Ciel and Elizabeth sat at the table in the front parlour over a late brunch, the sun having risen with indifference, the birds chirping in the heather bushes none the wiser. She was steady as she spread jam over a scone, and Ciel sipped his tea as he read the paper. There was an article pertaining to last night's charity ball, but he had little interest in reading it.

"Sebastian, I would like another cup, if you please." A better servant would think it deplorable that I should sit in the presence of a master, for it appears defiant and makes one slow to respond. A better servant would have also been properly attired.

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes as I approached the table. The tea pot sat in the middle of the arrangement, jam and clotted cream, scones and fresh berries from the market. He very well could have filled his own cup instead of waiting for me to get up to do it, but I supposed the endeavour would have been cumbersome with the newspaper over his lap. As I acquiesced I glanced in Elizabeth's direction. Even if she was wearing a rather stylish day ensemble in pale yellow, a suitable choice for her, her hair under her hat was frizzed and dishevelled. She had only pinned it out of the way as if an inconvenience. I suspected that since Paula had left early that morning, as well as Mey-Rin and the other servants, there was no one to assist her at her vanity that morning. When I offered to refresh her tea, she shook her head in silence.

Turning back to Ciel, I ventured, "Anything else?"

"No thank you." Ciel smiled.

When I took to my seat once more Elizabeth picked the pot off the table and refilled her own cup. Ciel rustled his paper as the lady across the table finished the last of her scone. There appeared to be some strained attempt at normalcy, and I found it all rather irritating, with the two young ones attempting to put on airs and Ciel acting as though I was just another piece of furniture. Could he not understand I had no reason to carry that aesthetic? Still, what else was I to do with myself?

"Ciel." He craned his head over the business section to meet Elizabeth's pleading expression.

"Yes, Lizzie?"

"I couldn't help but notice you are not wearing your eye patch this morning." I had offered him the eye patch that morning as I dressed him, but he stated it was useless, just as useless as those gloves, that Phantomhive chest I wore on the lapel of the jacket hanging in my quarters. Just as I could not bring to put it out of my sight, he left the eye patch sitting by his bedside.

Ciel folded his newspaper and slapped it on the table. "I wasn't wearing it last night either."

She squirmed in her seat and continued, "Well, it's just... I've always wondered what you hid underneath."

"Yes, and now you know. No use to hide it." He used to turn his head slightly when looking at someone, to better focus with one eye. Now that Ciel could look at the lady across the table directly, she seemed to cower.

"… Did it hurt?"

"Beg pardon?"

"I had always wondered... because it must have been some terrible accident, but there's no scarring..." Ciel's rubbing at his temples caused her to trail off. She considered that the subject was uncomfortable for him. In a way it was because before coming downstairs for brunch the boy had sat in front of the mirror for a full ten minutes staring at his reflection. Perhaps he was trying to cope with some new identity, for having gained a thing meant losing another. He was no stranger to this fact of life, but such knowledge does not make its reality any more comfortable.

"If I told you how I lost my sight you wouldn't believe me. But yes, when it happened, it was excruciating. Sebastian, I am finished. Thank you very much for tea, the clotted cream was nice for a change." I wheeled the trolley to the side to clean the table but he grabbed my hand. "I mean it. Truly."

I was under no obligation to set out tea for him. I very well could have told the privileged earl that he would have to visit his own kitchen and fare for himself, but I could not imagine him having to prepare his own tea, much less bake scones. When he had awoken and said, "I am hungry," of course I had the urge to fix him something. It was after I had set out brunch that Elizabeth had invited herself to the table with every right to do so and Ciel was not about to object to it. She was operating under some conclusion that if she acted as though all was well, then surely it must be so.

This was our new arrangement, one where he could not order me, but I would provide for him all the same. Every favour offered and every moment extended was to be cherished, for Ciel had no right to any of it, and knowing this he was gracious and polite. Ciel stared at my nails then proceeded to place a most scalding, reverent kiss upon my knuckles. He had noticed how its fleshy quality had given way to an uncanny firmness, for even maintaining the appearance of something of this world was a laughable charade.

I bent to steal his lips with my own, my kiss violent and roving. As I heaved a lewd moan into his mouth, for the smallest moment he forgot who was sitting across the table from him.

"I suppose kissing your pillow was a lie too," Elizabeth squeaked, and Ciel pushed me away. She almost knocked her chair over as she rose from the table, and stomped out of the room in her child-like slippers. Well, propriety was something I cared nothing for, and I had every right to conduct myself as I fancied. Ciel did not see it that way.

"Can you be a little more considerate, Sebastian?"

"Why should I offer her consideration when she offers me no respect?"

"What reason does she have to respect you?" Ciel stood from the table.

The simplest answer would be "because I am a demon," and respect and flattery mean everything to that ilk. Of course she knew none of that, knew nothing of my real history with Ciel and why there was no reason for us to wear certain vestments again. So instead I gave the second best answer.

"Perhaps exposing her to a little more indecency will convince her that she cannot affect this situation by her presence and she will consider leaving sooner." He tripped into my grasp as I twisted my arms about his waist. Even this proximity could not satisfy. "After all, Paula begged and pleaded with Miss Midford that they should return to the estate with haste. But the poor girl seems to be holding out hope for something, I cannot imagine what." I cupped at his backside as I ground against him and he pulled at the cotton of my shirt.

He gasped, "Oh I'm sure you can." He tried to kick away, knowing that an order to let go of him would have received a laugh. Ciel was not about to test what should happen if he were to cross a demon that he could no longer claim as his.

I pushed him to the couch where I had been sitting previously. "Perhaps she wants to truly catch us in the act. Perhaps she wants to see what she could never have, you at your most passionate. Ah, Ciel, what if she were to walk in to catch you buggering me?" Sinking into the cushions he writhed under me and his nails pricking through my shirt. "That would be a sight, for she could no longer think you a poor victim to my devilish seduction, could she? No, my impossible, beautiful Ciel, who could rip to shreds the very contents of me and I would still not leave your side."

"Sebastian, not here, please— oh..." but trousers were already unbuttoned, his swollen cock betraying him as I fisted it against my own and the heat of it all sent him howling. My hand worked with eager fervour along his length, pushed against my own and fluid coating the whole of it. He jerked and shivered as I delivered to him slovenly kisses. I only needed him for five minutes, just a small rush to get me through this tedium.

There was a knock on the front door and I raised my head to peer out the window at who might be standing at the portico. Ciel stilled then whispered, "Who is it?"

"Why, it is our dear friend Joanne." I quickened my pace over him, hips grinding as my thumb circled over the slick head of his cock. "What if he walked in on us? You know I would beckon him to join, and you would enjoy it, you greedy little thing." He was so close, his toes curling and his eyes scrunching. "I know what you want. You want to bury yourself in that pretty little ass of his again. You want to know how hard you can come into him while I am fucking you."

Joanne knocked on the door again. "Oh fuck me, ah..." Ciel moaned as he coated my hand and I forced him to look at me with those sad eyes. Even without the contract he was still mine, he could not run from me still. The feel of his release sizzled within me and that was satisfaction enough.

I stood from the couch as he lay panting. Snapping my fingers erased all evidence of this small tryst. "I could make a proposition, you know." I buttoned my trousers.

"I would rather you not." Even if he reclined as though defeated, he maintained his hard tone.

Joanne knocked harder this time. "I had better answer that."

When I opened the door in the foyer it appeared that he had looked ready to leave. "I am dreadfully sorry to keep you waiting, would you come in please? Ciel is in the main parlour."

Joanne turned and stared. "What is...?" He saw how I wore no tie, collar open, but I still wore the waist coat because I preferred the look. I slicked down my hair where Ciel had been pulling at it. "Sebastian! What... happened?"

"Please do not make a scene at the front entrance, get in here quickly, please," and I pulled him through the doorway. As we walked into the parlour Ciel sat up and tried to appear as if nothing indecent had happened moments ago.

"Joanne, what a surprise." Ciel stood to tuck in his shirt, a blush still emblazoned over his cheeks.

"I told you I would be coming back to collect my things…" Joanne trailed off as Ciel brushed the fringe from his face. "You're not wearing..." he turned to me. "Something has happened."

"Never you mind." Ciel directed Joanne to the table by the shoulders. "Please, sit. There is brunch on the table if you would like, and I'm sure if you ask, Sebastian will make another pot of tea for you."

"I can't stay long, I have the carriage outside, really, what is going on?"

"Joanne, you truly are curious to a fault," I commented. He sat down across from Ciel despite whatever urge was telling him to run and not look back. I could assume that it was Ciel's calm disposition that gave him little reason to fear. I leaned over him. "If I make another pot of tea will you drink it?"

"Yes." That was the correct answer.

"Thank you Sebastian, and please be quick, since Joanne has no intention to stay for long."

I wheeled the tea trolley back through the servant's corridor and into the kitchen. As per the request that I should be quick about such things, I saw little need in accomplishing a task step by step as I had always. It took but a wave to have the trolley laden with another tea, complete with scones that appeared to have just been pulled from the oven. It was but a moment later I was in the drawing room once more, setting these things back on the table.

"It wasn't necessary to go through the trouble of laying out a full tea," Joanne peered at my hands as I poured from the steaming tea pot.

"It was no trouble at all, truly. You are hungry, I could hear your stomach growling before I even let you in—"

"Sebastian, really," Ciel snapped. It was one thing for me to act unnatural around him, but a hint of it around anyone else flustered him.

I turned to his direction. "Ciel, since you're at the table again, do you care for anything?"

"Since you're asking, a good brandy would suit me." I turned to face the trolley and spun back with a brandy glass in hand. "Cheers, thank you."

Joanne muttered, "There was no brandy bottle."

"Don't think too hard on these things," Ciel sipped at his glass. "Please enjoy what has been offered to you and show your appreciation, I told you enough already. But do tell, how are you faring with Richard? Can you imagine my surprise last night, this potential associate of mine, I truly meant to invite him in the hopes he would wish to talk business, but to think he is more than an acquaintance to you."

"Yes, we had not spoken in quite some time, since he graduated from Weston... oh my, this is good tea." Joanne grabbed for the plate of scones and the jar of clotted cream. "Sebastian, how can you manage to produce fresh scones at a moment's notice—"

"Never mind that." Ciel interjected.

"Right, well, since Richard had started his business ventures he really wished to leave behind much of Weston. From the outside one begins to see the ridiculousness of student hierarchy, and while some connections lead to prospects in the professional world, Richard had no superior in the school. He was the superior, the prefect, everyone in Scarlet looked to him for no other reason than that, and he thought it all so shallow."

"But you were his fag."

"I was more than that, Ciel." He took a bite of his scone, as if he needed something to chew while ruminating over his words. "I mean, it all started that way, but such relationships can grow to be more, you know that. We hated that school, all that it came to represent, but we found companionship in each other. And we fell out of that when he graduated and moved onto larger things.

"I tried to maintain contact after that summer he left, but when he didn't respond, I assumed he was lost to me. Maybe he wanted nothing to do with me, that he wanted to forget that part of his life. He admitted that in light of his prospects, making a name for himself held far more importance than keeping contact with former classmates. And that included me.

"He was scared. You know how people talk. He wanted nothing to sully his name, to get in the way of his ambitions, but you know, something happened last night." Joanne sat up straight, eager to share this new revelation. "He is still taken with me, but it's different this time. There's a chance for us to make something work of this, to have me on his arm at social gatherings, the occasional weekend holiday..."

"Is that so?" Ciel sat his brandy glass on the table. "He wants you as a mistress. That is what I'm seeing here."

"Well, I suppose that is one way of looking at it. I prefer the term 'companion.'"

"Doesn't matter what you call it. Does all this make you happy?"

Joanne smiled. "Do you care for my happiness, Ciel? You know you have already given me so much." He reached across the table for Ciel's hand and he was startled by the warmth of such a gesture. "Are you happy as well? Something has changed about this place. You have changed overnight, as have I, but I can't help but be concerned for you."

Joanne stared at the eye that was once so brilliant, the one that no longer held such a mystery to him. He had not asked questions then, but now that it appeared diminished for having lost its occult efficacy, Ciel's frailty was placed on display. It was evidence of some long-past trauma, and the power he had claimed with attempt to overcome it had vanished.

Ciel looked at me sitting in the corner, and Joanne turned his head to do the same. It was apparent my presence unnerved him, and he clutched at Ciel's hand tighter. "Joanne, I don't need you to be concerned for me, or my happiness, or my lack of happiness for that matter. Live your life, on your own terms. I will give you some advice. Break your engagement to that simple young lady. You will save yourself some trouble." From the ballroom came the sound of tremulous hands at the piano, something Chopin and Ciel huffed in irritation. "I wish she would just leave..."

Joanne gasped. "Oh no, something awful did indeed happen." Ciel closed his eyes and nodded. "Oh God, Ciel, Heavens no!"

"The worst, and please, I wish not to discuss it." He broke their connection and threw back the last of the brandy that was sitting before him. He stood from the table. "Let us collect your things quickly."

I followed them up the stairs, even if both the boys insisted my assistance was not necessary, but Joanne had a rather large trunk and I did not wish to risk anyone having a spill down the stairs. Since last night the dress and other accoutrements had been thrown onto the bed in haste, with Joanne having changed before spending an evening with Mr. Jacobsen. These were placed back in the box that Nina Hopkins had sent them, and it fit neatly in the trunk.

From the bedside table Joanne picked up the book that Ciel had bought that one outing. "I think I preferred it better in the magazine edition. I thought some of the additions were rather superfluous. It's still not a bad read... I just think there is a story underneath all this that the author feels he isn't allowed to tell." He handed it to Ciel. "Please take it."

"No, keep it, to remember this time."

"I don't need a silly book to remember this. I have a silly dress for that."

Ciel laughed. "True, but the dress suits you. I thought you were stunning."

"Ciel Phantomhive, paying me a compliment. You have been far too generous." He clutched the book to his chest. "I originally thought you very much like the main character, but no, you are not quite that arrogant." His features cracked and he tossed the book into the trunk as he mopped up the tears spilling from his face. "I'm sorry, I don't know why, but this all feels really sad to me, Ciel, this is truly goodbye, isn't it?"

"I can't stand how you cry." Ciel embraced the weeping lad. "What if this is? What if you should find such bliss that you would never have need for me again? I would expect nothing else. Please stop this." His gentle thumb grazed over wet eyelashes and Joanne issued a shuddering sigh. "You say I am generous, well, we have both been generous to one another. I don't deserve the kindness you've given me, and your patience, your acceptance... Joanne, I thought people like you don't exist in this world, but you've proven to me they do. Don't cry over this. What we had lasted for as long as it needed to. Let it not end with tears."

Joanne nodded and pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket to dry his face. "Right. Let's load the brougham, I'm sure my driver is tired of waiting."

I picked up the trunk with no effort, and Ciel insisted he carry Joanne's bag filled to the brim with books. It was no doubt that during his stay he had read through every one of them. Elizabeth's music was arrested as she watched us load the carriage. After the trunk was secure I walked back up to the entrance. Joanne stood with his foot on the foldout step, uncertain about entering the cabin.

"Perhaps we will see each other again, Ciel. Sometime soon."

Ciel leaned against the carriage. "If it should be at some social function, will you save at least one dance for me?"

"Oh gracious, I'd let you have two." The two boys laughed, perhaps just to fill up space or stall for time, for the dozen reasons why people prolong their farewells. "I read that laughter is not a bad way to begin a friendship, but it is the best ending for one."

"As you read in that book, I imagine." The two stared at each other in uncomfortable silence until Ciel barked, "Get in the carriage."

"I don't want to say goodbye."

"Then don't. And don't you start crying again."

Ciel backed away and pushed Joanne inside. He tried to close the door but Joanne held it open.

"I love you, Ciel."

The young man who was always rather uncertain of himself seemed to find certainty in one thing in this world. One could claim he had not given Ciel a single thing during his holiday, but in some peculiar way, what he had given meant everything.

Ciel gave a quick glance at the cabbie high on his seat not giving an iota of attention to them. For the smallest moment I thought he was going to take off with Joanne, for Ciel stepped up to grasp the boy in the carriage by the back of the neck. He granted such a full, open kiss, the sort that could have made me swoon.

A moment later the contact was severed and Ciel wrestled the door handle away from Joanne. Before closing it on him he said, "I wish you all the luck at Weston."

Ciel stomped up the pavement to the door, not looking back as the carriage rounded out of sight. There was a reason why Ciel made Joanne leave in haste, why he could not bear to turn back and would not show to his friend the crushing sadness that was seeping into his features as he approached the steps. He did not glance at me on the porch as he murmured, "Get inside."

He clung to the railing on the stair as he tried to breathe back his sobs, and shield his eyes. I collected him in my arms. "Come now," I shushed, but it appeared to squeeze from him a loud and bitter sort of cry.

"He's just a stupid boy, Sebastian. None of it was supposed to mean anything, and ah, he goes and makes a damned fool of me." He let out a poignant laugh.

I sat on the stair for a moment, rocking him against me as I buried my lips into the crown of his head. He buried his face in my shirt, wrinkling it in his fingers to pat at his eyes. So he felt a little heartbreak over Joanne and sought some consolation in me. I let him use me for this, because he let me use him to wade in his pretty weeping.

Elizabeth rounded the corner at a slow pace, feeling as though she was intruding on a private moment, which she was. I snaked an arm around Ciel tighter, pulling his face further into my chest. Staring at her over the top of his head, I wanted my eyes to blaze with the message, "Do not dare."

But of course, feeling she had been slighted, she felt it necessary to be vindictive.

"Ciel, just call up a carriage for him too, send him packing. It seemed easy enough for that poof."

Ciel ceased crying. I was twitching, ready to pummel into her but Ciel whispered, "No, don't." He turned around, pushing from my grasp. "What did you call Joanne?"

"You heard me."

"No, I think it bears repeating. Come on, Lizzie. Let's hear how you really feel about him." As he stood his voice rose as well. It was easy to vent his sadness to anger, for it gave the emotion a more constructive feeling. "Tell me how you hate my lady friend who wears your curls better than you do. How you must hate it, that I think he's better at parties, and dinner conversation, and weekend outings and when I fucked him, Lizzie," he stood before her and grabbed her at the shoulders, "he moaned like a bitch in heat and I loved it!"

In her rage she shrugged him off and slapped him. It sounded wet from the tears still on his face, and Elizabeth's cheeks went wet as well. Ciel looked stunned. No one ever hit Ciel Phantomhive. He stepped back and cradled his cheek. "I probably deserved that."

"You have gone mad, Ciel."

"No... no. I'm upset. I don't need to yell in your face about it, but you wrongly insulted my friend, and I consider him a good friend because frankly, he knows how not to overstay his welcome."

"And what of the roué behind you?"

I shot off the stair but Ciel raised his hand. "Please, Sebastian."

"Do not treat me as a dog, Ciel."

"Then do not act like some hell hound." He turned to Elizabeth. "Sebastian does not stay as a guest. He stays as a companion."

"Like a loyal dog." She folded her arms.

"You don't know when to quit, do you?" Their noses were touching when he shouted, "You're hurting, so you feel it justified to hurt others? Well I'm hurting, does that mean I can take it out on you?"

Elizabeth screeched, "Don't yell in my face!" She balled her fist with more than rage. It was relived terror I had never seen in her before. Her punch was driven by some instinct, how her heart sped as if she was fighting for her life but Ciel had not laid a hand on her. This was most curious because nothing from what I saw warranted such an extreme a reaction as that. A moment later she realised that Ciel had buckled to the floor, clutching his eye. She held her chest, wheezing in attempt to catch her breath.

"I'm sorry... Ciel..." she gasped as she fell to the floor. "I didn't mean..."

"You punched me in my good eye, you bitch, but you're wheezing and carrying on like you're having a spell, like you're the only one here who suffers. Fine, Elizabeth, no one's pain and suffering can match yours. Does that make you feel vindicated?" I leaned to pick up the boy from the floor, but he continued to shout all the same. "I hope you never have to suffer a day of true terror, not the likes that I knew for a full month. I don't think you could handle an hour of it!"

"Ciel, stop," I pleaded. Elizabeth coughed, sputtering ugly sobs that wracked her whole body. She curled on the floor and tore at the hem of her dress. I recalled the time I pulled her from the closet in the LeHavre factory, and thought there might have been some ghastly terror as I opened that door. She never spoke of it. She never did bring to light any horror she might have faced in that small amount of time she was held hostage. A great deal can happen in the span of a few short hours. When she saw Ciel unconscious with bleeding contusion her focus went to that. It is easier to give care for the suffering of others when our own traumas are too horrid to bear.

Even if he no longer shouted, he would not cease his bitter remarks. "Because being unrequited is just too intolerable for you. Forgive me for not wanting to give you the perfect life you think you deserve. So just leave already. If you really loved me you would have never hit me. Get out of my life. I don't want you a part of it."

But she continued to rock herself and howl on the floor in the foyer.

She had dealt Ciel a really terrible blow to the face. It was almost impressive. It would need tending to, and I remembered the cut of meat I had to serve for the evening, since I did not have opportunity to serve it that Thursday due to our Indian guests. In the kitchen I sat him on the counter and pulled the marbled steak from the ice box. I slapped it on his face and he sighed from the relief of it.

"It helps with swelling. You will have bruising for a week."

"Thank you, Sebastian."

Eventually Elizabeth's screaming subsided to a keening moan, then a whimper, then vanished altogether. The house went silent, but I still felt her presence in her room. She made no effort to leave. I went up later in the evening to inquire if she should care for a bit of dinner, but she made not a sound. She had locked the door as well. I even offered to bring it to her room, but she still would not respond.

It must have been late in the evening when I heard her unlock her door and pad down the stairs. Ciel had requested me alone with him after dinner. Despite how he kissed at my shoulders I honed in on what she was doing downstairs, because she was not getting something to eat. She picked up something from the drawing room: the gramophone. Ciel pushed me to the mattress and trailed his tongue down my stomach. Elizabeth crept up the stairs with the hefty instrument and back into her room.

"Sebastian, I have noticed that you have not quite been yourself today," Ciel murmured as he approached the navel on my belly.

"Boy, I have been more myself today than I have been in years."

"So that is what's different about you." He pumped my stiffened length, peering at me. "Even at your most civil, I could never forget that you're a devil. I knew from the beginning all this would ruin me. And now I know you can't control yourself. I felt it in how you forced me to come earlier today. It was bizarre, how you gave me the most smouldering look at the precise moment, and it felt like you pulled it out of me in a rush with no effort at all."

"And you want it again."

"Over and over."

"Then turn this way, lay over top of me." I positioned him to crouch over my face, his sweet little cock dangling before me, his heady musk filling my senses. "You have a craving for my prick in your mouth, but I want to taste you as well, so you are not opposed to this arrangement, are you?"

I clutched at his thighs as I swallowed all of him. Ciel bent over me, his moans swirling over the head.

A song began to play, low and dim from behind some closed door down the hallway. I recognised such a song, sung soprano and in German, one of those most beautiful operas in all its melancholy.

Ave Maria, Maiden mild, hear this maiden's supplication

From this wild unyielding rock, may this prayer blow your way.

We sleep safely until morning, whether mankind is still so cruel.

Oh Maiden, how this maiden worries, Oh mother, hear this suppliant child!

He curled an arm around one of my legs as he pumped with his other hand, tongue flicking, and I responded with my lips pursued at the base of his cock, growing harder against the back of my throat. My tongue glazed across the ridge of him, cradling that leaking tip. How he tasted of something beyond good or evil, something that transcends such reasoning.

Ave Maria! Undefiled! When we sink down upon this rock to sleep,

And we in your protection covered, softened the hard rock seems to us.

You smile, blow rosy fragrances into this musty cavern,

O Mother, hear a suppliant child, O maiden, a maiden calls!

I felt myself unravelling, with those sharp nails biting into his flesh and encouraging him to buck into my starving mouth. This slippery mire coiled about him, for he wanted to be cloaked in it. How the moaning vibrated against that rod, how the base of me ached for him to scream over it.

Ave Maria, pure handmaiden! The demons of the earth and the air,

By the grace of your eye are chased away, you cannot live with us here.

We want to quietly bow to fate, since us your holy comfort touches;

The Virgin, thee a maiden, the child who begs for the Father.

His hips rocking, he fucked my mouth mercilessly, my throat open to receive all of it. He held me through the orgasm that ripped at him, spittle dripping over the fingers that stroked me.

"Sebastian, you're going to eat me alive..."

I pulled from his cock to speak. "I have been partaking of you since the beginning, drop by drop. But it seems I cannot diminish you this way. No, you just become richer every time."

The gramophone played its Ave Maria once more, and Ciel came for me again. It seemed that as soon as the song finished playing Elizabeth would begin the recording again.

He was a blanket of shadow, consuming me until we lost all sense of ourselves, just tight tendrils of murky effluence. Still the song warbled on, an angelic voice praying for all evil and despair to be banished. Ciel would not beg me to stop, even after his orgasms had come up dry, even as his body was limp over me and I snaked over every inch of him. He wanted to be lost to oblivion, to meet an end wrecked by the pleasure I granted over his thin form.

"Sebastian..." his voice cracked. "I thought I heard music, but it has stopped." His cock had gone soft, sucked raw. His legs trembled and he no longer held tight to me. "I can't move..."

I rolled him off of me, but the black still coiled tight about him and my skin seemed stained with ink. His hair stuck to his forehead with sweat. He peered at me through his half-lidded eyes. "You look positively wretched."

My hands looked as claws dipped in soot, as did the rest of me. I was bulging beyond the confines of this physical form, my limbs as ropes of muscle, skin like polished jet, my hair wild and stringing about my shoulders.

And I smelled it, blood and loss and despair and death. A soul has a particular sort of presence about it when it is just about to leave its casing. It rises from its physical restraint and drifts just above it, waiting for when it blooms in full so it may be harvested.

There were two, floating in the same room, from one body.

Author's note: This is why I couldn't leave you hanging. Take a deep breath. The next chapter will really hurt.