I'm so sorry. I'm supposed to be writing a paper. You know how that goes with me. Anyway, this is my first attempt at anything Kuroshitsuji, so I hope it turns out okay. This is a longer story, but I will try to make the chapters as stand-alone as possible so readers don't get too frustrated when I inevitably have no time to write for several months.

That Butler, So Bored

Summary: Decades after consuming Ciel's soul, Sebastian forms a contract with a new master. Well, in a manner of speaking.

Setting: A Warehouse in Berlin, 1938

There was a knife through his heart.

It didn't hurt.

These were mutually incompatible statements, so one or the other had to be untrue. Sigmund wiggled the handle of the knife hopefully, and felt the blade grating against the rib it rested on. The vibration resonated through his whole chest, but it still didn't hurt.

That was decidedly odd. And it was definitely going to put a bit of a crimp in his plans for getting a promotion. Sigmund had been counting on one in order to get a more exciting position than guarding a lot of treasures the Wehrmacht had picked up in Austria and Czechoslovakia. Hitler was planning something great for Germany, and he wanted to be part of it...not bleed out surrounded by musty boxes, which is where things looked to be going at the moment.

Well, Sigmund thought, I'm not dead at the moment as far as I can tell, but I have a feeling that if I pull this thing out I will be.

With this decided, he sat down on a crate, taking care not to slip on the blood pooling around his feet or jar the knife that had made its home somewhere in his left ventricle, and waited to see what would happen.

Fortunately (or not, honestly. It could go either way.), Sigmund didn't have too long to wait before the air around him chilled, then shuddered, and there was Something standing in front of him. Sigmund thought he ought to feel frightened, but found he didn't. Perhaps he was going into shock.

"As masters go, you're not much but I can make do, I suppose," the eldritch darkness in front of him said, in surprisingly cultured tones.

"Beg pardon?" said Sigmund.

"You summoned me. With that," a hand with sharp black nails hand coalesced out of the darkness to point at the knife, "which means that we can form a contract."

"Oh, this thing? I didn't mean to do that," Sigmund said with a calm he was sure he shouldn't be feeling. "I, um, tripped."

"You tripped."

"Yes."

"You tripped and managed to precisely impale yourself on the Cursed Dagger of Bahomet."

"Oh, is that what this is? I'm just the guard, I don't know anything. What, or who, are you anyway?"

There was something very like a sigh of frustration. "How did you manage to get assigned as guard of a warehouse full of occult objects without any knowledge of it?"

"Come to think of it, that's probably why," Sigmund said.

"Must I explain in words of one syllable?"

"No, but it would be nice if you would explain at all," Sigmund hinted.

"Oh, very well," the darkness said petulantly. "I'm a demon. I eat the souls of those who contract me, for which usage of the Cursed Dagger of Bahomet is one method. It so happens that you have summoned me." It sounded as if it was trying to decide whether the circumstances were more embarrassing for it, or for Sigmund. "You can either make a contract—in which case I will consume your soul after a while—or die and let your soul fall where it may immediately."

Sigmund took a deep breath, then gagged at the squishy feeling in his lungs. "Do Nazi souls go somewhere nice?" he inquired once he had finished coughing up blood.

"Not especially, not by human reckoning."

"And I don't suppose we could just forget this ever happened?" Sigmund suggested, looking up pleadingly (although the effect was lessened by the fact that he couldn't tell where the demon's face was, or even if it had one).

"No."

"Might as well then. Make a contract, I mean."

"Good," the demon said briskly. The hand appeared again, long fingers curling around the handle of the knife and pulling it out smoothly. Sigmund winced and waited for the rush of blood that would drain what was left of his life, but it didn't come. "Now, what do you want?"

"Um," Sigmund said numbly.

"I have to give you something in exchange for your soul," the demon said, in a tone that signified his belief that Sigmund was very, very dense indeed and perhaps he ought to be using words of one syllable. "What will it be?"

"I don't know, this is all too sudden!" Sigmund flared, feeling it was safe to be angry now that the knife was out and he was still not dead. "How am I supposed to think of something I would be willing to trade my soul for in, what, ten seconds?"

"In ordinary circumstances, refusing to ask for something would break the contract and I could eat your soul right away." Sigmund cringed and scooted back in the box he was sitting on, but the demon was still speaking. "Luckily for you," it continued, "I am unimaginably, worldshakingly bored, so I have a suggestion that might help with your problem as well as staving off mine for a while longer."

"I'm listening," said Sigmund.

"I can offer you a trial period," the demon stated. "Five years. During that time I will offer you my services in a limited capacity until you decide what, exactly, you desire. If, at the end of those five years, you have not decided, I will consume your soul."

Sigmund considered. When compared to any of his other options, which were precious few at the moment, it sounded like about as good as he was going to get. "Sounds like we have a deal, Herr...what's the name, then?"

"At the moment, I haven't any," the demon answered. "Is there one you would like me to use?"

"Considering how rubbish I just was at thinking up a wish, I don't think I want to try putting together a name for you. Can't you take care of that part?"

"If you command me, Master."

"Fine then, I command you to give a name to yourself."

The next instant, the demon's dark form had condensed into a tall, black-haired man, wearing archaic servant's clothing. "My name is Sebastian Michaelis, Master."