Fic: "In Nomine" [Chapter One] (Kuroshitsuji, R)
Happy Birthday, Ciel! We love you so~
...So this is gonna be a long, dark, twisted thing. Not to say I didn't enjoy every minute of it, of course. Full credit goes to goodbyemyheart for the name theme, but everything else in this monstrosity is mine.
Title: In Nomine
Series: Kuroshitsuji (Anime Canon)
Rating: R for violent imagery (no seriously)
Characters/Pairing: Anyone and everyone, including a couple of people I completely made up. Eventual SebaCiel, though.
Warnings: Contains Demon!CIel and a whole crapton of messed-up psychological goodness.
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters or ideas contained herein. I am not making any money from this.
Note: I took major liberties with the whole summoning thing (read: completely made it up). That said, don't summon demons at home, kids. It never gets you anywhere pleasant.
Also, Lucy has Plot Convenient Everything-Deficiency syndrome, meaning I'm not in any mood to do enough research to make it realistic.
---
Chapter One: In Nomine
Eyes the color of grass (or rather, the color the grass would have been if it weren't the dead of winter) slide open, blinking away the raindrops collecting on their short lashes. They don't want to stay open, but the rain commands that they process, signal, sound their alarms up the white cords into grey matter behind, making the boy who owned them wake up. They don't try very hard to accomplish this task, because the boy lets himself fall back against the stone behind him, wanting very much to fall asleep again.
That's when the umbrella strikes him in the stomach. It does the job better than the optic nerves ever could.
He jerks out of his slump and wipes the water from his eyes, trying to see his assailant. His eyes feel itchy and dry from the water, but he can make out a plain white dress, a silver hair ribbon, and the underside of a black umbrella above them both.
Oh.
"Michael?"
He blinks a few times and shakes his head. "What?"
"Michael, get up. I've been looking for you for hours." The umbrella pokes him again. "How did you manage to fall asleep here? Must have gotten lost or something... You're halfway across the cemetery from where everyone else was."
He tries to stand and finds his legs only somewhat willing to cooperate. In addition to the rainwater, he somehow has mud up to the knees of his trousers, perhaps from the way he was sitting, but he can't be sure because he doesn't remember how he fell asleep there, either. It's not exactly what is expected of someone at their father's funeral.
He jumps up suddenly.
"Oh my god, Lucy!" he shouts. "What are you doing out here? It's pouring! You could catch something!"
She gives him a very blank look. "You're the one with the car keys."
She's right, of course. She has a tendency to be right.
"Yes. Um. Let's...let's go home."
He takes the closed umbrella she had assaulted him with and opens it above his head (not that it does much good at this point). He shakes his hair out of his eyes, scattering drops that clung to the tips of waterlogged curls onto the inside of his umbrella. They make their way squelching out of the dirt until they get to the sidewalk, Lucy leading the way to the parking lot. Michael has no idea where they are, and he can hardly see for the darkness, so he follows her, matching her stride a couple of steps behind.
It's dark out, and Michael wonders how long he was asleep. He doesn't remember how he fell asleep there, or even how he got to where he was. He remembers slipping out of the crowd just as the formalities were done (someone had said something, a vague echo of "so hard for him" that gets fuzzy afterwards), and then walking for a while, and then he drew a blank. He supposes it must have been exhaustion; he hadn't slept well the night before, listening to his mother on the phone with relatives and friends and whoever else she talked to.
Everyone else at the funeral has probably gone to dinner at some aunt's house, Sunday tea and sandwiches or something equally heinous. They would no doubt want to craft a lovely bell jar of pity for the two of them, "the poor dears, losing their father at such an important time". He felt sick just thinking about it. Then again, for all he knows, they could be at home in bed by now. The sun sets so early this time of year, it's hard to tell.
They walk past a gazebo covered in ivy when he hears a downright weird noise from inside. It sounds...crunchy? Squishy? The words won't even come to him; he's never heard anything like it in his life. He stops, looking for the source. Lucy keeps going, apparently not having heard any of it. He hears it again (it sounds like squeezing? ripping?), but this time it's accompanied by the sound of a great deal of liquid being spilled, a heavier sort of splatter than the rain. He leans back to get a look inside the gazebo itself, and for a moment he swears he can see someone in there, sitting on the bench and doing...something...with a very large pile of indistinguishable matter on the table. It almost looks like they're trying to get something out of a large bag, but instead of unfastening it they're tearing it open, layer by layer.
Lucy turns to look at him, tilting her head in question.
"I think I dropped something," he lies, handing her the car keys, "you can go ahead and wait for me, it won't take long."
She looks at the car keys and then back up at him, head tilted to one side the way it always does when she teases him. "What if I drive off without you?"
"You won't," he stares at her with lowered eyebrows. "You don't even know how to drive yet. Just go." He waves her toward the gate. She turns and walks away with a murmured "of course" that he can only just hear over the rain.
He takes a step towards the stone half-building and tries to peer through the raindrops at the now somewhat still figure inside. He can hear a weird sort of sloshing noise now, and not a very comforting one, and then all at once whoever it is sits up and lifts something into the air. Michael is close enough now to realize two things, and they make the bottom of his stomach drop clean out.
One, the person sitting at the table is a child that can't possibly be any older than Lucy.
Two, the thing they have lifted into the air is a human arm, one that is much too big and at too strange an angle to be their own.
He wants to look closer in the hopes that he has simply misunderstood all of the noises, wants to reassure himself, but at the same time he's afraid that if he looks, he won't see reassurance, but confirmation.
A gleam of light glides between the pillars, headlights from a car that is pulling out of the parking lot, and he sees eyes. Violet and red and terrifying. The rest of the face is swathed in shadow or washed out by light and for the briefest moment, he can at least tell it's a boy. Probably. He can't really think too hard about it because his vision jumps from the red violet gleaming horror of his eyes to the red slick glistening horror that covers his mouth. The boy moves his head down as the car moves on, and he sees nothing but shadows again. He doesn't think he's been spotted, which makes him feel secure for reasons he doesn't want to fathom.
Then the boy's head moves back up, slowly away from the arm beneath it, and he hears another terrible rip followed by what can only be described as chewing.
He runs towards the parking lot before the images can catch up to his brain, then stumbles and vomits onto the ground beside him when they do. his umbrella dropping to the ground. He forgets it, runs again, keeps going until he gets to the car and puts in a flashbulb techno CD, trying to let the music pound the noises out of his ears.
He looks at the clock (12:19 AM) and takes a few deep breaths to calm himself down, but it doesn't work and he coughs and retches and has to open the car door so he doesn't ruin the seats.
"...Are you alright?" Lucy's voice is quiet, squeaky.
"Yeah," he takes a swig of the coffee from this morning (cold from sitting in the cup holder all day) and spits it onto the ground. The taste is still unpleasant, but less so than before. "Yeah, just...must have overdone it or something."
He tries to give her a reassuring smile, but it falters when he sees her, hands over her mouth, trembling.
"What about you?"
"I..." her voice shakes, and she covers her mouth again.
"Oh, god, you must have exhausted yourself looking for me." He rests his head against the steering wheel for a moment. "Let's just go home."
They spend the rest of the ride in silence, and it takes all of Michael's concentration just to keep his eyes on the road.
~~~
They get home at one in the morning, and by then the rain has stopped. He changes his clothes and takes a shower (noting that he somehow got mud on his sleeves, too), and the whole time he plays music. Soft music, so as not to wake their mother, but music engaging enough to keep the sounds from his mind, even if the images won't leave. He must have hallucinated it, he reasons, because things like that, things that sit in the cemetery at midnight and have eyes that glow and teeth like knives (because there must have been teeth that sharp to make that sound oh god he's going to be sick again but there's nothing left), they just don't exist.
He can't get to sleep, not for a long while, and when he hears a knock on his door he just about jumps out of his skin.
It's Lucy, wrapped in a blanket with her hair still wet. Her nightgown reaches almost to the floor past the blanket (it hasn't reached past her knees for a good seven years), and the water in her hair catches the moonlight, making her glow like something from a Dickens novel.
"Are you alright? I heard you when you were brushing your teeth..." She half-whispers. He ought to tell her to go to bed, but he is desperately grateful for her presence, keeping the shadow boy from where he lurks behind his eyes.
"You can't sleep, either?" He asks. She just closes the door behind her and sits down, bundling herself up in the round plush fabric chair he had gotten for his thirteenth birthday, now much too small for him. She still fits, though, like a little bird in her nest.
"Why do you think Mother didn't come to the funeral?"
"I don't know," he shakes his head. "She didn't say. I would've thought she'd be the first one there, the way she's all about making appearances."
"She's got some luncheon or another tomorrow, doesn't she?"
"Something like that. One of those ridiculous society things. Like she's trying to convince the rest of the world our paper-thin noble heritage still has any meaning." Or convince herself.
"...But we're not nobility."
"No, but we used to be. Four or five generations ago, but someone died or remarried or something and it's long gone."
"I suppose it doesn't mean much anyway," Lucy twists a section of her hair, drops of water falling onto her blanket, "if you don't have any money to go with it."
Michael doesn't say anything to that, doesn't have the heart to tell her they once did, when she was too young to remember, before their father's incompetence and their mother's pretentiousness burned it all away.
They sit like that for a while, looking at separate nothings.
"I just don't get it," Michael sighs heavily. "He was her husband. Why wasn't she there with everyone else?"
"Who knows..."
He can feel the exhaustion taking him under again. Thank the lord.
"Go to bed, Lucy," he yawns. "I can barely keep my eyes open."
He hears her stand up and shuffle toward the door, only stopping for a moment.
"...I heard it, too."
He snaps awake, not daring to guess at what she's talking about.
"Heard...heard what?"
She doesn't answer.
And then the door closes and he lies awake again, afraid to close his eyes for fear of black and red lurking behind them.
~~~
Michael wakes up late the next day, again to the sight of Lucy standing above him, though this time she's not whacking him with an umbrella. She does yank his blanket off, though, which is a major problem, given that it's the middle of December. He flails around for a moment, trying to pull his pajama shirt straight after it had gotten twisted sometime in his sleep.
"Mfwha?" He tries again, swallowing before he talks. "What is it?"
"I have a doctor's appointment today."
The words land like a ball of lead on his chest. He'd forgotten all about it.
"Right." (God, it hasn't even been a whole day yet) "Okay, give me a few minutes to get dressed."
"Sure." She drops the blanket on the floor and leaves.
~~~
It's always painful to watch the needle when it first sticks under her skin. They have to use the veins on the back of her hand, since the ones on her arm won't show up. It's almost unnatural looking, too see such a vibrant red come from under her skin. She's so pale: skin like cream and hair like spiderwebs, shimmering white and very, very thin. Her eyes are an ice-blue, the sky above the snow, lighter than the deep rivers of blue-green so uncomfortably visible under her skin. She's so different from Michael, who has their mother's genes: curls that are yellow-gold instead of white, eyes green instead of blue, the cream of his skin mixed with peach. Rather plain, rather ordinary, not very memorable. Lucy is beautiful, in a ghostly sort of way.
No, ghostly is the wrong word. Or rather, it's the right word, but it's too right, so right it hurts.
They've taken two tubes so far and they're starting in on the third. God only knows why they need so much. Seeing all of that flow from her hand, a hand not too much longer than the needle and tube put together, makes him frightened, fills his mind with images of them bleeding her dry, draining the color from her until she's nothing but white, so she fades into the white of the walls, lost in the stagnant air of the hospital. He wants to snatch the needle away and say that's enough, she needs that blood more than you do. But instead he looks away, reminding himself that somehow this is supposed to help.
When the doctor comes back in and reads him the numbers, he chokes back a sob. They give him a copy, as though he wouldn't believe it if he didn't have a memento to keep with him. The chart looks like someone dragged their fingernails across it, with all the numbers that ought to be going up with all this medicine (white blood cell count, heart volume, hemoglobin level) instead dropping, then staying the same for just long enough to make him feel safe, then dropping again, like a silent killer descending the stairs one at a time, only coming closer when you forgot he was there.
It's the same disease their father had, but their father had at least lived long enough to have both of them. Lucy won't even get to stop being a child, let alone have any.
When he looks up at her, dreading what he'll see in her eyes, his train of thought stops dead when he finds nothing there. Not sadness, not anger, not regret, not even fear. He sees calm. He sees acceptance. He sees numbness.
And in the end, that's what makes him do it, because that acceptance, that resignation to the fact that she won't see her fifteenth birthday, is worse than anything else that could have been there, frozen in the ice.
~~~
Their mother is out, off on some weekend trip with her book club or something. Lucy is asleep, and has been for about an hour now. Michael...Michael has been doing research. He's gone to the store and bought a container of salt, a bar of soap, and some chalk, gone through his mother's jewelry box and borrowed a sterling silver brooch (it's a huge thing in the shape of a pair of wings), and gone through the hall closet until he found an emergency candle and lighter. The safety pin and paper he gets out of his desk. The lights have been off for well over an hour now. He's working by the moonlight coming in through the window, enough to see but not enough to see well.
He traces the edges of his window frame with the chalk, making sure there are no breaks in the line. It was damn expensive to get artist's chalk, but if he'd gotten the cheap kind there might be a break in the line, and that doesn't seem like a good idea at all. In the end, he has one line, smooth and straight, that turns at each corner until it makes a perfect square. That's the easy part.
He writes his name on the paper, slow and distinct, and takes the safety pin and wipes it with an alcohol pad he'd stolen from the hospital room. There's no need to be careless. He pricks his thumb, squeezes until a drop of red falls onto the paper, soaks through, leaving a red-brown blot next to the inky black of Michael Sutherland, and his hands begin to shake.
He puts the paper on the windowsill, the muscles in his stomach tightening and shaking, and then he takes his candle, lights it, and looks at his watch. Twenty seconds to midnight.
The longest nine seconds of his life follow, during which he tells himself it won't work, he's a fool for trying, he's far too old to believe in this, but it's still not too late to stop, not too late to just wipe the chalk off the wall and get rid of the paper, burn it and pour a ring of salt around his bed--
Eleven seconds to midnight. He raises the bar of soap in his hands, and starts to trace a very simple pentacle onto the window. He times it so the lines match up with the passing seconds, his eyes flicking like mad between the soap in his hand and the watch on his wrist.
Ten. It's not that hard, really, though his hands are shaking.
Nine. He hopes to god he doesn't wake anyone,
Eight. Doesn't make them wake up and leave their room and come looking for him,
Seven. And oh god what if Lucy came and opened his door and asked what was wrong,
Six. It might kill her from shock,
Five. But the soap isn't making any noise on the glass, so she won't hear,
Four. What if he were to just stop now, go to sleep and pour the salt in front of his window,
Three. But it's really too late to stop, isn't it?
Two. Because he's doing this for Lucy,
One. Because he can't stand to see her so comfortable with death.
Zero.
His hand lifts, the pentacle complete. He turns around and blows out his candle, plunging himself in darkness. Immediately, he reaches for the lighter and ignites it again, making sure to pick up the salt from where it rests by his bedside, setting the fingerprint-covered soap in its place.
He waits.
Nothing happens.
He curses, nearly sets the candle down, and catches himself. It's too early to call it a failure. So he waits a little longer. Just to be sure.
He walks slowly around the perimeter of his room, his stomach still trembling. He knows he's not supposed to stay in the same room for too long, but he's not playing by the usual rules. So he keeps circling, circling, eyes glued to the small flame before him. He had turned his space heater on hours ago, and the room is stifling now, but he just keeps walking. He looks at his watch now and again, not even considering stopping now, because he can't. It's already been put in motion.
When his watch says 12:14, and his back is to the window, the room temperature drops behind him, and a rush of cold air shoots up his back. It wraps around him and extinguishes the candle, plunging him into darkness. He wheels around and puts the brooch between his teeth, lighting the candle again before holding it with one hand and the silver with the other, steeling himself for the worst. He expected this, after all. The cold air, the candle going out, everything. He had come prepared.
He also expects to see the boy from the cemetery when he turns around, and he does. And in the moonlight streaming from behind him, he can see now that it is indeed a boy, smaller than he seemed in the rain (he doesn't even look to be Lucy's age), the black of his clothing draped about him like silk made from shadows, making his moon-white skin seem all the softer. A tilt of his head, a small movement of storm-grey hair, and Michael can see the gleam of an earring, which surprises him. He wonders what the boy looked like when he arrived, if he was all swirl and smoke, or perhaps he had come in some other form, a blackbird or a bat, a spider or a mouse. Now, he looks as though he has been sitting there quite some time, his legs not quite reaching to the wood floor beneath him. Michael realizes the cold air came from the open window behind him, steadily filling the room with the winter chill.
What he doesn't expect is the look in those eyes (both red now, red and blazing), not anger, not hunger, but something akin to contempt.
"I'll admit," he says, "I have never been called in this fashion before."
That makes Michael jump. His voice sounds so...normal. Condescending, sure, but still. He sounds like a teenage boy. He looks like a teenage boy (well, besides the eyes, both of which are very much red now). He's doing a pretty good job of acting like a teenage boy. This isn't what he bargained for in the slightest.
"You can turn the lights on, if you like."
"I'd rather not." Michael doesn't mean for his voice to shake like that, it just does.
"Hmm," the boy looks around the room, at the chalk and soap and candle and paper that has fallen to the floor, monochrome in the moonlight. "No wonder no one calls us, anymore...no one has any idea how to do it."
He doesn't know what to say to that. He just keeps the silver in front of him and the candle beside him, not daring to move.
"Either way," the boy gives a shrug and lets his head fall to one side. "I am going to presume you called me here for a reason. You must have had me in mind, or I never would have answered something this...trite." When Michael doesn't answer, he straightens his back and looks straight into his eyes, the contempt replaced with what looks like intrigue. "Is it thy wish to form a contract," his eyes flit down to the paper on the floor, drinking in the name before him, "...Michael Sutherland?"
This, Michael is ready for. "It is."
"And what are the terms of the contract you wish to create?"
"My sister," he whispers. "My sister, Lucy. Give her the life she deserves, not the one her disease has given her."
"You're going to have to do better than that."
"Make her illness go away, cure it completely," he's almost shouting now, "and just...let her live a long, happy life, free of its pain and weakness."
He nods once, as though he expected this (has he been watching me?). "Very well. In accepting this contract, you understand that from the moment this contract is sealed, your soul belongs to me, and I will collect it upon its completion. Until then, I will follow you constantly, day and night, and you will be unable to escape me, even if you should die."
"I understand."
Another smile, this one a little deadlier, a little more derisive.
"You also understand," the boy is laughing now, "that by making this contract, you irreversibly bar your soul from heaven?"
"Lucy deserves heaven. I don't."
"Very well," the boy nods, then moves as though he is about to step down from the windowsill.
Michael jumps. "What are you going to do?"
"Set the mark, the visual seal that binds the contract."
Michael sets the candle down on his desk, the weight of his actions coming down on him all at once. He is prepared to accept his death then and there, telling himself he deserves it for being stupid enough to do this in the first place. But true to his word, the boy just drops down from the windowsill (and through this Michael realizes how short he is, even in shoes with heels that clack against the wood floor) and walks forward slowly, fingers idly clasping as though they were used to holding something. The window shut behind him of its own accord, its wooden clack reminding Michael of just what he's gotten himself into (because he still can't believe it, not really). He keeps the brooch held out, but the boy just moves his hand away.
"Silver doesn't do anything, you know," the footsteps sound so much louder in the silence of midnight, "I know a demon who wore a silver pocket watch for years."
He doesn't know what to say to that, and he's too busy wondering just how many other demons he knows (and what they could do to him) to realize what's going on until suddenly his shirt is lifted and a small hand presses into his chest, right on his heart. He feels a sharp burn, just for a moment, and then it fades. The boy looks at the spot he just touched for a moment and then lowers his hand.
"A contract has been formed," he says. "And I will follow you until its terms are complete."
Michael tears his shirt off and looks down at the fading mark on his chest. It's a five-pointed star, tilted a bit, surrounded by a circle. It glows faintly on his skin before fading to a black mark. He'll have to be damn careful when he takes a shower.
"Is that all you request of me?" The boy asks.
"Just those terms are enough for me," Michael says. "I'm doing this for Lucy's sake."
The boy's grinning again. "Then, I suppose you ought to go to sleep. You must be exhausted."
"You won't do anything while I'm sleeping?"
"You're getting rather annoying, you know. Once the contract is set, I can't disobey it. Besides which, you'll find demons don't lie like you humans do."
"...Two more things."
"Alright."
"Was it you I saw in the cemetery?"
"Yes. However, the terms of a previous contract prevent me from telling you what I was doing, before you ask."
"Fair enough," he really is tired now, his eyes not wanting to stay open as he slips his shirt back on. "Second...what's your name?"
This grin cuts him to the core.
"You're supposed to give me one."
He's supposed to give him one. That...that's just too much for his exhausted mind to handle right now.
"...I'll do it tomorrow."
"Very well," the demon-boy-newfound owner of his soul goes and sits in Lucy's chair, leaning back idly like a king on his throne. He glances at the candle on his desk, and for a moment he looks haunted, somehow, like he isn't comfortable around fire. He takes the candlestick and blows the flame out, letting the curls of smoke brush over his winter-white face. When Michael tumbles onto his bed, not bothering with a blanket, the room is dark once more.
"I'll be here," the demon whispers.
He's still sitting there when Michael falls asleep.
---
Next chapter: We meet their mother, Ciel gets a new name, and Lucy gets some character depth beyond the sick little sister. -_-
...So this is gonna be a long, dark, twisted thing. Not to say I didn't enjoy every minute of it, of course. Full credit goes to goodbyemyheart for the name theme, but everything else in this monstrosity is mine.
Title: In Nomine
Series: Kuroshitsuji (Anime Canon)
Rating: R for violent imagery (no seriously)
Characters/Pairing: Anyone and everyone, including a couple of people I completely made up. Eventual SebaCiel, though.
Warnings: Contains Demon!CIel and a whole crapton of messed-up psychological goodness.
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters or ideas contained herein. I am not making any money from this.
Note: I took major liberties with the whole summoning thing (read: completely made it up). That said, don't summon demons at home, kids. It never gets you anywhere pleasant.
Also, Lucy has Plot Convenient Everything-Deficiency syndrome, meaning I'm not in any mood to do enough research to make it realistic.
---
Chapter One: In Nomine
Eyes the color of grass (or rather, the color the grass would have been if it weren't the dead of winter) slide open, blinking away the raindrops collecting on their short lashes. They don't want to stay open, but the rain commands that they process, signal, sound their alarms up the white cords into grey matter behind, making the boy who owned them wake up. They don't try very hard to accomplish this task, because the boy lets himself fall back against the stone behind him, wanting very much to fall asleep again.
That's when the umbrella strikes him in the stomach. It does the job better than the optic nerves ever could.
He jerks out of his slump and wipes the water from his eyes, trying to see his assailant. His eyes feel itchy and dry from the water, but he can make out a plain white dress, a silver hair ribbon, and the underside of a black umbrella above them both.
Oh.
"Michael?"
He blinks a few times and shakes his head. "What?"
"Michael, get up. I've been looking for you for hours." The umbrella pokes him again. "How did you manage to fall asleep here? Must have gotten lost or something... You're halfway across the cemetery from where everyone else was."
He tries to stand and finds his legs only somewhat willing to cooperate. In addition to the rainwater, he somehow has mud up to the knees of his trousers, perhaps from the way he was sitting, but he can't be sure because he doesn't remember how he fell asleep there, either. It's not exactly what is expected of someone at their father's funeral.
He jumps up suddenly.
"Oh my god, Lucy!" he shouts. "What are you doing out here? It's pouring! You could catch something!"
She gives him a very blank look. "You're the one with the car keys."
She's right, of course. She has a tendency to be right.
"Yes. Um. Let's...let's go home."
He takes the closed umbrella she had assaulted him with and opens it above his head (not that it does much good at this point). He shakes his hair out of his eyes, scattering drops that clung to the tips of waterlogged curls onto the inside of his umbrella. They make their way squelching out of the dirt until they get to the sidewalk, Lucy leading the way to the parking lot. Michael has no idea where they are, and he can hardly see for the darkness, so he follows her, matching her stride a couple of steps behind.
It's dark out, and Michael wonders how long he was asleep. He doesn't remember how he fell asleep there, or even how he got to where he was. He remembers slipping out of the crowd just as the formalities were done (someone had said something, a vague echo of "so hard for him" that gets fuzzy afterwards), and then walking for a while, and then he drew a blank. He supposes it must have been exhaustion; he hadn't slept well the night before, listening to his mother on the phone with relatives and friends and whoever else she talked to.
Everyone else at the funeral has probably gone to dinner at some aunt's house, Sunday tea and sandwiches or something equally heinous. They would no doubt want to craft a lovely bell jar of pity for the two of them, "the poor dears, losing their father at such an important time". He felt sick just thinking about it. Then again, for all he knows, they could be at home in bed by now. The sun sets so early this time of year, it's hard to tell.
They walk past a gazebo covered in ivy when he hears a downright weird noise from inside. It sounds...crunchy? Squishy? The words won't even come to him; he's never heard anything like it in his life. He stops, looking for the source. Lucy keeps going, apparently not having heard any of it. He hears it again (it sounds like squeezing? ripping?), but this time it's accompanied by the sound of a great deal of liquid being spilled, a heavier sort of splatter than the rain. He leans back to get a look inside the gazebo itself, and for a moment he swears he can see someone in there, sitting on the bench and doing...something...with a very large pile of indistinguishable matter on the table. It almost looks like they're trying to get something out of a large bag, but instead of unfastening it they're tearing it open, layer by layer.
Lucy turns to look at him, tilting her head in question.
"I think I dropped something," he lies, handing her the car keys, "you can go ahead and wait for me, it won't take long."
She looks at the car keys and then back up at him, head tilted to one side the way it always does when she teases him. "What if I drive off without you?"
"You won't," he stares at her with lowered eyebrows. "You don't even know how to drive yet. Just go." He waves her toward the gate. She turns and walks away with a murmured "of course" that he can only just hear over the rain.
He takes a step towards the stone half-building and tries to peer through the raindrops at the now somewhat still figure inside. He can hear a weird sort of sloshing noise now, and not a very comforting one, and then all at once whoever it is sits up and lifts something into the air. Michael is close enough now to realize two things, and they make the bottom of his stomach drop clean out.
One, the person sitting at the table is a child that can't possibly be any older than Lucy.
Two, the thing they have lifted into the air is a human arm, one that is much too big and at too strange an angle to be their own.
He wants to look closer in the hopes that he has simply misunderstood all of the noises, wants to reassure himself, but at the same time he's afraid that if he looks, he won't see reassurance, but confirmation.
A gleam of light glides between the pillars, headlights from a car that is pulling out of the parking lot, and he sees eyes. Violet and red and terrifying. The rest of the face is swathed in shadow or washed out by light and for the briefest moment, he can at least tell it's a boy. Probably. He can't really think too hard about it because his vision jumps from the red violet gleaming horror of his eyes to the red slick glistening horror that covers his mouth. The boy moves his head down as the car moves on, and he sees nothing but shadows again. He doesn't think he's been spotted, which makes him feel secure for reasons he doesn't want to fathom.
Then the boy's head moves back up, slowly away from the arm beneath it, and he hears another terrible rip followed by what can only be described as chewing.
He runs towards the parking lot before the images can catch up to his brain, then stumbles and vomits onto the ground beside him when they do. his umbrella dropping to the ground. He forgets it, runs again, keeps going until he gets to the car and puts in a flashbulb techno CD, trying to let the music pound the noises out of his ears.
He looks at the clock (12:19 AM) and takes a few deep breaths to calm himself down, but it doesn't work and he coughs and retches and has to open the car door so he doesn't ruin the seats.
"...Are you alright?" Lucy's voice is quiet, squeaky.
"Yeah," he takes a swig of the coffee from this morning (cold from sitting in the cup holder all day) and spits it onto the ground. The taste is still unpleasant, but less so than before. "Yeah, just...must have overdone it or something."
He tries to give her a reassuring smile, but it falters when he sees her, hands over her mouth, trembling.
"What about you?"
"I..." her voice shakes, and she covers her mouth again.
"Oh, god, you must have exhausted yourself looking for me." He rests his head against the steering wheel for a moment. "Let's just go home."
They spend the rest of the ride in silence, and it takes all of Michael's concentration just to keep his eyes on the road.
~~~
They get home at one in the morning, and by then the rain has stopped. He changes his clothes and takes a shower (noting that he somehow got mud on his sleeves, too), and the whole time he plays music. Soft music, so as not to wake their mother, but music engaging enough to keep the sounds from his mind, even if the images won't leave. He must have hallucinated it, he reasons, because things like that, things that sit in the cemetery at midnight and have eyes that glow and teeth like knives (because there must have been teeth that sharp to make that sound oh god he's going to be sick again but there's nothing left), they just don't exist.
He can't get to sleep, not for a long while, and when he hears a knock on his door he just about jumps out of his skin.
It's Lucy, wrapped in a blanket with her hair still wet. Her nightgown reaches almost to the floor past the blanket (it hasn't reached past her knees for a good seven years), and the water in her hair catches the moonlight, making her glow like something from a Dickens novel.
"Are you alright? I heard you when you were brushing your teeth..." She half-whispers. He ought to tell her to go to bed, but he is desperately grateful for her presence, keeping the shadow boy from where he lurks behind his eyes.
"You can't sleep, either?" He asks. She just closes the door behind her and sits down, bundling herself up in the round plush fabric chair he had gotten for his thirteenth birthday, now much too small for him. She still fits, though, like a little bird in her nest.
"Why do you think Mother didn't come to the funeral?"
"I don't know," he shakes his head. "She didn't say. I would've thought she'd be the first one there, the way she's all about making appearances."
"She's got some luncheon or another tomorrow, doesn't she?"
"Something like that. One of those ridiculous society things. Like she's trying to convince the rest of the world our paper-thin noble heritage still has any meaning." Or convince herself.
"...But we're not nobility."
"No, but we used to be. Four or five generations ago, but someone died or remarried or something and it's long gone."
"I suppose it doesn't mean much anyway," Lucy twists a section of her hair, drops of water falling onto her blanket, "if you don't have any money to go with it."
Michael doesn't say anything to that, doesn't have the heart to tell her they once did, when she was too young to remember, before their father's incompetence and their mother's pretentiousness burned it all away.
They sit like that for a while, looking at separate nothings.
"I just don't get it," Michael sighs heavily. "He was her husband. Why wasn't she there with everyone else?"
"Who knows..."
He can feel the exhaustion taking him under again. Thank the lord.
"Go to bed, Lucy," he yawns. "I can barely keep my eyes open."
He hears her stand up and shuffle toward the door, only stopping for a moment.
"...I heard it, too."
He snaps awake, not daring to guess at what she's talking about.
"Heard...heard what?"
She doesn't answer.
And then the door closes and he lies awake again, afraid to close his eyes for fear of black and red lurking behind them.
~~~
Michael wakes up late the next day, again to the sight of Lucy standing above him, though this time she's not whacking him with an umbrella. She does yank his blanket off, though, which is a major problem, given that it's the middle of December. He flails around for a moment, trying to pull his pajama shirt straight after it had gotten twisted sometime in his sleep.
"Mfwha?" He tries again, swallowing before he talks. "What is it?"
"I have a doctor's appointment today."
The words land like a ball of lead on his chest. He'd forgotten all about it.
"Right." (God, it hasn't even been a whole day yet) "Okay, give me a few minutes to get dressed."
"Sure." She drops the blanket on the floor and leaves.
~~~
It's always painful to watch the needle when it first sticks under her skin. They have to use the veins on the back of her hand, since the ones on her arm won't show up. It's almost unnatural looking, too see such a vibrant red come from under her skin. She's so pale: skin like cream and hair like spiderwebs, shimmering white and very, very thin. Her eyes are an ice-blue, the sky above the snow, lighter than the deep rivers of blue-green so uncomfortably visible under her skin. She's so different from Michael, who has their mother's genes: curls that are yellow-gold instead of white, eyes green instead of blue, the cream of his skin mixed with peach. Rather plain, rather ordinary, not very memorable. Lucy is beautiful, in a ghostly sort of way.
No, ghostly is the wrong word. Or rather, it's the right word, but it's too right, so right it hurts.
They've taken two tubes so far and they're starting in on the third. God only knows why they need so much. Seeing all of that flow from her hand, a hand not too much longer than the needle and tube put together, makes him frightened, fills his mind with images of them bleeding her dry, draining the color from her until she's nothing but white, so she fades into the white of the walls, lost in the stagnant air of the hospital. He wants to snatch the needle away and say that's enough, she needs that blood more than you do. But instead he looks away, reminding himself that somehow this is supposed to help.
When the doctor comes back in and reads him the numbers, he chokes back a sob. They give him a copy, as though he wouldn't believe it if he didn't have a memento to keep with him. The chart looks like someone dragged their fingernails across it, with all the numbers that ought to be going up with all this medicine (white blood cell count, heart volume, hemoglobin level) instead dropping, then staying the same for just long enough to make him feel safe, then dropping again, like a silent killer descending the stairs one at a time, only coming closer when you forgot he was there.
It's the same disease their father had, but their father had at least lived long enough to have both of them. Lucy won't even get to stop being a child, let alone have any.
When he looks up at her, dreading what he'll see in her eyes, his train of thought stops dead when he finds nothing there. Not sadness, not anger, not regret, not even fear. He sees calm. He sees acceptance. He sees numbness.
And in the end, that's what makes him do it, because that acceptance, that resignation to the fact that she won't see her fifteenth birthday, is worse than anything else that could have been there, frozen in the ice.
~~~
Their mother is out, off on some weekend trip with her book club or something. Lucy is asleep, and has been for about an hour now. Michael...Michael has been doing research. He's gone to the store and bought a container of salt, a bar of soap, and some chalk, gone through his mother's jewelry box and borrowed a sterling silver brooch (it's a huge thing in the shape of a pair of wings), and gone through the hall closet until he found an emergency candle and lighter. The safety pin and paper he gets out of his desk. The lights have been off for well over an hour now. He's working by the moonlight coming in through the window, enough to see but not enough to see well.
He traces the edges of his window frame with the chalk, making sure there are no breaks in the line. It was damn expensive to get artist's chalk, but if he'd gotten the cheap kind there might be a break in the line, and that doesn't seem like a good idea at all. In the end, he has one line, smooth and straight, that turns at each corner until it makes a perfect square. That's the easy part.
He writes his name on the paper, slow and distinct, and takes the safety pin and wipes it with an alcohol pad he'd stolen from the hospital room. There's no need to be careless. He pricks his thumb, squeezes until a drop of red falls onto the paper, soaks through, leaving a red-brown blot next to the inky black of Michael Sutherland, and his hands begin to shake.
He puts the paper on the windowsill, the muscles in his stomach tightening and shaking, and then he takes his candle, lights it, and looks at his watch. Twenty seconds to midnight.
The longest nine seconds of his life follow, during which he tells himself it won't work, he's a fool for trying, he's far too old to believe in this, but it's still not too late to stop, not too late to just wipe the chalk off the wall and get rid of the paper, burn it and pour a ring of salt around his bed--
Eleven seconds to midnight. He raises the bar of soap in his hands, and starts to trace a very simple pentacle onto the window. He times it so the lines match up with the passing seconds, his eyes flicking like mad between the soap in his hand and the watch on his wrist.
Ten. It's not that hard, really, though his hands are shaking.
Nine. He hopes to god he doesn't wake anyone,
Eight. Doesn't make them wake up and leave their room and come looking for him,
Seven. And oh god what if Lucy came and opened his door and asked what was wrong,
Six. It might kill her from shock,
Five. But the soap isn't making any noise on the glass, so she won't hear,
Four. What if he were to just stop now, go to sleep and pour the salt in front of his window,
Three. But it's really too late to stop, isn't it?
Two. Because he's doing this for Lucy,
One. Because he can't stand to see her so comfortable with death.
Zero.
His hand lifts, the pentacle complete. He turns around and blows out his candle, plunging himself in darkness. Immediately, he reaches for the lighter and ignites it again, making sure to pick up the salt from where it rests by his bedside, setting the fingerprint-covered soap in its place.
He waits.
Nothing happens.
He curses, nearly sets the candle down, and catches himself. It's too early to call it a failure. So he waits a little longer. Just to be sure.
He walks slowly around the perimeter of his room, his stomach still trembling. He knows he's not supposed to stay in the same room for too long, but he's not playing by the usual rules. So he keeps circling, circling, eyes glued to the small flame before him. He had turned his space heater on hours ago, and the room is stifling now, but he just keeps walking. He looks at his watch now and again, not even considering stopping now, because he can't. It's already been put in motion.
When his watch says 12:14, and his back is to the window, the room temperature drops behind him, and a rush of cold air shoots up his back. It wraps around him and extinguishes the candle, plunging him into darkness. He wheels around and puts the brooch between his teeth, lighting the candle again before holding it with one hand and the silver with the other, steeling himself for the worst. He expected this, after all. The cold air, the candle going out, everything. He had come prepared.
He also expects to see the boy from the cemetery when he turns around, and he does. And in the moonlight streaming from behind him, he can see now that it is indeed a boy, smaller than he seemed in the rain (he doesn't even look to be Lucy's age), the black of his clothing draped about him like silk made from shadows, making his moon-white skin seem all the softer. A tilt of his head, a small movement of storm-grey hair, and Michael can see the gleam of an earring, which surprises him. He wonders what the boy looked like when he arrived, if he was all swirl and smoke, or perhaps he had come in some other form, a blackbird or a bat, a spider or a mouse. Now, he looks as though he has been sitting there quite some time, his legs not quite reaching to the wood floor beneath him. Michael realizes the cold air came from the open window behind him, steadily filling the room with the winter chill.
What he doesn't expect is the look in those eyes (both red now, red and blazing), not anger, not hunger, but something akin to contempt.
"I'll admit," he says, "I have never been called in this fashion before."
That makes Michael jump. His voice sounds so...normal. Condescending, sure, but still. He sounds like a teenage boy. He looks like a teenage boy (well, besides the eyes, both of which are very much red now). He's doing a pretty good job of acting like a teenage boy. This isn't what he bargained for in the slightest.
"You can turn the lights on, if you like."
"I'd rather not." Michael doesn't mean for his voice to shake like that, it just does.
"Hmm," the boy looks around the room, at the chalk and soap and candle and paper that has fallen to the floor, monochrome in the moonlight. "No wonder no one calls us, anymore...no one has any idea how to do it."
He doesn't know what to say to that. He just keeps the silver in front of him and the candle beside him, not daring to move.
"Either way," the boy gives a shrug and lets his head fall to one side. "I am going to presume you called me here for a reason. You must have had me in mind, or I never would have answered something this...trite." When Michael doesn't answer, he straightens his back and looks straight into his eyes, the contempt replaced with what looks like intrigue. "Is it thy wish to form a contract," his eyes flit down to the paper on the floor, drinking in the name before him, "...Michael Sutherland?"
This, Michael is ready for. "It is."
"And what are the terms of the contract you wish to create?"
"My sister," he whispers. "My sister, Lucy. Give her the life she deserves, not the one her disease has given her."
"You're going to have to do better than that."
"Make her illness go away, cure it completely," he's almost shouting now, "and just...let her live a long, happy life, free of its pain and weakness."
He nods once, as though he expected this (has he been watching me?). "Very well. In accepting this contract, you understand that from the moment this contract is sealed, your soul belongs to me, and I will collect it upon its completion. Until then, I will follow you constantly, day and night, and you will be unable to escape me, even if you should die."
"I understand."
Another smile, this one a little deadlier, a little more derisive.
"You also understand," the boy is laughing now, "that by making this contract, you irreversibly bar your soul from heaven?"
"Lucy deserves heaven. I don't."
"Very well," the boy nods, then moves as though he is about to step down from the windowsill.
Michael jumps. "What are you going to do?"
"Set the mark, the visual seal that binds the contract."
Michael sets the candle down on his desk, the weight of his actions coming down on him all at once. He is prepared to accept his death then and there, telling himself he deserves it for being stupid enough to do this in the first place. But true to his word, the boy just drops down from the windowsill (and through this Michael realizes how short he is, even in shoes with heels that clack against the wood floor) and walks forward slowly, fingers idly clasping as though they were used to holding something. The window shut behind him of its own accord, its wooden clack reminding Michael of just what he's gotten himself into (because he still can't believe it, not really). He keeps the brooch held out, but the boy just moves his hand away.
"Silver doesn't do anything, you know," the footsteps sound so much louder in the silence of midnight, "I know a demon who wore a silver pocket watch for years."
He doesn't know what to say to that, and he's too busy wondering just how many other demons he knows (and what they could do to him) to realize what's going on until suddenly his shirt is lifted and a small hand presses into his chest, right on his heart. He feels a sharp burn, just for a moment, and then it fades. The boy looks at the spot he just touched for a moment and then lowers his hand.
"A contract has been formed," he says. "And I will follow you until its terms are complete."
Michael tears his shirt off and looks down at the fading mark on his chest. It's a five-pointed star, tilted a bit, surrounded by a circle. It glows faintly on his skin before fading to a black mark. He'll have to be damn careful when he takes a shower.
"Is that all you request of me?" The boy asks.
"Just those terms are enough for me," Michael says. "I'm doing this for Lucy's sake."
The boy's grinning again. "Then, I suppose you ought to go to sleep. You must be exhausted."
"You won't do anything while I'm sleeping?"
"You're getting rather annoying, you know. Once the contract is set, I can't disobey it. Besides which, you'll find demons don't lie like you humans do."
"...Two more things."
"Alright."
"Was it you I saw in the cemetery?"
"Yes. However, the terms of a previous contract prevent me from telling you what I was doing, before you ask."
"Fair enough," he really is tired now, his eyes not wanting to stay open as he slips his shirt back on. "Second...what's your name?"
This grin cuts him to the core.
"You're supposed to give me one."
He's supposed to give him one. That...that's just too much for his exhausted mind to handle right now.
"...I'll do it tomorrow."
"Very well," the demon-boy-newfound owner of his soul goes and sits in Lucy's chair, leaning back idly like a king on his throne. He glances at the candle on his desk, and for a moment he looks haunted, somehow, like he isn't comfortable around fire. He takes the candlestick and blows the flame out, letting the curls of smoke brush over his winter-white face. When Michael tumbles onto his bed, not bothering with a blanket, the room is dark once more.
"I'll be here," the demon whispers.
He's still sitting there when Michael falls asleep.
---
Next chapter: We meet their mother, Ciel gets a new name, and Lucy gets some character depth beyond the sick little sister. -_-