The gallery was off his list now, but that list still felt four thousand items long, and as Sebastian ran it over in his head with his eyes closed leaning against the headboard, he nearly stressed himself into sleep. But Grelle came in to bother him, so it was an experience short-lived.

"I think things went really well tonight," she said, clattering around the room and making all sorts of noise doing nothing getting ready for bed. "Some of the stock even sold, which I wasn't expecting, but hey, no complaints."

He'd booked a portrait shoot after the editorial tomorrow. That was a mistake. "Mm."

All of a sudden Grelle was right up in his face and pressing two of her fingers between his eyebrows. He opened his eyes to look at her.

"Stop it," she said.

"I'm not doing anything."

"You're thinking too hard. You get all squinty when you do that."

She let her fingers drop and moved away, going into the bathroom and turning on the sink. Squinty? What did that mean exactly? He shut his eyes again and let his head tip back. They hadn't heard from Madge on the new layout, they'd need to book a room for Auden now that she existed, he would have to package and ship what had sold that night first thing in the morning and post it for delivery, there wasn't time to do that with the editorial, Grelle was squirming her way between himself and the headboard. He sat up and she fell into the sudden space and scowled up at him, so he looked at her, raising his eyebrows.

"What are you doing?"

"I said stop it."

"Stop what?"

"Stressing out," she replied on an outward breath as she sat up behind him. "What's got you so worked up?"

He sighed and shook his head. So much. He'd already been over it all himself a million times; he wasn't keen to do so again just to appease Grelle. The sigh alone seemed telling enough for her, though, and she titled her head and gave him a half smile.

"Look at you. My little domesticated demon worried about so many people things. You need to get out and kill something, Sebastian."

She wrapped her arms around his neck from behind to pull herself up and kiss his cheek and he laughed.

"Sound advice."

She didn't hear him. "Gods you're so tense," she said, pulling back and pressing her hands into his shoulders. "What is this? Concrete?"

He grimaced a little when she pressed harder. "Ow."

She clicked her tongue. "I thought so. Let me fix it."

Back in the early eighties, Grelle had wanted to become a massage therapist for no reason whatsoever, and Sebastian had figured what the hell, why not? So they'd forked over the money and she'd taken classes, and much to his surprise had actually graduated, though she'd never gotten the chance to use the degree professionally as she'd been hit pretty severely by a car while dressed as her alias shortly thereafter and was forced to play dead. The look on her face when he'd dug her out of that grave… Sebastian smiled.

He'd never been sorry they'd spent the money. It was rather nice to have your own on-hand masseuse. So he obeyed and pulled his shirt off over his head and lay down on the bed so Grelle could get at his back. She started in on his shoulders immediately and the pain was sharp enough to make him cringe.

"You're supposed to tell me before it gets this bad," she chided, honing in on a particular knot that had been bothering him for weeks. "It doesn't help that you look like this."

She'd seen his true form hundreds of times, and while it was true that it was easier just to look the way nature had intended, it wasn't exactly practical. Changing his appearance didn't require a lot of effort, but it was something that built up over time, like pressure on a dam, and he hadn't taken his true form for months.

"Would you rather I looked like a demon?" he asked.

"No, this is my favorite of your faces. Now stop talking and relax."

He smiled and shut his eyes, laying his head down and letting her work. He knew this was her favorite of the various looks he'd taken over the years—it was the one he'd had back in the 1880s, the face she'd first fallen for. Of course Grelle had changed too along with him, cycling through different disguises and names as necessary. She'd come full circle back to his favorite as well, her impossibly long and bright red hair finally being something both plausible and acceptable in human society. Even demons and Shinigami were creatures of habit, it seemed.

It took about an hour and a half for Grelle to work the stiffness out of his muscles, particularly the back of his neck where he held all his stress, but she did manage, and when she'd finished she flopped down beside him and let out an enormous sigh. He turned his head and looked over at her.

"Thank you, my love."

"It wouldn't take so long if you took better care of yourself."

"You take care of me just fine."

"Yes, but 'why pay someone to do a job which you could do better and faster', hmn?"

"I don't pay you."

She laughed. "Well maybe you should start. I think a good massage goes for like eighty quid these days."

"Perhaps, but they've all had proper training."

"I've had proper training."

"Thirty years ago."

She scoffed which turned into a laugh when she took a whack at him and he laughed as well. When she smiled, it made him smile and he sat up a little to pull her in next to him and wrap his arms around her. He kissed her neck and then just held her for a moment. He'd always enjoyed the relative coolness of her Shinigami body against the heat his demon form created in holding another appearance. It was part of the reason he'd decided to stay with Grelle initially, though he couldn't explain why. Something about it just attracted him to her.

Grelle looked at him and brushed his hair back away from his face. "What are you thinking about?" she asked.

"You."

She liked that. It made a smile spread out across her whole face in this dopey kind of dreamy way and she pressed her body against his, pulling herself up to meet his lips. It was always different when Grelle kissed him from when he kissed her. She had this bizarre, passionate, intimate knowledge of exactly how he wanted to be kissed, something he had never been able to replicate himself kissing her. When she kissed him, it was about him—pleasing him—and she knew just how to do it. Kiss after kiss she drew from his lips, and he held onto her all over.

They were interrupted by a knock at the door and a furtive little voice that whispered, "…Grelle?" Auden. Sebastian groaned, but did not let go.

"I'm going to kill that girl."

Grelle laughed, kissing him twice more before saying, "No you're not. You 'like' her remember?"

He should have known that comment was going to come back around to bite him. He gave Grelle a flat look, but she just grinned.

"You stay right there."

She got up and hurried over to the door, pulling on her robe as she went. She turned around and raised her eyebrows at him to ask if she looked presentable and he gave her a nod, so she opened the door to look down at Auden on the other side.

"What's up, pup?"

Auden looked at her feet. "…Hi…I'm sorry to wake you…"

"Oh you thought we were sleeping." Grelle laughed. "You're so cute. Don't worry about it. What's going on?"

"I…"

This was going to turn into another all-night therapy session. Sebastian sat up, pulling his shirt on over his head and stretching the sore muscles in his neck and shoulders. Grelle had done her job a little too well there. He rose and went to the door as well, wrapping an arm around Grelle's waist as he came up beside her.

"Can't sleep?" he asked.

Auden shook her head. She was trembling again. Aside from her horrible timing, he really did feel a mild affection for the girl. Pity, probably, but he liked the way she'd always held her ground around him. He separated himself from Grelle, running his fingers through her hair as he did, and started down the hall.

"I'll make tea. You two can talk."

Grelle smiled and shook her head at Sebastian's back as he headed for the kitchen. Poor thing. She'd have to arrange for a long weekend away once all the anniversary stuff was over with, something for just the two of them, which would mean finding Auden a babysitter. Heaven knew that girl couldn't handle a night by herself.

Speaking of, Grelle turned her attention back to her little charge. "You want to sit down?" she asked.

Auden gritted her teeth. "No."

Then why come at all? Grelle rolled her eyes and grabbed Auden's wrist and pulled her into the room, practically dragging her across the floor and tossing her onto the bed.

"Too bad."

Aghast, Auden stared up at her like she'd been mortally wounded. "What the hell?"

"You came to me. I didn't 'wake' you up. Something's bothering you and you don't want to talk about it, but you come looking for help anyways. I don't get that. You're such a dichotomy."

A lightbulb went up. That's what it was. Grelle had finally been able to put her finger on what it was that had been bothering her about Auden. She was sweet, she was sour, she was shy, she was brash, she tried to stab you with a shiv and then decided she desperately wanted to come home and live with you. She didn't make any sense.

"What's your deal?"

Auden's eyes flashed down at the floor, glaring fiercely. Her cheeks turned red and she clenched her hands together in a fist. Grelle frowned and took a seat on the bed beside her.

"You know can tell me anything. I'm a great listener."

Auden looked at her, angry tears swimming round in her eyes. "Are you?" she spat.

Grelle sighed, but she wouldn't press. Auden could talk when she good and well wanted to, and Grelle wasn't going to play her little attention game. She was an expert in those herself—she could smell one when it was around. Whatever Auden wanted to disclose, she could disclose. Grelle wasn't about to weasel it out of her.

A few tears dripped down Auden's face and she wiped them away with a furious hand. She didn't want to cry, but who did really? Sebastian came back with the tea then, set it out and served it without saying anything. Could sense a mood, that one. Finished, he lay down behind Grelle and wrapped an arm around her waist—his way of letting her know he hadn't forgotten where they'd left off and wasn't about to. She smiled at him and he shut his eyes, smiling back.

"Why don't you tell me about you, then, hm?" Grelle asked, picking up her cup and blowing away the steam. "Where are you from?"

Auden sniffed. Seemed the question was a safe one. "Yorkshire."

Grelle smiled. "I should have known." Her accent was slight, but Grelle could hear it now that she was aware. "It's beautiful there."

Drawing her eyebrows together, Auden looked over. "You've been?"

"We lived there for some time, actually. Around the turn of the century."

The information perked Auden right up. "Where?"

"Felixkirk."

"Oh! My mom's family's from Thirsk."

Grelle laughed and smiled. "Right next door."

Auden smiled a genuine guaranteed smile and for the first time, it didn't fade into miserable. It felt good to have cheered her up, but Grelle was going to need more information about what she was dealing with if she was going to continue to deal with it. And as much as she wanted to hear it from Auden herself, if her current pace was going to keep, that wasn't going to cut it. She didn't want to look at her records, but she just might have to.

"Auden…" Oh, she didn't want to ruin her mood… "…is there anything you feel like you should tell me?"

Auden looked down. "No…" she whispered.

A slight frown graced Grelle's lips for a moment, but she shrugged it off and put a hand on Auden's knee. "All right."

Auden nodded, and that seemed to Grelle to be a thank you.

"Whenever you need something, even if you don't want to talk, you can always come to us, all right?"

She nodded again, sipped her tea. Mercy this child was a handful. She needed to get out, get working. Get busy. Monitoring death didn't seem like it would be particularly therapeutic for forgetting about your own, but all Shinigami worked hard, didn't they? Grelle realized as they sat that she hadn't done any prep work with Auden on her training Scythe at all, which was the whole purpose in having checked it out from Administration. Hopefully there wouldn't be paperwork for that.

Auden said good night to Grelle and Sebastian and crept up to her own room in the soft darkness. She couldn't find the words to tell Grelle about what had brought her here. She couldn't describe what it felt like to be told over and over again, "You should just kill yourself." Texts, emails, in her locker at school, Facebook, everywhere. She'd never been able to escape it. But that wasn't where it had started. No, that had been the end. She couldn't even turn around and face her life herself, much less tell someone else about it.

Still. Grelle understood. Of that Auden was certain.

She'd gone down that night because she'd dreamt about it again—her own death. Just as vividly as if she was doing it once more. Setting up that chair, making sure the knot was tight. She wasn't sure why she'd chosen hanging, or why she'd been so interested to know what Grelle had done, but she was sure that it defined her somehow. All the same, she didn't want to relive the pain every time she closed her eyes. The whole purpose had been to escape the pain, but here she was. And she couldn't even tell Grelle about the dreams.

Auden climbed into bed and curled up into a ball, pulling the blankets up around her and snuggling down. Part of her brain poked at her, trying to tell her she should be nervous about tomorrow, she should be afraid of sleep, but she only felt warm. Sebastian really did make a good cup of tea.