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Warning! Devil

Poor little rich boy. He reeks of wine and cigarettes, a half-cocked dog stumbling to his front door. Grubby striped socks cling worm-like to his lower legs, one melting around his ankle as he jabs unsuccessfully with his key in search of the lock, once, twice, third time's the charm. The door swings and shudders desperately on its hinges, brass letterbox filthy with fingerprints and babbling in the wind. He can't get his key out of the lock. His keyrings cackle. One eye blinks half a second behind the other.

There is a pumpkin on the doorstep carved like the Yorkshire Ripper, rubber knife precariously balanced in a glove stuffed with tissue paper. Red worms explode from its mouth. Ciel rubs his nose on the back of his sleeve, giving up on retrieving his key in favour of slumping to the doorstep. He drags a roll up from his pocket, bent double like it's been punched in its tobacco-filled stomach and vomiting weed from its fattened end. Pinching it between his lips, he flicks open his lighter, sighing delightfully at grey, ghostly wisps erupting from its rust-frazzled tip.

It's cold. The air shivers with the scent of distant, early bonfires and the sparks of failed fireworks. Chocolate lips, sticky hips, sloppy syrup sweets and sugared sherbet pips. Children wailing, crows cawing, a coarse concoction, a melody plucked against the horse-hair bow of Halloween. Ciel hacks as he inhales too quickly, smoke searing his throat on its way to his lungs. It bursts free from his mouth and he thumps his chest with his fist. It's only funny because he's drunk, he finds, laughter gurgling to a halt when he notices there is a man standing at the bottom of the steps, swathed in shadow, silver- buckled boots, and smile like wild-cats, fierce and feral. His tailcoat flutters like moth wings.

"Can I 'elp you?" Ciel says. It sounds elegant to him, the epitome of the genteel, though his local lilt gracelessly tumbles through. The man cocks his head. "Do ya' want somethin'?"

A cat winds around his legs like black smoke creeping under doors. "Do you?" he says, lips puckered pink from jellied eels and raspberry drumsticks. The cat weaves a final weave and hops on through the fence. The tip of his finger peeks between his lips and pops free again. A gathering of soft-nosed, peach-skinned rats go scuttling by, waving their basket bellies bursting with liquorice, lollies and penny chews half chomped. Ciel taps ash onto his shoe. Like jerking pendulums, the stranger's eyes tick his way. His head never moves.

"You're the one standin' at the bottom of my steps," Ciel says, relighting his roach when it fizzles out. It takes a few attempts. "Aren't ya' a bit old for trick or treatin'? Wha's tha' costume meant to be?"

The man straightens his collar and smoothes down his velvet jacket, plucking idle fluff from the pocket. "No one is too old for trick or treating," he answers, producing an unusual looking lolly from his pocket, coloured like melted Smarties. It sneaks between his lips, wicked tongue molesting every inch. He mumbles around the lolly, "You should hang onto your youth because one day – poof! – it's gone. And you are so very young. It would be such a shame. Youth tastes delicious."

Ciel slumps against the doorframe with a snort, waving dismissively. "What do you want?" he asks, though he doesn't really care. Whatever. It's all the same to him.

"I want what you want."

"What do I want?"

The stranger's grin is like oil set alight. He turns, hops up the steps and bends down low, the mad hatter missing his hat. His breath is warm; smells like sweet rotten apples and cinnamon. Ciel would lean away but he can't work out which way his head is falling.

"Wouldn't you like some treats?" the stranger asks, pulling aside his jacket to reveal an inlay of Chewits, Munchies and Cherry Drops, a pretty petticoat of colours so inviting Ciel's mouth waters. He is a 10-year-old boy lulled by the forbidden with just one chance to touch and taste, to dirty and devour. He reaches for a packet. His hand is smacked lightly. "Pretty little boy all alone on Halloween. Why is that?"

Ciel's lips purse, prune wrinkled and sour. He can swear there is a gaggle of ravens perched on the lawn next door. Puts it down to late nights and alcohol and drugs. "Why can't I be alone on Halloween?"

"Oooh, you can. But you're always alone."

"I like to be alone."

The stranger flops beside him, lithe and panther-like, all stretched and content. Ciel notices his painted nails, ink black and manicured better than any woman's could be, almost like charcoal is their natural shade. So fascinated, he almost misses the twinkle of Cheshire teeth, milk behind grapefruit pink and a moist tongue of mute red wildfire. "Sebastian," the man whispers, drawing circles and triangles on the back of his hand. "Call me Sebastian."

"Sebastian what?" Ciel asks, stubbing his roach out on the stone porch step.

"Sebastian 'None-of-your-business, Ciel Phantomhive," Sebastian sings with a cheeky smile, single nail tracing a pattern along Ciel's thigh up the juncture of his hip. He pauses and snatches the finger away. Ciel doesn't care to ask what he thinks he's doing, or how he knows his name. He doesn't care at all. "Trick or treat?"

"Neither."

"Choose."

"Neither."

"Choose!"

Ciel huffs. "Fine. Treat. Gimme' a bloody pack o' Chewits and piss off," he growls, holding out his hand for the offering. He flinches when his hand is grasped, the fingers tugging him to his feet so cold they burn. He stumbles down the stairs, legs awkwardly forced one in front of the other, feet feeling like they belong to someone else, like they're numb from pins and needles. Eventually he's blindly following, no longer resisting, playing with the lighter in his pocket until they happen upon a house he has never noticed before. It's a haggard creature, lidded windows heaving with weary, sagging ledges. The path to the door is weed-ridden, dandelions and daisies peering hopefully between.

Sebastian opens the door for him. Inside the house is lifeless, straight edges; dustless, dark, like it was only built that morning. There is no sign of a man living there except for a scattering of sweets, the pied piper luring his hairless little rats. No belongings, no food, no bottles of spirits. Nothing except a black toy cat curled up in a bed at the bottom of the stairs, single eye peering up like a gold nugget in oil. It's so lifelike Ciel pauses for a moment to make sure it isn't real, gently jabbing the thing with his toe. No claws sink into his shin.

He doesn't hear the door close, Sebastian sweeping past him without a sound. There is a basket on the hallway table, filled with jelly sweets and chocolate. He picks up a spider and drops it on his tongue, offering the basket to Ciel who declines with a wave of his hand. "What've you dragged me here for?" he asks, rubbing his eyes. The events have sobered him, his brain like train wheels starting to chug, chug, chug. He catches his reflection in the hallway mirror, a disappointing, white apparition with sallow eyes and loner's lies.

"You said 'treat'," Sebastian answers simply, too brightly for his gothic exterior. "I give whatever is asked."

"I just want a pack of Chewits," Ciel answers, pointing in the vague direction he expects them to be. The house is spinning, not his head.

"You don't just want a packet of Chewits, little Ciel," Sebastian insists, curling his finger towards him as he ascends the stairs. They groan in protest when Ciel follows, the banister soft as skin beneath his fingertips. When he reaches the top, he sees a small amount of effort has gone into the spirit of the season, paper pumpkins, bats and ghouls haphazardly taped to random walls and ceilings, the decorative skill of a child.

"Not very good at decorating, are you?" Ciel says offhandedly. He jerks back a step in surprise when Sebastian spins on his heels, holding in his hands an array of multicoloured lollies.

"I have no one to decorate for," he whispers, gesturing for Ciel to take. He does so to appease, watching Sebastian part fake cobwebs and disappear. Ciel wanders further down the hallway, only now wandering how he came to be here with this strange man. Moonlight splits the house in two, the raucous, obnoxious roar of children's laughter nothing but a hum in this strange and eerie place, a chamber caught in time.

When he glances down at the lolly between his fingers, he frowns, turning it over in his palm.

"Is...is this what it looks like?" he asks, holding the lolly to the light to scrutinise. He glances over his shoulder, Sebastian's smile as innocent as the toothy grin of preying wolves. He has another between his fingers, sliding an identical rainbow- coloured phallus between his lips with wicked, sultry intent. Ciel's cheeks redden. That is his answer.

"Taste it," he urges, footsteps light as he follows Ciel down the corridor. He takes the lolly to unwrap it, then pushes it eagerly to his lips, Ciel left with no option but to open up. It tastes of nothingness at first, smooth, pleasant, then the faintest sliver of strawberry, honeyed and sweet and sticky-hot. It's pushed in further, Ciel swallowing around it, juice dribbling down his throat like warm, smooth milk. It fills his belly with heat. Sebastian licks his lips. "That's it little Ciel. Doesn't it taste good?"

Ciel's lips briefly catch on its sticky exterior, Sebastian tugging the lolly free. "Trick or treat?" he asks again, Ciel rolling his eyes. He wants something else to drink. The novelty of this experience is starting to wear thin.

"You already asked me," he says wearily. "Are you the local madman? I said 'treat'."

"Trick or treat?"

"Treat."

"Trick or treat?"

Ciel stamps his foot, puffing a stray lock of hair from his eyes. "What do you want me to say, you lunatic?! Trick?!Trick!"

Snake-like, Sebastian's hand grasps his throat, forcing him backwards to the wall. His tongue flickers over his bottom lip, eyes dancing over china-white skin with vicious, unbridled curiosity. To taste and touch and tickle and tear. Nails dig into a fragile, quivering hip, slight and soft like a child's, drawing blood in fine, half-moon welts. "W-what the hell are you doing?" Ciel gasps, the lingering breath of sticky sweets sinking into fleshy lips.

"What am I doing?" Sebastian returns, his own lips barely touching rose petal cheeks. They pause at the corner of Ciel's mouth, delighting in the delicate little tremble. He's nothing but a deer before Death. "Didn't you choose 'trick'?"

"You made me!" Ciel cries, flinching when their lips touch with a resentful spark. "I said 'treat'. Treat!"

Sebastian is driven by wicked lust, teeth tugging his bottom lip. "Maybe this is my treat," he whispers, eyes half-lidded. "Or maybe I'm offering both."

"Those aren't the rules!" Ciel protests angrily, finally reaching to grasp the hand at his throat. His nails dig in to no avail, Sebastian's laughter spilling like spiders from grimy jars left on old shed window-sills. He takes his time replying, tongue tip tracing circles and triangles and idle shapes on Ciel's plump cheek.

"Who said those aren't the rules?" he questions light-heartedly, slender leg pushing firmly between Ciel's. He feels and hears his breath hitch, fingers smoothing up and up and under, prominent ribs, beating heart, tha-thump tha-dump tha-thump tha-dump --

"Whoever invented Halloween," Ciel answers, thinking he's being clever, thinking his intelligence is going to free him from the constraints of his fear. He is trying to convince himself he is not in danger, that this is a trip, an hallucination, that he will find himself staring at his white-washed bedroom ceiling, another day when he can pray to cease existing.

"Who says I didn't invent Halloween?" Sebastian replies, voice not even a whisper, the trickling chuckle of playful ghosts. Ciel has nothing to say to that, not because the notion is ridiculous, but because nimble fingers are rather courteously unfastening his shorts and sliding in and nails are digging and a palm is cupping and a thumb is stroking and lips are leaving his to trail down, down, testing and teasing and titillating his stammering pulse as if it can throb any faster.

"Ask me," Sebastian whispers, his breath moist and close and black. He drags teeth across Ciel's shoulder, taking his shirt with him. Ciel's hips jerk. He answers as though lulled by the fragrance of sleepy contentment. Trick or treat?

Sebastian positively beams. The room starts to boil, paint curdling, peeling like old skin. The walls bubble. Blisters pop. Decorations disintegrate like backwards ink spills. Ciel's head fills with a pleasing haze, familiar and unfamiliar like the dewy, heady sensation of weed idly floating through vessels in his brain as he comes hard.

It's with every ounce of triumphant pride that Sebastian murmurs, "I choose treat."

~End~