Chairs Over the Tables? Not Yet.
Last moments of the Universe/Total Entropy/After the End Times.
(In a place that's not exactly a place, but a metaphorical construct, that happens to look like a rather nice restaurant, right after closing time.)
Death looked around, a bit sad, her long work had finally ended. She was the last entity in the whole Universe. She could rest at last. But she had loved her job, and missed it already.
Death sat at the last table, her black leather pants, and black lace corset, well worn and lovingly maintained since aeons before, molded themselves around her body. She looked like a young woman, early twenties maybe; her dark eyes shone brightly, yet were also worn by time and experience. Her snow-white skin still looked as young and healthy as it had ever been. But...
The passing of her brothers and sisters had been very recent. After all, they were the seven incarnations of universal concepts, as understood (barely) by sentient beings all over the universe. And as the last sentients went the way of all flesh, so did her siblings.
Dream, Despair, Delirium, Destiny, Desire, and the brother who left his post, Destruction.
All gone.
She took a bottle and a glass from the last cooler in the Universe, and poured herself a drink. She had 'time' before closing the place.
And, more importantly, she also expected visitors.
The last door opened, and a dark figure stepped in. His black robes billowing dramatically as he stood for a moment at the threshold. Death smiled, Death (from the Discworld) had always liked drama.
"Hey," Death said, greeting her guest happily. "Welcome! Take a seat and rest."
The figure nodded, "HELLO, DEATH. I THANK YOU FOR YOUR HOSPITALITY." Death said, his rumbling voice resonating all over the place. He hung his scythe from a peg behind the door, and took seat next to Death.
He was a tall skeleton, his bones immaculately white and polished, never having actually being inside a living creature. As he approached the table, Death put his right hand into the folds of his robe, and extracted a smaller skeleton; the skeleton of a rat, to be precise. He put it carefully over the table, saying, "YOU WOULDN'T HAVE SOME CHEESE AROUND, BY ANY CHANCE?"
Death smiled warmly at the Death of Rats, he looked rather cute in his black robe. The small reaper chattered softly at her. A mortal wouldn't have understood anything, but all Deaths speak the same language.
"Of course it's no bother! I saved some especially for a special occasion. I even saved some blood for your friend."
"INDEED." Death approved. The Death of Rats extracted the Death of Fleas from the folds of his own robe, and put it on the edge of the blood filled thimble Death had taken from her cooler. After that, he sat next to a platter of cheese, took a piece, and nibbled it carefully; to make it last.
Death shrugged his bony shoulders, and looked around, "IT FEELS SOMEWHAT STRANGE, DOESN'T IT? TO FINALLY FINISH THE JOB, I MEAN, NOT THE COMPANY."
Death smiled warmly at Death, "It does, yeah." She poured a glass of cherry for Death. "Here you go. I thought cherry would be appropriate ."
Death picked up the glass, looking at it for a long moment. Had his facial bones been able to show any expresión beyond an eternal smile, nostalgia would be the only word to describe it. Finally, he raised his glass for a toast, "FOR THOSE WHO ARE NO MORE WITH US."
"For family, and Friends." Echoed Death.
Later. (Just how long later would be meaningless, as time really wasn't a factor anymore)
The place was full, as universes ended, their respective Death incarnations arrived to the last place. All the tables were full of Deaths. In one, a pale gentleman played chess agains a female skeleton in a purple robe, the Hood almost hiding the skull, both silent. One by decree, the other simply concentrated in his next move.
In the next table, two shinigami were deep in conversation, while a black man with a skull painted on his face waved his spiced rum glass, smoking a cheap cigar and roaring in laughter. The black man wore a ratty smoking suit, with no shirt or shoes, and he laughed and joked with a gray cloud/shadow, who someway, managed to play pool tricks in three tables at the same time.
It shot a ball in one table, the ball jumped to hit a wall, bouncing on a table, knocking down a bottle, setting it rolling down to the floor, in turn knocking down a lamp, and so on, until a long and improbable chain of events reached the other two tables, repeating the process until all the balls were sent to their pockets.
The door opened wide once more. In the threshold, a thin figure stood, silhouetted by the dim light. The figure's body language oozed clear irritation. Once he stepped in, he could be clearly seen.
Somehow, the bare skull held an expression of supreme annoyance. The teeth, which should have formed two fixed lines, held an expressive grimace over the blocky lower jaw, and the eye sockets actually frowned. The skull seemed to float inside the hood, White bone contrasting sharply with the red lining. No vertebrae were visible below the base of the skull.
The hem of his robes moved like tendrils, twisting, contracting and extending with each step. He held a simple scythe in his boney hands. Unlike the others, he didn't hung it in place behind the door, but kept it firmly in his grasp.
"Sorry ahm leit. Ai hadda brin'em wid me." He pointed his thumb behind him before being rudely pushed aside by a small girl who wore a pink sundress with a yellow flower in the center of the chest. Her blond hair formed a pair of short "horns" above her head.
She stepped inside, looked around, raised an eyebrow, and sneered at everybody. "What a sorry collection of freaks. I though that the end of everything would be a little bit more... interesting..."
Suddenly, another kid jumped in, yelling nonsense. "Uh, uh, uh! Look Mandy, they are playing checkers!I love checkers! And the pieces look funny!" He giggled uncontrollably, and in his hurry to look at the game more closely, his huge nose knocked down half of the chess pieces; then he grabbed a piece, and moved it all around the board, knocking down the surviving pieces one after another.
Both the late comer and the girl in pink looked at each other, exchanging looks of sufferance; both sighed, and walked into the room.
"Grim! Ahem, why did you bring mortals? Haven't you finished your job?"
The animated skeleton sat heavily on a chair, still clutching his scythe. "Ai can't. Ai canno' finish ma yob. Ai don'wanna tawk aboud It." He broke down in sobs a split second later, "Dey cheated! Nau Ai can't reap'em an' Ai can't finish ma yob! Dey forced me to brin'em heer!" He buried his face in his hands, openly crying. Death patted confortingly Grim´s arm.
Meanwhile, the girl, Mandy, (according to the idiot who was still jumping around the place), walked around, examining everything with critical, merciless eyes, clutching her hands at her back.
The boy practically teleported from one place to another, while the Death personifications of as many universes tried to dodge him or catch him.
He grabbed and threw behind books, charms, bottles, and everything not bolted down, until he found a mysterious black box, with a big red button on top.
"Hey, Grim! What does this button do?" He asked, and without waiting for an answer, he pressed it down.
Everybody jumped at him at the same time, a thousand voices screamed "NOOOO!"
And a new multiverse Bigbanged into being/s.
Author Notes: This one shot came to be after a talk with Quatermass about his review to Chapter 33 of The Boy-Who-Lived and the Boy-Who-Broke.
Quatermass, I owe you the Death from Soul Eater, but Grim did came to the party!