A/N: Oh man, I'm sorry about not updating this story here! I'd lost the file and then found it again! And thought some extra dimensions might be good for this story.

Eric shook his head as he woke up in his office, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He hadn't meant to fall asleep in the middle of working again but luckily he had no souls to collect that day, only paperwork. But the busywork was so boring that he had fallen asleep in the middle of writing a report. He ruffled his hair some and sat up properly in the chair, looking around quietly. It was silent, dark, oddly spooky, There was no Ronald whining about how he would be late for party, Grell was oddly silent instead of flirting with the rest. William, well William merely standing was enough of a noise in itself, his mere aura of discipline making him almost menacing. Then there was Alan...the quiet from his end was the most disturbing, could he have had an attack? Was he still there? What if he had died? The thorns hitting his heart before Eric could even stop it.

"This isn't right...Where is everyone?" He stood quickly and opened the door, glancing around, it was dark, both in the office and outside, but it couldn't be! He glanced at his watch then back to the windows, "But it should be broad daylight...this can't be right...it's only noon..." He stepped further out of his office and almost fainted, covering his mouth. In an instant, he covered his nose and mouth and clenched his eyes shut. The smell of death and fear and suffering invaded his nose, almost making him faint. Even with his pathetic attempt to hide the smell it still hit him, making him lean against the wall as he walked along. He stopped once he reached the end of the hallway, cringing as the smell became stronger. He finally looked up and almost fainted, the bull-pen was...well there weren't any words to describe it.

From what he could see, the others had basically been shredded and their innards thrown against the walls. Past that, he saw what looked like a message on the walls. He barely noticed the handwriting, or how familiar it was upon examining it. The main thing he'd noticed when he glanced at it was what had been used to write it. The text written in blood made him step back and look around frantically, searching for Alan. Dashing through the halls wasn't even close to distracting him from the sight and horrible smells of the massacred office. Finally he slipped on something or other and hit the ground hard, glasses falling off his face. The second he slid them back on he saw Alan curled up in a ball nearby, looking completely lifeless. He crawled over and turned the brunette over to face him, almost fainting from what he saw. From the look of it, Alan looked like a corpse, as if all the life had been sucked out of him by the Thorns. Was that it? How did he not manage to find him sooner? He could have saved Alan! Couldn't he?

"Oh Alan...I'm so sorry...I really tried..." He pulled the body close and started sobbing, clinging to it and hardly noticing the figure sneaking up behind him...

"Oi! Eric, what are you doing? The boss is on his way down here and he's gonna have a fit if he sees you sleeping!" Eric had been startled awake by the kid for that? Whatever happened to just shutting the door and lying for him? Ronald stared quietly as Eric shook his hair out his eyes, obviously still tired. He looked back at Ronald and narrowed his eyes, "Are you alright? You looked like you were having a turn...and-"

"Shut it kid, I'm fine. Just a little tired, that's all. Besides shouldn't you be fawning over William or something?" Rubbing the sleep from his eyes as best he could at least attempting to not look like he'd just been having one hell of a nightmare on top of it. Speaking of nightmares...the mere thought of it had Eric up and shoving Ronald to the ground as he dashed out of the office to find Alan. He had to make sure that he was alright, unable to forgive himself if something happened to him.

"Alan! Alan, where are you? Are you alright?" Of course he had nothing to worry about, Alan was pulling on his coat as he left his desk. Of course, he'd not gone to do his collections for the day yet, had he? Eric ruffled his hair some as he made his way over, glad that the side he usually slept on was the side his braids were on. He remained quiet as the brunette picked up his scythe and walked past him, cringing as he pulled Grell from his office. William's orders of course, Grell gets in trouble again and ends up with a temporary partner in the shape of one Alan Humphries. And what did he end up with? Ronald Knox, with a noisy scythe and an insane crush on the boss.

"Awww but Allieee~, do we have to? It's cold and windy and grey and the rain will mess up my hair~!" The redhead pulled on a flashy red overcoat as he ran after his temporary partner, still whining about his hair.

"I don't care about your hair. We have a job to get done and we're going to see it through to the end, got it?" Such a little clone of William that kid was. At least when it came to work, he didn't like procrastinating, overtime, or disorganisation. He was quiet, level-headed, not much of a partier, didn't care for drinking. Though that wasn't saying the he didn't at all, he just didn't do it to the extent of the others. In every way he was Eric's opposite, but that's why he lo—was such good friends with him! That's the ticket. Friends and nothing else, although everyone else would say otherwise for sure, not sure why that was but it was the last thing he was worried about. He sniffed a bit and looked up in time to see Alan look back and give him a weak smile

Ronald sighed as he slipped the fedora on his head and made to leave the almost empty office, rubbing his arms as he walked through and passed by William's office. Quite surprising, the door was open and the windows didn't have the shades drawn for once. The blond stopped and peeked in to catch a view of William, since no one had ever seen the man outside of work/overtime hours. Of course there were the few occasions Ronald or Alan would come in early and find their boss asleep at his desk, glasses perched on top of a high set of files and the boss with his head on another set, hair messed up and snoring quietly. They'd started keeping blankets at their desk for that purpose and even managed to sneak one into the bosses office, covering him over whenever they caught him.

"It's very rude to stare, Mr Knox," The blond jumped out of his thoughts and looked up to see William sitting on the large leather sofa instead of his desk for once. His office really was a very decent size. Large enough to fit his desk and chair on one side, then the other side contained a plan black leather sofa and black cherry coffee table. Past that the office was bare aside from shelves and file cabinets lining the walls. Complete with the boss sitting there, blazer slung over his desk and tie loosened. Whatever he was looking at must have been rather interesting as Ronald barely held his focus for even a moment.

"Uh, Boss? It's snowing out..." Talk about lame! Ronald mentally slapped himself for not coming up with something better than that. Regardless of that fact, it had caught William's attention again, cold green eyes almost piercing his soul.

"What's your point, Knox?"

"Well, it's a getting pretty heavy...I'd head home before it becomes an all out blizzard..." William continued to stare silently before standing and turning to face the window, not even fazed by the thick blanket of white coating everything it could.

"So it is. Thank you, Knox. Luckily it's a rare occasion, I have no overtime...otherwise I might have been trapped here," Ronald didn't even see the older Shinigami gather his things, instead the next thing he saw was William locking the door to his office and nodding before he left the blond alone in the hallway. Good thing William hadn't looked back, Ronald was freezing from the coldness of his stare.