That Contractor, Childish
. . .
Sebastian soundlessly closed the poetry book and replaced it on the table beneath the window, where the sounds of London were leaking in like a miasma. He picked up the unlit candelabra with equal silence and walked, with delicate steps, out of the room where his small, greedy lord lay asleep, curled on his side like an infant, tucked beneath his white sheets.
Sebastian locked the door behind him and proceeded down the hall towards his bare room in this, the Phantomhive's London townhouse.
The scurrying insects that were London's citizens had been especially noisy today, and his master especially sensitive to sound and disturbances of all kinds—a terrible headache brought on by a crippling asthma attack and the shock of a bullet wound could do that to a thirteen year-old. It was enough that the small Earl Phantomhive, who loathed to show weakness and hated even more to ask for help, had ordered his long-suffering butler to read to him until he fell asleep, to soothe and smother the sounds of the people outside.
He'd nearly thrown a letter-opener at Sebastian's head when he'd realized his butler—in his contemptuous mockery—had somehow spirited a book of children's poems where none previously existed, but he was too decorous for that, and he would not have that indignity ride just on the tail of the one that had caused the book to appear in the first place.
The words had a dull, monotonous rhythm to them, like the shallow, vapid waves of a lake in the breeze. His small master had fallen asleep in short order, and the simple rhythms had caught and stuck in Sebastian's head. He found that he rather enjoyed them, though, bouncing about there. They were base and pathetic, tasteless, purposeless, artless, the insipid gruel on which humans raised similarly pathetic, tasteless, purposeless, artless, insipid children.
Like all things did, they were base and they were amusing.
Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son, did learn to play when he was young,
and the only tune that he could play was over the hills and far away…
He turned a corner, moved down the stairs, took another.
Boys and girls come out to play, the moon doth shine as bright as day
Come with your hoops and come with your balls, come with good will or not at all
Maylene, who ought not to have come along but was needed, scurried past him in the hall, too distracted by the pile of sheets in her arms she was supposed to have had washed hours ago to notice the shadow of a butler moving through the empty darkness of the hall.
Sugar and spice and everything nice, that is what girls are made of.
The words tumbled through his head. He did not mind them.
A pillow fell from her arms and landed with a puff on the floor. But she was distracted, the shrieking she usually emitted withdrawn to the confines of her skull for the sake of her sleeping lord, and leaving no space for any other thought. Sebastian paused, bent down, picked the pillow up. He did not bother to call after her. He tucked it against his chest and continued to walk.
He turned a corner into a hall nearly as dark as the one before, despite this one having windows. The moon was half-waning, but it was obscured by troubled clouds, and the stars seemed cowering and dim. Outside, Finny was still trying to fill in the crater he had rather accidentally caused when he had 'lightly' tossed an iron statue from one side of the garden to the other. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his sleeve, old straw hat itchy but untouched on the back of his neck.
Slugs and snails and puppy-dog tails, that is what boys are made of.
Sebastian continued through the halls, silent footfalls disturbing not even the air, not even the fourth stair from the bottom that creaked and had never been fixed no matter how many times the young master had yelled at Soma or Agni to do it.
They were with a visiting Indian dignitary, now, and would not return for a week, leaving the town house in the care of its lord and the rabble he had gathered beneath him with the borrowed power of his leashed dog.
He entered the door to the servants' halls, slipped past their lightless corners with his darkened candelabra. In time, there was a sliver of gold light, the first in this darkened house. As the shadow passed, the light went out, followed by the laugh of a man shameless in a way only an American could possibly be.
Lies and greed and insatiable needs, that is what adults are made of.
Sebastian walked a little further. He slowed. He stopped.
A crooked smile quirked at one corner of his lips.
Hunger and principles and a stead-fast aesthetic, that is what demons are made of.
He pivoted on his impeccably shined shoe towards the room where his master slept, through two floors, three turns, two locks, and a thick door. And what, then, was a contractor that would subjugate a demon to their will be made of?
Desperation. Darkness. Damnation. Screams. Hatred. Fury. Fear. Naiveté. Pain. Betrayal. Tears. Confusion. Frustration. Questions. Pleas. Helplessness. Impotence. Blood. Breath. Sacrifice. Self-destruction. Pride. Will.
NEED.
A voice that cried out from the dimmest cracks of the world and broke over its own misery, its own condemnation, screamed and thrashed and begged, begged, begged, begged, for someone, anyone, anyone, ANYONE to come to them. They had been God's child. And God had turned Their back. God did not love them. God did not want them. God was dead. God was dead, but they would not join Them. They would not fall. They would not falter. By any power available, by any power that existed, they would ford ahead. A splash of lifeblood over chalk arranged with hours, the tick-tick-tick of time that one did not have. A fire built of Church's wood and blessed pages, fed the flesh of the only ones who had ever been loved, in turn to feed that Thing which would come.
A hand that reached out to the darkness, found it, grasped it, and screamed at it to submit.
Dirt on the bottom of a cage around tatters of flesh, smoke curling in the smell of melted skin.
The gasp that God does not exist, uttered from the mouth of babes.
Of all things, Sebastian found himself smiling rather fondly.
It took a naive sort. The kind that had oh-so-recently been idealistic, innocent, the kind that did not crack but shattered, the kind could not collect all their pieces again because some of those had turned to dust. That which is sacrificed cannot be regained. Someone who had thought they were loved, someone who had thought they were safe, someone who had thought the world was a beautiful place. And then had seen all at once the truth of it, the barbarism of the neighbor, the lies and the atrocities that people wished to pin on the devil but did to themselves, for themselves, fully knowing and delighting. Someone who had no other reason to live in but the simple truth that they refused to die. A single, overwhelming wish that they would stake their eternity, their salvation, their soul upon. A single wish, easy enough for a demon to grant—always, always always, humans were so simple, too simple, they never desired what a demon could not grant. An easy mark. The fear, delicious. The hatred, warm. Fire must consume itself to burn. And demons were the shadows that sought the warmth and light and spun in the air and laughed, awaiting the prey that would lie raw and helpless as fading embers at the end of a beautiful show. It was hatred that sustained the body's energy, disgust of the delicate, innocent, wriggling THING they had once been that pushed them ever onwards, ever forward, to seek their wish, to put the ultimate despair of what and where they had been behind them.
Propelled them to a demon's arms.
Sebastian pulled the pillow against his chest in a loving caress.
The deeper the sins collected, the greater the power drawn, the blacker the soul, the more delicious it was. The pain and the misery and screaming, which tasted of metallic tang and copper and salt and vinegar and the blade of a knife. One soul, shaped and grown, a lamb led without leash, head held high, knowing to its chosen slaughter.
Mindless, cage-grown by-products seemed inedible by comparison.
Sebastian's tongue flicked across his lips, between pairs of teeth that were not quite that sharp in human beings.
Despair and determination and childish dreams. That is what a contractor is made of.
He placed a hand on his stomach. Smiled. He had not felt so hungry in a terribly long time. And as the plainest bread is the most delicious substance to the starving man, the delicacy of the soul he was nurturing seemed only all the better. All the more worth it.
Upstairs, through two floors, three turns, two locks, and a thick door, a child who had once thought himself beloved by God whimpered in his sleep and clutched at hands that had turned to ash.
[END]