About a week after the news of Ciel Phantomhive's death reached the ears of those who had known him, the boy - or rather, demon himself had just settled into the recently-acquired manor in France that would become his new home. In his own mind he'd cut himself off from every part of his old life and placed an immeasurable distance between himself and England, but in reality he'd just barely managed to make it across the Channel before flashbacks of his brief time spent wandering lost and penniless across France made him nervous and he had to stop. He hadn't brought anything with him except Sebastian (and his eighty-or-so different frilly outfits), and the manor's late owner had been kind enough to leave the former Earl all of his furniture before he died mysteriously of a fork to the face, so moving in hadn't been too much trouble.

Ciel leaned back in his new high-backed armchair and cast a glance at Sebastian, who stood, as always, at his side. The demon butler seemed to have taken on something of an edge recently, probably because he'd just been condemned to spend all of eternity indulging an asshole child's stupid whims for no pay, but Ciel was sure that he would get over it. "Sebastian," he commanded, "bring me a newspaper."

"Yes, my lord." Sebastian bowed, a pleasant smile on his face. Ciel thought that the expression looked a little pleasant-er than usual, but decided that the butler had probably seen a stray cat or something outside and shrugged it off.

Sebastian returned approximately two seconds later with a crinkled pile of newspaper that seemed to dripping some sort of grease. "Your paper, sir," he said with a smile, dropping the sopping mess of text directly into Ciel's lap.

The young demon sprang from his chair with a yelp, tossing the disgusting newspaper away from him before wheeling on Sebastian. "What the hell is this?!"

Sebastian simply dipped his head, too-pleasant smile still firmly in place. "A newspaper. Young master ordered me to bring one, remember?"

Ciel scowled. "Yes, I did. And I also ordered you to remain my butler! As such, I expect quality service from you, do you hear me?!"

"Begging my lord's pardon," Sebastian purred, his smile twisting into a full-on toothy smirk. "You did command me to remain a butler. However... you never once told me that I had to be a good one."

And with that, he turned on his heel and straight-up walked out, leaving a flabbergasted Ciel standing alone in the middle of the room. After nearly five full silent minutes had passed without the butler's return, Ciel finally shook himself out of his shocked stupor and clenched his fists. "Unbelievable," he muttered, stalking back to his chair and sitting down with a huff. He wouldn't allow Sebastian to get away with such behavior again.

Since he was no longer the Queen's watchdog or even the head of the Funtom Company, a large chunk of Ciel's day that had previously consisted of filling out paperwork and doing other sundry dull things was now completely free, and though he was excited at first, he soon found it very, very difficult to entertain himself. Ultimately, he ended up reading through every single Sherlock Holmes story published by Arthur Conan Doyle to date without taking a single break until around four in the afternoon. Having so quickly run out of reading material, he decided to emerge from his office and tell Sebastian to bring him more books. He was also in sore need of some board games and figurines.

As he descended the main staircase, something crunched under his shoe. Stopping in his tracks, he looked down at the stairs and gasped. It looked like someone had taken every single plate in the house and broken three of them on each stair, then left the pieces in such a way that they would have cut through the soles of his shoes if he hadn't been wearing his "I'm-feeling-particularly-self-conscious-about-my-height-today" four-inch heels. Tip-toeing carefully down the staircase, he reached the floor of the foyer only to find that nearly every inch of the previously-spotless marble tile was covered in mud. Bending down for a closer look, he could make out the path of one very distinct set of footprints - it seemed that whoever had tracked in the dirt had Viennese-waltzed around the room for no apparent reason other than to muddy the floor. And had then removed one of his shoes and scraped the rest of the mud onto the wall in such a way that the streaks of dirt formed the word "Boxchan."

Ciel bit his lip, trying to quell the frothing rage that was rapidly building inside of him just enough to keep from exploding right there. He dashed down the hall and, coming upon the door to the servants' quarters, threw it open. "Sebastian!"

The butler, who appeared to be in the middle of taking a nap, slowly raised his head and stared at his master with half-lidded eyes and a sour expression that Ciel had never seen on his face before. "What is it, my lord?"

"What the hell have you done to the foyer?!" Ciel shouted, hands on his hips. "I command you to clean it up at once!"

Sebastian simply leaned back and closed his eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about," he replied disdainfully. "I haven't gone anywhere near the foyer."

Ciel's eyes widened. "You said you would never lie to me!"

Sebastian shrugged, looking bored. "That was when there was still something in it for me. As things stand now…" He yawned. "...the only thing I'm really obligated to do is be your butler." He rolled over onto his side. "Besides, I'm not lying."

"Like hell you're not!" Ciel couldn't remember a time when his patience had been worn this thin. And by Sebastian, of all people. "As my butler you will go up there and clean up every single shard of china, then scrub the entire floor until there's not a single speck of mud left, am I clear?!" He turned on his heel and was about to stalk out before something came to him and he turned back around. "And don't forget to clean up the wall, as well."

Sebastian sighed, rolling off the bed and pushing up his sleeves with extreme lethargy. "Whatever… my young master."

Later that evening, Ciel, being once again very bored with so much free time on his hands, decided to take a stroll through the manor's grounds. He'd specifically chosen this place because it was a good ten miles from any other structure, but it also had some very nice gardens filled with plenty of tasteful shrubberies and lots of roses. As soon as he stepped outside, however, his hopes of peacefully enjoying the beautiful landscaping were unceremoniously dashed.

Finny, even in the very prime of his clumsiness, had never been able to wreak this sort of all-consuming havoc on the Phantomhive grounds. Not only was every single plant, from the mighty trees down to the individual blades of grass, burnt to a crisp, but somehow an unholy chasm had opened up in the middle of the garden, complete with craggy edges and some unearthly moaning sounds wafting up out of its bottomless depths. On the other side of the abyss, the grounds had been turned into a barren wasteland that stretched for miles, populated only by some thorny tumbleweeds and a strange breed of lizard that looked horrifically mutated. And to top it all off, the dead, brown shrubberies that were left had all been carefully trimmed into the shapes of skulls.

Sebastian stood in the middle of all this carnage, a happy tune on his lips and an evil glint in his eyes. He looked up from trimming one of the hedges and gave Ciel a little wave. "Good evening, master. Out to enjoy the night air?"

Ciel could only stand there and seeth, fingers clenching and unclenching in various strangling motions. "Fix this," he growled, trying to see if he could burn a hole in the butler's head with his glare. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to be working.

The rest of that week was, for Ciel, hell on earth. If he didn't expressly ask Sebastian to do something, it would either be completely half-assed or not get done at all. The butler's manner of addressing his master had also rapidly deteriorated; by the end of the week, he had gone from "yes, my lord" to "sure, fine, whatever," usually shortly followed by an impolite term muttered under his breath. The worst part was that this behavior annoyed Ciel to no end, and Sebastian knew it damn well. He reveled in it, rolling around on the floor laughing almost to the point of tears when he was alone in his quarters. Ciel was actually beginning to seriously regret even making a contract with the demon in the first place, which ought to tell the discerning reader how badly this constant insubordination affected him. And yet he put up with it, thinking that no matter how bad things got, he could still handle this. Through sheer willpower, he would whip Sebastian back into shape.

However, what happened on Sunday was the final straw.

Ciel returned to his bedroom from his office that morning to find Sebastian lounging about in his bed. Playing with a cat.

The butler didn't even acknowledge his presence. "My, my, what a cutie you are!" he cooed, stroking the tabby feline behind the ears and watching as it licked one of its front paws. "Here, feel free to rub all over the master's pillow…"

"Damn you!" Ciel screamed, fists clenched with rage. "You know I hate cats!" While he was no longer allergic to them, old habits died hard.

Sebastian ignored him flawlessly. "I think I'll name you Delilah." He gently pressed one of the cat's paws. "Oh… so soft…"

Ciel's eyes darted over to the cane that rested on top of his dresser; it would make a nice instrument to beat the butler with. The fury inside him boiled over to the point that his eyes began to glow red, and he screamed, "Listen to your master!"

Sebastian didn't even look at him. "My master can go f*** himself."

In that moment, time seemed to stand still, and something deep inside Ciel Phantomhive snapped. Looking back, that moment was when the boy truly became a demon.

The next day, the owner of a small village store that sold hand-carved walking sticks was extremely surprised when the door to his establishment opened to admit the strangest customer he had ever seen. Nearly every inch of the man's exposed skin was covered in tattoos; as he drew closer to the counter, the shop owner could see that they were actually a list of rules of some kind, written with an angry hand. One read "do the laundry properly every Tuesday," and another, "never bring any feline of any kind into the house." One line on the man's neck seemed to read "change your catchphrase to..." but the rest was obscured by his long black hair. Only the man's face had been spared, and though he wore a pleasant smile, there was the slightest tinge of burning embarrassment visible on his cheeks. He held a black walking stick that had been snapped cleanly in two in his hands, which were also covered in instructions and sported black fingernails. "I'd like as exact a reproduction of this walking stick as you can manage, please," the man told the shop owner in a smooth, deliberately level tone.

The shop owner nodded, unable to take his eyes off of the strange customer. He was so distracted, in fact, that he knocked over a vase that had been sitting on the counter. Expecting it to crash to the floor, he was surprised to see the man suddenly swoop forward, faster than any human should have been able to, and catch the vase milliseconds before it hit the ground. He then stood up and carefully placed it back onto the counter.

The shop owner gaped. "That… was quite a catch," he breathed. "You have amazing reflexes!"

The customer smirked bitterly. The expression looked rather painful. "Oh, not at all. I am simply... one god-awful butler."

Author's Note: And thus ends the short, rather ridiculous one-shot. Thanks for reading!

When I saw the Season 2 ending for the first time, I felt so bad for Sebby, but at the same time, really admired Ciel for pulling one over on a demon. I kept thinking that Sebastian has got to be super pissed-off about that, though, so I wrote this.

Fun fact: the original title for this was "His Butler, So Tired of This Sh*t." But obviously FF won't let you put that in the title. Anyhoo, I was writing this in Google Docs on my phone, and it abbreviated the title to "His But...is Sh*t." I died laughing (even though it's not really that funny).

Ciel and Sebastian seem to have a very Integra-and-Alucard-esque relationship in this one-shot... once you write a Hellsing fic, you can never really get that out of your system.