𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕼𝖚𝖊𝖊𝖓'𝖘 𝕷𝖎𝖔𝖓: 𝕮𝖔𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖙

The Lady's Dog

Ciel had only ever seen the Dozy Dog from his carriage window, never really bothering to take in the building. But now that he was really looking at it, he could easily see how Y/N had fit in as a waitress there. The windows glowed a warm gold, and even though the walls were covered in cracks and mold, there was something quaint and comforting about it. Looking through the door's glass window, Ciel could see a dark skinned woman with black hair dancing around with an apron on and trays in her hands. That must've been Alice, and the little boy following her around had to be her son Christopher. Cial paused for a moment before he placed his hand on the door handle, if felt like he was intruding on Y/N's privacy and sneaking into her home without her permission. The Earl shook that thought from his mind as he pushed the door open, a small bell hanging over it jingling as the Earl and his butler walked inside.

"Be with ya inna moment!" The woman Ciel presumed was Alice shouted as she continued to dash about. Ciel just looked around as he waited. Even though the pub wasn't huge, he could easily see why Y/N always wanted to come by and help. It looked like a lot of tables, booths and bar stools for one woman to cover on her own, but as the Earl watched Alice dance around it was clear she knew how to handle it all. The woman's linen skirt and apron flowed around her as she delivered a tray to some customers and glided over to another booth to jot down their orders quickly.

"Alright, that should be done in no time," Alice smiled as she put her notepad back into a pocket of her apron. She turned around to greet Ciel and Sebastian with a smile that was almost instantly wiped from her face. "Ah, thought I'd seen the last o' ya a good while back." Ciel was sure he'd never met Alice before, and she could see the confusion on his face because she continued. "I remember a face like his," Alice pointed to Sebastian. "Yer the butler Y/N was always bein' picked up by. So that makes you her Earl." Alice looked Ciel up and down, not entirely shocked by the child she was being presented with. "She's told me all about ya."

"And you must be Ms Brewer," Ciel said as he looked at Alice with the same judgmental glare she gave him. "Y/N's spoken highly of you."

"Sure hope she has, all lies though," Alice smiled at the Earl's scrutiny. He was just as Y/N told her. "Now, what can someone like me do fer a noble such as yourself?" Alice asked as she crossed her arms.

"Wait!" The little boy who must've been Christopher ran up to his mother's legs, bunching the hem of her apron in his hands. "These are, these are Y/N's friends?" The little boy looked Ciel up and down, clearly not impressed. "He's just a, just a kid!"

Ciel sputtered in shock as the little boy just shook his head, clearly disappointed that the Earl was only a few years older than himself. "Christopher!" Alice scolded her son with a light tug on his ear. "We show the nobility our utmost respect, even if they're children!" Ciel's ears burned as he watched Alice fight back a laugh. He could see now how Y/N could get along with these two so well.

"Well, where's, where's Y/N then?" Christopher demanded to know, clearly not happy that Sebastian and Ciel had come without her. He was straining his neck to try and look past Ciel and Sebastian for his friend, and disappointed that he couldn't see her.

"She's fallen ill, I'm afraid," Ciel told the boy, who just looked more outraged.

"You got her, got her sick?" Christopher fumed.

"Christopher!" Alice scolded him again with a warning tone, tugging once more on his ear.

"What? She never, she never got sick with us!" Christopher stomped his foot. "If she's sick, she's sick, then they're not taking good care, good care of her!"

Ciel didn't know what to do. Part of him wanted to snap at the kid that he actually had been taking very good care of Y/N and the other part of him wanted to just shout at the kid to be quiet. But the Earl did neither, instead he told Christopher that he was right. "We should have been taking better care of her," Ciel admitted. He should have waited for her to come home, Sebastian should have gone looking for her, and the both of them shouldn't have let her go out. "We didn't realize how sick she had gotten and now she has to stay at our manor. She wanted to come here very badly, but we made her stay at home. I apologize for her absence."