Readers seemed to like "How low can you go?" Luckily for them I got the random inspiration for this on Sunday. Another one-shot, sequel to "How low can you go?" Rating comes from the first scene.Here it is.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. Grim Jr. and Mini-Mandy both belong to Bleedman.
"Do you love me?" There was no doubt traceable in the voice. The Grim Reaper's scythe rested in a decorative carapace mounted on the wall. His long black robes lay in a disheveled mound on the floor. They had been replaced by silk and satin sheets and a blonde woman, all of who were tangled about him in the grand bed of the grand chamber they shared.
The woman moaned in response, silencing him with kisses. He held her slender body against the ash-colored bones of his skeleton. Her hair fell like flaxen curtain around their heads as she leaned down over him. She was all the woman he could ask for: fine, fair, and fluid, the latter of which was clearly evident when she wore nothing but sheets and spouse. "Mandy…" the reaper grunted.
"Hush," Mandy muted him, crimson-turned eyes meeting his empty sockets. He complied as she revived –pardon the expression– the action of their physical union. When she took over the world they decided to combine their kingdoms by putting an end to the mortal strife. They had ruled together for several years now. Initially the couple had delayed a physical relationship until their reign gained stability. Their hesitations put to rest, there was no reluctance anymore.
He traced the natural curvatures of her body, the smooth flesh in his rough bones. "Mandy…" Grim's voice trailed into a new sequence of gratified groans.
---
"Do you love me?" It was rather silly, really. Billy, that is. Their old friend had convinced Grim and Mandy to accompany him on an excursion, for old time's sake. They were walking along one of many brimstone canyons. The area had been evacuated for their use, so the only beings present were Grim, Mandy, and Billy. Billy, however, was not talking to either of his friends. The object of his affection was a distorted batholith of sleek black obsidian.
It was a déjà vu moment for them, Billy having professed his love to a number of inanimate entities in the past. Grim had remarked on a number of occasions his desire to kill "that Burger character," implying that he would rather have been left completely in Mandy's custody. However, he did, on some level, appreciate Billy's amicability, despite his utter lack of intelligence.
Billy lamented his stony love, the flinty mistress who would not return his affection. Breaking into tears and dropping to his knees next to the formation, Billy dragged himself, face in the dirt, out of sight. In life and death, there had been no sentient creature stupid enough to love him, although, the marital vowels in the kingdom had been altered considerably to eliminate the mentions of life and "death do us part." It had not yet been completed or finalized when Grim and Mandy were wed, and some significant passages had been lost, least of all the section concerning devotion and passion.
"Well, at least we didn't have to stumble through that process. We were smart enough to know the answers," Grim smirked down at his wife. Mandy glanced at him through the corner of her eye. She tilted her head slightly.
"Let's make sure he doesn't cast himself into a pool of magma," Mandy said. She slipped her arm about his and started pace in the direction Billy had crawled. Suddenly Billy leapt out from behind another stone, sporting a white suit and Afro.
"WATCH ME NOW! WORK, WORK! AH, WORK IT ALL BABY!"
---
"Do you love me?"
"I'm your wife."
"I know… But do you love me?"
"Do I love him?"
Grim sighed. Several hours had passed during which he could not find Mandy in the living wing of their bastion. Evening had long since fallen, and she had not returned from her walk about the castle corridors. In fact, the hour was getting late, and Grim had already watched three feature-length films. He was not long past the intermission of the fourth when he heard the turn of the doorknob.
When Mandy entered the room, calmly announcing her entrance, Grim abandoned his movie marathon to make inquiries about her whereabouts. She had taken a walk and stopped to talk to a doctor.
Most human doctors had left the profession since dying given that their clients were all deceased and did not require medical attention any longer except in the case of some bizarre supernatural ailments. Some otherworldly doctors remained to attend to those needs, but most of their clientele were of the supernatural persuasion.
Why did Mandy need to take a walk? Something the doctor had told her. What outlandish malady had he diagnosed? He wasn't that kind of doctor. What did he tell her? Was she sick? Some would say she was better than ever. The fact was that there was a skeleton developing within her.
At first Grim couldn't believe it. He had spent his whole career, his whole existence even, reaping souls and sending them to the Underworld. To him it was inconceivable that he could help create and foster a soul into that same world. The child was conceivable though and had already been conceived.
Grim became immediately euphoric. In Mandy's youth, the Grim Reaper had been less respectable in his field. He was given to childish antics, eccentric associates, and emotional outbursts. As she grew, however, and their contacts were more reputable, his conduct had improved until he became the stately dignitary that shared rule of the Underworld. At that moment, however, he did not care whether he was Grim Reaper or a pimple on the butt of the smallest amoeba. He allowed himself to weep with the joy he felt, the joy of fatherhood.
Grim took Mandy into his arms, and she placed her arms around him. "Mandy, you have just made me the happiest reaper ever," he told her. "I love you, and I will love this baby…"
"I know, Grim, I know…"
---
Grim Jr. was three years old. His sister, Mini-Mandy (Minnie for short), was about fifteen months. Mandy had shown no outward emotion when the children were born, and although she was occasionally seen to have a wry upturn of the lip when they were around, she usually maintained her normal disposition around them. Junior was energetic, having not quite outgrown the terrible twos, and cheerful, except when he got into trouble, which, he would later argue, had always sought him out. The boy was inquisitive and adventurous. This had gotten him into several scrapes with his parents before.
One day Junior wandered off, later to be found by one of his parents' knights, but not before sending Grim into a decent panic. Upon his return, Grim had been grateful to find him safe, but Mandy scolded him soundly. Even when the children were young she was not conservative with her rebukes. She admonished him thoroughly, though she had yet to punish her children. They came to the agreement that his being ensnared in a Joshua tree was punishment enough.
Grim later put Junior to bed while Mandy tucked in Minnie in the adjacent room. "Does Mom hate me?" A first sign of the elder reaper's having a heart was that it wanted to break at that moment. Junior did not always understand the words his mother used to chastise him, but he did understand the tone in his mother's voice, the tone she used when one of their subjects was in big trouble. Their son had already observed how seldom Mandy smiled or showed affection to him.
The elder reaper tried to explain to his son that his mother just didn't know how to express fondness, that it had always been an anomaly for her. This was difficult for Junior to appreciate, so Grim told him he would explain another time, perhaps when he was older.
When Grim and Mandy dressed for bed the evening of the incident, Grim divulged Junior's thoughts to her. She didn't respond, and they went to sleep. At midnight's chime, Grim's slumber was marred as the mattress shifted beneath them. He glanced groggily across the bed, but he only found the indent in the pillow where Mandy's head should have been laying. There were footsteps in the hallway, traveling in the direction of the nursery. He slipped a house robe on and slunk quietly out of the room and down the corridor.
Inside Junior's room, Mandy had knelt next to her son's bed. At first she just sat there, watching him sleep, an deed she not known to be wont of acting upon. Then she reached out and began stroking his skull. She continued this action for a few minutes until Junior awoke. Junior sat up in bed and faced his mother, inquiring as to what she was doing. Mandy immediately mentioned the conversation her son and husband had carried out. This they discussed for a time. Junior asked his mother several questions and Mandy returned several answers. At the end of the tête-à-tête, however, Mandy spread her arms and held Junior when he embraced them.
Grim stepped away from the door to let her through. In the corridor she didn't say anything, simply stared at the carpet. She rarely allowed her exterior to reflect the inner processes that administrate her daily functions. The workings of a lady's mind are as the tortuous cogs that govern the very timeline we traverse upon. To subject a soul to them would be punishment in its purest form. The devices that operate behind those eyes often lack names for their unadulterated insanity. And so they would rather protect all from that terrible fate. The secrets of a woman's psyche must remain secrets, lest the universe itself hear and lose its good judgment as well… And so Mandy stood there, cloaking the effects of her time in the nursery.
A moment later Grim took her in his arms and clutched her to his chest, and Mandy clung to him in return.
"Do you love me?" Grim asked. Mandy nodded her head into his robe.
"I love."
Billy sings "Do You Love Me?"by The Contours. Grim was watching Tevye and Golde's"Do You Love Me?" in Fiddler on the Roof.