An urban fantasy AU.
For all the world's where the sister gave herself up for her brother, there must be one in which the brother sacrificed himself for the sister instead.
It had been an impossible thing. They were two, a ten year old and a fifteen year old, bright and young and ignorant. Then, one day, the brother found his sister's bed empty and cold, sprinkled with a smattering of brimstone dust. The windows were locked, the floor's mess undisturbed. The case was reported, and after some time of fruitless searching, the trail was declared cold.
The brother did not believe in the supernatural, but what else could it be? He learnt and researched and interrogated, made acquaintances among all kinds of creatures, holy and unholy and neither.
"Partner mine, I need you to help me with something after school."
"Kay."
The intersection of two pig trails made a primitive crossroads. The boy had dug a pool there with no tool made of man's hands, filled it with milk and honey and blood, inscribed circles of unsummoning.
"Hold me beneath the surface until I stop breathing. Keep me there for as long as you can risk it. I trust you."
He was confident and commanding, so his friend saw that he would not be stopped, so to minimize the damage, his friend acquiesced.
It was pain and terror and panic, burning in his lungs and a near-loss of control over his bodily functions. He fell into darkness, and fell further.
Between life and death, he was in a liminal state, a doorway, and where there was a door there was something behind it. Slipping between the gates of Hell, he trod on the wide, smooth downward sloping path. An easy descent, and a far more difficult ascent. He knocked on the gates of Pandemonium, and was greeted by two devils.
"May I see your lord?" He asked.
They led him before the dark throne, where a girl crouched on the seat's back, shivering despite the cloak of feathers locked in place by the collar of pale gold about her throat. Mist congealed into a man.
"Hello." Greeted Yagura, politely. "I'm not here to sell my soul."
His sister stopped her move to fling herself from the throne's back, and clutched it instead.
The black-eyed man chuckled, rich as chocolate and no less sinful. "Indeed."
"Instead," said the teenager, forging on, "I would like to propose a more modern deal. I'm not sure what I want yet, so I would like to build up credit first, like with a credit card, depositing capital before using the stocked up value to purchase something."
The Devil laughed, "Why not? Such audacity deserves its reward."
And the boy was employed, long before any of his classmates got jobs in the mundane world. Before he could open his mouth to say anything more, he was wrenched upwards. Coughing up foul liquid like a babe birthed from the womb, he smiled. "I won."
His soul was not yet sold, his intentions were pure, for all that he served, no, worked for the Devil, he was not contracted to him. His soul was unscented with sulfur. He was a wonderfully unexpected tool for dealing with Hell's traditional adversaries unmarked by Hell and unswayed by Hell's banes, and he drew into his orbit the mightiest of a generation, a awesome arsenal of talent, and led them against more forces than Horatio ever had seen.
Thoughts?