comte-phantomhive:

“I don’t care, just go tell the three idiots the usual.” says the young man waving off his hand.

Ciel stands up, taking the news paper in his grasp before folding it.

“Let’s start around the alleys near the docks.” He dare not to look in the Devil’s eyes as he made his way to one of his book shelves. “Prepare for everything, and go fetch my coat.” The season was still chilly, as the sun was covered by the clouds. “We’ll leave as soon as possible.”

He ran his fingers at the books, before abruptly stopping at a particular red one. It had no title, nor author. Just a plain, red book. He pulls it off, taking out a white envelope before placing the said book back to it’s place after closing it. He folds the white paper into two and shoves it down his pocket, at the opposite side where his gun lays.

He listens to the man’s footsteps, but before the butler could leave, the master says out in a calm voice, yet loud enough for his partner to hear;

“Sebastian, don’t forget to go get my bullets.” Who knows what might happen. Better be armed than never. It would come in handy for later. For whatever they will encounter.

The earl of Phantomhive turns around and just stares to thin air, before leaving his study, down the hallway and to the main hall. There was it— his guts twisting an turning. Hopefully—- no, eventually, it will calm down. Hope? Pft. As if.

He threw that feeling away a long time ago.

Instructing the others does take little more than a moment, and hardly half an hour later Sebastian is stepping lightly from the air to the filthy cobblestones of a dockside alley. He sets Ciel, bundled into a heavy coat and armed to the teeth, down at his side. The idea of arming Ciel never ceases to be amusing, for what amount of guns and bullets buys the kind of protection that a single, sickly soul does? Sebastian flexes his hands impatiently and stares down the alley.

It smells of rot and old fish.

“Here, my lord?” Here is, he supposes, as good a place as any. The paper had contained no useful leads in terms of tracking down the child, nothing more than a general area. This particular alley may be the location itself or just an alley. “There’s no-one else here,” he says quietly, glancing down at the little lord. “The only other humans I sense are several alleys over—there is a bar—and there some men heading away from us, but they are perhaps fifty yards to the south. No-one worth worrying about.”

He isn’t certain what they are doing. Without formal instructions, Sebastian has no prerogative other keeping his master alive and relatively unharmed; he waits secure in the certainty of amusement. How on earth does Ciel intend to track down a missing child based on an alleyway alone?

contrarian-marion:

When she heard the voice, her eyes widened and she hunkered down closer to the mouse, thinking for a moment that it had actually answered, but it skittered off and when she turned to look for the cupboard in question, she found Sebastian standing in the room. At least, it looked kind of like him, it was hard to tell in the dark. Any excitement she might have felt was squashed by her irritation over having searched so hard for him and then when she finally found him, he was so damn nonchalant that it was like iodine in a paper cut. If she thought she stood a chance against him, she might consider cold-clocking him one. But no, that wouldn’t do.

Rather than greet him warmly, she put her hands on her hips and with a scowl, launched into her diatribe. “You said you’d be easy to find. Well you weren’t! I wore myself out looking for you and now I don’t even remember the things I’d wanted to ask, you dumb jerk,” she paused to blow a blonde strand of hair out of her eyes. The woman never really had much of a filter, nor had she ever been the type to let even the mildest case of hero worship cloud her bossiness. She was naive and easily influenced, sure, but it did not detract from her typical demeanor, which was difficult, demanding and the type who got what she wanted even if it killed her. And she didn’t know what she wanted from this demonic man, exactly, but knew that he had already opened her eyes to the fruitlessness of her labors. To her, that meant his word was to be valued and therefore, sought after. That she was subconsciously seeking comfort from an unsympathetic being didn’t occur to her, but here she was… fighting mad because he had hidden from her. At least that’s how she saw it.

“Finding you has been like trying to find a needle in a haystack and if you’re gonna make such a fine mess of my life, the least you could do is make yourself easier to locate! Especially now that I know my whole life has been a meaningless lie, which you’re the one who showed me that, therefor it’s your job to explain the right ways to me. Hmph. The nerve! And as if I’d care about promotions. That just means more paperwork. Really, maybe you don’t know nearly as much as I thought you did…”

She glared at him like an angry feline who’d been stepped on. Spitting and snarling at him wouldn’t get her anywhere, but she was too mouthy to really think of that. She just stood there, pouting at him accusingly as if he’d hurt her childish feelings immensely.

“I’m over here. Are you aware that you’re trying to talk to a mouse?”

So this was what he had willingly subjected himself to—children that wanted to be adults and adults that behaved like children. One never got anywhere expecting plausible behaviors from humans, he supposed. Her vocabulary, nearly acceptable last time, seemed to have gone all the way downhill, or maybe it was simply that he couldn’t hear the actual words over all that hissing and spitting. He laughed to himself.

“I am easy to find,” he said, standing up from the range and unfolding his arms. Sebastian walked slowly towards her, unbothered by the dark, shoes tapping evenly against the floor. He liked the feel of darkness even more than the amusements of human methods for lighting it up. There was a deep satisfaction in knowing that what obscured him from his prey also served to heighten whatever levels of anxiety his approach involved for them. “I assure you that there is no-one else quite like me in the city; not close, at least. Of course, perhaps I was mistaken.” Currents of laughter ran under the perhaps as he neared her, touching her shoulder.

She was far too comfortable in her noisy shoes for his taste.

“Next time, I will leave you a trail of breadcrumbs,” he said, all seriousness. “Or maybe draw you map. I suppose following a trail might involve some comprehension skills in terms of piecing things together, and I certainly wouldn’t want to strain you.” He crossed to the other wall, standing now behind her, and stood at ease with one hand under his chin, considering her. “So. You’ve come.” Now he had to figure out exactly what to do with her. The possibilities were endless.

He envisioned her carefully torn limb to limb, with the meat exposed in long, luscious strips of red and pink over smooth bone, wondered exactly how the taste of the reaper influence would complement or ruin the human flavor. Did the creature even have a soul? Perhaps he would sort through each of her thin, pink tissue-paper layers of vessel-ridden skin for it like a bookseller peeling apart the pages of a volume stuck shut with time and disuse. Or maybe, just maybe, he would find a way to use her.

“Tell me you’ve kept your secrets,” he said, making the command purr.

★ ;

contrarian-marion:

Marion had searched high and low for the demon called Sebastian for who knew how long but had turned up nothing. It frustrated her to no end because despite her denial of being so, the half-reaper was a clingy individual when she found those she deemed worthy of clinging to. That he had vanished into thin air was maddening, especially when she had no real idea how to actually look for demons. She found it quite uncharitable of him… really, how rude! The fiend had turned her life completely upside down, shook her values and incinerated all of her learnings in a matter of a single meeting. Her emotional state had fallen into a silent chaos, which despite her ability to hide it well, was taking it’s toll on her. She was tired and questioning everything she knew, every order barked at her, every reap she completed… waste, waste, waste. Somehow, she thought if she could just find him, maybe he would have more of his delicious insight. Or he could tell her what to do to get out of the pattern of chasing her tail for nothing. Yes, find the demon. He had the answers. The reapers were confounding and she was beginning to hate them and their stupid little rules and routines.

By some stroke of luck, a carriage had passed her earlier in the day and when it did, she sensed him. Was he in it? She had taken to the trees and trailed it to some snobbish looking mansion. Or was it a castle? No, castles had motes and draw bridges, didn’t they? She was as uncertain about whether Sebastian was inside as she was whether it was a mansion or a castle. It sort of felt like his energy… but then, she couldn’t really remember and since he was the only demon she had ever encountered, had nothing to compare it to. Her course of action was to sit in a tree and stake out the place until the last light went out, and then… she made her move. She had slunk around the outside of the massive house like a prowling cat, trying to determine her best entry point. The door would undoubtedly be locked, but there were so many windows, at least one of them would have to be open. If that were so, she certainly wasn’t having any luck. She had even leaped onto the roof and considered taking a shot down a chimney… but oh, what if she got stuck? No, that was no good. Leaping back down, she tried one last window and it was, to her surprise, a success. Someone had either forgotten to lock it or the lock was faulty. Either way, Marion had shimmied her way through and was now standing in the middle of a foreign kitchen, feeling pride at her successful breaking and entering.

She hadn’t trekked far out of the kitchen before she realized it was too dark for her to see, even if she were to put her spectacles on. Thus, she beelined back into the kitchen to search for a candle. “Damn, lousy, no good asshole… ” she was becoming more and more grumpy over the trouble she was having to go through just to find that stinking demon and was suddenly wondering why she thought he was so interesting in the first place. Listening to what she thought sounded like footsteps, she paused, only to have a squeak catch her attention and upon looking to her left, found a mouse on the counter, eating a crumb. “Excuse me, sir, but do you know where I could find a candle or some matches?” The sad part was, she almost expected the creature to answer her.

It was the scent that triggered his recognition. There was no mistaking the smell of it—wet dog, he recalled—and suddenly he found himself very entertained. Sebastian flickered into the hall just outside the kitchen, listened intently at the walking and then the chatter within. Excellent. There was no better time for the creature to be here. This made everything so much neater, more organized, perpetually amusing. He stepped into the kitchen.

“You might try the cupboards behind you, with the list tacked up,” he said. “The second to the left. Top shelf. You might also consider softer boots, as incredibly fashionable as that pair is. Or perhaps an introductory course in walking. Do try not to wake up the household, won’t you?” He had very little trouble seeing in the dark, and no regrets about leaving his candle in the other room. The mouse scrabbled frantically across the floorboards, ducking down under the range. Its feet pattered against one of the floorboards, and he sighed.

“I hate vermin,” he confessed, crossing to the range and examining its top. It would be a pain to move, but then, he wasn’t sure he trusted his subordinates enough to delegate the task to them. Maybe he’d get her to do it. The thought made him grin.

“You certainly took your time, Marion,” he said, tugging on the way the r rolled the middle of her name, tongue resting on the final consonant with an undercurrent of laughter. “Not having second thoughts, are we?” What precisely had he said to her? He filed the events of the past few weeks, pulling each detail from storage and stacking them up in order for easy reference. Waste. Sisyphus. Secrets. A load of other related nonsense. He turned to her, leaning against the range with his arms folded. 

It felt remarkably casual compared to the way he usually carried himself. A bit freeing, truth be told. “I wasn’t expecting to see you again,” he said, making the words into a dryly humorous confession. Of course she was back. They couldn’t give up on him, creatures who mistook him for hope or salvation or something equally flowery and rotting. “Unless perhaps you’re here on some kind of official business? Trying hard to work your way up through the measly ranks for some touted promotion or increase? Maybe a few extra inches in cubicle space?” 

Sebastian doesn’t actually have a “true form”, or a true name or gender, for that matter. He does possess some kind of corporeal presence with claws and rows upon rows of teeth, but it is expressed as something too horrific to describe, like a Lovecraftian monster, and tends to change and shift depending on the individuals who see it. His physical appearance always serves to either prey upon the fears of the people present in the room, or present an underlying irony. Lacking a proper physical form, he is not bound by the same time/space constraints as humans or reapers and can “shift” from place to place either with inordinate, visible speed, or in an instance. He is not omnipresent, but he does have keen senses of hearing and smell. He does try, though, to employ humanoid behavior around humans, for the sake of playacting as much as obeying orders.

grell-shinigami-sutcliff:

bird-or-devil:

“As I am under no obligation to be truthful to you, I’ll shall pretend that I’m pleased to see you.”

“As long as I can see that handsome smile of yours, Bassy~”

“…go away.”

“As I am under no obligation to be truthful to you, I’ll shall pretend that I’m pleased to see you.”

comte-phantomhive:

Ciel knew that he had hit nerve on Sebastian. Who knows if it amused him or not. Hell; even the Earl himself didn’t know.

Hearing what the butler had said, the young boy nods. It’s true though, that children always went missing and whatnot. But no matter how many times he reads an article about it, his stomach twist and turns. The feeling of his past events from that one single month embraces his form. It was like as if he could still smell the fresh blood, the cries of children—including himself— crying and screaming.

His eye hardens at the memory. This isn’t good. He should stop lingering on those, and needs to concentrate.

“I only had a thought,” he starts. “that it may involve Nicholas. But whatever, we’ll find out soon enough and put an end to the Queen’s disturbance.”

Ciel faced the infamous butler clad in black, holding his head up high. “I trust that you’ll find a way to get there as fast as possible? And don’t forget to give directions to the other three for the mansion whilst we’ll be gone. I don’t want anything to happen here during my absence.” mumbles Ciel at the last sentence.

He drums his fingers on his desk, not leaving his gaze from the Demon is disguise.

“…Sebastian, I order you to take me there as soon as possible, and I couldn’t care less what kind of travel it takes.”

They will go after the child, then. There is a certain, telling kind of resolve on Ciel’s face, and if the child wants to go poking around in familiarly dark places, who is he to argue? Facing one’s fears is, he has heard, an exceptional form of therapy, and he has possibly never met another human as in need of some kind of therapy. He resists the urge to add, It might be good for you, with a modest bow, and decides to save the vitriol for later.

“Yes, my lord.” There is no end to Ciel’s pompousness, nor the grabbing need that cowers underneath it. Delightful, to know that this creature would be nowhere without him. “I daresay that instructing the household will require only a brief moment,” he said. The two of them were often gone, and the instructions never changed. Don’t make a mess. Fend for yourselves. Rend anyone who drops in from limb to limb. For all their incompetence, the other servants were excellent at not asking questions.

He draws Ciel’s chair back from the desk. “There’s no need to bring anything you can’t carry on your person,” he says. Ciel’s gun, the only thing he is aware of his master habitually carrying, is probably already concealed on him anyway. “I shall arrange for everything else. Where do you intend to start your search?” He can already feel it, the closeness of dark alleys and the excitement of the hunt.