A/N: LAS Challenge 5 response to the prompt: "Alas! the love of women! it is known To be a lovely and a fearful thing…" Lord Byron

Lovely and Fearful

He was going fuckin' insane. That had to be it. Eighty plus years of reaping had finally broken his mind. How else could he explain the fact that he was sharing a dubiously sanitary bottle of whiskey with Mason on a rainy winter night in Seattle when he could be warm and snug in his apartment? He could be drinking a beautiful, well-aged scotch in the crystal glass he kept for just that purpose, looking out of his steam-framed window at the storm clouds that threatened—even now—to make his night just—just icing on the proverbial shitcake. He could've been miserable all by himself instead of standing next to a sad, red-nosed British man who couldn't be bothered to bathe on a regular basis when he was on the outs with his lover.

"You know, she says she's outgrown me. Like I'm an old pair of shoes or—or—underpants that fit too tight." Mason's voice had taken on that whiny, self-pitying tone that normally made Rube's teeth ache—the whiskey must've started working.

It would also be the only explanation—apart from the possibility of insanity—for the next words to fall from his lips. "Georgia is in love with me."

There was a small stretch of silence.

"Who told you?" Rube had avoided looking at Mason's expression, but at those words he focused on the quickly sobering reaper next to him.

"Penny. You knew?"

"I guessed." He took another swig of whiskey before passing it to Rube. "You love her too." It wasn't a question and Rube smiled bleakly.

"So?"

"So—go—do—stuff. Just do us a favor and don't tell us about it."

Rube took two large swallows of the amber liquid. "Not gonna do a goddamn thing."

"Fuck off!" Mason's tone was disbelieving. "You're just going to let her hang?"

The whisky was nearly gone and Rube wasn't close to drunk enough for this conversation. He could feel something pressing on his chest, compressing his lungs, making his dead heart pound. He was afraid. It was fear—the same kind he'd felt when close to a century ago he'd held Lucy's hands in front of an altar, the kind he'd felt when he looked down to see his bullet-riddled body lying on a bank vault floor.

Rube felt the bottle torn from his hands and Mason took another drink before saying, "I've seen enough dead people to know that look. You're scared shitless, so you're going to make the both of you miserable."

Mason was making sense. Rube could feel the stirring of a migraine behind his left eye.

"Fuck—you're right. Shit, I'm insane." He and George were in love and Mason was making sense—the world was backwards.

"No! You need to grow some—oh! I'm—wha? Really?"

"May it be the first time of many." Rube groaned quietly. This was going to be a pain in the ass. He was one hundred thirty-five years old on her twenty-five, they were both grim reapers, they were stubborn as all hell and both very private people. She was also one of his closest friends now. What if he screwed up and she stopped talking to him? What if she moved away? What if he finally got his last reap and left her? Worse, what if she got her last reap and left him to pick up the pieces of a shattered romance once again? What if—

"Alas! the love of women! It is known to be a lovely and a fearful thing," Mason quoted, his voice tinged with the slur that indicated he was back on track for numbness. "Shakespeare."

"Byron, fuck-up." At least one thing was back to normal.

A/N: Reviews are love.