A/N - Trigger warnings folks. DARK. So be warned for torture, non-con, mind games, and language

The Devil is in the Details

"He did what?" Ciel's voice was cold and sharp and his muscles tensed beneath Ash's iron-like grip. His gut felt heavy and bile rose in his throat, and the memories attacked him once more.

The small boy's battered body lay on the filth of the cage floor. They had dropped him on his stomach when they had finished 'teaching' him. He lacked the strength to roll himself over. Another lesson failed. This time, this beating, had been worse than the ones before it. The boy's eyes fluttered as he tried to remain conscious. Sleep would be a luxury, would allow him to escape this pain, if only for a little while. In sleep though, he would relive all the days before this one all over again, and he just didn't feel his sanity would last through that one more time. In sleep, he would be unaware when they came for him again. Young Ciel had learnt to sleep lightly with his head against the bars so he would be jarred awake when they opened the cell door. The few times he had been taken by surprise, he had nearly screamed.

The cold floor felt almost soothing on his bruised cheek. Were it not for the fact the battered flesh and the bones beneath were painfully pressed against the stone, and the odors assaulted him so violently, he might almost have been able to take some comfort. This was hell. Hell was cold and dark. Through that door was something worse than hell. Through that door that never seemed to fully close when Ciel was at his most fragile, was something hot and torturous and worse than oblivion. Beyond that door, the boy reasoned, were monsters, the worst of humanity. He tried to roll himself over once more. His small hand pushed on the stones, his two broken fingers screamed at the effort and he clamped his lips against the sound as it tried to escape. Blue eyes flew open with the stabbing, splitting pain in his side as he rolled. One of the monsters had kicked him fiercely and over the sound of his hideously forced exhale, the boy thought he had heard something crack. He wondered how many ribs were broken or fractured.

The cages were much roomier now. Many of the other children had passed through the door and after days - Days? Nights? He didn't know - of screaming, and chanting, and noises the boy didn't quite have a name for yet, fewer and fewer returned. The torment never abated though, those who remained were simply 'schooled' more often. The boy refused to talk to the other children; they were all of them below him. He did not scream. He failed his lessons over and over and he did it on purpose.

"Teach the little noble beast to scream. Teach him that we will have what we wish."

So much had been stripped from the boy. How could one person lose so much? These were the thoughts that sometimes plagued him when the torn flesh on his body weeped and burned and kept him from gaining respite. His parents were taken from him. The conflagration that stole his home also allowed for his freedom to be stolen. Grabbed from the shadows of the burning manor, he found himself here in this cold and dark hell. Any sense of control over his situation had been thoroughly trounced as he quickly came to learn that visits from the monsters and the attacks that followed would come at any time and if you were chosen, there was simply no escape. Hands on his body, whips, booted feet, he had come to know them all and the hatred for it coursed through the small body keeping his heart pumping. After the first time, when he had refused to scream, he had been dumped in his cell and shivered as hot blood seeped down his back, sticking his shirt to his skin. He huddled himself against his knees and tried to will out the sound of the children around him shifting and wailing, and the pain he didn't know how to deal with.

'I am still a Phantomhive. Monsters will not make me scream. I am not afraid of monsters...'

The small boy told himself this same thing over and over all through the dark days and nights as they bled together. He told himself this very same thing as they raked his body with their grimy nails and bloody floggers. He told himself this again and again as he chewed his lips raw in an effort to keep the sounds inside himself. When his lips threatened to give out under the abuse of his gnashing teeth, he turned to his tongue. The boy felt blood pooling in his mouth as he lay on his back. He let his head fall to the side, hair sticking to his brow, and opened his mouth. Blood dribbled down the side of cheek and his eyes rested on the door. It was closed. Perhaps there would be time for him to rest, if only for a little while.

The boy didn't see, but Ciel did. Floating through the door came a long patch of darkness that seemed to make the black around it pale to gray in comparison. It had eyes now at all times. Small specks of red light that pierced the gloom, and despite the fiery color, did nothing to warm the air around them. The shadow flitted between the cages, peering into each one. It was a large misty mass, taller than the largest of the monsters. It spent but a few moments at each cell until it reached the last one where young Ciel lay, flat and broken, with his head leaning against the bars. A misty appendage stretched into the cage, and slithered along the boy's right cheek. Ciel, looking down into his reflection, shivered violently and pulled his head away from the touch that he could not truly feel. The small boy never moved, and Ciel watching from above with hardened eyes fought down his revulsion. The dark figured stayed there for a minute or more, than entered the cage fully and hovered over the boy. After a time, it floated back from the room, and the door cracked open. Ciel swallowed thickly.

There were things worse than beatings; worse than being left on a filth covered stone floor battered and bleeding. There was a pain more searing than broken ribs and fingers, and infected, seeping wrists that had been manacled for too long. There was more to lose than the boy had imagined. There were places in his young brain where the cracks were forming, small at first and branching out in spidery lines like so much glass under a fist.

'I am a Phantomhive. I will not scream. I am not afraid of Monsters...'

He was afraid, though. He leaned his back against the cold metal with his eyes closed and he tried to imagine escaping. His mind would not humor him. There was no escaping hell. Hell was eternal. Damnation was eternal. The boy repeated his mantra, his shield against the tortures, and he felt the cracks in his psyche spread down his spine. What if he were to simply let go? Would he shatter? Would he just fall apart at the seams like a rag doll and rest in pieces on the cell floor? The door to his cell rattled open and his eyes flew open. What adrenaline his body could still produce began pumping through his veins and a meaty paw caught the chain connecting his manacled wrists to yank him from the cage, dragging his form across the floor.

A small group had come to collect him. The boy had long since lost the resolve to kick and struggle when they hoisted him up for inspection. He needed his strength to maintain what little resolve he had left. He funneled all his efforts into keeping himself as quiet as possible. It seemed to agitate the monsters and as they never attained what they wanted, he always made it back through that door and into the cell. It could have been a survival tactic, but the boy was more concerned with the fact he had one thing they could not take from him. Pride comes before the fall as the saying goes, and Ciel clenched his fists so tightly his nails drew blood from crescent moon-shaped wounds in his palms. He watched, helpless to stop the events that were about to take place, unable to stop the images from coming, and unsure of what role the familiar shadow played in it all.

When the boy was sat upon the stone table instead of spread against it, a fresh wave of panic washed over him. The room was unbearably warm and a pungent smell hung in the air. He tried not to look into the faces of the monsters, but on occasion he couldn't help it. The leer that pierced him sent him reeling backwards and his small feet kicked against the stone. The harpy was behind him again though, and she forced his manacled wrists together, holding them against the table. Then, young Ciel learned, he had a lot more to lose.

He didn't know how long this particular 'lesson' lasted. His mind dulled to the roving hands with dirty nails and calloused fingers. He chanted in his head, keeping his pride alive and the splinters of his psyche from piercing the skull. When the fingers stripped him bare and exposed him fully to the den of monsters, he chewed his lips, breaking skin and tasting blood. When he learned what the weight of another full grown beast felt like atop him, he practically swallowed his tongue with revulsion as he bit the thick muscle. His eyes squeezed shut, willing himself to be anywhere else. Hell was better than this. The boy learnt his body could be bent and broken by the most unassuming looking of appendages, and the damage was more, so much more than that done with leather strips and booted feet. The monsters still craved his screams. They kicked, and slapped, they pried and rode and the chanting that slowly continued to shave away at his strength became laced even more heavily with the sound that had no name. Now though, the boy knew what it was. He would call it grunting, he would call it disgusting, he would call it the rutting of monsters. Around the stone table in this place worse than hell, the dregs of this pit of despair violated each other in tandem with his tortured form.

The number of children who returned from the dark wooden door dwindled. From his vantage point, Ciel,noticed with increasing ire the shadow grew longer and more defined with each child who never returned. Was the shadow born from the darkness of hell? Were the children feeding its form as they failed to return? He was having trouble organizing his thoughts. Ciel had fallen into his memory despite the blood trickling from his palm, and the ghost of the pain wracked his body while the force of his humiliation brutally bludgeoned his pride, shattering it. Ash's eyes remained impassive with his lips resting in an easy smile.

In the times that followed, the robed and masked tormentors resorted to different techniques. Ciel remembered this 'lesson'. He leaned further over the reflection as his breath caught in his throat. Ash's hand pushed against his neck, not letting him sit straight.

"He has always been a dedicated instructor, you see..."

Ciel did not want to see. Unfortunately, the young Earl had no control over these images. His eyes left the boy who was being stripped and roughly flipped onto his stomach. Around him, the monsters disrobed each other and the air grew heavy with the heat of the room and the stench of beasts and warm booze. One of the tallest of the monsters stood a little apart from the group. Over his shoulder, the shadow loomed and Ciel watched it dip its misty head towards the monster's ear. The robed man took a willow cane into his hand, and the shadow dipped its head again. The monster didn't react outwardly, but put the cane down and picked up the leather strap. The darkness curled a hand over the monster's shoulder and the robed man began to laugh, a high, screeching laugh. He dropped the strap on the table and picked up a small wedge of wood.

"You... You bastard." Ciel's words slipped out as a whisper. He whipped his head to his smaller self.

The small boy had been slapped and pinched and his bare skin, crisscrossed with bleeding wounds and blue and green welts, was slick with sweat already. His bottom lip bubbled with fresh blood as he bit it to a pulp. That was then the monster came to face him. His small jaw was forced open and the foulest of fingers were forced into his mouth. They probed his bloodied teeth and abused tongue. A violent push had the boy retching against the assault. Nothing much empties from a stomach barely fed, though, and his dry heaving drew laughter and rancid breath from the beasts around him. The beast shoved the small wedges of wood between his teeth and with horror the boy found he could not close his mouth. His brittle hold over himself shattered and he kicked with his bare feet and tried to free his hands from where they were wrenched behind his back.

The monster held out his hand, and the harpy placed the willow cane in his meaty paw. The whistling the thing made as it sliced through the air before slicing through his flesh could even be heard over the filthy beasts writhing across each other in fire-lit corners of the room. His eyes opened wide and he hissed deep in his throat. One? Two? Five? He lost count at his legs were assaulted, the blood dripping down pale calves and tiny ankles. The boy coughed, he wheezed, he squeezed tears out from puffy eyelids. He groaned as he was tossed onto his bruised back and taken. Rather than dulling itself to try and block what he could of the pain, his brain examined every hurt, every tear and scrape and bruised slam against the stone - anything to keep himself from screaming. The misty shadow left the shoulder of the tallest monster and floated above the boy as his body was used and abused. When the boy's hair was gripped painfully hard and his head forced up so the beast could run a dirtied finger over his tongue, his eyes cracked open. Peering out of the darkness that should not have been able to exist in the fires of this hot pit were two ruby-red eyes. The young boy's eyes widened for a moment in surprise and confusion. He almost called out to those eyes, and then they were gone, blinking out of his vision. And the boy wished for hell.

"You fucking bastard. You damn fucking bastard!" Ciel screamed at the vision before him and for a brief moment, Ash thought he might have detected a cracking in Master Phantomhive's voice.

"Starting to see the error of your ways?"

Ciel did not acknowledge the white butler. It was possible he never even heard him.

'I-I'm...a Phantomhive... There are monsters... I will not scream. I...will not scream.'

Everything hurt. Everything. His body hurt when he sat himself down, when he tried to lie on the stones, when he curled into himself, when his raw wrists moved, when broken fingers and toes bent, when he inhaled too deeply, when he didn't inhale at all. His splintered mind hurt as his existence defied reason. The fragile glass shards of his thoughts had long since shattered and danced out of his reach, shredding things like hope, faith, comfort, and peace in their wake. How much pain was worth it, he wondered again as he spit blood onto the back of his hand with a cough. He had been called a stubborn boy on occasion. His father had once remarked that trait would serve him well when he was older. The boy wondered if it was serving him well now. He had but one thing to keep to himself. Hell was for sinners,wasn't it? Pride was a sin. He didn't much care. Hell was better than what lay beyond the door and that was all his subsistence was now - Hell and what lie beyond.

He never managed to roll himself against the bars. When they came for him, his unconscious form had no warning. The numbness that enveloped him and protected him for a short time from the heat and punishment beyond the door betrayed him. It kept him wrapped in dark arms as his form was hoisted from the cage and carried from the dark and cold prison.

He awoke to a sharp slap across the face. His head rocked and the force slammed his cheek into the stone beneath his head. He gasped and reflexively tried to bring his hand to his cheek. He felt grubby hands holding his wrists firmly above his head and he tried to kick his feet. There was no success in his struggling. Stripped to his skin, he was spread and bound to the table. He clamped his mouth closed as the panic fluttered up through his chest, painfully reminding him that his heart could still beat fiercely when the fear took hold. The den of monsters was brighter than usual, an orange luminescence emanating from the entire right side of the room. The heat he found to be unbearable was now nearly driving him mad. He felt sweat sliding down the side of his face and the stone growing slick beneath his bony back.

The monsters looked hungry. Their eyes glittered like dead beetles and they crowded around the table on three sides. The largest of the beasts was the only one to stand on the side of the table with the raging fire. He loomed over the boy's form and his masked face dipped to stare into the boy's face. Young Ciel hated the look he was forced to receive, a hungry, predatory look. The monster trailed a rough finger over the boy's mangled lips.

"The little noble beast has lasted a long time. Time is short. Let us forever brand him with the mark he so deserves. The mark of the noble beast."

The words made little sense to Ciel as he was stretched on the table. As the robed beast crawled himself off of the boy, he saw movement over the monster's shoulder. An oppressive shadow draped across the back of the boy's tormentor.

It was not until the beast approached him with a blazing fiery brand that the words knitted themselves together in his fragile brain. 'Let us forever brand him with the mark he so deserves.' He would be forever branded? His body twisted with all the strength he had left. His eyes burned with the force of how wide they opened as panic fully enveloped the young earl. He would not be able to leave. He would not be able to go back to his cold, dark hell and hold his fragile form together with one thread he had left. This would not heal. This would not turn purple and then green and then slowly fade back to flesh before they bruised and pulped him again. This would not knit itself back together given enough time. This mark was going to be etched in his skin forever. It would be a constant reminder of the inhuman ends that he had suffered. Never would he be allowed to move past this. Hell was dark and it was cold, but a fiery brand would still burn brightly against the boy's pale skin and his pride would never recover. There was a shattering inside of him. The thread that linked the remainder of his poor mind together with his body snapped and he felt his lungs constrict as the burning metal was pushed into his flesh. The boy screamed and he screamed until there was no breath in his body to fuel them any longer and his voice would allow only scratchy hisses to escape. A large black mass sat on the edge of the table, and the ruby eyes danced as the mists split into a languid smile.

When the beasts dumped him on his back into his cold, dark hell, the boy realized he was alone. There was no one left. He was the last. They had taken the last of him. He had nothing left. He was nothing, a shell bereft of anything once resembling a boy named Ciel Phantomhive.

The next time the boy lay on the table was to be the last time. This time his poor broken body housed an equally broken spirit. The only thing young Ciel could find inside of himself was pain and hatred. He felt if his pain could somehow animate his body, and his hatred give strength to his muscles, he would dearly love to destroy everyone in this room. Every beast that existed the world over. Every filthy creature who had a hand in stripping him of absolutely everything. The pain of being sliced asunder with the ritual knife didn't compare to the pain and the humiliation he had already been wracked with. He felt the blood pour out over his abdomen. He imagined his hatred pouring out of him to darken the room that was too bright for him.

The lights had gone dim then, and a dark voice as smooth as velvet and sharp as a knife had spoken in the darkness. It spoke to him as a man, promised a way to reclaim his pride, to attain revenge, afforded him the respect he would come to demand from everyone. All it asked was the only thing he had left to give. How much could one person lose? Young Ciel didn't need but a moment to make this decision.

"Don't be tedious. Form a contract with me and carry out my orders." There was strength in his strangled voice and the shadow smiled and took the form of a man.

Ciel watched from afar as the devil danced through the den of beasts and drenched the walls in blood. He looked at his smaller form with anger and pity in his eyes.

"Now, now; do not be so hard on yourself. You were but a naive child. You simply called to the wrong person to help you."

"Do NOT speak to me," Ciel barked at the white butler over his shoulder. "Do not DARE speak to me."

Ash sighed as if he was tired of trying to get a very slow boy to grasp an obvious concept. "You do see, do you not? The entirety of it was his doing."

Ciel shook his head as he vibrated with rage. "Sebastian would not..."

Ash cut him off quickly. "No, not Sebastian. He was not Sebastian then. He was just a devil cultivating a plaything. Something he would use for his amusement."

Ciel's eyes flashed and settled on Ash's reflection.

"Ah. You understand now, don't you? They didn't summon a devil. They merely appeased one. Your own personal hell, specially selected and crafted just for you."

"No! My...my plans have always..."

"Young Master Phantomhive... It only takes one moment to make a plan, or a mistake."