That Butler: At Play

A /N Keep in mind in Brit-speak 'pants' are never trousers, jeans, chinos or slacks. 'Pants' are only ever underpants.

"Sebastian, you look bloody awful."

And it was true, though not very kind of the young earl of Phantomhive to point it out so bluntly, even if they were alone in the carriage. After all, his servant had got into this shape attempting to protect his lordship and help solve a case he'd been currently examining on the Queen's behalf.

If only the damned shinigami hadn't got involved…

Well, actually that had been his -Ciel's- fault: the red Reaper had been walking away when he had insisted on throwing his demon back into the fray in an attempt to finish "Jack the Ripper" and gain vengeance for his aunt An: the damned Reaper had slain her right in front of their faces.

Now, though, looking at the condition of his manservant, the boy couldn't help feeling more than a pang of guilt. The creature was gashed, torn and bloodied from nave to chaps, and in some places his clothing barely covered his body— Ciel had to mentally slap himself so as not to be distracted by that little detail. He'd never seen the demon butler's body beyond his face and hands, if you didn't count his forearms when helping him bathe or when Sebastian was doing up dishes, and it was difficult not to gawp. For a denizen of Hell and an Agent of Temptation, Sebastian seemed prudishly modest, the boy mused as he sneaked yet one more peek at the demon's bloodied body through his rent, tattered garments.

Of course Sebastian caught him at it. One could never get away with anything around the damned demon butler. It was as though the bastard could read his mind.

"Is my lord concerned about the condition of his servant's uniform?"

"Idiot. Of course not. Why would I be worried about a stupid thing like that?" The young earl fidgeted a bit with the hem of his shorts, then said "I was just noticing what dreadful shape you're in."

"Very good, Young Master, because I regret to say there is very little on my body worth salvaging this time."

"I can see that: trousers, shirt, vest…not even your tie escaped whatever that thing was Grell was wielding. I suppose you're lucky your pants are still intact and your arse isn't in the wind." The boy snickered at his own jest, but the butler's head came up suddenly, and a very strange expression flitted across his face. Then he cleared his throat and pointedly stared out the window again, wearing a puckish smirk. The boy knew what that meant.

"All right: what." May as well face it head-on whatever it was: it was coming out eventually.

"Forgive me my lord, but you mentioned pants just now…" the demon spoke with averted eyes and a finger pressed hard to his lips—to control the massive smirk that was threatening to engulf his otherwise quite handsome features. "It's only that when my young master kindly outfitted his servant, he failed to provide any pants."

"Ye gods, Sebastian! You don't mean to tell me you've been going about all these months without any proper undergarments?!"

"I didn't like to point out the oversight, Young Master. It was perfectly understandable: most employees would have come to you provided with their own, but I'm sure you recall what I was wearing when we first met."

"You're joking, right? I'll be seeing it in my dreams until I die—and not in a good way, either." What little the boy had been able to make out through the storm of black down feathers swirling about that first meeting, the demon had seemed as though he was either totally naked with blackened skin or wearing some sort of completely indecent skin-tight black leather 'clothing'—though clothing was hardly the proper word for it—in fact whatever one chose to call it, the one thing the boy could state with certainty (because he'd seen that clearly,)was it was obviously a pants-free zone.

"No need to castigate yourself my lord." The demon smiled. It was that painfully fake one where his eyes were nearly closed and he grinned like a Cheshire cat…disturbing.

Though his words all seemed designed to sooth and forgive, in fact the demon was having a grand time trying to whip up the boy's sense of guilt with carefully chosen words such as 'mistake' 'oversight' 'failed' and 'castigate'. Each one hit the boy like a poisoned dart, and bled guilt into his system. Ciel was undone by acute embarrassment over even having to talk about the subject at all, let alone his painful imaginings of the discomfort the demon must've undergone due to the boy's stupid oversight.

Meanwhile Sebastian was privately sneering at the whole concept of 'pants' As though his callused hide could be bothered by such a thing as going without—Sebastian wouldn't be caught dead in the dreadful things, provided or otherwise. They bunched up around your legs and crawled up your arse until you felt compelled to turn and see who you should be thanking for the surprise buggering you were getting. Faugh! The butler would take bare-arsed any day. But for tormenting the Phantomhive… well. One could hardly ask for better material, and the demon was enjoying every red-faced moment of Ciel's squirming horror.

" So often the young master takes these little failures and oversights far too much to heart and becomes…well, morose. I didn't like to cause the master's mood to darken unnecessarily."

"Unnecessarily?!" the beet-faced boy clawed at his thighs in his embarrassment. "Sebastian. Just…stop talking." The butler put a bloodied glove to where his heart was (theoretically) and bowed his silent obedience. His mind, however, was far from quiescent. The demon was feverishly calculating whether he could parley anything from this amusing little interlude into something of value to himself…perhaps a little amuse-bouche for his shrunken gut? Ah, what a very nice idea, and he was really so very hungry…and yes…from his wounds more than his tattered garments or lack of damned pants, he was getting the beginnings of a delightful, delicious idea…

As it was just the two of them in the privacy of the hired carriage, he decided to slip partly out of his coat, vest and shirt and rather pointedly examine where the shinigami's death scythe had eaten into his right shoulder. He chose this particular wound to fiddle with because he'd got it being distracted by Ciel's inability to deal with his aunt single-handedly—so, plenty of potential guilt there. A bit of surreptitious flexing quickly broke open the wound and brought a fresh gout of blood spilling down his exposed chest and tattered shirt. He'd noted the boy helplessly gawping at his naked flesh before, so how much more riveted was hr sure to be by bloodied flesh that was his fault? And now he had the boy's attention, add a dramatic swoon, and—

"SEBASTIAN!" the boy leapt across the carriage, shocked by the sight of his demon sliding down the back of the coach seat, eyes rolled up in his head, apparently slipping into unconsciousness from blood loss and also possibly several month's worth of terminal arse-chafing.

"Sebastian?" the boy grabbed him by the usual handle: the ever-handy necktie. The butler bought them by the case since the boy was always stretching them, twisting the bias to death, damaging their careful construction, snapping fragile hidden threads, mangling them beyond recall. Somewhere a tie merchant was getting dead rich off the boy's habit of throttling his servant with his own damned neckties.

"Sebastian, are you a right?" The demon slumped forward and coughed, panting dramatically.

"Of course, Young M—" another 'coughing fit' erupted. He'd be right as rain if the thoughtless brat would just let go of his damned tie. Perhaps if he coughed hard enough he could rupture a vein in his throat. A little blood in the palm of his glove would be very effective just now. This seemed to be going really well too; the boy looked seriously disturbed. My word! Did the prospect of losing his demon butler really mean that much to him? Did he forget he was also meant to be the boy's death? Perhaps he didn't care. Or was he that terrified at the prospect of being left defenceless?

The demon threw an arm over the boy's shoulders, feigning unsteadiness. In truth, most of the wounds from the battle had already closed, leaving just the deeper shoulder and chest wounds still seeping blood gently into the tattered shirt and vest. Ciel actually reached out and touched the butler's face in apparently genuine distress.

The demon was squirming inside with the fun he was having. He imagined his master's thoughts while looking at his possibly-dying-demon:

What an utterly perfect bastard I've been to this devastatingly handsome and faithful demon servant of mine, squandering his beauty and strength on stupid, meaningless nonsense like the murder of a handful of prostitutes no one was going to miss anyway—what was I thinking? What if…what if Sebastian should die because of this? Who then shall I get to bugger me senseless? O woe is me!

The boy did look concerned and in all fairness, this was the first time he'd seen the demon seriously damaged to the point of his cinematic record reeling out—and yes, for whatever reason, since contracting with Sebastian, he could see the things. No idea why—but at any rate, he still really had no idea how tough and resilient the demon was, even when suffering apparently mortal injuries like the ghastly wound across his chest.

All Ciel knew was what his eyes told him and he'd seen how deep it was—the demon was actually using one hand to hold it closed. Ciel did not want to know what would happen were he to let go. There were all sorts of things—viscous rainbow sheets of connective tissue, rudely red innards, multicoloured ooze, the grisly ends of severed ribs— visible down inside that gruesome, gaping gash which were never meant to see the light of day. Ciel knew he could not possibly stomach a second look—but he could see from his seat it was still seeping blood.

"Sebastian, tell me what I can do. There must be something. Maybe I could bind that up for you? Though god knows what I could use…" He looked around the carriage rather helplessly.

The butler fought to keep the grin from visibly twisting his mouth, keeping his face slack, or perhaps even a bit pained as he turned to lie down and stretch himself out on the carriage seat. If he'd been a little less pleased with himself he might have noticed the rather flat tone to the boy's voice.

"Do not concern yourself on my account, Young Master. Dying in your service would be the pinnacle of a life of faithful service. I would be only too proud—"

The boy's visible brow quirked. "Shut up. You're not dying, Sebastian, d'you hear me? I forbid it." The boy clutched at the demon's lapels and gave him a feeble little shake. Deep inside, the demon was capering with glee. What an excellent game this was. He was thinking he must've contracted with the reincarnation of King Canute, only the boy was standing on the metaphorical shore demanding Death piss off instead of the ocean. How amusing!

Then suddenly the boy earl drew quite close and put his lips to the other's his ear, breathing hotly into the pale shell of flesh: "Listen to me Demon: would it help if you ate my soul now?"

O excellent, thought the butler, exactly what I was hoping to hear… now to persuade him to render up a small sampling of that exquisite soul…

"Perhaps there is someth—but no, Young Master. I could never presume to ask such a thing." He let his head fall back to the cushion to loll about some more.

"Sebastian."

"No, Young Master. It is my job to save you, not the other way round." Cue the tender smile. And the back of the hand on the blanching cheek—oh dear, he really was suffering, the poor boy. It was all rather touching.

"Sebastian, I order you to tell me what aid you were thinking of just now: tell me what I can do and don't you dare lie to me: I'll be the one to decide if it's appropriate, not you."

"Young Master—" More dramatic coughing and ha! There goes that vein: perfect timing.

"Could you just take some of my soul?"

"My master is so clever to have anticipated my thought." No way in hell was he terminating this contract early. They both knew it.

"Can you even do that?"

"Not in the way you're thinking, no. But there is way, painful and quite messy, but it will help… if indeed you are willing…" he trailed off dramatically again and let his grip on the boy's shoulder relax and his hand slide down the boy's arm an inch or two.

The boy grabbed the demon's chin "Don't make me command you again, Sebastian. Quit faffing about and tell me what it is I need to do.'

The demon placed a large, warm hand on the boy's cheek and slid it quickly to the back of his neck and drawing him closer…best get hold of him now, before— "Do you remember your religious training, Young Master? (A/N for every properly educated young Englishman received such Catechism instruction) '…for the soul of the flesh is in the blood…'?"

"Of course, that's someplace in Leviticu—"The boy drew back, but the butler's hand on the back of his neck prevented him going far. "You want my blood?" he squeaked.

"It is too much to ask, my lor—" Already the boy's face had hardened and he was tearing at his coat and the ribbon binding his shirt closed.

"Let's not waste time then. I can't bear watching your head lolling about like a bladder on a stick any longer. Go on then."

The butler, absurdly pleased with the boy's unhesitating willingness and determination, stopped the boy's hands tearing at his own clothing and gently undid the bow and the boy's shirt buttons. Slipping the cloth down off one milk white shoulder, he caressed the boy's warm skin, his fingers genuinely trembling now in greedy anticipation of the succulent treat about to be sampled.

Trembling too, because great caution was needed: the taste, at least, and a ghost of the power of the soul truly was in the blood, just as it was written so long ago, and it did in fact have some small power to revive and strengthen, though hardly enough to save a life, were a life really in the balance. This small indulgence would help speed the healing of that deepest wound in his chest, the one the death god dealt to bring out the cinematic record. So he hadn't lied, he never lies—directly. But mostly it was an excuse to indulge in a wicked treat.

A wicked and a dangerous one: taken to the extreme, one such as he really could take a soul through the blood, were he to drink it all, so Sebastian would have to exercise great self-control if this were not to spiral out of his hands and into a feeding frenzy. Perhaps not the wisest of games to play with such a fragile little master, but he really was so very bitterly hungry, and in truth, they had not been together that long as yet, and the bond between the two of them was not so strong as it would eventually become and the demon was attending his own appetite more closely than he was the boy's welfare.

"This is really going to hurt, isn't it," the boy said. Not a question: smart boy. He clutched at the remnants of the butler's clothes. And the demon reached up and gently grasped the boy's jaw and turned his face away, planted a quick kiss on the plump pink cheek as he did so. A sincerely meant kiss, the demon was surprised to find, for to the boy this crisis was apparently quite real, and he was only too willing to suffer for his servant's welfare, and the demon found himself quite touched by that, and just a little dirty and vile because of it— not enough to stop, mind you, not even close. He was fairly accustomed to feeling both filthy and vile—quite liked it, in fact. He did whisper a sincere word of thanks in the boy's ear however (and felt a prat for it too) before trailing eager lips down to the pulsing little throat, so vulnerable beneath his teeth, so very snappable between his hands. He could feel his teeth sharpening in anticipation and he found he could no longer restrain that feral grin from transforming his mouth.

The lips found the pulse point and deliberately moved off from it—he didn't want to kill the boy, just have a bit of fun. His teeth soon found the strap-like muscle that ran from ear to clavicle, a perfect spot to cut into, and so he did. The boy's shriek was muffled by a quickly clamped down gloved hand that tasted of blood, alley filth and machine oil.

But there, there: worst was over, wound made, and it was not too deep or extensive. Sebastian was quite proud of his precision and composure (when what the hunger really wanted was to start with that tender neck and not stop until just a wet, red backbone remained.) And the boy, though a couple tears had slipped down his cheeks at first, was silent now. The sensation of his butler's mouth gently drawing on his flesh was really rather pleasant, he decided—though it did still sting a bit—more at first when he had not been so gentle, but it was manageable now. When the butler drew hard and the pain flared he distracted himself by slipping his fingers through the man's beautiful, dark hair—a thing he'd always wanted to do he'd just realised, and considering his sacrifice, he felt entitled to indulge himself. Lying there in the demon's arms, pinned down by his working mouth, he amused himself tracing the whorl of an ivory ear, the popping bulge of the jaw muscle, the smooth but masculine jaw…things he realised he'd always wanted to touch but never allowed himself to dwell on because they'd been unattainable a scant few hours ago. But a barrier had been crossed, and now he was lying in the demon's arms, feeling the surprising heat of his body under him, laying his own fingers on the flutter of his pulse there in his neck, (proving he had a heart after all, even if he rarely acted like it.) Ciel let his fingers settle there on the pulse and the working throat and closed his eyes, imagining his blood slipping down there, over that rough tongue, staining those wicked teeth. Rather strangely, he found he liked the idea very much.

The butler shifted, wrapped his arms around the boy and sat up, still not relinquishing his hold on the boy's neck—not quite ready to give this morsel up though he knew it must be soon now. Such a small body did not have that much blood to spare. He ceased drawing on the wound, content to catch whatever welled up, while he attended to other sensations: the sweet aroma of the boy's body overlaid with rose and lavender from the soaps in the earl's bath, the fresh scent of line-dried cotton wafting up from the boy's shirt, the sensation of the boy's lashes brushing his cheek and the surprising scent of the boy's arousal where he'd expected to scent fear and revulsion.

Now that's interesting…

"O Bocchan, that was very sweet…" he murmured against the wounded flesh, finally relinquishing his grip on the boy.

"Feeling better, are you?" the boy asked, slipping small fingers beneath the tattered shirt to touch the hot skin beneath. "And nearly all healed up again, I see."

"Yes. It was hard to stop." The boy wondered did he mean the bleeding wound or the demon's drinking and decided he didn't want to know.

"Well one good thing about blood: given time and your good cooking, it will rebuild itself. Unlike a soul, it will be there in future, should you find yourself overcome with another urge to snack, you shameless old fraud."

Raucous laughter burst from the demon's mouth.

"Were you not fooled at all, my marvellous master?"

An inelegant snort was the smiling butler's only answer as he handed the boy down out of the Phantomhive carriage and followed him up the steps to the manor.

"Truly mine is one hell of a master, my lord".

'Sebastian."

"My lord?"

"Next time we're in London remind me to order you some damned pants."