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It all started very suddenly.
It was a normal night at the Phantomhive Manor, everyone was asleep except Sebastian, going around with a candle and doing his nightly duties. There was nothing that would have warned him from the sudden way he felt. He felt weak, so he slowed down his steps, he felt sweaty, which made no sense when the night was so cold, and he felt a strange sensation in his stomach, almost as if he had just eaten something bad (which also made no sense, he hasn't eaten anything at all in years). He felt… sick.
Sebastian didn’t think much of it, because he has never been sick. The closest to feeling sick he has ever been was when Undertaker impaled him with his death scythe, and even then he recuperated in no time. The longer he spent doing his chores, walking about here and there, the fatigue would get worse and worse. I mean, if he got stabbed again by a death scythe he would’ve known, so there’s really no reason to be feeling like this. It was so bizarre.
His stomach ache just got worse and worse, it was so bad, in fact, he started to feel like vomiting, it was an indescribable pain. When it became completely intolerable he collapsed into his knees and started gagging. Now, that is when he truly started to panic. He felt something going up through his throat, begging to be vomited. At first he didn’t want to, he started to suspect what it was and he didn’t want it to be let out. But the painful way it was scratching around his throat made him finally let it out.
So now there he was, on both his knees, in the middle of a hallway at night, with a dense black mass with a bunch of eyes looking up at him from the carpet. The taste of it in his mouth still lingered and it was truly disgusting, the multiple bulging eyes on it kept glancing wildly around the room while Sebastian panted from exhaustion, watching it.
It was a demon baby, completely new born and it came from… Sebastian?
Now, demon biology isn’t really understood, not even among them. Demons are solitary creatures that compete against each other more often than not if they come across each other’s paths. However every demon is capable of giving birth, but not in the way humans do. They don’t need sex, they just give birth by their own wishes. They can pick apart a part of their own flesh, personality, or emotion in which a tiny demon will be regurgitated and grow up to become their own demon. Sebastian has heard of rare cases where a demon has given birth without their will, but they are so rare it almost feels like a legend. Because of this, Sebastian thought that it wasn’t possible, but now, he realizes, it is possible and it has happened to him.
He was glad no one was awake to see that, he doesn’t think he would have been able to explain it. He didn’t know what to feel about it, he didn’t wish to have a baby. So, he grabbed the newly borned demon and spent the rest of the night burning it into the flames of hell (which took approximately 4 hours, killing a demon isn’t easy!) (It also burnt his fingers a little).
By the time he came back to the mortal realm it was almost 6 AM, so he started his daily routine as usual. Despite Sebastian acting perfectly as if he didn’t just got rid of his offspring, everyone around him noticed something was off about him today, and they had no tact whatsoever so they kept pointing it out to him.
It was Bard first, since he is the first person he sees every morning as they prepare for Ciel’s breakfast. In a very rude way, he spits “what’s got you so fucking shaky today?” and because he finds it extremely funny, he spends a few minutes laughing afterwards until Sebastian gives him a glare that makes him choke on his cigarette and not tease him any more (although he keeps giggling whenever he glances at Sebastian). The fact that Sebastian didn’t even bother to answer was testament enough to his mood today.
Next it was Finny, while Sebastian accompanies him shortly at the garden giving him instructions for the day he notices Finny looking very intensely at him. It was a very absent-minded stare, as if he was zoning out, so Sebastian stops to ask “Are you paying attention to what I’m saying?”
In which Finny answers with his own question, “Is everything okay, Mr. Sebastian?”. Sebastian sighs. He wasn’t acting any different, so what’s got the servants so strange today? Were his sore fingers that obvious in the way he moves? Is there something in his face?
Finny looked genuinely worried for him, and unlike Bard who knows to shut up after a while, Finny won't stop pestering him about it if Sebastian doesn’t give him an answer, but if he says he’s fine he knows Finny will not believe him, so now he’s got to act as if something is up with him (which it isn’t).
Sebastian sighs again and says “I had a bad night, don’t worry about me”. Finny, who has very bad nightmares now and then, takes it as if Sebastian does too (even though Sebastian doesn’t sleep at all) and makes sure to give him plenty of space for the rest of the day. (except when he tried to make a special tea for Sebastian around lunch time and used around half of a jar of tea so strong it could’ve knocked out a simple human in three minutes from drinking it. The fact that Sebastian drank it all and didn’t bother to tell him to never make tea ever again was testament enough to his mood today.)
Mey Rin doesn’t say anything at first, even when it’s so obvious she wants to say something. She is helping him set the table for breakfast when she finally gets the courage to say, without stuttering and in a very serious tone “Is Mr. Sebastian okay today? I could help with some of his chores if he feels too tired.” In an attempt to avoid the annoying question he reminds her the bathroom is yet to be cleaned and in typical Mey Rin fashion she gasps nervously and, successfully distracted, quickly walks out of the room murmuring to herself “Oh gosh, how could I forget?” among other things.
Snake doesn’t seem to notice anything at all. Sebastian is making afternoon tea at the kitchen, Snake greets him quietly, and continues to help Bard with dinner. When he is done with tea and already out of the kitchen on his way to deliver it he hears Snake’s voice say “Is he feeling okay? … says Emily” and Sebastian feels like throwing the tea cup at the wall. (Which is testament enough of his mood today).
Thankfully, Tanaka is the only one to keep quiet.
Ciel is more difficult about it, he notices, it’s obvious he notices, but he also doesn’t seem to care enough to ask about it. At least not during breakfast, or the rest of the day. It gives Sebastian enough time to think what to give as an answer were he to ask. Should he give a partial truth? Telling all the truth would make Ciel worry for his health, or have curiosity for unnecessary things. He would have questions Sebastian doesn’t want to answer and that he doesn’t have an answer for.
All this thinking makes Sebastian more irritable by the time bedtime comes. Not only that, that dreadful sickness returns again suddenly. He is in a predicament, he realizes, and hopes he can get away with it as just having a bad day. Ciel, however, knows his acts way too well, and finally asks him as he lays on his bed waiting for Sebastian to extinguish all the candles.
“What’s wrong with you?” he says, watching him suspiciously. And Sebastian, after having the whole day to think for the perfect answer says “Just a sickness, I can take care of it, It won’t disturb my work” (which is all true, he doesn’t have to mention that this is the second time he feels like this and doesn’t want to begin thinking about the possibilities of it coming back). Ciel makes a face, yawns, and doesn’t question him any further. Maybe he is too sleepy to start worrying about him, and Sebastian likes to think he is very convincing at acting as if the pain isn’t getting worse.
After that, Sebastian does his nightly duties as fast as he can while trying not to vomit another demon baby into existence. When he is finished, he vomits the baby out painfully, and spends the new vacant hours of his night routine in the depths of hell getting rid of the tiny demon.
Next morning he feels less agitated, his fingers are still sore but he gets used to it quickly by now. He has changed his night routine to accommodate in the case he has to burn another baby (he hopes that was the last one), and that alleviates him a bit (he doesn’t want to think about why he is giving birth to baby demons at all, everything is fine with him). Seeing he feels better than yesterday the servants think he is back to normal and don’t bother him with their worries anymore.
However Ciel (the brat) still notices there’s something odd about him and continues their short conversation from last night first thing in the morning.
“What brought up this sickness? I thought you couldn’t get sick.” he says slowly around a yawn.
“I’m not sure what it was exactly. I don’t get sick with human’s illnesses, there are, however, sicknesses that demons can get, as rare as it is.” He pours him his morning tea.
“Should I be worried you’re going to die?” he says mockingly.
“I wont die from this.”
“Then what is it that is making you look paler than you already are?” He sips his tea calmly, watching Sebastian folding his clothes in a pile at the end of the bed.
He contemplates what he should say for a few seconds, and then tilts his head a bit, avoiding eye contact. “You could say I am… pregnant.”
There is a heavy silence after that.
“At least the demonic equivalent of being pregnant.” He adds, in case it needed to be clarified.
There is even more silence after that.
Finally he dares to see his young master’s reaction. He is almost frozen, teacup being held as if he was going to take a sip, mouth open and eyes wide, watching directly at Sebastian. Sebastian tries to make his face as neutral as possible, but he can’t keep making eye contact with Ciel after a few seconds, a sign of his embarrassment.
Ciel, noticing this, decides to react to his embarrassment instead of his words and starts laughing. Laughing really hard. In fact he starts leaning back on his bed, so Sebastian takes his teacup from his hand to let him finally lay on it as he laughs, making fists around his blanket. After a few minutes where he spends giggling and laughing again and giggling, kicking his feet, while he laughs again, clutching his stomach while he giggles because laughing started to hurt, and giggling again, he finally stops.
The silence returns.
“...What?”
“I’m pregnant.”
He sits up. “You’re a man. How is that possible?” He sounds and looks incredulous.
“I’m not a man. I’m a demon.”
“What?”
“Any demon can get pregnant.”
“What?”
“Are you okay?” He asks mockingly. Finally a distraction from his predicament.
“What? No! You’re pregnant? What?”
“Yes, I am pregnant.” He smirks down at him, pleased at seeing his young master so lost.
“How does that even work?” Ciel asks angrily, he has started to regain his composure.
“We demons can get pregnant whenever we wish-”
“You want to? Right now? When you’re contracted with me?”
“No, I would never.” Sebastian assures him, starting to get frustrated. “Nor would I want to after the contract ends. This is just one of those cases…” he tilts his head again and caresses his own chin in thought.
Ciel picks up after him. “You’re saying it is possible a demon can get pregnant without wanting to?”
A grimace. “Yes”
“And this is one of those rare instances that it happens?”
A sigh. “Yes”
“And you are pregnant?”
“Yes again”
After a short moment of silence Ciel stands up so Sebastian can begin to dress him up. “I don’t want to keep talking about this” he says.
“As you wish, my lord”
They do, in fact, not talk about it for the rest of the day. And as he puts Ciel to bed and on his way to do his nightly duties, the same sickness comes back. This demon, unfortunately, really wants to be born, and Sebastian is starting to feel really angry at it.
After he vomits the baby demon in the privacy of his room, he says to it in a rough voice “Why the bloody hell do you want to separate from me so badly?”
The baby just turns all his six eyes on him.
He grabs it harshly at one of his tendrils. “I am busy playing butler right now, I can’t teach you to create your own personality, try to be born again in a few four hundred years”
It keeps staring at him. Sebastian supposes the tiny demon hasn’t learned how to grow its own mouth yet.
He burns it to death again.
Next morning Ciel asks during breakfast, “Are you going to keep it?”
“Excuse me, my lord?”
“The baby. Are you keeping it?”
“I got rid of it last night.”
He chokes on a pastry. “W-whuh?”
“I burned it.” he smirks.
“Huh? Then, you’re all good again? No more sickness?”
Sebastian pauses. “It is possible I am still pregnant…”
Ciel just stares at him. “Sebastian…”
“Yes, my lord?”
“Explain, right now.”
“I would recommend finishing breakfast before-”
“Now, Sebastian”
He sighs. He explains what he can. It is true demons can give birth as they wish, but because it is a solitary act, they have to give up something about them. It has to be something strong, sturdy and valuable as to give mass to a baby, but Sebastian can’t even begin to think what is it that the baby is taking from him to manifest itself, he doesn’t think there is something of him that is so important that he would be willing to part with. He voices his concerns to his young master.
“I will not pretend I understand what it is that you’re trying to say.”
“Since the baby is being born by its own wishes instead of mine-”
“It wants to be born?...”
“-Then it must mean I have something about me that is strong enough to form him into existence” he continues brainstorming despite Ciel’s confused stare. “It must have developed recently for it to be so sudden… It can’t be my intelligence, I value that way too much to give some to my son-”
“Huh?”
“Maybe it's an emotion, that could certainly explain why it keeps coming back…” He watches Ciel’s untouched meal as he talks. “An emotion I keep on feeling that is strong enough for me to keep giving birth…”
“Sebastian.” says Ciel in a stern voice.
“Yes, my lord?”
“Find out the reason and get rid of it. That is an order”
“Yes, my lord.”
Because it is an order, Sebastian is obliged to no longer ignore his feelings. And truth be told, after his brainstorming at breakfast, he may know what emotion it may be. But it is so bizarre for him, of all demons, to be feeling that emotion in the first place. He remembers two weeks before he gave birth the first time, he took a trip to London to check on the Phantomhive’s townhouse. It is a trip that he usually takes every month to see that everything is okay and to report back to his young master. It takes no longer than a whole afternoon. However, this trip had a strange atmosphere to it.
It all was going as it usually did; Sebastian arrived, Master Soma would avoid him the moment he saw the carriage from the window, Agni would greet him at the door, and would answer honestly to any questions Sebastian may have about how the house is running, about recent visitors, about the curry buns Agni insists he should give for free every Monday, about Lady Sieglinde, who has taken a liking to challenge Soma to every table game she learns about, about how Soma’s lectures are going, if there are any issues from the house’s infrastructure that needs repair, or if they need new ceramic dishes to be made.
Agni always offers him tea, which Sebastian always accepts but does not drink. They always sit in front of the fireplace that Agni always lights up as Sebastian sits down. Agni looked enthusiastic that day, his smile was bigger to the point it would scrunch his eyes with it, his hands shaked a little and he would stutter his words every now and then. Sebastian did not say anything about it, since he took this as signs that his report was going to be nothing but positive. They talked, with the few interruptions from Soma at the doorway (he always tries to distract Agni with pointless requests when Sebastian visits, he suspects he is jealous he is taking so much of Agni’s time away from him), and by the time the sun was setting Sebastian’s carriage would arrive to take him back to the Manor.
He and Agni would shake hands, Sebastian would say his goodbyes to him and Master Soma, and he would not see them until next month. However this time Agni stopped him for a few moments at the entrance, he grabbed his sleeve, and smiled at him calmly. All of the bursting energy he had all afternoon seemed to have left, leaving him relaxed. He told him “I actually have something for you, before you go” and held his unoccupied hand in front of him held in a fist.
Sebastian wordlessly held his palm up, letting Agni drop whatever it was into Sebastian’s gloved hand. Sebastian watched Agni’s expressions as he did so, he was looking incredibly heavenly as the sunlight hit the side of his face. He felt his skin prickle slightly in the hand he offered to him, but he could not watch what the item was as he smiled politely to Agni, thanking him for the gift and the hospitality, he did not check what it was until he was alone inside the carriage.
It was a shell, pink and white in color, with a bandage wrapped around it. Sebastian guessed it’s the same bandages Agni uses to wrap his hand, and there was something written in it. He unwrapped it from the shell and felt the top of his fingers tingling as he spread it to read it. It’s a short prayer, in Agni’s mother language, for Kali the goddess. It talks about time, change and love, and used words so unique that he himself wouldn’t know how to translate it to english.
There was power in the prayer itself, Sebastian could feel it from the way it tickled his fingers, this was a prayer that was written with Agni’s elegant calligraphy with so much intent it actually became divine.
Sebastian was surprised. Did Agni write this knowing Sebastian would understand it? They have never talked in Agni’s language, Sebastian hasn’t even told him he is fluent in it. Did he know? Or was he not supposed to understand the prayer and keep this trinket as a little gift from a friend? As he wraps the bandage around the shell Sebastian decides that he will pretend like he didn’t read it.
He keeps the gift on a drawer in his desk, the thought of getting rid of it didn’t even cross his mind once.
Well, the reason has been found, and it is a feeling that he does want to get rid of. That explains the eagerness with which it wants to be born.
Now, Sebastian has to get rid of it. That is more difficult. If he keeps burning it to death it will always come back as long as he keeps the shell in his drawer, and as much as he wants to stop feeling this way, throwing away his friend’s first gift for him seemed unnecessarily cruel.
If Sebastian let the baby be born then he would need to take care of it, and raising a demon baby on his own and keeping it secret from everyone else is incredibly difficult. It is standard practice to raise a baby while not contracted, and Sebastian still has some time before the contract ends. He doesn’t know what the consequences of raising a demon in this realm would be and he honestly doesn’t want to find out.
When he gives birth again that night he sets the floppy dark thing in his pillow and sits in the bed facing it. They watch each other patiently.
“Any ideas of how I can get rid of you?” he asks, not really expecting an answer.
And he doesn’t get one, the tiny demon keeps watching him. It gets bored after two seconds, so it starts looking around his room. It stares intensely at his desk, he notices, so he stands up and grabs the shell from his drawer and sits in the bed again.
It keeps watching him. If Sebastian were to give it the shell, would the written prayer be enough to exorcize it? Is that possible when the demon derives from the object? It’s good to test it out anyways, so he gently sets the shell on top of it.
It does nothing. The baby is trying to grab it with one of its tentacles but isn’t strong enough so the shell keeps falling on top of one of its eyes.
Sebastian is unimpressed at this.
“I don’t remember much from when I was born but surely I was not as stupid as you.” he says as he grabs the baby with both hands, holding it up as if it were a cat. “You are very ugly, you should manifest a lion head, it would make you feel pretty.”
It doesn’t manifest a lion head, but it does manifest a tiny new eye that glows blinding white. And that is Sebastian’s limit.
He knocks at the townhouse door harshly, not caring who he wakes up knowing who is the only one that would open the door at this hour.
Agni opens the door, eyes half closed from sleep being interrupted, takes a look at Sebastian and wordlessly greets him inside the house. They don't sit in the common room but in the kitchen as Agni prepares him tea.
“Is something wrong? It must be urgent if you are visiting this late at night, I was not expecting you.” Agni says, as he hands him a teacup.
He thanks him for the tea, and actually takes a sip to relax. The sight makes Agni more awake.
“I need help with something.” he says hesitantly after a few moments.
Agni remains visibly calm, but Sebastian can see nervousness in the way his hands sweat. “That’s unlike you. Asking for help.”
Sebastian doesn’t know how to respond to that. He also doesn’t know what to say next, so he simply grabs the tiny baby demon he was hiding inside his coat and presents it to Agni at the kitchen table.
Agni stays staring at it unblinking for approximately a minute, then he glances up at Sebastian. He doesn’t know what kind of face he is making, but he hopes it makes Agni understand.
“It's okay.” Agni says. He pokes at the baby gently, and it seems to enjoy that. “I understand” At this Sebastian realizes that Agni actually doesn’t understand.
“You-”
“I will take care of her as long as I need to.”
“Her?”
“You don’t need to worry, she will be safe in my hands.”
Sebastian sighs. Agni is a man full of surprises, whatever he thinks that thing is, Sebastian does not care enough to know. He got rid of the problem by giving it to him, and since Agni helped in some way give birth to it, he decides the taller man has responsibility for it as well.
Agni names the baby Darshni, and he prays to it every night until it vanishes from the love his prayers spread around the room. As it is exorcized, Sebastian, away at the Manor, feels so much lighter. He forgets he left the shell inside his desk drawer.
He doesn’t get sick ever again.