"His Butler, Master."

Kuroshitsuji - Sebastian/Ciel - role reversal - 30 May 2010

Ciel stared hard at the paperwork in front of him, then frowned up at the young policeman standing nervously on the other side of his desk.

"You are sure that this is all that you could find on the subject?"

Said policemen gulped and nodded. He was far too new at the job to be reporting to someone to high ranked, let alone the Queen's own Dog. "Yes, sir. We looked all over the scene, and followed a few leads through the town, but that's all we could find. I'm afraid the investigation has… hit a dead end, so to speak."

The young lord sighed and picked up his teacup, taking a slow sip as he tried to control the beating of his pulse. He lowered it slightly and gave one last scan over the papers in his hand, gaze disgruntled as he reread the Chief's conclusion – which basically stated that nothing had been discovered. "I can see that." He replaced the cup on its saucer after another sip, then stood to guide his guest out of the room. "Please give the Chief my regards and thanks for his help on the issue, and assure him that I'll take it from here."

A swift bow, and the man scurried out of view, the oak doors of the Phantomhive's office closing behind his hurriedly receding back. Ciel himself waited but ten seconds, eyes closed as he faced the door, hand still on the knob, before he turned back to the room, entirely unsurprised to see Sebastian standing before his desk, arm folded and head lowered in a bow. The surprise that flickered across his expression was, instead, in response to the state his butler was in.

His expensive black suit was shredded and bloody, scraps of the once pressed, white shirt showing through underneath. Equally black dress pants were torn almost to his knees, and the skin that showed beneath was unrecognisable under the blood that still ran in rivulets down every plane of Sebastian's body, bright crimson tracks proof of just how much blood the man had already lost.

One delicate brow raised as a blue eye swept over his appearance, scrutinising, calculating, trying to integrate this new information into what he had just read. Unable to link the two puzzle pieces together, Ciel sighed again, and slowly took the few steps forward to close the distance between himself and his butler.

"The report said that your opponents are all dead or heavily injured, so I see no reason for you to be in such a dreadful state. Pray tell me Sebastian, how, as a butler of the House of Phantomhive, did you get this tattered?"

The taller of the two straightened out of his bow, taking his time as his eyes carefully sought out his Master's singular uncovered one. "I apologise, my Lord. I am afraid that things took a turn for the worse near the end."

Ciel frowned, then stepped forward again, raising a hand to cautiously trace his fingers over the welts across Sebastian's cheek, angry, red marks that were just beginning to show. "Her again, wasn't it." Spoken in that tone of voice, it was more of a statement than a question, and Sebastian knew that there was no need to reply. Instead, a small grin began to creep across his face as Ciel persistently traced his wounds, his hand gradually following the weeping marks that ran down the slim neck to trace patterns across powerful shoulders and unrelentingly continuing to twine around a muscled torso, flowing down battered arms and legs.

For the second time in a short while, Ciel sighed and turned from his butler momentarily to retrieve his handkerchief from his pocket, carefully raising it to mop the blood from Sebastian's brow. Unfortunately, he had to reach up significantly to do so, and a scowl returned to his face at the difficulties caused by the height difference. Stepping back and barely registering the slight twitch of Sebastian's hands as the light touch was removed, he pursed his lips momentarily.

"Sebastian, bend down so I can do this properly."

Amusement glinted in black eyes for a minute, before the grin grew slightly. "But, my Lord, I have a better solution."

There was no reaction from the Ciel, who simply waited silently for Sebastian to back down and follow his order, though Sebastian could feel the curiosity amid the annoyance radiating from him. A second later however, Ciel's mouth had opened slightly in surprise, a small squeak emanating from his lips, as he felt himself being lifted in strong arms and settled upon a small space on his desk.

"Sebastian, you—what are you—"

"Here." Large yet limber hands pressed the handkerchief back into smaller, younger fingers, lips pulled back into a wide smile that instantly reassured the panic Ciel felt. "The height difference was the problem, was it not?"

Ciel felt the annoyance creep back – how dare Sebastian just manhandle him like that? – but then he saw the sense in the solution to their problem; sitting on his desk made Ciel just a few inches taller, enough to be able to reach Sebastian's face comfortably.

So Ciel resumed his cleaning, not speaking as the sun sank in the window behind him, trying to ignore the broad grin on his butler's face.

Neither mentioned the light pink tint on the young Lord's cheeks.

AN: So, a random one shot. The prompt (and the prompt for all the one shots I'll be uploading soon) is thanks to Ladynero's battle prompts on InsaneJournal. While some of them are rather... explicit, I've picked out quite a few that I like from the tenth and eleventh rounds, and I'll probably be posting stuff related to that for a while (but not very often - exam block is in two or three weeks or something).

On the note of my other stories, I'll apologise about not updating but I simply don't have the motivation (my muse keeps deserting me), and I'm not willing to repeat my past mistakes of posting things before having editing and while still not knowing where to go from there. Nothing will be updated until I'm at least a couple of chapters ahead, and I'm afraid that may take a while. I never was good with long pieces.

-BC