#actresque

“Your, um—your tea, miss...”

Or should it be milady? Lady Shiori has called “Miss Sutcliffe”, but Mr. Sebastian hasn’t said a word, like he’s pretending she’s not even there, and Rin’s never known him to be so—so—rude. It’s not like him.

It’s not like to raise his voice at a guest, either. Even one who’s screaming at him about things that, well—

What’s so lovable about that brat! He’s nothing! He’s a pathetic little human!

—It’s not Rin’s business what she’s heard. It’s her business to pour tea and represent the household well, and protect her Lady from harm.

Her guns feel heavy in their holsters and her hands shake as she pours the tea into Miss Sutcliffe’s cup.

you know she would.

“Pity. I’d hoped you’d drowned on that blasted shipwreck.”

Ciel can see Sebastian’s posture change in the corner of his eye, tensing like a predator about to pounce. He holds up a hand to bid him stop, at least as long as Sutcliffe hasn’t gone for the first strike; it’s too early in the morning for carnage in the foyer. He’d rather go back to bed than see anyone get a limb ripped off.

“I’ve offended you somehow, haven’t I?”

It’s hardly necessary to be well-liked by everyone she works with, and Shiori doesn’t strive for it in the slightest. Satou doesn’t like her. The NPA despises her. They suck it up and they bend to her orders because she has the authority to demand it, and so their personal feelings aren’t worth a damn when it comes down to it.

But she doesn’t have any sway over a Grim Reaper; the gentleman from the Shokan Division had been reasonable enough that that hadn’t been a concern, but Ms. Sutcliffe is an entirely different matter, and rather more distracting than Shiori would like when she’s been spending every meeting they’ve had staring at her like she’s ready to eat her alive.

Sebastian’s been being absolutely useless when it comes to his—ex, or whatever exactly Sutcliffe is, which means damage control falls to Shiori alone. She’d have to give him hell for it eventually, but getting to the bottom of all this is more pressing than that.

If he had just told me everything from the start...

“I don’t bear any ill will toward you, Ms. Sutcliffe. I’m grateful that you’re lending your expertise on this investigation, and while I don’t expect us to be friends, I’d at least like to know what I’ve done to upset you, so I can apologize for it properly,” she says, spinning her half-truths smoothly. She’s been polite from the outset, she thinks—even met Sutcliffe’s brashness head on and braved a dinner with the Nakagawas with no back-uo to give her an evening alone with Sebastian, but since then—

Since then. Well, that’s probably the whole of it, isn’t it?

grelle with her unfortunate adorable haircut, courtesy of a certain demon butler. short hair’s fashionable, grelle, it’s okay...

send me a ship and i’ll write five short scenarios/imagines | ACCEPTING

we already talked about this before and all the Pain that comes with it but the closest thing sebastian would ever give to a marriage proposal is suggesting that grelle become a demon, seeing as she’s already immortal and certainly has the bloodlust for it. what’s a bigger mood than grelle making fucked up decisions out of impulse and infatuation... but she’d certainly be deadly efficient. it’d never happen but if it did. LITERAL hell ship. (bonus because belias would absolutely fucking track sebastian down just to see what his new “student” is like and grelle did not sign up for really awkward meeting the parents she’s just in this for sex and murder since when do demons have POLITICS sebastian why is your teacher-dad like this)

on that note, role reversal where grelle’s a particularly bloodthirsty demon in a contract with madam red and sebastian is a very experienced (and very unconventional) reaper assigned to take a recently opened position in angelina dalles’ nephew’s estate to investigate her undercover and figure out what’s becoming of the mysteriously missing souls of her victims

an old idea for post-canon grelle i had was that she goes rogue and ends up with a job almost like undertaker’s, supplying her very particular knowledge to the underworld. movieverse post-ciel sebastian calling on grelle alongside his next few masters while the phantomhive line still lives in england... watching the world change, suddenly from the same side... idk man

cliche as heck but high school teacher au honestly??? grelle is the Extremely Extra drama teacher who’s everyone’s favorite (until they get on her bad side) and sebastian’s a hella strict history teacher and they bicker constantly and generally seem to despise each other so naturally all their students assume they’re fucking (they are)

“It appears you’ve stood to gain by my master’s sense of humor, Ms. Sutcliffe.”

Sebastian keeps his eyes determinedly off of Grelle’s, busying himself with dusting some already spotless shelves just so he has something to do. While the Nakagawa family are favorites of her Majesty, and surely no threat to their only daughter’s intended, it nags at him that the young master insisted on going to dinner alone. The most he had finally been able to coax her into was taking Rin along to wait in the car, but that was hardly the same as being there himself.

And she had done it for this—a reunion that he certainly could have gone without for the rest of his eternal life.

“Though I can assure you that he did not believe your lies about our acquaintance.” Of course not; she is far too clever for that.

And far too good at seeing through him. Better, by far, than he’s comfortable with. It’s an unfamiliar, exposed feeling—all the more baffling for the fact that he does not find it unpleasant in the slightest.

He frowns and dusts the shelf slightly more aggressively, as though it’s personally responsible for this—this—sentiment. It’s wholly unsatisfying.

Sebastian watches the young master as she brushes past him with barely a look at him, surprise on his face giving way to cold anger as he sees the pained expression on her face, the tears threatening to spill from her visible eye. There are kinds of suffering that can be quite gratifying—that which adds to the taste of the soul, for that is still the end to this tale, after all—but that Sutcliffe dared to do such a thing to his young master infuriates him. It’s more effort than he would like to keep his expression carefully neutral and to resist the urge to tear Sutcliffe’s throat out on principle just for half the things she’d said.

“I apologize for my master’s rudeness,” Sebastian says icily, staring at Sutcliffe through narrowed eyes like he’s looking on some particularly loathsome creature in the dirt. “I will fetch your coat so you can be on your way.”