Disclaimer: I do not own Black Butler. Wish I did. I don't. Thank you all for your adds/favorites!

I know I usually update on Mondays, but it's been a rough couple of days. At least, I'm only a day late, non?

Thanks for reading and please review!

Menefer made her way to the back of the house, following the peals of laughter she knew were coming from the open-air dining room at the rear. The long cherry-stained table was aglow with all manner of candles, lit up as if the table itself was afire. Elizabeth sat at the far right end of the table, face ruddy and eyes half-glazed, laughing up a storm with a jar of clear liquid as her only companion. Menefer padded over to the table, silent on bare feet, and pulled out the chair nearest Elizabeth and sat. It was moments later when Lizzie actually noticed her silent companion and turned on her, offering the jar to the Egyptian.

"Mennie!" she exclaimed, pushing the liquid across the small gap between them, "drink some! Bassy brought it to me to calm my nerves he said... I think he just wanted me to pass out! It's hellishly potent!"

Menefer quietly drew the jar closer to her and leaned in, sniffing at it. It had the distinct scent of alcohol, but nothing overtly curious beyond that. "What is it?" she asked, dipping her finger in the mouth of the jar and sticking it in her mouth.

"He called it 'moonshine'..." Lizzie said in a theatrical whisper. Menefer knew she had to be good and drunk at that point. "Moooooonshiiiiiiine..." she said again, drawing the word out ridiculously, then flinging her head back over her chair she let out another bout of whoops and guffaws, eyes closed against the flames of the hundred candles she'd lit on the table.

Whatever it was, it had certainly reduced Elizabeth Middleford to a broken idiot, so Menefer lifted the jar and turned it up, taking two huge gulps before she choked and slammed the glass back down, gasping and nearly spewing the stuff right back out. Ooh, but it was potent; she actually felt her eyes crossing and had to gather the presence of mind to straighten them. Lizzie was pointing a finger at her and laughing.

"Vile, isn't it?" she exclaimed happily, reaching for the jar again and taking a stout drink. She coughed and sputtered, but smiled and pushed the foul stuff back at Menefer. "You need this as much as I do, I think," she pointed out, rather acutely considering her current mental state. "I think we need to get good and drunk and talk about our mutual problems."

"I think you are already good and drunk, Lizzie," Menefer offered, taking another swallow of moonshine. "But yes. We must share our problems. It is what friends do, yes?"

"Yes, Dearest. It is what friends do." Lizzie's glassy stare was leveled at the blaze of candles on the table now, her face flat and lips drawn taut over her teeth. Menefer could tell she was excruciatingly upset over something, but she had no idea what could have put her in such a mood.

"Where is everyone?" Menefer asked, pushing the jar of moonshine to the half-way point between Lizzie and herself on the table.

"Ciel is still curled in his bed, sleeping away his fears and pain in his plush prison. Sebastian, or your Marcus as you call him, has gone to the bank where his 'Contract' will be employed to start putting together ...whatever one puts together when one is a banker." Lizzie huffed and drew the jar of liquor across the table. "Paula, my ever-faithful maid, has apparently lost her mind and refuses to come out of her room." She took a draw from the jar. "I'm a teenager trapped in a woman's body and the one I love is a man trapped in a teenager's body."

Menefer smiled despite herself. She of course, understood what Elizabeth was saying. She knew that she and Ciel had been betrothed in her youth and that with Ciel's sudden transformation to demon, Lizzie was having a hard time facing her 'immoral' thoughts concerning the man-child.

"At least you know he loves you in return, no?" the Egyptian replied, unable to lift her eyes to the blonde sitting next to her. "Marcus has never loved me. We have used each other for many things. Many reasons. Always, it has ended the same. In darkness and pain. But only for me."

"Oh, you poor creature," Lizzie sighed, reaching over and taking Menefer's hands in her own. "I never even wondered at that. True, Sebastian doesn't seem someone to actually ever love another being... But I had no idea you were in love with him. I don't know ...maybe I should have guessed it. You have had that look in your eye when you saw him, I know. I'm sorry, Dearest. It's just that... Well, every woman looks at him that way, you know?"

Menefer found herself laughing. "I have noticed that, yes. But it is not their fault. He is..." she trailed off, not quite knowing exactly how to describe the demon in one word.

"He is positively sinful."

"Yes, I suppose that is true," Menefer conceded. "Beautiful, yes. But that does not truly cover it, does it?"

Elizabeth shook her head. "No. Not by half."

"But on the ship we..." Menefer stalled for a moment while Lizzie's eyes grew in circumference. "We had time together," she improvised. "A lot of time. A lot of times."

"And?"

"And now, he looks through me. He has not spoken to me since we arrived except to say, 'Go find Ciel'."

"Really? I can't imagine what's gotten into him since we settled in..."

"I know." A new voice from the entrance into the dining room lent its tone to the discussion.

Lizzie and Menefer both snapped around to find Ciel, rumpled and tired-looking, standing in the archway leading into the dining area, ablaze with light and making his pale skin glow with it.

He dragged his feet as he sauntered into the dining room, looking every bit the child awakened against his will. The candles on the table were flickering against his alabaster complexion, highlighting his high cheekbones but alternately deepening the hollows beneath his eye and nose and lips, making him appear all the more demonic. Menefer thought he was frightening. Lizzie thought he was frighteningly beautiful. He pulled out the chair opposite Menefer and directly to Lizzie's right, hopping into it and pretending his feet touched the floor beneath them. He was sick to death of being a child. He reached for the jar the women had been sharing and took a tentative sip of the liquid fire. Coughing for moment after he swallowed, he slammed the glass back down on the table. "God's teeth, woman! What is this shit?"

Menefer and Elizabeth both chorused flatly, "Moooooonshiiiiiiine."

To his credit, he regained his composure quickly, and folding his hands neatly on the table's surface, he leaned in and took a deep breath. "Some years ago, Sebastian told me about this house. About it's significance in his past. And about the people he shared it with. I'm not terribly fond of repeating stories that were told to me in confidence. However, I believe you both need to understand the stigma that comes with this place. And perhaps, had you known before we left London, you may have opted not to come at all..."

Elizabeth and Menefer found themselves leaning further into the table, closer to this source of knowledge; the revelation of a mystery they didn't even know they craved. Ciel had to bite back a grin as he watched the two women clasp hands atop the cherry table as their eyes grew larger and larger.

"It was the late 1700s when he was summoned up to this area and bid to care for the child of a dying slave. The girl was mulatto and both families shunned her. The mother died in childbirth moments after she made her contract. Sebastian-or Rene as he was called then-took the child in and raised her in this house. The old woman who owned the place gave it over to him when she passed and he lived here with her servant Aimee and the servant's son Lucien, who was born days after the girl he had been contracted to raise. He had a family here; or rather, I think, he learned what a family was while he was here. He didn't raise the girl with any notion of making himself her father, mind you. And he was hell-bent on proving the blackness of his heart the whole time, judging from the way he told the story to me..."

Menefer and Lizzie were still clasping hands, leaning in toward the boy demon. The blazing candles still flickered on his skin, casting strange shapes and shadows all around them; Elizabeth wondered if this dining room had looked like this long ago-ablaze with inconsistent light while Sebastian and his "family" gathered around for supper...

"The point is, I suppose, that his past-probably the most profound moments of his past-all happened where we are right now. While I've always believed he may have had a soft spot for me, or Lizzie, or any number of our old acquaintances, I think this is where he learned to care for humans. This is where he learned to care, at all. He made himself a family here, though probably not by any choice of his own, and eventually fell in love in this house. With a human. When he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, he could not keep her."

Menefer's eyes glistened with tears, sad for her Marcus more than for herself. She'd always known he hadn't loved her. Cared for her in a way, perhaps, the way he cared for Ciel and Lizzie, but now she understood why, at least, he'd never love her. And the pain in Ciel's voice as he recounted this tale for his demon counterpart, made her all right with that decision. She could understand why he'd never love anyone. And it was okay if she loved him, because it wasn't as if he was incapable of giving love; only that he felt incapable of receiving it. She glanced over at Lizzie, who still linked her fingers together with her own, and saw the candlelight glinting off the tell-tale rivulets of tears that had fallen from her eyes. She was as affected by the story as Menefer was, and why shouldn't she be? She loved Sebastian, too. Perhaps not the same kind of love Menefer felt for the demon, but it was a tragic love, nonetheless. And that seemed to be the only love the demon would ever know.

"The plan he'd contrived to seal his contract was to marry the girl off to the servant's son. She'd be taken care of for the rest of her life, in theory, and that was what her mother had contracted him for. The boy grew to be unreliable at best, however, and much to Sebastian's chagrin, the girl grew to be 'the most beautiful woman' he'd ever seen. Lucien accused him waiting for her to grow to womanhood so he could have her for himself, and while that had never been his intention, he realized soon thereafter, that he had done that-watched her grow, and spoiled her, and she weakened his resolve to not care for a human. Of course, she was infatuated with him from a young age. But as she grew, she fell deeply in love with him. And I suspect, much to his dismay, he with her.

"Long story short, though-he gave into his emotions and married the girl himself. A contract to keep him on Surface, and a contract to seal the girl's happiness as dictated by her mother. I don't know how long they lived together. He bought a cottage outside the city and they hid away there from Lucien, who had gone mad with his want for her. She was with child before they married and I know she died in childbirth, as her mother had done with her. Sebastian never spoke of the child, though. I do not know whether it lived or died with its mother. Sebastian retreated to the Void for a while. He did say he came back here years later and bought this house back from Lucien-he'd given it to him and his mother to placate the boy. He said he'd had to have it gutted and refurnished. That's the extent of my knowledge, ladies. So, Menefer, do not trouble yourself with Sebastian's emotions-none of us will ever understand his reason, so it's best to love him from a distance, I think."

Menefer found herself nodding, though this was the same conclusion she'd reached before Ciel decided to reveal the epic of Sebastian's past. Elizabeth was grasping Ciel's hand, too, now, tears still streaming down her face. She was silent but for the occasional broken intake of breath, and she hadn't touched the jar of liquor since he'd begun. Menefer gave Lizzie's hand a squeeze and moved to stand from the table, suddenly wanting nothing more than to crawl back in her netted cocoon, wind herself up in the soft linens and wait there for Sebastian to come home.

Lizzie acknowledged her exit, lifting her eyes to meet the chocolate pools on the Egyptian's gorgeous face, and nodded. "Good night, Dearest. I think you and I shall spend the day together tomorrow. We should shop and eat and find all manner of things to distract us, hmm?"

"Yes, Lizzie. All manner of things." Menefer's smile was sad, but hopeful. She wandered back down the hall to the bedroom, dragging the tip of her finger along the white wooden chair rail that lined the hallway. She imagined her Marcus here, with a beautiful pregnant wife and knew that he had smiled in genuine happiness at least once in his interminably long life. And somehow, that helped the pain in her own heart.

Elizabeth still sat next to Ciel at the long dining room table. Her head was bowed into her arms, her hand still clasping his slightly smaller one somewhere between them. He was silent, afraid to stir up any unstable emotions she may be experiencing. She was silent, afraid to speak lest those emotions come barreling to the surface. Something had been plaguing him, though. He'd had several dreams about Elizabeth. Intimate dreams. Dreams in which he had been different. Not small, or childlike, or in some cases, even remotely human. When he awoke that evening, he suddenly remembered something he felt was substantial. Sebastian had a demonic form that did not change. Only his human form was a variant; one that relied heavily on both the conscious and subconscious of his human summoners. Granted, Sebastian had always been a demon. Ciel had been transformed due to the twisted wish of a spoiled and wretched little boy. But ...did it matter? A demon was a demon, no matter how one sliced it. So, a demon should have a demonic form, no? Ciel was acutely aware that he may have been grasping at straws. But this was most certainly a topic he needed to address with Sebastian as soon as he returned. Which was his original intent for finally getting up out of the amazing comfort of the feather bed he'd claimed as his own.

But he found himself sitting here with Elizabeth and since that was what happened to be on his mind, he felt he owed her at least so much that he should tell her where his thoughts were taking him. "Lizzie..."

Slowly, she raised her tear streaked face to meet his, squinting against the blaze of candles that she'd lit and somewhere in the back of her sober mind, wondered what in the hell had possessed her to light a hundred candles on the priceless cherry stained dining table. "Yes, Dearest?" she replied, voice raspy from sobbing at the tragic tale of her friend the demon butler. Absently, she lifted the hand that wasn't clasping Ciel's to wipe the wet tracks from her face. She vaguely wondered if her makeup was alright.

Ciel squeezed her hand briefly and pulled away to scrub at his face with exhaustion and uncertainty. "I've been doing a lot of thinking. Maybe... perhaps it's nothing more than useless dreams on my part... But nonetheless. I've been going over and over in my head the things Sebastian has taught me about demons. And I think... I do not know how, but I think... that I may not be so trapped in this body as I'd imagined."

Elizabeth's head snapped up so quickly she made herself sick for a moment. "Not trapped?" She sniffled involuntarily and snatched her empty hand back across the table and into her lap. "But Sebastian-" she nearly admitted to having had a conversation with the elder demon about their ...relationship. "He hasn't said anything about being able to ...change?" she amended her statement before she gave herself away. She didn't want Ciel to be offended or worse-humiliated-that she had sought help from his butler before they'd had one good conversation about their predicament.

"He's alluded to more than I can even remember. And he may never tell me unless I order him to do so. But he has said something in the past about demons not being tied to a singular appearance. I know he himself changes subtly each time he is summoned to the Surface. He can change his appearance at will now, even contracted to me-I've seen him do so. It's minor things. He can make his hair long or short. Change the color of his surroundings-like his clothes or the furniture in a room. It's some sort of demon magic. I have no mastery of these skills, however. I do not know that I am capable, considering how I ...became what I am."

"But, in essence, you became a demon as Sebastian became a demon. I mean," Lizzie straightened in her seat, suddenly beyond sober, "No one is born a demon, no? Sebastian said he was a Fallen. One of the original angels of God cast out during the war between God and Lucifer. When they were thrown to Earth to dwell here till Judgment, that is when they became demons. They weren't born demonic. And God didn't create them that way. It was the act of being cast out of Paradise that made the Fallen what they were. So, essentially, you and Sebastian were made demonic by the same act of being cast out. Your soul was cast out of both heaven and hell, presumably, and that is the act that made you a demon."

Ciel gazed at Elizabeth for sometime before he remembered how to speak. "Lizzie. You're brilliant."

"Oh, heavens, no, Dearest. I'm just much more cognizant when I'm drunk." She giggled. "And I'm very happy that you might not have to always be a boy." She leaned closer to him and lowered her voice. "I'm very excited about that, actually."

Ciel grinned despite himself. She was apparently done with her philosophically-induced sobriety and faced with this new impending adventure of 'Make Ciel an Adult', she was back to being loose-lipped and talking with a slight slur. Which, of course, he found adorable. "I am glad to hear that, Lizzy."

"I can't wait, really, Ciel..." her eyes fluttered shut for a moment, her face slowly starting to droop back toward the surface of the table.

Ciel reached out a hand and rested his palm atop her mass of honey-colored curls, scratching lightly at her scalp and making her mewl appreciatively in the back of her throat. Then he heard her whisper, "There's only so much a woman can do for herself, you know."