Sickness unto foolish death

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Kuroshitsuji or any of it's affiliated characters and I am not gaining any remuneration for writing this story. Unfortunately.

Note: Well folks, I'm taking a little sidestep from my Yami fic to pen this short five or six chapter story for the very awesome Kuroshitsuji series. I suppose I should make note of a few things here. Obviously, this contains spoilers for the anime. I normally write in first person narrative because it allows for the reader to examine the thought process and feelings of the main character at depth and this is what I have done here. The themed pairing is Sebastian/Grell, though even at this stage I'm not quite sure exactly how much is going to happen between them. It may just be more of an insinuated thing. After all, we know what Sebastian is like! (Grell: I want your babies! Sebastian: Get the fuck away from me). As for the fic itself, this is a funny little idea that was just shelved in my mind for a while and weird as it may be, explores how seriously Grell takes his life. I also wanted to explore the lifestyle of the Reapers themselves and dig a little into the dynamics of Sebastian and Grell's relationship; such as it is. (Sweatdrops) The central foundation for the fic itself rose out of my wonderings of what might happen if Sebastian and Grell just sat and talked to one another at great length with great sincerity. I started meting out how this might happen and what would need to be in place to see it occur and all that. On that note, since this is set in England, I will be using appropriate English terminology and spelling, just to stay true to the cultural integrity of the piece.

Two pieces of artwork particularly inspired me whilst writing this. One you can see now as my profile picture; a brooding Grell, idly contemplating a strand of his hair. He looked so serious in this promotional piece that I couldn't help but wonder what might be going on in his head! The other is a particularly beautiful piece of fanart (sorry, I cannot remember the artists name for the life of me!) called Candle. I had written a scene for a later chapter where Grell sits at Sebastian's feet and lo and behold I found this picture in which the very same thing was happening! It made me want to go back and write the chapter with a little more depth and so I did! Anyhow, I give credit to these two pictures for inspiring me to pen this piece.

I also must give credit to the Silent Hill series. The story title is taken from an incredibly eerie and cold piece of music from Silent Hill 3, that for some reason reminded me of Sebastian. Anyway, that's enough fan wanking on for now! Grab yourselves a cup of your favorite beverage and sit a spell with me!

Chapter One: So Softly Stirs the Darkness

~ xXx ~

"A mighty pain to love it is,
And 'tis a pain that pain to miss;
But of all pains, the greatest pain
It is to love, but love in vain."
~ Abraham Cowley ~

~ xXx ~

Mine is a strange existence and the story that I wish to tell you, is perhaps even stranger than the sum of my entire extraordinary life. There is some part of me that feels shame in even inviting you to share in my experiences. After all, it is not for a life such as mine to want for the assurances and securities that those of mankind are accustomed to. Ours is a race, whose story is never told. We exist in neutrality, neither one complete state of being, nor any other. We are undefined, unknown and perpetually eclipsed by the shadows that come a second before all light fades and the fingers of darkness creep across the threshold and into the heart.

My name is Grell Sutcliffe. I am a Reaper, employed by the United Kingdom Ministry of Hades. My post is the Reaper Response Unit, whose task it is to gather the souls of the immediate departed and catalogue their life in preparation for imminent judgment in the Limbo Court. I have been serving in this role for… well, who can possibly be sure? After a while, all the tiresome days seem to bleed into wash; like tears falling upon drying ink. I can't imagine how long I may have been doing this for. Too long. But Reapers do not have the luxury of assuming contrary occupation. We are born a death god and so we live and die as such. I'm sure that is possibly the major contributing factor for where Will came across his dreadful coldness and I my terrible frustration. There are days where you can no more avoid these feelings then you can avoid smelling tea when it has been brewed on the table before you.

This is a strange story; again I serve to remind you friend because it is certainly not a Reaper's place to be subjected to intense emotions such as this. Ours is a world governed by sensibilities, rationale and realism. The rest is shadows and silence. The rest is secret.

But that is not the story I mean to bring to you today.

Instead, I intend to tell you the story that has facilitated the most unknowing and remarkable change in myself. You see; I have had three great loves in my life. I have never known such sadness as what it was to have loved these people. It occurs to me, more than ever before, that life is never quite so simple as we should hope it would be. Not even the supposedly structured life of a Reaper. What guides us as we set out across the far-reaching tableau of our existence is no more distinguishable than the fleeting stirrings of the heart and yet somehow more seamlessly complicated and inscrutable than the purpose of life itself.

Mine is a sickness unto the most foolish of deaths; and that death is perhaps the last breath within me that is ever so frail and human. The contraction of this sickness could have been any number of instances in my so long life. The three most important and likely occasions, I can count on one hand.

The first instance; the night in which I witnessed Madam Red committing one of her very earliest murders; I felt a tiding of empathy and adoration that I had never experienced for a woman before. This was a pivotal moment in my life, as was the instance of her death.

The second occasion, where the illness took firm grasp of my soul, was when I met him. The demon that had captured my heart so effortlessly with his proficiency, his strength and his beauty. Heavily laden by desire so purposeless that it never achieved a means to an end, I nonetheless kept him in my sights, hoping in vain that my luck would change.

The third occasion… it was not so long ago. So near was the time, that I can still smell the smoke in my clothing and somewhere, in the corners of my mind, the screams of the dying still linger, like an echo that just won't dissipate…

~ xXx ~

The year was 1889. The date was the 25th of April. The time was 2:35 am, give or take a tenth of a second.

London burned in the fires lit by the Ministry's own Celestial liaison Angela and the Reaper's were on the move. I was working hard, dissipating the blank souls that had been completely wiped from the Angel's revision process and gathering up those that could be taken in for judgment. The sky was dark from smoke and the sporadic fires continued to burn, though the source of their ignition had long since been eliminated. I couldn't say I was particularly sorry for that, as it did cut down on the amount of work we were expected to undertake. (It was however such a terrible waste of what could at times be a nice looking fellow). Knox (1), the junior in my division, had already started complaining about how much overtime we were putting in, though no one took him particularly seriously. This was the Reaper's lot; you understand. It was at times a thankless and unrewarding existence, that we were nonetheless obliged to perform.

I wasn't at all in the mood for complaining myself, poor though my temper can be at the best of times. (And tired, as I was) Between us, I confess that I was quietly grateful that nothing terrible had happened to me, as of yet.

You see, of all the key players in my afterlife, no one could suggest that luck played a particularly integral part of it. In fact, that bitch was noticeably absent whenever I needed her most and only turned up for the most inconsequential matters. Such as getting that terribly unattractive Ficus moved away from my workstation. Or keeping my hair frizz free whenever we had a young new intern.

I would hardly go so far as to suggest that I was ungrateful for these few instances of good fortune. What I do mean to express, most implicitly however, is that luck doesn't exactly favor the odds of Grell Sutcliffe. And why should it? I wouldn't put money on me. My successes have been inconsistent at best, though I had been at some point or another, one of the highest-ranking Reaper's in my division. Which sounds impressive but if one is to be perfectly candid, my rate of success was only so high because… well, in my humble opinion, I'm a little high-spirited. My work colleagues prefer other less eloquent terms, such as 'bloodthirsty', 'maniacal', 'hyperactive' 'attention deficit' but then you can't really blame them for being jealous of one, can you?

Because luck didn't have my back in life, I had always placed great emphasis on self-reliance and being forthcoming when going after something that I particularly wanted. As a result, I was extremely competitive by nature. Will often scolded me for 'squabbling over souls', as he put it, as though we Reapers were some inelegant creatures like seagulls, fighting over scraps of food! Uncouth that it is, I can see some truth in that comparison. A high gather rate meant the difference between keeping your job or being downgraded through the ranks of the demi-gods. This is why, despite being… em… misled by ones own modest desires a few times, one has still managed to maintain ones esteemed rank. Not an easy thing to do mind, especially when you're made to carry the lowest form of death scythe imaginable. (A pair of scissors that seemed to magically shrink a little more every day. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought that Will had developed a sense of humour and was suggesting my ego would have done well to follow suit. I aptly refused to take the hint).

But maybe luck was finally gracing me with its' company for once. With the fires of London lit beneath our feet, the Reaper response unit had been charged with bringing in a veritable host of souls for immediate process. The smoldering flames had taken a lot of people and we had been reaping all evening and well into the night in order to gather the stagnant essence. The Response team was so understaffed that Will had even needed to call in after hours to assist and went so far as to return my cherished mechanical death scythe. Even the Legendary Grim Reaper Ankou (2) had come out of retirement just to be of use to us that night. All in all a lovely time was had by all. Oh, except for those people that had died in the fire. And their loved ones and all that but really, what are they to us Reapers?

And what's more, William had informed us that the infuriating Celestial nuisance Angela or whatever it was calling itself at any given point in time, had been killed by none other than Sebastian.

Ah Sebby… perhaps the only thing in this entire big bad world that I relished as much (or perhaps more) than my droning death scythe. (After all, a death scythe could hardly keep your bed warm could it?) I'm speaking in a purely hypothetical sense, because in reality, I would have probably been safer spooning my death scythe then attempting to fork with that demon of a butler. Still, I had a great deal of experience in wearing people down to the bone and even someone as resilient as Sebastian only had so much patience. They say that a steady drop of water could wear a crease in the toughest of boulders. And I was not so much a drop as a deluge. I was counting on seeing results before the century was through!

Thoughts such as these buoyed my spirits and by the time I was able to slow down and take a break, my mood was positively bully. I found a place to rest on the side of a fountain (mostly reduced to rubble by this late stage) and pulled a handkerchief out of my inside pocket in order to dab the sweat from my forehead. My makeup had almost all but perspired by this stage and I could see the smears of eyeliner stain the white lace. I had been working very hard after all and the night was still far from over.

"Phew…" I whistled, putting the handkerchief away and pulling out my diary instead. A diary seems like an awfully strange thing to keep but most immortals make it a habit of theirs to record their thoughts and feelings, lest the passing of the ages weakens our memories and countenance. Mine was a lovely book with a dark crimson cover and a delicate ribbon used to keep out snoops and or other busy bodies that might have cared to pry into the more intimate details of my life. I unwound the ribbon carefully, trying to block out the sounds of something crashing heavily to the ground somewhere in the distance and opened the diary to the days date, taking a pencil from my shirt pocket and tapping the arm of my glasses thoughtfully with it. Honestly however, there wasn't much to amuse oneself in this particular edition and the details were fairly sparse, to say the least. I flicked a few pages back and perused my 'To-do-list'.

Grell Sutcliffe's 'To Do' List.

i. Sebastian. (Heh he).

ii. Behave self long enough to have Death Scythe returned to one. (I happily could now cross this one off of the list)

iii. KILL NUN! (This was written in very scrawly handwriting and I remembered jotting it down at the same time Sebastian had been copulating with that villainous little nightingale in the convents farmhouse. I'd tried to make good on this threat by scribbling her name into my Death Note but my claim as to why she needed to die earlier than her pre-determined DOD (date of death) didn't go over especially well with the Hades council and was booted out of court. Seems if you want anyone killed in this business, you gotta do it yourself.)

iv. Have Sebastian's babies. (I'd prefer to be getting to that one sooner rather than later. Where there's a will…!)

v. Get a kiss from Sebastian. (With tongue!) (Ah, that's right… the brat hadn't actually bothered to pay up on that one. What an infuriating squirt. It was quite enough to give abortion a good name and dampen any hopes for my wanting to have children of my own!)

I closed the diary and rethreaded the ribbon, my mind swooping back to Sebastian just as predictable in its pattern as the pendulum of a clock. He had confronted Angela, so far as information told us but what had happened to him following this? That creature had been the predominant driving force behind the death and mutilation of the Phantomhive family. As such, if she were dead, did that not suggest that the brat had acquired his revenge, as stipulated in the contract meted out between he and Sebastian?

I felt a chill down my spine, completely out of context with the fires that continued to burn through the city around me. If the contract was complete, then Sebastian would take Ciel's soul as payment for his service, as was his right. But this would mean that his job here on earth was fulfilled. He would return to the Underdwelling and I might not ever come upon him again, no matter how long a Reaper might live for! There are millions of demons and Sebastian was only one amongst many. Why, I had no utter conception of what his true name was, never mind how I might even go about finding him.

You might think me terribly heartless to disregard the boys' soul in this equation and you would be quite right to think so. By human standards anyway. We Reaper's however are raised to exercise practicality when undertaking our jobs, otherwise, how might we survive? I felt no more at a loss for the death of that repugnant boy, than I perhaps might have regretted a leaf falling from a tree. It was not a fixed expectation I might have ever entertained and no one is so foolish as to hinge his or her emotions upon a leaf clinging to a branch forever. That was how we gods of death were trained to look upon the world; with delicate and dispassionate disassociation.

What I did regret most however, was the loss of Sebastian, should he have fulfilled his contract. Demons were not like humans; as you might have now come to realize, Sebastian was impeccably difficult to dispose of. Reapers generally dislike Underdwellers, (3) as they present a veritable threat to our job description but our feelings towards them are permitted to exist at a not so detached level, owing to their power and immortality. And Sebastian was a demon quite unlike any other. It had been quite some time since I had seen an Underdweller form a Faustian contract with a human and fulfill its duties with such steadfast, unyielding determination. Sometimes, I couldn't be sure whether to laugh at this display, or to sit there open mouthed in astonishment.

One thing was for certain however; I had a weakness for handsome men and Sebastian certainly wasn't the first to snag my attention. (And he wasn't likely to be the last). But he'd certainly snagged it more securely than most others. I found myself thinking about him constantly; about the perfect angles of the human face he had forged for himself, the fierceness in his gaze and those ever so deliciously rare moments when he allowed a shred of his true feelings to peek through. And I'd always been a sucker for dark hair and eyes, so these aspects of his appearance certainly aided in making the demon of a butler perfectly irresistible to me. It was just such a terrible shame that he adamantly refused to reciprocate these feelings.

I though I'd had all the time in the world to turn him around to my way of thinking. How little I had after all! If the contract was on the very verge of completion, then not only would I lose Sebastian, but I would also lose what little leverage I had with him!

How ironic that I would finally consider that brat Ciel more useful alive than dead. It became comparatively clear to me that I needed to find him before he turned his soul over to Sebastian for consumption, or else risk losing track of the demon forever. (I'd guarantee he would run like a spurned hare just as soon as his work was done).

I'd been contemplating such thoughts for what must have only been a few minutes but it was long enough for William to send someone to check up on me. Fiona Ashmore, another member of the Reaper Response Unit dropped down from the roof and landed in front of me, hand perched jauntily against her hip. Fiona had peculiarly colored hair; a black so deep it appeared almost blue. It wasn't styled to fit with the current trend of most women (long and pinned back) but cropped even shorter than Madam Red's had been and tucked in straight against her chin. She also wore dark trousers, mid shin length boots and a basque bodice with wide sleeves. She of course had glasses, just as all Reapers' did. (Our eyes are formed to pick up on Paranormal discrepancies, such as departed souls and are generally incompatible with the physicality of the Waking World. Glasses are necessary in order to focus our sight). She carried her Death Scythe (taking the form of an oversized blood red pick axe) over one shoulder and tapped it against the top of her spine as she strutted over and flashed her teeth at me.

"Sitting down on the job? Guess I should be surprised not to find you on your back."

I revved my Death Scythe threateningly but Fiona knew me well enough by now just to ignore it. She bought the Pick Axe down and tapped me on the head with the side of it.

"William says you haven't brought in another soul for a while. I told him we've just about rounded up everything there is to be had but he seemed to think you were slacking off anyway and sent me to find you." She straightened up and looked about, her delimited yellow eyes peering out from a face that was darkened from smoke and ash. "By the by, you haven't seen Alyssa and Knoxie about, have you?" There were another two members of the Response team with whom we were both chummy. I shook my head as I slipped my diary back into my pocket and climbed to my feet, giving my backside a dusting off as a I stood.

"Not since we started our initial sweep. I'm sure they'll come drifting in eventually." I set my droning scythe against my shoulder and started back down the laneway towards the designated gathering point for the Response Unit, Fiona trailing along in my wake. "My guess is, they're having entirely too much fun and forgot to check in. That's easy enough, isn't it?"

"Maybe for a crazy person like you," Fiona muttered, winking at my offended expression. "As for the rest of us, we try and keep Will happy so that we get paid at the end of the week. A concept that seems entirely lost on you, son."

"So, perhaps irritating Will isn't in my best interests but one needs to unwind now and then… and don't you find this work so predictable and boring sometimes, Fiona?"

Fiona raised one dark brow, to show exactly how surprised she was to hear such a thing. "If there's one thing you can say about a Reaper's occupation Grell, it's that it is hardly ever what one might call a predictable line of work. You just happen to have the attention range of a thimble."

I opened my mouth to tell her exactly what I thought of her unsolicited input when I was interrupted by a pitiful little whimper from down an alley that we so happened to be passing. Fiona and I turned to look up the laneway in one fluid corresponding movement and then came back to look one another in the eyes, each of us no doubt thinking the same thing.

"You miss one along this way, Grell?" She asked, squeezing the handle of her Pick Scythe just that little bit tighter. I could see the competitive gleam in her eyes and I realized for once that my own didn't match it.

"I had assumed that it would pass away in due recourse but that obviously didn't happen," I said, sheathing my scythe into the leather holster on my back before striding headlong into the alleyway. The woman's body was just where I remembered it, the bundle still held tightly in arms that had long succumbed to rigor mortis. A fat fist waved feebly out from the swaddling clothes and I pushed back the outer blanket to expose the face of the infant, perhaps no older than four months. Its face was pinched in anguish, tears and mucus congealing on its' upper lip and it squalled loudly for seeing someone. I was greatly surprised that it was still alive, having passed by an hour earlier and finding it in poor condition even then. I'd assumed its' soul would be dually picked up by some other Reaper in the course of their duties and spare me the trouble. I will admit; I had a soft spot for babies, even if they were human and not my own.

Fiona knew this but she still seemed surprised. "Grell, are you getting soft in your old age?" She knelt beside me, pulling a little more of the blanket aside in order to better examine the infant. "Why, it's so young I'm quite surprised it lived so long as it did!" She set her arm down over her knees and gave me something of a concerned look. "You do realize Grell, that this would fall under the grounds of Justified Termination? It would spare the child further suffering if you had severed its' cord when you'd first come across it."

"I realize that," I said moodily, unable to tear my eyes away from the child's charmingly plump features. It reminded me of a squash; all round and soft at the corners. It made my heart pang to think I would never be able to bring an enchanting life such as this into the world. "And I do apologize if I had a weak moment, missy but you in turn shouldn't ever take for granted that you have the liberty to pop one of these out whenever the fancy takes you. I for one don't have that luxury."

Fiona pulled a face and bunted me in the side of the head with the handle of her Pick Scythe. "Excuse me but I can't just 'pop one out' whenever I feel like it! There's a long involved process involved in the preparation of such things that you, dear fellow, may not be so well acquainted with."

"I am so acquainted with such things!" I snapped, lashing out with my hand and striking only air. Fiona had nimbly rolled backwards and onto her feet, dodging my attack as effectively as Sebastian might have done. "However, I'm only acquainted with my particular means of going about it. I couldn't even begin to imagine what it is like between… well…"

"A man and a 'real' woman?" Fiona provided, scathingly. I scowled at her over my shoulder.

"Yes, thankyou Fiona. I was going to say 'between other people' but your answer is just so much more insulting."

"Don't blame the mouthpiece. Anyway, if you haven't the stomach to reprise the child's soul, then do step aside so I might be done with it." She hefted the Pick Axe over her shoulder and lowered it so that one point touched the ground behind her. I watched as the muscles in her arms flexed and she gestured with her head for me to move out of the way so that she might sever the infants cord.

But I was having the most devilish time of disassociating myself. It had been a long day and my emotions were on tenterhooks as it was. Sebastian may have been lost to me forever and that was a loss in more ways than one. My life would be twice as boring and I would have to live the rest of it knowing I'd let a huge hunk slip through my fingers! Why, living with such knowledge seemed like a rather impossible thing! And perhaps I was getting softer, who knows? But looking at that child, I was struck with the sudden and unsurpassable feeling that I was standing at a cross roads and my decision regarding this infant's fate would muchly determine all else that followed along behind it. I realize now that sounds like an entirely foolish thing to say because when doesn't one's actions ever make a difference in their future? What was clear to me though, was that I felt inexplicably tied to the fate of this child. It would change something in my life at an enormous level. I had no real way of knowing that of course and maybe I was simply feeling tired and hormonal but there it is as I then saw it.

Undecided as to a furthered course of action, I pressed my fingertip against the infants cheek and felt the softness beneath my glove. The child made a soft whimpering noise and grasped my finger between its' little fist and held on tightly.

And so it was that I came to find my third great love.

~ xXx ~

The candle is burning low, so for now I give pause. The hour is late and the darkness softly stirs, inviting me onward towards ever-elusive sleep.

Until next we speak, kind soul.

With fondest regards,

Grell Sutcliffe.

~ EC ~

1. Knox/Knoxie: Ronald Knox; a Reaper that appears briefly in the Kuroshitsuji manga to assist William. He will feature in this story quite a bit!

2. Ankou: In old English literature, Ankou was a figure with burning eyes that drove the carriage of the dead and harvested souls. It is the name I have given to the Undertaker and how the Shinigami know him.

3. Underdwellers: The political correct term for demons.

A/N: Well readers, I hope that there was some enjoyment to be found in this! The chapters from hence forth on will be much more light hearted and easy going. (And involve Sebastian, I promise!) Leave a review if you enjoyed and I look forward to seeing you all in Chapter two, when Knoxie makes a very surprising discovery! Ciao!