Notes that pertain to this chapter:

Portrait-painting was a long, drawn-out process back in the day. It could require several sittings to get a portrait done.

I have finals coming up next week! Hopefully I'll still be able to find the time to update regularly, but if not...you know. Life.

That is all. Enjoy the chapter! :)

He couldn't move. It was dark. It was dark. It was dark.

Sebastian lay quietly on his stomache upon the ground, not by his choice, but by his master's orders, as the darkness lapped around him. It tormented him, burning his eyes like intense light normally would have. It didn't matter whether they were open or closed, or which way he had turned his head when he had still been able to move it. The rancid pain was seeping into his pupils, boring into his head. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, his head, oh!…. He longed for the skull to just collapse already, to put him out of his misery, even though he was desperately aware that there was no chance of it happening. Of it happening….? Things swam before his mind in random order. He couldn't make it make sense. Ciel would have laughed. Hissing with exertion, the demon tried to force his pain through the contract to Ciel's mind, drifting back in anguish when he failed once again. The boy had shut him out. He needed to try again….he needed to try harder….but he couldn't focus, damnit! Every minute there was a new horror to contend with. The worm had long since forced its way in through his hip, and was now coiled throughout his body, tearing at him in so many places that he wouldn't have known where to struggle even if he had been able to move. Even so, he was obsessed with the need, straining to turn his head or lift his arms, maybe, maybe it would make him feel better. I can't, I can't, I can't! The darkness was stabbing him. It was alive. The fire was alive. It was laughing in glorying praise as the demon screamed without a sound. The contract mark beat upon his hand like a bone-crushing drum.

He didn't know how long it had been.

He hated Ciel. On the floor of the cellar, wrapped up in pinching darkness, he lay there hating him as if the hatred would somehow save him from this situation. Uncontrollably he bounced back and fourth, shuddering in hatred, then in pain, hatred and pain mixing within him until it seemed almost unbelievable that such intense fury could not burn away the fetters that bound him. He could feel it upon his hands, his forehead, his mouth, that most terrible of instruments which caused him so much anguish. Deep inside his throat, the demon moaned. Damn that child! Damn him to the hell which he had damned his servant! He refused to accept his forced submission to that brat, even after all these years of obligatory servitude. He wanted his true master. He wanted Lydia. As soon as he was free again, he would fight until he got her. He would wear down the resistance that she had built up in her time away, and he would convince her to take the contract. After that, with both of their powers combined, they could overcome the obstacles which had impeded them in the past. She would be his little master again, willing and obliging and perfect, just as he had intended her to be from her infancy. It would take awhile, but the troublesome effects of the spirit could be overwritten in her being. Ciel Phantomhive would be nothing to him then. He would exorcise any foolish affection which she possessed for her half-brother from her heart. It wouldn't be that difficult. All he had to do was allow her to see how much the pale, cold boy-adult of the present had forsaken the brother whom she had once loved. Once she did, he and his real master could leave, so far away that that brat would never touch him again. He would be safe. He would be able to enjoy the unexpected boon of his master's soul for as long as she existed on the mortal plane. And when she inevitably passed on to the Other, he would be free at long, long last. He imagined that he would wait a good long while before responding to a summons from another depraved human soul. He had had more than enough of being abused for at least a century.

Images, shredded pictures of these plans floated before his mind as the demon suffered, bound by the inescapable reality of what his world consisted of in the present time. He clung to these thoughts as a means of taking himself away from this cursed reality. He would win this game. He would claim his rare, priceless prize. He had to. There was no other way out for him, no other paths to consider. If he failed, he would be caught in this trap for as long as his young master might live, tormented by unfulfilled longing and humiliating subjugation. To get Lydia back….to reclaim her at long last, for she was rightfully his, only his….he would show her that it was he whom she needed, not that useless half-brother who had caused her so much pain in the past. He would….once….he got free….

The demon growled, staring into the darkness as if willing it to reveal something to him. He was so angry, and every moment his anger was growing due to his utter inability to express it. His limbs were completely stiff, and his voice was silenced. He was effectively leashed and muzzled, only able to lie still and wait for his master to come and free him. Enjoy the power while it lasts, brat, the demon thought, eyes widening as the toothsome jaws of the worm dug even further into him. Someday I'll get out from under you, like I did back then….someday I'll make you scream again, my master, like you and your family have done to me…someday….!

Nothing answered his raging thoughts. The flames continued to boil his spirit, and the darkness drilled and prodded with unrelenting glee, dancing around him manically. He could feel his senses beginning to ebb with torturing slowness. Somewhere above his head, he knew, Ciel was sleeping wanly in his magnificent four-poster bed, buried in a comforter which his butler had bought, dreaming of nothing. Free from pain and want. In the midnight of the cellar, the dark creature with red eyes pressed his forehead against the stone floor, waiting, waiting, waiting as the thundering silence passed over him.

/

The cobalt-blue eye of the young Phantomhive heir stared down at his violin as he lanced his bow across the strings, playing a soulful melody for the ears of his tutor. Madame Rodkin was a plump, middle-aged woman from a respectable upper-class family and neighborhood. She had been recommended to him through Tanaka, and she had proved a satisfactory musical instructor. Ciel had been learning from her for two years now; but despite this, he did not know very much more about her. There was always that invisible barrier between the two of them in terms of personal interactions, the one which constantly seemed to shield him from most of the people in the world….or them from him, he thought with an annoyed twist of his neck. Either way, he was well aware that she considered both the manor and its master to be a fair bit odd. He understood this, and accepted it. Even so, today he was having difficulty keeping the stoical barrier raised. There was simply too much to think about, to hang his thoughts over like dirty storm clouds, and they were bubbling up within him. He played and played for Madame Rodkin's ear; but what he really wanted to do was to stop the music and declare to her, My older sister has come back. Did you know that? She's been gone for five years. She looks like my mother now. Her arm is still maimed, even after all this time. She gave back the Phantomhive ring to this house, only now I don't know where it is. I don't know where she is either, because she left without saying goodbye. I don't know what to do.

The diminutive boy gritted his teeth, pouring the sonata of bold emotion and no words out of his violin strings. Despite what he was thinking, to divulge such information to a person whom he had never so much as held a casual conversation about the weather with before was out of the question. She couldn't know the truth, and no one else knew yet either, excepting his Aunt Angelina, who was currently gone. Meirin had tried to ask him earlier about the identity of the 'brown-haired girl,' but he had brushed her off. She didn't understand. She had not been present back then. The only being within this manor who was versed in the entirety of the sordid story was the one with whom Ciel had no desire to speak with at the present time. It was annoying to have to do without Sebastian in the day-to-day life of the manor, for there was honestly no one else even half as competent as he. Ciel's breakfast had been two hours late that morning, and burned. His clothes were all rumpled from Tanaka's good-natured but mostly unsuccessful attempts to dress him. The back hallway was a disaster area. Finnian had tracked dirt all over the floor back there, leaving Meirin to trip over a dirt clod and drop an armful of dishes, scattering broken glass from one end of the hall to the other. As if that weren't enough, Bard's new flamethrower has discharged at the wrong moment and subsequently scorched the wallpaper. Ciel had thus made the executive decision to cordon off the hallway indefinitely. It wasn't as if he'd really expected anything better. The servants had been asking him repeatedly when Sebastian would return, and he had told them firmly that the butler was away on personal leave, and would return 'soon.'

Even though the upkeep of the manor was completely hopeless without Sebastian, at the moment Ciel had no desire whatsoever to release his demon from his makeshift prison in the cellar. He simply did not want to see him, and he was so angry about his behavior that simply demanding that he stay in his room would not have sufficed. Sebastian had purposely defied him. He had disrespected him and forced him to show weakness in front of his sister. Ciel still cringed every time he thought of that incident in his study. He had to teach that imbecilic demon that just because Lydia had returned, that did not give him leave to do whatever he pleased. He was still bound to Ciel through the contract, and he would obey him. It wasn't as if he were stealing Sebastian from his 'truly-intended' master, Ciel reasoned to himself as he shut his eyes in concentration. She had given the demon over to him when she had left. And hadn't she said just yesterday that she intended to honor this arrangement? Sebastian may not wish to belong to Ciel, but it was absurdly presumptuous of him to think that he had any choice in the matter. He was a demon; he had sold himself for the price of a soul. The descendents of that soul were perfectly within their rights to hold him and work him to his very last drop of energy. It was no less than he deserved.

For some utterly aggravating reason, Ciel's fingers faltered on the bow just then, and the music died out of the air. Madame Rodkin opened her eyes after a moment, stirred from the trance into which quality music always brought her. "That was very good," she commented with an appreciative smile, the lines around her mouth winking upward. "You are young, so I know it's difficult for you to exert enough stamina to see such a long piece through. Just keep practicing, and soon you'll begin to grow taller and stronger. You'll be amazed at what a difference it will make. But you've done very well today." Ciel murmured his thanks politely, and the generously proportioned woman curtsied and excused herself from the room, taking her coat from the chair. Ciel sat very still inside the music room after she left, fingers still clutching his bow to his side. The agreeable tint of the light on the instruments around him bounced back into his eyes, causing him to flinch softly. His head hurt. Perhaps he had been holding it in playing position for too long, Ciel mused as he wandered over to the window and stared out at the road. The anxiety that sat in the pit of his stomache like a rock seemed to expand without warning, and the flaxen-haired boy fought hard to compress it again. Where was Lydia now, and what state of mind was she in? He wished that he would have asked her for an address, a phone number, any sort of localizing information. He had meant to, until Sebastian had so rudely interrupted their conversation with his own agenda. Damn that demon! The boy thought, clenching his fists around the bow. At least he wasn't laughing about his trickery now, but even this fact did not make Ciel feel much better. He turned away from the window and left the study abruptly, wandering down the side stairways, meeting no one on his way due to the fact that the manor was rapidly emptying of guests. It turned out that locking Sebastian in the cellar had been exactly the key to ridding his home of those unwanted pests. Whereas before, the many 'acquaintances 'of his late grandfather had had the opportunity to take full advantage of the demon's ability to provide impeccable service, with him gone, the manor had turned into a veritable danger zone from which London's socialites were practically fleeing. The young Earl had issued formal goodbyes to a few with whom he was directly involved, but for the most part he was content to simply allow their 'guests' to flitter away, cleansing his manor in the process.

Ciel halted at the bottom on the grand staircase, angling his eyes upward to behold the large painting which hung there. So many people had commented on its quality this past week, obviously meaning to be tactful, and yet he could not suppress his inner desire to hide it from the world. A whimsically dressed young woman sat on a chair within the frame, smiling out into the world. Beside her, but not entirely behind, as if he could not abide being eclipsed, stood a man. Tall and handsome, with dark hair and serious eyes, he towered over the scene. Between the couple they shared a child, a little boy with flaxen hair and a wide, oblivious smile. He had been six years old. Looking up into the portrait, Ciel found it hard to believe that he had ever once been able to smile like that. The only reason that he had come across that smile, which the portrait-painter had then affixed in his memory, was because Lydia had been making funny faces at him from the corner to which she had been relegated by his father. He remembered that he had not been able to understand why his sister could not be in the picture with them, and had asked his father repeatedly, to the point where Vincent had threatened to banish him from the painting as well if he did not behave- a fate which seemed so terribly ignominious to Ciel that he had immediately fallen silent. Lydia's role in the entire portrait-painting process, which had taken a great many hours of posing on the subjects' behalves, had been to run in and out of the scene, bringing the posers whatever they required as the hours passed. Food, water, handkerchiefs. Ciel didn't recall much of that. He only remembered being extremely puzzled as to why his sister must be sent off to the side with the demon, while he and his parents were serviced and made much of. He remembered that his mother had demanded that Sebastian stay put in the corner while all this was going on, and that (of course) the demon had obeyed with all manner of politeness. He had seemed perfectly happy to share his corner with the little brown-haired child, and this, Ciel thought, had made his mother more nervous yet. He'd watched as she had watched the blackened creature looming over Lydia with a look of satisfaction on his face, leaning in towards her, playing with her fingers, generally accustoming her to his touch. Ciel hadn't recognized those actions then, but of course he did now. And he hadn't thought about it back then, but now, looking up at the painting which had taken so long and meant so little, Ciel wondered how Lydia had felt as she had watched the painter at his work, preparing an image of a family in which she was absent. It was almost like a foreshadowing of the future which was being taught to her at that moment in time. The only sign that another child had been in the room was a box of handkerchiefs that she had left upon the mantle behind them, which the artist had inadvertently painted into the scene. That was all.

If I could go back in time, Ciel thought, I'd tell father, 'To hell with your damn picture.' I'd take Lydia and mother into town and we'd get our own portrait painted. I wouldn't let anyone say anything against it. The young boy's eyes dropped down to the floorboards, and he sighed a sigh that seemed to shift his whole body. But then, she probably wouldn't want to be in the picture now. If she could go back in time, I wonder if she'd say 'To hell with you all,' and just leave, before things got to be as bad as they did. She probably would. Anyone would in her place.

"Young master?"

Ciel lifted his head out of his gloomy musings, turning around to see Meirin standing in the entrance to the front hallway, her head tilted to one side worriedly. He immediately assumed the worst. "Another accident, Meirin?"

The red-haired maid shook her head wildly, coming a few paces forward. "No, young master! Not yet! I mean….not to the best of my knowledge. I was just….well, you looked a little sad, so…."

"I am fine," he said immediately, turning to walk up the stairs. "Please have Bard arrange a fruit salad for my afternoon snack. Tell him that he is absolutely not to cook it is the slightest. Just help him to cut it up, and then bring it to me in my study."

"Yes, young master." Meirin curtsied, and watched the small boy mount the staircase with a wondering expression on her face. Ciel decided to himself that the first thing he would have Sebastian do upon his (indeterminate) release was to remove that awful picture from the wall. Anyway, the head of the Phantomhive house was now him. He did not need the eyes of ghosts upon him.

/

Hands were clutching at his head, but they were not his own. No, no, no, no, no. Sebastian reached out into the darkness. The hand that he wanted was hers, but it eluded him. Come back. The doorway wasn't there. The connection had never been established. He couldn't move. The fire was here, but it did not comfort him. Even with it running through his veins, under his skin, over his head, even so he was still alone. There was no salvation. Hands clutching at his head….

Master….

He remembered a time before, when he had been driven down here during the nights by his then-master, who did not want to see him. At that time, Lydia had come down to see him. She had been two years old then, toting a glowing candle and wearing a red velvet Christmas dress, for the holiday was almost upon them. What do you want for Christmas? she had asked with an innocent smile. He had never been offered a Christmas gift before. Even so, he knew exactly what he wanted. I want a name, master. Please give me a name. She had taken the assignment very seriously. Over the next few days, with Tanaka to read them for her, she had pored over all the English name registries in the library, searching for a name which was 'right' for him. He had kept out of her way, as she had wanted it to be a surprise. It was interesting to see a two-year-old work on something with such childish dedication. Finally, on Christmas morning, she had brought him up out of the cellar and let him stay in the kitchen, warm and cheery from all the holiday baking which had been done within. She had disappeared for a few moments, and when she returned, she proudly presented him with a brand-new silver pocketwatch and chain. When the confused demon was encouraged to open it, he found a single word engraved within the timepiece, on the part which mirrored his eyes. Sebastian. That's your name now. Do you like it? I do. I'm going to call you it every day. And it's set in silver here, see, so it's official.

Sebastian remembered that on the first night of Lydia's life, he had held her and told her that they were the same, at least for that night; both nameless beings in the world. Now they were the same again. Sebastian. It meant 'venerable.' This amused him slightly. He wasn't exactly sure that Lydia understood the meaning of 'venerable,' and she was too young at that point to really comprehend the significance of his demonic nature. Even so, that was beside the way. He had a name. His name was Sebastian. The demon smiled in satisfaction as he stroked the tiny girl's hair, bowing his head in gratitude. Master is good to me.

The significance of this event was twofold. First of all, he was honestly tired of being ordered about by the epithet of demon! all the time, wrenched from his masters' throats like a curse word. He wanted a name of his own. Secondly, and more significantly, Sebastian knew that once a human (and especially a female) had given a name to something, she was more likely to grow attached to it. This was exactly what he desired. Even before his little master was old enough to take the contract, he wanted to form a bond with her. He wanted to stake out a place in her heart, so that she would let him have her light, so that he wouldn't have to face his curse alone. Your name is Sebastian. The way that she had looked at him when she had said those words told him that he had succeeded. Lydia would be his.

She will be mine, the demon thought in the present time, lying immobile on the floor like a broken doll. I haven't lost her yet. She still calls me by my name. She must take the contract….and then we will be bonded like we were meant to be. All this…all of this….aaaaah!

Hands were clutching at his head….

/

Ciel got not even the slightest bit of work done in his study that afternoon. The atmosphere was so tense. He kept seeing the flash of white bandages and red eyes out of the corner of his eye, even when his eye was closed and all should have been blackness. He couldn't remain safely detached. His head hurt.

/

Lydia was taking the long route home from Church with her father, going down Kentish Street as the clouds rolled by overhead. Aberlaine's face was flush and merry as they meandered along, talking of the summertime festivals that had been held down here in the past, and dreaming of the one for this coming summer. It was going to be a grand one. The trees overhead were blossoming, and would soon make this scene one of breathtaking beauty. The brown-haired girl laughed as her father tried to reach up and pluck a flower, only to have it snatched out of his grasp by a sudden breeze. The whole of Kentish Street was open and flat, and the air flowed though like the cooling water along a riverbed. It flowed through her whole body. Both of her gloves were off, and her left fingers were plain and bare. Lydia closed her eyes and felt the wind.

More hugs for Sebastian are in order...

Please review! :) Or else...I'll cry.