his rasping voice and scratched at the cotton around his head. "Get these off me now! I demand it! I need to see it!"
The doctor moved quickly to hold Warren's arms down to stop him scratching at his bindings.
"Master Phantomhive." The doctor's firm tone silenced Warren. "Please be still, unneeded stress will only hinder your healing and those bandages are not going to be removed until the wound is healed, no matter how many demands you make. This is my ward and healing most certainly takes precedence over vanity."
The doctor let go of Warren and mixed some white powder in a glass of water and he turned to Elizabeth "Once you have finished talking to your son Countess Phantomhive, make sure he takes this."
"Yes of course, thank you doctor." Elizabeth nodded solemnly at the doctor as he left.
"Mother, he took my eye, he took my…." He trailed off and stared down in sombre disbelief at the white bed sheets.
"But you are alive Warren, that is the most important thing, when I heard you were at the hospital I…I feared the worst. You may have lost your eye and been injured but you. Are. Alive." She gripped his hand tightly. "I do not know what I would have done if that unhinged lunatic had killed you."
Warren heard his mother's words and somewhere deep at the back of his mind they made sense, but in the current moment he was unsure how to react. He thought this is what Ceceila must do when she shuts down her emotions, she feels nothing and simply becomes numb to the pain. It worked quite well he thought. He simply stared vacantly at the bed and was oblivious to the tears streaming from his remaining eye. His mother was still saying something to him, but he wasn't paying attention.
"Can you leave?" he said flatly.
Elizabeth blinked a little taken aback "Darling, I really think it best if someone is here with you. To be alone with only your thoughts right now is not what you need."
With a sudden surge of surprising anger Warren lifted his head turned it to his mother.
"You will leave, it's not a request." He snarled, his voice and his new one-eyed glare were as hard and cold as ice and he left no room for negotiation.
Elizabeth took a few seconds to answer starting at her son's tear stained angry face before removing her hand from her son's, standing up and smoothing down her rumpled skirts. "Of course you still must be tired. I will be at the townhouse if you need me and Ceceila will visit later in tomorrow afternoon." She said trying to smile.
Warren continued staring at her as she turned to leave, his eye never leaving her face, and as the door shut he scoffed dispiritedly to himself. He had seen many expressions cross his mothers face, happiness, sadness, ferocity, determination, but never once had he seen fear. When he had looked at his mother her expression changed from concern to instinctual fear almost instantaneously, fear of him. It had been brief, but it had most definitely been there.
He put a hand to his head and sighed. Normally round about now he would start smoking. He figured however that that nit-picking doctor would have taken his tobacco away and as much as he disliked opioids, right now they were all that was available.
He grabbed the glass of water with the white powder next to him and downed it as fast as he could, god morphine was vile, and he would kill for a cigarette. He touched his bandaged eye tentatively again before lying down and quickly felt the pull of a deep sleep take him under.
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The fire crackled and hummed in the Phantomhive townhouse and sat next to its bright warmth was Elizabeth. She had been drinking and was on her fourth glass of whiskey, but despite the whiskey and the warmth from the fire she still felt a chill up her spine anytime she thought back to this morning.
She was punishing herself because just for a second she allowed herself to feel fearful of her son. The icy, piercing stare from Warren's bright blue eye had resembled his fathers so much, she hadn't seen Warren she had seen Ciel. It completely caught her off guard and the fear of the late Earl she had long thought gone hit her like a fist to the gullet.
She sighed and placed her glass down, her eyes were still red-rimmed and puffy from her tearful moments and she hadn't changed from her lilac day dress. This was one situation where she was glad John wasn't here, she needed to process what had happened and how Warren would cope with what happened to him. Had John been around it would leave him with far too many questions that she simply did not want to answer.
It was not lost on her that the injuries inflicted would now make it so that an eye patch and cane were necessary, two specific items that Ciel had always used when serving as Earl. It had occurred to Elizabeth that Crippen most probably knew who Warren was and therefore knew who Ciel had been, which meant that this was - in all likelihood - a very deliberate maiming.
She heard the door open and immediately felt the back of her neck tingle slightly and she automatically reached a hand for her mark.
"What do you want Sebastian?" she said with resignation knowing that he wasn't going anywhere.
Sebastian knelt down in front of Elizabeth and took both her hands in his
"What ails your mind my sweet doll?" His eyes bore into hers and that familiar tug was back and be it the alcohol, the stress, or a mixture of everything, in that moment she knew she wasn't fighting him tonight.
"He looked like him. Warren had the same look in his eyes that he used to have. It was so cold and angry, Sebastian what if…what if he becomes like Ciel? What if he turns cruel and cold and vengeful?"
Sebastian pulled her from the chair to the floor so that they were both kneeling in front of the fire and he cradled her face with his gloved hands.
"Elizabeth your son merely lost a single eye, he did not loose his entire family nor was he kept underground in a cage and tortured daily for a month, his torture only lasted a few hours. I doubt what was done to him is enough to inspire vengeance worthy of a demon, but if it does come to that I could always help him."
She knew she should not ask, but she was allowing Sebastian's words to wash over her. "How?"
"Memories can be fickle things, easily changed, easily placed, and easily taken. If you wish it…" he started to kiss along her neck and shoulder. "I could tamper with is mind make it so that when he recalls this event he feels nothing."
It sounded to good to be true and she pulled at his hair so that he was facing her again. His eyes were glowing and his fangs were exposed. Elizabeth slipped his jacket off his shoulders and slowly started to undo his tie and unbutton his shirt. The crow smiled.
"Why would you help Warren? You have made it very clear you dislike him."
He chuckled "Elizabeth my dear I would not be helping your precious son, I would be helping my precious daughter." He started deftly untying the laces and buttons of Elizabeth's dress "Her guilt at being unable to save her sibling from harm is manifesting in a way which is hindering her advancement and we have come so far already, I really would hate to have to stop now."
She laughed downheartedly and she felt herself start to dissociate. Whatever he was doing to Ceceila, whatever plans he had for Warren and her - it could wait until tomorrow. "Of course, everything you do is self-motivated you vile crow."
"Your words lack the passionate hatred they formerly possessed my Lady." Sebastian said smirking as Elizabeth moved her hands from her grip on his hair to rest on his shoulders.
"Be under no illusions Sebastian I still hate you, I always will." Elizabeth whispered while her eyes wandered down with her hands.
She guided his shirt and waistcoat to the floor and she ran her hands over his bare chest. Nothing at all had changed about him, not one single thing. Every dip and rise in his skin was just as she remembered; every strand of hair was the same. She soon felt Sebastian making quick work of her corset laces, leaving her in her undergarments and she felt a familiar heat pooling below as she pulled him closer.
Sebastian opened his mouth to respond further to her lacklustre insult, but was silenced by Elizabeth's fingers being placed over his lips. She then moved towards him, removing her soft fingers and replacing them with her lips.
Unlike the past kisses between them, this kiss was slow and gentle, unhurried and careless as both lips parted and the crow's clever tongue moved to find hers. Sebastian's hands gripped at her waist and pulled her closer until their bodies were flush against one another. Their lips slowly moved against each other's, and one could be mistaken for thinking the two were very much in love.
They slowly parted their kiss and Elizabeth looked at the black clad demon she claimed to despise, the hell-born creature that had simultaneously saved and complicated her life and her heart skipped a beat.
In the past she thought she had loved him and over the years she had convinced herself that this was not true. That it was the simple fact that he was there, tempting her with his demonic powers and that he had taken advantage of her at a time when she was vulnerable. The truth was, however, that she could have told him to stop anytime she wanted to and she didn't. Sometimes she had started but she never truly meant it and perhaps that was why their affair had never stopped. Deep deep down in her heart the ugly, horrid truth was stuck there like a rotted splinter - Elizabeth loved him and she hated herself for it.
"Contemplating the world my Lady? A furrowed brow does not suit your porcelain skin." He said smoothly as he stroked down the side of her face.
His gloves were now gone and she noticed that he longer had the Faustian mark on his hand; it was the only thing about him that had changed. Elizabeth wrapped her arms around his waist feeling his cool skin beneath her hands.
"You say you can make Warren forget, but right now all I want is for you to make me forget – for a small time at least. Will you make me forget like you used to? Will you, just for tonight, make me feel what I felt the night you marked me?"
Sebastian's eyes glowed with sadistic satisfaction and as if the butler had been waiting for those words his form shifted to flickering shadow and darkness and he swooped her up in his arms and carried her upon dark raven feathers to a black bed. Sebastian gripped the back of her neck touching the mark with his fingers and Elizabeth felt a blistering desire rush through her and suddenly she was feverishly hot and almost panting with need.
The demon chuckled lowly
"Yes, My Lady."
They remained in carnal lust and dark passion reaching ecstasy time and time again, until the demon's Lady was spent and her mind was at ease.
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A/N: Thank you very much for all your follows and such. This chapter was a little slow in getting out just because I was never happy with it. Eventually I sorted it and I have ended up splitting what was originally one chapter into two as I felt this one should end here. This means that the next one shouldn't take too long to get out, even if both are a little shorter.
Peace xx