Disclaimer: If I owned Kuroshitsuji? Hoh, boy.
A/N: So this has been a work in progress for quite some time now, just because I promised myself I wouldn't publish any series until it was all finished. Considering my track record of abandoned fics, I'd say this method works rather well, no? Well, I finally decided to get off my lazy ass and finish this today (when, really, I should have been studying for Physics. Oh, well), so here it is. I do have a few other fic ideas kicking around in my head right now, but nothing concrete yet. You'll find that ideas coalesce in my mind with much difficulty.
Some warnings: 1) Shotacon, althogh you really shouldn't be surprised at this. It is Kuroshitsuji, after all. 2) Religious themes. When I wrote this, it wasn't intended to take a particular position on religion in general, and it certainly wasn't intended to offend anyone.
Don't forget to review!
I. God is mighty.
Sometimes, for lack of a better distraction, Ciel liked to think of the past.
"Now, darling," His mother would croon, and her voice would be soft, perfect, velvet like an angel's. Her touch would be light and her smile would be beautiful, because fantasies of a bedtime routine that was no more needn't have any imperfection. "We must pray."
And he would. Tiny fingers would clasp together like a mesh of spider webs, warm hands would press against a warmer forehead and closed eyes in obedience but no real sincerity. He would whisper meaningless words, sweet nothings with a practiced tongue, match the rises and falls of his mother's voice and stopping when he hears them no more.
"Do you remember the rhyme?" She would ask, and he would nod along eagerly, because that's what seven-year-olds do. "Good. You can say it then, and I'll follow you." She would whisper playfully, as though fearful of someone overhearing.
The iron of bars and shackles and blood (and god-knew-what-else) sliced through his veil of fantasy like a well-sharpened knife, and he squeezed his eyes shut as the heavy thudding of familiar boots neared him.
-and he squeezes his eyes shut in concentration as his mother would look on with a smile.
"And now I lay me down to sleep,
There was a myriad of clanking and suddenly his feet were in the air, arms supported by a brute force he could recognize in his sleep. He didn't bother opening his eyes to follow the same path he had always followed, down the filthy hallways to the filthy room with the filthy people and their filthy touch-
His back met a cool, flat surface, and around him excited murmurs rose from the darkness. There were fingers on him, on every inch of him, but he didn't squirm anymore; one particular pair forced his eyelids open, nearly taking out his eye in the process.
"Hand me the brand."
He could now connect blurry covered faces to sounds, and it was a little fat man with grey hair coming out of the sides of his mask who spoke.
The order caused quite a stirrup in the rest of the crowd of what seemed like thousands. All heads turned in the same direction, as if a massive tidal wave had overtaken them. They were passing something around, he could hear the metal of whatever-it-was slapping against the flesh of one hand after another. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't bring himself to care.
A sudden hush fell over the room as the object neared, and the sound of metal-on-flesh slowed until it became barely a crawling procession playing in the recesses of his mind. There was one last ominous slap, and he barely had time to register it before he felt heat nearing his side and something was pressed against his skin.
Then he opened his mouth and screamed, and everything had gone to hell after that.
I pray the Lord my soul to keep."
It was like living a waking dream; hands, arms, breaths, and voices everywhere, sights and sounds and sensations mixing together in a cacophony of horror and confusion. The feeling was unlike anything he'd ever experienced, unlike his wildest nightmares and daydreams. This feeling of hopelessness, abandonment.
So this was what hell felt like.
"Please…" He found himself whispering, his own scratched and hoarse voice entirely inaudible over the deafening chanting of the room's inhabitants.
Somewhere in the crevices of his mind (the parts that weren't completely occupied by the screaming and the thrashing and oh, the burning!), he wondered if this was some sort of poetic justice. God's personal punishment, perhaps, for all his years of faked faithfulness and phony prayers.
What a merciless God He was then, to hold a seven year old child to his word, as a judgment of life or death, no less.
Ciel heard himself draw in a deep, ragged breath, forcing himself calm amidst the chaos, but found that even this little chest movement caused his burn to send a ripple of agony through his midriff. Closing his eyes again, he prayed (to some other, any other deity) for consciousness to leave him.
But then there was the chanting, all around him and inside him.
"If I should die before I wake,"
One by one, he began to say his goodbyes.
First to his family. His dearly departed parents who would always be there to comfort and protect from whatever demons that plagued his dreams. He thought of the way Vincent's collar-bone felt under his head when his would fall asleep in his father's arms. He thought of Rachel's orange-cream locks between his fingers as his mother held him with the most undeniable laugh on her face.
And when he tried to think of the mirrored expression on his, he found that he couldn't. Again and again he would picture his own jubilant expression, but again and again the face in his vision would be blank. As though someone had taken a wet dishtowel and wiped his features clean off like they were stains on his mother's favorite white tablecloth.
The images played on a loop in his head like a silent movie, and he heard the preaching of an aging priest, presiding over his parents' funeral (the one he never got to attend). Then he imagined his own ceremony, lying in a silk-donned coffin listening to the muffled words of those above. He listened to them speak of his parents, his wonderful, loving parents whose acts of kindness and achievements would not soon be forgotten.
When they got to him, of course, there was nothing to say, because he had been naught but a child. He let out a little laugh at the thought that even in death he only ever existed in shadows, be they his parents' or otherwise.
Then quietly but resolutely, while the blank faces of days and years gone by raced behind his eyes, he realized that he did not want to let go.
"… Something wrong, darling?" He felt her lingering breath against his face as her fingers would comb through his hair absentmindedly.
And he breathed out, too. "No, I'm alright. I just need a moment to gather my thoughts." His face would glow pink in embarrassment as he would rack his brain for that misplaced phrase, the last one that would always, inadvertently, slip from his mind.
Her laughter rang in his ears.
"Do you not remember, sweetheart? Would you like me to remind you?" Her memory had been just as good as her intentions; if only the road to hell wasn't paved with such.
"No, no!" He would groan (and he groaned) "I can remember! I'll think really hard about it!" Then he would repeat the rhyme under his breath, to try and draw out the last portion from his subconscious, somehow.
"And now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake… if I should die before I wake… I… I pray…" His face would light up with joy when he finally remembers.
But in all his glory and triumph, he could only whisper: "I pray the Lord my soul to-"
"Save me."
And somewhere, in the unforgiving darkness below, something was listening.