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Beauty of the Beast	By : Kitteh Category: > Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji ???) Views: 2635 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler and don't make any profit from this.

Chapter List
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This is a shameless take on Beauy and the Beast in a modern setting. Enjoy :)
**
Ciel had always wondered what it was his father did there at his desk, day after day, hour after hour, from breakfast to lunch to dinner and even longer. There were papers on the desk, lots of paper, pens, notebooks first and as the child grew older, a phone, a monitor hooked to the humming, blinking machine beneath the huge oak desk. The wood was always polished to a shine, but the glossy surface could not hide the many scratches, dents, imperfections that littered the surface. Ciel had loved that desk, had spent hours beneath it, playing while listening to his father work.
The desk he sat behind now was a replica. It had the same build, the same color, the same finish…but there were no dents. No scratches. No matter what he did, sitting there, working – now he knew what his father had done all day, after all – he could not exactly remember the imperfections and his hands lacked the strength of raking the letter opener deep enough over the wood.
It was irritating, to say the least.
Ciel was seventeen, his father gone – along with the manor he had grown up in, burned down in a freak accident he was sure hadn’t been an accident at all. His mother, the ever delicate Rachel Phantomhive, had been at a spa resort, tending to her fragile health and comfort. Ciel had been out with friends. Vincent Phantomhive had burned to death alone.
It had been a year ago, and the young man was baffled by now how his father had managed to stay sane, keep the business alive. The funds were receding drastically and the firm had been in bad shape for a while; neither Ciel nor Rachel had ever noticed a thing.
“The press is calling it insurance fraud still”, Rachel said, bitterly, from the doorway, hefting the daily paper in her delicate pale hand. It was the anniversary of the death of almost everything she held dear.
Ciel looked up from his work – instead of a monitor, there was a laptop computer on his desk now, perched so he could work on it and review papers at the same time. Beside the hand that held the mouse, tea cooled in a china cup.
“Can you imagine, all this grief and misery and they-“
“I am aware, mother”, the young man replied tiredly. He leaned back and waved her inside for her to hand him the paper; tastelessly splashed across the front page was a picture of the manor burning, garish all-caps letters accusing the noble family of fraud. The article spoke of Vincent vanishing instead of dying, taking all the money and valuables and running. Ciel chuckled drily. Of course the press didn’t know there was little to nothing left to their name. “I’d advise you to stop reading the paper until this blows over.”
“It’s been a year! It should have blown over by now.” She all but collapsed into one of the two chairs in front of his desk. “How are we doing here?”
Ciel shook his head. “Another branch is lost. All that’s left to the business is the sweets branch, and even that…” He sighed. “I was thinking of selling.”
“You can’t. This is your legacy. This was your father’s dream!”
“Well it wasn’t a very thought through dream!”, he replied with heat. “We’ll be bankrupt before the year is out if we keep going like this. Think about what that would do to the family name.” He really didn’t want to see his mother cry, but he wouldn’t sugarcoat the truth, even for her. She shifted on the chair with obvious discomfort on her face. “Your aunt called earlier, by the way.” It could only be Frances – it was always ‘your aunt’ when his mother spoke of her sister-in-law. Rachel’s own sister was always ‘Aunt Ann’.
“Please tell me she’s not sending Lizzie over again. I don’t have time to entertain her.”
“No, that’s not it.” It wasn’t like his mother to stall…at all.
“Then what’s wrong?”
“They invited us to dinner. Tomorrow. She was…ah, very adamant about it.”
So that was the reason. While Rachel got along fine with her brother-in-law, Alexis, as well as her niece and nephew, she and Frances just clashed. From clothes to demeanor to the way they led their lives, the two women couldn’t have been more different. They wildly disapproved of each other. “Aunt Ann is coming too, though. And a guest. You should wear your good clothes.”
Ciel made a close-mouthed noise and gestured to himself. Slacks, button-down, vest and tie, he thought himself rather well-dressed already. Spending money was rather sparse, but he appreciated the fact he and his mother agreed on appearances. Rachel smiled for the first time. “Yes, you look lovely, my love. I’m just nervous.” She got up and dusted invisible lint off her skirt. “Just…be prepared.”
**
The next evening, Ciel found himself dressed in what he thought was way too overdressed for a family dinner, so naturally, he was suspicious. His mother was in a sheath dress, with her best earrings and matching necklace, her wheatblonde hair done up artfully; he had chosen his dress shirt and tie to match her colors. The shirt was a little too loose on him, the tie done up too tight to retaliate, the blazer he wore tailored to his slim waist and still too wide. He had lost weight in the last year, he realized. This was the same jacket he had worn to his father’s funeral. “So tell me what’s really going on.”
He could honestly see her gulp; behind the wheel of the car, his red-haired aunt glanced at him in the rear mirror, quick and worried. Rachel, in the passenger’s seat, turned around to smile at him as if he was five years old and throwing a tantrum. “Sweetheart, it’s just…uh…” Reaching over, she took Angelina’s hand, who gave her’s a quick squeeze in support. “Your aunt…invited a suitor.”
Ciel’s fine brows shot up. “Oh. That’s a little….well…”
The two women shared a look that bordered on incredulous. “I thought you’d pitch more of a fight”, Angelina said. “It’s a match that’s both political and beneficial…it’s an old, wealthy family. I think you know them, the Druitts?” That made Ciel make a face. “Ugh, don’t tell me Aunt Frances invited Aleister. He’s nothing but an obnoxious frat boy.”
“He has a doctor’s license”, his mother replied evenly.
“Mother, he’s way too young to be a good match.”
“He’s twenty-seven.”
“Exactly.”
Rachel sighed and looked at her sister for support – who only smiled and shrugged, but jumped to the rescue. “Ciel, with a match like that, we can save Funtom, without you having to sell anything more. Maybe even buy back the toy section. That would be great, right?”
The young man grumbled, but said nothing more, turning his gaze to the passing landscape. The streets of Belgravia, London, quickly changed to the streets of the countryside surrounding the metropolis. “I don’t see why they can’t just hold dinner at their townhouse. Seems a waste to drive all the way out here.” Naturally, no one answered him.
The Midford mansion was as stunning as it had always been…as the Phantomhive manor had been. In many ways, the large country homes had been siblings, similar in build and the shape of the gardens around, just a few short miles in reach from one another. In a way, they were neighbors. One was gone though and being here put a stone into Ciel’s stomach. He got out ready to bitch at his mother once more about how unnecessary this way when something tackled him against the side of the car and grasped him in a chokehold. “CIEL!!!”
Flailing, Ciel shot a look at his mother and aunt, pleading for help and scowled at seeing them just smile. “Lizzie…” he tried to push the slender arms of the girl away. “Choking…not breathing.”
“I missed you so much you never text me back I never know how you are Ciel why aren’t you ever texting me back you could at least call me every now and then?!”
“Do you actually need to breathe?!”
Rachel and Angelina snickered at the squabbling children; little Elizabeth finally wasn’t taller than Ciel anymore, they were the same height now, although the boy was a lot skinnier.
The cold breeze of disapproval coming from the manor could only be Frances approaching. “Elizabeth. Show some manners.”
The next minutes passed in a blur – mostly to Ciel feeling dizzy from loss of air – and when he did concentrate again, he made out the little crowd that had gathered in the foyer of the great manor.
His mother and Angelina stood to the side, chatting up Ciel’s cousin Edward, who towered over them by at least a head; Aunt Frances was berating Lizzie quietly about her manners; his uncle, Alexis, was talking to a slender young man that was dressed in all white. Ciel couldn’t help a grimace; he even led him over.
“Ciel, my dear boy, I believe you have met the Viscount Druitt before?” Alexis asked genially, loudly, attracting far more attention than Ciel would have liked. Within a moment, all eyes were on the three of them – another suspicious thing. “I have. Good to see you again.”
It wasn’t until Ciel offered the blond his hand and the man smiled at him, lifting his hand to his mouth to kiss the back that the young man realized – this match was not for his mother.
This match had been arranged for him.
He shot a panicked look at his mother, who had the gall to return it sadly before looking away. Angelina likewise. Edward was frowning, Frances as well, and Ciel felt all the blood leave his head and rush down, his heart giving an almost painful thump as he felt dizzy. “No.”
“What do you mean, my boy?”
Dark navy eyes flicked up to his uncle. “Tell me. Why did you invite him?”
Abashed silence. No one moved. Druitt rose his brows and smiled. “Feisty. I like that.” He turned to the Marquis. “I’ll take him.”
“No you won’t. I’m not a…a trinket you can just pass around”, Ciel spat, a ball of anger burning in his throat. Mortified, he noticed tears pricking the corners of his eyes.
“Ciel…”
“No!”
Yanking his hand from the hold it was in still, he turned, and as fast as his legs could carry him, he fled the foyer through the still open door.
Shouts of his name came after him but no sounds of footsteps, no one running to catch him; and still, he felt as if he was running for his life. He bypassed the little troupe of cars, none of which he had the key unfortunately and skidded down the gravel driveway. A sharp left turn, and he found himself on the path that cut through the forest surrounding the two manors, the one he and Lizzie had played on as children. The one he had been told not to leave, like his life was a fairy tale and he was about to be eaten by a monster.
His life was not a fairy tale – not anymore.
As he ran, chest and throat burning and tears escaping to track down his cheeks and vanish in his hair beneath his ear, it seemed like the forest itself was trying to stop him: twigs scratching at his face and hair, branches in the way poised just so that he had to slow down to get over or around them, puddles to trip his feet. He slowed when he had to, but he never stopped until he broke from the tree line to stand on the gently sloping hill that had once housed a maze made from perfectly manicures hedges. It was overgrown and not at all managed anymore. He wondered idly how everything had gotten out of control so quickly, in the course of a mere year, but all thoughts screeched to a halt as he looked past the shrubbery and got a good look at what had been his childhood home.
Blackened stone, most of it crumbled, only one wing still stood firm. The windows were cracked or broken. The roof was almost gone, even on the intact wing. The gothic gargoyles were black with soot, looking like demons snarling down from their perches. All of a sudden, Ciel was very, very cold.
Carefully, he went closer. He hadn’t been here since shortly after the fire, when his mother and he and a group of helpers had cleared out what was left of furniture, valuables, documents, the contents of the safes. It seemed even more ruined now. The wing still intact was left of the foyer, where the bedrooms had been. From where he came to stand, in front of the cracked stairs leading to the missing front door, he could see the curving stairway, the tile that had been on the floor of the foyer. Black and white, like a chessboard, it was just black now. Black and dirty.
Thin fingers reached to brush the still mostly intact banister of the stairs, shying away at the last moment as he made his way up the stone steps. All anger forgotten, Ciel stepped inside – if he could call it inside still. It was a crumbling shell of a building no one had bothered getting repaired, not the house he had grown up in. It was rather sad, really.
He could see the space of cream wallpaper where the large painting had hung over the first landing. A scurrying made him jump, but it was only a critter fleeing from him, deeper into the ruin. Ciel felt watched. It could be the animals that had taken over the building, but it felt different…darker, more ancient. Malicious.
Hungry.
Where the roof and fundament still stood, to his left, it was dark. Ciel knew this floor would contain the grand sitting room, the entertainment room, a bathroom. Guest rooms. Perfectly safe. He chose that path rather than the crumbling right.
There was a large spider’s web that clung to his face and hair when he walked right into it. “Oh, ew…” It was sticky on his hands as he pulled it off, and certainly there was still some left in his hair, but he was too disgusted to pick at it now. At least it was gone from his face.
The entertainment room was as empty as they had left it. The billiards table had been cleaned out long ago, the fireplace was dark and sooty, the furniture gone. It was bigger than he remembered.
A flicker of light from the left of him took his attention. The door to the large sitting room was open and light came from it, in the likes of…a fire? How peculiar… He was vaguely worried about squatters, but no matter who it was and how long they had abandoned this, this was still his house. He would decide who lived here and who didn’t. Determined, he squared his shoulders…and walked right into his past.
The furniture was as he remembered it, plush and a little outdated and sophisticated, sofas and lounges and the round table in the middle. An armchair stood in front of a merrily crackling fire. Next to it, a small sidetable, and on it…
Ciel’s eyes widened as he came closer and spied perfect brownies on a delicate china plate. And a steaming cup of tea. “What…”
Behind him, the door fell shut with a loud bang, the fire dying as if it had never existed in the first place. Something stirred.
“Well,” purred a dark, velvety voice, taloned hands grasping his face, palm over his mouth and chin, sharp black claws digging into the soft, creamy skin of his cheeks. “What have we here?”
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Beauty of the Beast