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The days fluttered by as they always did for the young boy, akin to the tiny snowflakes planting against his rosed cheeks in a searing kiss. The crystalline formations of ice were small enough to not be taken seriously, but their flurried demonstrations demanded way to his skin, melting against flesh and trailing down like frigid tears. One then two, then sixteen and twenty, until it was boundless and innumerable, the amount of which he had weathered. Ciel raised an arm towards the bitter sky, letting the wind nip at the skin now exposed from his all too big coat.
A large hand snapped up to his unoccupied one, urging him forward. Ciel followed the line of sight from the hand tightly encasing his, to the much taller figure it belonged to. An elegant, sophisticated man of his late twenties, Ciel’s handler, Sebastian. The boy gazed upon the clothed back he was trailing behind. Sebastian was fashioned in a similarly black winter coat, the one difference being his fit him as perfectly as the spotless white gloves he was partial to. Everything about the man was the picture of pristine. Even as they thrummed through the city in bleak midday light, not even a singular hair of his strayed unfavorably in the wind. His features remained calm despite the cruel conditions.
He stepped in a rhythm too brisk for Ciel to follow without trotting forward on his toes. They were in no hurry. They never were. They always left the office at a reasonable hour, made their way to their appointments fifteen to twenty minutes ahead of schedule. There was only the illusion of a rush, the demand to poise as punctual and over prepared.
They were perhaps the picture of innocence. A stag guiding his naive little fawn through the wintry winds. Perhaps they were headed home to shelter and bathe the boy in much needed warmth. Maybe they were to be at the library for a lesson in whatever the boy found himself struggling to understand in his year four classes. These childish assumptions couldn’t have found themselves further from the truth.
Ciel wasn’t a child to be read with much ease. Well, and maybe he was, but that never stopped anyone from failing to recognize the signs. He was a quiet child, rarely misbehaving or talking out of turn. He was relatively easy to ignore, the only things calling attention being his dollish features and heterochromic eyes. Strangers would stop to fawn over him and his twin, gushing over a sense of novelty the adorable pair brought to heart. Ciel’s elder brother took compliments with a smile, one that bore the awkwardness of an adolescent, but remained charming through and through. Ciel’s shy, practiced smile was also one dripping in juvenile draw.
This here, however, was one thing Ciel’s brother could never accompany him in. Ciel may or may not have rolled this truth around in his mind; much of his thought process around this was quite evasive. All that could be understood was what was useful to be understood at the time. Anything else, all other endless products of the boy’s imagination or rumination, could be discarded. The only things meaningful to the cause were matters of attraction, and revulsion.
Attraction and revulsion were two things regularly positioned as armament against Ciel. These two items can leverage quite a lot in the world of control. The boy was adverse to flames. Fancy shutting him up? Simply strike a match and the deed is done. Conversely, he was to be rewarded with what nourished his soul. Praise, affection, undivided attention. These things filled him up, ripening him for the picking. He was a polite, well mannered, malleable sort of boy. He’d hold onto any precious material you gave him, guard it with his life. The royal azure ring around his thumb served as a constant reminder of that dedication. One look at that captivating jewel would set him right.
There were times though, in which Ciel was not a pleasant boy. That side of him became available when pushed to the brink of his tolerance. He would act as the starved wolves that so very often circled his own trembling stripped down body. He would bare his fangs and rip apart, what, the subject so inconsequential, a small hare if you will, until the stuffing of its form lay strewn across the floor in crimson chunks. Afterwards, a simple command, a whistle from his master would bring him back from the dark lake in which he found himself drowning. Again and again he was pushed in, then lifted right back out of frigid waters by the familiar gloved hands he hoped were as dedicated to him, as he was to them. He’d be wrapped in a blanket and coddled. Oh how he savored those moments. Leaning against Sebastian, being allowed to take all that he wanted. Being pet atop his head, low praises given for a job well done. He’d destroy himself and anyone else if only to be granted those gentle moments from the handler.
He wasn’t entirely sure how to place his feelings. There were too many of them, and so he allowed for his feelings to be placed for him. He let himself lean into Sebastian’s aesthetics, being dressed up by him became a comforting ritual. He let himself collapse into Sebastian’s corruption, understanding the touches the older man placed between his slender legs, as he lulled his mind into the oblivion of facetious care couldn’t be right. Still, he craved any form of attention he could draw from that man.
Sebastian was a demon of the filthiest kind, priming, cultivating Ciel’s pais soul for the day in which it could be feasted upon. And Ciel wasn’t swindled into this arrangement in the clearest sense, no, he knew well, his place and his future. He gave himself up, mind and body, for a taste of the luxuries Sebastian could afford him. Because he knew the world would devour him up either way.
The two stopped before their destination, Ciel not recalling the journey that took them there. He stepped silently into the vacant building, those gloved hands engulfing his shoulders, ushering him further in. He scanned his surroundings, ultimately deciding it was unfamiliar. The locations of these rendezvous always changed. Security reasons, it was harder to get caught this way. Ciel discarded the scan, the less he remembered of any of this, the better. He let himself be tended to, fixed up by the man he was in the care of, numbing himself until only the sensation of covered fingertips dancing around his skin remained. He fluttered his eyes shut and slumped into a cupped palm. Maybe he would nap a bit before the service was set to begin.