AN: Ah, the one where I finally get to write one of my fave characters. Three guesses who.
Also, for the record, in this story said character (you'll know who lol) goes by they/them pronouns. I'm not saying other interpretations are wrong, this is just how I see the character since I've heard/seen them go by a few different pronouns over the years. Enjoy!
It's not a delay to stop and sharpen the scythe.
-Irish Saying
Claude considered himself a sensible being. Logical, forthright, driven. A blank slate purely with a final goal in mind. Despite this, he felt. Not often, and not willingly, but he felt. In all his years as a demon, Claude had experienced anger (more often than not), had experienced disappointment (recently more often than not), had experienced longing, craving, needing (recently... frustratingly... more often than not).
And as he stood on the peaked roof of Trancy Manor, perfectly poised and unwavering on the slanted surface, he found that he felt... well, something more akin to seething hatred with a light sprinkling of confusion. Something he had only ever felt once before and would rather not feel again.
Nonetheless, there he stood, bearing the strength of the afternoon sun in an otherwise cloudless sky, practically stumped regarding the whereabouts of his less-than-helpful subordinates, among...
The butler sighed, long and low and barely audible over the ambient laughter and whirring that had been intermittently plaguing his ears for the past half hour. Hannah and the triplets were high on his list of Current Problems... among other things.
Something inhumanly fast rushed behind Claude, causing his hair and coattails to whip and tousle in a frenzy. Claude whirled, sinking to a crouch, staring after the blur as it weaved between peaks and chimneys. He drew out more golden dining knifes from the depths of his jacket—several of their likeness already having peppered the shingled expanse of the roof.
For the briefest of moments, the laughter crescendoed as the blur—offensively colored, he shall add—blew past, teasingly close, and Claude's jaw instinctively tensed. His grip on the knives tightened mere seconds before he let them fly, but the blades lodged in the bark of a nearby tree as the blur disappeared in a mass of rustling leaves just beside it.
Claude's mouth twitched, and a faint glow threatened behind his irises. He drew to his full height, adjusting his jacket, his gloves, the hair that had fallen out of place. He willed the tenseness in his shoulders to subside and cast a blank but steely stare at the deceptively innocent thick of forest beside the manor house.
"If you could be still for just one moment," the butler said in a tone more clipped than to his liking. He would rather not betray how agitated he had become. Not to—
A rich, clucking laugh broke from the foliage to Claude's left, but when its owner spoke several moments later, the voice came from just behind him—far too close to his ear than he would care to admit.
"For you, darling?" the bane of Claude's current existence crooned, blowing a soft puff of air into his ear. "Not likely."
Not wasting a moment, Claude leapt from the roof and into the trees, landing hard on a rather sturdy branch. He heard faint movement behind him, circling around him further into the trees, and waited. In a flash, he drew three more knives from the depths of his jacket and threw them towards a flicker of red to his left. This time, he had more or less hit his mark.
A mortified yelp pierced the air, and the blur finally stilled, landing haphazardly on a branch a ways away and finally giving Claude a full view—albeit shaded in the spotted light of the forest—of exactly what—no, who—he was dealing with.
A human-like figure, smartly dressed in butler-esque attire, stood tall on mid-height heels colored black and a garish red that matched the torn overcoat—three holes, ragged but precise and close together—currently being held out and examined. The figure's pouting face was slim, pointed, accented by red-framed glasses attached to a beaded glasses chain draped around its owner's pale, mid-collared neck. As if that were not enough, long, blood-red hair splayed and flowed from the figure's head down to about the knees, giving an overall appearance of some sort of disturbed, partly-bloomed rose. Tucked in a crooked elbow hung a chainsaw, gaudily designed in scarlet and gold, sharp-toothed blade just reaching the branch below, and its high-pitched, mechanical whirring now—finally—silent.
(Claude thought against mentioning the rose metaphor, guessing through recent experience that the comment would be taken strikingly as a compliment, and he very very much did not want that.)
Claude eyed the figure, a scrutinizing gaze confirming what he had been suspecting: Grim Reaper. He knew without needing a closer look that this... (clearly not human) being... would have sharp green eyes behind those completely necessary glasses; such sharp eyes would hold neither remorse nor regard for the sanctity and preciousness—and, dare he say, deliciousness—of a human soul, rather seeing it as just another thing to slice and end and collect with that over-the-top Death Scythe dangling so innocently and nonchalantly in the open air.
A disgusted scowl pinched his brow and nose, and he took the moment's pause to settle into a readied stance, more cutlery poised between his fingers but not thrown.
The Reaper, on the other hand, let the overcoat fall away in a flutter of fabric, stomped a foot, looking rather visibly flustered.
"How dare you, you bloody knock-off?!" they cried, voice that had been low and borderline sultry in Claude's ear now shrill with offense. "This was my Sunday best and I'd just had it cleaned, oh..." The Reaper trailed off, tutting away in derision under their breath.
Claude narrowed his eyes, very nearly rolled them. "I am not sure what you are referring to by calling me that," he lied, having at least a vague idea as to what the Reaper was referring to, "but—"
The Reaper scoffed—a loud, pompous noise somewhere between a guffaw and a cough. "Don't be coy, dearie. You're just a cheap version of my darling—" It seemed as though they were about to say a name, but pressed a finger to their lips instead. "A ruddy sequel, never to be as spectacular as the first." They had devolved into speaking with grandiose gestures, something nigh on Shakespearean, to Claude's dismay. "Shame, that," they continued, wiping away a nonexistent tear before breaking into a wicked grin: an ear-to-ear display of unnaturally pointed, shark-like teeth. "I'd've liked to have two of him."
The demon fought against a scowl, but failed, thin lips twisting into something malignant. Feeling a surge of determination, he reached up and removed his spectacles, tucking them away in an inner pocket of his suit jacket. He fixed his gaze, cold and expressionless (as it should be), and said, "Phantomhive sent you." It wasn't a question.
With a click of their tongue, the Reaper swung their chainsaw in a large arc, lodging it into the side of the tree behind them with a hearty thuck. They leaned on the box of the Scythe, nudging their glasses down their thin, sharp nose to peer over them, heavy-lidded and smug and working right at Claude's last nerve.
"I'm not sure what you are referring to, dearie. I'm just a deadly good butler," they proclaimed, finishing off the ludicrous statement with a wink and a grand gesture of his free hand, tongue sticking out mockingly.
No, Claude had been wrong. Now the Reaper was working at his last nerve—or tap dancing on it, more like.
"You're a pitiful excuse for a butler, if one at all," he said, launching lightly into the air and darting to a tree branch a few meters closer to the red-clad nuisance, who instinctively followed suit, dislodging their chainsaw in a twirl and hopping to a tree farther away. They landed in a pirouette, scoffing again.
"And you are? Ha! Pot," they held out a graceful, leather-gloved hand, pointing at Claude briefly before bringing the hand back and holding it flush to their chest, "meet kettle. Darling, please, you—" There was a sudden, sweet chime, and the Reaper, brow raised, held out the same hand again and peered at a wristwatch. They sucked in air through their teeth—a distracting, hissing sound—and tilted their head. "Oh, I would so love to get into the grittier details with you—I truly truly would and there is absolutely no sarcasm to that statement whatsoever, no, not at all—ah, but I am on a rather tight schedule..."
Claude's grip on the knives tightened. "What do you mean, 'grittier details'?"
The Reaper rolled their eyes, groaning. "Typical man—only hearing the words a lady says about him and ignoring the rest." They take the chainsaw in both hands, whirring the motor threateningly. "I just said I'm on a tight schedule, dear, so I—"
A yelp cut off the Reaper's spiel as they quickly dodged the few knives Claude had casually thrown their way. The knives stuck to the tree behind their head, sunk to the hilt in the bark. The Reaper stared at them a moment, affronted, and bared their teeth in a hostile glower.
"Unfair, you second-rate Sebby!" they screeched, and lunged, the Scythe screaming in their wake.
The cry didn't go unnoticed by Claude—though he had not needed much more convincing that this Reaper was here on Phantomhive and Michaelis' orders. He leapt from his branch, watching blankly as it was severed violently mere seconds later. He let fly several more knives, rhythmically taking more from his jacket only to release them a split second later. Somehow, the pest was able to dodge every one, becoming a blur again.
Claude's lip curled as he let loose another failing flurry. Were he human, he was sure that his blood pressure would be dangerously high. Just who was this Grim Reaper, and how did they come to be under the order of Phantomhive? And worse, how much did they know?
Further thought only pushed Claude to move quicker, advance farther, attack harsher. Logic would dictate that such agitation would make the butler sloppy, but no—Claude prided himself on being a sensible being. Logical, forthright, driven. Something so brash and annoying to focus on would only hone those attributes.
Wouldn't you think so?
As such, the butler soon began to gain the upper hand, flitting about the trees with stoic and graceful ease and landing knives mere centimeters from the Reaper's head. They sailed past, through trees, and through the haze of his frenzy, Claude vaguely heard the distant crash of glass, one by one. He clicked his tongue. Perhaps construction would be on the schedule, after all.
"H-how many... knives... do you have... in that, oh—!" the Reaper wheezed between ragged pants, ducking from a particularly close blade. They swung around a narrower tree, gripping a branch above them, hair whipping out to the side. They shot Claude a befuddled look. "And just where are you keeping th—actually, strike that last, I don't want to know."
The game continued—something akin to cat and mouse, if a mouse had a deadly blade half its height and cackled like a banshee—with the two beings jumping and whirling and battering the forest to bits.
"You know, darling," the Reaper piped, arching through the air and digging a jagged cut into the tree Claude had just been perched in, "you've gotten much better than I remember. Good on you!"
Claude hesitated, just for the briefest of moments, grappling back in his memory for some appearance of the Reaper, for they were particulary… unforgettable. It was a foolish mistake, as the Reaper took the chance to spring towards him, far too close, eyes flashing—(ah, yes, there were the emerald green irises, the outer ring of a lighter hue, overall ethereal and unnecessarily bright).
The butler dropped like dead weight to the forest floor below and broke into a sprint, feeling a sudden twist of anger as the Reaper gleefully followed in pursuit. For the moment, the game roles had switched, and Claude sought to remedy that.
He pulled ahead at breakneck speed, hearing pathetic protests shouted from behind. Normally he would ignore them—or any such unnecessary sounds coming from his adversary—but here he listened, waiting for the Reaper to pick up the pace, baiting them to focus only on catching up to the butler ahead.
The chase took to the trees once more, maintaining its speed. Eying a particularly thick branch just ahead, Claude took a single knife in his hand and twisted in the air. Midway through his arc toward the branch, he threw it, aiming for the space between the Reaper's suddenly widening eyes.
A shocked cry rang out and, unable to completely dodge the blade due to momentum and speed, the Reaper tilted their head, gritting their teeth as the knife just barely brushed past their cheek and sliced cleanly through their beaded glasses chain. The force knocked the thin frames askew, and the Reaper blinked hard, disoriented.
They paused, stumbling on the nearest branch, and moved to fix them, but another knife flew and knocked them out of the Reaper's hand.
With a short, hissed expletive, the Reaper gripped tightly onto their Scythe and squinted in Claude's general direction. "How dare you take away a lady's vision, you copycat bastar—"
Claude lunged at the Reaper, descending from above, kicking their chainsaw away and sending it careening noisily to the forest floor. He whirled, sweeping the Reaper's legs out from under them—but before they could plummet completely from the branch, Claude gripped them roughly by the throat, shoving them back in a half-crouch against the trunk of the tree.
He loomed over them, face almost completely in shadow, and rumbled in an uncharacteristically hoarse voice, "What do you want?"
The Reaper's eyes shook, the bright green flicking back and forth, and their lips parted—an overall expression of shock. They took a moment, swallowing—Claude felt the movement under his hand and only gripped tighter—and gave something of a half-hearted shrug, chirping, "Well... I want my glasses back, first of all. I was going to ask if you could so kindly get them for me, but I daresay I don't need them at this distance." They flashed a smug grin, all teeth. "You know, you look better blurry, darling. If I squint hard enough..." They tilted their head, straining against Claude's grip. "Yes, and maybe with a drink or ten in me... Oh ho, yes, you could pass as a rather good Sebastian..."
Something sharp and hot shot through Claude. Feeling rather fed up, he reared back, pulled the Reaper forward just enough to make their heels scramble on the tree bark, and slammed them back against the trunk, eliciting something between a gasp and a yelp from their lips. The force sent a shockwave through the tree, causing the very top to crack, teeter, and eventually break fully. It fell over, landing uncomfortably close to the manor house.
The noise was almost deafening, but all during, and even into the proceeding silence, Claude glared daggers at the Reaper, a vague hint of a glow shining through. He leaned in close to the dazed Reaper and voiced another inquiry, this time a little more calmly.
"What were you sent for? What do you know?"
The Reaper blinked heavily, head swaying a bit. They shook it, wincing and tonguing at a split in their lip where a bead of blood was starting to form. It rather went well with the rest of the pest's ensemble.
Another grin, this time a little weaker and with a lesser-focused squint in the eye, spread across the Reaper's thin face. He rasped, gaze dropping, "Is that another knife in your pocket, darling, or are you just that happy to see me all battered and bloody?"
Claude pressed his eyes shut, inhaled. He shifted inhumanly and stabbed the tree bark just next to the Reaper's face with a gleaming gold blade.
It rattled, vibrating from the force of the impact, and the Reaper let out a high pitched squeal, flinching away as several red strands of hair fell away and drifted lightly to the forest floor. "Knife! Knife! Going to go with knife!"
"Answer me," Claude said.
Green irises shifted, narrowed even further, giving Claude a once-over that strikingly reminded him of those he'd received from Madame Gallagher weeks ago.
"Demanding..." the Reaper mused, but was quick with a panicked "Ah, ah, ah!" when Claude shifted again threateningly. They held up their hands in semblance of surrender. "I'm not one to kiss and tell, dearie, but I'll have you know..." They glanced about, dipping to a whisper. "I'm a bit more aware of this particular situation than I believe you—and my little brat of an employer—would like me to be." Their eyes lost the squint, turned cold and dark, and their grin seemed to be more malicious than before.
Claude pressed tighter on the Reaper's throat, leaned closer. "What are you babbling about?"
The Reaper strained against him, wincing, moving a hand to grip the butler's wrist in a feeble attempt to lessen the pressure. The bead of blood welled up and dripped down the Reaper's chin.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" they snapped. "But anyway..." In a flash, the Reaper's previous vibrancy returned, a wicked grin playing on their features. "I'm also the queen of double entendre, darling." The free hand not gripping at Claude's wrist flicked outwards, and a pair of comically small scissors—no bigger than the palm of Claude's hand—dropped from the inside of the Reaper's sleeve and into their gloved palm. With a sharp cry, they quickly move to stab Claude, arcing for his neck, but the demon had already jumped away.
"Did you think a proper lady wouldn't have a backup, love?" the Reaper laughed, rising to their feet and rubbing at their neck, where already a blotchy red mark was forming. After a moment they whipped out that hand as well, and a second pair of scissors appeared, fitting nicely in their readied fingers—like they were somehow used to the ridiculous weapons. They hopped down from the broken tree to where their glasses had landed, narrowly avoiding Claude's thrown cutlery all the way, and snatched them up.
"You sure skipped out quick," crooned the Reaper, fixing the frames back on their face before wiping—wait, no, licking—away the blood at their lip. They held up their scissors, mockingly smug again. "Afraid of a little snip snip, dearie?" There was a small chorus of high-pitched metallic scrapes as they rhythmically snapped the scissors shut a few times. "I don't blame you. Oh, what I've done with these—!" They finished with a shout, cut off by several thucks as gold blades formed a halo against the tree behind their head.
Claude, standing tall atop a branch high above the Reaper, offered, "If you are not going to tell me what I want to know, leave."
The scissors snipped open, and the Reaper settled back into a crouch, clicking their tongue. "Not until I earn my pay, darling."
They sprang into the air, and the game, once again, continued. Only now, the two engaged in something of a sword fight—blade for blade, red-handled scissors versus polished dining ware. They clashed in the air, Claude's knives catching in the crook of opened scissors, the Reaper dodging and aiming jabs and kicks at the demon, Claude retaliating with quick punches and stabs. He would never admit it—particularly not to his master—but he and the Reaper seemed to be evenly matched in this setup. The thought made his blood boil, and he cursed the absence of his subordinates, making a mental note to... inquire about their whereabouts later.
Adding insult to injury, when Claude reached into his jacket for another handful of blades and came up empty, he nearly shouted in frustration.
He glanced down.
And he immediately regretted it.
In the corner of his vision, he glimpsed a flicker of light—a metallic glint of something flying alarmingly close alarmingly fast. The Reaper had let fly one of the scissors in the moment of Claude's hesitation, and while it didn't hit flesh, the sharp double blades pierced the sleeve of the butler's suit jacket just at the shoulder, yanking him back and pinning him to the nearest tree. His hand flew to the scissors, hooking two fingers in the handles and pulling—and he nearly yelled a second time when the blades did not budge.
Moments passed as he struggled—baffled, nearly seething—and the Reaper laughed. Laughed. They swooped a ways away, over to where their Death Scythe had fallen, and peered at the butler with a look of absolute amusement.
They shrugged, palms up, jacket falling farther down their shoulders to settle in the crooks of their elbows. They looked downright nonchalant, and Claude found he could barely form coherent thought. Everything in his mind was just... red.
"I'd love to say I hate to run and leave you pegged so cruelly, darling..." the Reaper called, hefting the chainsaw over their shoulder and winking, "but I would be lying. I still have work to do if I'm to get what I want. No hard feelings! Ta-ta!" And with a final cackle that would rattle in the back of Claude's brain for the rest of his immortal life, the Reaper flit away, back in the direction of Trancy Manor.
Claude stared after them, exhaling heavily through his nose. He gripped the scissors again, yanking with two hands, and with a ridiculous amount of effort, finally dislodged them, leaving a large tear in his suit jacket but not particularly bothered about it. He stared at the weapon—could it even be called a weapon?—in his palm, measuring the weight. Brow knit, he wondered how it could have the kind of power to fend off his blades and make him struggle with dislodging it.
A rather concerning boom echoed out then, sounding something like crumbling stone, and Claude shook his head, trading the scissors in his hand with the spectacles from his inner pocket. He adjusted them, narrowing his gaze out at the ruin of the forest—the downed branches and shattered tree trunks.
Something in his mind told him that he should hurry to the manor, to his master—(What had the Reaper called Phantomhive? A little brat of an employer? He could relate.)—but an atypical fatigue settled over him, and he found that he could spare a moment, that the great Alois Trancy could use a bit of a scare before Claude inevitably swooped in to save the day. As usual.
As goddamn usual.
He reluctantly leapt into the trees, his thoughts brought back to wondering from where and when the Reaper knew him. An instance, years and years in the past, began to surface in his memory, but he immediately suppressed it, refusing to return to that time of weakness. He must be wrong. He had to be.
He forced himself to think of Phantomhive, of attaining his soul at last after all this time. It was really the only thought that kept him going these days. But then Trancy Manor came into view, with its violet roofing dotted with spikes of gold and other remnants of the fight, and he forced his thoughts onto nothing at all.
Something made a loud noise. Something so big it shook the walls, rattling the vase on a side table as Alois bolted past with his fiancée in tow. He whimpered, stumbling, and found that he didn't feel like much of a hero, after all, though he would be the last to let anyone know.
"What was that?!" Lady Gallagher gasped, grip tightening in Alois' hand.
"C-construction," the earl offered pathetically, rolling his eyes at how unconvincing he sounded even to himself.
"Construc—? For God's sake, My Lord... I can honestly say that I've never witnessed renovations like this before... Where are we even going now?!"
"Uh... The kitchen...?"
"What? For wh—?!"
"I'm hungry. Are you hungry? Let's steal a snack."
"Earl Trancy you cannot honestly think that you are fooling me anymore with this construction twaddle—"
Alois stopped suddenly, rounding on her, eyes wide with unconcealed panic and not really caring much about it. "You know what? Fine. I don't know what it is. Alright? Does that satisfy you?" He searched her face, only finding mild shock as she pressed her lips tight together. "Brilliant. Now if you could just shut up and come on..." He gave her hand a tug, noting briefly how warm it felt in his, and how it actually wasn't as small as he had thought. (It fit... kind of nicely? No, stop that. Not important.)
"Did you just tell me to shut uWAHH!" The lady squawked as Alois yanked her around a corner in the hall, and he would have smirked, nearly did, had he not just turned down another window-lined hall like the idiot he was.
He gritted his teeth, quickened his pace, wondered three things all at once:
1) What the hell was going on outside the mansion?
2) Why hadn't Claude taken care of it yet? and
3) Where did the wench find the gall to call him, a respectable nobleman, a trickster?! It was only obvious that he was the hero. Perhaps maybe not Right Now, but...! Oh, and she said she could take on the hero's role? Ha! And ha!
(Alright, perhaps that last one was not very important at the moment, but Alois thought it nonetheless.)
A shattering noise came from behind, and the two stumbled. Three more followed, increasingly closer, and Alois chanced a glance over his shoulder, praying to whatever deities that were listening—(well, first of all, to ask if they were enjoying the bloody show)—that the wench wasn't looking.
Shards and bits of glass littered the floor, and out one of the in-tact windows, Alois glimpsed some human-shaped form streak through the trees, followed closely behind by a second figure that looked suspiciously like Claude.
A curious cocktail of emotions swam around Alois' head—fear, dread, shock, and some vague spark of recognition seated deep in the back of his mind when it came to the figure in red. He decided not to think on that too much.
His gaze flicked back to Lady Gallagher then, and in that instance, time seemed to slow. She had a focused set to her face, lips parted, panting, brow furrowed in strain. That mane of hers had completely escaped its pins and ties, and long locks fell about her face. Alois didn't know why, but he remembered their dance again, just for a moment.
They took a turn, Alois thanking the stars for the lack of windows, and slowed down to a trot. He was figuring exactly where they were in the mansion—the damn place was a maze sometimes, and even Alois got lost on occasion—and it took him several seconds to realize that Lady Gallagher was speaking.
He blinked. "What?"
She scoffed. "Again with the ignoring. You said kitchen, correct?"
"Yes...?"
She tugged on his hand, gestured down a set of stairs. "This way is quicker, then."
Alois shook his head, eyes fluttering, but allowed himself to be pulled along. He added another thought to his list.
4) How did she know her way around the mansion so well?
He supposed he'd wondered what she did in the days where he successfully avoided her. She couldn't possibly read for all that time, so... Where did she go? What did she do? Just... mingle about? Talk about... hair or something with Hannah?
If they survived today, he would ask, if only just to sate his childish curiosity.
The next few minutes passed in relative silence, with only the occasional distant cackle and the duo's clicking heels on the floor sounding around them. Alois let out an audible sigh of relief as the kitchen door came into view, and he jogged ahead of Lady Gallagher to wrench it open for them.
The kitchen was rather large, prep tables splitting the room in two with appliances, cupboards, and counter space lining the outer walls. A pleasant stream of sunlight shone in from the mid-sized windows on the far wall, bracketed by opened curtains. It looked strange in the daytime. Usually Alois snuck down for a late night snack when the rest of the house was asleep—(Well, some of them, at least. To this day Alois wasn't sure if demons actually slept.)—and was used to faded moonlight casting the room in rich, blue-black shadow.
Lady Gallagher leaned against one of the prep tables, hands on her hips, staring at the floor. Between labored breaths, she scolded, "You really had to take such a long way just to get here, didn't you? Did you plan on even coming here in the first place?"
Alois, who'd had his ear pressed against the kitchen door listening for... anything, threw her a look. "Listen here, my lady. I was a little preoccupied in the moment, and I—"
"Preoccupied with stroking your own ego, hmm?"
Alois knocked his head on the door as he whipped around. "Agh, my what?"
The lady narrowed her eyes at him, let out a breath. She waved her hands in front of her in an attempt to clear the air. "Forget that. Just... Just what is going on? Everything was fine in the library, we were having a grand old time, then..."
"Yes... grand..." Alois murmured, a distant thought making him lock the door for good measure. He ran a hand through his hair, shuffling the strands, and strode further into the room. "I meant what I said before. I don't know what's happening. Claude said construction, so it's construction."
She just stared at him, head tilted down—had she been wearing glasses, she'd be peering over them, like Claude did sometimes. The thought made him chuckle grimly, a short puff of air out his nose, and the lady seemed to read into it.
"He really pulls the strings around here," she said softly, "doesn't he?"
You have no idea, Alois thought instantly, and had to bite his tongue—with its binding contract mark—from saying it aloud. He was too on edge about Claude to play off the hold the demon had on him with a laugh, but... she couldn't know that. Any of that. Claude would kill him.
...
Ah, yes, I see the problem.
Alois shook his head, huffed out a heartier laugh. "Claude? Not at all. He's my butler. He works for me." It felt odd, somehow, lying through his teeth. "I'm in charge and... and..." He watched her blink slowly, knew she didn't believe him. He swallowed thickly. "Would you let your maid walk all over you?"
The lady seemed offended. "Absolutely not. She advises me, has taken care of me for years and still does sometimes, but that is all. I'm not a child anymore. Nor are you."
Alois smirked. "I thought you liked being childish. Liked me being childish. You said as much back there."
Lady Gallagher's mouth hung open. She shifted, looking away. "That... That is different—"
"So, wait, let me see if I understand this," Alois said, taking slow strides forward. "So you find it... compelling that I act childish—'flit about the manor causing trouble,' as you say—only to find fault in me taking a simple order from my butler—hold on, I am not finished." He held up a hand when she tried to protest. "And you said previously that you too are childish... but you then find that you are more suited to be a heroine—and yes, I know that a female hero is a heroine, don't look so surprised—but anyway, you then go on to say that you don't allow your maid—God knows where she is, honestly—to 'walk all over you.' Claude doesn't walk all over me. He advises me, as what's-her-face advises you, albeit a bit more intensely I will admit. So, with all of that in mind... tell me, my lady," he paused, close enough to touch her, staring down with a seriousness he had worked up in himself, "which would you have me be? Childish fairy, or a bit more grown-up hero?"
He didn't know if it was the mounting pressure of the day, or of past weeks or months, or of his entire existence had led him to think and analyze everything so easily as he had. To be honest, he surprised himself. But anyway, the question hung in the air like a mist, the lady gaping at him. Alois' mouth felt dry from speaking so much, and he had a slight, sinking feeling that he would regret all of that later.
Lady Gallagher shook her head, just a little, and started to speak, but that was when the wall caved in.
Perhaps the sharp, exuberant shout preceding should have been an indication that the Trancy Manor was still under some sort of attack. Well, Alois was brazenly reminded of that fact as the center statue of the largest fountain from the back garden—some cherub abomination just short of the height of the kitchen itself—took out stone and wood and cupboards alike. It even dismantled one of the large cast-iron stoves by the window in its wake, altogether in devastating crash that started a low ringing in Alois' ears as he and Lady Gallagher ducked away from the blast, instinctively reaching for each other without a hesitant thought.
Rubble crumbled to the floor, struggling to settle, and Alois looked up first, squinting and coughing through the dust. Perched on the ruined remains of the fountain an impossible distance away stood the red figure from earlier, tall and flowing in a comically gentle breeze with a sharp grin. They hefted up a screaming, whirring weapon that drove a chill straight down Alois' spine.
Colder yet was—ironically—the spark of recognition Alois had felt before as it bloomed into a more assured flame.
Lady Gallagher was yelling, and Alois felt it more than heard it, felt her wriggling in protest as he gripped her shoulders. In the distance, Claude appeared, descending from somewhere and landing a kick square against the figure's head, knocking them both out of the limited view Alois had through the hole in the wall. He watched, entranced, thoughts racing and oddly painful and... and his fiancée's voice started sounding louder, less like it was underwater.
"God... Wh... Wh-what the hell?! The wall just—Earl Trancy, I... I think... Earl Tr-Trancy? Earl—oh sod it—Alois! Alois, look at me. Look at me. You're bleeding!"
He seemed to surface then, loosening his grip on the lady and registering her voice clearly again... as well as the growing, throbbing pain on his forehead. He reached up, but Lady Gallagher beat him to it, brushing tentative fingers through his bangs, pushing them aside. She winced, freckled nose wrinkling at whatever her worried gaze had found. Her fingers came away red. Alois oddly found it hard to care.
A laugh—closer, clearer, wilder—made the two jolt. Lady Gallagher went to turn, inquiring rather colorfully what the ahem that was, just as Claude and the interloper reappeared in the distance, clashing and dodging each others' attacks.
Alois sucked in a panicked breath through his teeth, reaching out and grabbing her by her shoulders again, making her face fully away from the brawl. When he looked down at her again, she had a deeply perturbed expression pinching her features. He realized vaguely that his teeth were still bared, and he quirked up the corners of his mouth in a (terribly unconvincing) grin, let an uneasy laugh slip out.
"Um, um," he said, unable to keep his eyes from flicking between the hole in the wall and her gaze on him, quickly turning into something suspecting and borderline irritated. "I-it's dangerous and you should... probably get out of here."
His fingers gripped tighter, moving to her forearms and pulling, but she refused to budge, taking a step back to get out of his reach. She didn't have much room to go anywhere, though, with the jostled, debris-covered prep table just behind her.
"Even to just look at...?" she muttered, turning her head. "Don't be ridi—"
Her chide was cut off by a gasp as Alois moved again, this time gripping the sides of her face, turning it back, holding her in place. She couldn't see. She couldn't know.
She resisted, and he didn't blame her. She asked what had gotten into him, gripped his wrists, confused... but faltered, softened, when she met his eyes.
Alois wasn't sure what she saw in him—in... in his expression—but he liked to think he was maintaining something of a level stare. Something firm, resolute... but he was sure there was that panic again, that fear from before, that dread that he hadn't realized had made him so... tired. He couldn't let her see, couldn't let her know.
Everything would unravel, Claude would surely—possibly literally—kill him, and she... she would leave. Leave the manor—the country, for God's sake—and he would be alone again, a lone mortal among a seedy gang of the supernatural in a house too big for him that... that wasn't even really his, God... what... what was he doing? How had... how had he not fallen apart in the years he'd lived here? Or maybe... he had fallen apart, Hell-bent on taking his revenge, and Ciel always always just narrowly escaping from his fingertips. He needed to do this, exact his revenge, be the hero—it was literally all he had left. And now, when he was getting close again...
"What... are you doing?" Aoife said gently, concerned, almost in a whisper and barely audible over the clamor outside but for some reason he could hear her loud and clear, feel the light puff of breath from her lips against his skin. She searched his face, those clover green eyes of hers flickering between his, eyebrows just the least bit knit, and Alois found himself wanting to smooth the wrinkle the small action was causing, trace the line of her brow out to the edge, where that little scar sat.
If they survived this, he would ask about that, too.
And it hit him just then that he genuinely wanted to ask—ask a lot of things. Where did the scar come from, how did she know the manor layout so well, what made her more hero-worthy than him, why she read so much, what she did on the days he didn't see her, how did she meet that blasted Midford girl, how did she know that song from that night on the balcony, why did she hate her maid so much, what were her favorite fairy tales in that book of hers, why did she smell like parchment and cinnamon at breakfast and fresh cotton and morning dew when they met in the library so, so many times—and all of this, all of this, he knew he would never know if she left, if right now she turned, if she saw, if she knew. Everything was riding on him getting her to stay safe and be with him and... and maybe even love him and, God, he wasn't sure if that was possible but he could try, try to make her love him, if that's what it would take to make her stay. He wasn't sure where this want to try was coming from, but he figured he could wallow in that emotional mess later. Yes... later, when they were both safe again, huddled in the library enjoying their respective activities and—(alright, all bets are off)—and enjoying each other's company. For some reason he wanted all of this... all of this... so badly...
He needed to be the hero. In this moment, especially. He'd read enough to know what they do, how they act and attract and cherish the person they're always undoubtedly fighting for and... alright, yes, Alois could see how he was a trickster, a fairy, something silly and pathetic and always at his butler's beck and call, even though she... Aoife was right... right that he should be calling the shots, that he should take a stand and call a damn shot so— so—
—so he did.
Before he even realized what he was doing, Alois shifted forward, closing the already-small gap between him and his fiancée. He tilted her face up, fingers trailing back to weave through the wild curls and waves behind her ears, thumbs brushing over her cheeks, soft and round and pink and dotted with marks from the sun. He caught a glimpse of her widening eyes—annoyingly bright against the contrast of her hair—just before he closed his own and pressed his lips to hers.
Just like he'd read in all the fairy tales.
The moment they'd touched, she'd stilled, frozen, and Alois had a brief worry that she would push him away in exactly three, two, one...
Aoife seemed to all but melt, the tenseness in her gradually loosening as she returned the kiss. (Kiss, Alois thought, I am kissing her. We are kissing. This is a thing that is happening.) Her grip on Alois' forearms tightened ever-so-slightly, pulling at him a moment before falling away to rest lightly against the velvet green of his vest.
He tilted her chin up, pressing just that bit more, realizing and mulling over the fact that she tasted like honey and mint... but then several things happened at once.
A low hum came up from Aoife's throat—Alois could feel the vibration through his fingertips—and he felt her lips, soft and dry and chastely closed, part just a bit. The little movement, for some reason, sent a panicked shock through the earl, and his eyes snapped open. At the same time, he had miscalculated his balance and stumbled forward, pressing up against her and causing her to push the prep table behind her, resulting in a grating, scraping sound that made them both jump. Alois broke away, eyes wide, face flushed and burning. His hands remained on her cheeks, and he could feel how warm they felt, how warm she felt. He pulled them away, and they hovered in the air awkwardly, her own arms still crooked between them.
Both seemed to be breathing a little heavier than before, and just... couldn't stop staring at each other, as though trying to gauge from the other's expression if that had just happened or not.
Aoife spoke first, or tried to. Her voice came out breathy and cracked, so she cleared her throat and tried again.
"H-how hard did you hit your head?"
Alois let out a short, airy laugh. The question hadn't sounded like the sarcastic, mocking comment he would have expected. It was genuine concern. Or at least, he thought it was. Maybe she was mocking him, but the fog currently settling in his brain made it hard to tell, hard to feel anything.
Several crashes rang out again in the air, and they were close—the backing orchestration for their little adventure resuming after their... brief moment of reprieve, we shall call it.
Alois immediately looked to the hole in the wall, willing the fog to dissipate from his mind as he and Aoife ducked behind the prep table. There was a distant... not a laugh this time, but more of a strange, affectionate cooing, followed by yelling: a man's voice, then a woman's, several others' shouts. Flits of purple streaked past his view through hole—four, by Alois' count—and it seemed that the other servants had joined the fray at last. The thought brought a well-needed bloom of relief to the knot in the young man's chest.
He looked down at Aoife, and found he was nearly crouching over her. He examined her face, glazed over and contemplative, staring at the floor between them, and shuffled backwards a bit, felt a prickling blush creep up his neck. More frantic shouts filtered in from outside.
"Let's get out of here," he said, squeezing her forearms a little. She looked up, something heavy in her gaze he couldn't read, and gave the barest hint of a nod. He offered her a weak smile, a quirked up brow in question, and she responded a little more strongly, exhaling a sigh, lips turning up at the corners. With a sharp nod of her head, she shuffled to stand, all limbs and skirts tangled and mixed with scattered rubble.
In a swift motion, Alois rose to his feet, pulling her up with him. He took her hand—still warm and perhaps a little sweaty from stress—and led her to the kitchen door, brushing off some of the dust that had accumulated on her dress. He noted a tear by her hip, thought it a shame. He was starting to like the color on her.
Alois unlocked and opened the door, motioning for her to go through and giving an encouraging push as she crossed the threshold. He didn't follow, and she noticed, spinning round.
"What are you—?" she started.
"Go on ahead. It should be safe in the library again. I'll meet you there," Alois assured her, offered a sly grin that made him feel more like himself again. He leaned against the doorway, cocked his head to the side. "Then you can tell me more about these fairy tales I need to study."
Aoife blinked, looking like she was fighting against a smirk, but confusion took over and she splayed her hands out. "You want me to go back by myself and leave you alone. After... after all that?"
The earl winced, not really wanting that at all, and his expression turned apologetic. (Could he even do apologetic? Genuinely?) "I'll see if I can have a word with... construction about—oh, work with me please, don't look at me like that. I'll have someone sent to catch up with you in a few minutes, alright? I'm sure a heroine can handle herself for at least that long."
Aoife scoffed, shaking her head. "Fine," she said, backing up with a playful skip in her step. She held up a finger threateningly. "But you and I are going to have a serious conversation when you return to the library, and not just about fairy tales. Mark my words, Trancy."
She turned then, hair undone and swinging with the momentum. Alois almost thought he could feel a breeze from the volume of curls. He shook his head and called, "That I will, Aoife."
A sadistic laugh spilled from his own lips as he watched her trip over her own feet while trotting off.
Alois closed the door again, pressing the palm of his hand to the wood and letting out the biggest sigh of his life, thoughts running away as he tried to figure out how to get his servants' attention and what to say to Claude and how he was going to get so filthy climbing through that rubble and... and so much more all at once. He ran his other hand roughly through his hair, not thinking, and wincing when he came across the cut by his hairline. His fingertips were covered in bits of dried blood when he looked at them, and he felt a small drip run down his cheek. He swore, fluttering around for a rag or something to press against the wound.
"Now is that any way to speak in front of a lady?"
An embarrassingly high-pitched cry escaped the earl, and he nearly felt his heart combust. He whirled on his feet, gaze snapping to where the scolding voice had come from.
It was the red figure, sitting casually in the hole in the wall on the partially-busted window sill. They had a leg drawn up, bent to their chest, arms wrapped around and leaning their head on it. Their other leg dangled, swinging casually like a pendulum. They had a coy grin set to their thin, sharp face, and Alois felt a chill skitter up his spine as he noted the figure's unnaturally pointed teeth.
"Darling boy," they crooned, lifting their head and shaking it slowly. "Now that was something. I give you a... seven out of ten for that performance. Bit of practice and you could be a ten, I'm sure. Or a solid eight-point-five, at least. I mean—"
"Wh-what do you want?!" Alois squeaked, eyes widening as they settled on something leaning against the wall below where the figure was sitti—holy hell was that a chainsaw?!
The figure rolled their intensely bright green eyes, visible even from where Alois was standing—(He felt a momentary twinge from how much the color resembled Aoife's. He pushed the thought aside.)—and groaned. "Ugh, what is it with everyone here asking me that? It's rather annoying."
"Ciel sent you, didn't he?"
The figure's head dropped down against their knee, long hair falling and concealing their face and, well, pretty much everything—the stranger had a lot of hair. They let out a second groan, something more of a howl than anything else.
"And the butler said that, too. God, is no one original anymore?" They lifted their head, raising a hand to brush their hair behind their ear and adjust their red-framed spectacles with a quick poke. "Listen, darling, I really don't have time now. I've been reciting that line all day, I know, but anyway, I gave your little posse the slip for the moment—ha, I know it's nearly impossible to miss me, but sometimes you do what you have to do to—oh and listen to me blathering on and on. Ignore all that, dear, I just had to have a little chat with you once I realized, well—" They cocked their head, throwing a vague gesture directed at Alois, as though it were obvious why they were there, lounging in the remnants of a ruined kitchen that they had destroyed.
Alois fluttered his eyes, processing. He took a tentative step forward, keeping a reaching hand near the kitchen utensils currently out on the counter in case he had need of—he glanced at them and deflated—spoons. Brilliant. He let his hand drop back to his side and squinted back at the figure.
"Who are you?" he asked.
The figure threw him a glare, lips forming a pout. "Alright, dear, strike three. No more questions. Honestly, I don't know how you could forget about moi. For God's sake, I'm only the one who saved your bloody life." They ended with a scoff, as if they'd just expressed their annoyance that Alois had stepped on their foot or something otherwise trivial.
Alois, meanwhile, paled. Any and all warmth in him escaped, leaving him cold and empty. He heard wrong, certainly. "What?" he managed after several seconds of trying to get his mouth to work.
The figure sat up straight, brows raised in genuine surprise. "You don't remember, do you? Oh, how interesting... It was years ago, but..." They tutted, shaking their head. "One doesn't easily forget a trauma like that. But what would I know? I've only seen it countless times in humans' Records, so..." They trailed off, put off somehow and examining their nails in the sunlight. (Alois wasn't sure how exactly they were able to do that with a glove on, but he didn't think it wise or important enough to ask.)
The earl was about to speak, press further on why he didn't remember that he'd almost died (God, just... what? he thought.) but the figure let out a trilling Oh! like they'd just remembered something.
"And speaking of Cinematic Records... Yours... Goodness me. Drama, love, drama." They shook their head again, Alois wondering if there would be a chance for it to screw completely off their neck from how much they swiveled it around. "Oh, it was just too intriguing to let go so soon... Why, it almost only felt like the first novel in a series, the first Act in a play, the first and only season of a critically acclaimed—oh wait, we aren't there yet, are we? Oh, no matter. I had to see how it really ends, how it should end. Naturally..."
There was something unsettling about the way the figure said that—was it a scheming tone? intrigued? obsessed? Alois couldn't tell, wasn't sure if he wanted to know the answer.
"I don't understand," he said instead, and he really didn't. All of this was just... too much. It all went over his head.
The figure regarded him, expression serious and calculating and very different from the cackling maniac that had terrorized the manor for the past hour or so. They looked over their glasses, scrutinizing the earl.
"You know I am a Grim Reaper, correct? In charge of tending to ready-to-depart souls to see if they're worth saving..." They waved their hand in a lazy little circle for and so on and so forth.
Alois' brow wrinkled. "I... I've probably read about them in fairy tales."
The figure hummed, unimpressed. "Of course you have, silly boy. Well, if you're so well-read, maybe you will know these." They stood then, perched tall on the sill, bending at the waist to swoop down and grandly brandish their chainsaw, all in quick flowing movements that made Alois stumble back with a whimper.
The Grim Reaper cleared their throat, pressed a hand to their sternum, peered down at the earl with a wink, and recited in a booming, theatrical voice, "'All the world's a stage.'" They shifted their pose to something even more dramatic. "'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'" They shifted again, this time staring off into the distance somewhere with something like a knowing smile, though Alois wasn't sure why. "'It's not a delay to stop and sharpen the scythe.'" Their grin widened as they ran a finger over the edge of the chainsaw, dragging the blade lightly along its track.
Alois swallowed, took a few more steps back toward the door, vaguely figuring that spoons would be better than nothing if he was going to have to hold his own against this... being. Truth be told he would rather take the flight option, but he'd seen the speed of the red blur in the trees and didn't suppose he would have much luck outrunning it.
"S-so you let me live once... after I died?" He trembled at the thought as the Reaper nodded, pleased with themself, still absently running the chainsaw blade along the track. It made a light metallic screeching sound that made his teeth chatter. "Are y-you going to k-k-kill me now?" he stuttered.
The Reaper pressed their eyes shut in annoyance, pinching the bridge of their nose. "Did you not hear a word I just said? Does no one listen to me? I want to see your story, darling. See how far your record goes. Call it... a personal project of mine." They trailed off with a gleeful giggle. "And I suppose it is not just coincidence that it's you I had to terrorize. Well, specifically your little lady friend you have there."
Alois felt his heart leap up to his throat, and he eyed the chainsaw blade warily, gulping as it caught in the light. "You were going to kill her?" The thought made him tense, like a coil ready to spring. He was suddenly very aware of the stupidity of letting her go off alone.
But the Reaper held out a hand, waving dismissively. "Oh no no, please. She's too important a role, dearie, I wouldn't dream of it. Scare her, I can do. It's what I'm being paid for. Kill is out of the description, as ironic as that may seem." They added darkly, "Though I would so love to run that butler of yours through, taste his blade on my Scythe. Oh, the Record he must have..."
"Y-you didn't do your job then..." Alois pointed out, if only to get the Reaper to stop looking longingly at his chainsaw like that. It was incredibly off-putting, to say the least. "If you were going to scare her off, it didn't work..."
"So I see..." The Reaper shifted their stance, casting an analyzing gaze up and down Alois' frame. "She's rather enthralled. Ah, young love," they mused with a wink. Alois choked on air, and the Reaper laughed.
From somewhere far off came the rustling of leaves. The Reaper perked up an ear, listening before making a strained expression, biting their lip. "Ah... that'd be my cue... Well, little hero, best of luck! I expect dazzling things out of you." They crouched, preparing to launch back into the company of vengeful, territorial demons, but straightened to add, "Ooh, and dearie, if you ever need advice on foreplAAHH!"
Something lilac and white dropped from above, barreling heels first into the Reaper and knocking him to the floor in a spluttering, wailing mass of scarlet hair and clothing. Hannah rose to her feet, looking only minorly disheveled, a determined, almost satisfied look on her face as she glared down at the Reaper. Alois stared, stunned to silence. The maid looked up, noticing her master for the first time, and the fierceness in her expression disappeared, replaced with a brief look of surprise before her blank, passive façade took over. She nodded to Alois, dipping into a light curtsy and murmuring "Your Highness" in that soft voice of hers that usually grates right on the earl's nerves. But all he could do was stare—at the maid, whose strong presence had dissipated in a manner of seconds; at the Reaper under her foot, scrambling for their chainsaw just out of reach; at the sudden appearance of one, two, then all three of the triplets outside the hole in the wall, peering in with deadpanned, obligatory interest.
In the moment that Hannah looked back, beckoning to the triplets, the Reaper had wriggled free. They spring to their feet with a grunt, snatching the chainsaw from the ground and leaping out the hole, narrowly missing Hannah's outstretched fingers as she bolted after them with a cry. She casted a desperate gaze to Alois, nodded again, and resumed her pursuit, triplets in tow.
Alois wasn't alone for three seconds—three very long seconds where his mind tried to catch up with the thousand things happening at once—when Claude descended just outside, sneering at the damage done to the manor. His gaze wandered over to his master, and the butler regarded him, scrutinized him.
Struck dumb for only a moment more, Alois shook his head, rattling his thoughts into order.
"Claude, tell one of the trip—Timber, tell Timber to go catch up with Lady Aoife. She's on her way back to the library alone and he'll be faster than me."
The demon did not move, only stared, more still than Alois was used to, if that were possible. A curl of annoyance twisted in Alois' chest.
He took a breath. Hero, Alois. Be the hero. "That's an order, Claude," he said firmly, raising his voice to be heard over the distant clamor that had started up again—shouts, squeals, laughter, chainsaw.
The only indications of a response were the light rise of a brow and a swift nod before Claude leapt away, leaving Alois alone.
Relative silence stretched on, and Alois found himself slumping against the nearest prep table. He panted, letting out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding in. He looked around at the stillness of the ruined kitchen, his eyes catching on a tray of pastries in the far corner that was going to be brought to the library with their tea.
With numb fervor, Alois shuffled over to the tray and shoved one into his mouth, getting powdered sugar all over his lips and chin. He blinked, took up the tray, and made his way to the door. As he crossed the threshold he decided to take the long way back to the library, with the sole purpose in mind of thinking about what in all of the presumably infinite goddamn layers of fresh bleeding hell had just happened.
"So, I am going to need you to run that by me again, Grell. I'm not sure I fully understand exactly what happened today."
The Reaper hummed, far too preoccupied with their current situation of being carried—bridal style—by Sebastian, their legs swinging daintily and fingers interlocked around the back of the butler's neck for good measure. After a content sigh, they dangled their head upside down, obnoxiously bright locks nearly dragging along in the dirt, and sent a petulant glare at the one-eyed little earl walking beside them.
"What's there to understand, brat? I dropped in, tore the place up a bit, gave that Sebby-clone what for..."
Ciel rubbed at his temples, visible eye squeezed shut. "Yes, yes, that's all clear, but you actually talked to Trancy?"
"That I did," Grell sighed, straining to bring their head back up to lean it against Sebastian's shoulder. "And it all went rather swimmingly, if I do say so my—"
"Swimmingly, you say," came the smooth rumble of Sebastian's voice, pitched with just a hint of amusement. "Then perhaps you could enlighten the young master once more on why you were sent flying past the estate's borders and into a thicket of oak trees on the other side of the stream."
Grell's face twisted, nose wrinkling in irritation. "I meant for that to happen..."
"Of course you did," Ciel muttered.
"It was a dramatic exit! All—"
"If you tell me all ladies need one I will order Sebastian to pitch you into that stream."
Grell wriggled in the demon's arms. "Don't patronize the invalid!" he whined.
Ciel scoffed. "Invalid... You are an immortal, supernatural being. Is it even possibly for you to be—? No, I don't want to know, don't answer that." He huffed, "But anyway, I'm tired, my feet are killing me, I still have a headache... and to top it all off, the carriage horse ran away thanks to your overkill raucous. So I would like to know why my butler is carrying you."
The Reaper let out an affronted gasp. "I am in pain, you brat. Not everyone can go up against five demons at once and evade most of their onslaught. I'm lucky that I made it out alive."
"I'm not," Ciel muttered darkly.
Sebastian slid a scolding eye his way. "Young master..."
Ciel's lip curled, and he snapped back, "Oh, like you're thrilled Sutcliff made it out in one piece."
The butler didn't reply, but pressed his lips together, staring straight ahead at the road stretched out in front of them. This did not go unnoticed by his infatuated charge, who proceeded to frown and grumble.
"Aren't you a little old to have your employed staff carrying you like an infant? Besides," Grell snickered, running a finger in wavy patterns down the front of Sebastian's crisp white shirt, "I doubt you'd enjoy this the way I aAAHH!"
The Reaper was promptly dropped to the dirt, flat on their rear end.
"Hey!" they shouted, rubbing at their tailbone as Sebastian sidestepped them to lift his master—smug grin and all—into his arms. He then called for Snake, who had been a few paces behind them, carrying the Reaper's Scythe and getting lost in the countryside view. Without a word the blank-faced young man slung the chainsaw over to carry on his back with a makeshift rope made out of... of a snake... (Ciel shivered, planting his gaze anywhere else.) and lifted Grell with ease.
Grell made a whimpering sound, leaning away from Snake a bit (as much as they could) and muttering some complaint about this being the last time I help you, brat, and a concern about a hissing noise. Ciel ignored them. And the hissing. He always tried to ignore the hissing.
The earl let out a contented sigh, settling into the familiar feeling of Sebastian's arms around him (even after all these years, perhaps he still sometimes had a fondness for feeling like a child, though he would never admit it). "I will hear a full report from you once we get back to the mansion, I suppose."
They walked in silence, this strange quartet: earl, demon, Reaper, snake-man hybrid. Any passersby would think there was a traveling circus nearby, but Ciel knew that he, as well as Sebastian, would rather not think anything of the sort. (He wasn't sure about Snake, though, about whether or not he missed the Noah's Ark Circus. Surely he missed his friends, but... Ciel tried not to think about it.)
An offhanded thought surfaced in Ciel's mind, and he asked aloud, "Sebastian, how were you able to contact the Grim Reaper Dispatch and have Grell agree to—"
"Do not ask, young master." The butler had the vaguest hint of a pained expression twisting his usual cool composure.
From their perch in Snake's arms, Grell swiveled their head around. "Cannot wait to spend the next three weeks with you, Sebby darling," they mused, winking lasciviously.
Ciel deadpanned. "What."
The butler chose that moment to keep a tight lip, eyes squinting in distressed anticipation.
But his master erupted. "What?! Sebastian! Are you—are you serious?! Sebastian, we already have Madame Gallag—oh my God, Madame Gallagher. Sebastian."
(Grell scoffed, muttering, "And I thought I cried his name out too much." Everyone ignored them.)
Sebastian gave Ciel a smile, but it was sheer, a facsimile of the reassuring one he usually had. "I believe the two will get on rather well, do you not?"
Ciel paled at the thought. "I think I'm going to faint."
"If he faints," Grell piped up, "we're switching back! There's currently a python roping around my feet and, while I'm one for some tying up, this isn't exactly how I want it to go..."
"Now I think I'm going to throw up..."
Beside him, Ciel heard Snake murmur, "'I like this one's shoes. Let's keep them,' says Bronte."
"Shut up, Bronte."
The young Reaper sitting comfortably in his desk chair with his feet up on the side table folded down the newspaper he was reading, a stitch in his brow as he remembered something. He had a look around, bright green eyes narrowed and wavy blond hair falling over his thick-rimmed glasses. He blew the strands aside and stood, wary, gaze running increasingly frantically over the sea of hunched-over heads diligently working away.
With quick steps he made his way to the Management Division, looking for someone else entirely and (thankfully) picking him out in the hustle and bustle of the Dispatch.
"Mr. Spears?" he called, approaching. "I, uh..."
A tall man with neatly-combed brown hair swiveled on the spot, not taking his eyes off the paperwork in the folder in his hand, but quirking an eyebrow in question.
"What is it, Ronald?" he asked, nudging the edge of his glasses higher on his nose with the blade of the long-handled gardening pruner held in his hand.
Ronald scratched the back of his neck, the black hair there bristling. He chuckled uneasily. "So, um... You seen Grell Sutcliff anywhere?"
William T. Spears stilled, gloved finger hovering over the next paper in his folder as though frozen in time. "Are you telling me, Mr. Knox, that Grell Sutcliff is not here?"
"Ah..." Ronald started, gaze flitting anywhere but at the senior Reaper. "Well, I mean... You see..."
"Yes?"
Ronald swallowed. "So... a few days ago they said they got this message, see? A-and they needed to, um, skip out for a few..."
William T. Spears blinked. "A few... what?"
"Days," the blond Reaper breathed out. "Alright, maybe a week... Or three."
There was a pause, and the folder snapped shut. William T. Spears pinched the bridge of his nose, his spectacles pushed up and away from his eyes and making him look years—maybe even centuries—younger. "Why didn't you tell anyone, Ronald?"
"Didn't think Grell was serious, sir."
William T. Spears bored holes through Ronald's head—or it felt like that, at least. He took in a slow, smooth inhale and said, calmly, "No, I don't suppose anyone does."
Ronald let out a light laugh. "I mean, I guess it's healthy, ain't it? Ditching work, taking a mental break, eh—?"
"No, you are not getting an extension on your paid vacation days."
"Damnit. Even if it's to find Grell...?"
"No."
"Damnit."
AN: Hope you guys liked it! Let me know what you think!
Also, random thought, should I mention non-binary Grell in the tags of the story, do you think? I'm still unsure how tags usually work, haha...