Kuroshitsuji Fic: "Bittersweet" (PG-13) - Ciel/Sebastian
Title: "Bittersweet"
Fandom: Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler
Characters: Ciel/Sebastian
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,888
Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers for the finale of Kuroshitsuji II.
Summary: The story of how Ciel turned Sebastian's suffering from sweet to bitter.
Notes: Written for Phoebe_Zeitgeist for parallelsfic 2011 here.
Bittersweet
by Kantayra
Sebastian’s suffering is sweet.
I know this because I have tended and harvested many a human, and suffering tastes like the lightest truffle, the ripest strawberry, the most succulent peach. A demon can never taste the suffering of another demon, but I know now that, were Sebastian human, his flavor would make my teeth ache with saccharine.
He dresses me in silence every morning, stoic, dutiful, and empty. One after the other, buttons slip into holes. Demon fingers he no longer bothers to hide behind snow-white gloves glide over my bare flesh, and yet it is never anything but an accident. I can see that in his eyes, every time I trick them into meeting my own.
“Your flaw as a demon,” I inform my butler on one day indistinguishable from the rest of eternity, “is that you were too malleable.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“As you tended my soul, I tended yours.” I hold out my foot to feel the silk of my stocking slide up my leg. There is no pleasure in the sensation now. It feels like everything else in this mortal world: decayed and barren. “Do you remember how inadequate you were when we first met? You weren’t fit to call yourself the Phantomhive butler.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“I bred it out of you, though.” I accept the offered hand but do not rise to my feet, not just yet. “You flavored my soul with the sweetness of suffering and the bitterness of innocence. And, in turn, I tamed you, molded you, and transformed you into the perfect butler, who serves me today. You realize this, do you not?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Good.” I stand. “Then, on the agenda for today?”
“Nothing, my lord.”
“It’s just as well. I grow tired of sickly sweet souls. This time, I think we should hunt innocence instead…”
The first bite of innocence I ever took was so bitter that I spit it back out. Such philosophical questions were puzzling back when I was human. Why do demons not devour the innocent? Is it the higher power of God that protects them? The simple answer is that the innocent have far too acrid a flavor. Sin is so much sweeter.
However, after an eternity of sweetness, a little variety becomes necessary.
“As you wish, my lord,” Sebastian says as if this is nothing new.
A twist of bitters is hard to lure in. I appreciate now the lengths Sebastian went through for the succulent soul I must have once held. A pity, even I think, that it was rotted from within by the demon I have become.
“Another flaw,” I tell him before I send him away to try to capture us a pure murderer for our supper this decade, “is that it is not befitting for a butler to mope so. I do not recall you sulking in a corner when I was human. It grows tedious.”
Sebastian meets my eyes at that, deliberately for the first time in many a year. Red flashes against red. And then, slowly, Sebastian’s eyes slide to the side. “My humblest apologies, my lord.” He says it like he doesn’t mean it at all.
Once he is gone, I lick my lips in anticipation of what bittersweetness will come.
***
One gift of Sebastian’s that I did not fully appreciate as a human, is his impeccable ability to find the ripest morsels in an otherwise-gray world. We alight atop an old stone church as dusk falls. I slip from Sebastian’s arms and stand atop the highest steeple with Sebastian at my back.
Two alleys down, there is shouting and the sound of a child’s pleas. The whip and snap of a leather belt cutting into human flesh results in a scream, and then the sobs fall silent. Finally, a young boy scuttles from one of the houses, and through the orange silhouette of the curtains, I can see his father inside returning to the bottle.
I raise an eyebrow at Sebastian. “Common,” I deride.
“Watch.” Sebastian’s eyes are alive with fire in a way I rarely see these days.
I turn to do so, pause ever so slightly, and turn back to Sebastian. “You presume to order me?”
Sebastian blinks once, carefully, assessingly, and then offers the slightest bow. “My apologies, my lord, but I would not want you to miss the second act.”
I accept this for now and return my attention to the young boy. He runs blindly down the streets, colliding with passersby, tripping over virtually every obstacle in his path. He is headed our way.
“Very common,” I repeat.
The boy scrambles, clumsy and awkward, up the church steps below us and pounds on the side door. I give Sebastian a quizzical look. Sebastian places one gloved finger to his lips in a sign of secrecy and gestures for me to precede him through one of the stained-glass windows he’s slipped ajar.
We whisper like shadows into the church rafters, just in time to hear the sobbing, frightened child in conversation with his savior.
“H-He doesn’t mean it!” the boy insists.
I cluck my tongue in revulsion.
“Manners,” Sebastian chides.
I look at him in surprise, but his red eyes are fixed on the scene below us. I follow his gaze and see the boy’s savior for the first time. A sister of the cloth, in clean, shining, black-and-white habit, with an angel’s smile on her lips. I fight the sudden urge to growl. Having witnessed a true angel’s smile, I find the expression most distasteful. Sebastian’s hand settles on my shoulder in warning. I ignore him and return my attention to tonight’s game.
“Forgiveness is the first step toward grace,” the sister comforts the boy. She has perfectly porcelain skin and clear blue eyes alight with faith. “Our Father in Heaven will not let you suffer.”
The boy sniffles piteously. “I c-can stay here tonight, then?” he pleads. “In the morning, father will be himself again. It’s just what with losing his job and-”
“Of course, my child,” the sister soothes and takes the boy into the security of her arms.
The boy clings to her like an indulgent child, and she smiles serenely and then, as Sebastian and I watch, snaps the boy’s neck.
I lick my lips. I feel Sebastian coil with tension and insatiate hunger beside me.
“Be at peace, my child, at last in the arms of a Merciful Father,” the sister clasps her hands together as if in prayer. The wide-eyed body of the boy falls at her feet, but she pays no heed as if she has done this countless times before.
Sebastian and I act quickly. We have no contract here, and a reaper will be arriving almost immediately to deliver the boy’s soul.
The sister’s soul is sweet with every last life she’s taken, with the underlying bitterness of her untainted heart. I sup first, as is my right as master, and devour her entirely. Only after we have safely escaped the reaper’s scythe, do I lick one finger until it is coated with the perfection of our prey’s soul. I offer my finger to Sebastian’s lips to share this morsel but, as always, he turns his head aside.
***
Two days later, Sebastian comes to me in the morning, subdued as usual. He seems not to have taken my complaint against sulking seriously.
“I have located another, my lord,” he says dully, fastening each pearly white button meticulously.
“So soon?”
“Hmm.” Sebastian steps away so that I may rise. “There seems to be something of an epidemic occurring.”
“An epidemic of righteous murders?” I spread my arms so that he can slip my waistcoat on.
“So it would seem, my lord.”
Something inside me stirs at the thought. The demon in me is hungry, yes, but this is something deeper, older, more essential to my being.
I scoff.
“What’s on the agenda today, then, Sebastian?”
“Nothing, my lord.”
“Hmm,” I say and nothing more.
***
Sebastian’s scent is easy enough for me to backtrack. We have been together far too long for his movements to be a mystery to me. I find the new murderer Sebastian’s located well before noon, while Sebastian is still tending to the laundry.
I know the man immediately. He is ladling out food in the soup kitchen among a dozen other volunteers, but their souls lack the delectable fragrance his possesses. It is a trivial matter to slit the throat of the vermin sleeping in the park across the way, cover myself in his rags, and enter the shelter as one of the homeless seeking refuge in this sanctuary. I slip inside and my prey, particularly oblivious in the way that some humans are, spots me and mistakes who is hunting whom.
He beckons me with one finger and leads me into the back. “Poor boy, sweet boy,” he coos obsequiously. “I have not seen you here before. Life can be so cruel. But we must have faith in Our Lord, for He will deliver us unto Salvation.”
He sticks a knife into my innards and twists it around.
I glare at him. “I follow no lord,” I inform him.
His eyes widen, and the knife sinks deeper.
“Stop that. It’s annoying.” I cut off his scream with a hand to the throat. The knife slips out of me and clatters to the ground as my prey gasps for breath. The former is unpleasant, but the latter delicious. The two are always best when paired, I find.
“Who is your lord?” I demanded.
My prey gasps, and his eyes widen, and I feel the elated rush of immeasurable power behind me. I shiver, and my prey is lifted from my grasp. It is not often that I feel the thrill of such a hunter at work.
“If I may, my lord? You should not sully your own hands with such menial tasks.”
“By all means, Sebastian.” I step back to watch Sebastian work. There is no point it asking how Sebastian knew what I was doing; he is, and forever will be, my shadow.
Our prey screams in agony but never betrays his master.
“There is something to be learned from that,” I inform Sebastian smugly.
He looks delightfully irate at this comment.
A scent of another power wafts through the air. “A reaper is coming.”
“Hmm,” Sebastian agrees.
“It’s your call.” I walk away. “Excessive gluttony doesn’t interest me.”
I leave Sebastian, half-starving, with that delectable meal still squirming in Sebastian’s blood-covered fingers. I don’t turn back.
***
I sit at the empty dining table that evening and study the immaculate place settings with concentrated interest. Sebastian waits by the side-board to take away the still-clean dishes when I am through. The silence between us is always pregnant, but more so today. It is a waiting game, and one in which Sebastian has little to lose.
“I believe I’ll retire early this evening,” I finally rise from my seat.
Sebastian clears away the plate and silver and then pauses in removing the serviette from my lap. “My lord?” he says with more inflection than I have heard from him in some time.
“What is it, Sebastian?” I lean on one elbow, affecting as bored a posture as I can manage.
“I let the reaper take the soul.”
I refuse to respond.
“I watched the cinematic record from the shadows.”
A question teases the tip of my tongue.
Sebastian says no more and moves away with the serving tray.
I watch his back with narrowed eyes for a moment and then, carefully, “Well?”
Sebastian pauses, just for a moment, mid-step. It is minute enough that human eyes would not spot the reaction, but mine do.
“Well?” I repeat more loudly.
Sebastian turns to look at me. “I know the master’s identity.”
Our eyes meet with mutual hunger, and for the first time, I feel we are truly of one mind.
***
The dilapidated stone remains feel hallowed even to a soulless demon such as me. I feel as if I am tingling all over. I pause, and I feel Sebastian pause behind me a millisecond later. I turn to give him an inquiring look, and he nods back. He senses it, too.
I alight atop one of the crumbling walls and glimpse the bell tower and the fallen cross at its base. This place hasn’t been a church in a very long time, but the stench of heaven still lurks here.
“Shall we?” Sebastian is silent and obedient as ever at my side.
“Shall. We.” I say it blandly. It is not a question.
Sebastian tilts his head in acknowledgement. “Yes, my lord.” He bows deeply and leaps into the fray.
I watch atop the wall from afar with eyes of hellfire.
As expected, a demon’s footfall is noted in this place. No sooner has Sebastian landed on the gray pavestones that once formed the apse of this cathedral, than an opponent rises to meet him, our newest prey. Sebastian’s eyes gleam with the challenge before him. The scent in the air is human, and I lick my lips.
“Creature of Satan, begone!” a booming voice sounds through the empty air. It would have undoubtedly been more impressive if there had been church walls to echo off. And also if either Sebastian or myself were the easily impressionable type.
I catch Sebastian’s eye in the distance and yawn noticeably. Something sparks in his eyes.
A figure emerges to stand against Sebastian. He’s an unpresuming man of middle age, dressed in a monk’s robes, and entirely common and unremarkable in appearance. The scent of his soul in the night air makes my mouth water, however, and Sebastian stiffens ever so slightly.
There is also the matter of the rusted iron sword the monk raises to Sebastian’s eye level. The weapon is tarnished and nearly rotted through, yet somehow it glows, burning, bright as a sun lighting up the pitch of night.
Something in my demon blood quakes at the sight, yet relishes it, as well. True death is threatened here tonight, and to an eternal being, nothing is more of an aphrodisiac, I am surprised to discover.
“A holy relic,” Sebastian breathes. “How annoying.” He is lithe and graceful in response to it in a way he has not been since I first laid demon eyes upon him. He is alive against this foe.
“Demon!” the monk accuses, unusually accurately for a mortal. “Cause no further human suffering! The righteous blade of God has been bestowed upon me in His sacred place, and with it, I shall guide innocents into His light.”
“Completely sanctimonious,” I whisper. “Delicious.”
Across the battlefield, Sebastian inclines his head ever so graciously in my direction. He alone can hear my commentary, of course.
The very air seems to hum as the monk wields the holy sword directly at Sebastian’s head. I watch Sebastian evade two swipes before I realize that it is not an effect of the sword’s power, but the actual sound of voices whispering. Sebastian notices it as well, and our eyes both flicker to the surrounding ruins.
One by one, the fire in my eyes picks them out. Nothing but mere humans, yet somehow the sanctity of this space shielded them from us, until we knew to look. “Invisibility’s pointless if you’re praying out loud,” I say with disgust. “Idiot humans.”
Sebastian returns his full attention to dodging the holy light emitting from the monk’s sword. The sword seems to be imbuing the monk with preternatural powers; he is as fast and strong as Sebastian, able to leap superhuman distances. Sebastian looks far too self-satisfied by this turn of events.
I sigh wearily and slowly pull off black kidskin gloves. “Really, is that the best you can do?”
Before the second glove can slip entirely from my fingertips, a powerful grip circles my wrist. I blink at where Sebastian has crossed all the ground between us in a heartbeat. “I would hardly be worthy to call myself a demon butler - or a demon’s butler - if I could not handle at least this.”
“Eh,” I roll my eyes.
“Please, sit down, my lord.” He presses down on my shoulders until I am sitting atop the wall. “And enjoy the show.”
“Eh,” I say more firmly.
And then there is a flash of holy light, and Sebastian flips away. The monk is in front of me, with sword poised. I just look at him. He starts and immediately runs back into the battle with Sebastian. I snort with amusement.
“Stop showing off and finish it up already.”
Sebastian freezes for a moment in place. The monk’s sword stabs. Sebastian blurs to the side at the last minute, and the sword skewers two of the monk’s devotees mid-prayer. The monk is too enraptured with fervor to even notice. Or maybe he just doesn’t care; after all, this is the same brilliant mind that decided it would be a great idea to deliver the suffering directly unto death.
The body-count mounts, and Sebastian does not need to lift a single finger against the mortals. How typically human, the sacrifices of war.
The battle is brutal, bloody, and beautiful. Sebastian dances, unscathed, even against the deadliest of weapons. The monk is wearing down, taking minor injuries that slow him more and more. Sebastian could take him down any second now, I realize, but like a cat toying with its prey, Sebastian is dragging the human’s suffering out, long and slow.
Despite myself, I find that I am smiling. “Hurry it up, Sebastian. I don’t have all night.”
Sebastian looks up at me in surprise, as offended as I’ve ever seen him. And then he smirks slowly and deliberately in my direction, as though he finally realizes that I have been laughing at him in my head the whole time.
“As you wish, my lord.”
Sebastian side-steps the monk’s blade one final time and then punches his fingers straight through the human’s chest. The monk gasps, croaks, and falls to the ground in his final death throes. Sebastian neatly kicks the holy sword aside as I approach.
“God have mercy upon my soul…” the monk gurgles out through his own blood.
“Neither gods, reapers, nor anything else shall ever lay claim to your soul.” I can feel my eyes glowing red. I have fed recently, but this blood’s conviction is far too delectable to pass up.
In the distance, I can feel a melting in the air and the scent of ashes. All characteristic of a reaper. Of course, with all the deaths, one was bound to arrive sooner or later.
“My lord…” Sebastian warns.
“In a moment.” I lean in and deeply, delicately suck the monk’s soul from his bones until there is nothing but a husk remaining. His screams of agony as his essence is devoured alive are like music to my ears.
“My lord…” The smell of a reaper’s death is almost upon us now.
I lick my lips. “You’ve got blood on your waistcoat. It’s unsightly.”
Sebastian gives me an exasperated look and then, so quickly that barely my demon eyes have time to react, scoops me up in his arms. “If you’ll forgive the liberty, young master, we cannot afford to be caught here.”
The reaper bursts on the scene, scythe at the ready.
“He did it,” I point to the monk’s corpse and give the reaper my best false smile. “Not us.”
The reaper strikes, Sebastian runs, and I am carried off in the rush of the chase. I feel like laughing. I feel alive. It takes us quite some time to outrun the reaper’s threat, but once the danger has passed, I lean in and tisk in Sebastian’s ear:
“Couldn’t even steal one soul from under a reaper’s eye? Pitiful.”
Sebastian’s eye twitches, but he clutches me all the tighter as he takes me home. I had forgotten how much fun he is to torment.
“Shall I prepare supper then, my lord?” he asks impeccably when he finally sets me down.
There is nothing in such a ritual to satisfy either of us anymore, but it is still a ritual - a propriety - and has been maintained between us at all cost.
“I have already supped tonight,” I say, defying all tradition.
Sebastian stiffens, and I pull him closer.
“You, as I recall, have not.” The monk’s taste is still rich and sinful on my tongue. I open my mouth to Sebastian.
He hesitates, yields, and at long last our mouths meet in a demonic kiss. He sups from my mouth, wicked and ravenous, until I can almost believe that I am the one he is devouring whole.
“You called me ‘young master,’” I say when we pull apart. “Earlier.”
“Did I?” Sebastian is an enigmatic as ever.
“It’s a shame, really.” I reach up to his face, but he catches my hand mid-motion. Always hesitant and coy, my butler. “I trained you so well.”
“My lord?” Sebastian looks as perplexed as I’ve ever seen him.
“The truths I posed to you as a human hold for demons as well. Do really only value the meal still?” I lean in close just to watch him squirm.
Sebastian’s eyes turn deliberately away.
“Revenge,” I whisper, evil and sweet. “I was meant to spend eternity inside you.”
For a second, the impotent rage within Sebastian flares to the surface.
“That was stolen from us both. And the one who took that from us won his eternity in a demon’s stomach with the one he loves. Is that fair, do you think?”
Sebastian’s head turns abruptly to look at me in surprise.
“Our revenge,” I insinuate, serpent-like, “will be even sweeter than that which I rained down as a human.”
Sebastian’s lips part slowly, carefully. “Our enemy is powerful.”
“That will just making wreaking vengeance that much more delectable. Have you still not learned that lesson?”
Sebastian is both hesitant and tempted. I can see it in his eyes. Something is lacking now, but he doubts that my words can ever fully restore what once was.
“A pity.” I pull back. “Together, we could have conquered Hell itself.”
Just as I turn away, Sebastian’s hand snaps forward and catches me by the wrist. His eyes are desperate for something - anything - beyond the meaningless existence he suffers now. A flicker of hope has been lit now, and slowly the sweetness of his suffering turns bitter. He is my greatest conquest, this gluttonous demon.
“Young master,” he acknowledges me consciously for the first time.
I glance at my wrist wrapped tight in demonic clutches. “The first step, then,” I inform him imperiously, “is to mind your proper place.” I snap my hand away and backhand him across the face. “Filthy demon,” I add with a smile.
Sebastian freezes for one moment, stunned, and then a twisted grin curves his lips. “I beg your pardon, young master,” he says with the stirrings of his old insouciance. “It won’t happen again.”
“See that it doesn’t.” I let him straighten my lapels. “Tomorrow, Sebastian. Tomorrow…”
“What is on the agenda for tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow we teach Hell what it is to burn.”
And the demonic fire in our eyes lights up the cold night now, forever, and into eternity.
As always, feedback is most appreciated!
Fandom: Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler
Characters: Ciel/Sebastian
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,888
Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers for the finale of Kuroshitsuji II.
Summary: The story of how Ciel turned Sebastian's suffering from sweet to bitter.
Notes: Written for Phoebe_Zeitgeist for parallelsfic 2011 here.
Bittersweet
by Kantayra
Sebastian’s suffering is sweet.
I know this because I have tended and harvested many a human, and suffering tastes like the lightest truffle, the ripest strawberry, the most succulent peach. A demon can never taste the suffering of another demon, but I know now that, were Sebastian human, his flavor would make my teeth ache with saccharine.
He dresses me in silence every morning, stoic, dutiful, and empty. One after the other, buttons slip into holes. Demon fingers he no longer bothers to hide behind snow-white gloves glide over my bare flesh, and yet it is never anything but an accident. I can see that in his eyes, every time I trick them into meeting my own.
“Your flaw as a demon,” I inform my butler on one day indistinguishable from the rest of eternity, “is that you were too malleable.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“As you tended my soul, I tended yours.” I hold out my foot to feel the silk of my stocking slide up my leg. There is no pleasure in the sensation now. It feels like everything else in this mortal world: decayed and barren. “Do you remember how inadequate you were when we first met? You weren’t fit to call yourself the Phantomhive butler.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“I bred it out of you, though.” I accept the offered hand but do not rise to my feet, not just yet. “You flavored my soul with the sweetness of suffering and the bitterness of innocence. And, in turn, I tamed you, molded you, and transformed you into the perfect butler, who serves me today. You realize this, do you not?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Good.” I stand. “Then, on the agenda for today?”
“Nothing, my lord.”
“It’s just as well. I grow tired of sickly sweet souls. This time, I think we should hunt innocence instead…”
The first bite of innocence I ever took was so bitter that I spit it back out. Such philosophical questions were puzzling back when I was human. Why do demons not devour the innocent? Is it the higher power of God that protects them? The simple answer is that the innocent have far too acrid a flavor. Sin is so much sweeter.
However, after an eternity of sweetness, a little variety becomes necessary.
“As you wish, my lord,” Sebastian says as if this is nothing new.
A twist of bitters is hard to lure in. I appreciate now the lengths Sebastian went through for the succulent soul I must have once held. A pity, even I think, that it was rotted from within by the demon I have become.
“Another flaw,” I tell him before I send him away to try to capture us a pure murderer for our supper this decade, “is that it is not befitting for a butler to mope so. I do not recall you sulking in a corner when I was human. It grows tedious.”
Sebastian meets my eyes at that, deliberately for the first time in many a year. Red flashes against red. And then, slowly, Sebastian’s eyes slide to the side. “My humblest apologies, my lord.” He says it like he doesn’t mean it at all.
Once he is gone, I lick my lips in anticipation of what bittersweetness will come.
***
One gift of Sebastian’s that I did not fully appreciate as a human, is his impeccable ability to find the ripest morsels in an otherwise-gray world. We alight atop an old stone church as dusk falls. I slip from Sebastian’s arms and stand atop the highest steeple with Sebastian at my back.
Two alleys down, there is shouting and the sound of a child’s pleas. The whip and snap of a leather belt cutting into human flesh results in a scream, and then the sobs fall silent. Finally, a young boy scuttles from one of the houses, and through the orange silhouette of the curtains, I can see his father inside returning to the bottle.
I raise an eyebrow at Sebastian. “Common,” I deride.
“Watch.” Sebastian’s eyes are alive with fire in a way I rarely see these days.
I turn to do so, pause ever so slightly, and turn back to Sebastian. “You presume to order me?”
Sebastian blinks once, carefully, assessingly, and then offers the slightest bow. “My apologies, my lord, but I would not want you to miss the second act.”
I accept this for now and return my attention to the young boy. He runs blindly down the streets, colliding with passersby, tripping over virtually every obstacle in his path. He is headed our way.
“Very common,” I repeat.
The boy scrambles, clumsy and awkward, up the church steps below us and pounds on the side door. I give Sebastian a quizzical look. Sebastian places one gloved finger to his lips in a sign of secrecy and gestures for me to precede him through one of the stained-glass windows he’s slipped ajar.
We whisper like shadows into the church rafters, just in time to hear the sobbing, frightened child in conversation with his savior.
“H-He doesn’t mean it!” the boy insists.
I cluck my tongue in revulsion.
“Manners,” Sebastian chides.
I look at him in surprise, but his red eyes are fixed on the scene below us. I follow his gaze and see the boy’s savior for the first time. A sister of the cloth, in clean, shining, black-and-white habit, with an angel’s smile on her lips. I fight the sudden urge to growl. Having witnessed a true angel’s smile, I find the expression most distasteful. Sebastian’s hand settles on my shoulder in warning. I ignore him and return my attention to tonight’s game.
“Forgiveness is the first step toward grace,” the sister comforts the boy. She has perfectly porcelain skin and clear blue eyes alight with faith. “Our Father in Heaven will not let you suffer.”
The boy sniffles piteously. “I c-can stay here tonight, then?” he pleads. “In the morning, father will be himself again. It’s just what with losing his job and-”
“Of course, my child,” the sister soothes and takes the boy into the security of her arms.
The boy clings to her like an indulgent child, and she smiles serenely and then, as Sebastian and I watch, snaps the boy’s neck.
I lick my lips. I feel Sebastian coil with tension and insatiate hunger beside me.
“Be at peace, my child, at last in the arms of a Merciful Father,” the sister clasps her hands together as if in prayer. The wide-eyed body of the boy falls at her feet, but she pays no heed as if she has done this countless times before.
Sebastian and I act quickly. We have no contract here, and a reaper will be arriving almost immediately to deliver the boy’s soul.
The sister’s soul is sweet with every last life she’s taken, with the underlying bitterness of her untainted heart. I sup first, as is my right as master, and devour her entirely. Only after we have safely escaped the reaper’s scythe, do I lick one finger until it is coated with the perfection of our prey’s soul. I offer my finger to Sebastian’s lips to share this morsel but, as always, he turns his head aside.
***
Two days later, Sebastian comes to me in the morning, subdued as usual. He seems not to have taken my complaint against sulking seriously.
“I have located another, my lord,” he says dully, fastening each pearly white button meticulously.
“So soon?”
“Hmm.” Sebastian steps away so that I may rise. “There seems to be something of an epidemic occurring.”
“An epidemic of righteous murders?” I spread my arms so that he can slip my waistcoat on.
“So it would seem, my lord.”
Something inside me stirs at the thought. The demon in me is hungry, yes, but this is something deeper, older, more essential to my being.
I scoff.
“What’s on the agenda today, then, Sebastian?”
“Nothing, my lord.”
“Hmm,” I say and nothing more.
***
Sebastian’s scent is easy enough for me to backtrack. We have been together far too long for his movements to be a mystery to me. I find the new murderer Sebastian’s located well before noon, while Sebastian is still tending to the laundry.
I know the man immediately. He is ladling out food in the soup kitchen among a dozen other volunteers, but their souls lack the delectable fragrance his possesses. It is a trivial matter to slit the throat of the vermin sleeping in the park across the way, cover myself in his rags, and enter the shelter as one of the homeless seeking refuge in this sanctuary. I slip inside and my prey, particularly oblivious in the way that some humans are, spots me and mistakes who is hunting whom.
He beckons me with one finger and leads me into the back. “Poor boy, sweet boy,” he coos obsequiously. “I have not seen you here before. Life can be so cruel. But we must have faith in Our Lord, for He will deliver us unto Salvation.”
He sticks a knife into my innards and twists it around.
I glare at him. “I follow no lord,” I inform him.
His eyes widen, and the knife sinks deeper.
“Stop that. It’s annoying.” I cut off his scream with a hand to the throat. The knife slips out of me and clatters to the ground as my prey gasps for breath. The former is unpleasant, but the latter delicious. The two are always best when paired, I find.
“Who is your lord?” I demanded.
My prey gasps, and his eyes widen, and I feel the elated rush of immeasurable power behind me. I shiver, and my prey is lifted from my grasp. It is not often that I feel the thrill of such a hunter at work.
“If I may, my lord? You should not sully your own hands with such menial tasks.”
“By all means, Sebastian.” I step back to watch Sebastian work. There is no point it asking how Sebastian knew what I was doing; he is, and forever will be, my shadow.
Our prey screams in agony but never betrays his master.
“There is something to be learned from that,” I inform Sebastian smugly.
He looks delightfully irate at this comment.
A scent of another power wafts through the air. “A reaper is coming.”
“Hmm,” Sebastian agrees.
“It’s your call.” I walk away. “Excessive gluttony doesn’t interest me.”
I leave Sebastian, half-starving, with that delectable meal still squirming in Sebastian’s blood-covered fingers. I don’t turn back.
***
I sit at the empty dining table that evening and study the immaculate place settings with concentrated interest. Sebastian waits by the side-board to take away the still-clean dishes when I am through. The silence between us is always pregnant, but more so today. It is a waiting game, and one in which Sebastian has little to lose.
“I believe I’ll retire early this evening,” I finally rise from my seat.
Sebastian clears away the plate and silver and then pauses in removing the serviette from my lap. “My lord?” he says with more inflection than I have heard from him in some time.
“What is it, Sebastian?” I lean on one elbow, affecting as bored a posture as I can manage.
“I let the reaper take the soul.”
I refuse to respond.
“I watched the cinematic record from the shadows.”
A question teases the tip of my tongue.
Sebastian says no more and moves away with the serving tray.
I watch his back with narrowed eyes for a moment and then, carefully, “Well?”
Sebastian pauses, just for a moment, mid-step. It is minute enough that human eyes would not spot the reaction, but mine do.
“Well?” I repeat more loudly.
Sebastian turns to look at me. “I know the master’s identity.”
Our eyes meet with mutual hunger, and for the first time, I feel we are truly of one mind.
***
The dilapidated stone remains feel hallowed even to a soulless demon such as me. I feel as if I am tingling all over. I pause, and I feel Sebastian pause behind me a millisecond later. I turn to give him an inquiring look, and he nods back. He senses it, too.
I alight atop one of the crumbling walls and glimpse the bell tower and the fallen cross at its base. This place hasn’t been a church in a very long time, but the stench of heaven still lurks here.
“Shall we?” Sebastian is silent and obedient as ever at my side.
“Shall. We.” I say it blandly. It is not a question.
Sebastian tilts his head in acknowledgement. “Yes, my lord.” He bows deeply and leaps into the fray.
I watch atop the wall from afar with eyes of hellfire.
As expected, a demon’s footfall is noted in this place. No sooner has Sebastian landed on the gray pavestones that once formed the apse of this cathedral, than an opponent rises to meet him, our newest prey. Sebastian’s eyes gleam with the challenge before him. The scent in the air is human, and I lick my lips.
“Creature of Satan, begone!” a booming voice sounds through the empty air. It would have undoubtedly been more impressive if there had been church walls to echo off. And also if either Sebastian or myself were the easily impressionable type.
I catch Sebastian’s eye in the distance and yawn noticeably. Something sparks in his eyes.
A figure emerges to stand against Sebastian. He’s an unpresuming man of middle age, dressed in a monk’s robes, and entirely common and unremarkable in appearance. The scent of his soul in the night air makes my mouth water, however, and Sebastian stiffens ever so slightly.
There is also the matter of the rusted iron sword the monk raises to Sebastian’s eye level. The weapon is tarnished and nearly rotted through, yet somehow it glows, burning, bright as a sun lighting up the pitch of night.
Something in my demon blood quakes at the sight, yet relishes it, as well. True death is threatened here tonight, and to an eternal being, nothing is more of an aphrodisiac, I am surprised to discover.
“A holy relic,” Sebastian breathes. “How annoying.” He is lithe and graceful in response to it in a way he has not been since I first laid demon eyes upon him. He is alive against this foe.
“Demon!” the monk accuses, unusually accurately for a mortal. “Cause no further human suffering! The righteous blade of God has been bestowed upon me in His sacred place, and with it, I shall guide innocents into His light.”
“Completely sanctimonious,” I whisper. “Delicious.”
Across the battlefield, Sebastian inclines his head ever so graciously in my direction. He alone can hear my commentary, of course.
The very air seems to hum as the monk wields the holy sword directly at Sebastian’s head. I watch Sebastian evade two swipes before I realize that it is not an effect of the sword’s power, but the actual sound of voices whispering. Sebastian notices it as well, and our eyes both flicker to the surrounding ruins.
One by one, the fire in my eyes picks them out. Nothing but mere humans, yet somehow the sanctity of this space shielded them from us, until we knew to look. “Invisibility’s pointless if you’re praying out loud,” I say with disgust. “Idiot humans.”
Sebastian returns his full attention to dodging the holy light emitting from the monk’s sword. The sword seems to be imbuing the monk with preternatural powers; he is as fast and strong as Sebastian, able to leap superhuman distances. Sebastian looks far too self-satisfied by this turn of events.
I sigh wearily and slowly pull off black kidskin gloves. “Really, is that the best you can do?”
Before the second glove can slip entirely from my fingertips, a powerful grip circles my wrist. I blink at where Sebastian has crossed all the ground between us in a heartbeat. “I would hardly be worthy to call myself a demon butler - or a demon’s butler - if I could not handle at least this.”
“Eh,” I roll my eyes.
“Please, sit down, my lord.” He presses down on my shoulders until I am sitting atop the wall. “And enjoy the show.”
“Eh,” I say more firmly.
And then there is a flash of holy light, and Sebastian flips away. The monk is in front of me, with sword poised. I just look at him. He starts and immediately runs back into the battle with Sebastian. I snort with amusement.
“Stop showing off and finish it up already.”
Sebastian freezes for a moment in place. The monk’s sword stabs. Sebastian blurs to the side at the last minute, and the sword skewers two of the monk’s devotees mid-prayer. The monk is too enraptured with fervor to even notice. Or maybe he just doesn’t care; after all, this is the same brilliant mind that decided it would be a great idea to deliver the suffering directly unto death.
The body-count mounts, and Sebastian does not need to lift a single finger against the mortals. How typically human, the sacrifices of war.
The battle is brutal, bloody, and beautiful. Sebastian dances, unscathed, even against the deadliest of weapons. The monk is wearing down, taking minor injuries that slow him more and more. Sebastian could take him down any second now, I realize, but like a cat toying with its prey, Sebastian is dragging the human’s suffering out, long and slow.
Despite myself, I find that I am smiling. “Hurry it up, Sebastian. I don’t have all night.”
Sebastian looks up at me in surprise, as offended as I’ve ever seen him. And then he smirks slowly and deliberately in my direction, as though he finally realizes that I have been laughing at him in my head the whole time.
“As you wish, my lord.”
Sebastian side-steps the monk’s blade one final time and then punches his fingers straight through the human’s chest. The monk gasps, croaks, and falls to the ground in his final death throes. Sebastian neatly kicks the holy sword aside as I approach.
“God have mercy upon my soul…” the monk gurgles out through his own blood.
“Neither gods, reapers, nor anything else shall ever lay claim to your soul.” I can feel my eyes glowing red. I have fed recently, but this blood’s conviction is far too delectable to pass up.
In the distance, I can feel a melting in the air and the scent of ashes. All characteristic of a reaper. Of course, with all the deaths, one was bound to arrive sooner or later.
“My lord…” Sebastian warns.
“In a moment.” I lean in and deeply, delicately suck the monk’s soul from his bones until there is nothing but a husk remaining. His screams of agony as his essence is devoured alive are like music to my ears.
“My lord…” The smell of a reaper’s death is almost upon us now.
I lick my lips. “You’ve got blood on your waistcoat. It’s unsightly.”
Sebastian gives me an exasperated look and then, so quickly that barely my demon eyes have time to react, scoops me up in his arms. “If you’ll forgive the liberty, young master, we cannot afford to be caught here.”
The reaper bursts on the scene, scythe at the ready.
“He did it,” I point to the monk’s corpse and give the reaper my best false smile. “Not us.”
The reaper strikes, Sebastian runs, and I am carried off in the rush of the chase. I feel like laughing. I feel alive. It takes us quite some time to outrun the reaper’s threat, but once the danger has passed, I lean in and tisk in Sebastian’s ear:
“Couldn’t even steal one soul from under a reaper’s eye? Pitiful.”
Sebastian’s eye twitches, but he clutches me all the tighter as he takes me home. I had forgotten how much fun he is to torment.
“Shall I prepare supper then, my lord?” he asks impeccably when he finally sets me down.
There is nothing in such a ritual to satisfy either of us anymore, but it is still a ritual - a propriety - and has been maintained between us at all cost.
“I have already supped tonight,” I say, defying all tradition.
Sebastian stiffens, and I pull him closer.
“You, as I recall, have not.” The monk’s taste is still rich and sinful on my tongue. I open my mouth to Sebastian.
He hesitates, yields, and at long last our mouths meet in a demonic kiss. He sups from my mouth, wicked and ravenous, until I can almost believe that I am the one he is devouring whole.
“You called me ‘young master,’” I say when we pull apart. “Earlier.”
“Did I?” Sebastian is an enigmatic as ever.
“It’s a shame, really.” I reach up to his face, but he catches my hand mid-motion. Always hesitant and coy, my butler. “I trained you so well.”
“My lord?” Sebastian looks as perplexed as I’ve ever seen him.
“The truths I posed to you as a human hold for demons as well. Do really only value the meal still?” I lean in close just to watch him squirm.
Sebastian’s eyes turn deliberately away.
“Revenge,” I whisper, evil and sweet. “I was meant to spend eternity inside you.”
For a second, the impotent rage within Sebastian flares to the surface.
“That was stolen from us both. And the one who took that from us won his eternity in a demon’s stomach with the one he loves. Is that fair, do you think?”
Sebastian’s head turns abruptly to look at me in surprise.
“Our revenge,” I insinuate, serpent-like, “will be even sweeter than that which I rained down as a human.”
Sebastian’s lips part slowly, carefully. “Our enemy is powerful.”
“That will just making wreaking vengeance that much more delectable. Have you still not learned that lesson?”
Sebastian is both hesitant and tempted. I can see it in his eyes. Something is lacking now, but he doubts that my words can ever fully restore what once was.
“A pity.” I pull back. “Together, we could have conquered Hell itself.”
Just as I turn away, Sebastian’s hand snaps forward and catches me by the wrist. His eyes are desperate for something - anything - beyond the meaningless existence he suffers now. A flicker of hope has been lit now, and slowly the sweetness of his suffering turns bitter. He is my greatest conquest, this gluttonous demon.
“Young master,” he acknowledges me consciously for the first time.
I glance at my wrist wrapped tight in demonic clutches. “The first step, then,” I inform him imperiously, “is to mind your proper place.” I snap my hand away and backhand him across the face. “Filthy demon,” I add with a smile.
Sebastian freezes for one moment, stunned, and then a twisted grin curves his lips. “I beg your pardon, young master,” he says with the stirrings of his old insouciance. “It won’t happen again.”
“See that it doesn’t.” I let him straighten my lapels. “Tomorrow, Sebastian. Tomorrow…”
“What is on the agenda for tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow we teach Hell what it is to burn.”
And the demonic fire in our eyes lights up the cold night now, forever, and into eternity.
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