In time for tea

[danzanelfuoco]

BLACK BUTLER 

666 parole 

COW-T (Sagra): Labirinto

 

If only he didn't have tea to prepare, a cake to bake, making sure Baldroy doesn't blow off the kitchen, and a table to set while saving the dishes from Mey-Rin, all in time for Miss Midford's visit Sebastian would find it endearing. Oh, these humans do try at least.

The labyrinth is a beautiful piece of work, dark and gothic, shadows lingering in every corner, and a malicious aura that reeks of home. A perfect place to hide the brat and wait out for the eventual rescuers to lose themselves. Sebastian chuckles, but at least he has to hand it to them, they have style and they have been smart enough to kidnap the boy right under his nose - not an easy task. 

Now, what exactly they plan to do, he doesn't know - he doesn't care, as long as the boy stays safe as per contract, - but he can wonder. Who do they plan to ask for a ransom, anyway, when the Head of the Household is the one they are holding hostage? And why someone would feel the need to take that obnoxious child otherwise? Well, he might just as well ask them directly. 

So in the labyrinth the demon goes and yes, it’s really convoluted, full of dead ends and paths that just turn around and bring you where you were before. Well yes, it would have worked, if he only were more gullible, someone who didn't use a supernatural ability to know exactly where his master was, someone who could be swayed by a few branches of European boxwood grown in a peculiar shape. In few words, if he weren't a creature from Hell. 

Be as it may, Sebastian, who could cut through the foliage and reach the center bypassing all this melodrama, takes his time instead, pacing leisurely the convoluted paths that lead to the center, always knowing where to turn. He might need to be back by five but he's in not that much of a hurry, after all, he is one Hell of a butler. 

"I've told you, I am the Earl of Phantomhive," Sebastian hears the boy say - irritated as if this is something that he's been saying for the past hour and it's getting old, - even before he reaches the clearing that is the center of the maze. "I won't write a ransom demand to myself." 

Yes, so money it was. One would think kidnappers would at least gather some information before embarking on something that will leave them dead.

Well, at least, he's getting some fun. 

Sebastian smirks and steps into the clearing. 

The kidnappers, two burly men with scars on their faces, don't even notice him,  deep in conversation as they are, but the boy's head snaps in his direction as if he had called him by his name. There's something that softens in his features, something that relaxes and melts away as if he had put on all of his bravado, but he wasn't really sure he would be saved, - as if Sebastian had ever failed him, the demon would scoff. But still, he knows every kidnapping he goes through, brings back memories from a past best forgotten. Or maybe not best forgotten at all. After all, Sebastian does enjoy the bursts of fear and sorrow, anger and pain, that emanate from the boy afterward, as he searches for comfort in his arms. It's just a foretaste of the meal to come. 

Sebastian takes out his cutlery, the pale glint of the sun reflecting on the metal.

“Please Sebastian take your time. I'm in no hurry." 

Sebastian smiles politely, his lips straining. Ungrateful child. 

But he'll have his satisfaction afterward, when the men will lay dead in a puddle of their own blood and the ropes around the boy's wrists will be cut off. 

He will have his satisfaction, just you wait.