disclaimer: I do not own Kuroshitsuji, Yana Toboso does.

San Francisco, California, United States of America

October 20, 2011

9:45 p.m.

A letter arrived this morning to the Orianthe apartment complex, unit 429. Enveloped in thick paper shaded the deepest of blacks, its red wax seal had been broken in awful curiosity. Though it had been addressed to the proper apartment and proper tenant, this fashionable velvety envelope was out of place amongst the stained gray carpet that rolled down the apartment hallway like a dried cow tongue, and bare flickering bulbs which lit the way to apartment 429 for whoever neglected a community mail box to lay this letter on the tenant's doorstep. With its seal broken, a sweet yet spicy aroma seemed to slither out of its paper lips to tickle the openers' nose. It read in wispy black handwriting:

Dear Miss Wells,

I regret to inform you that your great aunt Madame Gwendolyn passed away October 15th at 10:00 p.m. London time. Though you may have not spoken, let alone known of her existence, you are her only remaining relative.

To keep this letter short as I'm sure you're pressed for time, living in the bustling city of San Francisco, I must inform you that she has left her entire estate, money, and contracts to you. The funds will be transferred to your account on the 21st of this month. As for the rest of the inheritance mentioned in this letter, I will personally discuss them with you soon.

Sincerely,

The Butler

What a well written letter, at least that's what she thought when she read it over the first time and then decided it was not just any old sham, but a really ridiculous one. People were getting lazy, now she understood how extreme junk mail could be. However the letter had not been thrown into the trash or even burned out of spite considering her poor financial situation. Really the contents within that letter seemed to mock the fact she had outdated milk in the fridge and a cat who only ate Meow Mix that went for twelve dollars a bag at most.

For some reason she kept the letter and now as she sat on the thin windowsill, chipping away at the white lead paint with her flaking red fingernails, her tired gaze fell down upon the city streets and sidewalks drowned in autumn rain. Who on earth would bother to write such a ridiculous letter? Surely they weren't expecting to convince anyone of such a fantastical story? The only odd thing about it beyond the fact it was a black enveloped letter addressed to her from the U.K., was some old bat left her fortune to her and didn't ask for a bank account or social security number. If you were going to sham someone, weren't those two things necessary?

Suddenly her phone rang, vibrating its heavy body and twisting dial nearly right off its stand. With no money for a cell phone and barely any for a landline, the phone was a fossil along with her moth eaten furniture that stank of cat urine. Apparently Goodwill had no taste, nor did she. The phone rang about several times before it's boxy answering machine picked up to record the seventh message for today from her deadbeat ex-boyfriend. Even through telephone wires she could hear the slur of adderall and cheap forty ounces. Apparently the few months he put into their relationship were worth nights of fun she refused, so he persisted in means to collect.

"Stop calling," she groaned, leaning her cheek against the window's cold glass.

As the warmth from her cheek crept a fog across the pane, there came a sudden crisp knock at her apartment's heavily locked and chained door. Usually visitors rang first to be let up, but it didn't strike as odd since it wouldn't be the first time the buzzer broke. Her nosey, rat-like landlord had a system for that just in case. Every fifteen minutes she'd have her balding thirty-year-old son glance out their window down to the dirty stoop to see if anyone was jamming their thumb on the numbers.

Cold even in her droopy gray university sweater and unkempt jeans, she slid from the windowsill to lazily walk over to the door and peek out the peephole. There in the bald bulb's flickering yellow glow, stood a tall man dusting off a black rain coat. Unable to make out his face since he had turned to see if he missed any stray rain drops on his shoulders, she cracked the door open and its chain strung it from being budged any further.

"Can I help you?" asked the tenant.

One round, cloudy blue eye peering cautiously out from behind a thick lense, she watched the tall man pull his broad shoulders back and turn to grace her with a charming subtle smile, just a mere leaf of the elegant dignity he powerfully exuded.

"What a question, I don't think I've ever been asked what someone else could do for me, rather it's always been I asking what I may do for them," he replied so precisely.

The sound of his voice rang as clear, deep, and elegant as an old English ceramic bell. From the trilby hat atop his head, down the buttoned coat that hugged his straight stature, to the gleaming shoes on his feet, he was all in black, contrasting greatly the ivory of his skin and white of his gloves. It wasn't every day you saw a man dressed this richly, in fact it was almost otherworldly even in such a rich city as this.

"Um," her brow furrowed in clear confusion before beginning to nudge the front door closed. "You must be in the wrong place. The Fairmont is on the other side of the city, dude."

"Fairmont? Dude?" he repeated in dry amusement. "No, I'm quite certain I'm in the proper place, no matter how hysterically atrocious it is."

This city came with a warning pamphlet that was distributed through word of mouth, it read to close the door on any weirdo you didn't know, especially on those sharply dressed. "Listen I'm sorry you got lost and ended up in this hysterically atrocious place. So why don't you go down to city hall and ask for directions. It's a lot closer than the Fairmont. Now I got a Music theory paper to finish. Sorry. Bye."

Swiftly shutting the door, before leaving it she made sure to lock all the locks and double check the chain. Everything held sturdy despite rust and wear. As the tenant of room 429 made to walk herself into her bedroom to continue a music theory paper she left blipping on her laptop hours before, there came another knock on the door.

"Unfortunately Miss Patrice, I am unable to go elsewhere just yet," his voice eerily transcended the apartment walls.

Upon hearing the stranger address by her proper name, chills raced up both Patrice's arms and legs. They had not exchanged more than a few words, let alone names.

"Then I'm calling the police," Patrice declared boldly, though the prospect of legit trouble had her heart pounding against the inside of her ribs. "They'll definitely help you go somewhere!"

Over at the phone straight out of the eighties, she ignored the red light of her answering machine and picked up the receiver. Before Patrice could even strum the first one of nine-one-one, the stranger's voice paralyzed her with its eerie eloquence yet again.

"Miss, I'd rather not cause a scene on my first day in America the beautiful. Please, if you merely read the letter I sent you, it should clear up this predicament."

Staring wide-eyed over her shoulder, there sat the mysterious black letter on her makeshift coffee table. "Letter?" she softly stuttered.

"Why yes," he cooed, happy to hear she indeed received the post. "I believe in my letter addressed to you, Miss Patrice Wells, I thoroughly explained the circumstance of my arrival here today on the twenty-first of October."

"It's the twentieth," she whispered.

"Oh! Is it?" an airy chuckle followed. "Well, please excuse my intrusion upon your privacy then. I believe the time shift and jet lag is to blame, but I shall not make excuses."

Carefully setting the phone back on its receiver, Patrice picked up the black envelope. This sham of a letter, was it legit? There was no other way to explain the man at her door who knew her name though they had not met a single time before.

"I," she clenched the envelope. "I don't believe you. This is a sham! Go find some unsuspecting old person, because I'm a student barely making it in this damn city! Go away, creeper!"

Having heard her cry of refusal and claiming him a creeper, it was annoyingly obvious that he would not be entering this apartment in time to explain everything before midnight. "Huh," sighed the man, tipping his hat back in thought. "Miss, if you believe the letter and I to be a sham, by all means make a call to your bank, all funds promised in my letter were wired from Switzerland to your account this morning. Go on. I'll be patient."

That was right, the letter read of some old bat she was related to, kicking the bucket and leaving behind some fortune among other things not explained. "I-" she started, but was interjected by the man's calm reassurance.

"I'm unable to get into your apartment if you do not permit me, or rather if you do not unlock the door. Just pick up your phone and make the call. What could I possibly do out here to you in the mean time?"

Good point. Patrice should have just called the police to get this crazy creeper off her doorstep, out of the apartment complex entirely, and thrown behind bars, but she opted for the latter. Besides what could she possibly lose, it was just one measly phone call?

She strummed the phone dial ten times till the bank's recorded messenger picked up and she strummed the dial yet again. Every number drew a little closer to the balance until finally it was mechanically whispered into Patrice's ear. Her hands began to shake as a number she had only ever seen totaled in Math classes, registered to her mind as an actual total in USD. The phone slipped from her quivering hand to clatter down onto its receiver.

From behind the apartment door, the man's handsome mouth curled into an even handsomer grin. "That's not even a quarter of the fortune left in your name. The rest waits in London, though I doubt even a girl as young as you could possibly spend all of it in several lifetimes."

From his side of the door, he heard the knob jiggle after a long symphony of unlatched locks. Very slowly did the door once again crack open and rather than a single eye peering out of the dark up at him, two did from behind her glasses; they were as wide with shock as they were round like crackers.

"Wh-who are you exactly?" Patrice asked in a quiver, unable to even feel the words coming from her mouth.

"Excuse me for my rudeness, for I forgot to introduce myself before you slammed that hideous door on my face," he stepped back and with a dignity not of this time, let alone this world, took his hat into a long sinuous hand and placed it atop his heart "I am Sebastian Michaelis, humble butler to the Phantomhive family, and I am here to offer my services to the last remaining member of the illustrious bloodline."

She blinked, feeling the color drain from her face, "you gotta be kidding me."

Before Sebastian could question if the joke was truly on him, he heard a loud thump and regained his posture only to gaze down despairingly to Patrice Well's body, literally unconscious with disbelief. Wondering only briefly if that tumble had been severe enough to cause any damage, he sighed grabbing a leather bound suitcase and with it in hand stepped over her. Once setting the briefcase neatly in a shabby closet adjacent to the even shabbier door, he shut it and looked back to the young woman still sprawled out like an ugly, mismatched starling who smacked its little head into a glass window.

"My, what a shameful mess," echoed his voice in the barely furnished unit, unsure if he meant the situation, apartment, or the poor excuse of Phantomhive descendent on the floor. "Might as well tidy this up before any of the neighbors become suspicious, after all…rats and cockroaches are such curious creatures."

Effortlessly did the butler who called himself Sebastian, a name not truly his along with this physical appearance, but unwilling to part with either, lifted the young woman up meaning to place her atop her sofa. However he discovered coming around the back of it, that the sofa was hideously stained and the source of the ammonic odor stinging his eyes. With an even heavier sigh, Patrice thrown over a single shoulder, he searched every closet and cabinet until finding where she kept her sheets. Thankfully her sheets were clean and smelled of quality soap. Perhaps it was a sign that this filth was not a habit, but something she was subjected to.

Dull floral printed sheet laid across the sofa by one arm, another set her down as gently as possible. With Patrice out of his hands, he placed them on his hips and slowly turned his tall, lean body to properly survey his work. "I…I don't even know where to start," he grumbled, putting his face to his palm. "Squatters live more lavishly than this child."

From out of his raincoat's breast pocket he removed a glimmering silver timepiece. Popping it open, he was grateful for whatever American had the idea to open 24-hour supermarkets. Too late to make anything beyond tea and with no way to access the newly transferred fortune from Miss Well's account as long as she was unconscious, he would have to shop with his own money. "My first day in America and I'm going to spend it in a 24-hour supermarket. How fitting," he said, taking Patrice's keys from the coffee table and walking straight back out the front door and locking it behind him.

October 21, 2011

7:03 a.m.

The light of morning had not woken Patrice, nor had the blare of her alarm that should have been set for her earliest of classes but was not. Nothing or no one had woken her except for the throbbing soreness of her neck and back, having fallen asleep on the sofa? Mid-stretch she groaned and shifted slowly as if afraid she might break something from how stiff her bones felt. After rubbing sleep from her eyes, she blindly reached over to the coffee table and found her glasses. She gave them a brief cleaning with her sweater's sleeve, but only managed to smudge them more.

"I really need to get that cleaning solution spray," grumbled Patrice, pushing the glasses up her nose. "Probably might be a coupon for it in the Sunday paper."

Her glasses managed to take up half of her face, the rest of it lay in small features except for a rather pouty mouth with naked, chapped lips. With no real money to feed her own self properly, she of course didn't have any to spare on aesthetics. Sitting up straight with a head of messy dark brown hair that had so much volume it hardly had length, she realized waking at her leisure was uncommon.

"Oh god, what time is it?" she jumped to her feet. "I didn't set my alarm - I'm probably late! Or worse, I missed the class entirely!"

Relieved to find herself already dressed, Patrice scrambled around her apartment, scooping up books, stray music sheets, and notepads that should have been in a messenger bag she now could not find. "Where is it? Where is it? Professor Allison is going to strangle me if I walk in too late!"

Swiftly turning on her heel, she meant to dash down the hall to her bedroom but found her face and breasts pressed nearly flat into the chest of a man wearing a fine black jacket and vest. It took a few moments for her to realize that he wasn't a wall or a misplaced piece of furniture. He did smell nice though, a bit spicy but sweet at the same time, sort of like cinnamon.

"Good morning, Miss Patrice," Sebastian peered down passed his straight nose to the young flabbergasted lady buried in his chest. "It is 7:10 a.m. and I believe your Music Theory class isn't till 8:30. That gives you enough time to eat breakfast, drink some tea, shower, and hopefully find the sense to match colors."

Patrice scrambled backwards swiftly crossing her arms protectively over the front of her droopy sweater. "Y-you! The man from last night, you're real!"

Somewhat amused by her reaction, the mysterious man who called himself a butler, smiled while brushing some jet-black hair over an ear. "You ran into me hard enough to prove that, did you?"

Patrice was pointing a shaking finger as she sifted through her blurry memories from last night. It was coming back piece by piece, not at all a dream but a legit memory. First there was that letter in a black envelope, then this guy showed up, and his name was? "Sebastian. Your name is Sebastian!"

"Very good," he congratulated her ability to remember after that loud fall last light. "Unfortunately we cannot go over yet what I came here for, at least not until after you've attended your classes for today."

"If you're real, then that means…" Patrice glanced back at the phone. "That means I really called my bank and they really said that number?"

Sebastian had walked his way into the kitchen that glimmered despite its poor wares and chipped counter tops. "Yes, you've inherited Lady Gwendolyn's family fortune. It's yours now. Do as you wish with it. But If I may make a suggestion, I would say invest in better kitchen appliances first."

While he was calm and cool watching her kettle on a gas burner like a hawk watches a mouse in a field of wheat, Patrice was viciously and repeatedly pinching herself anywhere she could get skin.

"Please don't do that Miss. Besides, one time usually does the trick," he took the kettle from the burner and brought it over a chipped coffee mug that read Daddy's Girl in bright pink Arial font.

Staggering over to the kitchen counter, desperately gathering her wits, Patrice managed to crawl herself up onto one of the three stools that bled yellow foam from their cushions. "I don't understand," she softly muttered. "This is like some sort of fairytale?"

Back turned to Patrice, Sebastian's wicked smile once again curled tightly as he refrained from shaking his head. "One could say that I suppose," he gently set the mug down in front of her. "Please, drink this and don't mind me, keep on your schedule as if I'm not here."

"Uh-huh…yeah," still in shock, she reached for the mug and somehow led the rim properly to her lips for a drink. However as quickly as she took a drink she expelled it in a spray that barely missed her visitor. "Ack! Wh-what is this?"

Lips pursed, red eyes already calculating the extent of a brand new mess in the kitchen he had used the rest of last night to clean, Sebastian grabbed a paper towel and began to wipe the tea splatters without question. "Earl Gray," he informed her. "I've never had someone nearly spit up on me, let alone nearly spit up on me with the tea that I've brewed."

"Tea?" Patrice appeared a little embarrassed for her rude display. "Sorry, I'm not a fan of tea."

"That would explain the grotesque coffee rings on nearly every surface in this flat," muttered Sebastian. "Americans and their coffee."

"Even if I did like tea," her glasses clinked against the mug rim as she peeked into it curiously. "Earl clearly doesn't know what he's doing. There was some Lipton in the cabinet though. A friend of mine once stayed here and she left it."

Mentally he sighed thinking how far Lipton was from actual tea, along with how stupid and uncultured this girl was turning out to be.

"Hey, you don't have to do that," said Patrice, watching her visitor clean her kitchen floor. "I made the mess, I'll get it later."

By the time she offered, he was already done and throwing away the paper towel into the trash can. So the tea he had spent his own money on was rejected; Sebastian would start a pot of coffee instead. He worked quickly, precisely, as if he had been born in her kitchen and knew where everything was placed.

Watching him work, the young woman had forgotten about class. "A butler, that's what you are. So what's a butler doing away from his employer's house?"

The coffee pot laid sprawled open after a thorough cleaning, around it collected all that was necessary to start a fresh brew. Gourmet coffee measured precisely to the last grind, he spilled the tablespoon into a fluffy white filter and snapped the plastic top shut. Technology in this new age made something as simple as coffee, even simpler.

"Yes, I am a butler," he cleared up. "As for being away from my employer's house, Madame Gwendolyn can no longer employ me, seeing as it that she had passed away."

Not on her own accord of course, rather Madame Gwendolyn's contract was up and Sebastian had merely taken what he was promised. It just so happened that humans could not go on in the living world without a soul, let alone even in the afterlife. A soul was their entire true being and basted in Phantomhive blood made the soul all that much sweeter.

"Madame Gwendolyn?" Patrice repeated to herself pensively. "I don't remember ever being related to anyone in England. I never got a Christmas card from her, that's for sure."

There were hardly any pots or pans in this kitchen, so Sebastian had to make do. He ended up cooking a fluffy, very plain omelet that lay steaming on a plate neighbored by sausage and whole wheat toast. It seemed to come from nowhere since there was no mess or pan on the stove in breakfast's wake. Placed in front of Patrice, he held the edges of the counter as his oddly colored eyes set on her. She was such a shabby thing that he couldn't even find a single feature that might have hinted of her lineage.

"Again by the contents within my letter, I figured you were more than unaware of my former mistress. Truly you are the product of a long line of bastard children," he smiled as if he hadn't insulted her apparently dirty blood at all.

Leaning away on the stool, taken aback by his calm snarky method, Patrice found the aroma of breakfast too alluring to defend her own self. "Is this…for me?" she asked in high hopes as her belly grumbled embarrassingly loud.

Weren't most men supposed to be incompetent in the kitchen? Apparently not this man, because the omelet made within her dingy kitchen looked almost too nice and fancy to eat.

"Of course, while I'm staying here in order to clear matters up, I must pay for my room and board somehow," though the cheapest hotel might be cleaner than this place and with more interesting company.

Having turned away only a moment to look out the window over the kitchen sink, Sebastian peered back to Patrice to find that she was wiping her mouth with the back of her sleeve over a now very empty plate. Shabby, awkward, and with the manners of a peasant, she was nothing at all like the others.

About to ask if she had even tasted what had been shoveled into that trap of hers, Sebastian again bit his tongue. "Miss Patrice, it is now 7:32."

Patrice gave no immediate response, instead the young woman sat there on the kitchen counter stool biting down on her thumb nail. Unable to see her eyes behind the glare of lenses, he could not witness just how overwhelmed by the situation she was. Hardly any of it was really sinking into her brain. Right now it felt like a sponge that had been dry too long and someone had just came along to dump her in a hot bath. Rather than absorb any of the soapy water, all Patrice could do was float dumbfounded atop the surface, still shriveled by life's previous cruel hand.

Sebastian raised a dark, thin brow in minor curiosity. "Miss? Miss it now 7:35." Was this child an idiot as well?

Very slowly she scooted off the stool and her dirty converse met dull wooden floors. "I…I should be going," her light tone was soft, distant as if she were daydreaming. "I'm going to be late for class…I'm going to be late for class?"

One reality at least sank in and that was the fact she would be late for Music Theory with a half typed up paper. "UGH! I'm going to be late for class!" she shrieked in fear yet again.

Sebastian watched Patrice speed off down her apartment hallway, kicking up dust as she went. Not even a minute later she ran passed him again but with her arms full of papers and a sloppy bag regurgitating unkempt books from its flap. He didn't really know what to say or what to think about the place he found himself at, or the human he found himself with.

"If I hurry, I can catch the 7:45 bus and be on campus at 8. That gives me a half an hour to finish up the rest of my paper," she practically ripped the front door open and off its hinges entirely.

Stepping out of the kitchen, he held his hand out after her. "Wait, Miss Patrice you haven't—"

"Thank you for breakfast, Sebastian! I'll be back at 2:30! Feel free to evanesce back into whatever part of my subconscious you came from!"

The front door slammed and she was gone, leaving the butler dressed in modern black tilting back and forth in his own disbelief. "She left me here; she left a strange man alone in her apartment? Not to mention she didn't even bother to take a shower, how grotesque."

Scratching the back of his long elegant neck, Sebastian sauntered over to the stool Patrice had been sitting on, and helped himself to a much needed sit. This flat was filthy, the girl was a mess and Gwendolyn was a poor excuse for a meal. He shouldn't have made a contract on something as shallow as allowing her to live until her beauty was no more. This current girl may taste better if only because she was young and no matter how distant or diluted, still a descendent of the Phantomhive family. Sebastian just found it much more convenient to haunt a family tree. Unfortunately this child brought him over the pond.

Again the butler's narrow, deep red eyes surveyed the flat. There was just so much to do. Hopefully she would just leave this place, purchase something nicer, preferably full furnished and on a more redeemable side of the city. "I may have found a little piece of hell on earth," he sighed while pushing off the stool to stand at his full height.

Sebastian had not changed much since he first served in the actual Phantomhive manor that was long gone, not even a trace of rubble or piece of foundation. A little over one-hundred and twenty years have passed and the only thing he managed to change about himself was his clothes, very moderately of course. Beneath the black raincoat he discarded into the closet last night, was a more modern take on a butler's uniform. Everything was tailored more closely, the buttons smoothed not engraved, and very plain in the tie and shirt area. Even Sebastian's hair was the same with its disheveled fringe, threatening to cover his eyes more often than just frame them. Age was simply numbers to him, numbers that had no effect on his face or physical being in the slightest way. The only thing that managed to change was the world around him, everything was so drastically different.

About to go to work to squeeze the last bit of polish and window cleaner from their bottles laying in wait beneath the leaky kitchen sink, he heard a very familiar, very heartwarming sound. There sitting amidst the dank hallway, was a very round, lumpy, fat tuxedo-cat whose emerald eyes were barely opening from an obviously long sleep. It lazily meowed, pawing at its head with very little interest in the stranger standing its owner's house. The sight of this feline brought about some hope that this wouldn't be too horrible of a stay. That was of course, if Patrice Wells promised him a tasty reason to stay.

The cat eyed Sebastian and Sebastian eyed it. Walking towards it with inaudible steps, he crouched beside the cat and reached out a long fingered hand. White glove inhibiting his touch of the cat's soft fur, he brought the hand to his mouth and pinched the middle finger's tip of the glove between straight, dangerous pearlescent teeth. Giving it a little pull, the glove gracefully slid from Sebastian's left hand, exposing not only how white his skin was, but exposing darkened fingernails and the very top of his hand unmarked as of yet.

"What might your name be?" he said, rubbing around the cat's ear. "How does one like you, live within this tragedy and come out still so beautiful?"

"Mrow!"

a/n: Okay, I've spent so long on a Naruto fanfic that anything else is totally foreign to me. I've recently started reading Black Butler & have fallen in love! But I'm not sure if this fic is what readers would want to spend their time on. So, tell me what you think? Should I continue this or go back to my Naruto world? Haha.

Also, did I make Sebastian a little too snarky? That's my main concern here, I like to keep the character as in character as possible. Thank you everyone for getting this far & I'd also like to thank my regular readers for coming here, along withGrace who cleaned up my summary. Much love!