Black Butler: Façade

Prologue

Ciel shared an opinion of paperwork that most boys his age would agree with; boring. Sales statistics, business requests, the occasional death threat; all of it meant nothing to him, especially now when sales were being kept at a steady pace; neither increasing nor decreasing from the typical rate they came in. Orders from the queen were coming in at a slower pace, which left Ciel without any mysterious crimes to solve, no unknown murderers to catch, and nowhere to travel to.

His only source of amusement was the servants. Throwing playing darts at Finny, watching Mey-Rin tripped over something and break something else, smelling burning food come from the kitchen as Bard tried to use his flamethrower as a cooking utensil, and – above all – watching his butler, Sebastian, work at a swift pace to keep everything in pristine condition; all of it amuse him on some level. And it annoyed him. Sebastian annoyed him.

Everything Sebastian ever did was perfect. Everything had to be perfect. Even he – himself as a servant – was perfect. Not a blemish on him or his uniform; not even a wrinkle. That's what bothered Ciel. While everyone else had their flaws and lived with them, Sebastian had no flaws, aside from his love of cats, which had long-ago evolved into a mad obsession. But that wasn't enough to poke fun at Sebastian over, and Ciel did love to poke fun at Sebastian whenever he could.

Setting his paperwork aside, Ciel rose from his desk and left his study. He knew Sebastian was hard at work doing his own chores for the time being, and wouldn't be around to serve him his afternoon tea and dessert for another hour or two. Normally, he spent this time goofing off; building houses out of playing cards and conjuring up new ways to test Sebastian's skills and patience. Today would be different, though. He not only wanted to test test Sebastian's skills and patience, but he also wanted to find something that was a little more private to him; something Sebastian might have wanted to keep hidden from him.

Where could he look? The butler's room had no secrets to speak of. Sebastian hardly spent any time in there. Demons didn't sleep, and so he could probably guess that even the bed was completely untouched from its usual, readily made state.

Now that he thought about it, Sebastian could have secrets hidden throughout the entire manor. He was on his feet moving to and from every single room in the mansion constantly. Who's to say that Sebastian hadn't chosen to leave a few marks before it came time for demon to fulfill his contract and take Ciel soul?

Ciel checked a multitude of rooms; the drawing room, the library, the dining hall, several bedrooms, including his own, and even the entire servants' quarters, along with the wine cellar that was located right next to Sebastian's room. He found nothing. Did this demon not have any secrets? Did he not own a single item that Ciel hadn't already given him? Even a large trunk that Sebastian kept under his bed came up completely empty.

After nearly an hour, there was only one place Ciel hadn't searched in; a place he'd been avoiding like the plague ever since the mansion was rebuilt and he'd returned home. Even though it was very unlikely that Sebastian would choose to hide anything in there, there was no harm in simply searching.

The room was just as Ciel remembered it being back when his parents were still alive. Bright walls that were clean with fresh paint that had been applied around two years ago. Satin curtains had been pulled back to let in the sun. The bed, which was always kept made had pictures of Vincent and Rachel Phantomhive at the pillows and assorted flowers gathered on top of the comforter. Surprisingly, though, the flowers were fresh, as if they'd been cut earlier that morning.

Ciel normally didn't like seeing pictures of his parents. The evidence of that was apparent, as he had ordered Sebastian to take down all of the portraits one by one. This must of been where he had taken them all too. Even the large portrait that had been in the hallway was hanging up on one of the walls; the only difference in the room to how it had originally been.

Now that he was seeing it all again for the first time in years, Ciel became curious, not only about what Sebastian had hidden in here – if he had anything to hide at all – but also about what his parents might have left behind.

Most things he was seeing where possessions he had seen before; jewelry and clothes, mostly. There wasn't anything out of place that he could see. Sebastian had only intended this room to be a shrine that Ciel could visit, if he chose to; but Ciel had only come here a few times, since he first came home. He avoided the topic of his parents as much as he could.

He was just about to walk out of the room when, suddenly, he found himself drawn towards the door to his parents closet. Something in Ciel kept telling him that the answers he was looking for were in there.

When he first opened the door, nothing really stood out to him. There were some formal suits from his father and elaborately decorated gowns from his mother. There was some extra bedding and a few Funtom toys Ciel no longer played with.

Nothing he saw in the closet really struck him as odd, until his eyes found an old trunk sitting on the floor. Its leather exterior was tattered and torn in some places, but it still held together fairly well. The latches on it were rusty, but seemed to stay in one place as Ciel unlatched the trunk and opened it up.

He saw a multitude of things that he hadn't seen before, incredibly old relics that didn't appear to be of this time, various journals that had their own latches on them, and a single photo that was framed and placed facedown so no one could see the picture. All that had been covered with a sheet of royal-blue silk.

Ciel picked up the photo, as it was the very first item he saw that was at the top of what had been piled into this trunk. The image she saw made him recoil in shock.

It was a picture of his father and mother, yes, but not in the way he was used to seeing in photos. His mother was standing with the servants, wearing a maid's uniform and cap along with Madam Red; younger and almost childlike in appearance. Tanaka stood there with them, wearing the butler's pin Sebastian wore now. There were a couple of others he didn't recognize, but he guessed that they were the gardeners and the cooks, as far as he could tell from the way they were dressed.

Vincent Phantomhive stood in front of the camera with another man. It was the appearance of this one man that had Ciel so stunned. Jet black hair and pale skin were the only identifiable characteristics, color wise, that were familiar to him; but his face and posture, overall, could not be mistaken.

Standing there with Vincent's hand in his was Sebastian.

His shock made Ciel lose his grip on the picture and it fell, crashing to the floor.

The sound of breaking glass and the frame falling to the floor could be heard throughout the house. Sebastian and Tanaka heard it pretty easily, as they had been searching for Ciel to give him his afternoon tea and dessert. The two servants exchanged a glance before rushing towards where the noise had come from; Tanaka moving a bit slower as he was in his weaker, less useful form and carting around his own cup of green tea.

Sebastian wasn't at all settled by the fact that the noise had come from the late Earl's bedroom. The door to it was wide open, even though he fully remember closing it behind him when he forced himself to switch out the flowers that morning.

The butler froze when he rushed into the room and saw Ciel standing in front of the closet, staring wide-eyed at a certain picture; a picture that he'd hoped Ciel would never see. Sebastian's own eyes went wide and his skin drained of color.

"Ciel, I . . ."

Hearing Sebastian actually use his name got Ciel's attention. His head snapped up from the picture to look at him in the eyes . . . and he regretted what he saw.

Shame, fear, guilt, and – strangely enough - sadness.

Tanaka rushed in, then, in his real and more useful form. At the sight that was laid out in front of him, his eyes too went wide with shock.

"Explain . . . " Ciel manage to pant out through panicked breaths, "Now!"

Sebastian paced back-and-forth in the drawing room. He and Tanaka had carried the old trunk and the picture frame with them, while Ciel followed closely behind. They locked themselves in there, determined to unveil all the secrets that this trunk was keeping without any more prying eyes.

"It's a long story, young master." Tanaka finally said after what felt like an eternity of silence.

Sebastian shook his head as he forced himself to sit in a chair.

"It's more than a long story. It's a lie. All of it is a lie!"

"That's impossible," Ciel stated directly, "You were specifically ordered not to lie to me the day we need our contract."

"Yes, well . . . These lies were put into place not long before the mansion burned; before any point when you remember meeting me."

"Before? You mean we met before we ever made our contract?"

Sebastian shook his head. It was less of a reply and more of an expression of his increasing sadness and guilt.

"It's as I said . . . Everything you know about your life is a lie."