#lbr Sebas is probably getting his teeth kicked in for this

[sinnergism]

[ Mood Test ] SebaCiel AU: 1960′s Paris

Paris, 1968

Sebastian watched the smoke curl in the evening dusk above the yawning street below, and thought about the boy sitting on his desk behind him.

 Paper crackled as he turned a page. Clothes rustled with an occasional shift of his hips. The boy was still reading, on that lone reading desk that Sebastian kept cramped in his apartment. He had been reading for hours while Sebastian had tidied up the apartment as best he could and had taken cigarette breaks at regular intervals to slink back and watch him from the dim corner beside the window.

The boy would only ever look up sometimes to stare off into space, as if reciting a passage back to himself, to try to commit it to memory. Sometimes, he would do it long enough so that, after minutes of Sebastian staring at him, he'd finally become cognizant of Sebastian's watchful gaze, and roll over his eyes to meet it.

He always averted them again right away after that. Quick enough that he would not have to see the grin that sliced Sebastian's face.

But even within those fractions of moments, Sebastian saw all that he wanted to see. That twitch in his eyeballs, and the pulse that would slowly spread over his fair British skin for minutes after he'd looked away. The way his spine stiffened and his shoulders locked and his toes curled, just a little. 

Maybe today would be the day, then. 

Sebastian closed his lips around the cigarette, inhaled deeply and exhaled with, "I must say... I'm intrigued." 

The boy stayed silent.

Sebastian breathed out the smoke, watched it curl in on itself and dissolve in the room.

The boy's eyes finished their sojourn across the line he was reading, and, with the snobby air of finally deigning his comment worthy of a response, said, "Yes, your ongoing intrigue with life has been well-established. Will you still be talking about phenomenology? Before we go on about this, shut that window, if you're going to insist on chain-smoking; I'm getting chills."

Sebastian took a defiant drag off his cigarette. Took time to enjoy the slow palliative pulse of the nicotine. Then extinguished the flame in the ashtray on the windowsill and shut the window with a click.

He turned around and leaned against the frame of the window.  "Most things I say are in some way or another about phenomenology. Though what I'm wondering at the present moment is not so much an analysis on the nature of it but a question that naturally presents itself if logically following its tenants.  Tell me, Ciel, how long has it been since you came to Paris?"

Ciel looked at him sharply. The boy seemed to know that that wasn't really what Sebastian was asking, but seemed to also not know what he was really asking, so he just said, "Three months, a week, and two days."

"Ninety-eight days, hmm. And how many of those have you spent here with me, in my apartment?" 

The boy rolled his eyes. "If you want me to leave, just say so."

"Ah, but that isn't what I said, is it? Pas du tout."

"What is this about, Sebastian? You're getting more than enough out of this, aren't you? I paid for that, if you recall." He gestured toward the mahogany bookcase in the corner. 

Heavy red sunlight gleamed on the polished wood. It was getting dark. Only a little more now, until the sun would be gone completely, and the boy would leave, as he always did, to march down the streets of Canal St Martin toward that fancy place he rented all by himself near Neuilly-Auteuil-Passy, where all the rich people lived. 

Sebastian wondered if the boy ever stopped along the way to stare out into the Seine, stared into its black depths, and thought of all the things they'd been talking about. Or would he be thinking of that family he left behind in England that he would not speak about? Was the distraction that Sebastian provided enough?

What is on your mind when you're alone in bed in this foreign city, little lordling?

With a smile, Sebastian said, "You know I would let you borrow those books you like so much. You could read them within the privacy of your home. At the Café de Flore. At Les Deux Magots. Or a quiet river bank along the Seine." He dropped his smile, and took a few seconds to pretend he was thinking hard. "Hmmm. So many possibilities. No need for you to be here, really. No need for a superior British noble boy to enter the enclave of a morally suspect Frenchman, and even less of a need to stay."

The boy's temper roused: Sebastian saw it in the sharp look he sent over. The boy pushed the book forward a little as if to stand up in indignation.

The boy reigned in his temper in time though; he stayed silent. He regarded Sebastian coolly. Dissected him. Daring him to speak the truth.

But ah. Sebastian always said the truth, but he wasn't going to just lay it all out. Where would be the fun in that?

Besides, he'd just caught a glimpse at the book Ciel was reading: Being and Time by Martin Heidegger. Hmm.

"I find you interesting enough company," Ciel said. "Your proclivities aside, I will not deny that you make for better conversation than most other people."

Proclivities. Sebastian was silently grateful for the many, many tourists whose portraits he'd drawn along the churn of the Seine or along the gothic awnings of a cathedral. Without them, his English would be far too poor to take full advantage of the excellent diversion this boy provided.

"Which makes you feel good?"

"Stimulated." Quickly: "Intellectually, that is."

"I wasn't talking about the conversations," Sebastian said, "But sure. The conversations are what you're here for. You do enjoy the times we've spent debating at the cafés with my friends, didn't you? Your intellectual appetite is forecious.”

“Voracious,” Ciel corrected him.

“Eh bien. Voracious, then. Of course: from the Latin vorare. To devour. Which is what you do, with knowledge. You are just a being made up of rational thought, aren’t you? Cogito ergo sum."

"Yes."

Sebastian gave him a sharp smile. "And why did you agree with that, if you're currently reading an entire book dedicated to the notion that being is being in the world?"

"... You baited me and didn't give me time to think," Ciel said scornfully. "And apart from that, the fact is that I would be a very undiscerning reader if I agreed with every book I read; we can have this discussion when I've finished it.  Besides, Descartes' ideas on reality, and not necessarily Je pense, donc je suis can be interpreted as an ontological proof of existence for thought itself. The main premise of that particular quote is that there can't be thought without a thinking entity -- so the thought proves the existence of this entity, the being -- but it also more generally asserts the existence of thought itself. One cannot simultaneously deny the existence of thought while one does so using thoughts. The existence or relevance of all other things -- including my possible motivations -- is neither proven nor disproven. This has nothing to do with your assumptions."

For some reason, Ciel preferred to quote philosophers in French, even when Sebastian first introduced concepts in Latin. Sebastian didn't know the reason but was amused by it anyway.

"You're right," Sebastian said.

The boy glowed with pride.

Sebastian smiled. "Do forgive my provocation; it was a mere diversion. Un peu d'amusement."

"Which seems to be your being's primary motivation," the boy said with a chill.

Sebastian smiled. Ciel was quite the precocious student, though still sometimes unrefined in thought, and woefully resistant to the embodiment of that philosophy which he was so attracted to. 

He understood Sebastian's ideas, grasped them quickly and curved them around the edge of his mind. It made the part of Sebastian that loved to teach positively giddy inside. 

But there was another aspect to this boy, as well: the one that resisted the logical consequences. That refused to follow the tracks to inevitability. The logic gate that guarded the logical necessity of following the truth not just in mind but in body and spirit were still closed, but opening up only bit by bit, and that part, ah...

Perhaps it was time to give it a little push.

"There's also a Latin de cuisine version of Descartes' most famous quote. Ah, how do you English say it…"

The boy blinked. "Dog Latin?"

"C'est ça. Dog Latin. Well, they do say that unexpected brilliance can be found in the simplest minds…"

Ciel raised an eyebrow and waited.

"Coito, ergo sum," Sebastian said. "Through coitus, I am."

Sebastian had given it a fifty-fifty chance whether the boy would find this awfully amusing or amusingly awful. The scales tipped in favor of the former when he stifled one of his rare laughters. "Oh. That's. A little clever."

Sebastian shifted his legs forward, crossed his arms over his chest, and leaned against the window. The coldness of the glass against the back of his turtleneck made him shiver, once. 

Maybe it hadn't been just the glass, though. "So?" Sebastian prompted the boy with a raise of one eyebrow. "This diversion aside, I was making a valid observation. You seem awfully fond of staying here with me. Alone." He pushed himself off of his causal position and threw a look out the window. The rococo-style building on the other side of the street was already enshrouded in shadows.

"Your lack of tact is shocking, but not unexpected," Ciel said coldly. "As is your lack of imagination when it comes to my reasons."

"Ciel," Sebastian, and gave him a quick smirk, "I think you'll find my imagination is as fine as it is vivid. As is yours, judging by the way you look at me."

In the ensuing silence, Sebastian sauntered over to his desk, and slowly, carefully, deliberately lowered himself on its edge. 

The boy's spine straightened. He looked up at Sebastian. A frown cut over his eyebrows, but there was also a leap of nervousness that made his lower lip quiver and his eyes flicker up and down Sebastian's form once, from the line of his hips up along his black turtleneck and to his face.

"Enough of that," Sebastian said, calmly and decisively. "Let's not talk about what you think anymore. Although what I'm going to ask you is something you're doubtlessly thinking about already..." 

Sebastian leaned in. And closer.

The boy never batted an eye. 

What he did do was swallow. Thickly.

Sebastian led his voice drop and drop to something barely above a whisper, and said, "Tu veux?" 

You want to?

The boy inhaled sharply. 

Sebastian's eyes flickered over to the corner, behind Ciel, toward Sebastian's bed. 

Ciel's eyes followed him. They widened in realization as the full weight of the implication settled in. He looked back at Sebastian.

This precious, this willful, this obstinate boy in front of him looked nothing if not reluctantly aroused.

And, through the thrill of that little victory, Sebastian dropped his tone just a little lower.

"Tu veux... ou pas?" (Update October 2020: this fic has now been reworked into a longfic. Read it HERE :))