A/N: Thank you so much to my lovely reviewers, it's so encouraging! Next up we have everyone's favourite gardener :)

The Butler, Surprised

It is very late.

It is very late and no one but him should be awake, but a dull glow is spilling under his door from the direction of the servants' hall. Sebastian considers ignoring it and continuing to ink careful entries into the accounts ledger on his desk, but the other servants are yet new and if they've a thief on their hands his young lord will not thank him for the trouble.

With a resigned sigh he sets down his pen and starts for the hall with silent steps. There is a figure hunched over the hall's rough wooden dining table, glaring tearfully down onto the open page of a book that lies in a ruddy pool of candlelight.

"Finnian?"

The boy startles at the unfamiliar syllables of his new name. He wears it uncertainly still, the way he does the gardener's jacket the young master had made for him last week. Sebastian cocks an eyebrow.

"Reading at this hour?"

Quite suddenly Finnian's face crumples. With an ugly sob, the tears overspill into rivers and in moments the dim room is crowded with the noise of his bawling. Sebastian stares. He's somewhat taken aback. It has been a while since he last saw a human cry this close; the young master does it so rarely.

"My goodness, what a fuss," he murmurs with gentle irritation, whipping a neat white handkerchief from his pocket and passing it to the distraught boy. "Clean yourself up immediately. Such a state is hardly befitting of a servant of the Phantomhive household."

He winces as Finny blows his nose messily into the proffered handkerchief.

"I c-can't, Mr Sebastian!"

"Can't what?"

"Read it! Th-the young master g-gave it to me and I d-don't even know what a-any of it s-says!"

Ah, the book his lord had presented their new employee with over a week ago, telling the story of his namesake. The Legend of Finnian.

"Would you go back to sleep if I were to read some of it to you?" Making deals is how he lives, and those ledgers aren't writing themselves.

"I-It's not the same! Th-the young m-master wanted me to r-read it, but I've tried s-so hard and I just can't!" wails the gardener.

"Of course not, you cannot read by sheer willpower. You must learn."

The boy looks up at him, practically quivering with hope. A Phantomhive gardener does not need to be able to read, they need to be able to kill, and yet-

Sebastian sighs with resignation. He is already tutoring one boy under this roof, what difference will another make?

"We will begin at the beginning. That would be logical, yes? This word here on the front cover spells your name. F-I-N-N-I-A-N, do you see?"

It is not like teaching the young master; Finny is a slow study and needs much guidance. Every night after bedtime below stairs, Sebastian takes a candle and lights their way into the hall and over the pages, along the sentences. Reading cautiously, carefully. Repeat after me. Again. Again.

It takes them weeks and weeks, but eventually Finnian stumbles, breathless, to the end of the last sentence without needing correction. He sits still for a moment, awestruck. The thrill of the new world Sebastian has illuminated for him shines in his eyes. Books upon books upon books. The letters that before seemed so dark to him are now bright with potential.

"I did it!" he cheers, exhilarated. "Thank you so, so much, Mr Sebastian!"

It takes him utterly by surprise when Finny leaps off the bench and throws himself towards him, clamping his arms around him in an embrace that would have broken ribs if he'd been human. The devil is as stiff as a corpse. He has not been hugged this way-openly, innocently, happily-in eight hundred years or more. Perhaps ever. None who knew his true form would be fool enough to come so close.

Finny gabbles his thanks and hugs tight.

A/N: Thanks for reading, please feel free to let me know what you thank!