Hello, darlings! Am I the only one that's noticed Kuroshitsuji and fairy tales go really well together? Well anyway, here's the first of twelve in a series of story-based Kuro ficlets. For the most part, they'll be short, but hopefully enjoyable. The fairy-tale elements will be used in various ways; they can be played straight, subverted, twisted, or left out completely. They follow a loose sort of chronology, but it's not really that important what order they're read in.

Disclaimer: I do not own Kuroshitsuji

Okay, I think that about covers everything. Please read, enjoy, and of course, review!

I. Cinderella

Ciel held his chin high as Sebastian slid the clear, glittering boot up his stockinged foot and calf. The shoe was cold, hard, and unyielding; it confined Ciel's foot in a cage of glass. The child met his servant's smirking eyes evenly.

Well? Those vermillion eyes seemed to say, isn't this what you wanted?

When the second boot was in place, Ciel hopped from the bed to the floor, stomping his feet down with more violence than was strictly necessary. He made sure not to let his stolid expression slide when the shoes did not shatter.

"Surely," Ciel drawled with carefully affected laziness, "these cannot be made of glass."

"Now, what would a Phantomhive butler be," Sebastian said, tracking Ciel's wobbly, labored steps with no small amount of intent, "if he couldn't meet such a simple request."

A simple request; I want glass slippers, Sebastian. Ciel had never expected Sebastian to succeed in providing Ciel with the shoes—that was the whole point, damn it—but here they were. How annoying.

"Well. They'd better not break at the ball," Ciel muttered, for lack of anything else to complain about.

"You have my word," Sebastian said, and Ciel would swear he saw a flash of pointed canine.

"Good," Ciel turned sharply on the glass heel, tramping out to his waiting carriage with all the stoicism and dignity possible for one teetering along in shoes made of glass. Sebastian followed behind, a perfectly obeisant shadow whose slight, cordial smile was not in the least bit mocking.

OoO

Crrrrr-ack, CRRSH!

Ciel's left boot shattered against Sebastian's skull.

A whole evening of getting complimented on his marvelously singular footwear while he smiled politely through his pain, and Ciel was about ready to stab Sebastian with one of the sparkling shards that now lay perilously over the floor of his bedroom. He knew it wouldn't do any good though; the only reason he'd managed to strike Sebastian with his impulsively hurled shoe was because Sebastian had let it happen. Still, it improved Ciel's foul mood by some margin. He watched with morbid satisfaction as ruby liquid oozed from a laceration in Sebastian's neck. The substance was a good mimicry of human blood, but Ciel noted that it was a bit too dark and sluggish to pass close inspection. He wanted to touch it.

Sebastian, surprised, put a gloved hand over the cut. A perfect butler to the core, Sebastian didn't think it proper to let his young master see such an unseemly part of himself.

"Glass slippers," Ciel muttered contemptuously as he leaned back against the down pillows on his bed, cut and blistered feet still dangling over the edge "what a ridiculous idea."

All of a sudden, Sebastian was kneeling before Ciel, clutching Ciel's hand in his own larger one.

"Every request, every desire, no matter how 'ridiculous,'" the black-clad butler said with eyes that burned with red firelight, "I will fulfill all of them. That is my job. Until the clock strikes its final chime."

Ciel allowed a small, bitter smile grace his face as pain radiated from his feet. "Until my carriage turns into a hearse, huh?"

"If that is how you wish to see it."

"Then you'd better promise," Ciel's mismatched eyes shone with some emotion that even Sebastian couldn't place. "I want to hear you say it."

"Yes, my lord."