The morning went almost identically to the previous morning. Sebastian made sure to stick to the routine he'd carved out as well as he could, remembering how everything was done, in which order, and which time they were completed by. He only allowed himself so much time to eat his own breakfast before he worried about Ciel's. He made sure everything was perfect before he went up to wake Ciel from his slumber by gently shaking his smaller shoulder.
"Master? Master, it's time to wake up. We have a rather eventful day ahead of us." Sebastian said gently to the younger man until Ciel finally opened his big blue eyes to look up at him groggily. He didn't think he would ever tire of seeing those eyes gazing up at him.
"What kind of tea did you bring for me today?" Ciel asked as he moved to sit up in the bed while Sebastian got the tea ready and handed him a cup of the liquid.
"Today's is earl grey, sir." Sebastian replied, handing Ciel the cup and moving to get his clothes ready for the day.
Ciel just hummed in reply before sipping his tea, watching the young butler put an outfit together thoughtfully. Sebastian seemed a lot more confident and sure of himself and what he was doing now. The younger man truly was a quick study.
Sebastian's face still flushed a bit, his hands moving carefully as he undressed and re-dressed Ciel, doing his best to keep his mind focused on the task at hand. "Master, may I ask what you have in mind to get your betrothed?" he asked curiously after a bit of silence.
"I was thinking getting her a pair of shoes and a matching purse. She likes things like that, I think." Ciel replied as Sebastian tied the ribbon around his neck into a bow that sat on the side of his neck. "Maybe a parasol or something, too."
Sebastian just nodded. He personally didn't have too much experience in the realm of women's fashion trends. He just remembered seeing the nice pretty dresses and purses the women would bring to Mass or into the bakery. Every so often, he would catch his mother ogling something like a silk handbag or a nice hat in the windows of a shop, however she would always deny it when he asked her about it. He couldn't help but smile softly at the idea that he would one day be able to see her, perhaps on Easter, and happily give her one of the nice purses she'd always wanted. If he worked hard and pleased his master, he might be able to give her a nice dress made of silk to go with the purse that coming Christmas.
Ciel hopped off of the bed once Sebastian finished getting him ready and started to comb through his hair and tame his bedhead. He walked over to his mirror to look himself over, making sure to check over each angle.
"It looks good." He decided before moving to leave the room with his butler following dutifully behind him.
Sebastian got Ciel seated at the table, getting him settled with his breakfast quickly so he wouldn't keep the younger man waiting. While Ciel ate, he moved to the phone to call the coach so it would be there when Ciel finished eating his breakfast.
When Ciel had finished, Sebastian took his dishes and let Bard take care of washing them. He then moved back to Ciel to help the young earl don his cloak to keep himself warm in the winter weather. He made sure he had his walking stick and top hat before pulling on his own coat to keep himself warm as well. With that, they walked out to the carriage together, both of them climbing inside. He knocked on the top of the coach, sitting across from Ciel as they rode away to head into London together.
Sebastian watched out his window as they rode into the city together silently. He watched the people all walking around in the streets and passing by until they came to a stop in front of the shop Ciel had directed the driver to go to. He slipped out of the coach, letting Ciel take his hand to help him down from the coach so they could go into the shop together.
As he walked to the door and held it open for Ciel, Sebastian saw a familiar figure out of the corner of his eye, looking over and smiling when he made eye contact with his mother. He waved to her, wanting to go over and talk with her and hug her.
"Sebastian, are you coming in or not?" Ciel asked impatiently as his butler seemed to have checked out for a minute.
"Ah, yes. Sorry, sir." Sebastian replied to Ciel before hurrying into the shop, quickly going back to shadowing his young master while the other looked around the shop for something that might please his fiancée. The shop wasn't too crowded, with a couple other women in there as well, two of them with their husbands.
Ciel looked over the purses and shoes thoughtfully, not paying much attention to his butler. He didn't notice the soft gasp of recognition Sebastian gave before stiffening up a bit. He didn't notice when the man who'd come to look at the purses and shoes next to them silently start groping at his butler's backside.
Sebastian, however, noticed whether he wanted to or not. He moved away from Ciel a bit before turning to confront the familiar man, recognizing him as one of his former clients.
"Didn't think I'd see your face in here. Small city, ain't it?" The man said with a small smile to the young man. "You've cleaned up. Is that shrimp your with your newest client?"
"What? No, he's my master. Please, leave me alone." Sebastian replied with a frown, wanting to just return to Ciel's side and try to forget his sins that he'd committed for the sake of his family.
"'Your master'? Whatever you want to call it, kid. So, what? Shrimp gives you pretty clothes and a pretty haircut and in return you call him 'master' even outside the bedroom?" The man asked with a small laugh.
"I'm not his whore. I'm his butler." Sebastian insisted stubbornly.
"Hey, call it whatever you want. But, just because you're wearing nice clothes and your hair's all shiny doesn't mean you'll ever stop being a little whore. You can take the whore from the brothel, but you'll never take the brothel from the whore. I'll take your word for it and say that you're just doing little butler jobs for this Shrimp. But, in the end, you'll never stop being a whore. The day you join dear 'master' in his bed, you'll know what he's really paying you for."
Sebastian fell silent at the words, feeling he ought to retort somehow, but no words came to mind. He turned to look back at Ciel, though that didn't last too long because the man took a hold of his chin when no one was looking, forcing their mouths together and pushing his tongue into his mouth. The man pulled their bodies close together as the man ground his hips into his.
Sebastian squirmed a bit before finally pushing the man away with both hands. He quickly got away from the man, sidling back over to Ciel in the main area of the shop.
"Oh, I was looking for you. Don't wander off like that." The young earl said, a pair of pink shoes, a pink purse, and a pink parasol in his arms. He followed Sebastian's short gaze over to the man walking back over to his wife. "Someone you know?" he asked, leading his butler over to pay for the gifts.
"No, sir. He's nobody." Sebastian lied, figuring one white lie was better than coming clean about his far more sinful past.
Ciel looked up at Sebastian, cocking an eyebrow at him. He said nothing and instead moved to pay for the gifts with ease, letting Sebastian take them again when they were all packaged for them to go. He lead his butler out of the shop easily.
"Is there anything else we need in the kitchen while we're out here?" Ciel asked the taller man.
"No, sir, I think we'll be alright for a while longer." Sebastian replied honestly, walking with Ciel.
"Wonderful. I would suggest making a brief visit to the bakery for cake, but I hardly need that when I have you now. I suppose we'll just head home, then."
Sebastian blinked at the words before smiling and nodding. He decided to take it as a veiled compliment about his skills in the kitchen. He followed Ciel back to their coach, letting the driver know to take them both back to the manor before following Ciel into the coach and sitting across from him once again, the gifts rested on his lap as they rode off together.
Ciel watched out the window contently, his mind wandering until finally resting for a bit on Sebastian. He knew his butler had lied to him, and for that, he would have to be punished somehow. However, it was a small lie and didn't matter much. Besides, his butler was very new to the job and the new lifestyle, so he couldn't be expected to be absolutely perfect right away. He simply needed to learn that lying to his master was absolutely unacceptable. The hardest part would be finding a punishment suitable. He glanced over at his young butler with a small frown. He couldn't help but wonder what was going through his butler's head. If Sebastian was homesick, he did a good job at keeping it hidden. He was sure the other man probably was, since it was his first time truly being away from his family and he had to get used to living alone so suddenly.
Ciel couldn't help but wonder why Sebastian would lie about whether or not he knew the other man in the shop. It seemed like an odd thing to lie about and it made him wonder what things his butler had gone through before finding his place in his manor.
They arrived at the manor a few minutes later and he let Sebastian take his hands and help him down from the coach. He walked into the house along with Sebastian, letting him deal with his walking stick, top hat, and cloak.
"Sebastian, stay here a moment, will you?" Ciel asked him once they were all ready to go.
"Very well, sir. Is there something you need of me?" He asked curiously.
"Yes, actually, I want to talk with you in private. Will you come with me to my office?" Ciel asked.
"Yes, sir." Sebastian replied, following Ciel up to his bedroom with the gifts in his arms. He set them aside once they were inside, letting Ciel close the door behind the two of them.
"What did you want to talk about, sir?" Sebastian asked curiously.
"That man back at the shop. You know him somehow. You're not that great of a liar, Sebastian, and a butler lying to his master is absolutely inexcusable." Ciel replied, looking up at Sebastian and holding eye contact with him.
"I'm sorry, master. It won't happen again." Sebastian replied, bowing his head to the younger man respectfully.
"I don't doubt it. It's up to you whether or not you want to explain to me why you lied, that's your business. However, I can't just let you off without a punishment, do you understand?"
"Yes, master. You need to discipline me and make me better, is that right?"
"Exactly. I'm not doing this because I hate you, and I'm not mad at you. I want you to become the best butler you can be, but you need discipline for that. So, I'm going to sit here on my bed, I want you to pull your pants down, not your underwear and kneel over my lap. I will strike you ten times, no more and no less."
Sebastian flushed and nodded, unbuckling his belt and letting his black pants fall off his hips and down to the ground as Ciel sat down on the bed. He obediently stepped out of his pants and knelt on the floor, bending himself over Ciel's lap, staring down at the floor as he braced himself. The first strike came with a sting and Sebastian closed his eyes, counting each slap silently, the hand hitting the same spot over and over again, making the sting grow and grow until tears of pain and humiliation pricked at his eyes. Ciel finished at ten, as promised, and moved to gently rub Sebastian's back, letting him up.
"Do you want to talk to me about why you lied?" Ciel asked curiously, patting the area of the bed next to him to let Sebastian sit next to him.
Sebastian nodded and sniffled a bit, pulling his pants back on purely for modesty before he sat down next to his master.
"That man at the shop, I did know him. I've met him once before, but I wish I never had. When you raised the rate of my family's payments to you, we all worked as hard as we could to get the money, but I knew I would have to make a sacrifice or two to try and help get more money for my parents. They would always be so stressed and anxious about it, and I didn't want them to be. So, for about a week or so, I started sneaking out to a nearby brothel and selling myself. I would leave when they fell asleep and return home before they woke up. I lost a lot of sleep, and my body was always in pain, and I'm sure God hates me now, and we still didn't make your quota, hence why I'm here. I'm sorry, master, but I'm afraid you've hired a filthy whore to serve you." Sebastian said, the tears starting to roll down his cheeks.
Ciel listened to Sebastian and wrapped an arm around the other's shoulders, holding his butler close and just letting the young man cry against him. "You're not a filthy whore, Sebastian. If anything, you're extremely brave and noble. To abandon your beliefs and sacrifice yourself for your parents, it's completely admirable. You've been through a lot and you've dealt with it in whatever way you could. I'm lucky to have such brave man serving as my butler and primary protector."
Sebastian kept silent and leaned into Ciel, moving to embrace him in return, the other man's words making feel happy and warm inside. "Thank you, my lord. Thank you so, so much."
"It's no problem. We'll just keep this between the two of us and move on, how does that sound?"
Sebastian nodded in agreement. "That sounds good, master."
"Wonderful. We need to focus on getting things ready for Elizabeth when she comes to visit on her birthday in a couple days."
"Master, may I ask you something?"
"What is it?"
"Do you love Miss Elizabeth?"
"Well, she's my cousin, and we spent a lot of time together in childhood. She's like a close friend. I guess I love her in that sense, yes."
"What about as a future wife, if it's not too bold to ask?"
"I don't know about that one yet, really. I don't know if I could ever fall in love with her romantically."
Sebastian nodded in understanding. "What will you do, then?"
"I'll marry her anyway. It was Mother and Father's dying wish for me, so I'll just have to marry her and deal with it. We're expected to marry in a few years, anyways. It's too late to back out now."
Sebastian nodded, keeping close to Ciel contently. "I'm sure it will be alright. Just so long as you two get along well enough."
"We'll have to have an heir, though, that's what I'm most worried about." Ciel said honestly to his butler, trusting the other man not to let anything that was said in that room leave it.
"Are you afraid of being a father?" Sebastian asked curiously.
"No, not really. I just don't want to go to bed with her. She's pretty and all, but there's something about her that I just don't find attractive sexually."
"I see. I think a lot of couples have that problem, sadly. They go to bed with each other and have children together, but they're always thinking of someone else in the bedroom."
Ciel nodded in agreement as he kept close to Sebastian, moving to let the other man go, letting Sebastian shuffle away from him a bit.
"You have a few years before you need to deal with that, though. That's plenty of time, I think." Sebastian continued easily.
"Yeah, it is." Ciel replied, looking over at his butler and the small smile that spread across the other man's lips when they made eye contact. "Okay, we've killed enough time with our heart-to-heart. I have paperwork and you have lunch you should be starting on."
Sebastian nodded and got up from the bed along with Ciel. "You're right. We're rather off schedule."
"We are. Speaking of lunch, have you been eating well? I don't want to see your ribs poking out for much longer. What will your parents think of me when I invite them over to visit you in a week or so, and they see you're still as malnourished as you used to be?" Ciel asked, looking up at Sebastian as the younger man paused, registered what he'd said, and looked down at Ciel with a wide grin.
"Are you serious, master?" He asked, the idea of being able to see and speak with his parents, if even for a little bit once again making him happy.
"Of course I am. I'm not so sadistic that I'd joke about something like that." Ciel replied with a nod.
"Thank you, master. And, to answer the question, I don't think they'd be very happy with you at all."
"I think you're right. I'd rather not take that risk. Come on, we're stalling now. Go get back to work."
"Of course. Thank you, master, so much." Sebastian replied, bowing to Ciel politely before obediently parting ways with him to go back to his regular duties.