Work Text:
"Well now... Isn't this just a slippery banana," Grim sighed, rolling his eye sockets. Mandy continued to stare straight ahead.
What a terrifying girl...
But then, she wasn't really a girl anymore, was she? How many years had passed since that diabolical little girl had tricked him into being her and that idiot's friend forever...?
He huffed, restrained. His scythe had been kicked away; it might as well as have been in another dimension, useless on the floor.
They were really in trouble, this time.
He frowned, watching Mandy remain as emotionless as ever.
That cold little girl grew into a woman that was as frigid as the arctic.
He shuddered just thinking about her.
Grim envied her.
She was a human and she made the Grim Reaper look like a childish fool for well over a decade now.
She warmed his breast or his ribcage or whatever. Mandy was power and Grim often found himself swooning...
"Well?!"
Ah, finally, the goon speaks. Grim narrowed his eye sockets at him, jaw set tight.
"WELL?!"
"Well what?" Mandy sighed and rolled her eyes. She looked bored, but then, she was always good at keeping her emotions in check. It was rare to see her visibly under duress. As she grew older, she had gotten that much better at controlling her emotions, too…
Grim shuddered and looked away from her, staring straight past the moron that had captured them. The walls in this place were a sickly orange-brown, oozing, rolling over themselves in a constant state of movement. This was an unfamiliar place to even him and a not so tiny amount of dread settled deep in his bones.
"Aren't..." the goon frowned and Grim didn't even know who this joker was, but he had to have been powerful to capture both he and Mandy. "Aren't you two like, lovers or something?!"
Grim looked at Mandy, then he burst out laughing. Sure, he had thought about it, she was... She was something else. "Mon! You must be jokin’! Dat girl loathes me!"
Mandy continued to stare straight forward. Boreas had nothing on this girl.
"W-well fine!" the cretin cried out and picked up the scythe. "I'll just separate you two permanently."
Grim wished his scythe was in another dimension...
"Well... It's about damn time," Mandy whispered.
Grim looked at Mandy. The corner of her mouth upturned in the barest hint of a smile.
It was the last thing he saw.
Darkness was swift and Grim only regretted that Mandy was sure to be felled in such a hideous place as well. She deserved better than that...
However, the darkness did not stay and was quickly lifting away and Grim was left sputtering. Everything ached. This was a pain of a thousand deaths, and yet, no death at all...
Grim sputtered, opening his eyes and seeing that hideous brown-orange dimension they were in...
Whoever had kidnapped them lay dead, in pieces across the floor. Mandy was there, touching him, holding onto his hand, keeping him close to her. Why was she holding his hand?
Why was he even alive...?
Oh...
Oh....
Oh.
Grim looked at her, really looked at Mandy. She had grown into a woman at some point and Grim just never wanted to think about that. As diabolical as Mandy was, she was still human. Grim was as old as the cosmos...
Mandy's life would flicker out in what would amount to little more than a blink of an eye...
Once, he had told her a tale, late in the night. A tale that would bind them together, but it was foolish of him to whisper such things to her as he saw her getting older...
If one of them died, there was a ritual that could be performed. It was risky, but...
Then they would be bound together, as if in marriage. Till death would they part, but it had to be both of their deaths.
That night, she curled up against him and slept soundly.
Now he was cradled in her lap, looking up at her unwavering eyes.
Why...? Why was he looking up at her?
By all rights, he should have been gone, disappeared into the nothingness, forevermore.
"I don't..." Grim frowned. "I don't understand. I thought you loathed me?"
Mandy looked away, her cheeks tinged pink. "You would think that. Such a fragile ego," she sighed, shrugging her shoulders.
"You... you understand the consequences of bringing me back from the dead?" He still felt shaky. This was only a temporary state of animation, his soul loosely tethered. If Mandy walked away from him, that would be it, his life force would extinguish.
Forever.
"Of course I do," she said with a huff, rolling her eyes. "I've been trying to kill you for years... Then I gave up and just decided to let nature take its course. Or whatever."
"What?!" Grim's temper flared and he didn't care that is was burning through what little energy he still had left.
"Oh, Grim..." she sighed in that way of hers, like everything was so obvious... "Ever since you told me how the only way to marry you was to resurrect you... And of course, it would make me more powerful as well... Then we would be bound, for all eternity!" she chuckled, then softened her expression, caressing Grim's bony cheek. She was warm and he shuddered. "At first, I admit, it was just a way to gain power but... Well. You're not the worst prospect out there for me, are you? You're at least somewhat smart and witty. It's... tolerable."
Grim slumped slightly. "T'anks, I guess..." She was still that strange, strange girl that tricked him into being her friend for all eternity...
"And now..." She smiled, a wicked smile as she leaned down and kissed him. "We can truly be friends forever..."