He was in that room again. That empty, filthy room with only the light of that impossible high window shining down on him. The only sound the chirping of birds so far away...

(But no... This isn't right... I don't belong here anymore...)

The restraints bite savagely into his writs, holding him tightly into the high backed hospital chair. The doctors were smiling their cruel sadistic smiles, holding needles at the ready. Needles... So many needles...

(Why am I here? Where's the mansion?)

"Its all for the good of science..." A disembodied, empty voice whispered to him, floating around and around. No, this couldn't happen! Not again! He escaped this place! They took him away...

(Master Ciel... He freed my from here... Didn't he?)

It was pressing against his skin, sliding easily into his trapped, traitorous vain, filling him with that dark poison. He tried to pull away, pull his arm free, but he couldn't. No matter what he tried he couldn't. He was so weak...

(No! Not again, I can't handle this again! Please someone, stop this!)

Fire. It filled his entire being with flashing hot pain, obscuring everything. Tears fell unheeded from his eyes as he screamed, begging for them to stop, begging for it all to end. But they just smiled, those twisted, dark smiles, relishing in his pain, mocking it...

(Help me! Please! Master Ciel! Mister Sebastian! Get me out of here, its killing me!)

His muscles burned as they were shifted and morphed. His head pounded like thousands of tiny knives were piercing it all over, tormenting him, pressing against his eyes as if to push them out of his skull. His heart was pounding so hard, it was fit to burst.

He was dieing. He had to be, that was the only explanation for all of this. All this pain.

And still they smiled...

(I don't want to die! I can't, not now! Please somebody...)

Their laughter echoed in his ears.

(Anybody...)

Their eyes were hard as stones, uncaring of the boy dieing right before them.

(...save me...)

His heart stuttered. Then, all at once, it just gave out. Stopped. Then everything went black.

Finni jolted upright in his bed, hands grasping desperately at his chest, pressing against the frantic pounding of his still beating heart. His eyes swirled around the room in a panic. Confusion surrounded him for a few dizzying seconds before his head finally cleared. It had been a dream. Just a horrible,horrible dream.

He was okay. He was safe.

Almost as if too second that idea, Bard shifted in his bed on the other side of the room, his rhythmic snoring a comforting, familiar sound.

Running a shaking hand through his thankfully long blonde hair, the small gardener slowly pushed himself from his bed and wandered over to the simple grandfather clock in the corner of the small servants room. The ticking hands were pointing determinedly to 3: 17. Too late to stay up, not early enough to get up...

'And there's no way I'm going back to sleep.' Finni thought with a huff, rubbing at the inside of his elbow where the phantom pain still lingered. His body felt twitchy, on edge, the memories of that searing pain still fresh. Just closing his eyes and he could see those cold eyes and the shining needle...

He could feel his chest constricting with the beginnings of a panic attack. The room felt too small, with not enough air. It was so much like that little cell, cold concrete walls surrounding him, fencing him in. Finni could feel himself sliding back into the memory, and even Bard's snores were soon drowned out by the sound of blood pounding through his ears. He needed to get outside, into the fresh air and the open space before he went crazy.

Walking, with only slightly unsteady steps, to the small trunk at the end of his bed he quickly pulled out a pair of trousers and a shirt. Stripping off his nightshirt and jumping into the pants, he only just got the fly closed before walking, barefooted and topless, out the door and into the servants hallway. From there it was just a short walk to the back door, a walk he knew like the back of his hand. But everything is always harder in the dark.

Rushing as he was, with his shirt on over his face and no lights at all in the little hallway, was it really any wonder that he ran into something? More namely, the exact door he needed to go out of to get outside? Still, the small blonde man let out a gasp of surprise when his face, still hidden by the soft cotton shirt he was fighting with, smacked soundly into the solid oak door. The solid oak door that wasn't really so solid, seeing as it immediately broke, with a loud creak of its hinges, to collapse into the cold night air with a resounding crash.

For one stunned moment, Finni just stood there, his shirt still covering his face and hiding his shocked expression. Then, slowly, he lifted his head, forced it through the hole of his shirt and looked at the destruction he'd caused again. It seemed that he even broke things at 3 o'clock in the morning.

'Aw, Mister Sebastian is gonna kill me! And just yesterday he told me to be more careful after I broke the stair banister...' The blond flushed at the memory, all that splintered wood, and Sebastian's scowling face...

But thoughts like that only made him remember his medically caused deformity. It made him think back to that damn dream, seeing those needles sliding into his sullied flesh, mutating his deceptively weak looking muscles into grotesque monsters limbs.

He needed to get outside. Now.

Pushing off the poor mutilated door (he'd explain that to Sebastian tomorrow...maybe...) he took the last few steps out of the manor and into the gardens, the soft night reaching out to him and embracing him with a cool summers breeze. He greedily breathed it in, filling his lungs to capacity before slowly exhaling. Fresh air had never felt so good or tasted so sweet. It tasted like freedom, something he was still only just getting used to.

The garden's he'd made himself looked quite different in the silvery moonlight, magical almost in their beauty. The gilded edge of night hid all the mistakes, the cracked tree branches and crushed flower's blending right in to make a wonderland of perfect imperfection.

The soft dirt under his bare feet was cold, but Finni welcomed the chill. I was just another sign of freedom, a sign that he was alive. Every breath of the early morning air slowed his heart, calming him down. The needles and pain was the past, this beauty and openness, the starry sky and intimidating stone mansion, this was his present. And, if he was lucky, this would be his future.

His favorite path was a nice, familiar walk, taking him through the rose bushes and up to one of the house's main fountain's. It was short, but all he really needed right now. Just a quick moment of peace, maybe he'd find a nice tree to sit under and wait to watch the sunrise.

' That be nice, it's been awhile since I've seen the sun come up.'

That used to be the blondes favorite activity when he first came to the manor. He'd either stay up all night, or get up extremely early, just to watch the golden ball rise up in the east, cresting over the roof and turrets of his new home to takes it rightful place as ruler of the sky. It was a majestic sight, one he'd never had the pleasure of seeing before, and something he promised himself he'd never take for granted.

Sebastian had finally put a stop to that when, one morning after staying up all night, the deceptively weak looking blonde had knocked down all the old evergreen tree's in the garden like domino's. Oh, had the butler been mad when he saw that mess...

So lost in his thoughts was the young gardener that, at first, he didn't hear the noise. It was quiet, almost muffled by the early morning breeze, but still loud enough to be heard. When it finally reached his ears Finni froze, immediately on guard. Hand's clenching into fist's he inched closer to it, fully prepared to fight and protect his new home, especially after the dream he'd just had.

'Anything trying to get in here and hurt Master Ciel is gonna hafta go through me first!' That thought in mind, and ready to show the true reason he worked at the Phantomhive manor, he continued down the path. His body was still full of adrenaline from his nightmare, making him more then ready for a battle.

It was coming from the fountain up ahead, a soft, almost whimpering sound blending in with the trickle of sounded small, like it was only one person.

'And it sounds like their...Crying?' That confused the blonde. Who would cry before attacking a manor? It just made no sense. Maybe it wasn't an attack...'But then who is it?'

He finally rounded the last corner into the fountain courtyard and what he saw shocked him into stillness.

The young Master Ciel sat at the base of the fountain, close enough that the spray lightly wet his bed mussed black tresses, donning only his nightshirt and house coat. His body was as curled as it could be, leg's pulled to his chest, arm's wrapped around them, head buried in his knees. His small frame, looking all the more his age now that he was free of his daily finery, shook with quiet sob's, only chocked whimper's escaping him. Even in a moment like this, the great Head Phantomhive couldn't let himself truly cry, much to afraid of that weakness.

Finni was frozen. Never before had he seen his lord and Master so broken. Normally Ciel Phantomhive was a proud, arrogant person, who showed no hint of the child his age made him. And yet here he was, crying in the middle of the night, in a place where most people would be unable to find him. It pulled hard at the blonde's heart.

All of the servant's had a slight idea about what their small lord had been through, but none had been bold enough to ask and get their rumor's acknowledged. It must have been bad, having robbed the boy of almost his entire family and stealing him away for a long, tortuous month, but still the Master carried himself with such grace and dignity that Finni never really thought about it. In his mind, it didn't matter what was in the past, and as long as it didn't darken Ciel's future, the gardener thought it was none of his business.

Now, standing just ten short strides away from his distraught Master, indecision griped the blonde. With anyone else he would approach them, offer some form of comfort, a listening ear or maybe his shoulder to cry on if he was careful enough. But could he do that with young Ciel? The boy was proud, and might be more offended that someone saw his weak moment then grateful of comfort. The tear's ripped at his heart, but did he dare risk Ciel's anger if he was wrong? The young man probably just wanted to be left alone, but didn't everyone need someone to listen at a time of weakness, a friend to unwind too...

While Finni stood there, questioning whether or not he and Ciel were actual friend's, the young boy happened to lift his head and spot the gardener standing there, staring at him with what Ciel took to be accusing eyes.

The pistol he took with him when he escaped his too cramped room, the one normally housed underneath his pillow, was quickly in his grasp, pointed directly at the blonde man's forehead. Despite the tear's still in Ciel's eye's, or the trembling still rocking his body, his hand was steady.

"W-what are you doing here!"

Finni jerked at the sound of that broken voice, finally focusing once again on the here and now. Focusing just in time to see a pistol pointed at his face. His heart froze in his chest as he quickly gazed from the cold metal to his Master's face, a face frozen in anger and panic.

"Ah, Young Master it isn't- by that I mean- I... its just that y-you..." 'I'm dead. He's going to shoot me now...'

Finni squeezed his eye's shut bracing himself for the bullet, for the pain and for death. He was to shocked to really be scared of the inevitable bang of the gun going of. The projectile whizzed right past his ear, making him gasp at the breeze it caused ruffling his hair.

'He really shot at me! He's really going to kill me...' But...

He'd missed. Finni knew for a fact that Ciel was an excellent marksman, had watched him hunt with his aunt from the manor window's before. If the boy wanted him dead, he'd be dead already.

Slowly peeling his eyes open again to look at the boy who just tried to murder him, the blonde tried to understand.

Ciel's visible eye was bloodshot, the one usually covered by his eye patch now masked by his unruly bed head. His skin was even paler then usual in the moonlight, his cheeks streaked with dried tear's, his lips cracking in their dryness. The young, cynical, proud, arrogant boy looked broken, and even though the gun still trembled in his unsteady grip, Finni didn't feel scared. What he did feel was concern, affection, and although the Master would kill him if he voiced it aloud, a little pity.

No 14 year old should ever have that look on their face. It was just... Wrong. Finni felt the strongest, strangest need to take that look off of his Master's face, even if he got himself shot in the process.

Stepping forward slowly, ever mindful of the flailing pistol, the blond gardener advanced on Ciel, his hand's held out on either side in surrender, trying to make himself look as harmless as possible. Still, Ciel's finger's twitched on the trigger.

The young lord didn't want this, he didn't want someone seeing him weak, didn't want comfort, didn't want help. He just wanted to be left alone! That's why he'd told Sebastian not to follow when he snuck out of his room, giving direct instructions for the butler to leave him by himself for the whole night, why he tried his hardest to let the clean air clear his mind of the dream's, the horrific dream's, and that's why when it had become unavoidable, when his eye's were burning to the point where fighting the tear's would have just made more fall, he'd cried as quietly as he could to ensure that no one would hear him.

And yet still, this moron had come across him, this, this... freak made in a laboratory was standing there, looking at him, judging him, watching him as he cried, seeing him fall apart.

'I'll kill him.' The boy thought, gripping the pistol tighter still, watching as his knuckles turned white with the pressure. 'That way it won't matter what he saw, he'll be dead. Just on more person dead in my life, just one more killed by my hand.'

It wouldn't be hard, he'd done it before. Just point, squeeze and that was it. 'No one would care, it's not like he has any family to come after me. He's all alone...' The words 'like me' tried to push their way up into his mind, but he viciously shoved them back down. He didn't have time for that. He needed to make a choice.

'We'll tell Bard and Meylinn he ran off, a lot of servant's do that. Sebastian will help me hide the body, might even make it vanish completely if I asked him too.'Just one more corpse for him to hide, one more face to haunt him every night as he tried to go to sleep...

"I get them too."

The voice sitting next to him, calm and gentle, so close it almost echoed in his ear, had the boy jumping so viciously the gun in his hand fell, clattering hard on the concrete, making a noise loud enough that he was sure the whole house heard it.

Spinning on the spot, Ciel looked at the boy now sitting next to him on the fountain lip. Finni's posture was relaxed, arm's extended behind him holding his weight with his head tossed back, contemplating the star's.

The young Master was at a loss for words, his mouth gaping open like a fish, trying to figure when the gardener had managed to cross the courtyard to sit next to him. If Finni noticed his employer's shock, he didn't say anything. He didn't even turn to look at the boy next to him, just kept his eye's glued to the heaven's above.

"Dream's, I mean." The blond continued, his voice soothing. Ciel felt almost as though he had no choice but to listen.

"First, I'm back in that little room, sometimes by myself, sometimes with my bird friend. The only light comes in from that high window, and it's always dim, as though it's cloudy outside. Then the scientist's come. I'm strapped to that chair, and no matter how hard I pull I can't get the restraints loose. I'm always begging, asking them to stop, to let me go, pleading for mister Sebastian to come and save me, but he never does. Nobody saves me..."

Finni's entire body shuddered at the memory's, the ones he'd been trying to escape earlier, but was now plunging away into. All for the boy. He chanced a quick glance at the young Master, from the corner of his eye, trying to gauge his reaction to the story. Ciel's body language said nothing, he just sat there looking straight ahead, body once more pulled into a tight ball. He'd left the pistol on the ground, which the blonde took as a good sign. Turning away once more, focusing his eye's back on the sky and the star's, the only things reminding him that what he was speaking of was the past and that this was the now, Finni dove back into his story.

"The needles range in color, usually blue and red but sometimes there's a weird purple one. Someone grabs my arm, but I'm never sure who. None of the doctor's have faces, just big, evil smiles stretched over their flesh and bright, burning red eyes. I can hear their voices though, echoing around my head, filling me just as much as their drugs are. I try my hardest to keep my arms away from them, to keep them away from my vein's, but if I manage that they just go for my toes which hurts more and is harder to protect. In the end, they always win. The needle always gets in my arm no matter how hard I fight. And then..."

Finni had to stop, to take a breath, to breathe. 'Just a memory, not happening, not happening, I'm safe, I'm safe, I'm safe...'

"...And then?"

The blonde jumped a little at the voice, but kept his eyes on the slowly fading star's. He'd forgotten Ciel was there, listening to him.

"And then I die."

Such a simple way to put it. But it didn't feel like just 'dieing', no the truth was it was much more painful then that. It felt like his body was being burned from the inside out, that he was incinerated, turned to a crisp, and that death would actually be welcome in that moment, if it would just stop the pain, the burning endless pain...

'Breathe Finni breathe! Just a memory, you're safe, safe...'

For a few, tense seconds the only sound was the blonde's harsh, panting breaths. For Ciel's part he kept his eyes turned determinedly pointed away from the blonde, instead choosing to stare at the cold concrete ground beneath their feet and, a little farther away, the dew speckled grass.

He didn't want to admit it, wanted to fight the truth with all his being, but the dark haired boy had to accept that his gardener's story did sound a lot like his own. Both of them had been held against their will, forced to do things they didn't want, pushed and manipulated by sick adults for their own pleasure and knowledge, and in the end, they were both inescapably altered by the experiences. Finni physically, Ciel mentally, but altered just the same. Even the ending's were similar, they'd both been rescued by Sebastian.

'But only one of us sold him our soul...' The thought twisted a sinister smile onto the Master's face, showing the true monster beneath the boy's flesh.

Yes, were Finni's story still had the possibility for a happy ending, were maybe he found a loving wife, had children, and settled down, Ciel's was already set in stone, the proof of that burning slightly in his eyeball.

Finni still had a chance. Ciel was going to become a four course meal.

Feeling said mark in his eye grow warmer, the younger boy glanced up, looking into the nearby bushes. I'm the weak morning light he could just make out a pair of glowing eye's, the color of the darkest ruby, watching him silently, waiting for his command.

'I did tell him to just leave me for the night. He's probably just waiting for the sun to finish rising before he steps out and forces me back to my room...'

Not wanting the demon to one up him, Ciel rose from the fountain, stopping to stare back at the gardener who'd so rudely interrupted him.

The boy's face was relaxed, his eyes a calm, tranquil green as he returned his Master's unblinking stare. For a moment neither spoke, simply letting their eye's do the talking, Ciel trying to make the blonde understand something he could never say, especially not with his butler within hearing range.

Finni got the message. Nodding his understanding he bent down, picking up the pistol and wordlessly handing it back to his Master. Ciel took it and, without a word, turned and headed back towards the manor, and although the blond didn't see it, a shadow vanished from the bushes to follow the young boy.

Within a moment both we're gone and Finni was left to enjoy the sunrise in peace.

Never before had he felt quite this calm. It was as though his very soul had been purged of all it's dark corner's and shadow's leaving the gardener feeling oddly refreshed.

He was sure that, in time, the dreams and nightmares would come back, that they would forever haunt him, but now, at least he felt a little less alone.

Ciel may not have spoken a word, but his eyes had conveyed it all.

He, too had nightmares. And he was thankful that Finni had told him his.

That's all the gardener could really ask for, if not understanding, then thanks. He may never know what haunt's his young Master, but at least he knew the boy was human.

As the sun crested the manor's tallest spire, it's light brushing away the last of night's pain and fear, Finni rose, prepared to face the day and continue his new, happy life.