Disclaimer: I'd settle for owning hard copies of the anime and manga. (Hurry up and get licensed, Kuroshitsuji!)

Author's Note: Inspired by the fantabulous Yinake-san's fanfic, "Mirror Mirror," but not nearly as good, I'm afraid. (So you're really just better off reading that. XD)

Warnings: Sorta-non-con-shouta!sex. (If Ciel really didn't want it, he would have ordered Sebastian to stop. That's what I think, anyway.) Also metaphor-ish. And probably confusing. (Sorry…)

Dedication: For Yinake-san! 3 Because you're made of win. (And because yes, Sebastian IS a whore. X3)

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Rotten

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As always, it begins in an Eden.

A decedent bedroom. A moonlit chapel. A shadowed alley.

An autumn orchard. Where the world is green and gold and pumpkin-orange, but the sky is sapphire blue— cerulean and deep and punctured by ruby red, and he loves the irony of this truth. He watches the crimson leaves as they drift, reflected in the sky and half-hidden eyes. The rake pauses; a book lowers. Chilled, motionless air hangs heavily between the unusual pair, smelling strongly of apples.

The first Eve barely needed prompting—barely needed a taste. All he had to do was dangle the forbidden fruit before her, coating its bitter flesh with syrupy lies and saccharine promises and sweet nothings. "You're so pretty," he'd whisper, gentle fingers dancing over rolls of scarred and oily flesh. "You're so perfect." Beady eyes would wrinkle, filling with desperate yearnings; pudgy hands would grab and cling and pull at him, as if afraid of letting go. And in the end, she took everything he offered and more: willingly swallowing his seed, his poison. Yes, that Eve surrendered immediately, completely.

Delicate white hands drift momentarily sideways, as if in curiosity. Small fingers curl around a fallen apple, previously concealed by the grass: glossy and scarlet and half-rotten, its bottom mushy and turning brown.

The only thing he found more repulsive than the woman herself was how easy she was to corrupt.

The apple is disgusting and beautiful, just like the child that holds it. Just like the soul he possesses. And even as the butler advises against the dirtying of those noble fingers, his lips are taut and smiling, and there is amusement in his leaf-colored eyes.

The next Eve was corrupt from the start, but masked it better than most: veiled himself in holy robes, hid behind screens and confessionals and abbey way doors. He was quite the amusing enigma, this delectable morsel of soul— praying for piety even as he willingly cavorted with the Devil. For though his mind yearned for the eternal joys of Heaven, his body lusted after the momentary pleasures of Earth. And he was only too willing to christen his altar over and over and over again, with liquids far less holy than water or wine.

His young master snorts and gripes and holds the fruit more firmly, as if to mock him—but no, it only makes the demon's lengthy leer widen, for nothing could possibly make him happier than seeing his little lord succumb to the traditional temptations of the treat.

The third was a prostitute. She never understood that love and sex were not synonyms, not equivalents. And he was not about to explain it to her.

The scattered leaves rustle as he abandons his work, setting the rake against the trunk of the apple tree and kneeling before his contractor. He takes those fragile hands in his own, pealing one away from the rounded fruit and licking the amber dewdrop that has pearled on the tip of the child's ring finger.

"I love you," he'd lie. And she would moan so deliciously as her back slid up and down the brick alley wall, her sweaty skin rubbed raw by friction as she begged for more and more, pleaded for the love that she knew he could never truly give her, but that she greedily devoured all the same.

The boy arches an eyebrow, wearing a façade of apathetic indifference. But the devil can see the swirling emotions behind those mismatched eyes; he can feel the heady blood racing through his crisscrossed veins. He can taste the Earl's young flesh: the flavor of white rose and cantarella lingering on his tongue even after he removes the finger from his mouth.

There was a fourth Eve, and a fifth, and a sixth, and so many more that he had long-since lost count. They were nothing special, anyway: there was no fight, no challenge, in damning them. Only pleasure, pleasure, pleasure. And now there was a new Eve, a virgin Eve: not quite a child, not yet an adult. On the precipice of committing the Original Sin, looking down into the dark depths of Hell with terror-fused desire glittering in his enchanted eyes.

"Forbidden fruits taste the sweetest," he murmurs, and the airy words are laced with half-veiled entendres and sugared metaphors that his master is wholly aware of, even at such a tender age. The youngest Eve, the most susceptible. Barely ripe: still small and bitter but oh, such a temptation. A forbidden fruit in his own right.

No, he had not missed the lustful glances. The morbid curiosity. The telling whimpers in the night, the muffled moans that echoed like shamed sobs through the midnight-blanketed hallways: a melody in his ears.

And yet…

It was time to offer this Eve an Apple.

The Count smiles faintly—a teasing tweak of pert lips— and leans forward, his ivory flesh colored by a watercolor wash of pastel pink. For a moment, he curls close: satin grey hair brushing playfully against porcelain cheeks, small hands weaving through strands of ink-colored silk. He cuddles, as if trying to physically absorb all of the demon's unearthly beauty, all of his vice-fused promises. And as the butler leans closer (a small back cushioned by fallen leaves, intertwined legs tangled in the roots of the apple tree) the child pauses. He breathes in, breathes out; breathes in, breathes out.

Already on the precipice, just waiting for a push— a taste— a beautiful, dangling, tempting piece of fruit…

"And rotting apples smell the sweetest," the boy murmurs after a pause, lowered lashes lifting enough to show cobalt slits of malicious, laughing eyes. He smirks, cruel condescendence in his lilting words. "But I am above partaking in rotten food."

The serpent freezes.

The apple falls.

There is red.

Red eyes, red fruit, red leaves swirling in a sudden rush of wind and movement and no, the demon will not be denied—not after all this, not after so long, not after all the signs he knows are there. He will not be refused by a stupid child who thinks himself stronger, better, more than he is.

He will wrap himself around the boy, tighter and tighter and tighter. His tail will constrict around his throat; he won't be able to breathe.

His master is sobbing again—those quiet, desperate, pleasured cries that waver and whimper over the landscape, muffled by grass and hands and the crunching of dead foliage. He thrashes and he struggles, but he is weak and helpless against the strength of the demon, the intensity of these ministrations. He half-tries to escape, to crawl away; the attempt ends with him propped up on his knees, cheek slammed into the ground, rear in the air. And then his butler is behind him, around him, inside him: filling him with flesh and dark thoughts and anger and pleasure and pain.

The child's mouth will open—gaping, gasping, saliva oozing prettily and glistening like icicles as he chokes and fights for air—

The boy does not beg; his young master never begs. And even if he were to plead, it would not be for more— on the contrary, the demon can see that he wants for this to end. Despite the glazed lust in his eyes, the thrust of his hips, the erection that pulsates in his servant's gloved hand, the black-clad devil knows that this is the last thing the child desires. But how is that possible? He had tempted him. He had lured him. He had offered him the apple. And no one denies him— no one resists. (Oh, this soul is so interesting! He wants it so badly!) How dare he—?

And as he struggles, the demon will place the apple in his mouth…

The Earl wants this, but doesn't want this, would be fine without this, and it doesn't make any sense. Because this is what the demon knows, this is how he works, and suddenly things are different, and it has infuriated him. Why? Why does it matter? Why did the child's refusal stun him, goad him, fill him with so much rage—so much that he's forced the boy into the dirt, slamming in and sliding out as the leaves screech and his master screams and five tiny nails grind into the crimson flesh of a fallen apple?

He will make him chew. Make him swallow.

He already owns his soul. He doesn't need his body.

Yes, if it comes to that…

Does he simply want what he can't have?

The forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest…

Eve cries out, and a sudden spurt of white coats the blanket of autumn leaves.

The serpent will force him to eat.

XXX