Eric needed sleep, his body was suffering, his mind slowing, he was hallucinating, delusional, irritable, every way out of character for him. He'd not slept in six weeks, there was no time to...he'd shower, get dressed, go in to the dispatch, file his paperwork, clean glasses, get through his quota of souls for the day, manage death scythes, whatever was possible. Once 6 pm rolled around, he was out the door and in the human world, collecting more souls for Alan. Regardless of how many people he killed, he never managed to get closer though it seemed. After last night he was up to 437, not even half and Alan seemed to be getting worse by the day! He pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes to clear away the growing hallucination in the filthy alley way he now stood in. The bodies of three young women were around him and his mind could no longer tell the difference. He saw one stand up and turn into Alan, coming at him with his death scythe, slicing him apart at the realisation of what he'd been doing. He slumped down in the filthy alley and shook his head, shuddering violently. He looked down at his clothes and sniffed, finally noticing how horrible he looked. He was filthy, his clothes were dirty and wrinkled, his blazer had a rip in the sleeve from catching on a nail. He was covered in blood and dirt, his glasses had...something...on them. Finally he came back to his senses and stood up, leaning against the wall. He slowly made his way out of the alley and dashed off, searching for more souls to gather...regardless of how long it would take.

"Finally, 20 more...and still not halfway there..." He sighed as he leaned against the door to his room, opening it slowly and tossing his jacket and death scythe into the kitchen. He would need to clean this place up, he needed to eat...he needed to shower! He jumped into the shower quickly after grabbing his clothes and sighed happily as the water hit his face, just the boost he needed. He sighed as he stepped out and put his glasses back on, looking at himself in the mirror. He looked terrible, there were huge bags under his eyes, he looked positively ragged from not eating, he needed a shave, his goatee was starting to blend into a full beard. He sighed as he left the bathroom, ruffling his hair and going to check his messages. "Let's see here..." Ronald wanting to party this weekend, Alan curious what was up with him lately, and the worst of all was from William, "Eric Slingby, I want to see you in my office immediately, we have a very serious issue regarding your current standard of work,"...damn. His lack of sleep was affecting his work, reports not fully done, filed improperly, or just not done at all. He swallowed hard as he got dressed and sat down to clean off his death scythe, though once he sat at the table, he put his head down and finally gave in to a much needed and very deep sleep, not worried about the consequences.

William pounded on the door angrily, rather annoyed that Eric's absence had caused overtime for everyone. The blond shinigami's declining quality of work was an added frustration to his ever growing pile of complaints. The only relief was that this issue wasn't Grell related, how he'd done better during training is a miracle. He adjusted his glasses and banged on the door again, this time with his death scythe and with more force. Finally the door opened and Eric stared at him, rubbing his eyes. It wasn't until he shook his shaggy blond hair out of his eyes that he realised who was glaring daggers at him. He stretched and moved aside as the man forced his way inside.

"Did you not get my message, Slingby? Your failure to show up has not only tarnished your record but your work has been extremely poor these last few weeks! I want a bloody good reason for your recent behaviour, no excuses, do you understand?" Eric was dumbstruck by the older man's outburst. His usually cold persona seemed to be lifted in exchange for outrage. Wait...his still fogged brain was slowly working out the reason why Will would be here. Retracing the steps from the time he'd left last night, killed 20 people, almost trampled by a carriage, had more hallucinations of Alan murdering him, showered, dressed...of course! He'd meant to go in after cleaning his scythe this morning, but instead he'd...yeah, he'd passed out. How would he explain that though? 'Sorry William, I've been murdering people to save Alan's life'? Not bloody likely! He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, trying to think up a good lie, what else could he do?

"I've not had a good night's sleep for the last six weeks...I don't know why, but...It's just been so hard to...I suppose I'm just worried about Alan? His health has been so unpredictable lately...!" William held up his hand and continued to glare. His outburst over, he'd returned to his usual stoic manner, giving the same cold glare as always. Eric was clinging to the wall and staring in shock, as was the usual reaction when William actually showed an emotion. He cleared his throat and looked away from the older shinigami, waiting for his punishment, what would it be? A pay cut? Massive overtime? Demotion even?

"You will report in early tomorrow, we will discuss this matter then. We will also discuss the consequences of your actions and how to make up for your low quality work," With that, the dark haired man left his quarters, not bothering to elaborate on his decision. The blond sighed and adjusted his glasses, closing the door behind the man and returning to the small kitchen. He sat down at the table and looked at his watch, so his assumption had been correct. He passed out this morning and completely missed work, lovely. The usual punishment for missing work was a pay cut and double overtime. What would his be with the low quality work included? For all he knew he could be doing library duty with Grell for the next few hundred years, very far from what he wanted and his ideal co-worker.

"He must be so worried..." In the thoughts of ideal co-workers...Alan's voice came over the voicemail, quiet and a bit shaky like he'd just had another attack. Eric perked up as he listened to it, shaking slightly.

"E-eric? Are you a-alright? I thought I'd stop by later...we've all been really worried about you Eric! But I still have work to—AAAH!" There was that attack he'd been so worried about. He stood up and grabbed his death scythe as he left the small flat, dashing off to the office. Overtime would not be easy if Alan kept getting worse. In his haste, he'd knocked over a plant or two and bumped into at least four people. Sleep deprivation and concern had made him more reckless than usual, not including his need to gather more souls for Alan. Before he knew it he'd reached the office and was running through the halls to find him. He found the younger man curled up by his desk, clutching his chest and reaching a hand out for his partner.

"It hurts!" He cringed as Eric pulled him into his arms, rocking him gently and brushing his hair out of his eyes. All he could do at this point was hold his partner close and comfort him, slowly pulling him up and supporting the smaller man's weight. He sniffed and help him into his desk chair, sitting in front of him on his knees. Alan knew better than to overwork himself, regardless of overtime or not. His health was far too fragile to handle the strain. Even on missions and filling the quota he had to watch himself, just in case he had a particularly nasty attack. "You look horrible, Eric..."

'Well you would too if you'd been sacrificing sleep to save your best friends life!' he kept his thought to himself though and merely rubbed the back of his neck. He yawned and sat back, looking up at the ceiling. "Yeah...guess I've been out partying too much with Ronald...he's a serious pistol once he' gets a bit of alcohol in him," shrugging and looking at his partners desk. It was organised much better than his, more like properly organised. His was a mess, at least lately it was, he really needed to fix that. He looked up as Alan cleared his throat quietly, placing a hand on his partners shoulder. How could he be so charming and compassionate when he knew that he could be ripped away by the Thorns of Death at any time?

"I still have so much work to do..." He motioned to what was actually a small stack of paperwork, most likely Eric's due to his absence today. Upon closer examination he realised it WAS his paperwork, and it wasn't fair for him to force his workload on Alan. He sighed and stood up, ruffling his soft brown hair as he turned back to his desk. Eric stood behind him and looked through the paperwork, reports about the people assigned for him yesterday. How many people had he been assigned to reap yesterday again? His quota and the victims he'd taken for Alan blurred together, that was not a good thing. Luckily he had the list of people to die yesterday, pulling a wrinkled up scrap of paper from his pocket and flattening it out was more than enough to prove that he'd absolutely not thought through to emptying his pockets before collecting souls last night. Usually he kept his 'to die' lists folded up and tucked away in a safe place to avoid such an issue. 'Hmm, must have forgot...'

Alan looked up at him and nudged his arm gently, attempting to get his friends attention. The blond shook his head and looked at him quietly, gripping the desk for dear life almost. He didn't know why he was suddenly so on edge, was it Alan? The office itself? Not quite, but something hung heavy in the air between them in that heavy silence, he just wasn't sure what. This wasn't the first time, in the past the air around them would become heavier, time would seem to stop, even the outside world couldn't penetrate whatever strange bubble would envelop them, or at least Eric. It had been like that for a long time now, when Alan first became ill it was heavier. He swore to do anything he could to help him live as long as possible. Until he'd heard about collecting the 1,000 souls, he couldn't do anything else besides help Alan get to a place for rest and to keep an eye on him just in case. That was about the only positive thing he'd ever heard from the mad Undertaker, until he said it was only a myth. That was when Eric's heart sank again, if that was a myth then it's possible that it's happened before! It wasn't going to be easy but he would collect the 1,000 souls even if it killed him.