Hello everyone~!
This is my first fanfic on this site. Woo! It's told from first person POV, because I find that I enjoy the challenge of really getting into the nooks and crannies of a characters mind to tell a story.

So, as for now, this is pretty Grell centric, but this will be a Grell/Undertaker fic, and there will be a lemon, so stay tuned for that! All characters belong to Yana Toboso. Story is mine.

xXx

I sighed, treading the streets of London slowly. It was dusk, and I found myself clicking down the uneven cobblestone in my crimson and ebony oxford heels, hands dug in my jacket, sighing to myself. I had peeled off my gloves, now just crumpled satin balls in the bottom of each pocket. Between those and the lining of my coat, my hands had become clammy and uncomfortable, although my nerves weren't helping in the slightest.

William was furious with me, as per usual. I had let my paperwork back up once again, and the back up had caused him almost twice his normal overtime hours. To make matters worse, I had spilled coffee all over his expensive new suit, which not only ruined the material but had burned him pretty badly, and thus made him late for a department meeting where he was supposed to give an important speech, apparently. This had left him livid, naturally, and for the past week since the incident I'd almost been, kind of… behaving myself around the office, aware that any minor slip up at this point may actually lead to the reconstruction of my beautiful face.

I spent such time on it, you know? Normally I wouldn't care, but it takes a lady long hours to properly prepare herself each day, let alone stay graceful during strenuous work shifts, and no one around the office ever seemed to pay it any mind. If they ever did grant me an ounce of heed, it was usually to provoke me for amusement. Ronald Knox appreciates me though, and that darling baby reaper does know how to lay on a compliment or two to cheer up my dulled spirit.

To be honest, I had promised to start behaving after the Jack the Ripper incident all those months ago, but I suppose I just… am a lady who lives by her own rules and structure? It's not that I try to cause trouble for William- okay, maybe that's a bit of a lie. I do. It just seems that when I do make any sort of feeble attempt to please him, he does not find my efforts of self-improvement as anything more than bothersome and boarding on destructive both personally and collectively.

Never the less, today I had crossed the line while trying to cheer him up by brightening his office with some of my own personal collection of red drapes, scented candles, and modern music (I thought this was very generous…). I tried in earnest to get him to dance with me to loosen up (and maaaybe to help convince him to reissue my personalized death scythe), but I only succeeded in giving him a brain splitting migraine with my music, ('insufferable noise' as he called it,) knock over the three impressively large stacks of already late files from his desk onto the floor, and break an ink well that somehow managed to cover about half of them in black puddles, not to mention stain the new beige carpeting.

After that, William had promptly thrown me out of his office, out of the library and out of the realm til- well, when exactly, I wasn't quite sure. I don't know why he thought setting me loose amongst humans would be such a grand idea considering, although I guess he figured with my demoted status and two pairs of scissors, I wasn't quite so intimidating. At this point, he may have preferred me to be causing trouble away in the mortal realm than in his view.

Out of sight, out of mind, I suppose.

That miserable, slave driving-ah. Who was I trying to fool? William had made his disdain for my most recent blunders quite clear this time around, and even though coffee burns and broken ink wells were not nearly as severe as some of my past incidents ('Jack the Ripper' being the one that stands out quite boldly in my memory,) I knew that if I didn't clean my act up he was likely to deport me to Russia, or worse, the States. I shuddered at the thought of being sent into such undeveloped territory.

As I walked, I pondered. I mean, considerably, time is all a reaper truly has when it comes down to it, you see? People are born, live, reproduce, die and are reaped. Seasons come and go, fashions fade; morals loosen, tighten, and loosen again. All things change, and although the problems seem to be rather consistent… all us reapers end up with is the lonely, omnipresent phantom of time. I couldn't quite seem to come to terms with myself. What could be a soul's purpose after death?

You'd think that would be something they teach shinigami at the academy. Alas, I was never a very efficient student, so if it was elaborated on, it has become lost to me. But I doubt the worth of a soul is something that one can be so easily learned, let alone taught. I hadn't thought about it much til now, but the reality of it made me shiver slightly. Or maybe that was just the chill of the wind, for it was almost December.

Although us reapers share many of the qualities of human beings, those of my kind are not so easily affected by merely the weather. Regardless, I tried pushing the icy grip of growing uncertainty from my mind as I pulled my beloved red jacket tighter around me. Damn the late madam for having such tiny shoulders- it was quite a bother to have to try and wear the thing properly myself. They seemed too delicate for a woman who had once been of such power. Huffing and tossing a few scarlet locks over my shoulder, I continued towards my unknown destination.

I hadn't told my legs to keep moving, yet I found the scenery around me ever-changing as I wondered through town and towards a local graveyard, alone with the solitude of my own foreboding thoughts. Such as this was not my normal state of mind. I reflected only on the thought that if I were simply a gatherer of souls, what would there be for me after a second departure? Would there even be a 'second departure' for a god of death? Surely there had to be. I mean… I forced myself to consider Alan Humphries and Eric Slingsby, the two most recently departed colleagues of mine. The ordeal surrounding their deaths was quite hushed, and only those directly involved with that particular case (being William, Ronald and myself,) were aware of what exactly had actually happened between the pair involving the missing souls and their untimely downfall. Shinigami deaths themselves were quite a rare thing; but two at the same time from the same division was nearly unheard of.

Worse yet, Alan and Eric had been two of the top reapers in the department. Losing them was nothing to be proud of. Such a bizarre event had thrown the London division reapers on everyone's list of current peaked interest, and all the extra attention to our understaffed section had sent Willy dear right into a tizzy. This involved most of the new academy graduate employees being on their toes at every turn, Ronald falling down the stairs due to the mishandling of his own lawnmower, and myself being threatened to have all of my gorgeous hair chopped off almost hourly by none other than Mister William T. Spears himself, wielding his scythe that could crack skulls at unknown lengths with practically little to no effort from it's wielder. A man with such toned precision and power could make me shiver; but for once, I did not find the feeling so enticing, but rather nauseating.

Before now I would have been curious to know how far that rod of his could reach and the strength it truly did possess, but as of the current circumstances; not so much. I heard the newest recruits debating whether the ever-mysterious 'T' stood for 'Treacherous' or 'Tyrant'.

To be fair, William is not so dreadful by nature. In fact, he's my best and closest friend aside from Ronnie, though it is debatable if the feeling is mutual. He has saved me on quite a few occasions throughout the centuries, though he always argues it is simply because we cannot find efficient task forces to replace me. We were testing partners back at the academy, and I suppose it is against his morals to turn his back on me now, even after my countless wrongdoings.

Either way, it is quite clear that the pair of us have always had different views in work ethic, but I am very aware that he is both insanely overworked and almost ridiculously underpaid. And I know it may be wretched of me to take advantage, but flustering William was hands down one of my favorite pastimes.

There was something so alluring about having the power to frustrate him to the point of senseless anger. It was both endearing and dangerous, and if I were to tell you the gods honest truth, seeing him lashing out in barely restrained ferocity was downright sexy. There is more to his personality than strict looks, paperwork, pressed suits, and deadlines, as unbelievable as it may sound. As well, he hasn't been laid in gods only know how many centuries, so I suppose that as well would just be the icing on anyone's metaphorical shit cake. -Oh, do pardon me, that wasn't very lady like.

Consequently, in my mind, t'was like a great tragedy; something from a Shakespearean tale. My ballad was that of a fine lady of the ages, thrown into the boughs of misery. Yes, a lady who could never die, endlessly rejected by love, and held in contempt by her chilling superior throughout the history of time! Headstrong, but with nowhere to run, nowhere to turn to in an hour of desperation, and… ah! This could be the fifth great tragedy! Be as it may, I had reaped the fellow by my own hands… what one must give in the name of art is a price great indeed, and I believe myself to be in all things, and above all things, an artist.

So was there really no glimmer of light in such a vicious cycle? It seemed as so. In that moment, I felt that even a kiss with the tongue from my beloved, ruby eyed Sebas-chan would not have been able to lift the veil that was crushing my shoulders with what seemed to be the invisible weight of humanity.

And on top of all of these bleak, biting thoughts, I felt isolated.

Utterly, desperately lonely.

Fuck.

xXx