The Soul


Then: 1945

It looked so empty, Ciel thought. Every space where there had been familiar places seemed to hit him like a shudder, and he had seen it as recently as—what? A few years? He and Sebastian had been in London for most of the blitz, before they had gone to Hell to live out the rest of the war. To James, it must have seemed like a foreign country. Ciel saw him stop at every few steps, look around like he was in some dream, and he hadn't yet figured out if it was a good one or not. There was a sudden depth to his soul that hadn't been there before; the difference between the home that James had been imagining all this time and the one he was left with now cut through him like a gaping wound. That shard of pity woke again, unfurling hesitantly as he watched James's lost blue eyes searching for anything that belonged to him. Nothing belonged to him anymore; not London, not the world. He hadn't realized that yet, but he would in time.

It was the last stop before they ended up at the house again, and Sebastian. The dalliance was for no other reason than to satisfy Ciel's curiosity. Could he finish that cultivation he had put toward James's soul? Could he make him an enticing meal yet?

He had never ordered Ciel not to sleep with men.

The disgust that rolled off him in waves when Ciel came back—oh, he had made sure James read the signs correctly, that he saw everything he needed to put the picture together—was an interesting cloudiness, a confused mixture of hatred and fear. This was the first time James had ever been anything close to afraid in his presence, Ciel realized. And for what reason?—not because of Ciel's powers, not because of the fate of his immortal soul, but because of a societal revulsion. It seemed cheap. He had been hoping for… he didn't know. Something different. The same uncomplicated anger he'd directed at Ciel the night he slept with that woman. Even a slew of insults, no matter how vile.

Instead, James seemed set on ignoring him, even as they both got ready for bed behind the locked door.

"Stay in that bed until I wake up," James said, before he rolled on his side to face away from Ciel. "That's an order."

Ciel remembered Edwin again. How funny, to think of him now; when he had spared not a thought for him, before this contract, since the man had died. Were all contracts to end with that same sudden, wrenching distance?

No. He'd never shied away, when it was his turn. He would have gone to Sebastian willingly. It was his promise, after all. Their covenant.

Only it hadn't ended that way. There was a distance between them still, that Ciel couldn't overcome. The only way out of this tangle was to die, but even his death wouldn't allow Sebastian that satisfaction, not now. From a jewel of a soul, he was now only a mean, base creature, using those he didn't even like for his sustenance. It made him feel ill. It was an unfamiliar feeling, this disgust. He'd never felt it before. Was that what guilt felt like, perhaps? Ciel laughed to himself, lowly. Wouldn't that be a funny thing. That evil noble spends his years reveling in sin, then feels guilt when he becomes a demon.

The next day, they came, at last, to the house where Sebastian was. Ciel rang the doorbell, and his butler, still in a uniform half a century out of date, opened it.

"What's this?" he asked.

"Dinner," Ciel said.

James, hovering behind him, gave Sebastian one sneering glance. "'Business partners'," he muttered. "Yeah, sure."

"Is there a reason you're bringing it here like this, young master?" Sebastian said, with a small frown at James. James was, in every way, the antithesis of Sebastian's taste. Ciel didn't know why he'd meant to share the man's soul with him. It had seemed like the honourable thing to do; somehow, though he didn't know why he should care about that, when he had no more appearances to keep up. Wouldn't Sebastian be hungry by now? He'd never asked.

As Sebastian closed the front door behind them, Ciel reached out one hand and cracked James's neck. It hung, the next moment, skewed and pierced by Ciel's fingers that ripped their way down his throat. He wrenched the soul free before the body had even cooled and watched it float on his hand, for a moment, lazily drifting toward his mouth, before he took it between his fingers and pulled.

Nothing happened.

"Young master, may I ask what it is you're trying to accomplish?" Sebastian asked, at last, as Ciel tried with increasing annoyance to pull the soul apart.

"I'm trying to split it," he said at last. "What's wrong with the damn thing?"

"Split it?" Sebastian stared at him with that look of puzzlement that had once been not so much of a rare occurrence as he might have deluded himself. "Whatever for?"

"So I can give half of it to you! What do you think?" Ciel shouted. The soul had floated toward his face and now batted aimlessly about his mouth. He pushed it away before he could suck it down by mistake, and it twirled off to hover reproachfully a few feet into the room.

"Give half of it to me?" Sebastian said, almost mockingly. "Young master, you mustn't think of souls as akin to vegetables. They can't be 'split.' They are whole and complete essences. Have you remembered none of your philosophy?"

"Damn your philosophy, Sebastian!" Ciel said. "Take the whole of it, then, I don't care!" He grabbed at the hovering spark that had been slowly creeping its way back toward him, then held it threateningly toward Sebastian's mouth, as though he meant to give it to him like some application of medicine. Only instead of the patient not wishing to have the medicine, the medicine, instead, wanted nothing to do with the patient.

"My lord," Sebastian said, with a sigh, as Ciel held the increasingly struggling soul that was pulling its way toward Ciel's mouth even as he tried to move it in the other direction; "please desist in your actions. You are only embarrassing yourself."

"Eat it! That's an order!" Ciel said, and the soul taking that opportunity for what it was, darted into his mouth while Ciel sputtered like he'd gotten a splash of water down the wrong way. Ciel reached his hand toward his throat, trying to catch the enraging thing, while Sebastian, compelled by the order, pressed their faces together and reached into Ciel's open mouth, wrapping his tongue about the soul.

Ciel blushed, wheeled his arms wildly in the air, and coughed, as Sebastian took a firm hold on his shoulders and tried to tug the soul from Ciel's mouth.

It wouldn't budge.

Ciel lost his balance and went falling flat on his arse, Sebastian not even seeming to notice, so focused was he on what seemed to Ciel, increasingly, like an impossible order. He knelt over Ciel, holding his head still as he gnawed fruitlessly at the soul, which was still slipping slowly farther down Ciel's throat. If he had any ability to breathe, Ciel would have rescinded the order at once, but all he could do was gasp as the soul rolled its way down his trachea. Sebastian growled, and reaching with both hands at either side of Ciel's mouth, pulled—Ciel could feel bones cracking as Sebastian tried to reach his hand down Ciel's mouth. It was very hard to think. The disorientation of it all, mixed with the very distracting pain, and then that quite-pleasant feeling of the soul finally making its way down his stomach and spreading itself through him, meant that Ciel didn't even think of what he should have obviously done—dissipate into a wind, or pull Sebastian's arm away with his own hand. He breathed and gagged, helf-dazed, as Sebastian continued to try to fulfill his last order, seeming more and more enraged as it slipped further from his grasp. Perhaps hunger was also the problem—Ciel had heard reapers remark on Sebastian being hungry before, when he had been alive, but he had never been able to catch a glimpse of it the way they seemed to.

It was obvious now. The butler was almost frenzied, the red of his eyes glowing, and while perhaps, if he had been in his own right mind, less distracted by the soul that had floated so close to him for what must have been excruciating minutes, he would have been able to put off the order long enough to allow Ciel to change it, he hardly seemed to even know what he was doing now.

I have made an incredible mistake, Ciel thought.

The tendrils of Sebastian's essence were hovering around them, whipping wildly in anguished consternation, and they grabbed at Ciel's arms and legs and pulled in opposite directions, trying to draw and quarter him to get at the soul inside. At last, Ciel was able to get a half-breath into his lungs, and he coughed out in a wheeze, "Stop eating the soul, that's an… order…"

Slowly, Sebastian stilled on top of him. They were both breathing heavily, even as the redness faded from Sebastian's eyes, and he stared down at Ciel with what seemed to be—no, it definitely was—anger.

"Master," he said, at last. "Sometimes… your stupidity astounds me."

Ciel couldn't answer. He was still trying to breathe, his head thrown back against the floorboards of the front hall, and he noticed at last the mangled body of what had once been his contractor sagging against the wall; the blood had dripped onto the carpet.

Sebastian will hate that, was his only clear thought.

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