A/N: I looked through the Kuroshitsuji stories on here, and to my horror, there were only a few good non-ship fics. Imagine the horror I experienced - and so, I have decided to write my own non-ship fic, the idea having struck me in the middle of driving back home through heavy traffic. It's a bit short, but I hope to expand on it.

CIEL

A tugging in my mind.

That's what I felt at the moment. Strange, though; I hadn't had a sensation like that of a fishing string tugging through my thoughts in almost fifty years.

When I'd made my most recent contract.

As this thought occurred to me, my eyes snapped open. I was being summoned for a Faustian Contract! Someone had called me to the mortal world in hopes of forming a contract... I would not let this opportunity pass. With a passive gesture, I said, "Come, Sebastian." All the while, the tugging in my skull grew stronger, pulling me insistently toward the human world.

Sebastian came to me when he was summoned, the faithful dog I had commanded him to be. Purring in a silky-smooth voice, he asked me, "A contract, my lord?"

"Yes," I said shortly. "To be frank, I am surprised that anyone in the twenty-first century would think to summon a demon." And with that, I let go of the tethers holding me to Hell, appearing in a pentagram on Earth. Sebastian shimmered into existence behind me.

We were both in our true forms, which irked me. Seeing as I was human before, my true form was simply that of my human form. Sebastian, looming behind me, looked much more foreboding and impressive. I knew it was childish, but I could not help resenting him for it a little.

I shook my head to dispel these thoughts; they were next to useless when it came to contract forming. I looked to the person who had summoned me for the first time...

... and almost fell over.

The boy standing in front of me could have been Alois Trancy's reincarnation! The human had the same rainwater-grey eyes, the same platinum blonde hair... my only comfort was that he lacked the tautness that I recognized as madness Alois Trancy had possessed. He was much more docile-looking in the long run.

But by God, he even spoke with the same insolent voice! (Oh, all right, I may have been imagining the insolence, but what does one do when faced with the voice of a former archenemy?) His words carried the same cadence and accent as that Alois Trancy's... I was still trying to distinguish similarities when Sebastian nudged my arm subtly. Oh. I supposed the human was speaking.

"Are you demons?" he asked me and Sebastian.

I fought the urge to roll my eyes to heaven. Of course we were demons, what else would we be - magical penguins?

I didn't say this to him, of course. I simply replied with a curt, "Yes, we are."

His eyes widened and he smiled. Once more, I could see the resemblance between him and Alois. I wondered what his relationship with the late psychopath was, not for the first time.

"Excellent!" he chirped.

Now, my mind was quite blank. This was my third contract in two hundred years; normally Sebastian would acquire contracts and then we'd share the souls that came from them. Because of my lack of activity, I had no idea what I was supposed to do next in the summoning.

Luckily, Sebastian came to my rescue, standing in front of me in his ridiculously high-heeled boots. "What do you hope to accomplish by summoning two demons?" he asked, his low voice as smooth as the glossy feathers that fell from his true form.

"I want to form a contract!" the boy near-shouted. "I want to know what happened to my ancestors, because I know they consorted with demons!"

Well, that was new... Maybe that's how he was affiliated with the Trancy family.

Perhaps Sebastian was thinking the same thing, for he asked, "What is your name?"

That boy swallowed quickly and said, "A-Alex. Alex Trancy!"

Ah, so I was right. I flashed a look at Sebastian, and he nodded almost imperceptibly, leaning forward toward the boy. "Do you wish to form a contract with my master?"

If I were the Trancy boy, I would have rolled my eyes. What would I have summoned a demon for if I didn't want to form a contract with it? But I wasn't the Trancy boy, and so he didn't react how I would have. He simply nodded.

"Very good," Sebastian said mildly. I knew he would approve of any contract we made, for with our system of sharing souls, one never got their fill. He leaned forward, looking back at me once. I tapped my left hand, implying that that was where he should place the seal; it wouldn't give him too much power over us, yet it was easily reachable. Sebastian acknowledged me with one of his secretive smiles.

He leaned forward and touched the boy's left hand, placing his palm over it. Then his smirk widened.

Alex Trancy screamed.

It was piercing, wrenching, in its intensity; I had cried out just as loudly when Sebastian had placed the seal on my eye. But soon, the sound petered off, and my butler removed his hand.

The contract had been made.

I removed my glove from my left hand, and there on my hand was the mark of my new contract.

I had a new master now.