Fear
Thursday.
Of course these things would happen on Thursdays.
And Grell wouldn't come home until late in the evening.
. . .
Adrian had been standing in front of the bathroom door for more than ten minutes. In his hands - with gloves on, thank you very much - he was squeezing a broom and a slipper, holding them in front of his body like some forgotten medieval weapons. He was chewing on his lips, considering.
To go in or not to go in, that's the question.
Under normal circumstances, he would have been more than happy not to go in, but today was a Thursday. Of course these things would only happen on Thursdays. Grell would be working late into the evening and would only be home in hours, five to be precise, and he was sentenced to managing this on his own.
Or to an exhausting wait.
Or he could finally decide to move. They could get a bigger, more modern apartment, they did need more space now that there were two of them - three, soon, if only Grell could decide which kitten to adopt. To be honest, that shop was held together by spit by now, there was dust and mold everywhere, stench of formaldehyde, the wallpaper peeling from the walls, and ignoring the fact that he never had any wallpaper to begin with...
They would talk about it. Maybe over dinner. He could cook something peculiar for tonight's dinner, after all, Grell would be exhausted when she got home and would surely appreciate something tasty.
Now that he thought about it, he had crucial things to do. A client to prepare; her funeral would be in two days and the damage of a carriage's wheel to the face cannot be concealed easily. Moreover, he'd run out of biscuits. And he'd had the intention of cleaning the bookshelves for how long, two, three years now? He could even take the coffins in the main hall to the back room of the shop.
He didn't have time for this nonsense.
He put both broom and slipper down close to the bathroom door. He took off the gloves, careful not to rip them up with his long nails. He set those down, too.
He raked a hand through his hair, then abruptly turned and stalked downstairs.
«I would be delighted to help you, Earl, but sadly it's impossible to me at the moment» chuckled the retired reaper, working around the corpse without looking the young Phantomhive in the eyes. He was observing the black box that he'd been given by his... girlfriend? What a childish word to describe Grell and himself-
How many hours would it take for her to be home?! Last time he'd checked, she'd still be gone for three hours and a half. Surely some time had passed since-
«Undertaker!»
Adrian snapped back on Earth with a slight jump. «Eh?»
«You look pale, Undertaker,» said the demon with honeyed words. «Something on your mind?»
The man clad in black robes looked him up and down, giggling. It was a giggle that was only half mocking, but the butler didn't have to know, now, did he?
«I was thinking about webs,» he said happily. «Forgive me, Earl... you were saying?»
«Webs?» muttered the young one, frowning. «What do you mean?»
«Exactly what I said. Webs.»
Adrian opened the black box, clicking his tongue. Had she been there, Grell would undoubtedly have said that each product was different from the others, but to be honest, Adrian had no idea of what half of the things in there was. He focused on the colourful powders -eyeshadow, eyeshadow, Adrian- and chose a pale pink one. What could he do, he loved the colour.
«Are you saying that you don't know anything about the case?»
«Nothing's sure. You said litte, I deduced a lot, but what I know wouldn't be useful to you. Suppositions.»
Ciel Phantomhive didn't hide his frustrated growl and Adrian laughed again, rummaging in the box until he found a suitable brush. He covered the bristles with the thin pink powder, then spread it with expert movements on the cadaver's lids.
«Children who disappear in the middle of the street and re-emerge weeks later, half-eaten and covered in bite marks, and you're telling me you don't know anything?»
«I was busy. I've got a life, you know,» chirped the old reaper, finishing the woman's makeup with a few final touches. «Children always disappear, nothing new beneath the sun. Especially close to gutters.»
The Earl frowned. «Gutters?»
«Manholes, storm drains. Hmm-hmm. They trip and fall in. Or maybe they get close on purpose -the dark's magnetism and all the rest. Keep the webs in mind.»
The young Phantomhive was staring at him without understanding any of his words. Adrian wasn't surprised. He was only thirteen, after all, too young to remember what happened twenty-seven years ago. That didn't mean the ancient man couldn't nudge him in the right direction.
«If I were you, I'd ask your guard dog. He's bound to know more than me. Between siblings, you help each other out, don't you?»
Sebastian looked at him with hatred dripping from his eyes as the Death God shoved them out of his shop. Adrian smiled at him sweetly as he slammed the door in his face, tired of their presence there. The Earl wasn't bad, but he couldn't stand the demon. He was funny, that he was, but Adrian got tired of trained dogs rather quickly; he did want to adopt a cat, didn't he?
While he returned to the client, his gaze fell on the flight of stairs that lead upstairs. It looked like it had just been ripped from a horror story and slammed in his house. He thought about what awaited him in the bathroom and shuddered, then stomped firmly away from the stairs.
Another hour and a half.
Adrian bent to check the pan in the oven. He'd pulled his hair up in a soft silver bun and he'd shed his heavy outer robe, replacing it with a black apron decorated with a pattern of pink skulls. He had to squint to see the salmon behind the scorching glass, but when he managed, he smiled in satisfaction. He straightened with a pained sigh, eyeing the stairs as if something could suddenly jump out at him to chew his face off. And as a matter of fact there was indeed something upstairs, but Undertaker didn't want to think about it. As the fish cooked, he decided to attack the bookshelves, as he had already fnished cleaning and tidying out the apartment.
As he pulled the books from the shelves, his thoughts went inevitably to the bathroom and a shiver ran down his scarred back.
God. He'd faced demons, reapers and all sorts of scum from the bowels of the earth. He'd found himself in situations that would have made anyone's skin crawl and would have made even William T. Spears lose his composure, but then he would find himself with these things and he'd become as vulnerable as a child. He'd torn apart creatures that were twice as large as himself without batting an eye and now he wasn't even capable of opening the stupid bathroom door. A disgrace, that's what he was, a disgrace and a failure. Deep shame and disgust swelled in his chest, together with rage and panic that had no reason to be. This had never been a problem before, why should it become one now?
He put the books back on the shelves, in alphabetical order, both by title and by author. With a smile he saw that together with his anatomy tomes and medical works there were also thrillers, poetry and novels. Curiosity piqued, he put Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal aside and went back to the kitchen to check on the salmon and to turn the oven off.
He curled on the couch with the book, opening it to the first page and the first poem, but soon he found himself reading the same verse over and over again, ears straining to catch any noise coming from the bathroom.
The shop's door opened with a creak and Grell walked in with a relieved sigh. She kicked her red shoes off, much to her sore feet's relief, and hung her beloved coat on the black coat hooks beside the threshold.
«Good gracious, Adrian, Dispatch is a nightmare these days» she groaned, rubbing at her irritated eyes. She'd spent the day filling out reports, cooped up in her office, without Ronnie's company because her young protegé was reaping. Only the thought of her lover had been able to sustain her through those dull hours.
And where was the man anyway?
«Adrian?»
«In here.»
His voice was strangely quiet, almost fearful, and Grell's red eyebrows bent in a frown. She tiptoed in the living room and what she saw flooded her chest with inexplicable warmth.
Adrian was huddled in a corner of the couch, buried in a soft red blanket so that only his face was visible. One of Grell's poetry books was open in front of him, next to his bare feet with black-painted toes. His lips and brows were firmly curled in the Look.
Grell smiled tenderly.
«Where is it?» she asked, rolling up the white sleeves of her shirt and exposing her pale arms. Adrian grimaced.
«Bathroom.»
The red Shinigami nodded and walked upstairs on silent feet. The ancient reaper heard the bathroom door open and grimaced again, disgusted.
Minutes passed. Two, then five, then ten, and at last Adrian heard the sound he'd waited for for five hours: a single blow, heavy and deadly, and he felt the knot in his stomach dissolve.
He began extricating himself from the blanket as he listened to the sounds of Grell getting rid of the spider, slipping into the kitchen with his usual grace to serve dinner. He was pouring the wine when he felt the woman embrace him from behind, strong arms squeezing his middle and a pointy chin propped on his shoulder.
«Better?» asked Grell sweetly, kissing his neck, and Adrian smiled.
«Better.»
. . .
Authoress' note:
Is this me ignoring everything that has happened in the last chapters? Yes it is!
I do not own in any shape or form the characters featured in this story. They belong to Yana Toboso, I only played with them for a while but now I put them back.
Your comments are helping Adrian getting rid of all the spiders in the apartment.