Title- ~*Two Sugars Steeped in Blood*~
Rating- PG
Main characters/pairings- Madame Red (Angelina) & Grell Sutcliffe
Word count- 643
Warnings, disclaimers, or notes:- Er. Mention of blood and prostitutes together at the same time?

Setting: Somewhere in between the first kill and meeting and the time she cuts her hair.

So I asked myself: what is sugar?

It is sweetness that makes everything seem alright.

It is a term of endearment.

It is innocence, like lollipops in children's rounded hands.

A spoonful makes the medicine go down.

Two Sugars Steeped in Blood

-fantacination

I am in blood
Stepp'd in so far, that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er.

~Macbeth, scene iv


"Don't think too much about it, darling" Grell tells her (darling, dear, sweetheart, sugar), wrapping an arm around her shoulders. His chainsaw is pointed down, the serrated edges gleaming blood. The lamppost's light strikes the back of his head just so, dividing his face into light and dark- a crazy-grinned chiaroscuro.

"I'm not," Angelina says, and she flicks the worst of the blood off her surgical knife, glad for the dark and the movement that hides the tremor in her thin wrists. She'll wear gloves, next time. Black ones.

"Isn't it lovely~?" Grell purrs. The shiny black toe of his shoe nudges the lifeless whore cooling on the cobblestones. Her blood has taken over the dirty peasant blouse, creeping through the cheap cotton like a poisonous blossom. "But never as lovely as you and I, of course." When he smiles, his teeth are sharp.

Angelina's dress is stiff in patches of old blood, drying brown, in many ways just like the prostitute's. Her hair is a mess of red on red, blood clumping amongst the scarlet strands (so much so that she wonders what he sees, the man in the high heels, when he calls her lovely.) She must remember to cut it, once she gets back.

"Ah, red really does look best when it's on the pallor of death" He coos, sliding a finger down the broad side of his Deathscythe. "Really, we're just doing them a favor," the redhead continues. "Here they are, the ungrateful hussies, and all we ever did was help them; prettied them up a little, didn't we~?" The red-framed glasses glint.

In the back of her head there's a little girl screaming: it's a lie, it's a lie, it's a lie. The kind of lie she kept repeating, since the eve of her sister's engagement. The kind of lie she smiles, when others ask if she's all right. The kind of lie that melts sweetly on your tongue and tucks you into bed at night.

But she looks down and her dress is still spotted in blood. The snow-white, delicate lace that edged the cuffs of her sleeves are dyed in decaying crimson.

She will never get the blood out. The dress will have to be burned.

And there is but one path, irreversible, to the fire; one way to bury sordid truths amongst the ashes.

"Don't you think so, Madame Red?"

And he's testing her, she realizes. He's testing me to see if I will stop. If I will..

An empty bed and a manor going up in flames. The gift-wrapped toy to a nephew that would never turn ten and the well-worn dress the color of dark soot.

There is nothing for her. Nothing but her work and the gray-skied pain. Pain that none of these whores had ever known, a voice reminds.

So she straightens her shoulders and arranges her face into something artful, casually imperious, entirely Madame Red. It's easy, like donning a veil made of spun sugar. Easy, like slipping on honey on the steps.

"Really, did you ever need to ask? Everyone's much happier, this way."

She chooses the sugarcoated lie.

"Now, come along, Grell, we're leaving."

Grell passes a hand over his face, the red hair shrinking back into brown, lashes coming off, glasses switched. He reaches back to tie long hair back with a red ribbon, smoothing back the tendrils of hair that escape.

"Y-Yes, my lady," the butler stammers, anxious to please.

And that too, is a sweet lie. The innocence like a veneer of frosting over a mold-slathered cake.

"Make tea, once we get back."

"Yes, my lady."

"Mind that it has two sugars."

"…Yes, my lady."

Angelina lets him slip the coat onto her shoulders; help her into their carriage. And, watching the rest of Whitechapel go by through the gap in the curtained windows, thinks about how the last time she had asked for two sugars, she had been fourteen and broken-hearted.

~fin~

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Author's Notes:

And then I realize that Angelina and Ciel's familial similarities really show.

I tried to go as far and as close as I could to the theme, and I hope you enjoyed reading this even half as much as I enjoyed writing it (all the frustrations aside). Grell and Madame Red are such a crazy, bloody, fun write.

Whitechapel- the red light district wherein the Jack the Ripper killings took place. Information and beta-edit courtesy of tasukigirl. :)

Angelina knows what she's doing is wrong, on some level, but she hates too much, knows she cannot turn back now.

Please review and tell me what you think.