Ciel watched the blood pool out from Sebastian's head and fall over the steps. It was like his very own waterfall of doom. He couldn't believe it. How could he believe it? He had caused this to happen...he had placed those papers there...he had made Sebastian angry....he had forced the butler to leave, to not pay attention to where he was going. Sebastian could have avoided this if he was in his right state of mind...so why was Ciel being so stupid?
Why wasn't he a better master? A better lover?
Why hadn't he spent more time with Sebastian?
Why was he so obsessed with searching for the answer instead of spending time with the demon?
And most importantly...why did he say those words?
That was what Ciel regretted the most, the fact that he had told Sebastian such a hateful thing. The previous earl wanted more than anything to turn back time, to tell his ex-butler that he didn't mean it. He just wanted to apologize...to be a better person for Sebastian.
The previous earl changed his form into that of his older self, he picked up the body laying on the steps and carried it to his room. Ciel placed the body on his bed and arranged it in such a way that Sebastian would have complimented. The previous earl found roses that were still growing outside the manor and placed them by his ex-butler. Overtime he would continue to make Sebastian seem more beautiful in his vegetative state. Ciel would add various things to his display, since this was the only thing that Ciel could do, he didn't know if Sebastian would wake up, so he just treated him as if he was dead and if he was dead, he would make Sebastian look astonishing even in death.
The previous earl would never bury Sebastian, he would watch his body decompose over time. He would allow his butler to die upon his sheets, because it made him feel closer to him. At times the previous earl would even fall asleep next to the unresponsive butler...he would pretend that he was still alive, that he was just asleep and would wake up with Ciel.
None of these things were true. Sebastian hadn't responded to a word that Ciel had said in over a year now. Was Ciel loosing hope? Of course not, he was only sinking further into his delusions, He continued to search for a way to help Sebastian, only not as often. The previous earl devoted one day every week to searching for cures or helpful things. Only to reach no conclusion. There was nothing he could do.
Why did it have to be this way?
Why did these things have to happen like they did?
"Sebastian, please, if you can hear me, please open your eyes...please move, you don't have to forgive me...but please just don't be dead!" Ciel was sitting on a chair next to the bed that Sebastian was lying on. The ex-butler was not moving, just like he hadn't moved for the past year. He might never move again, why didn't Ciel just get that through his head?
Ciel placed his hand over Sebastian's, his hand was cold to the touch. It depressed him but he always felt the urge to touch his butler. There was just some peace of mind that came to doing that. Ciel couldn't explain why, he didn't understand at all. The demon still refused to answer. Ciel only cried, like he had done all the other times.
"I'm sorry....I'm so so sorry....but please..." the tears fell from the previous earl's face. Once they started they would not stop. It was just how these things worked. His emotions always got the best of him, when Sebastian was involved that is.
Ciel (now back into the younger version of himself) placed his head on the bed. He cried, not so silently, over his butler. His sobbing could be heard throughout the manor, there was no one there, so there was no reason to hide it. Sebastian couldn't hear him anyway.
The last words he spoke to Sebastian kept ringing through his mind.
Fine then! You can just go to hell for all I care!
He repeated them over and over, continuing to regret that word choice. How long would Sebastian's body wait here? How long would it take before he was completely withered away? How long did it take for the demonic body to die? Did Ciel help him? Do him a favor? With Sebastian unconscious he wouldn't have to deal with the rotting of his flesh...it wouldn't be as painful. That was his only comfort in this terrible experience...that maybe Sebastian was able to rest in peace after all.
Ah, but wait.
Ciel had never thought about the possibility for him to bring Sebastian's body to hell. What if there was a way he could? Would that be better or worse than watching him decompose here? Surely there wasn't anything that could hurt him...
Ciel, with this new-found idea to bring Sebastian's body back to hell, searched for a way to go. Sebastian had briefly mentioned how to do this before...if only he could remember. Why hadn't he paid attention better? There were so many things Ciel wished that he did.
The previous earl tried hard to remember all that Sebastian had taught him. He learned it, of course he learned it, so where was the information in his mind? Where could he attain that information again? There wasn't any other demon alive around him that he could ask.
With no one to help him, and no memories to contribute to this question...Ciel could only search within his demon intuition. He could only guess as to what he could do. Perhaps he could figure it out in some way on his own, like a superhero does when they train for a new special ability. Maybe this was much the same? CIel could only hope.
The days continued to pass, each day Ciel would stay in that room with Sebastian trying to search for a way to hell, within himself. One such day, an idea came to him. He didn't have a contract symbol...Sebastian had one, he knew that from the previous earl's very own eye but Ciel did not have such a mark. Was that needed in order to go to hell? Was that the reason Sebastian had wanted to teach him how to take souls? Maybe...maybe that was one of the reasons...it wasn't just that Ciel would take the soul...but more of that he would create his own mark of the beast.
Yes, that had to be it. The previous earl went down into the basement, he looked through his various notes and things and tried to find a mark that he enjoyed from various models. How does a demon go about making their contract symbol? How should he do that? Taking the different symbols that he liked, he made one for himself by combining all of them. Ciel's mark turned out to be a very elaborate design, much like the intricateness of Sebastian's, however they were in no way the same.
Ciel went back to the room with Sebastian in it and drew his new symbol all over the floor. How could he bond this to himself? Was there some special way to do this? Perhaps not, demons weren't exactly very complex like that. Once Ciel had decided that this mark would be his, that was all he needed to do, just make that silent pact with himself, a mark to set him apart from the rest of the demons (if there were any demons other than him).
The previous earl then picked up Sebastian's body from his bed. It had been there for so long that the sheets still held his body shape. How odd. It was kind of beautiful to Ciel in a way, it symbolized that time that he had spent being with Sebastian's body in this room. Although it was weird, he still had a sense to respect that.
Since Ciel couldn't carry Sebastian well in this form, he ended up dragging the body off the bed and onto his newly made demon mark. Now that he had made it this far, what else was he supposed to do? How did he go to the next step? How did he get to hell from here?
Ciel closed his eyes and thought about where he wanted to go. He thought about why he wanted to go there. He kept thinking like this, holding Sebastian the entire time. Would he make it? By sheer willpower alone, would he manage to leave this manor and go to Sebastian's homeland? It was worth a shot at least, which was why he was still trying.
The previous earl opened his eyes and looked around, he was not in his room anymore, he was someplace else, somewhere else. He looked around at the scenery, it wasn't his manor, was it Sebastian's? Had he really managed to go to hell? Not just any part of hell, but Sebastian's house at that?
The room he was in was a nice place, it seemed like Sebastian had a manor of his own. Pictures hung on the wall, portraits, of people Ciel didn't recognize. They all had red eyes, except for one...that picture connected to Ciel, he felt as if it was calling to him. Ciel left the demon's body on the floor and looked at the picture more closely, underneath the picture had faded lettering. It was so old, that the name-tag was no longer legible. The previous earl looked at each of the pictures, they all sort of felt the same, not as strange at the first one he looked at, but still had that sense of familiarity.
Those eyes, what about those eyes? Why were they so...recognizable? The thought then hit him, those were Sebastian's eyes. The demon which he knew for so long, these were all different versions of himself. Had he kept a portrait of his appearances in all the contracts that he had ever had? Did he really go through the trouble of doing that? Just how much did Ciel not know about Sebastian? Would he ever find out everything?
Ciel grabbed Sebastian's body and searched the demon's home for a room, a bedroom specifically. He couldn't find one for quite sometime, most of the rooms in this manor were full of books or research things. It wasn't like Ciel's home at all...it was like every room Sebastian had was a study. When the previous earl finally found a bedroom, it wasn't like the one he was used to at all, it was much smaller, much simpler, with just this tiny bed. Sebastian didn't sleep as often as Ciel did, he didn't feel the need to. Unlike Ciel, Sebastian was way past ever being a human, there wasn't an ounce of humanity left in him, so he didn't need to sleep, he didn't even like sleeping anymore.
The previous earl placed Sebastian's body on the bed, just like he had arranged it back in his own manor. Although, he didn't have any roses to place next to him (or half of the other things Ciel had placed by the demon before).
As soon as Ciel had placed Sebastian's body on the bed, the demon's body began to rot much faster than it had back in the human world. Ciel could only watch horrified.
Why was this happening?
He watched as Sebastian's skin deteriorated. His complexion went from pale to pitch black in a matter of seconds. It was strange, white as snow to black as night. What kind of logic was this? He wasn't supposed to die faster! He was supposed to last longer!
Why did this have to happen?
Ciel touched the skin of Sebastian, just to see if it still felt the same, when he did the place he touched turned to ash. Just like hell to eat away everything Ciel held dear.
It simply wasn't right.
Now what was he supposed to do?
"No! No! This wasn't supposed to happen like this...you weren't supposed to disappear!" Ciel fell to his knees, he didn't know what to do. There was nothing else he could do! The previous earl had done everything he possibly knew how to do. None of this was helping him...none of this had helped Sebastian...because Sebastian was now just a pile of dust.
But, that was not the case for long. Sebastian's body began to reform itself without Ciel's knowledge. While the previous earl was mourning his demon for the last time, his body was regenerating.
You see, hell has a mind of its own. Ever since the first demon passed away, his consciousness stayed and blended with the place itself. It chooses what it wishes to save, which demon it wants to keep around longer...that was what happened to Sebastian. Now, neither Sebastian nor Ciel knew this fact, actually I don't believe that any demon truly knows this, but the reasoning behind it doesn't matter, the fact remains that Sebastian was no longer dead. The body in which was supposed to be in a never ending state of unresponsiveness, was now being remade. However, the body didn't look like the body of the Sebastian that the previous earl knew, it looked more like the picture Ciel had seen on the wall, the one without the red eyes (of course Sebastian still has his red eyes now).
Ciel was too busy crying over the demon to notice that he was no longer dead. Sebastian patted his head gently. He knew why he was in hell, he knew why Ciel had brought him here, he knew everything, for he had heard everything Ciel had said. Sebastian was not dead like Ciel had thought. His body just had stopped responding to him. Many times he had wished to give the previous earl some sort of message, but there was no way he could. It was like he had become a paraplegic and he couldn't even open his eyes. It wasn't until they reached hell that Sebastian had died officially, and even then, he wasn't dead for very long.
"Young Master, you don't have to cry anymore. I'm awake, you see?" Sebastian said.
"Of course I have to cry! You're gone now," Ciel answered, he had thought that the demon's voice was just a figment of his imagination. The demon repressed his urge to laugh. Did Ciel really think that he was just imagining his voice? He was crazy, but he hadn't reached that level of insanity yet...
Sebastian moved his hand to Ciel's chin and lifted his face to make him look up at the demon. Ciel stared confused. Was this really Sebastian? Was this really reality? It didn't make any sense...how could this be...he was dead just a few minutes ago! Ciel had held his ashes!
"S-sebastian?" Ciel began, "Is that you? Like really you?" The demon nodded in response to that question. He smiled down at the boy who had waited by him, trying to figure out a way to wake him up. It was comforting to know that Ciel regretted his last words, that Ciel really didn't mean to avoid him. But as much as it was nice to know these things, it hurt to not be able to tell him it was all okay. Sebastian wished to never go through that again, never to put Ciel through that again.
When it finally hit the previous earl that this was indeed his ex-butler, Ciel jumped into Sebastian's arms. The demon fell backwards onto the bed, not prepared for such an attack, and held Ciel while he cried once more, this time tears of joy.
"I-I'm sorry..." Ciel had begun to apologize. Sebastian just patted his head and shushed him.
"I know," the demon said. "You don't need to say anything...I heard you..."
Ciel began to blush thinking about some of the things he said. At times Ciel had gotten so frustrated with Sebastian not responding that he had tempted the un-responsive demon to wake up. He said things like 'if you wake up right now, I'll let you do me.' Since Ciel thought the demon wouldn't hear he had said a lot of silly things like that...
"Y-you heard me?"
Sebastian's eyes glimmered with that demonic glow Ciel had missed so much, just seeing the demon awake made him forget about all of the stuff he had gone through to get here. Ciel decided it didn't matter if Sebastian had heard those weird things or not, what mattered was that the demon was awake, and here with him again.
"This is an order," Ciel stated, "Don't ever leave me again," with much compliance the demon replied...
"Yes, My Lord."