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wicked-game-black-butler · 4 years

Text

Lithium

Tick. Tock.

The room descended into a midnight blue, the golden rays of the sun having chased their way out of the study some time ago. Dying embers crackled in the hearth where a large wingback chair was tucked close to the mosaic lined fireplace. It was cold. The frigid, numbing tendrils of winter’s dusk slowly crept into the grand room. But Ciel did not move from his seat to stir the embers back to life. He did not call for Sebastian for a blanket. A blanket wouldn’t help. Ciel was always cold.

Tick. Tock.

He cast a scathing glare at the clock which sat above the mantle. The vexing machine still marched on, just as he did, with automatic purpose- to document the passing of time. Time. It was a cruel thing. It took from all, ever hungry. Heartless. Unfeeling. Insatiable. Everything he had striven to be. But even the great Earl Phantomhive was not immune to time, just like he was not immune to the feelings he had so desperately tried to deny. And as it carried on, it had taken from him as it did all things until he was left an echoing husk. Empty.

Tick. Tock.

With a heavy sigh he rose from the leather chair, his joints aching from sitting for so long. His fingers reached toward the ceiling as he stretched his petit frame. Casting the mocking instrument one last condemning glance before leaving the room and stepping into the dark hall. Sebastian would be venturing up soon to inform him that dinner was prepared in the dining room, but Ciel couldn’t be bothered. He wasn’t hungry. Nothing could satisfy the gaping void which had made its home inside him.

Tick. Tock.

His eyes ached as he ventured down the dimly lit hallway, the only light from the deepening shades of twilight. Sebastian. Now he was a creature who was kin to time. He was just as heartless, as unfeeling, and as ravenously insatiable. Just as Ciel’s revenge had been. How he wished his vengeance would be fulfilled. Hadn’t it taken enough? Would such a hollow victory be worth everything he’d had to offer in return? There had been a time when he had thought it was. But that was when the manor was filled with warmth, light, laughter, and the love of his remaining family and devoted servants and friends. Now it was nothing but cold darkness. The rooms which were once kept with pristine care had, according to his order, fallen into disrepair. Dust and cobwebs were now their greatest adornment. And the halls which were once pathways, like veins, directing the life that resided within, were only haunted with the ghosts of those who had once traveled them.

Tick. Tock.

The sun had fully set by the time he made it to his chambers. Though that was no issue- he could navigate the sparsely furnished room even in the consuming darkness. His hand ran along the soft down duvet, the mattress giving ever so slightly under his weight as he sat on the side of his bed. Even now the balls of his feet barely grazed across the cold, smooth surface of the wood floor. In all this time not much had really changed, yet everything was completely different. Suffocating silence descended on him, the gaping maw of its soundless scream deafening and his chest tightened. Nights were always the most difficult, when his loneliness was most acute. For when he was surrounded by the blinding, oppressive cloak of darkness he found his vision most clear. He was alone. Yes, terribly alone. In the night. In the dark.

Tick. Tock.

He had known Sebastian was there before he announced himself, had felt the pull of the demon’s presence before he had set foot into the room. Ciel squinted, a jabbing pain shooting through his temple as, with a snap of the butler’s fingers, a healthy, roaring fire sprang to life in the hearth, a fresh flame dancing atop the candles of the candelabra which sat on his bedside table. Sebastian always brought warmth.

“My lord.” Sebastian said quietly, “You are in bed.”

“I am.”

Ciel did not look when the demon soundlessly made his way to the corner of his bed.

“But you have not taken your dinner.”

“I’m not hungry.”

Silence.

“My lord.”

His call was barely a whisper, but the tenderness in that honeyed tone made his heart ache painfully. Without thinking, he desperately grasped a handful of his shirt and took a shuddering breath, twisting the pressed fabric as if that alone would seal the weeping cracks of his heart.

“My lord.” the whispering call came again and Ciel looked up in time to see Sebastian kneel before him, “Your hands are cold.”

With gentle movements, Sebastian pried his fingers from his shirt, taking the Earl’s hands in his own. Ciel sighed at the contact- skin on skin- and closed his eyes, relishing in the warmth of Sebastian’s touch. Both had stripped off the charade some time ago- Ciel his eyepatch and Sebastian his gloves. There was no need to hide any longer. There was no one left to see.

A sob sat at the back of his throat, tears burning his eyes beneath closed lids, as the demon wrung his master’s hands with his own, his fingers prickling with discomfort with the return of feeling. Only Sebastian could bring back feeling.

“My lord.”

The third call fell from his servant’s lips and Ciel opened his eyes, a few stray tears escaping from his mismatched gaze. Before him Sebastian still knelt, his expression calm and neutral as always, though his crimson eyes were lit with hungry curiosity.

“Is there anything I can do to help you?”

Ciel paused at the question, knowing full well what the demon meant. There was only one thing which could make him feel, could lift him above the drowning waters of nothingness. Something that satisfied more than any cake, more intoxicating than any of Lau’s drugs. Sebastian.

“Yes.” he answered quietly, yet firmly, “Sebastian, please. Make me forget.”

Tick. Tock.

Sighs and groans filled the room. Sweat glistened off alabaster skin. The air was thick and heady with desire. The bed, which had been neatly made but a half hour ago was a wrinkled mess, blankets strewn about from the passionate, undulating movements of the two men. For every cry of Sebastian’s name, he answered in kind. Every touch, every thrust was like fire in his veins- all consuming.

Ciel rocked back against Sebastian as he buried himself deep inside his master, the electric current of pleasure traveling from his cock and up his spine, his back arching from the sensation. His face pressed against his pillow, which was wet from spit and tears, losing himself in the brief refuge of this blissful moment. In this moment there was no empty manor, no dead loved ones, no revenge. Only the burning of desire, the intoxicating pleasure, the stretch, the fullness, the pain. Sebastian.

Tick. Tock.

The candles still flickered with the same healthy light they had an hour ago. Ciel watched the dancing flames, laying on his back, naked, his cheeks flushed, and his eyes drooping with satisfaction. His body was spent, but in its wake something vaguely resembling contentment rested in his chest, however short lived it might be.

The bed shifted as Sebastian rose and Ciel’s gaze roamed the demon’s form, memorizing every dip and curve of shapely muscle before, with a flourish of his hand, his butler’s uniform materialized and enveloped his frame. Once properly dressed, he turned on his heel to face his reclining master.

“Is there any more I can do for you, my lord?”

And there it was- the professionalism, the indifference. With one question the facade shattered and, with a wrenching twist of his heart, Ciel was plunged back into his melancholy. Sebastian did not care. The pleasure he derived from him was no more than what the butler could extract from a common whore. Sex was a duty, part of his service to his mature master, and nothing more.

He turned his attention away from the other man and fixed his gaze on the canopy of his four-poster bed, the tendrils of numbness already beginning to spread out from his heart to take hold in other parts of his body.

He had asked Sebastian once, if revenge was always so lonely. After chiding him for his odd display of sentimentality, his tone became more serious and he answered that he could not be sure. Given he had no capacity to love, he had no grasp on what loneliness might feel like. Though he had heard the same sentiments from some of his previous masters and human literature seemed to reflect the same, providing a new twist to the phrase “revenge is a meal best served cold”.

Sebastian waited, ever patient, for his master’s command. Ciel closed his eyes, the welcome, ebbing lull of exhaustion moving him closer to longed for unconsciousness. With each breath, silence pressed in on him, the only sound which dared to defy the consuming void was that of the steady ticking of the clock, both constant and mocking. It sneered at his suffering, cruelly reminding the Earl it would continue on- with or without him. And how Ciel longed it would be the latter.

“Leave. And take the clock with you, too.” he commanded, not bothering to open his eyes.

“Yes, my lord.”

Ciel remained still, chest rising and falling with each second. And, though he could not see Sebastian, he could feel him as he moved about the room. The candelabra was extinguished. The fire was stoked. The only other sign Sebastian had left was the soft click of the door as it closed behind him.

The tears flowed freely now- silent, a welling sorrow breaking free from his chest in the butler’s absence. He turned, burying his face in the pillow to drown out the strangled sobs that fought to slip from his lips and cupped the sides up to cover his ears. For, though he was sure Sebastian had carried the clock from his chambers, he could still hear the steady rhythm in his mind- cruel and taunting.

And, in that moment, the realization of his solitude crushed him. He was so terribly alone- in the night, in the dark.

Tick. Tock.

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This is a submission for @griever-bit-my-finger‘s SebaCiel song event, for the day for Sad Songs. It was inspired by Lithium by Evanescence and Still Here by Digital Daggers.

#sebacielmusicweek #sebaciel music week #kuroshitsuji #fanfiction #aged up sebaciel #sebastian michaelis #ciel phantomhive #black butler

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