✨Seeing in the Dark✨

🌹Chapter 17: Opus 17🌹

The setting sun cast long streaks of light throughout the living room. They bounced off a small glass mobile and sent faint rainbows darting to and fro across the carpet. A few lines arched along the walls and Ciel lazily traced them with his eyes.

A page turned next to his ear and he blinked at the noise. The quiet crinkle of paper against careful fingers followed by a scrape against the fabric of Sebastian's shirt. The living quieted again and Sebastian's hand came down to rest on his head once more. Gentle fingers threaded through Ciel's hair and he sighed softly.

"Hmm?" Sebastian made a questioning noise.

"Just sighing to sigh," Ciel said and tilted his head so Sebastian could reach another spot.

"Hopefully it's a good sigh," Sebastian said lightly.

Ciel's eyes slipped shut. "It is," he said honestly. "I'm nice and content right now."

Sebastian chuckled. "That's good to know," he admitted and turned another page. "I worried that perhaps I had ruined your Friday evening. Staying in and doing nothing isn't the most pleasant way to spend the night I assume."

"It's fine," Ciel said. He turned carefully and rolled onto his other side to catch Sebastian's hand. He pressed a tender kiss to the palm and then nuzzled it, feeling his lips tug into a smile. "I like getting the chance to spend time with you. Even if it's just lounging around the apartment and doing nothing."

"You sound like a sentimental sap," Sebastian teased.

Ciel grunted and flicked Sebastian's leg. Despite the three weeks that had passed since the attack, Sebastian's ribs had yet to finish healing. Elizabeth told them that it would take anywhere from four to eight weeks for a full recovery. Ciel hoped for a speedy recovery, but with the tender way Sebastian moved at times, he assumed that it would take a full eight weeks.

"I don't hear you complaining," Ciel stated.

"Never said I was," Sebastian responded airily. "I just like ruffling your feathers. It paints an endearing picture in my mind."

Ciel huffed and grumbled under his breath but didn't say anything else. Instead, he watched as Sebastian started to read again, his fingers skimming rapidly over the raised print. He found it interesting and far cooler than he probably should. Braille looked like an entirely different language, even though it was still English.

The dots formed something that Ciel couldn't even fathom and he likened them to the Asian characters he saw periodically. To him, they looked incomprehensible – nothing but squiggles and lines that somehow formed an entire language – yet to others, they made perfect sense. He supposed it was the beauty of languages and that it only served to give them an air of mystery.

Although, at least with the languages that used Roman characters, Ciel could attempt to pronounce the words. Albeit, he would probably butcher the words in every possible way.

"I think you read as fast as I do," he said and Sebastian's fingers sputtered to a halt. Ciel hurried to correct himself. "I mean that as a compliment, of course."

"It's the only thing I know," Sebastian said. "Just as reading printed words is the only thing you know. I imagine it's the same for people who are deaf or speak another language."

Ciel hummed. "I was just thinking that," he admitted. "But I'm still in awe with it. Not just watching you read, but for people who use sign language too. It's all so...cool. You're cool."

"Why thank you," Sebastian said happily. "I like to think that I am, too."

Ciel rolled his eyes and watched as Sebastian started to read again. He wondered what it was like, to pull information from mere dots that littered a page. He remembered studying about Braille and Helen Keller in third grade. His teacher had them create the Braille alphabet on their own using dots of glue and then trying to read small words. He didn't recall the words or even the feel of the Braille under his fingers; only that his dots had clumped together at points when he used too much glue.