title: droll
word count: 390
rating: G
notes: post-canon season 2
definition: (adj) amusing in an odd way
06. droll
"So then," Ciel Phantomhive says as he takes one more dubious sip from his afternoon tea, "what you're saying is that your life is at the mercy of my own hand?"
"Yes, that would be a most accurate presumption I suppose," his butler speaks in a manner that is foreign to his tongue. Briefly his master thinks that vaguely veiled insolence suited him better. It is, however, pleasant to finally have the last laugh in a manner of all matters because Sebastian is just a hair shy of groveling and Ciel always did like it best when his servants begged.
He places the ivory and gold set teacup on its matching plate as afternoon sunlight frames the back of his tall crush red velvet chair, and this moment may not have been so different from all the others before if but for one vital disparity between then and now.
The slits of his pupils narrow and the sigil burned into the iris of his right eye faintly begins to throb. Sebastian's mark has become his own and it binds them more closely than even a blood relation borne of another can. It is perhaps from this knowledge alone that he does in part feel slightly responsible for the current state of this now pitiful creature before him.
Still the thought of revenge is quite palatable to this new body's tastes; it gives refreshed meaning to decadence as it is by far the liveliest thing he's savored all week. Human food is finally beginning to lose its interest and even though he continues to gorge himself on it daily, Sebastian is right that there is a deeper and darker hunger brewing within him. It is the same feeling that haunts all demons, teetering them to just the verge of starvation.
He puts no emotion into his words as he says them, "and how is this any more different from when I was a human?"
"My Lord?"
Ciel resumes his tea and swallows the rest in one final gulp. Today's blend is superb, but it does not sate him; there will be better more filling meals to come in the near future. For now though he'll enjoy the muted looks of disdain sent his way from the floor down on one knee.
"Don't be afraid," he quips, "I won't let you starve."