Burning edges (chapter 3)

[danzanelfuoco]

BLACK BUTLER

Ciel Phantohive/Sebastian Michaelis (brief Ciel/OMC)

Soulmate!AU

COW-T #11 (w7, m7) - “Soulmates aren't the ones who make you happiest, no. They're instead the ones who make you feel the most. Burning edges and scars and stars. Old pangs, captivation and beauty. Strain and shadows and worry and yearning. Sweetness and madness and dreamlike surrender. They hurl you into the abyss. They taste like hope.”

 

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

 

 

- Chapter 3 - 

 

The tricky part of ‘dealing with the devil’ is being specific, otherwise the demon will take advantage of the request and twist it to Its favor. 

But the boy had been specific, very specific. 

In Its millennia of living the demon had met very few people with the capability of stating correctly what they wanted, and that a ten years old boy could do so was remarkable, even if it meant It would need more time to complete Its part of the deal before It could feast. To an immortal being two years or twenty were nothing, especially if in the meantime It could season the soul to Its palate. 

What is not commonly known, however, is that specificity is the tricky part for both of the involved. 

 

* * * 

 

The scandal becomes old history, then fades, then everyone forgets the main events, remembering only vague details, as it usually happens when news become old and no longer interesting. 

By the time “oh, I had forgot Ciel Phantomhive had a dead twin, it wasn’t that long ago that someone pretended to be him, right?” is the general tone of conversations regarding the topic, the Earl of Phantomhive has already buried the murder of Lady Bethnal at the hand of Lord Bethnal with a carriage incident that unfortunately took the lives of both spouses - Sebastian had gleefully chuckled at that, putting back the white gloves over his bloody hands as he left the wreck behind -, covered up a sapphic liaison between a distant cousin of the Queen and her handmaid - and that had actually been hilarious in retrospective, when the thirty-something spinster had asked him to marry her for convenience assuring him with a knowing smile that she wouldn’t object to his butler as long as he didn’t object to her maid and Ciel had almost had a stroke - and stopped a serial killer - another one - before he could kill his fourth victim. 

And that’s when he meets the eye of one Lord William Rotthope across the drawing room at Lady Brewell’s ball. 

 

* * * 

 

Lord Rotthope likes them young and naive. Ciel is the first - even if, already nearing sixteen, he’s becoming a tad too old for Lord Rotthope - and definitely can look the latter, if he puts his mind to it. 

And the suspects that Lord Rotthope also leaves them bloody and battered and broken, if not dead, when he’s done with them, it’s what makes Ciel put his mind to it. 

So Ciel very purposely meets the eye of Lord Rotthope across the drawing room at Lady Brewell’s ball and lets the moment linger a little too much before blushing as if suddenly realizing what he’s doing and looking away with studied embarrassment, as if his staring was somehow inappropriate. 

Lord Rotthope takes his time to come to him, circumnavigating the hall, as he engages in conversation with their most esteemed host, leaving her behind just to discuss the increasing prices of wool with one of the richest merchants of London - rich enough to be invited to such a ball - before asking the lovely Lady Middleton to a dance. 

“Patience, young Master,” Sebastian leans over his shoulder to whisper in his ear, “One should be prepared to wait when setting a trap.”

Ciel purses his lips, “And waiting I am, but this is becoming tiresome.”
“Is he hurting your pride, my Lord?” Sebastian lightly mocks him, “Afraid he doesn’t find you fascinating enough?” 

As if Ciel isn’t the most intriguing person in the whole room. Young and finely dressed, wealthy and with a title that allows him a deeply connection with the Queen.  

The Earl of Phantomhive doesn’t dignify him with an answer.

“He can hardly run to you, not with this many witnesses.” 

“A cautious man, indeed.” Ciel sneers and watches him releasing his dance partner, so maybe now that accursed man will reach him. “Find yourself something to do, Sebastian.” And when he looks for Lord Rotthope again, he’s looking back. Finally. 

Ciel flushes, caught, and slips a fingers under his collar to loosen the handkerchief around his neck. 

He sees the corner of the man’s lips twitching, he’s suppressing a grin, he thinks he has him. 

And, finally, Lord Rotthope comes to him, now that it’s polite enough, unsuspicious enough. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever had the honor to met you,” he says and Ciel makes a point of looking everywhere but at him, fretting every time he meets his eyes.
“I seldom frequent this kind of social venues,” he replies awkwardly and almost babbling, as if talking to him was a great impropriety. 

“How odd. A young man like you, surely is looking for some company to spend the time…” it’s innocent enough, at least it should be since it’s coming from a fellow man, someone offering friendship, no double entendre. Except Lord Rotthope delivers it as a consumed harlot would. 

Ciel blushes and blinks and lets his eyes linger significantly on his mouth before snapping them up to his eyes, blushing like the virgin maiden he’s trying to be. 

“I’m already betrothed, I hardly need to look for a wife.” 

“Ah, yes, it’s a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife,” Lord Rotthope quotes to him and laughs, as if Ciel has just said something very silly and naive, “But I wasn’t talking about female company, for how much the ladies in this room would be heartbroken to hear you’re already engaged.” 

“You - you weren’t?” 

“No. Sometimes a man just needs another man to talk to.” 

“Oh.” Ciel bites his lower lip, drawing the attention of the man to it. Lord Rotthope is watching him with predatory eyes, but he doesn’t know Ciel is a poisonous snake. “I suppose… I suppose I can see the appeal.” 

“Most people do. I am William, Duke of Rotthope, at your service.” 

“Ciel,” he says, “Ciel Phantomhive. I’m… well, I’m the Earl of Phantomhive.” 

He’s clumsy and awkward and embarrassed and Lord Rotthope falls for it like an idiot. He should have known better, he should have paid attention to the rumors. The Earl of Phantomhive is the Queen’s watchdog, he’s an Aristocrat of Evil, he’s the one who will burn you for your secrets. 

But humans always see what they want to see and William Rotthope is not an exception. He looks at the boy, and doesn’t see the venomous sting behind that blue eye opened so wide, as if to take in the whole world for the first time, or that red swollen lips he keeps biting, so unsure about himself. He’s blind like that. 

So Ciel smiles and flutter his lashes innocently, as the ‘inexperienced on the facts of live’ young Earl that he is, and starts spending time with the man. 

 

* * * 

 

At first is just a ‘fortuitous’ accident that they have their boxes mixed up at the annual horse race at Ascot and they end up sitting next to each other. 

Lord Rotthope inquires if he has placed a bet and Ciel just shakes his head.

“I’ve lost,” he says, fidgeting with a piece of paper, “again,” he whines, just enough to look completely incompetent in this venue. “At least the horses are a pleasant view.”
He wonders if he has overkilled it, but Lord Rotthope smiles in what he probably thinks he’s concealed wickedness and Ciel needs to suppress the impulses of both rolling his eyes and grinning smugly. 

He does none of it, of course, instead he accept the invitation to some art vernissage of a French painter Lord Rotthope has taken so much interest in. They spend the evening discussing dull paintings of landscapes, and ugh, horses, because apparently “please, call me William” has taken on his youthful liking for horses and has explicitly asked the painter to put more of them in the exhibit. Ciel is vaguely starting to regret it, but smiles his way to the end of the evening nonetheless. 

After that there is another ball, this times it’s at the Ferrars, and they spend most of the time together. Oh, of course, Lord Rotthope dances and dances, again and again, always asking for a place in the carnet of whatever girl would catch his eye, and yet he always comes back to him to comment on it afterwards. 

Ciel, perfect gentleman that he is, dances with their host and her daughters, and then refuses to ever re-enter the dance floor, preferring the calmness of being in the edges. Save for Lord Rotthope, he doesn’t talk to anyone, or so the other guest would tell if asked, because no one ever considers the servants. So no one notices the butler perpetually hovering over Lord Phantomhive’s shoulders.  

“Tell me, Sebastian, do you think he looks captivated enough?” The boy asks without dropping his shy façade. 

“Yes, my Lord,” Sebastian can’t lie, so he tells him the truth. The man would eat in his palm if Ciel just asked him blushing hard enough and he wouldn’t even notice the deception. 

“Then I think it’s time to up our game,” Ciel nods and finally, finally, Sebastian chuckles.  

When Lord Rotthope - oh, apologies, William - comes back from the umpteenth dance with Lady Brewell, Ciel is bold enough to invite him at his estate for an afternoon tea the next day. He doesn’t even stutter that much. 

 

* * * 

 

At first Ciel thinks he has miscalculated. 

Lord Rotthope is unexceptionably polite even if they are alone. He sips his tea and talks about the weather, about Mrs Ferrars’ ball, about the end of the season and all sorts of other inane topics. A very boring afternoon, and Ciel doesn’t understand. 

Not once Lord Rotthope is out of place or tells him something that could be misinterpreted. Not even once. 

“If you’ll excuse me for a minute,” Ciel says and leaves him to nurse his cup of tea. But he doesn’t go for the bathroom as he might have implied, no, he doesn’t need more than ten feet in the hallway and then Sebastian is at his side.

“Why?” Ciel asks him without any preambles and Sebastian could play daft, but he’s really finer than that. 

“You’ve played so hard to get, young Master, he doesn’t want to show his hand too soon and lose his chance.” 

Ciel scoffs, “I’m tiring of this little games.” 

“Well, he’s here, is he not?” Sebastian lips curl upward enough to resemble a smirk, “We could get rid of him right away. A little incident with his carriage, how unfortunate.”  

Ciel thinks about it. They don’t have first hand evidence, but they have never really needed it.  Nobody would care, nobody would complain about his methods, not when the Queen approved, and his duty to stop him, without much fuss, couldn’t be taken on with more favorable conditions.This is the most isolated they can get him, save of breaking into his house during the night, and besides as it is now, no one has seen them together more then a few times, and always in social venues where it would be impolite to not talk. Nobody would think of asking him except as an afterthought, if the man where to disappear. 

“Yes, maybe it’s time to let Lord Rotthope know he’s already past his welcoming. Come and fetch the tray, Sebastian, it should be enough of a hint.” 

He’ll never leave the house, of course, but theatrics are important anyway. 

Sebastian bows his head slighly, already tasting the blood he will spill, and follows him like the shadow he usually is, passing to the front only to open the door of the study and let him in. 

Ciel looks up just for a second, meeting the demon’s gaze in a silent confirmation, and then he’s back again to smiling shyly and hiding behind long lashes. 

“Apologies if I’ve kept you waiting, William,” Ciel goes to sit back in his place and frowns when he sees the speculating glint in Lord Rotthope’s eyes.

“I was just thinking about organizing a rescue party, my dear,” the man playfully jests, but Ciel can recognize the iron masked under the velvet and can’t help but wonder what has changed in those few minutes. 

“Oh no, I assure you, there was no need,” Ciel chuckles, hides his mouth behind his hand, and waits for whatever is happening to unfold. “Sebastian here had just some question about tomorrow’s schedule.” 

At that Sebastian raises his head from the cups he’s carefully putting back on the tray, “The young Master was very exhaustive in his directions.” 

“Was he now?” The man asks, a cutting edge in his voice. 

Ciel and Sebastian exchanges looks and Lord Rotthope’s face hardens even more. 

“I think Sebastian should leave now.” 

“Young Master?” The demons asks, because he might be reduced to play the butler, but he surely won’t obey this lesser human as if he really were one. 

Ciel takes a moment to ponder, and then nods, “I - Yes, Sebastian. Leave us, I don’t mind.” 

“Of course, my Lord.” Nothing shows on his face, but Ciel nonetheless knows that he’s amused by this change of plans. Oh, well, time to see how good they are at improvising. 

The door closes behind the butler and then Lord Rotthope stands. 

“William?” Ciel asks, scrambling to get up too and not be discourteous. 

The man doesn’t reply to him, instead he very purposely walks toward him and then he kisses him. 

It’s not unexpected - it’s what they were planning from the start, after all - but still it takes Ciel by surprise and he doesn’t really have to feign it. 

Lord Rotthope moves his mouth over his, carefully prying it open, as he caresses his cheeks and Ciel finds it difficult to resist. 

“No, no, we can’t,” Ciel moans, trying to push him away without too much conviction,  “William, it’s wrong.” 

“You want it as much as I do,” the man whispers in his ear, and then proceeds to nibble it, trailing down his throat with openmouthed kisses until he reaches the place where the muscles meets the breastbone, discarding the handkerchief tightened against his neck in the process. “And how can it be wrong when it feels so good?”

It’s trite and frankly overused, and Ciel would roll his eyes, but regardless of the farce he’s trying to put up, Ciel feels himself really shiver under his touch. 

He hadn’t taken in consideration he could actually feel something, he could really enjoy and take pleasure from what he hadn’t simply gone past considering a job. Well, the man knows what he’s doing, that he can admit. 

They should wait longer, that was the original plan - Ciel should rejected him now, give him enough to let him think he’s interested deep down, but too shy and still morally firm to give in to his heart’s desire, he should send him away with a promise of not now, but maybe, maybe if he insists enough, maybe if he obsess with Ciel and keeps going to him, maybe then he could make him see his way and it’s just question of time. Or, taking in consideration his little chat with Sebastian, he should just call for the demon to come and dispose of him now. 

Instead Ciel says, “Not here, someone could see us,” and closes his hand around Lord Rotthope’s wrist dragging him out of the study and in search of the nearest bedroom. 

It’s stupid and risky - even if he knows that Sebastian would intervene if he really got in any danger - but he takes the risk nonetheless.  And why wouldn’t he? He deserves it - a little bit of fun in between all his duties and obligations - and he’ll take it where he can, even if it’s from some perverse guy he’ll end up disposing of anyway. 

“Someone could see us?” Lord Rotthope asks, because they are the only ones in the estate, and Ciel refrains from rolling his eyes. “In your own house?”

“Servants talk, William.” 

And no wonder his proclivities had come to Ciel’s ear, if he doesn’t take even this modicum of precautions.
“Oh I see. And we wouldn’t want that handsome butler of yours seeing us, would we?” 

That manages to actually surprise Ciel. He stops in his track, and turns to face him, astounded. “My, William, are you jealous?” So that was it, what changed his mind? He was afraid the butler would steal his prey? He almost laughs in his face and he has to wonder if it would give his cynicism away or if it would actually be endearing, something so silly the kid could laugh about it. 

“Do I have any reason to?” The man cocks his head, predatory, almost daring him. 

“No,” Ciel breathes and then William is kissing him again, full on the mouth, tongue slipping between his parted lips, hands grasping the collar of his jacket. 

They’re still in the corridors, though, and they are being carried away. Ciel can’t allow it, won’t allow it, so he takes a step back and pulls him with him, continuing to guide him deeper inside the household. 

“Where are we going?” 

Ciel doesn’t answer and finally, finally, the corridor ends in a row of bedrooms. Ciel takes the first at hand, some unused guest room that hasn’t been used in decades, but that’s still perfectly clean because he pays his staff for a reason. 

“Nobody ever comes here,” Ciel closes the door at his shoulder, leaning against it, and he feels breathless. Exhilarated. 

He can’t almost believe himself. But then again, he really never had any moral qualms so he doesn’t see why he should start now. 

Lord Rotthope looks around and raises his eyebrows impressed, “Now, my dear, Ciel, I think it’s time to drop all pretenses.” 

“What? I - I don’t understand.” 

“Oh, I don’t really think it to be true. But it doesn’t matter.” 

“What are you -?”

“A bedroom, Ciel? So naive and clueless and yet here is where you bring me, after just a kiss.” 

Just for a second Ciel looks lost, as if he doesn’t really understand, but then his features change, harden. “Well, what can I say. This was taking too long.” 

It was a gamble, after all the boy could have just not thought about the implications, or he might have just played  a little more shy than he actually was to keep up pretenses. William had noticed him slip into some more calloused habits, a word misplaced, a grin out of character, but just for so little he might as well have imagined it.
And now, “Oh,” it hits him, the extent of the boy’s deceit, every word, every gesture was just a rouse, he was never innocent in the first place, “Oh, you really played me, didn’t you?” 

“Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy it,” Ciel smirks and William feels the need to slap him, to beat him back in his place, and how did he dare mock him so. 

He takes a step forward - he’s imposing, muscular and taller then the Earl will ever be, an adult, whereas he’s just boy - but Ciel doesn’t even flinch.
Bring it on, his cutting smile seems to challenge him and William doesn’t hit him, no he kisses him, hard and hot and bruising, and he knocks him against the door, sliding his knee between his legs and pressing his body against his. He keeps kissing him as he frees him from his jacket, his vest, his shirt and Ciel lets him, because it’s damning good and he never felt so alive. 

“What an awful little mark you have there,” William says viciously and trails a finger over the crisscrossed broken lines that take up Ciel’s wrist and part of his forearm, so similar to the dark scars of a suicide’s blade. 

“My marks are mine, William.” Do not ask.
“As you wish, my dear Ciel,” Lord Rotthope says and ignore the dangerous inflection in his voice, kissing him again, his fingers trailing under his camisole, trying to relieve him of even the last garment that covers his torso, but Ciel stops his hands. 

“All of them.” 

Lord Rotthope opens his mouth, what other marks could possibly be there, he wonders, but the question stays on his lips, unasked. It’s not yet the time to do it, he smiles to himself. 

So the boy was a fraud, not so innocent, not so gullible and not stupid at all. Well, what a pity. But there are other things he can take, he has seen it, something way more interesting than the lame virtue of a stable boy or, in this case, an orphan Earl. There are secrets he can pry and the thrill, the challenge of building a trust he can exploit in someone who already distrusts him. And after all, it’s never been about sex, no, they joy he feels it’s all in the humiliation, the little widening of their eyes when they realize how incredibly stupid they have been to fall for his act of kindness. There are better thing to violate and rip in this boy than his body. 

“So I get the eyepatch stays too.” 

“Was that even in question?” 

William shakes his head and kisses him again, tugging at his trousers this time, and this time Ciel doesn’t stop him, his hands slightly trembling as he aims to do the same thing. 

William is tender and lovely and Ciel knows it’s fake, Ciel knows the man is pretending - they have enough evidence, enough testimonies that Sebastian has pried and coaxed with false compassion from boys too scared to talk. 

It always starts like this. He’s gentle and sweet and handsome and they just fall for it. It doesn’t last long, after a few times, enough to lure them in this false sense of security and love and care, he almost imperceptibly becomes more rough - there’s lesser and lesser preparation each time, less lubricant, the grip of his hands tightens until the skin bruises, the restraint in his love bites dissolves until he draws blood and then, if the boy is fortunate, he’s left crying and heartbroken and not able to ride a horse for a few days. That is, if the boy is important enough his disappearance would matter to anyone. 

Ciel won’t let him try to fool him, won’t let him use him as his toy. 

“Not like that,” he says and stills his hands and pushes him to drop the act. 

“Oh,” Lord Rotthope’s mouth opens in a grin, a malicious glint in his eyes. 

“You like it rough, don’t you. You like it to hurt.” 

Afterwards it’s all very rapid, William pushes him on the mattress and climbs on top of him as he spits in his hand. It’s just saliva and it’s burning, hot searing pain splitting him in half. 

It hurts, and Ciel curses the saints down their holy seats in paradise and yet he trusts back, even when William gives him time to adjust, and stills waiting for the ache to subside, he rides the pain and the excitement and the pleasure. He hurts and for the first time in forever the pain is not in his chest. 

It’s too soon, way too soon, to hear a faint gurgling “ah” from William’s mouth as he releases and fills him up, but then, almost at the same time, the spurt hits him in the face. 

Ciel eyes snap open, he tries to get up on his elbows to see what that was, but he doesn’t need to as he feels the taste on his lips.
Copper, 

Blood. 

Ciel looks up to see William uselessly trying to grab the handle of the knife buried in his neck, and then, almost on cue, he crumples on himself and falls on him. 

Sebastian, right behind him, retrieve the blade and polishes it with a handkerchief. 

“He wasn’t trying to kill me,” Ciel’s voice breaks and trembles, but it’s not a question. Sebastian watches as the terror recedes from his body as he assesses the situation. 

“No, he wasn’t.” 

His master was not in any danger - except that of a little pain, but for that he had asked - so there was really no need for Sebastian to intervene. Except he felt like it, he wanted to, and since he had had no counter order to killing the man he still was in the limits of the contract. So he went for it. 

The demon is not often surprised - it must have happened once or thrice in all his millennial existence - but being surprised of oneself is even rarer. He had thought he had more control over his nature, he hadn’t intended to bring forth his demonic part so abruptly, he just wanted to watch from afar, waiting for the moment Lord Rotthope’s guard would be down in the afterglow to kill him. 

Maybe it was because he hadn’t feed in quite some times now, but he had felt it, a tug of possessiveness, ‘He’s mine, he shouldn’t touch him’ and he had had the butter knife in his gloved hand before he had even realized it. 

Demons are not the most rational creatures, but still, this was a little too uncalled for. 

Ciel pushes the limp body away and it falls on the floor with a thump. He’s recollected now, and he doesn’t ask him why he did it, why in that precise moment - or at all, since he hadn’t given the order. 

“Dispose of the body, Sebastian,” he says instead, but Sebastian doesn’t hear him properly. 

His young master is naked, his legs still open to show his puckered red hole, dripping the semen of the man laying dead on the floor and Sebastian can’t look away, can’t go past the need to actually move forward, step over the corpse and take his place between his master’s tights. 

Odd, again. He’s a demon so, sure, he has had his fair share of lust to revel in, but usually it’s all about corrupting the person he’s trying to bed, it’s about twisting their mind until debauchery is the last thing they should want but still it’s the thing they want the most. 

Now, though, now he doesn’t have to convince anyone, now it’s just the desire to take what’s rightfully his and nobody else should have touched. Maybe is the combination of blood and sex and death that’s so appealing to him, maybe it’s - 

“Sebastian,” Ciel calls him again and Sebastian snaps out it, “dispose of the body I’ve said.”

“Yes, my Lord.” 

Despite his baffling setback, Sebastian is efficient and quick and he doesn’t need that much time to remove the late Lord Rotthope from his master’s sight, especially since he feels the urge to go back to him. 

It’s not the feel he usually gets when the boy is in danger. It’s something else, and he has never felt it before, a pull to the boy quite like the desire to eat him, but a little less destructive. 

Interior crisis and questions about existence are inherently human, so Sebastian doesn’t feel the need to examine his sensations past the point of recognizing them, accepting they’re there and trying to find a way to satisfy them. 

When he goes back, dances gracefully inside the room, to retrieve the bloody blankets, his master hasn’t moved. He’s still stretched out on the mattress, slightly propped agains the headboard, blood drying on his face and chest, his erection slightly limp in his hand. The boy moves his hand deliberately slow on his cock and Sebastian feels the hunger again. 

“Do you need anything else, young Master?” 

“I think you’ve done enough for today,” the little brat has the audacity to look irritated, almost telling him he could have at least waited for them to finish before killing the man. Sebastian can hear the staging, though, the edge of falsity behind his words. He’s trying to do something, prove a point maybe, so Sebastian watches him intently and doesn’t move. 

Ciel could dismiss him, send him away, but he doesn’t. He reaches for his eyepatch and removes it, instead; he looks at Sebastian with his blue eye and his purple eye, the Faustian contract almost glowing in the dim light of the room, and doesn’t close them even when he comes, crying loudly and contorting as he spills in his hand. 

The demon can’t lie to his master, but he can surely lie to himself so he decides he hasn’t been affected at all. 

 

* * * 

 

Few things surprises Ciel Phantomhive these days. The visit of Edward Midford is one of them.  

Of all the people who could have wanted his head for his little trick, he would have imagined Elizabeth’s brother - the one who had always made very clear he didn’t think Ciel was enough for his sister - would have been the first in the line to come and threaten him or worse. 

Instead he hadn’t seen Edward in years, not since his return. 

It’s weird, actually, how fast those three years have passed, how little he has seen of his supposed family and how less he has missed them. 

The boy - the man, for Edward Midford is now a grown adult of twenty-two  - sits awkwardly in the armchair, looking way younger than he should. 

After inquiring after each other’s health and whether he had a pleasant journey on the road, they really run out of possibilities of small talk they could do without touching sensible topics, and Edward still fidgets and stalls. 

“Listen - Ciel,” he settles in calling him that after a pause, then he tilts his head, “Do you really want me to call you Ciel?” 

“Yes,” he replies with a deadpan expression, wondering where this is going. 

“Fine, Ciel,” he says and there’s no inflection, no mockery, in that name. “I came here to ask something of you.” 

Obviously, he thinks. He would feel disappointed, if only he hadn’t expect it.

“I suspected it.” 

Edward blushes, but still he doesn’t back off. 

“I know the relationship between you and my family is a bit strained -”

“An understatement.” 

“I - yes. But you’re still Lizzie’s betrothed and well, maybe this is the occasion to -”

“To the point, Edward, if you please,” Ciel interrupts him, not willing to put up with useless frivolities, and set in not making it any easier for him,  "I have business I have to return to. Why are you here.” 

 “I’m here to beg you to let her go.”

“Let - her go?” Ciel asks confused, because he was expecting money, favors, a good word with someone else, not… this. 

“Yes.” 

“We’re talking about Elizabeth, right? Your sister?”

Edward refuses to snap back at him and lowers his gaze instead, “Break the engagement, Ciel. Let her marry someone else.” 

There's something in his tone that tips him off, so Ciel asks, “She has met someone?” 

Edward gapes at him, unsure how to reply, but he doesn’t need to. Ciel can read him well enough. 

“Do I know him?” 

Edward shakes his head, “He’s just a merchant. Rich, sure, but he’s no noble and his social standing is way lower than she could have ever done even without you.”

Ciel would laugh, he think that maybe if he frames it as a ruin Ciel won’t see it as what it actually is.
“I see. She loves him.” 

Edward bites his lips, before nodding, “Yes.” 

This time Ciel does laugh. “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t have the power to do anything."

“Ciel, please, I’m begging of you…” 

“No. No, don’t,” he waves his hand, “You seem to think I am the one keeping her into this engagement. I offered to break the betrothal and let her free of marrying someone else when I was reinstated three years ago and the offer still stands. She’s in no obligation towards me. She just has to come and ask it for herself.” 

“That’s… that’s just it?” 

“Did you really think it would have been more difficult?” 

“I - yes, actually.” 

“Ah, right. You think I’m a monster too.” 

“No! It’s not - it wasn’t about that.” 

“Wasn’t it?” 

“No! You - It’s just -”

Ciel watches him scramble to find a polite way to actually say that ‘yes, it was exactly like that’ for a few seconds before putting an end to his misery. 

“Goodbye, Edward. You got what you wanted, Sebastian will see you to the door.” 

Edward makes to protest again, but then he simply stands up, defeated, “Yes, of course. I wouldn’t believe me either. Goodbye, Ciel. I’m sorry we cannot part in better terms.” 

Ciel lets him go as far as the door, his hand on the handle, before stopping him on his track.
“Edward…”

“Yes?”

There was sincere regret in his voice, something Ciel can’t quite put his hands on, something that doesn’t make sense, so of course he has to ask. 

“Why don’t you hate me?” 

Edward chuckles and click with his tongue. “Sometimes I wonder what kind of Lord Midford I’ll be when the title will be mine. If I could ever measure up to my father and my grandfather and all my ancestors. Sometimes I think Lizzy could be a much better choice.”

It’s not an answer to his question, but Edward doesn’t move to leave, so Ciel doesn’t prompt him further, giving him the time to collect his thoughts and get to the point. 

“What you did… I know why,” he says, turning to face him.  

Ciel raises his eyebrows unimpressed. As if. Arrogant of him to even think he could start to understand. But Edward doesn’t notice him, too lost in his thoughts, or maybe he’s just not smart enough to be intimidated by him. 

“You tried to make everyone happy,” he continues “to give them what you thought they wanted, even if it costed you your own happiness.”

“Happiness?” Ciel asks as if that’s a difficult concept to wrap his mind around. 

Edward smiles sadly, “You choose to be someone else. You could have been yourself, but you didn’t.” 

He looks almost sympathetic and Ciel still doesn’t know why, 

“It’s awful. It’s awful to think your brother would have been preferred to you, but it’s more awful the fact that it was true in the end. I can’t even begin to imagine how much it must have hurt you -  it must hurt you still - and yet you didn’t hate us. You kept it up to make us happy.” 

Edward sniffs, his eyes are watering, “I understand why you did it. I don’t approve, but I understand. And I am sorry, truly sorry, that this is the hand that was dealt to you and that you felt that this was the best course of action. And I am even more sorry that in the end it would have actually been the best course of action if that… thing hadn’t come back from the dead. We would have all gone on with our lives without knowing, and we would all have been happy about it.” 

Ciel looks away. He knows it's true. It was his plan all along for a reason.

"You wanna know why it took me so long to come to you?” Edward continues, “I was ashamed, I am still ashamed. We should have loved you anyway and we failed. I came here for Lizzie, thinking it would be harder to convince you because I thought -”

He chuckles again, bitterly, and shakes his head, “I was wrong, evidently. But the question isn’t, why I don’t hate you. The question really is, why don’t you hate us.”

It leaves Ciel speechless, it prods at an ache he had thought he had buried so deep no one would have found it again. Instead here it is, four years later, Edward Midford sprinkling dust upon his head, cauterizing a wound he had worked so hard to forgot it existed. 

“It doesn’t hurt as much as you think, Edward,” he offers in the end, because what else can he say, what else after everything they have all done to each other, “it stops hurting after awhile. But thank you.” 

Edward nods, but there’s nothing more that he can say so he just leaves.

There’s a moment, when he’s about to close the door, when Ciel calls him again and Edward just lingers, waiting to know what else there can possibly be to add. 

“You’re welcome to come visit any time you wish.”  

Edward lets his lips curl in a bittersweet smile. 

“Goodbye, Lord Phantomhive,” he bows his head, “I’m sure you’ll hear from my sister soon enough.”  

And the door closes behind his shoulder. 

 

* * * 

 

Lizzie slaps him in the face. Or she tries to, at least, for Sebastian is one hell of a butler, always in the right place at the right time, and his gloved fingers close around her wrist before she can actually hit his master. 

“Pardon me, my lady, but I think it unbefitting to recur to violence,” he tilts his head with the ever polite smile and Lizzie wrenches her arm free, pressing it against her chest as she rubs her wrist, as if trying to soothe away his touch. 

“He was right,” she says, shaking her head at them, disgust and incredulity written all over her face. 

“Who was right, Lizzie dear?” The Earl asks, unfazed, as if nothing had happened and she was just politely discussing the weather with him, as if he hadn’t felt the air blow against his cheek before her hand was stilled an inch from his face. 

“Ciel,” Lizzie says, and somehow the Earl Phantomive knows she’s not calling him. 

“Oh, Lizzie, I’m afraid I have to tell you that thing wasn’t Ciel.” 

“Neither are you.” 

“Oh, would that you let me forget it.” 

She wants to strike him again - he brings it out of her, he grates against her skin and soul until talking and screaming is not enough, until her hands hitch to hit him and she’s scared of herself, of all this hate and violence he brings forth and she wonders maybe if it was his nature all along, even way before the fire, maybe he was the one who lured pain and sorrows and unhappiness, an inversion of causes and consequences, and she wants to hit him and hurt him even more, but she know his butler would be there again to stop her. 

“He said things,” she replies instead and stills her hand with the other, pressing so hard she can feel her nails breaking the skin, knows she’ll have bloodied half-moons on her palms.  

“Things,” the Earl sounds unimpressed and she’s beginning to feel like a child - a petulant one, moreover.  

“Yes. Things.”
“And what kind of things did it say?” 

She hates him, and she hates how indulgent his tone is, as if he’s just going alone with her foolish ramblings. She doesn’t hear the danger behind the saccharine tone. 

“That you killed him. That his death is the reason you’re still alive. That you’ve sold your soul to a demon.” 

“Lies.” 

“All of them?” She challenges him. 

“What difference does it make?” 

“All the difference in the world,” she tells him with all her self-righteousness. 

“I didn’t kill him,” he sighs, “You know as much as I do how much I loved my brother.” 

“You gutted him!” 

“He was already dead.” 

“You’re not even denying it.” 

“And why would I, Lizzie? Why would I deny anything, when nothing that’s happened is my fault?” 

She looks taken aback by his sudden fury. He usually mocks her in a condescending tone, letting everything she says wash over him like water. Not this time, thought. 

“I didn’t kill him, I didn’t plan for our parents to be killed, for our house to be burned, for us to be kidnapped and locked in a cage along with other dying children to see how many of us could survive the hunger and the thirst and the beatings and the degrading abuse, to be marked by hot irons as cows and sacrificed on altars as impure lambs.” 

It takes a moment to sink in, but then she presses a hand against her mouth, feeling slightly nauseous. 

“What’s wrong? You don’t want to hear it now? You’ve pestered me to know what the hell happened all those years ago and now you don’t want to hear it?” 

“No,” she breathes, “No, I don’t.”

“You seem to think Ciel has suffered so much at my hand, but it wasn’t my hand, and I was right beside him, suffering along. They just took him out of the cage first.” 

He laughs. It’s bitter and not funny at all. “But of course, you hate me. You think I’ve robbed you of your great chance at love,” he mocks her and she feels small and little and stupid and she hates it.   

“You don’t even know what soulmates are,” he says to her, suddenly patronizing again, as if talking to a child. And what is she really? Just because she can weave a sword around, it doesn’t mean she’s grown up. 

“And you do?” She bites back, tears in her eyes. 

“More than you will ever understand.” 

“That’s what you’re telling yourself? That you had no agency, that it’s not your fault?” 

“What do you want me to say?” he scoffs, “That I was so despicable, so vile and abject that I prayed ‘yes, please, take him first’ so that I could live just a handful of minutes more? Is that what you want to hear? Because if it is, then yes, I’ll tell you. I am so despicable and vile and abject that, when facing death, I was relieved he was the first they took out of the cage.” 

Lizzy clenches her jaw, clenches her fists to not run her hand to the hilt of a sword she’s not wearing at her side. 

“Wasn’t this what you wanted to hear, Lizzie? Why aren’t you rejoicing?" He mocks her, ”I’m a monster,  I’m not Ciel. He would have took the blunt, he would have offered himself, volunteered to be the first to spare my life for just a few seconds if our role were reversed, is that what you think?”

Ciel clicks his tongue and cocks his head, “We will never know, I’m afraid. But you know what we know? What your beloved puppet did.” 

“That was not -”

“Ciel? Oh, believe me, that thing was more Ciel than you would like to think.” 

“You’re lying.” 

“I’m lying. Why is it that when I say something you don’t like, I’m lying? I did not kill him. It was not my fault. I refuse to be guilted into it, not by you, not by that mockery of a mannequin and not by anyone else.” 

“You are a coward!”

“Aye. But I am alive and he is not. They didn’t took him first because I asked. They took him first because he had a name on his wrist and I didn’t. They took him first because he had a ring on his finger when they got us and I didn’t. They took him first because he was the first born and it comes with honors and duty and power. We had to be sacrificed in order.” 

“Why aren’t you dead then?” 

“You’d like, wouldn’t you?” 

“More than anything,” she spits in his face, tears already rolling down her cheeks. She doesn’t care if she’s cruel, she doesn’t care if she’s hateful. She despises herself almost as much as she despises this boy having just his soulmate’s face and nothing else. 

“You were always jealous of him.” 

“Yes. Yes I was. He was my twin brother, but you came first, and then came duties and then came I.” 

It’s a slap to her face, the realization.“You didn’t want me.”

“No, Lizzy, I’ve never wanted you. I never wanted to be myself either.”

“But that’s -” deviant, obscene, perverse. 

She needs to sit. Wrath abandons her, dissolves in thin air, and leaves her empty. 

“No, it’s not,” Ciel scoffs, “You don’t get it, it’s not one of your romance books, Elizabeth. It’s the person that completes you, the piece of the puzzle that lacks to make you whole. It should have been the piece of me that got divided into the womb. Because if not him then whom?” 

It makes sense. Somehow, in a twisted way, but it makes sense, and in other circumstances they could have mourn him together. Not like this, though, not after everything. 

“Why is your soul mark broken like that, then?” 

“I’m afraid that’s between me and my soulmate.” 

It’s a punch that hits her, right in the chest, where her heart is already cracked. 

He has a soulmate. 

It’s not right, it’s not… fair. She lost Ciel and he has a soulmate.  

“I don’t want to marry you,” she manages to say around the lump in her throat. 

“Then don’t.” 

“I don’t want to see your face anymore.” 

“Then go.” 

Lizzie looks at him, “What’s the trick?” 

“There is no trick,” he shakes his, tired, “I’m not Ciel, I’m not your soulmate. There is only a thing I want, and I can assure you, that isn’t you.” 

She believes him, she does, “What is it?” 

“What?”

“The only thing you want, what is it?”

“Can’t you tell?” He raises his eyebrow, “Oh, no, of course you can’t. You believed him. You think I’m just a soulless impostor that never cared.”
“What is it, Ciel.” 

“Vengeance.” It leaves his lips softly, a gentle word nursed in the folds of his blackening soul for years, a comfort against solitude and isolation and pain. 

She should have known, really. 

“I’m leaving now,” she says and they both know they won’t see each other again. “Goodbye, Ciel.”  

She doesn’t warn him to be prepared to dig two graves. She knows he already has.

 

* * * 

 

The tricky part of ‘dealing with the devil’ is being specific, otherwise the demon will take advantage of the request and twist it to Its favor. 

And the boy had been specific - his soul for an act of vengeance, but not any vengeance, one against a very important man, a man with a lot of enemies, whose death would have to happen in a certain way, brought on by the very contractor of the deal and only then It would have been able to feast -, yes, very specific.

What is not commonly known, however, is that specificity is the tricky part for both of the involved. 

The thing is, no one ever expects the demon not complying, not even the demon called forth, for It is a powerful being capable of great and terrible things. But when the millennia pass and one grows too confident in Its on capabilities and the death required from Its part is that specific…