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Entry tags:	fic, kuroshitsuji

KUROSHITSUJI FIC: His Butler, Belated (~2500 words, Necrophilia, Chan)
Title: His Butler, Belated
Author: Amanuensis
Pairings/Characters: Sebastian, Ciel, Undertaker, and Grell all appear in this. And they all get some.
Categories/Warnings/Enticements: Humor, Smut, Necrophilia, Chan, Spoilers for the end of the series
Rating: TI for Tastefully Icky
Summary: I said Necrophilia and Chan and you still want a summary, too?
Words: ~2500. Beta thanks to nimori and fabularasa.

*****

"London Bridge is falling down, all around, what a sound, London Bridge is falling down--"

The corpse lies supine on his table.

"--my fair--"

Undertaker whips the shroud off the corpse in a single movement, like stage magic.

"--lady."

Not such a misnomer, not really. Skin pale as a girl's, bluing in death. Throat above the collar a slim column of veined marble. Lips drawn by lack of moisture into a coquette's unhappy moue. Black-lashed eyes half-lidded slits of blue, the lenses cloudy. No violet stain in the right one, not any longer. Contract served.

"Ah, Lord Phantomhive, I knew you would come to me sooner than most." His obscene giggle slimes the air. "Such a lovely cadaver you make." Black nails like beetle carapaces poke at the cold cheek. "So succulent and still. No voice to protest, no breath to let fly in outrage when I do this..." The nails part the helpless sulk of a mouth. Undertaker hisses in appreciation at the resilience of the tissue, lets his nail sink in a hair's breadth, into the inner lip where it will not show. No blood, of course. "Oh, oh. Such a treat to have you in my establishment at last--no mere guest, but a client. Oh, I shall savor you a piece at a time, my dear Lord Phantomhive." The necktie yields to those nails, revealing the hollow of the motionless throat. "London Bridge is falling down--" One button released. Two. "--not a sound, since you've drowned, London Bridge is falling down--"

"It's not," says a voice from the doorway. "And he didn't."

Sebastian Michaelis--call him that for want of another name, it's the form he's in, at any rate--regards Undertaker with insolent eyes, the proud creature.

Undertaker lifts an eyebrow. "Didn't, my dear Sebastian?"

"Drown." The butler in black steps further into the room, posture as precise as ever. "You insult me to think that I would be so slow as to let that happen."

Undertaker mirrors the dead earl's pout with one of his own. "And how much credit you give me, dear Sebastian. I haven't even inspected the lungs yet to know that, do you think I work so quickly?"

"Everyone knows you do." Deceptively modest smile playing about his lips, with a gesture of an upturned palm Sebastian indicates Undertaker's handiwork so far: the opened buttons, the impression of a nail upon the cheek. The stab in the lip can't be seen, but how long has the butler been watching?

Better not to dissemble. "Now, now. It's a great crime against nature that so many in this world do not enjoy their work. Don't you think it's fitting I enjoy mine so very well?"

"I think you do badly to choose crime against nature as your defense, deviant." The hand falls back to Sebastian's side. "Let him go."

"Oh, I can't do that. I have work to be done." He touches the dead cheek again, daring Sebastian to object. "You are the one who should let go, dear butler, dear slave. There's nothing left for you to serve any longer." Another giggle, this one so prolonged he has to cover his mouth with his hands to rein in his mirth.

"Untrue." The right hand lifts to Sebastian's breast. "I am a butler to the very end--" Undertaker is good at interpreting which meaning Sebastian is giving that phrase when he says it-- "and the disposition of my master's remains is at the least an implied duty of this form." Another lift of the upturned palm; the smile has never faltered. "After that, I shall abandon this guise, imperfect as it is."

"And this world, demon? Will you abandon that?" He cackles, lets his nails glissando over the white expanse of throat and chest. "I think you have different motives, demon. I think you'd like any excuse to remain in a world with such...earthly pleasures." One nipple is exposed upon the earl's stationary chest, flat and ruddy. Undertaker circles it with the tip of one nail, delighting in the lack of piloerectile response. (So common.)

Sebastian's eyes shift just that much to watch Undertaker's hand, but the smile does not go; if anything, it deepens. Lesser creatures would--should--flee from the warning of that smile, but Undertaker is hardly that. Undertaker cocks his head, holding his own fixed grin as his nails pull the earl's shirt open to the navel. "At least let me give him his first kiss."

"You're late for that."

Undertaker can't resist pressing further, unhealthy as he knows it is. "Did you let him die a virgin, butler?" he leers. His fingers are at the waistband of the tailored suit. "Did you wish to have him but denied yourself, is that why you've interrupted me, jealous demon?"

Sebastian's laugh could chill a corpse, so soft and gentle it is. "My young master was generous, and he was no double-dealer. I had him, Undertaker. All of him that was promised, I had."

"You cryptic liar!" Undertaker stops stroking the earl's quiet belly so that he may clap his hands together in delight. "Hiding your disappointment behind your pretty words--'all that was promised,' indeed." He does what few others would dare: brings a finger within an inch of Sebastian's face to wag it back and forth before the demon's patrician nose. "Don't fib. This flesh, you never had."

(He does not actually touch the demon. Not that he's afraid, but he's sure he can salvage this afternoon's pleasures, and that will be easier to do without having to reassemble himself after dismemberment.)

And now, there it is, just that tiny bit of irk in the corner of Sebastian's mouth. "Flesh is flesh, reaper. My trade is infinitely sweeter."

Undertaker's fingers curl into fists of glee. "Ah, listen to you protest!" Before a human could blink, he is back at the cadaver's side, touching the waxen exposed flesh again, touching it everywhere. Nails dancing along the ribs with musical precision, palm skittering over the pallid plane of the belly to evoke the slosh of the vicera within. "Why should my attention to my work distress you, if this--" a tug, and the suitcoat is peeled from the corpse like orange skin, leaving it bared to the waist-- "is only flesh?" He lifts one of the earl's stiff hands, the arm resisting only a little, laces its fingers through his own. "Such a lovely, chilly display of beauty. Do not mock flesh, demon."

"You're quite enough to mock all on your own." Sebastian's right arm begins cross his chest, but then he aborts the gesture, looking oddly awkward. "Are you going to keep on provoking me?"

Undertaker cocks his head again. "Yes," he decides, and extends his tongue to the dead earl's wrist for a long, fond lick. "Mmm," he pronounces. "Salty."

Sebastian sighs. "And here I thought you and I might avoid a quarrel." The hand lifts again, and Sebastian's teeth clamp upon the heel of the glove, tugging it securely into place.

"Dear butler, you can have some too." He extends the earl's hand, curled like an insect, to the demon. "Have a taste."

"I have," smiles the demon, and Undertaker does not doubt him, not this time. "A taste, at the least. And you're not wrong." Sebastian advances a step toward the table. "Souls are all the sweeter for the flesh that flavors it. And you should know--" another step-- "he gave that willingly as well."

Undertaker should be moving back in preparation. But he's noticed something. Sebastian's approach should be all swagger. Should be. But there's something wrong in his walk, something not quite--

Oh. OH. The sleeve of the coat that hangs at his side, the left, is just that, a sleeve. Empty. "Demon! Oh, how insensitive of me, to speak of flesh when you're mourning the loss of your own." Despite his words, he can't keep the laughter from bubbling up again. "Oh, we may make a better-matched battle than I thought. Not that I insist on a battle, mind..."

"Delusions of grandeur, is it? You know I defeated an angel without assistance."

"Yes, yes, before the count of ten, vanquished from this world, all that. Of course I know it." Undertaker can't quite bring himself to move away from the table. It's poignantly painful, having to leave his afternoon recreation even for a moment. "You were ordered to. You have no such orders upon you now, so why not join me for a few hours of delight instead of--"

Undertaker's door crashes open again, and it would be hard to say which is the more blinding: the glare of sunlight the doorway allows or the skewering exhibition of scarlet in its frame. "Sebas-chan!" twitters the figure. "There you are!"

Sebastian rolls his eyes and does not even pretend to hide it from Grell, who minces across the floor with hands clasped in nauseating adoration. "I had to come see you, is it true, oh, it is, they said you'd been wounded, oh how tragic, and I didn't even get to do it. Let me see..."

Before Grell can reach for the demon, and trigger a confrontation which he still doesn't want on his premises, even if he isn't its focus, Undertaker lilts, "Grell, you shameful creature, you act as if seeing me isn't enough for you to visit. Fickle thing."

"Oh, but, Undertaker, he's wounded, I can't leave Sebas-chan now in his hour of greatest need." And all precautions blown by, Grell flings passionate arms about the demon's neck. "Darling, I'll tend to that. I'll build you another and we can sew it on. Or should I just lop off the other for symmetry? Whatever you want is fine with me, sweetest Sebas-chan."

Sebastian suffers the attention for that long but no longer, and Grell is momentarily decorating the leftmost wall in a garish crimson splay, head-down and flattened to a depth of not more than an inch. "Thank you," Sebastian says politely, smoothing invisible wrinkles from his suit, "but I don't require tending to. I won't be in this body long."

"Wlp?" cries the shinigami from the wall, then peels himself from it like a pill bug and pops back to a standing position, intact. "What? You can't meant that, Sebas-chan! Before we've consummated our love?"

Undertaker is thinking this is a good chance to get back to his work while these two argue. His nails play over the earl's trouser buttons like lockpicks, but before he can do more, Grell adds: "As the late Earl promised me?"

Sebastian's smile does not change, but he is giving Grell his full attention. "The Earl of Phantomhive made no contract with you, Grell Sutcliffe."

Hands on hips, Grell purses his lips. "Did I say contract? I said promise. You, to do with as I pleased, for one entire day, if I gave him my assistance." He gestures at the body upon the table; Undertaker wishes he wouldn't, so as to give him a few moments unobserved. Can't be helped. "Promises go beyond death, you know."

Now Sebastian's eyes narrow. "Forgive me if I have my doubts."

Grell squeals. "A lady does not lie! I'll show you!" Though it's only a few steps to the table, Grell manages to turn them into quite the sashay; one gloved hand reaches out and tweaks the corpse's midsection, plucks a thin ribbon of transparent cellulose from its navel. "There!"

Shining with an irregular white light, the segment of Cinematic Record unspools to show the late Earl of Phantomhive in a rare smile--one that might even be called cheeky--as he guarantees the shinigami, in exchange for his protection, Sebastian's service for one day, in any way he likes. The words "kiss" and "tongue" are present in the flashback--spoken by Grell, though the earl does not say no.

Undertaker is going to forgive Grell so much in the next few weeks. A laugh like this is not to be sold lightly.

His wheezing giggles are so overwhelming that he's in danger of missing Sebastian's reaction. He tries to control himself enough to watch. Grell has one hand to his lips. "Didn't you see that, when you witnessed his Record yourself?"

The demon, vexed yet shackled, is a sight Undertaker did not believe he'd ever be privileged enough to see. "Poling the barge one-handed takes attention," Sebastian grits. "I must have missed that specific scene." Every sibilant echoes the song-scream of Armageddon.

Sebastian turns to the table, and Undertaker no longer feels like laughing. "So, my late master," says the demon in the same infernal tones, lifting his hand to his breast in his automatic fashion, though Undertaker can see the mockery he's making of it despite that sober, displeased face. "You would trade my services so lightly. A promise, as Grell Sutcliffe reminds me, is a promise even after death." He approaches a step, and now Undertaker does step back, though Sebastian's attention is only for the corpse upon the table. "And, as Undertaker reminds me, our contract was only until death." A white-gloved finger flicks a lock of hair back from the dead earl's forehead. "I think, before I submit to Grell's claim, which of course I shall honor...I think I shall compensate myself a little more in exchange for your audacity in prostituting me so, my lord." All humanity has fled the eyes; in the dimness of the shop they glare a forbidding vermilion. "In a like manner. After all--" the gloved fingers move down to the bloodless throat-- "flesh is but flesh."

Undertaker is very good at knowing when the moment of retreat has come. Grell screeches as Sebastian mounts the table, but Undertaker seizes the other shinigami about the waist and prevents him from leaping after Sebastian, soothing Grell's cries of no, no, me first, Sebas-chan, not in front of me, you heartless brute. "Ssh, Grell, come not between the dragon and his quarry," he misquotes, knowing Grell is too distraught to quibble the error. "He'll be all yours after, didn't you hear? Let him work some of his displeasure out. So he won't be a beast to a lady such as yourself. London Bridge is falling down, soon he's bound, underground--"

"Sebas-channnnn..." Grell wails.

As the demon leans down to his prey, Undertaker turns away as if the sight might immolate him, and kicks open the door to his backroom, bearing the writhing Grell through. Leaving Sebastian to his compensation in private.

Forcing Grell into the nearest coffin (it's a bit short, but no matter), Undertaker silences him with a modicum of profane groping that transforms the sobs to sighs. The two of them will compensate each other quite capably in the meantime. No, not a loss of the afternoon at all.