A/N: Hey, it's Stevie! And here is the long-awaited epilogue to Incubus. x) ...I WROTE A T-RATED FANFICTION FOR ONCE.

Yes, I know I just photoshopped a picture of Ciel as a toddler. But ain't nobody got time for quality artwork. Dx

BY THE WAY, if you haven't read Incubus, go to my page and read that first... I doubt it'll make any sense otherwise... Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy this! I left a lovely author's note at the bottom of the story as well~

Songs:

Losing Your Memory- Ryan Star

Evil Angel- Breaking Benjamin

Blue and Yellow- The Used

Disclaimer: I don't own Kuroshitsuji, or it's characters, or my own soul... I owned a boston creme cake for a while but I ate it...

[In medieval legend, a cambion /ˈkæmbiən/ is the offspring of a demon and a human.]

In only a couple of years, nearly everyone in England knew Astaroth Vincent Phantomhive, though not necessarily by name.

"Speak of the devil. There he is."

"Hm, who? Where?"

"The Phantomhive bastard. He's over there, conversing with the Viscount."

The noblewoman, careful to avoid attracting attention, dismissively waved her hand, in a subtle gesture that would point out the earl's location; her new acquaintance, a young woman of stature far slighter than her own, failed to conceal her intrigue, squinting and allowing a shallow gasp to escape her lips. The elder of the two women, still linked in arms with her impassive husband, sneered with projected disdain and snapped her fan open, fluttering it in a flustered manner as if it would convey any of her offense.

"I'm honestly repulsed that he was invited to begin with," the woman tittered, lowering her hand in favor of tugging upwards slightly at the hem of her lavish dress. Opulent as the silken maroon gown was, it seemed that it wasn't tailored properly for a heavy figure such as hers, and even with the constricting corset, her generous bosom threatened to spill from the confines of the cloth. She scoffed, "Earl of Phantomhive or not, it's insulting to have a common bastard dine with us. Disgraceful, even. Wouldn't you agree, Lady Cecily?"

The younger girl did not respond, still scrutinizing the figure across the ballroom, despite how brashly it defied etiquette. The event that all of the nobles were attending was not so much a dancing ball as a social gathering; naturally, there was to be a predicted feast and some minimal carousal, but the party itself was more of an opportunity. An excuse for those struggling to clamber up the narrow ladder of wealth to associate themselves with those of the highest class, to coax and beckon them into investments and loans on the hope of securing a little extra revenue. And, in turn, an excuse for the most dignified names to parade around their riches in extravagance, and to hand out donations just to show the public how very altruistic they were.

"Of course, my greatest condolences on the matter only go out to the Midford family. I'm well aware of how long it's been, and that the girl has moved on, but it's still such a cruel twist of fate," the woman in the burgundy dress prattled on, pompous voice rich with mock sympathy, clearly irked that Cecily wasn't interested in what she had to say. "The poor Lady Elizabeth... If you ask me, the last earl was a filthy cur to pursue a tart when he could've had a woman like that. I just hope that the brat's mother gets what she deserves, if you know what I mean. And you can be certain no one is looking to form a union with the House of Phantomhive now. I have a niece now, as I'm certain I've told you, and I wouldn't dare offer her to be courted by the son of a harlot, even if he is one of the richest men in Europe. It would hardly be worth the indignity."

"Are you sure that's the Earl of Phantomhive?" the younger girl at long last murmured, in a voice both demure and blissfully naive. It became apparent to her female companion, from the girl's slow mumbling and vacant expression, that neither focus nor intelligence were paramount in her repertoire. Even if her mind was stultified, she had heard enough positive and negative claims circulating to know that opinions of the earl were controversial. That would be an understatement, really. "He certainly is a young thing for all the talk he gets, isn't he?"

The woman crinkled her nose at the girl's unrefined gawking, before snorting, "Of course I'm certain! I've met him before." The older of the two seemed nearly wounded that the other would doubt her authenticity. "And yes, he's only ten years old, I believe. Just a foolish child. Even so, I've gathered rumors that the boy's becoming an even shrewder businessman than his late father was—"

The robust woman was cut off by her husband's brusque and hearty guffaw; once his cackle had faded, he explained, scowling in contrast to the amusement in his voice, "Darling, I'm certain that you must have heard rubbish, if one actually presumes that a boy of ten years has any knowledge or experience on anything at all. He's no more than another arrogant little heir, and just fortunate that his father died before the man could spoil him rotten. Likely the largest sum of money in all of England, more than a King would know what to do with, and it's been placed in the clumsy hands of a daft infant," the man began ranting. It was blatant that his wife seemed to share such stark attitudes about him, but it was less clear exactly where this detest stemmed from. Had the couple's audience been clever at all, she would have easily discerned the haughty but hesitant upturn of the man's chin, the shards of light glinting in his eyes. Details that could only convey a telltale envy. "In my opinion, Funtom company is going to shambles as we speak."

"Shambles, you say?"

With a jolt of uneasiness slashing down their spines, both of the gossipers froze and blanched. It should have been impossible for the victim of their words to traverse the ballroom so quickly, and they could have sworn they'd had their eyes trained on him the entire time, yet here he was. Blood ran thick and sluggishly through their veins at the familiar voice, and the couple slowly disentangled their arms and parted, turning to face the unnervingly serene boy behind them; at a loss for words, they were too encroached by shock to dwell on any other qualms.

"Well, I certainly thought I'd be the first to know if my own company was falling into squalid ruin, but I suppose I must have been wrong," the child articulated calmly, despite the circumstance and the unraveling appearance of the three before him. His voice quickly ripened with humorous intention, as if he was enjoying himself. "I certainly wish someone had told me, though. This must be especially hard for you to hear, Lord Ainsley."

The elder man stiffened at the earl's direct address, a bit of guilt stirring his innards as he recalled their relations. "In fact, if I recall, you made nearly the entirety of your business' fortune through constructing factories to be used for Funtom company's industry... Intriguing... I wonder how exactly you'll fare when Funtom has to pull out from your support. Due to the state of shambles we're falling into, of course."

Not anticipating the precocious boy's quick wit, and hurriedly realizing that everything he said was fact, the man felt his mouth going dry, and found himself choking on his words, the constricting of his throat making it impossible to swallow. The bitter will he held for the boy was naught in the face of hard business, and he held instant regret for speaking so shamefully at a public outing. He had taken advantage of the boy as a benefactor months beforehand, though the position did nothing to satiate his jealousy or instill gratitude in him, and with his newfound pride, it was something he seemed hasty to forget. Was that it then? Scorned as the child was, he was still one of the most talked-about men in England by now, even if it came of poor reputation, and he was well-known enough to have other investments. Would he honestly be so insidious as to tear this man's business out from under him, due to a few offhanded comments exchanged at a party?

"Oh, don't look so stricken! I'm only teasing! I assure you, in contrast, the Funtom company has never been more prosperous," the young earl smiled softly, a farcically childish tenderness encompassing his features.

No, of course the earl wouldn't; he had grown accustomed to demeaning treatment in his life thus far, and one raised on society's malevolence knows that valuable correlations exceed sociable ones.

The boy brushed his grey-blue hair to the side and offered his hand, as if he'd just made a profitable proposal; his hair was only a shade darker of teal than his father's had been, but that was not the end to the uncanny resemblance they shared. In fact, with the exception of his height, which seemed remarkably tall for a boy his age, Ciel's features may as well have been replicated and polished up, to the point that disputing the relation would have been impossible. If the earl had been attractive, then his son was beautiful. While he shared his father's complexion, flesh so pallid that it was a wonder if the boy ever left the estate, he had an almost nymph-like look to him that was becoming of a member of the aristocracy. All of his characteristics were delicate but unarguably masculine; these details were chiseled to symmetrical perfection, and with his flawless marble skin, it looked as if they could have been sculpted from stone. However, under meticulous scrutiny, Astaroth's similarity to his father physically stopped with his eyes.

Though many acquaintances of the late earl recalled him with one eye, that crafty and calculating azure gaze was unforgettable; arrogant and bitter-tempered, with traces of genuine empathy teeming beneath the deadpan surface. Contrarily, Ciel's son's eyes were the quintessential opposites of his. Gracefully and slyly narrowed in shape, they were luminous with a sardonic innocence, a playful invitation.

Yet there was something unsettling about such a quaint and comely gaze, something that stretched past the bounds of childish content. As if a tempest of sinister intention swirled deep in those dark pools, a tumult stifled and suppressed by layer upon layer of careful lies and aesthetic pleasantry.

In addition, the hues themselves were irregular, his irises the color of a rich swallow of wine, such a dark and decadent russet-red that it was nearly black. And, from a distance, it would be easy to mistake that deep crimson for a simple ebony, to pass his divulging look off as that of a doe-eyed little boy.

"I hope that you tell whomever you got that rumor from how well Funtom is doing," the Phantomhive bastard expressed earnestly, firmly grasping the man's hand in a cautious handshake. A settlement, a means to an end, but also a well-constructed threat. A grip loose enough to convey that he harbored no ill sentiment, but simultaneously tight enough to express his competence. The unseen potential to splinter every bone in the man's hand. "I wouldn't want anyone to be worked up over false news... What did you give the person in exchange for that information anyways? Your manners, perhaps?"

The insult was laughed off in a breath, as if it had been a joke, but the crude sting of his words seeped through his placid demeanor.

Astaroth Phantomhive turned swiftly to Cecily and, in a suave tone that should be impossible for any ten-year-old to muster, nodded his head swiftly before leaning to press an obligatory kiss on her hand, smoothly introducing himself in the proper way, before moving onto the Lord Ainsley's ornery wife. She seemed indignant when he first captured her hand, recoiling a bit, but respectfully enough, did not move.

"Lady Ainsley, how it pleases me to make your acquaintance again," he began, pausing in case she had a response; regardless, the woman had no decent rejoinder, and so he concluded, "Though I do hope that, in the future, you'll be more careful when speaking in public. There are children at some of these events, after all, and your vocabulary is nearly as vile as your appearance."

The words were muttered so gingerly that neither of the people accompanying the woman heard them. All they saw was her countenance contorting into an enraged grimace, a scarlet flush boiling the blood in her cheeks, and then her other hand flinching, as if poised to strike the child, before he kissed her hand. And she definitely would have smacked the earl if it wasn't for the way he kissed her.

The leer in those livid Merlot eyes conveyed everything that words could not, and he fixed her with that penetrating glare. As if he wished he could desecrate all that she was just by brushing his mouth over her hand. As if he could wrench all of the corruption and degradation and loathing out of his gut and thrust it unto her, as if he could infect her with the soiled, filthy rot that stewed within him, tear her flimsy propriety to shreds and watch keenly as the self-fueled disease festered in her putrid body. As if he could bestow it all upon her and at last be sated, in a way that bloodlust alone could never soothe his blistering spirit. The look in his eyes was evil.

And, in the instant before he planted that kiss, with his breath washing over her flesh, she saw his lips curl upwards ever so slightly, into an indiscernible but pleased snarl. As those pale pink lips peeled back over his pearly whites, for less than instant, the boy looked ravenous, in a way that suggested he longed to sink his teeth through the velvet mesh of her gloves and rip gluttonously into the flesh of her hand, to tear out sinew and muscle strands, to feel her delicate bones snap like toothpicks between his jaws. For an instant, the woman was petrified with fear, in a way she never had been before.

And then the boy softly pressed his lips to her hand, dismissing her terrors.

"Aster!"

The informal address reached the ears of all four nobles, a mild call of the nickname the boy tended to go by. The disembodied voice, a smooth baritone, didn't seem urgent or reprimanding in the slightest; only mildly curious, as if someone was searching for where he had wandered off to.

Whipping his head upwards, a beaming grin stretching over his face, the child abandoned his stiff-mannered acquaintances, leaving them mortified as ever with themselves, and turned in the direction of the sound. In seconds, the collected air he had stitched together during his earlier entreaties dissipated, and he bounded off into the crowd like the child he was. Much unlike his solemn father in this suit, the boy exuded an effortless aura of cheerfulness when he smiled genuinely. Such a vivacious atmosphere could pump liveliness into the heart of anyone who so much as glanced at him; well, anyone who failed to see what lay beneath the warm exterior.

The instant that the boy grappled onto the hand of the man who had called him, he began chattering excitedly, in an immature manner that seemed to impugn the image of the dignified adult the three had encountered.

"That's him," the Lady Ainsley whimpered softly, though her complexion had paled to a sickly grey and her voice was hardly above a whisper. Even so, the spirit of gossip in her still stirred when she saw the man. "That's the one I was telling you about. Look there, the one in black."

The younger woman seemed impervious to the bedraggled and astonished appearance of the couple, keeping her eyes trained on the young boy, and now the man as well. The tall figure was robed in the same sartorial elegance as the child, though the pallet of his ensemble consisted entirely of varying shades of black, and his raven hair was tucked neatly behind one ear; whoever the mysterious man was, he was certainly quite a looker.

"Who did you say he was, again?" Lady Cecily drawled quietly. "Is he the earl's tutor or something?"

"No, I don't think so. Nobody knows his name, actually... He's the one who I said visits the earl, remember?" the woman's voice still trembled slightly, yet she appeared to be recovering from the brief exchange, though she had in no way forgotten it; her husband mulled silently beside her, loitering dejectedly. She prated on, hoping for the idle gibberish to distract her. "You wouldn't know him, Lady Cecily, but I think he looks exactly like the butler who served the last Earl of Phantomhive—"

"She's always going on about this," her husband muttered dourly, taking out his misdirected irritation. "I've told you before, dearest, that can't be the same man. It's been ten years, if you've forgotten."

"I never said it was the same man, I just thought they looked similar! ...Not that I'd remember a servant's face that well, of course," she iterated sharply. "And if you've forgotten, he comes every single year... It's strange, every year he always looks exactly the same... I do suppose he'd have to be an awful loyal butler to come visit the earl's child, but he and the boy always did seem peculiarly close..."

Lady Cecily ignored the woman's inwards debate over the man's identity, choosing instead to continue observing the pair. "That man visits him, does he?" the young woman asked, before meekly adding, "They look alike, don't you think?"

The heavy woman brushed off the girl's last comment as nonsense, being as her musings regularly were, but replied to her first inquiry. "Yes. Ever since the boy was born, that man has been visiting him every year. Though, when he comes, he never stays for long. He always arrives sometime around the child's birthday, and leaves around a week later... on the date that his father died."

The first time Sebastian came to see Aster Phantomhive, on his first birthday, it was out of obligation due to his part in the contract. Nothing more.

The second time, he persuaded himself that he needed to return simply because he never considered the consequence of his action. Cambions between demons and humans, while certainly not commonplace, weren't unheard of, and he figured he ought to affirm he hadn't done unintended harm. A beast with incontrovertible power, unguided by anyone capable of taming him, harnessed in the body and mental state of an infant. Surely, only the utmost havoc could come of it, if the baby were prone to temper tantrums. Sebastian did not intend to raise the child, but he knew, even if he wasn't obliged to do so anymore, that he ought to ascertain his creation didn't obliterate the entire Phantomhive legacy.

By the third time Sebastian visited Aster, he couldn't formulate an excuse for coming.

But he knew why he came.

At one point, Sebastian couldn't have been sure if his earliest fears lacked foundation.

"Well, it'd be simply disgraceful for a maid such as myself to talk poorly about the young master, yes it would!" the boisterous maid exclaimed in response to Sebastian's question, lowering her voice to a frantic whisper; the demon had arrived at an irregularly late hour this time, and the earl was already asleep in bed, his servants hustling about in order to settle the mansion for the night.

"Honestly, it's fine, MeyRin. It's only me," he sighed in exasperation, attempting to coax the knowledge from her. "Please tell me any information you have. I merely asked how he was, and your reaction was giving me reason to fear for his condition. Has something happened?"

It took only a few more moments of bickering before he convinced the woman into sharing her opinions. It was the eve of Astaroth's sixth birthday, and the servants had already become adjusted to Sebastian Michaelis' annual appearances. Fortunately enough, the triad was always joyous to see him and grateful for his extra assistance around the estate, to the point of anticipation, and due to how devoted he had always seemed around Ciel, they never pondered over why he checked up on his son.

"I know it's awful of me to say, but... the boy's a little terror, yes he is!"

"How so?" the words left his lips languidly, patiently, and dark brows creased his expression into one of angered concern.

"Well, the other day he was out playing in the garden, and Finny was elsewhere on the grounds, so I figured I would watch him from the manor's window," the mauve-haired maid began anxiously. "And he seemed to be fine, he was just laying on the grass, watching the birds fly past... The next thing I know, he's running towards a tree, and then he rebounds off of it into the air! He leapt about ten meters into the air, he did! And then I saw he had caught one of the bluejays..."

"And?" Sebastian cleared his throat when the maid's words ebbed off.

"And I watched him pluck it alive. He ripped out every feather, one by one... and he laughed, so light it sounded like bells chiming, yes it did. He ran inside, leaving its bald body all twitching and bleeding on the ground, still holding all of the feathers. He left it to die. Anyways, the boy stopped in front of that portrait of the previous master in the grand hall, and he turned to face me, as if he had known I was watching him all along.

"Then he fanned out all of those beautiful blue feathers in his fingers, looking happy enough to cry. And do you know what he said to me? He said they reminded him of his father's eyes."

"I've been studying literature," the boy boasted, though his tone was almost whimsical; he lay prostrate on his back on a grassy knoll, distant from the estate but nowhere near the edge of its vast grounds, his father sitting beside him. Again Sebastian had come, for his tenth birthday this time, certain to depart in a handful of days, but knowing this didn't seem to perplex Aster much; in fact, he looked immaculately content, plucking grass blades absentmindedly and rolling them between his fingertips.

Sebastian merely grunted in acknowledgement, still glancing over the young earl with painstaking scrutiny. For the past several minutes or so, the demon had been observing the child, though he didn't seem to be studying his actions intently so much as noting his facial features to memory. It was unnerving, the way he absorbed the look of the boy, as if searching for something distinct that he just couldn't find. Aster, unamused with this silent contemplation, sought to evoke a response.

Huffing slightly, the boy flipped onto his stomach, idly swinging his legs in the air. "When I was looking through some documents, I figured out what my name means," he announced with an accusatory tone.

"Hm? Aster?" Sebastian started a bit, drifting from his reverie to focus on his son's words, his keen mind unusually muddled. He found his instincts almost always marred by the halfbreed's presence.

"No, Astaroth," the boy rolled his eyes dismissively, but the hint of a smile still flickered at his lips. Lethargically, he rolled to his side, wearing an irritated pout for a moment, before a radiant grin split his face. "Father had a sense of humor, didn't he?"

The crow demon lifted his eyebrows, recalling his master's somber attitude and sour wit. After an extended pause, he hesitantly compromised with, "If that's what you'd like to call it."

The child snickered good-naturedly, before sighing softly as the quiet enveloped them. He sat up and leaned against Sebastian, pretending not to take notice of how the man tensed at the contact. "I can't wait to meet him... I will see him again, won't I?"

"Someday." The cogent answer was grumbled out so swiftly that Aster didn't know how honest it was, but he chose not to dwell on the morose topic. Aster was well aware of his inevitable fate. Despite how pious his human half could be, he had been condemned to hell from the day he was born, and he didn't aspire to challenge that. So long as he assumed Ciel would be awaiting him in the heart of the inferno, eternal damnation wasn't off-putting in the slightest.

"I was only wondering. After all, you told me what happened to him yourself," the boy uttered, before turning and prodding at Sebastian's stomach in a teasing manner. "You ate him all up, remember?"

"I remember," the tall demon smiled ever so slightly at the wishful and youthful concepts whirring through the child's mind, a poignant tightening in his chest embittering his mood at the mixed thoughts.

"I miss him."

The frank sincerity in his voice caught Sebastian off guard, but he wasn't certain what to make of the vulnerable frustration building inside of him. An accepted relationship existed between Sebastian and Aster that wasn't exactly parental so much as understanding; after all, they were no more than jackals at heart, and Sebastian, who hadn't considered having any offspring until he saw fit to complete Ciel's contract, expressed affection at a minimum. If demons were to be incapable of some rampant sensations, like the transient nuance of love, then so be it. That being said, there was some unforeseen envy brewing within him that he couldn't comprehend. He was certain it couldn't be jealousy for his son's attention, all of the boy's adoration thrust upon his other father, a man he had only known as a newborn. No logic prevailed in a situation like that, and Sebastian could not grasp that foreign idea, in a way that doused his ever-present composure with uncertainty. He wasn't infuriated because he couldn't ensnare the boy's admiration— no, he was irritated that he couldn't understand it.

However, this spiraling train of thought, which he knew he should not even be victim to, was severed by a soft murmur, a tone so susceptible that it almost revealed weakness. Yet, from the glimmer that whisked through those wine-colored eyes, Sebastian was certain it was crafted. The devious child had at long last uncovered something.

A question, the answer to which Sebastian had been hiding from.

"Do you miss him, too?"

Sebastian carried a small flask in his breast pocket wherever he went. Aster Phantomhive noticed it for the first time three days after his fifth birthday.

Regularly, Sebastian would give his son whatever he yearned for without thinking on it, consequences be damned; making Aster happy was worth that much. Yet for some reason, despite his incessant pleas, he wouldn't let the boy within inches of the vial.

"Someday", he said.

If anything was apparent about Aster's origin, it was that he had two sides to him; the man and the monster.

Some strange rift in the balance of his mind rendered him volatile one moment, to the extent of sadism, and chockfull of emotion and benevolence the next. As if he could murder with the utmost indifference, and crumple in fits of regretful tears moments after. As if the anguish he longed to drench others in distressed him at the same time. Apathy to sympathy in instants.

At first, it had direly concerned Sebastian in a way that breached the boundaries of strategy, on a level that almost dipped into the spectrum of human emotion. He had seen disasters like this unravel before. Inner bipolarity had frayed many hybrids' sanity, had drawn them to wreak carnage and slaughter on this world and the next. Yet, much to his relief, Aster was a fortunate exemption.

Within the confines of his mind, the human and beast seemed to balance on another, working mutually and cooperating. In fact, it seemed they strove towards a common goal, complemented each other even. A bickering of two near-opposites, and the union of an unlikely pair.

The longer Sebastian pondered over it, the more sense it made.

Though he wouldn't dare admit it, and he felt conflicted by the implications it served, Sebastian knew why he visited Aster. He reminded him of Ciel.

Certainly, he knew their personalities were in no way similar; in fact, if Ciel had lived to raise his son, Sebastian couldn't have even been sure if the two would get along. The near identical appearance was his first reason for correlation, and some days, he would spend hours with the boy just leaching in his facial structure, discerning the smallest differences between his and Ciel's appearances, drinking in every crevice and crease until he forgot what details belonged to whom.

Yet in time, he realized that Aster's mannerisms spoke more loudly of Ciel than looks ever could. The cunning way in which his lips curled upwards after he won a chess game. His insolent and brash shouting whenever he felt he was being forced to do something particularly ludicrous. His proclivity for sweets and his short fuse and his favorite tea. Behaviors which Sebastian thought couldn't be purely inherited or coincidental, but which he knew were not learned.

Demons were ignoble creatures, incapable of humanity's passions, but that never meant they were any less selfish. An unerring soul so dignified as his, one worth dying for, wasn't to be taken lightly. He hadn't bothered to commence searching for a more worthwhile contractor after he had taken his master, for he knew one didn't exist. How predictably dissatisfying, to have sampled the quintessence of perfection and to live on afterwards, in a cyclical hell of banality. He had consumed souls before and since, but they were naught in comparison. The only way he found he could relieve this tension, though he didn't think much into it, was through the one living being comparable to Ciel, from the concrete product and evidence that he and Ciel's relations had existed. Aster.

Sebastian was well aware that, after century upon century of indulging in his hedonistic and carnal lifestyle, he was simply moping. He knew this behavior was pathetic for a demon of his position to exhibit. But what else was he to do? Millenniums worth of razing and ravaging people to find a flawless soul, and once he had consumed him, that long-coveted, all-encroaching bliss was over in moments. Sebastian was tired.

In addition, he was also aware that this fix was only temporary. Though simply conceived for business, Aster bore all of Ciel's traits, and he was still Sebastian's offspring; could he help being fond of the boy? Through yet another attachment, he had simply delayed his misery.

Their son was a mortal. Sebastian could visit him in this world, observe his successes and failures, and bask in every moment of his livelihood. He could stay by the hybrid's side as he aged, and even if he felt none of it, he could pretend to celebrate and mourn with him, just for his son's satisfaction. Watch over him from afar, like a guardian angel. Live by his side as he had his father's, and stand diligent until the day he lay in his deathbed. Hell, if it would leave the boy content, he could be there to hold his hand as he passed away and transgressed into the hell they both had coming for them.

However, inevitably, Sebastian's son would die. His time would come to an end just as Ciel's had, in the blink of an eye. Man's lifespan was provisional. Therefore, it was mandatory he keep his distance, and only allow himself one week a year.

And it was because of this that Sebastian couldn't tell his son what he kept in the flask.

Regularly, if Sebastian heard a shout of his name on the streets, he would not so much as turn his head; after all, while it was the name he'd been provided in his favored contract with the late earl, and he had become accustomed to answering to it on his visits to the Phantomhive Estate, it was not his actual name. However, when he heard it pronounced in an all-too-familiar voice, leaking from lips in a desperate plea, the situation changed dramatically.

"S-Sebastia—!" the panicked voice cracked in its urgency, as if the speaker was on the verge of tears, before being abruptly cut off by cacophonous wretching noises and the sound of fluid spattering over cobblestones.

Aster.

Initially, Sebastian had intended to leave England yesterday; the anniversary of Ciel's death had passed once more, and it was indisputable that he needed to depart. Regardless, due to an unfortunate run-in with some of his reaper acquaintances over the issue of an unpalatable soul he'd consumed a week ago, his schedule was delayed, and here he was, walking the less than savory streets of London and reveling in the thriving nightlife.

Whether it was from blood relations to the demon himself, or from some tie to the previous earl that induced a summoning affect to his words, Aster's cry disarmed him, and he snapped his head to the side, trying to pinpoint the noise. He swiftly discerned the boy's scent, and, irregularly alarmed, tracked him into a dim alley nearby. Ah, Aster must have spotted him on the road.

Aster Phantomhive, who had turned eighteen a mere week prior, was hunched over onto all fours, heaving and hacking as some strange concoction of blood and a silvery gelatinous substance spewed from his mouth. He trembled as he choked and coughed, sides swelling with breath and tears sluicing down the sides of his face. To his side, only a couple of yards away, a young woman's corpse lay sprawled across the ground, her lustrous auburn hair soaking up the muck and filth in between the cobblestones.

"I don't know what to do. It happened—" the teenager started, his voice thick with sobs, before he suddenly gagged again and lurched forwards, more slick blood pouring from his lips to join the egress below. Once he recovered, thick strands of congealing blood and strings of that wispy silver still dangling from his lips, he sputtered, "It happened again, and I tried to stop it, but I did it again..."

Making sure to keep his son in sight, he stepped over to the cadaver; he had his suspicions over the situation, yet he needed to be certain. As he observed the woman, he noted several contusions around her neck and the base of her skull, yet these hadn't killed her. No, those inky bruises, sealed into place by lips and fingertips, could not have been bestowed at a lethal pressure. Her fine gown was abnormally ruffled, the silken fabric torn in some places, yet she had no open wounds to suggest he'd done her bodily harm; no, if he had to supply a reason for her sartorial disarray, it looked as though she had hastily hiked up her skirt earlier, though he didn't want to dwell too much on that. A small trail of blood trickled from the edge of her rouged lips, and as Sebastian studied her lifeless complexion, his fears were affirmed. This woman had no soul.

Sebastian's frenzied look melted into one of concern, and he knelt beside the boy in understanding. Hybrids between humans and demons were unable to devour human souls. Even though the demon counterpart of the creature was destined to be greedy on instinct, constantly hungry and magnetized to the essence of quality humans, the mortal part of the hybrid was incapable of digesting it. If a cambion actually managed to rip a soul from a human and swallow it, chances were that it would be purged out just as quickly. A rather distasteful practice, and a difficult burden in Aster's case, since he didn't seem particularly skilled in self-control.

Eventually, the earl ceased quivering and stood up with Sebastian's assistance, still refusing to look in the corpse's direction. Bitterly, he blinked away the tears, but made no move to wipe the salty residue from his face. He tilted his head and caught a pair of crimson eyes, yet before he could speak, Sebastian began questioning him.

"You said 'again'," Sebastian spoke softly with a sigh, hoping to ease the boy's fretting. Gingerly, he pulled a handkerchief from within his coat and dabbed at the earl's chin, swiping up the dribbles of crimson before they dripped onto and stained his shirt. "Has this happened before?"

"Twice before," he murmured coldly, averting his gaze defeatedly.

The demon lifted his brow as he continued cleaning Aster's chin as if he was child, more in inquiry than blatant disapproval, but the glower glinting in his eyes was more than enough to intimidate Aster; as if he knew what his father would ask next, he went ahead and mumbled out the identities of his victims.

"It was the man next in line to be the Duke of Sussex, and then his little sister..."

Sebastian's eyes widened in response to this, recalling all of the public outcry he'd heard over the supposed murders of a duke's children; the uproar was all the more potent since the old duke was in his deathbed, and his son was finally of age to inherit his role. No wonder so many reapers had been around, if situations such as these were going on. Aster didn't convey any shame about sleeping with and slaughtering the duke and his sister, but rather looked troubled at the memory; not as distraught as he seemed to be with this girl's death, but still solemn.

"I did it on accident, the first time," he murmured in monotone, his eyes dry. "I didn't want to hurt him, at all. I was infatuated with him. But his sister... I didn't care about her quite as much as I cared for him, but she really was so sweet, and she... she smelled like him, if that makes any sense at all..."

Suppressing a pitying sigh, Sebastian knit his brows together as Aster commenced in telling his story. Since Aster wasn't even sure now of what it was he'd done, and his human emotions complicated the matter, Sebastian could infer that the boy didn't know he had been seeking out souls suitable for his appetite; no, he had probably genuinely believed that he'd loved all three of those people. It truly was pitiable, in a way, but he doubted his son would appreciate such a derogatory type of sympathy.

"But..." he muttered, an eerie look of uncertainty encompassing his features. "I think I may have... done that to his sister on purpose." He paused, frantic eyes flitting up and searching Sebastian's despondent gaze for any trace of understanding. "You see, she told me she was pregnant. At first, I just felt exuberant... I was so excited at the very idea I could have lost my senses!"

A slow smile stretched over his features, unnerving with his wide-eyed gaze, before tapering away. "Then I remembered all of the things that happened to Father because of me... and I remembered all of the scorn I had to deal with, growing up, which nobody wants their child to go through... and the company already in such a precarious position, as far as society's views go. I just couldn't let it happen... So I killed her. I had to, right? At the time I brushed it off as an accident as well, but I can't be certain if I didn't mean to...

"This, though... this was never supposed to happen," he finished shakily, before finally turning to face the redhead's body. Cautiously, he moved towards her one step at a time, gritting his teeth. His motions became jerkier the closer he got to her, until finally he simply froze, knees buckling as he collapsed all of his weight onto a nearby wall. "We were so happy, and everything was fine..."

"Aster..."

Spontaneously, the boy's face crumpled into a mask of furious despair, and what began as a deep, reverberating rumble in his chest swelled in volume, until he was screeching, a rough and raspy scream of unbridled frustration tearing from his throat. Turning with a rabid grunt, he pitched his fist against the wall, the impact wrenching another cry from his lips as he began to pummel the brick wall. Despite how the spectacle twisted at his insides, Sebastian restrained himself from interfering, permitting the boy to hammer his fists into the eroding brick wall over and over again in vicious onslaught. The battery didn't halt until Aster was content with the fissures slicing through the cracked wall, with the blood cascading from his mutilated knuckles, and then he dropped to his knees. Uncaring of his father's observation, he bundled the dead body into his arms and lugged it into his lap.

Sebastian could easily imagine him becoming lost in the passion of the moment, of him delving into instincts and indulging in primal pleasures beyond the limits of humanity; a taste of a fine and pure soul, and he could have easily forced his tongue into her gullet, reached deep within her and pried it brusquely from her living body, letting her innards twist and writhe in pain as he gracelessly dragged out those last shreds of life. He did not drain the woman he loved; he tore her apart from the inside out, and all in vain. Sebastian was certain, due to his demonic disposition, that this heartbreak would not plague him forever, yet he was unsure how to comfort him, and why it made him so uneasy.

"You know," Astaroth smiled poignantly, reaching downwards to brush strands of auburn from the cold skin of her face, caressing from her temple to her cheek repetitively. "I was so excited for my next birthday. I was going to introduce you to her, actually. There was no way her family would approve to begin with, but in time, I was certain I could convince them to come to an agreement..."

Sebastian had a mild revelation on why this was so unsettling in its entirety. A demon distraught over consuming that which it desired most. Like father, like son.

Aster chuckled darkly. "I was going to ask her to marry me."

She tried, with every fiber of her being, to hate the child; Sebastian could tell just by glancing into those glassy emerald eyes.

To the prestigious and honorable Lady Elizabeth, the Phantomhive bastard may as well have been designed simply to spite her. He was a nuisance to her social life, a red flag labeling her as a target for mortifying pity. Aster was a giggling, frolicking taunt of Ciel's infidelity, in a way that haunted her to the point that it victimized her. Due to all of this, she should have resented Astaroth Phantomhive, and all of society knew it, waiting in giddy predilection of their encounters. predicting that one day the detest she must have kept concealed would at long last burst forth.

Yet it never did.

Elizabeth Midford had done well for herself. She had been lauded as a saint after the scandal, and in time, once it seemed the bulk of her grief over her adulterous fiance's death had dissipated, she was married off. Ten years since the entire fiasco had unraveled, and she was the wife to a duke, as well as the mother of two children, a girl and a boy. Although she had never seemed particularly fixated with the man she married, he was a decent and respectable fellow, and their relationship was stable enough. Even so, not even her devoted husband knew much about the hushed travels she would take out to the Phantomhive Estate every several months.

Coincidentally enough, one of her scheduled visits coupled up with Sebastian's once, on Aster's eighth birthday, and the demon was more than perplexed over the development between them. Contrarily, Elizabeth didn't seem too astonished to see Sebastian, and actually treated him amiably, as if his familiar face stirred more pleasant memory that heartbreak, despite how he must have posed as a reminder of Ciel. The crow demon was certain that the woman wouldn't regard him as kindly if she knew who Aster's actual mother was, but thankfully that snippet of information was kept secret.

In the very least, Sebastian predicted her conversations with Aster to be bitter and reproachful, teeming either with jealousy or ulterior motive, but that wasn't the case. In actuality, the amount of tenderness she displayed for the bastard child was shocking in and of itself; on each visit, the blonde always arrived weighted down with trifling little gifts and candies, negligible in value but significant in their situation. Indeed, whenever she was ensnared in conversation with the precocious boy, she was purely smiles and snickering.

Once or twice, the child turned his back on her, and her countenance slipped a bit, unveiling glimpses of whatever intention lurked inside. The slight snarling of her lip, the crinkling of her nose, the haughty and contemptuous glint in her narrowed eyes, one that spoke of wickedness. She wanted to loathe him. However, for some reason, be it the lack of animosity in her heart, or the beautiful face of the boy before her, she was unable to ruin him.

Some emotions are so potent that they cannot ebb away, whether in the erosion of time or under the splitting pressure of betrayal. Elizabeth had only loved one man in her life.

Aster reminded her of Ciel, too.

Sebastian was accustomed to making cleaning rounds through the mansion in his spare time, scouring each and every room for the scantest trace of dust. Considering that this was the last time he would ever perform such a task, he was even more productive and painstaking in tidiness than usual; it would be disgraceful for him to leave the estate in a state of disarray greater than he had found it in. Tomorrow, Ciel Phantomhive would die, and Sebastian would never have to worry about the manor's maintenance ever again.

As he contemplated this rather memorable and almost somber cleaning venture, he carried on through the guest rooms until he reached the one that temporarily posed as a nursery. He strolled through the doorway, lost in his pondering, but froze on entering. How intriguing; he certainly wasn't anticipating his master's presence.

As inhumanly graceful as Sebastian's tread was, the demon went unnoticed by his ornery master; the teen had his back to him, and seemed to be swaying back and forth ever so slightly, the bundled-up infant cradled in his arms. From the angle he was at, Sebastian could see Ciel's nose nudging into the baby's dark hair, but he was not kissing the child's forehead; no, his lips were pressed to the skin, in a tender gesture, but they simply lingered there, in contrast to the earl's distant gaze. The touch was hesitant and careful, as if he was uncertain of precisely what to do, but nurturing nonetheless, in a reassuring sort of way. In fact, it was nearly as if he hoped to extinguish his own qualms by comforting the blissfully unaware infant. His sapphire eye alone, exposed in such a private environment, betrayed more than just his qualms to Sebastian. Frustration and distraught mingled precariously within his aura, each threatening to throw the other off-kilter, and his ambiance was drenched in anxiety; the type of uncertainty that frayed one's nerves, but still served as a welcome means of escape from one's current distress, to the point of eagerness. All of these swirling and shifting emotions rampant within the earl, riling him rabid, and yet he still wore a stoic mask, projecting hints of his weakness only in front of his son. While he knew the majority of the hybrid's existence relied on illusion, and that his son was no more than a monstrous heathen inside, for once, he found himself willing to accept the easy lie. The half-demon was still his son, the only family he had left, and would be treated as such. He had respected him enough to give him his father's name, hadn't he?

It didn't matter, anyways; tomorrow, he would fulfill his revenge, and likely never see his son again. His craving for vengeance was still pertinent enough for him to forego the concept of fatherhood, for him to give up those nightly visits to his child's crib and all of the days that could have been... at least, he thought it was. After all, the Earl of Phantomhive figured it was beneficial for everyone this way. Astaroth, who had never been considered a possible piece in this chess game to begin with, would only have a husk of a father if Ciel stayed, anyways; he had crafted and carved himself ideally for this goal alone. He was nothing without hatred.

The butler loitered in the shadows, watching Ciel's deadpan twitch as traces of emotion flitted over his features, and he could feel the potent sensations through their contract. Most of his brooding dwelled over Sebastian, as it so happened, and Sebastian waited, attempting to decipher what in specific affected his master so. Ciel continued to sway, finally lifting his lips from Aster's forehead, before propping the child up so that his face could nestle into the warmth of the crook between Ciel's neck and shoulder. The hand supporting his son's head threaded its fingers carefully through the fine tresses, and Ciel grit his teeth, a glassy look glazing over his eye, and a strange pained expression distorted his features. His grip, still so gentle, seemed to tighten slightly. Would he really be able to pry himself from his own child? Would doing anything but dying not look as if he had relinquished his willpower and caved to weakness? It took an instant for Sebastian to discern Ciel's expression, because it was one he hadn't seen before; Ciel Phantomhive, attempting to choke down the urge to cry.

Something about the entire spectacle bothered Sebastian, in a way that coiled and constricted in his gut. He was hesitant to name what it was that made him so uncomfortable, but he could easily blame the culpable idea that it was appalling to see a proud, determined soul, one that had already faced so much adversity and suffering, crumble at long last in the hands of the unexpected, right before he received what he always wanted. Yet that wasn't the whole of it. Contrarily, Sebastian found as if he was somehow susceptible to Ciel's emotion as well, due to the flimsy boundaries between them in their contract. He could feel the earl's anguish, curling around him like tendrils, slurping and licking up his sides like tongues of flame...

"Pardon the intrusion, my lord," Sebastian announced his presence, unable to cope with the conflicting feelings any longer. "I certainly hope I'm not interrupting anything."

Ciel, regularly so unshakable, lurched forward at the sound of that familiar voice, before, whipping his head over his shoulder, still clenching the child. At first, he appeared livid, as if the surprise had stirred up animosity just for his defenses, but he composed himself quickly, slipping into a collected guise. Sebastian couldn't be the one to see him like this.

"Not at all," Ciel turned abruptly, concealing his shameful expression as he placed Astaroth back into his crib. The baby's bed was a perfect replica of Ciel's crib, which had also been reconstructed along with the mansion and its furniture after the fire, but it hardly fooled anyone. The shiny lacquer of the wood was too fresh and unused for its supposed age; any real evidence of Ciel's tranquil childhood had burned to ashes years ago. "What do you want, Sebastian?"

The boy flinched a bit when he heard the butler begin approaching him; he couldn't help but cringe on reflex whenever his servant made an appearance, the horrifying images from about a week before flickering through his memory and marring his complicated impression of the demon, but he could put it to the back of his mind swiftly. Even after all of this, he did not fear him. What he felt was a bit more ambiguous than that.

"I simply came to clean the bedroom, master. If you're busy in here, I can easily return at a later time," Sebastian iterated, cautious to use a pleasantly casual tone, but to his confusion, it just seemed to irk Ciel more.

"No, I was just leaving," he muttered gruffly, but made no move to exit the room.

Sebastian slipped a feather duster seemingly from thin air and swiveled on his heels, prepared to tend to the picture frames, before the boy cleared his throat, capturing his attention.

"This morning, you told me I would complete my revenge today," Ciel spoke in an uncharacteristically soft voice, but there was a stern edge to it. "Things didn't go according to plan, and now, you're saying tomorrow. Will it be tomorrow, Sebastian?"

The staccato firmness with which he accentuated every word made his servant tentative to answer; Ciel had placed himself in such a precarious position, unraveling over an issue so simple and relative as time. But time was the most crucial variable in winning this game; if he was expecting his death and he was deprived of it, forced to live on and contemplate these things... separating himself would only grow more difficult with time. The boy finally turned to face him. His countenance was impassive once more, his cheeks completely dry, yet dabs of wetness glistened at the corners of his lashes, evidence of the prickling tears he hadn't let spill over. Sebastian cleared his throat.

"Under any circumstance, my lord, problems will arise that cannot be previously accounted for, however—"

Sebastian's speech was severed when he was spontaneously knocked back into a wall, the air spiraling from his lungs when his broad shoulders made impact. The physical pain from the battery, however, made him far less breathless than the realization that his master had been the one to shove him backwards. Attempting to wield an ancient devil like a ragdoll, despite how facetious the situation really was, he grasped at the collar of Sebastian's dress shirt and thrust the man against the cool surface, securing him in place possessively; yes, Ciel still had this much control. Lips curled into a snarl, he leaned in closely, his face inches from Sebastian's.

"Just answer me," he growled out, his voice resonating lowly as he gnashed his teeth. Ciel's abrupt ferocity puzzled Sebastian, just as his brazen behavior did, but the butler made no attempt to defy his master's will. "Will you take me tomorrow?"

Ciel stared into those unwavering crimson eyes, drinking in their apathetic conviction, slowly absorbing the image of that disappointingly beautiful mask. He didn't think he loved his demon, regardless of Sebastian's steadfast devotion and dangerous false beauty and benign years' worth of servitude. Even now, after he had pledged his soul to him, and the demon had, in turn, somehow provided him with a family, a triviality such as love was unfitting. Yet even though Ciel claimed not to love him, he couldn't explain his bleak frustration over the idea that Sebastian couldn't love. He was a monster, nothing more, and Ciel had little to refute that. He despised Sebastian, for instilling any of these sensations inside of him to begin with at this point in his life, for creating something that he was capable of loving and then snatching it away, for having a demon's nature and being what he was. And even more prominently, despite how he wanted to take out his stress on its source, he hated himself. It was his fault as well, for promising himself to the beast, for involving himself and getting entwined in these complications. For sinking so low as to hate a creature for not loving him.

"If you can't do that much, the one job you ought to be capable of doing, then there's no point to you," Ciel hissed out bitterly, his virulent words brushing over Sebastian's mouth in their proximity. It was too much for Ciel: the warmth pooling in his chest at just being this close to his devoted demon, the excitement shuddering down his spine at the feeling of their bare skin touching, the nausea wrenching in his own gut with disgust for himself, the overwhelming urge to hurl Sebastian to the floor and dispel his anger unto him, the fear of the future stirring beneath the surface, and the idea that their child was sleeping mere yards away. He couldn't take it.

Hand trembling from exertion, Ciel finally released his hold on Sebastian, stumbling backwards a bit. The glance in his eye was manic and disheveled, and his chin quivered ever so slightly.

"...Just what exactly are you good for, Sebastian?" he mumbled, his expression irate but his breathing shaky. Without further ado, he exited the room.

The next day, Ciel Phantomhive died.

He could not fathom the agony he knew he must be putting the boy through. To have one's soul completely severed, to dwell in two worlds at once, to slowly filter through the dimension of one realm into the next, being continuously devoured for centuries. For one to never be whole, but rather to drain into oneself over the years, in a blistering and anguishing method such as this... why, he would be shocked if one arrived on the other side without being deranged. Sebastian was well aware that it was cruel and torturous, that it was nearly desecration for him to agonize the one soul he adored and appraised above all others, but he couldn't resist. He was too selfish.

Sebastian kept the remnants of Ciel's soul in a small flask within his breast pocket.

If he were to endure the eternity after Ciel, choking down each bitter and pungent soul after the next for sustenance alone, he would need a single ambition to keep him going. A fragment of Ciel to carry with him for the remainder of his life as a demon; even if he could only sample one minuscule drop per decade, the divine, flawless taste would be enough to keep him going for as long as he needed.

This reminder of Ciel would live on long after even Aster was gone. And Sebastian would still keep at least a portion of Ciel by his side afterwards, even if it meant years of depriving his own son of seeing his father in hell. It was twisted and distorted, yet he could not relinquish Ciel so early, and not even for Aster's benefit.

He would cherish that flask until he was ready to die himself, to succumb to blazing pits of hell for eternity, because he believed that he deserved to consume that perfect soul right before he passed on. All of the time spent mulling over the contents preserved in that container, all of the hours spent grasping and groping and slipping his fingers around the bottle, meditating on the possibilities restraint had to offer him... it would be worth it to devour Ciel in his final moments, to savor, without restriction, the coveted soul he had so carefully cultivated. He would die a sated demon.

And once the boy was devoured fully, he ought to be complete once more.

When Sebastian returned to hell, he would drag Ciel down with him.

Four days after Astaroth Phantomhive's eleventh birthday, the boy knocked on Sebastian's door in the middle of the night. Evidently, he was experiencing some severe nightmares, and he bid Sebastian sleep in his bed with him, grappling onto the demon's hand and urgently tugging him down the hall to his room. It certainly was ironic: a terror of the night, subject to night terrors. Regardless, Sebastian complied without thinking much on the issue, and in moments was resting on his side, a slumbering Aster nuzzling coyly into his frame.

His gaze rested on his son's face; with those rich wine-colored eyes shut, he looked exactly like his father did when he slept. Almost tangibly, his eyes stroked over those fair cheeks, the pout on his pale lips, the tousled mop of navy blue hair. With his body flush to Sebastian's, the demon could hear the half-breed's fragile heartbeat, a soft palpitation that, while mildly deceptive, branded him as mortal. Susceptible. The notion ruffled Sebastian more than it should have, and he straightened a bit, curling himself more protectively around his son. Guarding the child in his sleep, like any loyal parent would do for its offspring.

And then the unexpected occurred.

A creature borne of scalding infernos and sweltering embers ought to be used to this. A beast accustomed to fiery lust and boiling blood and and hot carnal carousals should be more than acquainted with this. And yet he was not. In fact, it suddenly came to his attention that, although he knew heat very well, this was the first time he had experienced any sensation like this. In addition, he only felt it when that tiny body was curled against his, and it came from within, this tightening in his chest, this... this...

Warmth.

A/N: All in all, I feel like this is a lot more optimistic than Incubus ever was... Actually, the more I think about it, the outlook might be more depressing... I have no idea. xD It's certainly less disturbing... but I feel like it ended up being a completely different story than Incubus and that it ought to be separate... I hope no one's upset that it is. Dx Anyhow, this fic is meant to be complete, but that's subject to change... I only included scenes that I thought would frame a basic characterization for Aster to shift around in... I would probably love writing more about him, honestly, but that's only if anyone's actually fond of the Phantomhive bastard. So we'll see.

On that note, Sebastian raised a little pimp who goes around screwing and slaying bitches left and right. Don't act surprised~

In other news, due to a convincing argument made by a certain reviewer, there's a possibility that Eudemon Everlasting will have a continuation. MAYBE. At the moment I have my hands full with a delicious Cielois~ In all honesty, I usually hate my own writing, but I've already started working on it, and I have to say you guys are in for a treat ^-^ Like you have no idea how excited I am to write this and share it with you guys!

Anyhow, check my page for updates, and if you haven't read my other fanfictions, namely Eudemon Everlasting, I'd be ecstatic if you did!

Please review, kittens! Your words keep me going!