Thank you all for the reviews and follows on the first chapter. I still like writing this AU, so yeah, there's more to come. There'll be a lot more information about this AU as a whole at the end of this chapter though, so please read that when you're done if you're interested in where this is going.

A Reaper is Born

When Lucy first arrived in the delivery room, patiently awaiting the arrival of her human, she was at first just a little concerned about the lack of reaper in the room. In the hundreds of years she had lived (well, something in the hundreds, anyway), the reaper she was paired with had always been there first. So when she was summoned with the impending arrival of her next human, Lucy had just automatically assumed it would be no different that time.

But maybe things would be different that time. She'd been getting a little bored over the last few decades if she had to be perfectly honest, so she was more than ready for something to happen to spice things up a little – being immortal got so boring so fast.

And so as Lucy just settled herself in the corner and waited for her human to arrive, she wondered just what the next thirty years would be like and just what her reaper would be like. Each one was different in their own way, just like humans.

That was when someone seemingly fell from the ceiling, though, and Lucy yelped and just about jumped out of her skin as the person landed with a thud on the floor, face down just a few paces away from her.

When she looked up, there was strangely no hole in the ceiling, and the man on the floor – who was indeed now getting up – didn't look dirty or dusty enough to look like he'd been crawling through the vents anyway. And considering the fact no one else in the room seemed to notice him there, just like they didn't notice her, only led Lucy to one conclusion.

That was her reaper.

The man picking himself off the ground, patting himself down and looking around the room with a look of panic on his face, was her reaper.

"I… How…" Bickslow didn't really know what to think as he looked around the clean room. He shouldn't be there. Why was he even there in the first place? How was he there? And why the fuck wasn't anyone paying attention to him?! He had literally just landed face down on the floor in a room he most obviously didn't belong, and yet no one seemed to even be looking at him. They were all too busy staring at the—holy shit, is she actually giving birth right now? "What's… What the fuck is going on right now?!"

Lucy only stared at the blue-haired man on the ground as he continued to quickly look around. He couldn't be… could he?

"I don't… I don't understand!" He just shouldn't be there. He should be… He should be on the plane going back home for his little sister's birthday! "How am I even here…?!"

No… He isn't…

Bickslow didn't even really seem to notice the blonde staring at him as he continued trying to figure out the situation. He briefly wondered if it was all a dream – even pinched his arm quickly to see if that old trick actually worked – but when nothing around him changed, Bickslow's mind could only return to the flight that he'd been so sure he'd been on just moment earlier. But how he could suddenly be in a hospital when the last thing he could remember was being thirty odd thousand feet up in the air, he didn't understand.

He was so sure he had actually been on that plane, too. He could remember the kid that was sitting behind him kicking his chair since they'd boarded, and he remembered the arguing couple that had been sitting next to him. He even remembered the bitch of a flight attendant.

And it was when Bickslow slowly began to remember everything else – the oxygen masks coming down from the tops of the cabin and everyone screaming and crying – that the room they were in seemed to descend into chaos, too. And as much as Lucy wanted to focus more on the human she was to be following for the next three decades, the reaper, strangely, was more important right then. She didn't want to be having to deal with a reaper who couldn't control his powers, but it was something she had to do. Her human would be fine once she got the reaper out of the room and away from everyone else, but coincidentally, getting out of there was what the reaper sitting on the floor needed the most right then, too. Because if she was right and it was really what she thought it was, then the reaper who had landed on the floor in a heap just moments before was a brand new reaper, all shiny and new and still just a little too human. And that… That was not a good thing.

So Lucy was quickly pushing herself away from the wall and moving to kneel down in front of the man who only sat against another part of the wall and was bringing his knees up to chest. He didn't even notice her then, seemingly too occupied by his own thoughts. Though when Lucy placed her hand on her arm, he flinched, but a simple touch like that was all she'd needed to be getting them both out of there, and then in a second, they were up on the rooftop of the same hospital.

If Lucy had had the time to worry about how her teleporting skills had never been that great, because it only meant she'd somehow landed herself on top of the reaper, she would've. But she didn't have time to do that right then, and so she was just quickly pulling herself away from him, just as Bickslow scrambled away from her, too.

Bickslow quickly looked back around himself before setting his eyes back on the blonde. "You—what did you… I… I don't…" His voice cracked and his chest was tight. He had so many questions that he wanted to know the answers to, but he just didn't know where to even begin. All he wanted to do was close his eyes to open them again and for everything to make sense again.

Lucy was cautious as she approached him again. There was really no need to frighten him any more than he already was, and she felt horrible for thinking that it was strangely adorable just how much he reminded her of a little lost puppy. "What's your name?" she asked softly as she kneeled just in front of him.

My name? "U-Um… Bi-Bickslow…" he whispered.

She held out her hand to him and smiled. "It's really nice to meet you, Bickslow." Well, she'd probably end up hating him by the time their human was a year old if he ended up being one to actually spend his time watching them like she did, but she still had to be nice to the guy. "I'm Lucy."

Bickslow couldn't help scooting back a little on the concrete roof as he brought his knees back up to his chest. Lucy seemed like a trustworthy person, but he was still wary. He just couldn't help it. Still, he really did feel like he could trust the blonde in front of him – or at the very least, she'd have answers, and that was what he needed. Swallowing thickly first and taking another slightly steadying breath, he asked her, "How am I… here? What's… What's going on?"

There wasn't exactly a good way to tell someone that they'd died, especially when they seemed to have no idea that they'd died at all. So instead, Lucy asked her own question. "What do you remember, Bickslow? From before. What do you remember from just before?"

"I… I don't know…"

"Where were you?"

"I was… I was on a plane." That much he could definitely remember, but maybe it wasn't so true. Bickslow shook his head. "I don't know. I must've… I must've just blacked out or something… Had too much to drink after landing maybe or… Or something… And I just… I just don't remember landing or coming here." Maybe that was the case. Maybe he'd imagined the chaos on the plane. Maybe everything really did make sense. "That's it though, right? I… I just… blacked out?"

Except Lucy really didn't seem to agree that it was all a misunderstanding of sorts and that it was all just Bickslow's imagination. She knew that it really wasn't, but what Lucy didn't understand, was why Bickslow didn't what he actually was. They were supposed to have it all explained to them after their transformation into a reaper – or, guardian angel – and they were supposed to be given time to actually deal with it. They weren't supposed to be thrown into immortality without a single idea as to what was going on. But with Bickslow, that was seemingly what had happened. He just didn't know it yet, and she was the one that had to tell him.

She'd never actually had to inform someone of their own death before. It was quite an odd feeling.

She shook her head and gave a meek apology. "That's not quite what happened, I'm afraid. You didn't really black out…"

Then what? "But… Then how am I here…? The plane is the last thing I can remember. I can't be here…" But then it seemed to dawn on him what Lucy was probably trying to tell him, and he could only give a small 'oh' before resting his chin on his arms with a sullen look setting on his face. "I'm dead, aren't I?"

That was what it had to be, right? The plane, everyone panicking, then suddenly ending up in a place nowhere fucking near where he'd actually been needing to go, and not actually being able to remember getting there. And then there was the whole fucking issue where Lucy could seemingly teleport – that certainly wasn't normal. And she just looked so sorry for him, like she didn't really want to be stuck telling him that he'd died at all.

And she didn't, of course, but it still had to be done. It upset her just a little that he was there at all, too, because it meant it hadn't even been his actual time. He shouldn't have died that day at all, but he had. But even if Bickslow could at least realise his death on his own, Lucy wasn't wanting to tell him that he could've had decades left to spend happily and doing things he'd enjoyed doing, if it hadn't been someone else's time to go. "You are," Lucy said softly.

"Oh… I see…" The plane must've crashed then… Maybe that was why he couldn't remember his final moments. He was sure he would've been as scared as he was right then once he'd realised what was happening up in the air, and he probably would've thought about his family and how much he'd miss them – god, that hurt. He wouldn't see Millie – his baby sister – again, whose fourth birthday was only a few days away as it was… Or even his parents. And he might not have gotten along with them at the best of times, but they were still his parents and he did really fucking love them. But he wouldn't get to hug them again, or even tell them that he was sorry for being an asshole as a teenager (and as an adult) and making their lives difficult.

But he was dead apparently. Death just didn't really feel like what he'd always assumed it would feel like. He sure didn't feel dead.

Lucy was just a little surprised by how well Bickslow seemed to be taking it, too. He'd calmed down a considerable amount in just a few short minutes, and it almost worried her. He still looked so ridiculously lost and broken, but he wasn't breaking down like she'd thought he would. He wasn't even trying to tell her she was wrong, either. He'd just… accepted it, it seemed. Lucy was almost sure that was a good thing, though, because the more accepting he was, the easier her job would be.

"Are you alright?" she asked softly. She knew it was still a lot to take in, and she did doubt that his answer would be yes, but she had to ask. Well, she thought so, anyway.

Bickslow shrugged. "No." Of course he wasn't fucking okay, but he didn't really see the point in trying to do anything about it, not if there really was nothing for him to do. "But this is real, right? I'm really dead?"

"Well…"

The new reaper rolled his eyes and sighed up to the perfectly blue skies above them. "Oh, for fuck's sake," he groaned. "What now?" What else could there possibly be to it? Either he was dead, or not dead. There could not be an in between. Now it was just getting annoying.

Lucy sat back suddenly though, literally taken aback by the sudden shift in the blue-haired man. There was no way she'd be able to put up with that for the next thirty minutes, let alone thirty years. "W-Well," she began, firming her gaze though still trying to be gentle about it. "You haven't exactly moved on, if that's what you think this is."

"What? So this isn't the afterlife and you're not actually here to guide me to Heaven?" Or Hell. Probably Hell. He had assumed that was what it was, being that he was getting told he'd died and all…

"Ah, no. I'm not here to guide you anywhere, because you're not going anywhere. You're essentially immortal now."

"Immortal? You're fucking kidding me, right?"

"Why would I lie to you?"

"Because I'm beginning to think that none of this is actually real like you claim it to be, and that I'm really just high off my fucking face right now—"

"Trust me," she cut in. "This is real. You've died, and now you get to live out your days as a reaper." Honestly, the guy was a nightmare already. Bluntness had been absolutely necessary. This was why they were supposed to have a welcoming of sorts after their death, because it was the only way to have them actual believe it and not doubt it.

And Bickslow was back to being the confused and lost soul he'd been just moments prior. For a second, he really had begun to think that he hadn't actually died and that the seemingly magical blonde in front of him was just a figment of his overactive imagination – though why he'd made himself end up in a delivery room, he had no fucking idea. But, he wasn't imagining any of it. What he'd realised before… That was all true. All of it was real. The plane, the delivery room, the hospital rooftop, Lucy – well, whatever Lucy actually was, she was real. But what she was telling him was all real, too.

He was some-fucking-how immortal. What the fuck did that even mean? And what the fuck was a reaper? So it was with a small voice once again that Bickslow said, "I'm a… reaper?" When Lucy nodded, his brow furrowed and he asked next, "What the hell does that even mean?"

"I think you call them grim reapers in the fairy tales," Lucy said. "Although your kind have never been fond of that particular name. But you collect souls now."

"Souls? Like… Human souls?"

Lucy nodded again. "When a person dies, you're there to make sure their soul gets to the right place. The Veil can get overcrowded very quickly if there are too many lost souls in it, and that's really not a good thing." But she wasn't going to go into detail about that particular plane of existence right then. That could wait.

"So, what…" Bickslow sniffled before continuing, "I just walk around taking peoples' souls when they die?" Seems pretty fucking morbid…

"Not quite. You get assigned to a human when they're born – which is why you were in that room downstairs just before," she explained. "And you follow that human for the remainder of their life, and then when once they've passed, you collect their soul to make sure it doesn't get stuck. Then it's like a cycle. After one human dies, you get assigned to another as they're entering the world."

Bickslow nodded. Seemed relatively easy to understand, even if it all really was one completely fucked up situation. But a grim reaper, huh? That surprisingly sounded pretty damn cool, considering the circumstances where he was dead and all. He wasn't quite sure how he felt about actually taking someone's soul, but it didn't sound like he had much choice in the matter.

"So um… So are you a reaper too?" he asked.

"Oh, god no."

"Oh." He'd thought that that was what Lucy was, since she was there and telling him all of that; maybe she'd be his 'Reaper Teacher' or something like that. But it seemed not…

"I'm not a reaper," she continued. "But I am a guardian angel."

"A… guardian angel? You mean those actually exist?"

Lucy nodded quickly. "'Course we do! Since the beginning of time, really, just like reapers have. We work together, in a sense, except we're opposites. You have the ability to cause chaos in our human's life, while I have the ability to keep that chaos from affecting them."

"Uh… Right…" First, it was reapers, though, and now guardian angels? What else actually existed and wasn't just the stuff of fairy tales? It wouldn't surprise him right then if it turned out unicorns actually existed, too. That would've made Millie happy… "But, uh…" Bickslow cleared his throat as he finally leant forward, just to try and peek around Lucy. "Where's your wings? Angels have wings, right?"

Lucy rolled her eyes. She did actually have wings. She just hid them like every other guardian angel in the world, because they were one, annoying. And two, redundant. She couldn't even fly with them, and even if she could, teleporting was just so much more convenient. Her wings were really just there for show at that point, and in all the years she had been a guardian angel, she'd never been able to figure out just why her kind had them in the first place.

Pulling off her jacket, just because it was a really nice jacket and she didn't want to put holes in the back of it, Lucy explained, "Most of us keep them hidden, just because they are completely useless. It's just like how reapers actually own scythes, even though there is no physical need for them."

"Like, pointy scythes?"

"Yes, pointy scythes." With her jacket beside her on the concrete roof, Lucy sighed again before she gave a small roll of her shoulders before she let the wings she'd kept tucked in for centuries already fold out from between her shoulder blades. "But yes, guardian angels do in fact have wings."

Bickslow only stared at her in awe as she spread the large and ridiculously fluffy wings out on either side of her, watching as the pure white feathers separated a little before collapsing together again as she seemed to give a quick flutter of them. Bickslow was sure that completely spread out and not tucked in, they were larger than she actually was tall.

"Holy shit…" He couldn't help but push himself forward so he could crawl around her, ducking under her right wing quickly to come behind her until he was looking at the two long tears at the back of her shirt where said wings were now sprouting from. So they really are hidden. "Can I touch them?" he asked then, peeking over the top of her left wing.

Lucy sighed again. "I suppose so—hey! Don't pull on my feathers! I can feel that, you know!" She couldn't stop herself from having her other wing come around flick the new reaper with the tip of it. How dare he try and pluck her wing feathers! That hurt!

"Sorry," he snickered. He just couldn't help himself. They were so pretty! And so fluffy! And he only ignored how done Lucy looked as he kneeled in front of her again and just proceeded to play with one of her wings – running his hand along the very top to see how the bones moved when he forced her to stretch, and as his other hand only buried itself in the softer and shorter feathers closer to her actual arms.

But it was occurring to Bickslow then, that no matter how amazing things had seemed for those few short moments, he was still dead. He'd left the living world behind and everyone and everything in it. He wasn't even really human anymore, was he? Not if he was an immortal reaper. As awesome as that did actually sound, it still really fucking sucked. There were so many things he'd miss out on seeing and doing… But all of that was gone. It had all been over quicker than he'd ever imagined.

When Bickslow sat back down on the ground and hugged his knees to his chest again, Lucy couldn't help the way her wings drooped as she watched him. He was just so sad… And she was just a little worried about how quickly his moods could seemingly change, but Lucy knew it was really just because a lot had happened in a short amount of time. He was just a little overwhelmed, surely.

Still, she couldn't help but quietly ask, "Would you like a hug?" She was good at giving hugs, and if the reaper needed a hug right then, well… She'd hug him. For the first and only time, of course.

Bickslow only a gave a small nod, and Lucy was smiling softly as she crawled forward to sit down next to him instead. Her arms went around him first, and when he laid his head on her shoulder, Lucy only sighed quietly to herself before folding her wings completely around him, too. They might as well be useful for something, and Bickslow really wasn't going to complain. They were fluffy.

When Bickslow had the pleasure of seeing his own funeral just two weeks later, that was when he seemed to finally accept that all of it was real and he wasn't just on one hell of a bender.

But as much as he had hated how Lucy had taken him there that day, because he had absolutely hated seeing his parents so destroyed, and he had absolutely hated knowing that all his parents had been able to do for his baby sister right then was tell her that her big brother wouldn't be able to come visit anymore – he had still been grateful that Lucy had made sure he'd been there, despite how painful it had been. Because he'd needed to be there.

He'd needed to go to his own funeral to come to terms with his death.

The last two weeks had only seen Bickslow going back and forth, just like he had been to a lesser extent when he'd first met Lucy. Even with Lucy teaching him all about his new existence and showing him all the impossible things he'd never thought he'd be able to do, Bickslow hadn't been able to help how he'd still doubted its authenticity every so often. Reapers, guardian angels, immortality… None of should it exist. It was the stuff of dreams, fairy tales, and hallucinations.

But it did exist. It existed in the real world, just beyond what Bickslow had always known. All of it had always been there. It was just that no one could see it. And his entire life, Bickslow had had two extra people following him around and either fucking with him – like he'd done with his new human once or twice already, just to see what he was actually capable of – or doing their best to make sure he grew up happily and with as little unnecessary drama as possible. He, like every single person on the planet since the beginning of human life, had had his own reaper and guardian angel watching out for him.

And now it was his turn to be that reaper.

Bickslow was finally coming to terms with that and everything it meant.

Still, even accepting that he really had died, there was only so much of standing right behind his parents at his own funeral and just wishing that they could see him – but they couldn't, because humans couldn't see them – and that he could hug them and tell them that he was really okay and that he was there. Sort of. But it hurt seeing all of the people he'd cared about be there, and even having already begun to lose what humanity remained within him and his ability to deeply care about anyone or anything again, it still really fucking sucked.

So he was only appearing at Lucy's side again (he figured he might as well practice his teleportation skills while he was at it) at the edge of the cemetery, and was looping his arm through hers before gently beginning to pull her over to the winding road that ran through.

"You don't want to stay any longer?" she asked him.

Bickslow only gave a shake of his head. "I always hated going to funerals, but I think my own funeral takes the cake for being the most horrible," he mused. "Besides…" The reaper looked down to the guardian angel beside him – the one who had taken to calling him her lil' baby reaper for some ridiculous reason – with a small smile. "You promised to take me scythe shopping today."

And as redundant as a scythe was, he'd been strangely looking forward to going and picking out his very own deadly – well, sort of – weapon for the last two weeks.

Firstly, this is mostly not edited, just because I've had a horrible day and didn't want to wait until when I was feeling better again to edit and post this. As usual, I'll get to it when I can. But, now that that is out of the way, I can talk about the actual story.

So, like my other random AU chapter stories, this is not going to be written in the order it's set. Obviously, this second chapter is right at the beginning of their timeline, so already, we're out of order. But like with my other ones, I'll try and make it clear just when it's set. This one will be a little different since time isn't so much of a factor, being immortal and all... But it'll work out. Probably.

Also, romance will eventually happen. But, that being said, anything involving them in a romantic nature, will be an AU within the AU. Basically, if romance gets involved, it will be on an alternate timeline in a way, since this story is first and foremost, predominantly based on their friendship. (If I could draw what I mean, it would be like a fork in a train track, I guess.)

Also... Let's talk about smut. I have actually already started one very much M rated chapter involving these particular two (it needed to happen), and like I said above, it will ultimately be in an AU within this AU/alternate timeline sort of thing (so confusing). That being said, I'm not sure whether to change the rating of this story to M to post this chapter in here when it's done - which will not be any time soon. Or, to post it separately and just mark it as being part of this AU with Reaper!Bickslow and Angel!Lucy. Please let me know what you think will be the best idea!

And... I think that's it. So, as usual, I hope you liked this chapter. It's... odd, I guess. But please let me know what you thought of it if you can!