Fic: Tea on the Road to Tartarus, Part 2
2.
Sebastian wasn't precisely certain at what point his feet began to move, and again this was something entirely outside his experience. As an experiment, he tried straying off the stone path, and had to admit he was marginally relieved when his soles met springy damp grass. Mindful of his shoe leather, he returned to the path, peeking cautiously inside the waiting doorway when he reached it.
There was stone paving inside the doors as well, leading to a raised wooden floor, half-blocked by a low partition painted with rounded stylized clouds and--oh--a crescent moon. Same as on the gate posts, then.
Down the entrance hall, a shadow shifted, and Sebastian's eye was on it in an instant.
"If I could trouble you to please leave your shoes at the entry," said the voice he'd sought. "I'll see that they're properly cleaned, before you leave."
With the softest rustling of cloth, the shadow melted away, presumably down an adjacent hallway and Sebastian had to hand it to his mysterious host; they certainly knew their way around a visitor's curiosity. By way of showing his appreciation, he obligingly removed his black leather shoes before stepping up to wooden floor, smooth and flawless as the marble in the Phantomhive ballroom.
It was only when he passed the low painted partition, that Sebastian realized how elegantly he'd been led astray. He could feel it in the very air around him; beneath the notes of unfamiliar incense, wood polish, and gently lingering tobacco smoke. Whatever this place was, it positively hummed with power.
Surely he should have felt it before he'd even crossed the gate, but he hadn't, and now here he was in the grip of it, an invisible influence entirely different from his own, drawn in snug all around him, weighing his bones down so that every step was like wading through hip-deep water. It was nothing insurmountable, and certainly not worth putting off his master's orders for, but it was remarkably difficult for him to ignore.
Pressing forward, he asked, "Have you a butler as well, to look after your guest's shoes?" As much to confirm his host's location, as anything.
A chuckle reached him from up the hall, around the corner. Ah, that doorway, he could see it now. "I have assistants here. Though I must apologize they can't come to greet you. It seems your presence has put them out of countenance. But please, come inside. Tea will be along shortly."
This last was delivered with a smile, lovely as a virgin straight-razor, which briefly halted Sebastian at the entry to a narrow, sparsely furnished parlor. Its owner stood straight and slim, black high-necked tunic falling nearly to his ankles, fine black hair framing a delicate pale face, and eyes like a painter's dream of silent ocean depths, blinking slowly back at him behind round silver spectacles.
But the soul of this boy. Hells below that soul, he could all but taste it from here.
"Oh. Clever, clever trap," he murmured.
The young man's smile didn't so much as flicker. "Sorry to contradict, Butler-san. But if anyone has trapped you, it certainly isn't I. Would you care to take a seat?"
He clenched his gloved left hand against his thigh, just to feel the seal of his contract stretching with his flesh. Butler to the core, that's what he was, and best he mind his business here.
Tipping his chin to acknowledge the invitation, he crossed to the empty straight-backed wooden chair, opposite the round wooden table from where the young man stood, with one pale delicate hand resting on the back of the only other chair. He could feel the young man's gaze on him, cool and endlessly placid, as he lowered himself into the chair.
"It's a fine night out," his host remarked, poised as if for a portrait. The sort whose eyes followed one around the room. "Normally I would entertain visitors on the...," tilting his head minutely, searching out a word, "veranda? But I expected you might be more at ease, further from this shop's boundaries."
The boy's eyes didn't match, Sebastian realized. Only the left eye was that arresting deep blue. The right was like a distant memory of golden summer wheat. Yet the agelessness in their depths was the same. Outwardly this person appeared scarcely older than Finnian, while his eyes, his sweet cruel mask of a smile (cruel because it was bestowed on anyone, while belonging to none), and the intoxicating siren-call of his soul told a very different story.
"This shop." Sebastian forced his stare off his host, reeling back his composure. "It was not always in this neighborhood." Because he would have known, surely he would have registered its presence at some point, even just passing through town.
"It was never in that neighborhood," the young man agreed. "Only a powerful need made a passage available."
"Not my need," guessed Sebastian, and was rewarded by a mysterious quirk at the corner of the young man's mouth.
"You yourself have no need of this shop," he recited, in the tone of one enjoying an old private joke. "It might even be correct to say that you and I are in a similar line of work, no?"
Instead of seating himself after this admission, the young man turned and crossed smoothly back toward the door, where a rolling wooden cart had at some point materialized. The cart bore one tray with a tea service: spotless silver teapot, a pair of elegant bone china cups, and a tiered silver tray of sweets. With the exception of the pattern on the cups and saucers, any of these items might have come directly from the Phantomhive china cabinet.
"Am I to understand you accept souls in exchange for your services as well?" said Sebastian, just to see what reaction it might get him.
The tea tray settled without a sound on the tabletop, but glancing up, Sebastian caught a glare as cold as a bucket of iced water, thrown in his face. "I do not request souls, in exchange for wishes."
Beautiful, thought Sebastian, skin prickling and breath coming tight in his throat. He ducked his head as if chastened, "I beg your pardon," but beneath the show of humility hid a trembling of delight and covetousness and raw physical want for all the icy hot darkness crackling just an arm's reach away. Looking up from beneath his lashes, he could see it, how the young man's power gathered every shadow in the room to his periphery, all the better for him to gleam out from it.
A swish of black silk and the young man settled in his chair at last.
Sebastian was aware that this room and this shopkeeper were both distinctly foreign to the world he himself had occupied these past few years. It was in the cut of the young man's garments, the craftsmanship of the windows and texture of the walls in this room. By Phantomhive standards this place looked like a bare hovel, but the cleanliness, the attention to detail in its construction, suggested finer surroundings than its proportions or decor would indicate.
Inside and out, this place was not all it seemed, and the same went for its proprietor....if that was the correct term. Who was, Sebastian sensed, deeply connected to the very warp and weft of this establishment.
While he assessed this wish shop and its owner, said fellow poured out tea for them both, with a calm ceremonial grace Sebastian found himself studying, filing away for later imitation perhaps; purely for a study in aesthetics, and only if the mood should strike him later on.
"There is a need that brings you here," mentioned his host, setting a steaming fragrant cup within Sebastian's reach, and then tipping a hand toward the tray of small exquisite cakes and finger sandwiches. Interestingly, the spread reminded him less of an English aristocrat's tea service, and more of the offerings in some exclusive and quite pricey French patisserie. "May I interest you in a spice cake? Or perhaps this small confection I was experimenting with this afternoon?"
"Your offer is most gracious," Sebastian allowed. "I must thank you. However I'm sorry to say it might not be appropriate to accept refreshment while my master is waiting."
"Conscientious," observed the young man. "Though the hospitality of this shop is offered to all comers, regardless of station. Whether they come of their own will, or at another's behest. I mean no offense, but you may find it to your benefit to receive the offering, in this case."
Sebastian could see the provision plainly set forth in the shopkeeper's gesture of tea and cakes, and while he was aware that something specific and deeper was being presented to him, he found himself unable to penetrate what the shopkeeper wanted him to take, in this guise of tea and admittedly exquisite-looking sweets.
"Well. When in Rome, as they say," Sebastian said.
"Indeed." His host selected a few cakes off the tray, put them on one of the china plates, and set it on Sebastian's side of the table, before taking up his own teacup. Sebastian sort of wished he could muster even some passing, obligatory suspicion about the food, but the little spice cake on his plate smelled quite promising and he was enjoying watching his host's hands, with their porcelain delicacy and unhurried grace.
The prospect of his soul was rather compelling as well, although Sebastian was well aware that--for the time being at least--this young man's soul was not something that could be priced or bargained for, as he was almost certain it already belonged to another. To whom or what wasn't yet clear, but Sebastian definitely sensed a prior claim in effect; for all his mysterious power, the young man may as well have been wearing a collar or a brand of ownership.
"You came here seeking someone." The way the shopkeeper gazed into his tea, Sebastian could easily believe he was performing some class of divination with it. "Someone who was a customer here, recently."
"His name is Finnian. He would have called upon you three or four days ago, I believe."
The young man glanced up to him. "Three or four days in your time." With nothing at all to suggest whether it was more or less, by his own reckoning. Sebastian was tempted to find out, but then the young man looked off to some spot far beyond the adjacent hall. "For the right price, I can send you where I sent him. Beyond that, I can guarantee nothing. Whether you can fetch him back is entirely up to you."
Sebastian was glad they'd gotten to business so quickly, and decided he could afford to enjoy his tea and puzzle over the terms. The deal had a definite air of caveat emptor about it; far stronger than the bright bergamot suffusing his palate now, though that was plenty vivid.
Working for the Phantomhive Earl, Sebastian had learned all about the sort of shops which never fixed price tags on their goods. The implication being that those of the right class shouldn't be troubled by such crude details as monetary cost, and that if one needed to weigh the price of this bespoke dinner coat or that mahogany desk, then one didn't likely belong in the establishment to start with.
The case of this shop wasn't necessarily the same. Granted, a man who was truly capable of granting wishes would be able to name any price he cared to. With no competitors to set the terms of the market, he could theoretically ask as much as a customer was capable of bringing him. And since every customer's capability would be different, it made no sense to fix any standard prices.
However....studying the shopkeeper over the thin gold rim of his teacup, Sebastian couldn't imagine him demanding extortionate amounts for his services. As Tanaka's legend and the shopkeeper himself had pointed out, the shop could only be seen by those with a very strong wish. Given the extremity which had driven Finnian here, and the absoluteness of his master's order which had gained Sebastian entrance, it wasn't difficult to infer just how strong of a wish was required.
"It's terribly uncouth of me to ask," smiled Sebastian. "But if you'll forgive my gross curiosity, what manner of price would you require for this service?" As anyone might know, demons had always been damnably curious, as a species. And while there was no question he would meet the terms in full, it never hurt to be forewarned.
The shopkeeper's answering smile was thin and taut as a harp-string. Naturally Sebastian had to wonder what might happen if he plucked it with one finger. Not that he had any intention of taking such a liberty immediately, but just as with the shopkeeper himself, it was not unpleasant to contemplate.
"The prices of this shop are always equal to the wish being granted. As you are here on your master's request, I will require the loan of your services from him. And in return for what I will give you directly, I will ask you to perform a specific duty for me, with the same absolute obedience you show your master."
In his years serving Ciel Phantomhive, Sebastian had mastered the art of the flawless, imperturbable smile. However in rare cases such as this, he found he could not maintain his smile, and also give due consideration to the rather interesting puzzle at hand. So he gently folded that smile away, just as he might fold an ivory linen tablecloth, or his master's velvet morning coat; setting it aside in favor of a more proper contemplative air. In the meantime, he also took a bite of his tea-cake, the exquisite flavor of which very nearly stole all his contemplation for itself. It was only by drawing on his considerable self-control that he was able to keep his mind on the real matter at hand.
"Just to be clear," he said. "What you're requesting is--in essence--to take on my contract?" It was certainly a curious circumstance, one he'd somehow never managed to encounter before. Though the deal had a distinct ring of demon-logic to it; offering up a contract of absolute obedience, in the course of fulfilling a contract of absolute obedience. It was just the kind of snare he might have delighted to set for anyone else, and having it put before his own consideration made him understandably wary. Intrigued, yes, but definitely wary.
While puzzling over the possible pitfalls, Sebastian was aware of the young man's gaze taking an unhurried stroll down his shirtfront, before wandering back up to some vague point off Sebastian's left shoulder.
"Given your experience of the world," the young man finally said, "I'm sure I don't need to tell you that all things in existence are required to behave in accordance to their basic nature. The same is true for you and I, even. Due to my nature as Shopkeeper, and the power that makes me what I am, there are boundaries on what actions are permissible to me. And due to your nature as....a Butler, you are also restricted, by the terms of your employment."
Sebastian could have told this darling Shopkeeper that euphemisms weren't really necessary; he certainly felt no shame about what he was. But there was something about the delicacy of it that appealed to him. Though he lived for now among the privileged and mannered, it was so seldom that the gracious considerations of etiquette were ever spared for him.
"Speaking for myself," he nodded agreeably, "that is certainly true."
"Then it will naturally follow," the young man went on, "that there are things which a Shopkeeper may do, which a Butler cannot. Just as there are circumstances in which a Butler may act, where a Shopkeeper cannot."
"Oh. You need me for a loophole, then." Sebastian found his smile returning naturally, with his approval at the cunning behind such a plan. Not only that, but one had to imagine that any task a Shopkeeper wasn't allowed to carry out could surely make an entertaining diversion for a demon.
"If you like." The young man lifted a slim shoulder, and Sebastian quietly savored the contained and careless grace of it. Between tea cakes and shoulders and smiles, he was apt to forget his business here, if he weren't careful.
"If you intend to employ me for my--nature, as you put it, I don't see a reason to object," he told the young man. "So long as it doesn't interfere with my existing contract to my master, or his explicit orders."
"I don't anticipate any conflict of interest." Curious, how this shopkeeper never quite chose to meet Sebastian's gaze, as most people did. Not as if he were avoiding it, but rather as though he were finding his conclusions and confirmations in places beyond Sebastian's own perception, or in the space surrounding the physical form Sebastian wore.
"Then I see no reason to delay. I accept your terms, Mr.--. Oh I beg your pardon, I'm not sure I caught your name."
At this, the young man did meet his gaze, with the faintest circumspect amusement in his half-lidded eyes and single arched brow. Nice try, those lovely mismatched eyes seemed to say. "Since we meet in a professional capacity, it's preferable that you use my title. Most visitors in your capacity call me Shopkeeper."
Sebastian had only asked on a whim; of course the young man would be too canny to offer his name to one of Sebastian's ilk. But as with most amusing tricks of his trade, there was never harm in trying. It was all part of the fun.
"Well then, Shopkeeper," he smiled, raising his teacup for an informal toast "Shall we do business?"
"As you wish, Butler-san."
*****
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