There's a Method to This Madness

Ten short stories about friends and family, written for 42_souls.

Part 04: Exactly What it Looks Like

Prompt: Metallic ((troika+Death+Deathscythe))

Death lived for centuries before he finally figured out how to make a mirror ring.

He only bothered to figure out how to do so because it finally became a necessity. Necessity is the mother of invention, as the humans like to say.

He used to ring up the mirrors in his home – now Kid's home – without warning. It wasn't as though he was being obtrusive, though. He rarely called Kid at all. He rarely called anybody at all. Mostly, everybody else – his adorable son included – just called him when something required his attention. But there were moments when Death needed to speak to Kid, so there were times when Death had to call Kid at home. Kid didn't mind. He never said that he minded. When Kid was at home it wasn't as if he had anything better to do than to pay attention to what his father wanted, anyway. Why would Death need to give a warning ring before he called? The idea that such a thing might be needed had simply never crossed the Grim Reaper's mind.

At least, that was the case until the fateful day that Death called Kid at home and discovered the reason why a warning ring might be needed.

It was the middle of the day. Three in the afternoon, to be exact. Kid should have been in classes, or in training. Death hadn't expected his son to be home, but he had wanted to check at home anyway, just in case. A quick dial of the mirror and Death was connected, every mirror in Kid's home instantly opened to his eyes. He found Kid and Liz immediately and zoomed in on them. "Hey hey hey WAZZZZZUUUUUP?" Death greeted them cheerfully.

Kid and Liz stared at him – or rather, stared at the mirror in which they could see Death's visage – in wide-eyed horror.

"What's wrong?" Death asked. "Am I interrupting something?"

"F-F-F-Father!" Kid gasped. "This isn't what it looks like!"

"Hmmmm. I kind of hope that this is exactly what it looks like," Death answered thoughtfully, "because if it's not what it looks like, then I might be worried."

"Oh for fuck's sake!" Liz screamed, throwing a pillow at the mirror. "Stop looking at us, you pervert! What the hell is wrong with you?"

Death scratched his head, confused. "But I have no objection to-"

"Stop staring at me!" Liz screamed again. Then she scrambled at the covers of the bed, as if grabbing for something to cover herself with. The bed was made, however, and Kid was lying on top of the comforter, which left Liz with nothing to grab. Finally, Liz dove behind the far side of the bed, away from the mirror. She crouched behind the bed so that Death couldn't see anything more than her head. "Kid, tell your dad to close his goddamn eyes!"

Kid was now left completely exposed to his father's baffled gaze. "I can't tell if his eyes are closed," Kid snapped, struggling against his restraints but unable to free himself. "Patti, the keys! Get me the keys!"

"No. Bad pet!" Patti snapped, crawling onto the bed and into Death's view. She straddled Kid, crushing the lacy pleats of his skirt, and smacked him hard on both sides of his face with her feather duster. "Pet doesn't speak unless spoken to!"

"Patti, Father is looking at us-"

"Does pet want another spanking?" Patti sneered.

"Snickerdoodle!" Kid practically screamed. "Snickerdoodle, dammit Patti, SNICKERDOODLE!"

"Yaaaaay, spanky time!" Patti laughed, lifting up one of Kid's legs, exposing the lacy garter that he was wearing while also rendering him completely assymmetrical, and drawing back her hand to smack at his ass.

"No, Patti!" Liz hissed. "That was the safety word!"

"Huh?" Patti froze with her hand still drawn to strike. "Really?"

"Patti, undo my handcuffs right now!" Kid snarled. Somehow Kid managed to sound menacing even when Patti had one of his legs lifted in the air and his French maid's headband was falling over his eyes. Death felt a momentary surge of pride at his adorable son's ability to be intimidating even in the most compromising of circumstances.

Patti, however, was not intimidated. "But Kid said that Patti could spank him!" she whined. "Patti wants spanky time!"

"Patti, get down here!" Liz said, grabbing at her sister and trying to pull her behind the bed with her. "Kid's pervert father is staring at you!"

"No, Patti, wait, you have to undo my handcuffs first!" Kid protested.

"Kid's daddy is here?" Patti swiveled her head toward the mirror, then grinned. "HIIIIIIII MR. REAPER!" she waved enthusiastically. "Are you lookin' at Patti's boo-boos?"

"Goddammit, Patti!" Liz nearly screamed. She leapt back on top of the bed just long enough to grab her sister in a death-grip, then immediately dragged Patti off the bed and back to her hiding spot, where the two of them were blocked from Death's line of sight. "Remember what your sister said? Don't show your boo-boos to perverts!"

"You're a pervert," Patti pointed out. Death could only see the top of her head as she crouched behind the bed with her sister. "And so is Kid. But you said that it was okay for Kid to see Patti's boo-boos."

"Patti, that's not what I-"

"Don't leave me like this!" Kid yelled at the both of them, digging his pointy heels into the comforter and struggling to free himself from the handcuffs again. His struggles had left his hair disheveled, his headband falling halfway off his head, and maid uniform quite wrinkled. Kid's lacy skirt, which Liz had previously lifted up to expose his swollen erection, somehow managed to flutter every which way as he kicked, except the way that would have caused it to cover his erection again.

Death didn't understand why his son was struggling. Surely Kid was strong enough to break the handcuffs on his own, wasn't he? And he looked so cute in the maid uniform, especially with the lacy garter belt and the high heels! "That's such a cute uniform!" Death said to Kid, cheerfully. "Did you sew it yourself?"

"Father, stop looking at me!"

"Okey-dokey." Death looked away from the mirror for a moment, gazing around the Death Room until he found what he was looking for. "Ah, Spirit, there you are!" Death said, as he saw his weapon striding through the gates into the Death Room. "I was just about to call you. You have got to see this!"

Spirit hurried his stride, quickly jogging toward Death. "Is something the matter?" he asked, the alarm on his face obvious.

"Look look look!" Death said, pointing Spirit's gaze toward his mirror. "Isn't that just adorable?"

"Ack!" Spirit clamped his hands over his eyes.

"Eeeeeeeek!" Liz screamed, at the same time. She had taken the risk of crawling back on top of the bed with the handcuff key clutched in her hand, momentarily exposing her nude body in a last-ditch attempt to free Kid. As soon as she saw Spirit in the mirror, however, she screamed and dove back behind the bed.

Patti stood up and waved her feather duster, her nude breasts bouncing cheerfully as she did so. "HIIIIIII, MR. ALBARN!"

"Oh, for the love of-!" Kid apparently was panicked enough to finally remember that he had god-like strength. He grit his teeth, pulled with all his might, and finally managed to free himself. He didn't free his wrists and he didn't break the handcuffs, but he did succeed in breaking the newel posts that he was cuffed to clean off the bed. The broken newel posts clattered to the ground as Kid dove behind the bed to join Liz and Patti, the handcuffs still dangling from his wrists.

"Oooooooh, Kid broke the bed!" Patti gasped. "He's gotta get spanked now!"

Kid tore the headband off his head and glowered at his father. He crouched low behind the bed, as low as Liz and Patti were, so that Death couldn't see any more than his head and neck. Death didn't understand why Kid felt the need to hide himself like that. Unlike Liz and Patti, Death's son was fully clothed in his lacy maid uniform. "Father, stop enticing Mr. Albarn into inappropriate behaviors!"

"Yeah, stop enticing-" Spirit froze in mid-breath. Then he gasped, "Are you still looking at them?"

"Oh, but just look at them!" Death said. He thought that Spirit, of all people, should be one to appreciate the marvelous sight on the other side of the mirror. "Look at my son's sex life! I can't believe he actually has one!"

"Are you insane?" Spirit flailed blindly, attempting to block Death's eyes with his hands while still keeping his own eyes squeezed tightly shut. "He told you to stop looking, so that means stop looking! You can't just stare at your kids when they're having sex, that's sick!"

"But they weren't having sex when I called," Death pointed out. "If I had to describe it, I would say that it appeared as though Liz was about to engage Kid in some combination of roleplay and foreplay-"

"Stop telling me about your kid's sex life!" Spirit said, still flailing blinding toward Death's mask. "He's your son! You have to respect his privacy!"

"Oh, I see," Death said. He sometimes felt a bit confused about the whole parenting thing, which was why he often turned to Spirit for advice in that arena. "Wait a minute," Death suddenly said. "Is this one of those parenting things that I'm doing wrong again? Is there something that I'm supposed to be doing right now that I'm forgetting?" Death scratched his head with his enormous hand. "Wait, I know! This is the part where I'm supposed to threaten Liz with a shotgun in case she intends to get Kid pregnant, isn't it?"

Spirit's jaw dropped. Then he shook his head, as if recovering his wits, and said, "No no no no! You have that backwards – er, in more than one way actually – B-b-b-but! That's not the issue right now! Listen listen listen you've got to STOP LOOKING at them because whether that's your kid or not he's still entitled to his privacy and anyway those girls are underage and I think it might actually be illegal for you to be seeing them naked, or something!"

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but you should listen to Mr. Albarn," Kid said, still crouching behind the bed on the other side of the mirror. "Father, please."

"Yeah, really," Liz added. "When Maka's dad is being the voice of reason, then you know that you're really doing something wrong."

Death pondered this inarguable truth as Spirit's hands finally smacked over the eyeholes of his mask. Death easily pushed Spirit aside with an annoyed swipe his giant hand. Then he nodded solemnly to his son, still crouching behind the bed on the other side of the mirror, and said, "I understand, Kid. You are old enough to make your own decisions, therefore if you request privacy about these matters, I will respect your decision."

"And look, you're still staring at us!" Liz hissed at Death. "If you want to call us, why can't you just call us on the phone like a normal person?"

Before Death could answer Liz's question, however, Kid turned toward her and answered for him. "My father can't use telephones. His fingers are too big."

"Oh, bullshit," Liz snapped back. "There's got to be somebody out there who can make a giant phone for God."

"Where would I put a giant phone?" Death asked, shrugging his pointy shoulders. He couldn't keep such a silly thing in the Death Room, after all. It would completely destroy the ambiance.

"The thing about phones, though," Liz explained, turning her head back toward the mirror, "is that they ring. They ring to give you warning when somebody is calling you. And they ring so that you can have a choice – you can answer a call, but you don't have to answer it, see? If you're busy, you can just let it ring, and eventually it will stop ringing and you can leave a message. And that's the thing about phones, okay? You can choose to answer it or not."

Death crossed his arms over his chest. "No, no, no," he said. "Kid is a god. He doesn't get to choose whether to answer a call or not, especially when there's a problem. He doesn't get to choose any more than I do."

"Hmmmmmmm," Patti said, pondering this.

"He's right, Liz," Kid said quietly.

"I know, baby. I know." Liz reached out and brushed a strand of Kid's disheveled hair from his cheek. "You don't get to choose, and we don't get to choose. Believe me, I know." Then she turned toward the mirror again. "But could we at least have a warning when you call, at least? Just a warning to make ourselves decent, in case we need to make ourselves decent."

"So you still want something that rings," Death said.

"Yes. That would be nice."

"Hmm hmm." Death pondered for a moment, then said, "I suppose I could make the mirror ring for you."

"Do you know how to do that?" Kid asked.

"No problemo," Death said, cheerfully. "From now on, you get a three-ring warning. But only three rings. Got it?"

Kid nodded. "That seems fair."

"I can undo a pair of handcuffs and put on a robe in less than three rings," Liz bragged.

"So how come Kid's dad is calling us right now?" Patti suddenly asked.

"Oh. That's right." Kid glared up at his father. "What is the matter, Father? Why did you have to call us today? Is there some sort of emergency that you need for us to attend to?"

"Oh, no no no no! Nothing of the sort!" Death waved his enormous hands, dismissing his son's concerns. "In fact, none of the three of you are going to be attending to any emergencies for a long, long time." The eyes of Death's mask of a face narrowed angrily. "I heard about what happened at Notre Dame, Kid. Justin Law informed me and I saw it on the DNN news."

"Oh," said Kid, in a very, very small voice.

"Bu~sted!" Patti laughed.

"I appreciate that you took care of the gargoyle infestation like I asked you to," Death went on. "However, you understand that your subsequent destruction of the cathedral requires appropriate punishment, yes?"

Kid slammed his face down onto the wrinkled comforter on top of his own bed and groaned.

"Grounded for eight weeks," Death began, ticking off on his enormous fingers. "Your technician status is officially suspended. I'm confiscating Beelzebub. Liz, Patti, any gargoyle souls that you collected no longer count toward your accumulated total. In addition, Kid, I feel that I should inform you that the Mayor of Paris, the Prime Minister of France, and the resurrected zombie of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll have requested permission to visit Death City so that they may all personally take turns stabbing you with various types of culinary equipment. I'm negotiating with them to see if they will accept an invitation to spank you instead."

"Ummm, but Kid likes getting spanked," Patti pointed out.

"Yes. Well. I can see that, now. So I suppose it will have to be stabbing after all," Death said. "That's probably the only way that the Cavaillé-Coll zombie will be able to find peace, anyway."

"I hate zombies," Kid groaned, his face still buried in the comforter.

"I'll be calling again later tonight," Death said, "after I've spoken with the Cavaillé-Coll zombie and worked out a date and time for his revenge. I promise to make the mirror ring this time, though!" Death held up one of his hands and waved cheerfully at the three of them. "Toodle-loo!"

From that day onward, Death was always very careful to make the mirrors ring whenever he called his son at home. As it turned out, it wasn't that difficult to make a mirror ring after all. Death was pleased to discover that the sound of a ringing mirror was a deliciously eerie, coldly metallic sound. So perfectly fitting for Death, he thought to himself happily.

Death never did find out who had sewn Kid's adorable maid uniform, though. Spirit eventually convinced him that it would be inappropriate to ask about the matter again.

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A/N: Four more fics will be uploaded next week. Next up! "The Scythe, the Gun, and the Smiling Tummy."