"What did you do to them?" Timothy asks a few months since the household has finally consolidated as a functioning union, his intelligent eyes narrowed as they look at his servant over his steaming cup of tea.
Bruce smiles his most absent-minded, gentle smile.
"I'm afraid I don't understand, Young Master," he says, tilting his head when the boy's glare intensifies.
"Oh, you don't," the young lord says, snapping his fingers and raising an eyebrow when one of his other servants instantly appears on his doorway, eyes wide.
"Did you call me, Young Master?" Cassandra struggles to say, her steps hesitant as she approaches her Young Master.
Tim smiles sweetly at her, his cheeks flushed, his eyes bright.
"Good Morning, Cass," he greets, his hand reaching for her own just as she notices the dishes from breakfast and tries to retrieve them for washing.
The young woman stops her movements when her skin makes contact with her master's, her blood boiling inside of her veins, her eyes clouding with emotions just as her lips can emit a small, voiceless moan of pleasure.
"Y-young… Master," she whispers, her eyes closed in rapture.
Tim feigns innocence.
"Tea was delicious this morning, Cass," he whispers, his thumb caressing the pulse point in her wrist to the point her hands shake too hard for her to take the delicate china cup without breaking it. "Thank you so much."
Tim's eyes are sharp as he sees how his maid's ankles cross, how her lips tremble for a moment before she somehow manages to pull herself together and, wordlessly, she bows to him and disappears with the dishes.
The Lord looks at his Butler then, an eyebrow raised when the older man seems to sigh in satisfaction.
"You feed off them," Timothy accused, rolling his eyes when Bruce simply smiled benignly. "You feed off their need."
"As I explained when I entered your service, Young Master, I am not like other demons that will patiently await the completion of their contracts before consuming their bonded's souls," the other man said. "I need to feed in order to properly function as the servant you need. And the fact that the lust they feel for you only serves to chain them further in your command is an added bonus for your plans, am I wrong?"
Frigid blue eyes locked with pale, dead ones.
Bruce instantly caught the letter opened his master threw at him with dexterous fingers.
"Don't influence them without consulting me first, Bruce," the teen said as he stood to leave his study. "That's an order."
The older man bowed then.
"Yes, my Lord," he promised, his eyes glinting preternaturally.
The demon felt, nonetheless, a shiver run down his spine as his merciless master abandoned him in the room, and he knew, deep inside of him, that his Young Master would continue to feed him despite his apparent reservations against such manipulation of his other, human servants.
He watched as Richard curled on the floor after a tiring day in the gardens, his face shyly pressed against his Young Master's knee, his bare toes curling and uncurling in the grass as the young noble ran his fingers through his hair, pulling soft moans and groans from his elder, childhood friend.
How his Lord Drake would occasionally stare at his hidden place in the shadows of the Manor as he allowed Jason to run his hands over his chest, carefully plucking at the Young Master's nipples until they were hard and ready, how he allowed the Cook's tongue to play with the delicate shell of his hear, only to reach with one small hand towards the man's cheek and whisper a soft: "Come." In his ear.
Lord Timothy Drake knew that his butler needed feeding.
Was feeding him the emotions, the bare, lustful need of his other servants.
Yet, the message was very clear.
"You have yet to earn the right to my body, Bruce," he could see written in his Lord's eyes.
Foolish human boy, he thought, to believe a demon as ancient as Bruce would be swayed by something as ridiculous as human envy. He didn't care who the Young Master shared his body with, as long as those feelings were around to feed him.
He did not feel jealous.
Resting back in his bed, fingers beckoning Dick between his thighs playfully in ways that make the other young man eagerly crawl to him, Tim grins a devious little smile.
When he signed the contract with the Demon that was now his servant, he had been careful, he had learnt of those that came before him.
And one day, his Bruce demon would learn what it meant to be residing in a human body, with a human heart.
But for now, he will continue to play them all, to tie them all to him and his indomitable will.
He needs them for his revenge.
He will survive this dance with the devil and come out on top with the head of the one who took his mother and father from him.