Hey, guys! Sorry for not updating on Friday/Saturday; I had parties and was very, very tired. I'm still tired, so if this chapter is full of typos then again: sorry. Also, people have told me how this story does not work in modern day setting and yeah, I can see where they are coming from. But hey, it's my story and you don't have to read it if you don't like it. With all that out of the way, let's start the chapter.

I don't own Kuroshitsuji or any of its characters. But I do own my OC.

XxX

Chapter 34

'Argh, we're like the only people over ten and under thirty here,' I whined as we stood in line before the entrance of the circus tent. I had never seen a travelling circus before, mostly because there weren't many left and I was surprised that they actually had the acts inside a tent. I thought that all the circus stuff had moved to theatres, but apparently not.

I had spoken the truth. There were only children with their parents, no teenagers to be found. Well, I guess it's not surprising, but I did feel kind of awkward.

Something I said was supposedly funny, because Sebastian chuckled. 'What?' I asked him. 'What's so funny?'

'Under thirty,' was the only thing he said and I realised that he meant that he was way over thirty.

'Well, maybe I was just talking about Ciel and I,' I said cynically, rolling my eyes at him. I tried to hide the fact that his age kind of scared me.

'No, you did not,' Sebastian said, as if he had read my thoughts. 'You're just afraid because I'm older than everyone in this line combined.'

I shivered, but repressed all the other feelings that were coming up. 'That old, huh?' I said, knowing that I'd said that before.

Sebastian's smile faded and his expression became hard as stone. He didn't react.

Ciel did, though. 'Can you two behave for once? We're in the middle of an investigation. Flirt in your own time.' He sounded kind of possessive, which I didn't understand, but it did sound funny.

'That reminds me,' I began, ignoring the flirt-comment that Ciel had made. 'Was there once a rumour about you that you didn't like?'

Sebastian got the amused smile back and Ciel looked as if the Undertaker had assaulted him again. This made me curious. 'What? What was the rumour?' Dang, why that I missed it? I didn't care about Ciel, so I never paid attention to the rumours.

'A few years back a lot of people thought a strange man suddenly living with this rich kid was kind of odd. So a certain theory arose,' Sebastian explained as we stepped closer to the entrance, still waiting in line. Geez, the line was going slow.

'Oh?' I said, finally enjoying myself in the cold winter night in the line of a circus that I didn't even want to go to. 'And what was that?'

'That me and my master were romantically involved,' Sebastian finally said, making Ciel cringe and me laugh.

'Are you serious?' I asked, still laughing. I simply could not believe it. 'You and Ciel?' I laughed again, but then suddenly I stopped. 'Well, it does sort of makes sense. I mean, you do look at Ciel like he's good enough to eat. People just don't understand that the way you look isn't lust, but literally hunger.'

I only realised that I had said something I shouldn't when Sebastian looked at me with a strange look and Ciel stamped his walking stick on my foot.

'Ouch!' I said, looking at Ciel, who looked surprisingly angry.

'Don't talk about such things in public,' he said furious, as if he would've torn me apart of it wasn't of the huge amount of witnesses.

'Sorry,' I said after a while, taking another step forward when the line moved.

We reached the entrance and Sebastian showed the man in the entrance our tickets. Finally we could enter the tent, which was a lot warmer than the cold outside.

The inside of the tent was pretty cool and grand. It didn't even look like a tent. It could just as well have been a theatre. As we walked up to our places, one of the higher rows and one of the last rows, Sebastian said: 'It's quite elaborate'. I had to agree with him on that.

'Yes,' Ciel said, not really sounding impressed. As he handed Sebastian his hat and coat he added: 'But no more so than any other circus.'

Well, I had never been to a circus before, so I wouldn't know. I just kept my mouth shut.

I was the last to sit down, next to Sebastian, who was still standing, clearly waiting for me to hand him my coat. I just shook my head and sat down, keeping my coat myself. I didn't think I could keep myself from sniffing my coat if Sebastian had held it, because I knew his smell stayed in almost everything he touched. And even though his scent was wonderful, I didn't want Sebastian to see me sniffing my coat.

It took quite a while for everyone to sit down. Then the lights suddenly went out and there was a silence that was almost scary.

As if Sebastian could smell my fear, he said: 'Do you want me to hold your hand, scaredy cat?' His voice sounded way to amused.

'Of course not,' I told him, hoping that Ciel hadn't hear me or him. Which he of course had, but a girl could always hope.

Then there was a spotlight, so sudden that I almost screamed of surprise. There was a young man standing in the spotlight, in the middle of the stage. He had orange like hair and wore a typical circus-outfit. The thing I noticed though was that one hand was a bit too freaky for my liking. Was that a skeleton-hand?

'Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls!' he then said loudly and I heard that his voice had a strange sort of accent. What was it? I wasn't sure. Maybe Scottish or something. 'Welcome to Noah's Ark Circus!' He juggled with the coloured balls he had in his hand and dropped them all on his head, making all the children in the audience laugh and making all the fathers in the audience face-palm. 'My name is Joker. Please to meet 'ee!' He grabbed one of the balls before it could fall on the ground and used the strange skeleton-like hand to make it disappear, making the audience cheer.

I only knew what it was when Ciel named it. 'A prosthesis?' he said softly, clearly only talking to Sebastian. I was only lucky enough to pick it up.

I then noticed that Sebastian had a strange look in his eyes and that he wasn't smiling. The corners of his mouth were pointing down, making me frown and wonder what was wrong. But I didn't ask.

The man with the strange orange hair, 'Joker', went to talking. 'Tonight you'll see performances to stun and amaze 'ee!' More spotlights went on, revealing more circus-members who had been standing there. For how long, I wasn't sure, but they all looked quite basic. Well, one woman was dressed quite… well, let's just say that I could see more of her skin than I wanted to see.

Well, at least now the dads were also having fun.

XxX

The circus acts weren't any different than I had expected, but they were interesting to some degree. There was a fire-breathing man called Jumbo, who was truly gigantic. I wondered if he could walk indoors freely. Well, I guess you didn't have to worry about things like that when you lived in tents, but hey, a girl can wonder. After Jumbo you had trapeze artist, who looked like children but were clearly older. Maybe those two and Jumbo had a growing disorder, making one way too big and two way too small. Next up was a knife-thrower called Dagger. Really, what was up with these nicknames? Those two trapeze artist were called Peter and Wendy, but I wasn't sure why they all had such strange names. What, were their real names a secret?

The one after 'Dagger' was to me the most impressive, because he was surrounded by at least twenty snakes and they all seemed to obey him. A serpent-man, called Snake. Well geez, I wonder how they came up with that name.

This was the moment that Ciel was bored enough to open his mouth. 'Their acts are fairly standard,' he said.

'Yes,' Sebastian agreed. 'And They don't seem to be forcing the children to perform.'

Oh yeah, we were here for the children. I kind of forgot. But I thought these circus-artists looked innocent enough. Okay, the lady with the leather outfit was a bit strange for a children's circus, but hey, I wasn't judging.

Sebastian and Ciel were silent after that, but I wasn't. 'Maybe they force the children to do the chores. You know, cook and knit and stuff.'

'Yes, that's a possibility,' Ciel admitted. I was happier than I should be that he didn't just ignore me.

After the Snake-guy there was a tightrope walker, who the Joker called 'Doll'. She was truly beautiful and dressed in a white, Lolita-like outfit, but I couldn't help but noticed that her left eye was covered with her fake white wig. After I knew what was wrong with Ciel's eyes, I could never look normally at eyes again.

But she truly was amazing. Her skills on that rope were fascinating, even Ciel looked at it with amazed eyes.

The woman in the revealing outfit, whose name apparently was 'Beast', was the last one and she performed together with the tiger Betty. I looked over at Sebastian. 'Look, Seb, it's a kitty!' I said as a joke. He just looked at me for like a second before looking back at the tiger.

Joker didn't stop talking after introducing the tiger and Beast though. 'We'd love some audience participation for this act— Are there any volentee—'

Sebastian shot up, standing there like he had every right to stand.

'Oh!' Joker said, noticing Sebastian almost immediately. Well, we were sitting in the middle, so I guess that wasn't strange. 'This gent in the tailcoat sure looks eager! Please come up to the stage!'

Everyone cheered while I face-palmed and Ciel looked surprised. Really now, was he going to let Sebastian walk towards the stage? Did he think that Sebastian and Betty were a good combination?

Sebastian began to walk down to the stage while Ciel started to smile, making me frown. 'Are you going to let him?' I asked confused.

'Of course,' he said, sounding arrogant while crossing his arms.

Oh gosh. Ciel didn't get it. 'Um, Ciel—'

'Now,' Joker said, 'if you'll just lie down here—'

Sebastian walked passed the guy, completely ignoring him in the process.

Joker and Beast just witnessed as Sebastian walked up to Betty and started to pet her. 'Ah!' he said, sounding almost in love, 'what a lovely round eyes you have.'

I busted out laughing while everyone in the audience started to ask questions, not understanding what was going on.

That was the moment Ciel got it. 'Oh, blast!' he said softly. 'Tiger are cats!'

I just left harder, making me also one of the centres of attention.

Sebastian just started to talk to the tiger and the microphones that were on stage picked up on the sound, making everyone able to witness the awkwardness. 'I've never seen such vivid stripes! They're adorable. Oh dear, your claws have gotten a bit too long... we'll have to groom them.'

Every word he said just made me laugh harder. Ciel face-palmed, not knowing what to do know. 'Want me to go and get him?' I asked Ciel still laughing.

'Please!' he said, clearly not believing this was actually happening.

'And your paw pads are full and plump. Very attractive!' Sebastian said as I ran down the stairs and climbed up the stage. Now that I was here I wasn't really sure what to do. I didn't really want to get close to the tiger. So I walked up to Joker and said: 'He has a cat fetish, excuse me—'

The tiger opened his mouth and consumed Sebastian's head in an attempt to eat it. Of course, it didn't really fit, but while the audience started to scream I just laughed. This couldn't hurt Sebastian. I started to feel like nothing could.

Then, finally, Beast came in action, but not really in a way that was legal. She took her whip swung it toward Betty. 'Betty, let him go!' she ordered.

But the whip didn't hit Betty. Sebastian grabbed the it before it could hit him, pulling his head out of Betty's mouth in the process. 'She hasn't done anything wrong,' he said. 'I was so overcome by her charm that I behaved rudely, that's all. Also, indiscriminate whipping isn't enough to train her properly.'

Then Betty attacked his head again, making the audience scream once more.

Beast wanted to interrupt again, but I just smiled and said: 'Let me handle this.' Because I did not want to bring this circus into trouble because Sebastian couldn't control himself. 'Ladies and gentlemen!' I screamed. 'This was the last act: the man who can survive the tiger!' I knew it didn't make any sense, but I also knew that people would believe anything that explained a strange situation better than just the word 'magic'. Making them believe this was a trick would make it less interesting. Humans were stupid like that.

'Goodness,' Sebastian said, 'aren't you a tomboy, my dear?'

I held back my laugh while I talked: 'Now, watch us as we tame the tiger, making him release the man without touching him!' I wasn't entirely sure how I was going to fix that, but hey, I used to be pretty good with birds. I just stared at them and they would come flying towards me. So I hoped that that would apply to the tiger as well. And if not, then it was Sebastian's problem.

But the look he gave me told me that he knew I could do it. And that believe gave me strength, strangely enough.

I walked towards to tiger, slowly, scared, while looking into its – frankly beautiful, Sebastian was right – eyes. It seemed to look back, almost seemed to recognize me, and Betty closed her eyes, allowing me to put my hand on top of her head. 'Let him go, Betty,' I asked politely, almost as if I was hushing her to sleep. 'Let the man go, Betty. He just loves you, that's all.' Then I suddenly felt a strange feeling, as if the tiger tried to answer my words. 'You don't have anyone that loves you, do you?' I asked her, receiving no real answer. 'Poor girl.'

Betty let go of Sebastian, walked up to me and allowed me to hug her. While the audience cheered I looked at Sebastian.

And even though he had a really big cat right next to him, he did not look happy at all.

XxX

'I didn't tell you to go that far!' Ciel said to both me and Sebastian as we walked out of the theatre. People were smiling at us as we walked, children pointed at us and mothers kept their children away from us, probably thinking that we were a bunch of criminals. Well, hopefully no one had recognized us. I didn't want to see my face in another magazine ever again.

'My apologies, my Lord,' Sebastian said, smiling brightly. He seemed to have found his good mood back and I still was unsure why he'd looked at me that way on stage. 'I've lived many years, but cats are such whimsical creatures, I still can't quite reach their moods.'

Whimsical? I almost laughed, but I held it in, because I didn't want to make Ciel any angrier than he already was.

'What was the point of attracting unnecessary attention—' Ciel sneezed, which made him even more angry. 'You know I'm allergic to cats!' he said. 'Stay far back, you two!'

Immediately obeying, me and Sebastian both stopped walking, giving Ciel some distance. I had to admit he wasn't very fast with his walking stick.

'Oh, there 'ee be!' I heard someone scream. 'You there, man in the tailcoat and girl with the beautiful hair!'

We turned around, seeing Joker running towards us. We had escaped him when he and the other circus-members tried to bring Betty back to her cage, but it seemed that he had found us again. 'I'm so sorry about what happened, sir.' Then he looked at me. 'And I want to thank you for saving our circus. You have no idea how much is means to us.'

Sebastian ignored that last part. 'No, please, I apologize,' Sebastian said, acting most befittingly.

'Gave me a scare,' Joker said, 'traipsing right up to the tiger like that! Are you all right?' Sebastian didn't answer, he looked over at Ciel. I decided to not do that so that Joker's attention would stay on us. 'We have a doctor on staff. Better let him have a look at 'ee, I reckon,' Joker went on. 'Please, come on back.' He then looked at me again. 'I also have something I wanted to ask the young lady.'

Ciel must have given Sebastian some sort of sigh, because Sebastian smiled his 'look at me, I'm such an angel'-smile and said: 'I don't mind if I do.'

I decided to go along with the plan. 'Me too, you can ask me anything.' Well, not literally anything, but I think he understood at least that.

Joker smiled. 'Great! Than you can follow me to the back, that's where the other tents are,' he explained as he turned around and started to walk.

I began to follow him when Sebastian grabbed my arm. 'Stay close to me, you understand? Don't wander out of my sight.' His face became cold and his voice sounded harsh when he said: 'I'm under no obligation to save you if you do wander out of my sight and get into trouble. Do you understand?'

The grip he hand on my arms hurt, but I didn't say anything, I just stared back into those red eyes, trying to understand what I had done wrong. 'Yes, I understand,' I said, sounding way more scared of him than I thought I was.

'Good,' he said, letting of my arm. 'Let's go, then.'

I sighed, slapped myself in the face to keep myself in check and followed Joker, trying to forget that the only protection I had was a demon who would love to have see me dead.

XxX

End of chapter 34! Hope you guys liked it! I had a pretty hard time writing this and I'm not all too happy about how it came out either. So, yeah. Today's word is… light. Light in Dutch is 'licht' and in Japanese it's 'hikari'. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Silver Moon Farie: I've listened to it: love it! And you're right, it does sort of fit.

PyrroLou: Yeah, well, I hope you'll like what I've planned for her!

promocat: Indeed, he can't take care of something that isn't in his care anymore. That sounded strange, but I hope you understand what I mean.

AppleTreeString: I understand everything you're saying and even think you're right. She doesn't have anything special except her powers and I just wrote her like I wanted her to, without any special quirks or anything. I do think that had something to do with the fact that her father didn't give her any room to become her own person and I also think she will become more and more herself as she opens up to everyone in the Phantomhive estate, but if this story isn't working for you, I understand and apologize.

Anyway, see you guys in a week or so. Also, it's my birthday this Wednesday, so yay! 'Cause, you know, making homework on your birthday is fantastic.

Love you guys and thanks for reading, reviewing and following and favouriting (if that's a word). Bye bye!