I own nothing but my OC.
That Butler, Trick or Treat 5
'thoughts'
"speech"
"Demonic speech"
{setting/stage directions?}
SOUND EFFECTS
An entire sentence like this, without quotes, is narration for dreams or stuff like written letters.
=†=†=†=†= scene shift/time shift
Previously:
"D-Dwarf!?" Ciel said incredulously, vein mark throbbing on his forehead.
"Since 'Grumpy' over here is having trouble with toy ideas, why don't we go to the mall in Slidell, and let him look in the toy stores. He might learn a thing or two while we're there." Lacey said, totally ignoring Ciel.
"... But won't that negatively affect the time line if he invents something that shouldn't exist in that time period because of it?" Cpt. LeBeau pointed out.
"Oh, but they're from an alternate universe remember, Honey? Even if that does happen, it won't have any affect on us~!" Pomona said, smiling.
"Wow, PomPom... way to be responsible..." Chêne said sarcastically, sweat dropping.
{After carefully weighing the pros and cons...}
"Fine, you win. We'll go to the mall... even though I really don't want to..." Cpt. LeBeau said, sighing in defeat. He could fight off ten men single-handedly, but he never seemed to be able to win against his wife's stubbornness. The defeated Marine did a U-turn so they could turn around and get on the right highway.
"Thank you, Honey~!" Pomona said, smiling brightly as she blew him a kiss from the passenger seat.
"Well, it's gonna be awhile... How about some music?" Cpt. LeBeau suggested as he turned on the radio and started flipping through the stations.
"Oh! Oh! That one! Go back a station! Perfect!" Lacey and Chêne yelled excitedly as One Night in Bangkok by Murray Head blared through the speakers. For some reason the two of them just loved that song. It was an oldie, but goodie. Lacey and Chêne grinned at each other as they bobbed their heads to the beat of the oriental styled opening of the 80's song. They took a breath before launching into singing the song as the music abruptly changed to a somewhat techno/pop style.
[Lacey]
Bangkok, Oriental setting
And the city don't know that the city is getting
The creme de la creme of the chess world in a
Show with everything but Yul Brynner
[Chêne]
Time flies - doesn't seem a minute
Since the Tyrolean spa had the chess boys in it
All change - don't you know that when you
Play at this level there's no ordinary venue
[Lacey]
It's Iceland - or the Philippines - or Hastings - or -
or this place!
[Lacey and Chêne]
One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster
The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free
You'll find a god in every golden cloister
And if you're lucky then the god's a she
I can feel an angel sliding up to me
The music was rather strange to Ciel and Sebastian, with them being used to more classical music, but Chêne's high, clear, soprano voice, that chimed like a silver bell, contrasted beautifully with Lacey's low and sultry alto voice.
[Lacey]
One town's very like another
When your head's down over your pieces, brother
[Chêne]
It's a drag, it's a bore, it's really such a pity
To be looking at the board, not looking at the city
[Lacey]
Whaddya mean? Ya seen one crowded, polluted, stinking town -
[Chêne]
Tea, girls, warm, sweet
Some are set up in the Somerset Maugham suite
[Lacey]
Get Thai'd! You're talking to a tourist
Whose every move's among the purest
I get my kicks above the waistline, sunshine
[Lacey and Chêne]
One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble
Not much between despair and ecstasy
One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble
Can't be too careful with your company
I can feel the devil walking next to me
[Lacey]
Siam's gonna be the witness
To the ultimate test of cerebral fitness
This grips me more than would a
Muddy old river or reclining Buddha
And thank God I'm only watching the game - controlling it -
I don't see you guys rating
The kind of mate I'm contemplating
I'd let you watch, I would invite you
But the queens we use would not excite you
So you better go back to your bars, your temples, your massage
parlours -
[Lacey and Chêne]
One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster
The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free
You'll find a god in every golden cloister
A little flesh, a little history
I can feel an angel sliding up to me
One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble
Not much between despair and ecstasy
One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble
Can't be too careful with your company
I can feel the devil walking next to me
"Oh, I just love it when you girls sing that song together~!" Pomona said gleefully once the song ended. "So much better than when Mike Tyson sang it in The Hangover~!"
"I thought he did okay." Cpt. LeBeau said, shrugging. "He's no 'Chêne and Lacey,' but he did okay."
"Yes, that was quite lovely... What were the instruments in that song?" Sebastian asked curiously. He had been alive for quite some time now, but he had never heard anything like some of the sounds that had been in that song.
"Oh, it's just the usual guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, and synthesizers usually found in the music of the 1980's~!" Pomona explained, smiling.
" What were those last two?" Ciel asked curiously.
"A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones. Synthesizers can usually produce a wide range of sounds, which may either imitate other instruments or generate new timbres. A keyboard can be used to control a synthesizer. It's also like an electronic piano." Chêne explained.
"Hmm... Interesting. Human technology has advanced in so many ways..." Sebastian said thoughtfully.
"Wow, you never cease to amaze me whenever you start talking like a walking Wikipedia..." Lacey said, smiling wryly. "How do you remember all of this stuff?"
"Dude, there's so much stuff crammed inside my head, I don't even know." Chêne said, smiling wryly as she sweat dropped.
=†=†=†=†=
{At the mall...}
"So, which store should we hit first?" Lacey asked.
"I'm going to Williams-Sonoma store. Our vegetable peeler finally got too old, and broke, so we've been needing a replacement anyway." Cpt. LeBeau said, as he turned to leave. "Oh, well if that's the case, then I'll go with you~! Maybe we can get something for supper while we're there. Their vodka-tomato pasta sauce and some pasta would be good~!" Pomona said.
"I think KB Toys, Build-A-Bear, and the Disney store would be good places for us to check out." Chêne said thoughtfully.
"While we're here I wanna check out Hottopic." Lacey said, smirking. She wanted to see how Ciel would react to that one.
"Then let's all meet up here again at 14:30 (2:30 p.m.). We need to get back before your sister gets home from school, and finds out that we went to the mall without her... or we'll never hear the end of it." Cpt. LeBeau said as they all went their separate ways.
"Since Hottopic is just around the corner... Let's go there first!" Lacey said, smirking evilly as she dashed off, dragging with her Ciel.
"Hey!" Ciel yelled indignantly. Chêne smiled and chuckled lightly as she watched.
"I'm glad we were able to come here." Chêne told Sebastian, smiling happily as they followed them.
"Yes, I imagine you must be relieved to finally be reunited with your family..." Sebastian said thoughtfully, furrowing his brow ever so slightly. He hoped he wasn't going to have to drag Chêne away from this place kicking and screaming. Even if it was Chêne, there had to be a limit to how many times she would forgive him.
"Yes." Chêne said, smiling warmly. "And I'm happy because both of my 'families' are getting along so well. Ciel's getting to experience being treated like a normal kid for once, instead of 'Earl Phantomhive.' I hope he loosens up and has some fun before we go home, and he has to buckle down and go back to work." Sebastian's eyes widened slightly in surprise. She had just referred to the Phantomhive Manor as home.
"I see." Sebastian said, smiling at her. It was Chêne's turn to be surprised. Sebastian was smiling—not his usual shit-eating grin—and actual honest-to-goodness 'I'm happy' smile.
"Sebas..." Chêne said, starting to ask him if he was all right, when she heard Ciel yell.
"Just what kind of place are you trying to drag me into!?" Ciel demanded indignantly as he dug in his heels, and fought to keep from being pulled into the Hottopic store. It looked like the entrance to hell.
"Oh, wow~! They really out did themselves on the entrance, didn't they?" Chêne asked as she casually strolled past them, and stood in the entrance the store. Ciel stared at her, like she had just done the unthinkable. "What's wrong, Ciel? You've been in much worse places than this." Chêne pointed out.
"Yeah, it's not like the store is going to steal your soul if you go inside~!" Lacey joked. Ciel and Chêne sweat dropped.
'No, that's what Sebastian's here for...' They thought, glancing at the demon butler. Sebastian smirked, as if he knew what they were thinking.
"Anyway, there's someone I want to introduce to you~!" Lacey told Chêne as she finally released Ciel and linked arms with her best friend.
"Who is it? A new boyfriend~!?" Chêne asked excitedly.
"Yep. I want you to meet my man~!" Lacey said, grinning. "You'll like him, he's a unique and sexy beast~!" Chêne laughed and shook her head at her friend.
"Well, then what are we waiting for?" Chêne joked as they entered the store in search of Lacey's love.
"Ugh... what is that noise?" Ciel asked, covering his ears as he and Sebastian entered the store. Coming Undone by Korn was playing over the store's loudspeakers.
"... I believe this is supposed to be more of the 'music' from this world, Young Master." Sebastian said as he looked around the store. Every inch of the store contained items that were strange even by this world's standards. It appeared that this store specialized in providing people like Lacey with outlandish clothing, music, and accessories.
"Well, it's giving me a headache! Let's find Chêne and get out of here." Ciel grumbled.
"Yes, Sir." Sebastian replied, smirking at the boy's discomfort. He noticed a group of girls, who appeared to be around Ciel's age were giggling as they stole glances at them. From what he could hear over the music, the girls seemed to be complimenting Ciel's modern outfit, and gossiping about his eye patch, good looks, and who was going to get to 'hit on him.' Sebastian decided he should keep an eye on these girls... They reminded him of a group of hungry, feral dogs, and they were eyeing Ciel like he was a juicy steak made from a prime cut of angus beef.
"!" Ciel said when he finally spotted Chêne and Lacey. They were at the register, chatting with one of the store employees. A very familiar looking store employee. "S-Sebastian, is that who I think it is!?" Ciel whisper yelled at his butler. Sebastian looked to see what Ciel had been staring at.
Sebastian's eyes widened slightly in surprise. The man Lacey and Chêne were talking to was a dead ringer for Undertaker, only his long hair was much shorter (his shaggy bangs still covered his eyes though), and he was wearing a black Alice in Chains band-T, black bondage pants, and black and white checkered vans... and was that a spiked dog collar around his neck?
"Oh my, so you're the 'Chêne' Lacey always speaks so highly of~!" The Undertaker lookalike said. They even had the same gravely voice and creepy way of speaking... but that was impossible... no matter how strange he was, Undertaker could not be in two places at once, and as a human, he could not have lived from the Victorian era until the 21st century... So Sebastian decided that this man before them must be a descendant of the Undertaker of Chêne's world.
"Ciel, Sebastian!" Chêne called out, waving them over, once she noticed them staring. "Come meet Lacey's Undertaker." Chêne said meaningfully, letting them know that she had definitely noticed the similarities, despite her calm demeanor. Apparently, they even had the same alias too...
"Undertaker, this is Sebastian, Chêne's 'boyfriend,' and Ciel... yeah, just Ciel." Lacey said, smirking at Ciel as a vein mark throbbed on his head. She just loved messing with the kid. There was something loveable about him... even though he acted like someone shoved a pinecone up his ass most of the time.
"..." 'Undertaker' said as he stared at the two of them for a moment. He looked surprised, and almost looked like he recognized something about Sebastian for a moment. "Well then, it's pleasure~!" He said finally. "I'm Undertaker."
"It's his alias from the band he plays in, but he liked it so much, that he just goes by it instead of his real name now." Lacey explained, smiling at him as she kissed 'Undertaker' on the cheek. Undertaker grinned as he put an arm around Lacey's waist.
"So, is there anything I can help you with?" Undertaker asked them, being the helpful employee that he was.
"... We don't have to make you laugh in order to get you to help us, do we?" Ciel asked, sweat dropping. Undertaker smirked.
"It's like you already know me~!" He said, grinning.
=†=†=†=†=
"Geez, what's your damage, Ciel? You have something against my boyfriend!?" Lacey demanded, vein mark throbbing on her forehead, as they browsed the aisles of the KB toy store. After hearing his price, Ciel had declined 'Undertaker's' offer to help as politely as he could. He'd already had enough of that nonsense with the one back home.
"It's not your Undertaker he has a problem with... I think Ciel was just a little weirded out because your boyfriend looks and acts like he could be a clone of the Undertaker from his world." Chêne explained, sweat dropping and smiling wryly. Ciel noticed that there was a display of a toy called a 'Heroic Helicopter.' It looked like stylized dragonfly, only the 'wings' were three blades on top that looked like they were supposed to rotate, and there were smaller blades on the tail. It had been painted with an American flag pattern. One of the toys had been removed from the box, and there was a big sign with flashing lights that read 'TRY ME!' next to it.
"Oh, that looks fun~!" Chêne said, grinning as she picked it up and held it out to Ciel. "Here, you use the remote control to fly it."
"It flies...?" Ciel asked looking at the plastic toy skeptically.
"Uh, duh! Otherwise there'd be no point to even making a toy helicopter, right?" Lacey said, glancing at Chêne, who nodded in agreement.
"Have you ever seen an image of Leonardo Da Vinci's 'flying machine,' Ciel?" Chêne asked him, trying to figure out a way to explain it in way that would be easy to understand.
"No." Ciel said, furrowing his brow slightly in confusion. He had heard of it before, but what did that have to do with anything?
"I have seen it..." Sebastian said. "But it failed miserably..." He mumbled to himself. Lacey perked up when she heard him, despite his hushed tone.
"You met Da Vinci!? Sweet~!" Lacey said excitedly. "I love that guy! He cracks me up—the way he wrote all of his notes backwards in Italian so no one would be able to read them... haha too bad we figured out his trick~! All you have to do is hold up a mirror and read the reversed image reflected in it, or get Chêne to read them! She read the words in the image of one of his pages that had notes on it in our art textbook one time, and it took her a moment before she realized the only reason she could read it so easily was because her dyslexia was acting up that day~!" She said, laughing. The two girls had opted to take Italian as their foreign language, so they knew enough to have a basic understanding of the Italian language.
"Well, I'm glad you were entertained..." Chêne said, sweat dropping.
"..." Sebastian and Ciel said as they stared at the two girls.
"Chêne... did you tell Lacey about me?" Sebastian asked her, slightly surprised. He wondered why she had told Lacey about him when she was trying so hard to keep her parents from finding out the truth...
"Yes, but don't worry! Lacey can keep a secret. She promised me she'd take our secret to her grave." Chêne reassured the demon butler.
"What if she 'accidentally' spilled our secret?" Ciel asked narrowing his eyes suspiciously at Lacey. She seemed to enjoy making his life difficult for him... Lacey grinned at him. That couldn't be good.
"Don't worry, Ciel! If I told, Chêne would be in trouble too, and I don't want that. I'm only out to screw you over~!" She told him, smirking. A vein mark throbbed on Ciel's forehead. He clenched his fists in anger and frustration. Lacey had no idea how lucky she was that she was Chêne's friend, or he would have her begging for mercy at Sebastian's hands by now...
"Anyway..." Chêne said, sweat dropping. "Just give it a whirl~!" She told Ciel as she handed him the helicopter's controller. It would just be easier to let him see for himself, rather than trying to explain.
"..." Ciel said as he took the remote and stared at it. The controls were labeled with the different actions they performed, so he didn't really need an explanation about that part at least. Ciel began pushing buttons and pulling the little levers on the controller. "!" He said, surprised when it actually started hovering off of the ground, and ascending into the air. "This is amazing..." Ciel said, impressed. He started playing around with it, smirking as the little helicopter flew around the store. Chêne smiled wryly. She was glad that he was having fun, but she hadn't really expected him to be so surprised when Funtom had already produced steampunk versions of a Nintendo DS... well, they hadn't invented planes yet in his world, so that probably had something do with it.
"Well, we've seen everything in this store already, so why don't we move on to this 'Build-A-Bear' store you mentioned?" Sebastian suggested.
"Sounds good to me." Lacey said, shrugging.
"Let's go, Ciel... Ciel?" Chêne said. They all stopped when they realized Ciel wasn't following them. He was still playing with the helicopter... Chêne smiled. Ciel might act like an adult most of the time, but he really did love playing games like any other child his age. "Why don't we let him play a little longer?" She said. Lacey and Sebastian already looked bored though. "Why don't you guys go check out the pet store while you wait? I'm sure they have some cute puppies and kittens you guys can play with while you wait for us." Chêne suggested. Lacey loved puppies almost as much as Sebastian loved cats. "I'll 'call' you when we're done here." She told Sebastian.
"Wait, how are you going to call us without a cell phone?" Lacey asked, raising an eyebrow at her.
"Sebastian and I can telepathically 'page' each other." Chêne explained, sweat dropping, as she smiled wryly.
"Hmm... convenient." Lacey said thoughtfully, smirking.
=†=†=†=†=
{At the pet store}
Lacey watched as Sebastian, an all-powerful demon, cuddled an adorable brown kitten with a slight hint of blush on his cheeks... She was never going to be able to look at him the same way ever again. He looked like he was Heaven. No wonder Chêne had suggested they come here.
"So... this 'calling each other' thing you and Chêne can do... is it like a mental phone call type of deal, or more of 'just knowing' that you need to go and where to?" Lacey asked Sebastian curiously.
"I would have to say it is the latter of those two options." Sebastian said, smiling blissfully as he played with the kitten's soft paws. "If we consciously think of telling the other that we want them to come to us, and our location, then they will feel intuitively that they need to be beside the one doing the calling, and will be drawn to them." He explained as he stroked the kitten's soft fur and gazed into its lovely pale-green eyes. It was also the runt of the litter, so it was a tiny little thing. Lacey's eyes widened slightly in surprise when she realized that Sebastian had basically picked out the kitty version of Chêne to cuddle with, out of all the other kittens present. She smiled.
"You really like Chêne, huh?" Lacey asked him, grinning. Sebastian glanced at her briefly before turning back to the kitten.
"She is certainly an interesting hu—well, I suppose I can no longer say she is human now, but she has always been far more tolerable than the majority of the many humans I have met over my lifetime, and she is by far the most entertaining." Sebastian said, smirking. "However, it is not the type of 'like' you are implying. Demons do not have 'feelings' in the same sense humans do." He explained. Sebastian had an unreadable expression on his face.
"..." Lacey said as she stared at him, contemplating what he had just said. "But from what you just said... even if they aren't the same, you do have them, don't you—'Feelings'?" Lacey said meaningfully.
"I wonder..." He said thoughtfully, smirking. His crimson eyes glowed slightly as 'mini-Chêne' (as Lacey had come to think of the kitten) yawned cutely and curled up in his arms.
Author's note:
I heard One Night in Bangkok when it came on my radio while I was flipping through station in my car, and I was like 'OMG! This song would be perfect for Ciel since he's always making allusions to chess (like this song does), is jaded (like the sarcastic singer), and has adventures while investigating things for the queen!' I added a link to my profile for the music video of it so you can hear what it sounds like, but if you don't like 80's music, it's no biggy. ^_^
Also, I decided to make it so that Sebastian and company don't have a clue that Undertaker is a Grim Reaper since they aren't supposed to find out until much later in the manga series.
