I do not own.
The crisp evening air heralded the end of another social season. The bite in the wind promised the bitter cold of an England winter, soon to be followed by drifts of snow. Inside the mansion, a young boy is bringing the culmination of months of planning into a final moment, daydreams of happy times to come swirling around the back of his head.
The blasé dismissal of his present sent Ciel into a temporary shock, a reeling unbelief of what was happening.
Ciel stared up at Sebastian, glad for the curtain that partially hid the two of them from the rest of the party goers.
"I see." Ciel lowered his gaze to the proffered gift that Sebastian had flatly turned down. "I'll see to giving you the monetary equivalent, and you can select a gift for yourself. Take all day tomorrow to do so; I want some thought put into it."
With that, Ciel whirled around and left the alcove, too fast for the stunned Sebastian to reach out and clasp his young charge to him.
The bundle in Ciel's arms gave a soft "Mweor?"
The party was finally coming to an end. Alois passed his eyes over the crowd, after seeing Ciel dart through an open door to the outside. He finally caught sight of the excess frills and lavender across the dance floor, socializing with the trendsetters.
Alois caught Elizabeth's eye from across the room. Her face fell. So, Ciel was in tears, and not in a good way. Elizabeth mimed for them to go to plan B, and mentioned to Paula that she was not feeling well, and to go prepare their carriage.
Alois ordered Claude to distract Sebastian until the party finished, and headed after Ciel. He found the fiancé and fiancée both in the garden, away from the party, but close enough to draw attention, should Sebastian arrive. Marveling at how fast Elizabeth could be, Alois sank down onto the bench on Ciel's other side.
He glanced at the kitten.
"So, you did go with the Egyptian Hairless Sphinx. I guess your allergy wasn't to secreted glands after all."
"Alois, you know that the problem was dander, and besides, the poor kitten needs oils and baths, she is not exactly maintenance free."
"I know. But the problem here is how much trouble you went through to obtain her."
Alois turned robin egg blue eyes to Ciel. The young lord had curled the kitten up to his breast, where the cat had happily buried her energetic self into his coat from the evening chill.
"He…he just…he said no. And then he looked revolted at her. Even though I went to the trouble to ensure that she was actually a Canadian Sphynx and would not have a genetic disorder from breeding," Ciel inhaled, and Alois and Elizabeth catch every waver from the breath that threaten to break the young earl's composure. "I just wanted to reach a compromise. A cat we could both have. You told me I used to have a dog before the fire, Elizabeth. How annoyed Sebastian would be with Pluto. I thought she would make a nice change."
Ciel fell silent, petting the cat and reeling from the disapproval Sebastian had slapped him in the face with.
"Well, on the bright side, you made a nice gesture!"
Elizabeth leveled a stare at Alois that told him novels of what she thought of his skill at cheering people up. Alois suppressed a cringe. For a sweet girl, Elizabeth had a fire that burned within her, and she had no qualm about burning those who hurt Ciel.
He made a mental note to befriend her when he abducted Ciel.
Now, he turned his attention to the problem at hand. "I vote we punish Sebastian. I mean, you went out of your way to procure a cat from the colonies. You had to research why you are allergic to cats, find hypoallergenic cat breeds, locate short-hair from long-hair regions, talk to breeders, arrange travel and read up on care for cats, and then arrange the trip for her! By the way, what is her name?"
"Sylvia."
"You named her in reference to the forest and the mother to Romulus and Remus? Wow, you did think long and hard about her."
Alois covered the fact that Elizabeth beat him to answering (of course she would know a girl's name) and decided to ask the next question.
"So you are only going to pay the amount to Sebastian you actually paid the breeder, right? After all, as the runt, she would have been drowned, genetic material needed or not. How much did you pay for her?"
"Twenty thousand pounds."
The silence deafened his companions.
"Roughly $31,000, is that what you are saying? You paid that for a cat to a breeder that didn't want her?"
Alois fought to contain his voice. He knew Ciel was smart, but this had crossed into insanity..!
"He wouldn't let her go until she was twelve weeks old. So I paid him what I had on me and sent the rest over for him to ship Sylvia to England. I even paid him to not spay her, so a licensed practitioner here can breed her. He even sent receipts and the excess money back."
Elizabeth shut her mouth, and waved at the gnats that had been gathering.
"Would you like to stay with me, Ciel? So long as Sebastian knows you are safe, you don't have to be around him, right?"
"Actually, Elizabeth, a lot of people want to hurt the Queen's Watchdog, and my house is far more defensible, so how about I take him? I promise we will visit you. But I would love to brainstorm with you on how to teach Sebastian that when your master is trying to please you, you do not make him cry."
Ciel weakly chuckled at Alois statement. He doubted that they would cause Sebastian too much damage, not from what he was, but because he served Ciel.
"We could shave the coat off the cat he currently adores."
Both males gaped at Elizabeth. "What? There's no mess and Sebastian gets the message 'You are horrible. You made Ciel cry.'"
"Plus, the cat lives."
Grinning to each other, Alois helps Ciel to the carriage. Elizabeth then leans on Alois all the way to her carriage, even carried in, before Alois makes a show of ordering Claude to drive them both to a doctor while he tells Ciel.
Alois stormed back inside. He immediately ran into Sebastian.
There are no traces of the party left. The tables are gone, the streamers are down, and the quartet area has been dismantled.
So that was how Claude kept him busy.
"Where is Ciel, or are you competent enough to deliver a message?" Sebastian raised an eye at the acerbic tongue Alois used as he lashed at him…and Claude was nowhere in sight.
No Ciel to order the blonde's death, either.
"Lady Elizabeth has fallen ill, and Claude is escorting them to a doctor. I will need a place to stay until they return. Surely you can tell Ciel this?"
The sparks which Alois was sending at Sebastian just about painted the world red around the young lord. Ah, who better to be his rival?
"I will deliver the message." With that, Sebastian headed to the study. Then to the bedroom. Then the bathroom. Then the kitchen. He then briskly trotted to the lounge room, where Alois had made himself comfortable.
Sebastian stared at him.
"Oh, is a bed made already for me? How prompt the Phantomhive hospitality is."
Alois grinned to himself. Sebastian must be freaking out. He could not find Ciel, as Ciel had never left, but he was not in a place a butler would think to look. Alois was glad for the carriage, and how the Phantomhive family stored theirs in a shed. The carriages had needed some maneuvering, but not enough to make Sebastian suspect Claude. He might suspect one of the other servants or all three, perhaps.
The blankets would keep Ciel and Sylvia warm while Alois searched for a certain cat to 'groom' as Sebastian made a room for him and searched for his master.
Ciel awoke to the inside of the carriage as Alois climbed inside.
"Geez, Sebastian, the cat scared me. I'm sorry that that happened, but you must say, she certainly reminds me of someone." Alois commented off-hand to Sebastian as he climbed in.
Sebastian stiffened, reminded that Ciel had looked so hurt when he refused the pet. But there had been no fur. What an abomination! What had Ciel been thinking? What was Ciel thinking, not showing up or calling him? Had he been kidnapped? Was he in danger? Who was he with? Surely not someone from the party, that part was way too obvious!
Alois figured that Ciel was thinking how nice the swiped bread and cheese were, especially the bottle milk that Sylvia devoured from his palm.
"As Claude has yet to return, would you please drive me home? Or to Elizabeth's that way you can tell Ciel how she is doing."
Alois smirked in the carriage as Sebastian fumed outside. Clearly Alois did not have Ciel, as he assumed (to Sebastian's knowledge) that Ciel had been tired from the earlier party and had declined Alois presence at breakfast.
Sebastian mounted the carriage after strapping in the horses and began to drive. He was not about to endanger Elizabeth to the bi-polar blonde, and set about the course to the Trancy Household.
Alois settled in, and showed Ciel the hair that was stuck to his clothes. There was black cat hair that was slightly long and in patches on his coat.
Ciel gave him a sad smile, and cradled Sylvia, before letting her about the carriage.
Elizabeth awoke from a small fever, and insisted in going back to the Trancy estate with Claude, so that she could thank him herself. Claude acknowledged her order, glad for the drawn out punishment, instead of being assigned the task to 'talk' to Sebastian about what was wrong with the sphynx.
Frankly, Claude thought the cat was a fine compromise, and the gift alone spoke of how highly Ciel regarded his butler.
The party's arrived all at the same time, and the triplets were sent to fetch Ciel and smuggle him out during tea, while both Alois and Elizabeth verbally attacked Sebastian about the cat.
"Did you know how much a pure-bred cat costs?"
Sebastian sighed. Money meant nothing to him. He wanted a silky coat to stroke.
"Absolutely nothing. You enter them in contests and leave them with the breeder for grooming. What Ciel got you was a runt of the litter, worth twenty thousand pounds to bring to England alone."
Crash.
Claude refrained from mentioning that the third-best teapot had just fallen out of Sebastian's hands, and instead motioned for the newly arrived triplets to clean up the mess.
"Perhaps you should take the money and the day to rest, Sebastian. Truly, you are a horrible butler to have made such a mistake." Alois caught his face, before raising a slice of toast to his face, while Elizabeth flicked her fan out to hide the stunned, appreciative look on her face for Claude's reprimand.
Sebastian slowly straightened and left the room. In the silence, they could hear the carriage as it rolled down the pathway.
"Thank you, Claude." Then Alois dismissed him to bring Ciel up for lunch.
Sebastian was ready to cry. He could not find his bocchan. He had looked everywhere! He then ran to the black cat that would calm him, only to find a cold, shivering rag where she used to be. He led her to the storage shed, and set her down in a bed. She settled in, then lost interest in him.
Sebastian frowned.
That kitten had been all over Ciel when he had introduced them. Ciel had looked happy….and then so resigned-
Sebastian stood up. The kitten would be with Ciel. The runt that would have died had formed an emotional connection to the young lord. Much like how Ciel had formed one to Sebastian.
The proverbial light bulb went off in Sebastian's head.
Cursing himself, Sebastian ran out of the storage and past Finny, who spent the rest of the evening trying to get his hat out of the frisky wind.
Ciel had calmed down during his stay. Elizabeth had left after playing with Sylvia, and Ciel could swear that he had heard her make the cat promise to get Ciel to smile when Elizabeth was gone.
The kitten really was smart…
"Alois, do you think we are going a bit hard on Sebastian?"
"Oh, I don't know. He's supposed to pick out a present that is going for twenty thousand pounds, and that darling is playing with your shoelaces."
Ciel grinned, and undid his necktie. Dangling the fabric over the chair, Ciel flicked his wrist and watched the cloth flip and slide, Sylvia racing and pouncing after it.
Alois cleared his throat, and then used a pocket watch and a nearby candle to send a sun spot that immediately caught her attention instead. She chased the dot of light around the room, over furniture and up walls, before stopping at the black shoes of the butler.
Alois glanced up to ask Claude what was wrong, only to see Sebastian staring avidly at the kitten. Alois flicked his wrist. The light traveled up the pants leg…and after it, the kitten.
Her strong claws made quick work of the clothes, and Sebastian stood quite still while she climbed up to his waist, before he moved his arms to hold her. Ciel refrained from mentioning how stiff Alois had gone to stop himself from letting the cat claw a certain anatomical aspect on her way up.
Ciel smiled into the tea as Sebastian pet the kitten. Sebastian had clearly gotten over the coat fetish, and the fact that the Hairless had some hair had helped, too. Ciel idly mentioned that a bath a week and some oils were necessary for Sylvia, plus that with a decrease in dander, he wouldn't mind having the kitten kept indoors at all times.
Sebastian got the hint, then walked over and hugged Ciel. He then bent over and caught Ciel's hand, planting his lips to the back of the hand. Sylvia 'meowed' and climbed onto Sebastian's back, batting at the length of his hair. She returned to his shoulder as Sebastian straightened slowly.
Alois grinned. "How about you three stay for dinner and then leave? After all, I don't think that you arrived in a carriage, Sebastian."
Sebastian thanked Alois, and swept out to assist in the cooking. Ciel sighed.
"Thank you, Alois. I thought that Sebastian would never like her."
"You do know that anything legal or shady, I would do for you, Ciel. You see, I think of you as a little brother."
Ciel stared at Alois. The silence lengthened as he found his voice.
"I thought you killed my family?"
"Eh? Why would you think that?"
Unknown to the two butlers in the kitchen, their masters were undoing a web of lies, before re-stringing the trap just for them.
THE END
ALTERNATE ENDING
Of course, now Ciel had to have a new reason for wanting Alois dead. They decided that the social threat Alois posed to Elizabeth would suffice. Both of them mused over how….childish that was, as Alois had no interest in Elizabeth, aside from the fact that she was Ciel's fiancée. He was, after all, disinterested in love.
Ciel did however have the creeping sensation that he was not quite wanted a 'brother' of sorts, and so began to view Alois with a wary caution.
After all, the other boy had reason enough to strike a deal with a demon, and was to be watched.
Alois figured that Ciel had already shorn what little trust they had built between the two of them, and would be on the lookout for other ways to make Ciel his.
Dinner arrived, and Sylvia enjoyed her salmon, tail wrapped around the legs of two boys lightly talking about the latest murder to solve.
A/N: The Canadian Hairless was not successfully bred until the late 1930's, so I've taken some creative license with this. And yes, I do have family that are allergic to cats, and can stand them, they just can't touch them. And all of our cats are highly affectionate. So it's a bad situation in the best of times.