It's Saturday! Yay! Also, new chapter-day. Well, not really because the site if acting stupid and won't let me do anything, so that totally sucks. Hope I can still update before I go to sleep D: (as a matter of fact: I could not. So it's coming up today. Which is for some of you still Saturday. Maybe. I think.)

I'm not sure if everything that happens in this chapter is going to please you, but I really enjoyed writing this chapter. Also, I'm trying to write ahead and when I reach a hundred followers, I will try to update every day for a week. But maybe not immediately after I gained hundred followers, because school and homework. And sadly, I'm losing followers too, so maybe it will take longer… I don't know. Also, sorry for the typos: I have problems.

And very important: I'm changing the title to 'An Awful Lot of Problems' not really the title I wanted, but I think the title now is just too long. So don't be shocked if 'Spare me the Trouble' is suddenly gone, because it has just changed its name, nothing else.

I don't own Kuroshitsuji (sadly enough), but I do own Clarissa.

Enjoy the chapter!

XxX

Chapter 38

As soon as Joker had left the circus tent, I said: 'I can't believe the entrance to the private quarters is a tent full of poisonous snakes…'

As Ciel seriously started to stretch, which wasn't such a bad idea seeing how people were staring at us, he added: 'Not guard dogs, but guard vipers, eh?' He said down and started to stretch in a weird way that I didn't understand why it would work. I sat down and did some yoga exercises.

Sebastian actually knelt down to help Ciel stretch. Jesus. 'Yes,' he said as he did that, 'I say, young master – or should I say 'Smile' – your muscles are very tight.'

I rolled my eyes. Geez. I wondered why the media thought they were a couple for a while.

'Keep your opinions to yourself!' Ciel said annoyed, but also sounding like Sebastian was hurting him. Then he got to the point again. 'I suppose we'll have to rise to the first string to access the private area.'

'Or we let Clarissa – or rather, 'Whisper' – handle the snakes while me investigate,' Sebastian said, clearly enjoying the idea of me in a tent full of deadly snakes. Bastard.

Ciel didn't agree. 'If you go for such a route if would be better if you handled the snakes. A few poisonous snakes should be no challenge for you.'

The smirk that appeared on my face because of what Ciel just said made Sebastian narrow his eyes.

I decided that I hadn't said anything for two long. 'Guys, what's important now is finding the children as soon as possible. So we need to know whether the children are here or—'

'They aren't here,' Sebastian interrupted me. He then gave me a sign to go something, so I decided to stretch myself. Yoga only looked cool for a little while.

'What?' Ciel asked, still sounding like this stretching of his hurts.

'I didn't sense them in the circus tents at all, either last night or during today's tour,' Sebastian answered, making me frown.

'Since when can you sense children?' I asked him, sounding more troubled than I should've sounded.

Sebastian looked at me with a look that I didn't understand, but it surely as hell was sexy. 'Children have very strong, uncontrolled emotions and I've seen the picture of those children, which also helps.'

Well, that clearly answered my question, but it only confused me more.

Then Sebastian stood up and pulled up Ciel, continuing to do stretching exercises. Now they were doing that thing that their arms were entwined and their backs were pressed together as the one pulled the other on its back and then the other way around. Of course Ciel couldn't lift Sebastian and of course Sebastian could do it with ease. It looked quite funny. 'Still,' Ciel said after a while, 'there's no proof that this circus isn't involved in the disappearances, either. We can't leave here until we've thoroughly investigated them.'

I sighed. That sounded like it would take a while. And even though I had laughed at Ciel when he had seen the tents, I certainly didn't want to live in those either.

'Indeed,' Sebastian agreed, now leaning on Ciel's back as Ciel tried to lift the way too heavy demon. 'After all, it's possible that they aren't in a fit enough state for me to sense them.'

'Don't say such unlucky things,' Ciel said as he stood up straight and Sebastian started to lift him up. 'She wished for their safe return.'

I looked at Sebastian as Ciel said that, unable to see Ciel. 'Qu—een fet—ish,' I mouthed to Sebastian, making him chuckle in surprise.

'What?' Ciel asked, immediately annoyed.

Sebastian ignored that. 'Very good, my Lord. Ah, and although I don't sense the children…'

I saw Dagger entering the tent and walking up to us and I immediately alarmed Sebastian with my eyes.

Ciel didn't get that message, though. 'What is it?'

I saw how Dagger leaned over to Ciel, who was still laying on Sebastian's back, and laughed as I thought about what this would look like to Ciel. 'Hey, you! Quit stretching and get practicing!' Dagger said loud and cheerfully. He seemed to be okay with Sebastian now, even though he had touched 'Miss's fair and soft skin'.

'Mr Dagger!' Ciel said as Sebastian put him down. 'Right, sorry!'

Dagger just smiled at him. I stood up too, joining the conversation. 'It's your first day, right?' Dagger asked, as if he didn't know the answer. 'I'll coach you through practice. First, we need to decide what your acts will be.' He then pointed at me. 'You obviously need to do something with animals, but that's a sort of act that can only be practised when Beast is around, since she is the boss over the animals. So I guess you can just practice the basic circus tricks. And you, Smile.' He looked over at Ciel. 'Any requests?'

Ciel pulled a sour face. 'I'd prefer something less physical. Greatly prefer.'

I held in a laugh, silently happy that I had nothing to do. It did remind me though that Ciel had left his walking stick somewhere. Geez, that kid really wasn't taking care of himself properly. Or maybe it had already healed. I wasn't sure if the doctor had said that it would heal or not and if it did, when. I should've written it down.

Dagger laughed. 'Yeah, you do seem pretty frail, especially with that leg of yours! Right then, I'll teach Smile all about knife-throwing.' He pulled out a few knives, seemingly out of nowhere. I had to admit; that was a pretty cool trick.

Dagger then turned to Sebastian. 'What about you, Black?'

'I have no particular preference,' he said innocently.

I rolled my eyes. Mister perfect.

Dagger believed him of course. 'Yeah, you're a real athlete! Try whatever you think you can manage. I'll watch!'

Wait, weren't you going to learn Ciel – or 'Smile' – all about knife-throwing. How can you do that while watching Sebastian? That sounded a bit strange. And dangerous.

Ciel sighed as Sebastian said 'of course' before running off, doing almost all the possible circus tricks available in the tent.

Well, this would get him into a private tents, but he didn't have to do to such lengths, did he? Ciel seemed to think so too.

'Well, I'll be darned,' Dagger said after he had told Sebastian he could stop. 'Another bright new star? I'd better keep sharp!'

This alarmed all three of us. Me and Ciel said at the same time: 'Another?'

'There's one more brilliant lad who just joined,' Dagger explained while the practicing circus artists who had stopped to watch Sebastian went back to their practice again. 'Look, over there!' Dagger pointed at the tightrope, only of the things Sebastian hadn't been able to do before Dagger stopped him.

We turned around to look, but even though Ciel and Sebastian made a soft noise that gave away that they knew the guy, I had never seen him.

'He's a former civil servant, or something, and he's strangely serious,' Dagger told us as we were observing the man.

Well, he clearly did not look like a circus artist and that wasn't because of the clothes, because the clothes were perfectly circuslike (purple pants and yellow jacket). The man just had a stern look, stern looking glasses and held himself like he was the Queen or something. And even from this distance I saw that his white skin was just as perfect as Sebastian's. The strangest thing about the man was the stick he was holding, which looked longer than he himself and had a strange sort of clipper on the end. It looked like a really big pruner, a gardening tool that my grandmother used to use. Not this long, though. He used the stick-thing to keep balance on the rope.

'Come down, Suit!' Dagger yelled.

'He's—' Ciel started, but Sebastian finished the sentence: 'A reaper.'

Oh, great. Another Grell. When did they meet this guy?

'If a reaper is here, one thing is certain,' Sebastian said, so soft that only me and Ciel could hear. 'And that is that soon, someone is sure to die.'

The reaper looked right at Sebastian and then at me, sighed and looked away. I wasn't sure what that reaction was supposed to mean. Then the man started to talk. 'Ah, yes, I thought I sensed something foul,' he said, loud enough for everyone in the circus tent to hear, but he didn't sound like he was raising his voice. 'For goodness's sake…' He swept his stick around and jumped down, pointed with the sharp end of the stick next to Sebastian head. 'I didn't think we'd meet again. What prey are you hunting for this time, you vile demon?'

My mouth went open. Not because this surprised me, but because this was the first time that I had met someone who knew Sebastian's identity and despised him for it. I mean, I could tell myself that I did in fact too, but I knew that that wasn't true. Ciel didn't seem to mind Sebastian's identity and Grell just thought it was sexy. This was sort of ground-breaking, this man who called a creature as handsome as Sebastian 'vile'.

People in the circus tent started to ask questions. 'Demon?' I heard a man's voice say. 'What does he mean?' a woman asked.

Ciel looked troubled, glaring over at Dagger, who just looked confused. I knew that no one was going to buy this crap, but Ciel didn't, apparently. 'Hey!' I said, crossing my arms. 'What are you on about?' I asked with a huge amount of sass in my voice, making Sebastian grin.

'As if it weren't bad enough that reapers are in such short supply, demons have to pop up everywhere, too?' the man said, clearly not done with being angry at Sebastian. 'And you even have the girl with you! I'll have to work yet another late night!'

He sounded like he knew a lot about reapers and demons… and about me. He called me 'the girl' as if that was just the way reapers addressed me. Perhaps I should ask him about demons. And maybe even ask him about myself.

The Dagger walked up to the man with a serious expression on his face. As Ciel gasped shocked I just shrugged, knowing that we had nothing to fear.

And I was right, of course. Dagger just gave the reaper a friendly smack. 'You say your gags with such a straight face, people can't tell they're gags!' he told the reaper.

The people present in the circus tent just started to laugh and Ciel sighed a relieved sigh.

'This guy has been cracking jokes since the day he got here,' Dagger tells us, almost in an apologetic voice. 'Going on about "souls" and stuff. He's an incurable occult freak!'

The reaper pulled his glasses up and I just noticed how beautiful his eyes were. A green colour that I had never seen before. I even thought that his eyes were more beautiful than Sebastian's eyes, or even Drossel's. And yeah, I had to admit that he was pretty attractive as well. 'I'm not joking, though,' the reaper said, but he got ignored.

'Let me introduce you to the new rookies!' Dagger said. 'The little boy is Smile, the little girl is Whisper and the big one is Black!'

Little girl? I was almost as tall as he was! Okay no, not really, but it still sort of hurt.

Dagger look from the reaper to Sebastian as he said: 'You two are our rising starts, so play nice, all right?'

The reaper looked at me for a while before turning around walking away. 'I flatly refuse to play nice with vermin,' he told Dagger as he walked off.

'"Flatly refuse?!"' Dagger repeated angry. 'Circuses run on teamwork, you know!' But the reaper wasn't listening.

'What is a grim reaper doing here?' Ciel asked quietly.

'It's rare for a reaper to go undercover himself, as well,' Sebastian said, not answering Ciel's question. Probably because he didn't know the answer. 'Still, this tells us one thing for certain. There's definitely something going on in this circus.'

XxX

'Why am I here, you ask?' The reaper – who I will call 'Joe' until I'm brave enough to ask his name – said. Me, Sebastian and 'Joe' were standing just outside the main circus tent, near the now empty vans, cars and trucks, where no one else was, because they were empty. It had already become dark outside and I started to feel hungry. When were we going to get food?

Ciel wasn't here because Dagger had taken him with him to learn him knife-throwing. I was here because I just followed them.

'To think I, an administrator, would be impressed into field duty to clean up after a certain prat in Collections while he's suspended! I curse my luck,' Joe said. 'I didn't think graduating with him entailed traveling round fixing his mistakes.'

I didn't understand anything he was saying but I supposed that was logical, so I just kept my mouth shut.

'I assume that a grim reaper personally doing undercover work implies special circumstances?' Sebastian asked, clearly trying to get more information out of him.

Too bad for Sebastian, because this man was way too smart to fall for that. 'Do you really think I'd reveal soul-related information to a demon? That would be like setting rabbits loose in front of a wolf.'

Sebastian just smiled innocently and shook his head. 'I'm afraid I have no interest in cheap souls.'

That kind of confused me. Cheap? Did souls cost anything? And what made Ciel's soul expensive, then?

'Fine words for a starving demon,' Joe said, making me frown. I saw Sebastian giving me a glare, almost trying to scare me away just by looking. I knew that whatever 'Joe' was saying next was something that I wasn't allowed to know. 'I know you're half-mad with hunger.'

Wait a second… WHAT? 'Wait,' I said, walking closer to 'Joe'. 'I thought demons fed on human emotions, that souls were just… tastier dinner.'

'Joe' looked at Sebastian with disgusted eyes. 'What kind of vile lies have you told the girl?' he asked him.

Again, that way he spoke about me just sounded like he knew me.

'Joe' then looked at me. 'Demons need human souls. Just like you need water and food. You can live for a while without both, you can live a while with just one of those two, but if you do that for a too long period of time, you die.' 'Joe' readjusted his glasses. 'Demons are just the same.'

Sebastian smiled, his eyes glowing and his teeth clearly sharper than usual. I walked closer to 'Joe' a bit, because he really did look very hungry. 'I've long since tired of ripping into every soul I see. The hungrier one is, the more satisfying one's dinner.'

I shivered and even grabbed 'Joe's sleeve out of fear. This did not look like Sebastian anymore. This looked like a demon. And for the first time in a while, I truly realised what that meant. I had forgotten it, let my guard down. I had started to trust him. So I was somehow glad that I was here now, to see that this monster was something I couldn't defeat. And something I couldn't love either.

'How perverse,' 'Joe' said, still as disgusted as before. Maybe even more now.

Sebastian closed his eyes for a short second as his human features seemed to come back, the demon was gone. 'Not as perverse as your temp worker,' he told the reaper, making me realise they were talking about Grell. 'And you can rest easy. I'm on a lead at the moment.' He took his glove off and showed the mark on his hand, to prove that he had a contract with Ciel.

That seemed to convince 'Joe'. Of what exactly, I wasn't sure. 'Very well,' he said. 'I'll speak plainly. In the next few days, we plan to review a large number of souls in this area. This is a very special case, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't interfere.'

Sebastian tilted his head to the side, looking as innocent as he could in the dark. 'That sounds very taxing. Why don't I assist you?'

That alarmed 'Joe'. He pointed the sharp end of his stick at Sebastian again, this time much more threatening. 'I can't abide unpaid overtime. If you interfere, I'll cut you down.' He pulled his stick-thing back.

'I don't associate with reapers for the fun of it in any case,' Sebastian said and something about his innocent act was creepy now that I had seen such a devilish side of him. I knew I had told him that I didn't necessarily wanted to see him in demon form, I was curious now. What would it look like? I bet it would look hideous. I bet that if I laid eyes on his demon form I would come to disgust him as much as this reaper-guy. And then Sebastian didn't have any power over me anymore. Well, that sounded like a good plan.

Then, almost as if Sebastian had read my mind, his expression became dark and devious again. 'Especially as I have no interest in cheap souls.'

'Oi!' a familiar voice shouted. Ciel approached the scene. 'The show's about to start. That obnoxious knife-thrower wants to speak to you.' I wasn't sure who of us he meant, but I was pretty sure I wasn't it.

'Joe' observed Ciel better now, looking at him from head to toe before sighing and adjusting his glasses again. 'He doesn't look like a high class choice to me,' he said, cheering me up just a little bit. 'Really, I'll never understand demons.'

Ciel frowned. 'Don't call him that here. They took it as a joke earlier, but still. If you can't blend in with humans, you're worse than that ginger riff-raff.'

'Indeed,' Sebastian said, his voice still cold and frightening. 'Now, we won't interfere with your work and you won't interfere with ours, agreed?'

'Joe's eyebrow twitched as he responded. 'Excellent, since I despise the very sight of you.'

'Perfect,' Ciel said, not even a little bit scared by his butler's strange behaviour. He even smiled, even though it wasn't a happy smile. It was his 'oh gosh, I'm so fantastic, smart and perfect'-smile. 'Then it's decided: we'll stay out of each other's way.'

'Well then, Smile,' 'Joe' then said, 'please keep your little dog firmly reined in. Also,' he pointed the stick at Sebastian once more. 'Leave the girl alone. As long as I'm here, you're not allowed to do anything to her that I find displeasing.' He readjust his glasses again. 'She even smells like you. It's disgusting.'

This made me frown, but also smile a little inside. It was great to know that at least someone was still protecting me. Ciel just frowned and looked over at Sebastian, who didn't react nor response.

Ciel sighed. 'Very well, I'll order him to do just that. Let's go, Sebastian,' he said as he walked away.

Sebastian followed him. 'Certainly.'

I didn't follow them. I stayed there with the reaper. 'What's your name?' I asked him.

He made a polite bow. 'William T Spears, but now known as Suit.'

'Aha,' I said, giving him a kind smile. 'Nice to meet you, Suit. I'm Whisper. And… thanks for standing up for me. Sebastian does sometimes bother me a little bit.'

Suit pulled up his chin a tiny bit. 'Well, demons are certainly dirty creatures, so I suppose it's only natural for them to mess with creatures like you.'

'You mean, humans like me?' I said, trying to ask another question than I was actually asking.

'No,' he said, 'he does way more vile things to the human soul than he will ever be able to do to yours. At least, I hope so.' He looked at me sharp before walking passed me, towards the big circus tent where visitors were now entering for tonight's show. 'Take good care of yourself, Clarissa,' he told me. 'And look out for those not to be trusted.'

And as I stood there in the dark between trucks I wondered what he'd meant, not even wondering how he'd known my real name. I was started to believe that I was famous in the world of the reapers, demons and other creatures. The bummer was that I still had no clue why.

But maybe Suit would put an end to that.

XxX

End of chapter 38! Today's word is 'bear' because I'm running out of options. Dutch: beer. Japanese: Kuma. So that was that.

Jacelover103: thank you! And see, I'm updating more! Hope you liked this chapter as well!