Part 4: Conjunction
Come to me in union, for you are fair and flawless. Terrene coupling elevates to a sublime force to transmute your essence. From it buds a greater property.

Ciel was a mess of trembling nerves and collecting his convulsing form was a challenge. He coughed and sputtered, straining to breathe and he clutched my collar as I marched back to the manor.

My master was broken, having reached his limit, and I was sure my casual response to his display of destruction was the last component to this breakdown. On the surface I must have appeared to react to the situation with a detached sense of responsibility, but at the base of me I rattled with apprehension. I was steadfast in my course of action, that Ciel should receive what was necessary to alleviate his affliction. I was concerned with that outcome.

On the other hand, I more than craved him; the withdrawal forced me to a state of desperation. I desired to take advantage of his weakened condition, his emotional vulnerability, his need for my contact. I determined my quarters would be the best place for my young master to work through his state of panic.

I caught sight of Mey-Rin coming from the kitchen as I dashed through the back door. "What's going on? Why is Finny in such a state? Is the Young Master alright?"

I would not even look in her direction as I barked, "No business of yours. Get back to your work."

Low ceilings in the wing which my quarters were located lessened the cavernous feeling that pervaded much of the house. There was such emptiness in many of the spaces he occupied, the sorts of rooms that force one to feel small and insignificant. I reasoned such an environment was not suitable for working through a panic attack.

My quarters were a white milieu. The walls glinted flake white from the light seeping through the window. I needed no adornment, no touch of personality, just stark emptiness that only served as a space for my own reflection and respite. I kept birch furniture well-oiled and everything was without stain or blemish.

I could not bother to hang a curtain over the window, or to place an object on the mantel. Even my writing desk remained clear, with pen and stationary having its proper place.

I never much cared for the room during the daytime.

I was certain the young master's malaise had dulled his perception and he had little idea where he was for his state of distress. He had broken into a cold sweat, his wheezing continued, eye constricted. I whipped the covers from the bed, and the frame creaked from his stiff fall. His shoes and coat were discarded on the floor and I wrapped the blankets tight around his shivering body.

"Breathe, young master. You need to take a deep breath." He must have heard this advice, for he rasped in a breath, his chest heaving as though it were a great ache to fill his lungs with air. I sat in my chair by the desk, allowing him space to work through his episode. It had been years since I had seen a breakdown this dramatic. His head fell into my pillow and the sheets twisted around him as he convulsed. I was not fearful of his condition, because I saw no sign of any real danger, so long as he was not alone and at risk to cause himself injury. I would be patient while he worked through his spell. What was I to do when he was back to a state of calm, I pondered.

His pounding heartbeat slowed to a heavy thud. His muscles twitched to relaxation and Ciel gave a tired sob from under the tangled covers. I stood, leaned over him and whispered, "I will fetch the master something to drink. I will be back in five minutes. Watch the clock if you must."

The kitchen was a short distance from my quarters, and the servants, Tanaka included, sat around the table looking much too idle for my preference. Their heads moved in unison as they watched me walk from the ice box to the cooker with milk, setting a saucepan on a heated eye. Warm milk with honey was a comfort for Ciel in the past, and I reasoned it would serve better than tea.

Bardroy was the first to speak. "Did a right number on that rose garden, eh, Sebastian?" I did not turn at this comment.

"Is the young master going to be okay?" Finnian's voice wavered.

"Seemed a frightful mess, he did." Mey-Rin said to Finnian.

Bardroy's cigarette smoke in the kitchen was one of my greatest irritations. It tumbled from his mouth with the words, "Been some time since I've seen a man with so much anger. Not healthy, carryin' that kind of violence. Boy needs a hobby, or somethin'."

I was certain that Tanaka was only in the room to pipe in should he have to keep their conversation in check. I placed my contents on a tray and stated "The situation is under control." Before leaving the kitchen I heard Tanaka chuckle in that knowing way.

When I entered my room once more, I found Ciel clutching my pillow. He gulped in deep breaths, nose buried in my linens. I was surprised at such an abrupt change in his condition. He seemed almost relaxed. Hearing my arrival, he bolted upright and the pillow was dashed to the floor.

I set the tray of milk and honey on the bedside table. "Is it my scent that calms your nerves, young master?" Perhaps there was something of myself in the room: traces of vanilla, silver polish, copal, wood ash. After all, there were moments in the early morning where I found myself with absolutely nothing to do, and the only thing to be done was to lie in bed and stare at the ceiling until the room began to reflect the morning's colours. "Do you still prefer a generous amount of honey in your warm milk?"

"Do not patronize me, Sebastian," It was such a feeble command.

"I intended nothing of the sort." I handed him a delicate tea cup, as warm white as the milk. He detangled his arms from the sheets and received without comment. As he sipped he appeared so brittle, like the slightest provocation could tip him into panic once more.

I sat back in my chair and waited for some additional order or signal. He would not turn his head, only shift his eye in my direction and take another sip. After he was through, he set his cup on the tray and asked, "Why did you bring me here?"

"I thought it best to bring you to my room because it offers a little more clarity than the spaces you typically occupy. Judging from the fact that you appear much calmer, I think it was a good decision." I frowned. "Now, will you tell me why you decided to destroy my roses?" I did not want to admit that his actions had stung me.

"They're not your roses."

"I cultivate them."

"On my property."

"You would not be in ownership of this property if it was not for me." I leaned in closer. "Of all the things you could have shorn to pieces, you chose one which I give particular attention to, and you know I only care for those roses because they please you so much."

He turned away, burying his face in the covers. "I don't think I like them anymore." I offered him the pillow from the floor, which he latched onto with hesitation. His eye was filled with fear, as if he were ready to fly into another panic. He clutched the pillow to his chest to stave off another breakdown.

"Young master, no one is angry with you. I am not here to scrutinize you."

He reached back behind his head to pull the lace that held his eye patch, which he placed on the tray. His violet eye stared at me he shifted deeper into his cocoon of white, face half-hidden in my pillow. Linens muffled his reedy voice. "Seeing those roses... just made me so angry. Elizabeth will want white roses for the wedding, and she knows they're my favourite. And... You know they're my favourite." He coiled his arms around the pillow tighter. "Sebastian... I don't want to marry."

"I know."

"How can you know?"

"I just know you, young master. I know you feel you cannot be what Elizabeth needs, and it tears you apart. And then there is the issue of me... with such obligations placed upon you..." Perhaps my voice wavered. "I have not been what my young master needs." He lifted his head, wanting to make sure what he heard was correct.

I would not show my hesitation as I knelt to the floor beside the bed. Nervousness quaked within me, but I tamped it down with the sight of those beautiful eyes. "I should not have condemned your feelings, young master."

"What? Hang on... are you apologizing?"

"I have to admit that I was largely responsible for adding to your distress. I do not feel remorse... for the things I said... but my harsh words have placed distance between us..." It was unnatural for me to have such difficulty finding my words. From under the covers his hands reached for mine on the edge of the bed. Even through gloves I could feel his irenic warmth.

"But there was some truth to the things you said to me that night. How dare I develop feelings for a servant...?" Ciel's voice trailed to a whisper, "Sebastian, you are so much more..." His face slid into the pillow again. "Damn it, I hate myself for feeling this."

My free hand reached for the back of his head, stroking his hair, running down his neck. Was it such an effort to be a source of comfort?

"Are you ashamed, young master?"

"Ruddy hell, I suppose I am." His hand tightened around mine. "I think about Lizzie, how any attempt to please her feels like such a strain, every effort is so contrived and disingenuous, how I have to try so hard. How long would I be able to keep on a face, before she finds the truth about all of me? I really wish I could be okay with playing a role for her, keep secrets so she can remain safe and happy. But she won't be satisfied with that, even if the truth of me breaks her heart in the end.

"I think about my aunt and uncle... I know why they're pushing for us to marry this year. The only thing of value they own is their estate, their name and title... all other assets are nearly expended. Alexis wants to benefit from my business, and he's doing everything to get into my good graces. He wants a profit, and can I really cut them off? The family who is head of the Queen's guard? I cannot antagonize myself against family with such political influence... and I feel I'm on the verge of disgracing myself.

"And what am I to do when Elizabeth and I are married? How much would she discover? Sebastian... Would she leave? Who would she tell? Could I ever trust her with anything? Why does she even love me? What does she see in me? What do I have to offer her?" Each question was agitating him into a fresh state of panic.

"And why must it be you? I can't... get over you..."

I took hold of his face. His breath caught in his throat. "You are causing yourself so much distress with all these thoughts."

"But what am I supposed to do, Sebastian?" The boy raised his voice as he sat upright. Pushing away the sheets, he faced me and his hands gripped mine where I held his jaw. "Everyone around me expects something I can't give, or I can't be! I'm doomed to disappoint everyone, and lose everything in the process, and I hate myself for all of it! I hate my weakness, and my shame, and I'm just fucking pathetic..." He was ready to lose himself to his tears.

"Young master." I pulled his quaking form to the edge of the bed, legs parted on either side of me as I braced his thighs. "Stop this. You are not weak. Your shame only causes you doubt and anguish, so release it. It does not serve you." My arms crept behind, up his back. I whispered, "I will not let you fall."

I was enfolded in shaking arms, my head clasped to his chest, his breath in my hair, bergamot and tobacco. "Can you promise me this?"

"Yes." It rang with such solemnity.

"When I hear you say it, I really can believe it." There was his look again, the way the crease in his forehead would vanish, how there was a slight parting in his lips and his eyes fluttered.

"The only thing I can expect of you, young master... is for you to be you."

"So... if I were to indulge in this... would you turn me away once more? Ignore my advances...?" I saw the last dim vestiges of fear still flickering in his eyes. He tipped my chin, and I clutched at his rumpled shirt.

I uttered, "I cannot ignore your advances any better than I can ignore your commands."

"Then I suppose that my desires are no more than orders to be followed."

"That is not true at all, young master." I stared at rose lips. "Do you not recall how I have delighted in you?"

"Yes... but... is it only because of the contract? Because of my soul?" For the briefest moment, Ciel's soft pout trembled with the question, "What about… me?"

"Oh young master... you speak of it as though it were a separate part of you. Do you not understand... that you are your soul?" My whispering lips kissed the tremor away from his chin. "Every thought and inclination, every feeling and experience, everything that has built you, culminated to become the person you are now... the taste of it exudes from you." He seized the nape of my neck and his breath mingled with mine. "Your soul is not a pearl buried at the bottom of you. You cannot locate it any better than you can locate the forces that allow you to move your limbs, or that cause your heart to pump, or that enable you to sense the world around you. It saturates all parts of you, permeating every fibre of your being."

He fed on those words, breathing them in with the same hunger for my scent, my touch, my everything. My eyes were aflame. "So... when I say, 'I desire you,' trust that I speak of the totality of you."

I could taste his inner turbulence in that kiss. Could it be that I should be a receptacle for all that plagued him? I craved his conflict with the same intensity as I craved his flesh and I could not stay my grip that pulled him further against me. His parted lips gasped against mine, his tongue in my mouth, his sighs crowding my hearing, his knees on my sides locking me to him.

Our lips separated, and Ciel leaned his forehead against mine, eyes closed. "Sebastian... do you have a soul?"

"Not a human one."

"How do you mean?"

I raised him from the bed and he stood against me, his arms secured to mine in a need for stability.

"Hmmm... I can give you a simple metaphor. Imagine your soul to be the most succulent fruit, perfect ripeness, bursting with life, the skin of it unbruised. It is whole and complete and perfect. But what if the fruit were to rot? The skin becomes a cracked husk and from it seeps a putrid, tainted substance. Where once there is something good and nourishing is now poison and filth."

Did I want my master to think of me in this way? Even if he had admitted in the past he was aware of my evil nature, and would speak of it in a negative light, he continued to probe it. I was baffled by the meaning of it.

He pulled at my gloves, pinching each finger with aching slowness, until the white material slipped from me and fell to the floor. "So... at one point was your soul good?"

"I have often speculated this."

"What causes a soul to go bad?" He clasped at my hands, caressing knuckles, kissing nails.

"It takes a very nasty Fall. One has to fall so far to cause the whole of him to shatter." My splayed fingers trembled to sweep over smooth features, cheeks and brows, the bridge of his nose and that pointed chin. "I can anticipate your next question, young master, and I can assure you: you cannot know that type of Descent. Your kind is privileged, in that you never will."

His explorations would know no limit. "Well... what about those who go to Hell? Hell exists, am I correct? Do their souls not become evil?"

"I think your interpretation of things is skewed, but that is understandable. We cannot speak of such things fully, for there are not words to describe these concepts." I tried to ignore him unbuttoning my jacket. "Hell is not so much a place but a condition of Nature that has been corrupted. It is not below the surface of the Earth like so many of those myths of time have claimed... but rather a dimension of space and time that one must be heavy enough to sink into its depths." With gentle fingers he pulled my hands from his face. "You are looking at me with the most amusing expression."

He stayed my touches to relieve me of my jacket. I stood frozen.

"It's because you're not making any sense."

He was going to undress me, take what he wanted of me, and I would let him. He determined that he needed to disrobe me, and the prospect of inevitable exposure evoked such trepidation. I would wear none of this feeling on my features.

Perhaps he could sense my nervousness by some other means.

I made a show of clearing my throat. "I cannot expect you to understand it. But, be that as it may, a human soul can be weighted enough to descend, but a damned soul is still a complete soul. One has to fall from a very, very high realm in order to cleave one's soul."

He crouched down and made a clumsy attempt to untie my shoelaces. "So... a fallen angel. Take these off," he ordered. I obliged, and kicking them to the side, I stood still as stone in front of him once more.

"I suspect, but I have no memory of this. But then, the idea of me as an angel at the beginning of time?" A nervous snicker tumbled. "It would be as strange as saying that you, young master, were a bird before you became you."

"That is ridiculous."

Freeing me of my waist coat was a vexatious effort as each button was a deliberate, subtle tug and release. "But if you have no memory of such a transition, and no one to tell you otherwise, who is to say that at one point you were not?" Braces were unclipped, trousers cast aside.

Each article was as a piece of my own armour, and his determination prompted this bawdy disarmament, with my defences tumbling to the floor. Shirt sleeves were flung from me and his hands graced my bare shoulders. "Sebastian, all this talk of souls does not make me feel any better about myself. It just reaffirms that I must be so abhorrent for... wanting you."

"I do not think you abhorrent."

"Then what do you think of me? All of me? If I am not some awful person for desiring a demon...?"His cool hands cradled my ribs as he strung kisses over my chest.

My thin response was to place my hands on his shoulders, and I thought it so unfair for him to still be dressed. "Well, it does not take much for a person to be ensnared by a demon. We are quite good at that. But what sort of character is required for one to desire... me?" He peered at me in response to the question. "You cannot hide it, because I have seen it in your eyes. You have a very unique soul, young master." I cupped his face once more. "You are not the first to find me seductive, but you are the first who has... done a great deal more than just taken pleasure with me."

"'Done more?' What have I done to...?"His hands trailed over my thighs and with the tug of shorts I felt the last of my defences slip with jarring release. It was almost as if this had caused a change in the atmosphere of the room. Ciel took a step back, eyes scanning. "I cannot think of you as my butler right now."

What was I, without the trappings of a servant? The implications were overpowering as I pondered this startling conclusion. I was not there to merely satiate a lustful appetite, neither mine nor his. He wanted to engage in equal portion, a companion to this intimacy. I gazed at my sinister hand, the nefarious emblem a declaration of my true condition. It was the only thing on my person that could not be stripped from me.

I could not deny my want for his flesh, to feel him pulsing under me... but his eyes suggested his desire for me was one of the heart. This truth made me stay my hands, and I thought of how that one night I fled to the woods so I would not have to endure his affection.

I would not repeat the action again.

I wrenched the wool finery from him, grey waist coat, dashing neck tie, dusty trousers and heeled shoes scuffed. I panted, "Your presence is disarming. Your affection is suffocating." Where my disrobing had been a drudging event, Ciel's was swift and unrestrained. "And I could not say no to it, even if I were given permission."

"What are you saying?"

"In the face of such beauty I cannot...young master..." he must have felt the trembling of my hands, saw my placid features crack as my vulnerability was finally brought to bear. "Please tell me, that you can take what little I can give... and be satisfied with it." All that was required to lay aside my hesitation was the contact of his skin, to feel his heat and those hands on my waist. I faced his shining tenderness, my lips over his, and he stood on his toes as he pulled me closer. I was sure he could feel this human-like heart hammering against my chest.

He breathed into me, "Yes... yes to all of it, and damn me for it."

I was pushed to the bed, blundering over crumpled sheets. Despite rattling breath that betrayed an uncertainty, Ciel sank onto me and I felt some deep fissure at the nefarious centre of me. I propped my head against the metal frame of the bed, holding to his hips in my lap. I shuddered as kisses on my chest wound such desolation from within me. This malignity seeped through my limbs and my ferocious mouth was on his throat, violent hands pumping his eager cock against my own. He crooned with hot breath against my ear, "Sebastian… yes…" as one hand gripped at the nape of my neck, and the other aided me in pumping our swelling pricks. Fluid slathered between us, Ciel bucked into our combined exertion as though propelled by my own foulness.

He was this force of life over me, pulsing with warmth that was more than the beat of his heart, more than simple lust. I trembled before it, awed by his magnificence and I heard myself saying, "Young master, I wish to glorify you." I could drink of him, an energy that dripped off him as thick as nectar off a tree, be drunken sick with it, and not care of how bereft it would leave me.

The world seemed to slip away from us, its noises dampening and the light leaving. My heavy presence so desired to stamp out his light, but I was powerless against the brilliance that shone from that pentagrammatic gaze. In that moment Ciel was the whole of my reality, barred and contained within an aura as softly noxious as leaden wings.

He grabbed my free hand and directed it to his rump. "Touch me here." His eyes gleamed in the darkness and I realized that I was the one who was terrified. He gasped when I pressed a finger to that pucker between his cheeks and he nudged against the sensation. "Yes, this is where I want you."

I had dreamt of this moment and yet when I stared into his eyes I was arrested by the vast dominion opening before me. The very contents of him, all his conflict, his corruption, his vivacious determination and wrath, mixing with such beauty and sweetness… the greatest prize bared, his end of the contract, hung over me. "Oh my master..."

I laid him next to me, reaching for the bedside table for oil. He lifted his legs in exhibition, face florid but his eyes were fierce. Oiled fingers invaded that desirous backside. As I slipped in a finger I watched his features bloom into radiant pleasure and he rocked against the intrusion. He was so open, legs splayed, arms yearning for my embrace. A guttural moan peeled from parted lips as I slid in another finger. My lips puckered on his neck, and he nuzzled his face into mine. Cradling arms pained me with such wondrous hurt.

His voice trembled. "Put it in."

"You are not ready."

With his free hand he stole the oil from the table. I gasped to feel slippery heat working over my stiff organ. "I say when I am ready. Do it now!"

Everything was so slick, my hands, his brow, and that tight little ass when I felt the slight barrier ease to give entrance. The head was in before either of us had a chance to brace ourselves. Ciel clenched around this incursion, too little too late realizing I was right. I heaved from the tightness, and endeavoured to steady my breathing, which was arduous when I could feel the walls clenching me from all sides.

My eyes widened at the reality of my situation. I was inside him, and he was lying before me trembling, panting, and I felt his thrumming heat all around me. My hands clutched to his thighs with desperation, staying myself to not take ruthless pleasure.

"Tilt your hips forward, open yourself." He relaxed his back slowly and I felt myself slide into him further. I raised his rear to me and plowing deeper was tedious.

His tightness was such a wonderment, shooting through my legs, and I felt weak in the knees from it. I smelled his sweat, musk and desire, the sweetness of his affection and his lust heady and dense. With wavering voice he said, "You are so big."

"Do you hurt?"

"No..." he took a breath, "It feels good... Sebastian you feel so good..." he rocked against me and the added pressure siezed me. I leaned in, tilting into him and he jerked, a wild groan escaping him. "Yes, Sebastian... again..." I eased away to grind myself to the hilt once more. With each thrust his legs widened, his body pulling toward me. His hair splayed over my pillow, and I was delighted by the fact that his scent would still be in the room when this was all over.

Each thrust was a blinding pulse, chipping away at me. Ciel's resplendence, his moans, his grasping, the sweat on his brow and the light in his eyes… I believed it could erode at the black muck, the baneful elements of my very composition. I was losing myself in my master. I panted from the exertion, my vision red and my fingers bruising. I felt his hand on my face and he whispered, "I should be so afraid of you right now."

"Actually," I grunted, "you have more control of this situation than you may realize."

"If that is the case—ah… you don't have to hold back."

My voice quaked and I did not expect it to sound so weak. "Yes, young master, I do. For my sake."

His ankles were propped on my shoulders, gripping my arms as he kept his rear lifted, eager for each thrust, his scarlet cock bobbing. I felt it unendurable: the way he accepted me, all of me, the way his watery eyes did not look away. I could not bear to look at him anymore. I raised myself on my knees, lifting his backside as I crouched over him, his body folded under me. I buried my face in his neck, clenching as I drove into him harder. I could feel his erection grazing my abdomen, his legs sliding out, bending, clamping around me. His arms wrapped about my shoulders, a desperate clawing. My pleasure was mounting, the heat flooding the base of me with agonizing wildness.

Ciel whispered in my ear. "Don't stop... ah…" My hips pounded, and he whimpered under me, blind with pleasure, his notes urging everything, "Sebastian, I— oh…" the speed of my hips, my hands which held him up so tight, and then the final tension, "Ah yes, yes! Oh shite… hah…!" releasing into an incoherent jumble. I felt white heat on my chest; his glory enveloped me, his teeth on my neck and nails in my back. I surrendered to that wild orgasm, moaning in his ear, feeling him clamp against pulsing organ as I spent myself inside him, filling that space with ferocity, vileness, and awe. It was awe that I felt when his fingers stroked my cheek as I growled against the pillow.

He twitched under me, coming down from his own ecstasy. I pulled from him and crashed to the bed. There was such a feeling of destitution from that release. I was drained and would have much preferred to crawl into some dark secluded space just to recapture some sense of myself. Yet I pulled Ciel to my chest, feeling that soul quiver within him, and I exhaled a shuddering sigh. His heat and scent and touch would reduce me, and yet there was a sick comfort to such an addiction. He grunted from the soreness, his legs stiff and his rear stinging. He traced my eyelashes, my brows, over cheekbones and lips.

"Sebastian."

I opened my eyes.

Perhaps Ciel sensed my faintness. My hands caressed over his sides, a leg draped over him with possessive force. My mind teetered somewhere between contentment and pure dread, and I reasoned this was not the worst position to occupy.

"Stay, with me... like this. Only for a while." His eyes were drooping, and he tucked his head into my shoulder. I wound that arm around him, bringing my face to his rumpled hair. He was roses, my linen, fresh fornication. I could live forever with that scent.

"What of dinner, young master?"

"I could care less."

I stroked his hair, planted a kiss on his forehead. I tasted salt and deviance. "Are you alright? Do you hurt? Do you require nothing?"

From my chest he murmured. "Why were you holding back?"