A/N: Hm, this one turned out rather short. Still, I hope you all like it! It's just a little slice of life thing - a classmate of mine brought a puppy to school today! :D And we just started a Satire unit in Advanced Literature. XD So yeah... easy enough to think of this, hahaha.
Title: Day of Play
Author: liketolaugh
Rating: K
Pairings: Ciel/Lizzy
Genre: Friendship/Humor
Warnings: None.
Summary: Seven year old Ciel and Lizzy play together, alone in the manor.
Disclaimer: Sadly, Black Butler is not mine.
Lizzy kneeled down on the ground, shaking with silent giggles. The small, black puppy that Ciel was grasping in his arms licked her face happily, tail wagging back and forth like a very hyper metronome.
"S-Sebastian!" she choked out through her laughter. "S-stop it! Ciel!"
Sebastian stopped licking her reluctantly, and both puppy and boy gave her identical wounded looks, complete with wide puppy dog eyes. Her own eyes, bright with laughter, softened into adoration and she reached out, scratching Sebastian behind his ear.
"He's so cute!" Lizzy cooed. Even she wasn't entirely certain which male she was referring too. Not that Ciel caught on to that.
Ciel smirked in amusement. "So you've said," he teased.
He squeezed the little puppy affectionately and he looked up at him in slight confusion, letting out a cute little yip. Ciel smiled fondly. Lizzy looked up from the puppy and smiled, too.
The puppy chose that moment to squirm, wanting to be let down. In surprise, Ciel let Sebastian leap out of his arms, and he ran off out the door, disappearing into the hallway.
Both Lizzy and Ciel deflated. "Aw…"
That puppy was fast, and completely unpredictable. By the time they got out, he would already be long out of sight, and who knew where Sebastian would have gone? So that option was out. They looked at each other and shrugged.
"Wander?" Ciel asked, referring to what they normally did when at a loss for what to do.
"Wander," Lizzy agreed.
Together, they stood and headed out the door, choosing a side at random. Aimlessly, they wandered the halls, chatting absently with no real goal in mind, simply enjoying each others' company. The deserted hallways – not a single person in sight aside from each other – gave the distinct illusion that they were completely alone in the house, even with the knowledge that Vincent was in the study and Rachel in the sitting room, entertaining Lizzy's parents. Their voices echoed in the empty halls, filling the void with words and lightening the dark mood of the abandoned corridors.
They walked for a long time, though neither was really sure how long, before they actually ended up in a room. The library. They decided to enter, not really having anything in mind but anxious for something to do, and Ciel's gaze was drawn to one of the larger books, with big, elegant lettering on the spine. Ciel pointed it out to Lizzy.
"It's an etiquette book," Lizzy noted with interest. She'd never actually read one, but she'd seen her mother looking at them, and the woman had often scolded her husband, referencing some of them in her words, and making Alexis rather uncomfortable. Especially when she did it in public. She wondered what was in it - she'd like to know what she meant when she talked about etiquette and such, but she would never explain.
Ciel approached it curiously and looked at it thoughtfully for a moment, very similar thoughts running through his head. Then he looked at Lizzy, received a nod, and pulled it out. It was heavier than he had expected, and a gasp escaped his lips as he struggled to keep it up.
"Put it on the floor," Lizzy offered quickly, noticing that Ciel was barely managing to keep from dropping the thick tome. Ciel nodded in agreement, and he hastily bent down, setting it on the ground a little harder than strictly necessary. He let out a sigh of relief once he was no longer holding its weight. That was one heavy book!
Lizzy knelt down beside him and he flopped onto his stomach, flipping the book open to a random page. He scanned it without any real interest, disappointed to find the contents rather boring, but his eyes landed on one entry that made him wrinkle his nose.
"Do as you are told in a pleasant and willing way," he read aloud. At first, he frowned, a little disgruntled, but then his eyes lit up in a mischievous smile and he leapt to his feet.
Lizzy gave him a startled and confused look. In return, he gave her an unbearably earnest one, drawing on the best of his playful acting skills.
"Oh, of course I will!" he exclaimed, as if she had told him to do something. "Really, I would love to! Please give me many things to do, how I love to obey!"
Lizzy caught on quickly and sprang up as well, an earnest smile to match his decorating her face. "But of course, I must do it! I love to do things, I would do it all day! Really, I enjoy it, truly I do!"
They looked at each other, struggling to keep the earnest expressions on their faces, but, of course, they soon wavered, giggles escaping their masks and threatening to shatter them with gleeful smiles. Before they could break entirely, they dove back to the book, and Lizzy flipped to another page.
"Showing affection in public is brazen vulgarity," she read. She looked at Ciel, all traces of emotion replaced with calm solemnity. She held out her hand. "Greetings, Ciel. The weather is fine today, is it not?" she asked, her voice monotone, with no trace of anything at all to be found, let alone affection.
He shook her hand just as solemnly, face blank of emotion, and replied, "It is indeed, Elizabeth. A wonderful drizzle it is."
They only held the blank expressions for a moment longer before they burst out into delighted laughter that echoed joyfully through the halls, and they dove back into the etiquette book for more things to act out in the way they loved to do together.
Just another playday between them.
So... yeah... short. But I hope it was good. And fluffy, at least a little. Please review!