Ficlets for Kurohedonism (Kuroshitsuji), Prompts 4 & 5
kurohedonism Prompt #4, "Regal"
Title:Put Not Your Trust In...
Words/Rating: 500, soft NC-17
Characters: Sebastian/Ciel
Spoilers: Nothing beyond the first series, second episode.
Summary: A hint at hierarchy.
"What reason might there be for me to linger at your bedside, my lord?" says Sebastian in that amiable tone of his, the one that turns every word into lilting mockery.
"Sebastian," Ciel reprimands. He lies prone, and naked, upon the bed. They long ago dispensed with the pretense of a nightshirt.
"Shall I tell you a bedtime story, then?" says Sebastian, leaning down to press a kiss to the nape of his lord's neck.
Ciel starts to hiss, but masters his annoyance, deciding to give Sebastian his answer in kind. "What other reason would there be, indeed." Cheek pillowed upon his folded hands, he murmurs as Sebastian, having mounted the bed, places the next kiss between Ciel's shoulder blades.
"Then I will tell you a fascinating, familiar one. Once upon a time..."
"How can it be both fascinating and familiar?" Ciel sneers, even as Sebastian's hands slide along his flanks. He shivers.
Sebastian continues his tale undaunted. "...there was a tender, frail young thing..."
"There always is."
"...whose life of privilege--" The last word is muffled by the obstruction of fabric between clenched teeth as Sebastian pulls off his gloves-- "turned, through tragic events, to one of misery." Hands bared, they arrive at the small of Ciel's back, nails teasing skittish flesh. Another kiss joins the play of his hands.
"Is there a prince in this story?" says Ciel, when he can speak.
Another kiss, lower still, as Sebastian chuckles. "There always is, my lord."
Ciel snorts. "And he arrives to--ah--" Sebastian's tongue has just touched him for the first time tonight-- "to save the frail thing from misery?"
Sebastian's fingers caress the curve of Ciel's buttock, and his tongue does something else. Ciel is too lost in his own groans to care about the long pause as Sebastian considers. "I cannot say that was the result. But in the end, both named themselves content."
Ciel's fingers fist in the sheets. "Your...storytelling," he pants, "is rubbish." His body pushes back against Sebastian's hands and tongue, belying the displeasure in his words. "Not even accurate. Never...a-ah--again," Sebastian's hand has moved beneath him to cup the earl's patrician privates, and Ciel dives headlong into rashness when he berates his butler, "imply that I am frail."
Sebastian's hand moves delicately, exquisitely. "I did not name the subjects of my story, my lord."
"You didn't have to." Ciel fights to keep the anger in his voice; it is difficult. "You even implied you were royalty. I should be--ah--impressed you kept your status to that of a prince, and not a king."
A soft laugh from Sebastian. His hand does not stop its lovely movements. "My realm has no king, my lord. A Prince is the best it can boast."
His words do not turn Ciel cold. He only arches further against the workings of Sebastian's hands and talented, deceitful tongue.
Ciel is nobility himself, after all. Why should Hell have delivered him anything less than its best.
kurohedonism Prompt #5, "Red"
Title: Ring Around a Rosy
Words/Rating: 495, R
Characters: Alois, the Earl of Trancy's household
Series/Spoilers: Up to anime series 2, episode 8
Summary: Even before he's contract-bound, a demon may choose to ripen his prey.
Extras: Warning for fictional child catamites. Thanks to fabularasa for beta duty.
"Eyes like a sewer of corruption!" howls the earl. On the earl's pudgy hand, the claret gleam of a ruby ring winks in the light as the stick descends, striking him in the ribs. "Get this one out of my sight!"
He refuses to cry out. What good has it ever done him?
*****
One by one, the boys fall sick. Jack, Perry, Squealer, and Willie lie feverish on their pallets, their skins erupting in bloody red blotches. So much for their captors' efforts: the de-lousing, the scrubbing, the imprisonment in darkness to turn them all fish-belly pale once more. Now bleeding sores ravage that perfect skin, unfurling like roses, seeping like the devil's tears. The earl's men won't go near them.
None of the boys die, though, and at first he thinks that's odd. But he's spared the sickness. The only one. And he begins to think it isn't odd at all.
It's planned.
*****
The maids brush his hair until it's sleek as embroidery floss. They slick his lips with a near-colorless grease, carefully as if upon a canvas. The scent they make him wear smells to him like infection, but he assumes the earl must like it, as they dab it upon his neck, under his arms, into the scant fuzz at his groin.
From the rainbow of color in the armoire, a flutter of crimson waves to him.
"That one," he says. The first words he has spoken to any of the maids. They blink, and then extract the red robe from the armoire.
When they have settled it about him, he pulls away from their hands, turns to the facing mirror. The red makes a gold halo of his hair, puts a hint of a blush in his cheeks. Behind him he hears a catch in someone's throat.
At the edge of the robe, picked out in careful stitchery, a spider's web graces his hip.
He sees his own face in the mirror bloom into a coquette's smile.
*****
One month later, Alois (never that other name, never again) stares into the rust-red of his morning tea, and knows what retribution he will ask of the demon.
*****
Sated at last, the earl grunts like a pig and rolls to his side. Alois lies still, thinking of the bath he will have in the morning, of the fine breakfast he'll eat. Thinks of these things and not of the gluey wet drying on his body, nor of the filthy taste in his own mouth. Thinks of the revenge the demon has promised him, and wonders when it will begin.
The earl snorts once in his sleep. Alois's stare drifts to the earl's corpulent back.
In the center of which, a red bloody blister is beginning to form.
Alois presses his hand to his mouth to choke back the laugh. The son of the house of Trancy will look fetchingly forlorn in black mourning clothes. And his father's ruby ring to decorate his noble hand.