A/N: Hey guys, so first I have to address any MOSHL fans of mine reading this, if any of you happened to be Kuroshitsuji fans. I have not given up on MOSHL! I will not give up! This is something that I did in my free time, and decided to post it! I will not abandon you all!
Now then, about this actual one-shot. Rating stories is really hard for me, but I guess this story could be M? There might be a little bit of swearing in here somewhere, and there is a sex scene, though it's not very descriptive in terms of "dirty words."
SO EVERYONE TAKE NOTE: SEXUAL CONTENT AHEAD! You have been warned…
Sebastian/Ciel also ahead, though I doubt anyone reading this was ignorant of that when they clicked on this story…
Read and Review!
Summary: The gardener, maid and cook have always thought their young master's relationship with his butler to be relatively simple: creepy and questionable and maybe even a little bit frightening. But when they start witnessing some weird goings-on within the chambers of the Phantomhive estate...Well, they begin to wonder. And along the way, they learn to always knock. Always.
. . . .
Baldo, Mey-rin and Finnie were quite sure that they were not snooping. How odd was it that the three might be worried over their young master? It was only natural, they'd known the sweet, cute…well, the unique boy for two years now and they'd grown attached to him! They all considered him within their charge and wondered for his well being regularly.
Of course, they didn't get as much time to care for the young master as they might've liked, courtesy of Sebastian. He kept them in line efficiently enough, always going on about "unattended duties." Now look at him. "That uptight guy is sure one to talk…" Baldo mumbled.
"Shh!" Mey-rin and Finnie hissed at the taller one as all three (plus Tanaka) peeked around the tree. "I always knew this day would come." The gardener murmured darkly, as though all light had gone out of the world.
"Gah, I…I…!" Mey-rin was at a loss for words; her head shook back and forth quickly, giving her a bad case of whiplash, and her face was red enough to pass for those damn "perfectly ripened tomatoes" Sebastian was always going on about while cooking. "I never thought…! I mean, I did, but…! I didn't realize they…!"
"This is a dark day for the Phantomhive clan…" Finnie said sagely, and small Tanaka chortled in agreement.
"Ho-ho-ho…"
"Oh, come on," Baldo retorted irritably, "We all knew what was going on! None of us are really surprised. We saw it!"
"Yes, but it was not as…as…obvious as this! All those other times it could have just been…a—a 'heat of the moment' kind of thing! Absolutely spontaneous, but…they're just so blunt about it…"
It was true; all of them had suffered the trauma of walking in on the young master and his butler.
Once, when Baldo had carelessly wandered into Ciel's private office searching for Sebastian ("Er, how exactly do I turn the pan…?"), he'd stumbled upon something that—when he reminisced later on in agony with the other three—was deemed haunting and unforgettable.
The image of Ciel perched on the desktop, legs crossed as he yanked on his butler's tie was burned behind the cook's eyelids. The violin was still in Sebastian's hand as his master kissed the corner of his lips. "My lord, you have not finished your practicing for today…"
"Yes, I have."
Baldo was watching in horror as their treasured young master's tongue traced the shape of Sebastian's lower lip. "Young master, I really must protest. I could not forgive myself if I subtracted time from your recreational activities in awareness of the arts."
Ciel sighed, frustrated, "If it bothers you so much, I'll practice twice as long tomorrow! Sheesh!"
And suddenly Sebastian was ten times even more creepy as he smirked and leaned down towards the young master, hands balanced on the desk as he took his lips harshly; greedily. "I'll accept that trade, master."
Baldo closed the door and ran speeding off down the hallway before his innocence could be further sullied by such a display.
Finnie had been in the lower portion of the house once, helping Mey-rin tow barrels of hot water to her servant's quarters so that she might take a bath (occasionally the young master allowed them such luxuries), when he passed by the drawing room. He couldn't exactly catch their attention and point out that it was broad daylight and this was an open part of the house and the young master was young and innocent and thirteen years old, considering he wasn't even supposed to be in this hallway.
He had somehow gotten lost—"How do you get lost in an estate that you've lived in for two years!"—on the way to the servants' chambers since he'd taken a different route in the hopes of avoiding an impatient Mey-rin, and had ended up here.
Finnie supposed it was nothing terrible, what he had seen. The young master was lounging on one of the couches, elbow propped on the armrest, and Sebastian's arms balanced on the back of the sofa. One of his gloved hands moved up the boy's neck until it gripped his chin, and the other he raised to his lips so that he could remove the glove by biting on the middle fingertip and gently pulling away the fabric.
He honestly had no idea what they were doing. It didn't seem to make sense to him. The fingers that weren't cupping the young master's chin moved to gently, softly caress his lips. To Finnigan's great surprise, Ciel Phantomhive didn't even protest. He sat with an almost bored expression, as though this were quite a regularity for him.
"Open." Sebastian ordered, and—even stranger—the young master obeyed.
Finnie gaped like a fish as the butler slowly pressed his middle finger past the boy's lips, smiling to himself as Ciel shaped his lips around that of his finger, tasting it, inviting it, even seeming to suck lightly on it. Eventually, Sebastian applied his index finger as well, and the young master kept licking and mouthing and allowing the older one's hold on his jaw to make his mouth move however he wanted.
The gardener wasn't sure why it seemed so dirty since, as long as he was watching—which was probably a good ten or fifteen minutes—nothing more seemed to be happening than just this odd exchange. But there was something so completely off and obscene about this act that it made the blonde want to charge in and beg Sebastian not to taint their master's purity anymore.
From the way the boy's lips sort of fell apart under the graze of his counterpart's fingertips and his eyes fluttered closed as he went about it, the whole thing looked like sex. Finnie didn't understand how that could be since both were fully clothed, and their bodies weren't touching in any intimate areas (if you didn't count the warm cavern of the young master's mouth); heck, they hadn't even kissed! But for some reason, it looked just as dirty as if it were the ultimate sin.
Once Sebastian had forced his fingers so far along the master's tongue that Ciel gagged and the butler finally withdrew his hand with a smile and a "very good, my lord," Finnie turned and—much like Baldo—fled from the hallway, nearly screaming into his hand to keep from blabbering about it out loud before he could even find the others.
Even poor Tanaka had once witnessed the two "frisking about" as he described it blushingly when—in shock—he reverted to his real self. The two had apparently been out behind the manor, the young master practicing his gun aim. Sad Tanaka had only seen by bad luck.
The young master took aim, shot, Sebastian handed him another bullet. Repeat. Suddenly Ciel swore and lowered his weapon with a sigh. "My aim is way off…"
"Is something wrong today, young master?" The butler asked, though he didn't sound like he cared all that much.
"Yes, your nosy personality."
"Very well."
Ciel went back to shooting, and Sebastian went back to patiently waiting, Tanaka peeking from behind a rose bush all the while with a murmured, "Ho-ho-ho…?"
After a few minutes the irritated child sighed again, wiping the perspiration from his forehead.
"My lord," Sebastian asked, "If you would allow me to help—"
"I don't need your help." Ciel snapped indignantly, and Sebastian smiled.
"Of course not, young master. If you would allow me to make a suggestion?"
The ebony-haired boy thought about it for a while, chewing on his lower lip before he replied stiffly, "You may make a suggestion."
Sebastian stood just at the young master's side and—Tanaka guessed—told Ciel to raise his weapon again, because that's what the boy did. The butt of the gun rested against the young master's shoulder, and he settled his cheek near the eyepiece. "Well, young master," Sebastian put one hand on the young master's far shoulder (a movement that could not go unnoted) while the other he put on top of Ciel's where it rested farther up on the gun. "If you just move your hand a little farther forward, you'll have much more leverage to aim with."
"If I move my hand farther, it's too difficult to balance the weight on my shoulder."
"Can you not manage it?"
If Mey-rin, or Baldo, or Finnie were here, they wouldn't believe that Sebastian would speak to the young master like that (Tanaka was in his deflated form right now, and thus, had no opinion on what he saw), but Ciel glared sideways at the butler with this loathing look, his expression cursing that he should have seen such behavior coming.
There was irritation and there was defiance in the boy's expression, though there was no fury to speak of.
"There's no shame in it, of course, my lord. It's a very heavy gun, I suppose."
"Don't patronize me!" Ciel hissed, and Sebastian kept smiling.
"I would never, young master."
They held each other's gaze for a while—Ciel glowering, and Sebastian smirking that creepy cat-like smirk of his—before the young master scoffed and pulled away from his servant, taking aim again; this time with his hand sliding farther up in position. Several moments passed that he aimed, aimed…he shot a bullet right into the center of the target.
"There!" The young master snapped, turning and poking Sebastian in the chest as he glared up at him. "I could handle it fine."
Sebastian chuckled and said, "Very good, my lord," before leaning down and—anyone might've been unsure that they'd really seen it—licking the young master's cheek.
"Ugh. You're like a dog, you know that?" But Ciel was blushing as he wiped the saliva angrily from his face and turned away, marching in the opposite direction.
"Master?"
"What."
"Your weapon?"
Ciel paused and turned back, tossing the gun to his butler. It would have been dangerous if Sebastian were anyone else. "Clean it and put it away." He grumbled, looking at anything but his servant.
"Very good, young master." Sebastian began to walk away before Ciel called his name and he turned back curiously.
Ciel was blushing and sighing a lot as he played with his own fingers and mumbled, "Come see me in my room when you're done with that..."
For a moment the butler looked almost surprised before he smiled with this chilling, mischievous way and replied, "Yes, my lord."
The other three hugged the limp Tanaka for a long time afterwards when they interpreted all of it between various "Ho-ho-ho"'s and "Eh-eh-eh"'s and "Oh…oh…oh…"'s. "Even Tanaka-san has been violated by such displays!" Baldo had said passionately while Finnie cradled the weary little old man in his arms and tearfully cooed that they would all get through this together.
However, they all had to agree: Mey-rin saw the worst of it.
She'd reminisced that she'd just wandered into the young master's chambers in hopes of finding Sebastian to let him know that she refused to wear any glasses but her own (he'd bought her a new pair in town "as an afterthought" he said, since hers were cracked now and obviously negatively affecting her work) without even thinking that she might walk in on something that she wouldn't want to see. After all, the young master was thirteen years old. What could she walk in on?
The answer was worse than she cared to know.
She approached the door to the young master's bedroom, and raised her hand to knock on the wood before she heard a noise. "S—Sebastian…Sebastian, stop it…" Mey-rin had never heard her master sounding so flustered before. "Really! Stop…" Another first: She'd never heard Ciel Phantomhive give an order so half-heartedly and in such a way that was so obviously meant to be disregarded.
"You're fine, young master," She heard Sebastian chuckle, and she curiously cracked the door open so she could peek through.
"Wha—Gha!" She stifled her own gasp by cupping her hand over her mouth, blushing furiously as she was met with the scene before her. The young master was…in a dress!? "He is!" Mey-rin murmured under her breath, shocked beyond belief. He was in a pink ball-gown, one with black and white ribbons and he had hair extensions in two pigtails.
But more than that, what baffled her was not her young master's out of character—and she had to admit, talented ("He actually looks really adorable…")—cross-dressing, but his position.
"What in God's name are they doing!?" Well, she supposed it was rather obvious what they were doing. She just couldn't believe they were actually doing it. The young master was in Sebastian's lap, his back pressed against the servant's chest. His legs were spread apart, his dress riding high up over his thighs, and he looked thoroughly ruffled. His cheeks were pink, his skin was sweaty.
"Sebastian, please…don't…"
"Shh…" Sebastian cooed, and was that really seduction in his voice as he ran his hand up the young master's inner thigh? Way up his inner thigh? She blushed and went speechless as the butler's spidery fingers crawled up and up, ducked just under his petticoat, teasing beneath the ruffles before sliding back down again.
Ciel caught his breath and bit his lip as Sebastian trapped one of his wrists in the free hand. "Don't make me!" The young master whispered, and his face looked so upset, so humiliated as Sebastian kissed his neck that Mey-rin almost busted in to save the boy ("That Sebastian! I always knew he was molesting our poor young master!") before Sebastian replied.
"Don't make you what, my young mistress…?"
Ciel blushed even more furiously and Mey-rin put her hand on the door, bracing herself to push forward before he grumbled, "Please don't make me beg for it…you know I hate when you make me do that." Her jaw dropped.
"They're roll playing!?" She gasped quietly, absolutely appalled with both the butler and her young master. Especially with the butler, though. "W—What does he think he's doing to the young master!"
Sebastian chuckled and slid his hand beneath the skirt again. This time his hand stayed and the maid couldn't see where it went, but Ciel gasped loudly and fidgeted in his grip. "Sebastian! Ah…!"
His servant laughed and said, "Now, my lord, you know I live to entertain things you hate."
The boy scoffed, "You live only to have me."
Sebastian smiled in reply, "You're already mine, though, aren't you my lord."
"…Don't be ridiculous. I've been yours for years now."
The butler grinned and murmured something else to the young master, but Mey-rin missed it, firstly because it was too low for her to hear, and second because she was too busy stuttering and hyperventilating that Sebastian was hitching the dress up around Ciel Phantomhive's hips and she looked away. But she still couldn't bring herself to close the door and scamper away.
It felt like she needed this confirmed.
She stared at the floor, and listened for—unsure if she was disgusted or just horrified by—the sounds that would follow. There was the hiss of pain from her young master, and the idle teasing of Sebastian, and the irritated order to shut the hell up and take what he wanted in reply, and when the moans of both the servant and the master began to fall into a passionate, rhythmic pattern, she decided that she'd heard enough.
Never had she run so fast in her whole life. And never had she spoken so fast and so quickly. And never had she rocked back and forth in the trauma of what she'd witnessed for so long, this time with Finnie and Baldo patting her sympathetically every moment.
So it was not surprising that now, as they all huddled behind one tree in the forest at the manor's back, watching the owner and his pet (though it was debatable who these individual references were associated with) together, they were a little weary of what they were and had been witnessing the past half-year or so.
This was nothing too obscene, nothing dirty or sexual really. In fact, it was rather creepily sweet. The young master's back was against the trunk of a tall oak tree, and Sebastian stood over him, one hand bracing himself against the tree, the other touching the shape of Ciel's lips.
The young master tilted his chin up and closed his eyes, and Sebastian got the message; he tilted his head downwards and kissed the boy gently. They stayed like that for a little while, licking each other's lips like they had all the time in the world before Sebastian said, "Lady Elizabeth will be wondering why you're gone for so long, young master,"
"Let her wonder." Ciel replied bluntly, stubbornly tilting his head upwards farther to give the butler a hint that he wasn't finished kissing him.
Sebastian chuckled, "She cares deeply for you…You care for her the same way."
"I do. I love her as an owner loves its pet cat. Useless, but captivating, in a way. And anyway, what does it matter to you?" He smirked coyly, "You're not jealous, are you?"
"Merely concerned for you, my lord. You may find yourself with mixed feelings about Elizabeth soon enough, and I'd like to be prepared."
"Ridiculous. Lizzy knows I'll never really have romantic feelings for her. She's unsure if I'm capable of having romantic feelings for anybody. She's just a little girl playing house, that's all."
Sebastian smiled, "Are you capable of having romantic feelings, young master?"
Ciel chewed over his reply for a moment. "No. All I ever have and ever will know since then is greed and desire and lust. That is all. And hatred goes without saying."
"Perhaps, my lord, but you know…even though humans make love sound complex and strained and romantic and sweet, I think it's probably not so difficult. Greed, desire, lust…it seems to make up a good majority of what love is summed up to be."
"And pray tell, Sebastian, what else could it be that creates love?" Ciel's tone was flat, though his words were sarcastic.
"Well, my lord…I suppose insanity…"—he smirked—"and I would say hatred, too."
"Hatred?"
"Who would be joyful and willing to sign themselves off to someone for the rest of their lives?" There was a glint in his eyes here, like this was an inside joke of theirs, and Ciel chuckled.
"In that case…" The young master started, but seemingly couldn't continue, and shut his mouth again. Instead he started over with, "Love is a waste of time."
"Of course, my lord, but I figure…" Sebastian twisted a lock of Ciel's hair between his fingertips, "We've got time to kill."
"It's an outright foolish way to live."
The butler smirked, "And binding yourself to an akuma for revenge isn't?" The three (plus Tanaka) weren't sure what Sebastian meant by this.
"Akuma…?" Finnie whispered, and Baldo shrugged.
"Must be another one of their weird inside jokes."
"That doesn't sound like a joke."
"Nor does anything Sebastian and the young master find amusing."
Seemingly unable to argue, they focused on the scene once more.
Ciel was gnawing on his bottom lip, glaring at Sebastian like it was his fault he was feeling this way. Of course, though, it was in a way. "I don't need this," He assured the butler aggressively, "I don't need love. It's worthless to me."
"You don't have to need love, young master." Sebastian said the word almost with disgust, but then smiled at Ciel. "You just have to need me."
"I don't need you!"
The servant quirked an eyebrow and kept smiling. "Really?"
Ciel Phantomhive opened his mouth to retort, but then closed it again.
"If," Sebastian began, "This is all some sort of 'fearful-that-you'll-be-abandoned-instinct'…"
"What?" Ciel snapped, and the butler frowned, his eyes almost angrily disappointed.
"Well, I thought you were better than that, young master."
"I am not afraid to be alone, Sebastian." The younger one defended fiercely, expression furious. "You should know that, better than anyone."
"Well, my lord, if you're by yourself when you're alone…how should I know if you're afraid?"
"You know everything about me, even the things I've forbidden you to know. Don't play coy with me."
"That's true enough, I suppose…you're very transparent, though. I don't even have to snoop to find things out."
"Other people don't seem to think so."
"Other people don't own your soul."
By now those watching were thoroughly confused. "Is that like his backwards way of saying that he cares about him?" Mey-rin whispered, and Finnie gasped.
"Of saying that he loves him, even?"
"Ohh, that just can't be!" The maid replied, reddening and cupping her cheeks again in embarrassment. "No way! Not our young master…!"
"Mey-rin!" Finnie whined worriedly, "Don't work yourself up or you'll pass out again!"
"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" Baldroy growled quietly, covering both their mouths with his calloused hands so that he could hear what was happening.
It appeared that they'd been gazing silently at each other for a while now, and though it wasn't in an ooey-gooey loving kind of way…they wondered if maybe it was in the handsome butler and young master's body language. Their eyes were hard and cold as they looked at one another—though Sebastian's were a little more teasing while Ciel's were contemplative—but at least the distasteful emotion in it seemed to be genuine.
That was the extent one's imagination could go to in the interests of picturing Sebastian the butler and Ciel the Earl in love—that their emotion, no matter what kind of emotion it qualified as, was completely real.
Suddenly the young master scoffed and adjusted the bow under his collar as he nudged Sebastian's arm out of his way. He began to wander from the area back towards the picnic near the lake and as he was leaving, called back, "Call it whatever you wish. I've not the drive to protest."
"Yes, my lord." Sebastian replied smoothly, as though they'd been discussing nothing more prominent than the shade of green that the leaves seemed to be this afternoon. For a little while he stood watching the smaller one go back towards Elizabeth, stretching and sighing irritably like a grumpy elderly person with back pains.
The servants stood watching in wonder before abruptly, and with a terrifying expression, the butler turned to look right at them.
They were silent.
Sebastian was silent.
They were silent.
"…"
"…"
The tall dark-haired servant opened his mouth, but before he could get anything out, the others started sobbing and screaming, "WE'RE SO VERY SORRY, MISTER SEBASTIAN! WE SWEAR WE DIDN'T MEAN TO SPY!"
He sighed and smiled at them with that horrifying cat grin again before saying almost cutely, "Whatever are you apologizing for? I assume that since you had time to be doddling in the garden, you've all completed your individual chores?"
That shut them right up. "Well…um…"
His brow twitched. "So…you haven't completed your chores?"
"…"
"How about this…" Sebastian drawled, still smiling as he approached the wide-eyed trio, "You all go and finish your work, and then you may crawl back to me on your hands and knees and beg forgiveness for spying. Also," He added, almost as an afterthought while he turned away, "Don't push yourselves too hard trying to understand whatever you think you witnessed. You'll just cause unnecessary trouble for me." Sebastian made a small sound that was almost like a giggle as he said, "And you don't want that."
After that day, the servants of the Phantomhive estate did not discuss the butler and the young master again.
Also, each and every one of them had learned to always knock.
Always.
"Sebastian," Ciel said to his butler one afternoon with an almost bored tone as he sipped from his tea and flipped through various documents while Sebastian straightened up the room.
"Yes, my lord?"
"What do you suppose those idiot servants gossip about nowadays? Their mindless chatter hasn't disturbed my work in weeks; I'm curious."
Sebastian merely smiled at his master and replied, "Nothing of interest, I'm sure, my lord. They are merely here for your convenience."
. . . .
A/N: Believe it or not, this actually took months to write. That was due to the fact that I kept stopping right in the middle of it and my muse ran away for a little while. However, I was looking over this one-shot this evening and decided to finish it because it wasn't as bad as I remembered it being.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW! Reviews make me feel special and loved and happy. Also, if I get some reviews on this I might post another Sebaciel one-shot…~hopes that this gives the awesome Kuroshitsuji fans enough fuel to review~
Thanks!