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It was the three sneezes in quick succession that froze Sebastian in mid-pour, glancing first at his master and then carefully around the study for the culprit. It was safe enough to ignore the narrow-eyed glare aimed his way; he'd been far too busy this morning to indulge his own pleasures, was certainly wise enough to change jackets afterwards if he lingered a little too long. But for the moment they were alone, just him, his master, and--
"Dinah?" Maylene called nervously from the hall outside, her voice just above a whisper and carrying only faintly through the half-open door. "Where are you? Dinah?"
"Mrow?" replied the cat at the Earl's feet, just before she rubbed herself, sleek and sinuous, against the boy's ankles.
"Gah!" said his master, jerking his feet up into his chair and sneezing again into his handkerchief.
Sebastian put down the teapot, the cup and saucer he'd nearly overfilled.
It was her. His beauty from the garden.
Ignoring the Earl's bad manners, she stretched herself long at the foot of his chair, amber eyes closing rapturously as she dug in her claws, arched her spine, her graceful tail curling lazily through the air. Was it just his imagination? Surely she must have groomed herself with more than her usual care, because he'd never seen her look so soft, so invitingly touchable.
"Sebastian!" the young master shouted, voice cracking in...hmm, was that irritation or another sneeze in the offing? "I told you already--you can't keep them inside! You--you--"
Ah. A sneeze, then. Plucking a spare handkerchief from his pocket, he held it out with a faint smile as his master snuffled pathetically into the bend of his arm. "Yes, young master. I do recall."
"Then what is that--"
It wasn't, he suspected, that Maylene meant to slam open the door in such a dramatic fashion. It was merely that she missed the doorknob entirely and stumbled in the rest of the way, throwing a hand out to catch herself. "Oh! Young master! I'm so sorry--she usually stays outside, and I was just--well, we've been feeding them, sir, since the mice, and I was just going to set out her food, only she slipped past me, and then I lost her near the gallery, and--"
"Yes, fine, all right!" Ciel interrupted, strangled voice muffled by cloth. "Just take it and go!"
"Prrt?" trilled his beauty, gazing up at the boy with melting adoration.
In a froth of apron, skirt and petticoats, Maylene pounced and scooped the cat up in both arms, jerking a perfunctory curtsey and fleeing out the door.
Ciel sneezed again and glared as if daring him to comment.
"She seems to have taken a liking to you." Well, cats were fickle. He'd always known that. Maybe she was testing him.
"Hmph. As if that's something to be proud of," the boy grumbled. And then, darkly, "They can smell it, you know. All of them."
"Oh...?"
"When someone's allergic. Then they just... converge."
He would not laugh at his master's grim tone, the way his eyes darted to every corner of the study, as if he expected to be beset by felines on every side. Laughter would be crass when his master could see through his mask of perfect amiability with a single sullen glance.
"Oh, shut up."
"Of course, young master."
Lucky boy. She'd never looked at him like that.
***
It was nearing lunchtime before he finally got a moment of peace, but there had been the Earl's correspondence to sort, a mason to be summoned to repair the stonework Finnian had damaged in a fit of helpfulness, one hundred tiny things to make the household run more smoothly that escaped the attention of all but himself. Even with his morning chores seen to, there was still work to be done; left to Bard, lunch would be a lump of charcoal garnished with cinders, though the man was improving. Just the other day, he'd managed to produce a clearly identifiable, if carbonized, attempt at a roast before Sebastian stepped in.
Though he'd expected to find Bard hard at work over the prep tables, Maylene and Finnian cheering him on from a safe distance, he found them instead clustered together at the open door to the kitchen garden, conferring quietly amongst themselves. From another group of humans, he might have suspected insubordination, but not from this trio. More likely they were hatching some well-meaning scheme that would result in more wreckage to be tidied away by him.
Still...it was certainly unusual to see Bard looking so calm in the kitchen, lounging easily against the door frame with arms folded, cigarette dangling lazily from the corner of his mouth. "Yeah," the would-be chef was saying, "she sure thinks she's the queen of this place, doesn't she?"
"I just don't know how she's getting in," said Maylene, nervously wringing her hands. "An open window, maybe?"
"Oh, sure! You know cats," Finnian agreed. "There's that old tree outside the library--I bet that's how she's doing it. I mean...it just can't be Sebastian...right?"
"How very astute of you," he congratulated the boy, fixing a cheerful smile in place as the others whipped around to face him. Finnian and Maylene looked horrified; Bard nearly swallowed his cigarette. "Of course I would never disobey an order from the young master...and he has been very clear on the subject of cats in the house."
He maintained his smile as he watched them flee amongst a babbled chorus of "Right!" and "Of course!' and "That's what we said!" In mere seconds he had the kitchen all to himself, which was generally to be preferred, although of course the idiots had left the door standing wide open.
Sighing, he went over to shut it and found himself captivated by a vision in black sunning herself on the warm stones of the courtyard.
"Mow?" she said coquettishly when she noticed his stare, rolling over to offer her stomach, stretching her arms out over her head.
She bit him of course when he gave in to temptation. Dug her claws in and kicked for good measure. She was so delightfully wicked.
"So, you've been sneaking inside, have you?" he purred back at her, letting her gnaw on his wrist. "I'm sure if the young master thought of it, he'd tell me to stop you." She stopped kicking long enough to lick, her rough tongue dragging against the fine material of his glove. Then she kicked again with her little rabbit feet, laying her ears back and biting at his thumb. "But until he thinks of it, I'll do no such thing."
She purred and purred until finally she'd had enough, scrambling out from under his hand and bolting halfway across the garden before settling down for a good wash, ignoring him completely.
Odd how his master, the Queen's loyal dog, could sometimes pass for feline himself. Without the irresistible paws, of course, or the soft, silken fur. But his fickleness, his pride, his amusing knack for negating one's entire existence with a sniff and a turned head....
Oh, yes. All that was charmingly familiar.
***
Awakening his master gently but firmly was a skill he'd long since perfected, and he barely glanced at the bed as he let himself in, a silver tray balanced casually in one hand. Setting it down silently on the little side table, he let the smell of fresh tea and hot buttered scones begin to do their work as he crossed to the other side of the room, frowning at the curtains' ripple and sway. It was hardly wise to leave the windows open like this, but it was summer after all, and the Earl was only human. Pushing the curtains back to let in the sun, he left the window open as he turned with a practiced smile, calling, "Young master...?"
It usually took at least two repetitions to wake the Earl, but this time Sebastian's words stuck in his throat, lips still parted silently as his eyes slowly widened.
The Earl was still asleep, but he was also not alone.
She looked...very comfortable perched atop the boy's chest like that, her tail swishing lazily over his stomach. His master had kicked the sheet off sometime during the night, and there was only the thin cloth of his nightshirt between them as she kneaded at the flesh under her, purring thunderously. "Nnh," his master groaned, a faint frown tugging at his brows as he turned his head to the left, towards Sebastian, one hand twitching in dreams. Closing his mouth with a sharp click of teeth, Sebastian stared, swallowing hard, as a rough pink tongue scraped slowly up the line of Ciel's bared throat.
"Ahh," his master said, twitching more strongly this time, tipping his head back hard into the pillows as he turned it again. He was all but arched beneath her, fingers jerking on the sheets as she licked him again, her sharp little teeth nipping gently at his chin. "Ahh--"
Both Sebastian and the cat alike nearly jumped out of their skins as Ciel sat bolt upright in bed, sending the cat flying as he was convulsed with a helpless sneeze.
"Augh!" Ciel groaned into his arm, glaring around the room in time to see his admirer race through the door Sebastian had left open a crack, her bottlebrush tail fluffed out behind her. Mismatched eyes fell on him next, but for once Sebastian's trained smile failed him. He was certain he looked as shocked as he felt as his master fixed a narrow glare on him, furious and accusing. "Sebastian! Why are you just standing there? You should have--you know I'm--what were you thinking?"
"That the young master is very lucky," Sebastian said without editing himself and watched Ciel turn from red to white to red again.
"You...you...watched...." Words seemed to desert the boy, but the fury building in the Earl's eyes only grew. "Out," he growled at last, pointing at the door.
"Young master--"
"Out! And don't let that cat back in here!"
Taking himself away with a bow, Sebastian pulled the door closed quietly behind him, forgetting in his distraction to acknowledge the order verbally. He was much more taken with what he'd seen, the unexpected heat it'd stirred still sparking through him. He'd seduced his share of humans in the past, but that was orders, a means to an end, the act itself far less pleasurable than the taste of their lust, their shame and confusion as they gave up their secrets. Bodies didn't interest him, lying with humans even less, but the Earl....
Arched and helpless under something so lovely, worked by soft little paws, tasted and bitten and claimed--
He closed his eyes hard, not wanting to give his nature away so spectacularly should one of the other servants come upon him before he managed to regain his control. It was hard, though, surprisingly so, and he was...he was growling, almost inaudibly, as he found himself thinking what a good thing it was that the Earl was so deathly allergic, because otherwise she might come again. Come again to take his place.
In the very instant he realized he was jealous--jealous of a cat--he realized as well how incredibly unnecessary that was. He was a demon, after all, infinitely desirable to weak, foolish humans. And to humans like his master, who were neither, a nearly irresistible challenge. What was one more facet in the game they played with each other?
And besides...it wasn't as if his master was allergic to him.
***
When Ciel woke for the second time in as many days with a black cat on his chest, he glared at the beast, silently promising to make his butler pay for ignoring a direct order. "Sebastian!" he called sharply, too annoyed to notice that he had breath to do so, his nose not even tickling. When he got his hands on that demon--
He didn't quite yelp, but his eyes went very wide as the cat on his chest shimmered and then melted altogether, its compact form filling out and weighing him down. Braced on hands and knees over him but still far too close, his butler smirked down on him with a smile not much different from the one he'd had in his other form. Red eyes, Ciel scolded himself with the corner of his mind that could still think. He should have noticed the cat's eyes, that impossible color more a clue than the sly smugness they contained.
"Yes, young master?" Sebastian said, just before the demon bit his chin. Again. Still purring, damn him.
Ciel hit him, hard. Yelling, "No cats!" But he didn't push Sebastian off him, and the demon didn't need to purr to show how pleased he was. A simple roll of his hips against Ciel's own sufficed.
"Yes," Sebastian murmured against his neck, "my Lord."
Ciel huffed but grudgingly allowed a slow lick at his throat, another bite.
He might have known his demon's perversions stretched this far; he was such an utter tomcat.
***
In the garden, a black cat licked the side of her paw and dragged it calmly over her ear, purring quietly to herself. If she looked a little more pleased with the world than usual, it would take sharp eyes to detect, as smiling smugly was something all cats did, all of the time.
Rising gracefully, she stretched from the tip of her whiskers to the tip of her tail before making her way to the kitchen door. Milk, she thought, would be just the thing to start her morning off right, and she deserved it.
It was going to be an absolutely delightful day.