Chapter Text
May 2nd, 2026.
Her first coherent thought of the morning was, as it was on so many Saturday mornings, Jesus fucking Christ. The sun was seemingly blasting into her eyes with all of it’s might, as if some sort of punishment from God himself for her antics the night before. She had absolutely no idea where she was, but that was far from her first priority of the morning. First, it was the stupid sun, second was her pounding headache, and maybe third was her surroundings. Without her glasses, she couldn’t see much anyways. She knew she wasn’t in her bed, though. She would never leave the curtains open like this. She wasn’t that much of a masochist.
The night before was a haze in her mind. Grelle pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes in an attempt to block out the sun and sooth the ice picks that were stabbing into her brain. Perhaps a bit dramatic, but it certainly felt like there were ice picks in her brain. For the time being, that was all she could do to address problems one and two, so now for the third problem. Where the hell did she end up?
It took quite a bit of effort to push through her morning-after fog and find any relevant pieces to this puzzle. She remembered going out with Ronald, a few drinks, flashes of the pulsing lights and bass booming in her chest. Her most recent memory was one of cold, rough bricks against her back, her arms wrapped around some man’s neck. She couldn’t remember whose, not that it mattered much.
Her (quite ineffective) attempts to discern her surroundings were interrupted by a loud clang from a nearby room, sending pain shooting through her skull. She groaned in protest at whoever was being so loud and seemingly dropping pots and pans in the kitchen. She heard the floorboards creak, could almost feel the presence of someone lingering in the doorway. An exasperated sigh. A familiar one. She knew where she ended up after all.
She really should have known. The surface beneath her was far too uncomfortable to be a bed, and if she was anywhere but home or here, she wouldn’t be banished to the sofa. About half of the nights that she went out, she got lost between the bar and her own front door and found herself on his doorstep. It was better than some stranger’s house, or worse, alone her own bed.
So much had changed throughout the years. Back in the day, they were so understaffed and overworked that they barely had a moment to breathe. Then, the population boomed, and more and more people had the opportunity to kill themselves. Lucky her. These modern recruits brought all kinds of modern ideas about “work-life balance” and “employee satisfaction boosting productivity”. It had all seemed quite ridiculous at first, not to mention completely at odds with the eternal punishment for the hubris of playing God and taking your own life bullshit. However, after a few decades of pestering, eventually the slightly-higher-ups gave in to their own endless hunger to reduce the amount of paperwork they had to review. These new ideas even proved to be beneficial in the end, as people were actually resting enough that they weren’t making so many mistakes on the job. A win-win for everyone, really. Fewer incident reports, fewer clean-up missions, and more time to get absolutely hammered.
She wondered if the new recruits were even told about the idea of capital-R Redemption. The end goal was to work off your debt, with some magical process finally freeing you to the death you wanted all of those years ago. Even back then, it was a hard sell, and though rumors would circulate of so-and-so from some other division finally reaching Redemption, most of her class could smell the bullshit from a mile away. These modern reapers would never buy into it. This was it. Might as well have some fun with it, no?
Grelle reached over, slightly more confident now that she knew where she was. She pawed around the end table until her hand stumbled upon her glasses. By the time she got them on and the room came into focus, he was gone, back to go throw more pans around in the kitchen or whatever he was up to at this hour.
His living room looked the same as it always had. His furniture was a set, straddling the line between sleek minimalism and boring. In her opinion, it leaned more on the side of boring. Well decorated, though sparse, and thoroughly devoid of life. It was as though he lived in an Ikea showroom rather than a house. How he managed to keep everything so perfect was an absolute mystery to her.
She dragged herself to her feet and took stock of her belongings. Her shoes were nowhere to be found. Her purse was on the coffee table, phone and wallet inside, but no sign of her house keys. Her hair was damp, and so were her clothes. Her dress clung to her body uncomfortably, already far too short and tight before a night spent drying off on the sofa. She could only imagine what her hair and makeup looked like. She felt a bit like a drowned rat. A drowned rat with a splitting headache.
She should have felt embarrassed as she stumbled her way into the kitchen, but he had seen her at much lower points than a slutty dress and a bad hangover. Besides, this was almost a monthly routine by this point.
She could imagine last night as clear as day, though she couldn’t quite remember it. Her, knocking on the door, presumably holding her stilettos rather than wearing them. Him opening the door in his cute little matching pajama set and immediately jumping into a lecture that they both knew would mean nothing. Her, asking for a change of clothes, a shower, to sleep in his bed. Him, making some snide comment as he got her a pillow and sentenced her to a night on the sofa for the crime of distrubing him. Why he even continued to open the door was a mystery to them both.
“Good morning,” she said, with as much of her usual enthusiasm as she could muster. She could hear the previous night in her voice, and she knew he could too. “Thank you again for being my knight in shining armor, Will. I would’ve had to sleep in the rain if it wasn’t for you.”
He didn’t turn to look at her. More surprisingly, there was no comment about how irresponsible she was for losing her keys again. “Coffee’s done if you want a cup.”
There was something strained in his voice, something rigid in the way his words hit her. Something was wrong. He was more angry than usual. Had she pushed her luck with relying on his hospitality? She didn’t have the brain space to play his games this morning. He could talk to her like an adult if he was upset, and if not, she welcomed the silence until her headache passed.
She helped herself to a cup of coffee and nearly collapsed onto a stool. The kitchen was somehow brighter than the living room, with the sunlight from the window and the overhead light joining forces to make her morning as difficult as possible. She repressed the urge to groan again and put her head down on the counter.
So much had changed over the years, but not this. They had known each other for nearly two centuries by now (if you round up generously), and yet their relationship had stagnated somewhere around a century ago. He had taken his sweet time warming back up to her after her little bender in 1888, if you could call anything about him “warm”, but slowly things had gone back to a steady rhythm. He played his part and she played hers. He pretended that he hated having her around, and she pretended…well, she pretended a lot of things when it came to William.
Once upon a time, she had a real hope that her feelings would be reciprocated. She could have sworn there was something in the way he looked at her, a softening in his eyes that she didn’t see with anyone else. She doubted he would do this for any of the other reapers…or maybe they just weren’t as persistent as she was. Whatever the case, she knew that anything beyond what they have now was out of the question. William was a man who did not do well with change, and she suspected he found some sort of comfort in this strange dynamic they had. It was dependable. They had a script to follow. And, realistically, it was impossible for them to spend so much time together throughout the years without learning how to read each other. She knew when to back off, and she sometimes even did.
In his own way, he almost cared for her. That was almost enough for Grelle.
She downed nearly her entire cup of coffee in an attempt to dismiss her thoughts about him and about what they could be.
“I hope I wasn’t too much of a mess last night,” she said, breaking the silence. He said nothing for a moment, but she could see his reaction. He froze, shoulders tensing, before forcing himself back into the mold that he was so comfortable in. She felt that embarrassment that she should have felt earlier start creeping in around the corners. God, what did I say this time?
“You need to stop drinking so much that you forget the entire night.”
“That bad, huh?” She returned her head to the counter, relishing in the relief of the cold granite against her face.
There was a bit of a commotion as he moved to grab plates from the cabinet. He didn’t respond for a while, seemingly chewing over which of her offenses to scold her for first.
He placed a plate of slightly overcooked scrambled eggs in front of her. “My sofa is wet.”
Grelle couldn’t help but to laugh. Surely, he wasn’t this irritated over his sofa. “If you would let me borrow clothes, I wouldn’t have to sleep on the sofa in my dripping wet dress. I can’t control the rain.”
His response was quick, much more biting that his usual tone with her. “If you wouldn’t show up here drunk, I wouldn’t have to put up with any of this. But here we are.”
Yeesh. Fair enough. She must have started an argument or something last night, she wasn’t exactly the most polite drunk in the world on her best days, and she had been far from her best days for some time now. Still, the anger, real anger in his voice caught her off guard. They ate in silence for some time, which she was grateful for as she had had enough thinking and talking until this hangover passed.
She longed for a bed to sleep this off in, or a hot shower. A bed was certainly not happening here, but he had occasionally let her shower before sending her home. Really, she wanted anything to help her clear her head; maybe it would help her to remember what she had done to piss him off so badly. She could handle his anger, but not knowing the cause was troubling.
“Do you mind if I take a quick shower?” He looked up to meet her eyes for the first time this morning, and she instantly knew something was wrong. He looked almost as horrible as she felt. Had he slept at all? He had barely eaten, too. Everything about him was off today. Normally, she could read him fairly well, or she could at least guess. Not now, though. He could have been a stranger. “Will, are you alright? I’m sorry for–”
“I’m fine,” he interrupted, his tone icy and thin. “If you’re done eating, it’s time for you to leave.”