Chapter 12
*Flashback*
"You want me to do what?"
Sebastian had only been a butler for a week, and he was still learning how to live life as a servant instead of his previous life as a free-to-roam demon. Meeting the demands of a 10-year-old master was difficult, he had to admit, but it was nothing he couldn't handle.
This, though. This was quite unusual.
"Sing me something," Ciel was currently crushing the demon's torso. He'd been thrashing in his sleep because of a nightmare; his fifth one this week. It had taken a whole minute for Sebastian to wake him up, and he'd nearly been kicked in the jaw when he finally did.
"Sing you something?" The demon inquired. He had never known his master for being one for lullabies, even for a 10-year-old boy.
"That is," Ciel said, "if you can sing without bringing on an apocalypse."
Sebastian was silent.
"What song do you remember being sung to you when you were younger?" The boy piped up.
Sebastian sighed, "well, to be honest, I was hardly ever sung to as a child."
Ciel looked up at him with a pondering look.
"Demon mothers aren't the most nurturing of sorts," he continued, "from birth, we're taught to put up with any trials and hardships and look upon them without complaint, because it would be all we ever knew."
"I suppose that is true," Ciel agreed.
"However . . . I do recall one song. It was only ever sung to me once. How did it go?"
Sebastian closed his eyes and scoured his memory. The expression on his face – a slight frown with brows drawn together – told Ciel he was trying his best to remember. Childhood might have been eons away from the demon. Who could remember anything that had happened that long ago, especially something as small as a song?
"Ah! I remember it now." He finally said.
The demon cleared his throat and his song began.
"Every night,
I dream you're still here.
The ghost by my side,
So perfectly clear.
When I awake,
You'll disappear,
Back to the shadows,
With all I hold dear.
With all I hold dear,
I dream you're still here."
The song did calm Ciel down quite a bit.
"Your mother sang that to you?"
Sebastian nodded, "That's about as much as I can remember from it."
"What happened that made you remember it?"
A smirk appeared on the demon's face.
"That song was sung to me one of the many occasions when I nearly died. I was 24 years old."
It was the only time Ciel had ever asked Sebastian to sing to him a lullaby, and he swore never again; especially after officially becoming the Earl of Phantomhive. He didn't want the demon to see him as another weak human he could possibly take advantage of.
Now, it was that one memory that he kept coming back to. As he sat there clutching Sebastian's shoulders, he tried to keep the reality of what happened from donning on him. To no avail. The heaviness and pain of grief began to weigh down his chest as he forced himself to let go. He sat in silence, thinking.
His mother, his father, a beloved pet, his pride, and now even his butler was gone. It left him with no one. Elizabeth, perhaps, but as a cousin and his fiancé – whom he was forced to marry – he didn't care much for her. All the people who truly mattered in his life were now dead, even the infallible Sebastian Michaelis.
"I'm sorry," Ciel uttered in a pained whisper, gripping onto Sebastian's tailcoat once more, "This is all my fault."
His own words made his heart sink. 'This is all my fault'; normally it was all Sebastian's fault, or all Prince Soma's fault. Nothing was ever his fault. And it was that fact that broke him.
Plip! Plip-plip!
He wasn't even aware of the fact that he was crying until the sound of his tears hitting Sebastian's tailcoat fell on his ears. At that, he only cried harder until they fell steadily down his cheeks. Ciel bowed his head and gave into his grief.
Unknowingly, a tear strayed from the landing point of the butler's coat and disappeared into the soft green grass. The whole forest seem to go strangely silent before the contract symbol on the ground suddenly illuminated.
The sudden action caught Ciel off guard and he stumbled backwards.
Pulses of white light began shooting out steadily from the many paths that snaked through the forest. Birds turned their heads in confusion, insects swarmed in terror before suddenly crumbling to ash. Many herds of dear screamed, as if they were in pain, before they turned to ashes as well. The wolves howled and yelled, crumbling to dust before their joints had a chance to buckle. Flowers wilted until they were dry and fragile before breaking apart. The leaves on the trees turned colors rapidly before turning to a lifeless brown color and falling to the ground. The wood of the trees rotted quickly and they crumbled to pieces under their own weight. Even the lush green grass died, one blade at a time.
"What's happening?" Ciel asked, backing up.
"The forest is dying!" Hannah shuddered, "It's as if the life is being sucked right from it."
Claude pointed to Sebastian's lifeless form, "That's because it is."
The pulses of light they'd been seeing were indeed coming from the forest, and the life-force was being fed back into Sebastian's body through the image of the seal.
A white-hot pain suddenly shot through Ciel's eye, causing him to fall to his knees. Blood seeped out from behind his eyelids along with his freshly fallen tears. He knew this feeling all too well; the contract was reforming.
"It's the reversal to the enchantment!" Hannah gasped.
"I don't get it!" Alois squeaked, trying to avoid the chaos going on around him, "What did Ciel do?"
Ciel let out upon pondering hum, "Well, if I were Sebastian and were to set up a reversal to this enchantment, it would probably be one of two things; something involving a cat or something he thought I wasn't capable of. I have not allowed myself to grieve properly in a couple of years, so he probably thought I was incapable of shedding tears."
By the time Ciel had finished his explanation, it was all over. The seal had reappeared on his eye and the forest was reduced to nothing more than ashes, dust, and rotting wood. The image of the contract symbol that had been underneath Sebastian's body was still there; prominently burned into the ground.
Ciel ran back to his butler's side and straddled his torso once more.
"Sebastian? Sebastian, can you hear me?"
No response.
"Come on! Come on, please, wake up!"
A muscle in Sebastian's brow twitched and his nostrils flared. His jaw dropped as a small gasp escaped him, and then a cough, and then he drew a massive breath in, as if a blockage had just been cleared from his airway. His eyes rolled beneath his eyelids before they attempted to open.
"Sebastian?" Ciel called silently to him, "Sebastian, are you okay?"
A relatively stupid question, considering the fact that the demon had been lying in the once-thriving forest for almost a day, dying. But it was also the only thing Ciel could think to ask to test his butler to make sure he was still with them.
Sebastian's eyes eventually found the strength to open and settle on him. He had a blank expression on his face, as if he had no idea as to who Ciel was or what was happening. Ciel even thought for moment he had gone brain-dead on him, because he didn't say or do anything. He just stared; unblinking, unmoving.
"Sebastian?" Ciel inquired, "Can you hear me? Say something!"
Finally, a response.
"Master . . ."
Ciel couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief, "You're okay!"
Sebastian tried to bring himself out of his dazed state slowly.
"Master . . . Young master . . ."
To Ciel's confusion, Sebastian's nose wrinkled and his lips peeled back in a vicious snarl. Without warning, Ciel was momentarily airborne and landed hard on his rump as Sebastian vanished from underneath him. All he could hear was the sound of feet rapidly scampering away.
AUTHOR'S NOTE 4-29-15
"To anyone who is wondering where the song came from, it's actually the chorus of the song 'Still Here' by the music group, Digital Daggers. I give all credit for that to this amazing group, i do not own the song or the band or anything. The chorus was just used for fanfiction purposes."
-BlueRaven666