Well, my dears, it has been a pleasure to write for you.
I, being the unorthodox and impulsive writer that I am, felt like adding a little bit of Claude/Sebastian and Alois/Ciel material to the mix. I hope nobody finds this horrendously pointless. I'm not a huge fan of either of those, but it made sense to me, so I wrote it.
And forgive the main-plot-deviation of the first... I'm just going to call a "line enclosed segment," since I can't think of a better name for it; I couldn't help myself.
Enjoy
"Will-kun!" Grell cried. "I'm so lonely!"
The first ten minutes, William had been able to ignore it.
An hour of the red-head's incessant whining had only invoked slight agitation.
However, after twenty-four hours, thirty minutes, and exactly seventeen seconds, the brunette reaper finally snapped and trudged, defeated into the file room.
"Just shut your mouth, Sutcliff. I don't want to hear another word from you," Spears moaned, picking up a stack of manila folders.
"William?"
"What," the exhausted shinigami groaned, replacing the last file.
"Why are you helping me?"
William spun around to answer the man, but his words were intercepted by a pair of soft pink lips pressed against his. Too tired to care about both his pride and his work, William actually enjoyed the short moment of blank-mindedness.
Grell pulled away a moment later.
"What are you doing, Sutcliff?"
"I'm sorry," Grell mumbled, a deep blush on his cheeks. Screw it all, Spears thought, pulling the red-head into another, deeper kiss.
"This world is bathed in blood, painted with poison." Ciel's words slipped icily through the amber twilight of mid-July. "And it is time that this game reached its end." Sighing, the earl twirled the deep blue, antique ring on his thumb.
"Bocchan?"
The young demon's eyelids snapped open to reveal a pair of fiery crimson irises. "I'm sorry," the earl mumbled stoically. "It's just that somehow there are always more strings to tie up. It makes me feel rather like a puppet, being dragged this way and that on the whims of some drunken fool with a pair of sticks."
Absentmindedly, the earl brushed his fingertips over the blade of a heavy, jewel-encrusted letter opener.
"Well," Ciel sighed, lifting the object of his fancy to more closely study it. "Is there any sense in waiting to kill Trancy, or are we just sitting here like a pair of mallards on a pond?"
"We could leave now if it so pleases my Lord," Sebastian offered politely.
"Hmmm." Quite impulsively, the boy brought the edge of the letter opener to his lips and drew his tongue over the length of the blade.
Immediately, the ornate Christmas gift from the queen became wickedly sharp.
"And what of our contract when this is over with?" Ciel asked, merely curious. Life and death, good and evil… Honestly, what mattered anymore?
"Bocchan?"
"Answer the question, Sebastian; you answer to me yet," the younger man sighed.
"I am not sure I understand the question—"
"It's a simple question," Ciel retorted impatiently.
"It will break."
Silence and then a chilling, silky question.
"Is that so?"
Strolling silently through the glittering rose gardens, Ciel could not help but admire the beauty of the Trancy estate and found himself deeply torn between burning the manor to the ground or leaving it pristine.
On one hand the vengeful, angry memories of his childhood demanded that all traces of that man should be obliterated.
However, a new personality that stemmed from his demon existence rejected the notion, arguing that the work of art should be preserved.
Ciel plucked a single red-velvet rose from a neighboring bush.
A drop of blood fell from his fingertip, landing softly on the emerald grass.
"To hell with it," Ciel decided.
At nearly three-thirty in the morning, Alois Trancy woke from his dreamless sleep to the echo of a fist on walnut wood. Lazily, the small blonde rubbed his eyes, calling for the assistance of his handsome demon butler.
"Claude," the spider-loving boy whined. "Who's at the door?" Alois ran a set of pale fingertips through his untidy blonde hair, calming the knots that never failed to appear whenever the boy woke from his rest. What little light there was originated from a crack in the curtains, where the foretelling light of a waning crescent streaked through the glass and onto the plush rug, a silver thread in his ocean of black velvet.
"It appears to be the Earl Phantomhive, My Lord," Claude's sonorous voice answered.
"Visiting at this time in the night?" Alois' eyes trailed over the darkness. "Well, invite them in, I suppose," he grumbled tiredly.
"Of course," the demon replied with a bow, disappearing into the darkness of the halls.
The manor's heavy wooden doors swung in, revealing a spotless, dimly lit entrance room and the fully-clothed, ever-waking staff of the Trancy household.
"Please come in," Faustus prompted, smugly. "I am afraid you've caught the young master during his rest, but he has agreed to see you." Claude gestured the darkly-clad pair into a spacious, lavish sitting room, adorned with gold leaf and a majestic grand piano which stood proudly under the towering windows. "My master will be with you in a momen—"
"Ciel!" An unmistakably flamboyant, half-dressed, blonde boy giggled, throwing himself at the earl boldly. "What are you doing awake in the middle of the night?"
Normally, the gesture would have irked Ciel to no end; however, a new flame resided within his being, and all the dark-haired boy could do was grin and study, watch and wait for the opportunity to take the first soul—the demon's first meal.
Ciel's eyes opened, his blood-lusting gaze meeting a pair of brilliant, aqua orbs. Deep shadows had set in underneath the spider's entrancing eyes.
"From the looks of it," the Phantomhive boy smirked, "you are the one in need of your sleep, Trancy." Minimal though it was, light from a few candles sufficed; Alois' body stiffened, his eyes widening.
"Ciel?" The childish blonde whimpered. "You couldn't be…"
Any action Claude Faustus might have taken to save his snack was overshadowed by the presence of Michaelis, the true and lethal presence of a demon far more ancient than Claude. Thick blood streamed lazily down the golden-eyed demon's white throat, spreading quickly across his stiff-pressed collar and down the length of the ivory tunic.
One elegant hand played its way across the expanse of Faustus' neck, and the crimson-eyed demon brought an ungloved fingertip to his lips.
"I'll never wonder why we don't simply consume our own kind." Sebastian vowed, grimacing at the scarcely palatable bitterness he tasted.
"If this doesn't kill me, nothing in heaven will," Michaelis growled, sinking his white teeth into Faustus' bottom lip. Hot, acrid blood gushed over his tongue, and burned its way down the more powerful demon's throat.
A small choking noise escaped Claude's mouth before Sebastian's insatiable lips clamped down on his, willing the mixture of blood and rotting soul from its body. Faustus' eyes caught on a distressing scene.
Wild, savage hunger consumed the Phantomhive boy as he pulled a gleaming weapon from his pocket.
"Ciel," Alois whimpered, attempting to slap the other boy's hand away. The demon effortlessly caught the human's wrist with his free hand and, slowly, carved a trail of crimson down the helpless blonde's forearm and into his palm, finishing with a final flick of the wrist. The boy's gold and ruby band slipped loose and glided across the marble floor.
Thirty seconds passed, and the lifeless form of Claude Faustus collapsed into the blue gold hues of the Trancy estate.
"I still love you, Ciel," Alois whispered. "So I'll gladly let you have my soul, if that's what will make you happy..."
Something alarmingly human passed through the earl's eyes, only to disappear the next instant. "Pitiful idiot," the demon sneered.
As the Phantomhive's mouth covered his own, Alois smiled, burning tears cascading down his flushed cheeks.
Half a minute more joined the two bodies of master and servant and flames engulfed the dream-like home of Alois Trancy.
Tangled together, two bodies, blonde and brunette, blue and gold, weak and strong faded away into the inferno.
"So this is the end." Ciel's eyes reflected light from the burning estate. It stood, one enormous war beacon on the English hillside.
Sebastian's eyes flicked to the smaller form beside him, noting several new stains on the boy's custom tailored waistcoat.
"Hardly," the older demon mused almost inaudibly. Ciel turned to the man, confused.
"You will take my soul—what's left of it." Sebastian's face contorted in disgust.
"After Faustus'? Quite frankly, Bocchan," the older demon growled, drawing the boy hungrily into his arms, "there is no way in hell I would even consider it."
On the other side of the fading home, another conversation drifted across the grounds.
"I believe something of this nature happened not too long ago," Undertaker chuckled. "About three thousand years, I'd say." A lovely silver-haired demon met the shinigami's eyes.
"But there is only one other record of a broken demon contract… And at that, there is only one account of it.
"Ironically enough, it was forged by none other than Peter Gavin Cecil, predecessor to both the Macken and Phantomhive names, and an A. Victoria Incatasi…"
The woman stood in silence.
"So I'm curious, Miss Hannah Annafellows…" A feral grin spread across Undertaker's lips. Hannah slipped a small, ruby ring onto her finger, glaring through the maroon screen at a certain pair of…distracted…demons. "What is your real name?"
"Alice," she purred, vanishing into the consuming blackness.
When thorns pierce through and white bleeds red
Tainted lips leave words unsaid
But lies become truths on tainted lips
And with a wish the master slips
Falling into memories where once an honest smile loomed
Replaced by now a fateful smirk that marks its fallen victim doomed
When poison spreads and blue turns gold
Memories leave tales untold
But curiosity unveils
Undertaker decided that being an ex-shinigami did not, after all, entitle one to permanent and unyielding boredom. He chuckled to himself.
"Such curious and frightful tales."
~Fin~
...For now anyways...