Painless
Summary: "Why did you do it?" "Do it... become a Shinigami?" Short WilliamxOC based on Chapter 105 of Black Butler/Kuroshitsuji.
Oh my, my, my! I haven't been to in a long, long time, though I still think of fic ideas. Mainly... I forgot my email! I realize I still never finished my second WilliamxAnnabelle fic. I may rewrite it. But this became headcanon really quickly based on the revelation that people who commit suicide are forced to become Shinigami. Well, Will's, anyway. Annabelle is mine, so ofcourse it's all headcanon, or headfanon rather. Also, I skimmed First Cut, to mainly jump back into how I did William and Annabelle's personalities. I got caught up in it! Man, I loved writing that. And this. I hope to maybe return to the world of William and Annabelle, my own little world! And as I typed this, I also began to entertain the idea of writing a collection of Shinigami death stories and how they came to be what we know. So dark! Anyway...
Thanks for reading!
The sun beat down on the dark hair of the two reapers, one male and one female. They were on assignment, waiting the reap the soul of a young woman who would suffer a nasty fall. The duo had been working together for some time. Reaping and the paperwork that followed had become second nature to the female reaper, who had been plucked from her job typing out death lists to become a fully fledged Shinigami.
He checked his watch. "We have some time," he told her, the first words either of them had spoken since taking their perch on the roof.
"Yes," she replied, closing the folder she was thumbing through. She shook her head, letting her long black braid fall over her shoulder. She had learned to read William T. Spears well in their time together. "What are you thinking?" she asked, knowing there was something on his mind.
"There's just something I've been wondering, Annabelle." William pushed his glasses back in place without looking towards her. His gaze was down at the street below.
"Yes?" When he remained silent, she stepped closer to him and placed her hand on his arm. "Say it, William."
Not looking at her, but not exactly watching the humans down on the street below, William asked, "Why did you do it?"
"Do it?" Annabelle asked, confused. Quickly, she skimmed her mind, wondering if she had done anything wrong or perhaps rude in the past several months. When nothing came to mind, she slowly said, "Do it... become a Shinigami?" The guess was wild, she knew. Out there. But it was the one thing she could think of.
"Yes."
A small part of Annabelle had expected this question one day or another. Another part of her wondered why here, why now?
"I was... unhappy," she began softly. She turned away from him, but he grabbed her hand. "My father was a baron, and he arranged my marriage to the fourth son of a viscount. At least, I think it was the fourth. It was so long ago. It was some lower son, either way."
William nodded, understanding. "The viscount outranked your father in the peerage, but a fourth son is pretty low in the inheritance. You were an only child?"
She heaved a heavy sigh and nodded. "So a younger son stood to inherit something upon marrying me, instead of little to nothing. The man was a complete embarrassment as a husband. His... affairs... shamed me greatly. People tittered behind their hands at events, they acted towards me in pity. They thought I didn't know."
The unlucky young woman was nearly forgotten in the moment. Time seemed to stand still. Annabelle looked unwilling to continue. William cupped her cheek and began to stroke it gently with his thumb. She managed a smile at that, though it still took her a moment to continue.
When she did, her voice shook slightly. Remembering the past was difficult, even if it had been a very long time gone. "When he was caught in the bed of a baron and baroness, it was the final straw for me. I could not take that life. So I took mine."
She shut her eyes and placed her hand on his for comfort. "And you?" she asked, not opening her eyes. "You asked my story, tell me yours."
He stopped stroking her cheek and lowered his hand, though he still held onto hers. "You would think most of us were unhappy. Why would a happy person take their own life? While I would not call myself unhappy, I was obsessed."
"Obsessed?" Annabelle asked, finally opening her eyes to look at him.
"The supernatural. The occult. Reapers." He paused for a moment, looking for the right words. "You said to me once that I came off as well read to you. On that, you were right. As a child my nose was often in a book."
"What did you read...?"
"It wasn't what I read. Not at first. At a very young age, I witnessed the death of someone close to me."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It was not the death itself that stuck with me. It was the glimpse of the young blonde man leaving the room, tucking a folder into his suit pocket and pulling out a cigarette that stuck with me."
"But humans don't see us until - "
William nodded. "I know. Though i have come to learn, despite it taking many years, several humans have the ability to see beyond. It was that man who bothered me. For the longest time I felt she had been murdered. That he was her killer. That someone needed to find him. But no one listened to me because I was a child."
Annabelle nodded, understanding washing over her. "How long did it take you to know what he was?"
"It was near my twentieth birthday. I did not have many friends, mainly because I was odd. I had my small group of associates, one of whom was named Adam. He told my story to his grandfather, who one day asked to see me. All he did was give me a book. It was a little, leather bound book about so big - " he held his hands about four inches across, then six high, " - and it was all about the supernatural. I later found out many people had forbidden that book, making it difficult to get a copy, and dangerous to have around."
"And you found out about Shinigami that way?"
"Shinigami, angels, demons, most everything was in that book. Including how to make a contract with a demon, and the theory that only the suicidal could become a reaper."
"And so you... wanted to see if it was true?" Annabelle asked, her hand trembling in his.
"Not at first. Once I realized that mysterious man from my childhood was a reaper, I threw the book across the room in disgust. It could not be true. And yet, it was. All the details were in that book. I spent many long hours, both living and now, wondering if the author had been a human to befriend a Shinigami, or had become one themselves. The pages drove me mad. It became an obsession of overly large proportions. Like you, I needed release."
After a pause, he confessed, "I don't know what happened to that book. I always assumed someone, probably Adam, destroyed it to keep both myself and his grandfather protected in what little way he could."
After William finished his story, the two stood still, facing each other and holding the other's hand. Something had happened between them, something deep. But then the moment passed as somewhere down the road a bell tolled.
"Three o'clock," William murmured, releasing Annabelle's hand.
"We had better go, or we'll be late."
"We can't have that," William replied.
"We have a job to do, after all, "Annabelle said, more than ready to get back on track after the emotional story telling. "I'll take this one."
"If we get there in time."