just to hide outside your door

ch 1 - each night i ask the stars above, why must i be a teenager in love

It could've just been the lighting in the parlor room, the way the mid-morning sun beamed ever so golden in from the window and bounced off his silver hair; It might've just been the fragrant candle lit just moments earlier, filling the room with a sweet saccharine breeze; It likely was just fate that their eyes would meet in this romanticized picture of serenity, but whatever it was, Finny cherished it for the rest of the day.

"Are you joining me for my morning read over my letters? Or are you going to go outside where you're supposed to be?" The condescending smirk the younger male held sent Finny's head spinning.

"Uh-Right, Right! I'll be right out!"

Ciel watched the gangly gardener scurry away, like a puppy sent to fetch a toy, and he suddenly forgot the importance of whatever he was reading. This was their new ritual.
The youthful noble took a long swig if his tea and made his way over to a chair seated, just so, adjacently from the window, giving him a perfect view of the servant he was beginning to feel his most pleasant when around. He tried to stop himself from going red when Finny's collarbone would pop out from his shirt, his skin being tanned and firm. He was transfixed by the way his sunshine colored hair flopped left and right as he paced along the magnanimous backyard.

Sebastian would inevitably interrupt his not-so-secret gazing to do something he quietly felt was of much less importance, and would impatiently wait for sundown for the boy to return indoors.
~
As springtime drew nearer, Finny was spending less time in the manor, the expansive garden outside needing his full attention. His skin was dewy and salmon pink every evening when he'd come in to devour a his only meal that day in the back servants quarters, Bard chuckling at his boyish appetite as he shoveled the leftover food down his throat.

"You know, Sebastian isn't gonna kill you if the backyard doesn't look like a painting once April's over with right?" The older man lit a cigarette as he laughed off Finny's exhaustion.
"Yeah-" He swallowed the rest of the savory chicken he's been chewing. "-I just want it to look nice for the young lord! Maybe he'll smile at it when he looks out the window when doing his work and get inspired to do better!"
Bard listened haphazardly at his younger companion's chirps about their adolescent employer. Mey-rin laughed from the sink that he sounded like a little girl daydreaming about their debutant courtships rather than a gardener doing charity for his boss. Finny grew a deeper shade of flush, excusing himself upstairs to his shared quarters and falling flat onto the mattress once he reached the bed.
Staring up at the wall, he tried to focus on anything he could to distract him from what vines of desperation were growing deep in his heart. Even the crack in the ceiling was starting to remind him at least offhandedly of his unrequited beau.

He closed his eyes, puffing out a defeated breath. Another day of only thinking about Ciel, perfect Ciel, perfect silver haired, stoic, willowy Ciel. His employer, the boy who saved his life, the boy he'd hated himself for growing a romantic obsession with.

All he'd ever heard of was the 'perversion' or the 'sickness' of people like him. Boys like him. He tried so hard to feel the way he felt for Ciel for the girls he'd see at the young lord's parties. The womanly bodies and seductive pouts of the older maids and street whores intimidated him, the girlish giggles and budding chests of the feminine teen nobility made him feel nothing at all.

The only time he'd ever felt a feeling that drove a deep jolt of thunder into his heart was when Ciel looked at him with those cerulean eyes, his stern but innocent face, his smug little grin whenever he felt his best. He wanted nothing but innocent affectionate. He had no desire to hurt or even sully the fluorescent young adult, he merely wanted to adore him like a lord would his promised lady.

Finny felt helpless, he'd always heard the boys like him needed help, they were destined to hurt little boys, that they were sick and over-sexed, but he knew in his heart of hearts what he felt was lily pure.