Warnings: Child abuse, not explicit; a little bit of mindfuck, probably.
Disclaimer: Kuroshitsuji belongs to Yana Toboso
A/N: This was supposed to be a fic with a clear red thread. Now it has gained some mindfuck. I sometimes wonder why this always happens with me.
Well, whatever.
Please enjoy!
Anyway
Ciel is sitting in a cage and they are standing outside, watching, laughing. Sometimes they pull him out, hurt him, break him a little more and shove him back. Sometimes they forget to give him food. Sometimes they let him freeze at night.
Ciel wants to go home. He'd like to think that his parents are still alive, that the house is still standing, that he can be happy again.
Unfortunately, he's not naïve, nor does he accept illusions. Illusions are for the weak. He is certain that this traumatic experience has hardened and broken him beyond repair at the very same time. He bears no hope for escape anymore, no matter how hard he wishes for those men and women to die on the spot, to have vengeance. The wish is nothing but that: a wish. It won't come true. He knows he will never come out and that they will never die.
Hate nurtures his small heart.
A child is pulled out from one of the other cages. Ciel hears his captors' sick enthusiasm and looks away. He doesn't want to know what they will do to the little girl.
He is freezing and wonders when his asthma decides to kill him.
Compared to this, death must be a warm place.
When the demon appears, everything is silent for a moment. There is nobody in the room but the two of them. His eyes meet Ciel's and the boy knows he has to handle quick – quick! – when the demon tells him that he has summoned him. He doesn't waste another moment.
This is what he wants: Revenge. And the demon shall be his tool to attain it.
He sells his soul for hate and misery and death.
He leaves the horrid place and dreams of them drenched in blood.
It is so cold.
Ciel feels warm, though. Hate and rage heat so well.
He looks at the demon – his demon – and wrinkles his nose.
"You have got some blood right here." He motions to the left side of his lower jaw. The demon wipes the red fluid away and – after another disapproving glare from his master – removes his gloves to stuff them into his pocket.
Using his cane, the boy pushes the dead man's head to the side and takes in the horrified look in his eyes. According to the Queen, this has been a serial killer and, more importantly, according to Sebastian, this man was suspected to have connections to the cult.
Unfortunately, he's managed to die from a heart attack before Sebastian had a chance to torture him further.
So this is how a person dies. It looks so easy, he realizes, so easy, especially with this one. "Is it always this simple?" he asks the demon.
Sebastian looks at him for a long while. His lips stretch into a smile. "For me, it certainly is."
Ciel leaves the scene, followed by his butler. "Don't you feel anything?"
"Not the emotions you are referring to, young master."
Regret is not something that demons feel.
That night, Ciel wakes from a nightmare of groping hands and twisted smiles. He is drenched in sweat and screams the moment his butler tries to come closer.
The demon does not try it again, not even as the boy hugs his knees to his chest, rocks his body back, forth, back, forth and inwardly wishes for his mother.
The creature stands by the window and smiles.
'Sebastian' is nothing but an obedient, perfectly shaped block of ice.
Ciel isn't even remotely surprised.
"Stay."
With the demon's – 'Sebastian's' – help, he can reach his goals.
And reach them he does.
One by one, his opponents, his enemies, all those wrong-doers, find their deaths in Sebastian's claws. Ciel is immensely pleased. This is how it should go and this is how it is.
The demon is waiting for his young master to sleep. Ciel watches him. Sleep doesn't favour him these days, and Sebastian has to stay longer every night.
(The boy is thirteen now. He mentally berates himself for wanting someone next to him at this age. It's not acceptable anymore.)
Silence remains until Ciel speaks up: "Do you dream?"
The demon turns his head to him, perhaps searching for the boy's eyes somewhere under the voluminous blanket. "I can't dream if I don't sleep."
A second passes.
The boy pulls back his covers and beckons his servant to come closer. The demon approaches him hesitantly – that he can see despite the dark – and comes to a halt next to the bed.
"I order you to sleep and dream," the boy says. He wants to know whether an order can cause such things, he's testing the boundaries of their contract, he's experimenting. "You are not allowed to take control over your dreams. Remain asleep until I wake you."
The demon doesn't say anything at first. Ciel hears the soft rustling of fabric as he goes down on one knee and utters a soft "Yes, my Lord."
Some more rustling and the boy is sure that Sebastian is trying to leave the room. "Where are you going?"
"To my room, young master."
Ciel shakes his head. "That won't do. You will sleep here."
There is a pause again as if the demon is silently asking him whether this is being serious or not, but he comes back as Ciel moves to the right side of his bed. The mattress dips when the butler sits down to remove his clothes. A few moments later, he lies down and Ciel notices the look that he casts him in the soft moonlight, but he cannot interpret it.
The butler closes his eyes and falls asleep soon enough.
They are barely thouching but his body is warm against the boy's. Somehow, Ciel finds this odd.
Ice shouldn't be warm.
Few minutes pass. Ciel is already transfixed, watching with morbid curiosity as the demon's features twitch into an expression of displeasure, as something akin to a nightmare starts, as he covers his closed eyes and mutters for someone to stop, please stop.
His voice is oddly soft, strangely frightened, Ciel notices. He leans closer to catch the pleas spilling from the other's mouth. The thought of waking him up never occurs to Ciel.
"Are you enjoying yourself?"
Somebody is standing right behind him. When he turns, he feels his heart skip a beat.
"Sebastian," he whispers, not trusting his own voice.
The demon smiles sweetly at him. "Are you?"
Ciel doesn't know what he's talking about. But if the demon is here, then who is –
He sees his own self, eleven years old, malnourished, pleading and scared to death on the other side of the bed, lying under a heavy, laughing man and –
-And he wakes up, breathing erratically, almost choking on air.
Sebastian comes in at the next moment, asking whether the boy is feeling alright – of course he's not! – and tells him that it has only been a dream.
Ciel still can't calm down, he has the feeling his windpipe is being tied together slowly. When the butler wants to touch him he screeches, pulls a pistol from his pillow and shoots him.
Of course, the demon gets up again, politely coughs into his hand and lets the bullet fall on the covers.
Then he leaves the room.
Despite being wrapped in a thick blanket, Ciel feels incredibly cold.
Ciel doesn't know where they are standing right now. He wants to apologize (I'm sorry I shot you), but he is too proud to do it.
Apology or not, the demon should stay at his side until Ciel has attained his revenge. After all, he wants his meal, doesn't he?
He does.
Ciel doesn't want to admit it, but sometimes, there is this hungry, starved glint in the demon's eyes that he notices, and this raw want shocks him to the core. Sebastian has told him that his soul is something very delicious, something desirable.
The way he sometimes looks at Ciel certainly underlines that.
One morning, he asks the demon whether there is a way to taste the soul without removing it from the owner's body. Sebastian seemingly recognizes the apology in this question, for he smirks and lets his eyes roam over the boy's half-dressed form. Ciel wants to squirm under the intense gaze but refuses to give in.
"You are too young for that kind of activity," the demon says and finishes his task of dressing the Earl.
Ciel drowns in memories of grunting noises next to his ear and laughing spectators.
He sees the last one of them die and can't hide the smile that creeps onto his lips. The demon has been the tool to the sweetest revenge.
He has finally reached his goal.
Ciel feels tired. Warm, but tired. "I believe I have to fulfil my side of the contract," he says.
The demon carries him away, holding him close to his body –
It's been a long time since Ciel has truly felt safe.
Sebastian puts him down on a stone bench, smirking. Ciel is too tired to keep his smile upright. The warmth is slowly leaving him, his limbs start feeling heavy and he has to keep himself from shutting his eyes. "Will it hurt?" he asks the demon, already anticipating that it might.
But the demon never answers him. He opens his mouth and begins to laugh.
It is a harsh, ringing, agreeable, dirty sound that is carried away by the wind. Ciel opens his mouth to ask what he finds so entertaining, but the demon leans forward, chuckling, and kisses his forehead softly.
"You won't die yet, dear Ciel." His voice lowers to a whisper. "I won't let you."
There is a stone altar behind the demon.
And-
He doesn't fall for illusions –
His eyes open.
Ciel is sitting in a cage and they are standing outside, watching, laughing.