Work Text:
The first time Sebastian visited Elizabeth alone, she was seventeen years old, it was the day after Ciel’s death, and Elizabeth hadn’t found out yet.
It was Sebastian himself who informed her; he found her practicing her fencing by herself, and, still in the form of the Phantomhive Butler, he stopped her forward-placed blade with a touch and held her inquisitive look for a moment too long. His own face was expressionless, an even look he usually reserved for assessing Ciel’s fits of temper… or for bad news.
She lowered her swords, worry beginning to creep up into her chest. Ciel wasn’t with him, she noticed, and the pin of the head butler was gone from his chest.
“Sebastian,” she asked cautiously, “is something wrong with Ciel?”
For a moment, he held her gaze in silence- and then he let go of her sword and bowed deeply to her, hand over his heart.
The worry turned to ice in her chest.
(She was seventeen, and to her mother’s disapproval, she and Ciel had married three months before. She knew why, too.)
“I offer you my condolences,” the demon once called Sebastian said, not rising from his bow. “The young master passed not quite sixteen hours ago. He asked me to pass along his apologies and his love.”
Elizabeth paused, wide green eyes fixed on Sebastian. One heartbeat passed, thudding loud in her ears, and a deep breath with it. And then two, and three. And then tears rose to her eyes, and a snarl to her face, and she lashed out with the swords still in her hands.
Sebastian let the first blow fall, a slash across his chest as he hastily straightened, and the second, a stab through his side. And then he began to move, deflecting and dodging each blow as her anger and grief roared through her. His expression never changed.
Ciel was dead. Sebastian was intact. He’d let her land two blows, and- and Sebastian had eaten Ciel. Sebastian had killed Ciel.
She didn’t speak, not until she had cornered Sebastian in the room and he let her pin him to the wall, her sword point at his neck and her own throat burning.
“You ate my fiancé,” she hissed at him, hot tears running down her cheeks and breath coming in pants. (And the word came naturally- Ciel had been her fiancé her whole life and, funnily enough, three months of marriage hadn’t changed that.)
Sebastian, red eyes still unlit and almost human, didn’t deny it. He didn’t smirk either, or attempt to move away. To anyone else, he would have looked aloof, unconcerned.
(Elizabeth had known him for years. She knew better.)
Instead, slowly, he reached into his pocket and pulled out two rings. She recognized them easily - one was the signet ring, with the Phantomhive crest, and the other was the blue diamond ring worn by the heads of the Phantomhive family.
Her breath hitched, and Sebastian did not comment. He reached out and gently disarmed the hand she wasn’t using to threaten him, and then turned it over and pressed the rings into it.
“These are yours now,” he said quietly. “Countess Phantomhive.”
And then he disappeared, too fast for her eyes to follow, leaving her pointing her sword at nothing.
She curled her hand around the rings in her left hand, clutched them to her chest, crumpled to the ground, and cried. Her remaining sword clanged to the ground.
She didn’t expect to see Sebastian again, after that. He appeared once more, but not to her - to the Phantomhive servants the day after Ciel’s funeral, to announce his resignation in the wake of Ciel’s death.
The servants had cried, she knew, but they had understood too. They had all been close to Ciel, but Sebastian had been closest. (Her chest burned with bitterness.)
She kept them all on, of course - she’d grown attached to them too, and Ciel would have wanted it. Tanaka, weary but determined, had returned once again to the position of head butler, and Paula stayed her personal attendant but helped Tanaka where she could. Elizabeth thought about hiring someone for the position - Tanaka really was far too old for it - but the Phantomhive servants were a close-knit group and a stranger used to more formal structures or safe histories could ruin everything.
(The thought of Sebastian made her throat tighten in anger and grief, but it wasn’t that easy. Despite Ciel’s death, Sebastian had still been a dependable and loyal member of the family for years, and much of Lizzy still thought of him that way. She couldn’t even call it a betrayal, not really – not when Ciel had agreed to die years ago and not wavered in his decision since.)
So she kept them on, took Snake or Finny with her on the Watchdog missions which were now her sole responsibility, mourned, and adapted. She wore a ribbon in her hair again, for the first time in years - a black one she kept in at all times.
At home, Elizabeth had gone quiet. She knew it was worrying the others, even as they were all mourning, but she didn’t know what else to do. She kept herself busy, learning Funtom inside and out, and taking every task the Queen set with fervor and determination.
Eventually, she started to notice patterns, overlaps of the supernatural into her work for the Queen. Ghosts that weren’t harnessed into use by serial killers but instead kept to their own patterns; black-eyed beings outside of those who kidnapped children; and whispers – whispers of Lilith and Lucifer and the apocalypse. Fueled by an inner, driving fire, she started to put in extra work - there were more strange deaths than the Queen asked her to fix and she had resources and time to spare.
(“Back away, darling,” said a man in an innocuous suit, giving her a disapproving and unimpressed look. “This is our job, and we’ve been doing it far longer than you have.”
Elizabeth offered a soft and disarming smile, feeling every inch of the dirt on her clothes and the scrapes on her arms and legs, and asked, “And who would you be?”
“The Men of Letters,” he said, pleasure and arrogance both clear in his voice. “I don’t expect you know of us.”
“Well,” she said sweetly, green eyes glittering, “I am the Queen’s Watchdog, the Countess of Phantomhive, and if I see a threat to her or her people, it is my job to do away with it. Good day to you, sir.”
“You don’t know what you’re getting into,” he told her, and she ignored him.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t heard that before.)
Inch by inch, she made herself a part of the Hunting community, exploring the sudden rash of storms and angels and demons just the same as any of them.
Six months after she started, fourteen after the last time she saw Sebastian, she found herself up against a crossroads demon and desperately trying to remember the last line of the exorcism she was so sure she’d memorized.
But it was already too late, and her anger had burned through her until she’d nearly burnt out, and she closed her eyes, braced herself, and felt her head hit the wall before she passed out.
And then she woke up, and found herself staring into nearly-human red eyes she thought had left long ago.
“You ate my fiancé,” she said without thinking, staring at him, blank and dazed and confused.
Sebastian gave a long-suffering sigh, and then apparently decided to disregard the remark. “You were quite reckless last night, my lady. You shouldn’t go up against a demon underprepared – particularly not in these times.”
She scowled faintly, still confused. “Why aren’t I dead?”
“Is that what you wanted to happen?” he asked mildly, and she looked away.
No. No, it wasn’t, but she hadn’t been trying hard not to let it, either- not at the rate she had been going. She still felt the ache in her whole body, not just from injuries, but from exhaustion and overwork.
Sebastian seemed to take her silence as an answer and turned away, bending down to get something. Elizabeth pushed herself up in- her own bed, she registered, and kept a wary eye on Sebastian.
Why can’t I be afraid of you? she asked silently. And why are you here?
Why had he saved her?
When he rose again, he was holding a pair of swords - shimmering a faintly ethereal silver, carved up and down with etched runes and spells, and an ornate hilt, shimmering with tiny studs of jet, onyx, and bloodstone set in waving lines.
“A gift,” Sebastian said, and smirked at Elizabeth, who frowned at him. “For my reckless lady. These swords ought to kill anything, up to including demons - those less powerful than myself, I mean.” His eyes glimmered crimson, and his smirk widened. “Keep them with you, and you shan’t find yourself in such a terrible situation again.”
Elizabeth reached for them, picking one up and weighing it cautiously. It felt perfectly balanced in her hand, not too heavy, not too light.
“I didn’t mean to get hurt like that,” she said at last, without looking up. “I just- miss him. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Humans are often foolish in the wake of grief,” Sebastian acknowledged.
“Are demons, too?” she asked, quiet and contemplative, but Sebastian did not answer her.
When she looked back at Sebastian, he was gone. She blinked, and then sighed, muscles loosening.
“I don’t understand you,” she murmured to the absent demon, and then someone knocked on the door, and a moment later Paula came almost spilling in, wild and worried.
She felt herself smile faintly, put the sword back down, and promised herself to let up. She had people who needed her, still, and more work yet to do.
When Elizabeth had been hunting for a year and a half, she started looking into wards. Nothing had followed her home, not yet, but she knew that if she kept this up, she’d start to draw attention soon.
The Phantomhive Manor, she’d learned, had an extensive collection of very old books, many of them dedicated or related to the supernatural. It seemed she wasn’t the first to notice the supernatural things tangled in the underworld – or the first to be contacted by the Men of Letters.
She looked through these and learned: Phantomhive Manor had once been one of the most well-warded placed in the world. It would take, likely, years to bring it up to the level it had once been at.
Elizabeth would make sure it did.
She looked through book after book of spells and wards, performing what ones she could - which was quite a lot. After all, she had wealth, and influence, and many, many underworld contacts. There were few things she could not obtain. (She was sure that, if he were prone to such, Lau would have started asking funny questions a long time ago. Luckily, he was more interested in laughing over them than anything else.)
(“Something new to worry about, miss?” Bard asked around a cigarette, brow cocked, watching her perform another spell on the table.
Elizabeth nodded, shooting him a small and grateful smile. “I’ll tell you and the others about it soon,” she promised. “It’s just a bit complicated.”)
It was a surprise, then, to look up and see Sebastian, standing in front of her with his hands clasped formally behind his back.
“You ate my fiancé,” she said flatly, unamused by his presence.
“Lady Elizabeth, please stop saying that every time you see me,” Sebastian requested, pained, and she almost laughed.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, resigned, letting her cheek fall into her hand. She doubted she would ever be able to keep him out - she suspected, now, that even among demons, Sebastian was in a class of his own. “For that matter, how should I even address you?”
“I have continued to go by Sebastian,” he said, as lightly as if it held no meaning. (This, too, Elizabeth doubted. Sebastian was old. He had likely taken many names before. “And I have a gift for you.”
Despite herself, she felt her interest pique. The twin swords he had gifted her before had been invaluable - they were reliable, never broke, never dulled, and she had not yet encountered something they failed to harm. It cut quite a lot of the work out of hunting.
“...What is it?” she asked at last. And what will it cost me?
“A number,” Sebastian said simply, and placed a small piece of paper, containing a number and a name, in front of her.
Her eyebrows rose, and she picked it up, curious. “Is it yours?” she asked wryly, already knowing the answer as she glanced down. Sebastian chuckled.
“Not quite, my lady. But I think you’ll find it useful.”
“Cryptic devil,” she sighed, and he smirked. “Should I consider this a favor, then? For you to collect one day?”
Sebastian’s expression smoothed out, and Elizabeth caught the faintest wisps of pensiveness in it. “No, my lady. It is, as I said, a gift.”
“Why are you being kind to me, Sebastian?” she asked, unable to swallow the sudden bitter taste in her throat. “What are you getting out of it?”
Sebastian’s mouth pulled into a faint grimace, near-human eyes shifting into uncertainty, and then, with one last shallow bow, he vanished before her eyes.
She sighed, and looked back down.
Bobby Singer.
Who was Bobby Singer?
The fourth time Sebastian visited her, it almost wasn’t a surprise.
She was twenty by then, and well settled into all of her jobs. She’d processed most of her grief (though she still wore the black ribbon in her hair) and she’d been smiling more and more as time passed.
There was one problem.
Tanaka, now over seventy years old, had been ill lately. It wasn’t his fault, of course – he was old, and the job he’d been taking on was a large and stressful one. The other servants had taken on what tasks they could – Bard was more proactive about making meals (and much better at it, now, than he had been years ago) and Finny did what he will with the garden, needing only notice about guests. Mey-Rin, still clumsy but more careful, set the table without prompting and double-checked everything she does with up-to-date glasses. And Paula did as much of the management as she was able (much more now that Elizabeth didn’t need as much tending.)
Still, it was not enough, and Tanaka was only growing weaker. Elizabeth had begun looking through recommendations and referrals, because she knew already that there was only one potential solution to this problem.
Elizabeth looked up from going through this paperwork, humming quietly to herself, and then put it down.
There was Sebastian once again, looking precisely the same as he always has, smirking slightly with that glint of arrogance that said that he knew something that she did not.
“You ate my fiancé,” she said, just to annoy him.
“Lady Elizabeth, please stop this,” Sebastian huffed, smirk disappearing.
She hummed. “What brings you here?” she asked, cutting straight to the point.
He looked almost startled for a moment, and then eyed her speculatively and smiled a little, demeanor lightening again. “There is a being I know of who might be of use to you,” he said at last, red eyes dancing in amusement. “Getting to him will be no easy task, mind you- but on this one occasion, I would be willing to help.”
Elizabeth took in a sharp breath, startled. This was no small thing, she knew; despite his odd behavior, Sebastian had no obligations to her at all, save perhaps some lingering guilt and what loyalty to Ciel he still had in him, after six years in the boy’s service.
What was Sebastian getting at, that he would be willing to put so much effort into this?
She almost asked. But she wanted to know too much to do that.
“I’ll get my good swords,” she said, and he smirked, eyes lighting up scarlet for just a moment.
“Most excellent, my lady.”
(Eight hours later, Sebastian pinned a man to the wall of his own small manor, and Elizabeth swiftly made her way past to the cell she could see and the trembling man curled up within.
She sheathed her swords and crouched down in front of him. She met his eyes, feeling faint disgust and resentment curl in her chest at his obvious terror and the bloody stitches keeping his mouth shut tight, and then she took a breath and let the feelings pass.
Elizabeth smiled, bright and reassuring. “Your name is Gabriel, isn’t it?” she coaxed, reaching for the key Sebastian had stolen off Asmodeus. “I’m Lady Phantomhive. It’s time we get you out of here.”)