Disclaimer: Nope.

Author's Note: Happy Valentine's Day? XD;

Warnings: Written and edited in a bit of a rush. Demon Ciel. Cannibalism? SebaCiel.

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Chocolate

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Thou art to me a delicious torment.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The date is marked in crimson on the paper wall-calendar, circled in a smeared ring of browning burgundy. Flaking. Fading. But though the sloppy mark is no longer as vivid as it had once been, its saccharine fragrance remains strong: the scent that wafts from the wrinkled, numbered pages has been teasing the butler's senses for an unbearable two weeks; a pinkie promise of a different sort, and from the shorn film of his flesh a red thread had dribbled over chart, floor, and tongue.

A wicked, wicked tongue. It pokes between the crescent moon of his lips, covered in velvet barbs, and trails down the length of a half-hidden sternum, blanketed in frills and gauze and taut, ivory tissue. On opposite sides of that line, lissome arms wriggle like bounded snakes; on opposite sides of his frail form, Sebastian's thighs rest and entrap. The kitchen table is cold beneath his master's bitty back— the iced mahogany of the hone slabs creeps through the thin barrier of luxurious silk, biting into Ciel's body as fervently as needle-sharp incisors.

Sebastian is unstitching his way down the front of the child's chest, now— leaving pinholes of maroon that ooze thin spools of scarlet string. Like a surgeon, like a madman, like a lover… carefully, amorously unlacing his seams, loosening the fabric sheets that keep the broken doll from crumbling into ash. And the teeny toy hiccups and hisses at the gentle ministrations, writhing in half-hearted agony as his glistening sweat plasticizes. His torso is an invasion of tiny demon eyes, gazing upward through the pale plaster of his humanoid disguise: beneath the alabaster lies an abyss of hell and darkness, and his butler is going to set it free.

The first layer always hurts the most: nerve endings scream and fine hairs waver as Sebastian ever-so-sweetly severs membrane from membrane, peeling back twin bolts of near-lucent textile. There is blood waiting— lurking, bubbling— between coats of porcelain white and salmon pink, spurting from ruptured tubers that had once been a noble azure, but like magic had become the same thick-wine hue as the contorted irises peeping through his heaving breast. There are muffled scraping sounds, half-heard through the gray static of painpainpain, and the sensation of skin atop skin is so strange, so novel, when it is all your own.

Sebastian's mouth is on his sternum, again— only differently than before. Truer than before. His colorless lips are thin and grinning, and again their sickle curve cuts through his ragged soul as smoothly as a butcher's silver cleaver. A kiss on bruising muscles, sinewy and constrict-contract-convulsing; protective cords of ropey ligaments and yellowed fat and other fluids have leaked from homemade orifices, and the crystalline saliva that trickles atop his sallow bones sizzles like acid and nearly makes the boy howl. His Adam's apple bobs desperately, clawing at the inside of his fully-exposed throat, and the elder-demon half-considers taking a juicy bite out of that tempting fruit.

But no. There are more succulent sweets to be sampled. Treats and treasures that he is so rarely offered, the poor, half-starved slave. And already, the boy's body is fighting against his previous promise: perhaps not intentionally, but instinctually. Like the first frost of winter, thin, glittering glazes of gossamer flesh are creeping over the gory landscape of the partly-eviscerated child, clinging like pale ivy to a concave cage of ribs— urgently trying to swallow Sebastian's carefully crafted fissure. But that isn't fair, that isn't right; Ciel chokes on a yowl as— with a reedy pop— his butler breaks through the translucent drum of his chest, shattering the cartilage beneath the raw veneer of new and tender flesh.

Two fingers prod experimentally inward, poking deep within the gruesome gap: warily seeking out sharpened shards. He finds two or three, and fishes out the splintered spikes of bone before they can puncture anything gelatinous or vital. Heaven (or Hell) forbid that he accidentally cause his charge any more distress than is entirely necessary. The rest of the boy's ribcage, as fragmented as it may have been, he leaves greatly alone… though he is forced to snap the middle left from its base in order to reach his ultimate prize. As the crisp crack echoes through the shadowed kitchen, Ciel's insides squirm in responding anguish: serpentine bowels undulate in liquid sheathes of lipids as the tiny pockets and pouches of his purpling organs quiver, stomach rolling and spleen swelling and bladder rippling in the wake of an unvoiced howl of searing excruciation.

The elder devil smiles— quietly, benevolently, affectionately— as he reaches a slender hand into the musty, muggy chasm. The expression further softens when his wordless greeting is answered by a shuddering pulse of welcome, delicate and warm as the wings of a baby butterfly. Beneath the ginger tips of his lithesome fingers, the little heart thuds and pounds and aches… and the boy to whom it is (still) attached snuffles and grunts and whimpers, chin and lashes quavering as violently as every other fiber of his being.

But still, he, too, is smiling. And he continues smiling, even after his life-force is unfeelingly ripped from his center, torn from him with a belly-churning squelch— tissues and tubes splitting and spurting and splattering against the spackle of the ceiling. Even after his wide eyes dull to lifeless, limpid oceans, salty waves of which continue surging over the flat of his clammy temples, dripping to pool beside foamy lakes of spittle on the table. Even after his body ceases to move at all: every atom of it dying in the throes of shock and suffering, if only for the briefest of whiles.

And as he sleeps with a smile, so he wakes with a smile— a smile and a frantic gasp for air— some immeasurable time later, still sprawled across the slickened countertop, still pinned beneath Sebastian's solid weight, still shorn of clothing and a membrane or two… but he doesn't care, doesn't even notice, because his butler is cherry-mouthed and beaming, nuzzling against his bloodied nape and whispering words of sated thanks and adoration.

Ciel tangles weakened fingers in his demon's feathery down, holding him close, allowing Sebastian to reciprocate hurt with pleasurepleasurepleasure. Nips and kisses, tongue and teeth, fingers and legs that lace like red threads and corset strings… And it isn't very long before Sebastian is eating him again— is inside of him again— and Ciel is giving him his heart again, in a way so much more frightening and painful than before. But that is what this holiday is all about, really, and so he doesn't mind.

For today, at least, he doesn't mind.

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My heart to you is given:
Oh, do give yours to me;
We'll lock them up together,
And throw away the key.
~Frederick Saunders

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