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The air was quiet in the room. The boys had long since been sent to bed, and Ciel’s dormmates lay fast asleep. The earl himself had been drifting in and out of consciousness, but was unable to settle down.
All day, there had been a faint stinging in his contracted eye.
He had thought the new medical eyepatches Weston provided may have irritated it, and took it off for a little while during class.
Luckily, he sat in the back of the classroom, and could easily duck if anybody turned to look at him. But, his vision in his right eye was very poor, and seeing out of both his good eye and his contracted one turned out to be more disorienting than it was helpful.
So, he had put the blasted patch back on. But something was definitely wrong with his eye.
And it was bothering him greatly.
Ciel turned over, for what felt like the thousandth time in the last hour. He looked at the lump in the bed next to his. McMillan was fast asleep, breathing steady and deeply. Ciel huffed. He turned back to the window.
Finally, Ciel found a position that put just the right amount of pressure on the right side of his face, slightly alleviating the pain in his eye.
It was comfortable enough to fall asleep, and Ciel was exhausted.
Between his investigation, and the constant frivolous work he did for Clayton, Ciel was worn.
He drifted off, still pressing his face into the pillow.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
A sudden, explosive pain made itself known from Ciel's eye.
He shot out of bed, hands fumbling over his cheek. His whole face was wet, and sticky with blood.
Ciel sat in shock, for a moment, before the pain pulsed again.
It felt as though daggers were trying to force their way out from behind Ciel's eye, ripping and cutting at his flesh, burning.
He winced, trying not to groan in pain. Ciel put his hand to his face again, but his hands were shaky. One of his fingers trembled, and he poked himself in the corner of his eye socket.
Ciel couldn't help it– he whimpered. The pain was bad, getting worse, even.
He got up, taking the bloody pillow with him.
From the other bed, he heard McMillan stir. He rushed to turn the other way, towards the wall.
He waited for McMillan to settle back to sleep.
“... Phantomhive?”
Damn it.
His skull pounded, but he tried to ignore it.
McMillan sat up straighter, squinting. Ciel could tell when he saw the blood, because his eyes suddenly widened. “What happened!?” he practically yelled.
Around the room, the two other boys started waking up as well.
Ciel covered his eye with both hands. “It’s nothing.”
McMillan was already coming over to him, reaching like he was going to touch him. What grabbing Ciel’s arm would help in that moment, he couldn’t say. He turned away, getting up off of the bed from the other side, and rushing towards the door.
“Wait! Is it your eye?” McMillan called after him, as he hurried down the hall. “Phantomhive! Is it your eye?” Ciel didn’t respond. He just kept moving, all the while pressing his sleeve to his eye to try to contain the blood. He really had no idea what he was supposed to do. As he turned the corner toward the washroom, he heard McMillan talking to the other boys from the doorway. Murmurs of “What do we do?” and “Should we follow him?”
Ciel was panicking. He stood at a sink, and for a moment that was all he did. He just stood there. He felt utterly helpless. He could wash his face, sure, but his eye was still bleeding, and it hurt like the devil.
The door to the washroom creaked open. Quickly, Ciel tried to tuck himself away, but McMillan’s voice called out. Again, he covered his eye with his hand.
McMillan came up behind him, settling a hand on his shoulder. “Are you alright?” he asked.
Ciel nodded. “Perfectly fine. Go back to the dorm.”
“What are you going to do?”
Ciel paused. He dropped his hand, but looked down so McMillan couldn’t see the contract seal. “What?”
“For your eye. What are you going to do to stop the bleeding?”
For a moment, the boys stared at each other in silence, Ciel’s hand covering his face again.
McMillan was looking him over, clearly trying to be subtle, but failing.
Ciel knew why. He was currently quite the sore sight for eyes. His face had been cleaned, but the blood was still dripping out of his eye socket and down his face. The top of his nightshirt was covered in blood, and just about everything above waist level was drenched in water, from his frantic wiping at his face.
“Phantomhive, I think we should–”
“No.”
“There's so much blood. You need–”
“Nothing. I need nothing. There is absolutely no reason we should go down to the infirmary at this hour, and risk causing a commotion.” Ciel shook his head, all of the doors in this building were so damned loud, they would probably wake every Sapphire Owl boy if they even left the first-former hall.
“Well then what are you going to do?” McMillan asked again.
And again, Ciel had no answer. He had absolutely no idea what he was going to do.
A moment passed, before McMillan sighed. Ciel scoffed internally. Here’s this sheltered little noble child, treating him like he doesn’t know how to handle his own health.
Well. In this situation he doesn’t, but this is a rare case.
“Wait here,” McMillan said, turning and speedwalking out of the washroom. He must have been worried about the noise too, then. Ciel stood in the empty washroom, staring down at his hands.
A drop of blood rolled down his face, and landed directly in the center of his palm, splattering into a sun shape.
Suddenly, and all too intensely, Ciel was reminded of the pain in his eye. He felt like he had dropped head-first onto concrete. A pulsing, stabbing pain spread all over his head. He could feel it in his ears, his temples, even in the bags under his eyes.
Nausea settled in, and the pain in his head spread to his body, as he doubled over the sink and vomited into the basin. His throat stung, and tears mixed with the blood on his cheeks. He finished heaving, and let out a big sob.
There was a hand on his back that hadn’t been there before, rubbing gentle circles. Looking over his shoulder, he saw McMillan had returned, and with one of Ciel’s padded, medical eye patches.
Wordlessly, Ciel sobbed, and McMillan tipped him backwards to lean against him.
His body tensed, but he felt weak. He leaned his head against McMillan, and sobbed again.
They sat there for a few minutes, McMillan rubbing his back, and whispering soft reassurances while Ciel calmed himself down. When he was breathing normally again, the medical patch was pressed into his hand, soaking up a bit of the blood.
McMillan guided Ciel’s hand to his face. “Hold this over your eye while we walk down to the infirmary, alright?”
Ciel opened his mouth to protest, but was quickly silenced when another wave of pain pulsed through his head. He squeezed his eyes shut, and felt the other boy moving to help him stand up. He wobbled on his feet, but McMillan helped him get an arm over his shoulder, and began walking them out, back into the hallway.
Ciel hadn’t realized how stuffy the washroom was until he finally escaped it, and took a breath of cool air. As they made their way down the hall and into the stairwell, Ciel was starting to feel better. The pain from his eye was still there, but he didn’t feel so nauseated anymore. He removed himself from McMillan’s side, shuddering from the realization that he had been leaning on him that whole time.
When they arrived at the blue house infirmary, they were greeted with a closed door and a paper that read:
“NURSE HOURS 5AM-9PM”
It was currently around eleven. Ciel sighed. “So we walked all the way down here for nothing,” he groaned. He turned to walk away, but McMillan grabbed his arm.
Ciel shrugged him off, much more aware of being touched than he was before.
“The house nurse isn’t here, but there’s probably supplies we could use for your eye.”
Ciel didn’t even know what was wrong, so he didn’t think that supplies were going to do much. But, he couldn’t exactly explain that to the boy, as that would initiate questions about the wound on his eye, and then he may even ask to see it, and then he would know, and then–
So. Ciel couldn’t explain.
McMillan took his silence as relenting, and opened the door. It was moving slowly, when a sudden loud creak made Ciel wince, and look down the hall.
They both stared down the hall, waiting for someone to come yell at them for being up and about so late.
A few moments passed, no sign of anyone.
They walked in, Ciel going straight for the washbasin to clean his eye of blood again. He leaned over, grimacing as his stomach lurched. He swallowed, refusing to throw up again.
Ciel stared down at the water swirling in the drain, and watched as streaks of red began to mix in, and wash away. From beside him, he could hear McMillan digging around in the cupboards for something that could help.
Again, and Ciel does not know how much he can stress this, he is very sure there is nothing McMillan could possibly find to fix this problem.
“Phantomhive?” McMillan called, snapping Ciel away from his thoughts. “I think maybe we should leave a note and come back in the morning. Do you think your white eyepatch could last the whole night?”
It most certainly would not. Ciel remembers one of the most frustrating things about wearing those eyepatches at first after making the contract being that they soaked through so quickly. “Yes, it’ll be fine.”
Ciel spotted a notepad on the desk, and moved to grab it, stepping directly into the line of sight from the doorway.
“What is going on in here!?” a voice came from the hallway.
Both boys whipped towards the sound, Ciel stumbling and knocking his hip into the desk.
It’s just one thing after another in this bloody school.
Before them stood their Prefect, Lawrence Bluewer.
Bluewer entered. At first as he walked towards them, he seemed angry, like he had caught them causing trouble. But as he came closer, saw Ciel, covered in blood,still dripping down his face, and McMillan, crouched by the medicine cabinet, with an arm full of towels, he paused.
“What… is going on in here?”
Ciel grimaced, “It’s nothi–”
“We’re so sorry!” McMillan blurted, in a voice that made him sound like he was about to burst into tears. “We were trying to be quiet, I swear, I– I just– we didn’t want to wake anyone up, but we woke our whole room up, but they went to sleep, I think they went to sleep, but– but the blood just kept coming and then Phanomhive threw up, and I just didn’t– I didn’t know what to do! I’m– we’re sorry!” His words spilled over each other, and somewhere in there there might have been a sob or two.
Huh. It has been a pretty rough night, Ciel supposed.
The room went quiet. Bluewer looked at McMillan. He looked at Ciel.
Ciel swallowed. “Um. We apologize.”
Bluewer seemed to remember his position in all of this, and took a deep breath. “Both of you stay here. Phantomhive, clean off the blood,”
Bitterly, Ciel thought, that’s all I’ve been doing this whole time.
“And McMillan, there are bandages in the storage closet. Fetch a roll from the bottom shelf. I’m going to get the housemaster.”
That damn demon. Ciel didn't want to see his smug face when he saw the chaos his mark had caused. It was just like him to do this to his master.
He wondered what sort of sick pleasure Sebastian got from this. If he was watching from afar the whole time, as Ciel suffered.
Ciel continued to wash out his eye. Another glob of blood dripped down his face. At least at this point it was starting to clot, rather than the seemingly endless flow from before. Tears welled in his eyes, and he turned his entire body towards the wall to hide.
The tears felt so warm in comparison to the sticky, dried blood on his cheeks. He tried to be silent as he wiped them away, sniffling.
Much to his chagrin, it did not go unnoticed.
“Phantomhive? Are you–”
The door slammed open, revealing a frantic Bluewer, and Sebastian.
Sebastian had an expression clearly meant to seem concerned. As if he had no clue what could have happened to his poor student.
Demon and master locked eyes. Ciel was upset with him already, but seeing him standing there, making that stupid face, broke the dam. His breath hitched, and Sebastian quickly ushered McMillan and Bluewer out of the room and shut the door.
Once they were alone, Ciel’s tears fell freely, and his shoulders shook as he started to sob. Sebastian crossed the distance of the small room quickly, guiding his master into the small exam room. Ciel scowled at him, and tried to shrug the guiding hand off.
Sebastian… hadn’t stopped making the weird face.
He picked Ciel up under his arms, lifting him onto the table. Gently, he wiped the tears from Ciel’s cheeks.
“Young master… what on earth happened?”
Ciel, who was still sobbing, sniffled, and cocked his head.
Now they were both making the weird face.
A mutual confusion settled in the air.
Ciel brought both of his hands up, wiping furiously at his face. He sniffed again, harshly, and spoke. “You mean you–” He hiccuped. “You didn’t do this…?”
“No,” The demon said, “In fact, I didn’t know this had all happened until the prefect boy came to me in a panic.”
Well, that was certainly odd. Sebastian was always aware of Ciel’s health and physical condition, to the point where he would know when he got a paper cut.
His eye pulsed again, and Ciel’s hand flew up to cover it, as if that would help. He sobbed again, and whimpered when Sebastian gently moved his hand to get a better look at the source of his master’s pain.
Sebastian hummed as he rubbed gentle circles under the boy’s contracted eye. “It’s possible the reason I didn’t sense this could be because it’s on this eye. When a human makes a contract, the contracted part of their body goes through extreme pain as the agreement is formed, I’m sure you remember.”
Ciel nodded weakly, and let Sebastian tip him to be laying on his chest, head in the crook of the demon’s neck.
He stroked the boy’s hair, “This pain you felt was a level and type of pain perceptible to my kind as well. Over time, I’ve learned to ignore that kind of pain.” Softly, he said, “I am very sorry young master, that you had to experience this. It must have been very frightening.” Sebastian shifted to be sitting on the table, to allow Ciel to lay on him more.
The boy continued to cry, a rare sight from this usually headstrong, prideful earl. Meanwhile, Sebastian continued to examine his eye, even as tears welled and flowed out.
A little voice piped up from below him. “Why is this happening to me?” The question came with a high whine when Sebastian coaxed him to open his eye wider.
Ciel leaned into his butler’s warmth, until finally the demon seemed to notice something.
“It seems that a small vessel has been nicked, sir.”
The boy looked up at him with big, watery (and bloody) eyes. “How does that happen?”
“Well, numerous things could have happened. Your eye is sensitive, and can never truly heal from the day it was contracted. Most likely, you rubbed it in your sleep, and hit a part that was still tender.”
Ciel felt silly. This seemed like an overreaction for a popped blood vessel.
Sebastian shifted the boy into his lap, allowing himself to turn more freely to grab a wet cloth from a bucket. He began to wipe off the boy’s face, getting rid of much of the blood, sweat, and grime that Ciel’s clumsy hands hadn’t been able to get.
He pressed the cloth to his eye. A cold compress would be able to stop the bleeding, and as long as nothing else happened to it soon, it would heal completely again in a few weeks. This solution was slow going, but much better than the mix of pigeon blood and milk that this age’s humans seemed to think was acceptable to put in people’s eyes.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, Sebastian wiping his face still.
Eventually, he removed the cloth compress and looked into his eye again. It didn’t seem like it would continue to bleed anymore, so Sebastian reached for the medical patch in Ciel’s hands. Only, it was bloodied, and definitely not suitable to go back onto his face.
Sebastian decided instead to bandage it. As he finished tying a knot at the back of the boy’s head, and Ciel was starting to come down from the adrenaline rush, he said, “The prefect and your little schoolmate will most certainly be worried. Not to mention the others that have gathered outside.” He watched Ciel’s expression change to one of adorable shock. “Would you like me to reassure them, or will you allow them to come in here and speak with you directly?”
Ciel considered. He didn’t really want to face anybody right now, but he knew that the questions would only be worse if he didn’t handle this sooner than later. “They can come in.”
Sebastian nodded, and picked Ciel up again, this time carrying him to the bed along the far side of the wall. When he noticed the boy’s nightshirt, he frowned.
“Let’s remedy this, shall we?”
As if from nowhere, Sebastian pulled a fresh nightshirt from beneath his robe. Usually, Ciel wanted him to restrain from using his abilities as much as possible in their everyday life, but he was tired, so he stayed quiet as the demon leaned over him again.
“Arms up, young master.”
Ciel did as he was told, and Sebastian removed the bloody nightshirt, frowning before tossing it onto the examination table, where Ciel watched it disappear before his eyes. The new nightshirt was pulled down over his head, and Sebastian tied the little bow at the collar.
Finally, Ciel got to lay down.
Peace. For a few seconds.
McMillan came all but sprinting into the room, capturing Ciel in a hug. Immediately, he went to tell this obnoxious boy to get the hell off of him, and then he remembered earlier that night, the gentle hand rubbing his back as he threw up.
He allowed the hug for a few more seconds before wiggling, signaling to McMillan to move.
Behind his classmate stood Bluewer, who was talking to someone outside the door. “Yes, we can enter now. The housemaster is all finished.”
The prefect walked in, followed by Greenhill and, surprisingly to Ciel, his cousin.
His attention was pulled away from Edward when there was suddenly a hand in front of his face.
McMillan was reaching to touch the bandages around his head, but Ciel pulled out of the way, and shoved McMillan, dumping him onto the wooden floor.
Undeterred, the boy popped back up, leaning in, again, very close, to look at the bandages.
“What happened? What was wrong? What did you have to do to stop the bleeding? What even–”
“McMillan.” Bluewer interrupted his word vomit. “Give him some space.”
The boy took a few steps back, but immediately addressed him again. “So then, what was the problem?”
Sebastian spoke up from the back of the group. “His eye wound reopened.” Immediately, the room silenced.
Nobody was brave enough to ask any more questions about that topic. As the silence started to turn awkward, Edward stepped forward, and sat on the edge of the bed. Not so close to make Ciel uncomfortable, but close enough to rest a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “So what exactly happened tonight?” he asked, starting to stroke his cousin’s back when Ciel didn’t resist the contact.
“I woke up, and it was just bleeding.” Ciel mumbled. He did not want to sit here and recount everything.
Edward hummed.
Again, there was silence. Until again, Edward broke it.
“Lizzie would have a fit if she had seen you like this,” He said, chuckling lightly. Ciel wondered what “like this” was supposed to mean.
When Ciel didn’t respond, Edward tried again.
“Have you written to her at all recently?” He asked.
Ciel leaned slightly into Edward’s comforting hand. “To Lizzie?”
Edward nodded.
The two talked about nothing for a short while, with McMillan piping up here and there. The prefects spoke to each other hushedly. Eventually, Bluewer turned away from Greenhill.
“Midford, would you step into the hall with us for a moment?”
Edward stood, and Ciel almost whined at the loss of warmth.
Although that issue was quickly solved by McMillan, who immediately filled the empty spot on the bed. The redheaded boy fussed over Ciel’s eye without touching, and shifted closer than Edward had been, so he could lay down as well.
Since they were both rather small, it wasn’t difficult for both boys to lay in the bed comfortably.
_________________________
Edward closed the door softly behind him. He turned to see both Bluewer and Greenhill just… staring at him.
“...What did you need me for, Bluewer?” Edward prompted.
Bluewer sent a sideways glance to Greenhill, and nudged him lightly with his elbow. Greenhill looked at Bluewer with shock and betrayal at being made to be the one to speak first. Whatever this conversation was, it was clearly not planned out very well.
Finally, Greenhill cleared his throat and spoke. “Midford, as you know, we would not allow a boy from another house to enter ours. Especially not this late at night…” He paused, seemingly trying to gather his thoughts. “Now obviously, I was the one who brought you here, since Phantomhive is your cousin.”
Edward nodded.
“But, in the case that this happens again, explain to us what we should do.”
Edward blinked at them. “Explain to you what to do?”
This time, Bluewer spoke. “Yes. What is normally done for him at home if something irritates his eye wound?”
“Oh, I’m not sure.”
The prefects looked at him with confusion clear on their faces.
“Nothing like this has ever happened to him while he was with my family. So, I’m not quite sure what should be done for him, treatment-wise.” Edward thought that should have been a pretty simple concept, yet the prefects still looked like they weren’t getting it. Although, he understood. Edward’s family are Ciel’s only living relatives, so one would probably think they would keep up with his health.
And it’s not that they didn’t try to. In the first months after Ciel’s return, Edward remembers both of his parents attempting to check on his recovery several times.
“Ciel is a very private person.” Edward said. “He’s never even shown any of us the wound before… or any of the other scars that may be less visible.”
“But you don’t know what could have happened to leave him in such a state?” Greenhill questioned.
“...We have some guesses. But no, Ciel has never told anyone what happened to him. Whatever it was, he came back from it so small… but with the determination to make himself appear grown.” Edward paused. He looked up at the two prefects, and grimaced as a dark thought crossed his mind. He had spent late nights thinking about what exactly caused Ciel to become so independent, and protective of himself.
He didn’t like to accept those thoughts as a possible truth.
“Don’t try to ask him about it.” His voice suddenly grew firm.
The prefects were not faced with Greenhill’s drudge. They were seeing Ciel Phantomhive’s cousin.
“We won’t–”
“I mean it.” Edward practically growled, before turning and heading back into the small nurse’s office.
When he stepped inside, he saw that Ciel and that redheaded boy had both fallen asleep. The other boy had clearly tried to cuddle up to Ciel, only to have been shoved off and banished to the very edge of the cot.
Edward nudged his little cousin lightly, just enough to wake him. “Ciel?”
Ciel whined, and tried to burrow into the pillows to escape the noise.
Edward ran a hand through Ciel's hair, and sighed. “I know, I know. We just need to ask you one quick question, okay?”
Ciel frowned sleepily, so adorably, Edward couldn't help but think of a time when his parents introduced him to his new baby cousins. Holding the sickly one in his arms, and marveling at the new life.
Putting a hand under each of the boy’s armpits, he pulled Ciel up to sit in his lap. Edward let Ciel get comfortable before speaking again. “Has this ever happened at home before? Your eye bleeding?”
Ciel shakes his head.
“No?” Edward frowns. If there was no protocol for what they should do when this happens, and Ciel's eye wound reopened again… well, he doesn't mind spending his night here with his cousin, but he wouldn't want Ciel to be in pain.
Housemaster Michaelis spoke before Ciel could. “I have notated exactly how we solved the issue. If this happens again, Phantomhive is to come straight to myself or the dorm nurse should she still be on campus.”
Edward looked down at Ciel. Then, he looked at the prefects. They seemed to sense that he wanted to talk to his cousin, and both hurried out into the hall. The housemaster lingered, but left the room as well.
Ciel had started to lay his head on Edward again, but his cousin tapped his head up from under his chin.
“Just a few minutes, and then you can sleep.”
Ciel huffed. “I'm tired now…”
“I know. But Ciel, did you hear what the housemaster said?”
“Noooo,” Ciel whined, trying again to get settled.
Edward started again. “Okay well, if your eye starts to hurt again, even a little bit, you need to fetch someone.” Edward considered who the smartest person to fetch would be. “I'm not very well acquainted with the Blue House dorms. Especially not the first year hall… which class hall is closest to yours?” He asked. In Green house, the dorms go from oldest to youngest. This has actually caused problems before, since the first years are so young, sometimes they need to get an upperclassman, but have decided not to because of the long walk.
“Um… I think the fifth years. Is that what Clayton is?” Ciel asked, blue eye wide open, looking up at Edward.
“Yeah. Me too.” He smiled. “And that's another thing, if you ever, for any reason, want to see me. I will come see you. Even if all of the prefects and the headmaster himself are angry with me because if it.”
Ciel giggled. “Okay,” he said breathlessly. “Even if my eye doesn't hurt?”
“Even if your eye doesn't hurt. But speaking of, can you tell me what you're gonna do if this happens again?”
“Go get Clayton, and–”
“Nope! That's all you should have to do. Get Clayton. He'll get Bluewer, and the headmaster, and they'll know what to do.”
Ciel yawned, and nuzzled into the crook of Edward's neck. “‘kay…”
Edward patted his back. “Okay Ciel, you can sleep now.”
And he did.