Chapter Text
They were bored.
That was not unusual, here in Hell.
The suffocating presence of thousands upon thousands of tortured and fading souls was monotonous now, as it had been for centuries. Even the occasional visits other demons made to their lair — either for social calls or to issue challenges — had grown dull to them. There was, perhaps, a gnawing hunger nestled deep in their incorporeal gut if they dared to acknowledge it, but it was irrelevant.
Then again, what was relevant anymore?
On many days, especially the limited ones where they could be bothered to parse one from the next, they cursed their immortal existence. While some humans chased fleeting glimpses of immortality until they were head and shoulders beneath the dirt, they had always thought it was something they would not wish upon their worst enemy.
Immortality was, as they expected it to be, oh-so-lonely, particularly when one was between contracts. Alas, here they were.
It was not as if they had a choice in the matter, yet… accepting a contract was an idea. They had ignored the last few calls, wanting to destress after a… trying time in Austria, but after a decades long nap and some time spent lazing about their lair, they recalled how dull Hell was. Earth was ever evolving, yet Hell — even after millenia — was perpetually in stasis. The window dressing may change, but even then, only for a select few.
It was incredibly difficult to smuggle in objects from the human world. Stolas had his books, true, but the viewing toll was—
They felt a tug. Brief, fractic, on their core.
They tilted their head. The tug returned, stronger this time and tinted with the taste of blood.
They did not usually condone blood sacrifice, but they considered. It would kill time, and they didn't have to like their future meal, only tolerate them.
The smell of the prospective contractor's soul came in, sickeningly sweet with an odd richness and sour undercurrent that left their tongue burning. Their stomach churned, and they remembered that they hadn't eaten in some time.
And in Britain, too? They hadn't been since— ah, well, it should be scenic, if nothing else.
With that, the demon tugged back and dissolved into shadows.
There was a boy in a cage, screaming his throat raw. That was the first thing the demon noticed upon materializing in the human world, though they tore their gaze away before it could settle. A trickling of deja vu nibbled at the back of their mind as they saw rows upon rows of men and women in black butterfly masks nestled in circling tiered desks around the altar.
And the altar, oh, the altar.
Upon it was splayed a boy near identical to the one in the cage, excepting the knife in his chest and the blood cradling him.
Ah. The boy did not make the sacrifice himself, then, even if the conditions were ultimately satisfied. They turned away.
"Who was it that summoned me?" the demon rasped, eyes barely corporeal raking over the inhabitants of the room. They knew the answer, yet…
"D-d-demon!"
"Pick me, pick me!"
The ones speaking were the lowest of the low, their souls not even holding the potential satisfaction of a stale potato chip.
"You may have driven in the knife, but it's not you," the demon said, swiftly crushing the man at the altar's skull with a clawed hand.
A woman shrieked, and some of the masked adults ran for the door. With a snap of the demon's fingers, those doors sealed shut in an instant, melting into their stone frames.
"Oh, and I thought we were getting along so well… but no, it's not any of you either." With that, the demon killed those fleeing in a shower of blood and viscera.
"A-ah… choose me, please?" a man in the stands squeaked.
"I'll pay you!" shouted another.
"Immortality, give it to me!"
If the demon had lungs, they would sigh. "No… none of you, either."
The three died much like the last, and the demon, the swarm of shadows that they were, turned back to the still-living boy.
"You. Yes, you called me."
The boy started, looking up to the demon with wide blue eyes like cut sapphires. He was all skin and bones with limp dark hair, and that sense of deja vu further gnawed at the demon.
The boy threw himself away from the demon, his back slamming against the bars of his cage. "I-I didn't call anything like you!"
"But of course you did," the demon replied, their shadows snaking their way around the bars of the cage (the demon did not like the cage, not at all). "You who spit upon God, cursing the world. In return for the soul of your kin, you gained the right to have your wish granted."
"Ciel's— his soul?! Demon, where is it!"
"My my, so demanding already," the demon mused, an edge of humor in their voice. "His soul was used to pay the river's toll, to allow my passing into the mortal realm. The fact that you sacrificed it to summon me will not change for all eternity. Consequently, the paid sacrifice is gone for all eternity."
"Y-you're lying! You have to be. Give Ciel back!" the child screeched, voice raw and cracking. "I didn't wish for Ciel to die!"
The demon felt… bad for the child. Just a little, in their cold, dead heart. The death of a sibling— no. It didn't matter. They needed a meal and, perhaps, a contract.
Still, why did that name seem oh-so-familiar?
"No, you wished for the deaths of your captors. Your brother, unfortunately, ended up being collateral," the demon said, voice cool. "However, whether you enter a contract with me to seek out your wish is entirely up to you. Regardless, there's no going back."
The boy paused, emotions flashing over his gaunt face. After a long, quiet minute, silence only occasionally broken by the heavy, wheezing breaths of dying cultists, he spoke. "Aren't they… already dead? Is this all you can do for me?"
"No, little lord," the demon said, chuckling. And why did that form of address fit so well? "Else I would not offer a contract. For your soul, I can grant your wildest dreams. Now… Choose."
The demon fell into a mocking bow, and the boy gulped.
"Power," the boy said, crisp and clear. "I want power… I want the power to take revenge on everyone who did this to us — not just those present here!"
The boy was screaming now, and the demon licked their lips. That determination, the ability to reach towards the depths of Hell for salvation and the sake of a truly selfish goal… the boy's soul would make an excellent meal.
"Demon, I will form a contract with you!" the boy declared in screams and tears, launching an arm out of the cage and towards the demon.
"Well then, your wish is my command," the demon said, a hand meeting the boy's outstretched one as their shadows tore the cage to pieces. "Now, let's talk terms."
Yes, he'd be a truly excellent meal.
The boy and the demon overlooked the church — and wasn't that ironic — lit aflame at the boy's behest. The conditions of the contract had been set, the pentagram upon the boy's eye as proof. The boy's soul would, one day, be irrevocably the demon's.
"Now, little lord, what shall I call you?" the demon, still a swarm of shadows and feathers, inquired.
"Ciel… Ciel Phantomhive," the boy said. "I am Ciel Phantomhive, the next in line for the head of house Phantomhive."
The demon's lips parted into the ghost of a smile as recognition set in.
"However," the boy continued, "you, demon, are my servant, so there is no need to address me by name."
"As you wish, young master," the demon said before materializing into a tall, handsome man with black hair and a tailcoat suit. "I suppose I should take a form fitting a servant of nobility, correct?"
The boy — Ciel, now — twitched, taking a step backwards on the grass. "You can… change form?"
"Why of course," the demon crowed, quickly shifting between a few human imitations — a short teen, an elderly man, and a buxom woman — to demonstrate. "If you don't like any of these, I can always—"
"The first one was fine," Ciel cut in, cheeks red.
The demon smirked, changing back to the first form and bowing to the boy. "As you wish, young master. Shall we go to the Phantomhive manor?"
To take the form of the demon in that manga they — now he, the demon supposed — had read so long ago was truly nostalgic. The first time he had read it, he was no older than Ciel was now.
Ciel stared at the demon for a moment as the flames rose higher and higher. "Wait, demon. What's your name?"
The demon tilted his head. He had forgotten his original name long ago, not that he cared much. "Whatever my master wishes. Names hold little significance for one such as I."
"Then… Sebastian," Ciel decided. "From now on, your name will be Sebastian."
"Certainly." The demon, now Sebastian, gave the boy a close-lipped smile.
Yes, this would be entertaining, just as it had been for him in a past life.