[Author's Note: This is a little 732 word drabble I wrote about Madam and Grell the other night while watching the musical (the 2015 version of Lycoris). I felt like there had to be something that explained how Grell could do what he had done, more than just being the slightly psychotic person he is. After all, why else would he take her coat, and wear it all that time afterwards, if not as a reminder of someone he once loved? And so, this drabble was born.]
Stolen Vestments
Madam:
The emptiness coursed through her like the cold wind through a hollow cavern. Each encounter, impassioned embrace with racing hearts, or rage filled spree with splattered blood and agonized screams, left her wanting… needing more still. Never fulfilled; never satisfied. Her heart was damaged beyond repair. Even a heavenly being sent to her from above to answer her pleas and join in her quest for surcease through the taking and killing of others, others who had what she could never have, was not enough, in the end. Gradually, even their crazed nights of tearing flesh and thrashing lovemaking grew tiresome; routine. He was always there for her, but she began to not be, for him, to his dismay.
All this, she knew Grell knew. She couldn't hide anything from him. She knew he sensed it; she knew he felt the full brunt of it when she looked into his eyes, whether shielded brown with disguise, or chartreuse yellow rimmed with green when he was openly exposed to her in his true form. She felt his sadness, his hurt, his betrayal, could taste his tears in the back of her own throat, though never shed. But her heart, in its entropy, was not moved.
And so she strayed. From night to night, here and there, then more and more often, she wouldn't come home. Or she would order Grell out. And he dutifully went.
Grell:
Yes; he dutifully followed her orders, for he had sworn to serve her as her butler, and not just as her lover and partner in crime.
But he felt the cuts to his heart, the wounds to his soul. He had reached out; given of himself what he had never given to anyone before, reaper or human. He had bared his true soul. Reveled in showing that side of himself he had never been able to show to another. The times they shared were acts of breathtaking beauty; grand scenes of brilliant red; the most gruesome, thrilling, blood-strewn performance. And the show went on… but one of the actors had lost her way; had stumbled and lost heart in her role.
More and more, he was given all the wet work to do; the fine details; even the broadest strokes, the initial slashes and deep cuts.
And he had despaired. He resorted to bringing her the rarest of flowers; the most precious gems he could find; the most gorgeous finery and dresses. A glittering bracelet dripping with diamonds; a shawl of silk that shimmered like opal waves over her delicate shoulders. A brocade dress of flaming red, with an exquisitely tailored matching red jacket to hug her voluptuous form. How he had admired that jacket and dress on her. Wished, in fact, that he himself could wear it. But he knew it looked better on her. On the woman he loved. But his love was waning, little by little, wearing thin with every lonely night.
Thunder rumbled heavily in the distance. Amidst heavy rain, the night sky occasionally lit up by streaks of brightness, the final act at last had come. The game was up; their identities unmasked by the masterful perception of that sinfully beguiling demon. The new target of his dreams; the latest idol of his lustful desires. Ahhh, it was too good, he shivered in delight thinking about it; but then frowned. For it had led to this…
Lip curled up in disappointment and disgust as he looked down upon the still body, lying on the pavement at his feet, broken and bloodied by his own blade, wielded by his own hand. How had it come to this? He growled through gritted teeth. The rain splashed down without respect on her lifeless form, empty, passionless eyes staring up into his.
"Madam Red," he angrily addressed the woman who now was only an empty shell, having been separated from her soul by one careless after-thought of a swipe with his blade once her cinematic record has ceased. "I loved you dyed in the deepest of crimson of spattered blood, but you don't deserve to wear red at all, it is plain to see." With a sudden urge, he swiftly bent down, and peeled off the jacket he had given to her.
"The curtain has fallen on your cheap performance of 'life'," he sneered petulantly, as he shrugged into the jacket that he had pilfered from her body.
"Farewell, Madam," he intoned, turning and walking away; the purloined garment shrouding him as a token of her memories that he would carry with him always.