Your Own Skin (Black Butler)

Dawdling at the Dispatch

William’s evaluation might have started at nine o’clock, but it lasted far longer than Grell had been prepared for. Then when Red was finished going over charts, graphs, and long tables of data that made very little sense to her, she saw it was nearly noon. Even though the evaluation was finished, Red wasn’t done. Grell found herself ushered into two additional meetings before she was finally able to return back to the dispatch, but by then it was nearly three in the afternoon.

She dragged in the front door, expecting William to have been waiting on her, but he was nowhere to be found. She found Ronald in the main office, flirting with one of the poor, young interns who wasn’t even out of Academy yet. For once, Grell was actually glad to be in Will’s body. She stood taller to give that William patented condescending air.

“Ronald. You must be done with your reaping assignments if you have the free time to be dawdling around here.”

Ron’s eyes went wide as he spun around, muttered some weak excuse to the exasperated intern, then jogged over. “Sorry, boss. I actually have just one more to do, then I’m finished.”

“Oh? So you’ve completed the necessary research then?”

Ron went a shade paler. “Most of it, sure.”

Grell stopped in her tracks. “Most?”

“Yeah, I figured I would get there a few minutes ahead of time, you know, just to make sure, but-”

Grell pushed up William’s glasses. The effect on Ronald was immediate. Suddenly he was all apologies, stumbling over his words, and stammering out barely audible excuses. “I promise, I’ll go right now.” He nearly stumbled over his own too feet in his eagerness to leave.

“Oh, and Ronald?” Grell asked, trying so hard not to burst out laughing at nearly making Ron piss himself with just a few choice moves. “Have you seen Grell around?”

“No, sir. I think she headed out early this morning. She was gone before I got in.”

Grell gave a brief nod, a smirk tugging at her lips as Ronald barreled out of the room. Why would her sweet William not be home yet? He didn’t say where he was going that morning, only that he had an idea of who could help. Surely he hadn’t gotten himself into trouble. Surely William wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. She growled in frustration, alarming several of the other interns in the room, but Grell barely noticed.

They needed to break this damn curse. If William was in danger, then she needed to find someone who could use magic, someone who could be trusted to assist them. She went to her room and fetched her red deathscythe with a devious smile. She needed to find Sebastian Darling.