I

Running on Empty

"Oi! Listen to me when I'm talking, damn it!" the boy seated behind the massive mahogany desk barked, pounding a fist on the desktop and glaring up at the dark butler looming over him. The servant seemed a bit dazed.

"My apologies, young Master. I was distracted. Could you please repeat?"

There were few things Ciel Phantomhive resented more than not being properly and respectfully attended to when he was speaking. It ranked right up there with being underestimated due to his age and size. Repeating himself was also far from a favourite hobby.

"Sebastian, exactly what is wrong with you? Am I going to need to get myself a cricket bat for your shins to make certain I've got your attention before I start speaking?"

The demon sighed and slumped a fraction. He really couldn't blame the boy. At the same time he couldn't very well tell him he'd been suddenly captivated by the vein currently pulsing with so much vigour in the boy's slender neck, or that his mind had been kidnapped and dragged off by thoughts of the rich red ichor coursing so lustily just beneath the boy's paper-thin skin, skin he could so easily...Tch! damn it! Nor could he easily explain about the delectable soul-fragrance wafting upon the young earl's breath, completely enveloping the demon in temptation with every furious word flying from the angry boy's mouth. It was setting Sebastian's mouth to watering so hard he was nearly choking on it. Fighting it was making him remember potent and filthy curses in languages he hadn't uttered in centuries. Nor did he think it either helpful or wise to inform the boy that with every day that passed, behaving normally-like a normal human, that is- around the young master was getting more and more difficult, setting off stronger and stronger cascades of hunger and an insistent urge to relax into his proper shape, shed his elegant but restrictive butler persona, spread his wings, flex his claws and pounce on something like the predator he was. He could hardly tell the young earl the reason he seemed so distracted was he was fighting an overwhelming urge to give in to his true nature, scarf down the boy's delectable soul like a choice bonbon and then scarper.

Brave and jaded as the young earl was, Sebastian felt certain the young earl Phantomhive was not yet ready to face his butler's true form, particularly not when he was practically ravening, so savagely gripped by a hunger so fierce and implacable he'd nearly gone feral with it three times in the last two days alone.

Sweet Tartarus, this bloody contract is taking forever...

He needed a solution, some course of action to ease this terrible, grinding emptiness gripping him. It was all his mind seemed able to hold onto lately. He feared the boy was going to lose patience and order him to confess what was really amiss. He didn't like to think where that particular conversation might lead.

It was law: you did not hunt for souls when in a contract. But demons were hardly the law-abiding type of creature. Oh, they may toe the line if it suited their current purposes, but at bottom no demon really gave a fig for rules.

Sebastian Michaelis was going hunting, damn it. Let anyone who cared to object just try and stop him.

The boy frowned, fuming. He'd finally finished giving the butler a piece of his mind and his orders for the day. Privately he wondered how much of it had penetrated the fog Sebastian seemed to be in. The faltering demon turned and without even his customary act of fealty, practically fled the Phantomhive presence, seemingly fearful of what the result would be if he lingered any longer.

The young earl sighed. He was having issues with Funtom ltd. again. He'd given the demon butler (and part-time henchman) an assignment that involved travelling north to Salford, just outside Manchester, to one of his Lordships soft toy assembly shops and sort things out. The demon seemed only too thankful to be going.

Sebastian was glad to be heading north. Not only because it put distance between himself and his little master, but because Manchester happened to contain one of his favourite hunting grounds and he was only too eager to get to it.

But first, the Funtom issue...