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It was the dead of night when she'd arrived. He'd been awaiting her in his room, sitting in his over-lavish armchair in the dark. His old heart lurched when he saw her, death scythe shimmering and long dancing hair as red as ever in the moonlight.
"There you are, my dear," he said, finally, turning on the lamp to greet her with a smile. "I was starting to suspect you'd forgotten about me." She ran to him immediately, leaving the window open behind her. He took note – he'd ask her to close it, later, when the room started to chill. "Oh!" she grabbed his hand with one of those sharkish smiles of hers, and nuzzled against it. He watched as she dropped to her knees before him, kissing the face of the thumb he let play with the soft flesh of her bottom lip. "I take it you missed me, my dear?"
"I've only dropped in to see you before I go reap some people on the to-die list," she said after he had complacently lifted her up onto his lap. He could have sneered of the mention of her being on duty. That dispatch didn't need her – he remembered those nights of staying out to reap a list of souls like clockwork, counting each second, making sure to be so precise it would have driven anyone batty. "So, I have to leave soon."
Instantly, Undertaker pushed her off, and she landed on the floor with a thud and a start. He'd watched her fall as he leant back and rested an elbow on an arm of his chair, cheek on his knuckles. She looked back up at him and blinked, before crawling her way back around and tilting her head towards his right hand, which rested on his leg. "If it was up to me, I wouldn't be working tonight, either," she said, "but –" one of those soft, melodic little sighs of hers that was often a symptom of her wavering, or giving in – "duty calls, I'm afraid."
He perked back up in an instant, his frown dissipating into something more neutral, neither a grin nor a scowl; he recognised that lament. He'd expressed the same sentiment, the same tone, to one of his nearest colleagues all those years ago. He let her mosey back into one of his hands as he leaned forward, letting his other hand search her body. A dreamy smile painted her features like makeup – pretty but garish. Then, his fingers eventually reached her back pocket, and between them he snatched out a piece of scribbled-on parchment.
"Hey, what are you –"
He quickly pulled it away from her reach and pushed her back at half an arm's length. "Ah, ah," he warned her with a merciful smile, and unfolded the piece of paper to quickly read. Her first soul for the night had been at seven-thirty, and the following at eight-twenty. The next was at eight-fifty. He checked the grandfather clock across the dim room: eight-thirty-nine. He could work with that – even as an ex-reaper, he was still just as efficient.
He smiled sweetly to her as he folded back up the list, and placed it back in his pocket. "I'll keep hold of that for you, my dear, so you don't lose or crumple it. We know how you can get sometimes, don't we?"
"Mhm," she said, pressing her lips together in shame as he gestured for her to return closer to him.
"It's alright," he cooed, "it is but a miniscule flaw in the grand scheme of our love. Don't you worry, my love – I hardly think about your incompetence often."
Grelle hardly listened: she was far too preoccupied in regaining the graces of his palm, rubbing her face into it like sorry-old, depraved mutt. It made Undertaker swell with glee, for how ignorant she could be sometimes. He ran his fingers through her hair, and she let out a little noise of satisfaction, until he balled his fist and used the grip to hoist her up onto his knee as she yelped in surprise as though he'd just trodden on her paw.
"That's it," he purred slowly, observing the way she held his left hand to her mouth and kissed his knuckles, "there we go. Isn't that better?"
"Yes," she said, just like clockwork.
"I could hardly bear the sight of you on the floor like that," he said, tactfully, "after all, I'm not him, am I?" He had to keep him at bay. After all, if she ever ran back to him instead, and let him back into her life, he could lose everything he'd worked towards – for her, for them.
She seemed to go rigid at the mention of him, and baulked as she muttered, "No. Of course not."
"Good," he sat back in his seat and let his right arm go a bit lax around her waist. "He'd never deserved your affections. Never truly earned them." That whole dispatch didn't deserve her working for them. "That whole dispatch doesn't deserve you still working for them."
She looked back down and nodded slowly, meekly, and started to knead his left knuckles with her thumbs; "Will means well."
"So do I," he removed his arm from her waist and gently tucked part of her hair behind her ear. "Don't I?" he asked, now suspecting that she didn't think so. She sometimes had moments of surmising he didn't work hard to keep her feeling loved. He loved her dearly: more than death itself.
She nodded poignantly and buried her face into the crook of his neck. Such a beautiful, sorrowful creature, bewitching his heart with sympathy from the moment he'd learnt of her predicament. He'd vowed to help her, and she'd vowed to help him. "'Til death do us part," he'd said, jesting with her, and then the two locked pinkies and he'd cackled irreverently, for they – in a near-literal sense – were both already dead.
"I'm sorry," she lamented into his skin, lips on a part of his scar that sometimes tickled.
"Hush, now, my dear," he crossed his left arm over his chest and placed his hand on the back of her head. He could feel the faint dampness of her eyes welling against his robe and skin alike. "Don't you worry too much about that, now."
"But I've upset you."
"That is true, yes – although, now so are you." As she looked at him, he pinched her chin between the crook of his index finger and the face of his thumb, long nail pressing into her near-quivering lip. "And your remorse is all the apology I ever need." As he drew her face closer to his, a chilly breeze swept through the room, and so he halted the action between them with a grin. "Be a dear, will you, and close the window? It's gotten awfully cold in here all of a sudden, and you know how my old bones get."
"Oh, yes – of course," she leapt to her feet and rushed to the window. He'd the perfect visual for her rose red hair, nearly as long as his own, like the string of fate itself, and the arched back peeking from behind the rouge curtain of locks.
She hasn't joined his cause, yet, he remembered as he watched her arch over the sill and grabbed the handles with her lithe, buttery little fingers. "Have you thought about joining my cause, again, my dear?"
"Oh, no," she replied, sniffing, "I suppose it just slipped my mind a little bit, that's all." She was a lying.
Because she said that she'd think about it. "You said you would think about it."
"Thing is, darling," she started as she latched the window, finding a new bout of confidence, "I'm a busy woman, at the end of the day – and I still have my job, and my co-workers, and –" she stopped immediately upon turning around and setting sights on his frown. "Oh – I know, darling, I just – well – I don't think it'd be the best move to make, right now. Some reapers around the office actually talk to me, now. I've even made a new acquaintance from fo–"
"That dispatch doesn't deserve you, my darling," he reminded her before repositioning himself in his chair and gesturing to her: "Now, come here to me. I've missed you since your last visit, you know."
"It was only last night," she smiled, finding the sentiment to be romantic. She glanced at the grandfather clock across the room and bit her lip with apprehension.
"Hush," he shushed, the sound filling the room in diminuendo; "don't you worry about that, darling. Come," he leaned over and pulled at her wrist, tugging her back onto her lap like a ragdoll before scooping up her legs and placing them over the left arm of his chair. "Tell me: do you ever intend on joining my cause? Why, the very prospect makes my shrivelled old heart swell with joy."
The knowledge of someday having his mistress sat beside him like queen and king to his creations – against demons and opposing reapers alike – as their army of 'unholy' creations dominated the world. They would conquer the very fear of death, side by side, and... all he needed was her to just agree with him. To join him. Then, perhaps he'd consider digging up that old tart of hers and try fixing her up as a gift. If he could trust her enough.
"You're not that old," she said, quietly in his ear, "not really. You're still so young – younger than me, perhaps." Undertaker did not reply to her moment of jest, and instead leaned back and feigned deep, distant thought. As he hummed to himself, she asked, "What? What's wrong?" He paid her very little mind. "What have I done?"
"Oh, what haven't you done, my little pet?" he asked her, at last, and held her face just to watch her nuzzle into it like a lost kitten searching for warmth. It never failed to amuse him – he'd tell her anything worth interest, if she'd asked, for she was so amusing, and amusement was always the best kind of money. He rubbed her piteously flat chest in thought, and she let out a sad little rumble at the gentle gesture. "You haven't joined my cause."
"I want to – really, I do – it's just that..."
"What, my pet?" he asked with a coiled, sympathetic voice that one might have used to console a toddler that had just burst into tears.
"It's silly really," she excused, "I'll join one day, I promise. Just... not yet."
A flush of anger became him, and he firmly held her upper arm for support. "How many times have I told you? That dispatch doesn't need you – it doesn't love you like I do. All those reapers still see you as the body you were never meant to have," he pulled her closer and pushed her head down onto his shoulder, under his chin. She complied easily enough – she could never resist him for long. "But not me."
"Not you," she repeated, into his his skin.
"You owe me that promise, pet," he reminded her diligently. "Remember the promise you've made me, here tonight. You know how forgetful you can get."
"Forgetful," she echoed, because she didn't know what else to say.
So, he knew he had to guide her. Give her one helpful little shove – "Say thank you."
Grelle inhaled sharply, and he could feel her fingers grip into the chest of his robe. There was a moment of silence, save for the tick-tick-tick and then chime of the grandfather clock. "Thank you," she said, through the monophonic din.
As the clock neared its ninth chime, Undertaker smiled complacently, and ran a loving hand through her hair. "Good girl," he told her, and there they stayed in near-silence for the next couple of hours, dreaming of her promise.