The Head and Heart Thorns

A Black Butler Fanfic

Chapter 1 - Headaches

A/N:

Hey guys, Duplicat here! This is my first Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji) Fanfiction, so I hope you enjoy it!

Oh, yeah. I DO NOT own Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji)! I never have, and I never will. Though as much fun that would beeee... Yeah, it's probably never gonna happen, but one can dream and/or fantasize about it! Please read the warning below that mentions certain things that are included in this chapter, in case there is one or more things in this chapter that could be a trigger for you.

DETAIL WARNING: This chapter includes mentions of the following: Blood, Needleless Syringes, Intense Coughing Fits, Headaches, and Migraines.

Anyways! Enough talking! Let's get into it!

(More notes at the end of the chapter!)

Grim Reaper Association HQ

Walking up the steps that led up to the main building of the Grim Reaper Association HQ was a fairly young, female Grim Reaper with dark brown hair that went down just above the middle of her back in length, and a slightly tan skin tone that was paled a fair bit because she was a Reaper.

She walked through the doors of the main building, and took the elevator up to the Retrieval Division floor and exited the elevator, and headed down the corridor, her hands crossed behind her head as she walked.

As two other female reapers passed her and kept walking, they started whispering to each other, one of them said to the other "Why is Vanessa even still here?"

The other stopped walking and replied "I know right? She seriously creeps me out sometimes… Just the way she acts around others in the Retrieval Division and even the students!"

The first one replied to the other in an even quieter voice, clearly trying to make sure the dark-haired reaper that they passed couldn't hear what she said "Yeah! I heard that she even tried to throw punches at Instructor Sutcliff the other day! And a few days before that, someone said that she tried to go after Dispatch Manager Mr. Spears!"

They both gasped as they felt a shiver go down their spines and they turned their heads to look behind them and saw Vanessa standing right behind them.

They both turned around quickly to face her and she stood there, her expression hidden by her hair, which had fallen to cover her eyes, but then she moved her hand to her face and pushed her hair away from her eyes which were now glaring at the two female reapers with a look to them that clearly showed she had heard every single word they had said and was incredibly pissed off at them.

She said in a low, threatening sounding voice at first "Okay you little brats, you both better stop your yapping behind my back…" Her low-sounding voice turned into a flat-out yell as she continued "...Before I START THINKING ABOUT THROWING PUNCHES AT YOU TWO JUST TO MAKE YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTHS, YOU HEAR ME!?"

At this point both of the female reapers were holding onto each other, shaking in fear before they both nodded quickly and turned and ran away from her, leaving the angered reaper standing in the corridor by herself.

Once the two other reapers had gone out of sight around the corner, pretty much every other Reaper that had been in the area had seen what had just happened and they all looked to her with slight traces of fear in their eyes as she looked around at them.

She let out one final, clearly frustrated-sounding yell and punched the wall, leaving a small but semi-deep hole in it before turning around and walking down the corridor once again.

As she walked on down the corridor, she suddenly held one hand to her head and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment or two, wincing slightly as she felt like a decently big headache was starting to come on as she walked into the part of the Collections Department where the official Retrieval Reapers had their desks and offices placed.

As she was about to reach her own desk space, she stopped just outside of it and held one side of her head a bit tighter with one hand, while her free hand was resting on the wall of the cubical that surrounded her desk space as the pain of the headache increased.

She stood there for about half a minute, maybe a little more just staring at the floor, with occasional somewhat sharp winces of pain before the headache started to fade away and she managed to take a somewhat shaky deep breath before going over to her desk and sitting in her chair, letting out a sigh as she sat down.

She closed her eyes and tried to take a few deep breaths as she noticed that the quickness of her breathing had begun to make it look like she had just run a mile or more even though all she had done was yell at some annoying brats who obviously thought that they could just talk behind her back whenever they felt like it.

When she opened her eyes again, she didn't even notice the two, more-experienced-than-her Reapers, Ronald Knox and Alan Humphries, standing at the entrance to her desk space, she just called it her 'desk space' because she hated the sound of saying her work area was 'inside a cubical' whenever a topic that included talking about it came up in any conversation.

As Vanessa stared at one of the walls of the cubical, still not having noticed the two Reapers standing at the entrance to her desk space, Ronald said to her with a small grin on his face "Hey! You with us or what?"

"Ronald! Watch how you say it!" Alan scolded him almost right after Ronald spoke.

Vanessa had gotten quite a bit startled when Ronald said "Hey" a bit loudly and she ended up standing up out of her seat a fair bit quickly to face the two, only to be met with another, quite painful, headache at the sudden way she had stood up, making her groan in pain lightly to herself and put her thumb and index finger to her temples as she sat back down in her chair.

Both Reapers at the cubical entrance saw the obvious pained expression on her face as she sat back down in her chair, and walked into the desk space.

Alan approached Vanessa, who now looked like she was trying to get breaths into her, some going in but clearly with a lot of effort being put in to do so, and those that she couldn't get in just became weak sounding coughs halfway through her trying to get a big enough inhale into her.

She looked up at Alan and Ronald, her eyes glazed over with pain, as they both looked at her with clear worry showing on their faces.

Alan's worried expression became one of fear as an unfinished thought came into his mind 'Could she have the...' and he kneeled on one knee in front of the chair and looked up at Vanessa and asked her quietly, silently hoping to get a response from her "Can I check your arms, Vanessa?"

She opened her mouth to reply but ended up clenching her teeth and letting out a groan of clear pain once again, pushing her head against the back of the chair as another wave of intense pain struck her as her headache, now being considered a bad migraine from Alan, continued.

Alan didn't even attempt to ask her for permission again and rolled up her sleeve just a bit, and closed his eyes in concentration as he checked her pulse. Her pulse was very fast, and just a few moments later as it seemed to slow down, Vanessa let out, a clearly held back, half groan, half shriek of pain as another, stronger, wave of intense pain hit her again, her pulse sped back up and became very fast once again.

Alan opened his eyes and looked up at Ronald who was now standing behind Vanessa's chair, his hands holding her shoulders gently as he had moved into that position when she had let out her held back half groan, half shriek at the wave of pain that had occurred just moments ago.

Alan and Ronald's expressions were both filled with concern for the Reaper, clearly suffering from something, sitting in the chair. Vanessa reached her hand to her desk, grabbing hold of its edge and with occasional weak coughs sounding from her, she opened the top drawer of her desk and pulled out a notepad and pen before closing it and resting her head back against the chair again.

Alan noticed that she started to look like she was trying to catch her breath but her breathing had started sounding wheezy at this point, causing a couple of coughs to escape her, but despite that, she placed the notepad on her lap and started writing on the paper. The hand she was holding the pen with starting to shake as she wrote, making her writing quite sloppy.

After a few more moments of her writing, she lifted the pen off of the notepad and set it on the desk before her tired, pain-filled gaze landed on Alan and she handed him the notepad before she suddenly bent over in the chair and erupted into a really bad sounding coughing fit, causing Ronald to go from being behind the chair to being on the side of it in just a few seconds, almost instantly starting to rub gentle circles on Vanessa's back as Alan read the note which said: "Go to William and tell him that I'm having an 'episode' at the time of writing this, he'll know what it means. And tell him what's happened so far during said episode from start to now. Don't leave anything out."

Alan's gaze landed back on Vanessa, whose coughing fit seemed to start getting worse and he noticed that her hand was against the heart area of her chest and when he saw this from her, his gaze and expression became a look of fear and clear concern.

He said to Ronald, who looked up at him as he spoke "Ronald, stay with her, got it?"

Ronald said with a small cheeky grin in an attempt to lighten the mood which faded back to a frown just a few moments later "Yep. Got it."

Alan turned around and exited Vanessa's desk space before quickly walking towards William's office, and once he got there he knocked on the door and when he got the okay to enter, he opened the door quickly and said to William with fear in his eyes "William! Something's up with Vanessa!"

William raised one eyebrow before he stared straight into Alan's eyes and upon seeing the fear in them, he quickly stood up out of his chair and asked Alan sternly "Is she having what she calls an 'episode' right now?"

Alan nodded and explained everything that happened to her when it had started and finished off by saying "...And before I left she had started to have a bad-sounding coughing fit that by the time I started to leave her desk space, seemed to get worse and I also noticed that she had her hand on the heart area of her chest as well…"

William's eyes sparked with fear for a few moments before he went to his desk, opened a locked drawer, and pulled out a locked box that Alan noticed had some strange symbols on its lid when William opened it. William took out what Alan recognized to be an oral syringe with something in it before William put it in his pocket and locked the box again before putting it back in the drawer and locking that once again as well.

William said to Alan sternly as they both walked quickly out of the office and down the corridor, a hint of worry sounding in his voice as he spoke "We have to get to her sooner, much rather than later at this point."

Alan looked to William for a moment or two with an even more concerned look on his face before looking ahead of him as they continued walking.

When they were nearing Vanessa's desk space, harsh coughing could be heard as they approached.

When Alan and William stepped into the open entrance of the cubical, what they saw made Alan's expression turn from obvious concern to the borderline of becoming pure fearful shock.

He ran over to Vanessa, who was now on her hands and knees on the floor, one hand covering her mouth as the harsh coughing became more insistent.

William walked in and looked at Ronald who was knelt on the other side of Vanessa, rubbing her back as if to show that he was still there.

He had an extremely concerned look on his face and he looked up at William when he spoke to him with a stern but worried tone to his voice "What happened? How did she end up in this position?"

Ronald looked at him as he started explaining, his gaze drifting back down to Vanessa as he spoke "She was sitting in the chair, her coughing fit had gotten even worse after Alan left to get you. I was standing next to her, rubbing her back just like I am now so she knew that I was still there with her and a moment or two later she had fallen forwards off the chair and landed on her hands and knees, her coughing becoming harsh-sounding. It was only about a minute or so before you guys got here when she put her hand over her mouth. She hasn't moved her hand away from her mouth since then…"

As soon as Ronald finished saying the last part, Vanessa moved her hand away from her mouth suddenly and started coughing up bits of blood onto the floor, as she did so her eyes widened as she stared at the blood, her arms, which were now both on the floor keeping her up, started shaking. It looked like her arms would give out at any moment. William quickly ordered Ronald and Alan to try and get her onto her back and to make sure that she couldn't see the blood that she had just coughed up.

They nodded and after just under a minute, they had managed to get her on her back, Alan now sitting in front of the blood, blocking Vanessa's view of it, while Ronald was now sitting on his knees next to Vanessa.

When she was rested on her back, as soon as William saw a break in the coughing he went down onto his knees and took the syringe that Alan saw him take out of the box while they were in his office out of his pocket, setting it down on the ground next to him first before starting to feel Vanessa's neck with his gloved hands, as if he was trying to see how much pain it was causing her.

By now, sweat had started to form on her face and a few drops slid down the side of her face, which now had a look to it that showed she was very exhausted and tired from coughing so much.

After William felt the sides and back of her neck, which he felt was already quite tense, and receiving a sharp wince of pain from Vanessa when he pressed down on the back of her neck a bit, he put his hand behind her head and lifted it a little before picking up the syringe from the floor and placing it in her mouth, saying to her in a more quiet voice so the chances of another headache happening were much lower "Come on, you're gonna have to work with me here at this part, Vanessa."

She looked at him with clearly tired eyes before William started to push the plunger part of the syringe down slowly, the somewhat thick liquid going into her mouth.

William stopped after a few moments and took the syringe out of her mouth and kept holding her head up a little until she swallowed the somewhat thick liquid and once she had done that, William rested her head back down on the floor and put two fingers to her neck, and checked her pulse, which he felt stay very fast for another moment or two before it started to slow down.

William kept feeling her pulse for around another minute just to make sure that it wasn't going to shoot back up again, and seeing as it didn't, he let out a light sigh of relief before looking at Vanessa's face, which still had some sweat on it and her exhausted and tired look was still there.

William said to Ronald and Alan "She's going to be fine. Now she just needs to rest for a few hours and she should, hopefully, be better when she wakes up. Can one or both of you take her back to her house and make sure she's comfortable? I need to go arrange a meeting with someone."

Both Alan and Ronald nodded and Ronald picked Vanessa up bridal style and as she was picked up, her eyes started to become very heavy and she looked at William one last time and said quietly as her eyes started to close "Will…" She wasn't even able to finish saying his name as her voice trailed off as she fell asleep in Ronald's arms, her head resting against his shoulder.

William stood up and said to her quietly "Get some rest. I'll be here when you have recovered."

And with that, Ronald carried Vanessa out of her desk space, Alan following behind him as they took the elevator back down to the main floor of the building, and exited the Grim Reaper Association HQ, heading towards Vanessa's house.

As they walked, a light breeze blew towards them, making Vanessa's hair blow in the wind a bit.

Author's Notes:

This is the first chapter of a, hopefully good Black Butler fanfiction, that will mostly be based in the Reaper Realm. Oh! And before I go, if any of you could put in a review of this chapter, and tell me what you thought of it, what I could try and improve on, and if you think it is needed, suggest some things to change. Rude or mean comments aimed towards others or myself, are NOT tolerated here. Thank you for understanding.

The next chapter will hopefully be out soon, so keep your eyes open for that!

Tiny little spoiler for the next chapter: We may or may not be getting a new character introduceddddd... We might, we might not... Gonna have to wait to find outttt... faint giggling can be heard in the depths of this mystery...