Chapter Text
It was one of the rare times in which Sebastian lost his patience with his young master. Ciel had been embarrassed to be washed by an adult, by Sebastian in particular, and repeatedly insisted on doing it himself. He didn’t want to be attended to so closely anymore; truthfully, there was a slightly different quality to it lately, a different awareness…but obviously he wasn’t going to say any of that.
Eventually Sebastian had seized him by the chin and given him a short but brutal lecture, something about the fragility of humans and how he was being too stubborn. Ciel had been both too scared and moreover, too afflicted to listen particularly carefully. What had stood out far more was Sebastian’s hot breath against his skin, the vice-like grip cradling his jaw, the glittering fury in his butler’s eyes that made them as captivating as a snake’s; the pupil following suit and narrowing to a slit.
And then the inevitable scrubbing, gentle in contrast to mere seconds ago, which was worse. Ciel’s skin was so sensitive these days; he could feel his body reacting in new and mortifying ways—ways which were only tenuously covered by bubbles and the sheer fortune of not accidentally moving them.
He’d panicked and refused to have Sebastian wash every inch of him, like he usually did, reluctantly sticking the lengths of his legs outside of the tub and raising his thin white arms, but stubbornly keeping his lower body hidden. Ciel was afraid that Sebastian would snap again and do it anyway.
However, Sebastian had only looked surprised, and then smiled, eyes shining red in the candlelight.
What? Ciel wanted to ask him, and he knew it would be steeped in defensiveness. Why are you so happy?
Once clean and in bed, he hadn’t insisted on Sebastian staying in the room with him, as he often did. He usually felt somewhat relaxed after a hot bath, but now he only felt anxious. He needed to be alone, even if it unnerved him.
Sebastian’s knowing smile as he exited the room, candelabra in hand, only served to further disturb him.
“Maybe I’m getting sick,” Ciel murmured to himself. He made sure to properly pull all of the blankets around his small frame, trying to keep warm. It was a while before he could drift off to sleep, and even then, he wasn’t granted respite.
The memory replayed for him, as though taunting him. And even though it was almost exactly the same, there was some additional sense of dread—as though if he could not stop the dream, something terrible would happen.
Contrary to the usual nature of dreams, in which faces were not so precise, Sebastian was recreated in perfect and vivid detail. Yet when it came time for him to widen his eyes and smile, leaving Ciel to wash the rest of himself—albeit while he watched—instead of pulling away, his soap-covered hand slipped below the surface of the water with a soft sound, snaking toward exactly what Ciel had been so desperate to hide from him.
“Young master,” Sebastian said in a low voice. “You should have told me that you were coming of age. All of this time, I’ve been suppressing my appetites, waiting for you to ripen. And here you are…nice…and firm.” He leaned closer with those last words, his lips all but brushing Ciel’s ear.
It must have been sheer distress that woke Ciel. A scream died on his lips as he awoke. He shot upright at once, looking wildly around the empty room, then, peeling back the layers of blankets, to between his own legs.
Wet.
“What the Hell…?” He whispered, horrified.
There was a perfunctory knock at the door and after a frozen moment in which he simply could not think, Sebastian entered.
“Young master? Did you have a nightmare?” Sebastian’s nostrils flared ever so slightly, taking in the scent of the room, and then a smile bloomed over his face, followed by a polite, gloved hand rising to hide it.
“You beast!” Ciel accused, feeling that somehow, this had to have been his fault; that he seemed to know exactly what was going on; probably because he had caused it. Ciel himself did not understand; he only knew that he felt wronged, and terribly ashamed.
“Now, now,” Sebastian said, approaching with the light, which, for once in his young life, Ciel did not want near him. While he didn’t know what he was hiding, he was absolutely certain that it should remain hidden. “This is a perfectly normal time of one’s life, young master. It happens to us all. In fact, it’s a good thing. It means that you’re growing into yourself.”
“What the hell are you going on about?” Ciel snapped. His cheeks were flushed and he had long ago pulled the blankets up to his chin. With his hair disheveled and the contract in his eye naked and shining bright, he was more of a delight to Sebastian’s eye than he would ever have wanted to know.
“What?” Sebastian asked calmly. “Would you rather I ask if you’ve wet yourself?”
“I didn’t wet myself!” Ciel hissed through clenched teeth.
Unfortunately, he really didn’t know if he had. In fact, it was the only thing that he could guess at, although once again, he had no idea why. He hadn’t drunk any more than normal before bed…and if he was really growing up, why would he have an accident in his sleep?
There was a brief struggle over the blankets, during which Sebastian told him, “Young master, you’re being childish.”
This threw an already unbalanced Ciel off so terribly that he actually loosened his grip without thinking about it.
Quickly, Sebastian threw the blankets to the end of the large bed, baring Ciel in the middle of it, diminutive in his pajamas…and the dark spot between his legs.
“Goodness,” Sebastian said, raising his hand to his mouth again. “Just how much was in there? You must have been holding yourself back for quite some time. I can sympathize…”
“Don’t be disgusting,” Ciel snapped, although he still had no idea what Sebastian was being disgusting about; he just didn’t want to be sympathized with by this demon. He tried to shift his legs, trying in vain to cover himself. “I’ll—I’ll take care of it myself.”
Sebastian failed to stifle his laugh this time, quite possibly on purpose. “Young master, you’re not even strong enough to lift the winter blanket. How could you possibly do it yourself?”
Ciel’s face flushed an even deeper hue. “Then I’ll…then get…”
The problem was, there was absolutely no one else he wanted to see this either.
He was at a rare and total loss for words.
“You’ll need another bath, too, unless you wish to sleep in your puddle,” Sebastian said, his voice low and amused.
“I didn’t…” Ciel muttered, although he didn’t even sound convinced himself.
A false kindness softened Sebastian’s face and he seated himself at the edge of the bed, close to Ciel. “Let me explain it to you. Young master, you had a wet dream. Something aroused you in your sleep and you ejaculated.”
Ciel thought that he might end it with “that’s all,” or, “it’s nothing to be ashamed of,” but Sebastian only stared at him with that smile.
And then it hit him—“aroused.”
“Ejaculated.”
“No,” he whispered. Bile rose from his stomach as if on cue; he tried to hold it in, not wanting to vomit in his own bed, but in the end, repulsion overtook him completely, and he could only scramble to the closest edge, scrabbling over Sebastian’s lap and using his legs to pull himself forward. Stomach empty with sleep, he vomited saliva onto the floor, tears rising to his eyes with the force of it.
“My, my, how pitiful,” Sebastian murmured, stroking the hair of the belly-down child sprawled across his lap. A weak hand attempted to swat him away.
When he had finished vomiting, Sebastian said, “You know, it’s not just the men who raped you who are capable of such things. Most men become aroused and most men ejaculate. You don’t have to be so pathological about it all.”
Weakly, Ciel lifted his head, trying to see Sebastian’s face. “Are you trying to comfort me?”
“Am I?” Sebastian asked. He didn’t seem to be asking himself, but Ciel.
Exhausted with his meager effort, Ciel hung his head back down over the bed, hair hanging down with him. He wished he could fall into sleep, or possibly death, just like this. Even if it was Sebastian, the gentle hand in his hair reminded him of being sick when he was a young child, his mother stroking the sweaty hair away from his eyes. Her cool skin was truly comforting…
When he awoke, he was in the same position, albeit his head was being cradled in one hand, saving it from hanging over the bed and developing a stiff neck. Yes, his mother’s hand, tenderly holding him, the other resting warmly against the small of his back, just under his shirt…
…Except that his mother was dead, and his pants were still wet, and he would know the smell of Sebastian anywhere in the world.
He muttered a curse to himself, and heard Sebastian’s quiet laughter above him.
“You’re stiff again, you know,” Sebastian said.
“What?” Ciel asked irritably, trying to wipe the sleep from his eyes and sit up. The movement pressed his hips hard against Sebastian’s lap and—there was that familiar sensation, a hardness that was, in fact, poking against the inside of Sebastian’s thigh.
“No…no, it can’t be—”
Sebastian raised his hands as though to prove his innocence, allowing Ciel to scramble ungracefully to a seated position, only catching him around his middle when he nearly fell off the bed. “Young master, you’re a mess,” he chided.
“Shut up, I’m serious—”
“And to think that you slept in it. That was rather filthy of you.”
“Stop it!” Ciel half-shouted, tears of frustration rising to his eyes. He held them wide so they wouldn’t fall, refusing further humiliation.
“You know, it’s a shame that there are no laws to protect me against such things,” Sebastian said, face nearly solemn. “You even got my trousers wet—”
There was a loud slap as Ciel shut him up the fastest way he knew how; with a blow to the face.
A pink tongue darted out to lick the edge of his split lips.
“What have you done to me?” Ciel demanded in a dangerously quiet voice.
“Far less than I could have,” Sebastian said. “A weaker man would certainly have taken advantage. Rear up, face down in my lap—”
Ciel slapped him again. He was breathing hard. “Stay away from me today. I’ll have Tanaka attend to me instead. That’s an—”
Sebastian cocked an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t advise that. As humiliated as you may be, at least I already know of your secret. And you know that I like to take my time. So I’ll be a gentleman about it for now—more or less. But there are others in this manor who decidedly will not be.”
Ciel’s mouth closed with a snap. That was undeniably true, of his visitors in particular. Ran Mao had always been handsy, not to even speak of the Viscount of Druitt…as for the rest of his servants, he trusted them to do their job, but that was actually the problem. Half of the disasters in his more mundane life had been caused by their catastrophic good will.
Finally, he said: “You are not to wash me today. You can attend, and nothing else. That is an order.”
Sebastian bowed, a hand to the place where a heart would be. “Yes, my lord.”