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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
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Taste

Finnian is in a state. He is the only one of the servants that the earl and Sebastian have brought to the town house with them this time. He desperately wishes to confer with Baldroy, or Mey-Rin, or even Mr Tanaka if there is no alternative, but none of the others are here. He considers phoning them at the manor, but it is late. If he wakes them for what later transpires to be nothing worth fussing about, Baldo will pound his head for interrupting his sleep the next time he sees him.

The young man is upset because the master's horses and carriage pulled up at the gate of the town house almost half-an-hour ago, with the master's hat and walking stick inside, and a straw-filled scarecrow perched on the box seat looking for all the world like a dead coachman.

Whatever is going on? Are Lord Phantomhive and Sebastian Michaelis in danger?

Finny has stationed himself on the steps leading up to the front door, pacing from left to right, sometimes going up a few steps, then back down them again. He is on the brink of leading out one of the horses to prepare it for another outing, despite having already rubbed both the beasts down, watered and fed them, and put them into their stalls with lots of fresh straw for bedding. Miraculously, he has neither killed the horses by accident nor broken the carriage through his impossible clumsiness and absurd physical strength.

Although he imagines himself saddling up and galloping across London in search of his master and the butler, he has not the faintest notion of how to track them in this overpopulated city. Still, he decides that taking some useless action is better than none, and makes up his mind to fetch the stronger of the two horses. However, as he turns towards the stalls, someone calls his name.

"Finny," comes a familiar voice from the front gate.

"Master!" Finny gasps, rushing across the paving of the front driveway towards the little figure and the tall, black-clad butler a step behind him.

"Did the horses return?" Ciel asks. He sounds tired.

"Yes, master! They came back all by themselves, with the scarecrow, and your hat and walking stick, which I've carried into the living room. The horses have been seen to."

"Good."

"Are you well, your lordship?" Finny asks, concerned. The earl's fine black hair is badly windblown, and even in the poor lamplight, faint marks visibly decorate his cravat – they look like droplets of blood someone has partly sponged away. There must surely be more, judging by the pattern of splatter on the white silk, but his black frock coat and waistcoat hide all other signs that the young master has once again got too close to someone out to harm him.

"I'm fine," the earl states. He strides across the paving of the driveway, goes up the steps, and enters the house.

Sebastian helps Ciel out of his coat once they are inside the door, then turns to the other servant, saying: "Finny, put the large pot of water on to boil in the kitchen. The master will need it for his bath."

"Yes, Mister Sebastian!" he answers at once, and runs off to the kitchen to do his bidding.

Mey-Rin is usually the one to carry the kettles and pails of hot water upstairs to the earl's bedroom when they are at the manor, where she hands them to Sebastian. It is a hazardous undertaking for the housemaid, considering her propensity for tripping and falling at the slightest provocation, thanks to her inability to see through the thick eyeglasses she wears as a disguise of sorts. But she has somehow managed never to splash the near-boiling liquids all over herself or the furnishings – perhaps, Finny thinks, she secretly removes her glasses when carrying out such risky household tasks.

Tonight, as has been the case for the three previous nights they have spent in London, the task is left to Finnian. When they are at the manor, the gardener rarely has an opportunity, or reason, to go upstairs. Only Mey-Rin and Mr Tanaka, and of course Sebastian, go upstairs and downstairs in the normal course of their duties. So after three nights, it is still a novel sensation to Finny to climb the town house stairs from the kitchen to the master's bedroom. The bedroom door is open, which it usually is when the butler and master are waiting for the hot water; Sebastian never undresses or bathes Ciel until everything is ready, no other servants are in their presence, and the door is closed.

The butler takes the two large and heavy kettles of extremely hot water from Finny, and carries them into the bathroom, where the gardener can hear their contents being emptied into the tub. Finny gazes fondly at the little figure of the earl deep inside the room, sitting in his chair by the small round table with the glass top. He has a cup of tea before him, and his pistol resting beside the saucer. He is making notes in a notebook, but after a minute, he glances up at Finny, who realises that he has been doing nothing but standing there and staring at his employer. He quickly bows in his unrefined manner and backs out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

***

Ciel has not shut Sebastian out of the bedroom or bathroom since the night the butler scooped him out of the water, spluttering. On the surface, they have resumed their former routine, with the butler doing all that he ought to for his master.

But things have not returned to normal. The child eyes every move he makes, cautiously, suspiciously, whenever he is dressing or undressing him, grooming him, or helping him with his bath, as if constantly wondering what he is doing here at all.

He is watching him now, looking at him in silence as he removes his eye patch, unties his blood-speckled cravat, unbuttons his waistcoat and unhooks his suspenders, then kneels to remove his shoes and knee-high stockings. He remains on his knees while Ciel gets to his feet so that his outer clothing can be unfastened.

Unexpectedly, just as Sebastian's ungloved fingers nimbly undo the last button on the child's shorts, Ciel asks: "Did you enjoy your meal?"

"It was filling enough. Thank you for asking, my lord," the butler replies, easing the shorts past the slim hips, down to the ankles, and off his legs altogether, past one foot at a time. He still wears shorts at an age when other boys are already wearing trousers that reach the ankles, but then the earl is not like other boys.

"How did it taste?" Ciel asks as Sebastian starts undoing the buttons of his shirt.

"A little stale, but apart from that, tolerable."

"Better than I would have tasted?"

"Most unlikely, although I would not know for certain, as I have never sunk my fangs into your flesh."

"You don't know?"

"If you are truly interested, Young Master, I shall do my best to give you a better answer, although it will still be an imperfect one."

Ciel gazes at him, the look in his eyes once again indecipherable.

"With your permission, my lord…"

Sebastian waits a second more for the tacit consent to be given before turning down Ciel's collar and bending his mouth to his neck, exactly where it curves elegantly into his left shoulder. The butler flicks his tongue against the boy's skin, inhales deeply, taking in the taste and scent of him, then trails the tip of his tongue upward along his neck till he reaches the child's left ear.

Ciel shudders, but otherwise remains still.

Sebastian's tongue touches the lobe of the boy's ear once, twice, before he draws back to give his assessment: "You would most probably taste far more delicate and refined than the ghoul. A shade spicier without being overpowering, leaving a lingering bittersweetness as you go down, with a touch of poison. But that is mere extrapolation from the flavour of your flesh and the heat of your blood – initial tastings do not always correspond to final palatability."

"Would that hint of poison be what you thought would make me inedible? What kind of poison would that be?"

"The kind you cannot detect in a medical test," Sebastian answers pleasantly.

"It would not kill you, though?"

"Possibly not, though it is unlikely to be good for me either."

"Still, it won't kill you, so don't you want it? You could have it even now – you only need to tear me open..." Ciel baits him, parting his shirt with his own hands before the butler's face.

He is interrupted by Sebastian's standing up, taking hold of his shoulders, turning him around, and steering him into the bathroom.

"You have had a trying day, my lord," says the butler. "The temperature of the bathwater has just fallen to the perfect level, and it is time for you to soak in it before it cools any further."

He promptly slips off the child's shirt and drawers and hands him into the bath. Ciel lowers himself into the water up to his chin, rests the back of his head against the rim of the tub, and closes his eyes. He seems to immediately forget Sebastian’s presence, and the exchange they have just had. He does not react either when the butler reaches into the water and lifts his left hand to scrub his fingernails with the small nail brush. But when Sebastian goes around to the other side of the tub and works on his right hand, he remarks: “I still smell the grease from the pistol.”

“Yes, Young Master,” the devil replies. “The pistol grease and gunpowder have been on your right hand all evening, since you drew the gun and shot me.”

Ciel cracks his right eye open and studies the hole in the butler’s shirt which is even more obvious now that he has removed his coat. “Where’s the bullet?” he asks.

“I ejected it from my body and dropped it into my coat pocket as we made our way from the abandoned building to the carriage.”

“That shirt will need replacing.”

“It will indeed.”

“Take the money out of my personal expense account,” the boy murmurs.

“Certainly, sir.”

“And earn your keep better by getting that damned grease off my fingers. I can still feel it.”

“Yes, of course.”

Sebastian works the nail brush more briskly, but Ciel rubs his thumb against his palm and frowns. “It’s still there.”

“Grease takes time to come off, Young Master. I can fetch some lemon juice from the kitchen if you like–”

“Lick it off. It can’t taste much worse than the ghoul – or sulphur and brimstone for that matter – and you deserve little better as you’ve just declined the supper I offered you.”

“If it pleases you, my lord,” Sebastian answers evenly, before slipping his master’s thumb into his mouth and cleaning the grease off the skin with his tongue, cat-like.

Ciel has both his eyes open now. He is thinking of how his hound – the real hound named Sebastian who was killed alongside his parents, and whom he named his devil after – used to lick his hands clean of any traces of food that might have been on them. This is different. And different too from when he licks melted chocolate off his own digits. He watches intently as the butler moves on to his index finger and laves every bit of oil off it. It feels a little ticklish.

He finds it curious that this Sebastian does not move to his middle digit next, but instead encloses his little finger with his lips and cleans that, then his ring finger, and after the barest of pauses, licks every last trace of the partly tacky, partly slippery residue from the middle finger before finishing off by cleaning the palm like a large, black-haired cat eating out of his hand.

“There, it’s done, Young Master,” Sebastian says with a smile that briefly shows the very tips of his teeth – not his fangs. The teeth look perfectly white. He has somehow managed not to taint them with a single spot of grease.

The butler wets a washcloth in the bathwater and wipes Ciel’s right hand thoroughly before returning his arm to the warmth of the tub, while Ciel ponders how Sebastian skipped to his last finger before working his way back. The boy is experienced and old before his time in a multitude of ways, but very much a sheltered child in others. So it takes a few seconds before it dawns on him that middle fingers are often used in vulgar gestures by the crude men he sometimes encounters in the course of his underworld work. Another second is needed before it twigs that Sebastian is obviously conscious of the significance of the uses that digit might be put to in non-verbal communications, and may not necessarily have been thinking about food, or dogs, when running his tongue over his hand.

“Would your lordship like the same treatment for your toes?” Sebastian asks, making Ciel jump, for he has taken his eyes off the butler for just one second while thinking about crude men and appendages, and has failed to notice that the devil has moved round to the far end of the tub.

“No,” the boy snaps, feeling embarrassed enough to draw his feet back an inch or two towards his hips. “Don’t be absurd. I did not hold the pistol with my feet, did I?”

“Of course not,” Sebastian replies readily. “So it shall be the usual scrubbing with the nail brush then?”

Ciel says nothing, but does not resist as his butler reaches into the water to lift his left foot, then his right, to scrub the toenails and soles until they are perfectly pink and clean.

Sebastian is now at the head of the tub again, saying: “Please sit up so that I can wash your back, Young Master.”

He complies, learning forward and meditatively running his hands over his own knees and shins as Sebastian works the washcloth firmly over his shoulders and shoulder blades, and down his spine. That done, Ciel reaches for the transparent bar of Pears soap and takes over the washing of the rest of his body, as he normally does, while Sebastian goes about gathering up his shed garments from the floor of the bathroom and the bedroom.

When the earl is done cleaning himself, the butler returns to the bathroom, hands him out of the bath, and towels him dry. He then wraps him in a thick bathrobe and ushers him back into the bedroom. Clean drawers and a fresh nightshirt go over his body, and he is ready to climb into bed.

On nights when he is not too sleepy or tired, he reads a little while Sebastian takes the soiled clothing downstairs and drains the bath. Tonight, he does not pick up the book of poetry on his nightstand, but instead goes over the notes he has made in his notebook. When Sebastian returns from the laundry room and kitchen to look in on him, he is still reading what he has recorded about the night’s events.

“I wonder if she tamed the succubus all by herself,” the earl thinks aloud, when the butler enters the room.

Sebastian sets the candelabra on top of the cabinet just inside the door and approaches the bed. “It is very likely that someone taught her how to do it, or did it for her once and left her to maintain control over the creature after that. What we know of Lady Susan Rothstein’s background suggests that she had an interest in the occult, but not much skill with it. She was born to the very rich and respectable Eliot family in Kent, and lived sixteen years without a hint of scandal. But she married a German aristocrat in 1820 and travelled with her husband around the Continent. That was when people with interests very different from her birth family’s entered her circle. It is believed that she acquired an obsession with preserving her youth from some of her new friends. Perhaps her teacher still lives, feeding off other people more discreetly than his or her protégé did.”

“If that person tries to make trouble in England, I won’t sit by quietly.”

“Of course, my lord. But tonight, you must rest,” he tells him, taking the notebook from him and placing it on the nightstand beside the silk eye patch. “You have had a long and wearying day.”

Ciel offers no resistance to having his notebook put aside, although he makes no move either to burrow down under the covers.

Sebastian regards him for a second, then says: “I had planned to give you this tomorrow, when you would be rested and refreshed, but as you are obviously not very sleepy, perhaps you would like to have it now.”

He slips something out of his waistcoat pocket and places it in the boy’s hand. It is his blue diamond ring, the one presumed lost to the waters after it was given it away like a bauble, just so that he could return to London.

Ciel stares at the jewel and examines the engraving on the inside of the band. It is the very same ring, not a replacement like the items in the manor, or like his covenant with the devil.

“How did you find this?” he asks. His voice is calm, almost uninterested, but the brightening of his eyes betrays his pleasure at holding the family stone in his hands again.

“What kind of butler would I be to Lord Phantomhive if I could not recover the ring he discarded?” Sebastian remarks rhetorically. “It took me a little more time than I needed to restore the manor, but it was not impossible.”

The butler takes up the ring again and slips it over the thumb of Ciel’s left hand. It does not sit as easily on the thumb as it used to, yet it is undoubtedly the same piece of jewellery.

“It appears, my lord, that you have grown just a little,” the butler observes. “You may require a longer walking stick very soon if you keep this up.”

He moves the ring to Ciel’s index finger, but it is slightly loose. He shifts it then to the middle digit, and it sits better there. But Ciel slips it off almost immediately and puts it back on his thumb. “I like it right here,” the earl says, contemplating the deep blue shade of the stone, which matches but does not surpass the blue of his eyes.

“As you wish, Young Master,” Sebastian says easily. “Wherever you choose to wear it, would you not agree that it makes a far better ornament for your fingers than a devil’s mouth?”

Ciel flushes, but Sebastian blows out the candle in the glass lamp on the nightstand, and tucks him in, drawing the covers up to his shoulders.

“Good night, Young Master.”

The butler crosses the room, picks up the candelabra, and closes the door behind him as he leaves.
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Devilish Impulses