Well, I know it's quite a crazy idea of a pairing and I honestly don't know how I came up with it, but here I am. I should say this is my first attempt at a crossover, so try to be more indulgent. However, constructive criticism is welcome.
This is sort of parallel to my other RM story Poison de la rose.
It was written about a year ago to be a one-shot when I was suddenly struck by a sudden thought to keep up with the weirdness. The first chapter was re-written and completed and there is more to come. Do leave a review so that I know your opinion!
The silence was oppressing…
Shinku lay on the bed, motionless, her cerulean eyes fixed on the ceiling. Her loose curls ran across the pillow in rivulets of pale gold; her hands, fingers intertwined, rested on top of her breast and heaved slightly as she breathed. Her shallow gaze pierced through the gloomy haze that enveloped the bedchamber. The single candle in an elegant candlestick at the other end of the room was trying desperately to fight this bleak darkness, but with little success, and only boosted the direly mellow symphony of silence. The children born in this flickering battle – ghosts, more ethereal than Rozen Maidens' artificial spirits, – skittered across the walls and ceiling. Shinku's stare occasionally caught those half-shadows on the smooth plaster and her pupils quivered along with them. Her naked porcelain skin was softly surrounded with the bright red of blankets – the contrast made it almost milk-white. The overlap of those two colours – red and black – was breathtaking to her. It was the first night when she really noticed that. The stagnant air pressed upon the Rozen Maiden, but she could clearly discern in it the notes of a subtle aroma let out by the roses. Everlasting in its familiarity, the scent soothed her brain, narcotic-like. She could picture those full and fresh vermillion buds in the vase on the nightstand even without looking. The combination of senses, swept over her by that luxury of the scarlet chamber, felt excruciatingly good. And yet, Shinku was sad. The silence seemed to be impending…
Sleep wouldn't come to the fifth daughter of Rozen that night and her little head was full of thoughts. She was thinking of Jun.
Shinku closed her eyes and let memories flow freely through her mind. She remembered the first time they met – he was so scared back then and couldn't understand a thing. She remembered the many times when she slapped him for being insolent, or a bad servant, or something else. And the moments when he left his gloomy attitudes and they talked so frankly, and she would smile to him and suppress her yearning for father for a short time – they also came to her mind. And the tea he used to make for her… And the day when he wanted to make something pleasant for her but, being ignorant, bought her an antique brooch which sorely reminded her of the beginning of her and Suigintou's mortal grudge. And the moment when she, acting quite unladylike, slipped her dress down and watched him work on it. She had said he had magic fingers… And the tiny tree of his soul which she and her sisters tried to save in his world of overbearing depression. And also the moment when she let him do the most precious thing – brush her pale golden hair. Those memories were still quite fresh. She had let him into her heart. She used to trust him. Used to, but did no more…
Another series of flashes made her feel dull ache and she tried to skip them as quickly as possible. His betrayal, the deep offence he had given her…
Shinku was not wholly aware of how it happened, but Jun had started to alienate from her. It had been quite clear from the beginning that a relationship between a human and a doll couldn't possibly develop but she would have never imagined it would end up like this… After breaking his reclusion and returning to normal life Jun began to lose interest to the scarlet Rozen Maiden. He had new goals and new friends, everything so different from those previous years, and Shinku would be left alone more and more often. Perhaps, wrong ideas were prompted to him from without, but he had changed a lot and a little porcelain doll couldn't keep his attention for long now. Solitude was the most dreadful thing for her – fortunately, her girls had always been there to comfort her, but some part of her soul still seemed to be missing. Chibi human, it was before long that you forgot it was Shinku and her sisters who helped you overcome the pain of your parents' absence and revived you for the outer world, you have but little gratitude!
Torn fragments of memories flashed before her mind's eye as her closed eyelids twitched nervously. It could still be bearable that way, but it wasn't the end. It was a betrayal. He had fallen in love with some human girl and she took away all his feelings for Shinku and crushed them. It was pretty natural but nevertheless bitter. Shinku didn't want to recall her. She had tried to talk to him earnestly, tell him of all her complaints, but heard only cruel words in response… Those words were erased from her memory now – all the better for that. Perhaps, he spoke in a fit of temper. Perhaps, it was a mistake… But Rozen Maidens never forgive such mistakes. And it was the breach of their contract, of the thin thread that had held them together…
She left… And he was no longer her medium. And there was no more a rose ring on her finger.
Shinku opened her eyes – they were swollen with brilliant moisture but she didn't cry; the times when she shed tears had passed long ago. The red magnificence of the room shrouded her. Why was she thinking of all that on that night? For some reason, she wanted to recollect everything.
The next few years of her existence were nearly blank in her memory, only stray fragments went through her mind now and then. She had faced what she had most feared since the time of her separation from father, what she had experienced before meeting Jun Sakurada – loneliness. Her sisters were scattered around the world – they either hadn't stayed with her former medium. Her father seemed further away than ever. The curse of the Alice game was still in the air. She floundered between worlds and epochs in her large wooden case, the never-aging, useless doll. Her powers were greatly diminished. She had no real medium – only random people who came and went in her random, disorderly life… The proud, independent Shinku, always so strong and so composed, a born Alice – loneliness was her weakness and she had desperately longed for someone by her side, she (though she never really admitted it) wanted her family back and tried to grasp at the feeble phantom which drifted away mercilessly.
She never knew how much time she had spent like this – for her immortal being it was insignificant. Shinku inhaled deeply – the jagged thoughts of that time gave her some exquisite pain.
Until everything changed again… She had become a human… Never ask her how and why it happened; it was something that occurred to her one day and all she knew was that she was now a real living girl – of between 18 and 20, perhaps. Tall and slender, quite curvy, still prettier than her doll form. It was a very strange sensation to which she could never really adjust. Even now, under the silk red cover her naked body felt somehow not fully hers, something more perfect and at the same time something foreign from what had been created by father – no ball-joints, no glassy glitter in her eyes, no hard coldness of porcelain, but the beautiful baby-blue hue and warm sunny radiance of her hair remained. Her body would now develop and age – she had lost her privilege of eternal existence. It gave her so many new queer feelings – she became more vulnerable; if she bruised herself, it would hurt; if she cut her finger, a drop of red liquid would appear; if she didn't eat regularly, she would become feeble. But still, a real heart was now beating inside her breast and no wind-up key was needed to bring her back to life – if this had happened, it was what her father wanted, she was sure. And the crucial point would be reached sometime very soon…
That was not the only change that had befallen her. She had still had no medium, but her human form demanded more energy than ever to maintain her life… Shinku traced a tiny moth of a shadow on the ceiling. The silence was as oppressing as before, but now she sensed sort of a warm tickle deep inside her breast and smiled with the corners of her lips.
The sight of rich waves of red hair crossed her mind… The long bloody tresses flowing in the wind, the wide flaps of an elegant cherry coat fluttering along with the hair, the seductive, somewhat sickly-sweet glance of the green eyes. Grell Sutcliffe…
When Shinku first saw him as he was standing aloof on that windy day, he seemed to her a perfect aristocrat. Well, it was exaggerated (quite a lot, perhaps) but the first impression remained for her ever so strong, fascinating. The red flowing hair… And an airy self-concentrated grin that stole away from his feminine lips as they fondled the petals of a rose – no need to mention, a red one. The red rose was the favourite flower of them both. It was dear to Shinku because it was the first little gift from her father after her awakening. Grell loved it because it was beautiful, sophisticated and, well, red.
The Rozen Maiden had always thought that men were disgusting creatures, whose sole objective was to harass, paw and compromise poor women. Sutcliffe was nothing like that. Actually, it was she who had to win to him, while he was flawlessly gentlemanlike towards her, or rather ladylike. He was quite considerate and somewhat restrained to the girl, until Shinku discovered he took a slightly greater liking to men than to women. Then, of course, she learnt more about his person – the neat aristocrat had turned out be a maniac madman and, on top of everything, a shinigami. A merry job it was, no doubt, to reap human souls! Why on Earth was Shinku always attracted to freaky people? Better not ask her unless you want the sole of her pretty little shoe to be stamped on your curious face.
But the fifth daughter of Rozen wasn't easy to give up. She had been used to getting what she wanted, no matter how wild and disgraceful her fancies were. She got down to business and commenced the "winning over" operation, scolding herself severely for the whim so unbecoming for a lady. Shinku smiled faintly recalling her hellish methods. She knew Mr. Sutcliffe's unnatural and incomprehensible oddity, so unfit for Victorian etiquette rules, to be a temporary whim which would pass once he had met a really worthy female.
Things changed gradually as the time passed. Shinku's memories were no more a chain of subsequent events but rather separate scenes and impressions – like pieces of cinematographic film. Perhaps, it was the red colour that had drawn them closer. She had been made by father to be a ruby among her sisters; where he had learned his obsession by anything scarlet remained a mystery.
Grell also liked exquisite things. He couldn't stand anything ugly, cheap, vulgar. It showed even in his mania against fallen women – he could but despise them, their worn-out, garishly made-up shells of bodies, lacking in dignity, their worthless little souls. Everything he dealt with was always expensive and dainty, he sort of ravished in that sense of luring beauty. He had always had a good taste – in everyday items, in flowers, in people, in clothes (not only in men's but also in women's, much to Shinku's convenience).
Shinku hated lack of taste as well. She was a thoroughly sophisticated Victorian lady who evermore tried to surround herself with high-class things, graceful and miniature as her own doll-like self. It was father who had taught her to reach for perfection – the real Alice had to be perfect (he had constituted her to be perfect) in every aspect. The ribbons that interlaced with Shinku's hair had to be of finest silk, the tea cup that was granted the honour to touch her pretty lips could only be made of thin half-transparent china. She would fall in discontent concerning Jun's sheer indifference to such things, his incessantly messy looks. Now Jun must have been a young man in his early twenties – what had happened to him since the time they had fallen out?.. It was just a momentary thought that the former doll instantly chased away. She shouldn't care now. She had a new value – the red Shinigami's long hair, always well-groomed and sweet smelling, always with a golden tint. She didn't know why, but it drove her nearly mad – touching it was her little weakness.
He was the complete contrary of her former medium. Maybe, Shinku had been seeking someone so different from Jun; maybe, over the years she had grown tired to sickness of the gloomy reserved personage. And Grell Sutcliffe had a complex, somewhat rare character. He was bright in all aspects and possessed a sort of charisma. She knew of his murderer's past and also the story of Madam Red, but somehow standing by this person's side didn't make her scared (though it well should have, her common sense sometimes cried out) – she wanted to taste the danger.
And so, a contract between them had been sealed and he became her medium… The Rozen Maiden must have strongly interested the reaper if he consented to do so. Shinku raised her hand above her eyes and looked at the dainty rose-ring on her thin finger. A faint ray of candlelight ran across the metal and it flashed with fire in the semi-darkness of the bedroom. There had been times when the lack of power made it hard to breathe for Shinku – her human body wanted to devour itself from within. Now she felt warm energy streaming steadily through her limbs. The inner strength was immense. She was ready for the battle.
Their relationships were somewhat weird. Shinku was the one who wore pants in the family, if such a term may be applied to so refined a lady. The whimsical little aristocrat loved ordering her manservant around (guys love bitches regardless of the epoch, don't they?). She gave the unfortunate shinigami numerous tasks and errands like she had earlier given to Jun, and used the same ways of punishment for his insolence, obtrusiveness and blunders of all sorts. The way was corporal punishment. Grell didn't fail to feel the difference – Madam's Red butler was nothing compared to what the fifth Rozen Maiden's servant was expected to be. Shinku recollected with a smile a case of particular abuse he once suffered on her part. It was when she stood all trembling, her back against the wall, her features distorted in mortal terror, pointing at the horrible beast sitting peacefully at a distance of about twenty feet, cleaning its muzzle. Yeah, Shinku had never been able to overcome her fear of cats since her dollish past. Mister Sutcliffe did a stupid thing – instead of rushing to help the maiden in distress, he chose to roll on the ground, his sides nearly bursting with hysterical laughter. The retribution didn't take long to fall on the wretch's head. But the capital punishment was more unwelcome for Grell than a second death – his mistress, when pissed out most, could make him press up, and nothing could make her relent - neither curses nor exhortations like "Oh, my poor gorgeous body! You have no pity for it! Why have I deserved to suffer so? Goodbye, cruel world!"
Nevertheless Grell endured the tortures, for he liked being dominated. He enjoyed feeling the other's strength and authority – people lacking these qualities couldn't possibly interest him. He might have become just a little more masculine in the course of their acquaintance (the press-ups did their bit as well), but nevertheless retained all his womanish habits and gestures which annoyed the former doll so much. He had kind of always kept the role, it was just a bit twisted at another angle with the scarlet Maiden. Shinku kept being at times bossy and liked ordering around (it was in her nature, after all), but it felt way different from being this way with Jun – dominating the red-haired reaper was in some way more exquisite, more sensuous, more hazardous. He didn't mind, having been quite used to the role of a personal butler. The tea he made was an insult to Shinku's thoroughly English nature, but, on the other hand, nothing could make her more relaxed and satisfied than the feel of his long fingers, wrapped in the expensive black material of his gloves, massaging her shoulders.
And she would often be nervous and intense these days. It became quite regular that she would shoot up in bed in the middle of the night, breathing heavily, or rub her aching temples, as images of her previous battles rushed before her closed eyes, as she saw Suigintou's purple eyes blazing in bloody anger and the flaring steel of her sword, or father's vague features somewhere in the distance. The feeling of the impending battle grew stronger with every day, she knew it would happen very soon now. And she wouldn't be able to control those surges of overpressure herself, she thought. Her medium was always there to comfort her in his own way – this was among things that made them closer. He was unable to understand her desperate wish to become the only one for Father, but still for some reason soothed and embraced her, whispering something lowly in his insinuating voice.
The thought that she knew nearly nothing about her new medium now struck Shinku as a surprise. He had no past while she still lived in hers. Sometimes, when evening fell and the girl was tired of silly orders, she would tell the red-haired reaper about everything dear to her – about her sisters, about Father. And about Jun, too. Why did she recall him again? Forget him at once, you foolish Shinku! Grell listened to her with his head softly lying in her lap and her fingers tangled in his bloody locks. He was aware that Shinku kept thinking of the other man but seemed not to mind it. Perhaps, he didn't mind because he could it all in a second with one slash of the death scythe – he had once done it with his former mistress. Or, perhaps, he behaved so, because she was nothing but a perished red memory for him.
No, they were unable to understand each other, though subconsciously they had a stronger bound than they could ever admit. At rare moments Shinku seemed to penetrate deeper in her medium's nature – she somehow had the gift to see beyond the mask of a weirdo everybody thought him to be, and was then rewarded by revelations, the frankness not many had chanced to see. Grell, from his part, couldn't share the Rozen Maiden's attachments to family. She was nothing like Madam Red, she was much more complicated. The ever lonely man who had never had a family and had only his selfish life to live couldn't step into her shoes and feel her longing to be perfect for a certain person's whim. That very fact made him secretly admire her. But, understanding each other in that way they had ceased to understand themselves – the stark Shinku sometimes let herself be more vulnerable by this weird creature's side, and the amorous and light-headed Grell had gone for a more lasting relationship – it mattered little that the basis of this relationship was a contract…
Shinku shifted her head on the pillow and caught sight of one of her golden locks. She recalled one more detail. Grell was given the privilege to be the third person – after Father and Jun – to comb her hair. "When a lady lets a person touch her hair, she lets this person into her heart", she used to say. She would forever remember the touch of Rozen, it was some sacred, unmatched display of her creator's love. But Grell's touch was absolutely dissimilar to Jun's – in a more enjoyable way. It sent sensual shivers down her spine when the red-haired man pulled the ribbons down from her pigtails and his spidery long gloved fingers (no, better say, fingers of a refined murderer) caressed the mass of pale gold.
She sometimes wondered at how people of such incompatible characters could live under one roof at all. He was a gifted actress and a drama queen, she was a big boss dressed as a prim and proper Victorian lady – sometimes their scandals were sheer absurd. "Nobody on Earth appreciates me!" Grell would yell peevishly, backing the argument by a dramatic pose and emotional gestures. "Ordered around at work; now ordered around at home, too! I have the impression of living and sleeping with Will!" This was followed by an exclamation of injured dignity and the reaper flying out of the room like a red whirlwind. Oh yes, and he would slam the door. Sometimes he would peep inside again to render his exit yet more dramatic by some witty phrase and then to slam the door with a louder bang. "Thanks God he's gone! Now I can read in peace", Shinku purred blissfully and was lost in the book which she had to put down to watch the scene. It went without saying that they were incompatible! But, there is such a thing as the unity of opposites. And so, the drama ending in one inevitable way – he came back by the evening, and their crimson bed-sheets were crumpled violently again, and Shinku's porcelain neck was covered with tiny bite-like kisses. It was another important aspect of their union. It was the time when they changed roles.
Shinku sighed and watched the flight of another shadow on the wall. She thought that the sky concealed behind the thick dark-red curtains had brightened up a bit in the course of the sleepless night. She had thought a million times how her life might have twisted, she had played out possible scenarios in her head. What if she had become human a bit earlier? Then she might have preserved her and Jun's relationships. There might have been no betrayal, no years of insufferable solitude. Or, put it another way – what if she had still been a doll? There was no talking of her being interesting to Sutcliffe in that case. But, taking the situation as it was, he was his medium and they had a sort of relationships she had never dreamed of. Their relationships… Love was a wrong word to describe them – better say, the red colour and circumstances.
But if it be so, why did she need him more than anybody else? He was different – so ridiculous with his thoroughly disgusting ways, but, at the same time so seductive and dangerous, so unique. She wanted him to be by her side. She depended on him. Why? She often asked herself who had the real dominance. Shinku had been protective of Jun, the puny human, as her clumsy servant, but could she act the same way with a person who had once possessed a monstrous chainsaw and could manage human lives? Perhaps, unconscious of it, the two had changed roles – not only when they were in bed. She would not be alone again, at any cost. Falling dependant, she needed the relationship like air…
Shinku turned her head to the right and looked over her shoulder. A pale naked body with messy red hair all around it was lying on the other side of the large bed under the covers. Grell was sleeping tight, his breath was absolutely soundless, that's why the silence seemed so overwhelming and gave Shinku the feeling of being alone. She would not be alone again…
"Grell, kiss me!" she whispered and found her voice pathetic. But no answer followed. "Grell…" – again no reaction. "Sutcliffe!" – the girl punched the body with her elbow.
"Hey!" the man winced and rubbed his sensitive skin, though the punch was very light (for the Rozen Maiden, at least). He reached for the exquisite pocket watch that lay on the carved bedside table next to his neat glasses. "Shinku, it's three in the morning! I have to get up early for work tomorrow, William will…" he could go on whining forever if he didn't turn over to face the young woman's blue eyes glistening with teary liquid. "Hey, Red Rose, what's wrong?" he asked in his sing voice as a somewhat adorable dismayed pout crawled across his feminine lips. He would sometimes call her "Red Rose".
"I feel sad" Shinku replied softly while clutching to the cover. "I want you to kiss me". She didn't care she was behaving like a weak crybaby – it was what she wanted that night.
Without waiting for a reply she climbed up the bright red pillow and sealed his lips with her own. Sakurada might have kissed her in a very different way. Why did she remember him still? Grell's sharp teeth hurt the tip of her tongue pleasurably. He eagerly returned the favour. She aroused new emotions in him.
The scarlet Maiden lowered her head on his narrow chest – their skin was equally soft and white – and fingered a strand of luscious red. She did so for the first time (it was normally his position) and Grell giggled quietly at the sensation. Didn't look like dominance, but who cared?
"You're my medium and manservant and must do what I say," – it was supposed to be an order but didn't sound like one in her low, gentle tone. She intended it to be an order, but it didn't sound like one. Without changing the pose she raised her eyes to meet the two peridot greens above her. "You must be by my side, back me up with energy and not leave me. I do not want to be forsaken..." "...again, " she would add, but didn't. How badly she wanted not to be alone, not to let the horrid memories of this night invade her mind again!
"I promise," he replied simply with a cunning and playful smile on his mouth and ran his long aristocratic fingers (with a rose-ring sitting on one of them) through fine threads of her pallid gold. So pathetic. How had the fragile girl managed to change his very nature so much? Moreover, she was something that went completely against his principles - she was the first woman he loved. The one after Madam Red, perhaps, but he still hadn't figured out what sort of feelings he had had for the latter. It hadn't been love, anyway. They used to have the same goal. He admired her cruelty. It was all different with the scarlet Rozen Maiden. She was a rare flower, the ruby rose of his death garden. A fragile creature in his hands, in moments like this. So vulnerable, so dependent. He had always considered himself gentle and delicate to the utmost – she was also delicate, even more delicate. Nothing in common with the thirst for blood that was the ornament of his late mistress... But still, he had been attracted to her by her power, her inner strength. She had a pivot of great strength and character within her, he could feel such things well enough. She was determined, though it showed only in the wish to please her father; she wanted to be the first and the best one. Those ambitions of hers could make her cruel. Of all the tales of her past Grell loved the best the one about her last battle with Suigintou – the battle which the scarlet maiden had won. He derived immense pleasure from picturing her sisters worthless broken body, wrapped in blue flames, her faded purple eyes which looked at victoress with a mixture of hatred and supplication for mercy. Let Shinku repeat for the millionth time that she truly regretted her deed and that there was nothing harder to bear than the loss of a sister; let Suigintou be brought back to life with the only though of revenge – Grell knew by experience that such propensities were not easy to get rid of. There might come the day when they would paint the world there favourite colour together. Shinku would not be stopped to fulfill her mission like Madam Red was; she would not make him despise her. And if she did… The time of the Alice Game she had told him so much about, would approach soon. And she would be magnificent in her battle. It would be something for him to watch.
"Now, try to relax, Shinku-chan, and go to sleep" – he ran his hand through her hair once again.
The fifth daughter of Rozen sighed deeply and closed her eyes, the vermillion tress squeezed tightly in her little hand. The clock ticked away the time before the new stage of the Alice Game would begin. She felt its inevitable approach. She had learnt to truly miss her sisters over the years: the placid and thoughtful Souseiseki, her at times hysterical but loving and caring twin, the two cute annoying brats, the newly born Kirakishou whom she had never seen and even the fiery-eyed Suigintou, her main rival for Father's love. They would soon meet somehow… Shinku tried to drive away thoughts of Jun and before long drifted off. The single candle would soon burn down and then the red bedroom would be completely plunged into darkness. The scent of ruby flowers in the vase would become yet more intoxicating.
Sleep tight, Red Rose.