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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
- 34
- 35
- 36
Duty
The Earl of Phantomhive rides through London in his carriage on the morning after the funeral of Prince Albert Victor, eldest son of the Prince of Wales. He is weighed down by a deep sadness that goes beyond the sympathy he feels for the royal family.
The Princess of Wales is completely grief-stricken by the death of her firstborn child. Those who have seen her say they have never witnessed such despair in her features. The Prince of Wales is outwardly more stoic, but in truth, is equally devastated by his twenty-eight-year-old son's death from pneumonia after falling ill from influenza, which has taken so many lives these past winters. He has expressed his grief in emotional letters to the queen, his other kin and friends, and among the contents of his note to the earl were these lines:
"Would that I had spoken against Somerset's actions that year, ensuring everything was in the open, to make impossible any conjecture that my son could have been connected with that unfortunate scandal. I thought that with the passage of years, in particular when he should become king after me, he would overcome the shade cast on him and prove himself a worthy ruler of his people. But it is too late; he has died too young. He will never live to erase the whispers that follow his name."
So much of what happened to Ciel was hastened by that scandal, when the scale of balance tipped, and Sebastian took his burdens and fate upon himself.
Sebastian...
Ciel's heart aches from a chaos of emotions. What a shame that the young prince will never have the opportunity to surmount the rumours and criticism that dogged him all his life. So much that he and Sebastian did was linked to the fate of the royal family, and what a blow that family has suffered. They have lost their first hope for the future, and must pin everything on the younger son, George.
Sebastian, are you well?
He thinks he will never stop hurting; he knows he will never stop hurting, unless all can be made right by Sebastian's return. Will it, can it, ever be made right? He does not know. But he is learning to live with the pain, the unbearable lack of knowledge of what has become of his demon, and what is sometimes too hard to bear the hope of: that someday, it could all be well.
Two years it is since the day his demon was sealed away from him, perhaps forever. Two years since he has seen him, heard his voice, felt his touch, kissed him, held him... I miss you.
He occasionally imagines it would be easier to die than to live with this anguish. But his years of wishing his days at an end are over. He will not throw away what Prince Albert Victor could not hold on to. He must live, because Sebastian sacrificed himself to give him a chance at life. He must survive until he can set eyes on him again. As he once said to Soma: Even the dead know how to keep still. So he is moving. But while it looks to the world outside that he is moving ahead as he always does, only he and those closest to him know that he is moving only to return again and again to the same place.
Are you alive?
He slips his hand into his inner coat pocket just beside his breast and takes out a small, round mirror framed in silver. He has done this out of habit for the last two years. Every time he wonders about Sebastian's fate, he checks his right eye to see that the iris retains that magenta mote – the last physical trace of their contract. It is still there. He reasons that if the mote is in his eye, the contract exists; if the contract exists, Sebastian lives.
He studies the mark and satisfies himself that it is neither faded nor shrinking. When he puts the mirror away, he glances at the empty seat beside him, where his butler used to sit when they rode together. Finny has the reins today, but he, Ciel, is alone inside. Rides between London and the manor always went faster when Sebastian was with him.
He stares out the window at the passing sights. Some shops still have their shutters drawn to mourn the prince's passing. Everyone is in black. As the horses move out of the heart of London, the city scenes give way to fields and trees. Eventually, they enter the thick forest beyond which his manor stands. He sometimes catches glimpses of nymphs and fairies these days; perhaps his use of magic and his time in the sphere changed something about his ability to see these beings. They are shy, harmless to him now, always slipping out of his view perhaps because they know they are not meant to be seen by mortals.
As always, when the carriage approaches the edge of the forest, he tells Finny to stop. The coachman-gardener invariably obeys, in rain, snow or shine, and opens the carriage door for the earl.
Ciel steps down from the vehicle, bending over to keep from knocking his head against the top of the door frame. When he had Sebastian, he was still small enough to walk virtually upright into and out of the carriage. But at sixteen, he is significantly taller than he was. People who knew his parents are starting to remark to him how much he looks like his father, and how his eyes are so like his mother's.
Finny does not need to hand him out of the carriage the way Sebastian used to either, for he is no longer a delicate child. He is physically stronger, well on his way to becoming a fully grown-up man. But one thing has not changed, and that is his yearning for Sebastian. He walks to that spot near the forest's edge which he knows intimately. As always, he tests if a doorway has become viable. Then he walks to that other spot he knows only too well – the one matching the place in the other world where he last held Sebastian in his arms.
"Are you there?" he whispers. "Can you hear me? Do you miss me as much as I miss you?"
A cross between a sniffle and a giggle from deeper inside the forest distracts him. He glances in the direction of the sound and sees a blaze of red behind a tree.
"What are you doing here?" he asks coldly, in response to which question Grelle Sutcliff puts his face round the trunk and glares at him.
"Not to talk to you," the soul reaper snaps.
Ciel has only ever been able to just tolerate the presence of the scarlet reaper, though he has found him useful on occasion. He has never – and would never – admit it to a soul, but since Grelle cut open his Aunt An right in front of him three years ago, the flame-haired creature has occasionally figured in his nightmares and continues to make him feel slightly ill whenever he sees him. He takes a deep but controlled breath before striding over to the scarlet-garbed being, whom he has not set eyes on since the battle in the sphere.
"Can you open a doorway to the sphere?" he asks Grelle without preamble, noting as he draws closer to the reaper that he is only a few inches shorter than him. Grelle used to tower over him. It fleetingly crosses his mind that he might be able to rest his head on Sebastian's shoulder now if they should stand facing each other, if he goes on tiptoe a little.
"Open a doorway?" Grelle parrots him mockingly. "If I could, wouldn't I have done that by now? Stepped in to thrust my scythe deep into Sebas-chan as the ultimate connection between us? Continued our fight to see which of us would come out on top? Or looked in before sealing the door again so I could have him as my private prisoner, all mine, all to myself?"
"When will Spears check on him?" Ciel asks, ignoring the reaper's nonsense. "He said it would be several years before he did that. How many years is 'several'?"
"I have no idea," Grelle groans.
"Why is it taking so long?" asks Ciel. "If Sebastian was so powerful that all those armies had to battle him, why should it need several years for him to stabilise?"
"What an idiot you are," Grelle sighs dramatically. "I thought you were supposed to be cunning, but you are quite a blockhead, it seems. It is precisely because of the immense power he acquired that it will take years. He absorbed the power of worlds. As the one bound to the scale, he should have become the outlet by which the forces of the mortal and immortal worlds would vent their imbalances over time. The severance of the chains restored the universe's natural maintenance of equilibrium, but trapped those forces of balance already inside him, leaving them to build up to breaking point. A lesser immortal – or any mortal, like you – would certainly have been destroyed instantly. But with his strength, there was a chance that he would survive, if the forces could stabilise and the excess imbalances slowly dissipate. But that takes years, silly boy. Years. All for you. How I loathe you."
"The feeling is mutual," Ciel scowls.
He becomes aware of another presence nearby, and turns to see Carsten in the woods, a few feet behind him.
"All right, I'm leaving," Grelle mutters sulkily. "Always here like some creepy wolf stalking through his territory, he is."
The scarlet one vanishes, and Ciel remarks to Carsten: "From the sound of that, you have encountered him here before. Have you?"
"Several times in the last two years."
"You've never told me."
"I never thought it necessary."
"You see him off each time?"
"I discourage him from lingering."
"You haven't discouraged yourself from lingering, though."
"We have discussed this before."
"So we have."
Carsten had haunted the forest in the weeks following Ciel's separation from Sebastian, and has never left. The difference now is that he often spends time in the house too. He has been a regular guest since the day the shield came down about a month after it was first put up, and Ciel's blood ran cold because he thought it meant that Sebastian had died. Upon Agni's revealing that he could no longer sense the shield, Ciel had torn into the forest, face white as a sheet, thinking he had lost his devil forever. But the other demon had appeared and informed him casually that even the best shields of this nature constructed with Ambrose's magic would outlast the absence of their originator only by a few weeks. That it had vanished meant nothing with regard to Sebastian's condition.
It was from that point that Ciel had begun compulsively checking his eye in mirrors. He had placed mirrors in every room of the house, and Finny had accidentally broken a number of them, until Soma at last had the good sense to make the earl a gift of the tiny mirror.
It was also then that Ciel began to invite Carsten into the house. The devil is not officially a member of his household, but unofficially, he has voluntarily assumed the role of a bodyguard and guard dog. Though it is never spoken aloud, it is understood that his respect for Sebastian's defiance of their fellow immortals prompts him to protect them on his behalf. He has even, unasked, kept an eye on Ciel while the earl carried out dangerous underworld duties with support from Baldroy, Mey-Rin and Finny.
"You don't have some secret arrangement with anyone for a share of my soul, do you?" Ciel once questioned Carsten suspiciously.
"No devils have a share in your soul," had been Carsten's terse reply.
Today, in the forest, Ciel inquires of the devil: "Have you seen anyone else come to this place to check on the sphere? William T. Spears, for example?"
"No."
"So he hasn't even looked in."
"I believe more time will be required before he will consider doing that."
"Can you tell at all how Sebastian is? If he is even alive?"
"No. We have discussed this too."
Ciel knows they have. He knows it was foolish of him to ask again, but his longing for Sebastian prompts him to act as he ordinarily would not. With nothing more to say, he returns to Finny and the carriage to complete the ride to the manor.
Baldroy is there to see him out of the carriage, as he always is when he is not working in the kitchen. If he is busy, Tanaka or Mey-Rin will meet the earl in front of the stone staircase. There is no butler in the house; no one wants another. Sebastian has trained them so thoroughly that the manor does not really need one for the time being provided everybody stays sharp.
Baldroy handles the meals, accounts and delegation of other work; Mey-Rin has taken over all the housekeeping duties; Finny acts as valet first, gardener and groom second, and coachman third. Tanaka does his best to help wherever he can, while Ciel sees to business matters all by himself, and the queen's orders with everyone's help. He bathes himself now, and mostly dresses himself too, relying on either Baldroy or Finny only for the finishing touches like pinning on brooches, securing cuffs, and knotting cravats and laces.
Soma and Agni live in London these days, but they have purchased their own carriage, so they visit every week, bringing John Jarvis with them whenever he can spare time from his duties. Agni and Mey-Rin have spoken to the earl and prince about their intention to marry in a year or so. Ciel would not like Mey-Rin to have to live apart from Agni after they wed, so he could be losing a valuable housekeeper, housemaid and sniper. They must start looking for a potential replacement who can be just as loyal.
"Lady Elizabeth arrived twenty minutes ago, Young Master," Baldroy tells the earl as he steps out of the carriage. "She is in the withdrawing room."
"Thank you, Baldroy."
Unlike in their childhood, when Ciel regarded Lizzie's visits with a mixture of resignation and dread, sprinkled liberally with a prickling of irritation, he has found himself, these two years, invariably pleased to see her.
"Ciel!" she calls, putting down the book she is reading and springing to her feet in the withdrawing room once he enters. She may be seventeen, but she still quickens her footsteps like a child when she runs up to him with her brilliant smile. He is, at long last, as tall as she is, with a chance of growing perhaps another inch or so.
They kiss each other on the cheek, and he takes her hand, an act that has come naturally to him for some time, ever since he began to truly understand that she was on his side – always. He squeezes her hand lightly, and she squeezes back.
"I probably shouldn't be wearing this shade of light blue, not as it was the prince's funeral yesterday," she confesses ruefully. "But Father won't know, as he's still in London. Did you see him there?"
"We spoke briefly at the service we attended, but it wasn't the right place to hold a long conversation."
"Of course not."
He appreciates how, for two years, she has not spoken one word of rebuke to him for his intimacy with Sebastian despite her right to do so as his fiancée. On the contrary, she has encouraged him to hope for the best, saying things like: "When Sebastian returns, I will cross swords with him because I said I would, but then I'll ask him if he is willing to accept me in your lives."
It suddenly occurs to him how hard it must be for her. How very hard it must be not to scream at him, or curse Sebastian, but smile cheerfully and look towards a future very different from what she had dreamed it would be.
"Lizzie, don't you hate me?" he asks seriously, taking her other hand.
She drops her eyes and stares at their feet for a while before looking into his face again, shaking her head. "To be honest, in the first months, I vacillated between feeling sorry for you and Sebastian, and being furious with both of you. I would hide how I felt till I was alone in bed at night, then I would cry quietly. I felt so ashamed of myself each time I was angry, because I knew that without Sebastian's sacrifice, you would be dead, and I wouldn't have you at all..."
"You mustn't feel ashamed of being angry," he tells her. "I would be, if I were you."
"No, Ciel. I'm not angry any more. I realised something important one night, after a dream. I dreamt that Sebastian came back and told you that another world had opened up within the one he was in, and there were people in that world, and over the years, he had fallen in love with one of them, but still chose to be with you. You didn't hesitate – you were hurting, but you wanted so much to be with him that you were content just to have him in your life even if it meant knowing part of his heart was somewhere else. I know it was only a dream, but it was perfectly true for me. I want to be with you, even if it means that a part of you is with someone else. Neither of us asked for this engagement; and you didn't make me love you; I just do. Besides, I know you love me in your own way – I wouldn't be so bold as to say it if I wasn't sure."
He smiles and touches his forehead to hers, still holding both her hands, and she smiles too and playfully rubs the tip of her nose against his.
"You know I do," he tells her. "I can honestly say that I've never looked at another woman. And before you think I'm trying to evade a vital point, I've never looked at another male either. Sebastian is the only male I would ever consider as a lover, and you the only female. You are the daughter of my father's sister – my flesh, my blood, my betrothed, the one I grew up with. I shall not lie that you are the great passion of my life, but if you want to be my wife, I do want to be your husband."
"You told me once that Sebastian said we ought to marry, so that you can have children."
"He did, but you should not be concerned about what someone else wants for you. You must tell me yourself if you are truly willing to assume a role more important than that of being my wife, which is to be the mother of the next Earl of Phantomhive?"
"Or Countess of Phantomhive, if we have only daughters."
"Yes. Or a Countess of Phantomhive."
"I wouldn't want any other to have that privilege," she whispers.
"I don't deserve your devotion," he replies.
"No other deserves it more," she counters. "Because I've tried as you advised me, but I've never been able to love anyone else, however many balls I've gone to, however many men I've met at parties."
"There's time for many more balls and parties. Maybe someone will touch your heart."
She shakes her head. "It's only ever been you. Besides, Sebastian is right. You will need heirs in time to come. You will need protection from the whispers of society that will certainly come if you never marry. I will give you all that."
He kisses her on the mouth because he wants to. He longs for Sebastian first and most, but she is his intended, courageous and kind of heart, and he loves her second, above all the rest of the world. She tastes of sweet breath and fresh fruit, and they fit together beautifully as cousins often do.
"When do you want to marry me?" he whispers against her lips.
"Mother said that twenty would be a good age, remember?"
"When you are twenty, then, will you be my wife?"
"Yes, with all my heart."

***
Lady Francis has found herself far less worried about her nephew than she had thought she would have to be. Immediately after Sebastian's disappearance, she had imagined herself having to sternly remind Ciel where his duties lay, and what was expected of him as the Earl of Phantomhive.
But to her surprise and relief, the boy had moved on with his life not very long after she had visited him while he lay sick. It seemed that his failure to recover the butler had driven some sense into him, and made him decide that moping was pointless.
She knows her nephew's temperament well; he is as stubborn as his father. He does not give up where there is a chance of success. That he has ceased his attempts to reach Sebastian tells her there must be no hope of succeeding. Without hope, all continued attempts will be mere foolishness and a waste of resources, and Ciel is no fool.
Still, Lady Francis has observed him keenly, and received reports about him from her own sources. His strange attachment to Sebastian had caused her to fear that he was a sodomite like Arthur Somerset, and those other disgraced aristocratic men no one ever speaks of because they have been cast out of English society. But she has been more than pleased to note through her observations and the reports from her social spies that Ciel has no interest whatsoever in men, and is always proper with his own servants. Neither is he dissolute with women, whether virtuous or of ill repute. His activities as the queen's watchdog may be dark, but no one can accuse him of immoral behaviour with either sex.
Whatever happened with Sebastian must have been an aberration, never to be repeated. Besides, he and Lizzie are closer than ever, and seem genuinely fond of each other not only as cousins, but as husband-and-wife to be. The Marchioness of Midford therefore finds herself looking forward to a wedding in a few years' time with a light heart.

***
What if he were to use Percival Ambrose's magic to find ways by which he might bring the passage of years within his body to a standstill? That way, whatever happens, he can still be alive and well when Sebastian returns, whenever that may be.
But he must not use those primitive succubi that Susan Eliot used, and which Ambrose had started out by using. He does enough of what he considers necessary evil as it is, and will never resort to living off innocent lives. He must not do what Ambrose did to Carsten either – he will never enslave anyone, after seeing what Carsten suffered.
Perhaps Carsten might be persuaded to willingly yield some of his powers to him? It is an idea that he turns over in his mind for a while. But one day, he comes across a passage written by Ambrose, which makes him think otherwise.
It is not good for mortals to live too long. I have lived far, far too long. I am weary, although my form remains young and strong. Human bodies and minds were crafted for new experiences, to learn new things, to taste the new. We are not as immortal beings who are better built to withstand sameness over endless periods of time. Sameness is inevitable. There truly is nothing new under the sun, as Solomon wrote. Whatever new inventions and wonders are made, they only let us do the same things in different ways. Man still loves and hates, speaks and laughs, kills and eats, works and plays, dreams and despairs. We employ different tools from age to age as we do these things, but underneath, it is all the same. We remain the same, and if we live long enough, we will eventually want death more than anything else.
Ciel closes the journal, ponders those words for days, and decides that he will do nothing unnatural to prolong his days.
But Sebastian, when will you come back? Will I be old and dying by then?

***
"Ciel!" the Marquess of Midford booms as he wraps his arms in a great bear hug about the still-slender frame of the Earl of Phantomhive. "My dear nephew!"
"Lord Midford," Ciel gasps for breath in the morning room of the marquess' mansion, into which he has just been shown. "It is very good to see you, sir."
"How many times have I told you to call me Uncle Alexis?" the marquess asks, thumping Ciel on the back. "I mean no disrespect to your late parents, but after that certain happy event we are looking forward to, I would be more than delighted if you would regard me as a father, and your aunt as a mother."
"I hardly know how to repay such kindness, my lord... Uncle Alexis."
Behind the marquess, Lizzie's brother Edward gives a little scowl. But it is an improvement on the deep frowns and growls he used to give whenever he saw his cousin in the past. From the very first, when Edward had learnt that his beautiful and beloved baby sister was to become the wife of that scrawny, sickly, weakling son of his mother's brother, he had disliked the boy. But after the Phantomhives were nearly wiped out by their enemies, and Ciel returned as if from the dead, Edward began to view him with greater compassion and some small respect. That respect has grudgingly grown in the past few years, as Ciel has cemented his status as the Earl of Phantomhive, become favoured by the Prince of Wales, and grown in both physical stature and presence. The valuable butler Sebastian disappeared some years ago, but it seems that the remaining members of the earl's household are quite capable of supporting him in all his roles.
"Lord Phantomhive…" Edward greets him with a formal handshake and a hint of a smile. "…Cousin."
"Edward."
"Ciel, you're here!" Aunt Francis exclaims as she enters the room, with Lizzie behind her. "Oh, you look more like your father every time I see you..."
She cups his cheek with her gloved hand and wishes her brother were here to see his son – how well he has turned out, and what a man he is growing into at eighteen.
"Except your eyes, of course," Francis adds. "You've always had your mother's beautiful blue eyes. I cannot express how pleased I am – how pleased we all are – that the clouding you said had marred your eye after you were stolen from the Phantomhive manor finally dispersed four years ago... do you know, if I ever find out who stole you all those years ago, I'll run a sword through them!"
"My dear," the marquess says to his wife. "Speaking of those unhappy events always angers you. Don't upset yourself any more."
"Some things must be said. Ciel knows it is good to remember certain things so that we will never let them happen again," Lady Francis says. "We thought you had perished in the fire, Ciel, and that your body had been burnt to nothing as you were still such a small child. Nonetheless, I questioned those associates of my brother's and father's that remained accessible after the tragedy. No one knew if you could possibly be alive. Some, I suspect, lied to me. But there was no evidence, and no trace of you. I have never forgiven myself for not being able to find you before you freed yourself and returned with Sebastian. If I could have found you sooner, if you could have suffered less..."
"Aunt Francis, please think no more of it," Ciel tells her. "It is over. Everyone who loved me did all they could to help. I will never forget what happened, and I will never let it happen again – not to me, and not to my family, ever again."
He looks at Lizzie as he says that, promising her thus that her children – his children – will never suffer such a fate. Sebastian saw to that when he released Ciel from the chains of a deteriorating spell that would have dragged him to a terrible end. The dangers of the underworld that remain to be dealt with are nothing beyond the ability of Phantomhive to keep in check.
"You'd better not," Edward mutters. "If you're weak, if you fail, if my sister gets hurt, I'll..."
"Edward!" both Lizzie and Aunt Francis chide at the same time, to shut the young man up before he makes any threats he may not be in a position to carry out.
"It is time for elevenses," the marquess declares before an argument breaks out between his son and his wife and daughter. "I can see Andrews signalling urgently that the scones are getting cold. Come. We'll be holding a wedding next year, and we must start laying out the plans."

***
For four years, he has been visiting the forest almost daily, speaking to Sebastian through the invisible, impossible walls that separate them. For four years, he has been wearing the locket-pin Sebastian gave him next to his heart. Four years of curling up into a ball under his covers each night, missing his lover, sometimes slipping downstairs to sleep on the butler's bed, imagining that he will come to him as he did that afternoon when he fell asleep there.
Dreaming of Sebastian, always dreaming of him.
He will marry Lizzie. He and Sebastian previously discussed it as if it would have to happen, and it will. He could not have a better wife. But he will always love Sebastian, and he will never stop going to the forest, or aching for him as he slips into sleep each night.
Sebastian.

***
By the time Lizzie turns twenty, Ciel and his relations have more or less agreed that the wedding should take place at the end of summer. Lady Francis is in no great hurry to begin with, now that her mind is settled by Ciel's proper conduct.
But something happens in April of that year which brings back the dangers of what she had suspected was happening between Ciel and Sebastian. The playwright Oscar Wilde is being prosecuted for homosexual indecency with Lord Alfred Douglas, son of the Marquess of Queensberry, who first publicly accused Wilde of unacceptable moral conduct.
Aunt Francis is not passionate about the arts, but she has been amused by some of Wilde's witty plays, and is quite upset to see the ugly things written about him in the newspapers, the opprobrium heaped upon him, the way in which people who have absolutely nothing to do with the matter think it their duty to cry shame and behave as if they had been personally insulted by Wilde.
Close to the end of May, when the playwright is convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to two years of hard labour in prison, Lady Francis feels a sudden dread for Ciel, in case… just in case… The sooner the wedding takes place, the better… or should it not take place at all? Wilde himself has a wife and two young sons, and the fact of their existence did not prevent this catastrophe for him. But Ciel will be wiser. He won't be such a fool, will he?
Constance Wilde will have to leave the country to protect her sons from the dreadful publicity; she will have to change her name, change her sons' names, to try and leave behind the shame her husband has brought upon them all. Lady Francis has a vision of Lizzie in the future, cradling an infant, fleeing abroad under a new name to escape the scandal her husband has brought upon her.
If that should happen… my God, if that should happen…
She finds a good time to speak with Elizabeth, as delicately and discreetly as her forthright nature can manage, to ask her if she wishes to proceed with the wedding.
"Elizabeth, Ciel is my nephew and I will always love him. But as your mother, I must assure you that if you believe for any reason at all that you would be happier if you were to be married to someone else, we can halt our plans at once. In any case, there is no hurry. We can wait another year–"
"Mother, I can see myself with no one else. I love only Ciel."
"But does he love only you?"
"He loves me enough, Mother."
"Is that enough for you?"
"Better than not at all."

***
Sebastian.

***
In the autumn of that year, when Ciel is nineteen, and Lizzie is twenty, they wed before their family and friends. The queen sends generous presents, and the Prince of Wales attends. The prince has persuaded Queen Victoria that her intention to make Ciel a marquess should not be carried out only to make him a stronger watchdog, for ever since his son's death, he has been absolute in his determination never to use Phantomhive for nefarious purposes.
Sobered by the reminder of her grandson's death, the queen refrains from adding to the power – and burden – of the earl. So the royal family sends their gifts and blessings and graces the celebrations, but Ciel will not be weighted with greater responsibilities than he already has. His Royal Highness can at least do that much for the young man whose pale, grim face as a child too old for his years continues to haunt his conscience.
Ciel marries Lizzie with Sebastian's locket pinned to his coat, next to his heart. She knows what the locket is, what it signifies. She knows what she is doing. Still, she is doing it. For that, Ciel loves her a little more.

***
Sebastian…
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Devilish Impulses