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no_true_pairTitle: Finny Says It With a Flower
Author:eevilalice
Fandom: Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler)
Pairing/Characters: One-sided Sebastian/Finny
Rating: PG
Warnings: Mentions of Finny's past trauma.
Prompt you're answering: Sebastian and Finny: the language of flowers.
A/N: This story follows manga canon and contains spoilers for the murder mystery arc and for Finny's background.
It starts with Lady Elizabeth and all the flowers.
Except, not really. Really Finny has watched Mister Sebastian—shyly, secretly, he thinks—from the beginning, from when he was first brought to the manor, bald and shivering and in awe of both his new master and his immaculate, gently smiling butler.
What starts is the idea that maybe…maybe Finny could express something about how he feels. Because it’s becoming harder to keep inside. It’s making it more difficult than ever to touch things without crushing them accidentally. Even the tips and tricks Mister Agni has showed him are of little help.
Finny’s not smart, he knows. He’s conscious of the fact that Mister Sebastian finds him lacking as a servant. He sees the handsome face tighten, hears the put-upon sighs, the rigidity in the butler’s ever-efficient movements as he cleans up after, fixes, or completes whatever task he, Mey-Rin, and Bardroy have botched, alone or together.
But what he doesn’t see is wrath. Mister Sebastian never even raises his voice like it might be his right to do. There’s no punishment.
No one’s put in a cell where the air grows stale, and sunlight becomes a memory.
So Finny tries again the next day, and the day after, and so on. Now he’s not afraid of everything he touches, out in the garden, out in the sun when it comes.
At least he wasn’t.
Finny has always admired Mister Sebastian’s hands, those long, delicate, graceful fingers capable of any task, no matter how complicated. He stares as those fingers arrange a bright, cheerful bunch of flowers in a vase, deftly avoiding every thorn, every spine. The times he’s rushed in to interrupt the young master with an important matter, Finny can’t stop himself from watching the butler’s hands at work serving the earl his tea, china like fragile bird bones in his fine, light grasp. Or, blushing, between long looks at his own feet, Finny sees the gloved fingers finishing with the young master’s tie, movements crisp, brow arching in query at Finny’s presence.
Finny is incapable of such delicacy and precision.
Finny feels funny, lately, watching Mister Sebastian at work in this way. Or, he simply feels more of what he’s always felt, that mix of awe and admiration. He thinks maybe it was the business with the fake death since even a fake death is cause for shock. For thoughts of the real thing.
This is as far as Finny can think because this is when the flowers start coming. Masses of flowers, bushels, bunches, by the carriage. Lady Elizabeth has become swept up in the language of flowers (he hears Mister Sebastian remark), and Finny supposes she is SHOUTING in pink roses, yellow roses, deep pink roses, bridal roses, red roses, red carnations, forget-me-nots, honeysuckle, myrtle, primrose, violets, and yellow tulips.
Soon the young master is sneezing, and Mister Sebastian is ordering him and the others to remove flowers by the bucket, and Finny is sad to see them go. He glances around and brings his share out to the gardens, near the tree line. He reads the little white cards adorning each bouquet, thinking of his lessons with Mister Sebastian as he says aloud, “Pink roses because I ADMIRE you, Ciel, and I know you find me full of GRACE.” “Primrose for our YOUNG LOVE, Ciel!” “Violets because ours is a FAITHFUL LOVE, Ciel!”
Finny blushes as he always does when Lady Elizabeth showers such words or gestures upon the young master but is happy to think he must know he is loved. The young master is so sad sometimes and his smile so rare…
Mister Sebastian’s smiles are more frequent, serene and sometimes mysterious, though less common in the presence of the servants. Finny wishes this weren’t so.
He looks down and sees that in his distraction he’s crushed the violets to purple bits. He frowns and drops them in their bucket. Taking a deep breath, he resolves to be more mindful, to try again.
Finny will say what he feels, what he thinks of Mister Sebastian, and he will see him smile.
More careful than he’s ever been in his life, Finny plucks a flower from a bucket. He enters the manor, happy the others are busy with their task as he travels to his destination.
He leaves one perfect pink rose on the butler’s pristine bed.
Author:
eevilaliceFandom: Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler)
Pairing/Characters: One-sided Sebastian/Finny
Rating: PG
Warnings: Mentions of Finny's past trauma.
Prompt you're answering: Sebastian and Finny: the language of flowers.
A/N: This story follows manga canon and contains spoilers for the murder mystery arc and for Finny's background.
It starts with Lady Elizabeth and all the flowers.
Except, not really. Really Finny has watched Mister Sebastian—shyly, secretly, he thinks—from the beginning, from when he was first brought to the manor, bald and shivering and in awe of both his new master and his immaculate, gently smiling butler.
What starts is the idea that maybe…maybe Finny could express something about how he feels. Because it’s becoming harder to keep inside. It’s making it more difficult than ever to touch things without crushing them accidentally. Even the tips and tricks Mister Agni has showed him are of little help.
Finny’s not smart, he knows. He’s conscious of the fact that Mister Sebastian finds him lacking as a servant. He sees the handsome face tighten, hears the put-upon sighs, the rigidity in the butler’s ever-efficient movements as he cleans up after, fixes, or completes whatever task he, Mey-Rin, and Bardroy have botched, alone or together.
But what he doesn’t see is wrath. Mister Sebastian never even raises his voice like it might be his right to do. There’s no punishment.
No one’s put in a cell where the air grows stale, and sunlight becomes a memory.
So Finny tries again the next day, and the day after, and so on. Now he’s not afraid of everything he touches, out in the garden, out in the sun when it comes.
At least he wasn’t.
Finny has always admired Mister Sebastian’s hands, those long, delicate, graceful fingers capable of any task, no matter how complicated. He stares as those fingers arrange a bright, cheerful bunch of flowers in a vase, deftly avoiding every thorn, every spine. The times he’s rushed in to interrupt the young master with an important matter, Finny can’t stop himself from watching the butler’s hands at work serving the earl his tea, china like fragile bird bones in his fine, light grasp. Or, blushing, between long looks at his own feet, Finny sees the gloved fingers finishing with the young master’s tie, movements crisp, brow arching in query at Finny’s presence.
Finny is incapable of such delicacy and precision.
Finny feels funny, lately, watching Mister Sebastian at work in this way. Or, he simply feels more of what he’s always felt, that mix of awe and admiration. He thinks maybe it was the business with the fake death since even a fake death is cause for shock. For thoughts of the real thing.
This is as far as Finny can think because this is when the flowers start coming. Masses of flowers, bushels, bunches, by the carriage. Lady Elizabeth has become swept up in the language of flowers (he hears Mister Sebastian remark), and Finny supposes she is SHOUTING in pink roses, yellow roses, deep pink roses, bridal roses, red roses, red carnations, forget-me-nots, honeysuckle, myrtle, primrose, violets, and yellow tulips.
Soon the young master is sneezing, and Mister Sebastian is ordering him and the others to remove flowers by the bucket, and Finny is sad to see them go. He glances around and brings his share out to the gardens, near the tree line. He reads the little white cards adorning each bouquet, thinking of his lessons with Mister Sebastian as he says aloud, “Pink roses because I ADMIRE you, Ciel, and I know you find me full of GRACE.” “Primrose for our YOUNG LOVE, Ciel!” “Violets because ours is a FAITHFUL LOVE, Ciel!”
Finny blushes as he always does when Lady Elizabeth showers such words or gestures upon the young master but is happy to think he must know he is loved. The young master is so sad sometimes and his smile so rare…
Mister Sebastian’s smiles are more frequent, serene and sometimes mysterious, though less common in the presence of the servants. Finny wishes this weren’t so.
He looks down and sees that in his distraction he’s crushed the violets to purple bits. He frowns and drops them in their bucket. Taking a deep breath, he resolves to be more mindful, to try again.
Finny will say what he feels, what he thinks of Mister Sebastian, and he will see him smile.
More careful than he’s ever been in his life, Finny plucks a flower from a bucket. He enters the manor, happy the others are busy with their task as he travels to his destination.
He leaves one perfect pink rose on the butler’s pristine bed.