AN: Hello! I am very excited about this fanfic, and I hope it is very enjoyable for the honourable reader to read (and review, should the honourable reader see so fit). All the best, midears! (By the way, this is an Alternate Universe: Important details for the moment: Ciel's seventeen, it's 1950, and the Queen took the throne three years earlier that she did in reality.)
May the Twelfth, 1950
Approximately 9:51 AM Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)
The Queen's office in Buckingham Palace was dominated by a desk. Carved from the timbers of the HMS Resolute, it was an imposing mahogany thing, emblazoned with the Royal Coat of Arms everywhere there was an open space. The top of the desk itself was neat and orderly, serving as the resting place for a photograph of the Prince Consort, Phillip, and a squat green telephone.
The Queen herself was sitting at her grandiose desk, steeling herself for the phone call that was to come. A message had been sent by courier to Phantomhive Manor at 9:30 precisely, requesting that the young Earl of Phantomhive contact Her Majesty via telephone by 10 o'clock. The Queen did not enjoy talking to the Earl, and she especially disliked conversing with his butler, who would invariably be the one to telephone.
As the young Queen waited for the telephone to ring, she recalled her private secretary, Mr. Charteris, informing the day after her coronation about the unusual arrangement between the Royal Family and the Most Ancient and Noble House of Phantomhive.
"A demon! Mr. Charteris, you are pulling my leg!"
"Your Majesty, I am quite serious. The Earl of Phantomhive is bound to his butler, Sebastian, by the rite of blood. Sebastian, in return for a life-time of service to the young Earl, is endowed with the rights to the Earl's soul after his death. Since this arrangement was conceived in 1940, Earl Phantomhive has graciously provided us with any services that we require for the safety of our realm."
Queen Elizabeth the Second had not believed her trusted secretary, chided him for his bad manners to pull a joke like that, and had requested Sebastian to prove to her that he was a demon, thinking that then Charteris and the Phantomhive boy would have to give up their silly joke. Later, she was to find out how very wrong she had been. What she had seen that night at the Phantomhive house was beyond any belief or description, a vision of terror and beauty that still occasionally haunted her dreams, and more often her nightmares.
The ringing of the phone jostled her from her recollections. She inhaled deeply and picked up the green handset.
"Hello?"
"Good day, Your Majesty, this is Sebastian Michealis, Butler to the Earl of Phantomhive. I have received a notice that you would like to speak with my master, and I am telephoning to confirm that request."
"Consider it confirmed, Mr. Michealis. May I speak to the Earl?"
"Of course, your majesty."
Elizabeth shuddered as he spoke. She always imagined herself speaking to some gargantuan serpent when speaking to Sebastian.
"Hello?"
"Yes, hello. Am I speaking to the Earl Phantomhive?"
"You are indeed, Your Majesty. I was honoured by your summons, and wondered what service I may preform for you."
"Yes, well, a very peculiar one. You and your butler are to travel to the People's Republic of China, to negotiate the status of the Hong Kong Crown Colony."
"Hardly our usual line of work, your majesty."
"I am aware of that, Master Phantomhive. However, the matter of Hong Kong's status as a British territory until 1997 is an imperative matter, and I'm playing every card I have. Yourself and your butler are my trump card."
"If you don't mind my inquiry, why is the matter of Hong Kong so vital to your majesty?"
"It is vital because it is about the only place in the whole of the Empire, or what's left of it, that consistently turns out a large budget surplus. The money taken from Hong Kong finances the deficit in Malaya, Tanganyika, and Rhodesia*, keeping those particular territories in the black. With the economy the way it is after the war, we cannot afford to lose any profitable territories. So I am entrusting you with the duty of salvaging the situation in China. Your butler can speak Chinese, can't he?"
"Indeed. He speaks Latin, French, English, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Greek, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, Korean, Japanese, Uighur, Tibetan, and Hindi."
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow at the note of affectionate pride she detected in the seventeen-year old's soft voice. She dismissed the idle accusation of homosexuality that floated through her head, and resumed the conversation.
"Will you take the assignment? For God, Queen, and Blessed Empire?"
"I will, and by all things upon which it is proper for me to swear, I swear that I will do my utmost to fulfil your majesty's wishes."
"Good. The details of your travel to China and your specific instructions are awaiting your pick-up at the Foreign Office. Do you have any other inquiries, Master Phantomhive?"
"No, your majesty."
"Wonderful. Good day to you, Master Phantomhive."
"Good day, your majesty."
Elizabeth hurriedly and joyously hung up, relieved that the conversation had not lasted, and that the demon butler had only remained on the line for a moment. Assured that the matter of Hong Kong was in capable, if hellish hands, she summoned her own butler and asked for a good apple brandy to celebrate.
…
Ciel hung up the phone and sat in quiet contemplation for a moment. An unusual assignment, but surely one he could handle, with Sebastian as his guide and interpreter.
"Sebastian!"
"Yes, master?"
"I desire chocolate truffles, coated with powdered sugar."
"I'll bring them to you right away. Anything else I can do for you?"
"Yes, bring a cup of Assam, with cream and sugar, then run to the Foreign Office and pick up our instructions. Tell Maylene that I need her to prepare luggage for a two-month trip, and inform Misters Baldroy and Finnian that I expect them to behave in a seemly way for my absence, and I expect to find the manor still standing when I return."
"If the young Master doesn't mind my inquiry, where exactly are we travelling to?"
"China. Her Majesty is sending us as her ambassadors to discuss and insure the future of the Crown Colony of Hong Kong."
Sebastian nodded, then hastily departed, returning in mere seconds with a cup of the finest Assam tea, coloured a pleasant toasted caramel, and a crystal dish filled to the brim with delicate chocolate truffles from the finest truffle-house in Paris. Ciel nodded a curt approval, and Sebastian smiled his thin, sardonic smile, and inquired,
"Is there any other service I can preform for you?"
"Yes. Put some Vera Lynn** on the phonograph, if you would."
"Of course."
Sebastian pulled the record from its' sleeve and delicately slid it on the phonograph, then proceeded to set the needle delicately on the very outermost groove of the record. He departed, and lounge music began to play.
"I'm gonna sit right down, and write myself a letter. And make believe it came from you..."
Ciel cocked his head and smirked, a sad half smile that spoke to a deep sadness and longing, but for what he did not know. He removed his quill that sat in the inkwell on the desk, took some stationery embossed with the Phantomhive Family Crest from the golden tray to the right of the inkwell, and put pen to paper.
"To my dearest Ciel," he wrote, "I miss you more with each passing day that we are apart. I dream sometimes of feeding you chocolates dressed in nothing more than a silken loin-" The door behind Ciel opened, and he jumped about a foot, hastily grabbing at the letter and crumpling it into a little ball. He then immediately turned to face the intruder with a fiery glare upon his face.
Maylene stood in the doorway, cringing at the intensity of Ciel's death glare and gripping two suits in either hand, one black and one blue.
"What is it?" Ciel asked, the anger and hatred in his voice perfectly audible.
"I just wondered which suit you preferred..." The poor thing was on the verge of tears.
"The blue one," Ciel snapped. "Leave. Now."
"Of course... So sorry to disturb you..." She turned and fled the room, knocking over a hat stand as she bolted down the hall. Ciel uncrumpled the letter to examine what he had wrote.
"My word! What on earth could I have been thinking? Something is in the tea, I'm not thinking straight..." He rambled on as he shredded the letter into scraps and then walked over to his grand fireplace, in which coals smouldered from the fire from the night before. He tossed in the remains of the strange, erotic sentence that he had wrote, and asked himself,
"Who was that from?"
*Old names for Malaysia, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe.
**Famous British Singer of the 40's and 50's.
Okay, I know that was a bit cheesy towards the end, but all the same, I hope you enjoyed it! Please review, even if you've just read a pile of shit on par with "My Immortal" (not the song, the fanfic) or some other abomination, please review this and tell me about it. That said, have a good day my dearies, and I hope to see you again.