Author's Note: First off- .com/u/754082/PrincessRue some shameless plugging for my joint novel with my friend :3 check us out and tell us what ya'll think.
Bit of a delay, cus it's xmas and I picked up some holiday work to get some money and all round just busy. Thanks for being patience with me. Here be the daddy-complex prompts. Hey, you guys knew they would come some time xD
Big thanks to my beta, Sennasanthia
24. Fear
The demon steps off it's plinth, eyeing up the devotees, smelling cooper all around and the leak of a young soul across the floor. It's glowing eyes settle on the small child. Blood has spewed across the alter, over the sides and away in a frothy, sticky mess, the open gash across his chest still pumps more and more out, beautiful wide eyes diming like somebody has blown a small breath over a candle.
This pathetic creature has called it?
It's heel splashes through the dregs of his life force, face bending low to study the almost hollow shell of a human. Body convulses atop the alter suddenly, as the last of his nerves die out, eyes rolling and mouth wide in gagged screams, fingernails clawing as he drowns in agony, primitive mind terrified out of its wits.
The demon doesn't have to concentrate hard to hear the boy's thoughts.
He mewls pitifully out to it, reaching, blinding wanting and craving it's protection. Already signing his soul away. Oh god, someone help me, help me, help me. It's hurts, father, father- DADDY, I'M SCARED!
71. Survive
Neither of them have spoken a word since the incident. His master suffering from delayed shock and himself taking the cliché of speaking only when being spoken to, literally.
Unsure of where they are, Sebastian carries the child out, bleeding, exhausted and wearing only a throw over he has scrounged up from the filthy human pit. He starts to shiver as soon as they get outside, the night at its peak, moon veiled in clouds.
Sebastian doesn't halt, but his head cocks from side to side, assessing the immediate area- behind is a noble's gothic styled mansion, in front a meandering stone pavement: beyond that is the beginnings of a Red Riding Hood forest- and he can safely assume civilisation is quite a way off, even at a demons' fast sprint.
Is he. . .the last time he'd come here was nearly two hundred years ago. It seems the human race has still not learnt to grow up.
The small stutters from the bundle in his arms grow more frequent, more violent, his master's body gradually growing hotter, chest wound not appearing to clot. Uncomfortably, he makes a move to push the fur trimmed cloak away.
Stubbornly, Sebastian is forced to hold it in place, quickly moving towards the woodlands. If his master for all of five minutes bleeds to death, it would certainly look bad contract wise. He coughs suddenly, and asks in a quavering voice "Daddy?"
Just what he needs, the boy to start hallucinating or seeing dead phantoms around him. All though there appears to be no sign of a death god, so perhaps he is in luck. He risks a glance down- the boy is looking at him. Oh. Named after his dog and in the form of his father. His new master certainly has strange tastes. Or likes a good joke.
Sebastian realises he doesn't know his name yet.
Not replying, he hits the forest, pushing further inside and only stops when he can no longer see the burning human lair. Taking care to remember that humans are more fragile than robust demon bodies, Sebastian lays the boy down, lowering the cloak to inspect the grim looking wound.
The cut is clean, surprisingly so, as the human who had cut him had been intoxicated. It's deep however, just a hair's breathe from hitting his heart. Blood still beads and spills from the skin flaps, a sheet of blood has dried over the boys concaved throat, if he doesn't stop the flow soon- His master starts to thrash, face twisting in pain and he makes a high pitched keening sound.
"Well, isn't this a bitch?"
Sebastian's growl is feral, crouching over his master like an aggravated tigress. From the tree tops falls a young male, appearance of a boy younger even than his master. He wears what Sebastian presumes to be the style of this century. Shorts, suspenders, waist coat. Square wired glasses sit on his snub nose. His eyes are double ringed green- a death god.
The demon isn't familiar with the scythe he holds, being two hundred years out of date really is a handicap. The death god has to hold them in both hands, gripping the handles, and the twin set blades end in cruel looking curves. They look like a giant X and look built for lopping heads off at the spine.
"This child's soul was dated to be lost ten minute ago," the death god rudely informs him, nose in his charter. "But it looks like some greedy demon bet me to the punch. The Aboves will not be pleased. So you better step aside unless you want me to reap your sorry arse."
"How rude," Sebastian sniffs, not moving an inch even with the threat. He keeps his fangs in check. "Do not come between the wolf and his prey," he quips, and the death god looks livered. "The contract has been made, my master consented, there is nothing you can do to claim this soul now. And unless you let me tend to his wounds, nobody will be getting it," he adds, hearing the weak thump of the child's struggling heart.
Keeping a close watch on the stationary death god, Sebastian lowers his face down to his master's chest. It barely rises.
"If you take it-"
He sighs. He really despises the death god race. Paranoid at the best of times. "I'm not going to take it. It's still so young after all," he chuckles, and carefully licks away the obscuring blood. The coppery splash of blood is numbed to his demon taste buds but very faintly he can taste the unusual flavour of the human soul. Like the many other souls he's devoured over the centuries, it has the ordinary blandness of what he's labelled as a common breed. And Sebastian might have missed it if he wasn't cleaning off so much blood, but there, hidden under the mundane, is a tiny spark of something.
He can tell that this little master of his is going to be full of surprises.
20. Hands
As Ciel rides out his raging fever, he subconsciously seeks out Sebastian's hand and doesn't let go of it till the delusional day terrors leave him be.
81. Delirious
"Father. . .daddy."
The tiny sound like a kitten's pathetic mewl crawls out from the very depths of the bed covers. Ciel's face is just visible, small and flushed against the white of the sheets. His asthma attack had been quite bad, leaving him vomiting and hyperventilating on the ground, at last developing into a fevered flu that has only recently subsided.
Drapes have been drawn, and candle stick light illuminates them intimately- Sebastian realises his master is addressing him. His miscoloured eyes are hazy and liquid, not entirely there.
The demon decides to indulge him.
Putting down the crystal jug of water, Sebastian glides to Ciel's side, lowering himself down onto one knee. He has seen portraits of the late Earl. There is an uncanny resemblance between them.
95. Weight of the World
"Am I doing the right thing, father?" Ciel wants to know, and the frail tug on his sleeve makes him glance down inquiringly. Sebastian has taken the name and form of a wide array of humans over the years- men, woman, children, dark skinned and light, been a sibling, mentor or assistant depending on his master's tastes- but has never once adopted a parental role to a master so little.
Demons take the guise of whatever their master feels most comfortable around. Why not mother, why father?
Sebastian gently runs his fingertips over Ciel's knuckles. "I can't make that decision for you."
"But I've strayed so far off the path you set down for me," Ciel whispers, clearly distraught. Confused tears slowly slide down his temples and into his hair, and Sebastian watches in fascination as his temple strong master crumple inwards in a matter of seconds. "I don't know what's right, and what's wrong anymore! I've thought for so long that revenging against those would give both me and your soul's peace of mind- but I'm starting to see how childish that is now. It's so ironic," he ends with a rasping sob, clutching at his miserable eyes with his palms.
"Young Master. . ." simply at a loss for words, Sebastian awkwardly strokes the boy's tense hands and forearm.
Ciel's next breath comes in as a wheeze, then another, closer together, frightened- he's about to fall into another asthmas attack, Sebastian realises. Swiftly, he pulls Ciel up against him, curving his spine into the appropriate sitting position. This close, he can hear his lungs ache in effort to regulate, diaphragm shuddering and nose sniffing to stop his tears.
In slow circles, the butler rubs a palm therapeutically over his back.
"Nobody can say what is right, and what is wrong," Sebastian murmurs into his hair. "Only you can say what is true. You're old enough to stand on your own two feet now."
The rattling in Ciel's chest evens out after a period, and he wearily moves his weak body to press his face to Sebastian's neck and cling to his lapels. "I miss him, Sebastian."
Ah. He's snapped out of his hallucination.
"If you want, I could. . ." he gives a discrete cough.
"Don't be ridiculous," Ciel presses a heartless smile to his skin. Well. . he's only doing what demon's do best. Seduce. Thirteen is practically consensual in the eighteenth century, isn't it? "Men are driven into madness by conjuring up imaginary spirits or holding onto inherit items. Why would I do the same thing?"
"Perhaps because you can fool yourself better than others," Sebastian smiles, and very briefly, the skin under his left eye tightens as a beauty spot comes, then goes. "I've served many other masters with. . . interesting tastes," he chuckles slightly. He brushes back Ciel's thick fringe and gets in a kiss before Ciel wriggles away.
"S-Sebastian," he mumbles, pulling the covers over his red nose in an embarrassed gesture. Sebastian notices he doesn't order him away. For once he's caught his master out in a moment of weakness.