A/N: Okay so there are triggers in this for murder and death and stuff, but it's not actually dark.
In all honesty, this wasn't Annie's fault. If this guy hadn't tried to attack her in the first place, she wouldn't have had to kill him. That, and she pretty much just went on auto-pilot anyway. Fifteen years of her father making her take self defense classes and compete in tae kwon do tournaments had thoroughly prepared her for any kind of physical fight necessary (perhaps too thoroughly).
Standing in the back of an alley, looking at an eyeless, dead man with his head still smeared across the brick wall behind him, she was almost surprised to find that she harbored no guilt towards his death. Annie glanced down at her gloved hands; the thumbs of them grotesquely slimy with blood and eye matter. At least she hadn't gotten any finger prints on the body.
She wrinkled her nose and sighed as she looked around the alley. The only sights to take in were a green dumpster covered in graffiti, the dingy brick walls on three sides of her, and a gray street illuminated by an equally gray sky overhead. She was fairly sure that no one had seen or heard their little tussle; after all, they were in an alley between two abandoned buildings on some secluded back street .
Despite the lonely location and how quickly the act was committed, someone appeared nonetheless.
"Did you kill this man?" the person asked.
Annie whirled around to see who was talking. "Who the hell are you and how did you get behind me?"
It was a dark-haired girl much taller than Annie and dressed in all black but for a red scarf wrapped around her neck. Her hands were in the pockets of her leather jacket and she looked as relaxed as could be, even while gazing at the body of a man just killed.
The woman turned to look at her. Her eyes were a soft gray, Annie noticed- though why she would notice something like the color of a pretty (and probably dangerous) girl's eyes at a time like this was beyond her.
"Did you kill him?" the woman repeated.
"He tried to attack me. His death is his own fault," Annie replied, keeping her tone level and her eyes locked on the other girl's.
The other girl just shrugged. "Alright."
Annie was stunned. How could someone appear out of nowhere, ask her if she'd just killed a man, and then nonchalantly say "alright"? Her expression grew annoyed. "'Alright'? Who the fuck are you? What are you even doing here and how did you get here without me seeing you?"
The other girl moved towards the man on the ground and squatted down next to him, looking him over. "You sure did a number on him," she murmured. Without another word, she reached to her belt loop where a small scythe was hanging, pulled it off, and slashed it across the man's throat. "Alright. I'm done here," she stated as she stood up.
"Oh my god what the fuck was that?" Annie demanded of the other.
"I just cut the last tie of his soul to his body. Now his soul can go wherever the hell it's supposed to."
"You just slit a corpse's throat open with a scythe. That isn't some soul-freeing bullshit, it's just mutilation of a dead body."
The black-haired woman sighed and Annie got the impression that she had to explain herself all too often. "Okay, I'm Death. Like the Grim Reaper, but real. I set his soul loose so that my brother can determine where it goes. Now, I have a lot to do, so if you'll excuse me."
"Wait." The woman turned and looked at Annie. "You're not going to tell the cops or anything?"
"My job is to sever ties, not nark on people."
With that and a faint puff of smoke, Death vanished.
Annie was undoubtedly shaken up. She had returned to her apartment running at top speed the second Death had left. Immediately after the door had closed behind her, she stripped off all her clothes and headed straight for the shower. Now, she was standing under lukewarm water pounding at her back, and staring into nothingness.
She had just killed a man. She killed him and left his body in that alley to rot. But he had deserved it. He would've done the exact same thing to her and gotten away with it. That was exactly what she would do: get away with it.
Nobody would ever find out. She had no previous run-ins with the law and there was no reason for her to be under suspicion of killing him. She would be fine in regards to that. Everything would be fine.
More disturbing to her than killing her would-be attacker (perhaps more disturbing than anything Annie had ever gone through) was her run in with Death herself. How could such a supernatural force even exist? Why would she let herself be seen by a human? Was Annie going crazy? Was she dreaming?
Questions that only produced more questions swirled in Annie's head for what could've been hours. She only got out of the shower when the water turned to ice and froze her to the core. Her mind now nearly numb from the whirlwind it had become, Annie slumped into her room and flopped down on her bed, asleep before her head even hit the pillow.
When she woke, it was with a start and the memory of soft gray eyes and faint puffs of smoke invading her dreams. She shook herself and attempted to slow her breathing. The sky was no longer dark when she gazed out her window; instead it had a light hue.
It must be almost seven Annie realized. She looked around her room and gathered her thoughts before she remembered all the events that had taken place the night before. With a groan, she sat up in bed and swung her legs over the side.
First thing was first: she had to check the news. She spent a good hour and a half scouring various local news TV stations and searching the internet for any sign that anyone had found a man murdered and eyeless near her. Once satisfied with the complete lack of any articles or news segments on the matter, she set about getting rid of her now ruined and crusted gloves.
Luckily, her kitchen stove was a gas one and she could use the small flames that sprouted from it to burn the gloves. It was somewhat difficult to get them burned to ashes without setting off her smoke alarm and she had to use all four burners so that the ashes wouldn't pile up too much, but she got it done.
Annie supposed that now everything was over. She could relax. Nothing would come to haunt her and there was no evidence to tie her to the body.
Relaxation did not come to her as easily as she thought it would.
It wasn't because of the man she had killed though. No, they had only found him two days after she had killed him and nobody had even spoken to her yet three days after his body had been discovered.
What haunted Annie was not the supposed vice that she had committed; it was the gray eyes, the black hair, the smooth voice, the calm demeanor. Death had wreaked havoc on Annie's mind. At night her dreams replayed every part of her meeting with Death in complete detail. She would wake up panting and convinced that Death was right there, that Annie should just reach out and touch her.
It wasn't until the dreams started changing that Annie started to really worry. One night, when Death asked her if she had killed that man, Annie simply said yes to her. Death turned to Annie and edged in closer, closer, until they were nearly nose-to-nose. Annie could not look away from Death's eyes and she felt cold breath ghost over her face. Slowly, the gap between them closed and their lips brushed gently. Lips began to close and arms began to snake around shoulders and this was exciting, and this was right, and-
Annie awoke with a sharp intake of breath.
Fine. Fuck it. Fine. She would see Death again.
It had taken careful planning on her part and weeks of looking into the backgrounds of several people accused of heinous crimes before she found somebody that she decided the world wouldn't miss. Finally, the day had come when she stood over the body of a man, bloodied knife clutched in gloved fists.
Annie took a deep breath and looked around. Again, nobody around and nothing to see.
"Again?" came a voice from, once again, behind Annie.
Annie turned sharply, though she was not surprised this time. "I- he had it coming. He deserved it. When you see what he's done, you'll realize I did the world a favor."
"I don't get to judge people like that. Again, that's my brother's job." Death looked at Annie briefly before kneeling down next to the man and slitting his throat too. "So," she began conversationally, "you went for a knife this time?" She glanced back at Annie who said nothing. "Nobody's caught you yet?" she questioned, standing up and walking back to Annie.
"No. I'm smart. I won't get caught."
"A lot of people have said that to me before. Most of them were wrong though."
"Other people have seen you before me?"
"Some. I usually wait until the soul is alone or I erase the memory of anyone who saw me. I wasn't as careful about erasing memories in my early days of the job though. That's where all the stories originated from."
Annie took this all in, blinking rapidly when she realized something. "Why didn't you erase my memory?"
Death said nothing, but gave a small shrug and tugged her scarf up to her mouth, still staring at the body. She glanced once more at Annie, trying to decipher this human's expression. It was unreadable however, and Death stepped away from Annie and vanished once more.
"Wait-" Annie murmured to the fading smoke. Her voice fell on ears that were no longer present to hear her and she sighed, walking to the dead man and wiping the blood of her knife on his shoulder.
She tucked the knife under her jacket and quickly and quietly got back to her apartment. Once again, she took a long shower and pondered her encounter with Death. Once again, she fell asleep immediately. Once again, she woke up with phantom gray eyes staring at her from the darkness.
Annie's dreams did not let up. In fact, they steadily grew in frequency and vividness. The situation was different often times. Sometimes they would kiss. Sometimes she would follow Death into her puff of smoke. Sometimes Death would even kill her. Weeks passed like this. Strange dreams at night and looking for news of anyone possibly being able to link her to the two dead men in the day.
After one particularly long night in which she woke up multiple times, Annie decided that it was time for her to contact Death again.
Again, she planned everything out, selected a person that she thought would be the perfect candidate, and killed them. She met with Death again and Death left just as quickly with just as little said between them as before.
So Annie killed another person. Then another. Then another.
When killed for the 6th time, Death showed up, half expecting Annie to be there. She was right of course.
"Hey," Death greeted casually.
"Hi," Annie returned.
"Look, I don't mean to be rude, but I think I know whats going on here."
"What's that?" Annie asked, her heart beginning to pound.
"I think you have a god-complex. I see it occasionally. You think by killing these people, you're bringing them to justice because they've committed crimes. Am I right?"
"Um, no, actually," Annie stated, dumbfounded.
"Oh?" Death questioned as she severed the soul from the corpse. "What's going on then? Why are you killing all these people?"
"I just- You- You and I..." she trailed off and fell silent, not knowing how to convey what she had come to know over the past few months: she loved Death.
"Me and you?" Death prompted.
"I really like..."
"Oh." Death was silent for a moment. "Well, you're making my job a lot harder than it has to be. You could have just asked for my phone number and we could just go out for coffee."
For the first time in several years, a bright blush spread across Annie's face. She stood with her mouth agape for several seconds before she came up with, "You have a phone?"
Death laughed lightly and nodded. "I'll give you my number. Do you want to go get coffee with me on Saturday?"
Annie nodded in response and took Death's card.
Mikasa Ackerman
Death - The Grim Reaper - Soul harvester
XXX-XXX-XXXX
Annie stared at the card, finding the modernness of it to conflict with everything she had thought about Death. She ran her fingertips gently over the name at the top.
"Mikasa Ackerman," she whispered inaudible to anyone but herself.
"Okay," Mikasa said, interrupting Annie's thoughts, "I'll see you then. Call me."
"I will."
A puff of smoke, and Mikasa Ackerman was gone.
A/N: based off of this post: knic28 . tumblr post/ 109283142104
annies makin me think of light with the whole 'BLAH BLAH ITS COOL THEYRE CRIMINALS' and also i kept thinking of grell this whole time and gdi im a WEEABOO
also let me know if you want me to write something short about their date on saturday
