#zaciel

„Please?“ „Pretty please?“

It was both Viktor and him looking at Ciel with big eyes, not unlike puppies that wanted a treat.

“No.” “But-“ “No.” “But I’ve never played it. Please? You always say to try things out, I want to try it but the Wikipedia article says one needs at least three players.” “Three” Viktor confirmed. Ciel gave something of an annoyed huff and that was how he knew they got him.

He beamed at Ciel and immediately went for the empty bottle Viktor and him had prepared. He knew it wasn’t played normally with a bottle to choose who got to ask or dare whom but for some reason Viktor and him had decided to play it that way, like spinning the bottle with kissing – just without the kissing.

“Can I start?” he asked, ridiculously excited and when Viktor nodded he spun the bottle which came at a stop pointing at Ciel. “Truth or dare?” – the excitement was clearly audible in his voice. “Say dare” he prompted Ciel which was answered with a gruff noise but said “Dare” and that made him squeak with joy. “We need to go outside for this one. I dare you to stop ten people on their way and wish them, believable, a nice day.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” “Nope” he replied, already on his feet and pulling at Ciel.

  The first person Ciel approached got all wide-eyed and actually turned around, going the way he had come. It was probably something in Ciel’s expression that told him to get away before Ciel could kill him. It wasn’t any different with the next three people. The fifth was a small girl with her mother who tugged excitedly at her mother’s sleeve. “Look, he’s Grumpy Cat!” HA! He wasn’t the only one who thought so. A second after that the girl’s mum froze and then quickly pulled her daughter with her, past Ciel. Seeing Ciel’s expression did that to people.

  The sixth try was a young man who maybe had a thing for broody looking grouches because he actually stopped and although he looked a bit confused, he smiled at Ciel, “Have a nice day yourself.” For the seventh, it was a couple. One they had actually seen before. The Phoenix and the Shadowhunter who were seen together rather often. The Phoenix looked very sour, maybe that was because he had, after all, kidnapped his sister – who was now dead. The Shadowhunter raised an eyebrow, “Is that supposed to be funny?” he snapped at Ciel and then pulled the Phoenix with him, muttering “Ignore him, just ignore him, c’mon, I’m gonna buy you double chocolate muffins.”

To be honest, the rest didn’t go any better. Whenever Ciel approached someone that someone retreated just as if Ciel were actually attacking them. He was chuckling the whole time, so was Viktor. “I’m not doing that again” Ciel said, looking even grumpier than usual.

  “I want next!” Viktor said. “It’s not your turn, it’s Ciel’s.” “No, let him.” “Ah c’mon, spoilsport.”

  Back inside Viktor spun the bottle, this time it came to a halt pointing at him. He gave a delighted noise, this was his first truth  or dare after all, “Dare, please” he answered before Viktor could pose the question. “We need to go outside again. I dare you to kiss ten people.” “The hell he is” “Not r e a l kisses” Viktor replied impatiently, rolling his eyes at the thought that he could have meant real kisses because of course he didn’t. “Just a peck on the cheek.” He tilted his to the side, looking curiously at Ciel because he didn’t quite know whether that was okay. Ciel had said if he kissed other people, they wouldn’t be kissing again but he liked kissing Ciel and Ciel was the only one he wanted to kiss.

  It rained that night. Gently at first, the soft sound of raindrops making for the background as he sat in bed which was, of course, so positioned that it stood against the wall so he could sleep with his back to the solid wall. Now, too, he had his back turned against the wall, resting against it as he turned the page. It was The Secret History he was reading, Coffee half lying on his stomach. After a while he shut the book close and turned the light off, moving to lie down on his side. Noises were louder when the light was off and one just lay there waiting for sleep to come but this time it wasn’t because his concentration now solely lay on the rain, this time it increased in volume because the rain became stronger, somewhat violent even, knocking against the window as if wanting to break the glass.

It wasn’t disturbing enough to keep him from sleep, though. A brief while later he was woken by the loud noise of  a thunder that sounded as if the thunderstorm was happened right above this building. His fear didn’t sit as deep as it did with a certain Shadowhunter but it was strong enough to have him feel really, really uncomfortable and unable to go back to sleep. Uncomfortable enough to get up eventually. The room was illuminated by another lightning painting shadows on the walls. Before he even knew it himself he had left the room already and found himself in front of Ciel’s door.

He knocked. Once. Twice. “What?”

He opened the door, him and Coffee slipping in, he closed the door behind them, bathing the room in darkness again.

“What is it?”

He didn’t say anything, only winced with the next lightning.

“Zach, what is it?” “Can I stay? Can I please stay?”

  Ciel’s answer was a grumbling noise he didn’t know how to interpret, not until he heard the sound of the blanket folded back. The next lightning flashed bright enough to show the way to the bed but he wouldn’t have needed the light to find the way, he knew each and every step bringing him to the bed. He lay down next to Ciel, Coffee settling at the end of the bed at their feet. With the next lightning he moved closer to Ciel and with the next growling of the sky he moved closer yet.

“What has gotten into you?” Ciel asked but he didn’t reply, only hid his face in the curve between Ciel’s shoulder and neck.

  „Toffifay, please.“

The waitress, a young woman going by the name of Morgana (her mother was fascinated with the Arthurian legend), gave them a smile and vanished into the Milky Way which had the reputation of having the best ice-cream in all of New York, so, of course, he had asked Ciel to go here with him.

  “So I just finished book 42 and moved on to 43, Viktor said there are no more books after that, at least not in English but obviously there are about 100 more episodes in German which is why Viktor is trying to learn German and I thought I might, too, so we could do it together and then read the other books, but what I wanted to tell you was something else. The book #43, guess its title. It’s “The Mystery of the Cranky Collector”. Sometimes I forget I’m not there anymore” he said as if still puzzled by that fact.

  It didn’t take long and Morgana, who mainly studied at NYU but needed this and another job at Subway to make ends meet, returned placing the toffifay ice bowl in front of him and a coffee in front of Ciel. “Are you sure you don’t want any ice-cream?” he asked,  not considering that Ciel might want to have a break from eating ice-cream all the time. Ciel didn’t want any ice-cream; Coffee, however, wasn’t of that opinion and jumped onto his lap, greedily watching the ice-bowl. He gave a sigh, waited until Ciel had stirred his coffee and then took the spoon, offering Coffee a spoon of ice-cream. Until now there hadn’t been one single thing Coffee had rejected, not one, and this time, too, the puppy was happy enough licking the spoon until there was no more ice-cream to then stare at him in a way that said ‘more, please’. He offered another spoon to Coffee, at the same time he picked his own spoon up and started eating because otherwise there wouldn’t be anything left for him. “So” he started again. “Since there are no more books in the series, at least not in a language I understand,” he knew bits of German, he knew bits of pretty much every language but he doubted it was good enough for reading and understanding a book in German, “obviously I need to find other books. I was thinking crime stories. I just don’t know where to start. Do you have any idea just how many crime books are published in only one year? Jerome said that if I wanted older books I should try amazon. So I need an account, at amazon and at a bank and you’re going to tell me how I do that” he decided.

“I started The Secret History, by the way” a book he had gotten from a local bookstore, no account needed.

He was about to elaborate on that when three things happened: one – he realized the ice-cream would melt if he continued talking like that two – Coffee started to growl three – a bee or wasp or something stung him in his nape.