That Butler, New Face

That Butler, Performs 5

"There's nothing much in this tent," Ciel remarked as he and Chêne entered a rather bare tent that had only a bed, a suitcase, a lantern, and a framed picture, which Chêne immediately started inspecting.

"Hey, Ciel, check this out," Chêne said, holding up the photo for him to see.

"Nn? A photograph of children?" Ciel asked, furrowing his brow slightly. There was something extremely familiar about all of them... "They must be members of the First String."

"I thought so. Joker mentioned before that all the members of the First String grew up in the same town..." Chêne said thoughtfully.

"Nn?" Ciel said, furrowing his brow slightly.

"Something wrong?" Chêne asked.

"Who is this man...?" he asked curiously. All of the children were wearing old, worn out clothes and looked like they might even have been street urchins, but the man they were all gathered around was dressed like a member of the upper class.

=†=†=†=†=

{Meanwhile...}

"What are you doing?" Sebastian demanded calmly, frowning slightly, as he stared at the stubborn reaper.

"I refuse to touch a fiend like you," Suit stated bluntly, completely serious. He didn't even bother to hide his distaste for the whole affair.

"But that will not make for much of a show!" Sebastian snapped angrily as a vein throbbed on his head, and the two of them continued to zoom back and forth on their flying trapeze swings while hanging upside down. He wanted to finish this up as quickly as possible so he could return to Chêne and Ciel.

The reaper didn't seem to care, because he just continued to snub the demon.

—^—^—^—

"What are they doing?" Beast asked, sweat dropping, while she and Doll stared up at them. She moved to take a step forward, not realizing the lacing on the back of her corset had gotten snagged on a nail until it was too late.

SNAP.

"Ah! My lace," Beast said, a little surprised. She frowned ever so slightly in annoyance. Great. It figured something like this would happen with the way her luck had been going lately...

"Waaah! You guys don't look," Dagger shouted, blushing furiously, as he stepped in front of Beast, waving his arms like a loon.

He seemed to be more upset than the woman herself. In his eyes, the whole incident had looked a lot more risqué and 'dangerous', and those who already knew about the enamored knife thrower's over-active imagination weren't the least bit surprised when his nose started to bleed.

"Sis, there's still time till the encore, so please change!" Dagger pleaded with Beast as he held up a blanket for her to cover herself with in the meantime.

—^—^—^—

"!?" Sebastian said, alarmed when his superhuman hearing picked up on their conversation.

"C'mon!" Joker chided her. It might be a pain to have to change costumes again, but they couldn't very well have her go out like that, and it would be a shame if she had to miss the encore just because of a little costume snafu.

"Oh, fine," Beast finally agreed. She could never say no to Joker.

"Oh no!" Sebastian exclaimed, sweat dropping, as he whipped his head around in time to see Beast exiting the Big Top with the blanket wrapped around her.