7/ Pride

Pride was the reason it pricked him so, all of it. What, of course, could the butler Sebastian have pride in, having lost everything? Or perhaps it wasn't the butler Sebastian that had lost his pride, but only the demon who played the butler Sebastian, and existed no longer.

Not quite yet, though. The death-rattles could be heard, still faintly shaking through the room, where the judges ruled the last conversation a success.

"Pride is your defining trait," they said. "You take such pride in your work, in your aesthetic, in how you appear… your independence, your accomplishments—we could go on, of course, but there's really no need. We're quite ready to vote on the outcome at this point. Please:" they waved amiably at the hard uncomfortable chairs in bile-green and the cooking magazines on the small square table between them, "sit." It wasn't a request, and Ciel perched uncomfortably on the edge of the chair and tried not to notice how it scuttled and screamed beneath him. Sebastian, on the one beside, reached between them and flipped distractedly through a magazine. It was full of pictures of humans laid out like erotica on tables surrounded by designer brand furnishings, with smug demons standing beside them, saying something about 'the finest quality'. Of course, it was not really a magazine, not as such; therefore it shouldn't have been surprising to Ciel when, after a moment's looking around the blank-walled room at the huddled mass of the judges beyond, sighing, and swinging his feet, he would look back in idle curiosity and find himself laid across the spread, an image of Sebastian in the demon's place on the page, holding a silver serving platter toward the reader as though about to unveil horrors.

Ciel coughed and looked away, his cheeks burning red. I did not see that, he thought, caught between embarrassment and mortification. I did not see that. And then—well, it is no worse than the first conversation.

It differed, though, in an imperceptible way. The first conversation had been uncomfortable, yes; it had been provocative and indecent, jarring to see himself in another's fantasy, but nothing about it had really seemed off. It had, instead, had an almost welcoming, leisurely air about the whole thing. This, though: it reeked of a consumer stamp: it felt blatant, pointed and objectifying.

Sebastian looked at his averted face and, gingerly, put down the magazine, which sat, falsely innocent upon the table, promising "Best Tips for Seasoning Your Soul!" with cheerful one-of-a-kind offers. They looked ahead. Ciel kicked his feet again. His feet did not quite reach the floor. He considered changing to his older appearance, but disregarded the consideration as frivolous. It did not actually exist, nothing in hell really did; it was all other things in the end, immeasurably worse things.

They glanced at each other again, awkwardly.

"My dear," Sebastian said. "About Grell…"

"Oh, damn Grell," Ciel said. He giggled, then, slightly hysterically to his own ears. "It doesn't matter. You were right anyhow, you had to eat and I'm obviously not cut out to take care of you properly."

Sebastian turned a bit to face him, across the low armrest of that hideous chair. "It wasn't how you ought to have discovered such a thing," he said at last.

"Really," Ciel said. "It's fine. I suppose I should have anticipated such a thing. I was just surprised is all. I really thought William hated you."

"Yes," Sebastian said. "It is rather odd."

He smiled, awkwardly, in Ciel's direction, and Ciel smiled back. And fidgeted again. "Damn these judges, too," he muttered. "What are they waiting for?"

As though that had been their summons, the judges were all before them with countless burning eyes, moving with a parody of solemnity. Robes were, and then a gavel, or something akin to one.

"After much deliberation," they announced, "we have ruled the demon ₴Ɇ฿₳₴₮ł₳₦ to be entirelynothing(."

Ciel leapt to his feet, enraged. "But he won the majority!" he shouted, uncaring of the intimidation of the judges and all their legal power. He had known, Sebastian had warned him, but to have it thrown so gleefully in their faces after jumping through every hoop was suddenly more than he could stand. "You idiots!" he said. "Can't you bloody count?"

He would have gone on to shout at them and indeed had a host of insults lined up but the judges turned and glided from the room as one, as though they were worth no more time. At the doorspace, they paused for a single instant. "We shall eagerly anticipate your forthcoming trials, Ciel Phantomhive. Good day. Oh—and do keep track of that thing beside you. You wouldn't want to lose it after all this effort." They smiled, nastily, at their own parting remark, and the air closed behind them.

Ciel snarled. Then, after a moment's pause, he turned back to Sebastian.

Sebastian, who was… still sitting on the chair, head in his hands so that Ciel could not see any expression. His limbs had a fine tremor. Beyond and instead of that, that-which-was, the endless space, hurled itself through itself as though trying to no longer be, but without any horror and anger that Ciel would have expected, and had come to recognize. At last, Sebastian looked up. "Well," he said, in a dull voice, "that is done with."

"Sebastian…" Ciel said, carefully. He did not, quite, dare to say something as unutturably foolish as are you all right.

"Yes," Sebastian said. "Quite correct, master…"

"Should we… reconvene?" Ciel said, holding out a hand. Sebastian stared at it, with a numb sort of incomprehension, and did not move for a long time.

Then he grasped the black-nailed hand, and stood.

The End

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The story will continue in "The Red Tree." You can find a link to it on my profile.