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Devilish Impulses	By : Arianawray Category: > Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji ???) Views: 13948 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Kuroshitsuji or any of its characters, and I do not make any money from these writings.

Chapter List
- 1-Unwanted
- 2-Whim
- 3-Trust
- 4-Taste
- 5-Scheme
- 6-Command
- 7-Competition
- 8-Advice
- 9-Enlightenment
- 10-Sustenance
- 11-Caught
- 12-Breath
- 13-Arms
- 14-Inflammation
- 15-Imagination
- 16-Intent
- 17-Compromise
- 18-Sacrifice
- 19-Despair
- 20-Compassion
- 21-Interest
- 22-Equality
- 23-Mentor
- 24-History
- 25-Disorder
- 26-Reputation
- 27-Gifts
- 28-Admission
- 29-Watching
- 30-Bonds
- 31-Revelations
- 32-Confrontation
- 33-Struggle
- 34-Separation
- 35-Duty
- 36-Change
- 37-Together
- 38-Love
- 39-Epilogue: Heaven
- 16
- 17
- 18
Note:Thank you again, to all who have been reading this, for your encouraging and/or thought-provoking comments and feedback. Leaving thoughtful reviews takes time and effort, and I do appreciate the time you’ve taken to do that!

=================

Compromise

Ciel finds the game intriguing, but too subtle for his adolescent impatience. We could go on like this forever, he thinks. Forever means nothing to Sebastian, but I don't have as many years as he does.

At nightfall, he gathers the few game pieces he has, puts all subtlety aside, and asks that the latest move be plainly explained to him.

"What was that about?" he asks, when he and Sebastian are alone in his room, getting him ready for bed.

"What do you refer to, Young Master?" is the butler's response after pouring the hot water into the tub.

"Don't play the fool," Ciel snaps. "What else could I mean but the look you gave me at lunch?"

"Well, I was struck by how you seemed less averse to the idea of marrying Miss Elizabeth than you used to," he answers, removing his master's jacket and slipping the slightly wilted rose out of the buttonhole. He rests the flower on the nightstand before stripping off his gloves to tackle the rest of Ciel's garments.

"I could hardly say to her mother's face that I never asked for this betrothal, could I?" the boy growls. "We're talking about Aunt Francis. Besides, it would have made Lizzie cry."

"Proceeding with an arranged marriage purely to avoid upsetting your relatives seems foolish."

"It wouldn't purely be for such superficial reasons. I have nothing against Lizzie – she's no worse than any other my parents might have accepted as my future wife."

"It does not matter to you that you will not choose your own wife? Will you really see this engagement through?"

"Of course I will!" Ciel declares. But abruptly, he falls silent for some time, before murmuring: "Although somewhere in my mind... I'd assumed that as Lizzie grew older, she would meet some man at a ball who would love her better than I could, fall in love with him, and break off our engagement."

"That is improbable," Sebastian tells him. "Lady Elizabeth loves you deeply. She is a child, but she has a steadfast heart. Her feelings are unlikely to change."

"What does it matter to you, anyway?" the earl asks. "By the time I marry, you'll be gone. If our contract draws to a natural close, and if I don't demand that you kill me, you'll be off and I'll be here getting on with life as an adult. I won't be as efficient without you, but I'll have my own informants and associates, like my father did. And if without you I should come to an untimely end at the hands of enemies, so be it. I'll probably deserve no better by then."

"Is that really what you want?" Sebastian asks.

"Isn't that what you will prepare me for in the five years you wanted?" the earl asks. A tingle runs through him as one of Sebastian's fingertips trails down the back of his upper arm as he removes his shirt.

"I said that if at the end of five years you decided no longer to associate with me, I would disappear from your life. But if you do not say the word, I might not go away."

Ciel stares. "Why would you want to remain? Isn't it dull and demeaning to a devil to be in a contract?"

"We would not necessarily have to be in a contract by then," Sebastian remarks, unfastening the boy's shorts.

"Don't be absurd. Why would I have you around if we had no contract? Wouldn't that be akin to keeping a wild beast loose in one's house?"

"Possibly. But I thought that was the sort of challenge Lord Phantomhive would be up for," the butler says, eyeing his master, who by now is almost entirely undressed except for his eye-patch, drawers, stockings and shoes.

Sebastian reaches up, slips the black silk off the boy's face, and looks into his eyes. He brushes a feather-light caress against his smooth cheek with the backs of his fingers, and says in a tone that the earl finds both soothing and menacing: "I gave you that look earlier because it pleases me to see myself reflected in these eyes. I wonder what they will show when you are grown, and if there will be room for my reflection."

Ciel seizes Sebastian's fingers and presses the devil's hand down, away from his cheek. "Do not make me hit you again," he warns. "Must I issue a command?"

"Would you really wish to do that?" the butler asks.

The earl is aware that his next words will determine whether the game continues. If he ends it, something will wane; if he continues it, something may grow, but until it slowly develops, he will be adrift in a sea of subtleties whose currents may take him years to grasp. He snatches impulsively at a decision: "What I wish is immaterial. If something must be done, it must be done."

"Is that your final word on the matter?"

"Yes."

With that word, something crumbles. The subtle wooing has been rebuffed, leaving no space for growth.

"It is time for your bath, my lord," Sebastian states, drawing back from Ciel and efficiently removing his stockings and shoes before wrapping a robe about him. He makes no further unnecessary contact with him, as if nothing out of the ordinary had ever transpired between them.

***

"Soma says His Royal Highness has invited him and Agni to also accompany him to Paris and Biarritz, after they leave Denmark," Ciel murmurs two days later, glancing through the sheets of fine writing paper in a beautiful envelope, delivered to the manor by hand a few minutes ago. "He is impressed by the severe beauty of the Danish landscapes of early spring, and has drawn us a picture."

The earl holds out to Sebastian a painfully childish pencil illustration of a lake, bare trees and hills that could represent any part of the world. It is nearly as bad as the portrait Soma once drew of Mina when he sought the servant girl he believed had cared for him.

Sebastian makes no comment about the sketch before returning it to his master. He only says: "As we do not expect Prince Soma and Mister Agni in England this week, I shall put their bed linen back into the cupboard."

"Perhaps they will like France better than England, and not trouble me with a reappearance," Ciel remarks hopefully, putting Soma's letter away and turning back to the other papers on his desk.

Sebastian says nothing, only reaches out to refill the earl's teacup.

"See to it that these letters are sent," the earl says, picking up four sealed envelopes and handing them to the butler.

"Yes, Young Master."

Thus dismissed, Sebastian leaves the study. Ciel looks up at the closed door and the empty room. He is very conscious of Sebastian's reticence, and more than aware of how the little touches he received for a week have stopped. The butler has kept a most respectful distance these two days.

It perturbs Ciel. He asks himself if he misses the caresses, but stamps out the idea at once as absurd. As long as his demon-hound carries out his duties well, it does not matter how communicative he is, or how he avoids lingering unnecessarily in his presence. It is not worth any more attention than he has already given it.

He thinks thus until after tea time, when Sebastian approaches him in the conservatory with a most unexpected request:

"May I be excused for the evening, Young Master? I shall prepare your dinner before I leave, and instruct Tanaka how to serve it to you. I will return in time for your bath before bedtime."

Ciel looks at him curiously. Sebastian has never before asked for so much as a minute off. He will not refuse, for their new contract gives the devil the freedom of movement that the old pact denied him. His asking permission at all is the pure courtesy of keeping his master informed, rather than an inability to step away without authorisation. Still, the earl is interested enough to inquire: "What do you need to do this evening?"

"Things I would prefer my master to know nothing of."

"Devilish things, I suppose," Ciel remarks carelessly.

"You could say so, Young Master."

"I've said before that as long as you do not damage the Phantomhive reputation, you may do as you please."

"Of course, my lord. No one who sees me will know that I am a Phantomhive butler."

"Fine."

Sebastian bows, shooting Ciel a glance as he leaves that gives the earl a bit of a turn, for his garnet eyes are like those of hungry animals waiting to pounce. Perhaps he would rather not know what his butler is up to tonight, but he may have been mistaken in dismissing the devil's taciturn behaviour as none of his concern.

***

Sebastian, wearing a black top hat and black overcoat buttoned over excellently made black clothing entirely unmarked by the Phantomhive crest, reaches London barely fifteen minutes after leaving the manor. He heads at once for the Whitechapel district, for he intimately memorised its narrow lanes and rhythms of life and death while solving the Ripper murders with his master.

His dress and bearing, and his scrutiny of the women who stand against the walls of shabby buildings and smile, mark him as a gentleman prowling the streets for certain services. Everyone here was nervous while the Ripper reigned, but all has been quiet for four months, and the word on the street is that the terrible murderer is gone – although the police will say little, because someone important was involved in a bad way, or so the rumours go.

With that weight off, confidence and boldness have space to bloom, and the women who charge for the services they render are eyeing Sebastian brazenly or coyly, putting forth whatever they think will most appeal to a potential customer.

The devil glances at everything on offer. He neither likes nor dislikes, respects nor disrespects these women – they are human beings like all others, doing what they can to survive, in the way they best know how. Many of them are even more tolerable to him than people who fancy themselves better than their fellow mortals, but are no kinder than devils in the way they destroy others' lives.

He passes over numerous women along two lanes, seeking something specific. Halfway down the third lane, he finds it. She is perfectly unremarkable, in no way at all more attractive than most of the others, but she has the look he wants. He gathers that she is about twenty years of age, though a lifetime of poor nourishment has left her very small in stature, and thin. Her hair is long – not ideal, but remediable with the items he has brought. What is important is that those tresses are very black, and her complexion very pale. Her teeth are in a terrible state, but that doesn't matter; he does not have to look at them. The colour of her eyes too is of little import – he does not plan to spend time looking into them. It is merely a bonus that they happen to be blue.

"You'll do," he tells her.

"Where, sir?"

"Your room."

She probably shares a cramped, rented room with other women, but they are likely to all be out plying their trade on the streets. If they are not, money, which he has in abundance – for he almost never uses his butler's wages – will vacate the room for them, for as long as he requires.

The woman leads him up the lane to her quarters, which are as he has expected them to be, having entered at least one such room during his investigations of the Ripper cases. She appears to be the lone tenant.

"Lock the door," he tells her. "We are not to be interrupted."

"O' course, sir," she says, and does as told.

He takes out his purse and throws onto the bed what he knows, to her, is a staggering amount of money. "That is all yours if you do exactly as I want."

Her eyes light up at sight of the money, but she also looks wary, no doubt a hangover from the Ripper incidents.

"I am unarmed, and I have no intention of harming you," he states briskly. "Have no fear of that. I am paying you that much only because I have very specific requirements."

Her need for money overcomes her caution, and she immediately gathers up the generous number of large, fat coins, puts them aside on a table which has one leg propped up by an ancient cigar tin, and says winningly to him: "Anythin' you want, sir."

"Take everything off," he orders.

She obeys with alacrity, and in a minute, is standing completely nude before him.

"Put up your hair."

She grabs some pins from the same table the money is on, and piles her hair on top of her head. From one of his coat pockets, Sebastian takes out a cap – the cap his master wore on the night the two people who were the Ripper killed their final victim – and hands it to her.

"Put that on," he says.

She does so at once. He is pleased to see that it fits her perfectly – she really is very small. Merely by glancing over her figure, he already knows that the next item he will hand to her will fit also. He removes, from under his coat, Ciel's blue jacket. It was waiting to be cleaned when he removed it from the laundry room. Its threads are imbued with his master's scent, and will cover the woman's scent to some extent.

"From now until I leave, you are not to speak one word," Sebastian tells the prostitute as he hands her his master's jacket, indicating with a nod that she should put it on.

She sees as she dons it that it is a boy's garment, and it is obvious too that the cap on her head is a boy's cap. From that, she already has a pretty good idea what this customer wants, and is therefore not surprised when he orders her to lie face-down on the bed.

Sebastian removes his own clothing and drapes it neatly over a rickety chair he would not trust to hold his weight. He is pleased, when he stands beside the bed, to see that the woman is so slender that she barely has any hips to speak of, but is young enough to have a pert little bottom. Good.

"Not a word from you," he whispers a reminder, as he climbs onto the bed and mounts her.

She nods obediently, and takes it as quietly as she can when he produces a small jar of oil, lubricates his fingers, and inserts them into her nether hole – not the orifice most gentlemen are seeking when they buy her services, but she will shut up if the money is hers to keep. Besides, it is decent of him to prepare that thoroughfare somewhat – some of the other gentlemen who've used it haven't been as patient. And perhaps she can consider him decent enough, too, to be paying a grown woman to do the deed instead of more cheaply buying one of those poor street boys, who are much too young to be up to this sort of thing.

When he considers her stretched enough, he presses his body against hers, and slowly pushes his length into her, a little at first, then more, and finally all of him. She gasps and turns her head to one side. He takes hold of her head and turns her face into the mattress again, for he does not wish to see her features.

"Keep your face down," he grunts. "You may cry out if you must, but not too loudly, and no words from you."

She gasps once more as he thrusts deep into her, but remembers to keep her face forward, so that he will see nothing more than the back of her cap-covered head. She has already sussed that he wants her to be someone he cannot have, and that a view of her face will spoil the fantasy for him.

He is not particularly gentle, and she does cry out a few times when his thrusts grow harder. But he is not violent either, and she can cope. He is very tall. If he stretches out, his head will be well forward of hers, but he mostly keeps his upper body off her – she senses he is staring down at her capped and jacketed back – and once or twice, he hunches over to bury his face in the jacket. He is breathing harder now, but it is a strange kind of panting. Having had customers aplenty over the years, she can tell the kind of panting that comes with exertion apart from that which comes with excitement, but his breathing has no exertion in it, only a peculiar sort of excitement.

Soon, she scarcely notices his breathing, for he is driving so hard and fast into her that she is caught up in the act, crying out over and over again – she cannot exactly call it pleasure, but her nether orifice does produce interesting sensations of its own when thus used, and the friction and speed of his thrusts is producing those somewhat pleasing feelings perfectly.

He is panting into the jacket now in that strangely strained yet effortless way, and above her cries of mingled pleasure and pain, she thinks she hears him gasp into the fabric covering her back as he comes inside of her: "Young master...", although she cannot be certain, for his voice is muffled by the jacket.

He spends his hot seed inside her body, where at least she knows it will do no damage to her livelihood, for babies do not pop out of one's backside, thank goodness. He breathes once, twice, into the jacket, then the game is over for him, for he pulls out of her, wipes himself clean with a handkerchief from his own coat, and swiftly dons the garments he had draped over the chair earlier.

"Return those items to me," he tells her, not looking at her.

She removes the cap and jacket and hands them back to him. He takes them from her, puts them back inside his overcoat, pulls on his hat, and leaves an additional sum of money on the table before he unlocks her door, walks out of her room, and closes the door after him.

She has no idea if she will ever see him again, but the extremely generous sum and tip he has paid her will tide her very well over lean times when customers are few.

***

Sophia Easton looks forward to nightfall. Her cell is miserably cold, and sometimes damp by night. But at least she is left to herself on her simple bed and thin but fortunately flealess blanket. If this were the Newgate Prison of the years before Queen Victoria's reign, she would be crammed into a filthy common room with two hundred other unwashed women and their diseased children all seeking sleeping space on the bare floor.

But because times have changed, prisoners now have their own cells. Besides, Newgate Prison has in recent years held only those awaiting trial, and those awaiting execution. She does not think this a typical place filled with the usual criminals, but it may be her rank and wealth that have given her this fairly quiet cell. In the day, she is obliged to step out to wash and eat her meals, but is discouraged from speaking to anyone – for prisoners are meant to spend their time reflecting quietly on their sins.

That suits her. She desires no conversation. She desires nothing other than to end her days. But the jailers are watchful, checking now and again to see that she has not hanged herself with strips of cloth torn from the hem of her dress, or dashed her brains out against the wall. By night, at least, she can lie down and be left alone, with only the wardens passing in silence.

As she stares up at the ceiling tonight, she senses a change in the air beyond her cell, but does not care to turn her head. It is probably just a warden in the corridor. Soon, however, the atmosphere about her grows dense, and darker than usual. The space she is in feels as if it has mysteriously been separated from the rest of the prison, without anything having physically moved. The prison bars seem to shift in that same strange way of being separated from the wall without moving, and suddenly, someone is inside her cell.

It is a tall man with dark hair and a blank expression on his face. He carries no lamp, but is somehow illuminating the place with a glow nestling in the palm of his upturned hand.

"Who are you?" she demands, sitting up, refusing to show how startled she is by his unexpected appearance. He looks vaguely familiar.

The man does not answer, but someone standing behind him does, with a quiet: "Good evening, Mrs Easton."

That is when she realises that there are two men in her cell. The tall one steps aside to let the shorter man behind him approach her.

"How long has it been since our last meeting in Potsdam? Thirty years?" the second man asks, standing before her and looking down at her where she sits at the edge of her bed. "You were Miss Sophia Bourchier then, young, rich and proud, visiting the Continent with your mother and your fiancé. Look at the state of you now."

She stares at his beautiful features and his silver hair. It is like seeing a ghost from her past – a ghost whose appearance has not altered one iota despite the passage of three long decades.

"Percival Ambrose?" she whispers in disbelief. "How did you–"

"How did I get into your cell? How have I retained my youth? Are those the questions you wish to ask? Do the answers matter? All that matters is that I have been watching you on occasion through the years because poor Susan – God have mercy on her soul – took such an interest in you."

"Susan... Rothstein?" Mrs Easton asks.

"Susan Eliot, Susan Rothstein, Susanne Grafin von Rothstein, Lady Susan, whatever people called her over the years – yes, that Susan."

"She was no 'Lady Susan'," Mrs Easton finds enough haughtiness amid her surprise to scoff. "Her father was untitled. Only her marriage to her German count made her Grafin von Rothstein, or at best, Lady Rothstein. She became known in England as Lady Susan only because the people she knew here were never sure how to deal with her German title."

Percival Ambrose chuckles. "Ah, your frankness and pride were among her reasons for admiring you. You reminded her of her when she was twenty, she said. And she loved how your initials after marriage became the same as her maiden initials – S.E. – initials always took her fancy. She's dead now, but I watched you whenever I could, because I knew you would be trouble, just as she turned out to be. When she parted from me after her husband's death, I knew she was up to evil. I tracked her from Potsdam to Dresden, and St Petersburg to Paris to Amsterdam, and finally to London. I believe she would have made contact with you eventually, had she not been killed."

"What are you babbling about?" Mrs Easton asks impatiently.

"Suffice to say that when you met us in Potsdam some thirty years ago, I had already been enlightened by certain experiences in England, which drove me to spend the next few decades attempting to convince poor Susan that I had erred, and taught her wrong. I hoped to change her ways. But her husband died of old age, leaving her a widow who never looked older than twenty, and she disappeared from my life. The great-grandson of the man to whom I owed a debt put an end to her and her monster only a few weeks ago, leaving me free to turn my attention to you."

"What do you want? If you aren't here to break me out of prison, you had better leave. I don't care for your weirdly unchanged looks or your pointless tales of Susan Rothstein. We met in Europe a long time ago. That is of no relevance now."

"Oh, it is of the greatest relevance. Susan asked me to watch you whenever I was in England, and wanted me to promise that I would never thwart you, for she expected great things of you. I objected, for what if there were things I did that might indirectly go against you? She laughed gaily and agreed then that I could promise never to directly oppose you. So when you attempted to murder Ciel Phantomhive, I did nothing directly. I owed a debt to the boy's great-grandfather, Charles Phantomhive, and could not sit by while you killed his great-granddaughter and great-grandson. I thus intervened indirectly by having my servant here suggest to the Phantomhive butler where the girl might be. Her life was saved just in time, leaving the boy's remarkable butler free to go to his master."

"Bastard," Mrs Easton snarls. "So I have you to thank for that. Your manservant... I remember now – he was with you in Europe too, all those years ago. I thought he looked familiar. His appearance has not changed a whit, like yours."

"Susan did hint that she could teach you things to preserve your youth, but you were never interested. You only cared for having children and giving them what you could in your lifetime."

"That has not changed, so keep your devilry to yourself. The children I had are doomed to die – nothing less than a sentence of death will be passed on them for treason and murder, so there is no purpose in my living now. As I said, if you are not here to free me to save them, leave."

"I cannot free you," Ambrose smiles. "You would only attack Charles Phantomhive's great-grandchildren again. I won't leave you to serve out your sentence either, for the way our justice system is these days, charges of kidnapping and attempted murder may well see you out of prison in less than two years. I cannot allow that."

"So you're here to kill me?" she asks calmly. "That is just as well. Do it."

"I am not here to kill you. I won't murder someone Susan was fond of. What I will do is offer you the opportunity of ending your life on your own terms, in a blaze of infamy, if you like. How about it?"

"What precisely do you mean?" she asks.

"Let me explain."

***

"What were you doing with that?" Ciel asks coldly.

The boy is standing in the doorway of the laundry room, catching Sebastian in the act of returning his blue jacket to the neat stacks of clothing waiting to be cleaned. The devil is genuinely surprised, for he had not known the earl was there. How had that happened? A week ago, he had not seen the slap coming either.

The truth will be awkward, but he has never lied to Ciel – except by omission – and does not plan to start now, so he answers frankly: "I used it to cover the scent of another human with yours."

"Explain."

"Young Master, I believe you would rather not know the details."

"Even if I would rather not know, I choose to know. Answer me truthfully."

"Are you sure–"

"Answer me!"

"I hired a prostitute and had her wear your jacket while I used her, from the rear, so that I could pretend it was you underneath me."

"You piece of filth..." Ciel growls, blue eye blazing. "You disgust me."

The boy is furious, hurting, repulsed, as he bites out: "You knew what I went through at... at the mill – you knew – and you still chose to violate me in your mind, and to treat me with such disrespect as to engage a prostitute–"

Sebastian knows he is sinking himself deeper into the quicksand of his master's rage, but his own anger at having his restraint, consideration and subtle courtship unappreciated perversely impels him to correct the boy, saying matter-of-factly: "No, Young Master. I treated you with the greatest respect by paying someone else to be you, instead of seizing you by the nape of your neck and using you as I could have when you were at my mercy."

"Vermin."

"Quite right."

"The very sight and thought of you make me sick."

"Understood."

"I never want you to touch me again."

"If that is your wish, I shall engage a valet to attend to your dressing and baths, or train Tanaka."

Sebastian observes with interest that Ciel seems to be regressing before his eyes. He has always behaved older than his years, but he seems now to shrink in on himself in his raw anger, plunging well past even his chronological age to something very much younger. It occurs to the butler that this is the closest his master has ever come to throwing a truly childish tantrum since they met. Small children can be vastly more vicious in their anger than adults can, and as the devil wonders what is coming, Ciel bites out: "You really hated it when Agni held me, didn't you? Fine."

He stomps down the below-stairs passageways towards the servants' quarters, and Sebastian follows several feet behind, knowing he will not like whatever happens. The earl strides up to the small rooms which house the chef, gardener and housemaid, and pounds on Baldroy's door.

"What is it?" the chef mumbles tiredly.

"Baldroy!" Ciel yells.

"Shit," comes the panicked remark from within the room, and the door quickly opens to reveal the chef in a sleeveless vest, light cotton trousers, and little else. "Why are you below stairs, Your Lordship?" he asks, glancing from the earl before him to the butler a few feet away.

"I feel sick," Ciel states. "Carry me back to my room, and prepare my bath."

Utterly baffled, Baldroy asks: "Wouldn't Mister Sebastian do that a lot better than me?"

"Sebastian is otherwise engaged, with a host of filthy matters," the earl says, throwing a backward glare at the butler.

"Hellfire and damnation," the chef mutters under his breath, as he rapidly twigs that he is a pawn caught in the middle of a power play between the earl and the butler. But an order from His Lordship is not to be ignored, so he picks the boy up, eyeing Sebastian cautiously, for he sees how the cold anger in those mysterious red eyes only grows when the boy twines his arms around his neck.

"Let's get you upstairs, Your Lordship," he sighs, moving towards the stairs.

Sebastian glowers, his possessiveness rising as Ciel presses his face into Baldroy's uncovered neck and throws a furious, deep-blue stare at him from beneath the man's chin.

***

He had not known the boy was there. Neither had he seen the slap coming a week ago. Sebastian ponders this within his own humble bedroom, a below-stairs space with only one long, high, narrow and unopenable pane of glass he selected to be opaque when he rebuilt the manor. No one can reach the window from outside without a ladder, and if they do, they cannot look through it.

Tonight, after the confrontation with Ciel, his favourite black cat greeted him in the winter-rose garden with the present of a dead finch. She must have seized the creature from the bushes it was asleep in. Sebastian has permitted her to bear her prize indoors and deposit the feathered corpse at his feet. He picks up her gift reverently, examines the delicate, broken neck and spine, and places it back on the floor at her paws.

"Thank you for the gift," he says, gazing into her wonderful amber eyes. "I give it to you in return as your supper."

She has no interest in actually eating the bird, however. So he offers her the minced meat he is giving the other cats he has brought indoors out of the rain. She accepts. He picks up the dead finch and contemplates the pathetically small mound of feathers in the palm of his hand.

"Will you not eat it, my beauty?" he asks the black cat once more, holding the bird out to her. She is uninterested. He caresses her, and takes the bird outside to the sterling-silver rose garden.

A waste of a life. However, he understands the casual cruelty of cats. They sometimes kill because they can, not because they must, and the gifts they offer may go unappreciated.

Devils are not much different.

But as he buries the finch under the roses so that its body may return to the earth and nourish other life, it occurs to him that he has been undevilish of late, and his impulses have led him to be ridiculously untrue to himself. He has spared his meal; turned his prey into a pet; given that pet reason to continue living by telling it he would groom it to its fullest potential; allowed himself to become quite possessive of it for no reason whatsoever; carnally desired it when that same absurd possessiveness seeded the idea in him that he had been done out of claiming what little remained of the child's innocence; stupidly attempted to woo the boy like a suitor; and finally degraded his devilish senses by releasing his frustrations in the kind of sexual charade with a whore that only mortals would deceive themselves with.

Impulsive fool.

When he finishes burying the bird and pats the wet earth over its corpse, however, he stares out into the cold night, sees a million things that he could torment and triumph over, and finds no interest in any of them. He washes his filthy hands in a pail of rainwater near the trellis, then looks up at the manor which shields the fragile form of Ciel Phantomhive, and knows that this is where he chooses to be, regardless of what the boy may think of him.

He leaves the roses and the dead finch, and returns to the shelter of his master's house.
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Devilish Impulses