Blah blah blah. I'm still sick. And I should probably go to sleep… Nah, let's write another chapter! I'm almost at a hundred followers and I'm still not sure what to do with it once I reach hundred! But I want to do something special… Hmm…

Anyways, don't own Kuroshitsuji or any of its characters, but I do own crazy little Clarissa.

Enjoy the chapter!

XxX

Chapter 37

'What a lovely little tacker! A boy, I reckon?'

No shit, Sherlock. I'd told you he was my brother, hadn't I? Was he pretending to be stupid or was he just really dumb?

'Yes, I'm an orphan who lives with my sister at her master's house,' Ciel said with the most innocent voice he could manage. And I had to admit, it was pretty freaking believable. 'My name is F-Finnian.'

'Ah!' Joker said, turning to me. 'And you were an earl's maid, yes?'

I nodded. 'Mei-Rin!' I said, looking at Ciel, who looked at me with his 'are you serious?'-look because I went for the same trick as he. I hoped Finnian and Mei-Rin would be happy to know that we used their names.

Joker shook his head as he stepped closer to Ciel. 'Such imposing names! Well, I'll give 'ee a stage name if 'ee pass. Art 'ee just a boy, though?'

I gasped. Of course! It was probably illegal for children to work in a circus. But this circus didn't really seem like they would care… They kind of seemed like a circus that stayed out of the police's radar.

'Yes,' Ciel said slowly, not sure if he was just insulted or not.

Then Joker smiled and my worries faded as he said: 'But just being adorable won't see through a circus,' he said.

Then I noticed that Sebastian wasn't standing beside me anymore. When I searched with my eyes I found him in the middle of a group female circus artists who were already in love with the handsome demon's face. I sighed. This really was just proving my point.

Sebastian looked at me as if he had heard that sigh even from afar. He gave me a smile that no one would be able to resist. A smile that was so lovely and sweet and innocent that even an angel's smile could not compare.

Shush! He's just trying to make you fall in love with him so he can manipulate him! my brain told me.

I don't care! my heart responded. If he keeps smiling at me like that I will love him with all I got!

You are an idiot.

My eyes, desperately looking for distraction, went back to Ciel and Joker. 'We must do tricks, too,' Joker said, 'What's your specialty?'

Ciel thought about that for a second. 'Well… darts, I suppose.'

I almost face palmed. The idiot. Darts weren't really a circus trick. Well, at least I had to give him credit for not saying 'chess'.

'Hmm,' Joker said in a thoughtful voice, 'that'll be knife-throwing, then.' He turned to a group of the circus artists who I knew from the show, better than all the other artists. They were kind of the main characters of the circus. The girl in white, the huge guy and Dagger. Now only Beast and Snake and the group was complete. 'Dagger!' Joker shouted. 'Give him some knives.'

Dagger walked up to him and handed him a few knives, surprisingly kind towards Ciel. Well, I suppose Ciel did look kind of cute, so I guess it made sense. Especially now that he was wearing 'commoner's clothes'. Sebastian had dressed him up for today, but I managed to convince them that no poor young boy wore those kind of clothes. I didn't say no one wore them anymore, but hey, it would be kind of true.

'Thank you,' Ciel said, surprisingly shy.

'Now aim for that target,' Joker said, pointed at a dummy strapped to a three quite a bit away. No one, not even a darts champion could manage to hit a target that far away. Were they trying to make Ciel fail?

I looked over at Sebastian, surprised to see he was looking back. When I gave him a worried look, he smiled, assuring me that everything would be fine. That he would take care of everything.

And he did. As Ciel threw the knives they clearly didn't make the target, but somehow Sebastian managed to manipulate the knives into going into the target anyway. When I looked hard enough I saw that Sebastian threw little rocks in a fast and efficient way, making the knives go into the direction he needed them to go to.

Kind of like what he's doing with my heart. Only instead of little rocks, he uses passionate kisses and sweet talk.

'You're more talented than I reckoned, but the test isn't over yet!' Joker said after Ciel had thrown the last knife and Sebastian had made sure it hit bull's-eye again.

All three of us looked at him with a strange look. Ciel clearly did not want to do any more physical activity and Sebastian wasn't sure whether the next thing he would come up with would be something he could easily help Ciel with. And I just wanted this whole test-thing to be over. Those girls kept looking at me funny.

Joker crossed his arms. 'Next is… tightrope walking!'

'No!' I immediately said, jumping in front of Ciel in a defensive manner. Joker, Dagger and the other circus artists looked at me surprised. I swallowed and looked at both Ciel and Sebastian, but it was clear that they weren't going to help me. Ciel just looked straight up pissed.

'I'm sorry,' I said, 'but my little brother has a problem with his leg and I will not let him do something as dangerous as tightrope walking with a bad leg!' I emphasize that, I took over the walking stick Sebastian had been holding in his hands – since Ciel couldn't play darts with a walking stick in his hands – and gave it to Ciel. It was a cheap walking stick we had bought on our way to the circus, because poor people didn't have the good quality walking sticks that he had.

Joker looked surprised that my sudden emotion, but smiled as if he understood completely. 'Of course we won't let someone with such a handicap do such an unfitting thing. I understand. As for you, you still need to do a test.'

I pulled a face. 'I'm sorry, but I don't think I can do the whole 'tightrope walking'-thing.'

Joker laughed. 'Of course! But that's not why you're here, is it?'

I frowned. Oh boy. What was he going to make me do?

XxX

Joker brought me, followed by some of the circus artists and Ciel and Sebastian, to the tents were the animals were. 'I reckon you are good with animals,' he told me. 'Your test is to prove it!'

Wait, what?! I wasn't even sure what I was supposed to do. I guessed I should just do something to prove that I was good with animals, but I wasn't even sure if I was.

I breathed in deeply and walked up to the tiger Betty, because I knew that at least I could control her to some extent. It seemed like she recognized me, because she walked up to the bars that were separating us and starting to purr like a little idiot. I heard some of the circus artists mumble fascinated, but I wasn't really interested.

I put my hand through the bar and touched Betty's forward, petting his soft fur while looking into her eyes. 'Hey, Beautiful,' I said, making Sebastian chuckle. I was surprised he wasn't 'attacking' the lions in the cage besides Betty, but he kept quiet. Smart demon.

Betty started to respond, her eyes wise and beautiful. 'Are you tired?' I asked her, because I somehow got that vibe from her.

She closed her eyes. I saw that as a 'yes'. I kept petting her while I whispered: 'Then go to sleep. I promise you that no one will punish you for sleeping. A beautiful tigress such as yourself needs to sleep.'

And almost as if she understood what I was saying she lay down and started to rest. A smile appeared on my face. Maybe this was enough to—

'Okay!' Joker said. 'If you can get all of them to sleep save and sound then you're hired.'

I gave him a murderous look and then looked over at Ciel, who was looking at me with one simple sentence on his face. Just do what he says.

This seemed to be the beginning of another of our wordless conversations. I rolled my eyes. Geez, thanks a lot, little brother.

He narrowed his eye. I'm not your brother.

I sighed and walked over to the lions cage. Which seemed to be just as easy as Betty, so that was no problem. The elephant was even easier, he came walking towards me before I even came close to his cage and also the camels seemed to trust me pretty quick. The circus artist even became bored when they saw how easy it was for me and I couldn't help but smile arrogantly while doing it, feeling better than anyone for the first time in my life.

XxX

After we had finished we were brought to the big circus tent, where Joker opened his mouth once more. 'There's one more thing that needs to be tested before we can hire all three of 'ee,' he said. He walked up to Ciel and put his fake hand on his shoulder. 'I want to see you smile!'

Sebastian had to actually put a hand against his mouth and turn away to hide his laugh and I giggled, knowing that Ciel didn't laugh and certainly not just because he was asked to.

When Ciel just looked at Joker with a disgusted face, Joker said: 'Ah, come one! I've seen your sister smile! Why can't you? Just a bright little smile that will—'

Ciel gave him a smile that was so bright and beautiful that I almost forgot how gorgeous Sebastian's had been. Wow. Ciel should smile more often. It was freaking adorable. And just a tiny bit sexy.

That convinced Joker as he turned towards everyone present in the circus tent, which was basically everyone who'd been following us from the very beginning, as well as a few who were practicing in the circus tent. 'All right, everyone!' Joker said loudly. 'We have some new mates joining us!' First he pointed at Sebastian. 'This is Black!'

Sebastian smiled that innocent, but not really innocent smile of his. 'I'm Black. Pleased to meet you.'

He then went on to me. 'And the beautiful lady is Whisper!'

I pulled up an eyebrow. Whisper? Why the hell was I called Whisper? I'd rather be Black or Doll or Dagger. Something, you know, cool. I did not go through the effort of introducing myself after Joker had just done that.

'And then we have Smile!' Joker finally said, pointed at Ciel.

Sebastian and I started to laugh as Ciel's eyebrows rose. 'S-Smile?!' he repeated, clearly not happy.

'Give 'em a warm welcome, everyone!' Joker said happily while Sebastian and I were still laughing, trying to hide it the best we could. As we looked at each other there was a strange moment of connection, because this seemed the first time that we were completely on the same page. And even if it was about something as stupid as Ciel's circus name, it certainly surprised me. And it seemed to surprise him as well.

I gave Ciel a little push. 'Go on, Smile, say a few words!' I said mockingly.

Ciel blushed and looked at the big group of artists and he suddenly looked shy. 'Pl—Pleased to meet you.'

As me and Sebastian laughed again, Joker said to Ciel: 'Come on, Smile – smile!'

XxX

We were giving costumes. Sebastian got almost the same outfit as he was already wearing, only with purple accents. He also didn't get to wear much make up: only a bit to make him even paler, if that was even possible, and to add a purple accent to his eye, making him look only a bit more circus-like.

Ciel got a real circus-outfit and I would have laughed at him if he did not looked almost exactly the same as normal. Which meant he looked ridiculous, but I was used to that by now.

My costume was kind of strange, but beautiful. I had a dress that had the same model as Doll's dress, but mine was white and black chequered. I had a black top had with a white bow and wore high, black boots, luckily without high heels. I would've died if I had to wear those.

They cut my hair shorted, everything below the shoulder had to go and that made my curly hair curl even more, making me look like a real circus artists. The final touch was the black square they painted over my right eye. As I looked at myself in the mirror I wished I had taken my cell phone with me to take a picture. I looked awesome!

After the little make-over Joker showed us around. 'Now I'll give ye a quick backstage tour. Follow me!' he said as we walked passed busy circus artists just doing their work.

He pointed at the tents closest to the big circus tent. 'First, the tents ye'll be sleeping in.' He opened one of the tents he pointed at to show what they looked like. 'This is where the second-stringers – which consists out of stage-helpers and newcomers and such – sleep. There sleep about two or three per tent.'

The tent wasn't that small, but it certainly wasn't big, especially when you were used to the gigantic Phantomhive estate. There was a wooden bunk bed – this circus really wasn't fire-prove – and I wasn't sure how three would fit on those two little matrasses, but I decided not to ask unnecessary questions. And it wasn't that poor. At least we got a desk with a chair. So Ciel could write an angry letter to the Queen if he wanted to.

I could see Ciel cringe at the idea that he had to live in such horrible tents for at least days. I tried to hide my laugh, because I didn't want to raise anymore suspicion. Joker closed the tent again and turned to point at a series of other tents. 'Over there's where we eat and where we store the food,' he explained. 'Cooking's a big part of your job while 'ee are new, so work hard.'

We walked further away from the big circus tent, towards the infirmary tent me and Sebastian had seen yesterday. 'Furthest down the line is the infirmary, where Black and Whisper were yesterday.' He finally pointed at the nice, purple tents. 'And past there are the private tents for the main cast.'

'Private tents?' Ciel asked, trying to look innocent while also investigate.

'The big names get places to themselves, you see. Oh, and—' the turned around and pointed at the first nice tent in the line-up. 'The first one is Snake's tent, so best keep your distance. He lets lots of poisonous ones run loose. One bite, and 'ee be stone dead.'

That should have scared the crap out of me, but the only thing I could think of was how incredible convenient it was that Snake just happened to be sleeping in the first tent and he just happened to have poisonous snakes (insert huge amount of sarcasm here).

'Snake and his serpents are cruel shy of strangers, so ye newcomers must be extra careful.'

Ha, what do you know. It just became even more convenient for our little lying Joker.

Then, suddenly, Joker pointed his presentation stick to Ciel. 'That reminds me—Smile, what happened to thy eye and leg?'

Ciel unconsciously touched his eye patch. That gesture made me realise that he was wearing nail polish. I would've laughed if the situation hadn't been this serious. 'There was an accident,' he just said, leaving it at that.

Which was probably the smartest idea anyway. To show what I great sister I was I put a hand of Ciel's shoulder and smiled sadly and I have to admit in all honesty that I was the better actor. Sebastian was excellent, but it was the perfect way he did everything that made it suspicious and Ciel just was a terrible actor.

Joker truly looked heartbroken when he heard that. 'Oh… Poor thing, with 'ee so young.' He touched Ciel's face with his fake hand before returning to fake smiles and fake happiness. 'Well, we're all damaged here, so let's all be friends!'

Okay, that was just too cheesy to be true. Did he really just say that?

While we walked back to the circus tent, Sebastian decided that the investigation had to go on. 'Did all the players join up during travels, like us?' he asked.

Joker seemed to think about it for a while, but even that seemed like an act. 'Most, yes, but we first-stringers all come from the same place. We like childhood friends.'

Well, that did explain his strange brother-relation with Dagger.

We walked passed the big guy, who I know remembered was called Jumbo, as he played the harmonica. He played a song that was clearly meant to be cheerful, but he played it so that it sounded sad.

And Ciel seemed to know the song. '"Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son"… Mother Goose?' he said as we reached the entrance of the circus tent.

Joker turned around before we could enter the tent, looking surprised. 'Oh, well spotted, Smile! Not too many know that song.'

Ciel didn't seem to come up with an answer, so I rolled my eyes and joined the conversation. 'My last master quite liked the song, that's how he knows it,' I told Joker, trying to act as believable as I could, even putting an arm around Ciel's shoulder. He immediately pulled away of course, but wasn't that something brothers would do as well?

Then Joker looked at Ciel with curious eyes and I saw that he did know Ciel from somewhere. Did he see his picture before, read a newspaper? Was our cover blown?

That was the moment when Sebastian distracted Joker. 'I must say,' he said, 'it surprises me that all your first-stringers are lifelong friends.'

'Oh?' Joker said, laughing, immediately covering up. It was almost funny how the fact that both groups were trying to hide something so badly that it kept the other one from finding out the other's secret. 'Snake's an exception, though. His snake-handling is tops and we needed a snake man, so he took the shortest road to the top.' He laughed. 'But he was some rival now that Whisper is here! I'm curious how Snake's snakes will react to you.'

'Rivals?' I asked, frowning.

'Ah,' Joker said in a agreeing voice. 'First-stringers get to eat first, so they don't have to fight tooth and nail for their food.'

Oh, great. That sounded like something to look forward to. I was sure Ciel liked that mental image.

'And first-stringers have their own tents,' Joker continued as he led us to the entrance into the circus tent. 'So everyone else has a friendly rivalry, trying to be first-string.' The circus tent revealed people training like they were before. More people were training now, though.

'See 'em all working?' Joker asked, clearly pleased. 'There's some time before we open, so the newcomers are all practicing, taking every moment they can, looking to earn their public debut.'

Just as he said that one girl fell from the trapeze and ended in the safety net.

Ciel looked amazed, but I just thought this looked like my gym classes. A complete nightmare.

'Everything starts from the basics!' Joker said cheerfully. 'You three get nice and ready before you—'

'Joker!' Beast entered the tent. 'Got a moment?'

'Sure,' Joker immediately said, making me frown. Something about the way those two talked seemed off. Not the kind of 'off' I thought to see between Dagger and Joker, but more like off 'off'. Kind of… awkward? Wait… was she blushing?

She didn't even give us a glance, clearly we were not worth it.

Joker followed her as she walked towards the exit again, almost as soon as she came. 'Right then,' Joker said while he waved as he waled off, 'work hard, you guys!'

Possibility of romance between Joker and Beast. Current status: likely.

I gave Sebastian a quick look and he looked back with that burning eyes of his. Somehow I felt like he knew what I was thinking and he seemed to be on the same page as me.

I sighed. 'So… do you guys want to train a little bit?' I asked.

Ciel sighed as well. 'I'm afraid we'll get kicked out if we don't.'

Sebastian chuckled. 'Well, at least you two sound and look like you're having fun. Smile – smile!'

XxX

End of chater 37! I feel like nothing really happened in this chapter, but hopefully the next one will be more eventful! No word today because my brain isn't working yet, so yeah, thanks for reading, reviewing and all that stuff! And yeah, if you're going to lecture me about how awful it is as a modern day setting and that it isn't even allowed for children to join the circus, I'm just letting you know that there is a red haired gay female-like reaper who wants to have the demon-butler's babies. I think we'll live.

Guest: thank you! Ha ha, maybe I should always be sick when I'm writing, it goes much easier for some reason.

SilverMoonFairie: (response to 35 reaction) yeah, I probably would too. I wonder what he smells like… Hmm… (response to 36 reaction) ha ha, not sure whether that's a good thing or not.

DeathlyIceMaiden: maybe it's not really romance yet… well, you have to wait and see to find out, but I will try to keep everyone as faithful to their actual personalities as possible. And I just don't see Sebastian fall in love with a human and if he does, it would at least take quite a while. So yeah, that was kind of my thoughts when I thought about their relationship. Maybe he will have a change of heart, maybe Clarissa will just realise that he has none to begin with.

promocat: true, I decided to not focus on it too much, otherwise I would just go crazy.