#also yeah here’s the origin of the blue smoke! Cyrus is a drug dealer essentially. yippee.

[possum-quesadilla]

Hey all! Here is Cyrus’ backstory, including his human life and then his time as a demon up until his first appearance in Time’s Arrow!

Note: this is not meant to sympathize him, he sucks. Just wanted to share some backstory that’ll never come up in the fic!

TW: He grew up in the 1800s, where plenty of nasty stuff happened. Warnings for child labor, work incidents, mentions of homophobia and sexism, blood and violence, rampant substance abuse (including alcohol and drugs), gambling, murder, manipulation, emotional and physical abuse mentions. He’s a nasty dude.

Cyrus is a younger demon, having lived in America in the 1800’s. His real demonic name is “Sirius”, which is the brightest star in the night sky, also known as the “dog star”, and part of the constellation Canis Major. Canis Major is meant to be the hunting dog of Orion the hunter.

His human name was Jack Patrick Howard, and he was born and raised in Maine. His father was an immigrant from England, and his mother was a Maine native. He has a strong drifting accent (either Maine farming or cockney) that he does his best to cover up.

Jack grew up on a sheep farm with his folks, and was sent off to do small odd jobs for neighbors and local businesses by his father to make a quick penny for his poor family.

At the ripe young age of eight, he started pocketing half the money he earned from his odd jobs and just told his parents that people were paying him less.

At the age of thirteen, he took on a full time job in a factory and moved away from his parent’s farm.

He met a boy at age fifteen, and the two were seen as the best of friends by everyone around them. Really, he and that boy were dating, but that obviously was an issue back in 18-whatever.

That boy died mysteriously in a factory accident, purposefully caused by Jack when he realized people were starting to get suspicious of their close relationship.

Jack fled the factory shortly after, moving from job to job, drifting between towns. He became a grifter.

He worked a lot of odd jobs; factory worker, farm hand, logger, bartender, etc. He stole often and loved to spend the money on drinking and smoking and gambling, and he would just flee the town when he was caught.

Eventually, when he was 25, Jack got a letter: his aging parents needed help caring for themselves and the farm. So he traveled there, treated them all nice and sweet whenever company was over.

But once he’d settled in, he killed his parents and blamed it on their age/poor health. He inherited the farm and all their money, which wasn’t much.

Not able to hold down a farm by himself, Jack let his family farm go to ruin and then sold it for much less than it was worth within a year.

Jack continued to be a grifter, drinking and smoking his money away and stealing whenever he could, until he was about 33 years old.

That is when his crimes caught up with him.

A furious woman whose husband was driven to drink himself to death after their business went under due to Jack’s stealing their money and driving customers away came after him with a flintlock pistol while he was asleep.

He managed to escape, but not without grievous injuries.

Jack was going to die.

“I’d sell my soul for one last drink,” he said, as he hobbled along into the woods.

“That can be arranged,” a voice answered.

A demon named Canis came to him, offering up one last drink in exchange for his soul.

Jack thought quickly. He was always very clever.

He asked, instead, for the demon to retrieve an apple from a nearby orchard. He was too weak from blood loss to climb up and get one, and he would certainly exchange his soul if he could have just one last refreshing bite of an apple.

The demon grumbled but acquiesced, scaling the tree to get Jack an apple.

The man carved a crucifix into the bark of the tree with his pocket knife before the demon could come down.

Furious and trapped, the demon demanded he scratch off the cross and let him down.

Nope, not unless Jack got to drink and smoke and do as he pleased forever.

After much growling and grumbling, the demon agreed.

They shook on it, and Jack allowed the demon down.

Still quite angry, Canis said he would make him a demon, so that he could trick and scheme and lie for eternity. Sure, he wouldn’t “live” forever, but it was close enough. Jack hadn’t thought it through and set out the proper parameters of the Deal.

Canis had another stipulation: Jack would not get hellfire in his chest like every other demon. He would get only embers, and forever feel the chill of death unlike every other demon.

With that, Canis granted him his new name and led him down to the Netherworld.

Sirius.

He was fuming. He wanted to live forever, and now he was stuck in the Netherworld for eternity?

Now going by ‘Cyrus’, he immediately sought a way to scheme and climb the ladder.

Being on the bottom rung of the demon social ladder was horrendous. (May elaborate on that in another post if desired)

Being born a human was looked down upon among demonkind, despite the majority of them being born as humans.

He heard whispers of the Shoggoth spawn, and the power they wielded.

He then heard about a Shoggoth demon named Beetlejuice, and how he was unhappily married to a cruel demon named Rigel.

How he sought after attention and any crumb of affection by almost any means necessary.

He found his mark.

While Cyrus charmed and manipulated Beetlejuice, he searched for other ways to help him grow his power.

As he was schmoozing up a newly-dead in one of the waiting rooms, trying to strike up a Deal, Cyrus discovered something interesting growing from the carpet and the moldy corners of the ceiling: a strange little blue-leafed plant, with an alluring aroma.

It was called the ‘Tears of Prometheus’, and it grew in places where human despair was in great abundance.

Cyrus learned it had a wonderful warming affect on him when consumed, even more so when ground up and smoked.

It had other effects on the rest of demonkind.

It was highly addictive, but in very short supply.

Cyrus decided to seize control of that supply, plucking all of the plants and storing them away to grow himself.

His power and influence in the Depths grew rapidly overnight.

He was a nobody, a demon without even a building to his name.

Suddenly, he was rivaling the other higher level demons.

He had the power and influence he always wanted.

But he wanted more.

Cyrus convinced the members of his Cult to set up an exorcism ritual, and convinced Beetlejuice to lure his terrible husband at the time to it.

They watched him be Extinguished together.

Cyrus gained all of the Cult members that had belonged to Rigel.

(Cyrus does not have a Coven, only a Cult. He is hella sexist.)

Unfortunately for him, his little stunt got Beetlejuice in serious trouble with Juno, and he was cursed and banished to the surface.

So Cyrus waited for his return, all the while searching for another Shoggoth to steal power from, but he found none.

So he waited.