Crimson Butler

Web of Lies

Sasha relaxes on the bed of the hotel room reading her book. Claude was busy bathing to remove the blood from the latest set of reapers trying to get Sasha back. He wants going to allow them to take her from his spider grip. He dries off and half dresses, only wearing pants. He comes out, drying his hair. She looks up from her book slightly and then goes back to reading. A light blush crosses her cheeks. He lays on the bed and puts his glasses onto the night stand.
"You need sleep," he says.
"Only 10 hours a week. I'm fine," she says back continuing to read. He sits up and kisses her neck. She puts a hand on his chest and pushes him away. Her cheeks start to burn. She expected, with him being a demon, for him to be well built physically. She did not, however, expect him to be THAT built. She hides her face in her book and continues reading. He raises an eyebrow.
"What are you reading?" He asks a bit curious. He normally doesn't ask questions but she wasn't his master.
"Poetry," she states back. Her voice is a bit soft. She was trying to hide her blush. He tilts the book down and puts his glasses on so he may read.
"Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow —
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream," Claude recites. She looks at him. She stares for a moment. She doesn't see him though. She sees someone else. She hears someone else's voice. A normally cold voice. One that is normally stern and callus but could be soft and sweet. She couldn't remember the name. But she could see the piercing green eyes behind Claude's glasses. He gently tap her cheek with his finger tips. She looks back at him.
"You alright?" He asks. He seems a bit cold but also caring.
"Im fine," she says looking at his golden eyes. She looks back at her book.
"I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand —
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep — while I weep!
O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?" She reads. He lets a small smile cross his face. She smiles back. He kisses her neck with his cold but soft lips. She blushes and gently pushes his chest to push him away again. She giggles, finding this whole thing a game. He raises an eyebrow. He shifts and sits beside her, sliding a hand around her waist. She flips a few pages.
"It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me," he cups her chin and she blushes. She tenses up as he slides closer to her.
"I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee—
With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me," he whispers to her. Her body starts to relax. He holds her waist to keeps her close.
"
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we—
Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in Heaven above
Nor the demons down under the sea
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee," he pauses, "For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea—
In her tomb by the sounding sea." She looks at him as he back away from her, his face only a few inches from hers.
"Are you my Annabel Lee?" He asks her, his eyes locking with hers. She looks down, thinking. She looks back up, looking into his golden eyes with her own neon green eyes. He leans forward and brushes his lips against hers, waiting for permission to go further. Her heart starts to race. She leans forward locking lips with him. He smirks into the kiss. He kisses her neck. She watches him. She playfully pushes him back.
"Careful. I may be a reaper but I can most definitely overpower you," she says. He chuckles.
"You say that as if I should be scared," he smirks.
"You should be," she smirks. She begins reading again. He kisses her neck. She just a raises an eyebrow and keeps reading. She looks at one of the poems.

She sits on a bed with a raven haired man. He adjusts his glasses with his scythe. He holds a book of poetry in his hands. The rain patters down lightly on the window of the bedroom. It was mid morning. She looks out the window then at him when he begins to speak.
"In visions of the dark night.
I have dreamed of joy departed,
But a waking dream of life and light
Hath left me broken-hearted," he says. She takes the book and looks at the poem.
"Ah! What is not a dream by day
To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
Turned back upon the past?" She smiles. He smiles back. He adjusts his glasses.
"That holy dream- that holy dream,
While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
A lonely spirit guiding," he says from memory. His words fell like silk from his tongue.
"What though that light, thro' storm and night,
So tremble from afar,
What could there be more purely bright
In truth's day-star?" She smiles back to him. He leans forward and kisses her. She sets the book to the side and leans against him. They giggle, rubbing their foreheads against the other's. He kisses her neck playfully.
"-" she says his name, "stop that tickles!" He laughs and she pushes him onto his back. She lays on top of him, her head on his chest.
"I can't believe we read poetry all night," he says.
"Oh?"
"Poetry isn't on the final right?"
"Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't," she says. He sighs.
"Sasha," she looks at him, "love you."
"Love you too-"

She's snapped from the memory and looks at Claude. His raven hair, his glasses. But his eyes. They weren't the green as the man from the memory. She watches him nuzzles her neck. She thinks to herself.
'We sit in a web of lies.'