Disclaimer: Nope!

Author's Note: I best be careful, or writing fanfiction of fanfiction will become a habit for me. XD;

Anyway, this is directly inspired/based off of LJ user daigranon's very amusing (and thought-provoking, haha) fanfic, "Forty-one Points of Propriety." (http(collon slash slash)community(dot)livejournal(dot)com(slash)phantomhive(slash)556652(dot)html) Apparently she wrote it 'cause she's been feeling down, lately…? I hope this helps cheer you up, sweetheart!

Warnings: Written and edited in the span of, lyke, an hour. Won't make much sense if you haven't read "Forty-one Points of Propriety." Which you should go do, anyway. :D SebaCiel.

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Point/Counterpoint

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"Who do you think you are, trying to order me around?"

Sebastian coolly regarded the familiar piece of paper, waving like one of Maylene's brassieres in a torrent of self-made winds. The motion was unnecessary— redundant, even, as his servant's attention was already his— but still, the teenaged earl gesticulated with the uplifted list, shaking his fist as if he held an origami tambourine. And, as if in an attempt to match his master, the butler replied with an equally-uplifted brow, casual and composed. "I fail to see what the problem is," Sebastian then retorted, though he did tip into a reverential half-bow—for appearances sake, of course. (After all, if he expected his sheep to behave as ladies and gentleman, then he, as the shepherd, must first set a good example.) "What you hold is a perfectly reasonable set of behavioral expectations."

"It's your job to direct the servants, yes," Ciel snapped, glowering moodily from behind his oaken desk, "but you forget your place when you try to dictate my behavior!" With his free hand, he jabbed a jeweled finger at the sixth of forty-one commandments; the ink was so fresh that it almost smeared across the page.

The butler remained unfazed and unfettered, calmly pouring his master a cup of midmorning tea. "I am afraid I must disagree with you, my lord," he politely corrected, words as delicate as the fingers that danced from tea pot to sugar cubes to china cup and saucer. "It is my duty as the butler of Phantomhive to insure that no one sullies your good name… including you yourself."

The little one scowled, tossing the crinkling parchment to his left, along with all of the other useless documentation headed for the garbage bin. "I'll have you know that I am the quintessence of a well-mannered nobleman," Ciel sniffed, ripping his refreshment from his servant's grasp without any of the grace or refinement that such a pronouncement should have rightfully possessed. Sebastian had to use every ounce of his not-inconsiderable patience to keep from rolling his eyes.

"As you say, sir," he instead intoned, allowing the faintest hinting of sarcasm to creep into the honeyed lilt of his velvet voice. With coiled lashes artfully lowered, he began to pile strainer and sweets atop his silver trolley, preparing to return to the kitchen and to the similar arguments that assuredly awaited him there. "I was out of line. After all, it is that childish— I beg your pardon— childlike spirit of the young master's that makes him so very skilled at his jo—ah!"

The butler broke off with a startled gasp— hands clenching, back stiffening, and head snapping sidelong, twirling towards his sneering master. Despite (or, perhaps, because of) the demon's wordless gawk, ten petite fingers remained pointedly half-raised; the men's ears still rung with the lingering slap of leather on thinly-veiled flesh, sharp and sudden and smarting. Beneath his ironed slacks, Sebastian could feel the unexpected bite of pain fade into a tingling tickle that surely stained his right buttock a stinging shade of strawberry-pink.

"…that was not very nice, young master," Sebastian eventually reprimanded, turning fully 'round to meet his tamer's smug and mismatched stare. It took a great deal of will power not to grind the fallen eye patch into the plush of the Turkish rug beneath his feet. "And you have broken my rules."

"I disagree," Ciel returned haughtily, looking far-too-pleased with himself as he lounged in his high-backed chair. (And at times like these, Sebastian found that he could sympathize quite easily with the underground scum who wished the earl dead.) "You didn't say anything about shooting my patch itself, just that I couldn't use it as a sling-shot. Really, aren't you the one who is always telling me to be careful how I phrase things? Maybe you should try following your own advice."

For a moment, the disguised devil could do nothing more than grit white teeth… But within a collection of ticking seconds, he was offering his charge a disturbingly genuine grin— the smile sliding onto his face as languidly as the monster himself slid over to the desk, shucking his gloves from his hands with the help of a jagged incisor.

"Indeed, maybe I should," Sebastian lightly agreed, and in an usual display of dramatics pulled the twin gloves taut between two fists. The textile responded with a foreboding crack, and the sound added glitters of claret amusement to the butler's doe brown eyes. "But you, young master, should be more careful in choosing victims to mock. As your appointed caretaker, I am not about to let such a blatant display of immaturity go unpunished… and it seems as if you have forgotten point seventeen."

A shiver, a gulp; the little boy blanched, sinking lower and lower into the safety of his wingback chair as the monster before him inched and loomed, blotting out the sun with his considerable shadow. The gloves fell by the wayside, crumpled and cheerfully disregard.

"...what do you think you're doing, Sebastian?"

The black-clad servant beamed— a sickle sweep of silken lips that split his face from ear to pretty ear. And the sight of it birthed a begrudging burgundy blush, as well as a bunch of boisterous butterflies— a furious flurry of fluttering in Ciel's belly that was nearly as frantic as the heart that hammered in the back of his throat. The two spidery digits that had slipped a teasing half-inch down the front of his trousers did nothing to help calm his nerves, either.

"What does it look like I am doing, young master?" Sebastian answered in a murmur, hooded irises flashing a devious shade of ochre. "I am going to punish you with your knicker straps, of course."

"But… you don't have any… kicker straps," Ciel pointed out—somewhat dumbly, admittedly, for the too-warm digits had begun to slither further south, past buttons and bones, and were now undulating in a serpentine manner distractingly close to—!

"Seba~ oh!"

"You may be right," the butler thus purred, chuckling softly as opalescent pearls popped from compliant buttonholes, submitting to his touch almost as easily as the earl himself. "But I know that if I search hard enough, I shall soon locate one or two."

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The passing of an hour found Sebastian outside of the servants' quarters, a quill in his left hand as he flourished a final punctuation mark. His lips pursed silently around recently added provisos, gaze bouncing back and fore… But the once-over was brief, and the butler had soon internally declared the revision "good."

He left his amended list of forty-one points hanging proudly upon the wooden door, a coiling smirk upon his face and the taste of sin upon his lips.

Forty-one Points of Propriety

29. If you hear strange noises coming from Soma's room, do not go in. Maylene. And Bardroy.

Sub clause A: This also applies to any of the young master's room.

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